We’ve been doing our best to save the honeybees – but now there’s a sting in the tail
I’m surrounded by towering glazed walls, concrete pillars and galvanised girders, the intrusive throb of helicopters and rising wail of police sirens.
It’s morning on a City of London rooftop. But that rooftop itself is a little oasis: a tennis court-sized patch of meadow complete with clover, buttercups and five beehives.
But only one is buzzing.
The remaining four are empty as the keeper, Dale Gibson of Bermondsey Street Bees, realised such numbers of honeybees were doing more harm than good.
“London is Europe’s most densely populated city for honeybees, possibly the world,” he said.
“We’ve been hijacked by the Save the Bees motto, which has been interpreted as meaning honeybees.
“Well, guess what? The honeybee is in great fettle.
“The UN hive data for honeybees globally shows they’re at an all-time high.
“What we need to do is see the impact these honeybees, with their proliferation, especially in places like London, is having on other pollinators and in particular other wild bees.”
Why the buzz around honeybees has changed
As today is World Bee Day, it’s a chance to ask how we got here when, just a few years ago, the buzz around bees was deafening – a theme of peril for honeybees that stretched from newspaper headlines to cultural norms, with Hollywood’s animated Bee Movie and plot lines in Doctor Who.
Professor Phil Stevenson works at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens and has studied the bee craze.
“It’s probably because the narrative around saving bees came at the same time as issues around colony collapse disorder in the US, when whole hives died out,” he said.
“The problem is the density of hives.
“Our work suggested about seven hives per square kilometre was about as much as London could tolerate.
“In some locations in London there are more than 50 hives per square kilometre and in one particular location there are 400 hives in a square kilometre, and they all need feeding.”
The science may have moved on, but in the wider public, the love for honeybees is remarkably sticky.
This may seem a random observation, but when I was talking to a Sky News engineer while making this report, he showed me his phone: the case covered by a Save the Bees sticker with a honeycomb motif.
Hogging all the pollination
Pollination is the act of taking pollen between the male and female parts of different flowers, allowing seeds to form.
It is essential to the reproduction of our floral ecosystem, and much of our food relies on it, too.
But oil crops like rapeseed and soy, and fruits like strawberries and apples, are highly dependent on the labour of a whole range of insects – not just bees.
There are hundreds of other pollinating bee species and hundreds more wasps, flies, beetles, butterflies and moths which all need pollen and nectar.
Phil Stevenson has a favourite – the furry footed bee – and we also spot a chafer beetle with a glorious golden sheen enjoying a pollen binge.
A healthy ecosystem needs abundance and variety of pollinator species.
“There is absolutely concrete evidence you can see a halo around honeybee hives, not just in cities but also in wild landscapes, where you have a significant reduction in nectar and pollen and therefore a significant reduction in wild bees and solitary bees,” he said.
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Honeybees’ sting in the tail
So, this isn’t just an urban or London problem.
Dr Lucy Witter is an entomologist and farm wildlife advisor working with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust.
“One of my biggest bugbears is people getting honeybees to help pollinators generally,” she said.
“It’s the equivalent of saying ‘we need to save wild birds, so let’s get some chickens’.
“Honeybees are a domesticated species”.
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Dr Witter is not anti-honeybees if there is a guaranteed abundance of food, but, in many cases, they reduce the food available to native wild pollinators.
She also thinks their amazing PR detracts awareness from all those other critical pollinating insects – and as they are such efficient gatherers of pollen, they are worse at helping plants to reproduce.
“Honeybees don’t drop much pollen whereas solitary bees, like the red mason bee, are such messy eaters they end up covered in pollen and this falls off on other plants doing the pollination job,” she added.
So, as our well-intentioned passion for honeybees has ended up with a sting in the tail, what should we do?
Everyone we have spoken to agrees: provide habitat.
Whether it’s planting pollinator friendly plots or just letting flowering weeds flourish, give food and shelter to insects.
Phil Stevenson said: “What we really need to be doing is much more about the landscape itself, increasing the floral resources where wild bee species can nest and have refuge.”
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UK
‘I have nightmares of dead bodies’: Patients dying and undiscovered for hours in hospital corridors
Patients are dying in corridors and going undiscovered for hours while the sick are left to soil themselves, nurses have said, revealing the scale of the corridor crisis inside the UK’s hospitals.
In a “harrowing” report built from the experiences of more than 5,000 NHS nursing staff, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) found almost seven in 10 (66.81%) say they are delivering care in overcrowded or unsuitable places, including converted cupboards, corridors and even car parks, on a daily basis.
Demoralised staff are looking after as many as 40 patients in a single corridor, unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors, suction and other lifesaving equipment.
Women are miscarrying in corridors, while some nurses report being unable to carry out adequate CPR on patients having heart attacks.
Sara (not her real name) said she was on shift when a doctor told her there was a dying patient who had been waiting in the hospital’s corridor for six hours.
“It took a further two hours to get her into an adequate care space to make her clean and comfortable,” she told Sky News.
“That’s a human being, someone in the last hours of their life in the middle of a corridor with a detoxing patient vomiting and being abusive behind them and a very poorly patient in front of them, who was confused, screaming in pain. It was awful on the family, and it was awful on the patient.”
Dead patients ‘not found for hours’
A nurse working in the southeast of England quit her job after witnessing an elderly lady in “animal-like conditions”.
She told the RCN: “A 90-year-old lady with dementia was scared, crying and urinating in the bed after asking several times for help to the toilet. Seeing that lady, frightened and subjected to animal-like conditions is what broke me.
“At the end of that shift, I handed in my notice with no job to go to. I will not work where this is a normal day-to-day occurrence.”
Another nurse in the South East said a patient died in a corridor and “wasn’t discovered for hours”.
Sara told Sky another woman needed resuscitating after the oxygen underneath her trolley ran out. Sara was one of just two nurses caring for more than 30 patients on that corridor.
“I have had nightmares – I have a nightmare that I walk out in the corridor and there are dead bodies in body bags on the trolleys,” she said, growing visibly emotional.
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No electricity to plug in computers
One nurse, who spoke to Sky News, said the conditions were “undignified” and “inhumane”.
“It’s not just corridors – we utilise chairs, cupboards, whatever space is available in the hospital to be repurposed into a care space, in the loosest sense of that term. These spaces are unsafe.”
Some spaces, she said, don’t even have basic electricity for nurses to plug in their computers.
The nurse, who spoke to Sky on the condition of anonymity, said she has experienced burnout multiple times over the state of her workplace.
“I have come to the conclusion this week I don’t think I can continue working in the NHS or as a nurse,” she said.
“It breaks my soul; I love what I do when I am able to do it in the right way. I like caring for people, I like making people better, I also like providing a dignified death.”
She added: “I want to look after the institution I was born into, but for the sake of my family and my mental health, I don’t know how much more I can give.”
With 32,000 nursing vacancies in England alone, data also shows around one in eight nurses leave the profession within five years of qualifying.
Nurses are being forced to provide care in hospital corridors and car parks. Pic: PA
Staff ‘not proud of the care they are giving’
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says the testimony, which runs to over 400 pages, must mark a “moment in time”. In May 2024, the RCN declared a “national emergency” over corridor care in NHS services.
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “At the moment, [nursing staff] are not proud of the care they are giving.”
“We hear stories of escalation areas and temporary beds that have been open for two years,” she added. “That is no longer escalation, it’s understaffed and underfunded capacity that is pretty shocking care for patients. We have to get a grip on that.”
Read more: Hospital advertises for corridor nurse amid NHS winter crisis
She called the situation “a disgrace”, citing abuse of staff as another reason for people leaving the profession in droves.
Last week, a nurse was left with “life-changing injuries” after being stabbed by a man while at work.
“The NHS used to be the envy of the world and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and say ‘what needs to change?’
“The biggest concern for us is that the public Is starting to lose a little faith in their care, and that has to stop. We absolutely have to sort this out.”
Commenting on the RCN’s report, Duncan Burton, chief nursing officer for England, said the NHS had experienced one of the “toughest winters” in recent months, and the report “should never be considered the standard to which the NHS aspires”.
“Despite the challenges the NHS faces, we are seeing extraordinary efforts from staff who are doing everything they can to provide safe, compassionate care every day,” he added. “As a nurse, I know how distressing it can be when you are unable to provide the very best standards of care for patients.”
Have you experienced corridor care in an NHS hospital? Get in touch on NHSstories@sky.uk
Singer Linda Nolan, who rose to fame alongside her sisters in The Nolans, has died after several years of battling cancer.
The Irish star, 65, and her sisters Coleen, Maureen, Bernie, Denise and Anne, had a run of hits in the late 1970s and ’80s – including the disco classic I’m In The Mood For Dancing.
Paying tribute on The Nolans‘ X account, her sisters described her as “a pop icon and beacon of hope”, who “faced incurable cancer with courage, grace and determination, inspiring millions”.
Linda died peacefully in hospital this morning, “embraced with love and comfort” with her siblings by her side, her agent Dermot McNamara said in a statement.
“As a member of The Nolans, one of the most successful girl groups of all time, Linda achieved global success; becoming the first Irish act to sell over a million records worldwide, touring the world and selling over 30 million records,” he said.
“Her distinctive voice and magnetic stage presence brought joy to fans around the world, securing her place as an icon of British and Irish entertainment.”
As well as her TV and musical career, Linda helped to raise more than £20 million for numerous charities, including Breast Cancer Now, Irish Cancer Society, Samaritans and others.
“Her selflessness and tireless commitment to making a difference in the lives of others will forever be a cornerstone of her legacy,” Mr McNamara said.
Five of the Nolans in 1983 (L-R): Linda, Anne, Bernie, Coleen and Maureen. Pic: PA
Linda’s death came after she was admitted to hospital with pneumonia over the weekend. She began receiving end-of-life care after slipping into a coma on Tuesday.
Details of a celebration of the star’s “remarkable life” will be shared in due course.
Linda was born to Tommy and Maureen Nolan in Dublin on 23 February 1959, the sixth of eight children.
Her parents were both singers and keen to turn their young family into a musical troupe. Linda made her stage debut aged just four.
Those early years put the siblings on track for a career in show business which lasted for decades. As well as I’m In The Mood For Dancing, The Nolans had hits with Gotta Pull Myself Together, Attention To Me and Don’t Make Waves, and they also had their own TV specials.
At their height, they toured with Frank Sinatra and were reported to have outsold The Beatles in Japan.
Linda left the group in 1983, but later reformed with her sisters for several comeback performances. She also became known for musical theatre, most notably performing the role of Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers for three years from 2000.
L-R: Bernie, Denise, Linda (top), Anne and Maureen Nolan pictured in 1975, before youngest sister Coleen joined the group
Four siblings struck by cancer
Linda was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, and underwent a mastectomy two days before her 47th birthday.
After being given the all-clear in 2011, in 2017 she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. Three years later, Linda and Anne together revealed they were being treated for cancer once again.
The sisters were diagnosed with different forms of the disease just days apart after they returned home from filming a series of their show, The Nolans Go Cruising. Linda had cancer of the liver, while Anne had breast cancer.
The star, pictured last year, had battled cancer for several years. Pic: Shutterstock
They went on to write Stronger Together, an account of their journey that included frank details of their treatments and the side effects.
But in 2023, Linda revealed the cancer had spread to her brain and she was beginning treatment as part of a new drug trial.
The Nolans lost their second-youngest sister, Bernie, to cancer in 2013, aged 52.
Loose Women star Coleen Nolan also revealed she was diagnosed with skin cancer last year, and said she was using a chemotherapy cream to remove it.
Linda’s husband of 26 years, Brian Hudson, died in 2007 after being diagnosed with skin cancer.
Anne Nolan is now cancer-free.
Tributes to star ‘who was always a joy’
TV star and singer Cheryl Baker and comedian Tommy Cannon are among those who have paid tribute.
“I’m heartbroken to hear about the passing of Linda Nolan,” Cannon wrote on X. “I had the pleasure of working with her on so many occasions, and she was always a joy – full of warmth and love. My thoughts and love are with the Nolan girls and the whole family.”
“The most incredible voice, the wickedest sense of humour, such a massive talent,” Baker wrote. “You’re with Brian now, Lin.”
Loose Women also sent its love to her family. Linda appeared as a guest panellist on the ITV chat show over the years, alongside her sister Coleen.
The Blackpool Grand Theatre described her as “a true Blackpool icon”.
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