Attracting Bees

All our garden plants are pollinated by bees. If we didn't have bees, chances are, we wouldn't have as many flowers in our gardens.

Unfortunately, urbanisation and different agricultural practices have redesigned the landscape, destroying much of the native perennial vegetation that once provided nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other flower-feeding insects. This may be one reason why several species of bumblebee have declined or become locally extinct in Britain in recent decades. If the decline continues, wild flowers that depend on such pollinators may be lost.

We, as gardeners, can help to redress this decline by growing plants that sustain valuable pollinators - particularly the vulnerable long-tongued bumblebees. Long-tongued bumblebee species such as Bombus pascuorum and B. hortorum depend on deep flowers with abundant nectar, and are their irreplaceable pollinators.

Bumblebee colonies store only a few days' worth of energy reserves, and so are much more vulnerable than honey bees to food shortages caused by a scarcity of flowers or poor foraging weather. They therefore need constant access to nectar-rich plants throughout spring, summer and autumn.

Early flowering nectar-rich plants are a particularly vital resource for the queen bumblebee as she emerges in March from her overwinter hibernation. She must single-handedly find enough food to mature her eggs, find and establish a nest - often a disused mouse burrow - and rear the first batch of workers. These workers forage for provisions that are used to rear more and more workers and then, towards the end of the season, male bees and new queens. If a colony is to produce large numbers of these daughter queens that will found colonies next year, its workers need a succession of nectar-rich flowers throughout the summer.

Old-fashioned cottage-garden varieties proved best for bees. For example, unmodified nasturtiums such as "Tip Top" secrete nectar in a long spur and so provide a food reserve for long-tongued bumblebees, but the double form "Whirlybird" is spurless and provides no nectar. Short-tongued bees visit it for pollen, but it is useless for nectar-collecting long-tongued bees.

Sympathetic gardeners who grow insect-worthy flowers (see table below) may help to sustain populations of pollinating insects, particularly the valuable long-tongued bumblebees.

© copyright 1999, P. A. Owen