Our first steps in bee conservation

Bees tumbling out of flowers and other surprises when we planted seeds to help save the bees:

Although my Dad had been urging me to think about green issues and biodiversity loss for years it wasn’t until my son joined in that finally we decided we couldn’t read anymore terrible headlines about the environment without trying to do something.

That something turned out to be planting flowers for bees, a keystone species that are alarmingly in decline worldwide. I was happy to do it but truthfully a bit sceptical. I wasn’t sure our effort would have any discernible effect.

At the time my son was going through a traumatic bereavement and I was clutching at straws to find ways to help. I’ve always been a nature lover and when I saw research into the positive mental health benefits of gardening I decided that planting seeds for bees might help us, even if it didn’t help them very much.

Borage Alba

Chamomile and calendula

Clematis Montana, white,

We live in Bronte country, a stunningly beautiful part of West Yorkshire where 19th Century mill owners built streets and villages of terraced workers’ houses with tiny backyards. Our house is one such and our garden is probably only big enough to park a car in. Locals are adept at creating tiny, beautiful gardens and sharing the back lanes that run between our houses as play spaces for children. I thought our space was too small, and too crowded with families and our many pets and bikes to make a difference to bees. I vaguely assumed that if we were lucky a bee might fly past and spot our borage flowers, planted hopefully in a few pots scattered around the garden.

How little I knew then about bees and the mysterious workings of nature.

We researched and found tips from the RHS and the Wildlife Trusts and instead of my usual practice of buying bedding plants in May for baskets and window boxes we planted borage, calendula, cornflower and nasturtium seeds, and herbs including lavender, wild thyme, rosemary, oregano and sage.

A few months later and our garden is blooming with flowers and buzzing! It’s extraordinary, but our tiny space is humming like a summer meadow. Visiting from London my daughter calls it The Snow White Effect which feels apt as we seem to have tumbled into an idyllic scene where butterflies flutter up from grasses and nature smiles on us.

A friendly bumble bee enjoying our nasturtiums on a rainy day.

We have visits from red-tailed and buff-tailed bumble bees. Big round bees with a noisy buzz. They look like they shouldn’t be able to fly but dance around the flowers with grace, sucking up nectar and occasionally falling off our delicate star flowered borage. It’s tricky for such a big bee to land on it’s flimsy, star-shaped petals but borage is so sweetly deliciously they always persist, making attempt after attempt until they can fly at the flower, grip onto it, and drink deeply of the nectar.

Sharing with the bumbles we see smaller, niftier bees including gentle little leaf-cutter bees and carder bees (of many kinds we think, they look quite similar!), tawny mining bees (bright ginger and a habit of making underground tunnels) ashy mining bees ( their black and white cousins) and as more and more nasturtiums and borage flowers bloomed- it’s not called bee bread for nothing- honey bees found us. Every time we went outside there would be a buzzing hum in the air and a little troupe of various kinds of bees making their way from flower to flower. 

I now know that bees are adept at scenting and finding food sources, extraordinary navigators and brilliant communicators. Once a honeybee has found you, she will fly back to her nest and communicate a map with precise directions to her fellow honeybees by performing the waggle dance that tells other bees which angle from the sun to follow, to find the nectar source.

In spite of the abundance of bees in our garden part of me thought there must be another reason other than our borage plants, perhaps it was an exceptionally good summer for bees?  We had been planting bedding plants and flowers from the garden centre for years. It seemed surprising, almost far-fetched that switching the flowers we were growing would make such a difference. It turns out it wasn’t. As well as not knowing much about bee navigation I didn’t know that we have been breeding and selling flowers, e.g. tulips, petunias, begonias and pansies  that are ornamental and look pretty but that are no good for bees. Either they have little nectar and pollen or the bees can’t access the nectar because of the flower shape.

A visit to a friend’s much larger garden finally made me realise that no-one and no space is too small to make a difference and our small act of conservation really had worked. By much larger I mean a lawn big enough to fit a tennis court and full grown trees. Fifty times the size of our little backyard which feels like a pocket handkerchief in comparison.  A real English garden with a walnut tree and rope swings and acres of lawn. 

My friend’s grandchildren finally exhaust themselves chasing the dog  around the lawn and I ask my son to photograph some bees for them. With the macro lens on his camera it’s possible to zoom in close and see details too small for the human eye; in an instant tiny creatures become miraculous mini-beasts. Ten minutes walk away in our own backyard bees were humming and buzzing amongst the nasturtiums as usual, but here amongst mature shrubs and trees and acres of lawn we couldn’t find a single one. I thought a large garden much more likely to attract wildlife than our own but it was bereft of nectar and therefore quiet and empty.

So, if like us you don’t have a lot of outdoor space we hope you will be encouraged by our example to experiment with herbs on window sills and flowers in pots ,you too may be surprised with the results. There is a joy to be found in watching bees dust themselves in pollen and fall asleep in flowers that you grew for them (yes, they do take naps in flowers). 

Bumblebee having a drink from a geranium flower.

Spring 2021: Update:

We are now a few years on from our first experiments with planting for pollinators and I am happy to report that we have a thriving bumble bee colony living in our garden wall! The joy of watching the bees return every Spring has become one of the highlights of the year and has shown us the value small acts of conservation can have.

Did connecting with nature help us process grief and loss? Absolutely, in surprising and profound ways. We found great comfort and solace in the gentle, busy humming presence in our garden and discovered at first hand that nature can bring us peace in times of distress and inspire us with the beauty of life even in our darkest moments.

To start your own conservation journey and support your local environment take The Bee Kind Challenge https://www.bee-positive.net/thebeekindchallenge

To find out more about the relationship between nature and mental health

To join our bee friendly community

For your peace of mind, since the start of our conservation journey we have been in close proximity to thousands of bees and  have never once been stung.