The shortage of firm seeds then also has a significant impact on the continued existence of bee colonies, because the active substances contained in the plants are now considered to be the cause of global bee deaths. The pollination that our bees need to survive does not apply to hybrids, which in turn means that we need more pollen and nectar-rich plants in the gardens to compensate.
Bees love the blossoms of the cornelian cherry
In addition, bees collecting nectar and pollen are finding fewer and fewer flowers in many regions. For the beekeepers, this means that they already have to feed considerable amounts during the summer months. The associated effort is not exactly cheap for the entire guild and this unnatural food supplement also has an unfavorable effect on the taste quality of the honey. A relatively simple and effective alternative are the bee trees.
In doing so, we create natural food sources in our gardens that offer very high-quality pollen and nectar as early as April into October, which the bees will literally fly to. But many other useful insects such as wild bees or the bumblebees, which are threatened with extinction in some regions, also benefit from such bee pastures, also called costumes in beekeeping, which even the somewhat inconspicuous flowering species would help significantly in the fight for survival. After all, a single bee pollinates around 1,000 flowers every day, collects the pollen with its hind legs and transports it to the hive to feed the larvae and provide energy.
We have already shown on our portal what you as a garden owner can do for the food supply of your flower visitors using the example of insect-friendly garden plants such as coneflowers, mountain asters or meadow daisies. Equally popular with honey bees are flower hedges made from nutritive shrubs, of which we have summarized the ten most popular types in a brief overview.
| Surname | botanical name | heyday | height (meters) | special feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cornel | Cornus mas | February - April | 3 to 6 | light fragrance, yellow flowers |
| hemp willow | Salix viminalis | March April | 6 to 10 | silver-grey catkins, pleasant scent |
| alpine currant | Ribes alpinum | April May | 1.5 to 2 | Berries in autumn, yellow-green flowers |
| service pear | Amelanchier ovalis | April May | 2 to 4 | particularly frost hardy with edible fruits |
| Common barberry | Berberis vulgaris | April June | 1 to 3 | edible fruits, thorny leaves |
| field maple | Acer campestre | May | 3 to 12 | great fall color with corky bark |
| Pointed Medlar | Cotoneaster acutifolius | May June | 1.5 to 2 | firm, black berries, red-brown leaves |
| buckthorn | Rhamnus frangula | May June | 3 to 5 | red-black fruits in autumn |
| liguster | Ligustrum vulgare | June July | 2 to 5 | black fruits in autumn, pleasant fragrance |
| snowberry | Symphoricarpos albus laevigatus | June August | 1.5 to 2 | light pink flowers, white autumn fruit |
And that brings us to our last topic for February, a section that we want to dedicate to all monthly news in the future.