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Follow us on....
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Bumble Bees
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- Bumble bees have been in decline for many years.
- They are essential pollinators of many flowers and fruits and can be used commercially to increase yields.
- Bumble bees will only string when threatened by extreme danger and are non aggressive.
- True bumblebees make small nests of a few dozen cells in holes in the ground, tufts of grass or nestboxes.
- Only fertilised queens survive winter to start a new nest the next year.
- Colonies range from about 20 to over 200 workers.
- They search for nectar and pollen from flowers.
- They have hairy pollen sacks on their back legs
- Like mammals, their hairy bodies keep them warm allowing them to forage earlier in the year, and earlier in the morning and at higher altitude than other bees.
- Bumble bees will often nest in old mouse nests and cannot resist the smell, so the best way to attract them to a Bumble bee box is to add old mouse nesting material.
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Flowers for bumblebees
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March - April
- Apple
- Bluebell
- Broom
- Bugle
- Cherry
- Erica carnea (heather)
- Flowering Currant
- Lungwort (Pulmonaria)
- Pear
- Plum
- Pussy Willow
- Red dead-nettle
- Rosemary
- White dead-nettle
May - June
- Alliums
- Aquilegia
- Birds-foot trefoil
- Bugle
- Bush vetch
- Campanula
- Ceanothus
- Chives
- Comfrey
- Cotoneaster
- Escallonia
- Everlasting Pea
- Everlasting wallflower
- Foxglove
- Geranium
- Honeysuckle
- Kidney Vetch
- Laburnum
- Lupin
- Monkshood
- Poppies
- Raspberries
- Red Campion
- Roses (singles)
- Sage
- Salvia
- Thyme
- Tufted vetch
- White Clover
- Wisteria
- Woundwort
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You can encourage Bumble bees into your garden by planting pollen rich flowers, such as thistles and aliums and by making or buying a Bumble bee box,
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Wildforms, Keepers Cottage, Glenstockadale, Leswalt, Stranraer, Wigtownshire, DG9 0LU
email: pete@wildforms.co.uk Telephone: 01776 870453
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