Create a Bee & Bee Information pack 1

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Create a Bee & Bee

A bee hotel to provide nesting spaces for many different types of solitary bee.

BEDWildflowers with nourishing nectar for bees to feast on.

BREAKFAST

REFRESHMENT A water source allows honey bees to collect water to cool their hive.

Build your own Bed & Breakfast accommodation for bees

Informationpack

2 Create a Bee & Bee Information pack

Step 1: A comfy bedIn the UK there are more than 220 species of wild ‘solitary bees’, many of which are under threat. These bees make individual nests for their larvae in holes in the ground, hollow stems of dead flowers, old brick walls or logs.

There are lots of different ways to create a bee hotel, but perhaps the simplest method is to use an old plastic bottle stuffed with lengths of twigs and stems.

Our bees are facing an unprecedented crisis. They’ve lost much of their natural habitat in the past 60 years (including 97 per cent of wildflower-rich meadows) and are under assault from pesticides and intensive farming. But by creating bee-friendly spaces where we live, we can start to replace and restore some of this lost habitat and help Britain bloom for bees.

This guide will show you how to create your own Bee & Bee to provide bees near you with a comfy bed, a nutritious break-fast, and a refreshing water supply.

What you’ll need

Before starting, you’ll need to collect some nesting materials – twigs, bamboo, reeds or other hollow plant stems all work well. You can find bamboo in garden centres or collect hollow reeds, grasses or stems such as cow parsley in your local park. Make sure your materials are dry before starting. Different species of bee need holes from 2 to 10 mm – so aim to collect material with a range of diameters. You’ll also need:

› 2 litre plastic bottle› Sandpaper› Craft knife and cutting mat› Strong twine, about 1 metre long› Garden clippers or secateurs› Modelling clay (optional)

A bee hotel ready for the first guests

Create a Bee & Bee Information pack 3

Step-by-step guide

1. With a craft knife, cut both ends off the plastic bottle to create a cylinder.

2. You will want your lengths of bamboo, grass or reeds to be a few centimetres shorter than the bottle to help protect them from rain, so use sharp garden clippers to trim them down to size. Bees can’t burrow through the knots in bamboo, so avoid lengths with too many knots in where possible.

3. Use sandpaper to smooth the ends of the bamboo or reeds if they are uneven. Bees will be put off by sharp edges barring their entry to the holes.

4. Pack the bottle tightly with the nesting materials. You can use modelling clay to help secure the stems and bamboo in place.

5. Before filling it completely, thread a length of strong twine through the bottle to enable you to hang up the finished hotel.

6. Add more bamboo and reeds until the bottle is tightly packed and secure.

Woodenfencepost

Nail or screw

Strong string

15cm/6 inches

2 litre plastic bottle

Hollow stems

Height at least 1 metre off the ground adjusted

for easy observation

Hang your finished bee hotel in a sheltered spot

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4 Create a Bee & Bee Information pack

Getting ready for your guests

You can now hang your finished bee hotel ready for bees to move in. An ideal position would be in a sunny spot, protected from rain and wind as far as possible.

Over the summer, different species of bee will hopefully lay eggs in the bee hotel, add pollen and nectar to feed the larvae, and block the entrance to the holes with leaves or mud. By mid-September, most bees will have found somewhere to lay their eggs. During the autumn the eggs hatch and the larvae will feed on the food supply left for them. They remain in the nests until the following

spring when they emerge as adult bees. If the bee hotel gets too wet during the winter, this could cause it to rot. If it’s difficult for you to site your hotel in a well-protected, rainproof spot, you can move it into a garden shed or similar (somewhere dry and unheated) from October to February, and put it outside again in March.

Short of time? Ready-made bee hotels are available in our shop at foe.co.uk/shop. Or for more tips and alternative methods for creating a bee hotel, visit foe.co.uk/beehotel.

Create a Bee & Bee Information pack 5

Bees need a plentiful, year-round supply of flowers from bee-friendly trees, hedges, shrubs, food crops and garden plants. Flowers are their food supply – nectar contains sugar for energy, whilst pollen contains protein and oils, together forming a balanced diet. And as bees move between flowers of the same plant, they also pollinate them, helping our gardens to thrive.

Create a wildflower patch

Wildflowers such as cornflowers, cowslips, and the common poppy are all brilliant for bees. You can get wildflower seed mixes at your local garden centre, or by ordering a Bee Saver Kit from us (see back page).

Here are a few simple steps you can follow to get wildflowers blooming in your garden. The ideal time to do this is September/October because this mimics the natural cycle when flowers typically drop their seeds, but you can also sow wildflower seeds in spring.

1. Clear the ground and remove any vegetation or turf. Alternatively, use a strimmer or lawnmower to cut the grass as short as possible, and then rake the ground to reveal patches of bare soil.

2. Wildflowers thrive in unfertile soil, so if you can, remove the topsoil, or dig the soil over to a depth of at least 15 cm/6 inches to reveal the less fertile soil below the surface.

3. Scatter the seeds lightly at approx. 4 g/m2 to avoid overcrowding (that’s around three quarters of a teaspoon of seeds per square metre). You can mix the seeds with sand first, to aid even sowing.

4. After sowing, lightly rake the surface and firm down with the end of a rake or your feet. If you are sowing during a dry period, then water the soil.

Step 2: A nutritious breakfast

6 Create a Bee & Bee Information pack

Looking after your meadow

You may need to weed the meadow during the summer. It’s preferable to do this by hand, and avoid using pesticides which can be harmful to bees and other wildlfe.

In the autumn the plants will die back. You can then shake the dead flower heads to help scatter their seeds on the ground for the following year. If needed, you can sow more seeds at this point.

You’ll then need to trim your bee-friendly space at least twice a year (September/October and March/April). You can use a strimmer, scythe, or cut with a pair of shears. Once this is done, you can then mow with a lawn mower over the winter months, as short as you can.

Other bee-friendly plant options

In addition to wildflowers, lots of vegetables, fruit bushes and herbs (such as onions, strawberries, lavender and rosemary) are great for bees. Many other common garden plants are bee-friendly too, including sunflowers.

If you’re short of space, try easy herbs such as

marjoram, thyme, chives and rosemary in a window box. And if you have a bit more room, you could plant bee-friendly flowering shrubs such as winter-flowering honeysuckle, or even trees such as almond, apple or wild cherry.

If possible, aim for a range of plants which flower at different times throughout the year. Ivy is a good food for bees in autumn, as is holly in winter, and snowdrops are important early bloomers in the spring.

Not all flowers are bee-friendly. Generally speaking, avoid ‘double’ flowers which have so many close petals that bees cannot reach into the flower to the nectar. Plants with flower heads that are easy to land on – like fennel, angelica and cow parsley – are much better for bees.

Colours can be a helpful guide – violet, blue and yellow flowers are often good choices. If you are shopping for plants in garden centres, look out for the ‘Perfect for Pollinators’ symbol which marks bee-friendly plants suggested by the Royal Horticultural Society.

You can find more bee-friendly gardening tips at foe.co.uk/beegardentips.

ChivesRosemary Thyme

Create a Bee & Bee Information pack 7

Step 3: A water supplyLike humans, bees need water. Water is essential for honey bees to make food for their young, and keep their hive cool and humid. They collect water during the summer months and can carry it back to the hive like they do with pollen.

To create your water supply, fill a bucket or tray with water (preferably rain water) and put a few stones in it that are large and stable enough to give bees a safe place to drink from. Alternatively, try floating old wine corks on the surface – this gives bees something to land on. If you already have a pond in your garden, you can try adding wine corks or rocks to give bees a landing pad, too.

Thank you…

and good luck in welcoming local bees to your Bee & Bee soon. Your new bee-friendly space will be in good company, joining hundreds of Bee Worlds and bee-friendly gardens that have already been created as part of the Bee Cause.

Tell us your stories

We’d love to hear how you get on creating your Bee & Bee. You can share your stories and photos with other Bee Savers by adding them to our map at foe.co.uk/bees.

Honey bees will appreciate a refreshing drink

8 Create a Bee & Bee Information pack

Want more? Get a Bee Saver KitIf you want to do more to help bees, please donate £15 and we’ll send you a Bee Saver Kit.

Your kit will contain a pack of wildflower seeds and simple information to help you create your own bee haven, including a bee ID guide and a garden planner, all wrapped up in a handy Bee Cause folder to keep everything organised.

If you already have one then why not get one for a friend? They make a great gift for the bee lovers in your life.

To order your kit visit foe.co.uk/bees or call us on 0800 581 051, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm.

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Mason Bee Osmia rufa

Early Bumblebee Bombus pratorum

Red Mason Bee Osmia bicornis

Honey Bee (worker) Apis mellifera

Tawny Mining Bee (male) Andrena fulva

Hairy-footed Flower Bee (male)

Anthophora plumipes

Great Yellow Bumblebee

Bombus distinguendus

Common Carder Bumblebee

Bombus pascuorum

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Bombus terrestris

Tawny Mining Bee (female) Andrena fulva

Hairy-footed Flower Bee (female)

Anthophora plumipes

Forest Cuckoo Bumblebee Bombus sylvestris

Garden Bumblebee Bombus hortorum

Early Mining Bee Andrena haemorrhoa

Willughby’s Leafcutter Bee

Megachile willughbiella

Honey Bee (queen) Apis mellifera

Red-shanked Carder-bee Bumblebee

Bombus ruderarius

Fabricus’ Nomad Bee Nomada fabriciana

Davies Mining Bee Colletes daviesanus

Brown-banded Carder Bumblebee

Bombus humilis

White-tailed Bumblebee Bombus lucornum

Shrill Carder Bumblebee Bombus sylvarum

Communal Mining Bee Andrena carantonica

Blue Mason Bee Osmia caerulescens

Red-tailed Bumblebee Bombus lapidarius

Ivy Mining Bee Colletes hederae

Short-haired Bumblebee

Bombus Subterraneus

Some species of bumble bees, honey bees

and solitary bees are regular visitors to many

parts of the country. Use this handy bee chart

and see how many can you spot.

Bee identification guide

THE CAUSEBEE

Your Bee Saver Kit Everything you need to get busy for bees.

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb

HelleboreRosemary

LungwortGeranium

Apples & pearsChives

Thyme

Rock roseLavender

RaspberryHoneysuckle

ArtichokesHeather

Runner beansSunflower

Hebe

Michaelmas daisiesAnise hyssop

Blue Satin HibiscusMahonia

Ivy

SarcococcaAcacia

Crocus

Build a bee-haven in your back garden

Apple blossom

Chives

Honeysuckle

Geranium

RosemaryLavender

www.foe.co.uk/bees

Your step-to-step guide to becoming a

Bee Saver

British wildflowerseeds

Friends of the Earth is the collective name for Friends of the Earth Trust, registered charity 281681, company number 1533942 and Friends of the Earth Limited, company number 1012357. In both cases the registered office is: The Printworks, 139 Clapham Road, London SW9 0HP. www.foe.co.uk