BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening Bee-friendly Containers

Hello All,

Be the 'bees knees' and set out to attract these useful and industrious pollinators to your gardening space and containers.

It's actually almost by default that you would do this - as many of the plants we grow in containers already attract bees anyway - but you can make an extra effort that will reward life in all sorts of ways.

Bee friendly Containers

Here is an excerpt from a book that I thought very interesting:

"Most flowers reward their visitors with pollen or both pollen and nectar. Most produce large quantities of pollen, enough to fertilize many flowers and a generous excess to feed their pollinators. Pollen is a complete and nutritious food that contains carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. Although nectar may contain small amounts of other nutrients, it is essentially a solution of sugar in water. Some insects thrive on a diet of only pollen, and a combination of pollen and nectar is the only food of all 25,000 known species of bees…” From the book What Good are Bugs? Insects in the Web of Life ~ by Gilbert Waldbauer.

Anyway, hope your gardening is as pleasurable for you as it is for me.

Cheers for now

Hello there,

Are you afraid of bees? Of course there are those who cannot afford to be stung by one or they may land up in heaven, but in general, are you afraid of them?

I was at an outdoor café the other day and there was a bee buzzing around some spilled 'cola on a table. The children were screaming, taking their cue from their mother who was making a awful fuss.

I just mopped up the coke with a couple of tissues and the bee flew off. The kids were surprised it was so easy to fix.

Anyway, our bees don't have much of a chance against that sort of childhood training - more's the pity.

Do you happen to know anyone who has gone into bee-keeping as a hobby? It's becoming popular I hear.

Cheers now

I was wondering what happens to bees during winter and read that they can produce enough body heat to stay alive and protect the queen bee during the cold months, by relying on honey for energy.

There have been studies which found that a hive of honeybees will consume up to 30 pounds of stored honey over the course of a single winter. On warmer days, these bees will leave the cluster briefly in order to eliminate body waste outside the hive.

Nature sure is amazing.

Cheers