Buzz Bingo’s guide to a full house for Britain’s bees this summer

To celebrate World Bee Day this week on the 20th May, here at Buzz Bingo, we're taking a tongue-in-cheek approach (with the pun intended!) to the national day. We're partnering with bee expert and award-winning TEDx speaker Paula Carnell to provide tips for how Brits can make their garden a safe space for bees this summer.

Here are the top five tips you can follow to support your buzzing garden this summer: 

1.      STOP using any chemicals in your garden.

“Unfortunately, there are no SAFE weedkillers or lawn treatments for bees. They are designed to kill the flowers that bees feed on and disable ‘pests’, especially insects, through disrupting their nervous systems, gut bacteria, and navigation skills. Anything unnatural that is placed in our gardens has a consequence on the insects and wildlife living there.

"For instance, many solitary and bumblebees nest underneath our lawns, and so any chemicals used there go straight into their nests and kill brood, which will be developing under the surface. Try and alter your perspective; learn to love the daisies and dandelions, or at least minimise chemical use to specific areas less likely to have bees living or feeding there.”

2.      Provide some wild areas for nesting solitary and bumblebees

“Solitary bees like to nest in old dried plant stems, which, as we have more tidy gardens, are now few and far between. A homemade bug hotel using various lengths and sizes of hollow sticks and tubes provides a welcome and safe nesting spot. Bumblebees like to nest in old rodent nests or tufty grass areas, and by August the colonies will have produced their queens and died out, leaving a fertilised queen to find a suitable hibernation spot beneath the ground until next spring.

“Placing bee hotels or piles of old logs and branches in a sunny spot will always be a much-appreciated habitat, and you will enjoy watching an increasing diversity of bees moving in over the summer. Remember that the larvae remain in the hollows throughout the winter, so do not be tempted to move or destroy them when the entrances look quiet or even blocked up.”

3.      Sow more seeds of native wildflowers and herbs to provide much-needed year-round forage for bees.

“Different bees are drawn to different flowers, so diversity is key in any UK garden. Bumblebees, with their longer tongues, favour deeper, bell-shaped flowers like foxgloves, while honeybees prefer simpler, open blooms such as bramble and apple blossom. Plants like dandelions and other daisy-family flowers are especially valuable, offering multiple nectar points in one head.

“Most importantly, think beyond a single season - ask yourself, if I were a bee, what could I feed on today? A garden rich in year-round forage is far more supportive than one that flowers briefly and then falls silent.

“If you only have a windowsill or small balcony, pots of herbs are super for bees. Thyme, mint, rosemary and sage (salvias) provide nutritious flowers over longer flowering times as well as adding value to your own cooking!”

Busting the biggest bee myths: honey is more than ‘just a sweetener’ 

Here at Buzz Bingo, we also asked Paula about the biggest misconceptions that change the way bees are viewed by the general public. From beekeeping damaging the smaller species to honey having healing benefits, it’s clear that bees are underestimated and misunderstood by many Brits. Paula commented: 

“One of the biggest myths about bees is that honey is just a sweetener. In truth, honey is a living substance, shaped by the flowers, the soil, the season, and the bees themselves; no two honeys are ever the same.

“For the bees, it is both food and medicine, sustaining them through winter. It is also the fuel they use to produce beeswax, forming the very structure of the hive, something many people don’t realise. For us, when raw and unprocessed, honey has been valued for centuries for its healing properties, carrying subtle traces of the plants it comes from. It is far more than sugar; it is a natural medicine chest and a reflection of the land from which it came.

“It is hard to pin down what the biggest threat to bees is, unless we think of it as ‘environmental stress’. This stress can come in many forms, such as pesticides and chemical agriculture and a lack of suitable, nutritious forage. Electromagnetic frequency radiation from phones and WiFi and even beekeeping can also have a negative impact on the 270 other species of native bees across the UK.

The biggest surprise to most people is the volume and variety of British bee species; it isn’t all about the honeybee! We have over 270 different species, including bumblebees, honeybees, and a vast number of solitary bees, which are, in fact, more important for pollination than honeybees. Yet, as they are under threat of extinction, we are becoming more dependent on the honeybee to take up the slack in pollination services!”

About Paula: 

“Bees came into my life whilst I was bed and wheelchair bound with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in my 40s. After a successful 20 year career as an artist, I was used to thinking ‘outside the box’ and asking difficult questions. When I was taught beekeeping by conventional beekeepers, I was shocked by the feeding of sugar to bees, the use of smoke, and treating the hives with chemicals for disease management and prevention. 

“Through my own health recovery, I realised that many of the same things that make bees sick affect us too, and so I created my business, ‘Creating a buzz about health’, sharing what I learned about bee health through the thousands of scientific studies done on bees and the impacts to their wellbeing.”

If you’re interested in other garden-related stories, why not read our latest study into Britain’s biggest garden feuds?