Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure the sustainability of the UK's honeybee population.

Pollinators are a high priority for Defra and in November 2014 we published the National Pollinator Strategy which forms a framework for collective action by the Government, other organisations and the public to ensure their sustainability.

The strategy identifies actions that everyone can take to help expand the all year-round availability of food, nectar and pollen for our bees. More information on the “Bees’ Needs: Food and a Home” awareness campaign is available at: www.wildlifetrusts.org/Bees-needs.

This year the Government announced the first ever pollinator and farm wildlife package, which will see more funding made available to those farmers and landowners who provide food and harbourage for bees through the new Countryside Stewardship Scheme.

Defra also supports the UK honeybee population through the action of our bee inspectors and our bee pest surveillance programmes (more than 6,000 apiary inspections per year) and the free training and advice we provide to beekeepers. We are developing a range of training aids and courses with the national beekeeping associations to improve bee husbandry standards across the country.

A good understanding of our bees’ needs is essential if we are to sustain our honeybee populations, and developing evidence is a key activity under the National Pollinator Strategy. This work programme includes a number of initiatives such as SmartBees that will benefit our honeybees. SmartBees is a €6 million EU research project, co-funded by Defra, which aims to improve our understanding of honeybees’ resistance to diseases and help beekeepers breed bees that have greater disease resistance and are better adapted to local climatic conditions and needs.