[Pollinator] 6 easy ways you can help save the bees

Sat Jun 4 08:32:46 PDT 2016

As we approach pollinator week, here’s some simple advice from the LA Times
on what everyone can do to help bees.

**********

FROM: Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-0604-how-to-plant-a-bee-garden-20160531-snap-story.html

*6 easy ways you can help save the bees*

Janet Kinosian

6/3/16

Busy as a bee is an accurate statement.

According to the Xerces Society, a nonprofit organization working to
protect bees, 75% of the world’s food crop depends on at least one
pollinator, such as the honeybee. (California’s pollinator-dependent crop
value is about $12 billion a year.)

That’s a lot riding on the journey of the humble bee and its pollinator
friends.

Although bee populations have been pummeled by their share of difficulties
in the last few years including habitat loss and the over-use of
pesticides, there is something simple you can do to help:  plant
bee-friendly plants, says Janet Andrews of Backyard Bees, an Orange
County-based group that rescues, relocates and maintains feral honeybees in
Southern California.

“It’s truly as simple as that and fun,” she says. “We can easily all do our
share.”

Here are 6 ways to provide a more bee-friendly flora in your own yard:

1) DON'T USE PESTICIDES

Don’t use synthetic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides. They’re known
as harmful to bees and can reduce foraging, navigating abilities,
fecundity, reproductive success and impair development, as well as being
potentially lethal, says Jessa Kay Cruz, senior pollinator conservation
specialist for the Xerces Society.

“Limit [them] not just for bees but for all insects in your yard,” advises
Lisa Gonzalez of the entomology department at the Natural History Museum of
Los Angeles County. “The vast majority of insects are beneficial or at the
least benign; very few are truly problematic pests.” Native plants are
already much less likely to have infestation issues and if they do, she
says, let natural predators and parasites do their job.

She also suggests purchasing plants not treated with neonicotinoid
pesticides, which Harvard researchers have linked to colony collapse
disorder in honeybees. Ask where you purchase plants or consider the
website of the environmental nonprofit organization Beyond Pesticides.

2) PICK THE RIGHT PLANTS

Lean toward single petal vs. multi-petal plants because a single petal
flower’s pollen and nectar are more accessible to bees. It’s also best to
use non-hybrid plants because breeding for fancy blooms reduces much of
their pollen, says Cruz.

Some natives to try, according to the California Native Society: desert
mallow, any salvia (Salvia chamaedryoides is excellent), bush sunflowers,
phacelias (above), flowering cactus, desert willow, sunflowers, lavender,
wild lilac, woolly blue curls, sneezeweed, coffeeberry, sticky
monkeyflower, California poppy, yarrow, California buckwheat and California
buckeye are just a few.

3) 'THINK LIKE A BEE'

Attract bees by “thinking like a bee,” says Jaime Pawelek, a bee garden
designer and researcher at UC Berkeley’s Urban Bee Lab. Entice them with
food, which comes via plants in the form of pollen and nectar. The best
plant choices are “native since our native bees evolved with these plants
and are pre-programmed to prefer to visit them,” she says.

Plant in swathes and drifts rather than just one or two plants, say
experts, so at least 3 feet of single species is best, according to
Pawelek; and keep bee-friendly plants in a single area and not scattered
throughout the yard. “When bees go out foraging, they like to visit the
same plant over and over in order to get the rewards they’re seeking. So if
you put all those plants together in one big patch, they don’t spend that
much time searching,” explains Pawelek.

Make sure and plan for successive blooms season-round; honey bees forage
all year and most native bees do, too, except in mid-winter.

4) COLOR MATTERS

Bees have excellent color vision (they see a similar breadth of the color
spectrum as humans) but it’s shifted toward ultraviolet. “This means they
find it really hard to see red; to them it is in the same wavelength as
green – imagine trying to find flowers among foliage if they are all the
same color,” says Cruz. Yellow, white, violet, purple, blue are all good
flower colors, “though bees love Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ (red flowers) as well,”
adds Pawelek.

5) LET THEM MOVE IN

Honeybees live in colonies and hives, but 70% of all bee species nest
underground, while others use natural cavities to make their nests, says
Gonzalez. So leave patches of bare or partially bare, undisturbed,
un-tilled soil without mulch to help underground bee nesters.

For wood-and-stem-nesting bees, “this means leaving piles of branches,
bamboo sections, hollow reeds, or nesting blocks made out of untreated
wood,” says Guillermo Fernandez, director of the Honeybee Conservancy, a
bee advocacy nonprofit. Steer clear of composite materials such as
hardboard, chipboard or particleboard as they’ll disintegrate in rain. “Or
just drill different sized holes in a block of redwood,” says Pawelek.

6) PROVIDE WATER

Some bees – mainly honey bees -- need water to drink (most native bees get
enough water from the nectar they drink), so creating a water source is a
good way to help bees remain longer in your yard. Mason bees also use water
to mix with dirt to create mud for their nests.

Place the water source close to your bee-friendly plants by putting out a
shallow bird bath with rocks for the bees to land on, or a shallow dish
with some pebbles, marbles, sea glass or cork tops. “You’ll often see other
wildlife enjoying the water,” says Fernandez. “Just make sure to change the
water out often, preferably daily. You don’t want mosquito issues.”

home at latimes.com

________

*Matthew Shepherd*

Communications Director

*[image: Xerces-logo-CMYK-email_Outlook]*

*Protecting the Life that Sustains Us*

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