On January 9th the House of Lords debated the decline of honey bees. Some interesting statistics were mentioned: the number of beekeepers has doubled in the past ten years; the number of [colonies] has reduced by 75% over the past 100 years – [but this should be seen against Leslie Bailey’s conclusion in 2000 that the so called Isle of Wight disease problem was due to too many hives in any given area leading to starvation and spread of disease: ed]; and that it is significant that the UK has lost a staggering 97% of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s.

Find out more here.