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Honey bees during the weekly inspection at the Randalstown and District Beekeeper’s Association apiary set in the private estate of Lord O’Neill at Shane’s Castle. Pic by Charles McQuillan\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n
The number of bees in Northern Ireland continues to decline with 21 species set to become extinct if there is no intervention.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to a new report by conservation charity Buglife which highlighted the alarming extent of the problem which has been blamed on the absence of a bee inspectorate in the region.<\/p>\n
The warning comes on International World Bee Day and follows concerns expressed by the Ulster Beekeepers Association (UBKA) that the vital post has been vacant for too long.<\/p>\n
The last full-time bee inspector retired at the end of October 2024 and the part-time inspector role has been vacant since December 2024.<\/p>\n
![\"Honey](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2c0ad446-e934-44ec-85da-404dc505dd74.jpg\")
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Honey bees during the weekly inspection at the Randalstown and District Beekeeper’s Association apiary set in the private estate of Lord O’Neill at Shane’s Castle. Pic by Charles McQuillan\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n
The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) insists it \u201cis responding to recent reductions in inspectorate staff available for bee inspections\u201d and confirmed a recruitment drive is under way.<\/p>\n
Co Down beekeeper Valentine Hodges \u2014 who has between 80 and 100 hives \u2014 described the situation as \u201ccritical\u201d and expressed anger and disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now are at a critical stage where, through lack of recruitment we have no bee inspectors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added that if diseases are allowed to spread, it could have a domino effect on the food supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Honey bees during the weekly inspection at the Randalstown and District Beekeeper’s Association apiary set in the private…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[23196,23668,23669,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-116482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-brett-campbell","9":"tag-department-of-agriculture","10":"tag-environment-rural-affairs-daera","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114538984770287284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}