Options for helping bumblebees, or first, do no harm
What you will learn here
- You don't have to keep bumblebees, but you can still help them a lot in other ways.
- Choose yourselves according to your possibilities and abilities
- Everyone can help bumblebees
- When you don't want to/can't help bumblebees, you can at least behave considerately
Date of last update 02/06/2024
- Protect nature as a whole
- Protect Grasslands a nesting site bumblebees
- Engage for protection Friends, neighbours, family and children
- Don't let your dogs dig in the ground Looking for a „little mouse“ could be a bumblebee nest
- Help protect bumblebees children's clubs and use the materials on our website
- Tidy up your gardenfor bees and pollinators
- Say no to chemistry in my garden and in the surrounding area
- Ask the green space manager in your municipality to mow the grass with nature in mind (mosaic mowing).
- Help save bumblebee queens in spring – you will save the entire bumblebee nest
- Become bee keeper – primarily the rarer species
- Become members Bumblebee Rapid Squadrons and save a distressed bumblebee nest
Introduction
Nature conservation as a whole
Protection of grassland and bumblebee nesting sites
How are your neighbours, children, and dogs?
Children, schools, clubs, education, games and pastimes
Your garden, the neighbours' garden and bumblebees
Garden, nature and chemistry
Bumblebees in spring and autumn – lost and weakened queens
Bumblebee breeders
Bumblebee nest rescue
You can help nature, insects, bumblebees, and indeed yourselves in many areas.
You don't believeAnd that there is so much and perhaps even much more? And that it often costs you absolutely nothing?
Even just talking about bumblebees at home and with friends helps – it sparks interest in them. Today's times are very unfavourable for insects and bumblebees, so any help is welcome – on behalf of bumblebees, we thank you in advance for it.
Nature conservation
Fundamental is the protection of the natural environment. Without it, nothing will exist, not even insects and bumblebees. It is necessary to protect meadows, field margins, gardens, but also fields and other parts of nature. Here bumblebees will find what they need – plenty of food for nest development and the establishment of a new generation. And they will also find here places where they will build their nests. These are abandoned rodent burrows, cavities in walls, in trees or in walls, abandoned bird nests, piles of dry grass or moss, etc. In short, the kind of places that individual species require.
Photo by A. Ungerová
Protection of grassland and bumblebee nesting sites
People have (mostly) stopped burning boundaries, but they still „care“ for meadows by clipped to a „hedgehog“ And then bumblebees don't have enough food. Or they create from their gardens sterile green areas, where there is genuinely no room for the life of any insect, including bumblebees.
So, please think about what your garden, meadow/lawn looks like in your municipality and try to change it. This is where you will help bumblebees and insects the most.
Nechte obec utrácet za nesmyslnou údržbu travních porostů. When the grass is longer, it won't dry out, it will have life, and in the end, we will save money too. The meadows and ditches around roads are also spaces where bumblebees live. If we maintain them with chemicals, we will kill all life here.
Try to take an interest in this in your municipality and push for change. It takes a lot of will, work, and courage – but the benefit is fundamental.
Ideas and examples for establishing wildflower meadows at your home and in your community can be found. HERE. In the same place you will find space for publication in a good example in your municipality.
Internet Photo
Bumblebees PLUS – Flowering Meadow
Photo J, Ečerová
NeighbourAh, children, puppies and bumblebees
Likewise, it is also helpful when explain it to the children and the neighbours, that bumblebees don't have toAnd that the bumblebees won't attack them unless they feel threatened. Therefore, it is not necessary to kill individuals and destroy their nests.
Often, small children tread on bumblebees and parents let them. Or parents get rid of a nest in the garden instead of showing the children how beautiful, interesting and useful bumblebees are!
This also applies to cases where you find a bumblebee nest in an unsuitable location – in a compost heap, in old wood, under a patio. What prevents this, wait until the bumblebees leave the nest at the end of summer And you'll just let that small place be theirs for a while, before they give it back to you? Until then Can you observe and in return you will have joy and a lot of interesting things you will learn about them.
You will often encounter a situation where your A free-roaming dog finds bumblebees in the ground and starts digging them up.. Prevent him from doing so – the dog can certainly dig elsewhere and the bumblebees will get a chance to survive.
Photo J. Čížek
Children, schools, clubs, education, games and pastimes
Ignite a passion for bumblebees and nature in children. You will be doing a very commendable job indeed, because for them it will then be natural to protect nature.
Engage your children with games for the protection of bumblebees and nature. Play, as Comenius already said, is the best way to get children to to arouse interest and how to provide them with information.
Use, for example, the suggestions and materials that are available on our website in the section Bumblebees PLUS at school.
Bumblebees and Our Children
Photo O. Hercog (4/2020 Prague)
Bumblebees PLUS – Talk Pavlína Krčová 08-2020
Your garden, the neighbours' garden and bumblebees
When you focus to my garden, as you can create bee hotels here Paradise and island, where they will thrive. Ensure they have sufficient food and nesting habitat at least so that instead of an English lawn it will be a patch of meadow with flowers.
Such Chop the leeks gradually and in sections, so that something is always blooming here and there is pasture for them. Leave space in the corners of the garden for bumblebees to move in – piles of old branches, leaves, old wood, or at least dense bushes – simply a piece of nature. Nature itself will gradually return to a patch of unmaintained garden with weeds, and with it the life that people have driven out of the garden with their focused care. If there are rodents in the garden, bumblebees will gradually find their burrows. Give space in your garden for bumblebee plants, such as dead-nettles.
However, if you really must have your garden looking like it's out of a box, then at least Plant trees/shrubs and nectar-rich plants, which will provide bumblebees with sufficient food from early spring to late summer. A monoculture that flowers for a week is not what bumblebees need.. As their nest develops, they need more and more nectar and pollen – each species with different flowers and at different times. So here is The key to success is the diversity of flowers and their sufficient quantity throughout the season..
You can find guides for a varied garden in the links. We describe how to help bumblebees in your garden. HERE . We have special pages for local governments. HERE
Try to convince Parks and green spaces manager in your municipality, to grasslands with respect to nature. For example, if the grass is mown mosaic and according to actual need, saves town costs and the village will be good for pollinators.
Photo by A. Ungerová
Garden, nature and chemistry
Many people acquire beautiful gardens, but they use chemicals for easy maintenance. Gardens and orchards full of flowers attract insects, but at the same time, they harm or kill them.
Beekeepers often complain that their bee swarms die off when farmers don't inform them that they will be „treating“ fields with pesticides. For beekeepers, it's enough to close the bees up in the hive for a few days. However, no one thinks about the insects in nature that get poisoned in the fields.
Don't believe that chemical agents can be harmless. Recall examples like Roundup. It was sold as an environmentally and human-friendly selective herbicide. It was eventually banned because carcinogenic effects were proven. But Roundup isn't the only one; vendors offer you a range of reliable „harmless“ products.
Especially Lawn preparations are a nuisance.. Lots of people want a lifeless English lawn in their garden, and you can't manage that without chemicals. They don't like dead-nettles, daisies, dandelions, and heaven forbid, clover.
We humans have applied countless similar poisons to our gardens and flowerbeds, as well as to public land, fields, and meadows. Unfortunately, we are still continuing to do so. We are leaving behind a dire inheritance for our descendants, for which they will curse us one day.
Try it yourselves in your own gardens to care for plants without pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals It's ok. Persuade your neighbours too and explain to them that an apple with a few blemishes or a „worm“ inside, while not as pretty, is healthier for them and their children. Don't let them spray trees and vegetation with chemicals in a time when nature awakens. This will not only prevent damage in the current season, but chemicals will not get into the soil and harm future generations.
Chemistry in nature
Chemistry in nature
Bumblebeeand in spring and autumn – stray and weakened queen mothers
Another important form of care is your interest and attention. All it takes is saving a bumblebee queen in the spring that flies in through your window and can't get out. Or, if you find a weakened queen on the ground in the spring, who has run out of energy for further flight, she needs to „refuel“ and you gently move her onto a flower.
Perhaps like this You will save the mother and she will then build a nest That's worth a try.
We describe the rescue of individual bumblebees HERE
Internet Photo
Bumblebee breeders
Many enthusiasts decide that all of the above is not enough for them and „get bumblebees“. Here it should be said that keeping bumblebees in the garden is a wonderful thing, but it is important to consider it reasonably.
You should only embark on bumblebee rearing if you are willing to invest around £2,000 into quality housing for the bumblebees and around £1500 for purchasing the bumblebees (unless you intend to attempt your own establishment of the bumblebee hive with a queen from nature). It is necessary to acquire a truly high-quality hive with protective features (a protective flap, good ventilation, quality sealing, etc.), ideally with references from breeders that bumblebees thrive in such a hive.
Please note that acquiring a bumblebee nest and purchasing/settling bumblebees is just the beginning.
You need to dedicate your time and care to them as well.. We recommend regularly checking their hive and also being prepared for a possible intervention and cleaning of the nest of parasites, which very often attack the nest and can destroy it. Whoever does not want to dedicate such care to bumblebees will have an empty hive in their garden instead of joy, or even a breeding ground for bumblebee parasites instead of bumblebees.
So, a breeder shouldn't be afraid to uncover a bumblebee nest, inspect it, and possibly handle it gently (instructions are available here or in the recommended links). This means an additional approx. £2000 for a protective hood, gloves, and other equipment (yes, bumblebees have stingers too) and, most importantly, a bit of courage and gained experience.
It needs to be realised that Even with the best care, a keeper cannot necessarily bring „their“ bumblebee nest to a successful conclusion., leading to the birth of a new generation of mothers and males. Many breeders end up in failure in the first year and give up on bumblebee breeding. So, a breeder's equipment also includes Strong will and the will not to give up in failure,
If you decide to start breeding bumblebees, Prioritise rarer species. Do not keep common species (buff-tailed bumblebee, early bumblebee, …) which are abundant, but help other, weaker species.,
Breeders can also help in other ways, for example, in the development and testing of bumblebee hives. There is still room for improvement here, and the Čmeláci PLUS group dedicate a lot of time to this. You can find changes and tips from experienced breeders HERE
Breeders can also help with finding unsuitable products and convincing manufacturers to change them. Information about products that are not suitable for bumblebees can be found HERE
We describe bumblebee farming on our website HERE
Our Facebook social media pages are also dedicated to bumblebees: Čmeláci PLUS and Čmeláci PLUS – Discussion Forum.
Photo O.Hercog
Rescueon unhappily inhabited or damaged bumblebee nests – Bumblebee Rapid Response Team
During the year, it happens that the nest needs to be moved, otherwise it would be destroyed. This is a situation where it's simply not possible to wait until the bumblebees leave of their own accord.
This action is recommended only for beekeepers or those who have enough courage to handle a bumblebee nest. It doesn't have to be experienced breeders, even beginners can manage it with our help..
If you're interested, we can help find a new home for bees that are unhappily settled and transport them there.
We describe nest rescue including evacuation HERE
Bumblebees PLUS – Bumblebee Rapid Response Squad
Information leaflet to share
If you like our suggestions, you can share them as a leaflet. You can print or share this.
You can find the leaflet HERE
How to help bumblebees – leaflet
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