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<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/21/HOG9CONHKP1.DTL<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Study
reveals desires of bees, native and non<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h2><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Plant
clusters draw more buzz than isolated flowers<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Ron Sullivan, Joe Eaton<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=date><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Wednesday,
March 21, 2007<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/03/21/HOG9CONHKP1.DTL&o=0&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C76BDD.B7717900" vspace=1
alt="California poppies, which are early blooming native flowe..."></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span
id=articlebody>What should you plant to attract native bees? Prompted by
e-mails from readers of The Chronicle's recent articles on native bees, we
looked at UC Berkeley Professor Gordon Frankie's Urban Bee Gardens Web site and
other resources, and came up with some ideas. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Frankie
-- along with UC Davis Professor Emeritus Robbin Thorp; Barbara Ertter, the
curator for the University and Jepson Herbaria of UC Berkeley; and UC Berkeley
research assistant Mary Schindler -- conducted an intensive two-year study of
bees in the urban gardens of Berkeley and Albany. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Their
census covered UC's Oxford Tract, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Peralta</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Community</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Garden</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> and private
gardens. The bee counters tracked which bee species -- nonnative honeybees,
native bumblebees, mason bees and leafcutters -- visited which flower species,
and analyzed the traffic. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One
surprise was the sheer diversity of native bees holding out in the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">East</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
-- 74 species representing five families. They tended to be picky: Only 5 to 10
percent of the plant species had measurable bee activity. A quarter of those
were <st1:place w:st="on">Northern California</st1:place> natives, the rest
exotics. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Not
surprisingly, the scientists found that honeybees and native bees showed
different preferences. There's a lot of history behind plant-pollinator
relationships. Native bees and plants evolved together, some so tightly linked
that one bee species might visit only a single plant species. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Also,
cultivated plants have been bred for color, form and scent -- traits less
important to bees than nectar or pollen rewards. Such plants, writes Judith
Larner Lowry in her new book "The Landscaping Ideas of Jays," are
"a waste of a bee's time." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Some
plants, like the 'Julia Phelps' cultivar of the native shrub ceanothus, drew
both honeybees and natives. Other natives, including tansy-leaf phacelia, marsh
gumweed, nakedstem buckwheat, clarkia and lupine, were patronized mostly by
native bees -- as were a few nonnatives such as cosmos and coneflower. A few
plant families, including composites and salvias, seem especially attractive to
native bees. The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Urban</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Bee</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Gardens</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
site has an extensive list. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>They may
be slumming, but native bees also go for some weed species: birdsfoot trefoil,
bristly ox-tongue, wild mustard. Frankie recommends tolerating these plants
through their flowering cycle, then yanking them out before they set seed. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>How you
plant seems at least as important as what you plant. Clusters of attractive
species in the gardens Frankie surveyed were bee magnets; isolated plants had
much less traffic. Lowry suggests patches at least 16 feet in diameter. And
early fliers like the metallic-green osmia bees appreciate early bloomers, such
as <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
poppies. The long-horned melissodes bee visits sunflowers, cosmos and
gaillardia in summer and early fall. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Apart
from the social bumblebees, native bees are solitary, nesting either in
cavities in deadwood or tunnels in the soil. Two-thirds of our native species
are ground tunnelers. Lowry's advice: Avoid landscape cloth and leave some
areas free of bark mulch to allow these bees access to the soil. For the
deadwood nesters, tolerating dead limbs in at least one corner of the garden
provides habitat. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Will a
native-bee garden also lure native butterflies? That depends. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Butterflies
are limited not by nectar sources but by the host plants on which their
caterpillars feed. While some species insist on native plants, others have made
the switch to exotics. The showy anise swallowtail now depends largely on sweet
fennel, and the fiery skipper has become a lawn specialist. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Arthur
Shapiro of UC Davis was surprised to find red admiral caterpillars on baby's
tears, which are no kin to their traditional fare of stinging nettles but must
have tasted right. One butterfly, the gulf fritillary, followed plantings of
passion vine from its southeastern homeland into <st1:place w:st="on">Northern
California</st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Shapiro
reported that 29 of 32 butterflies known to breed in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Davis</st1:place></st1:City> fed on exotic plants; 13 had no known
native host plants. But this pattern may not be universal. The most recent
information we could find for <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">San
Francisco</st1:place></st1:City> is an article written by Harriet Reinhard
about 1989, with a tally of 36 butterfly species, two-thirds of them dependent
on native plants. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Apart
from natural hot spots like <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Glen</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Canyon</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Park</st1:PlaceType>,
Twin Peaks (home to the endangered mission blue) and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Mount</st1:PlaceType> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Davidson</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>,
Reinhard noted responses to native plantings. Pipevine swallowtails, confined
to a small patch near <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Lake</st1:PlaceType>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Merced</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, showed up on
their host plant across town in the Strybing Arboretum. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>So why
not plant a native pipevine for this spectacular iridescent black-and-blue
butterfly, along with poppies, sunflowers and salvias for the native bees? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>It's a
win-win proposition: "Good habitat for native bees, butterflies, beetles,
flies and other pollinators is also good garden design," Lowry said. For
inspiration, you can check out the Oxford Tract bee gardens during the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">East</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>'s
free Bringing Back the Natives tour on May 6. A select tour on May 5 also
includes two showplace butterfly gardens. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>
</span></font></div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Resources <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>-- Gordon
Frankie's <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Urban</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Bee</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Gardens</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
site: <a href="http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens">nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>-- Art
Shapiro's Butterfly site: <a href="http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu">butterfly.ucdavis.edu</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>--
Bringing Back the Natives tour: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. May 6. <a
href="http://www.bringingbackthenatives.net/2007gardens/Berkeley/Bee">www.bringingbackthenatives.net/2007gardens/Berkeley/Bee</a>;
Kathy Kramer, (510) 236-9558. The bee and butterfly garden tour is Select Tour
No. 4. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
font-style:italic'>Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan are freelance nature and garden
writers in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Berkeley</st1:place></st1:City>.
E-mail them at <a href="mailto:home@sfchronicle.com">home@sfchronicle.com</a>.</span></font></i>
<o:p></o:p></p>
</span>
<p id=url><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/21/HOG9CONHKP1.DTL<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p id=pageno><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
article appeared on page <strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">G - 8</font></b></strong>
of the San Francisco Chronicle<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>Jennifer Tsang<br>
<a href="http://coevolution.org">Coevolution Institute</a><br>
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">423 Washington St.</st1:address></st1:Street>
5th Fl.<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">CA</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode w:st="on">94111-2339</st1:PostalCode></st1:place><br>
T: 415.362.1137</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>F: 415.362.3070</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.nappc.org">www.nappc.org</a></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.pollinator.org">www.pollinator.org</a></span></font><font
color="#004000"><span style='color:#004000'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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