Homecoming buzz: short-haired bees return to UK

(AP) -- A conservationist says she is releasing 100 short-haired bees into the wild, 20 years after they were wiped out in the British countryside.

The bees' population has declined dramatically across Europe in the last two decades as their habitats were destroyed.

They were declared extinct in Britain twelve years ago, however a colony had survived in southern Sweden.

Nicky Gammans told the AP she collected the bees in April, and held them in quarantine for several weeks before releasing them into the wild Monday in a nature reserve in Dungeness, Kent in southeast England.

She says she hopes the bees will feed off red clover flowers in the reserve and spread to the rest of the country.