Our bee corridor

Supporting pollinators across towns, cities and the countryside   ​

• Working with large-scale landowners, and their advisors, contractors and facility managers, to promote simple changes to land management to provide food, shelter and nest sites.
• Ensuring good practice to help pollinators through initiatives with a wide range of organisations and professional networks including managers of public and amenity spaces, utility and transport companies, brownfield site managers, local authorities, developers and planners.
• Encouraging the public to take action in their gardens, allotments, window boxes and balconies to make them pollinator-friendly or through other opportunities such as community gardening and volunteering on nature reserves.

Plant lots of bee and insect-friendly plants and meadow flowers and encourage the bees to come! The Challenge is Greater than that!

​Pollinators face many pressures, including:
• habitat loss including urban development
• pests and diseases
• extreme weather
• competition from invasive species
• climate change
• use of some pesticides

Needed: ‘Bee corridors’ that link areas of pollinator-friendly planting

• ​More, bigger, better, joined-up, diverse and high quality flower-rich habitats (including nesting places and shelter) supporting our pollinators across the country.
• Consideration of local environment.
• Healthy bees and other pollinators which are more resilient to climate change and severe weather events.
• No further extinctions of known threatened pollinator species.

What is a bee corridor?

​Bee corridors are vital for supporting biodiversity. They connect fragmented habitats, allowing pollinators to move safely.

These pathways are essential in urban and rural areas. Agriculture and urbanisation have fragmented habitats. Bee corridors offer a  solution to this growing problem. Creating these corridors involves planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinators.
​
Community involvement is crucial for success. Local communities understand the additional challenges of weather and environment. In Budleigh plants are affected by the sea and salt, warm air, prolonged periods of drought, rain and wind.

What are Pollinators?

​There are at least 1500 species of insect pollinators in the UK.  The honey bee normally lives in hives managed by beekeepers.  Others, like many species of bumblebees, solitary bees, moths, butterflies and hoverflies live in the wild. 

Some crops, like raspberries, apples and pears, particularly need insect pollination to produce good yields of high quality fruit. 
​
If pollinator populations decline, it is extremely likely that farmers would find it more difficult and expensive to produce crops at the scale they do today.

What makes Bees Pollinators?

Most bees are pollinators. They eat pollen and nectar from flowers. When the pollen sticks to their bodies it gets transferred between the flowers they visit. This fertilises the plants in the process, allowing them to reproduce and grow fruits and seeds. This process is called pollination. Insects, for instance, butterflies and ants, that like bees transfer pollen between plants, are also known as pollinators.

History

• Bees have been around at least since neolithic times
• Honey was buried with mummies in the Egyptian tombs – and is still edible
• There would have been hives everywhere in the Otter Valley
• Monks would have had bee hives to help pollinate their orchards, herbs, etc.
• The monks used honey and wax for medicinal purposes and to make beer and mead
• Farmers would have had hives in their fields, particularly to pollinate cider apples
• Cottagers would also have had a hive or two to pollinate their vegetables, fruit and berries
• Honey was used as sugar for preserving fruit

About bees

Is it a Honeybee?

There is only one species of Honeybee in the UK.
They are widely domesticated and live in hives of up to 60,000 bees with a queen, her workers (daughters) and drones (sons).
Honeybees are the only bees to have a barbed stinger which if used causes the bee’s death.

What is a Bumblebee?

What most of us refer to as a bee - Large and hairy!  They are excellent pollinators.
Most bumblebees are social species which nest in colonies of 50 to 400 individuals with a queen and her workers.
They usually nest in old rodent burrows underground or in dense surface vegetation.
A few species are likely to use nest boxes.

Solitary Bees

A solitary bee will not live in colonies or hives.  A female solitary bee will build and provision her nest without any help from her offspring or a male. They are also important pollinators.
There are many different types of solitary bees, including:
Flower Bees, Nomad Bees, Mining Bees –67 species, Pantaloon Bees, Mason Bees, Leafcutter Bees, Wool carders

Final thoughts...

• Bees pollinate nearly three quarters of the plants that produce 90% of the world’s food. 
• Leading scientists have stated that if the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, humans would only have four years left to live.