BEE FRIENDLY GARDENING
Will Honey Bees Love Your Garden?
Wherever your location in the US, you are probably planning and planting a garden at this time of year!
Here in North Carolina, our calendars are showing herb festivals every weekend, tender starts leaning toward the sun, and many of us are awaiting our next package of honeybees! Honey bees are drawn to certain plants and not to others. Below are a few excellent sites for anyone wanting to provide honeybees with good forage — nectar, pollen, and a water source. In exchange for bee-friendly plantings we gardeners can expect thorough pollination, prolific and well-formed fruits and vegetables.
HERBS: Anise * Basil * Bee balm * Borage * Catnip * Chives *Cilantro * Comfrey * Dill *Lavender * Majoram * Mints * Oregano * Rosemary * Salvia * Spider plant * Teasel* Globe Thistle * Thyme * Yarrow
FLOWERS: Coneflower, Black-eyed Susan, Goldenrod, Asters, Phlox, Stonecrop, Foamflower, Ironweed, Verbena, Phlox, Lobelia
TREES & SHRUBS: Tulip poplar, Maples, Serviceberry, Redbud, Eastern Persimmon, Sassafras, Yaupon, Sourwood, Witch Hazel, Blueberry
COVER CROPS: Canola, Buckwheat, Clovers, Vetch
VEGETABLES/FRUITS: (insect-pollinated)-Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, Cauliflower, Collards, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Gourds, Kale, Kholrabi, Lettuces, Okra, Parsley, Peppers, Pumpkins, Rutabaga, Squash, Watermelons
Tomatoes, bush and pole beans, and peas are self-pollinating, and beets, carrots, chard, corn, onions, and spinach are wind-pollinated.
Check your local nurseries for pollinator plants. Niche Gardens near Chapel Hill, NC, is focusing especially on pollinator plants this year. Check them out if you live in the area.
Web Sites
The Pollinator Partnership and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign
Go to your Ecoregion Location map: <http://pollinator.org/guides.htm>
Type in your zip code to obtain the online map and guide to your area. It discusses pollination in general and specifically describes your ecosystem and the conditions and plants specific to it. Sections for farms, public lands, home landscapes, bloom periods, habitat lists, and resources are a few of the sections in these attractive, readable, and straightforward guides.
Growing Small Farms, Chatham County, NC, Agricultural Extension Agency:
<http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/SustAg/index.html>
See “Pollinator Conservation” link on home page. An excellent model among agricultural extension web sites.
Planting a Pollinator Garden: <l http://www.kidsgardening.com/growingideas/projects/jan03/pg1.htm>Great site for kids and adults alike.
Creating a Honeybee Water Garden: <http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/beepond.html>Shows how a simple water garden offers beauty and practicality to your garden while helping pollinators.
The Encyclopedia of Earth: <http://www.eoearth.org/article/Pollinator>A kind of Earth Wikipedia. Hundreds of pollination topics written by experts. A concise description of pollination and pollinators along with sharp photos.
US Forest Service>Celebrating Wildflowers>Pollinators:<http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/index.shtml>Concise, plentiful photos, well-organized.
Pollinator Paradise: <http://pollinatorparadise.com/new_mexico/Strickler.htm>An example of a web site created by an individual pollinator advocate.
The University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences:
<http://www.caes.uga.edu/departments/ent/bees/beekeeping.html>
Site of the Georgia Master Beekeeping Program, the mission of which is “to increase humanity’s knowledge of bee biology, bee management, and crop pollination and to deliver that knowledge in the most effective manner to interested users. The program strives to develop research and extension initiatives that are locally responsive while globally relevant.”
The Library of Congress Science Reference Guides - Bees, Pollination, and Climate Change. A Guide of Selected Resources: <http://www.loc.gov/fedsearch/metasearch/?cclquery=pollination&search_button=GO#query=(pollination)&filter=pz:id=lcweb|ammem|catalog|ppoc|thomas>
An impressive list of books, journals, research centers, networks, and other Internet sources compiled by Alison P Kelly, Science Reference, Library of Congress, and Wayne Esaias, Ocean Sciences Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, April 2007.
Pollination is not just fascinating natural history. It is an essential ecological survival function. Without pollinators, the human race and all of earth’s terrestrial ecosystems would not survive. Of the 1,400 crop plants grown around the world, i.e., those that produce all of our food and plant-based industrial products, almost 80% require pollination by animals. Visits from bees and other pollinators also result in larger, more flavorful fruits and higher crop yields. In the United States alone, pollination of agricultural crops is valued at 10 billion dollars annually. Globally, pollination services are likely worth more than 3 trillion dollars.
- US Forest Service> Celebrating Wildflowers>Pollinators:
<http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/index.shtml>
See below for details about what honey bees like, what you can do to create a healthy habitat for honey bees in your landscape, and find out just how pollinators and flowering plants cooperate so that both survive and thrive.
Did You Know
A field of goldenrod might be a factor in a honeybee colony’s chances for survival through the coming winter. (i.e., Don’t mow down just because we can.)
- Pollen, bees’ source of protein, varies from plant to plant in structure and nutritional value, so bees need a diversity of pollinator plants for the best nutrition.
- Bees are efficient in all they do and will visit the flowers of one flower species grouping before moving on to another.
- Trees, vines, “weeds,” shrubs, and grasses are among essential pollinator plants.
- Ample pollen (protein) and nectar (carbohydrates) food sources are both essential for bee survival.
- Insufficient foraging habitat or water source can lead to starvation for honeybees.
- Many trees begin nectar flow in late winter.
Throughout the world, native habitat has been been destroyed or vastly altered. Working together, we can play an essential part in restoring life-supporting habitats for pollinators.
We can
- Identify, cultivate, and protect plants native to our specific geographical ecosystem that provide adequate habitat and forage (e.g., nectar, pollen, water, protection) specific to honeybees.
- Identify, cultivate, and protect nonnative plants important to local pollinators (but which don’t threaten or push out native plants).
- Learn what crops are dependent on honeybee pollination in our region.
- Cultivate an abundance of these pollinator plants or protect already established plant habitat. For example, although you may be a vegetable gardener, planting ample groups of pollinator plants in and around your garden will keep your bees active in the garden area.
- Learn what nonsustainable practices are occurring within the honeybee foraging range of your apiaries. For example, are nearby operations using pesticide sprays in ways that could decimate pollinators?
- Advocate for habitat conservation and alternatives to heavy-handed pesticide use. Start a local newsletter or blog, speak out at community gatherings, enlist your beekeepers’ association, get on the county commissioners’ agenda, write to your local media, be a pollinator advocate in whatever way your talents can contribute.
It is imperative that we take immediate steps to help pollinator populations thrive. The beauty of the situation is that by supporting pollinators’ need for habitat, we support our own needs for food and support diversity in the natural world. – Laurie Davies Adams, Executive Director, Pollination Partnership
Pollination is not just fascinating natural history. It is an essential ecological survival function. Without pollinators, the human race and all of earth’s terrestrial ecosystems would not survive. Of the 1,400 crop plants grown around the world, i.e., those that produce all of our food and plant-based industrial products, almost 80% require pollination by animals. Visits from bees and other pollinators also result in larger, more flavorful fruits and higher crop yields. In the United States alone, pollination of agricultural crops is valued at 10 billion dollars annually. Globally, pollination services are likely worth more than 3 trillion dollars.
- US Forest Service> Celebrating Wildflowers>Pollinators:
<http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/index.shtml>
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