Paper short abstract:

This paper explores beekeepers' views on causes and appropriate responses to pollinator decline. Interview data suggest beekeepers' knowledge is underutilised by scientists. Points of synergy and digression are further challenged by public and media responses which also influence pollinator policy.

Paper long abstract:

Pollinator decline in the 21st century has generated increased scientific and public attention regarding this threat to food security and biodiversity. Policy responses emphasise beekeepers' significant role in monitoring, and ensuring, pollinator well-being. Based on empirical research with long-term beekeepers, and related archival analysis, this paper explores the local environmental knowledge of long-term beekeepers in the United Kingdom, and their views on public, scientific, and political responses to pollinator decline. Empirical results illustrate tensions between the demands of Evidence Based Policy Making for scientifically validated data, and the complex environmental interactions experienced by bees, and observed by beekeepers. Interview data shows many beekeepers following a Precautionary Principle in their analysis of environmental risks. Beekeepers' interpretation of, and response to, synergistic challenges to their bees is often outside the parameters of scientific guidance. Moving beyond the current reliance on data generated by reductionist analysis, and incorporating the temporally rich, situated knowledge of long-term beekeepers, offers potential to reverse pollinator decline, and develop environmental governance systems. Interviewees report diverse experiences of working relationships with scientific researchers, while other more complex, problematic dynamics have arisen. Further complicating the potential for knowledges meeting, is the impact of media and public pressure on policy-makers. Environmental campaigns, media representations, and public misunderstanding of scientific and agricultural challenges to pollinators are leading to ineffective policy responses which frustrate highly informed beekeepers. This paper explores potential reconfigurations of synergies between beekeepers' locally situated knowledges, and scientists' analyses of pollinator decline.