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<h1><b>Gardens With a Buzz</b></h1>Homeowners Brave Stings To Attract
Beleaguered Bees; The Lemonade Incident<br>
By <b>JUNE FLETCHER<br>
</b>July 13, 2007; Page W8<br><br>
Here is the latest buzz in eco-heroism: bee gardens.<br><br>
Amid reports about the widespread decline of the honeybee population,
increasing numbers of homeowners are braving stings and sometimes
alarming neighbors by turning their yards into bee-friendly habitats.
Some are shunning pesticides, planting flowers that bees like, and even
creating nesting sites for the beleaguered insects.<br><br>
European honeybees, major crop pollinators that were imported to this
country almost four centuries ago, have been dying off in huge numbers
from mysterious causes (everything from parasitic mites to cell phones
have been implicated in their decline). Now, the garden industry is
pushing homeowners to create bee gardens that will attract and nourish
them as well as other, indigenous species.<br>
Laurie Gardener gives a tour of her bee garden in Northern California,
which she created to foster bee population growth.<br><br>
The latest campaigns emphasize insects over aesthetics. Most promote
native plants, which often have smaller and less showy blooms than
cultivated hybrids but more of the nectar and pollen that attract
honeybees. Suppliers are also pitching products that can provide shelter
for some of the 4,000 native species, such as orchard and leaf-cutter
bees, that experts say could take up the slack should their European
cousins continue to disappear.<br><br>
Such efforts have a direct connection to America's dinner tables.
One-third of the food eaten in this country is pollinated by insects,
according to the Department of Agriculture, and the honeybee is
responsible for 80% of that pollination, without which plants won't bear
fruits, seeds, vegetables or nuts. The honeybee is the country's foremost
crop pollinator, says Troy Fore, executive director of the American
Beekeeper Federation. But if native bee populations are robust, Mr. Fore
says, "we won't starve."<br><br>
<b>Crazy Preoccupation<br>
</b>After reading about the distressed honeybees, Janet Allen decided to
give up pesticides last summer and turn her 14,400-square-foot yard in
Syracuse, N.Y., into an insect habitat. The retired software engineer
filled her front yard with beds of colorful plants favored by honeybees,
such as milkweed, penstemon and goldenrod (she bought unusual varieties
so neighbors wouldn't recognize them as roadside weeds). She also put in
half-a-dozen "bee boxes" that she bought online for about $30 a
piece. The boxes attract some native species that, unlike hive-dwelling
honeybees, prefer to go it alone, nesting in individual burrows in logs
or holes in the soil. Her husband, a lawyer, built two more this spring
from scratch, using scrap lumber and elderberry bush stems.<br><br>
The couple's two adult children think this preoccupation with bees -- the
yard now attracts dozens of the furry pollinators -- is
"crazy," but Ms. Allen considers it a higher calling:
"It's part of our responsibility as parents to leave a living
planet." Janet Allen's bee garden attracts dozens of the pollinating
insects.<br><br>
While it's unclear what, if anything, backyard bee gardens will be able
to do to stop the decline of the honeybee, there's no question that the
insect is in trouble. Though periodic die-offs have occurred before, most
recently in the '80s, the current bee decline, which started about five
years ago, took a turn for the worse last fall. According to the Apiary
Inspectors of America, about a quarter of the 2.4 million commercial
hives have been lost since then.<br><br>
FOR THE BETTERMENT OF BEES<br>
Until recently, many gardeners just sprayed or swatted when they saw a
bee. But now that these pollinators are in danger of disappearing, a
number of groups are publishing tips on how to attract and help them.
Among them:<br>
<b><a href="http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/">Reiman Gardens at Iowa
State University</a><br>
Comment:</b> Recently hosted a "Bee Aware" gardening display in
its conservatory<br>
<b>Tip:</b> Leave dead tree branches and a few patches of bare ground and
mud to attract native bees<br>
<b><a href="http://www.pollinator.org/">North American Pollinator
Protection Campaign</a><br>
Comment:</b> Is giving away a cardboard wheel showing which flowers are
most attractive to bees, from sunflowers to sedum.<br>
<b>Tip:</b> Try not to use pesticides, but if you must, apply at night
when bees aren't active.<br>
<b>
<a href="http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/index_research.html">
University of California Urban Bee
Project</a></b>
<a href="http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/index_research.html">
</a><br>
<b>Comment:</b> Publishes a list of dozens of plants that native bees
visit, by season.<br>
<b>Tip:</b> Don't remove weeds like dandelions or clover until they've
finished blooming.<br><br>
No one tracks the number of bee gardens in the U.S., and they aren't
being promoted in big-box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot. But the home
and garden firms that do sell bee-related products report that sales are
sweet. Smith & Hawken, in Novato, Calif., says sales are strong for
bee plants that it markets online such as Spanish lavender and an
echinacea called "Fatal Attraction"; a buddleia called
"Honeycomb" is sold out.<br><br>
Another major retailer, Dutch Gardens, a division of Gardener's Supply in
Burlington, Vt., recently published a "pollinator primer" on
its Web site that explains the preferences of various types of bees, with
links to popular plants it sells such as "Fireball" monarda and
hardy gloxinia; sales of such plants are up 30% over last year, the
company says. Raintree Nursery in Morton, Wash., says year-over-year
sales of its "bee blocks" -- wooden blocks seeded with the
young of mason bees that can be placed in flowerbeds -- are up 25%. And
Windowbox.com, a Vernon, Calif., retailer, says sales of its $25
"bird, bee and butterfly garden" have doubled this year over
last, while sales of bee and wasp traps have dropped 70%.<br><br>
It takes a certain amount of nerve -- and a leap of faith -- for even the
most ecologically committed gardeners to get over their fear of bees,
despite the fact that native species are largely nonaggressive and have
mild stings. Honeybees, also mild-mannered, do attack if they're swatted
or stepped on, causing anything from a painful red bump to a deadly
reaction in allergic individuals.<br><br>
So it was with some trepidation that Jennifer O'Donovan bought a bee
garden from Windowbox.com earlier this spring. Her 5-year-old daughter,
Megan, had become fascinated with some docile honeybees she'd seen at a
nearby pond, and her mother wanted to encourage her to help the
environment. When it came time to plant the flower seeds, the Mendon,
Mass., homemaker picked a tiny plot as far away from her children's play
set as she could. Now she and her daughter watch the dozen or so bees
that have started to frequent the flowers, but from a safe distance.
"I know bees are important," says Ms. O'Donovan, "but I
also know what they can do."<br><br>
So does Abbey Duke, a catering-company owner who recently created a bee
garden in her Burlington, Vt., yard filled with flowering herbs
interspersed with old logs into which she drilled holes for nests.
Earlier this summer, however, she was a bit horrified when, at a
barbecue, the host -- a fellow bee-gardener -- accidentally drank one of
the insects after it landed on his glass of lemonade and stung his
tongue. He spent the rest of the party moaning in pain and sucking on an
ice cube. Still, Ms. Duke has no plans to give up her own backyard
apiary, which she considers important to the environment. "I'm hard
to scare," she says.<br><br>
<b>'Broad Floral Generalists'<br>
</b>Utah State University bee biologist Jim Cane says that while some
bees have specialized food and nesting needs, others are "broad
floral generalists," not particularly fussy about what they eat or
where they live. Bees can sustain themselves for a long time on the
robust flowering weeds commonly found on small vacant city lots, for
example.<br><br>
In fact, many types of bees prefer the small, single blossoms of weeds
and wildflowers to the huge double blooms of hybrids, such as tea roses
or carnations, which are bred to produce extra petals rather than nectar
and pollen. Realizing this, Jan Josifek, a weaver, has allowed invasive
and gangly plants that she doesn't really like, like fleabane, goldenrod
and bellflower, to flourish in her three St. Paul, Minn., flowerbeds. The
plants are full of bees all season, but at a price: She must give up
space she'd rather use for showier flowers and spends tedious hours
"deadheading," or removing the wildflowers' spent blossoms,
after the bees have fertilized them. "If I didn't, the plants would
make millions of seeds and take over my yard," she says.<br><br>
Some entomologists are so convinced of the importance of creating
backyard habitats that they're planting bee gardens in their own yards.
Noticing that the gardens in his neighborhood are mostly filled with
hybrid flowers, Lansing, Mich., entomologist Rufus Isaacs has planted
native perennials and berries that attract hordes of bees -- as well as
nervous neighbors. "The bees are too busy eating to worry about
humans as long as you watch and don't bother them," Mr. Isaacs
says.<br><br>
Tucson, Ariz., entomologist Justin O. Schmidt, whose legendary
"sting pain index" is derived from his observations of being
personally stung by more than 78 species and 41 genera of venomous
insects, is similarly blasé. He recently added a black light to his yard
to draw bees to plantings of milkweed, desert broom and butterfly bush.
Two weeks ago, his 9-year-old son went out to look at the light and was
stung on his bare foot by a honeybee. "My son was squawking, but I
used it as a teachable moment," says Mr. Schmidt, who calmly told
his son that if he'd been wearing shoes, he would have avoided the
incident.<br><br>
Beekeepers have reported that entire colonies of honeybees -- an average
commercial hive holds 50,000 bees -- let loose in fields to help with
crop pollination have failed to return to their nests, and studies of
stray dead bees found on the ground have shown them riddled with a
combination of viruses, bacteria and fungi. The exact cause of the bee
problem, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder, is a mystery, says Mr. Fore, of
the beekeeper federation. Various theories have been raised, including
overuse of pesticides, mite infestation, and even wireless or cellphone
use (the signals purportedly confuse the bees' ability to return to the
hives).<br><br>
Susan Moser, a Morton, Wash., organic farmer, recently decided to turn
her front lawn into a clover-filled meadow to attract wild bees, and she
says she looks the other way when they drill holes into her front porch.
Two decades ago, she kept a few honeybee hives around, but quit after a
few years because it was too much trouble to keep the sticky boxes clean.
Giving up a patch of lawn and allowing bees to live, literally, in her
house is a lot easier -- and seems like a small sacrifice for the
besieged creatures that pollinate her apple trees, raspberry bushes and
other plants.<br><br>
"It's stressful to be a bee," she says.<br><br>
<b>Write to </b>June Fletcher at
<a href="mailto:june.fletcher@wsj.com">june.fletcher@wsj.com</a></body>
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