Mignonette yellow-face bee

The name 'the Hortus BeeTotem' stands for an important new alliance, in which botanical gardens reach beyond their walls and sow life into the fabric of the city. By creating refuges for wild bees and their plants together with local residents, they encourage communities to become guardians of biodiversity before it disappears for good.

The Mignonette yellow-face bee is also a RefuBee and needs food and shelter. That is why the BeeTotem and BeeHotel were designed specifically for this bee. For the Mignonette yellow-face bee, this means an above-ground BeeHotel with holes 10 cm deep and 3 to 5 mm across, fully waterproof and facing the morning sun in spring. It is made entirely from recycled materials, so it is very sustainable too.

Tiger worms usually make soil rich and fertile, yet Reseda grows on poor, chalky soil. This contradiction creates a tension within this BeeTotem. Still, the worms help the quality of pollen and nectar indirectly: their compost stimulates soil life at a micro level and can strengthen the scents of flowers. The result is a subtle cooperation between scarcity and abundance, working for biodiversity.

The Mignonette yellow-face bee depends heavily on specific plants for food. These plants need to be planted around the BeeTotem to support the bee. It is just as important that hosts and their neighbours grow these plants in their back gardens or on their balconies. That way a network forms in the neighbourhood, the clan of the Mignonette yellow-face bee, in which people actively help to protect this threatened species.

In a city where people often want things neat and tidy, it helps to realise that nature can thrive when we leave room for some wildness. That asks for a different attitude, and for practical changes. The plants the Mignonette yellow-face bee forages on do best on chalky, dry and poor soil. You can encourage this easily by adding crushed shells, eggshells or limestone to the soil.