Geoff Stebbings from Gardening Answers magazine gives some advice to the BBC’s Kerry Devine on the best way to help a distressed bee. Broadcast at 08:57 on Wednesday 9th June 2010 in the Peterborough Breakfast Show hosted by Paul Stainton on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
PAUL: It’s eight fifty seven Geoff and I know you look forward to this time every week, when Kerry comes in from the telephones and gives you her serious gardening question. Miss Kerry Devine.
KERRY: My questions is .. you know bumble bees? You know that at the moment they’ve got that disease where they get real tired and then they die? Yeah? Because I keep seeing ..
PAUL: Don’t look at me Geoff.
GEOFF: (LAUGHS)
KERRY: Geoff!
PAUL: Don’t look at me.
KERRY: You know when they be asleep on the ground?
GEOFF: Yes.
KERRY: And because they’re tired because they go round they get loads of pollen?
GEOFF: Right.
KERRY: Well I’ve created a pollen-shaker. It’s like a salt-shaker but you put all the pollen from the flowers into it, and then you just shake it on the bee.
PAUL: (COLLAPSES)
KERRY: And then they don’t have to collect it and thy’re not tired.
PAUL: Is that a good idea Geoff, a pollen-shaker?
GEOFF: It’s better to get a life really.
PAUL: (COLLAPSES)
KERRY: I cannot believe Geoffry, after all the time we’ve spent together, that you’ve said that to me.
(GENERAL HILARITY)
PAUL: I think if you pop round to Lakeland they might buy it off you, a pollen-shaker. I think it’s one of the funniest ..
GEOFF: I consider it a really good cellar.
PAUL: They’ll put it next to the egg-slicer.
KERRY: I was going to say what is the best bumble-bee plant. Out of all the flowers in the whole world, which one has the most pollen that I can put into it?
GEOFF: The thing is they want nectar more than pollen. Because pollen they collect for their grubs, so if they’re tired, what they want is nectar. So you’re better off making .. why do you look shocked?
KERRY: How do you make nectar?
PAUL: (HELPLESS IN BACKGROUND)
GEOFF: Well you just make .. mix sugar and water together, or a bit of honey and water, and put that for them to eat. Because that will give them the energy they need to fly off. So that’s better than shaking pollen on them.
KERRY: Oh no. I’ve been doing it all wrong.
PAUL: Well don’t worry, don’t worry. It’s not the first time Kerry.
(HANDOVER)
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Geoff Stebbings on Saving a Distressed Bee
Geoff Stebbings from Gardening Answers magazine gives some advice to the BBC’s Kerry Devine on the best way to help a distressed bee. Broadcast at 08:57 on Wednesday 9th June 2010 in the Peterborough Breakfast Show hosted by Paul Stainton on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.