Dacorum Borough Council joined us as Accredited Partners back in 2015, and further broadened their knowledge with a second team member visiting us for some training in 2019.
The Council is very active in creating more wildflower-rich and biodiverse grasslands across the borough, with the various wildflower meadows managed differently, to encourage them to flourish.
As a means of keeping the wider Dacorum Borough Council community engaged, an interactive wildflower map has been created, detailing which areas within the Borough are dedicated to wildflowers.
The Council has also installed colourful signs in the areas where they have created meadows to help aid with identification.
Another brilliant, biodiverse initiative is to encourage those enjoying the Council’s newer wildflower spaces to take time to appreciate that wildflowers provide important food and act as breeding sources for many different species and, given time, these areas will become beautiful biodiversity hotspots.
With this in mind, we were very impressed to learn that, as part of the Council’s biodiversity commitment, they have also been introducing bee houses to their parks and open spaces. These little houses encourage declining solitary bees, like the Red Mason and Leaf-cutter bees, to start nesting and laying eggs in the small cardboard tubes that the houses hold.
At the end of the summer, these tubes are safely transported across to Mason Bees UK. The bee cocoons are removed from the tubes and checked for parasites and anything else that may harm them. Once this is done, the cocoons are kept safe over the winter. When spring arrives, they are sent back to the Council and the whole process begins again!
We are always thrilled to feature updates and projects from our Council partners – please do get in touch with us if you have something that we can share with our wider audience!