What’s the buzz?

The natural incidence of bees is on the decrease worldwide and people causing rising concern on the implications this might have for food security.
Recent research has indicated that natural homes for bees don’t occur as much which means creating a bee-friendly garden is a good step for people who are wanting to do their bit for the ecosystem and thereby future of the world.
Bee-friendly gardening contributes not only to increased places for bees to exist, but also contributes to improving biodiversity in the bee population.

Role of bees
Because of the essential role bees play in the environment, planting a bee-friendly garden should become a priority when planning one, especially if you are considering planting a vegetable patch.
Honey bees do the heavy work of food production, pollinating, which is responsible for making sure you have a bountiful harvest of vegetables and fruits, from your homegrown kitchen garden, and fruit trees.
If you have a garden already and would like to start creating a bee-friendly haven, then doing so isn’t as complicated as you may think.
Bee attracting plants
Certain plants that are more attractive to bees than others. These plants include the likes of basil, sage, thyme, lavender, watermelons, cucumbers and pumpkin – all of these seeds are widely available at most chain store’s gardening section or from your nursery.
Group same plants
If you have space, try to plant at least one square metre of the same type of plant together, as bees will then be more attracted to the large group of similar flowers and more likely to send messages back to the hive of the abundance in the area, attracting more bees. As in the movie, Field of dreams, “If you built it, they will come!”
Long blooming cycles
This will keep the bees coming back to your garden. Also, if a plant blooms many times in a season there will always be fresh blooms for a longer time than plants which take a long time to bloom and only bloom once.
Some flowering plants bloom more if they are cut frequently, so if you have these in your garden cut flowers and arrange bunches to decorate your home knowing that you are actually helping the plants attract more bees in the process.
At the same time though, be sure to leave enough flowers on the plants to allow honey bees to harvest the pollen and nectar they need.