Bees, buterflies and blooms.

[oldherbaceous]

I don't know if anyone has been watching this series, but it has got me thinking about something regarding bees and there decline.

Now i have heard reported more than once, that urban bee hives have been doing fairly well, with a lot fewer hives suffering total loss compared to country hives.
Now what i was thinking is, could urban bees be feeding on a mixture of plants, while country bees are often moved about to where certain crops of one variety are, at a certain time of the year.

So i was wondering if bees need a mixture of food to stay healthy.

Just a thought!

[peter]

I remember my dads excitement one year when he got lime honey. He'd.insisted on common limes to replace dying elms in the 50s and they bloomed magnificently in the early 70s, greenish runny honey.

I suspect the collapses are due more to cumulative exposure to agrichemicals, pollutants and pests/diseases.

[Geoff]

I think they said exactly that in one of the programmes, or it might have been a similar recent one. It's some sort of theory about different hosts having different trace constituents and insects need variety to pick up everything they need. I like the idea of these meadows but I can't work out how they get them clean and keep them clean. Whenever I've tried in a limited way I get loads of docks, sorrel, buttercup, etc; possibly because direct sowing is never very successful for me. Enjoyed the programmes.
Why do they never mention heather? I find the Ericas flowering now and the Callunas in the Autumn give a great start and finish to the season for loads of insects.

[oldherbaceous]

Trust me to be second in the queue, if they did mention it, i'm sure they worded it so much better than i managed.
Re-read what i had wrote, this morning, and even i had a job understanding what i was trying to get over.

[PLUMPUDDING]

It is really good to have a programme that highlights the beneficial effect and beauty of mixed planting both on the insect population and people.

Living near Sheffield I've seen the wow factor of huge strips of the flower mixtures where they've been planted along roads where houses have been demolished. They've been trialling different seed mixes here for quite a few years now.

I'm going to try and get a shortish mix to sow along the outside of my garden and hope the council don't herbicide it.

Within the garden I try to have something flowering all the year round just in case there is a warm spell and the bees and butterflies come out. I've counted up this week and there are at least 23 different species of flowers out, which isn't bad following the few frosty weeks and snow.

The Red Admiral was enjoying the species crocus the other day when the sun came out.

My bee hive was really flourishing early last year until hundreds of wasps decided it was an easy food source and over a few weeks killed them all off, so it isn't only disease and limited food sources bees have to contend with.

Lets hope the TV programme has spurred lots of people and councils to get sowing.

[Shallot Man]

This programme has got me interested, any idea's on a suitable wild seed mix, and supplier.

[glallotments]

Funnily enough we watched the second programme of this series yesterday - the one based in Harrogate.

It did strike me that the RHS Britain in Bloom judges were the key here - all they needed to do was to add a biodiversity element into their judging rather than just looking for pristine beds of colour. it was a shame that for the first year Harrogate didn't manage a Gold - maybe a co-incidence but it could have put them off trying to change their planting schemes but fortunately didn't.

[Shallot Man]

glallotments. I agree with you. Rather thought the die in the wool from the RHS didn't help. Maybe the RHS should include a wild seeded bed in future.

[Nature's Babe]

we need a varied diet and bees sure do too, i try to include a wide variety of flowers in my garden and have natural ones too like birds foot trefoil, clover, mallow, foxgloves, etc which the bees love, pot marigolds, and nasturtium are also popular, as are borage and various fruit blossoms, i let the herbs flower too these are popular with the tiny pollinators, one very tiny moth visits my thyme each year.