Last updated
05 February 2012
Quest for the Good Life 
The Birds & the Bees
Two important parts of our gardens. Perhaps the birds are more rewarding to look at and observe, but the bees are more important in terms of pollinating our crops. Then there are others insects and mammals that are also important. If we get it right for the birds and the bees then the others will follow naturally.
The Birds
Many people feed the garden birds. Perhaps, as well intentioned as it is, it can change the balance of populations, encouraging seed eating birds above everything else. It can also create a dependency on artificial food supplies and may extend some individuals lives longer than they would have in the wild. Overall it has to be a good thing but it has to be kept in balance.
Equally important are the need for nesting sites. With modern housing having few eaves, birds like the House Sparrow are finding it a bit tough. By hanging nest boxes around the garden in the correct places, with a variety of box styles, you can give birds like the Blue Tit, Great Tit, Flycatcher and even Woodpecker a chance to breed successfully.
Creating hedged areas, placing ponds can also help.
Whilst we encourage most bird species, wood pigeons are not so welcome and either have to be turned into a delicious pie or discouraged by other means.
Bees
We hear a lot about the struggling colonies of honey bees, colony collapse disorder and the varroa mite. There is also the plight of the bumble bee to consider.
The Bumble Bee
The Bumble Bee is known by most people, its familiar sound as it just manages to fly from flower to flower. They always seem just a bit too big for their wings and that any minute they will crash land into your courgette patch.
According to the Bumble Conservation Trust the bee with think of as the typical Bumble Bee is just one of 24 species in the UK. Unfortunately there were 27 but 3 have become extinct here.
So they are clearly under threat. Habitats have been changed, removed or destroyed. Flower meadows have just about disappeared, making our gardens vital last refuges.
Without bees crops do not get pollinated. This means our own vegetable growing is affected, but more importantly the food of the country and indeed the world could be threatened. It seems strange that a small group of insects can affect the future of the human race. Dramatic as this sounds it’s true!
We need to create as many refuges in our gardens as possible. Providing a source of flowers that attract, feed and nurture new bees. Allowing some space for a “mini meadow” that will grow wild flowers from Spring to the end of Summer. Placing Bumble Bee nest boxes might help. If you grow your own veg then promoting bees will help your yields. So what can we do?
Important Flowers for Bumble Bees
To give a good show of flowers over spring and summer you should endeavour to create a spring meadow and a summer meadow (even a small area of grass set aside for this purpose). These require different management such as mowing.
Spring flower meadow
Early flowers like :-
Cowslip
Self Heal
Yellow Rattle
Bugle
Dandelion
Lady's Smock
Snakes Head Fritillary
thrive in grass that is not cut until June. This gives the queens food as they fly around searching for appropriate nest sites. From June onwards, you can mow regularly as per normal.
Summer Flower Meadow
Later flowers like:-
Bird’s foot trefoil
Field scabious
Knapweeds
Meadow cranes-
Melilot
Red bartsia
Red clover
Sainfoin
St John’s wort
White clover
Yellow rattle
do well in grass that is cut regularly until April then left alone until September.
Grass and nettles tend to be invasive and dominant. They out compete many flowering plants. However wild flowers do better on poor soil, so when you cut the grass remove the cuttings. Do not use lawn fertilisers. By reducing fertility in that area you will promote vigorous wild flowers growth and encourage more and more bumble bees. This will encourage breeding in your bee nest boxes and strengthen your local populations of bumble bees.
Bumble Bee Nest Boxes
You think of nest boxes for birds, bats and even hedgehogs but we rarely consider them for Bumble Bees! Now they are not suitable for all Bumble Bees, only the ones that nest deep in the ground. You can find all sorts of commercial ones, unfortunately most are made to look pretty for the garden and not necessarily functional. If you take in all of the information written about them then there is an element of contradiction. Much of it in the finer detail. But if you consider the natural nesting habits and try to reproduce them then what more can you do. The Bumble Bee Conservation Trust, based at the University of Sterling in Scotland, perhaps have some good points to make about how to set up a nest box. Using all of the help available we have come up with a Quest for the Good Life Bumble Bee Nest box. It’s rough and ready, not polished and commercial, but it takes on board many of the points raised and attempts to create a suitable structure for bees to colonise. As with all things, trial and error are the name of the game. We will be siting and testing it over the next months and years along with variations in size and shape to see what happens. Here’s the design.
This is a two chambered box with a pipe based entrance. It replicate the tunnel a bee would go down before entering the nest. If you would like to see more details on this box and how it is set into the ground you can download a more detailed pdf file from our downloads page
