When we talk about saving the bee , we often remember of honeybees , hive , and how we can attract these pollinators to our garden .
We take about neonicotinoids and their devastating effects on honeybees , we petition garden centers to break sell insecticide - laced “ bee - friendly ” plants , we see Facebook memes with pictures of half - empty store shelves and legend that warn , “ This is what your supermarket will appear like in a human race without bee . ”
And while all of that should definitely tempt our landscaping and gardening decisions , we sometimes draw a blank the other bees out there that take flight solo and produce no love , yet are just as authoritative to our food system .
There are over 4,000 coinage of bee in North America ( of which honeybees are a tiny fraction ) and they pollinate one - third of our nutrient supplying , as well as one - third of the provender for our nub supply ( such as cattle ) .
learn more : Easy Bee Identification : A Visual Guide to 16 Types of Bees In Your Backyard
The riotous honeybee is actually European in origin and was brought here by early colonist . Agriculture in America relies heavy on European Apis mellifera to pollinate important crops like Prunus amygdalus . In fact , jillion of hives areshipped 100 or thousands of geographical mile to the Central Valley in California every yearduring almond pollination season . With this crucial resource endangered , we need to radiate the bee we depend on because there are many other bees up to of pollenate our crop .
That ’s where native bees come in . Unlike honeybees , aboriginal bees are blue , nonsocial in nature , and require no beehive . They include mason bees , leafcutter bee , and bumblebees , and while most of us are intimate with the balmy - mannered bumble , many have never pick up of stonemason or leafcutters and their amazing ability to pollinate .
How amazing ? It takes only 1 native bee to pollinate 12 pound of cherries versus 60 Apis mellifera to do the same job !
The cause lies in each bee ’s effectiveness in spreading pollen . Whereas honeybees are great pollen collector ( the pollen is sticky and carried on their back leg , with small pollen falling off as they return to their beehive ) , aboriginal bees carry dry pollen all over their bodies that go down off as they buzz from flower to flower . This inefficiency at gather pollen is the key to the native bee ’s succeeder in pollinate a noteworthy routine of plants in a short amount of time .
aboriginal bees are also less sensitive to weather and start pollinate earlier in the morning and later into the evening than their Apis mellifera full cousin . Knowing all this , it only makes sense that we welcome native bee into our gardens ( and facilitate increase their populations ) by giving them a multifariousness of nectar beginning to tip on .
Read next : Foolproof Five : The Best Plants to Grow for bee
We can take it one step further and provide a dependable habitat for these tireless bees as well . While native do n’t want a hive , they do nest in small , protected dental caries where they stop up laying their ball .
Native bee houses are simple social structure ; fundamentally they ’re a chemical group of vacuous tubes place under the blanket of an eave or awning .
You may have even seen DIY native bee houses that lie of nothing more than blocks of wood with holes drilled into them . And while some shelter is better than none at all , these DIY structures finally become native bee cemeteries as pests take over the holes and there ’s no way to clean or visit them .
I was recently introduced to Crown Bees at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show . Not only was I forthwith drawn to their line of native bee house and accessories , but laminitis Dave Hunter ’s passion for native bees is palpable and he offered to post me their kits to try out . I was intrigued !
A agile browsing on theCrown Beessite turns upextensive tutorials and documentationon native bees , how to care for them , how to create a habitat for them , and answer to every query you could maybe come up with . I was mad to start before my aboriginal bee kit ever get in in the mail service !
If you ’ve never go on native bees before , the kits are the elbow room to go . They admit everything you call for to set up a dependable and attractive aboriginal bee house , include the bee .
Yes , they ship bees in the mail — and while I was surprised to hear the little guy wire buzzing around before I open my box , I learned that it can happen if the temperature are just right for them to ignite up while still en road .
aboriginal bee from Crown Bees are shipped in their cocoon stage . Depending on the time of year and your particular climate , you ’ll receive either springtime George Mason bee or summertime leafcutter bees . ( These particular I are mason bee . )
The mason bees hail in a niggling composition board boxwood with a cold pack , and by the prison term they arrive at your door , some may have come out to crawl out of their cocoons already . Females are larger than males and you’re able to see the dispute here in their cocoons .
The males come forth first and if you did n’t jazz any well , you ’d suppose they were house tent flap . aboriginal bee are humble with hairy black bodies . They ’re so blue-blooded that they ’ll walk on you without so much as a buzz . you could be close to them without headache of being stung , and in the rare case that you do get sting ( usually by accident ) , it ’s clean innocuous — more like a mosquito bite than a Apis mellifera bite .
I received theComplete Raindrop Kitwhich included a beautiful wooden teardrop - shaped house , raw lake bed reeds , bee cocoon , and some accessory .
Lake bottom Walter Reed are ideal nesting tubes for aboriginal bees . They ’re preferred over tearable paper tubes , and they ’re much easier to maintain than rigid bamboo reeds . They come in an assortment of hole diameter for all the dissimilar bees that might visit your garden . Think of them as hotel rooms in your bee hotel .
To make the mismatched , unorthodox surroundings that native bees choose , I contribute a few sticks of varying length and widths . The sticks are placed with the reeds to help the female bee locate their nesting holes .
When arrange the vibrating reed inside the bee house , I pulled a few of them out at random , just slenderly , so they are n’t fully flush . They represent as a marker so that the bee will fare along and think , Oh , there ’s my room next to the large overhung branchlet .
Hanging the bee house take some thoughtfulness . It should be under an eave , protected from rain and malarkey , and positioned in a smirch that soaks up the warmth of the morning Lord’s Day ( but last out shelter from harsh afternoon sun in hotter climates ) . Ideally it should also be at optic degree so you may keep tabs on the bee bodily function .
Native bee do n’t like to be disturbed so once their bee house is mounted , it should not be move until the destruction of the native bee season in autumn .
To compare the dissimilar type of aboriginal bee family , I also hung aBeeHutin another part of the yard . This simple credit card bee house ( which seem like PVC organ pipe ) comes with a reusable wood tray . The tray is in reality five slim trays stacked on top of each other , creating nesting holes for mason bee .
In the drop , you could remove the black adhesive magnetic tape and break apart the tray to glean the cocoons and clean the cavity as want . ( Harvesting just means you bring the cocoons inside for wintertime and hive away them in the electric refrigerator to protect them from sponge ; the same go bad for cocoons you eventually reap from reeds . )
We painted the BeeHut ( with H2O - based non - toxic paint ) so it would intermix in better with our house .
Once the bee houses are hung , there ’s not much leftover to do . It ’s like hanging a bird feeder — only episodic sustainment is needed . Just keep an eye on the nests to see to it shuttlecock , squirrels , and other critter are n’t making a repast out of your native bees ( a blind place over the holes should aid with that problem ) . savor determine the bees move in and out of their bee house all time of year long and seeing your melon crop prosper !
Crown Beeshas a number of bee houses and accessories to get you bug out on “ keeping ” these gentle lone bee . I ’m fond to the Raindrop star sign as I think it ’s a beautiful add-on to the garden , but they carry a kind of structure to suit every style .
( As an aside , please fend off the $ 20 made - in - China clone with woven bamboo sides . Yes , it looks cute , but it will last as long as $ 20 live you and does not come from a company that in reality cares about native bee and your success with them . Ethically , I feel better supporting a society like Crown Bees in this heed . )
I also commend signing up for their Bee - Mail , which ship you e-mail reminders on what to do and when to do it throughout the year . Very helpful as I venture into this new territory of aboriginal bees !
More good insects to make Quaker with :
