How we manage our land can really enhance the varieties and numbers of our native bees we can share our space with.
Many are ground nesting, so providing plenty of “wilderness” unmanaged areas is essential.
- In winter ensure there are flowers for food in case of early emerging insects : willow, ivy, mahonia, forsythia, bulbs. Keep adding more each season.
- In spring continue the flower provision, eg leaving dandelions to flower (collect seeds to spread them further)
- In summer take care to avoid disturbing breeding spaces
- In autumn when mulching for the winter make sure there are plenty of wild undisturbed habitat with loose cover : only collect up leaves where absolutely necessary, or a sufficient surplus.
- Only hard mulch the growing areas, create plenty of Zone 5 wilderness, allow other areas to mature – as food forests develop there will be more natural materials to lightly cover the soils by leaf fall and soft vegetation to cover (leaving the hollow stems till spring for other hibernating insects)
Varieties
I am not quick enough to photograph all the species of native bees here, hopefully future volunteers will be better photographers, to add more identification to the Kintaline Inaturalist project Kintaline Inaturalist project
I currently don’t have honey bee hives here, (something in planning when I have more help / capacity)
but there are plenty of local beekeepers bees visiting throughout the year. It is important to bear in mind supplies of food and habitat for both.