I realised that any successful counting was going to require a narrowing of the field. On the grounds that the birds were overwhelming I decided to concentrate my efforts on bees as these are something of a pet subject at the moment.  I failed to inform Goldilocks of my new strategy and every so often my efforts were interrupted by shrieks of, ‘Wagtail! Wagtail!’  

I think I may have counted the same carder bee (little burnt orangey ones) five times.  I thought I’d had more luck when six honey bees simultaneously landed on the patch of forget-me-nots outside the kitchen window, only to concede later with my ‘Collins British Wildlife’ in hand,  that my certain six honey bees may possibly have been only six drone flies.  I lost count of the buff-tail bumble bees, which I guess is a good thing, but the survey form doesn’t have a field for ‘estimate of all things buzzy’.   There were ‘quite a few’ (handy scientific term!) hover flies, which I identified mostly from the fact they were hovering, the minute you try to get near them they do this amazing warp speed getaway manoeuvre.   I  think that,  Winnie-ther-Pooh style, I will have to disguise myself as a raincloud in order to get close.  The Man from Salford thinks I will have no problem passing myself off as a rain cloud.

A more successful Easter activity was a visit to Trentham Gardens.  Goldilocks and her pals threw themselves around the adventure playground and then set forth on the ‘Bar Fuss’ or barefoot walk.  Boots and socks off, we bravely ventured through shin-deep mud, cold water, gravel, cobbles, bark-chip, sand and hay.  I couldn’t help feeling that I could have done something pretty similar walking home up the towpath for free.  Goldilocks claims that she is now desensitised to any surface and does not need shoes.  Great, I tell her, we will  lessen our global footprints by not buying any more new shoes and she looks more than a little crestfallen. 

We also visited Trentham’s eco-garden and came away with the idea of a ‘fedge’ for a child-friendly weekend garden project. 

Here is our fedge.  To the untrained eye it might look like something Eeyore knocked together, but hopefully to the multiple eyes of insects this is the Hilton.  We have stuffed our fedge with leaf-litter, reeds, pine cones, sticks and what I hope are some very dead Japanese knotweed stems.  These hollow stems are five-star accomodation for carder bees apparently.  I guess these structures can be as fancy or as simple as you like and I’m sure people more creative than us could come up with a more impressive fedge.   The project kept Goldilocks happily employed for a couple of hours, running to and forth with her finds and then trying to make them all stick together somehow. (Tip-use plenty of soft materials in between the sticks – leaves, conifer branches and reeds all seem to have good binding properties.)  We finished off by planting a couple of foxgloves  and sowing wild flower seeds at the base of our fedge in order to ‘advertise our vacancies’ to the insect world.  A passer-by admired our handy work and then inquired as to when we were intending to set fire to it!

Here is a bee, the bumbling sort I might add.  We found her in the dining room this weekend.  I’m guessing she came in with a basket full of logs from the woodstore, where she was probably hibernating for the winter.  She was pretty dozy, I hope she wasn’t unwell, she posed quite passively on this coffee filter paper.  Bumble bees (as opposed to honey bees and wasps) are not generally given to stinging, you’d either have to sit on one or be an extremely annoying person to get stung by one.  We have returned her to the woodstore and hopefully she will be ready to start a new colony of buff-tail bumble bees shortly.  She and all the male bees will die next winter, only the remaining fertilised ’queen’ bees will hibernate ready to start new colonies the following year.  But before then they will all be very useful pollinating our gardens and crops.  Bumble bees don’t make honey in quantities that would be useful to us, for that we must look to their sleeker cousins the honey bees.

Bees are in a spot of bother at the moment.  Their numbers (both bumble and honey) are declining.  Nobody is entirely sure why, and of course, there may be more than one reason for their decline.  Among the reasons given are the varroa mite, this parasite has been particularly devastating in the US where bee populations are purposely moved around the states in order to pollinate sucessive crops.  This movement makes them more susceptible to attack.  Global warming, or at least unpredictable weather patterns are blamed also.  The use of pesticides and modern farming methods, including the introduction of GM crops have been cited in the decline of the bee.  Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) whereby hives are mysteriously abandoned is disturbing.  Parasites that would normally raid empty hives refuse to go near them.  It has been suggested, although not conclusively proved, that the use of mobile phones plays a part in this as it interferes with bee navigation systems.   Oh and Goldilocks tells me that even Dr Who is concerned about the disappearance of bees.  Alien tampering!!!!  The point is that more research and action is needed to help the bee.

Einstein once said that without the bee humankind would only have four years left to live.  DEFRA, on a slightly less alarming note seem a little more laid back about the fate of bees, the opinion seems to be that they are not the only pollinators, a real slap in the face for bio-diversity!   Nevertheless, it is estimated that bees are worth £200m to the British economy per annum and DEFRA is now planning to put some funds (rather meagre some would argue)  into research and strategies to help bees.

We can help bees also.  If you decide to keep honey bees make sure you join up with www.britishbee.org.uk , as with all animals commitment and responsibility is paramount.  You may have a more general interest in helping bees in which case you can sign up with www.saveourbees.org.uk , if you are involved with young children and education they’ll send you some nice resources.  All gardeners, whether urban or rural, can help to create a ‘corridor of flowers’ so that the bumble bee can migrate freely and mate more sucessfully, inbreeding is a problem for bee populations.  You need to create a succession of bee friendly plants throughout the seasons, here are some suggestions:

• Spring – bluebells, daffodils, flowering currants, bugle,  forget-me-nots, pulmonaria, hellebores, hawthorn and pussy willow.
• Early Summer – foxgloves, aquilegia, comfrey, fennel, geranium, pontentilla, snapdragon, thyme, verbascum , astilbe and campanula.
• Late Summer - delphiniums, single-flowered dahlias, eryngium, fuchsias, buddleia, cornflower, penstemons, sedums, verbena bonariensis, lavender and heathers. 

You can make or buy bee hotels, to encourage the solitary bees such as mason bees, or you could buy a bee box (all available from Crocus) to encourage bees into your garden.   Natural Collection do a good range of bee and honey related beauty products and if  you just want to enjoy some honey, then Simply Fair are currently offering a 10% discount on their Equal Exchange fairtrade organic honeys.

I don’t need much encouragement to plant foxgloves, they are one of my all time favourites, the addition of bumble bees crawling in and out of the bells makes them that much more special.  I hope the queen we found this weekend will be sending out her offspring to do just that.