An Easy Way to Attract Bees

You may have searched things like “how to attract bees with sugar water”, or have tried to attract bees with honey. Here’s a tip on how to attract bees that doesn’t require any effort. In fact, it requires less than zero effort; just stop mowing! Unless you’re frequently using your yard for outdoor activities, there’s really no reason to mow it. And think about this, do yards ever get mowed in nature? If you’ve ever wondered how to attract wildlife to your yard, a wild yard is a great way that will attract all kinds.

There's lots of evidence for the benefits of a no-mow yard. This great news article by the University of New Hampshire sums up the benefits nicely (did you know no-mow also attracts butterflies?). There is also this scientific journal article that found that no-mow yielded the highest abundance of butterflies on Florida roadsides. In their testing, mowing every six weeks yielded more butterflies compared to mowing every three weeks, but not mowing at all yielded the most butterflies. The entomologists' 2015 findings are corroborated by a New York Times article from last month about how Ms. Elman pleaded the New York City council to stop mowing the wild milkweed by the highways.

Mr. Coniglio from that New York Times article is very strange. Why would anyone keep insisting on mowing by the highways? Lawns cost so much time and money to maintain; and unless those lawns are being used often for soccer and the like, you're not getting any benefit from them! And a lawn on the side of the road especially isn't being used by any humans!

Actually, a mowed lawn is a lot like a habitat devastated by a volcanic eruption. I first learned this from headspace-hotel's humorous and informative slideshow, but I'll paraphrase and summarise it here for you, with links to supporting evidence.

There's lots of supporting evidence for lawns being bad for the environment. This scholarly journal article, "Stop Watching the Grass Grow", talks about the many reasons why Australians should reconsider what they grow on their yard, including ecological concerns:

From an ecological perspective, grass lawns can stunt the biodiversity of the soil. Common grasses are considered a monoculture and in some circumstances can actively detract from the productivity of the garden.

By CNX OpenStax

Another interesting point from that slideshow is ecological succession; this is the process by which a new or destroyed habitat will heal itself and return to a stable climax community. This explains why weeds always try to grow in a lawn. Weeds aren't dastardly invaders trying to destroy your perfect lawn for their sadist pleasure (no creature in nature is malicious, they're just trying to live their lives); rather, it's more accurate to think of "weeds" as pioneer species, who prepare a devastated habitat like a lawn for the growth of new shrubs and trees. If the tall weedy look really displeases you, you can discourage weeds from growing by planting shrubs, wildflowers and trees. By doing this, you will be accomplishing what the weeds are trying to accomplish, a community that's closer to a stable climax community.

By Leah Kelley on Pexels

There are lots of great flowers you can plant to attract even more wildlife. At first, I was going to suggest planting butterfly bush in this paragraph. My neighbor has a big butterfly bush, and in the warm seasons his garden is filled with butterflies and hummingbirds. If you already have a butterfly bush, it won't do any harm to native species as long as you keep it pruned, but you should know that butterfly bush is an invasive species, and can quickly crowd out native species if left unchecked. Again, butterfly bush isn't "evil", no species is; the Royal Horticultural Society in the UK even reccomends that every UK gardener plant butterfly bush to feed polinators, but I thought it would be better to tell my U.S. readers to consider native plants. The Old Farmer's Almanac's page on butterfly bush has a great list of native alternatives, as well as more information on why native flowering plants are a bit better than butterfly bush.

A lot of people are reluctant to let go of their monoculture lawn because they find it the most beautiful option, but if you allow yourself to see the beauty in all things in the world, like fallen leaves, fluffy dandelion puffs, slugs that are as soft as marshmellows and leave behind a trail of glistening essence, and brown fading plants that return to the soil and start the cycle of life anew, then you will smile wherever you are.