BEE'S

[Shallot Man]

We have had a bee-hive installed on our allotment site. One of our lady plot-holders has suggested we all plant a flowering plant to help them, what would be most suitable, obviously must be long flowering.

[glallotments]

Bees like single flowers not double and different beed go for different shapes of flowers. Fruit should be considered too - can you plant fruit bushes and trees on your plot.
Honey bees like raspberry and blackberry as well as hard fruit blossom.

If you have an area on site for wild flowers that would be good,

Herbs too are a good source of pollen/nectar.

Bees also love artichoke flowers if left to open rather than harvesting the buds.
Annual flowers such as sunflowers (obviously not pollen free), cosmos, echiums, cornflowers are good
Then there are asters, dahlias, coreopsis, echinops, lavender, gaillardia, coreopsis, sedum, nepeta. heathers

Thistles are good for bees but maybe not for gardeners.

It's important to have flowers over as wide a part of the year as possible too.

It's also better to have clumps of the same species rather than different plants dotted about.

This is a bit haphazrd but came out just as I thought of things - hope it's a start.

[Monika]

I would suggest a patch of poached egg flower (limnanthes), chives, rosemary, thyme (particularly the creeping thyme), single tagetes, echinaceae, lantana and single roses, like rosa rugosa.

[Colin Miles]

As well as honey bees there are Bumblebees to think about and if it is pollination that you want then they are even more important than Honey bees.

http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/

[Nature's Babe]

For the bumble bees I let native foxgloves seed themselves in groups in odd corners and they give 6 weeks of food for bumble bees.
one lime bush can keep a hive in nectar for a season, and here is another link for other pollen/nectar rich plants, covering early and late

http://www.thehealingpath.com/OrganicBe ... dens.shtml

wild bees can be ground nesters so areas of no-dig garden helps them.
once you add flowers in as companion plants it makes the allotment more attractive too, I love to watch the bees in and out of the foxgloves,hear their hum buzzing on the cane fruit and see where they make ground nests, and my fruit trees etc benefit from their presence.

[Shallot Man]

Many thanks for all your suggestions.

[Colin_M]

We have had a bee-hive installed on our allotment site.

Don't know if this a recent arrival, but that's brilliant. I'd like to suggest it to our own allotment, but some of them aren't very adventurous.

Can you tell us how long it took your group to make the decision and whether any particular approach helped win over any people who were uncertain about the idea?

[peter]

Colin, our council amended its rules this season to permit bee keeping. Key point anyone wishing to do so has to join the local bee keepers society, which is affiliated to the British Beekeepers Association. Membership of the first automatically gives membership of the second and via this membership they get insurance for their beekeeping activities and get trained in bee handling and care.
99% of issues addressed with one simple rule.

[Monika]

Colin, you would certainly have watch the dreaded H&S aspect. We had three bee hives on the small local nature reserve of which I am a warden, but had to ask the bee keeper to remove them after a few years because he seemed to have a rather vicious strain of bees at the time and several children in visiting school parties were stung.

Luckily, nobody sued but it could have become nasty. It was such a shame because we used to train a telescope onto the entry platform so that the children could watch the bees bringing in the spoil and also see them performing their waggle dance.

[Nature's Babe]

Insecticides, on the allotment. Avoiding neonicotinoids is recommended as these have been implicated in bee decline, and have been banned in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia though not here yet - without bees for pollination we starve !
We kept bees and they may perceive it as a threat if persons are in front of the hive in flight path, as a child I spent many happy hours watching but from from the side of the hive, not in flight path.

[Elderflower]

We have several beekeepers on our allotment site and the only problem we`ve found is when we get a swarm.
This can seriously alarm anyone not familiar with bees and it`s no good saying, "They won`t hurt you. Swarming bees are very docile." when somebody is panicking with great clouds of bees darkening the sky. A lady on our neighbouring plot lay on the ground covering her face because she`d been told that the swarm could get into her mouth and try to set up a nest in her.
I know - - - but she was seriously terrified.
We`ve now put the contact details of the nearest expert member of the Beekeepers Association on our noticeboard and they`ve also agreed to come and do a talk at our AGM.

[glallotments]

Our council has siad no to bees on the site.

[Shallot Man]

Colin_ M re Bee's, it all started when a member [who had hives at home] mentioned he had collected a swarm[!] from a lady's garden, but wasn't sure if the queen was with them, couple of the plot holders sounded him out to putting a hive on site, had a quick sound out of all the plot holders, 99% were all for it, result one small colony of bee's on site.

[Colin_M]

...a rather vicious strain of bees and several children in visiting school parties were stung

Hi Monika, our allotments back onto a pub garden (used as a childminding facility by the local parents whilst they're having a drink!). When the kids get bored, they sit on the wall between and generally annoy the guy working there, knock the stones onto his plot etc.

A few of us were discussing getting a hive and there were several votes for putting it right under this wall... I think their view on H&S must have been along the lines of Honey & Sadism

[Colin_M]

had a quick sound out of all the plot holders, 99% were all for it, result one small colony of bee's on site.

That just goes to show the value of positive thinking.

I am still tempted - just want to make sure that I have the time to make sure it gets done it properly & we get enough people to share in the upkeep.