To ask you to help the bees? 🐝

[DowntonCrabby]

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?

Bug hotel and my wildflower patch.

Thanks @hellesbellsies I’ll check it out. 🐝

@crucru fantastic photos, I might get my dad to have a go at making a bug hotel.

I can’t think of any plants that would deter bees. Some may not be useful - roses that don’t open fully.

Plants treated with noxious pesticides won’t be great for bees. To get rid of slugs, I use nematodes - quite expensive, I don’t do it often enough to be really effective.

I have often read that Buddleia is not exactly good for the environment. It provides a quick fix of food, so in a mixed garden with plenty of native wild plants should be fine. However it does not provide food for 🐛 caterpillars or larvae, hence the next generation is not catered for and dies if no alternative food source can be reached.

Connifers and evergreens also cater to fewer southern British species than eg an oak. Depends on your local ecosystem. Although my yew blossoms are a hit with bees.

Can i add that firethorn blossom is a feast for wild and native bees and a feast for birds in winter. Apparently hawthorn is the best though.

I’m sure you can buy bug hotels on Amazon. Hang it in a sheltered spot that gets some sun (ideally south facing).

Husband is a beekeeper so we’re happy to help the bees 😃. They don’t like open or clean water, a tip he gave me for our garden is to fill a small bowl with stones and fill the gaps with water. They can still drink but don’t get the fear of falling in. Also bee friendly plants = lots of small flowers that they can flit between.

Compost bins are also great for wasps (which are less popular than bees but are a force for good). I’ve had grass snakes nest in mine.

My garden is bee friendly! And without them we would be stuffed for summer food growing in our garden.
My raspberries (feral plants!) attract the most. And we get tons of fruit. You only need a few canes to get started.

Outdoor tomatoes also. And courgettes.

I don't weed the lawn and have lots of clover. Thankfully no one has gotten stung running over it

Plus bedding and hanging basket plants attract bees and all kinds of other pollinating insects. Butterflies too.
In short, don't get overwhelmed and worried. Plant flowers and tomatoes and they will come!

That should read - if eggs are laid in buddleia, upon hatching/emerging, this next generation is not catered for and will die if no neighbouring plants provide suitable shelter and nourishment. If there was no buddleia, the butterfly would lay its eggs on a more reliable foodsource for its young.

Rosebay willowherb/himalayan balsam. Anything invasive that crowds out plants needed by resident fauna (note- avoiding the native-nonnative debate of the gardening world)

Biggest issue with beebombs is grass. They struggle to get going in grass verges and the nitrate from grass clippings quickly kills them off. You need to clear a patch, water regularly and keep the grass cutting at bay.
I volunteer at a nature park in an old grave yard that became very overgrown and neglected so have spent more time than I care to think about researching. Every little helps with bees though, water out and window baskets

I’ve had grass snakes nest in mine.
God, I hope not. DH would make me get rid of my bins.

Nigella and poached egg plants.

I have silver stachys byzantina running through my flower beds and the bees adore it.

My garden is fairly small, more width than depth, plus I have a couple of feral children to turf out into it for the summer, plus trampolines, slides etc, so I am fairly limited in letting it run wild into a bee and wildlife haven.

However, I have several lavender bushes, seedums into the autumn, alliums and aquiligas earlier in the season. DS1 is an avid stick collecter and he tends to let me pile up his sticks and other collected items into a corner behind a bush so there is a safe nook for wildlife. When my slow cooker pot cracked and I retired it, I set it into a flowerbed for a little patch of water with a stone beach, during the heat wave, I found a frog lurking happily in it!

When I tidy up the autumn leaves, I do leave corners for them to gather in. When the sedums are tatty by mid winter, I tend to cut the stems but lay the heads over the buds for shelter. Clover is allowed to grow in the lawn. The garden is fairly neat, but not overly so.

Lavender is really easy for cuttings when it's a bit woody in the summer.

We have 7 acres. Wild flower meadows, a small river and orchards. Bazillions of bees, butterflies and frogs every year.

I like herbs - rosemary, chives, thyme, marjoram - bees like these, they stay attractive in winter and they are useful for cooking.

I've come across loads of people who say they love making bee friendly gardens, whilst then spraying the same flowers with poisonous chemicals.

Whilst planting bee friendly flowers is good, people need to stop buying products from bayer and monsanto as just one spray wipes out insects that these pollinators eat; or worse the pesticide kills the insects that eat the bugs they are trying to eliminate.

It isn't just bees under threat. It is the whole of the insect food chain.

My fil every summer offers to come spread some stuff to sort out my lawn and can't understand why I say no. Having a perfect patch of lawn is not my aim or achievable with 2 kids and a dog. Will be trying nematodes this year to reduce the massive slug population.

I have a wildlife garden no chemicals allowed.
Last year I looked into planting for bees all year round and bought loads of plants/bulbs. IIrc the crocuses which are out now are the first.
Also have a bee hotel.
A mixed hedge.
Small wildflower meadow.
Wildlife pond.
Tiny plant saucers with pebbles and water in.

I’m in! I’ll get some bee bombs this year 🐝. Excellent post op.

My gardens are bee friendly. I've taught the kids (and myself) not to be scared of bees. (Wasps can shove it though).
I haven't bought bee bombs but I've thrown out garden's seeds into verges around us.

We used to live in a cottage that was almost deafeningly loud outside during summer with millions of bees in the tall trees and giant rhododendrons in the gardens. It broke my heart seeing it last year after moving out and the new owners (obnoxious snooty millionaires) had ripped everything out of their new investment and even chopped down the giant trees that must have been well over 100 years old. A lovely country cottage now modernised and with plain flower-less lawns.
Nowhere for the bees to go. Such a shame.

@sackrifice I’ll delightedly add to my pledge to boycott Bayer and Monsanto, we’ve never used a chemical weedkiller.

@smarmymrmime unfortunately we have all the kids crap in the garden too. You’ve just reminded me of my own DS’s stick collection, currently stored behind the wheelie bins. I’m going to put him to work to create a pile somewhere it can’t be too disturbed.

The trampoline I know is in the very back corner of the garden, would wildlife make use of a pile of sticks/rocks etc in the wasted corner IYSWIM? It’s get pretty much zero sunlight and be fairly damp a lot of the time.

Damon that’s really sad. I’d lob a handful of seeds onto their precious lawns under the cover of darkness

I have no garden/skills to volunteer. The best I can probably do is buy more organic food so that the general food chain has less pesticides.