Save the bees

Guest author, Ben Morris, introduces us to the wonderful world of bees and what we can do to help these vital pollinators.

'Save the bees!' is a particularly apt call to arms for Manchester, it’s a headline I’ve seen plastered everywhere over the past ten years, from the Eden Project, The Guardian, and even on t-shirts across The Wildlife Trusts online shop. But how much does the general population know about the bees they are being asked to save?

Comb the streets to ask people to describe a bee, and they’ll wax lyrical about honey bees; but ask them to draw one, and you’ll often see a fuzzy bumble… Whilst bees have surged in popularity over recent years, they’re still a vastly misunderstood group of insects. I bet only a handful of you knew that over 270 bee species call the UK home (with approximately 20,000 bee species around the world). Of the UK’s 270 species, just one of those is the honey bee, and only a few honey bees live in the wild (the vast majority are essentially ‘farmed’ by people in managed hives). 24 species are bumblebees, and the other 250 are solitary bees. Whilst the honey bee’s infamy comes from that sweet substance loved by people around the world, our native bees have buckets of charm.

Solitary bees are by far the most diverse group; leafcutter bees carve semicircles from leaves which line the walls of her nest, mason bees lay their eggs in empty snail shells, cuckoo bees lay eggs in other bee nests to avoid the dirty work, and that’s just scratching the surface. Bees are of course minuscule, fast fliers, so it’s often a challenge to spot a passer by. But to me, it’s the joy of the flashes and moments. In late summer, I often see mining bees carving their nests in the bunkers at my golf club, the sand a perfect replacement for their natural home. Living in a first floor flat, a bumblebee Queen will occasionally float past my living room window in early spring, on the hunt for a suitable nesting site.

Bees have many different social structures. Bumblebees often live in colonies up to 300, and as they only survive one summer, they produce a watered-down, honey-like substance; they don’t need honey to survive over winter. New Queens are born at the end of the summer, hibernate over winter, before emerging the following spring, ready to start their own colony. There are also cuckoo bumbles, which either invade and kill the Queen to take her place, or sneak in and lay eggs before fleeing. Solitary bees, as their name suggests, live on their own, laying eggs in nests of their own creation. Yet again, cuckoos exist in their world; why do all the hard work yourself eh!

But honey bees are light years away. There can be anywhere between 40-60,000 mouths per hive. Imagine you’re a bumblebee, living with your family just 250 strong, and two hives move in next door! That’s a lot of competition for the limited amount of food available, and it can have a negative impact on other pollinators too.

How you can help our native bees

Honey bees already have help from humans. But our native bees really need our help, with some populations dropping by a huge 30 per cent between 1980 and 2019. Almost everyone has the power to help them, and the time to do this is now. But, how can you help?

Plant a variety of native wildflowers, to create a food source that keeps giving over a longer period. You can plant in pots, on a balcony, in a window box - you don’t need much space
Plant/buy a fruit tree. Just five fruit trees creates an orchard.
No Mow May - Do you really need to mow the garden when the flowers are out?
Put down the pesticide, and buy organic produce - if they don’t die from exposure, pesticides mess with a bee’s navigation system
Build a bee hotel - you can drill holes in a fence post, or put some hollow bamboo stems somewhere sheltered.