How to help bees thrive and give your garden real buzz - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Interiors How to help bees thrive and give your garden real buzz By You Magazine - May 30, 2021 Want to help bees to thrive? All you need is a space full of year-round colour, says bestselling author and nature enthusiast Sally Coulthard Start with a cosy home To attract bees to your garden, create a place for them to live. Honey bees like hives but are also attracted to long grass and piles of leaves for bedding. Solitary bees, which make up 95 per cent of the bee population, live away from hives and require homes to protect them and their young from the weather. These homes can be made by putting holes (no bigger than 10mm) in bamboo canes, with one end of the cane sealed with wax to keep warmth in and pests away. Replace every two years. Etsy.com sells a wide selection of bee homes. Photograph: Getty Images A wildflower selection – larkspur, cosmos, poppies, daisies, bluebells – creates a natural and inviting environment for bees to visit. The hive will shelter honey bees and bumblebees in colder months. Alamy Stock Photo Keep them well fed Late summer is often a difficult time for bees as food can be in short supply, so try to create a garden with a variety of flowering plants all year round, covering as much of the growing season as possible. A mix of flowers will provide nectar and pollen throughout the seasons for lots of different kinds of bees – long-tongued bumblebees like deep, tubular flowers such as foxgloves and lavender, while short-tongued honey bees prefer shallow, open-centred blooms such as borage and sedums. When buying seeds look for labels such as ‘plants for pollinators’ and ‘bee friendly’. Laura Stolfi/Stocksy United Think more is more Plants are more useful to bumblebees if they are sown in large, same-variety groups or drifts as these bees tend to stick to one type of flower when they’re hunting for food and can waste too much energy flitting between disparate flowers. Laura Stolfi/Stocksy United Providing a mix of flower shapes – from tubular to open-centred – will allow a greater variety of bees to feed. Photograph: Future Publish LTD/futurecontenthub.com Small gardens can be bee-friendly too, if filled with potted plants, flower boxes and trees such as apple and embrace any weeds, such as dandelions, clover, buttercups, bramble, cow parsley, milkweed and poppies, which bees love. For similar garden chairs, try amara.com Go big for brights When you see bees buzzing around outside, they’re most likely looking for nectar and pollen. Nectar contains sugar and pollen is packed full of protein, so the bees can use these two foods to feed not only themselves but also their young and other members of the colony if they live in a hive. Bees have poor eyesight, so opt for flowers that are at the vibrant end of the spectrum such as blue, yellow, purple and white. Photograph: Leigh Clapp Consider sun-mapping your garden. All plants need sun to thrive, with many requiring six hours or more of sunlight daily to produce flowers and fruit. Set aside one day a week to figure out how the sun moves across your garden. Start in early spring – the beginning of the growing season – then decide where to plant. And yes they love herbs too These provide nectar-rich flowers that draw in different kinds of bees. Most herbs flower over the summer months, but some provide food from late spring until early autumn. Bee-friendly ones include basil, chives, fennel, mint, lemon balm, lavender, marjoram, oregano, sage and rosemary – which, of course, are great for adding to your cooking, too. Herbs that spread out such as mint, tarragon and lemon balm work well in containers and can be easily moved to get maximum sunshine during the day. For a similar container try wickes.co.uk This is an edited extract from Sally Coulthard’s book The Bee Bible: 50 Ways To Keep Bees Buzzing, published by Head of Zeus, price £10. Bee-happy buys You’ll get guaranteed nectar points with these Seed ‘bomb’, £4.50, shop.nationaltrust.org.uk Wildflower seeds, £3, herboo.com Planter, £42, anthropologie.com Watering can, £19, daylesford.com Sunflower kit, £3.99, waterstones.com Herb box, £54, nordicnest.com Plant tags, £22, selfridges.com Bee house, £28, toa.st Vegetable seeds, £1.80, heima.uk Bee box, £10, trouva.com Bee block, £18, anthropologie.com Book, £12, waterstones.com RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR Aldi s pumpkin-shaped casserole dish is all we want for Halloween 7 of the best money-saving kitchen gadgets to invest in this winter Aldi has restocked miniature velvet chairs and sofas for your dog DON' T MISS Fiona Bruce Sometimes I struggle not to cry November 14, 2021 17 beautiful 2021 diaries to help you to look forward to December 4, 2020 Why women leave men for women What’ s fuelling the rise of April 28, 2019 Hollywood veteran Laura Linney on plastic surgery friendship and her stellar July 3, 2017 You can shop the khaki jumpsuit from Holly Willoughby’ s new M& S July 17, 2019 The secrets and lies behind this happy family photo April 11, 2021 It’ s cocktail hour Olly Smith’ s cocktail recipes and Eleanor Maidment s canapé November 14, 2021 BBC One has revealed its Christmas TV schedule and there’ s lots December 2, 2020 YOU Beauty Box August Reviews August 1, 2017 Rome has been named the cheapest major city to visit in August 7, 2019 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. 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