If only bees could tell their tale – and they have

Originally posted 15th January 2021

We are changing this world in so many ways and in some cases we haven’t got so much historical data to go by to see how much change is taking place. Thankfully, due to a PhD study on the feeding habits of bees in 1952 it was possible to repeat the survey in 2017 during another PhD research study to see what had changed. The data extracted shows how the landscape of the UK has changed in those short few decades, https://phys.org/news/2021-01-honeybees-reveal-floral-landscape-years.html, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55662985. Bees along with many other pollinators are suffering because of intensive farming and the increasing use of pesticides. Something that we should all be worried about.

I became interested in bees due to my wider interest in environmental change to human activity. So far I have written two stories for the 8-12 year old reader on the adventures of bees that face similar problems to real bees. In the first story, Busy Bee and the Endangered Meadow (two versions), https://www.amazon.co.uk/Busy-Endangered-Meadow-Paul-No%C3%ABl/dp/198320384X/, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Busy-Endangered-Meadow-Paul-No%C3%ABl/dp/B08BW5Y3CS/, the bees need to stop some greedy farmers building on their meadow. In the UK we have lost 97% of our meadows since the middle of the 20th century. Then in the follow up, Busy Bee and the Silent Spring, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Busy-Silent-Spring-Paul-No%C3%ABl/dp/B088JFN1ZV/, the bees have to solve the problem of a nearby farmer using banned pesticides. Although for younger readers a few adults have said that they enjoyed reading them too.