Environment

Give bees a helping hand on World Bee Day

World Bee Day happens every year on 20 May, a day dedicated to raising awareness and celebrating the importance of bees and threats that bees face across the world.

There are over 270 bee species in the UK, including bumblebees, honeybees and solitary bees.

Along with wildlife, we rely on bees and other pollinators, as they are crucial for pollinating our food and other plants, supporting ecosystems and food chains.

Many bee species in Gloucestershire are under threat, but you can help. Here’s four simple ways to help bees in your garden or patio this World Bee Day:

• Set up a ‘nectar café’ with pollinator friendly plants, that give bees sources of nectar and pollen.
• Make abee hotel for solitary bees, to help provide female solitary bees with suitable nesting sites where they can lay their eggs.
  

• Lock away the mower tolet your lawn grow in spring and summer, wildflowers like dandelions and buttercups will provide food for bees, and long grass can provide shelter.

• Avoid usingpesticides, as these can hurt and kill bees, instead try to encourage predators of pests, by creating log piles, leaving areas undisturbed, and growing plants for predators like hoverflies.

To create bee-friendly food corridors we have available, for free, packets of native wild flower seeds. Supplies are limited although we do have quite a few, so first come first served. If you can make good use of a packet please contact the following:

For Coleford - Melanie Getgood melanie.getgood@gmail.com

For Clearwell and Sling - Richard henson richardhenson19@gmail.com

For Newland - Karen Davies karen@birchamphouse.co.uk

For Redbook - June Davies junecaris@icloud.com

A magical new website tool has been launched to help people in Gloucestershire find out how to get rid of items sustainably.

This interactive online tool will allow anyone puzzled by recycling and waste to type in the name of any item along with their postcode to find out whether it can be reused, repaired, donated or recycled, or if it needs to go into a specific bin or collection.

It will help to encourage sustainability and increase the amount of items that are recycled correctly at kerbside, by giving residents clear answers about what goes where in their recycling bins.

One of the biggest barriers to recycling is confusion over which bin, box, or bag to use for an item. Some of the most commonly confused materials for recycling are plastic bags and film, crisp packets, pizza boxes, coffee cups and compostable plastics.

Food is the biggest product that could be recycled that is put in general waste bins – the average bin in Gloucestershire contains 26 per cent food waste, all of which could have been recycled.

For more information and to try out the tool visit: https://www.gloucestershirerecycles.com/waste-wizard/