Bees and other pollinators in my yard
With all the news about Colony Collapse Disorder, we've become very aware of how important honey bees are to our food supply. But as important as they are to our industrial style of agriculture, honey bees aren't native. Our reliance on them has disguised the importance of our native pollinators, which are important not only for food production, but also for pollinating plants throughout our ecosystems. I'm doing all I can in my yard to provide nectar plants, places to raise young, and, of course, not to use pesticides.
One side benefit is that once you become aware of pollinators and other insects, you find that they can be just as fascinating as other creatures. And our native solitary bees aren't aggressive, so I've been enjoying them "up close and personal" without ever getting stung. The importance difference between them and honey bees is that except for bumblebees, they're not defending a hive - they just lay their eggs and leave.
Here's a bee getting ready to pollinate our tomatoes.
The appeal of winterberries (Ilex verticillata) for people is the mass of brilliant red flowers in the winter, but the bees loved the flowers. Flowers don't have to be large to be attractive to bees. They must have been chock full of nectar since when these were blooming it was the bees' favorite spot in the yard. It was amazing to see the numbers of bees around these very small flowers. The bushes were just buzzing with activity.
A really nice plant - Small's penstemon (Penstemon smallii). A very good bloomer - and a great nectar plant.
Wild indigo (Baptisia australis) is another bee favorite. I've heard that it's the plant that the pioneers used for blue dye. It does look like it could color blue jeans.
For more info on pollinators…
