These michaelmas daisies on Newington Green are being visited by a honey bee. Bumblebees and hoverflies can also be found on the Green, collecting some welcome pollen and nectar to feed on, well into September.

Many of our native bees are struggling to survive and their numbers have plummeted. We depend on bees to do most of our pollinating for us and therefore to help feed us. It has been estimated 'that every third mouthful of human food depends on the unmanaged pollination services of bees' (O'Toole 'Bumblebees' 2002).

There is a well known quote, supposedly from Albert Einstein, which makes this dependency very clear:

'If the bee disappeared off the face of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.'

Help Bees Survive

We can all help support bees by planting nectar and pollen-rich flowers in gardens, balconies, window boxes and in plant pots on our window sills. If you buy a plant, look for ones that have insects visiting them, so you can avoid buying sterile plants that may look beautiful but provide no food for bees and other insects. We can also provide places for them to nest and avoid using insecticides on our flowers, so that our lovely - and vitally necessary bees - are more able to survive.

If you have the chance to do so, you might consider following the lead of Justin Bere, who has a green roof  which is so well established after just one year, that a large range of insects and birds, including the honey bee, find his roof to be a valuable habitat for wildlife. Justin has now put a beehive on his roof as well! Thankfully, several bee species are still visiting Newington Green and have presumably been doing so for hundreds of years. 

Isaac Watts (1674-1748), was a pupil at Theophilus Gale's Dissenting Academy on Newington Green and later became a hymn writer. Watts, in his 'Divine Songs for Children' uses the industrious bee as a good example for children to follow:

  How doth the little busy bee

 Improve each shining hour,

 And gather honey all the day

 From every opening flower!

 How skillfully she builds her cell!

 How near she spreads the wax!

 And labours hard to store it well

 With the sweet food she makes.

 In works of labour or of skill,

 I would be busy too;

 For Satan finds some mischief still

 For idle hands to do...

(Quoted in 'The Village that Changed the World' by Alex Allardyce ~ p8)

19 September 2009