How to Help Bees in a Small Urban Garden

Why a Tiny Garden Still Counts

You do not need a meadow to make a difference. Our towns and cities are stitched together by thousands of small gardens, courtyards, balconies and window boxes, and bees use them as stepping stones to move between parks, allotments and railway embankments. A single lavender bush in a sunny corner can be busier than you would ever expect. In a city, a bee might visit several gardens in a morning, so even a modest patch of the right plants can keep a colony going.

The good news is that helping bees comes down to three simple things: food, water and somewhere to shelter. Get those roughly right and the rest takes care of itself.

Plant Open-Faced Flowers

The single most useful thing you can do is plant flowers bees can actually reach. That means open, single blooms where the stamens and nectar are on show. Double flowers — the tightly packed pelargoniums, begonias, busy Lizzies and pompon dahlias sold on every garden centre bench — may look splendid, but their petals are bred so thickly that bees cannot get at the middle. They are decoration, not dinner.

Try to cover the seasons, because different bees are on the wing at different times:

• Spring: crocus, hellebores, pulmonaria, flowering currant, rosemary and fruit blossom.
• Early summer: chives, thyme, oregano, borage, wallflowers, hardy geraniums and poached egg plant.
• Midsummer: lavender, salvia, verbena, calendula, cosmos, nigella and single dahlias.
• Late summer and autumn: sedum, asters, echinacea, scabious and ivy, which is a lifeline in October.

Bees also prefer a decent patch to a scattering. Three or four of the same plant together will draw far more visitors than one of everything dotted about, so think in generous clumps or a well-stuffed container rather than a lonely specimen.

Aim for a Long Season, Not a Single Splash

Bumblebee queens emerge as early as late February, hungry and looking for the first nectar, and colonies are still working hard into September. Many gardens peak beautifully in June and then fall silent, which leaves bees short just when they are raising new queens. Filling that gap is one of the most valuable things a small garden can do. Leave room for a few late-flowering stalwarts, and let a patch of ivy scramble over a fence — it is unglamorous, but it feeds an enormous number of bees when little else is in flower.

Leave a Wild Corner

Neatness is not a bee's friend. A little deliberate untidiness pays dividends, and you can confine it to one corner so the rest of the garden still looks cared for.

• Let a square metre of lawn grow long. Dandelions, white clover, selfheal, daisies and bird's foot trefoil are all first-rate bee plants, and they cost nothing.
• Leave dead stems standing over winter. Hollow stems are ready-made nests for solitary bees; cut them back in late spring instead of autumn.
• Keep a small pile of logs, twigs and dry leaves in a shady spot. It shelters insects through the cold months.
• Leave a patch of bare, undisturbed soil. Many solitary and mining bees nest in the ground rather than in tubes.
• If you hang a bee hotel, put it in sun, facing south or east, and keep the tubes dry and clean.

Give Them a Drink

Bees need water, both for drinking and for cooling their nests on hot days. They cannot swim, so whatever you provide must be shallow, with something to stand on.

• A saucer or shallow dish filled with pebbles or marbles and topped up with water gives bees a safe landing place.
• Refresh it every day or two in warm weather so it does not go green and stagnant.
• Position it in partial shade near your best nectar plants, where it will not evaporate too quickly.
• A shallow bird bath with a gently sloping edge works just as well.

Fresh water is what they need. Resist the temptation to leave out sugar water or honey — it can attract wasps and spread disease between bees.

Ease Off the Chemicals

Even a small amount of spray can undo a lot of good work. Weedkillers strip out the clover and dandelions that feed bees in early spring, and insecticides — including some plant-based ones — can harm them directly. Never spray anything on an open flower, because that is exactly where bees will be. If you must treat a problem, do it in the evening when fewer insects are flying, and use the least drastic method you can. Slug pellets, weed-and-feed lawn treatments and bug sprays are all best avoided altogether.

Finally, remember that balconies count too. A few pots of thyme, oregano and lavender, a saucer of water on the ledge, and a corner left a little scruffy will bring bees to your door — and there are few better ways to spend a sunny half-hour than watching them work.