Make Your Garden Bee Friendly
Bees are extremely beneficial to humans for many different reasons, so by adding a few things to your garden you can turn it into a bee haven and help fight their decline! No matter what size garden you have, your level of gardening skills, available equipment, money or time, there are small changes you can make to help. Whether that is adding a window box full of their favourite flowers or planting a wild flower patch in your garden, every little thing will help your local bees. Below we are going to show you several different ways you can make your garden bee friendly, so chose your favourites and you will see the difference!
Adding an insect hotel
Insect hotels come in so many different shapes and sizes, all varying in price! Remember that a majority the following insect hotels that we are about to show you can be handmade at home, it will just involve some foraging for materials and some DIY! We will show you a pre-made version, where to find them and how much for, then we will give you some hints and tips on how to do it yourself!
Hanging log:
This is possibly one of the simplest insect hotels! Priced at just £7.99 from a garden centre, this could be used in small or large gardens as it can be hung anywhere. For small and non-existent gardens, it could be hung up on walls and fences, just try to provide a flower or two near the log to initially attract them.
DIY: All that is needed for this bee hotel is a log, some rope and a drill! Find a suitable log that will fit 10-15 holes in it, if it has been outside for a while then let it dry out as this will make drilling easier. Do not trying to drill the entire length of the log, creating separate holes on each end of the log will not only double the amount of holes available, it will make the holes much warmer and safer for residents! Ideally try to make the sizes of the holes different, this will then cater for different sized insects!
A Mini Bee Hive:
This is a sturdy little house that would provide shelter and a good habitat for bees during hibernation and nesting. It has treated wood and a slate roof to make it more durable, it is priced at just £6.99. This particular brand can be found in garden centres or can be ordered online:
http://www.charliesdirect.co.uk/ernest-charles-bee-hive
DIY: Due to the cladding like structure and the slate roof this would be quite a hassle to make and only experienced DIYers could make this, so due to its cheap price we would suggest just purchasing this one.
A Large Insect Hotel:
There are so many variants of insect hotels, ranging in size, design and price. The most choice is available online however a majority of garden centres do also sell them, we encourage this as it supports our local garden centres! Insect hotels have a variety of holes and crevices inside, as you can see the one pictured below uses wire mesh, bamboo, pinecones and logs with holes in. The price depends of the size and contents but can start from around £7.
DIY: Anyone can make a contained insect hotel like the one pictured above, all the family can get involved and you can make it look however you want! You can go foraging in your garden or local woods to find wood, bark, pinecones, sticks and logs. The only challenging part is making the frame to fill, however there are resources online to show you how. It is also beneficial to the insects once inside, to cover the entire outside it wire mesh as this prevents predation from birds! We have a more detailed blog post that explains the process we went through to make our insect hotel:
Bee Patch:
We would like to introduce you to the bee patch! We propose that anyone can create a patch in their front or back garden dedicated to being a bee friendly habitat full up with their favourite plants! Everyone’s bee patch will be different depending on how you like your garden to look and your level of gardening skill. What you include in your patch it totally up to you but we will provide you with a few ideas to get you started!
An insect hotel
A pile of logs
A wildflower patch (overgrown style)
Planted flowers (neat style)
Herbs
If you are new to gardening then there are ready-made packs of wildflower seeds that can be sown straight into your garden. Or if there are specific flowers that you like the look of and think bees will love then you can add those too! When looking at packets seeds, most will have a little icon on indicating that they are bee approved! After the seeds have grown, its up to you how you keep it from then, you can leave it to get naturally overgrown just like a wildflower meadow or keep it more maintained. This uncultivated look will also provide burrowing bees with good habitat to burrow as they need longer grass. If you feel like you do not have the garden skills to create a full wildflower patch then why not try one of these:
This is a pre-sown mat that contains all the seeds to create a wildflower garden with minimal gardening! There are just a few simple steps:
Prepare the area you would like the mat to grow by raking it over.
Cut the mat to the size you require, it could be used as a border or a patch.
Lightly cover the mat in soil.
Water it well, keeping it moist and weed free.
This mat can be sown in early spring and will flower in time for summer!
If you are a more keen and experienced gardener and you like your garden neat and tidy then you could aim to plant rows or individual flowers as apposed to sowing seeds. For example planting a row on sunflowers or foxgloves along the edge of a fenceline or creating a border with some pansies.
Bee Friendly Flowers
If you do not have the space for a bee patch then just planting a few of their favourite plants around your garden or in a pot will help massively! When planting flowers for bees it is important to have a mixture that flower throughout the year as not all species of bee hibernate. Here are some annual flowers:
Sunflower
Sweet asylum
Calendula
Zinnia
Heliotrope
Then here are some perennial flowers:
Crocus
Buttercrop
Hollyhocks
Snowdrops
Geranium
Everyone likes their garden to look a different way, so take a few minutes to check what each flower looks like when fully grown, the best time to plant them, when they will flower and how to care for them. Plants with single flower heads such as daisies and sunflowers are much easier for bees to access and they produce more nectar compared with double headed flowers.
Herb Garden
Although flowers are nice to look at, it would be nice to get something back from all the work your putting into your garden and you can! It is not just flowers that bees are attracted to, they love herbs too! So this could be the motivation you need to start the growing your own herbs! Here are some of their favourites:
Lavender
Sage
Parsley
Thyme
Fennel
Catmint
Borage
You can grow herbs from seeds but you can also get them potted aswell for those who are not confident enough to grow them from seed.
Pesticides and Fertiliser
Certain pesticides and herbacides can be extremely toxic to bees and are one of the main causes of their decline, therefore trying to eliminate using them all together would be ideal. If you have a healthy garden with a variety of flowers, plants and habitats then it should attract all types of insects and naturally ladybirds and spiders will keep pest numbers controlled.
Some fertilisers will also introduce toxins to bees, there are so many natural fertilisers that you can use that are often free. Horse manure is an excellent fertiliser, if you live near a horse riding stables or horse fields take a few large bags down and ask to take some of their manure away, they will not mind at all! You could also invest in a compost bin, this is a large bin that you put all of your food trimmings in and within a few months you have extremely nutritious soil. Here are some items you can add to your compost bin to make fertiliser:
Banana peel
Coffee grounds
Egg shells
Seaweed
Grass clippings
A large compost bin can be purchased for around £20, you can chose the size and capacity but on average they hold 330 litres of material. They have a hatch at the bottom which allows easy access to the decomposed soil and a lid to easily fill up the bin. They can be purchased in garden centres and some hardware stores, alternatively they can be purchased online:
Evergreener: 330 Litre Compost Bin