If you believe that the best sloe gin is consumed at least a year after making it, the tipple for this Christmas will have been on the bushes in October 2008 and was a mass of white flowers the previous March.

According to the latest research, the role that insects perform in transforming flowers into those all important fruit is an “ecosystem service”. More importantly, it is certainly true that if we didn’t have an abundance of pollinating insects in our hedges, we would have a lot less fruit to harvest.

We know this because PhD student Jenny Jacobs spent many happy weeks at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s research and demonstration farm at Loddington using fine netting to exclude insects from flowers and counting the number of sloes in the autumn. Just to be sure that the circumstances at Loddington were not unusual, she did the same work on farmland around her base at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden.

Perhaps surprisingly, dog rose and bramble didn’t need insect pollinators, but Jenny’s findings were very clear. If you don’t have insects, you don’t have sloes, and you don’t have hawthorn berries either. They are important winter food for birds, such as the fieldfares and redwings that visit us from Scandinavia each winter, as well as for that iconic avian symbol of Christmas, the robin. By artificially handpollinating some blackthorn flowers, Jenny was able to show that if the numbers of pollinators were to increase, the amount of fruit would as well. More insects mean more berries for birds and more sloes for us.

From that mass of white flowers in March only about three per cent produce sloes, even when insects are present, but we can ensure that as many are produced as possible by looking after our insects.

Queen bumblebees, which come stumbling out of hibernation in March probably play a key role here, but less obvious species of solitary bees also have a part to play. Rough grassy field margins and dead wood in hedge bottoms provide suitable over-wintering and breeding habitats for them.

We hear a lot about the plight of the honey bee, but bumblebees and solitary bees are incredibly important occupants of the countryside, not only for blackthorn and hawthorn, but also for more mainstream fruit, such as apples, pears and plums, that we depend on for food.

We need to look after them. So “ecosystem services” really is a buzzword that has some meaning. Just don’t try saying it after too many sloe gins!

Have your say: if you have a view on a current news topic, send it, in no more than 500 words, to selena_masson@ipcmedia.com.

Have your say: if you have a view on a current news topic, send it, in no more than 500 words, to selena_masson@ipcmedia.com.

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