Bee friendly plants for dying bees......

This is Fantastic CraftN if u want to see more Plants/Flowers which can help just click the "Plants 2 Attract Bees & Butterflies" Found Under Your Icon Pic :)

In this months BBC Gardeners World mag there's a great article about Bumblebees and other bees they are doing a survey monitoring bumblebees, you spend 1 hour monitoring bumblebee species noting which flowers each one visits, results need to be in before June 30th, for details on joining survey go to www.bumblebeeconservation.org. and for more advice on bee identification and growing bee friendly plants visit www.gardenersworld.com/bees

Thanx for that SK :)

Agree Craftnutter,a very sad state of affairs.This list is very useful,and am sure other members will find it so.We have some of the plants in already,but had decided to plant teasels this year for the goldfinches...glad will also help the bees : )

I agree Craftnutter, Its very sad and also very worrying. I've heard that wild flower seeds can help aswell. and anything that is blue or yellow as bees see in these colours.

Thanks for your kind comments folks. I'd love to buy a beginners kit for beekeepers, but can't afford it at the moment! (www.thorne.co.uk/www.beekeeping.co.uk)

this is fab craftnutter , loving the list, love bees they seem such happy go lucky creatures

RESPECT FOR THE BEES

hehe

x x x or should it be zzzzzz

Thanks Craftnutter, it's so true about the hybrids too, especially things like double flowers that must just tease the bees with pollen they can't get to bless them. SK that article is brilliant, I never realised we had so many different types of bee and that they all needed differing varieties of flowers.

I never realised either Reebeesfleurs! When my hubby told me last year on the decline of the honeybee, that was when I felt sad about it and started investigating more about them. I never realised how important they are to the world, the economy and food in general! Never again do I take them for granted, altho' I always did love the gentle bumblebee "bumbling" round the garden!

Here's hoping the governments can get the scientists to help the poor honey bee. I know in Britain (forget where exactly) they are trying to see if they can breed a stronger version of the honeybee. The only CCD virus free honeybees left in the world are in Australia. If they get infected, there will be real problems! At the moment, that is where the US "hires" them from to pollinate their crops!

My hubby went on a bee keeping course last month and the tutor said that something similiar happened to the native honeybee in the 1940s and we lost all of them. the honeybees we have now are the descendants of bees imported from Italy after the war. Dont forget to add ivy to the list as these flower in late winter and are important food sources for early flying insects

ps thanks for bringing this to everyones attention

God bless the bees, i love them, i ahve some nesting in the ground, i am unsure which ones they are but well they are there for a reason and i have no intention in evicting them, ladybirds are so rare too did you know, we also desperately need these as they get rid of the aphids, i am going to buid a bee box and a ladybird box, i hope i can encourage them to live in them.

sorry i forgot to add today i have seen four bees in my garden all nice and fat buzzing around.

I think I should add that they love my hypericum hidcote. They buzz around this all day and also the lilac. Tref.

They are certainly in decline in North America too. May I add 'Bee Balm' or Monarda to your list. They love mine. The flowers are never without several bees on them. They also really like Echinacea which is a native North American plant.

Great blog CN

Thanks for all your kind notes, I'm sure future Goy'ers will read all these!

Mageth, that's really interesting. Does that mean you'll keep some bees? Let us know if your hubby does!

Gilli, I think we added the bee balm at the same time, lol!

Not likely, my daughter is terrified of them, it was just something he is interesred in, maybe when we retire.......

My garden used to be full of honey bees and I was regularly stung by them as I brushed past the shrub veronica when it was in flower as it was at the entrance to my greenhouse. Please understand that I am not complaining as it was a small price to pay for having so many bees around, I only felt sorry for the poor bee who stang me as he would die afterwards and didn't understand that I meant her no harm. In recent years I have not only kept the veronica but have planted many more flowering plants especially to attract other insects and bees, but I now see very few bees. Bumble bees seem to be fairly plentiful but the honey bee is sadly missing. I have never used pesticides so hat is not the reason.
Gilli. Momarda is in the list but it is under the name "Bergamont".

Aw, glad to see you didn't get rid of the Veronica, most gardeners would have done, well done, you've been helping them these years without knowing! Nice to know there's a gardener like me who doesn't use any chemicals!

Very interesting and useful information. Thanks.

So it is Toto.....thanks for pointing that out.....I must have missed it. :o)

On my lavender bush last year I had loads of bees and on the foxgloves to. We Cut lengths of bamboo canes into short lengths tie them altogether and enclose then in an empty drinks bottle with the bottom cut off and hang them in a tree and the bees hide inside when it raining!! I have seen bees going under ground also. I would love to have a hive unfortunately I am allergic. Without bees we will all starve to death. Their job pollinating are food crops is the most important job in the world. We owe our bees a heck of a lot!!!! We ALL need to protect them. So come one everyone lets make a pact to save our bees by planting the right plants in our gardens!!!

Lots of children are scared of being stung. My grandson, 11 yrs, included. I have got my hive and hope to get bees and at first he said he would not go near them. However, I explained the theiory that if the bees disappeared we would only be a few years behind and pointed out that if he was only afraid of getting stung and I put him in a beeproof suit he had nothing to fear. It was like magic - he could see the sense of that and I think is quite curious now. Educating the younger generations is an important factor and I am so pleased that many schools are inviting local beekeepers to explain to the pupils something about the bees. In my home town (Hereford) I think there have been bees in the library from at least the 1950's - they fly out across one of the main streets yet no-one seems bothered. From inside the library/museum a glass panel allows visitors to see the bees in action. My local association created a 'bees in the curriculum' pack and this website has built on that start http://www.britishbee.org.uk/bees4kids/index.php

thanks for the link nell

Thanks Craftnutter - great list of bee friendly plants.
I did a magic course earlier this year on NATURAL BEEKEEPING run by the Natural Beekeeping Trust - you can find them here - http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org - so much better than conventional beekeeping as a lot of the traditional practices seem to be contributing to the rapid decline of our sweet honeybees.
Here's another good site - http://www.biobees.com
With natural beekeeping:
1. Interference in the natural lives of the bees is kept to a minimum.
2. Nothing is put into the hive that is known to be or likely to be harmful either to the bees, to us or to the wider environment and nothing is taken out that the bees cannot afford to lose.
3. The bees know what they are doing: our job is to listen to them and provide the optimum conditions for their wellbeing.
Which is where bee friendly plants come in :o)

Thank you for the link Nelletap I will try to plan a lesson on bees for the early years children that I work with.