bees in the garden
  1. COMPO
  2. Guide
  3. Plant Care
  4. Basics
  5. Organic gardening
  6. Supporting bees and other beneficial insects in your garden

Supporting bees and other beneficial insects in your garden

Not only can your garden offer a home to plants, beneficial insects will also flourish there. Help wild bees and bumble bees, toads and lizards, mammals like hedgehogs, martens and weasels as well as birds to find a nice shelter in your garden. We show you how you can help beneficial insects.

bees in the garden

Why wild bees are so important in our ecosystem

There are more than 500 bee species in Central Europe. A distinction is made between honey bees, leaf-cutting bees, sand bees, plasterer bees, furrow bees, blunt-horned mining bees and hairy-footed flower bees. With the exception of the honey bee, all bee species are referred to as wild bees.

As well as honey bees, wild bees pollinate plants. If there are no beehives nearby, wild bees and bumble bees take over the pollination of our garden plants, such as berry bushes, apple trees or sunflowers.

Most wild bees live alone. They build themselves tubular nests in tall stems or rotten wood and plant materials. But they are also happy with holes in walls.

Wild bees like it warm. So, they are drawn in by houses due to their heat emissions. They are not afraid of people. They are wonderful to observe because they have no aggressive tendencies.

Unfortunately, they are considered endangered insects. Their population has declined rapidly over the last 20 to 30 years. The reason for this is that they can't find enough food, and their breeding grounds and hibernating spots are just as scarce.

Facilitating the right plant varieties for wild bees

The following plants are used to build nests and facilitate the settlement of bees:

  • Balcony and garden plants: wild rose, cotoneaster, pasture, fruit trees, currant, gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, vetch, marigold.
  • Plants suitable for humid locations: buttercup, purple loosestrife, sulphur cinquefoil
  • Plants for dry, pebbly locations: creeping cinquefoil, Echium, bindweed, creeping bellflower
  • Plants for dry and sunny locations (poor grassland): Veronica teucrium, bellflower, cinquefoil 

Some wild bees specialise in certain food crops and cannot switch to other flowering plants to sustain themselves. Supporting biotopes helps different vegetation to grow, which acts as a source of nutrition for bees.

Simple tips and tricks

How you can help the beneficial insects in your garden

Plant pollinators

Wild bees

Pest eaters

Lizards

Garden helper

Hedgehogs

On the mouse hunt

Birds of prey

Share