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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you to help the bees? 🐝

161 replies

DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 16:15

Not really AIBU, more for traffic than a bossy demand.

I pledge to make my garden much more friendly this year for bees and other pollinators.

I have a lot of outdoor space at work that I can hopefully encourage more bees into too.

Anyone with me?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
ginandbearit · 12/02/2019 16:31

I don't have a garden but have bought Beebombs , specially packaged clusters of bee friendly wildflower seeds to throw onto verges and wasteland .
I'm also an artist and am selling bee paintings with a donation to bee charity ..if I could find a way of advertising them on mn without breaking guidelines that would help too !

Original poster
DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 16:40

I’d love to have a look
PM me a link ginandbearit

OP posts:
Harveyrabbit76 · 12/02/2019 16:42

I am in!

Andromeida59 · 12/02/2019 16:42

I'm up for this as well.

BrendaUrie · 12/02/2019 16:43

I would like to do this, this year. But have no idea how!

Doggydoggydoggy · 12/02/2019 16:45

My front and back garden are bee friendly and although obviously the more people help the better, the crisis won’t end until the governments stop intensive monoculture and using pesticides.
It’s out of the public people’s control.

BiteyShark · 12/02/2019 16:46

Most of the plants in my garden are bee friendly and we have just put up a small bee house. The only downside is the dog stalks them all summer on the plants.

Doggydoggydoggy · 12/02/2019 16:47

brenda they like all fruit and vegetable plants and most simple (no frilly petal) flowers.

Original poster
DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 16:49

Here’s some advice

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=648

www.gardenersworld.com/plants/plants-for-bees/

Here’s the link to the bee bombs gin mentioned

www.beebombs.com

Anyone else in the know please feel free to advise us SmileFlowers

OP posts:
Racecardriver · 12/02/2019 16:52

No outside space unfortunately

Dontsweatthelittlestuff · 12/02/2019 16:54

I have a bee friendly garden. Don’t forget it is not just about the flowers they also need shelter and water.
I have made an old fashioned Victorian stumpers to encourage all insects and have hidden shallow dishes of water around the flower beds and stumpery.

Dontsweatthelittlestuff · 12/02/2019 16:55

Stumpers = stumpery

KitschBitch · 12/02/2019 17:01

Count me in, currently have some bee-friendly plants, will plant more this year and hope my lovely, daft dog will not chase them!

bagpiss · 12/02/2019 17:01

Nice thread op. I have a bee friendly garden, i have areas that i just throw bea loving meadowy type flowers in and i grow vegs so they help there too, my dad is a bee keeper and I'm hoping to get a hive this year (but he's going to tend it) 😬

Original poster
DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 17:01

doggy you sound knowledgable about the extent of the farming practices that have led to this.

Are we really past the point of no return do you think?
Are we able to contain the problem on a national level if our own governments stepped up?
Is that likely and in time?
What would it take?

I know the planet is absolutely on it’s last arse Sad
I do feel all the small changes are ramping up though, public awareness is getting better and that may hopefully have a genuine cumulative effect.

OP posts:
RiverTam · 12/02/2019 17:04

every year I buy some bee friendly seeds and every year I fail to plant them.

This year shall be different!

Come on everyone - if the bees go we're fucked!

Original poster
DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 17:06

Googling stumpery kitsch

Thanks bagpiss I’d absolutely have a hive if it was self-tending!

OP posts:
Original poster
DowntonCrabby · 12/02/2019 17:15

Sorry! Googling stumpery dontsweat

We have a patch of land at the back of our house, probably 200ft x 50ft it’s grass and some trees. It’s council owned and never tended to in any way at all, it’s rarely used for much, people let their dogs have a run round out occasionally or kids take a bike up. If I scattered a load of wildflower seed there would it take without having to actually plant it?

OP posts:
JellySlice · 12/02/2019 17:15

I have a deutzia that I really do not care for - too bulky, thuggish, difficult to prune because it flowers on last years stems, and no fragrance. But I keep it because the bees absolutely love it. I frequently count seven different types of bee bumbling about in its flowers, and sometimes there are so many that you can hear the humming right across the garden.

Doggydoggydoggy · 12/02/2019 17:44

I don’t think we are past ‘no return’ no, nature is far more resilient than humans give it credit for.

If our government stepped up then I think it would make a big difference but without the other countries also changing their ways I think the problem will continue.

I think it unlikely unfortunately that any government will indeed take it seriously.

What needs to be done?

Imo, the main things that would make a change would be an end to monoculture so instead of fields of sweet corn and nothing else for example you have fields of sweet corn interplanted with wild flowers/grasses/other crops and the return of trees and mixed hedgerows.

A complete ban on garden/agricultural pesticide (I am confident this will never happen).

No more breeding of flowers for petals.
The original ‘wild’ rose for example is bee friendly and has a gorgeous strong rose fragrance but hardly anyone grows it, they grow the multi petalled roses instead which although beautiful offer absolutely nothing to a bee, or any pollinator.

MumW · 12/02/2019 18:02

I'm in too. I've only got a small garden and I'm trying, not that successfully I have to say, to establish a cottage border. I also throw some bee friendly seeds around.

I did have a bee colony in my compost heap a couple of years ago. I hoped that they would return, but haven't seen them since.

Doggydoggydoggy · 12/02/2019 18:13

Sweet alyssum and cornflower and English poppy and plain violas are liked by bees and easy to grow from packets.

I prefer grown plants to seeds personally.
Morrisons often sell Erysium Bowles Mauve which although not often listed as bee friendly I found it very popular with the bees when I grew it.
Dwarf buddjeja ‘blue chip’,
Lavender, Foxgloves and penstemons are all popular with bees and fit in a cottage style.
They like herbs aswell, aster daisies, geum, heucheras mumw

ErrolTheDragon · 12/02/2019 18:18

I volunteer twice a month at a local nature reserve - tomorrow we'll probably be strimming and raking an area of rough ground, which helps encourage wildflowers - we plant/sow some too.

In addition to doggy's list, flowering ivy is great for bees at the back end of the year. A privet hedge can be good too!

SilverySurfer · 12/02/2019 18:19

I have a bee house and always plant bee and butterfly friendly plants. The bee bombs look interesting - there are a lot of grass verges where I live and it would be easy to lob bombs while on my mobility scooter.

Can anyone tell me how many bombs there are per bag, please?

Harebellsies · 12/02/2019 18:22

Hope everyone kept their gardens messy! Many wild bee species nestle in old wood and some in stalks of plants. It is the wild bee species we need to worry about most, and also bumbles.
Decking and paving obviously shade and block, and therefore destroy bumbleebee nests, which can have tiny tunneled entrances of several metres if more, meaning it is usually not possible to find the nests, except if you manage to see a bee crawling into a hole in the ground. For this they prefer a south facing spot of bare soil, ie no wood chips or compost. Just dry ugly soil which you think is pointless but underneath is a magical nest.