They pollinate vegetation like broccoli plants, avocados, apple trees, blueberry bushes, and even coffee. We owe a lot of gratitude to pollinators because they are necessary for about 75% of the world's crops.
And one way we can express our gratitude to them is by giving them access to carefully designed areas known as pollinator gardens. In this instance, we'll be focusing on bee gardens and how to make a healthy, beneficial, and happy one in your area while studying the impacts, the plants, the varieties of bees, and more.
What is a Bee Garden?
Let's start by defining a bee garden: a bee garden is an outdoor area created expressly to attract and care for different sorts of bees. The choice is yours whether to design the area to draw particular species and types of bees or to make it more aesthetically pleasing in general.
A bee garden is created by a variety of methods, including picking the appropriate plants, trees, and bushes, offering a water source (or two), nesting locations, and shielding areas.
However, bee gardens are frequently just pollinator gardens, which are generally designed to draw pollinators of all kinds to your area. To help you choose the most effective course of action, we'll examine this concept in greater detail below.
How are bee gardens beneficial for bees?
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Bee gardens provide a variety of functions, but their main contribution to bee conservation and reproduction is their overall success.
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They offer a warm environment where wild bees can obtain resources including food, water, and shelter.
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This enables bees to find protection while pollinating plants, which produces an abundance of food for the specific hive or hives that frequent your garden.
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Additionally, it helps bees in locating secure areas for long- or short-term habitation.
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They also supply additional necessities like shade, water, and places to rest.
Wildflower fields, dense forests filled with a variety of flora, meadows, mountainsides covered in flowering plants, and other such areas used to be common throughout the planet. However, as more and more land has been appropriated by humans for purposes such as housing, industrial complexes, deforestation, and others, bees have had fewer and fewer wild homes to call their own and fewer food sources.
For instance, 97% of the wildflower fields in the United Kingdom disappeared between 1930 and 2017. A large portion of the rest of the planet mirrors this kind of severe loss, which has led to a huge vacuum and a consequent drop in the bee population worldwide.
Bee gardens especially seek to fill this need on a modest scale, but anybody with access to land is strongly encouraged to offer as much room as possible for bee safety and good reproduction.
Why plant a bee garden?
Here are some advantages that can sway you from your current position if you're debating whether or not to plant a bee garden.
You'll discover that having bees in your garden makes it healthier and happier in addition to aiding local agriculture, biodiversity, and bees themselves.
Flowers that are pollinated by healthy bees are more vivid and numerous.
When bees pollinate fruit trees, many of them produce more fruit (or no fruit at all, in other situations).
There will be less work for you to do in the garden.
Bees increase the quality of the air surrounding your house (thanks to plants thriving and therefore producing more oxygen).
How to manage a bee garden?
As you build and manage your bee or pollinator garden, there are several things to think about:
Picking the Right Plants for the Garden
Choosing the appropriate plants, trees, and shrubs for your pollinator garden is the first step. There are several ways to choose these, but one of the most crucial ones is to consider what is local to your region. Native plants are essential for drawing bees to your area, and we'll go into further detail below.
Second, check that the plants are in the appropriate hues. They are not drawn to all the same hues that people find attractive while planting. Some colors, like red, are invisible to them. They are drawn to flowers that are blue, purple, yellow, and white instead. If they are light enough, some pink hues could also draw bees.
Additionally, make sure there are plenty of fragrant plants. For instance, many hybrid plants are sterile and don't produce the nectar and pollen that bees gather.
Finally, pick a range of flowering plants that appeal to different bee species.
Grow the Plants in the Right Configuration
When it comes time to arrange your plants, make sure to pair up plants of the same kind. To provide the bees with plenty of beautiful plants, put at least one square yard of the same plant together if you have the space. Plant a couple of honeysuckles next to each other or group all the crocuses together.
A little pollinator garden can still be made even with limited space. Around your shrubs, scatter wildflower seeds, or stuff asters into a window box. Plant as many of the flowers as you can in containers and group them if you can.
Provide Proper Care
It's crucial to provide the plants with the right care after you've planted the garden. Although they have varying light and shadow requirements, in the summer they mostly need protection from the sun. They require watering and, occasionally, fertilization with natural, organic fertilizers that won't endanger the bees that pollinate them.
Before deadheading or pruning the plants, make sure they have had enough time to bloom. And when harvesting plants like cauliflower or broccoli, leave the plants alone so that they can continue to grow and bloom. Leave the plants in the garden until the blossoms have faded, especially those with late blooms that bloom in the late autumn or early winter. These are essential for bee life.
Provide a Water Source for Your Pollinator Garden
Yes, you need to water all those plants, but bees also need a supply of pure, fresh water. A shallow planter or small bowl filled with water may also work, as will a slanted birdbath. Bees must have access to water to survive, but it must be shallow enough that they won't die or be swept away by a wave.
Avoid using Pesticides, Herbicides & Fungicides
It's necessary to stay away from all chemicals if your goal is to draw pollinators like bees and butterflies. These can destroy the bees that visit your plants for food. Particularly harmful to bees are pesticides. To prevent your bee friends from perishing when they enter your garden, stay away from herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and all other "sides." These toxins may kill out an entire hive in addition to the unfortunate buzzer that landed on your lavender because they are frequently brought back to bee nests.
Keep these pesticides away from your garden, trees, and other nearby vegetation.
And instead, cultivate some plants that help ward off some of the pests that frequent most gardens around your bee garden. Consider herbs like rosemary, eucalyptus, marigolds, and lemon balm, to name a few.
