Brentford Football Club is proud to support all forms of nature in our work, but we maintain a special focus on protecting and nurturing bees and other pollinators.
Our badge is designed around the buff-tailed bumblebee, one of the many pollinator species native to west London that need our help to thrive.
World Bee Day is marked on May 20 each year to create global awareness of the vital role that bees and other pollinators play in our ecosystems. However, their populations are under threat from habitat loss, a changing climate, and the increased use of chemicals and pesticides on plant life.
All species of bees support the wider functions of a healthy ecosystem by pollinating their habitats on journeys between plants and flowers. Pollination contributes to a thriving, biodiverse ecosystem and is a natural way to provide stability, resilience, manage environmental risk and safeguard long-term sustainability.
What steps can we take to help pollinators?
A pollinator is any flower-feeding insect. In the UK, we have 275 species of bee, 270 species of hoverfly, 59 species of butterfly and 800 species of large moth.
Brentford works closely with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to stay up to date with best practice on supporting pollinators.
Even small actions can make a real difference. Helpful adjustments to everyday spaces will positively impact biodiversity, even in urban areas where there is a high diversity of pollinators.
Advice from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to follow at home:
Plant diverse flowers - Bees need variety and like to forage from an average of 10 plants on one trip
Provide different flower shapes - Different bee species have varying tongue lengths. Tubular flowers like foxgloves and flat flowers like dandelions make your space accommodating for all types of bees
Plant through seasonal gaps - Bees are hard at work throughout the year. Ensure something in your space is always flowering to combat food shortages, especially in early Spring (March–April) and late summer into autumn (August–September)
Know your plants - Pelargoniums, begonias, busy lizzies and petunias look nice but produce little accessible nectar or pollen for bees. Multi-petalled plants such as dahlias, roses, and daffodils often lock away or entirely lack pollen and nectar
Plant in clumps - Grouping several of the same plant together helps bees move efficiently from flower to flower, reducing the energy they spend foraging
Some actions you can take if planting, growing or tending to your garden:
Make the most of small spaces - Use a single pot or windowsill planter to create a pitstop for your local bees. Lavender, catmint, or other herbs like thyme and mint grow amazingly in tight spaces
Leave your lawn to bloom - Delay mowing until late spring to let dandelions and daisies flower. Bees rely on these early bloomers at that time of year
Plant a climber on your fence - Honeysuckle or jasmine will grow up almost any surface, smell amazing and provide a long season of nectar from June through to September
Avoid pesticides or weed killers - Don’t risk harming the insect population, or cutting off essential food supply like clovers and dandelions
Create wild space - A small pile of twigs, a patch of uncut grass, or an undisturbed corner of your garden provides a vital nesting and hibernation habitat for bees
What Brentford is doing to support bees and pollinators
Brentford is committed to promoting environmental sustainability and to making a positive impact on biodiversity across our sites.
In recent years, we have created more green spaces in the community, including the free-to-visit Gtech Community Garden outside our stadium. We have planted apple and pear trees in Robin Grove Orchard, as well as nearly a hectare of wildflowers at our training ground.
Engaging with local schools, we run assemblies to educate young children on shared environmental responsibility and practical, simple changes their families can make to enhance nature at home. We also visited Chase Bridge Primary School in Twickenham to plant flowers in their playground, with the students learning about the impact their work can have on the bee population.
This year, we published the club’s first nature strategy, titled Connected By Our Nature, outlining the club’s areas of focus until 2030. To find out more about our work in this area, read the strategy here.
Did you know?
Around one in three of the crops grown worldwide benefit from insect pollination. Pollinators support the productivity, quality and affordability of many global food supply chains that humans rely on
Bees have four wings. The two wings on each side hook together to form one larger pair when flying and then unhook when they’re not flying
On a single foraging trip, a worker bee will visit between 50 and 100 flowers. A single bee can carry up to 35 per cent of its body weight in pollen