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<DIV>Re: ground nesting. At the Fletcher Wildlife Garden here in Ottawa, we have
seen both sweat bees and bumblees nesting in garden beds in our demonstration
Backyard Garden. I believe the trick is to leave open space near the front of a
garden bed where bees are likely to find it. Gardeners generally want to fill up
every bit of space with flowers. We have watched sweat bees travel between their
tunnels at the sunny, front corner of a garden bed (<A
title=http://www.pbase.com/fwg/image/102446429
style='href: "http://www.pbase.com/fwg/image/102446429"'>http://www.pbase.com/fwg/image/102446429</A>)
across to collect pollen from Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) in an
adjacent bed. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Bumble bees can often be found in another garden bed that contains a large
upright juniper. I wonder if they prefer to dig among the tree roots, which
would help support the tunnels? When we see bees there, we put up a little
caution sign to keep eager volunteers from planting in that area.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We also have a bee hotel, used mostly by wasps and several bee boxes, which
were installed by a scientist working with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. As
it happens, she will be giving a free lecture on bees on April 16, 7:30 pm in
Salon A of the Neatby Building, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Cheers,</DIV>
<DIV>Sandy Garland</DIV>
<DIV>Fletcher Wildlife Garden Management Committee</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=bernhap2@slu.edu
href="mailto:bernhap2@slu.edu">Peter Bernhardt</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, 09 April, 2015 11:18 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=acorn@treenuts.ca
href="mailto:acorn@treenuts.ca">Hank</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=pollinator@nappc.org
href="mailto:pollinator@nappc.org">Pollinator Listserv</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Pollinator] [GRAYMAIL] Fwd: Bee hotels may not be that
good</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>Good. I think this question hits the nail on the head and
should be open to two lines of discussion.
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1) Since most North American bees are ground nesters can someone provided
information or literature on constructing sites that are friendly to nesting
females? Should we be conserving old, stone walls, boulder piles, sand
pits and how do we make our own?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>2) Here is the most difficult question. Has anyone access to
dependable research how many honeybee hives can be placed in a particular site
without stressing the native pollinators? Yes this is a very touchy
subject and I don't want to open old wounds. Due to the eusocial system
and huge populations of workers in hives older literature (from Australia) tends
to show how adept they are at draining native nectar resources and collecting
pollen. We've no evidence that commercial honeybee hives cause local
extinctions of other species, do we? We seem to have some evidence (from
Panama) that, as hive numbers go up, the population densities of native nectar
foragers can go down. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Peter</DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_extra>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 8:07 AM, Hank <SPAN dir=ltr><<A
href="mailto:acorn@treenuts.ca" target=_blank>acorn@treenuts.ca</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV style="WORD-WRAP: break-word">Our local beekeepers here in Ottawa Canada
want to help wild pollinators, too. Since 'bee hotels’ are not good, what can
these folks do, if anything, to make the pollinator world better while still
getting their honey and beeswax? Hank
<DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV>On Mar 29, 2015, at 2:22 PM, Peter Bernhardt <<A
href="mailto:bernhap2@slu.edu" target=_blank>bernhap2@slu.edu</A>>
wrote:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>A colleague sent the attached this morning. You may find
this of interest. In the past, I have found the research of Dr Packer very
dependable.
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Peter Bernhardt<SPAN class=HOEnZb><FONT color=#888888><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><SPAN><FONT color=#888888>-- <BR>
<DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>Gerardo R Camilo, Ph.D.<BR>Assoc. Professor of Biology
<DIV>Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
<DIV> & International Studies<BR>Conservation Fellow, St.
Louis
Zoo</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></SPAN></DIV></DIV><BR></FONT></SPAN></DIV></DIV><SPAN
class=HOEnZb><FONT
color=#888888><SPAN><journal.pone.0122126.pdf></SPAN>_______________________________________________<BR>Pollinator
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<DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Pollinator
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<P>
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