I hope you are all well and enjoying the surprisingly good weather.
Now , I am a wildlife lover and animal enthusiast and have been all my life. I love birds , mammals fish , insects and pretty much every natural creature. I study graphic design and have chosen to do an advertisement for the disappearing honey bee, not for any campaigning project , just because I wanted to know a little more about why they are diminishing and through my research I have got quite a shock and thought to share it with fellow animal lovers.
Now firstly there are many reasons thought to be responsible for the lack of honey bees but there is one factor which has been pretty much proven to out shine and out weigh all others.
A group of pesticides named Neo-Nicotinoids. This pesticide was origianlly developed in Germany in the 90's for commercial use and since then Is believed to be responsible for the rapid decline of the honey bee, not just here in the Uk but around the world. Neo-Nicotinoids do not actually kill honey bees so they are deemed as safe , but what they do to the bee , results in death. Once sprayed onto the crops, flowers or seeds etc , neo-nicotinoids are then absorbed into the plants and seeds. When an unaspecting insect or honey bee, eats a plant of collects pollen , they are then immediately infected, and the outcome is inevitable. Instead of directly killing the honey be , the chemical poisons them , confuses them , causing them to become disorientated and unable to return to the hive. Now bees cannot spend a night out of the hive in the cold , they need the collectiveness of the hive to keep warm and survive , so as you can now see this results in a mass murder of many insect and bees.
These chemicals have already been banned in FRANCE, ITALY and the country responsible for creating it ....GERMANY! So why is it still in use in the U.K and USA ?
The Co-op supermarket have banned the use of the pesticide on all of their 25.000 hectares of land.
We all know the consequences if we lose nearly all of our Bee population ...Disaster, but also the use of Neo-Nicotinoids has a devasting effect on our bird population , especially one form of the chemical IMIDACLOPRID which is highly toxic to birds.
Many of you probably have heard of Neon-Nicotinoids before but were unaware of how dangerous these chemicals are to our food chain and in the end ...Us!
The RSPB is a great charity and as we know do not just work protecting birds , but have projects globally . They have 1million voices for nature, lets make these voices heard and get Neo-Nicotinoids out of out plants , our insects , our birds and out of us ! Thank you