There is a lot of talk of dwindling bee numbers around the world and in my experience there is some merit to this statement. The native Bee population is certainly dropping away, where you used to always see a good numbers of natures pollinators in the garden that is now not always the case.
Companion planting is one sure fire way to increase the number of Bees in your patch. With this years plantings I sowed some Sunflowers on the boundary of my vegetable patch. They are slow to flower (around 10 weeks) but when they did bloom the Bee numbers increased by an amazing amount to the point where at any time of the day you could visit the garden and see Bees working their little butts off pollinating the flowers that were open, as opposed to having to look for them and on a bad day not seeing any at all prior to the Sunflowers opening.
Case in point is the solitary Eggplant that I have, it has always had a good number of fruit without being over burdened if you like but now since the Sunflowers have bloomed it is a covered in fruit. The Bees have been busy-busy setting fruit where it is normally left to the wind, rain or odd wandering bee to vibrate the flower enough to set a fruit.
Next season I'm going to stagger the sowing of the Sunflowers so there is a constant supply of flowers to keep the garden full of Bees all through the growing season.
Bee! Happy,
Barry.
www.organic-vegetable-garden.net
