Ragwort ( Senecio jacobaea )

Saturday, so prepping the Lodge for the second visitors since lockdown.  A strange experience following the "Safer stay" regulations and cleaning in mask, gloves and face shield, then disinfecting every surface they might possibly touch.  The previous guests, regular visitors had left a very supportive comment in the visitors book and saved us time by stripping the bed and telling us two rooms had never been used.

Following my introduction to the plight pollinators  are in and how this will ultimately cause shortages of food.  As I said the other day one third of our food requires pollinators.  Bumble bees are better pollinators than honey bees by a factor of about 120.   Virtually every tomato you have eaten since 1988 has been pollinated by Bumble bees.

The recent webinars have made me start to look at flowers deciding if they are bee friendly or not.  Obviously wild flowers are better than many cultivated ones.  The cultivated ones have had much of the attraction for bees bred out of them.   Ragwort has always been, in my mind at least a noxious weed, it even has its own act of Parliament (Ragwort Control Act 2003).  This is because of my connections with agriculture.  The plant is poisonous to stock even when dried in hay.  However it is a great plant for pollinators and a food plant for Cinnabar Moth and its striking black and yellow caterpillars.