How your garden and Aussie bees can save the world

Aussie bees could be the world’s best chance of staving off global hive decline, and keeping your backyard in flower all year round could help them. Here’s how.

Dr Katja Hogendoorn, University of Adelaide. Picture: Tait Schmaal

• More than 1 billion jobs depend on dwindling bees
• Tassie’s bees are starving as honey crisis hits hard

Concern for native bees prompted University of Adelaide researcher Dr Katja Hogendoorn to find creative ways to put more of their favourite flowers back into the landscape.

As director of the Australian Entomological Society, Dr Hogendoorn is acutely aware of research documenting the decline of bees and many other important insects worldwide.

On Tuesday evening she will address a capacity crowd of 800 people at The Braggs Lecture Theatre on the honey bee crisis, including colony collapse syndrome and the impending invasion of the varroa mite, as part of the Research Tuesday public lecture series.

Dr Hogendoorn says people are rightly worried about the bee crisis as it threatens plants and animals, crop pollination and honey production.

But there’s a solution: with help, our Australian native bees can rise to the challenge and help take on the role of pollination, while also providing a food source for birds and other animals.

“Putting out a message that things are going to hell in a handbasket is paralysing for people,” Dr Hogendoorn said.

“If you publish something that says bees declined by 40 per cent, soon birds will collapse because they have nothing to eat etc, people will not do any thing because it's too big for them.

“But people can do a lot of things to improve the environment, for insects in general and as a consequence for vertebrates.”

Together with horticulturist Jenny Deans, Dr Hogendoorn has prepared a handy guide for gardeners including top ten tips such as “cut back on the mulch” and “don't mow your lawn so often” and a list of the best native plants that attract and support native bees.

An Australian native honey bee. Picture: File

Ms Deans says she specialises in garden rejuvenation.

“I like to get a good variety of plants in, so you bring life back into the garden, so birds, bees and things like that,” she said.

“Native bees, because so many of them are quite small, actually really like small flowers and they prefer white, yellow, blue and purple flowers, but planting a diverse range of flowers and having flowers throughout the year is main the objective.”

Now is the time to prepare and plant because the soil is still warm, which allows plants to settle before winter and harden up before the first heatwave in spring.

Trees for Life is running a series of workshops in May including “Attracting Wildlife to your Garden” and “Showing Natives at their Best”, featuring Ms Deans.

Good sources of native plants include the Trees for Life Nursery, State Flora Nurseries at Belair National Park and Murray Bridge, Kersbrook Landcare plant sales and the Australian Plant Society sale at Wayville Showgrounds next Saturday April 13.