Bee Friendly
O
ver the past decade the UK’s bee popu-
lation has dramatically reduced by one-
third, which has raised a lot of questions.
Is there veracity in Einstein’s statement that
if the bee disappeared from our planet then
humans would have only four years left?
We cannot be certain if Einstein did say
this but it’s a statement that we all
should think about.
It is never too late to start a small
change in our gardens that can
change the growth of the
population of the bees surround-
ing us. We can give the bees pol-
linated plants that we can
easily grow in our gardens and
that is only one small step to
helping the population’s rise but
it is a good start.
We can start by changing the
environment we provide in our
gardens with many of the
flowers we plant and look after.
A healthy eco-friendly environ-
ment means we will not only
attract wildlife to our gardens but
will give the eco system a better
surrounding area and we
can help to save the population
of bees.
Heidi Neilson is a bee friendly
florist and she believes everyone
could grow more pollinated
and nectar rich flowers in any
type of garden and this could
make a significant difference of
the bees.
‘’On our flower farm in surrey we
focused on growing throughout the
seasons to try to sustain our bees.
We don’t use any pesticides or
chemicals and we rarely have any
pest problems.’’
‘’Bees tend to prefer small-
er flowers and are particular-
ly attracted to blue and purple
flowers like echinops, borage and
verbena bonariensis also known
purpletop vervain.’’
There are many ‘Beebombs’ that
are specifically made for attract-
ing bees which includes flowers
that are rich in pollen and that will
encourage bees to stop by. Most of
them do not include any plastic and
will provide not only everything
bees will love to be around but will
also make your garden full with
blossoming flowers.
The seeds included in most bee
friendly‘Beebombs’ are Cornflow-
er, Corn Marigold, Corn Poppy,
Corn Chamomile Vipers Bugloss,
Red Clover and Phacelia. All these
plants are proven to be bee friend-
ly and will encourage
bees to visit your garden.
To encourage bees to return to
our gardens we should also leave a
wild untouched part in our
gardens as bees love areas that
are over grown and left neglected.
Bees will almost always
nest in disused part of the gardens.
Places where there are old bits of
wood, stones, bricks that are left
alone and neglected.
‘‘If we can all grow something no
matter how small that produces nec-
tar and pollen through the seasons,
then we are helping all our bees to
survive.’’