I have been sitting beneath our damson tree during this pleasant but unseasonably warm weather listening to the bees. It is early for bees to be about and the tree which is white with blossoms has a muted air.
Last Friday I picked up an article in The Independent which suggests that bee populations are crashing across Western Europe because of the use of neonicotinoid pesticides which attack bees' central nervous systems, affecting their homing abilities so that they are more likely to die while away from their nests.
I could point the moral to this story, but dwelling upon it will only increase my anger and sadness.
In the meantime, we will continue not to spray. I will take up the offer of some pulmonaria from a neighbour on the allotment. Bees like pulmonaria because it blossoms early when there are not many food sources available. We could propagate more lavender and rosemary. If we gardeners and allotmenteers made our plots 'bee havens' and our margins and rough edges places for bumblebees and solitary bees to nest then, God willing, when this still unproven but potentially deadly substance is withdrawn, the bees will recolonise our countryside.
I hear that Friend of the Earth are running a campaign to get gardeners to plant more bee-friendly plants. I am going to investigate but I take the advice about pulmonaria (whatever that is). Shakespeare adored bees. I have collected lots of his quotations about them. They were "good" spirits and wasps were "evil spirits" see Rape of Lucretia. She feels like a honeyed beehive into which a wasp has intruded....
ReplyDelete