Create a buzz: how to help save wild bees – even if you don’t have a garden

With a little knowhow, balconies, doorsteps and window boxes can all be turned into wildlife havens

Kate Bradbury

Sat 22 Jun 2019 11.00 BSTFirst published on Sat 15 Jun 2019 11.00 BST

Last year’s extreme weather meant a tough year for many of the UK’s bees, and conservationists are concerned that could have a knock-on effect this year and beyond. According to a report from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, they could face long-term problems from future heatwaves. But we can give them a helping hand.

You don’t need to keep honeybees to help bees – in fact, a 2018 study commissioned by Cambridge University suggests that this can harm wild bees. It’s thought that the more bees there are in an area, the more competition there is for nectar and pollen; if every shopping centre has three or four hives on the roof, what does that mean for the wild bees?

It would be easy to assume that our built-up towns and cities are deserts for pollinators. Yet among the grey is also green: parks, gardens, balconies, doorsteps and window boxes, each with the potential to feed a city of bees. In fact, urban spaces can, in some instances, be better for bees and other pollinators than the countryside, where wildlife has largely been pushed outto make space for more crops and livestock. Gardens and parks are home to a greater variety of flowering plants than in the wild, and for a longer season, too. What’s more, we’re less likely to use pesticides in them, enabling bees and other pollinators to feed safely. Indeed, a study published last summer in the journal Proceedings Of The Royal Society B found that bumblebee colonies in urban areas were actually stronger than those in the wild.

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