Provide grass strips at field margins for bees
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Overall effectiveness category Awaiting assessment
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Number of studies: 4
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Supporting evidence from individual studies
A small replicated, controlled trial of field margin management options on two farms in North Yorkshire, England in one summer (Meek et al. 2002) did not find significantly more bumblebees on margins sown with tussocky grass than on naturally-regenerated margins or cropped margins. There were four replicates of each treatment.
Study and other actions testedA replicated, controlled trial of the 6 m wide grassy field margin agri-environment scheme option at 21 sites in England found no difference in the diversity of wild bees (sampled in the field boundary by walked transect and sweep netting) between paired control fields and fields with sown grassy margins (Kleijn et al. 2006).
Study and other actions testedThe same study, reported elsewhere (Marshall et al. 2006), showed a significantly greater abundance of bees in boundaries of fields with sown grassy margins; 40% of the bees recorded were of one species, the red-tailed bumblebee Bombus lapidarius.
Study and other actions testedA replicated, controlled trial of the 6 m wide sown grassy field margin agri-environment option at 32 sites across England (Pywell et al. 2006) found that grassy margins had more species, and a higher abundance of foraging bumblebees, than conventionally cultivated and cropped field margins (on average 6-8 bees of 1.3-1.4 species per transect on grassy margins, compared to 0.2 bees of 0.1 species/transect for cropped margins). Older grassy margins, sown more than three years previously, did not attract more foraging bumblebees than those sown in the previous two years.
Study and other actions tested
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This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:
Bee Conservation
Bee Conservation - Published 2010
Bee Synopsis