Help our bees!

Hullo,

If you don't garden you might not realise, but common garden bees are vanishing. You might not know how important this is, and if you don't then I whole heartedly suggest watching "Bee Movie" as although it's a cartoon film it explains it perfectly.

Without bees we are up the creek without a paddle. They aren't all about honey, the main thing is pollination. Without them kindly moving pollen about very few flowers, vegetable plants or fruit trees would grow. Or they may grow leaves, but produce no flowers, no fruit, no seeds. Think about it, no seed to grind into flour, or wheat into pasta? What do we eat then?

As bees are massively in decline in this country I thought I'd try to encourage readers to do something.

You don't need a real garden, if you have a lawn just bury spring flowering bulbs in the lawn. Things like daffodils, crocuses or snowdrops. These will naturally just regrow each spring, before you even get the lawn mower out for the first time that year. Even if you do flatten them with your mower they regrow next year.

Window boxes, buy narrow rectangular plant pots. Put mixed flower seeds in compost in these, anything you like just read the packets to check it's suited to pots/containers. Just chuck you seeds in the soil and cover with cling film and keep in the bathroom a while. Once the frost has gone and seedlings look stronger bung it on the outside window ledge. Job done, flowers the lazy way. Or get seed mats and cut into strips to suit your window box.



That's my seeds on my bathroom window sil. Doesn't look great in the photo, but they are sprouting.

Another thing you can do is slightly naughty, but still good. Plant things in the wild!
Is there a scruffy overgrown unloved pathway near your home? A bit of woodland perhaps? Well grab yourself a trowel and some seeds or better still bulbs, and drop the bulbs or seeds into little holes you dig just to the side of the path. Then leave them and forget, nature will sort it out! Many bulb flowers multiply yearly, you can't see above ground, but your ten bulbs become twenty if they grow well.

You can often buy bulbs cheap at pound shops this time of year, so it's a cheap good dead. Or wait until planting season is over and go to shops reduced shelves. Ok it's not the best time to plant but the majority will still grow anyway. Another way to get bulbs at a good price is buy a mixed bulb collection from a gardening website. Don't forget a few good gardening sites are available via quidco and top cashback schemes so can make them an even better deal.

Technically this wild planting could be seen as littering or vandalism, but it's in a positive way... Just don't get seen. Who will actually moan when daffs or poppies just appear and brighten a scruffy neglected area? My guess, no one. :-)

Try to buy native British (or native to where you live!) plants, things you recognise. There is no point planting out something that needs to be kept indoors over winter for example. This way your effort will show for several years.

It's worth looking for the bee/butterfly friendly types of seeds if you aren't an old hand at this gardening business. Basically you buy mixed wild flower seeds in one packet. It means you get a random mixture of types of seeds, which is much better than buying all one type of seed. Not all bees like the same flowers!

Another thing you could do is only buy local British honey, supporting farmers and animal keepers closer to home means if they are getting more sales and interest in their honeys they might buy more bees and hives. This helps everyone nearby who has a garden or non gardeners that buy local produce.

Go on... Be bee kind. ;-)
Added to Sarah's blog hop