Purchased one of our bee colonies? Here’s The Natural Gardener guide to taking care of bees…
May we offer some bee-care tips? Although your bees are pest-free, we recommend a few dos and don’ts.
1. Avoid using chemical pesticides. We know it’s tempting sometimes, but there are alternatives. For example, aphids can be managed with solutions from Soap Nut Shells or Neem Oil. We have plenty of other bio-controls for the garden and greenhouse.
2. We’ve included a wildflower mix to keep the bees happy, but consider planting flowers that bloom throughout the season for a steady supply of nectar and pollen.
For spring: Bluebell, bugle, crab apple, daffodil, flowering cherry and currant, forget-me-not, hawthorn, hellebore, pulmonaria, pussy willow, rhododendron, rosemary, viburnum, and thrift.
For early to mid-summer: Aquilegia, astilbe, campanula, comfrey, everlasting sweet pea, fennel, foxglove, geranium, potentilla, snapdragon, stachys, teasel, thyme, and verbascum.
For mid to late summer: Angelica, aster, buddleia, cardoon, cornflower, dahlia (not double-flowered), delphinium, eryngium, fuchsia, globe thistle, heather, ivy, lavender, penstemon, scabious, sedum, and verbena.
(Remember, double-headed hybrids might look and smell nice, but they are often sterile and useless to bees.) 3. Keep your shelter away from pets and children (especially those practicing for the World Cup!). Place it somewhere sheltered, like the fork of a tree if you’re handy.
Nature makes caring for bumblebees simple – let them do their thing. But if you have questions, visit www.bumblebee.org. Imagine a warm summer evening, a glass of cold white wine in hand, the scent of flowers in the breeze, and the gentle hum of bees. We’d turn to share this moment with Joe, but he’d be asleep!
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