Bee thoughtful!
Bees are under threat, but their main problem in the urban environment is not colony die-back or the varroa mite, but starvation! This is what Clifton WI learnt from David Maslin of Bristol Beekeepers, who gave a funny, idiosyncratic and hugely informative illustrated talk. David explained that the increase in urban beekeeping had exacerbated an acute shortage of food sources lost to development, but we can help them by sowing wildflowers wherever we can find space. Surprisingly, it also seems that bees cannot access the nectar in many modern hybrid garden flowers, so very often we're not helping them as we think we are.
We also learnt that bees like blue flowers best, followed by yellow and white, but they do not see the colour red very well so they aren't attracted to red blooms.
