5 easy garden tips to help save bees
Afternoon bees! How are you all doing? We’re feeling pretty excited here at the Hive as it finally feels like Spring is here and Summer is just around the corner. We definitely spotted some blue skies this weekend! Did you?
Spring is actually our favourite time of the year, as it’s the official start of the beekeeping season (although, we know that in reality beekeeping is a year-round commitment)! Of course, we also love the fact that the days start to get longer and warmer. Who doesn’t?
Now, even though most bees in Britain are still hiding inside their hives, there are still plenty of things that us humans can do to help them.
Today we’re sharing 5 pre-Spring tips that you can do to help Save the Bees. From a bit of forward planning to our trusty ‘Thirst Aid’ for bees, we’ve got you covered!
Plan your Spring garden with bee-friendly flowers
One thing you can do (beekeepers and non-beekeepers alike) is to plan your Spring garden. Every year you can plan to plant a garden full of nectar rich plants. And if you haven’t got a huge garden, then don’t fret. Pots on the patio, balcony or window sill and hanging baskets are just as good.
The trick is to make sure you’ve got a variety of plants. We suggest buying and sowing seeds earlier rather than later, (March is a perfect time to start planting) and making sure you choose a variety of different colour plants that flower at different times. This way you serve up a varied menu of plants for the bees and keep them BEEutifully happy!
And of course if you want a packet of our very own Bee-Friendly Wildflower Seeds just follow the link HERE to see how to get your hands on them!
Keep it natural!
Another thing you can do is to keep your garden free from pesticides and other chemicals that are harmful to bees and other pollinators. It may be tempting to splash out a bottle of weed killer, but for our fury little friends, these chemicals can be toxic! So if in doubt, keep it natural and please don’t spray.
Give bees shelter by letting your grass grow
This is one of our favourites, as it’s such a simple trick. Bees love a messy garden. Yep, that’s right. So today we are giving you a great excuse to give your lawn mower and back a rest and let your grass grow longer. Try to cut it a little less often this year and less closely, to give pollinators places to feed and shelter among the grass. It might not sound like much, but this provides bees with areas to shelter in and a bigger ‘playground’ for them to explore. It’s the little things that help, right!
Feed – our trusty Thirst Aid
We come back to this one time and time again, as it never gets old. Sometimes you just need to give tired bees a little bit of an extra helping hand. If it’s been particularly cold (like for the bees nestled in the Hives pictured below covered in snow) then this might be your chance to shine as a beekeeper.
If you spot a few sleepy bees flying about, they might be in need of some extra energy. Either pop a shallow dish of sugar water in your garden (please don’t be tempted to use honey as bees are only used to honey from their own hives, other honey could contain bacteria the bee isn’t used to), or whip up a enlarged version of our Bee Thirst Aid and pop this into the dish instead. If the bees are in need of a boost, this should sort them out in no time!
Treat yourself to some local honey!
The last tip today is about supporting local beekeepers where you can. Most often, it’s the local beekeepers who use sustainable and bee-friendly practices. Either drop by and see if you can lend a helping hand or purchase a jar of their local honey.
Our favourite is Ron’s straight from the Hives in Lancashire of course, but then we might be a little biased!
So what do you think bees? Not as hard as you thought? Did you know that without bees, then human survival will also be threatened; a crisis we really don’t want to face! So we can’t stress enough how important it is to try to make these small steps to help saving our fury friends from decline. It’s simple and it’s rewarding and makes all the difference!
We’d love to see or hear how you get on with any of these tips, so feel free to tag us on our socials @justbee.honey or comment below to let us know! Have a BEEautiful week bees!
Blogger Bee x
Taking a spoonful of the just bees honey each day .it tastes delicious.
Just received my 6 jars of mixed honey for my disabled grandson and myself it’s absolutely delicious will look forward to planting my free flower seeds in March thank you for fast delivery and great honey
I received my Lemon and Ginger Honey today Thursday 8th October, a very quick delivery. I’m looking forward to tryIng some for my tea very shortly!
Will let you know what I think !!
Love my Purchase thank you so much will purchase more once I finish my 6 jars I know Glass is heavier and more expensive packaging only complaint Plastic packaging