Nectar Point Networks 2

In a previous post (15 Jan 2014), I introduced the concept of a Nectar Point Network (NPN). The driving force for the establishment of NPN hubs in the Cardiff area is Professor Denis Bellamy, who is the Chairman of the Conservation Management System Consortium (CMSC) and a former head of the Zoology Department at University College Cardiff. He has put together an informative website on NPNs (see link below). The Cardiff NPN is taking shape through a ‘bottom up’ approach. In an email in February, Prof Bellamy explained that, “it is envisaged that each hub organises itself as a self-sustaining community nectar point with its own action plan and local funding”.

The Nightingale Community Garden in Dinas Powys was established last year, a process I outlined in a series of posts (see links below).  At the start of this year, I registered the Community Garden as a potential Nectar Point Network hub. As a first step into making this happen, I applied for and got an award (£100 of garden vouchers) from Keep Wales Tidy’s Wild Weekend Voucher Application, which this year aims to improve food sources for pollinators and is aimed at community groups. One stipulation is that plants purchased should be on the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Perfect for Pollinators Plant List.

I spent the voucher on two bee nesting boxes; five large pots; four bags of peat-free organic compost; a bee-friendly Escallonia ‘Apple blossom’ bush; and packets of nectar-rich plant seed, including lavender, foxglove, borage, cornflower, marigold, marjoram and 'wild flower honey bee mix'.  I intend to add a winter-flowering honeysuckle at a later date, along with  some surplus rosemary, primrose and heather from my garden. The idea is to establish a border of nectar-rich plants at one end of Nightingale Community Garden, with five pots of bee-friendly flowers in other areas of the garden. This will be our starting point, from which other activities will flow.

There are numerous nectar-rich plants that can be grown for pollinating insects. The consensus is that variety is more important than focusing on any one plant species. This is for several reasons. A range of different species can be grown that produce nectar at different times of the year, for instance, to feed pollinating insects active in different seasons. Furthermore, different pollinators are adapted to different flower structures, for example, long-faced bumblebees with long feeding parts (e.g. Bombus hortorum) are specialised to get the nectar from flowers with long corolla, such as foxgloves. Another factor is flower colour, with different pollinating insects homing in on different colours (e.g. Bombus  lapidarius has a fondness for yellow flowers); so the more colourful the pollinator border the better!

A recent study, conducted by Mikhail Garbuzov and Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sussex with 32 popular summer flowering plants over a two-year period, identified which were the most attractive to insect pollinators. Borage (Borago officinalis), lavender (Lavandula) and marjoram (Origanum majorana) scored highly. However, not all lavenders were attractive to bees, only the wild types, with highly-bred ones such as those with novel colours not proving very attractive. Borage flowers were the most attractive to honey bees. Perennial lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina) was the most popular plant with more unusual bees, such as the solitary wool-carder bee (Anthidium manicatum).  The authors concluded that choosing the plants you grow carefully can make a big difference to pollinators. The least attractive plant in this study was the widely-planted pelargonium.

A previous study, conducted at the University of Cambridge in 1999, of 24 plant species (not the same plants as in the Sussex study) also revealed large differences in terms of insect pollinator visits. The most visited plants by honey bees in this study were Malva moschata, Salvia pratensis, Malva sylvestris, Scabiosa columbaria, Centaurea pratensis, Knautia arvensis, Trifolium repens, Salvia verbenaca, Lythrum salicaria and Saponaria officinalis.   The bumblebee most recorded was Bombus pascuorum, which preferred Trifolium pratense, Salvia pratense, Trifolium repens, Laminium album and Stachys sylvatica.

The references to both these papers are below. They provide a good entry point into the scientific literature on this subject.

I will post more on NPNs and pollinating insects later in the spring, along with an update on progress in the Nightingale Community Garden as it enters its second year.

Nectar Point Network website:
https://www.sites.google.com/site/nectarpointnetwork/

Previous post on Nectar Point Networks:
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/nectar-point-networks.html

Previous posts on Nightingale Community Garden:
Sept 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/creating-community-garden-10.html
June 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/creating-community-garden-9.html
April 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/creating-community-garden-8.html
March 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/creating-community-garden-7.html
Feb 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/creating-community-garden-6.html
Jan 2013
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/creating-community-garden-5.html
Oct 2012
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/creating-community-garden-4.html
Aug 2012
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/creating-community-garden-3.html
Feb 2012
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/creating-community-garden-2.html
Jan 2012
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2012/01/creating-community-garden.html

References:
Livio Comba, Sarah A. Corbet, Lynn Hunt & Ben Warren (1999), Flowers, nectar and insect visits: Evaluating British plant species for pollinator-friendly gardens’, Annals of Botany 83: 369-383. Online: http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/83/4/369.full.pdf

Mikhail Garbuzov & Francis L.W. Ratnieks (2013), Quantifying variation among garden plants in attractiveness to bees and other  flower-visiting insects’, Functional Ecology (Oct 2013): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.12178/full

 

Nectar Point Networks

Most fruit and vegetable plants require pollination, yet the honeybees, bumblebees, hoverflies and other insects that carry out the pollination are having a tough time. Habitats are being degraded, reducing the number of nectar-rich plants in built-up areas; while disease, varroa mite and insecticides have taken their toll on honeybee numbers.

The situation can be improved by individuals planting nectar-rich plant species for feeding insects on an ad hoc basis. However, an initiative to improve insect pollination services through public participation has just been launched: the Nectar Point Network.

A nectar point is a location that has been augmented with plants that produce nectar for insects. It could be in a community garden, residential garden, school grounds, park, roadside verge, or even a large window-box. A nectar point network is a coordinated series of such nectar points in a given area. The network rests on a group of local activists in a growers hub, such as a community garden, who use their skills and resources to propagate nectar-rich plants to supply to their neighbours.

The main considerations in establishing nectar points are to select nectar-rich plants to grow in soil or containers, and to keep a record of the outcomes of planting and any monitoring of pollinators that is done. There is therefore an element of citizen science involved in nectar point networks, with participants encouraged to learn about different pollinator species (e.g., bumblebees) and to  communicate their findings to other groups (e.g., via websites and blogs).

Networks of nectar points can be planned to create ecological corridors through built-up areas for pollinating insects, and to generally enhance local biodiversity and wildlife in gardens and streets. Networks can also, of course, encompass apiaries, and the strategic location of bee tubes or hotels for solitary bees species.

Here are some bee-friendly plants for gardens: heathers, rosemary, dead nettles, pussy willow, thyme, cotoneaster, wallflower, sage, honeysuckle, comfrey, cornflower, buddleia, delphinium, hollyhock, and lavender.

The Nectar Point Network website suggests several local actions for groups. ‘Linking with Lavender’ is one example of a neighbourhood growing scheme with the objective of establishing nectar-rich plants for pollinators in an urban setting.  It relies on a local community garden acting as a hub for propagating and distributing plants in pots to its neighbours.  The pots can be returned to the hub annually or purchased.  Costs could be met by local sponsorship. The pots, containing lavender or any other nectar-rich plants, can be used on patios or paved front garden.

A Welsh Government draft Action Plan for Pollinating Insects was launched in July 2013 (see below), in recognition of the major economic importance of natural pollination services. Also, a new Welsh Government initiative called Cynefin (meaning ‘habitat’) aims to help individuals and groups throughout Wales mount community-led environmental action plans. Cynefin Cardiff is already working with four community gardens in Cardiff with a view to starting a city-wide Nectar Point Network.

This should be the first of a series of posts on Nectar Point Networks on this blog, as I help get a network hub started here in Dinas Powys. I will report on what is involved, and write more about schemes to improve the pollination of fruit and vegetable plants, during the year.

Nectar Point Network website:
https://www.sites.google.com/site/nectarpointnetwork/home

Nightingale Community Garden, Dinas Powys:
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/creating-community-garden-10.html

Welsh Government Action Plan for Pollinators (links to draft documents here):
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside/consmanagement/conservationbiodiversity/action-plan-for-pollinators/?lang=en

Friends of the Earth ‘The Bee Cause’ campaign:
http://www.foe.co.uk/bees