Dont Plant Those Bee-Friendly Wildflowers Cheerios Is Giving Away

[JHan]

I asked Kathryn Turner, an ecologist who specializes in invasive plants and who was concerned about Cheerios’ approach, how it can be bad to plant a flower. “Context is important,” she said:

No plant is inherently ‘bad’, but many species can and have caused a great deal of damage when they are introduced into locations outside of their native range. Invasive species can out-compete the natives they encounter, they can take up all the space and use up all the resources, they can spread disease, and cause other physical changes to their new homes, all of which can have detrimental effects on native species, and on humans. It doesn’t happen with every plant and in every location, and scientists (like me!) are working now to figure out why that is, how to predict what will cause a problem, how to manage or prevent invasions.

Here Are Some Far Better Ways to Help Bees

When you’re setting up your bee-friendly garden, make sure to leave space for the bees to lay their eggs in and near the ground. If this sounds a little weird, welcome to the biggest myth you’ll have to confront as a self-appointed savior to the bees: honeybees that live in hives are not the ones we’re really worried about.

So back away from that image of a sad beekeeper with boxes and boxes of honeybee hives. Colony collapse disorder was unfortunate but not devastating. Those bees are employees in big agrobusiness, and they have jobs and caretakers all around the world. Entomologist Gwen Pearson points out that honeybees are “not remotely threatened with extinction” but thousands of lesser-known bee species are. You can see a list of our imperiled bees here; many are marked “PE” for “possibly extinct.”

A lot of these native bees live on their own, not in colonies, and they lay their eggs in little tunnels in the ground. The mother gives each baby bee a loaf of “bee bread” made of pollen and nectar. Since they don’t have a colony to protect, these bees don’t even sting.

So if you want to save the bees by planting flowers, these are the ones you should dedicate your garden to.

(And avoid spraying which puts bees at risk)

Lots of other great tips to attract bees in the article too: http://lifehacker.com/don-t-plant-those-bee-friendly-wildflowers-cheerios-i-1793370883?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Lifehacker_facebook

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And don't plant any plant that's been treated with neonicotinoids.

[JHan]

2. yep, that too.

[guillaumeb]

3. Recommended.

My garden is predominantly prairie plants native to Illinois. They need no watering, they spread well, and my garden is filled with bees and butterflies and hummingbirds in the summer.

[JHan]

8. yep, best thing to do is just go with what the land and soil where we live love.

[furtheradu]

4. Thanks for this!

💖 to YOU & Beeez!

[JHan]

7. np, I learned some stuff I didn't know before

[Kittycow]

5. We have these annoying little leaf-biter bees.

Big bee bites out of all my pretty leaves but oh well! If other bees have nests in the ground, how do I not step on them? We're urban with a lot that basically looks like a campground with a house on it lol.

[JHan]

6. ooohh Leaf cutter bees?

lol I know them. I've made peace with the little critters lol.

[Kittycow]

9. Yep! The rats! I couldn't remember their name.

The first year I almost sprayed them but I googled them and found out that they're beez. They seem to broaden their menu each year!

[Botany]

10. "Big bee bites out of all my pretty leaves .... "

And that is a good thing. It does not hurt the plant and it helps the
environment too.

[Kittycow]

11. The bee-bites still annoy me, to be honest.

But I just move away from the plant if they're busy chewing it up until they're done.

I still want their little bee-selves to thrive. You can get a little bee house for them so I was thinking about placing one in a far away point in our lot where they wouldn't be disturbed by us always walking by it. But I don't know if they really want my intervention like that.

[Botany]

12. If you understand ecology you want insects to take a bite out of leaves ......

.... it does not hurt the plant and the damage is cosmetic. In the case of leaf cutter
bees the cut piece of leaf is used as a nursery for the next generation of leaf cutter
bees which is important native pollinator. In other cases a native plant is useful to
the environment only when our native insects eat a piece of the leave because that
insect is harvesting the solar energy that the leaf collected by photosynthesis and "that
energy is passed along" when that insect is eaten by a bird, a turtle, or another insect.

You really don't need to buy "bee houses" but by simple practices you can encourage
them by providing habitat and native plants for their use. This also helps monarchs,
songbirds, and the health of the environment too.


http://xerces.org

http://www.bringingnaturehome.net

[Kittycow]

13. Thanks for the information!

The sources you cited are really helpful. I'm still a total greenhorn out in the garden. Every year seems to be fixing last year's mistakes