Warmer springs fuel the plight of the bumblebee as the insects are woken up earlier
Warmer springs are causing British bees to wake up earlier threatening the pollination of crops such as apples and pears, a study has found. Wild bees, such as bumblebees, emerged from their nests an average of 6.5 days earlier for every 1C rise in temperature caused by . As spring starts earlier, and bees emerge closer to the start of the year, they may lose sync with the plants on which they depend, meaning there may be less food for them. This means bees may lack the energy to pollinate crops, or miss crop blossom completely. Study leader Chris Wyver, from the University of Reading, said: Warmer conditions mean bees emerge earlier. Matching wake-up dates with plant flowering is vital for newly emerged bees because they need to find pollen and nectar to increase their chances of survival. A mismatch means bees cannot pollinate effectively. Less natural pollination could lead to farmers needing to use managed honeybees, meaning greater costs, which may be passed on. 'We could see even more expensive apples, pears and vegetables as a result. The study is the biggest of its kind in Britain and has been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. It examined 88 different species of wild bees over 40 years, using more than 350,000 individual recording. Data showed that some bees emerge earlier as different species of bee respond differently to the changing temperature. On average, the 88 species are emerging four days earlier per decade. With winters projected to be between 1 and 4.5C warmer and up to 30 per cent wetter by 2070, spring is likely to continue to start earlier and bees will continue to become active earlier in the year. The shift in bee emergence will also have a greater effect on plants that are heavily dependent on pollination, such as apple trees, which may not be ready to flower by the time hibernation ends.