Save bees and mow around your dandelions

New president of British Ecological Society urges us to ‘take meaningful action’ to protect the pollinators

GARDENERS should mow around the dandelions on their lawns to save the bees, the incoming President of the British Ecological Society has said.

Prof Jane Memmott, of the University

of Bristol, said everyone could take “meaningful action” to protect pollinators, by resisting the urge to get the lawnmower out every week.

“We do mow around the dandelions on our lawn,” Prof Memmott told a briefing in central London. “Dandelions are fantastic sources of pollen and nectar for the early pollinators in particular.

“If dandelions were rare, people would be fighting over them but, because they’re common, people pull them out and spray them with all sorts of horrible things when they should just let them flower. If you leave the lawn to three or four inches then dandelions, clover and daisies can flower and then you end with something like a tapestry and its much nicer to sit there and watch the insects buzzing about.”

A recent study by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) found that wild bees and hoverflies have suffered widespread losses in recent decades.

Between 1980 and 2013 a third of the more than 300 pollinating species included in the research experienced population declines, while only 11 per cent have became more abundant. Although around a third of pollination is carried out by honey bees, a scarcity of hives means crop farmers are highly reliant on their wild cousins and other insects, especially hoverflies.

Prof Memmott added: “If you have a chance to get a bee hotel in the garden, one with those little tubes that you see in every garden centre, they really work, and there’s nothing nicer than being sat in a chair with a glass of wine and watching the bees going in and out of your own personal little beehive. If you’ve got a garden or an allotment or even a balcony there is something you can do for pollinators. Even just a potted plant on a doorstep will provide lunch for a bee or a fly or a butterfly.”

“I want to get across the fact that ecology is a really important part of everyone’s lives,” she said.

“People see wildlife and they want to save the whales and dolphins. You can’t personally help whales and elephants and things, but you really can do something for the insects and the birds and the plants that are local to you.”