Response to Phil Chandler’s article “British beekeeping sold to Syngenta”.

By Dr Juliet Osborne

I am the Principal Investigator of the honeybee project that I believe Phil Chandler is referring to at the start of his article and I want to clarify and correct some points made and implied in his article.  Firstly, he says “If you have not already heard, the giant pesticide manufacturer Syngenta has positioned itself as overseers of UK research into honeybee problems.”  This is untrue and therefore very misleading.  Syngenta are not in charge of UK bee research – although they are certainly helping to get the issues recognised and supported.  The UK government, via various initiatives, is putting millions of pounds into research concerning honeybee and other pollinators.  The recent project that has been announced (Link to Press Release) is a collaboration between Rothamsted Research and University of Warwick.  The majority (90%) of the funding for this project comes from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); Syngenta are contributing £120K of the £1.1M awarded to this project.  Rothamsted guards its independence and charitable obligation to publish research finding vehemently and ensures that this is enshrined in all our contractual arrangements with funders and collaborators alike.  Leadership for this project rests firmly with myself and not with Syngenta (as implied by Phil Chandler’s article).  The project proposal was written by myself and my collaborators, although the original idea of building a multi-factorial mathematical model to incorporate a variety of factors affecting bees did come from a modeller at Syngenta who is fascinated by animal behaviour and populations.  The research council funding application process entails review by three independent expert reviewers to ensure that the project meets the strict standards for excellence, relevance, impact and capability required.  At no point have we felt unduly influenced by the funders in any other way than to meet these strict criteria. 

To explain the remit of the project, it is a complex one examining the multiple factors and the complexity of interactions between these different factors affecting honeybee colonies, whether these are within the landscape or within the hive itself.  If there was a simple answer – there would be no need for this approach (see, for example, the recent EFSA report on “Bee Mortality and Bee Surveillance in Europe”).  The project involves both models and experiments.  The experimental part currently focuses on nutrition and disease, as these are two components that have been highlighted by a plethora of studies as playing an important role in honeybee colony health.  Our expertise lies in these areas, so it makes sense for us to write a project based on these factors.  However, that does not mean that we will ignore pesticides.  The modelling aspect of the project will utilise information on all possible stressors that have been studied within large datasets from across the world that will be available to us.  Many of these are surveys and monitoring studies by academic or government institutions in which pesticide exposure has been included amongst the factors considered.  The advantage of using a modelling approach is that we can explore the relative importance of, and interactions between, the multitude of factors that affect honeybee colony strength and survival in the landscape, without having to do experiments on each factor individually or repeat studies for which a multitude of data already exists.  In the detail of the project we also explain that, should the modelling highlight alternative factors that are affecting honeybee survival or gaps in the data relevant to the analysis, then we will ensure they are integrated within the experiments.  This project will not be done in isolation: it will benefit from the expertise of several internationally renowned bee researchers who have agreed to act as advisors on the project, including Dr Peter Neumann (leader of COLOSS, the European network on colony losses), Dr Peter Rosenkranz (chair of the German Bee Monitoring Programme), Dr Steve Martin (University of Sheffield) and Dr Keith Delaplane (University of Georgia, USA).  Expert ecological modeller, Dr Volker Grimm (UFZ-Leipzig, Germany) will guide the mathematical elements of the project.  My own belief is that if we narrow our options to just one possible factor (for example pesticides) we risk missing the bigger picture.

Secondly, I would like to counter Mr Chandler’s claim that “This means that we can wave goodbye to any truly objective British bee research”.  We are scientists who have spent our working lives seeking objective truth through rigorous experimentation, and thoroughly analysed evidence.  That is how we will do this project and the results will be published as normal, in an unbiased fashion, in peer-reviewed journals.  Our aim is to help provide answers for beekeepers.  That, and the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge, is why we are doing the work.

Syngenta’s contribution is welcome to this project as it broadens the means to communicate findings from the project to those most able to influence potential solutions.  Syngenta are already investing in a 5-year European & USA programme, Operation Pollinator, to increase forage resources available to pollinators in the arable landscape.  Through their relationship with farmers, there is a clear potential to take points learned during the project to improve conditions for honeybees in the landscape.  Better understanding of honeybee foraging behaviour also offers Syngenta a direct opportunity to improve their understanding of exposure of honeybees to pesticides in the agricultural landscape and to build these into their own assessments of environmental risk.  Rothamsted Research and Warwick HRI will publish the findings, without influence, in both peer-reviewed journals and stakeholder-relevant publications enabling others to assess the finding alongside other independent research.   My hope is that commentators, as well as scientists, try to keep a clear and unbiased viewpoint so we can really get to the root of these problems.