Why Nature Needs Its Native Bees
The Buzz on Bees
By Divya Abhat
Wildlife professionals know well that when habitat degrades, wildlife suffers. New research on the critical role of healthy habitat is suggesting that wildlife managers spend time examining some of the smallest members of the wildlife brood.
Click here to read the entire article in PDF format
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:27 pm
First off, thanks much for providing this information. I have referred many folks in the Puget Sound area to your site.
Second, I have witnessed a sharp decline in the number of birds, bees, bats, butterflies, dragonflies, etc. in the 12 years I have lived in my small house. This in spite of the fact that I have planted a large number of trees - evergree, deciduous, fruit - as well as shrubs and perennials. I have an area set aside as a wild woodland garden (20×20) filled with all kinds of plants. This spring and summer was the worst I’ve seen it, with many fewer pollinators. I worried that some of my fruit trees would not produce, but in fact they did although some are self-pollinating.
Third, and most seriously, I have witnessed a severe loss of habitat in the small north King County,WA city where I live. On the street where I live, homeowners to the immediate north, south, across the street, kitty-corner from my backyard, two houses up from me and around the corner, folks have removed old evergreen and dediduous trees. This loss of habitat removes places where various creatures can live, to say nothing about removing oxygen from increasing air pollution.
Ther has been no replanting of anything. Just more sunlight coming in, even while we here in the Puget Sound region are, as of the end of 2008, almost six inches short of our average annual rainfall.
My response, thanks to information from your website, is to call attention to this problem to my community, to City Council, City Manager and Parks Dept about what can be done. As well I will be writing a LTE to the local paper to reach a broader segment of the community.
But we humans cannot continue destroying our environment and the habitats of so many other creatures without paying a stiff price, and the price will be that we will aphxiate ourselves, and find that we can no longer afford to eat the food that once was so abundant when pollinators prevailed in larger numbers.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
[...] we’ll start you off slowly with some really, really important bugs: native honeybees and bumble bees (one of my favorites). And they’ve got all these cool books and [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
We are promoting pollination as a theme at the gardens where i work. would love to get ideas from you as to how to “enlighten our visitors” as to this decline in natural pollinators
February 10th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I recently got interested in Blue Orchard Bees (Osmia lignaria) and Hornface Bees (Osmia cornifrons). I started with a nesting block from Knox Cellars mainly because they also could supply the bees. I found an article on the net about how to roll your own tube liners out of parchment paper so the holes are easier to maintain cleanly for subsequent generations of bees. Pollen mites and parasitic wasps seem to be the main predators of my bees and the mites really need to be controlled.
Last year I also tried using sections of the common reed (Phragmites australis - as explained on another website). In the Philadelphia, PA area this reed grows wild along many roads and only about 20 “stalks” are required to provide enough sections of various diameters to fill a cut off 1/2 gallon milk jug. I made two hoops from a wire clothes hanger, wrapped them around the cut-off milk jug and hung it from my rain gutter. I cut the reed sections at the internodes with a hobby razor saw. Since the reeds are natural and often have their own ‘pests’, I did bake them in a small oven for 1/2 hour at about 250 degrees to eliminate anything which might harm the bees. In the fall, the reeds can be split lengthwise so the cocoons can be cleaned and sorted. The real beauty of this arrangement is the only “cost” is for the saw and your time.
This year I plan to also try some Binderboard - just to see which “home” they prefer. So far, between the reeds and the Knox Bee Block, they seem to show no preferance! Both the Hornfaced and Blue Orchard Bees are the most docile, gentle bees I have ever encountered. If you put your finger over the hole they are currently working on they hover in front of the block untill you remove the blockage. I have kept them for two years now and have not been stung so I can not tell you what sort of sting they have. They are fascinating to watch and there is even a video available about how to manage them:
http://beediverse.com/
I have no connection with any of the products mentioned except as a satisfied customer.