Dean Forest Beekeepers

Ten things you can do

Plant your garden with bee friendly plants

In areas of the country where there are few agricultural crops, honeybees rely upon garden flowers to ensure they have a diverse diet and to provide nectar and pollen. Encourage honeybees to visit your garden by planting single flowering plants and vegetables. Go for all the allium family, all the mints, all beans except French beans and flowering herbs. Bees like daisy-shaped flowers - asters and sunflowers, also tall plants like hollyhocks, larkspur and foxgloves. Bees need a lot of pollen and trees are a good source of food. Willows and lime trees are exceptionally good. See our section Gardening for bees for full lists.

Buy local honey

Local honey will be prepared by local beekeepers. This keeps food miles down and helps the beekeeper to cover the costs of beekeeping. Local honey complies with all food standards requirements but is not mistreated to give it a long shelf life. It tastes quite different to foreign supermarket honey and has a flavour that reflects local flora.

Find space for a beehive in your garden

Many would-be beekeepers, especially in urban areas, find it difficult to find a safe space for their colony of bees. If you have some space contact your local beekeeping association and they could find a beekeeper in need of a site. It is amazing what a difference a beehive will make to your garden. Crops of peas and beans will be better, fruit trees will crop well with fruit that is not deformed and your garden will be buzzing!

Become a beekeeper

Beekeeping is a most enjoyable, fascinating and interesting hobby – and you get to eat your own honey too. Every year local beekeeping associations run courses to help new people to take up beekeeping and even help them find the equipment they need and a colony of bees. Training programmes continue to allow enthusiasts to become Master Beekeepers. For information on courses visit the British Beekeepers' Association website: BBKA

Take care when disposing of jars of foreign honey

Believe it or not but honey brought in from overseas contains bacteria and spores that are very harmful to honeybees. If you leave a honey jar outside it encourages honeybees to feed on the remaining honey. There is a good possibility that this will infect the bee and in turn the bee will infect the rest of the colony resulting in death of the colony. Always wash out honey jars and dispose of them carefully.

Encourage local authorities to use bee friendly plants in public spaces

Some of the country's best gardens and open spaces are managed by local authorities. Recently these authorities have recognised the value of planning gardens, roundabouts and other areas with flowers that attract bees. Encourage your authority to improve the area you live in by adventurous planting schemes. These can often be maintained by local residents if the authority feels they do not have sufficient resources.

Ask your MP to improve research into honey bee health

Beekeepers are very worried that we do not have enough information to combat the diseases that affect honeybees. Pollination by honeybees contributes £165m annually to the agricultural economy. Yet the government only spends £200,000 annually on honeybee research. Write to MPs in support of the bee health research funding campaign.

Help to protect swarms

Swarming is a natural process when colonies of honeybees can increase their numbers. If you see a swarm contact a local beekeeping association. If you can’t find one, contact the local authority or the police who will contact a local beekeeper who will collect the swarm and take it away. Honeybees in a swarm are usually very gentle and present very little danger. They can be made aggressive if disturbed so it’s best to just leave them alone.

Avoid conflict with bees

When kept properly, bees are good neighbours, and only sting when provoked. Beekeepers wear protective clothing when they are handling bees. If a bee hovers inquiringly in front of you when unprotected, do not flap your hands. Stay calm and move slowly away, best into the shade of shed or a tree. The bee will soon lose interest. It is worth remembering that bees do not like the smell of alcohol on people, the "animal" smell of leather clothing, even watchstraps. Bees regard dark clothing as a threat – it could be a bear! Bees are sometimes confused by scented soaps, shampoos and perfumes, so they are best avoided near a hive.

Learn more about bees

Beekeeping is fascinating. Honeybees have been on this earth for about 25 million years and are ideally adapted to their natural environment. Without honeybees the environment would be dramatically diminished. Invite a beekeeper to come and talk to any local group you support and give an illustrated talk about the honeybee and the products of the hive. They might bring a few jars of honey too. Honeybees are a part of our folklore and are one of only two insect species that are managed to provide us with essential services.

Gardening for bees

The best thing you can do to help honey bees is to plant flowers, crops, shrubs and trees from which they can collect nectar or pollen.

What bees like

• Plants with lots of small flowers like lavender
• Open, single flowers such as asters or daisies
• Bell shaped flowers such as foxgloves
• Herbs
• Lots of variety
• Plants native to Britain
• Wildflowers and 'weeds' like dandelions
• Fruit trees

What bees don't like

• Exotic or highly cultivated flowers that are not indigenous to the UK
• Double or elaborate flowers as they often contain little or no nectar
• And most annual bedding plants for the same reason

Trees, shrubs and flowers that bees will visit

The BBKA have produced leaflets that list the shrubs and trees that are useful for honey bees.
You can download them here:   Shrubs  Trees

Here is a list of flowers that honey bees like:  Flowers for bees

If you are looking for plants that are useful to bumblebees, look at the BBCT web site.

For general information on how to encourage wildlife in your garden, the Avon Wildlife Trust web site is worth a look.

Farming and bees

Bees provide essential pollination for many farming crops. A combination of disease and environmental threats have resulted in a 10-15% reduction in the number of bees in the UK over the last two years. Many people believe that with its reliance on vast monocultures of single crops, industrial farming seems to have contributed to the decline in bee numbers by reducing the number of flowers and weeds that bees can use as forage.

Defra and funding partners, including the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, have responded to this dire change in bee health by investing up to £10 million to identify the main threats to bees and other pollinators. This funding will underpin the 10-year 'Healthy Bees' plan that was announced in February 2009.

Environmental schemes such as Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) could be important. Agreements that include provision for measures such as sowing nectar flower mixes (ELS options EL4 or EG3) and unharvested headlands (EF10) areas could help.

Similarly, the inclusion of clover within grass swards will reduce the need for increasingly expensive nitrogen fertilisers, and will certainly support bees. Red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is used extensively as part of the rotational farming systems that maintain soil fertility without the use of chemical fertilisers. In addition it is one of the bumble bees favourite foods. Its traditional name ‘Bee Bread’ says it all. White clover (Trifolium repens) is also found in abundance on organic farms. Honeybees are particularly drawn to this plant, which is better suited to their shorter tongues.