DECLINING BEE POPULATION: A bee lands on a White Cranesbill flower at Lindoya island in Oslo. In recent years bee populations around the world have been dying off from “colony collapse disorder”, a mysterious scourge blamed on mites, pesticides, virus, fungus, or some combination of these factors, UN-led research in 2016 found that more than 40 per cent of invertebrate pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, are facing extinction. — AFP