Bees and wasps are having a hard time of it. Changes in the
way we use and manage land, changes to our houses and gardens, have all meant
less food and fewer nesting sites for all types of bees and wasps. This is bad
news for people. Bees are vital for pollination of the plants we rely upon and
aspire to grow. Wasps are hugely important for pest control. Most wasps are not
the yellow-jacketed, stingy, bad-tempered banes of every picnic; most of them are solitary,
small and parasitic. They target all sorts of other invertebrates as hosts for
their eggs and food for their larvae. But there are some simple things that we
can all do in our gardens and allotments. Easy things that benefit bees, wasps
and birds too.
Knowing what we can do for bumble bees depends upon
understanding a little bit about their lives. Bumble bee queens hide away
during the winter in the soil. Hibernating, sheltered from frost and rain, she
lives out the cold dark months on her own. She emerges when the soil starts to
warm up and the first thing she has to do is feed. The winter flowering
Viburnam and wild snowdrops are good sources of nectar and pollen for these
early queens. If you have a hedgerow, then putting some blackthorn into it will
also help provide early flowers. Daffodils are usually useless as they have
been bred for looks rather than scent, so they have little nectar and pollen
that the bees can get at. These early flowering shrubs and plants are also
vital sources of food for beetles that are emerging from hibernation or have
just transformed into their adult form.
The bumble bee queen’s first job is to establish her nest.
She stores nectar in tiny wax pots that she makes and lays eggs alongside them.
She lies over the eggs and makes sure that they stay warm and well-ventilated
by shivering her body. When the first workers hatch out they need to gather
large amounts of pollen and nectar. In my garden, the best source at this time
of year are the sallow trees (pussy willows) beside the stream. On a sunny
spring morning they are alive with bees, flies and beetles. Every evening they
attract moths by the hundreds. In the lawn, I have established some bugle in
the wet patches, crocus on the banks and marsh marigold beside the stream. I
have also planted native bluebells under the beech hedge, but I have removed
the Spanish bluebells because they hybridise with our native bluebells
producing an inferior hybrid. These wild plants are better for insects than
many horticultural varieties and will look after themselves.
As spring turns into summer, the bumble bee nest grows. More
worker bees are produced which in turn need more food to sustain them. I have
planted a lot of geraniums in areas where they can spread. Their long flowering
period make them great for bees. Borage and comfrey are good as well, The
comfrey does well in the shade of the horse chestnut tree. With the help of a
kind friend who works in a garden centre, I have established a large herb bed.
There will be lots of thyme, marjoram and mint when the bees return next year.
I added some Verbena as well. In areas where I have cleared away scrub and
invasive plants over the winter, I sowed the seeds of annual corn field plants.
Corncockle, field poppies and corn marigold are all great for insects.
Corn cockle, with a thick legged flower beetle and a couple of flea beetles. |
In high summer, bees and bumble bees are bringing their
nests into full ‘production’. They start to produce eggs that will turn into
fertile females (new queens) and males. This takes lots and lots of energy and
protein. So our gardens have got to be up to the job of providing it and this
is the time when you will see the most insect activity. Now you need to
concentrate on how you garden, as there is no time left to grow extra plants.
One of the best things to do is not cut your lawn. I have left about two thirds
of the grassy area uncut until the end of July. Self-heal sprang up and more
will come into the area next year, particularly if I can establish the
parasitic plant yellow rattle that will weaken the grasses, creating gaps for wild
flowers. I have also left the lawn uncut for a fortnight at a time. This allows
the white clover to flower. Bumble bees in particular, love clover and the lawn
was busy with small furry bodies hopping from one flower to the next, a happy
drone permeating the air as I swung in the hammock.
You should also take advantage of the opportunities
presented by your weeds. I decided to leave some sow thistles to grow big and
branched. When they set seed, the goldfinches spent each morning feeding on the
downy heads. Watching them was the perfect peaceful accompaniment to the BBC
Radio 4 Today programme. After they died down, I noticed that some woolly
thistles were rising up. These are better for bumble bees. They seem to love
sitting fatly on the fluffy flower heads, six legs and head buried in the
flowers, buzzing softly. When it sets seed, the woolly thistle will attract the
goldfinches back. Another great common weed is burdock. Bees love the purple
flowers, as do flies and butterflies. Goldfinches and linnets love to perch on
the big branching stems all winter, picking away at the seed heads.
Woolly thistle - superb weed much loved by pollinators and seed eaters. |
I also left the ragwort to grow up and flower. This is a
much-maligned flower that is one of the best for late summer insects.
Ragwort-hate comes from the fact that if the stems and leaves are gathered in
with the hay, and that hay is then fed to horses, it does them great harm
causing irreversible liver damage. However, in your garden it will not be able
to harm any horses; so let it flower and then, if you don’t want it to spread,
cut it down before it sets seed. I leave mine because the land around me is
sheep-grazed and they will eat it in the winter.
An Hemipteran bug (probably Blepharidopterus ungulates or another member of the family Miridae) enjoying the ragwort flowers. |
A very small bee gathers pollen from the ragwort flowers. |
I have saved the best until last. This is the easy bit.
Imagine a flower that is so abundant it grows in almost every habitat in the
UK. It flowers from early spring until the autumn. It is a native species and
is loved by almost all the invertebrates that look for pollen and nectar. You
don’t have to imagine it – it’s a dandelion. I leave dandelions in my lawn to
flower wherever I can; I leave them to grow up in the vegetable patch and under
the trees. They are so plentiful that you can weed them out of the areas where
you don’t want them, confident that they will appear where they can be kept. If
you allow them to set seed, the famous dandelion clock will be a wonderful food
resource for seed-eating birds like goldfinches.
This is a picture of four overflies (Episyrphus balteatus) on a dandelion head in
my veg patch. But there were another four flies queuing up, hovering around,
waiting to get on the flower head.
This is a picture of Great Cheverell Down, part of the
Salisbury Plain Training Area. There must be a million dandelions flowering there during April. It is no coincidence that Salisbury Plain has the highest
diversity of bumble bees in the country. So if you can’t do anything else for
wildlife, leave a few dandelions to flower.
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