Bees are an extremely important and fragile element of our ecosystem. At least one third of our food depends on honey bees for pollination and it is estimated that the economic value of honey bees in New Zealand is over $5 billion per annum. Bees also keep our gardens flowering and our kitchen cupboards rich in honey; we have a lot to thank them for. In return, the least we can do is make sure our gardens are as bee friendly as possible!
Fill your garden with bee-friendly plants
You'll find bee friendly seeds or seedlings for a lot of these in your local Commonsense store.
Flowers
The basic idea is that you should be trying to make your garden attractive and functional for bees. To draw them in, plant flowers in the colours that bees are attracted to; yellow, blue, white and purple. Bees can’t see the colour red, so don’t bother trying to use red flowers to attract them to your garden. It’s also best to plant flowers that allow bees to access the pollen easily; so flowers that only have a single row of petals are best. As you can imagine, it’s much easier to harvest pollen from a daisy than from a carnation.
The last thing to remember is to ensure that there’s something flowering in your garden all year round so there’s always something in your garden for the bees to visit.
Herbs and other plants
There are also certain families of plants that bees are especially partial to, such as lavender, mint, rosemary, sage and thyme (the Lamiaceae family), the flowers of the Apiaceae family (such as fennel, coriander and parsley plants), and the Asteraceae family (such as sunflowers, zinnias and dandelions).
Native plants
If you’re interested in planting some New Zealand natives in your garden, bees are attracted to ti kouka (cabbage trees), harakeke (flax), koromiko, tarata (lemonwood), houhere (lacebark) and pohutakawa.
Take a look at these great bee-friendly planting ideas from Kings seeds, Wellington City Council and Auckland City Council.
Provide water for bees
Get a large bowl and fill it with stones of varying sizes (these are for the bees to stand on when they drink!). Ensure they come from an area which has not used pesticides. You can also use marbles, corks or decorative stones! Simply pour water into the bowl, leaving enough dry stones for the bees to stand on. Change water regularly and keep the bowl clean. Bees will use this as a water-stop on their travels.
Keep away from pesticides
It’s good to remember that less than 2% of the world’s insects are harmful to your garden, and there are plenty of natural ways to help fight off the ones that are. First make sure your garden is as healthy and strong as possible by looking after the soil and using lots of compost and mulch. You’ve also got some allies on your side – ladybugs will help to eliminate pests like aphids, mites and scale. They love plants that have flat flowers that are either white or yellow – calendula, coriander, dill, fennel or parsley all work well.
There are plenty of concerns surrounding the use of pesticides and how it affects the health of bee populations.
One class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, which are used on crops such as grass, potatoes, maize and sweetcorn, has been shown to affect bee health. It doesn’t kill them outright – but studies have shown that bee colonies exposed to neonicotinoids produce fewer queen bees, and that neonicotinoids can cause bees to become lost and confused when trying to return to their hive.
So be kind to bees and make sure you always garden organically. You can be confident that anything you buy from Commonsense will be bee friendly.
