Page 98 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #10
P. 98
WILD AT HOME
HOUSE AND HOME
Bee houses
WWW.GREENANDBLUE.CO.UK
Of course you can create a perfectly
good home for solitary bees with a
bundle of bamboo canes, but you
have to love the stylish dwellings
designed by Cornish company
Green&Blue. Standing out from the
crowd of bee hotels on the market,
these pleasingly minimalist products
are cast in concrete, 75 per cent of
which comprises waste material
from China clay processing. The
collection includes the renowned
Bee Bricks and Blocks (coming to a
new-build near you); Beepots (smart-
looking planters with built-in nesting
tunnels); and the newest addition
YOUNGER READERS
– the Beepost, a striking, 230cm-tall Emily Dickinson, Robert Louis
nesting tower for the more ambitious I Am the Seed that Stevenson and Benjamin Zephaniah,
landscaper. Prices start at£18.75. SM for instance – though many of the
Grew the Tree poems are anonymous.
Beepots (£49 each) This is a satisfyingly hefty book to
ofer food and shelter. BIG PICTURE PRESS, £14.99
hold, and the poems are framed by
My daughters loved dipping gorgeously immersive and colourful
into this beautiful book, an illustrations that evoke the four seasons:
anthology of 365 poems spring flowers, swooping swallows,
about the natural world, shimmering shoals of fish, autumn
taking turns to read out leaves and wintry snowscapes. While a
their favourites. Most are short, some few words and verse structures are
just a few lines long, and there are also tricky, most of the poems can easily be
haikus, limericks and tongue-twisters. managed by seven- to ten-year-olds.
Famous names crop up – Ted Hughes, Ben Hoare BBC Wildlife Features Editor
T
OUT IN HE GARDEN
PODCAST BOOK
BEE BANQUETS The Future of A Honeybee Heart
Plant crocus and snakeshead
fritillary bulbs, ready to bloom the Countryside has Five Openings
in time to ofer a rich nectar
bufet for early spring bees. COSTING THE EARTH: WWW.BBC.CO.UK/PROGRAMMES HELEN JUKES, SIMON & SCHUSTER, £14.99
Britain’s post-Brexit food The nature-writing memoir
CLEAN BIRD BOXES security has made headlines is a well-trodden path, but
Take advantage of the last recently, with the National this story of a year of
autumn sunshine to spruce up Farmers’ Union claiming beginner-level beekeeping is
your bird homes ready for next that the UK – which today produces only beautifully written and
year’s nesting season. By law 60 per cent of what it needs – would run informative. Author Helen
you can clear old birds’ nests out of food by August each year in the Jukes moves from London to Oxford,
between 1 August and event of a no-deal Brexit. So this four-way where she starts a new job (that she
31 January.
debate on the nation’s farming future, hates) and, to effect change in her life,
hosted by Costing the Earth regular decides to keep honeybees in her back
GO WILD WITH WOOD Tom Heap, is particularly timely. Join a garden. Embarking on her journey, she
Pile up some logs and dead farmer, an agricultural scientist, a green obsessively researches the inner
wood, ideally in dappled shade, economist and a food campaigner as they workings of the hive, immersing herself
to create a winter shelter for discuss how public investment should in her new wards and sharing what she
a multitude of species. Dead best be spent to ensure both increased learns from other beekeeping tomes. A
wood is particularly important food production capacity and the raft charming, gentle and pleasant story that
for stag beetles.
of environmental benefits that the teaches a lot about honeybees.
government says is its priority. PB Kate Bradbury Wildlife gardener and author
98 BBC Wildlife October 2018
