Pollinators
Both the abundance and diversity of insects are declining; however, the mosaic nature of the environment means that cities have a great potential for promoting biodiversity. The diversity of pollinators is extremely important, and that is why Bratislava is helping to create a suitable environment for insects, including bees (honeybees and other important pollinators such as solitary bees), butterflies, beetles, and flies (an interesting group of flies are thrips, which can visually imitate other insects such as wasps, bees, and bumblebees).
How does the city help pollinators?
Flower meadows
We sowed a varied meadow mix of common poppies, cornflowers, phacelia, marguerites and other meadow flowers in seventeen places, which, in addition to their aesthetic function and moisture retention, contribute to increasing the biodiversity of plant and animal species in the city and serve as food for many important pollinators.
Uncut areas
We have reserved several areas for "extensive cutting" where we have reduced the cutting schedule from five to six times per season to just two.
Planting melliferous plants
These plants are characterised by high nectar and pollen production, which pollinators feed to their larvae so they can develop their colony. The melliferous plants attract bees and other pollinators to gardens and orchards, where they pollinate useful plants and thus ensure the production of high-quality fruit.
Insect hotels
The urban environment does not provide sufficient shelter options for insect/pollinators. There are not enough natural materials for shelter used in the construction of new buildings (and polystyrene is mainly used for insulation).
In some parts of the city, we have built insect hotels. These are simple structures made mostly of wood that are filled with hollow stems, cones, straw, bricks and other natural materials. Since solitary insects do not form colonies, insect hotels provide them with a substitute home. We have placed two insect hotels in the Prüger-Wallner Garden in the Old Town and one near the Saratov shopping centre in Dúbravka. In the future, we plan to place insect hotels in Dlhé diely in Karlova Ves and in other parts of the city.