Discuss: The Headbonker’s Ball

Nice website for the Berkeley Urban Bee Project. With regard to the section about Bees and Weeds: in my gardening business, I’ve developed (sort of) something I call living mulch, as I know the moisture-retaining properties of mulch, but don’t care for the look all that much. I prefer a more natural look, and as nature grows almost nothing with bare space in between, I like to have things growing between the planted specimens. I also noticed, a few years ago when we were in a pretty bad drought summmer, that the beds that I hadn’t gotten completely weeded out were doing better than the totally “clean” ones. The difference in temperature from day to night was condensing just enough moisture to keep the soil from becoming baked dust, and the baby weed seedlings were also protecting the roots from baking, as well. So I started leaving the little weedlings in the beds until they got too happy and rambunctious, and would weed them out at that point. Also, I just happen to love the look of a lot of them in their immature stages, as they have beautiful foliage, and many of them have flowers that are just as exquisite as any of the intended species in the gardens, so I’d leave them till after they flowered, then pull them out before they could set seed. It makes it difficult when training garden help, since they have to learn all the perennials and all the weeds, and tell the difference so they know when to weed out what, etc., but I think it makes for a much more interesting garden. And I always notice which flowers the bees like, and the butterflies, and save specimens for them. I also notice which plants produce seeds that the birds like, and refrain from deadheading or cutting those in the fall. It’s an easy enough thing to do for my little friends. And I’ve never been stung while working in my gardens.
Using your California natives list as a prototype, I’ll put together a list of natives for the Northeast US and other non-native favourites of the bees in all my gardens here, and make it available to people if anybody’s interested. (Give me a minute, though, as I’ve got other projects underway right now, too.)

Nori, a list like you propose would be great, and I’m sure many Orion readers would welcome it. Thanks for offering!

Two pointers. Check out Prof Doug Tallamy’s wonderful book, “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens.” He does a great job of explaining how important our planting choices in urban and suburban environments are to native biodiversity. Also, of interest might be Gretchen LeBuhn’s work on native bees and her Great Sunflower Project. Tallamy is a professor at University of Delaware and LeBuhn is a professor at San Francisco State University.

I had a landscape business in the Dallas, TX, area for 10 years (aka the 90’s).  I encouraged customers
to allow native bee colonies on their property to remain unmolested.  After some instruction and “sales pitch,” almost everyone agreed.  Those that did were delighted with how much better their plants did and also became more conservative about using chemicals in general.  My grandfather and uncle kept bees & have had them in my life for 64 years.  I’m convinced various impacts related to global warming contribute to (if not literally cause) colony collapse disorder.

On Colony Collapse Disorder: In addition to the “change” stress affecting species as their environmental provisions change around them, and more severe weather patterns affect them (such as bees not able to fly and forage during rain, and a prolonged rain event might happen right at the time their food plants are in bloom), I have a list of stress factors that, in combination, must contribute: the varroa mites that infect virtually all hive populations in the US; the pesticides that are used to “control” these parasitic mites and a number of other parasitic mites (and the amounts of pesticides used in the hives is increasing over time since they started being used 2-3 decades ago); use of synthetic neonicotinoid pesticides, which cause symptoms that would explain the disappearance of bees from the hive; several viruses, most significantly the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (identified first in Israel, hence the name, in 2002) that causes wing shivering and then paralysis and death outside the hive, and which has been found in the research hives that also have the varroa mites; the trucking of the hives cross-country starting in Feb. for the California almond crop, meaning the hive populations’ winter hibernation is cut short; and the feeding of high-fructose corn syrup to the bees, which may be as impossible for them to metabolize as it is for us. (Man, is it any wonder that these little creatures are having a hard time?) When I was researching this particular topic for a piece I was writing on CCD, I looked up the pesticides used in the state of Vermont, looking for a particular pesticide, I found that even in this little state, we use many tens of thousands of pounds of lethal substances on our field crops annually! Nationwide, we must be throwing around up to a million pounds every year - (insert big, horrified, frustrated sigh here). Anyway, I guess this is why we have to make sure we have the natives in our gardens, right?

Finally, someplace to send people when they look at me as if I’m from Mars when I explain our disappearing honey bees aren’t native.  Last summer we’d seen almost none but one day I looked up at a sumac tree (native here) that was covered with bees.  Not a European one in the bunch that I could tell, but I counted five different species that I couldn’t identify.
Thanks for explaining the pinned bees in the photos.  I was also wondering about the corn pictured (in the magazine).  Perhaps the garden isn’t just for the bees benefit?
One more thing about mulch; check out the article in the current Mother Jones about cypress forests being cleared-just for mulch.

Yes, unfortunately they picked a weird picture for the magazine of some of us shoveling soil, but the background was the corn field, not our beautiful garden! We share a space with other researchers and the corn is part of that, not our bee garden. Our garden is also certified as a wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation, so our garden is home not only to bees, but to many birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and even rodents!

Okay, I’m having trouble submitting URLs for websites with good native bee information and native plants; I keep getting a page telling me that I’m “not authorized to perform this action” so I typed the blah blah message to get the exact wording, and THAT went through! Sorry. This site won’t let me put those URLs in my message, but I’ll give them to you if you e-mail. Put “native bee sites” in the subject line.