Plants & Pollination
How to Support Your Solitary Bee Population
There are more than 20,000 species of solitary bees. Native to nearly every corner of the globe, they are adapted to a vast diversity of climates and habitats.
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Succession Planting With the Best Plants for Bees
Add to Favorites Even before we began keeping bees, we tried to garden in such a way as to not harm bees and other pollinators. Now that we are keeping …
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Tips for Planting Flowers That Attract Bees
Add to Favorites Bees contribute so very much to our world and unfortunately, we often neglect to recognize that. Oh, we know in our heads that over 150 fruits and …
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Will Spraying Dandelions Harm Bees?
My son is thinking of spraying 2,4-D for the dandelions — how safe is it for the bees? All the bees died this winter.
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Raising Mason Bees: Do’s and Don’ts
Raising mason bees is as simple as buying or making suitable housing and placing it where it will be discovered by the bees that already live in your area. If you don’t buy mason bees, starting is a bit slower, but the results are worth the wait.
Read MoreCan I Make Mason Bee Homes out of Bamboo?
I want to make mason bee homes. I plan to try drilling a wood block, but also try bamboo. Since moisture is an issue with bamboo, has anyone tried drying the bamboo out in a low temp oven? Do they have suggestions about how long and at what temperature to dry the bamboo?
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Keeping Both Mason Bees and Honey Bees
Many people, especially those with fruit trees to pollinate, want to keep both mason bees and honey bees in the same yard. But is that good for the bees? Will they harm each other or compete for resources? How close is too close?
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Growing Early Flowering Plants for Bees
Add to Favorites For most gardeners, fall is the time to bring in the last of the harvest, preserve and store what you’ve harvested, and put the garden to bed …
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Why Are There Flower Particles on my Bottom Board?
When we see flower parts stuck to bees, it’s usually the pollenia of either milkweeds or orchids. The pollenia are pollen-filled sacks that stick to the pollinator like glue and eventually fall off on another flower. Honey bees are most apt to engage with milkweed pollenia, and sometimes they have so many long and stringy orange sacks hanging from their legs they can barely fly.
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What’s Bothering My Mason Bees?
The parasitic wasp genus Monodontomerus shows up just as the mason bee season is coming to a close. The wasps are very tiny, perhaps fruit fly size, and fly with a nervous, side-to-side pattern that makes them look guilty.
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