Honey Bee Health

I thank my hon. Friend. It is true—the problems have been much the same across the planet. The value of bees in development and other aspects of agriculture has been recognised in other places. Britain is taking a major lead in trying to find out the causes of the collapse, and that will help other countries to develop their programmes. I know that there is plenty of contact. The public campaign was not bad. Petitions with 140,000 signatures were presented to Downing street—suddenly, from nowhere, bees were everywhere. When campaigners hear bees mentioned on "The Archers" they should know that they have arrived. It is the only time that I would listen to "The Archers". I had better not say what I think about the programme because we are talking about Radio 4. None the less, many people listen to it and say, "We did not know that there was a problem with bees until we listened to 'The Archers'." After that, the whole campaign took off. The Minister was not the only person to help the campaign. Lurking in the background was a man called Prince Charles, whose science I have argued with for many years. Although his understanding of nanotechnology is nil and of genetic modification is minus 10, he was correct on this issue, which shows that we should not condemn somebody for everything that they think. In the past month or so there has been a new funding initiative, which is something that many scientists and medics would die for. The National Scientific and Technical Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Scottish Government—my goodness—and the Wellcome Trust have come together to put money into that hybrid fund. It is how the money is used that I want to discuss, because we have a once in a lifetime chance to ensure that we do something with it of which we can be proud. The five funding bodies have different interests, which will make reaching a decision very difficult. It is bad enough when one funding body has to make a decision, but when five of them come together in the same room with different agendas, real skill is required to address the needs of the bee community. The right direction must be chosen; the area of study must be neither too broad nor too narrow. The aim is not to win Nobel prizes in this field, but to resolve a practical problem. The Wellcome Trust itself has an ambition to research pollinators rather than just honey bees, which has already been mentioned. That will have to be addressed in the joint meetings. The inclination on the side of the funders to be too ambitious has been fanned by the media interest. We must rein back a little and be cool and hard-headed about the decisions we make. Sometimes, scientists get carried away and go down crazy avenues without thinking about the real purpose and effectiveness of a campaign. As I have mentioned, there are limitations on the £10 million because we want the funding to continue. Understanding bees will be a continuing problem. What we learn from this research will be important in other areas of research as well. We must work out the problem carefully. If public understanding and involving people who know something about the subject are to mean anything, it is essential that research councils stop being hoity-toity and thinking that they know it all just because they have a few greybeards from the science community and fellows of the Royal Society attached. The research councils do not know it all. It is essential that the beekeepers are present, because they have lived with the problem. Engaging with the beekeepers will be a real challenge, but once councils learn how to do that they will be able to apply the skill to the many young people in this country who study high-flying science but never get involved in funding decisions. Such decisions are made by a few men—I say men because only the odd woman is involved, but the Equality Bill should sort that out. There should be a real change in the way in which research councils operate and engage with people. I am talking about not just getting the money and making decisions, but involving the people who tell them about the problems and how the money can be effectively used. We are not talking about Nobel prize-winning stuff, although it feels that way because the topic is in the limelight. When an issue gets in the press, some people tend to get carried away and think, "This must all be about molecular biology with a bit of DNA and protein involved. All we need are a few high-fangled pieces of research and that will be all right." That is not what the bee campaign is about. We will not see much cutting-edge technology because it is risky in this case. I was very impressed by Professor Ratnieks at Sussex university. He is the first professor of apiculture—bee culture. Taking on such a subject is a real initiative by the university and should be complimented. Ratnieks has a five-year study in which he wants to look at honey bee research. Four of his projects, which cost £250,000 each, should be supported. He wants to breed disease-resistant "hygienic" honey bees, which remove dead or infected larvae and pupae from their cells, thereby reducing the spread of diseases within a colony and disrupting the breeding cycle of varroa mites, which carry the viruses and activate viruses when they bite. "Hygiene" is a natural genetic trait among bees, meaning that it can be bred from normal and low-cost breeding methods. Once a stock of "hygienic" bees has been bred, they can then be provided to beekeepers and introduced into hives. Such a project will produce practical results that can easily be passed on to beekeepers, and it employs a breeding method that has been tried and tested by Professor Ratnieks. Another project takes advantage of successful research developed in other countries on the control of varroa mites and adapts it to the British climate. Such research has been carried out and was successful in the initial experiments and is a low-cost enterprise. We are in a unique position. We must think practically and logically rather than ambitiously to prevent the decline of the honey bees. We do not need much more media attention—one can have too much of that, as I keep telling the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), whose economics I have engaged with. His economics are not as sound as the press often think. He is rather miserable; I call him "el miserablo" because of the gloom and doom he spreads in this country when he could be talking about some of the good stories in industry. The reason I became interested in this issue was not because a student of mine was involved, but because I could see that if we did not look after these creatures, on which we depend for more than just honey on toast, we would lose control over food production and the wild environment. Even this morning, I realised that the almonds and the croissants in Portcullis House depend on bees. It cannot be better than that. The establishment of the research fund is very good news so, let us take the opportunity and ensure that it is used wisely and for practical purposes that benefit agriculture and industry and ensure the survival of the honey bee colonies.