RE: Wild bees not honeybees are the UK's main pollinators

[Matt Shardlow]

P.S. The paper is very generous to the Honeybees, - see below.

Cheers

Matt

Matt Shardlow
Chief Executive

Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust
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-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Geoffrey Potts [mailto:s.g....@reading.ac.uk]
Sent: Fri 27/05/2011 07:53
To: Matt Shardlow
Subject: RE: Wild bees not honeybees are the UK's main pollinators

Dear Matt

I heard your event went well.

Yes the % are indeed the maximums - we've been generous in pushing all the assumptions in favour of honeybees making the greatest possible contributions. For instance:

·         all hives are placed perfectly in the landscape to pollinate crops (clearly not true as many are in natural areas away from crops);

·         all bee farmer hives are moved around to follow the blooming of different crops (again very unlikely);

·         we used the lower reported densities for placing hives in crops, which again it is the mean densities which tend to be used not the min.
So overall the current max contribution is 34%, but likely actually contribution is more like 10-15%!

£1B is the total value of crops; £430M is the value of the pollinator contribution.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Simon



From: Matt Shardlow [mailto:Matt.S...@Buglife.org.uk]
Sent: 26 May 2011 18:06
To: Simon Geoffrey Potts
Cc: r.m....@sheffield.ac.uk; vicky.k...@buglife.org.uk
Subject: RE: Wild bees not honeybees are the UK's main pollinators

Dear Simon

Well done with this paper.  Sorry you could not make our get Britain Buzzing campaign launch, it was a very successful event.

Would I be right in saying that the 70% and 34% figure represent maximums and the actual percentages are likely to be and have been considerably lower than these figures?  Also do we now quote £1 billion as the agricultural value of pollination or does this include some wind and selfing value?

Cheers

Matt


Matt Shardlow
Chief Executive

Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust
First Floor
90 Bridge Street
Peterborough
PE1 1DY

01733 201210
079 21 700151
www.buglife.org.uk<http://www.buglife.org.uk/>

Conserving the small things that run the world.

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Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust is a company limited by guarantee,  Registered in England at First Floor, 90 Bridge Street, Peterborough, Cambs, PE1 1DY.    Company no.  4132695      Registered charity no.  1092293     Scottish charity no. SC040004