Country file stat casually thrown out..

[Ely]

China controlled it's population growth and the difference between us and bacteria is that we have the intelligence to adapt and over come problems like food shortages and pollution issues. Without innovation in farming techniques in Victorian times most of us would have starved to death all ready

Bacteria numbers will slow as resources run out. I still fail to see a difference

 

[gavin]

Early on in his piece, at 07:38 on the iplayer version, the reporter Tom Heap says there are half the number of honeybees than there were in the 1960s. Honeybees specifically but no source, no authority and no geographical limits. In context, the article was about bees in the UK and that's the Countryfile broadcast area so presumably applies to the UK as a whole.

BBKA history pages say that the post war beekeeping boom had 80,000 beekeepers and 396,000 hives in 1953. The implication is that was the peak, but it doesn't say so. England and Wales only. Based on BBKA membership or an estimate overall? BBKA membership fell to 9,000 in 2001 but back to 20,000 in 2010. Is the 80,000 in 1953 all members? Could be an estimate and not comparing like with like.

Like so much reporting it's imprecise and infuriating. However, whatever the percentage BBKA membership, around ten years ago beekeeper numbers were low and could have been a quarter of the 1953 peak. Why choose 1960s when numbers were already falling, compare to now when they're rising and state the number of bees as half? Sounds more like struggling for an impressive soundbite rather than revealing what the underlying estimates actually suggest.

Might be worth asking the BBC producers where the figures are from. There was no suggestion they originated with DEFRA or it's predecessors.

I suspect that it comes from this study by Simon Potts and colleagues:

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/European-honey-bee-declines

The graph seems to show a halving of colony numbers in England up to 2005. Pity they stopped there as the numbers have massively increased since then.

G.

 

[psafloyd]

doesnt extinct mean none left at all anywhere otherwise they are not extinct?

Unless they are sub-species or whatever they are called that are specific to this country/part of the world. Like certain native flowers have certain examples only found in places like the Hebrides.

ADDED: I see this discussion has now been had...

 

[psafloyd]

Being re-introduced from Sweden (though perhaps not all swedes on-side).

Let's hope we don't rely on the off-side trap to beat them in the group stages...

 

[psafloyd]

I think it would be better if us humans were extinct at least the planet could evolve naturally the way it should. We can not just leave things alone a finger in everywhere. It will utimately mean self destruction in a very short evolutionary time scale, unfortunately we will take everthing else with us.....

The vibes I got from the Bayer speaker was, we dont really care maybe it would be better for our company if bees where extinct then we could control some more... and develope more insecticides etc etc higher share prices more government investment until there is nothing left to spray and all we will have to eat is supplement pills.

Don't worry it may not be in our life time but it will come...

We cannot envolve as a spicies anymore as there is quite alot of preservation of sick people allowed to continually spread defective genes around to cause more sickness and suffering and more humans to experiment on with medical products.

The sooner we are destroyed as a resident species here the better for ourselves and everthing else, just take a look around you and see what we have done and how systematically we are destroying it.


Busy Bee

What a load of bollo. If it's so bad, what are you sticking around for? There are alternatives.

 

[psafloyd]

now you think a journalist with a mere BA in English would know the difference between extinct and extant ... would you not?

Who has a BA in English?

 

[The Apprentices]

Unfortunately most media use terms wrongly for added effect like saying things are extinct in the UK, like saying someones a hero for scoring a goal. Also statements are twisted such as inferring figures for bees as a whole apply to honey bees and visa versa. You either have to judge everything with a cynical approach or end up being bounced all over the place by people who don't really care about what they are talking about and are already onto the next big crisis!

That's the good old MSM for you, and others are allowed to tell the truth, they are a complete shambles of old news.

 

[The Apprentices]

I think it would be better if us humans were extinct at least the planet could evolve naturally the way it should. We can not just leave things alone a finger in everywhere. It will utimately mean self destruction in a very short evolutionary time scale, unfortunately we will take everthing else with us.....

The vibes I got from the Bayer speaker was, we dont really care maybe it would be better for our company if bees where extinct then we could control some more... and develope more insecticides etc etc higher share prices more government investment until there is nothing left to spray and all we will have to eat is supplement pills.

Don't worry it may not be in our life time but it will come...

We cannot envolve as a spicies anymore as there is quite alot of preservation of sick people allowed to continually spread defective genes around to cause more sickness and suffering and more humans to experiment on with medical products.

The sooner we are destroyed as a resident species here the better for ourselves and everthing else, just take a look around you and see what we have done and how systematically we are destroying it.


Busy Bee

History tells us that 99.99% of all life that has ever existed on earth has gone extinct so why worry.

 

[alanf]

I suspect that it comes from this study by Simon Potts and colleagues:

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/European-honey-bee-declines

The graph seems to show a halving of colony numbers in England up to 2005. Pity they stopped there as the numbers have massively increased since then.

G.

Possibly, and thanks for the link. It does appear to be a useful assessment of the European picture as a whole.

Couple of factors make me think it's not the source of the quote however. One is that (from the arrows marked EN in figure one) the decline was not 'sixties to now', 1965-1985 was fairly stable. 1985-2005 shows a decline. The estimates for England in fig 2 suggest that the really rapid decline was in the 50s, from 370,000 colonies in 1953 to a little over 200,000 in 1957. That cannot be unconnected to the end of sugar and sweets rationing in 1953 - how accurate were any estimates during rationing?

If a journalist was looking for a sensational line based on the numbers in this study, setting aside the sugar effect and working on a story about neonicotinoids (not widely in use until the 90s), they would ignore the relative stability 1965 to 1985 and use something like 'numbers halved between 1985 and 2005', or with some licence 'numbers halved since the 80s'.

The graph estimates around 90,000 colonies in England in 2005, which is around half the estimated number in 1985. 'Official' numbers around the 250-270 thousand mark for the UK as a whole in recent years look as implausible as estimates in the rationing days.

 

[Busy Bee]

We don't belong here and never did.....

We were dumped here because out there they needed rid of us so far away that no one would ever come back, or dare to come back for all the destruction we caused in other far away places.

Lets face it we went from cave man to iPod in a blink of an eye shudder to think what this planet would look like after 4 million years of human existance.

For all we know we could be no more than a lab experiment just like ants in a study tank with our small meaningless minds to small to comtemplate the shear scale of a greater more advanced picture.. ie how could you explain to a snail there are elephants in Africa, the snail will never know or ever likely to find out.

Busy bee

 

[The Apprentices]

We don't belong here and never did.....

We were dumped here because out there they needed rid of us so far away that no one would ever come back, or dare to come back for all the destruction we caused in other far away places.

Lets face it we went from cave man to iPod in a blink of an eye shudder to think what this planet would look like after 4 million years of human existance.

For all we know we could be no more than a lab experiment just like ants in a study tank with our small meaningless minds to small to comtemplate the shear scale of a greater more advanced picture.. ie how could you explain to a snail there are elephants in Africa, the snail will never know or ever likely to find out.

Busy bee

What do you mean, like a galactical botany bay.

 

[DanBee]

a journalist with a mere BA in English

Would you like fries with that?

 

[adrian wilford]

i dont know the numbers, but senior schools and agricultural colleges often taught bee keeping, how many do now? and was there an increase of beekeepers in the war? which may account for the numbers way back then