The Bee
Strategy

Newcastle City Council’s Bee Strategy has been created to promote the importance of bees. There are over 200 species of bees in the UK, but bee populations have been declining in the last few years due to various factors including loss of habitat, disease and use of pesticides.

Bees need your help; many of their nesting sites and their wildflower food supplies have been destroyed by modern farming practices and urban development. As a result, about a quarter of our bees are now endangered species. Moreover, the use of herbicides has reduced the nectar and pollen supply, while pesticides have affected the bee population directly.

Why?

The pollination of crops by honeybees is worth an estimated £200 million each year to the British economy.  In order for plants to produce fruit and seeds their flowers must be pollinated. Bees are responsible for the pollination of more than 40 important food crops grown in this country.

Apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackcurrants, beans, tomatoes, pumpkins and blackberries are just some of the fruits that are pollinated by bees. We eat the roots and leaves of plants like turnips, cabbage, beetroot, carrots and celery but without pollination we would have no seeds to grow new plants. Oilseed rape and sunflowers produce seeds to be crushed to make cooking oils.

Farm animals also feed on plants pollinated by bees, such as clover and swede. It is estimated that one third of the food that we eat relies on bees for pollination.  

How?

Plant bee friendly plants in your garden or allotment
Avoid the use of pesticides in your garden or allotment.
Buy locally or British produced honey.
Wash used honey jars before recycling. Honey brought in from overseas often contains spores of a bacterial disease, which is fatal to honeybees, resulting in death of the whole colony.

Further info



SPOTTED A BEE?

If you spot a bumble bee or one of their nests please register this on the Environmental Records Information Centre North East (ERIC).

Environmental Records Information Centre

INTERESTED IN BEEKEEPING?

Newcastle and District Beekeepers Association, a friendly and knowledgeable beekeeping association based in Newcastle upon Tyne, was founded in 1922.

The group of hobby beekeepers, welcome new and existing members to meetings and run training courses for all ages and abilities, with the interest to understand these insects better and to support their well-being.

Newcastle and District Beekeepers Association
Newcastle and District Beekeepers Facebook Group

Email

SOURCES

Beelife
Bumblebees Conservation Trust
Friends of the Earth
Bee Identification Guide
BBC Tyne Bees

Information