Use flower power to save bees

[Sally Furniss]

Use flower power to save Europe's bees: EU lawmaker


TRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Honey bees, whose numbers are falling, must be given flowery "recovery zones" in Europe's farmlands to aid their survival, a leading EU lawmaker said Wednesday.

Bees pollinate numerous crops and scientists have expressed alarm over their mysterious and rapid decline. Experts have warned that a drop in the bee population could harm agriculture.


"If we continue to neglect the global bee population, then this will have a dramatic effect on our already strained world food supplies," said Neil Parish, who chairs the European Parliament's agriculture committee.


Parish, a British conservative, said vast swathes of single crops such as wheat often made it difficult for bees to find enough nectar.


But he said farmers could help bees by planting patches of bee-friendly flowers -- including daisies, borage and lavender.


"We're talking about less than one percent of the land for bee-friendly crops -- in corners where farmers can't get to with their machinery, round trees and under hedges." ....


http://www.reuters.com/article/envi...0081119?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Use flower power to save bees

Bee Plants

<script type="text/javascript">h1 = document.getElementById("title").getElementsByTagName("h1")[0];h1.innerHTML = widont(h1.innerHTML);</script> Attracting More Bees And Pollinators to Your Garden

By Marie Iannotti

Every garden needs pollinators and bees are among the best. Without them there would be limited flowers and even fewer fruits and vegetables.
Bees are basically looking for 2 things when they visit your plants:

1. Nectar - nectar is loaded with sugars and it’s a bee’s main source of energy.
3. Pollen - pollen provides the balanced diet of proteins and fats

Many popular flower varieties are hybridized for features that are valued by the gardener, like disease resistance, flower size or color and bigger, longer blooms. Unfortunately much hybridization has reduced the production of nectar and pollen and sometimes leaves the resulting plant completely sterile and useless to bees and other pollinators.
Another factor is that the amount of nectar secreted is dependent of climate conditions such as temperature, humidity and moisture in the soil. Here is some advice from the Xerces Society on what to plant to attract more bees to your garden

Choosing the Right Flowers

To help bees and other pollinator insects—like butterflies—you should provide a range of plants that will offer a succession of flowers, and thus pollen and nectar, through the whole growing season. Patches of foraging habitat can be created in many different locations, from backyards and school grounds to golf courses and city parks. Even a small area planted with good flowers will be beneficial for local bees, because each patch will add to the mosaic of habitat available to bees and other pollinators. Native plants are usually best for native bees, and can be used in both wild areas and gardens. There are also many garden plants—particularly older, heirloom varieties of perennials and herbs—that are good sources of nectar or pollen. Together with native plants, these will make a garden attractive to both pollinators and people.

List of bee plants below. One lists native plants, the other cultivated garden plants. They are not an exhaustive listing of suitable plants for all areas and you may have to research which species are local to your area, but they provide a good starting point. These lists, combined with the notes below, will help you choose the right plants for your area. A field guide will tell you which species from these lists are local to you. Your local chapter of the Native Plant Society and native plant nurseries are worthwhile contacts for advice on choosing, obtaining, and caring for local plant species.

General Gardening Advice for Attracting Bees and Other Pollinators

1. Don’t use pesticides. Most pesticides are not selective. You are killing off the beneficial bugs along with the pests. If you must use a pesticide, start with the least toxic one and follow the label instructions to the letter.
   
2. Use local native plants. Research suggests native plants are four times more attractive to native bees than exotic flowers. They are also usually well adapted to your growing conditions and can thrive with minimum attention. In gardens, heirloom varieties of herbs and perennials can also provide good foraging.
   
3. Chose several colors of flowers. Bees have good color vision to help them find flowers and the nectar and pollen they offer. Flower colors that particularly attract bees are blue, purple, violet, white, and yellow.
   
4. Plant flowers in clumps. Flowers clustered into clumps of one species will attract more pollinators than individual plants scattered through the habitat patch. Where space allows, make the clumps four feet or more in diameter.
   
5. Include flowers of different shapes. There are four thousand different species of bees in North America, and they are all different sizes, have different tongue lengths, and will feed on different shaped flowers. Consequently, providing a range of flower shapes means more bees can benefit.
   
6. Have a diversity of plants flowering all season. Most bee species are generalists, feeding on a range of plants through their life cycle. By having several plant species flowering at once, and a sequence of plants flowering through spring, summer, and fall, you can support a range of bee species that fly at different times of the season.
   
7. Plant where bees will visit. Bees favor sunny spots over shade and need some shelter from strong winds.

Plant Lists for Attracting Bees USA Native Plants for Bees

Native plants should be your first choice to help our native bees. Listed below are some plants that are good sources of nectar or pollen for bees. Both the common and Latin names of the plant genus are given. This list is not exhaustive; there are many other plants good for bees. Individual species have not been included because we hope the list will be useful across the U.S. Not all of these genera will have species in your local area, but they do represent plants that will grow in a variety of environments. Use a wildflower guide or contact local nurseries to find your local species.

• Aster Aster
• Black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia
• Caltrop Kallstroemia
• Creosote bush Larrea
• Currant Ribes
• Elder Sambucus
• Goldenrod Solidago
• Huckleberry Vaccinium
• Joe-pye weed Eupatorium
• Lupine Lupinus
• Oregon grape Berberis
• Penstemon Penstemon
• Purple coneflower Echinacea
• Rabbit-brush Chrysothamnus
• Rhododendron Rhododendron
• Sage Salvia
• Scorpion-weed Phacelia
• Snowberry Symphoricarpos
• Stonecrop Sedum
• Sunflower Helianthus
• Wild buckwheat Eriogonum
• Wild-lilac Ceanothus
• Willow Salix

Garden plants for bees

Flower beds in gardens, business campuses, and parks are great places to have bee-friendly plants. Native plants will create a beautiful garden but some people prefer "garden" plants. Many garden plants are varieties of native plants, so this list only includes plants from other countries--"exotic" plants--and should be used as a supplement to the native plant list. As with the native plants, this list is not exhaustive.

• Basil Ocimum
• Cotoneaster Cotoneaster
• English lavender Lavandula
• Giant hyssop Agastache
• Globe thistle Echinops
• Hyssop Hyssopus
• Marjoram Origanum
• Rosemary Rosmarinus
• Wallflower Erysimum
• Zinnia Zinnia

Adapted from the fact sheet produced by Matthew Shepherd, Pollinator Conservation Program, Xerces Society April 2004 (The Xerces Society, 4828 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR 97215. Tel: 503-232 6639)
http://gardening.about.com/od/attractingwildlife/a/Bee_Plants.htm

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Use flower power to save bees

Creating A Great Bee Garden

The most important element of a bee garden is the types of flowers it contains. Not all flowers are attractive to bees, and some flowers are much more attractive than others.

The more of these attractive flowers planted in the same place, the better! One of the most interesting results of our research is that bees have preferences, not only for the flowers they pollinate, but for the gardens they visit.

Gardens with 10 or more species of attractive plants attracted the largest number of bees. In these kinds of gardens, even those plants known to be less attractive, received higher levels of visits.

The composition of the garden is also important. The more attractive gardens tended to be less manicured, allowing solitary native bees, which make their individual nests in the ground or in trees, to make their nests without disturbance. If you like, bee nests can also be made. If they are placed in a shady area of the garden, they may be used by the bees but they aren?t needed to have a successful bee garden.

Bee gardens should not experience pesticides and should contain large patches of like flowers planted in close proximity to one another. For our purposes, it is necessary that each patch of flowers (each species) is at least 1.5m x 1.5m (for frequency counts). Ideally, the patches will be even larger, allowing the observer to make counts on several different patches (1.5m x 1.5m each) of the same species.

Contrary to how it may seem, bees are actually very shy. If an observer spends too long in one place, hovering over the same patch of flowers, the bees will gradually begin to move on to other flowers where they won?t be bothered. To facilitate counts, it is sometimes a good idea to create little paths through the garden so that all patches are accessible to the observer.

Labeling each patch/species with their Latin scientific name is extremely important. Unidentified plants can be taken to a local nursery (the employees at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery are especially knowledgeable) to be identified and then labeled. If you like, you can begin your own collection of plant vouchers but this is not necessary.

Finally, it is important to plant flowers that bloom successively over the spring, summer, and fall seasons in order to provide pollen and nectar resources to the native bees of all seasons. As some attractive plants die out, others will take their place to ensure ongoing attractiveness to seasonal bees. It will be interesting to watch how the frequencies change in the garden as new species bloom and others fade away!
We have found that the following plants will provide a year-long supply of pollen and nectar for native California bees in the San Francisco Bay Area. We use these plants in four experimental gardens located at the University of California, Berkeley campus, a Lucas Valley school garden (Marin Co.), the Randall Museum in San Francisco, and the Livermore Community garden (Contra Costa Co.).

http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/general_guidelines.html