As gardeners we are all aware of the vital role that bees play in nature.
We are also very well placed to do alot to support the ailing bee population. The jury is still officially out on what is the real problem affecting our honey bees, but it is clear that bee disease and pollution are playing their part.
Gardeners are constantly being encouraged to grow pollen and nectar rich plants to feed the bees, especially anything that flowers very early in the year when the bees are starting to forage.
One exhibit in the Great Pavilion provided plenty of ideas of what trees a gardener could plant to support these vital creatures.
Trees for Bees, was presented by the British Beekeepers Association.
"We've got a tree that flowers for each month of the bees foraging year, so that they can provide continuous forage for the bees throughout the year. So we start off with the mimosa it provides mainly pollen but a little bit of nectar. Then we've got alder, which has masses of pollen, which is fantastic early in the year when the bees are feeding their brood, and then Amelanchier, which is pretty, and lots of nectar, and then sorbus, a white beam, lime, sweet chestnut, koelreuteria and then the Chinese bee tree, tetrodium, which flowers in September. We reckon that 5 or 6 trees provide more forage for bees than an acre of wildflower meadow. It's so much easier for people to plant a tree than to try and grow masses of flowers. We think gardeners are really well placed to help bees. Bees need gardeners is the theme of our exhibit," a BBKA supporter told me.
Helping support the bees shouldn't be a party political matter, but
there was one politician who has taken up the cause at the show helping to spread the word. Vince Cable is a patron of his local apiary and has been very vocal
in his support for the cause.
"I first got interested in this 6 or 7 years ago when the apiary had an open day, they invited in the residents and I was invited as the local MP. I hadn't previously realised, how important bees were for the ecosystem and for commercial agriculture and what the threats were and I think they were just beginning to appreciate the varroa mite and the damage that was being done," he told me.
"People have gradually cottoned on that this is a very very big issue that affects all of us. There is a group of MP's who've got very interested in this matter, myself, Ian Gibson who is a scientist and an MP for Norwich and one or two others and we are trying to raise the profile of this in parliament, there is this issue now about the £10 million pledged by the government for bee research but the impression I get is that although the government has done the right thing in waking up to the problem, they are unable to make up their minds what to do with the money. The BBKA understand very clearly where the priorities are, it is bee health, they have a costed programme, but there is a kind of bureaucratic battle going on, and we have to make sure we cut through that and make sure the money goes where it should go."