From Pollinator@aol.com Tue Jan 6 01:56:16 1998 Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 01:18:12 EST From: Pollinator To: ecogardens@sunsite.unc.edu Subject: "Attracting" pollinators, a flawed concept....(Background for FAQ) Here is a copy of a message I posted on rec.gardens.edible, which gives further development of the idea of pollination management as a basic part of gardening for the future. In article <34B0A089.7115D7B3@laurenceballard.com>, Laurence Ballard writes: >Living in the Seattle Metro area -- zone 8 -- Always on the lookout for >interesting, attractive annuals to place within my raised beds for the >purpose of enticing pollinators to my vegetables. (esp. bees -- Bumbles, >Honeys, etc.) I'm a bit picky; would like these additional flowers to be no >taller than 24" or so^Å Any suggestions? Favorites? My commendation on being alert to the shortage. Many folks are now planning the coming season without a single thought to pollination. You are ahead of the game. The time to plan pollination is when you are looking at the first garden catalogs. I am sure you will receive many replies with plant suggestions, and this is good. But the basic concept of "attracting pollinators" is faulty. If there are pollinators, they will come. If they are absent, you cannot attract them; you must become more proactive. (Therefore planting for pollinators is not to attract them, but to help them survive and reproduce, so the population will build.) The honeybee situation: If you have them now, you almost certainly have a beekeeper near you. The survival level of feral honeybees has dropped to almost zero in continental USA, due to varroa mites and pesticide misuse. Domestic bees have the assistance of a beekeeper to help them cope with both problems. So if you want honeybees, your best efforts should be bent to "attracting a beekeeper" to your neighborhood, or keeping them yourself. If you want to join the ranks of beekeepers the time to start is NOW, before the available bees are all booked by the suppliers. There are so many new beekeepers (because of the pollination shortage, and because of growing interest in bee sting therapy for multiple schlerosis, arthritis, etc, that suppliers are selling out early. Some of the best helps IMHO: 1. Here's a good starting point with lots of info for a beginner: Dr. Keith Delaplane's beginner guide http://www.ces.uga.edu/pubcd/b1045-w.html 2. Also you might subscribe to Bee Culture: bculture@aol.com --They not only have a lot of good info, but also ads for package bees, nucs, bee equipment, etc. 3. It is wise to connect with a local bee club. Check with your county extension agent to find one. Often the club, the extension office, or a community college or adult ed center will offer beginner courses. If you don't want to go the honeybee route, you have other choices: bumblebees, solitary bees, or hand pollination. Bumblebees are cyclical in population and they are quite sensitive to pesticide misuse in the area. They are commercially available, but very expensive, so most gardeners work with wild ones. Again, you cannot "attract" them; If they are present, they will come. But you can, if not restock them, help them have more nesting sites, feed them well, and protect them from pesticide misuse. All these should help build greater populations. Nesting sites can be provided quite easily and cheaply. Plans are widely available on the internet for bumblebee houses, including at the pollination web site below. Place these in a wild, undisturbed area near your garden, early in the spring. If they are occupied, they will do a good job of vegetable pollination, as the colonies will be approaching peak population when your beans, squash, cukes, melons and pumpkins start blooming. They will not help much with early fruit, as there will only be a few queens around at that time. Providing nest sites is one way to help, but, even in areas where bumbles are still plentiful, they tend to have only about a 20% occupancy. Dr. Keith Delaplane wrote a series of articles on bumblebees and their culture in the American Bee Journal a couple years ago. It should be available in your library. The references, and other info on bumbles is on the pollination page under "Alternative Pollinators." Solitary bees, which you did not mention, are another alternative. The orchard mason bee and the japanese hornfaced bee are available commercially, though my understanding is that many of the suppliers are already sold out. These bees are excellent for early spring fruit pollination, but will be dormant by the time your vegetables bloom. Carpenter bees, likewise are excellent for early pollination, but these wood nesting bees are hated by homeowners, though their damage is usually slight, and they nest in the same holes for many years. If you can teach folks in your neighborhood to live and let live, you will have these pollinators. If not, they will be exterminated. There are thousands of other solitary bee species. Most are spring bees, and many are adapted to one specific plant. Some are available though, later in the summer, and can be a help to veggie pollination. We have a squash bee, slightly smaller than a honeybee, that is valuable for cucurbits in some places in the east, though I don't know about your area. In other places pesticide misuse has eradicated it. You can encourage solitary bees by leaving some wild spots on your property. You can also provide wood block or reed nesting sites for them, to help build populations. Again, the plans are widely available on the internet. A very common size is 5/16 inch holes, which can be drilled with a long drill bit. If you see bees working in the holes, and they eventually plug the hole with a little mud, you are definitely successful. Inside will be a half dozen females and one drone, ready for next year's pollination. With a little effort, you can build up large populations. But these are susceptible at times to mites, funguses, bad weather during nesting, and preditor wasps, fire ants, etc. Each bee has strengths and drawbacks. The best general, all-purpose pollinator is the honeybee; if you have a healthy hive, it is present year around in high populations, each worker is faithful to one plant species, and it works many of our most common food plants. A few plants (tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant) are better served by bumbles and solitaries, because honeybees often prefer richer sources. As gardeners, we will increasingly see that pollination just will not happen by itself; our ecology has been disrupted too much. We've been somewhat alert to pollenizer management (see web page below), now it's time to bone up on pollinator management. Sorry, I didn't answer the question you asked. But I hope I answered the one you needed to ask first......... Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm