PROTECTING OUR NATIVE POLLINATORS

Since spring, I’ve been watching a myriad of pollinators zip tirelessly from the fruit blossoms, herbs, wild flowers and vegetables in my vegetable plot, providing me with their free pollination services. As a result, I’ve been enjoying bumper harvests.

Seeing such activity makes it hard to realise that a study earlier this year revealed that a third of British wild bees and hoverflies are in decline and, if current trends continue, some species will be lost from Britain altogether. Their traditional habitats of wild flower meadows have virtually disappeared, while climate change, toxic pesticides and disease all make for an unpredictable future for both pollinators and mankind, including our ability to grow food crops.

“Insect pollination is estimated to contribute more than £650 million a year to our economy, although this could be a huge underestimation”

When we consider ‘pollinators’, most of us automatically think of the honeybee, which is actually not native to northern Europe. In the UK, approximately three-quarters of our native plant species require pollination by insects not just by social and solitary bees, but a range of insects, including hoverflies, moths, butterflies and beetles. As such, our plants have not evolved with honeybees as their main natural pollinators.

If you look closely at your flowers, you’ll quickly see that honeybees have plenty of company. Insect pollination is