An old song from the 60’s painted a picture that many farmers and beekeepers are finding pretty ugly and frightening. This song’s lyric went “where have all the flowers gone, long time passing” and that is what many people fear for our future food and honey production. Honeybees are accountable for pollinating about 80 percent of all the fruit, vegetable and seed crops in the United States so gardening for them is very important to human survival. But there does exist other pollinators that are just important and need to be considered when gardening. These include mason bees, bumble bees, and moths.
All insects can be welcomed into a garden by providing 3 major necessities of life, that is food, water, and shelter. Honeybees, Orchard Mason bees, and Bumblebees all require bee friendly plants whose flowers are shaped so that bees can get into them. The easiest way of distinguishing this plant material is to use native plants for your area. These plants have evolved along with the bees in that area. Once the bees have found bee-friendly flowers they can drink up the nectar and address one of their basic needs of life. While eating at the “fast food flower restaurant” the bees also collect pollen and carry it from flower to flower. This is how they feed us along with the honey they produce. But remember when gardening, bees do not understand pesticide zones and what they get into they bring back to the hive. So keep the garden bee-friendly by going organic when possible.
Continue reading “Welcome Pollinators to the Garden”