GOING GREEN – APRIL 2025
In last month’s Going Green column I talked about the Bee Friendly Henley project the Town Council has instigated. I deliberately did not mention bee hotels, which is something we are also encouraging, as there are different opinions about the best way of providing nesting sites for solitary bees.
In nature, insects including solitary bees will find their own places to lay their eggs. It may be holes in the ground – you may have noticed the bumble bees (our earliest pollinators) emerging from them, or it could be cracks and crannies they find in walls. A popular place for egg laying pollinators is the
inside of hollow stems of plants such as fennel or hogweed.
As habitats are becoming scarcer, gardens and other green spaces are becoming more important as sanctuaries for bees and other insects.
If you are going to put up a bee hotel in your ‘patch’ there are certain things you should consider. Any tubes you place in your hotel (be they plant material or the specially made cardboard tubes for bees) will need to be well protected from the weather. Bee tubes should be 7 – 10mm in diameter and slightly shorter than the receptacle you are putting them in. For extra protection some waterproof material could be attached on top with a lip all around.
Your hotel should be placed securely about 1 to 1.5 metres above the ground facing south or south east preferably near a good source of pollen. To prevent water from getting into your bee home make sure it doesn’t slope upwards.
The solitary bee will make a row of individual nests in the tube and lay an egg in each nest. Each nest provided with its own larder of pollen.
Red mason bees will place a wall of mud either end of each individual nest. The grub that emerges from the egg will eat the pollen provided and then form a cocoon to overwinter.
A leaf cutter bee will make delicate tubes that look like tiny green spring rolls from leaf material, inside which they lay one egg and provide a plug of pollen.
The Wildlife Trust have useful information about looking after your bee hotel on their website https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk
A bug hotel is quite different to a bee hotel in that you are providing homes for all kinds of insects. Generally they are a wooden structure, sometimes made from pallets, that are free standing on the ground. A bug hotel will be stuffed full of all sorts of natural materials – sticks and twigs, pine cones, moss, left over wood, small logs. These make a perfect home (providing they are dry) for many species, ladybirds, lacewings, beetles, flying and crawling insects and perhaps some bees especially if you place a piece of solid timber with holes drilled in to it.
For the Bee Friendly Henley project we are promoting a couple of competitions and citizen science events. One of which is for anyone of any age from 1 to 100, to design a bug hotel based on an iconic Henley landmark. The winning design will be built to a larger scale and placed somewhere prominent for insects next year. Hand in your designs on paper at the Information Centre at the Town Hall with your name, age (if under 19) and contact details on the back by 23rd May. We will display all the designs received on the Bee Friendly stall at Greener Henley’s Big Green Festival on Saturday 7th June.
We would really like to hear about the pollinators that you see visiting the plants in your bee friendly patch. We are hoping to produce a virtual gallery of pollinators in the town – keep an eye out for more information from Henley Town Council and Greener Henley on how to contribute to this exhibition.
Please put the 7th June in your diaries for a super day of fun in Falaise Square. Lots of family activities are planned – anyone who comes dressed as a bee will be given a prize at the Bee Friendly stall.
One final thing while on the subject of bees, we are planning to show the film Honeyland on 10th June as a special Picturehouse Green Screen collaboration.
This film set in a deserted Macedonian village tells the story of Hatidze, a 50–something woman who trudges up the hillside to check her bee colonies nestled in the rocks. Serenading them with a secret chant she gently manoeuvres the honeycomb without gloves or netting. It sounds magical! Come along and watch it with us and join in the panel discussion afterwards.
There will be more about Great Big Green Week next time.
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Recently Oxfordshire County Council hosted an interesting Climate Adaption Summit. The Council has designed a plan for emergencies that are happening, or could happen, as a result of climate changes here. We heard that nothing is predictable. Resilience is what is left when there is nothing left.
Communities becoming resilient using their own resources is vital. This is more than adaption to the changes but being prepared for emergencies when and where they happen. We heard about some of these emergencies that the Oxfordshire Joint Resilience Team have had to deal with in recent years.
Extreme heat is very dangerous for vulnerable people including rough sleepers, Libraries are being opened as cool places. Festivals held on grass are a real wildfire risks. The extreme heat impact on utilities has resulted in more power cuts, droughts and water pipes collapsing. Seventy Oxfordshire homes were
without water in 2023.
Railway lines buckling, roads and airport runways breaking up have been the result of extreme heat. Other concerns are longer lasting power outages which meant electric vehicles were unable to be charged and a dangerous lack of air conditioning in care homes.
In winter vulnerable people are at risk of not heating their homes adequately. Increased storm risks impacts utilities again, power cuts, loss of private water supplies, infrastructure – roads and railways, and EV chargers not working in extreme cold.
Flooding is obviously a major concern in Oxfordshire – that is fluvial, pluvial and groundwater levels. The impacts on utilities mean powercuts affecting all services including water treatment, sewage and contamination. Mobile phone chargers and networks will not work in prolonged power outages.
The County Council have come up with sensible suggestions for homeowners and businesses. You can find them on their website – Fire and community safety – Community resilience. The point is to be prepared.
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Greener Henley is a conduit for me to speak up and act on important issues that the climate, nature and pollution crises are creating. That could be someone losing their home and livelihood due to rising ocean levels or an endangered stag beetle. If you feel the same, why not join us?
We are holding our Strategy Launch and panel discussion on Wednesday 30th April at the River and Rowing Museum. It should be an inspiring evening where we will unveil our new ambitious strategy, a vision for Henley’s future. We have a few seats left – free tickets can be booked at htpps://greenerhenley.org.uk
Diana Barnett
