I suppose it’s because I’m looking for them most of the time now that I’m finding so many sickly-seeming Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Their behaviour is increasingly out of character and the only way I can think of to describe them at times would be to use words like moribund, torpid or sluggish. It’s not just to do with cooler temperatures or protracted spells of heavy rain either because other Bees appear to remain unaffected. It’s something else….and it’s getting worse by the week! Oddly, I find most of these poorly-looking Bees clinging to Common Comfrey flowers….an effective medicinal plant used in huge quantities in the past by herbalists and healers to treat the wounded on ancient battlefields and, until very recently, as an emergency alternative to modern antibiotics by the likes of forward operating reconnaissance units when their regular supplies of modern medicines had perhaps been exhausted. Similarly useful medicinal-type plants include the likes of Burr, Common Centaury and Buck’s-Horn Plantain, but, sadly, the powers that be these days no longer advocate the teaching of such survival techniques for even the most specialist of military units, preferring the exclusive use of broad-spectrum antibiotics instead. Mind you, I guess there’s no-one left in the military to teach that kind of thing anyway.