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Help The Bumblee Bee

Our humble garden Bumble Bee are showing a decline in numbers in our countryside and gardens, i have noticed this myself while i’ve been pottering around in my garden and also during my walks in the countryside.

To help bring Bumble Bees back into our garden and halt their decline in numbers, we can change our gardening habits by switching from planting bedding plants and going for a more cottage garden mix of flowers such as Oxe-eye daisy, Fox-gloves, Field Scabious and other wild flowers; you can buy wild flower seeds from your local gardening centre which are nectar rich and attract the Bumble Bee as well as the Butterfly; the bedding plants such as Pansies and Busy Lizzies are useless where wild life is concerned as they have hardly any nectar and are only good for show.

There are currently 25 species of Bumble Bee in Britain and Ireland and 6 of those are common in our gardens, 3 species have already been recorded extinct and a further 7 species are on the endangered list, this problem can be helped by just changing the plants we grow in our gardens and encouraging farmers to plant bee friendly plants and preserving hedgerows.

6 most common Bumble Bees:

Buff-tailed Bumble Bee - Bombus Terrestris
Early Bumble Bee - Bombus Pratorum
Common Carder Bee - Bombus Pascuorum
White-tailed Bumble Bee - Bombus Lucorum
Red-tailed Bumble Bee - Bombus Lapidarius
Garden Bumble Bee - Bombus Hortorum

Below is a list of wild flowers that can be planted in your garden, they are all generally hardy and resistant to disease and slugs, they also last all year round and when sown as a mixture will look much more attractive than the non-friendly bedding plants.

March - April