Wild Bees Are Delightful - Series 5 Article 1 - Bees and Wild Bees

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By Bonnie McNamee


BEES AND WILD BEES

For the last couple of years I’ve been planting only pollinator and native plants in my garden. And by doing that not only have I been rewarded with beautiful butterflies, I’ve also been rewarded with many more bees. While I’ve been on a mission to help the butterfly population, I’ve found out that I can also help the bee population. Last summer when working in my garden, I could see and hear more bees, hard at work, hovering over the flowering plants I put in.

You, too, can attract more bees by planting flowers, herbs and natives in your garden. Planting a variety of flowering plants that overlap from spring through fall will provide bees with enough food to survive and reproduce. Clean water, free of pesticides, is also important especially during the summer months when it’s hot and dry. Putting water in a saucer, shallow dish, or pie plate, filled with stones works very well because birdbaths can be too deep and a bee could drown. If you do have a birdbath, again, add small rocks or stones for bees and other insects to land on.

Many people are afraid of bees and they have a reputation for painful stings. However, most bees are not aggressive and the risk of getting stung is low. Nevertheless, if you or your family members have allergies or other health concerns, check with your doctor to be sure it’s safe to attract bees to your garden. What you need to watch out for are hornets, yellow jackets, and other wasps. Bees are mostly solitary nesters and do not have large colonies to defend so they tend not to bother you. I can work around a large patch of Shasta daisies covered with honey bees and mason bees and they pay no attention whatsoever. They are too busy gathering and collecting pollen and nectar for survival. 

Photo by John Flannery, MSU

According to Penn State, wild bees which include native and naturalized bees, pollinate a variety of crops, including apples, pears, nuts, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, blueberries, squash, and melons. In areas of Pennsylvania, wild bees already provide the majority of pollination for many summer vegetable crops.

They also say the majority of wild bees are solitary nesters – females create individual nests in soil, plant material, or abandoned nests of other animals. Natural bee nests can be protected by not tilling the area or exposing it to broad-spectrum pesticides. Bees may be poisoned or killed when they come into contact with pesticides found on leaves and flowers on which they forage or in the soil where they nest. 

A Rutgers-Led study finds the more kinds of bees, the better for humans. Researchers observed, collected and identified more than 100 species of wild bees pollinating crop flowers on 48 farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over several years. More than half of these species were needed for pollination at one or more farms in one or more years.

Scientists estimate that wild bee pollinators provide as much as half the crop pollution that occurs worldwide. At a time when domestic honeybees in North America are beset with colony collapse and other problems, the role of wild pollinators becomes even more important.

This is the first in a four part series on bees. Please return next week for Part II – Honeybees.


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