Along with knitting, puzzles and baking, gardening has become another popular pandemic pastime. The sale of seeds has skyrocketed, and regardless of whether people have a giant backyard or a tiny fire escape in the city, they’ve been getting into the weeds (mostly to pull them).
Perhaps you want to go one step further, and make your plants or garden more attractive to bees. We know that bee populations are on the decline, and that we need those little workers to help us grow food, so when you think about it, making an appealing place for them to visit is a nice thing to do. But where do you even start? By taking a class on the internet, of course!
How to attend the workshop
Tomorrow (Saturday, July 4), the Hume City Council (that’s in Australia) is hosting a free online workshop called “Bountiful Beautiful Bees: Creating bee-friendly gardens workshop” at 8:30p.m. EST. Katrina Forstner will be the instructor, and will cover topics including:
Landscaping for bees
The top bee-friendly plants
How to save seed
2 min salvia/rosemary propagation
Bee hotels
She’ll also provide additional resources, and take questions at the end of the session. Register here to attend the free seminar.
Other ways to help bees
Looking for more to do? Check out this article by our senior health editor Beth Skwarecki. She offers suggestions including:
There’s more to creating a bee-friendly habitat than just planting flowers. If you spray pesticides on or near the flowers, the bees are once again in danger, so you need to be aware of what you (or your lawn service) is spraying. [The]
Xerces
[Society for Invertebrate Conservation] would like you to sign a
pollinator pledge
swearing that you’ll lay off the insecticides, and that you’ll grow plants that nourish bees and other pollinators (like butterflies and their caterpillars) year-round.
Happy planting!