Have you heard the buzz?

If you go out into your garden on a warm sunny day in the early spring when the Snowdrops, Crocus and Mahonia come into flower you’ll probably hear a loud humming sound from the flowers. Queen Bumble Bees wake up early to take advantage of an early feed from the nectar to refuel after their long winter hibernation to get ready to find and establish a new nest site.

Honeybees also venture out on warm days looking for pollen and nectar to feed the brood within the hive. Unlike Bumble Bees, where only the Queen survives through the winter, Honeybees store enough food in the hive to keep the whole colony alive through the cold months. The queen lays less eggs in December but doesn’t stop altogether for very long. As the amount of daylight increases, she increases the number of eggs she lays until she is laying roughly 1500 – 2000 eggs per day and so the worker bees must find fresh supplies of pollen and nectar to feed the increasing number of bees in the hive. At the peak of summer there will be 50,000 or even more bees in large strong colonies. 

It’s important to all bees and insects to have a good supply of spring flowers to provide the sustenance they need, one of the most important being Dandelions which I’m sure many of you remove but if you could leave a patch to flower, you would be helping all pollinators enormously. Just cut the seed heads off before they have a chance to float off all over the garden. Please don’t spray with weed killer when in flower or you could possibly be killing bees.

So, in the autumn, plant some early flowering spring bulbs or a spring flowering shrub if you want to do your bit to help all pollinators.

The bee illustration is by Zubeida Roberts. See more of her work at http://www.zubeidarobertsartist.com