DIGGING IT
is an art that few have mastered. In contrast to bumble bee boxes, solitary bee ‘hotels’ – bundles of bamboo or pieces of wood drilled with holes (see article on page 39) – often work very well, attracting mason bees, leafcutter bees, and others. Many commercial models are available, or make your own from bamboo, raspberry canes, or simply by drilling holes (6-10mm diameter) in a chunk of wood. In all cases, attach it to a fence or wall at chest height in a situation with some sun, and with luck you’ll soon have bees in residence. I once simply drilled some holes in the corner posts of
my garden shed and had a bee in residence within 20 min- utes! Some solitary bees prefer to nest in bare ground, others will happily burrow in the lawn. These species are harder to cater for, but if you are lucky enough to notice holes in the ground with small bees coming and going, try to leave them in peace as much as possible. Most of these species have
8) Avoid Using Insecticides In a garden situation, there is no good case for using in-
secticides. If you have a few aphids, let them be. With luck, - racious larvae will wolf down your aphids. This year I had a horrendous outbreak of black bean aphids on my broad beans, but I held my nerve and soon a huge number of para- that you can grow healthy fruit and veg without having to resort to chemicals. We live in a crowded world, in which urban areas will
continue to expand whether we like it or not. Let’s take ad- vantage of this; if we work together, we can turn our villages
and towns into pollinator paradise, a network of small nature reserves where honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, hov- Dave Goulson’s new book, The Garden Jungle, pro- vides more advice on how to encourage insects of all types in your garden.
Dave Goulson is Professor of Bi- ology at University of Sussex, spe- cializing in bee ecology. He has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conser- vation of bumble bees and other insects. He is the author of Bumble- bees; T
heir Behaviour, Ecology and
Conservation, published in 2010 by Oxford University Press, and of the Sunday Times bestseller A Sting in the T
ale, a popular science book about bumble bees. He has written several other popular books since then. Goulson founded the Bumble- bee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity which has grown to 12,000 members. He was the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Social Innovator of the Year in 2010, was given the Zoological Society of London’s Marsh Award for Conservation Biology in 2013, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013, and given the British Ecological Society Public Engagement Award in 2014. In 2015 he was named number 8 in BBC Wildlife Magazine’s list of the top 50 most influential people in conservation. Find him on YouTube or Twitter @DaveGoulson.
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