Bees and flowers...

...have had the world’s longest love affair, about 100 million years. Now it’s in danger.
Bees pollinate many human foodstuffs. But intensive farming practices may kill them off if we don’t demand change.
About 80% of plant species now use animals or insects to carry pollen grains from the male part of the plant to the female part.
It’s in all our interests that this age-old romance endures because about one in three mouthfuls we eat depends on bee pollination, including most fruits and vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices, oil crops, as well as coffee. Together they supply a major proportion of nutrients in the human diet. In addition, fodder crops, plant-derived medicines such as aspirin and morphine, and fibres such as cotton are all bee-pollinated. That’s not to forget that many of the trees that are the lungs of the planet and absorb carbon from the atmosphere are bee pollinated.
As consumers, we must demand growers and retailers adopt bee-friendly methods, and be prepared to pay a premium for it. And as citizens we must lobby for farmers to be subsidised to work with, not against, nature. Otherwise this fragile romance on which our survival depends will wither and die and with it life as we know it.

Alison Benjamin,
Extract from The Guardian 14 Feb 2020