Human activities have impacted the environment for thousands of years and unfortunately not always for the better. Our landscape is changing all the time due to the ways that we are trying to live in it. Our natural forests are changing and diminishing, woodlands are disappearing and even in our open landscape we can see old hedgerows make way for fences. The landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented.
When we look at our changing landscape we can see that everything we do in it has a knock on effect impacting many species. Native Irish honeybees have been feeling these effects for a long time as they are very closely connected to and dependent on trees. The honeybees need large continuously connected areas of suitable habitat for foraging and housing. These areas would contain woodlands, wild meadows and riparian areas.
Native Irish honeybees live inside tree cavities where they build their nest. The tree cavity protects the colony from the vagaries of our Irish weather. The thick walls of the tree insulate the nest against both cold and excessive heat, which is important as the bees need to maintain temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius to rear the brood. Also honeybees like to be well off the ground away from pests and predators, preferring to be at a height of around 4 to 6 meters. A natural tree cavity at this height would offer the ideal situation to set up home. The volume of one of these cavities is important too, requiring to be about 40 liters. This allows enough room for the colony to expand properly and store enough honey to last them throughout the winter months and into spring. Wild honeybees demonstrate a preference for cavities with a diameter in the range of 8 to 12 inches so only certain mature trees will be suitable. But due to the lack of these trees/tree cavities in today’s landscape our native Irish honeybee is struggling.
We at Boomtreebees are focused on changing this. Our vision is to create once again a sustainable population of the honeybee throughout the Irish landscape. We provide suitable housing for the honeybees in the form of log hives. A log hive is a hollowed out tree trunk (sustainably sourced) which mimics a natural tree cavity. Each log hive is designed to the honeybees’ specific needs. Once made these are put up in suitable locations throughout the Irish landscape. We see the provision of these log hives as a temporary measure (100 – 200yrs) while we work on planning and planting for the future. Trees like oak, beech or ash require at least 100yrs to get to maturity. Only then is there a possibility that when a natural cavity occurs within the tree that honeybees can utilize it as a nest.
When choosing trees to plant use native trees that would have been growing throughout the Irish landscape suited to your particular location. Find out what trees would originally have been growing in your area and focus on those.
If every person planted a few trees in there lifetime, imagine the difference it would make, physically and mentally