All About The Bees

Celebrating the humble bumble and other bees

It has been a good year for the bees, what with the warm weather and so many of you concentrating on your gardens I’m sure there are more around than we have seen for years or is it that we have had time to stop and look, time to take in what is going on around us.

In celebration of the humble bumble we have put curated a range of products and facts for you to enjoy.

A few fascinating facts about bees

• Believe it or not, there are over 250 species of bee living in the UK and over 25,000 species living in the world
• The European Honey Bee is one of the most common seen in the UK as it is generally used by beekeepers for their honey but we also commonly see Bumble Bees (the big fluffy ones and most commonly used to illustrate the bee in artistic representation) Leafcutter bees and Mason bees. Mason bees make their nests in old mortar and crevices so look for the holes in your walls!
• Different Bees are active throughout the year and look for flowering plants rich in nectar and pollen which contain the sugar proteins and oils they need.
• Different species have different sized tongues and therefore go for different shaped flowers.
• There are around 70 crops that depend on our bees in the UK and organic farms have 50% more wildlife including bees
• A hive will produce as much as 24 jars of honey in a season, but solitary bees produce none
• A ‘waggle dance’ is used when the worker returns to the hive, it moves in a figure-of-eight and waggles its body to indicate the direction and location food sources over 6 kilometres away