Page 26 - ALG Issue 2 2022

bees
World Bee Day
20th May 2022
World Bee Day was celebrated for the first time in 2018. It can be traced back to the Slovenian World Bee Day initiative, which was launched in 2014.
What can we allotment gardeners do?
Our allotment gardens are often located in the middle of densely built-up urban areas, the best prerequisite for actively supporting and promoting bees.
• Let us plant wildflowers and herbs to provide food for bees and other beneficial organisms!
• Let’s (continue to) not use pesticides!
• Let’s create nesting sites with dead wood, dry stone walls and open ground to provide suitable nesting sites for wild bees as well!
It doesn’t take much to make your own contribution to supporting bees and other beneficial insects. And quite incidentally, with these relatively simple measures we also increase the biodiversity in our allotment gardens at the same time and thus contribute to keeping our cities liveable. Our allotment gardens remain places of biodiversity, retreats for animals and plants of all kinds and thus secure their high status in society.
The International Allotments Federation and
its member federations call on all 2 million allotment garden families who are part of
this federation to contribute together to the preservation and promotion of bees, beneficial insects of all kinds and in general to the preservation of biodiversity in allotment gardens and thus to maintain an
environment worth living in for our children and our children’s children.
Urban beekeeping
New research on urban beekeeping*, focused on 14 cities in Switzerland, has found that the number of hives in urban areas may well exceed existing resources and negatively impact urban biodiversity. This report echoes the concerns of the London Beekeepers Association, where hive numbers
have increased to the point that the honeybee populations are threatening other bee species and there is a concern that these high densities may be contributing to increased susceptibility to pests and pathogens. Increasing evidence shows that there is insufficient forage in some areas
of London to support current beehive numbers.
A Kew Gardens** study from 2020 also concluded that:
“Messages around biodiversity and ecosystem services have not always been clearly communicated. For example, campaigns encouraging people to save bees have resulted in an unsustainable proliferation in urban beekeeping. This approach only saves one species of bee, the honeybee, with no regard for how honeybees interact with other, native, bee species.”
Allotment beekeeping is increasingly popular and is something that the National Allotment Society supports where it is appropriate. However, if you are considering keeping bees on your city plot, it would be wise to check local hive density with your local Beekeeping Association and check the availability of year-round forage locally.
There are other steps you can take to support a range of pollinators, both those that breed in the UK and those, such as many butterflies, that arrive on migration. One step is planting good forage crops around a site so that the bees have pollen and nectar to eat all year round. The Urban Bees website has a useful list at: www.urbanbees. co.uk/plants/plants.html
Providing habitats for bumblebees
and solitary bees, such as red mason bees and leaf-cutter bees, will also support bees in our cities; there is lots of information online about how to do this and an account of a NAS member’s experience on page ? of this magazine. The Buglife Charity B-lines project maps and encourages the creation of ‘insect pathways’ running through our countryside and towns, along which they are restoring and creating a series of wildflower-rich habitat stepping stones for bees, butterflies and other wildlife. You can add your own initiative at their online map www.buglife.org.uk/ our-work/b-lines/.
Further Reading
* Casanelles-Abella, J., Moretti, M. Challenging the sustainability of urban beekeeping using evidence from Swiss cities. npj Urban Sustain 2, 3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021- 00046-6
**State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2020 www.kew.org/science/state-of- the-worlds-plants-and-fungi
London Beekeepers Association www. lbka.org.uk/position_papers.html www.bumblebeeconservation.org/
26 Allotment and Leisure Gardener