More bee colonies make it through winter

But while there was a "small and encouraging improvement" in survival rates this year, the UK's honeybees were still not healthy enough, the organisation's president Martin Smith warned.

According to figures collected by the BBKA from more than 1,000 of their members, 17.3 per cent of colonies across the UK were lost over the winter.

However there were significant regional variations, with losses of more than a quarter of colonies (26 per cent) in the north of England and 12.8 per cent in the South West.

Nationwide, the figures were a slight improvement on 2008/2009 when 19.2 per cent of colonies did not make it through the winter.