Broad bean bumble bee beckons

I WAS working in the vegetable garden — actually that’s not strictly correct, I was taking it easy on a garden seat and admiring the work I’d done.

I was also admiring the tireless work of a bumble bee that was moving down a row of broad beans, visiting each flower and taking a quick sip of nectar. In the process, of course, it was pollinating the flowers ensuring that I’d get a heavy crop of beans. It’s good to have helpers.

Then I noticed something that was not so good. A small white butterfly was flitting around over the cabbages. The small white and the large white are sometimes called the cabbage whites because of the damage their caterpillars can do to a crop.