Thursday marks the start of the annual national bee count but experts are pessimistic about its outcome.

Things are bad for all insects but for pollinating species, the situation is frankly abysmal,” Els Voorbij of beekeepers organisation Bijkersgilde told local broadcaster Omroep Gelderland.

“The landscape is practically devoid of coloured flowers. Meadows and the edges of farmers’  fields used to be full of white clover, cornflowers, red clover and field scabious. But now everything is green. That’s no good to a bee,” she said.

Other factors in the declining bee numbers are increasing urbanisation and climate change, Joris Knoops of the Dutch beekeepers association Nederlandse Bijenhoudersvereniging said. “More houses mean there is less food for bees and because of climate change there are more parasites that attack bees. The pesticides on flowers are also a threat to bees,” he said

 The bee count should lead to a better awareness of the precariousness of the bees in the Netherlands, Knoops said. “We have seen a decline in pollinating insects for years. People travelling to the south of France have noticed fewer dead insects on their license plates than before. That is an indication of how bad things are.

The count will show where and which species are still active and which places have lost bees. This will help local councils, the provinces and ecologists to determine what they need to do to promote the return of the bees, such as seeding verges.

But according to Voorbij, the current government is not one to “do anything to improve nature.” “It doesn’t have priority and the bees will continue to suffer,” she said.

Last year’s count resulted in 41,431 bees, including 7,000 honey bees, the only variety not threatened with extinction in the Netherlands. This year’s count will last until Monday.