The French government has just announced that it will be sowing 250 kilometers of roadways in the country with bee-friendly plants this year, in an attempt to support the bee population. Bees, those absolutely essential pollinators of flowering plants, have been attacked in the last few years by mysterious agents that have decimated bee populations all over the world. The idea here is that a greater variety and larger quantity of flowers that bees like will help increase populations.
Sounds like a good idea. Here in Quebec (as well as in other jurisidictions) roadways are no longer systematically bowed, but allowed to grow up with "wild" plants. The program has been in place since the mid-1990s, and not only are highways nicer to look at, there seems to have been a net ecological advantage. It would not take much more effort to plant bee-friendly plants here too. Some of them would undoubtedly also help butterflies.
Photo: Purple cornflower,Echinacea purpurea (Asteraceae), Texas A&M University
1 comment:
I think that is a perfectly brilliant idea!
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