Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees, Revised Edition

This newly revised and expanded edition of the prize-winning Victory Gardens for Bees empowers and inspires gardeners to create beautiful spaces while supporting wild pollinators.

Although bee populations continue to be threatened by environmental stresses, new sources of hope have appeared in the years since Victory Gardens for Bees was first published. As author Lori Weidenhammer makes clear in her expanded introduction, as well as in fully updated planting charts and descriptions of community projects and online resources, there are more ways than ever to participate in building the much-needed community networks that turn gardens, fields and landscapes into healthy environments for bees. Just as citizens banded together to plant Victory Gardens to offset the perilous food shortages of World War II, collective effort can turn our gardens and communal spaces into lifesaving shelters for these essential creatures.

Through detailed garden plans and planting guides, Weidenhammer shows how bee-friendly plants are easily grown by novices and seasoned gardeners alike, and how they can be used in creative combinations for plots and pots of all sizes.

Victory Gardens for Bees is also buzzing with DIY projects that will provide nesting sites and essential supplies for precious pollinators. With plenty of photographs to help readers identify bees of all stripes, beekeeping tips and other interesting bee-phemera, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to do their part to save the bees.

Lori Weidenhammer, who also goes by the moniker Madame Beespeaker, is an interdisciplinary artist, activist and author based in Vancouver, BC. As an educator, Weidenhammer engages people of all ages to explore environmental issues related to bees. She speaks on food-security issues and works with community members on a range of subjects, including eating locally and gardening for pollinators. She is originally from a tiny Saskatchewan hamlet called Cactus Lake, which is bordered by wheat fields and wild prairie, and where she first became enchanted with bees. She is a founding member of the Native Bee Society of British Columbia.