Bee-friendly planting.
The 'Flowering Arches', or 'Bloeibogen in Dutch, application provides insight into the common bee species and their food availability in a selected area in The Netherlands and provides specific plant advice.
The tool uses distribution and interaction models of bee species and their food plants and was developed by scientists from Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Ecogoggle.
The Flowering Arches application can be found at www.bestuivers.nl and is available in Dutch.
The application helps to provide insight into the common bee species and their food availability in a selected area and then provides specific planting advice. The site shows you how you can help the wild bees in your area by making a flowering arch: a composition of different wild plants with different flowering periods throughout the year, to provide the different bee species with food. Via the web tool you can look specifically at which plants you still need to add to the current vegetation in order to complete the flowering arch. The web tool uses a database of bee characteristics created by Dr Stuart Roberts, distribution and interaction models of bee species and their food plants.
The Flowering Arches application works with four steps:
For more background information and an explanation of the 'Help for Pollinators' application, see "Create your ideal 'Bed & Breakfast' for pollinators with these web tools" (Nature Today, in Dutch).
The Flowering Arches application was developed by the scientists of Naturalis Biodiversity Center and ECOgoggle. The information about the plants, bees and their interaction comes from data from Naturalis, EIS Knowledge Center Insects, Waarneming.nl and the Dutch species register.