Our garden is always full of bees, but this year (2019) there are more than ever. And there seem to be more species than usual, too. Or perhaps it is simply that I have not paid proper attention, have been happy to enjoy the choir of bee song around me, without bothering to observe more closely the variety of bees that visit. So The Bee Book , with its handy identification guide and wealth of information, has come along at just the right time. I now know, for instance, that there are 20,000 species of bees around the world, though only nine species of honeybees. I also know that we have over 250 species of bees in the UK, including 25 species of bumblebees. And, on a gloomier note, I am reminded that bee numbers - despite their glorious abundance in our garden just now - are in shocking decline.Author Jo Byrne begins with a funny yet salutary story about her first attempt to grow cucumbers in her conservatory.

To her delight, the plants grew tall and lush, but . no sign of a cucumber. Although she had successfully protected them from slugs and snails by growing them in the conservatory, she had also kept out pollinators. 'Not the sharpest tool in the box, I'd forgotten about one essential ingredient in my diligent gardening attempts. Bees.'Clearly a bee enthusiast, Byrne combines warmth and humour with clarity and concision as she writes about everything from bee physiology and life cycles, to bees in myth, legend, art and literature. (I especially enjoyed the three fables from Aesop, and the story of the 300 gold and garnet bees found in the tomb of the fifth-century king, Childeric.) In a chapter devoted to wasps, from which bees are thought to have originally descended, she calls for a little sympathy for 'the scourge of the picnic'.

Apparently, by late summer, wasps are angry and insistent because they are starving and drunk (dropped fruit is beginning to ferment). But they are also great pollinators and 'phenomenal natural pest control' as they eat soft insects like caterpillars and aphids.Byrne also includes two very useful chapters on the reasons for declining bee numbers, and what is being done around the world to combat this, particularly by organisations such as Friends of the Earth, who were instrumental in persuading the UK government to back the EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides. Bees might have been around for 100 million years or so, but they are now among the 40% of invertebrate pollinators at risk of global extinction.So, although The Bee Book is tiny (small format, with just over a hundred pages), it is a wonderful introduction to almost every aspect of a fascinating subject. It is also a very beautiful book - full of stunning colour photographs and with gorgeous endpapers designed by Mick Toole - which makes it a perfect gift for a friend, or a small treat for yourself.