Creating a buzz about bees

If you had to guess which paper might carry a story with the headline "Bees contribute more to British economy than Royal Family", the resolutely traditionalist Telegraph would probably be fairly far down the list. But fair play to them for highlighting (albeit in a clickbaity way) the huge significance of bees in terms that the Tory government actually understands.

Here's hoping that the current petition to prevent the reintroduction of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides (in the short term) and sustained campaigns such as Friends Of The Earth's Bee Cause (in the long term) are successful. Anyone idiotic enough to respond to the Telegraph's vox pop question "Are we doing enough to protect bees?" with "Out of our hands - let nature take its course" fails to grasp the fact that the decline in bee populations isn't natural at all - it's the direct consequence of human interference with ecosystems.