Please Help Our Bees...

[wickedywitchwitch]

I know many of you signed this petition when I first posted it on here (and thank you for doing so :-x)

I've just had an e-mail (posted below) telling me that one of the 38 Degree members has a meeting with Owen Paterson the Environment Minister tomorrow.

If you haven't signed the petition and would like to please follow the safe link a bit further down

(if the link isn't live then copy and past it into your internet search bar)

Please ask your friends and family to sign it too.

Many people don't realise just how vital our bees are, or see the larger picture and the knock on effect that losing them would have.

 Thanks for reading and (hopefully) signing :-x

Great news!

A 38 Degrees member has got a meeting with the Environment Minister tomorrow to take him our message about the pesticides blamed for killing British bees. Now we need as many signatures as possible to prove to Owen Paterson that public opinion and scientific evidence are both against using them.

British bees still need our help!
Last time the Minister refused to vote in favour of stopping these pesticides. Even a committee of his fellow MPs said Owen’s approach is "extraordinarily complacent".

Now we’ve got a meeting with the man himself to change his mind before he votes again.

You and nearly 150,000 other people have already signed the petition to demand he protects our bees. Let’s get it to over 175,000 before we meet him TOMORROW.

Please can you forward this email to your friends and family and ask them to sign it too?

Your friends and family can sign the petition here:
http://secure.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-bees

Changing Owen’s mind won’t be easy.
We’re battling against “furious lobbying” from the big pesticide companies.
But his refusal to act is beginning to look very out of touch with science and public opinion. He talks a lot about protecting our bees, but his actions seem to do nothing but protect the pesticide industry’s profits.

Bees pollinate apples, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, cauliflower, onions, cabbage, broccoli, carrots and many, many more of our fruit and veg.
France and Italy have already taken steps to ban these pesticides but our minister is burying his head in the sand.

38 Degrees members have a great record on protecting wildlife and the environment. We joined together in our thousands and helped stop the government selling off our forests.
Recently we’ve even helped stop the Lake District being turned into a nuclear waste dump.

Now it’s time to protect our bees.
Let’s demand our government stands up to the powerful pesticide industry and takes action to protect our bees.

Thanks for being involved and helping to protect our bees,

The 38 Degrees team.

[ilove2patch]

Signed it last time.:-)

[kiss*my*pixel]

Have just signed (and will also be signing separately on behalf of all my family - they won't mind)! :^O

I love bees - have a couple of different bee habitats in the garden. If they fall in the paddling pool, I'll rescue them. When they've got a bit damp (even from a heavy rainfall) if you sit them in the sun, gently mop up excess water with a bit of kitchen towel and then blow on them very gently, it helps to dry them out. They lift up their little legs - it is really funny to watch, and very rewarding to then see them fly away.

I even have bee nurseries in my kitchen sometimes, pop a poorly one in a ventilated container, some flowers and a bit of bedding, some glucose mixture or honey (that's the best) on a pad of cotton wool - they will often thrive and then you can let them go

Have got lots of insect-friendly plants in the garden (some people may call them weeds but they're not really)  😛

[kiss*my*pixel]

Of course, it's not only pesticides killing them - there is a very nasty little parasitic mite that is responsible for a lot of their wipe-out too 😞

[captainbovine]

I signed it last time too, and I love bees, they're so cute, especiall bumble bees, wee round balls of loveliness:-)

[mandymoosie]

Have signed and shared on Facebook 🙂

[chickengrandma-2008]

I signed last time.  I actually saw a great big bumble bee yesterday, about tea time.  I was quite surprised, seeing the weather we've been having.:O

[*elphaba*]

Done and FB shared :-x

[artisanone11]

Everyone here's already signed, but happy to bump this.

We have a colony and bee friendly planting (and idiot neigbours who hate us)

[jb1769792012]

HI, signed.

I also saw a bee yesterday,the first one this year.

[fishpieface]

Yes, I've signed it before.  Also we've had some stuff about it in the post as we belong to Essex Wildlife Trust and Hubby's company is a corporate member. 

I remember my youngest being very scared of bees when he was about six or seven.  We were in Torquay once and walked past a bush where loads of bees were collecting nectar, he was terrified and refused to walk past it.  So we had a little talk about bees and the fact they will not hurt people if people don't hurt them or threaten them and when he's seen swarms of bees chasing people on tv, it's usually because they've been disturbed accidentally or purposefully.

Anyway he agreed to hold my hand and walk to the bush to see the bees and became fascinated by them inside the flower heads, collecting up the nectar.  We stood there for about 15 minutes watching them and he hasn't been frightened of them since.

When I was at work yesterday, I left the coach door open for a while and when I came back a massive bumble-bee was sitting on the steering wheel.  He said he wanted to drive but I wouldn't let him and picked him up in a hanky and put him outside.  I was in France and didn't want him to get lost coming back to England!

Seriously though, when we ("we" being generally) use all the harmful chemicals, often there is no thought that bees, and indeed other animals/insects/plants that suffer from them, are here for a purpose and to eradicate them would be eradicating, or at least seriously disturbing, a whole cycle of events to which these creatures play a crucial part.

We wouldn't like it if something eradicated us and, to be honest, the thing that causes the most damage to environment and its inhabitants are its human inhabitants.

[wickedywitchwitch]

Thank you all for the signatures, sharing on facebook and bumping the thread, much appreciated.

Sorry for not coming back sooner, I'm away from home and getting on the internet is a bit of a nightmare. :-x

Sadly Humankind can be this precious planets worst enemy, sometimes from ignorance, other times with total disregard for the consequences of their actions, but many do care and do try to do right by her.