Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Flowers and bees
I have seen very few honey bees this year but plenty of solitary bees. Perhaps there is room for a ladder bee keeper.
Tags for Forum Posts: bees, poppies, sunflowers
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Philip on
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I don't think you're imagining things. Our lavender plant is usually thronging with honeybees but now only bumble bees. However a friend on nearby Allotments says her three hives are thriving...
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Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
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That's encouraging. Can you say where the nearby allotments are?
40 years or so ago, one of my housemates had three beehives on our flat roof and the honey produced was plentiful. Apparently, bees habitually fly horizontally from their hives which meant that when they were foraging elsewhere, they didn't cross our garden anywhere near head height. We did however see plenty of them on our fruit trees and bushes and I am fairly sure that the bees foraged as far away as trees in Finsbury Park. For interest, I am attaching below a photo from 1980 showing a swarm which formed on a nappy hanging on the linen line (yes, we were using cotton nappies!).
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Permalink Reply by hhnrau on
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I don't think we need to worry too much about honeybees - it's the low numbers of all insects that is of concern.
(there is some evidence that the rise in popularity of beekeeping means honeybees are out-competing other native species).
I think that climate change and all the freak weather is having a severe affect on all our wildlife. I was really depressed at the lack of insects in my garden earlier in the year, but in the last couple of weeks my garden has been full of bumble bees, honey bees, all sorts of solitary bees. (but few butterflies, parasitic wasps, lacewings and hardly any ladybirds).
I've got lots of truly bee-friendly plants - wild flowers are the most popular: clustered bellflower, marjoram, teasels, and purple loosestrife - which attract a range of species. And Veronicastrum (as well as loosestrife) is excellent for honeybees.
There are too many people paving their gardens, using plastic grass, council using glyphosate on tree pits (decimated our pavements this year). plus not all plants that are labelled as bee-friendly actually attract bees - you really have to search out what's visiting the individual plants in the garden centre.
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My interest and observations of insects are not particularly systematic but I have in recent days seen a few large dragonflies, many smaller blue ones (damsel flies perhaps), solitary bees of three kinds are active now around both asparagus and potato flowers and I see that the tomatoes and beans have been pollinated although I rarely see it happening. Two months ago, the hard fruit blossom was visited mostly by solitary bees and the crops seem set fair. I have also been bitten by mosquitos several times recently towards dusk! Butterflies have been fewer than usual but cabbage whites, red admirals and several smaller and less spectacular species are common enough (and of course, I keep them off my brassicas with netting). Not a single wasp have I seen where previously we would have had them nesting either in old stumps or in the loft space so something certainly seems to have disturbed the status quo.
Aside from all the plants in gardens, the railway embankment behind the houses in Wightman Road is completely covered in self seeded sycamores. These were not there 40 years ago but now they shed millions of seeds all over the place. I am told that sycamores make good honey but, as the trees are pollinated by wind as well as insects, I can't be sure that insects are doing their bit. I am sure, however, that the Western part of the ladder could again support a beehive or two notwithstanding your concern that they might undermine other insect populations.
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Permalink Reply by EMC2 on
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You’re spot on- I’ve stopped keeping bees as there’s too many Beekeepers in London and they’re out competing other pollinators
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