Today marks the launch of a new feature on Greenthinkers - GT World Watch. What the heck is GT World Watch? Well, it’s just our attempt at a little bit of fun as we look at quirky, weird, or generally obscure or overlooked enviro-stories.

Today, we are proud to pass on word from the Financial Times that beekeeping has become a surprisingly popular pastime among urbanites in Britain as people are turning increasingly to environmentally sound hobbies.

The British Beekeepers Association reported that its membership had risen by a quarter in the past two years, driven by the rise in townie enthusiasts. Training courses for would-be apiarists were over-subscribed with long waiting lists in downtown areas.

The recent rise in the number of beekeepers has not, however, been enough to recover hive numbers to those seen in the 1980s. In the past two decades, the bee population in the UK has suffered severely from a parasite called varroa, which caused many people to abandon beekeeping in the 1990s. Recent reports have suggested that bees may be dying in even greater numbers and under threat from a number of factors including pollution, climate change and mobile phones. But the main focus has been fears that a problem affecting bees in the US, called colony collapse disorder, could have spread to the UK.

Photo credit: BeeData.com