Adam's Apiaries: How to Create a Habitat For Bees
- Adam Goodall
- Feb 11, 2024
- 6 min read
Do you want to discover how to do all that you can to help out all pollinators? This blog post will help to give you some ideas on what you can do. I'm sure that as beekeepers we all do our bit to help the environment out, but do we do all that we can? Here are some simple things you can do to help ALL pollinators out throughout the year.
I am not much of a gardener. If it can be pruned with a hedge cutter or a strimmer it's the plant for me! Spending my afternoons deadheading flowers is not something I really have time for but as the house rebuild draws to a close I do find myself thinking a little more about what I can do outside the house to help all pollinators, but also look good.
So here are the top things to think about when looking to create a welcoming habitat or adjust what you already have:
Choose a diversity of native plants that produce nectar and pollen and have overlapping bloom times throughout the season.
Plant in drifts or large patches of colour to attract pollinators.
Provide water sources, such as birdbaths, ponds, or shallow dishes, for pollinators to drink and bathe.
Avoid using chemicals, such as pesticides and herbicides, that can harm pollinators or their food sources.
Preserve the natural habitat of pollinators, such as trees, shrubs, grasses, and groundcovers, and avoid mowing or pruning them excessively.
No Mow May
Many Englishman take great pride in there lawns, I know I do. Having pulled up most of the garden only a year ago when rebuilding the house, I had to re-seed. So the lawn became a bit of an obsession. So if someone told me not to mow the lawn for a month, to allow in short the weeds to grow I'm not sure how I would feel! But I'm sure I could leave a section. But if we all just left a section, think how many acres that would be. In a way this is a great way to help out all pollinators by actually reducing your weekly chores (for a month at least).
Build a bee hotel for solitary bees.
With over 200 species of solitary bee and the ever growing concrete plant we as humans are building, a little help from us in the way of a bee hotel is not to much to ask. At not a great expense you can buy these or simply follow the steps below to make one yourself. This can be a great little project with the family. Once its being used, it's great to see the bees coming and going. Just remember to position it so it's facing south.
Step-by-step guide to building a bee hotel
With a craft knife, cut both ends off the plastic bottle to create a cylinder. If using a length of water pipe to create the cylinder, sand the edges smooth.
Solitary bees go deep inside the hollow stems or bamboo canes, so use lengths of at least 100mm, ideally 150mm.
To keep the stems and canes dry from rain, make them 3 cm shorter than the cylinder – use sharp garden clippers to trim them. Bees can’t burrow through the knots in bamboo, so avoid canes with too many knots.
Use sandpaper to smooth the ends of the bamboo or stems if uneven. Bees will be put off by sharp edges barring entry to the holes. Splinters on the inside edges of stems can also cut their wings.
Use modelling clay or wax to block the rear of completely hollow canes – and to help secure the stems and bamboo in place. Bind the bunched stems and canes with twine.
Before filling the cylinder, thread a length of twine through, so you can hang up the finished hotel, making sure it’s secure and can’t be blown about in the wind.
If needed, pack in more hollow stems, bamboo, twigs and reeds until the cylinder is tightly packed and secure.
So with half the lawn cut, half the lawn full of weeds and your very own bee Ritz hotel now up in the garden this only leaves a few things to look at.
Forage
This is the one of the things that I want to really get right as we replant my gardens, doing the best I can to supply pollen and nectar all the way through the seasons. With an old Farm hedge down one side of my property I have a good run of Hawthorn and Ivy, along with a neglected Honeysuckle on the side of the garage. But there is plenty of room for improvement.
With the goal of providing a handy guide to pollinator-friendly plants – including trees, veg, herbs and flowers – to offer a valuable source of nectar and pollen through the year. Remember to experiment with different shaped flowers – the tongues of bees, hover flies, moths and other pollinators vary in size, see what grows well in your garden, there is always at least one avid gardener in your area and I'm sure they would be more than happy to tell you all about what grows well.
Below is a list of Plants that will provide a good source of pollen and nectar over the course of the year.
Trees and shrubs.
Pussy willow, Lavender, Abelia, Mahonia, Apple and Crab apple, hawthorn, honeysuckle, Ivy.
Herbs.
Mint, Fennel, Borage, Chives, Rosemary, Sage, Hyssop, Lemon balm, thyme.
Flowers.
Lugwort, Monarda, Sedum, Winter aconite, Crocus, Phacelia, Perennial Wallflower, Snowdrop.
Wildflowers.
Cowslips, Vipers Bugloss, white deadnettle, lesser celandine, comfrey, wood forget-me-not, field speedwell, Ox eye daisy.
Wildflowers such as cornflowers, cowslips, and the common poppy are all brilliant for bees and other wildlife. Pick up wildflower seed mixes at your local garden centre or online.
Here are a few simple steps to get wildflowers blooming in your garden. The ideal time to do this is September or October because this mimics the natural cycle when flowers typically drop their seeds. You can also sow wildflower seeds in spring.
The great thing with wild flowers is that they thrive in poor soils, due to this they also require little maintenance. If you are planning a good size plot prep it in the spring and then sow in the winter for best results. But remember to keep weeding and turning it over as often as you can to create a sterile seed bed.
A simple guide to preparing an area for Wild flowers
Remove any vegetation or turf. Alternatively, use a strimmer or lawnmower to cut the grass as short as possible, and then rake the ground to reveal patches of bare soil.
Wildflowers thrive in unfertile soil. Remove the topsoil, or dig the soil over to a depth of at least 15 cm to reveal the less fertile soil below.
Scatter the seeds lightly. Use 3 quarters of a teaspoon of seeds per square meter. You can mix the seeds with sand first, to aid even sowing.
After sowing, lightly rake the surface and firm down with the end of a rake or your feet. Water the soil if you're sowing during a dry period.
Bees pollinators need 3 things to thrive – food, shelter and water. With some planning around the seasons, we can help our vital pollinators by growing flowers from spring to winter, and not just when the sun shines. By adding a few new types of flowers and bulbs around the garden and the wild flowers planned to go in down the side of my property, I think I can happily say I am doing my bit.
Water
As with all living things all our pollinators need a little help with access to water. There are loads of simple ways to help supply water, from a bird bath to just a tray with some stones in it. It is important to remember to place some stones or bits of wood in any trays of water as it will give them something to land on and drink from. My mentor has two tomato grow bags still full of compost that he floods with water, the bees can then land on this and drink. I have found that a quarter of a breeze block in a tray of water works well.
With Bumble Bees (or Flying pandas as my daughter likes to call them) being one of our biggest pollinators that we have, a little help for them would never be missed. Due to there size and wing beat rate they can access pollen and nectar from many other plants that other bees can't. Simple things like leaving a pile if leaves at the bottom of a hedge on the north side for the over wintering queens to transition through winter in will help, just don't clear them up to early in the spring!!
There are over 250 known species of bumblebees worldwide, and 24 in the UK.
They have round, hairy bodies with contrasting bands of colour, usually black and yellow, orange, or red.
They are social bees that live in organised groups with a queen, drones, and workers.
They nest in the ground, often in abandoned bird or mouse nests, and make wax cells to store food and eggs.
They are peaceful and not aggressive, unless threatened, and only the worker bees and queen have a sting.
They only live for one season before they die.
With all of this in mind, some simple changes to all of our gardens we could make a real difference. As the risk of Asian Hornets grows in the UK its not just our Honey Bees that are at risk, all the help we can give will go along way!
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