“The message is stark: no bees, no pollination, no food, no more mankind” Until recently, most gardeners had a simple if remote relationship with bees.
Bees made honey, so were considered a ‘good thing’, but they also occasionally stung, so were best kept at a safe distance. Certainly, the average gardener did not feel that bees needed tending in any way, unless you wanted to cultivate your own supply of honey, in which case you took up beekeeping.
But during the early 1990s, the varroa mite arrived in the UK from Asia and its disastrous impact on honeybee populations began to make headlines. Bees, it seemed, could no longer effortlessly do their buzzing thing but needed help. At the same time, it became apparent to any organic grower that modern…
