The Soil Association is calling on the Government to protect our honeybees, H&C has learned.

The organisation condemned the decision not to ban neonicotinoid-based pesticides, which are said to kill honey bees in April earlier this year, and have set up a petition to have the decision overturned. Neonicotinoids work as an insecticide by blocking specific neural pathways in insects’ central nervous systems. The chemicals impair bees’ communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, ability to discriminate by smell, learning, and immune systems – all of which make them vulnerable.

Neonicotinoids have already been withdrawn in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia, and the Soil Association believe that the UK should follow suit. The organisation has set up a petition calling for Hilary Benn, the UK’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, to ban neonicitinoid pesticides with immediate effect.

You can sign the petition at http://www.soilassociation.org/bees.aspx.