The buzz on native Bees
Stopping to smell the flowers
Arlene Marturano

Arlene Marturano is a master gardener, writer, and educator. As an advocate of gardening as a tool for learning, she helped develop the Carolina Children's Garden at the Sandhill Research and Education Center. She is an education consultant with T.E.A.C.H.

marturano@yahoo.com

Bees are the most important pollinators of our food and horticulture products.

Four thousand species of native bees have been identified in the United States. These quiet industrious workers are in our gardens and farmlands and have often been overshadowed in the press and in research by honeybees, the social, non- native providers of honey.

With the sharp decline of honeybee populations due to mites and unknown causes, native bees are receiving attention from a variety of wildlife agencies and university and federal research programs.

The U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the University of Georgia are compiling an online bee identification key for the public at www.discoverlife.org.

This bumblebee forages in garden flowers.

Currently, a scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey is making a survey of native bees in the 45,000 acres of the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge in McBee, S.C.

The bee survey is part of a national effort to determine if bee populations are increasing, decreasing, or holding constant because native bee distribution and population density are unknown.

At the University of California at Berkeley, an urban bee garden was planted to conduct population research after researchers were astonished to find 82 species of native bees in the city of Berkeley.

Wildlife agencies such as The Audubon Society, The Xerces Society, and the National Wildlife Federation are encouraging home gardeners to plant bee gardens for numerous reasons such as, increased awareness of native bees, increased food and seed production, enjoyment of watching the many shapes, sizes, colors, flight patterns and behaviors, and attracting other pollinators like butterflies, moths, flies, hummingbirds, and bats.

A Native bumblebee hovers over a blue flower.

Attracting bees to the garden may conjure up images of a beekeepers veil and exterminator's suit to enter the garden, but that is unnecessary.

Most native bees are solitary and docile because they do not build hives, and they do not defend a territory as honeybees.

The only social native bee is the bumblebee. Despite its size, it is not prone to sting unless provoked by humans. Humble bumbles are the only pollinators of the potato flower worldwide.

Native bees require water, food, and a place to nest. They may get water from a pond, dew, dripping faucet, birdbath, or sprinkler.

Native plants provide the nectar and pollen as food. Bees have good color vision for finding flowers of blue, purple, violet, white, and yellow. Some native bees are named for the plants they pollinate, e.g., the blueberry bee, the squash bee.

The habitat for bees should include dry nesting places because ground nesters want a well- drained area clear of vegetation. Some bees nest in wood or stems and need piles of branches, bamboo, reeds, snags, tree hollows, and nesting blocks of untreated wood. Others prefer to nest in snail shells or crumbling walls.

To make your own bee garden start with a 10' x 10' patch of land is a starter size for a bee garden. Cluster flowers of one species together, and be sure to provide a variety of flower shapes to accommodate the diverse sizes of bees (1/12th" to 1"in length) and different tongue lengths. Native plants can be interspersed with non- native flowers and vegetables. Of course, pesticides are not to be used in a bee garden.

These are different types of bee magnets: aster, blackberry, blueberry, black- eyed Susan, coneflower, dandelion, goldenrod, honeysuckle, Joe Pye weed, milkweed, red clover, salvia, sunflower, yellow jessamine, and wild mustard.

Create a buzz in your neighborhood with your new bee garden.

Instructions for nesting blocks can be found at www.xerces.org.