NORTH Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson joined schoolchildren from around the town to find out how to help save the UK’s bee population.

Justin, along with his wife Jo, attended a Bee Café workshop at B&Q’s Kids Can Do It centre last week. The sessions aim to teach children, aged seven to 11-years-old, how to create a bee friendly habitat at home.

The workshops are free to all B&Q Club members and let kids get hands-on by creating their very own Bee Café with pollen rich plants.

The MP helped the youngsters get stuck in while learning about why it is so important to help the bee population.

Justin said: “It’s fantastic that local children can learn about the plight of the bee, which has been very topical recently.

“The kids have had a lot of fun here and Jo and I learnt a lot about what we can do in our garden to encourage bees.

“Local residents have been supporting national campaigns to support our vital bee population and this was a real fun, practical way for children and parents to help play their part.”

In January, as a precautionary measure, B&Q was one of the first major UK retailers to pledge to help protect the bee by voluntarily withdrawing products containing imidacloprid, the pesticide which has been proven to be harmful to bees.

Bees are vital to the UK’s food security and economy and recent studies show a drop of up to 30 per cent in bee colonies in Europe due to a variety of potential causes such as disease, habitat loss, certain pesticides and pollution.

Matthew Sexton, director of corporate social responsibility at B&Q, said: “Our Bee Friendly campaign is ramping up as we’re now teaching kids across the UK how to help the bee population.

“Our new workshops are proving to be popular with children as we help educate the next generation of gardeners.”