An illustrated guide to helping Britain's best-loved bug.

We need bees. We rely on them not only to pollinate our planet but to sweeten our lives with the fruits of their labours – honey, beeswax, Royal Jelly. These tiny, hardworking insects have transformed our lives with their quiet diligence; fertilising much of our food, most of the wild plants we rely on, and giving us thousands of years of sugary pleasure, candlelight and beauty treatments.

But bees are in danger. Across the planet, bee numbers are plummeting. Honey bees, fat, fluffy bumblebees and key species of solitary bees are disappearing from our gardens, fields and wild spaces. Over the past 50 years, the UK has lost more than half its solitary bee numbers and three species of bumblebee have gone extinct. In the rest of Europe, nearly one in ten species of wild bees are facing extinction, in the US about a quarter of all wild bees have disappeared in the past ten years alone.

Thankfully, we can do something if we act now. In The Bee Bible, best-selling author Sally Coulthard shows us fifty positive ways we can all save bees; from planting flowers bees love to mowing less, buying the right honey to influencing public spaces and government policy. Whether you garden for bees, shop with bees in mind, campaign for bees, or just learn a bit of bee-whispering, little things can make a big difference. Just ask a bee.