I recently attended the National Allotment Society AGM, where the keynote speaker was Professor David Goulson.  His main academic studies focus on the threats to bees, bumblebees and other insects. He is based at Sussex University.  Back in 2006, he founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust; a charity which has grown to some 12,000 members.  In his talk at the meeting, he made the following points : He loves allotments because they capture carbon and are rich in biodiversity.  They produce a lot of food.  Typically producing some 10 tonnes / hectare whereas farming productivity is about 3 tonnes per hectare.  The record on a 1m2 in an allotment is 10 kg, which is the equivalent of 100 tonnes / hectare.  Allotments not only produce good food for healthy eating, but people get good exercise through their gardening activities.  A study shows the ‘over-60s’ with allotments have longer life expectancies [controlling for other variables]. [caption id="attachment_40124" align="aligncenter" width="675"] A bee at risk of extinction.[/caption] There are over 300,000 allotment plots in the UK and some 90,000 people on waiting lists.  More allotments could help counter poor health and cut NHS costs. We should turn our cities, towns and villages into a network of nature reserves - essentially a form of urban rewilding. Gardens are a vital part of this, as there are some 400,000 hectares of them in Britain.   Prof Goulson is really keen on less mowing, more ponds and no pesticides. Interestingly, France banned pesticide use in public and urban areas, such as parks, back in 2014 - it is an example that we should follow. Even pet flea treatment is damaging to insect life.  The strength of the doses used means that the chemicals can pass into the environment - to grass, rivers, canals and pools.  Sadly, now 8% of gardens have some plastic lawns, and plastic hedges (and Wisteria !).  Plastic makes him despair.Plant diversity in pavements should be celebrated. Wild flowers / weeds are sources of pollen & nectar for pollinators.  Verges should be nature reserves.  A Scottish "On the Verge" group stopped councils mowing 8x a year and planted a seed mix to transform verges in their area.  Councils should mow less.  Some people may object, so people should strengthen their Council’s hands by writing to them and praising them for no-mow-May-type efforts.  The Buzz Club - has been set up, this is a citizen science project to see what works best for insects. There are lots of short films on his youtube channel . Bees and other pollinators need help.  He suggested lots of ways to help them, for example,  drilling holes in logs for bug hotels.  You can follow Prof Goulson on Twitter or Facebook. [caption id="attachment_40132" align="aligncenter" width="675"] Bumblebees 'enjoing' a small clump of poppies[/caption] [caption id="attachment_40129" align="aligncenter" width="428"] urban herbicide use[/caption]  

The decline in insects numbers, especially pollinators is a cause for concern.  Insect numbers have fallen as natural ecosystems have been lost or disrupted by the expansion of farming and urbanisation, plus the increased use of pesticides and herbicides. The loss of insects not only affects the pollination of many commercially important plants, but also affects the animals and birds that feed upon insects.  So, there are knock on effects throughout food chains and ecosystems. Plantlife has launched a number of initiatives, such as  No Mow May,  Transforming Road Verges Saving Meadows to help offset the decline in insect numbers.  Now work done in Professor Goulson’s laboratory at Sussex Univeristy by Janine Griffiths-Lee (a PhD student) suggests another approach to increasing insect / pollinator levels in urban settings.  Her research has demonstrated that creating a small patch of wild flowers in gardens can go some way to address this fall in insects numbers.    She and colleagues managed to enlist the help of some 150 volunteers distributed across the UK (many were members of the Buzz Club*). Each volunteer set aside a wild flower area  - a mini-meadow (two metres by 2 metres).  Some  of the volunteers then sowed the mini-meadow area with a commercial seed mix of wild flowers, others sowed a seed mix designed / thought to be ‘beneficial to pollinators’. A third group did not receive wild flowers seeds but were asked to set insect traps and record insects in their gardens in the same way as the two ‘wild flower seed groups’. The results were interesting and revealing. The mini-meadows proved to be resource-rich habitats, with an increased numbers of wild bees, more bumblebees, solitary bees and also wasps (when compared to the control group with no wild flower seed sowing).  There were differences in the insect populations for the two groups of seed.  The commercial mix attracted more solitary bees and bumblebees, whereas the ‘designer mix’ of seeds attracted more solitary wasps.  There was no difference in the number of hoverflies that visited the two types of wild flower rich mini-meadows.  Solitary wasps, whilst not pollinators, are important in that they prey on a number of insect pests of fruit and vegetables. Clearly, the planting of small areas in gardens with wild flowers could do much to encourage the numbers and variety of insects / pollinators visiting (or possibly help control the damage done by insects pests).   * The Buzz club is a citizen science initiative.  The UK has a tradition of using the enthusiasm of volunteers to collect data for ecology research.  The Buzz Club projects are focused on gardens - see here.  Membership of the Club is free and the research projects are generally involve no cost.  You might be asked to supply simple equipment or to cover the cost of sending samples back to the club based at Sussex University. Should you sign up then you will receive : A ‘thank you’ email from the team! Information direct to your inbox of new projects being planned. A newsletter about what your data is telling us.  Professor Goulson has previously written a blog about bumblebees for woodlands.co.uk