Even in the country, growing a beautiful garden is good news for bees

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-10-23 10:01

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Bees likely benefit greatly from a thriving garden even in farming communities where crops are abundant, according to international researchers. While agricultural crops provide plenty of nectar and pollen for bees, the team say it appears they do better when farmland also has its fair share of gardens. To investigate why, they recorded the amount of nectar available through several years across gardens and farmlands in the UK, and combined it with citizen science data on bee activity. The researchers say while gardens likely provided just 15% of overall annual nectar for bees in the areas studied, there were periods during the year where crops weren't providing much and the gardens were supplying 50-95% of the bees' nectar. The researchers say this means gardens play an important role in supplementing farmland for bees during seasonal gaps, and rural gardening enthusiasts could help the bees out by making sure there are plenty of flowers to visit, especially in late summer.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Gardens reduce seasonal hunger gaps for farmland pollinators

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Gardens are known to benefit pollinators, but the exact reason for their value has not been clear. In this study we show that the small but continuous supply of nectar from little clusters of rural gardens complements the highly variable supply of nectar on farmland, resulting in a more continuous supply of food. This can fill crucial hunger gaps experienced by farmland bumblebees, supporting and enhancing their populations. We show that >90% of farmland in Great Britain is within one kilometre of a garden and therefore positive actions by gardeners could have widespread spillover benefits for pollinators across the country.

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Journal/
conference: Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Bristol, UK

Funder: No funding has been received for this article

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