It can be a bit of a struggle to do much gardening during January and February.  Whilst the intention may be there often the weather is against us.  If you can bear to get out in the garden/allotment now though is the perfect time for getting the structure in place. 

Trees can be pruned (with the exception of stone fruit such as plums, cherries, peaches etc) as can fruit bushes, raspberry canes, blackberries and tayberries etc.  Branches which have been pruned can be stacked in a corner out of the way.  Beetles will be one of the first to use the wood, boring into it.  Then solitary bees may nest in the logs.  Any hollow stems will also be used by solitary bees and other insects such as lacewings.

December might seem like an odd month to be gardening for bees.  After all the solitary bees and bumble bee queens are tucked up hibernating until the spring, and the honeybees are clustered inside their hives.  Or are they?

There’s been a lot of social media posts recently advocating making bee feeders and leaving out sugar water for bees.  For lots of reasons this is a really bad idea (please see previous blog https://www.thelittlehoneybeecompany.com/blog/read_185365/why-leaving-sugar-water-out-for-bees-is-such-a-bad-idea.html ). 

Sugar water will give bees a quick energy boost so is still good to revive a tired bee, but it doesn’t meet all their nutritional needs.  They need nectar and pollen, both of which are provided by flowers in varying quantities.  That means bees are vegetarian.

(Solitary bee on fleabane)