Keep Britain Buzzing

Is the cold weather preventing you from doing the things you need to do? Try being a bee. Bee numbers are down again and are still declining due to climate change, pesticides, lack of habitat and disease.

A national campaign launched by the Soil Association aims to tackle the dangers facing bees and invites garden centres and garden owners to get involved.

The baddies
Neonicotinoids have been blamed for the bees’ disappearance. The Soil Association is calling for the chemicals to be banned in the UK.

Imidiacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin are used to control five types of garden pests, but there is evidence to suggest that the pesticides are also destroying the bees’ habitat and food supply. Of course there is the argument of what to do if you do have pests. A small amount of pests in your garden helps keep the natural balance and provide predators with a source of food. However, if this gets out of hand and you are in danger of losing your entire crop, you may need to take further action.

Swap your regular pesticides for bee-friendly biological replacements such as nematodes for vine weevil or BT for cabbage. If you want something stronger then chemical options such as soft soap can be used. You can also try netting and hoovering (using a small hand held hoover) to reduce the amount of pests reaching the plants.

Ways you can help
As well as supporting organic farmers by buying organic food you could grow a variety of plants in your garden and leave wild flowering plants, particularly ivy which provides late season winter food for bees. Growing blue and yellow plants also helps as these appear more attractive to bees.

Former Royal Gardener David Howard shared his views following his organic gardening talk at the
Rookwood Garden Show, “I have never thought that pesticides were necessary. The important word is diversity and where ever you have plant diversity you will not get huge numbers of pests. It is not about what you can spray it with, it is all about looking at nature and what happens in nature and trying to control pesticides in the most natural way.”

It is not for everyone but you could consider bee keeping. There are also bee habitats available from garden centres which provide warm homes for bees.

You can join the Soil Association campaign by signing up at www.soilassociation.org to support the association’s campaign and policy work and keep updated with their progress.