1 Introduction

Introduction

• Defra Healthy Bees Plan (2009): ‘to get everyone to work together on bee health’

• Many different interests, motivations, attitudes, beliefs and practices

• This is a challenge for controlling disease and sharing good practice for bee health

Aim

To contribute towards the health and sustainability of the honey bee population by determining how best to communicate with relevant stakeholders to improve

bee health.

2 Methods

Methods

• Literature review• Work with key informants to identify and categorize

those with a stake in bee health • Developed seven categories of stakeholder• Interviews with stakeholders from each of the seven

categories until theoretical saturation (no new ideas): – Initial semi-structured interview (qualitative data)– Structured questionnaire (social network analysis data)

• Second round of questionnaire to contacts of interviewees to further map social networks

3 Findings

Stakeholder categories

Beekeepers and bee farmers

Beekeeping education/training

and beekeeping media

Public interest groups, campaigning

groups, and mainstream media

Beekeeping supplies, honey and other

bee-related products

Land and Ecosystems Management

Government and government-funded

bodies

Research and funding

Different Framings

Honey bee health in a longer-term ‘agro-industrial’ context

• Focus on disease/honey bee husbandry perceived as narrow/limiting, and only capable of addressing symptoms, rather than causes of poor honey bee health

• Solutions lie in radical changes to land use and agricultural systems, while questions of husbandry are secondary, and in themselves part of a long-term problem of human interference in natural systems

A more pragmatic

framing

• Solutions lie in improving floral resources within current land use and agricultural systems

• Need for better pest and disease identification and management by beekeepers, to be achieved through education and knowledge exchange

Flashpoints and consensus

• Flashpoints of conflict between these framings: – Disease control– Pesticide issues

• Common ground between those who frame the issues in these two different ways:– The need for floral resources for all pollinators (not just honey

bees), and the need for more coordinated working between the bee health/beekeeping education stakeholders and land use stakeholder;

– Need for more long-term, field-based research on a range of issues including pollinator decline, pest and disease control/prevention and food security issues

Communication and influence of different groups

• Government bodies and research/funding scored highly across all network measures: – central to honey bee health KE– researchers trusted as being more impartial

• Individuals from government bodies and public interest groups had the highest levels of overall influence: – well-placed to communicate to disparate parts of network

• Public interest stakeholders less central to debates about bee health but more influential in public awareness

• Individuals in education/training communicated with more people albeit within more peripheral clusters – potential to build on the trust they have built

Social network diagram of all respondents and their reported contacts. Nodes represent individuals and are coloured according to stakeholder category. Their size represents their

‘betweeness’ i.e. the extent to which they link other nodes in the network. The connectors joining the nodes vary in thickness according to relative communication frequency.

BeekeepersEducation/trainingPublic interest

Supplies and productsLand and ecosystem management

Research and fundingGovernment bodies

Frequency of communication between stakeholder categories. Nodes represent stakeholder categories. The thickness of the connections between nodes shows the relative frequency of

interaction between groups weighted by the number of respondents in each category.

How people learn about honey bee health

• Across all stakeholder groups, the most common way of finding information was through personal contacts

• Also: research articles, followed by websites, expert talks, meetings, books, reports and magazines

• More generalist sources, such as newsletters, were less useful (but used more by public interest category)

• The most highly valued information was:– in-depth, reliable and comprehensive– easy, fast and convenient to access, and responsive– able to provide answers to specific questions– delivered by trustworthy, experienced people

Need for better connections

• Many felt their views on bee health were misunderstood or misrepresented

• Many wanted to better understand the perspectives of others– e.g. ‘anti-pesticide lobby’ criticized for over-simplifying issues,

while those speaking on behalf of this group felt frustrated their contribution to the debate was misrepresented

• Suggestion made by interviewees for a national forum of all stakeholders to achieve better understanding of different perspectives and build relationships

Existing connections

• Education, training and bee media organisations • Ecosystems and land management organisations• Beekeeping supplies• Government bodies (example network to follow)• Research organisations (example to follow)

Showing reported communications about bee health. Larger nodes are

connected to more organisations; thicker lines indicate more frequent

communication

Government bodies

Showing reported communications about

bee health. Larger nodes are connected to more organisations; thicker

lines indicate more frequent communication

Research

Interest clusters

Public interest and land/ecosystem management:• tailored and easily accessible

information, often about specific issues (e.g. pesticides, land management and wild pollinators

• information about communication and complexity of honey bee health issues

Government bodies, education/training & beekeeping stakeholders:• specific information about honey

bee management and honey bee health

• background information• information about products and

equipment• material for teaching and training

and information to inform decisions and solve problems

Implications for knowledge exchange

• Knowledge exchange around honey bee health likely to be straightforward within these interest groups– e.g. improving KE between already well connected

government/education/training stakeholders and beekeepers • KE likely to be more challenging between interest clusters

– e.g. for government/education/training stakeholders to improve KE with public interest/land/ecosystem stakeholders (who in turn have better links with natural beekeepers)

• More tailored KE strategy to reach these stakeholder groups– e.g. link to issues that interest them (e.g. pesticides or wild

pollinators), using accessible communication (e.g. reports and research articles for public interest stakeholders, and expert talks for land/ecosystem managers)

Implications for knowledge exchange

Researchers and beekeeping suppliers sit between the two interest for different reasons:• Suppliers sat in a relatively isolated network position,

disconnected from either of the interest-based clusters that were identified– Access to a wide range of (sometimes hard to reach) beekeepers and

often asked for advice, but have little time • Researchers had regular contacts across all the stakeholder

groups, and had a broad range of interests that overlapped with interest cluster – Potential knowledge-brokering role for researchers to connect

government/education/training stakeholders with public interest/land/ecosystem management stakeholders

Implications for knowledge exchange

• Certain individuals from government bodies and public interest groups particularly influential across the network and therefore well-placed to communicate messages about honey bee health to a wide range of groups

• Public interest groups largely overlooked in their potential to promote messages to enhance honey bee health– May perform a role as trusted intermediaries trust between government

and stakeholder groups is low• Although often local in their sphere of influence, education/training

stakeholders communicate with a large number of honey bee health stakeholders and should be supported to continue this role

• Land/ecosystem stakeholders were less well connected to the honey bee health core network, yet many stakeholders felt that closer relationships should be fostered

4 Recommendations

• A wider focus on all pollinators could foster greater understanding between differing perspectives around issues of concern common to honey bee health and wild pollinator health constituencies of interest.

• A national forum for pollinator health should be developed which includes all stakeholders, related to a national action plan for pollinator health and facilitated either by an independent body (preferably) or by government.

• Closer working relationships should be developed between core honey bee health constituencies, land and ecosystems management stakeholder groups, and public interest groups in particular.

• More tailored knowledge exchange strategies need to be developed for public interest and land management stakeholder groups.

• There is a need to integrate knowledge of honey bee health specialists with land use/ecosystem management specialists. Tailored information for both individuals and organisations on land use management for pollinator health would benefit both groups.

• Bee suppliers could be supported with specific information they can cascade to customers easily.

• Honey bee health and education stakeholders, including National Bee Unit Bee Inspectors, should be supported to continue their role and focus on ‘improver’ level beekeeping training.

• Any future Knowledge Exchange strategy should consider ways to provide specialist, tailored information, primarily via personal contacts, by identifying key trusted informants in the network, like Bee Inspectors, researchers or existing science communicators, alongside the other popular means of learning about honey bee health identified in this research.

• Information about honey bee health should be: in-depth, reliable and comprehensive; easy, fast and convenient to access; able to provide answers to specific questions; delivered by people who are considered trustworthy and who have experience.

• University researchers should play a key role in knowledge exchange and be supported to communicate findings and expertise in ways that would be useful to different stakeholder groups.

• In order to reach those beekeepers that are reluctant to register on BeeBase, NBU should continue their work on improving communications and relationships.