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The best way to help bees? Don’t become a beekeeper like I did | Alison Benjamin (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I took up urban beekeeping more than a decade ago with the best intentions. I wanted to help to save bees from the many threats they faced in the countryside – the modern farming practices that douse crops in toxic pesticides and rob bees of wildflower meadows. My small back garden filled with bee-friendly flowers seemed like a paradise in comparison.

But what I didn’t know was that by keeping bees I would only be helping one species of bee – the domesticated honeybee, which doesn’t really need saving – and possibly harming others.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Far better to have local plants that your native bees like.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

And to "keep" local native bees. Give them good nesting sites.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yup. The easiest way to help native insects is to let leaves lay in the yard come fall, and don't clean them up until early-mid spring.

[–] TalesOfTrees 1 points 7 months ago

Or, just leave them. Hit them with the mower and mulch them right in. The leaves I mean. The insects are hopefully on vacation at the time.

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