8 simple ways to help the bees

20th May is World Bee Day, and the plight of bees and pollinators more widely in the UK has never been so poor. In March 2022 the UK overruled scientific advice by lifting a ban on bee-harming pesticides, authorising an emergency exception for its use on sugar beet in England.

Here are some simple things that you can do to help bees:

1.     Sign the petition to ban these pesticides

2.     Grow more pollen-rich flowers shrubs and trees

Grow more flowers in your garden, balcony or allotment that will flower throughout the year. For example, pussy willow, primroses and crocuses in spring, lavenders, meadow cranesbill and ox-eye daisies in summer, ivy and hebe in autumn, and mahonia shrubs and cyclamen in winter.

3.     Let it go wild

Leave patches of land to grow wild plants like stinging nettles and dandelions that provide great food sources.

4.     Cut the grass less often

Take part in ‘No Mow May’ and throughout the rest of the year, mow your grass less often, allowing the plants to flower for longer. Longer grass in lawns and flower-rich field corners support a rich diversity of insects and pollinators providing pollen and nectar as well as places to nest and breed.

5.     Don’t disturb insect nests and hibernation spots

Avoid disturbing or destroying nesting or hibernating insects, in places like grass margins, bare soil, hedgerows, trees, dead wood or walls. As well as making sure there are adequate food resources throughout the year for insect pollinators, it is also important to make sure they can nest in safety so that they and the next generation can survive over winter, to start again in the following spring.

6.     Think carefully about whether to use pesticides and herbicides

Especially when pollinators are active or nesting or when plants are in flower, avoid using pesticides and consider control methods appropriate to your situation. Or simply choose not to use them at all: better for you, your family, pets and the planet. You can squish aphids with your hands or use a gentle soap spray solution or you can put a physical barrier in a place like a horticultural fleece over vegetable crops to stop flying insect attacks.  You can also use companion planting such as marigolds to ward off aphids. Crop rotation in vegetable gardening also helps.

7.     Cover your swimming/paddling pool when not in use

Bees see pools the same way humans do - a refreshing body of water to cool off in on hot summer days - but they also use pool water to hydrate their young and maintain temperatures in the hive. They cannot swim and this is the main cause of death, so provide them with an alternative water source such as a shallow birdbath with pebbles in so they will not drown whilst cooling themselves.

8.     Consider joining the Bumblebee Conservation Trust