BEES seem to prefer the buzz of the big city to the country, Oxfordshire scientists have found.

This summer researchers at Wallingford’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology asked 30,000 people across the country to count the number of bees visiting patches of lavender in cities, villages and the countryside.

They found the rate of bee visits to flowers in built-up urban areas was far higher.

Scientists at the centre said a likely reason for the finding was the way gardeners pack lots of different flower types together in small spaces.

Dr Helen Roy said it was an “exciting” result, proving that people can create “oases for wildlife” in cities.

The 30,000 people recorded more than 4,000 bumblebee sightings.

Entomologist James Hogan, of the Oxford University Natural History Museum, said bumblebees and honey bees were both affected by loss of wildflowers to monoculture farming.

He said: “There is a decline in pollinators in general because of a lack of flowers.”

According to Greenpeace, there has been a 45 per cent decline in commercial bee populations in the UK since 1985.

The charity has pointed to pesticides, herbicides, and loss of pollen and nectar sources due to changing farming practices, as possible causes.

A little-understood phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, where worker bees disappear from hives, is also being researched.

To try to help Oxford’s bee populations, Oxford City Council agreed to plant more wildflower seeds this autumn and stop mowing some of its grasslands, to provide more pollen and nectar sources.

Father Jonathan Beswick has been keeping honeybees at St Thomas The Martyr Church in Becket Street, West Oxford, for two years. Last year, his hives were so successful he had all the honey he wanted for his breakfast and started selling the excess in jars.

Father Beswick said the use of herbicides and loss of hedgerows in rural England over recent decades had sent bees foraging into back gardens, hanging baskets and city-centre flower planters in search of nectar.

He said: “It’s a commonly recognised fact that with changing farming practices in the last 60 or 70 years, city centre life is often easier for bees than the countryside.

“Many wildflowers have disappeared because of use of herbicides and loss of hedgerows, a lot of habitat has gone, whereas in the town there are a lot of flowers in back gardens and window boxes.

“Oxford is a particularly good city for that.”

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