Ben Woodcock CEH, The effect of pesticides on bees.

Honeybees forage everywhere and when they forage in areas treated with pesticides, like agricultural land, they can become accidentally exposed to these chemicals.  Pesticide regulation has attempted to minimise these risks, but in the real world there is increasing evidence of its negative impacts for honeybees and other species that are not the targets for these chemicals.  In this talk I will discus what can go wrong with pesticides and how they can impact honeybees in a variety of complex ways.  I will talk about the National Honey Monitoring Scheme and how we are using it to monitor pesticides in a partnership with Defra to create an indicator of risk to support the government 25 Year Environment Plan.  This and other indicators are part of new approaches to manage agricultural systems in a manner that protects native biodiversity while still supporting food production and maintaining farmer livelihoods.