While many of us believe in preserving bee and bird populations, we are not always aware that there are some simple ways of doing this. Even if we live in high-rise apartments we can still help to sustain our local bird and insect life.
One of the key aspects of ensuring our local bee populations are supported is by providing fodder for them. Yes, just as cows (in an ideal world) naturally graze on pasture, honey bees also rely on local plants within a 3 km range for food. And essential food sources for honey bees are flowers that have not been sprayed with pesticides or other toxic chemicals, such as fungicides.
So planting flowering trees, shrubs and flowering perennials and annuals in our gardens is one way to ensure that local bee populations have access to nectar and pollen. Another way is to allow any vegetables and herbs we grow to flower, so that bees can access pollen and nectar from your vegetable garden.
This is also helpful in ensuring vegetable plants are pollinated by visiting bees, providing a mutual benefit for us and for them. Even growing a few pots of flowering plants, herbs and vegetables on our balconies contributes to providing bee fodder. Vertical gardening ensures an even larger space for plants to grow, producing more flowers in a small area.
Native bee populations are also important in maintaining diversity in our local bushland fringes around our cities and urban areas. And planting flowering trees and shrubs help support our native bees, particularly during times of drought when flowering may be diminished in natural forests and bushland. Ensuring that we minimise disturbance of any vestiges of native forest or bushland is another way of supporting our native bee populations.
For example, the pretty, fluffy little Australian blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata) is a solitary bee that lives in hollows and holes near or in the soil. These solitary little bees also buzz pollinate, unlike the common honey bee, which makes it an important bee for agriculture where buzz pollinators are essential to crop production (for example, tomatoes need buzz pollinators).
However, studies in the United Kingdom and America have shown that many plants sold as bee friendly plants in some popular garden centres have been saturated with pesticides, detrimental to bee populations. So ensure your plants are purchased from reputable nurseries that can show their flowering plants are pesticide free. Or better still, buy plants and seeds from organic sources.
Similarly, with bird populations it is important to provide food and shelter for local native birds. I don't advocate putting out seeds for visiting parrots, or meat for kookaburras as this can inadvertently become an unreliable food source. Providing lots of trees, shrubs and flowering plants ensures birds are able to forage safely, particularly small nectar loving birds. And of course, if your garden has an abundance of insects, birds will help keep pest populations in check, providing a symbiotic benefit for both native birds and human inhabitants. Placing bowls of fresh water within the cover of shrubs and small trees helps too, particularly in hot, dry weather. And it's a lovely little ritual that helps to slow us down, if only briefly, to take in the sights, scents and sounds of our natural environment.
It doesn't take lots of time, money or energy to create little pockets of safe habitat, just a little planning and deciding on purpose to plant a flowering shrub or two. Or planting a lovely tree that will help shade the hottest side of your house as well as provide habitat for birds and insects. Or growing a vine across a pergola, or on your balcony, to provide shade and shelter for human and local bird and insect populations.
The opportunities are endless and the benefits incalculable. And it's also fun. So how will you provide some safe forage and habitat for your local bee and bird populations?
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