FAT, hairy, dozy, suited to dismal weather, and constantly bossed around by females, the bumblebee is an insect with which many Scottish men will identify.
Consider, then, the plight of the bumblebee. For the last half century, bee numbers in the
UK and elsewhere have been declining. Out of the 25 species of British bumblebee, three have become extinct and another seven are critically endangered.
The reason? Britain's changing landscape. Almost all hay fields, rich in the wild flowers bees need, have been switched to produce silage. Our gardens, too, are more manicured than they once were. Decking is no use for bees, and a lot of the blooms we buy from garden centres are bred to be sterile so lack nectar and pollen.
The dearth of bees is a big global problem because they are responsible, via pollination, for a quarter of the world's food production. At a time when failing wheat and rice crops are causing food prices to soar, further shortages provoked by a lack of bees is an unwelcome prospect.
This genuine crisis has an air of conspiracy theory, and has even been mentioned in Doctor Who recently. In the new film by M Night Shyamalan, The Happening, the disappearance of bees is the first sign of a global catastrophe.
In real life, the only organisation in the world dedicated to saving bumblebees is based at Stirling University. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust consists of four staff led by Professor David Goulson. Stirling University is a pretty campus, built around a loch. It's a place where ducks waddle past the bus stop, though in my experience you wait ages for a mallard and then three come along at once. Professor Goulson's office, in the school of biological and environmental science, has a slight air of cabinet of curiosities about it. He cheerfully points out the Malaysian bee nest hanging from the ceiling, the glass cases full of butterflies and beetles, and the mammoth's leg which his grandad dug out of a gravel pit in East Anglia. For 20 years, Goulson has studied bumblebees, and considers these far superior to honey bees, "which are rather drab, boring little things as far as I am concerned".
The team he leads share his passion. "I reckon you can even stroke bumblebees when they are docile," says Christiana Nitsch. "When they are getting pissed off they just lift one of their side legs as if to say: 'That's enough now.' They remind me of flying cats. Like Garfield."
Britain, apparently, has a growing number of bee enthusiasts; the equivalent of bird watchers, they delight in identifying different species of bee from their size and markings. It is even possible, to a certain extent, to distinguish them by the sound they make. Bombus terrestris, the large buff-tailed bumblebee, has a loud and low drone like a Second World War bomber. Bombus sylvarum, the very rare shrill carder bee, is more like a doodlebug – high-pitched and worth listening out for.
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust is keen to trace the movements and populations of bees in Britain, and thus receives regular e-mails from members of the public containing pictures of bees they have spotted. The staff also get quite a few matchboxes in the post. The whiff of dead bee is apparently quite strong.
The trust would like to see farmers replanting hedgerows and hay meadows, and says that gardeners would do well to swap pansies for foxgloves. Pretty much any plant mentioned in Simon and Garfunkel's 'Scarborough Fair' is good for bees. We need to act now, though. This is serious.
"From a Scottish perspective, the loss of bees would have massive implications for the soft fruit industry, a huge part of the economy in Tayside and Perthshire," says Professor Goulson. "Without bees you get no raspberries. There is a real consequence to all this. It's not just sad bee botherers like myself who would be upset."
Bumblebees are not the only type of bee that is in trouble. Honey bees, too, are facing problems. Last year, the US lost 30% of its honey bee population, causing a loss of £2.5bn in crop yields. The problem there is known as Colony Collapse Disorder – bees desert their hives for reasons no one quite understands. In Britain, where this is much less common, it is known by the more evocative name, Marie Celeste Syndrome.
British beekeepers are concerned that we could suffer a population loss on the same scale as America, but one reason that this seems less likely to happen is that honey bees here tend not to be transported round the country and used to pollinate crops as they are in the US. Beekeeping in Britain is not big business. There's a lot of it going on, but most beekeepers are either doing it as a hobby or to make a little money on the side. There are 4,000 beekeepers in Scotland managing around 20,000 hives and producing an estimated 1.2 million pounds of honey per season.
Peter Hunt is a beekeeper from Gartmore, near Aberfoyle. He's 58 and has kept bees since the early 1990s, though he has taken it more seriously in recent years since falling off his mountain bike and breaking his pelvis. He used to run triathlons, but had to pack that in and now gets a buzz from bees instead. He has four hives, which works out at 50,000 bees, and last year produced 200 pounds of honey. None of his bees are of the popular Buckfast variety. These are bred for gentleness by monks in Devon, but Hunt says that, in his experience, Buckfast bees aren't all that docile. As a native of Glasgow, I believe him.
Hunt also plays cello for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and is aware that, like a bee, he has a job which requires him to work within a large group. "It's extraordinary the way these small insects cooperate in the way they do to produce this fantastic honey," he says as we examine his colonies. "For centuries bees have been a model of organisation for people, and, you know, I do think they are rather magic."
The full article contains 1061 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
