Gardening: Benefits for Bees

You hear about the dwindling bee population in the news. What can you do to help?
The bee population is dwindling. Their habitat is changing.

We need bees and other pollinators for our food supply.

How to Help the Bees
Plant flowers. Weed killers and development are removing flowers from the landscape. A few planters on your deck will support more bees.

Bees are active from late winter through fall. There are many types of bees. You can plant different types of flowers that bloom at different points in the year to help care for the pollinators as long as possible.

Reduce or eliminate weed killers and pesticides. Some of them wind up in the nectar and pollen. Prolonged exposure can cause flying issues for bees, sometimes resulting in death.

If everyone took one step toward saving the pollinators, we would see marked improvement for the bees.

Listen as Matthew Shepherd joins Melanie Cole, MS to discuss how you can help the bees.

Additional Info

  • Segment Number: 1
  • Audio File: lifes_too_short/ts26.mp3
  • Featured Speaker: Matthew Shepherd, Communications Director of the Xerces Society
  • Book Title: 100 Plants to Feed the Bees
  • Guest Bio: Matthew ShepherdMatthew Shepherd has spent three decades working with people from all walks of life to create better places for wildlife. Matthew’s career began in England and took him to Kenya before his arrival in the United States. He has worked for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation since 1999, initially at the vanguard of a new effort to protect pollinators, but now as communications director. Matthew is author of numerous articles and other publications, including Attracting Native Pollinators (Storey Publishing, 2011) and Gardening for Butterflies (Timber Press, 2016). He has created and maintained wildlife gardens everywhere he has lived.
  • Length (mins): 11:56
  • Waiver Received: No
  • Host: Melanie Cole, MS