My garden is spilling over with July’s harvest of lavender, marjoram, hyssop and other aromatic herbs. Consequently the air is full of bees humming and foraging and until a few weeks ago I had never appreciated just how many species of the little treasures there are.

Then in the spring of this year, while doing some bookshop foraging of my own, I came across a little booklet about the Red Mason Bee, or Osmia Rufa, by Christopher O’Toole, and am now obssessed and spouting statistics at long suffering family and friends - my grandson at least is soaking up the info! Do you know, for instance, that there are about 250 different species of solitary bees in GB i.e. bees that don’t swarm or work in colonies, and little Osmia rufa is a sterling example of one of them.

I laud its merits because it is non aggressive, only the female has a very feeble sting if attacked (great if children rampage round your plot,) and it can do the work of 120 honey bee workers. Although not around all summer apparently, it is an early visitor and crucial for those spring veg and flowers. I’ve taken bees for granted all my life but now it seems even they are under threat from a voracious mite - Varroa - and fruit and vegetable growers need an alternative pollinator to ensure future harvests. (Bees it seems do 80% of pollination for us.)

You can install nester kits for the Red Mason bee and, please don’t throw a wobbly if you see one emerging from loose masonry in a garden wall. Grow forage plants like herbs, buddleia, golden rod etc to attract them and your garden will thank you with prolific produce. There’s masses of info on the internet and I found a very good photo at:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Osmia_rufa_couple_(aka).jpg

Not a difficult contribution to make for organic living and the environment, is it?

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006and is filed under Organic. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.