Stephen Barnes is in his 21st year of beekeeping. He took over his father’s hives after his death and now has 25 in Keswick, Cockermouth and Carlisle.

He is chairman of Keswick and District Beekeepers Association and president of the overall Cumbria association, and his honey is on sale from shops in Cockermouth.

“Last year’s crop was outstanding,” he declares. “It was the best crop I’ve ever had.”

Yet there’s no guarantee that future summers will be quite so good.

Bees are under serious threat.

Their numbers have dropped by a third in the last 10 years. Now 35 different species are facing extinction.

And Stephen is in no doubt about the cause.

“Habitat loss is by far the most serious concern,” he says.

“I trained in agriculture and I’ve seen huge changes in the countryside since the 1970s.

“There are huge areas of the country that are deserts as far as bees are concerned.”

He reckons it applies to many other insects. “Years ago when I used to go driving in the countryside, every so often you’d have to stop and clean the windscreen because it was splattered with insects.

“That just doesn’t happen anymore.”

The disappearance of bees matters because it would cause more problems to humans than just a shortage of honey. Bees easily top a list of the most important creatures. Many other animals, including us, rely very heavily on them for much of our food.

As bees travel from flower to flower in search of nectar, they carry pollen with them. That pollen is what plants, flowers and many commercial crops need to reproduce.

Other insects, such as hoverflies and butterflies, do some pollination for us. But bees are the principal ones.

They pollinate 70 of the 100 crops that feed 90 per cent of the world’s population.

Some of those crops also feed the animals from which we get meat and dairy produce. In short, they provide far more than what we spread on our toast.

Diets in Britain are less heavily reliant on pollinated crops than in some places. But Tanya St Pierre of Cumbria Wildlife Trust points out: “One in three mouthfuls of the food we eat has been pollinated.

“The less pollination, the fewer trees and the fewer wild flowers there’ll be.

“That would mean less fruit – apples, pears, plums, cherries and raspberries would all be affected.

“Pollination is needed for cucumbers, courgettes, beans, tomatoes.

“Some grasses are pollinated. Without it the food for livestock would also be affected.”

So later this month the wildlife trust is about to launch a three-year project to help them.

Get Cumbria Buzzing will create 115 hectares, or 284 acres, of pollinator-friendly areas across the county, full of the wild flowers and plants most popular with bees.

They will be divided between 62 sites dotted across the county, as stepping stones along two “corridors”, allowing the insects to travel easily between them.

One will run from Penrith to Workington, close to the current A66. The other would run from Calder Bridge along the west coast and east to Carlisle.

Grass verges, school grounds, gardens, public green spaces and elsewhere will all provide areas for the flowers and plants.

It should improve the appearance of these places – and also, Tanya is confident, bring back the bees.

The scheme has already received £800,000 worth of funding from Highways England and she is now waiting to hear whether the Heritage Lottery Fund and other sources will double that.

The use of pesticides and spread of diseases have been blamed for the sharp decline in bees.

But Tanya, who is Get Cumbria Buzzing’s project manager, agrees with Stephen about the main reason.

“The most important factor is habitat loss over the last 70 years,” she says. “We have more roads and more housing where we once had grassland and flower-rich meadows.

“We’ve lost 97 per cent of our flower meadows over 70 years and 50 per cent of our hedgerows. Much of the remaining hedgerow is fragmented or degraded. Our farmland has changed massively.

“That’s why our parks and roadside verges are so important.”

The flowers we choose for own gardens can be one way to help them, and Tanya lists some of the best plants for pollinators. “Daisies, lavender and herbs like rosemary and thyme are really good.

“Goat willow and devil’s bit are also good. I have a plant in my garden called viper’s bugloss which is a real bee magnet.”

Foxgloves, geraniums, comfrey, teasel and catmint are also attractive to them.

“Species that were once widespread could come back with the right management.”

And it would definitely make a noticeable difference to bee numbers. “If everyone just planted a square metre in their garden it would add up to a huge amount.”

Wetheral parish council has started its own smaller-scale scheme.

The Let It Bee project involves residents and children from the primary schools in Great Corby, Warwick Bridge and Cumwhinton and the pre-schools in Scotby and Wetheral. They have been planting wildflowers in gardens throughout the parish to support bee populations.

The parish council has provided wildflower seeds and created a “bee hotel” within its woodland cemetery in Wetheral. The plan is to run the scheme every year.

“Bees have been in decline in recent times, raising concerns over the pollination of crops and the effect this has on the food chain,” says council chairman Dave Hughes.

“As a rural parish council, we recognise the important part bees play in this process and, by initiating Let It Bee, we hope that children will have great fun, learn about important environmental issues, and end up with lovely colourful gardens.”

The Cumbria Beekeepers Association has branches in Carlisle, Cockermouth, Keswick, Penrith and Whitehaven and Robin MacLeod is chairman of the Carlisle branch.

He has been keeping beehives in his garden in Brampton for the past eight years and like Stephen found last summer was a good one.

“In a good year I might get 70 to 80lb of honey from three hives,” he says. “If it’s cold and wet you get very little. The bees aren’t out and about.”

Concerns about the sharp decline in bees have actually increased interest in the activity, Robin notes. “I’ve seen all the reports about bees becoming rarer, and as an association we have been growing.

“People are more aware of the environment and there has been an overall decline in bees, there’s no doubt about it. That has drawn beekeeping to people’s attention.

“It’s being discussed in schools. Children are aware of it.”

One way to help the bees is to become a beekeeper yourself. And they’re nothing to be afraid of.

“People get nervous about bees. They have this vision that a bee is going to sting you.

“If they are away off to get nectar or are bringing it back they would scarcely need to sting.

“They are not really interested in you.”