THE young female escapes the home to meet as many males as she can in one afternoon, before being tied to the house for three years where she is fed and pampered and encouraged to make babies.

Not an example of the leisure pursuits of today's young women, but the life of a queen bee, which is confined to years of relentless reproduction after one afternoon of frenzied mating.

With a beehive being voted one of this year's top accessories for the summer in a national newspaper recently, bees and beekeeping are becoming increasingly popular.

Although a pleasant and relaxing pastime for some, beekeeping is intrinsically important to certain aspects of our food industry and incredibly important in pollinating plants - there would be very little fruit if it were not for bees pollinating the trees it grows on.

In Britain and the rest of the world, nearly all of the wild colonies of bees have died out, thanks largely to viruses and unexplained phenomena.

But in organisations like the Melksham & District Beekeepers Association, the skill is being shared with more and more people in Wiltshire.

The branch has been in existence for about 70 years and has approximately more than 80 members who meet in Lackham.

Its main aim is to promote and further the craft of beekeeping and to represent the interests of beekeepers in the local area.

Dr Mark Fife, 35, is a member and has been keeping bees in his garden in Wilsford, Pewsey, since 2006.

He is very concerned about the threats that bees face in this country and encourages others to lobby Government for more money to do research.

He said: "The plight of beekeeping in the UK and around the world has received much attention recently and rightly so. They are responsible for a multi-million pound pollination industry.

"Varroa destructor is a particularly nasty problem affecting bees at the moment.

"An external parasitic mite called varroatos attacks honey bees by attaching to the body of the bee and sucking its lymph, or blood, leading to a significant weakening.

"A heavy mite infestation will lead to the death of a honeybee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring.

"Additionally there is Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) which is a poorly understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or colony abruptly disappear.

"No-one knows exactly what causes it, although there are numerous theories, and there is an acute need for more research into this and other conditions affecting bees."

Dr Fife is infectiously enthusiastic about beekeeping and the intricate and complex system bees operate within the man-made hives.

He said: "It's great fun and the bees are intriguing. From the waggle dance the workers perform to let other bees know where to find the pollen, to the complex hierarchy within the colony.

"The queen bee only mates for one day in her life. She starts out as a larvae floating in royal jelly, a nutritious mix of proteins reserved in large quantities for potential queens. Then she emerges, kills off the other queen larvae and waits for her wings to mature.

"Once she is ready, she flies out of the hive and mates with as many drones as she can, in one day.

"When she returns to the colony she remains there, fed by nurse bees, her every need attended to, and is expected to produce eggs constantly for three years, while she controls the whole colony of bees with her pheromones. It's amazing."

To sign the petition and add your support to the call for more research into bee diseases visit www.britishbee.org.uk/bbka_research_campaign.php
For more information about the Melksham & District Beekeepers Association, call (01225) 709414 or visit www.wiltshirebeekeepers.org.uk/Melksham/Melksham.php