Bees are responsible for pollinating up to a third of the food grown in this country but their numbers are in such decline that 80 per cent of the honey sold in Britain has to be imported from abroad.

The British Beekeepers' Association is asking the Government for £8 million to fund research into little understood diseases that are ravaging bee populations.

It also wants better access to medication for bees and improvements to bio-security to keep out foreign pests.

Dave Maslen, president of the Bristol branch of the Avon Beekeepers Association, said the decline of honey bees is a concern but one that he believes does not signal their ultimate demise and thus the end of the human race as some harbingers of doom have recently prophesied.

"Bees have got a lot of problems, there's no doubt about that," Dave says, standing by one of the hives in his garden in Small Lane, Fishponds, a hive that at its peak in the summer months can contain more than 50,000 bees.

"But this has happened before. In various parts of the world there have been large scale deaths of bees and things have gone back to normal. I'm fairly optimistic that will happen again."

Dave, 65, a former fireman, has been a beekeeper for 30 years and now often acts as the first point of call for any fellow beekeeper who is having trouble with their hives.

Unlike most beekeepers in the Bristol area, Dave, who describes himself as a "professional hobbyist", makes money from his bees and their honey.

Dave cultivates hives in gardens, orchards, fields and woodlands from Keynsham to Abbots Leigh. He then bottles the honey in a shed that he has converted into a climate-controlled 'honey house' and sells his wares at shops including Rolled Oats in Redland and Butternut Deli in St George, as well as at the fortnightly farmers' market on Corn Street.

Dave says that he first became intrigued by bees as a young boy and as soon as he owned a house with a back garden, he bought his first hive.

Over the winter, Dave visits his hives about once a month to make sure that they have not been squashed by falling trees or attacked by vandals of either the human or animal kind – badgers and woodpeckers tend to be the main culprits.

The work really starts in the spring, with beekeepers making sure that their bees are still alive, dealing with any diseases, changing boxes, strengthening the numbers in weak colonies, and cutting back grass and brambles.

By June in a good honey-producing year, Dave will then be racing from hive to hive collecting the honey and taking it back to his honey shed for processing and bottling.

On some days in the busiest periods, Dave starts work early in the morning after taking his dog for a walk, and can work until 10pm at night extracting the honey in the shed.

Being a beekeeper is hard work, and work that Dave says is not suited to everyone.

In his opinion, some people should not be able to drive motor vehicles, and some people should not be able to keep bees.

Dave says that he "appears to be cursed by a natural aptitude" for beekeeping. "I'm knee-deep in it. If I stopped now, I would have no reason to be. It's what I do.

"I have been in beekeeping now for 30 years and I don't know anything else. It's something I can do so I do it.

"I used to enjoy it. I used to have an ordinary life," Dave continues. "There's a degree of madness in it I suppose.

"You show me a beekeeper, and I will show you a slightly eccentric person."

Honey may course through his veins, but Dave has a dark secret.

"Honey is all right, but it's a bit sweet for me," he admits. "I don't eat much honey anymore.

When I first started, it was a novelty but that's worn off now. I do use it for cooking though, and I never have to buy sugar."

He adds: "Last year for beekeepers was catastrophic and the year before that was poor. But one is always optimistic and we have got our fingers crossed for 2009."