The Somewhat Ambitious

In a piece of news that isn’t specifically nerdy, but that I feel very passionately about, Britain’s honeybee population has been decimated*, resulting in a national honey shortage. What will make sweet the Queen’s crumpets now? The crisis was raised by the British Beekepers Association (ladies men, all), who revealed that nearly one in three of the 240,000 hives did not survive the winter. The National Bee Unit and the Honey Association are very concerned, warning that losses could rise, and coupled with the 11% rise in honey demand across the UK, bees might be buzzing off for good.

My question is this: with groups like the British Beekeepers Assocation, The National Bee Unit and the Honey Association, all sporting large memberships and reasonable funding, how can we be losing so many bees? It’s not like they take manpower to keep in a given location, they’re not fucking tigers. It takes two bookish chums in hazmat suits with sticks.

As far as I know.

/Paul

*Yes, I am aware that to decimate means to remove one tenth of the amount. For example, “I say, Maximus, go forth and arrest exactly one tenth of the rebel Militia”. But it sounds brutally violent. I mean, it did before I ruined it for you all.