Gardening blogGardens This article is more than 12 years oldNectar scheme: The best spring bulbs for bees
This article is more than 12 years oldEarly flowers are a boon for hungry bumblebees, so plant some now, says Kate BradburyI've just bought 80 snake's head fritillary bulbs. I love these spring flowers, for their hardiness, their willingness to grow in my shady, damp garden, and their incredible bell-shaped flowers with intricate, chequerboard markings. They're also loved by bumblebees.
Unlike honeybees, whose keepers make sure there's enough food in the hive to see them through to spring, bumblebees have to fend for themselves. The queens can spend up to six months hibernating, so emerge in spring with very little energy. They can be found literally clinging to unopened flowers as early as February, eager to get that first sip of nectar so they can fly off in search of a suitable nest site. Without that early source of food, they can die.
Another of my favourite spring bulbs (though technically it's a corm) is the crocus. Also loved by bees, large swathes of crocus come alive with the sound of urgent buzzing on sunny spring days. Fat bumble queens bob from one flower to the next, barely recognisable for the thick layer of pollen covering their bodies. They're joined by honey and solitary bees, and the odd hoverfly. The sight of them all rolling around the flowers reminds me of cows skipping in the field after a long winter indoors.
Crocus flowers close at night, only fully opening in sunshine, so bumblebee queens may spend the night in these floral cocoons, before breakfasting on nectar in the morning sun. Sadly, my garden is too shady to grow crocus, but if you have the space, plant them en masse in a sunny spot, so they act as a shining beacon for queen bees in search of nectar- and pollen-rich digs.
As a general rule, bulbs and corms should be planted three times the depth of their own height. But don't worry about it too much, most have "contractile roots", meaning they shuffle about in the soil until they're at the correct depth.
Other bee-friendly bulbs to plant now include grape hyacinths, winter aconites and snowdrops (although winter aconites and snowdrops are more successful when planted "in the green" in spring). Grape hyacinths are popular with the solitary hairy footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes), which looks like a bumblebee but zips about more like a hoverfly. Daffodils tend to be avoided by bees unless there's nothing else on offer. Later (but equally useful) bee bulbs include alliums and English bluebells.
If you don't like spring bulbs, grow early flowering hellebores, native primroses and lungwort instead. Better still, grow them in conjunction with bulbs, as I do. Then in spring, take time to watch the first, hungry bees come to your garden. Like the cows, skipping around the field after winter, they remind us summer's on its way.
This is the second in a series of monthly posts on wildlife gardening from Kate Bradbury. You can read the first here. Kate writes and commissions wildlife content for Gardeners' World Magazine and writes a weekly blog on gardenersworld.com.
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