Planting for Honeybees
The Grower's Guide to Creating a Buzz
Everywhere we turn, we are called to action. Keep turning, keep acting.
In this case, get your hands dirty. Plant something honeybee friendly to help these buzzing benefactors continue to pollinate 30 percent of the food we eat. The bees are in trouble for a myriad of reasons: loss of habitat, agrichemicals, climate change, bacterial diseases, fungi, and parasites like the armor-piercing, blood-sucking varroa mite, their single greatest threat. Even the highly bred flowering plants that we’ve grown to favor conspire against honeybees because they very often have inaccessible pollen and nectar sources or are downright sterile. So, in most cases, planting the original wild varieties is best, including many that may not be native to your region.
Since 2007, Sarah Wyndham Lewis has been tweaking her own garden in the bee yard of the beekeeping business she runs with her husband in Suffolk, England, studying the habits and preferences of the hives they support. Her Planting for Honeybees is a no-nonsense, beautiful guide to the types of plants you can grow on windowsills, patios, gardens large and small, and even lawns (honeybees love dandelions, don’t you know?).
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
