sorry Steve1958, as you can see many of us here (not all!) are very suspicious of some of the organisations that are starting to proliferate supposedly pushing the save the bee campaign. I hope you can see this point of view too.
It's an interesting comparison to what Finman says - in our local Parish magazine, there is a farmer who writes every month , always coming from the perspective of little education, always been tilling the land etc (and it's true) but he is a very eloquent writer. This month he wrote about the RSPB and yet another study claiming the bird populations are dropping.
He thinks that, like what Finman says, alot of the 'research' ends up self perpetuating and almost creates a job for someone, then that job has to be maintained, and the best way is to promote the issue that things are worse, not better. He makes a very valid point that while songbird populations have dropped, the rapter (hawk etc) populations have soared off the back of banning egg collecting and shooting them - and they naturally feed on songbirds, as do magpies (and I have yet again seen 100s this year so far).
So by encouraging one population, the other population suffers (a bit like rabbits & foxes)
Not that I am saying the Save the Bees compaign is doing anything like this, but it is an interesting comparison all the same.
regards
S