Wild and Free: Bees in Your Back Garden

If you grow pome fruits, beans, almonds, hazelnuts or trimmed willows, flowering crops of any kind, or just have a lot of wildflowers in your garden, you will already have bees as visitors, so keeping a hive or two of bees would seem like a great idea. However, while my primary interest is bees, my first piece of advice for gardeners thinking of going into beekeeping is to first spend some time addressing the needs of other wild pollinators, especially bumblebees and solitary bees.

It may seem romantic to have thousands of bees buzzing around your flower beds, but the reality is that they are not completely problem-free. If your garden is small and urban, you may want to think twice before placing a box of fifty thousand stinger-equipped insects near a neighbor’s territory. There may be pets, children and the elderly to consider. You may want to think about how you use your garden space and how your activities such as sunbathing, eating outdoor or simply hanging out laundry – they can interfere with your flight path, which can sometimes make Heathrow seem like a haven of peace.

I say these things not to discourage you, but to encourage you to think carefully about what your real reasons may be for wanting to ‘have’ bees.

Chances are the flowering plants you grow are already being pollinated quite effectively by wild bees and other insects, and unless you grow these crops on a large scale, adding bees to the mix will only have a marginal effect on yields. . Exceptions to this could include areas where neighbors routinely spray insecticides, with the result that wild insect numbers have been drastically reduced, or places where wild bee populations have suffered for other reasons, such as heavy pollution or loss of habitat. Unfortunately, in these cases, you are probably in the wrong place to keep bees.

Compared to most livestock, bees need little attention and can therefore be added to a garden, farm or small property without fear of wasting much time. However, as with any other creature in our care, someone needs to provide them with the right kind of care at the right times, if only to make sure they are comfortable, full of blinds, and disease-free. Honey bees are, and always will be, wild creatures, unimpressed by our attempts to tame them, so ‘caring for’ them is really a matter of providing them with adequate housing and allowing them the freedom to roam. Beyond that, especially if you have honey in mind, you need to consider the degree and style of “management” you will strive to apply.

Addressing the needs of other native bees first will help ensure you don’t cause an imbalance by flooding the area with bees while the local bumblebee population is not optimal. Exactly how this can be assessed has not yet been fully established, but if bumblebees are currently rare visitors to your garden, it may be too early to add a hive.

One of the most important considerations is the availability of food during the bee flight season, and this is where the gardener can apply their particular skills to ensure biodiversity and the right variety of species. There is considerable overlap in the flower varieties visited by different types of pollinating insects and each has particular preferences. For example, bumblebees tend to prefer comfrey, red clover, and foxglove, while honey bees are more likely to be found in heather, white clover, and apple blossoms. Of the ‘import’ species, Buddleja is famously attractive to butterflies, moths and many species of bees, and Himalayan balsam provides a welcome late-season boost, especially for bees and hoverflies.

Of course, many, if not most, putative beekeepers are tempted in that direction by the prospect of having their own honey ‘on tap’. Honey production depends on three main factors: the number of colonies maintained, the quantity and variety of food available and, above all, the climate. Of these, only the first is fully under their control, as the bees can drill within a radius of five kilometers (three miles) from their hive. If most of that territory is flower-rich meadows and hedgerows, organic farmland, or uncultivated wild, green fields, you’re probably in a good position to keep at least half a dozen hives if you so choose. Increasingly, beekeepers in towns and cities are finding that their bees are healthier and more productive than those kept close to farmland, and the explanation for this seems increasingly clear: our agricultural system is a massive consumer of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, which are known to be dangerous to pollinators. Much attention has recently been paid to the insidious destructive power of systemic neonicotinoids, including imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, which are known to be highly toxic to bees under laboratory conditions but have been licensed for use in the countryside. Usually applied as seed coatings, they work their way into the cellular structure of plants as they grow and make the entire plant, from its roots to its pollen and nectar, toxic to anything that gets too close. . Concern about its potential for toxicity to humans has also been widely expressed.

If you decide you want to bring bees into your life, a first choice to make is between ‘conventional’ beekeeping, using variations of the Langstroth-style frame and foundation hive, and so-called ‘natural’ beekeeping. , which is mainly based on variants of the top bar hive. The route you follow will depend on your philosophy, your priorities and your pocket. The conventional approach requires a substantial initial investment in equipment, continued reliance on purchased supplies, and the potential for higher honey yields; while the natural path can be followed at minimal cost, with generally lower but more sustainable yields and a minimal carbon footprint. Before choosing between them, you should first look for opportunities to have some direct, hands-on encounters with live bees. mass.

It should also be noted that not everyone has the right temperament to work with bees, and it is good to establish this one way or another before encountering tens of thousands of bees in your backyard.

There are some things that all gardeners can do to help all bees and other pollinators, in addition to being a beekeeper.

The most important thing anyone can do is learn how to control pests using biological methods that don’t require the use of toxic chemicals. Around 98% of all insects are beneficial to us in some way, but most insecticides do not discriminate between ‘friends’ and ‘foes’.

The next most important thing you can do is improve bee habitat by planting native wildflowers, the kind that bees evolved over a hundred million years. There are lists of bee-friendly plants available online and there are some plant nurseries that specialize in them.

If you have space in your garden, letting some of it go wild to create a safe haven for bees and other insects is a great idea. Gardens that are too tidy are not as friendly to wildlife. Small piles of twigs and leaves and piles of rocks are useful for many species.

Aside from the practical reasons you may be considering keeping bees, they are an attractive species from which we have much to learn. Beekeeping is a fascinating and absorbing activity that has the potential to enrich your relationship with the landscape and its untamed inhabitants.

And just having more bees of all kinds around can greatly increase the enjoyment of your garden.