Highway of food gets bees buzzing

Norway's bee population has been in decline. Photo / Getty Images

The city of Oslo now has what it's calling a bee highway - a path of flowering plants designed to keep bees well-fed as they pass through the urban area.

Supporters hope initiatives like this can help protect bees - one-third of Norway's native bee species are now endangered - and by extension protect the crops that rely on bees for pollination.

The idea is simple. The Oslo Garden Society has placed flowerpots full of bee-friendly plants on roofs and balconies throughout the city, creating a route for bees to travel through without starving.

A website shows locals where more flower coverage is needed and encourages them to plant more.

"The idea is to create a route through the city with enough feeding stations for the bumblebees all the way," Tonje Waaktaar Gamst of the Oslo Garden Society told a local paper.

"Enough food will also help the bumblebees withstand man-made environmental stress."

Agence France-Presse reports that businesses have also joined in. One accounting firm has spent about US$50,000 ($72,590) to cover its terrace in flowering plants and enough beehives to house 45,000 bees.

The decline of the pollinating bee - and the causes of that decline, which could include fungi, pests, lack of food and pesticide use - is vigorously debated.

But while the restriction of pesticides such as neonicotinoids, which some believe have an adverse effect on honeybees, may not gain widespread support without more evidence, planting flowers is a fix that's hard to argue with.

Besides, research suggests that so-called "green spaces" in urban areas - ones with trees, grass, flowers, and animals - are beneficial to human health and wellness.

So planting flowers for transient bees is really a win-win.

Those outside of Oslo can take advantage of a similar site with a global reach.

The Pollinator Partnership encourages individuals to create bee-friendly environments on their property and add them to an online map: tinyurl.com/tinyurl-com-bees. Washington Post