The bees allow scientists to track changes in a low-cost way, one entomologist said.

The research is part of the National Honey Monitoring Scheme, which began in 2018.

Working with beekeepers across the country, the project has built up a honey archive to monitor long-term patterns and trends.

Dr Lindsay Newbold, a molecular microbial ecologist at UKCEH, said bees were “amazing”.

“They’re sort of like our remote samplers,” she said.

“They go out, they explore the environment, they go and actually look for all the plants… then they bring it back to the hive and they make honey.”

The honey is then analysed for pollen grains to help scientists build a picture of plant species present around the hives, which change with the environmental conditions.