The crop-spraying activities of farmers, which will increase in coming months, could have serious consequences for Ireland’s bee colonies.
Independent MEP Marian Harkin has called on tillage farmers to, where possible, spray crops after 6pm, when the threat to bee colonies would be greatly reduced.
“There is a worldwide threat to bees from identified and unidentified sources which is having a multibillion adverse economic effect across the EU and countries throughout the world.
“Last year the European Parliament overwhelmingly voted for programmes to tackle bee colony collapse on the basis that approximately 75 per cent of EU food production depended on the pollination activity of bees.”
She said recent studies in the UK and France have indicated an acceleration of the collapse in bee populations.