Extra love for the flowers and bees on World Bee Day
Something is being raked off, repotted and planned here. Not necessarily in the office every day, but the entire Team Bart does have a garden, a balcony or a sunny window sill where we (try to) plant all kinds of things. Now you can try recycling your avocado seed and growing a tree, but you can also keep it a lot easier. Simple for yourself and good for the bees. The latter are having a tough time and so every bit of help is a plus. And that can be done very easily.
Today, on World Bee Day, all kinds of tips & tricks to assist those flowers and bees in an easy and fun way (pun intended).
Bart likes to be outside anyway. Here you can read what can be done and how to do it.
The rule of thumb is: plant what is good for wild bees, because honey bees can also benefit from that. Purple flowers are favorite and organic and native plants always do a little better. You can of course sow a piece of garden with wild flowers, but you can also choose plants that are useful to you.
- Cucumber herb. This one has a beautiful, light purple flower and the leaves are delicious in a salad (slightly wasabi-like, so nice extra spice)
- Marjoram/wild oregano. Nice for the bee and useful in the kitchen.
- Chives. Also the purple flower and delicious with, well, almost everything, right?
- Snakewort. It looks beautiful and the bees love it.
Leaving the grass a little longer so that wild flowers have more of a chance is also a very easy (the easiest way, because you don't have to do anything) way to provide the bees with nectar. Placing a bowl of water here and there (especially if you live in the middle of the city) is also greatly appreciated as a refueling station and simply not doing too much in the green parts of the garden also helps enormously. Don't remove too many branches, don't rake all the leaves aside, but leave it behind and the critters will thank you.
A bee hotel? Que? It's nice, looks cozy and is also a fun craft project for the family. Fiskars has three designs for bee hotels, the first two of which are so easy to do yourself that it really is a case of a child can do the laundry. If you are not much of a crafter, you can of course just buy one. Natuurmonumenten has a beautiful and sleek bee hotel or for a small but nice version you have the BeeFunny.
If you only have the flower gardens from Albert Heijn on your windowsill, a teaspoon is probably enough as a gardening tool. If you are going to work on the balcony or in the garden, good tools are indispensable. Fiskars has enough things for all your garden projects, from... flower scoops (which also measure depth, useful), pruning shears in bright colors instead of that eternal gray and the best part: if you order now for 60 euros, you will receive a free Happy Bee Box (including a bee hotel, so you don't have to build it anymore).
Ok, at Mot in Mokum in Amsterdam North they focus more on butterflies than on bees, but they also go hand-in-hand together. Fun to wander around - everyone is always welcome - but it is even more fun to spend the night there! That is possible, in a very cozy caravan. Sleeping among the butterflies, watching moths with a glass of wine, having breakfast in the sea of flowers: it doesn't get much more fun!
It may feel a bit counterproductive: that you are picking flowers while you actually want there to be more flowers for the bees. Not true at all, because the picked flowers make room for new growth. Fun to do with the kids, beautiful for the home and good for nature and bees. We have collected six very nice places in the Amsterdam region here. You have to do it, it's fun.
