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