2 + 1 + 1.5 + 0.5*

Vespa, Bumble, Wizard, Honey, Norton, Vincent. Verging on poetry; a good start for a word game, or a word-association analysis. Most likely, this plant is one of these. It's a bean, of course, but these are the  names of the main agricultural varieties. I wonder who picks them; like naming children

For the beekeeper, beans are a decent second best, after oilseed rape (OSR). In this country, these two are the only field crops grown on any scale that will yield honey. Bumble bees love beans; honeybees find nectar in the deep flowers hard work to access. If they are lucky, bumbles will bite a hole in the base of the flower, which a honeybee can then use. Beans also weep necar on to 'nectaries' (little ledges) on the stem, trying to attract ants, but bees can take advantage

A very large area is being grown close to the apiary/orchard where I hope we will have bees again this year; this is an added incentive. The farmer used to grow OSR but has probably decided that, now neonicotinoid seed dressings are banned, OSR has too high a risk of crop failure due to insect damage. Beans are a traditional crop in this area and the obvious alternative 'break crop' in a cereal rotation. As a legume, they boost soil nitrogen and pave the way for a good wheat crop in the subsequent year

UK produces getting on for a million tonnes of beans per year. About a quarter is exported, via ships from Felixtowe, mainly to Egypt, with a little to Jordan, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. Here, they use them to make falafel - more to their tase than more expensive chickpeas. In UK, we eat a few - we sell them as fava beans - but almost all those not exported are used for animal feed: cattle, pigs and poultry, even pigeons. Growing a high protein crop and the feeding it to animals to generate a smaller quantity of meat protein is utter folly from a land use, climate impact, nutritional or economic perspective. Not Wizard, just completely Bumble

* To have common sense and astute judgement is to "know how many beans make five". In my childhood, at least, the required answer was "two beans, a bean, a bean-and-half and half a bean"