Give Bees a Chance

Albert Einstein once said that humanity would only have approximately another four years to live once bees had disappeared. His reasoning was simple: "no more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

And >> it looks like there are signs we really are heading towards doomsday, if we are to look at the health of bee populations today.

They are disappearing at an alarming rate, particularly in the United States and Germany. While it's normal for hive populations to fall during colder winter months, the recent exodus is puzzling beekeepers and researchers around the world.

I myself, for certain have noticed that the bumblebees this year have decreased dramatically in my garden and so went off looking for bumblebee friendly flowers in my garden centre. After reading a few articles especially "Give Bees a Chance" published recently in the Ecologist, I feel they need every help we can give...

Honeybees and bumblebees are essential for pollination. If bees continue to disappear these plants will set less seed, potentially resulting in gradual but sweeping changes to the countryside.

Bees are also of great commercial importance, much greater than I ever thought, being vital to the agricultural industry. Many arable and horticultural crops depend on bees for pollination to varying degrees.

There is already evidence that in some regions where fields are large and there are few hedgerows crop yields are depressed due to a shortage of bumblebees.

Bees stimulate the food supply as well as the economy. So what's the cause of colony collapse?

Suspicions are pointed in several different directions, including cell phone transmissions and agricultural pesticides, some of which are known to be poisonous to bees. But it seems more likely that GM crops might be the culprits destroying bees.

How could something so wondrous as pest-resistant corn kill millions upon millions of bees?

Simple – by producing so much natural pesticide that bees are either driven mad or away.

The planting of transgenic corn and soybean has increased exponentially, according to statistics from farm states. Tens of millions of acres of transgenic crops are allowing the genes that are adversely affecting bees to move off crop fields.

It seems like the final proof of the evils of GM might come in one big blow, finishing off the most important species that we depend upon for pollination of our food plants!

Maybe Einstein not only was a mathematical physicist genius but also had psychic glimpses into our future?

3 species in the UK have already gone extinct and 10-15 others are in a precarious situation.

Even if you have a couple of windowpots with herbs this will already help them along and remember to just say NO TO GMOs!...

Below is a list of July-August flowers that will greatly help bumblebees but most of the usual cooking herbs also provide good nectar;

Black horehound Borage
Bramble
Buddleia
Cardoon
Catmint
Cornflower
Delphinium
Heathers
Hollyhock
Hyssop
Knapweed
Lavender
Lesser burdock
Marjoram
Mellilot
Mint
Penstemon
Phacelia
Polemonium
Purple loosestrife
Red bartsia
Red clover
Rock-rose
Sainfoin
Scabious
Sea Holly
Snapdragons
St. Johns Wort
Sunflower
Teasel
Thistles
Viper’s bugloss

Sources where you can read more here & here