[Pollinator] [GRAYMAIL] Fwd: Bee hotels may not be that good

[Sandra Garland]

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 (http://www.pbase.com/fwg/image/102446429) across to collect pollen from Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) in an adjacent bed. 

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.

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.

Cheers,
Sandy Garland
Fletcher Wildlife Garden Management Committee


From: Peter Bernhardt 
Sent: Thursday, 09 April, 2015 11:18 AM
To: Hank 
Cc: Pollinator Listserv 
Subject: Re: [Pollinator] [GRAYMAIL] Fwd: Bee hotels may not be that good

Good.  I think this question hits the nail on the head and should be open to two lines of discussion. 

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?

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.  

Peter

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 8:07 AM, Hank <acorn at treenuts.ca> wrote:

  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 

    On Mar 29, 2015, at 2:22 PM, Peter Bernhardt <bernhap2 at slu.edu> wrote:

    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.  

    Peter Bernhardt


    -- 

    Gerardo R Camilo, Ph.D.
    Assoc. Professor of Biology 
    Bioinformatics and Computational Biology 
       & International Studies
    Conservation Fellow, St. Louis Zoo


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