It’s hard to believe at this time of year, when the country is buffeted by gales and overhung with a dismal pewter sky, that the seasons will take their course and eventually spring and summer will lighten both our spirits, and our heating bills! So I take refuge in my imagination, and anticipate the first bright green leaf unfurling, and the first sleepy bee foraging in my aubrietia by the kitchen window.
During the thirty or so years of my conscious participation in organic gardening, I was totally preoccupied with the health of my soil, believing that if the soil was fertile, friable and regularly heaped with compost and other organic matter, that delicious and health giving vegetables and herbs could not fail to flourish. The sight of bees jostling for position on my cotoneaster brought a purely visual pleasure and the reassurance of how organised and reliable nature’s creatures are - it’s a warm sunny day – so here come the bees, and the hover flies, and the ladybirds, and the lacewings, all busying themselves with the tasks nature has designed them for, like collecting pollen and destroying aphids. Where bees in particular were concerned, my knowledge was painfully limited, and frankly, apart from accepting that honey bees make honey and the poor little workers are in thrall to a demanding Queen, my appreciation of their significance was sadly lacking.
Then last year I came across a book called The Red Mason Bee, Taking the Sting out of Bee-keeping by Christopher O’Toole. This was an absolute gem of a book and forcibly brought home what should have been palpably obvious to me, that no matter what we do as gardeners and growers, unless the bees play their part, the ultimate crop is going to be non existent or at least, disappointing. It seems that honeybee populations are under threat from the voracious Varroa mite, a serious Asian parasitic mite of honey bees. Originally affecting the Asian honey bee, (Apis cerana,) it has spread to the European honey bee, (Apis mellifera.) The mite feeds on the bees at all stages of their development, weakening them, spreading disease and ultimately decimating the hives of our most effective pollinators.
Since its discovery in England in 1992 the mite has spread to colonies of honey bees throughout the UK, and O’Toole’s book exhorts gardeners and growers to encourage an alternative pollinator, the Red Mason Bee, (Osmis rufa,) into our gardens, orchards and commercial nurseries. Apparently this little bee can do the work of 120 honeybee workers, is docile, has a mild, harmless sting and is not susceptible to the varroa mite. (It is therefore also very child and pet friendly!) There is a lot of information about bees and the varroa mite on various web sites, so if you want to know more, Google it!
If, like me, the idea of yet another species under threat is of concern to you, and a species that is so crucial to our basic need to grow and harvest food, then let me suggest that before spring comes round again, you hot foot it to your nearest garden centre or mail order catalogue. Seek out the nest kits that are now available for Red Mason Bees and hang them in a suitable spot in your garden. I installed mine at the end of the summer, so it’s too soon to report results, but I await the little nesting females with great optimism – and don’t worry, they don’t swarm either, so no-one is going to find themselves beating off a swarm one hot June afternoon. Save the beating for the cream to go with your bumper crop of strawberries!
