How Bee Kind is your garden?

Bumblebees are loveable and hard-working insects, that provide a vital pollinating role, but their numbers and those of other insects, are in decline.

 

The importance of gardens as bumblebee havens is more significant than ever. The good news is you don’t have to be an expert gardener to help bees; you don’t even have to have a garden! A window-box, balcony or hanging basket will do. This guide is full of simple tips to get your space buzzing.

Simple tips for all bumblebee gardening

With 24 species of bumblebee in the UK, your gardening space, however small, can attract a surprising range of bumblebees.

Here are three top tips to attract many different bumblebees:

  • Provide flowering plants from early spring to late autumn and winter.
  • Bumblebees forage for nectar and pollen for much of their annual lifecycle.
  • Choose plants with long flowering times and keep them flowering by ‘deadheading’ as flowers die.
  • Grow flowers with different shaped flowers – some bumblebees with short tongues forage on open, simple flowers such as apple blossom while bumblebees with long tongues can forage on deeper tube-shaped flowers such as foxgloves.
  • Plant flowers in clumps or clusters of the same type if you have space, to help bumblebees save energy and get from flower to flower more quickly.

How Bee Kind is your garden?

Drew Smith are delighted to be working with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust by sharing information about how to encourage and look after bees in your own garden.

Take a look at their Bee Kind website and discover how to be bee-friendly in your own garden.