More information

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More Information

There are loads more things you can do to help pollinators.
See pollinators.ie for a wealth of information and ideas.

 

Tell me more about dandelions and pollinators

  • To have a healthy balanced diet, bees and other pollinators need to be able to feed on pollen and nectar from a range of different flowers from March through to October.

  • In Spring, wild bees come out of hibernation.

  • Wild bees don’t make honey so they have no way of storing food. This means that they are never more than a few days away from starvation.

  • Spring is when hunger gaps are most likely to occur. Dandelions are one of the most important food sources in Spring.

  • The numbers of bees and other pollinators in Ireland are substantially declining – one third of our 98 wild bee species are threatened with extinction.

  • But we need pollinators – out of the 100 crop species which provide 90% of food worldwide, 71 are bee-pollinated.

  • Contrary to popular belief, it is our 98 species of wild bees who are responsible for most pollination here in Ireland, rather than our 1 species of honeybee.

  • The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan says allowing dandelions to bloom in Spring is one of the key things we can do to help pollinator numbers.

    Information from the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and pollinators.ie