[Pollinator] NY Times: A Helping Hand for Pollinators

[Jennifer Tsang]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/garden/07qna.html?_r=1

 

May 7, 2009

Garden Q&A


A Helping Hand for Pollinators 


By STEPHEN ORR

Q. Is there any way to landscape around a colony of miner bees
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/bees/index.html?inline=ny
t-classifier>  without harming or disturbing it?

A. You should be congratulated on your desire to preserve the bees' habitat.
Even with the rise of the green movement, some gardeners have no tolerance
for wildlife in their yards. They trap, kill or extinguish whatever
creatures they meet, perhaps not realizing that even in the smallest garden
there is an important eco-system at work.

Though miner bees, native to this country, don't make honey, they are
important in pollination and are more efficient than honeybees for the
amount of pollination they deliver per bee. They also seem resistant to the
several plagues affecting imported honeybees.

Dr. Stephen Buchmann, a coordinator for the North American Pollinator
Protection Campaign, a group involved in the conservation of pollinating
animals, said that about 90 percent of the 4,000 species of native bees in
the country are miners, which nest in the ground.

"Unfortunately, most people aren't aware that there is even such a thing as
ground-nesting bees, so they mistake them for wasps and view them as a
threat," said Dr. Buchmann, who co-wrote "The Forgotten Pollinators," a 1997
book about the symbiotic relationships between plants and their pollinators.
"But they aren't that aggressive."

Unlike ordinary honeybees, whose ancestors were imported mainly from Europe,
miners don't live in social colonies or hives. They may congregate in areas
with good soil, but as in a classic New York apartment building, each keeps
to its own tunnel, with little interaction. During their adult lives, which
last a few weeks to a month, they nest in underground tunnels ranging from a
few inches to several feet long. They lay eggs and seal them in for up to a
year with a supply of pollen and nectar.

It is during the long larval and pupal stages that they are most vulnerable
to the effects of digging. "It depends on the species, how deep you can dig
or disturb the soil without killing them during their resting period," he
said.

Generally, it is safe to till at least 12 inches from the entrance hole, but
paving over the nests would likely kill them. (Dr. Buchmann knew of only one
bee, the sweat bee, that tolerates asphalt.)

Other than disturbed burrows, bees need protection from most pesticides,
especially broad-spectrum formulas that indiscriminately destroy all
insects, beneficial and harmful, in a given area.

In fact, he said, miners should not only be protected, but heralded,
particularly the females, which gather pollen and pack it in tunnels for
larvae to eat. "We should thank these insects for every third bite that we
eat," he said. "Basically, 30 percent of our food is brought to us by
pollination. Native bees, especially the almost unknown ground-nesting
types, are the unsung heroines of the bee world." 

.

Send questions by e-mail to gardening at nytimes.com. Unpublished questions
cannot be answered individually.

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