Dave Goulson on bees
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2014
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor Dave Goulson has been obsessed with animals since he was a child. He collected all kinds of creatures and went as far as doing home made taxidermy. He's now Professor of Biological Sciences at Sussex University where he specialises in bumblebees. Dave Goulson talks to Jim al-Khalili about how he took five years to work out how bees know which flowers to go to for the most nectar, and why he set up a charity to encourage the public and farmers to plant more flowers for bumblebees to feast upon.
Recently Dave has found himself in a media storm as he's been studying the effects of pesticides called neo-nicotinoids on bumblebees. After he and others published research showing that the neo-nicotinoids have a detrimental effect on the foraging of bumblebees, the EU has brought in a temporary ban on some of them. But some farmers say that their harvests will be poor if they can't use these pesticides. Dave and Jim discuss the balance between conserving nature and feeding people.
Transcript
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| 0:33.8 | Dave Gulsen has had a passion for animals since he was a boy |
| 0:37.5 | when he collected everything he could find near his home in Shropshire, |
| 0:40.8 | from insects to roadkill. His parents were tolerant of this hobby |
| 0:45.2 | which went as far as homemade taxidermy. Dave is now professor of biological |
| 0:49.9 | sciences at Sussex University and his research focuses on insects |
| 0:54.1 | Bumble Bees in particular. His obsession has taken him all over the world in search |
| 0:58.8 | of different species and he's set up a trust to conserve Bumblebees as many of them in the UK are endangered. |
| 1:06.0 | Dave Galson's deep knowledge of bumblebees and their environment has brought him into the public eye in the last few years. |
| 1:12.0 | His research has shown that the use of |
| 1:14.3 | pesticides called neonicotinoids or neonicx is affecting bumblebees. This |
| 1:20.4 | finding has contributed to the EU's two-year temporary ban on the use of the three neo-nick containing pesticides. |
| 1:29.0 | This has been a controversial decision. |
| 1:31.0 | The UK government hasn't accepted the research, and farmers have said |
| 1:35.2 | that the ban is detrimental to their harvests. |
| 1:38.9 | Dave has also found time to publish two popular books on insects. The first, A Sting in the |
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