The bee cautiously approaches the hill of yellow sand.
She flies back and forth indecisively a few times, then she sets course for a hole in the sand, into which she disappears.
It is still quite fresh this morning, so only a few bees are buzzing around.
Another specimen is interested in a box with thin tubes and crawls into one of the openings.
"All hell breaks loose here at 12 o'clock," says Klaus Rehwald, chairman of the Dreieich teaching and herb garden association.
Then the midday sun lures the bees out.
Some wild bee species look for holes in the clay soil to lay their eggs there.
Others prefer ancient tribes.
Some wooden blocks with small holes and the boxes with tubes are intended as nesting aids.
One egg at a time is placed in an incubation chamber that is carefully sealed with pollen before the next incubation chamber for the following egg is created.
Some tubes are closed at the front: they are already full, explains Rehwald.
The larvae feed on the pollen supply and pupate before hatching and emerging as bees.
About 570 wild bee species live in Germany.
The sand box for wild bees, called "Sandarium", was created in the past few weeks.
It is part of the new wild bee nature trail, with which the association has expanded its nature trail in the Baierhansenwiesen in the Sprendlingen district of Dreieich.
In the immediate vicinity is the 1500 square meter teaching and herb garden, which was created in 2016 after a large part of the Baierhansenwiesen designated as a landscape conservation area had been cleared of rubbish and rubbish.
12,000 visitors last year
Rehwald recalls that 150 cubic meters of waste were removed from the grounds of the teaching and herb garden alone.
Today there are beds with 80 medicinal and wild herbs;
In addition, a vegetable garden, a beehive and a small meadow orchard were created.
The association was founded at the end of 2017, which now has around 100 members and takes care of the natural offers in the Baierhansenwiesen.
More than 12,000 visitors visited the teaching and herb garden last year.
On Easter Sunday and Monday alone, around 400 people strolled between the flower beds.
1,500 people, including many school classes, kindergarten and senior citizen groups, took part in the workshops offered by the association in 2021.
The registration forms reveal where the participants come from: The catchment area extends from “Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Dieburg, Aschaffenburg, Offenbach to behind Frankfurt to Nidderau,” said Rehwald.
The gardens are part of the Rhine-Main regional park route and the Hessian cider and orchard route.
In addition, the teaching and herb garden scored points in 2019 as an "Excellent Project UN Decade of Biological Diversity" and in 2019 and 2021 took top places in the national competition of the Foundation for People and the Environment "We do something for the bees".
The beds in the family garden right next to it are leased.
Just in time for the start of the new season, the association will open the wild bee educational trail that has just been created on Sunday, April 24th at 11 a.m.
The idea for this came from schoolchildren, said the 69-year-old Rehwald, who used to be chairman of the nature conservation advisory board for the Offenbach district.
The topic of wild bees and insects is "very big at the moment".
On boards, visitors not only learn interesting facts about wild bee species, but also about wasps and hornets.
New butterfly species since 2016
A heap of old wood is ready for the carpenter bee, which likes to gnaw in rotten wood to lay its eggs.
A lizard castle with many stones invites sand lizards to let themselves be warmed by the sun.
They can lay their eggs in the sand and hibernate inside the castle.
A small natural pond on the site was overgrown and was dredged this year.
Various species of frogs and a number of alpine newts can be found there.
A board provides information on all butterfly species that were recorded in the Baierhansenwiesen in 2016, including Aurora butterflies, greater cabbage whites, white clover moths and green-veined whites.
According to Rehwald, a new survey of wild bees as well as butterflies and moths is planned for the summer.
The activities have a positive effect on biological diversity: since 2016, “four or five” new butterfly species have been identified in the area.
In the case of birds, the number of species has increased by 20 percent to currently around 70.
The association's projects are mainly financed by donations and subsidies.
An insect hotel for bees, hornets and bumblebees should not be missing on the wild bee educational trail.
Here, too, numerous holes in the wood have already been closed, which suggests that the females are very active.
One looks in vain for a queen in wild bees: most species live solitarily.
At the opening on Sunday, the concrete artist Thomas Stich, the wood sculptor Heike Roehrig and the nature photographer Manfred Becker will present projects. The beekeeping association will be there with a stand. The traveling exhibition "The world of bees up close" can also be seen. Information is available on the Internet at www.kraeutergarten-dreieich.de.