There are many flowers that are great for attracting and keeping bees in your garden.
Most of the berry bearing shrubs and trees are essential for the welfare of the bees.
What is a garden without bees?
Just four years… That’s how long Albert Einstein reportedly said the
human race would last in a world without bees. For the master of
relativity, the equation was relatively simple: no more bees = no more
people. ~ Valentine Warner
There is a worldwide problem concerning bees…the bee population is being decimated and people are becoming concerned…no bees=no food, simple as that!
A survey by the British Beekeepers’ Association in May 2010 revealed their members had lost 19% of their colonies (the population that inhabits a hive) in the previous year alone.
Why is this happening?
Well my own take on the problem concerns monoculture…something we should all be concerned with and striving against!
Where monoculture exists, Nature struggles.
Monoculture requires chemicals, Nature struggles.
Farmers spray chemicals, Nature struggles.
A terrible loop of destruction is fixed into Nature and world governments are complicit with this decline in the bee population!
Are people blind?
Is science operating with a blindfold on?
I have little formal training in the field of horticulture, yet I am aware of the need to encourage and keep bees on my 3 acres.
Even planting willow like this arch above, creates food for the bees.
Planting for the bees is as important as growing food for myself!
In fact, the two go hand in hand!
It is estimated that one in every three households in Britain kept bees for honey to supplement the table right up until the 20th Century.
This is something that could, so easily be encouraged by our governments and our departments of agriculture.
As I walked in the garden earlier today, the bees were continuing to be busy.
You have such a beautiful way with Nature. Bealtaine Cottage is a corner of Paradise. I love looking through all the pictures and reading every post on your blog. I long for this way of life. I am from Lithuania, but live in USA right now. Here, the Change is Happening (here and there), but Way Too Slowly… I don’t know if we will make it… People live like there’s no tomorrow. …so disconnected…
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Thank you for your lovely comments.
Change is happening and I know it may appear to be slow, but everything appears slow to begin with.
Many people will be left behind, but many more are awakening to the reality of our beautiful world and the power they actually have to live a full and sacred life.
Change begins with each one of us.
By living well, your life impacts greatly on others.
Embrace your journey.
Be joyful.
Blessings from all at Bealtaine Cottage
Colx
I also grow for the bees, and have Mason Bees in my yard. Also I have put up bee habitat, where they can build there homes. They mimic natures habitat not hives. Masons are a pollinator that does not produce honey and are less aggressive. Often said of them is they do not stink. Two days of rain has given me the time to add a comment, yet know I am reading and enjoying every thing you have sent out.
Ah…rain…now that is one aspect of Nature that I am very familiar with here in Ireland!
What you are doing for bees is both essential and welcome and hopefully many more will raise their consciousness on this, most vitally important, key to life on Earth as we know it.
It behoves us all to protect and nurture the vulnerable in our world…bees are now in that category.
Bless you for caring. X
Colx