Amazing Bees
“Bees do have a smell you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers”
Ray Bradbury “Dandelion Wine”
Honey bees have served us for centuries with beekeepers harvesting the sweet honey they produce and relying on them to pollinate crops. They are amazing little creatures and live in complex communities. The honey bee uses the most complex symbolic language of any animal on earth outside of the primate family. Honey bees pack a million neurons into a brain that measures a mere cubic millimetre, and they use every one of them. Worker bees must perform different roles throughout their lives. Foragers must find flowers, determine their value as a food source, navigate back home, and share detailed information about their finds with other foragers. An industrious worker bee may visit 2,000 flowers per day. She can’t carry pollen from that many flowers at once, so she’ll visit 50-100 flowers before heading home. All day long, she repeats these round trip flights to forage, which puts a lot of wear and tear on her body. A hard-working forager may live for just 3 weeks.
Not only do they produce beautiful sweet honey which has been known for its healing properties for thousands of years, these tireless creatures produce;
bee pollen-which is rich in proteins, vitamins, minerals and bioflavonoids which are anti-viral, antibacterial and helpful in lowering cholesterol;
bee wax- used for skin care products, candles, furniture polish, batik-making, etc;
royal jelly- the queen bees extraordinary source of food that is believed to be a potent antioxidant; propolis- a sticky glue that the bees produce that is antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral and anti-inflammatory.
We’ve all heard about the mysterious, global disappearance of honey bees. Other bee species are also declining, mainly because of habitat loss.
‘If the bees disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live”
Maurice Maeterlinck, “The Life of Bees”
There is plenty you can do to help local bee populations survive and thrive.
Bees in our area respond well with flowers they and their ancestors are used to so indigenous plantings are great. They love all the native wildflowers so as well as larger shrubs and trees try to source some of our sweet little wild flower species such as our native heath (Epacris impressa), Dampiera and native orchids. Aim to plant a great diversity of flowers with a range of shapes and textures. The more diverse your garden is the better it will support different bee species as well as beneficial insects and wildlife.
Bees play an essential role as pollinators in the vegetable garden. Without the bees many of our vegetables and fruits would never get to harvest stage. Plants such as asters, cosmos, borage, foxglove, marigolds, poppies, sunflowers, foxglove and geranium, are very enticing to them. They love plenty of colour so go wild! They also find attractive herbs such as basil, thyme, sage and chives.
Plant your flowering plants in clusters. Larger groupings of flowers (instead of sporadically spaced single plants) attract more bees. Plan for a succession of blooms- plant some flowers that bloom in spring and others that flower in summer, autumn and winter. That way there will be food for the bees throughout the year. Plant in a sunny area- bees prefer to forage in a sunny, protected area where they won’t be bombarded by wind. Sunny spots produce the most prolific flowers as well.
Importantly, garden organically. Use non-toxic forms of pest control. Traditional pesticides may kill beneficial insects like bees and butterflies.
In the warmer weather you can make a bee bath for our thirsty friends. This can be as simple as lining a shallow bowl or plate with rocks and add water, leaving the rocks as dry islands to serve as landing pads. You can place a few of these around your garden, refreshing the water when needed.
You can also purchase or make a bee hive for the honey bees or a pollinator house can be made for our native bees.
Bees are essential to our survival and are worth our every effort to sustain them. We all can take small steps to help our striped friends.
