Don't worry, BEE happy

Hopes high that insects will bounce back from a bad year

- JENNY BENNION

MY garden is dedicated to wildlife (with a bit of teenaged football thrown in for good I leave lots of the grass to grow long and bloom with wildflowers, the borders are planted up with pollinator friendly plants, and I never use any nasty pesticides or herbicides.

And normally it is abuzz with bees, butterflies, hoverflies and what seems like a million other insects.

But not this year.

This year has been a horrible year for insects, with hardly a bee buzzing, a butterfly fluttering or hoverfly hovering.

Our cold, wet, windy spring and summer seems to have knocked our insect population for six.

Common carder bees which are normally around until September had disappeared by July, and the red mason bees which normally fill the holes in my bee hotels with their larvae had vanished by early summer leaving lots of those nooks and crannies that would normally be filled with the next generation sitting forlorn and empty.

My garden has just felt a little bit lost without them.