Bee creative in the garden

admin
, 27 March 2017
Bee creative in the garden
bumblebee and sea holly / Pete Holmes

Download your Wild Bee Action Pack

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and The Wildlife Trusts have joined forces to urge gardeners to do more to help protect bumblebees and solitary bees, heroes of the pollinator world.

The Bee Creative in the Garden! call comes as bees are under increasing pressure largely due to loss of habitat. In the countryside, 97% of lowland meadow has already been lost and the dramatic decrease in suitable habitats isn’t just confined to rural areas.

The network of 15 million gardens that once formed ‘green corridors’ for wildlife are disappearing at an alarming rate. In London alone, vegetated garden land the size of 2.5 Hyde Parks is lost each year*. The number of front gardens that have been paved over has tripled in a decade and over five million have no plants growing at all.

The charities will be arming gardeners with the advice, insights and inspiration they need to create habitats that support wild bees as they emerge from their nests in early spring to forage for food.

Gardeners will be able to download a wild bee-friendly gardening guide. Wildlife events and a ‘Bee Creative’ photo competition will also be taking place from 1 April to 1 November 2017 as bees buzz during the gardener’s growing season and then look for nesting sites in autumn.

Bee Creative in the Garden! is this year’s Wild About Gardens campaign – a joint initiative to encourage gardeners to create wildlife havens for the many, once-common, native species.

Helen Bostock, Senior Horticultural Advisor at the RHS said: “A healthy garden is buzzing with bees and other pollinators. By providing nesting sites and growing nectar and pollen rich flowers gardeners can and do support a wide variety of bumblebee and solitary bees.”

Ellie Brodie, Senior Policy Manager, The Wildlife Trusts, says: “Anyone can take action to help wild bees whether you have a wall for vertical planting, window box, or back garden. It’s easy to plant a bee haven and fun choosing between bee-friendly beauties such as borage, foxglove and honeysuckle.”

The wild bee-friendly gardening guide, ‘Get your garden buzzing for bees’, is free to download and contains lots of facts about the different species of wild bee, their lifecycles and how they nest, as well as practical steps gardeners can take to help them. It is available to download at wildaboutgardensweek.org.uk from 27 March.

Enter our Bee Creative photo competition! Gardeners, gardening groups and schools are encouraged to share how they’ve welcomed wild bees into their gardens by posting a picture on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram – using the hashtag #wildaboutgardens and the category being entered – of their bee-friendly area, whether that be a tailor-made bee home, a flower-packed border or a wall that bees have made their own.

A list of the wildlife gardening events taking place can be found at wildaboutgardensweek.org.uk from the 27 March – please note that more will be added as the season progresses.

Our Bee Creative in the Garden! campaign will culminate in Wild About Gardens Week which will run from 23 - 29 October. This will be a fun-filled week of special activities focused on how to help bees survive the winter ahead.

Leave a comment
Time Δ Debug Message - Perch Runway 3.2
1783570004.34570 [906] SELECT p.pagePath, pr.routePattern, pr.routeRegExp, p.pageTemplate, pr.routeOrder, s.settingValue AS siteOffline FROM swt_pages_staging p LEFT JOIN swt_page_routes pr ON p.pageID=pr.pageID LEFT JOIN swt_settings s ON s.settingID='siteOffline' UNION SELECT NULL AS pagePath, pr2.routePattern, pr2.routeRegExp, pr2.templatePath AS pageTemplate, pr2.routeOrder, NULL AS siteOffline FROM swt_page_routes pr2 WHERE templateID!=0 ORDER BY routeOrder ASC, pagePath ASC
1783570004.37220.0265Matched route: news/[slug:s]
1783570004.37240.0002Server address: 216.73.216.62
1783570004.37240Using master page: /templates/pages/blog/post.php
1783570004.37240Page arguments: 
Array
(
    [0] => /news/bee-creative-in-the-garden
    [s] => bee-creative-in-the-garden
    [1] => bee-creative-in-the-garden
)
1783570004.37270.0002 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.37350.0009 [86] SELECT DISTINCT settingID, settingValue FROM swt_settings WHERE userID=0
1783570004.37510.0016 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22807667
1783570004.37570.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_cart WHERE cartID=22807667
1783570004.37620.0006 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_shop_sales WHERE saleFrom<='2026-07-09 04:06:00' AND saleTo>'2026-07-09 04:06:00' AND saleActive=1 AND saleDeleted IS NULL ORDER BY saleOrder ASC
1783570004.37730.001 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='bee-creative-in-the-garden')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-09 04:06:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 10
1783570004.38010.0028 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783570004.38060.0005 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postID=1313 AND postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-09 04:06:00'
1783570004.38140.0008 [13] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
1783570004.38210.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blogs ORDER BY blogTitle ASC
1783570004.38260.0006 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_categories WHERE catID=30 LIMIT 1
1783570004.38320.0006Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783570004.38340.0002 [162] SELECT catID, catPath FROM swt_categories
1783570004.38430.0009 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-09 04:06:00' AND postSlug='bee-creative-in-the-garden'
1783570004.40520.0209Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783570004.40570.0005 [250] SELECT country, countryID FROM swt_shop_countries WHERE countryActive=1 ORDER BY country ASC
1783570004.40730.0016Using template: /templates/pages/attributes/seo.html
1783570004.40760.0002 [1] SELECT regionID, regionTemplate, regionPage, regionRev AS rev FROM swt_content_regions WHERE regionKey='Banner image' AND (regionPage='/news/post' OR regionPage='*')
1783570004.40830.0007 [nil] SELECT * FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, c.regionID, idx.pageID, c.itemJSON, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_content_index idx JOIN swt_content_items c ON idx.itemID=c.itemID AND idx.itemRev=c.itemRev AND idx.regionID=c.regionID JOIN swt_content_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev AND idx2.indexKey='_order' WHERE ((idx.regionID=104 AND idx.itemRev=0)) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemRev=idx2.itemRev ) as tbl GROUP BY itemID, pageID, itemJSON, sortval, regionID ORDER BY sortval ASC
1783570004.40980.0015 [82] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageDepth >=0 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783570004.41330.0035 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.41380.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783570004.41580.002Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template.html
1783570004.41580 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.41660.0008 [4] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.4170.0004 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.41980.0028 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.42090.0011 [7] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.42170.0007 [9] Using template: /templates/navigation/ps_nav_template_children.html
1783570004.42460.0029 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' OR pageSortPath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.42540.0009 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageHidden=0 AND pageNew=0 AND pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition
1783570004.42750.0021 [1] Using template: /templates/navigation/breadcrumbs.html
1783570004.4280.0005Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783570004.42820.0002 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='1' LIMIT 1
1783570004.42880.0007Using template: /templates/blog/author.html
1783570004.42920.0003 [1] SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT tbl.* FROM ( SELECT idx.itemID, main.*, idx2.indexValue as sortval FROM swt_blog_index idx JOIN swt_blog_posts main ON idx.itemID=main.postID AND idx.itemKey='postID' JOIN swt_blog_index idx2 ON idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey='postID' AND idx2.indexKey='_id' WHERE 1=1 AND ((idx.indexKey='postSlug' AND idx.indexValue='bee-creative-in-the-garden')) AND idx.itemID=idx2.itemID AND idx.itemKey=idx2.itemKey GROUP BY idx.itemID, idx2.indexValue, postID ) as tbl WHERE (postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2026-07-09 04:06:00' ) GROUP BY itemID, sortval ORDER BY sortval ASC LIMIT 0, 1
1783570004.43110.0019 [1] SELECT FOUND_ROWS() AS `count`
1783570004.43160.0004 [1] Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783570004.43210.0005Using template: /templates/blog/comment_form.html
1783570004.43290.0008 [nil] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_comments WHERE 1=1 AND postID=1313 AND commentStatus='LIVE' ORDER BY FIELD(webmentionType, 'like', 'repost', 'comment', NULL) ASC, commentDateTime ASC
1783570004.4830.0501 [0] Using template: /templates/blog/comment.html
1783570004.48320.0002Using template: /templates/blog/post.html
1783570004.48350.0003 [1] SELECT * FROM swt_blog_authors WHERE authorID='1' LIMIT 1
1783570004.48430.0008 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/what-we-do' OR pageSortPath='/what-we-do' LIMIT 1
1783570004.48490.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-002' LIMIT 1
1783570004.48550.0006 [7] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-002%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783570004.48780.0023 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.48840.0006 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783570004.49040.002 [6] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783570004.49160.0012 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783570004.49220.0006 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783570004.49270.0005 [38] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783570004.49510.0024 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.49560.0005 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783570004.49760.002 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783570004.50070.0031 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/visit' OR pageSortPath='/visit' LIMIT 1
1783570004.50140.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-004' LIMIT 1
1783570004.50190.0005 [30] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-004%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783570004.50410.0022 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.50450.0004 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783570004.50650.002 [29] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783570004.5090.0025 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/make-a-difference' OR pageSortPath='/make-a-difference' LIMIT 1
1783570004.50960.0007 [1] SELECT pageID, pageParentID, pageDepth, pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition='000-005' LIMIT 1
1783570004.51010.0004 [11] SELECT * FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageNew=0 AND pageHidden=0 AND pageTreePosition LIKE '000-005%' AND pageDepth >=1 AND pageDepth<=2 ORDER BY pageTreePosition ASC
1783570004.51950.0094 [1] SELECT pageTreePosition FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pagePath='/news/post' LIMIT 1
1783570004.52170.0022 [2] SELECT pageID FROM swt_pages_staging WHERE pageTreePosition IN ('000-006-001', '000-006', '000') ORDER BY pageTreePosition DESC
1783570004.52420.0025 [10] Using template: /templates/navigation/footer-nav.html
1783570004.52560.0014Request time: 0.181
1783570004.52560Process time: 0.1809
1783570004.52560Memory: 1.6244