Dearth of bees the reason why life is so bitter

IWAS rather depressed by the news recently that South Africa’s bee population had decreased by 40%. A lot of that is due to the use of insecticides, and because we are not planting enough flowers. Every gardener seems set on growing “food for the hungry”, so whip out the roses and stick in cabbages. But what about food for the hungry bees?

We also uproot eucalyptus trees and plant millions of palms. Whoever heard of palm honey?

We are now urged to grow flowers and create comfortable places for bees to nest. It isn’t simply a matter of no honey for your breakfast toast, either. It is a serious threat to fruit crops too, because they rely on bees to pollinate the fruit trees. No bees – no apples or peaches.

Growing flowers means using water, and we are also told not to “waste” too much water on our gardens. Gardeners find themselves between a rock and hard place, as they say.

And if it’s not bad enough facing a future without fruit or honey, the chocolate manufacturers are steadily robbing us of our daily chocolate fix. The road ahead doesn’t look very sweet.

In spite of the international price of cocoa having dropped sharply since it reached record prices two years ago, manufacturers continue to shrink the size of their products sneakily.

Some don’t even have the honesty to shrink the size of the wrapping. They just use the same old wrapper and leave a third of it empty.

The Toblerone triangular chocolate bar has done its “shrinkflation” by increasing the spaces between the chunks, thereby reducing the amount of chocolate by 10%.

What’s particularly sneaky about this is that the bar is still the same overall size so you think you’re still buying the same size for your money.

But you’re actually buying more spaces and less chocolate. Apparently spaces have increased in price.

And we think it’s only the politicians who are dishonest.

The makers of Maltesers have cut the number of sweets in their packets by 15%, they say. No cut in price, though.

I also read somewhere that the European price of sugar dropped to its lowest level ever in March. Have we seen the price of jam or cooldrink dropping much? Dream on. At least the bees have an excuse. With sweet manufacturers it’s blatant greed, like some of our politicians. And they don’t produce very much sweetness either.

Listen to any group of people chatting in the bar. Want to taste real bitter? It’s not only in the beer these days.

Last Laugh

A patient woke up in hospital after an operation to amputate a gangrenous leg. The surgeon was standing beside him with a worried look on his face and said: “I have some bad news for you, but also some good news.” “What’s the bad news?” the patient asked. “I’m sorry to say we amputated the wrong leg,” the doctor admitted.

“Oh my God! That’s terrible,” wailed the patient. “What’s the good news?”

“I think we might be able to save the other leg.”