Following a vote last week, the European Parliament is backing calls for funding to support the development of "bee-friendly" pesticides and training for farmers. The resolution, which was put forward by the Agriculture Committee, sees European Parliament members urging the Commission to increase its consideration of bee safety in the pesticide registration process, as falling bee numbers around the world are causing concern for scientists, apiarists and environmentalists.

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The resolution calling for stronger regulatory considerations to protect Europe's bees covers a wide range of areas. The European Parliament’s recommended actions relate to beekeeping practices, veterinary treatments for bee diseases, and agricultural practices. These include an increase in research funding, stricter controls on pesticides and incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop antibiotics.

It is estimated that 84 per cent of plant species and 76 per cent of food crops in Europe are reliant on pollination by bees. According to European Commission figures, bee pollination has an economic value to the bloc of €22 billion.

Yet there are widespread fears that rapid decline in the bee population could seriously impact on the bloc’s ability to grow food crops. In some fruit producing areas of China, farmers have to pollinate crops by hand as the bee populations have died off, purportedly through the use of chemicals.

Socialist EU parliamentarian Csaba Sandor Tabajdi, who tabled the resolution, said,  "Beekeeping is crucial for our society as pollination plays an essential role in preserving biodiversity and maintaining sustainable European agriculture and food security. Albert Einstein once said that without bees, man would live no more than four years."

However, the reasons for the decline are still not totally apparent. A recent report from the UN Environment Programme revealed there are "more than a dozen factors, ranging from declines in flowering plants and the use of memory-damaging insecticides to the world-wide spread of pests and air pollution." However, the report found that a major factor was undoubtedly "increasing use of chemicals in agriculture, including 'systemic insecticides' and those used to coat seeds, [which] is being found to be damaging or toxic to bees."

An overwhelming majority of EU lawmakers voted in favour of the resolution; 534 voted for, 16 against and 92 abstained. Whilst most MPs welcomed the resolution, a significant number felt it did not go far enough. Bas Eickhout, a Dutch green MEP, proposed an alternative resolution, calling for a moratorium on the use of harmful pesticides. This was backed by a quarter of the house.

Mr Eickhout explained his stance, "Research has shown that pesticides made by the pharmaceutical industry are a cause for the weakening of bees. But instead of asking them to stop producing those pesticides, the European Parliament now asks that same industry to develop medicines against the effects of their pesticides."

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