Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. It is nice to know there are almost 2,500 beekeepers in Ireland. Bees play an essential role worldwide by pollinating many of our commercial food crops. They also maintain biodiversity in the wild by pollinating wild plants which then provide shelter and food for a wide range of insects and animals.

The honey bee is by far the most important insect pollinator in the world. A recent Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government study valued Irish bee pollination to be worth €85 million per annum. This would have included over 100 native Irish bee species of which the honey bee is the most important.

It is estimated that, in Ireland, there are over 2,400 beekeepers who maintain approximately 24,000 hives. Like other EU member states, most of these beekeepers are hobbyists and fewer than 100 Irish beekeepers would be regarded as commercial operators. Ireland accounts for approximately 1% of the EU's beekeepers. More than 2,000 of the Irish beekeepers are members of the Federation of Irish Beekeepers Associations which plays a very active role in promoting the sector.

A number of years ago beekeepers in continental Europe and more particularly in the USA started to notice that they were encountering higher losses of bees and even total disappearance of bees. This phenomenon was given the name "colony collapse disorder". Since then many theories have been advanced to explain these losses including climate change, bee starvation, pests and diseases, pesticide usage, and electronic signal interfering with bee navigation and or a combination of some of these factors.

To date there has been no scientifically proven explanation for these losses. While some continental European countries and the US in particular have reported losses well in excess of 30% of colonies for no apparent reason, we in Ireland have not seen losses on this scale. The first Irish survey looked at 2009 to 2010 over-winter losses. It identified an overall national loss of 24% of colonies. While higher than the expected typical over-winter loss of circa 15% for Irish colonies, the survey did not identify losses on a widespread scale as reported in other countries. The fact that 2009 was a very wet year would have impacted on bees' natural ability to forage and this is a factor that also has to be considered when looking at colony losses. The survey of 2010 to 2011 over-winter losses is currently ongoing and I encourage all beekeepers to participate.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

The COLOSS network into which the survey feeds, involves researchers from 49 different countries worldwide who are working together as they seek to identify the cause of the losses affecting bees. Ireland has participated in this network for the past three years and will continue to do so under the national apiculture programme which runs to 2013. The apiculture programme, which is funded on a 50:50 basis by my Department and the EU is providing funding of €300,000 over the three year period from 2010 to 2013 to carry out research on bee pests, in particular varroa in addition to monitoring colony losses.

There is increasing international awareness of the importance of bees and the need to maintain healthy bee populations. Last December's European Commission's communication on bee health to the European Parliament and the Council is just one example of this. I welcome this increased awareness together with the increased EU funding for research on bee health and in particular the recent establishment of an EU bee health reference laboratory in France.

My officials continue to play an active role in these ongoing deliberations, and I am confident that with this additional focus and the level of scientific research currently being devoted to bees, we will obtain a result which will lead to an improvement in bee health across Europe.

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