Property News · July 29, 2016

Plant lambs' ears and keep wool carder bees happy


Kate Bradbury’s wildlife garden is less than a year old, but her lambs’ ears plants are already attracting new pollinators to the plot Wool carder bees are nesting in my garden. I’m proud and happy and slightly obsessed – I sneak out during the day and sit by my patch of lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina): the bees seem particularly fond of both its nectar and pollen, as well as using it as nesting material. I watch aggressive males fight each other in hilarious territorial struggles; brief, no-frills copulation; and females gathering tiny hairs from the furry lambs’ ear leaves to line the nests of their young. In the evening I look for signs of them in my bee hotels. One male sleeps, or rests – if resting is a more appropriate description of what wool carder bees do at night – curled up in his ‘cavity’. As my eyes adjust in the half-light of dusk I can just make him out from deep within the hole. I wonder if he can sense me peeking in as he lies, face drawn into his belly, back to the world. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
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