Surely no surprise?

[itma]

"Urban habitats 'provide haven' for bees"

Scientists counted honey bees, bumble bees and other pollinating insects, in and around some of the UK's largest towns and cities.

Urban habitats can provide a valuable role in bee conservation, they say.

Honey bees, bumble bees and other insects that pollinate plants are under threat from habitat loss, pesticides and diseases.

But new research suggests that bees and other pollinating insects thrive as well in towns and cities as they do in farms and nature reserves.

A team led by Dr Katherine Baldock of the University of Bristol said urban landscapes - making up 7% of the UK - deserve more attention in the drive to protect bees from decline.

Good to have our own anecdotal evidence supported by an academic study.
But I'd say that there has already been more of a move to plant "bee-friendly" flowering plants and trees in towns than in the countryside.

Commenting on the study, published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, Dr Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex said the research showed that there were more species of wild bee living in suburbia than in farmland.

"This is an indictment of modern farming methods, but is also greatly encouraging for those gardeners who put in wildlife-friendly flowers and leave a little space for nature," he said.

"There is huge potential to turn our suburban sprawls into giant nature reserves if we can get more and more gardeners on board."

This is just what I've been saying for a few years!

HOWEVER, the problem is that pollinators are most needed, most valuable, in the countryside ...
I suppose that we may be approaching an era when urban bees are "taken to the country" for pollination duty, and where agriculture makes ever more use of "disposable" imports of packaged bumblebees ... Shame!

News Article => http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31359984

 

[derekm]

I wouldnt be surprised if its derelict urban land that provides the best habitiat...

I remember a program showing a patch of derelict land next to a stream in london, that had Kingfishers!... with shot of a kingfisher perched on a half submerged tesco trolley.

Makes a good excuse not to have a too tidy garden

 

[JWF]

Makes a good excuse not to have a too tidy garden

That is the excuse I keep using

 

[madasafish]

That is the excuse I keep using

I don't store Tesco trolleys in my garden..

 

[itma]

Turns out this was the first item on "Farming Today" on Radio 4 this morning - I must admit I slept right through it!

Dr Baldock WAS surprised at the results, expecting 'set aside' stewardship areas to show up best. And she doesn't have urban 'waste ground' in her thinking at all, it would seem.

iPlayer Radio http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051s31l#auto



The basic advantage that I see in the urban habitat is the diversity of forage plants. This ensures forage throughout the season, sustaining populations. While extremely small-scale diversity (like gardens) is clearly good for insects with a small foraging radius, it does tend to mean that there is never a single-location massive flow that honeybees could maximally exploit.

 

[itma]

Eating locally: dance decoding demonstrates that urban honey bees in Brighton, UK, forage mainly in the surrounding urban area
Mihail Garbuzov, Roger Schürch, Francis L.W. Ratnieks
...
Here, we use waggle dance decoding to investigate foraging by 3 honey bee hives located in the city of Brighton, UK, over almost an entire foraging season, April to October. Waggle dances were recorded using video cameras and decoded during framewise playback on a computer by measuring the angle and duration of the waggle phase. Foraging was mostly local (mean monthly distances 0.5–1.2 km) and mostly within the surrounding urban area (monthly means 78–92 %) versus the countryside (closest distance 2.2 km) even though this was well within the honey bee maximum foraging range (c. 12 km). These distances were lower than those from a previous study for hives located in a rural area 4.5 km away. Honey bees are very sensitive to foraging economics and foragers make waggle dances only after visiting high-quality feeding locations. Low distances advertised by dances, therefore, indicate sufficient forage nearby and show that urban areas can support honey bees year round. As a corollary, however, urban bees may provide little pollination service to agriculture especially in spring, which had the lowest foraging distances and is when the most economically important animal-pollinated UK crops, apple and oilseed rape, are in bloom.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11252-014-0403-y


Well, knock me down with a feather, honeybees CAN survive, year round, in urban areas!

The shorter urban (than country) foraging distances means that there is more forage sources available in town than in the country.
Bees don't fly any further than they have to!

 

[derekm]

...

Dr Baldock WAS surprised at the results, expecting 'set aside' stewardship areas to show up best. ...

you need areas to be left alone for a couple of years then rejuventated (hacked back) a small section at time...

"stewardship" sounds like a tractor mounted flail zapping the lot every 3 months

 

[peteinwilts]

The shorter urban (than country) foraging distances means that there is more forage sources available in town than in the country.
Bees don't fly any further than they have to!

The UK has a fantastically varied landscape and topography and is also made up of meadows, woodland, hedgerows and nature reserves. Even the humble blackberry provide a long flowering season, and a huge amount of honey.

Suburban is often middle class where gardens are 'kept', and the class of the area will depend on the hives pickings... many urban areas have large 'fields' of concrete and bricks with very little greenery, never mind flowers.

How well the bees perform is relative to the site of the hives, and not to whether it is urban, suburban or rural.

The BBC talks about 'improving' urban areas for bees (rightly so!). The study in Brighton only tells us about that apiary in Brighton.

A regular beekeeper (even a non-trained BBKA beekeeper ) can look at the surrounding area and see how attractive to bees the area is.

'News' for non-beekeepers maybe.

 

[BrianO]

I wouldnt be surprised if its derelict urban land that provides the best habitiat...

I would ...

Urban mature gardens would provide far richer forage, in abundance in most cases in the form of such pollinator stalwarts as Hebes , cotoneasters, rowan, fruit trees, and the many many smaller flowering plants , sedums, campanula, lavender sp etc etc the list is endless and thankfully our insatiable appetite for year round colour usually provides perfect pollinator habitat.

Whilst urban sites derelict are not as diverse, often covered in only a few species , good old Buddelia and brambles and dandelion.

Also vitally the mature urban garden provides early and late forage. Early:hellebores, galanthus, crocus, muscari, early flowering fruit trees and more, Late: sedums, mahonia, Russian sage, dahlias, viburnum etc .

 

[derekm]

I would ...

Urban mature gardens would provide far richer forage, in abundance in most cases in the form of such pollinator stalwarts as Hebes , cotoneasters, rowan, fruit trees, and the many many smaller flowering plants , sedums, campanula, lavender sp etc etc the list is endless and thankfully our insatiable appetite for year round colour usually provides perfect pollinator habitat.

Whilst urban sites derelict are not as diverse, often covered in only a few species , good old Buddelia and brambles and dandelion.

Also vitally the mature urban garden provides early and late forage. Early:hellebores, galanthus, crocus, muscari, early flowering fruit trees and more, Late: sedums, mahonia, Russian sage, dahlias, viburnum etc .

depends on how long they have been derelict.

 

[derekm]

I would ...

Urban mature gardens would provide far richer forage, in abundance in most cases in the form of such pollinator stalwarts as Hebes , cotoneasters, rowan, fruit trees, and the many many smaller flowering plants , sedums, campanula, lavender sp etc etc the list is endless and thankfully our insatiable appetite for year round colour usually provides perfect pollinator habitat.

Whilst urban sites derelict are not as diverse, often covered in only a few species , good old Buddelia and brambles and dandelion.

Also vitally the mature urban garden provides early and late forage. Early:hellebores, galanthus, crocus, muscari, early flowering fruit trees and more, Late: sedums, mahonia, Russian sage, dahlias, viburnum etc .

depends on how long they have been derelict.
a lot of mature urban gardens are pruned to death , vacuumed every day and paved and decked... i.e. our neighbour.
or grassed all over and mown every weekend down to the last 5mm.

 

[BrianO]

Yup, some like my neighbours too, out with a dustpan and brush to clean leaves off the cobble lock ! .

Though he is the exception to the rule ( Thank God ) the thousands of houses in this area would provide tremendous forage, even a local expansive business area , home to many business HQ's which when designed was planted with huge amounts of diverse flowering shrubs...

... Pollinator heaven