Bee-friendly gardening

Contents

Tips for a bee friendly garden

Choose a variety of bee-friendly plants

that provide nectar and pollen for bees. Findalternatives to double flowers and to sterile hybrids.

Plant in drifts

to enable bees to forage efficiently. You can attract bees to pollinateyour fuit and veg crops by planting drifts of attractive flowers nearby.

Plant a succession of plants to flower throughout the year.

Winter and early springflowering shrubs and bulbs can help bees take advantage of warm weather spells atthis time of year. When honey bees start laying eggs in Spring, they have a suddenneed for food supplies and can die of starvation if they cannot access enough food. Inthe countryside, the first flowering plants are willow, hazel, and blackthorn. Ingardens we have shrubs such as mahonia, osmanthus, cherry and early bulbs such ascrocus, snow drops and winter aconite.The ‘June gap’ is another potentially dangerous time for honey bees: by now theyhave built up large colonies and need a lot of food but there may be a flowering gap asSpring flowers finish and Summer is not yet in full flow. Useful plants arecotoneaster, salvia, scabious

Create a sheltered garden

to help bees forage. (In addition, if you plan to keephoney bees in the garden then a high hedge, wall or fence is important to raise the bees’ flight path).

Provide water

in the garden. It doesn’t have to be much – honey bees drink fromshallow puddles

Provide habitats

for wild bees. You can do this by leaving nooks and crannies in an‘untidy area’ and by positioning bee nests

Plant a tree

if you have room. There are a lot of flowers on one tree! If you don’thave much space consider training a small tree against a wall

Window boxes and containers

. Some annual bedding plants such as pelargoniumand begonias are no use to bees: they are very low in nectar and they tend to havecomplicated floral structures, which make it hard to reach their centres. However, beautiful containers can be made to attract bees throughout the seasons using bulbs,small flowering shrubs, herbs and long-flowering summer plants such as salvias,scaboius, lavender, nemesia

Avoid pesticidesLeave a patch of clover on the lawn

Clover is a rich source of food for bees providing the weather is warm enough for them to access it!

Weeds and wild plants

Many weeds such as brambles and thistles are really useful to bees so let yourself off the hook if you can’t find time for weeding! However,Page 2 of 8

although invasive non-native plants such as Himalayan balsam provide a terrific foodsource for bees, they are causing problems in the wild and should be removed if found.

Useful Links:

Oxford Beekeepers Association:http://www.oxfordshirebeekeepers.com/British Beekeepers’ Association:http://www.britishbee.org.uk Bumble bee Conservation Trust:http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk Royal Horticultural Society:http://www.rhs.org.uk/Amazing bee photographs:

http://www.thehoneygatherers.com/html/index_en.html

List of Plants recommended by the RHS

AnnualsBorage (Borago officinalis)Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum)Californian poppy (Eschscholzia californica)Candytuft (Iberis species)China aster (Callistephus chinensis)Clarkia (Clarkia species)Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus)Forget-me-not (Myosotis species)Gilia capitataGodetia (Clarkia species)Heliotrope (Heliotropium cultivars)Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)Mignonette (Reseda odorata) Nemophila menziesiiPhacelia speciesPoached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii)Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)Sweet sultan (Amberboa moschata)Zinnia (Zinnia elegans)BiennialsFrench honeysuckle (Hedysarum coronarium)Hollyhock - single flowered (Alcea rosea)Honesty (Lunaria annua)Wallflower (Erysimum species)Herbaceous perennialsAgastache foeniculumAlyssum speciesAnchusa azureaArabis speciesAubrieta speciesBellflowers (Campanula species)Page 3 of 8