lazy and aggressive.

Ha

They may tolerate the weather better, but produce less honey and are more aggressive.

The natives are lazy and aggressive, whilst the immigrants work harder and achieve more, and are more pleasant while they do it. We still talking about the bees?

Mine's the one with the veiled hood.

Bees aren't important.

Not unless you think that what they help the survival of is important ; flowers, plants, other insects & animals, & oh yes, the food we eat.

"Surely any additional bio-diversity is a good thing?"

Try telling that to the BNP!!

Where are the flood of moderatrix jokes, I'm dissapointed!!

SMACK, SMACK, SMACK That'll teach you for misbehavin'.

Erm, far be it for me to be belittling of such beautiful, beastly beings, but where be the IT angle? Many readers will be visiting this site for IT stories because it be promoted thus. Okay, maybe it is time for me to beat a hasty retreat to a beach beside the sea and behave, leaving behind this message which I believe is beyond many, before I take my beef too-far and become besotted with besmirching the good names of the beavering workers of this revered beam of truth that be known as El Reg.

Paris ‘cos she could be my honey……I’ll get me coat – it’s between the bead curtain and the – oh beep … never mind!

As well as being a big organisation, the Co-op also happen to be the biggest farmer in the UK.

I guess they intend to keep farming in the future. This is great news, but I hope they can find even more money for research. Bees are important.

A small example - I started my broad beans early in my greenhouse and shut the door to keep the warmth in. The flowers came - but then they just fell off. Bad times. Then I started keeping the door open during the day, the bees came in and my beans have set. Good times!

Is that too geeky?

So how does deliberately displacing a global minority population with a global majority population increase bio-diversity? I suppose you think grey squirrels displacing our native red squirrels is a good thing too? Do you live in cloud cuckoo land and assume they will reach a sustainable, natural balance?

Just in case you weren't being tongue in cheek, it's filed under Science>Biology...

@AC 20:02

Not geeky at all. Another solution in times of scarcity of pollinators is just to dust around the flowers between plants with an artists paintbrush. Think of it a bit like a turkey baster. A couple of years ago was all parasites and no pollinators and me first ever toms were crap. I learnt that little pearl afterwards.

Still get crap toms tho. Tho the Petes are OK.

Now that's geeky.

nK

Wooooaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh - where did that come from?? It was a joke, I'm sure the BNP arn't THAT bothered about Bee's.... but I expect a press release sometime in the next day or so explaining their position on local hives for local bee's, and the immigrant italians can go back home or something!! :-p

Not sure how you got that I hate biodiversity from my post, but to clear up my position, just incase...

I love grey squirrels, I love red squirrels, but I thought the problem with our native red's was that they weren't immune to a virus that was introduced when the grey's got dropped on us... I've not checked that fact though, just remember something like that from university (the wife has a biology degree in ecology and conservation - and she talks.... too much).

But as with all systems, an ecosystem is a balance, and sometimes that balance is messed with by us, but you could also argue that it doesn't matter how the greys got here, if they are better suited to our environment than the natives, then it's really just survival of the fittest, natural selection, and our ecosystem will balance itself out accordingly... Bee's in this case are different though, we basically farm them, and so artificial mould the population to suit our own end-game, so there is no natural selection, no balance found, no real biodiversity, and if we keep doing that then eventually it will bite us back in the arse and we will be left with no useful bee population.

until Britain finds that crops are failing because of lack of bees.

Politicians will then tell you that the matter is being studied and that their party is confident of a solution.

Belt tightening will be necessary until some artificial alternatives can be developed.