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Interview with Maya Broeke: Designing for Humans and Bees

10/7/2016

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In the spring Michalina was interviewed by a past classmate, Maya Broeke, on designing spaces for bees. Give it a read!
broeke_designingforhumansandbees_interview_article.pdf
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How to make a pollinator garden

10/7/2016

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BC is home to over 450 species of native, wild bees. They contribute to pollination of our gardens, food crops, and wild ecosystems. Creating a bee garden is one of the best things you can do to support our native bees, since much of their habitat is being destroyed for human uses such as agriculture and housing. The main priorities of a pollinator garden are providing food and nesting sites for different types of bees. 

Here are some guidelines to get you started on your own garden. Even keeping a few pots of bee-friendly flowers on your balcony will help the bees! 

Priorities in a Bee Garden

1. Plant native plants
Native plants and native bees have co-evolved together. Native bees may not be able to access non-native flowers, so focus on native plants in a bee garden (although non-native plants and weeds can be incredibly important, too! See below) Heavily hybridized flowers often stop producing nectar and pollen making them useless for bees. 

2. Don't use pesticides 
Never use pesticides on your garden. Insecticides and fungicides have been found to be extremely dangerous to bees. 
Ask the managers of wherever you buy your plants and seeds from if they use neonicitinoids. These insecticides infiltrate all parts of the plant, including nectar and pollen, and either kill the bees outright, or affect them sub-lethally by interfering with their learning and memory, reproduction, etc. This is becoming a very hot topic, with neonics recently being found to be dangerous to other wildlife too. Growing plants from seed or cuttings is a good way to avoid planting neonic plants. 

3. Continuous flowering
Plan your garden to have something flowering at all times. Bees need to eat every day, so try to provide flowers at all times of the season. Early and late flowering plants are especially beneficial. 

4. Diversity of flower colours, shapes, and sizes 
Native bees are a diverse bunch! From large fuzzy bumblebees to tiny slick sweat bees, you can bet each type of bee will have its favourite type of flower. Cover your bases and plant a diverse array of flowers. 

5. Plant large patches of a single flower
It's easier for bees to forage if they can stick to a single species in an area. If you can't plant in large patches, don't fret, a single plant of one species if better than none! 

6. Provide nest sites and materials 
Native bees nest in a variety of ways. Some like to live in holes in the ground, some nest in hollow stems, some in holes in wood, bumblebees will nest in abandoned rodent holes and birdhouses or at the base of ferns.... Ground nesting bees like bare, compact, undisturbed, well-draining soil in a variety of orientations from steeply sloping to flat. You can dig a pit and fill it with sand to create softer ground for bees, too. Plant grasses with hollow stems, and leave dead plants with hollow stems intact over the winter. Piles of hollow stems can be made to provide nesting areas. 

You can also make nests for solitary bees and bumblebees. Click here for more info from the Xerces Society. You can even make a insect hotel that is freestanding or mounted on a wall. 

7. Providing water
Provide a water container filled with rocks so the bees can climb down to the water easily. I have also observed bees drinking from moist soil and mud. 

Garden Management Strategies

8. Let the weeds live!
Flowering weeds in the garden or lawn are great for bees! Clover, dandelions, etc. are fantastic. Let your lawn grow long, and let the weeds flower before you mow or pull them. 

9. Leave vegetables to flower
Let garden plants bolt and flower before pulling them out. Brassicas such as kale make especially nutritious pollen. The bees will thank you! 

Plant List
Here is a list I have compiled from various sources that would be suitable for our area. Check out the resources below for more plant suggestions!  

Trees
Maple
Linden
Fruit trees
Nut trees

Shrubs
Nootka rose, Rosa nutkana
Rhododendron

Willow, Salix spp. (an important early bloomer)
Elderberry, Sambucus spp. 
Black Twinberry
California lilac, Ceanothus spp. 
Escallonia spp. 
Hardhack, Spirea douglasii
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Huckleberry
Ocean spray, Holodiscus discolor
Oregon Grape, Mahonia spp. (an important early bloomer)
Red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum
Red Osier Dogwood
Salal
Salmonberry
Saskatoon, Amelanchier alnifolia
Shrubby veronica, Hebe pinguifolia 'Pagei’
Snowberry
Thimbleberry
Trailing blackberry


Flowers/Herbs Under 30 cm
Clover, white
Clover, red and crimson
Crocus spp. 
Dandelion
Thyme, Thymus spp. (including creeping thyme)
Sea blush, Plectritis congesta
Sedum spp. 
Snow drops, Galanthus spp. 
Strawberry
Thrift, Armeria maritima


Flowers/Herbs Over 30 cm
Alfalfa
Alyssum spp. 
Aster spp. (e.g. Douglas aster)
Basil
Bee balm, Monarda spp. (especially lemon bee balm!)
Bellflower, Campanula spp. 
Borage
Calendula
California poppy
Catnip
Chives, Allium schoenoprasum
Cilantro
Columbine, Aquilegia spp
Comfrey
Tickseed, Coreopsis spp. 
Cotoneaster spp. 
Cranesbill, Germanium macrorhizum, Geranium cantabrigiensis ‘Cambridge’
Douglas aster, Aster subspicatus
Coneflower, Echinacea
Blanket flower, Gaillardia spp. 
Fireweed
Giant hyssop, Agastache spp. 
Goldenrod (contrary to popular belief, this plant does not cause allergies, but ragweed does)

Heather, Calluna vulgaris
Hollyhock, Alcea
*Lavender
Lupin, Lupinus
Marshmallow, Malva spp
Moldavian Dragon Head
Pearly Everlasting
Penstemon ‘mexicali’
Pieris japonica (important early bloomer)
Purple toadflax, Linaria purpurea
Rosemary
Sainfoin
Salvia spp. - Many are wonderful for bees! 
Sea holly, Eryngium maritimum
Speedwell, Veronica spicata
Sunflower
Tall and short grasses (species tbd)
Threadleaf phacelia, Phacelia linearis
Verbena bonariensis
Veronica
Yarrow, Achillea millefolium
Zinnia


Fantastic Resources for Plants and General Bee Information
Xerces Society
Earthwise Society 
SFU Pollination Ecology Lab 
David Suzuki Foundation
Book: Victory Gardens for Bees by Lori Weidenhammer (Vancouver local!) 
8 Comments

Pollinator Hotel inspiration

10/7/2016

113 Comments

 
Check out these photos of other pollinator hotels around the world! Some are so cute and whimsical. You can also google "pollinator hotel" or "insect hotel" for some inspiring photos. Enjoy! 
http://www.inspirationgreen.com/insect-habitats.html
113 Comments

Fall Care for Mason Bees

10/7/2016

20 Comments

 
We've received many requests from people for more info on mason bee care. While we don't currently have live stream capabilities for sharing our in-person workshops, we can write how-to's! If you are local to Squamish or the Lower Mainland, stay tuned for more workshop dates in the spring and fall. We hope this post is helpful for keeping your mason bees happy and healthy. ​
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What are mason bees? 

Mason bees are a group of bees in the Osmia genus. There are 140 species in North America, about 60 in BC! They are solitary, meaning that they don't live in a colony with other bees (unlike honey bees which live in colonies of 50-100,000 individuals). Instead, the male and female mason bees live and work alone, except for mating. (See lifecycle diagram below.) Mason bee females may nest together in mason bee homes we provide them, but they don't really interact with each other. 
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How to identify mason bees
​

Mason bees are easy to miss- they look a lot like houseflies. They are usually dark and metallic blue/green around here, although they have longer bodies than houseflies and more distinct body segments (head, thorax, abdomen). Their bums are more rounded or "bullet-shaped" than other solitary bees that may look similar. A tip for telling flies apart from bees is flies have big bulgy eyes on the tops of their heads, while bee eyes are smaller and on the side of head (not counting honey bee drones). Flies have 2 wings, bees have 4. Another mason bee characteristic is they are only around in the spring- approximately from late February to June. The adults die after that. For that reason, they are great pollinators for early flowering crops, like fruit trees.
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Mason bee female (Osmia lignaria)
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This is a fly. Note the large eyes, short antennae, and only 2 wings.
The males are smaller than the females, have longer antennae, and often have fuzzy blonde moustaches- no joke!! The males can't sting, and while the females can sting, it's unlikely. ​
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Look at that moustache! Photo credit to http://blueorchardmasonbees.yolasite.com/
How do I "keep" mason bees? 

Mason bees do not require extensive maintenance like honey bees. You can simply buy or make a mason bee home (lots of style options, but make sure you can take the whole home apart to access cocoons in the fall, or use paper tube liners in drilled holes), mount it outside in late February/March, and wait for wild mason bees to find it. They will get busy laying eggs in the home, and then it's your job to clean the home in August-October, and store the cocoons over the winter to keep them safe. 
Why do I need to clean the cocoons and mason bee home? ​In nature their cocoons wouldn't get cleaned! 

​When we put up a mason bee home, we are encouraging the bees to lay a bunch of eggs very close together. In the wild, the bees would be forced to lay a few eggs over here in a hollow stem, and a few over somewhere else. With many nests together, it's easy for parasites to locate them and move from one nest tube to another. Your whole mason bee home could become a breeding ground for parasitic wasps, pollen mites, fungi, etc. over the winter (see photos below). So because we are setting up these unnatural situations, it's important for us to be responsible and give the bees a hand, so we don't do more harm than good. 
​
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Parasitic wasps in a cocoon we found this week. Dead adults below, live developing larvae in the cell.
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This is what you might find inside your mason bee home when you open it up in the fall.

How to Clean Mason Bee Cocoons


1. REMOVE COCOONS
Open up your mason bee home or pull out and unravel the paper tube liners. (The brown stuff that look like mini chocolate sprinkles is bee poop (frass), the yellow/orange sticky stuff is pollen, the light brown/reddish stuff that moves slowly are pollen mites.)

If you have a tray/routed house design, scoop out cocoons gently using a chopstick or tool designed for this purpose. Float the cocoons in a bowl of cool water.


​2. CLEAN 
Gently roll the cocoons with your fingers to clean off frass etc. You can also use an old toothbrush to gently scrub the cocoons. Cocoons can stay in water for up to an hour, but I usually only soak for a few minutes. Inspect cocoons for holes. If they have a tiny hole in them, parasitic wasps have gotten in, and the bee is dead. Cocoons that sink are dead- you can discard them.



3. DISINFECT 
Scoop up cocoons and float in a bowl of 1L (4 cups) cool water and 1 tsp hydrogen peroxide or bleach. Swirl the cocoons around and let soak for a few minutes. This kills off any fungi and bacteria on the cocoons that could infect them later. Afterwards, disinfect the mason bee home by soaking in the solution for 15 minutes. 



4. RINSE 
Rinse the cocoons throughly. I do this in a sieve under cool running water. 



5. DRY 
Place your cocoons on a clean tea towel to dry. Roll them around a bit then let them air dry for a few hours. 



6. STORE 
Layer cocoons and crumpled up paper towel in a glass jar with many holes punched in the lid. The cocoons want to be dry and have air circulation so mould doesn't develop. Put the container in the fridge, or in an unheated garage or room. Monitor them for signs of mould. They want to be at about 60% humidity, and above freezing. Some say that fridges can be too dry for the cocoons. Try storing cocoons in a few different locations you have available and compare their hatching rates-then you'll know the best storage location for next year.



7. HATCHING 
In the spring, when temperatures are about 12*C, and fruit trees are about 25% in bloom, bring your cocoons outside and place them in an open container in the sunshine. We tack a shallow yogurt container to the side of our house on the south side, beside our mason bee home. The males emerge first, and do not sting. The females emerge a few days or weeks later. 


Where to put your mason bee house
  • In a sunny location. South or East facing is best to get morning sun. This helps the bees get moving early in the day. 
  • Head height so you can see what’s going on, although the bees aren't picky about height. 
  • Protected from wind and rain. 

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A pile of pollen mites. They move so slowly that you may not think they are moving at all at first glance.
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This poor bee is emerging from a nest FULL of pollen mites. The bees can still survive, but it impacts their health over time. This mason bee home hadn't been cleaned in years.

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Step 1: Remove cocoons and float in cool water
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Step 2. Gently remove frass by rolling cocoon between fingers or using a toothbrush
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Step 3. Disinfect cocoons
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Step 5. Air dry for a few hours
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Step 6: Storage. Lots of holes poked in lid! Image from http://www.davidsuzuki.org/
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Step 7: Hatching. Our high tech setup for emergence in the spring. We tack a shallow container to the side of our house just underneath our mason bee house. If it rains, it will stay dry, but it gets southeast sun to warm the cocoons in the morning. Avoid windy areas. You could put some wire on top to keep birds out if necessary.
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    Michalina and Darwyn are beekeepers on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. 

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