The UK is home to over 270 native species of bees. Our most familiar bees are bumblebees, which live in colonies, but most of our native bee species – around 240 species – are solitary bees. Solitary bees have different requirements to bumblebees, and depend on cavities, either in the ground or in structures, in which to nest. To provide valuable nesting habitat for our solitary bees Meadfleet have designed and installed Bee Posts.
The Meadfleet Bee Posts are constructed from untreated UK timber and are installed close to areas of wildflower and species-rich grassland for an easily accessible food source for the bees. The posts provide nesting habitat for a wide variety of solitary bee species, with nest holes ranging from 2mm to 10mm in diameter. The bees will lay eggs in the holes and seal the cavity, and then the young will emerge next spring, and the new generation will re-use the posts.
As they do not live in a colony solitary bees are not territorial and show little aggression. They are very unlikely to sting people unless provoked, and their sting is neither painful nor harmful. Therefore we encourage anybody interested to take a closer look at our Bee Posts to view the bee activity and the nests, but we would ask people not to disturb the bees or touch the nests.
Solitary bees are vital for pollination, and are more effective pollinators than non-native honeybees. Pollination is vital for our own survival, as over a third of the food we depend on in our diets consists of fruit and vegetables which have been pollinated by insects. As a landowner with over 350 developments across England and Wales, Meadfleet feel an acute sense of responsibility to provide habitat for such important members of our ecosystem.
Our award-winning Bee Friendly Campaign provided over 23,000m2 of wildflower meadows to benefit bees and other wildlife, and we donated over 2000 bee hotels to our customers to enable them to support solitary bees in their own gardens. Through our new Buzz and Flutter campaign we aim to provide even more habitat enhancements and donations to benefit our native wildlife.
About Meadfleet
Meadfleet are a leading sustainable land-adopting management company. We have in-house ecologists with expertise in the BNG metric and are already applying the principles of Biodiversity Net Gain across our existing open space portfolio in England and Wales. Established in 1995, Meadfleet manage over 330 developments and 42,000 residential properties in our portfolio, with a strong balance sheet.
Meadfleet offers management of Biodiversity Net Gain delivery both on a managed development and on offsite areas, either via customer contributions or commuted sums. Our adoption model relieves developers of ongoing liabilities and management costs.
The Meadfleet model removes onerous liabilities from homeowners yet still encourages their input and engagement into the management of their local environment. We are committed to providing an excellent service to residents as demonstrated by our Excellent rating on Trustpilot and are members of The Property Ombudsman Scheme (TPOS), offering customers free, independent redress should they feel it is required. We are happy to work with residents groups and positively encourage the creation of these on the developments we are involved with. We believe this opens an effective two-way dialogue between homeowners and ourselves.
As a land-adopting management company, Meadfleet take long-term responsibility of open space, building customer and community relations and implementing perpetual management and improvement plans. We take a holistic and independent approach to managing areas of open space for the benefit of all residents, biodiversity and the wider environment.