A new web tool which aims to get people growing more flowers for bumblebees has launched at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show in the Peak District.
The ‘Bee kind’ tool, launched by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, helps people choose the best plants for pollinators in their gardens, window boxes or community spaces, including native ‘bee super plants’ such as apple trees, bugle and foxglove.
Users can find out and score how bee-friendly their patch already is, and how to improve it for pollinators, with advice based on conditions in their own gardens.
Bumblebee populations have crashed and two species have become extinct in the UK during the last 80 years.
Gill Perkins, Bumblebee Conservation Trust CEO, said: “Bee kind provides people with vital information to make bee-friendly choices in their gardens and green spaces.
“If everyone planted just one bee-friendly plant we could make a huge difference to bumblebees and other insect pollinators.”
Bee kind can be used by schools, businesses, councils and the public, and includes a database of more than 650 plant species. The tool will be updated as more data becomes available, including citizen science feedback from users.
The work was led by the Trust’s Senior Science and Policy Officer Darryl Cox, who said: “Redeveloping Bee kind has been a collaborative effort involving a lot of people, and the result is an exceptional educational resource that people across the country can use to help bumblebees and other pollinators survive and thrive.”
