Welcome to what I hope will be a series of irregularly timed posts examining the truth behind various well worn ‘facts’ relating to urban pests. So, if you have ever wondered how exactly a cockroach could ever survive a nuclear holocaust, how ‘dry rot’ can be a fungus and grow without water or how a fly takes flight, stay tuned. So, without further ado:
Do bees have any legal protection in the UK?
Answer: No.
Right, that’s cleared that one up, moving on….
The reasons why many people may think bees have legal protection are quite curious, and having dug around on the Internet this mistaken belief has been passed on for over a decade.
A search to find which animals were protected from threat by legislation revealed a rather short list. All the usual suspects are there, including bats, which our wood preservation specialists are trained to look out for. But regarding bees, it’s not the case that they were protected and are no longer: there’s no mention of bees in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 either.
So where does belief that bees have legal protection stem from? You can find the statement that ‘bees are protected’ on discussion forums as you might expect, but also on professional pest control sites, Twitter, *ahem*, and the BBC in 2004.
The status of the legal protection of bees seems to be well on the way to being misunderstood early this century. In an effort to see how far back the Internet traces the story we need to go waaaaay back and search USENET archives. The al.hobbies.beekeeping group was set up in 1997, but the first mention of bees being protected didn’t occur until 2000. Another USENET group, sci.agriculture.beekeeping scotched the myth in 2003 fairly definitively.
This all suggests that the myth was in place before the proliferation of the Internet in the mid1990s, possibly the mainstream media had a hand in this. Searching digitised newspaper archives points the finger at a piece of legislation called the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP) which was originally published in 1994. The aim of this document is to “conserve and protect existing biological diversity, and to enhance it wherever possible.” This is a living document that has been updated many times since and contains the UK BAP priority terrestrial invertebrate species list. Priority species and habitats are “those that have been identified as being the most threatened and requiring conservation action”.
Various species of bees are listed in this document as being found in habitats that should be conserved in order to protect existing biological diversity. Despite being on the UK BAP, those species are not afforded any specific legal protection. The misinterpretation of this document seems to be the root of the misunderstanding. So does this mean that anyone can kill bees….?
Many insecticides are capable of killing bees, their biology is not too dissimilar to that of pest species, so there is a risk of ‘non-target’ poisoning. A high profile prosecution in 2008 related to the misuse of a carbamate insecticide that led to the death of naturally foraging non-target bees.
The prosecution was successful and no doubt fueled the belief that the pest controller in question was fined for killing a protected species rather than misuse of chemicals. Interestingly, the defendant was on record stating that bees were protected.
Hopefully that clears up the confusion about whether or not bees are protected by law.
In Spain bees ARE a protected specie, Rentokil can´t do anything about them! That´s another example of how pest control changes from a country to another.
Although bees don’t have legal protection in the UK it is Rentokil policy to protect them as far as possible. All our technicians are trained to identify the many different species of wasps and bees. Because our technicians operate locally they work with local beekeepers who are usually happy to adopt the bees and remove them from the site.
I swear my friend Scott was told by Crawley County Council that bees are protected, so it seems it’s even crept into local council proceedures!
I’m with you on this one Leyton. My understanding was always that Honey Bees are protected but not other species.
Seems we were wrong – on this occasion!
It’s almost as if the council didn’t want to come out and deal with the problem….
I don’t think bees are protected in the Republic of Ireland either. I think it is a common misconception because thankfully most people understand the importance of bees. I try to do my bit to help the bees by planting my garden full of lavender, which bees love…as do I!
There are many conflicting opinions on the subject of bees being a protected species or not,as i have recently found out.
Having discovered that bees were nesting in my property’s roof-space i contacted my local council [Hull City Council] and i was told that they would not treat a bees nest “as they are a protected species”.
A local pest control company assured me that they had no protected status.
I have since done my own research and it appears that bees do not have any legal protection in the UK.
Isnt there a 1980 Act of Parliament called the Bees Act, that may have caused the confusion? I think this is about protecting bees from disease, rather than bees being killed.
Steve, if the bees are not causing you a problem, leave them alone, they will probably move on eventually. Avoid killing them unneccesarily if you can.
yeh who gives a toss about the bees anyway we’ll pollinate our own food crops right? well done matt.
I’ve found a bees nest in the wall cavity, at the side of my privately rented house. Is there Anything I can do, if the landlord wants rid of them.
Your best option is to contact the British BeeKeepers Association who can offer advice http://www.bbka.org.uk/help/do_you_have_a_swarm.php They also have links to local beekeepers who maybe able to help.