大象传媒

Brought to the UK by the Romans 2,000 years ago, honey bees make a massive and vital contribution to life on Earth. Not only do they provide honey, but they pollinate much of the flora we admire. Of even more significance, is their role in helping to produce the food we eat. Without bees there would be no fruit, no vegetables and pretty certainly, in an alramingly short amount of time, there would be no us. Einstein reportedly calculated that if bees become extinct, then in five years so would the human race. A worrying enough prediction in itself, made more alarming recently because the population of bees is plummeting rapidly and that definitely includes here in Britain. At least we know there are problems, we just need to find a way to solve them and hope that Einstein got his sums wrong! On their bad side, bees do sting. If anyone is unlucky enough to be attacked by a swarm it would be pretty scary, but it is unlikely. Bees normally only sting a person if they have been really upset. By stinging, the bee sacrifices its own life. Leaving half its body attached to the sting, it will shortly die.