How Can We Bee … Helpful? by A Guy Called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip!

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bee friendly gardens, gardening for bees, planting for bees, plants for pollinators, pollinator gardening, pollinator gardens, sustainability, sustainable apiary

It’s not rocket science it’s just awareness – simplicity itself – what would you rather Bee Dead or Bee Alive – personally l think l would prefer living bees to dead bees and the bees probably agree with me!

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

How BEE friendly are you? With Spring just literally on our doorstep now, although even l have to concede at times that in the UK alone, it appears that Mother Nature has withdrawn it … our bees are back into their daily routines. The garden l have here, is not a gardeners’ delight, we have wild herbs growing next to wild flowers, and very soon we shall be planting out our seasons’ rotation for vegetable growing. I tend to like to see more ‘weeds’ and don’t see them as such but more as flowers in the wrong place, it sounds kinder that way.

Plant more BEE friendly flowers and flowering herbs in your garden – With the loss of nesting and foraging habitat due to intensive monocultural agricultural practices and the ever increasing and rising suburbanization driven society pressures demanding more housing – natural landscapes are fast disappearing. You can alter things by planting flowers into your garden. Plant bloom heavy as Bees love forage volume and plant for the seasons that the pollinators are most active – as in early spring to late summer. Plan your flowering crops effectively;

Read the full article with lots of wonderful photos here: How Can We Bee … Helpful? — A Guy Called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip!

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Vegetable Gardening for Honey Bees by settling for bees

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bee photos, beekeeping, honey bees, photography, planting for bees

These cold winter days don’t allow for much gardening time.   Like many of you, I’ve been considering the possibilities that spring planting offers lately, particularly as seed catalogs pile up and lure me into their pages with colorful spreads of summer’s bounty.

Last week, it was warm enough for bees to fly.  I went out back without the restrictions of a heavy coat, feeling as light and carefree as my honey bees navigating and searching for any available food sources.  I let the chickens out, watched my honey bees flying for a while and considered garden options for the spring.  I even brought a nice cup of hot tea outside, sweetened with my girls’ honey, of course.

For more excellent honey bee photos and suggestions for vegetable gardening plantings for the bees visit: Vegetable Gardening for Honey Bees — settling for bees

A Bee’s Eye View of the Garden — Native Beeology

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bee biology, colors bee see, honey bee biology, planting for bees

Planning a Garden With Bees in Mind –

The sweeping vista of flower filled meadows is a sight to behold yet aesthetics are a side effect to the flowers true intent. Flowers are not seeking human admiration but seeking the attention of pollinators. Through visual cues, the flowers are shouting… “Pick me! Pick me!”   A closer look reveals that over evolutionary time flowers have gone to extreme lengths to get the attention of their preferred pollinators: whether insect, bird, bat or wind.    Many factors come into play in regards to attracting any pollinator including colorful (or not colorful) petals and sepals, nectar guides, good or bad smells (or lack of) and overall shape and size. These features are often characterized as pollinator syndromes and understanding them can clue you in as to who might be most likely to visit a particular flower. If you are planning a garden that caters to our native bees it important to understand the type of flowers that they are most attracted to. Here are a few pointers to understanding the bees-eye view of the world.

Read full article at: A Bee’s Eye View of the Garden — Native Beeology