Give Bees a chance

Forget everything you thought you knew about the sedate and rarefied world of beekeeping. Bees are big business. In 2006, a Cornell University study found that in the USA, bees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seed and crops - mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. In the UK they are responsible for the pollination of around £200 million worth of food crops.

Bees' role in the natural order of our world is crucial and their importance as pollinators, both for agriculture and for wild plants, can't be underestimated. Nor can it simply be quantified in monetary terms. Bees are what is known as a keystone species, ensuring the continued reproduction and survival not only of plants but other organisms that depend on those plants for survival. Once a keystone species disappears, other species begin to disappear too - thus Albert Einstein's apocalyptic and, these days, oft-quoted view: 'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'

This vision may be coming true. Our bees are dying. In record numbers. The recent disappearance of catastrophic numbers of bees...

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