Bee approved, mystery plant

There is no more doubt about the mystery plants. It’s a sunflower. Several sunflowers, that is. Everything about them says “Sunflower”: the broad leaves, the flat yellow disks, the mathematical spiral in the centers, the honeybee, the green Agapostemon bee, and more bees to come.

Giving ground to the bees

Once you’re feeding native bees, they also need a place to live. For a lot of native bees, that’s in the ground. Miner bees, sweat bees, squash bees, and more, are solitary bees that dig secret tunnels where they lay their eggs on a time capsule of food. The larvae need a safe place to […]

Let hover flies be your pest-killers

If you’re going to nurture wildflowers and plant flowers to help the native bees, it doesn’t make sense to kill them. Unfortunately pesticides are only chemicals, and they’re not smart enough to know which bugs not to kill. Fortunately, a nice bonus that comes of planting for bees is that many of the same flowers […]

Wildflower planting for the bees

While it’s fun to plan flowers for the bees, I find the bees like even better the flowers that come unplanned, unheralded, and unasked. Especially in spring, wildflowers fill in the gaps before the “official” flowers bloom. If I had to pick a favorite wildflower, I think of fall and pick wild asters (with goldenrod […]

Planting flowers for the bees

It’s easy enough to say “Plant flowers” for the bees, until you ask which flowers? If I had to pick one to start with, I would say Purple Coneflower. Bumblebees and honeybees love it. Other native bees, too. As a bonus, the seeds will feed goldfinches. But then, they’re coming into their full color right […]

It’s National Pollinator Week again

With the sun shining until 9 p.m. everyone knows today is the summer solstice. But if it weren’t for Bug Girl, I wouldn’t have noticed that today is the first day of National Pollinator Week. How did I miss that? So what shall I do to celebrate?

Bumblebee mimic

There’s so many bumblebees around but they move so quick, I’m often complaining about not getting a good picture of them. Then I saw this one, just sitting around on some flopped-over daffodil leaves. Cool! I thought. I hope it doesn’t fly away when I get close. And it just sat there. Very not like […]

Tiny flowers, tiny flies

Cilantro is such a useful plant. If you plant it and clip it quick enough, you can chop up the leaves in Mexican, Vietnamese, or Chinese dishes. Or if it’s too hot to cook, it bolts and flowers. Lots and lots of tiny white flowers, which bring lots of tiny flies. And wasps. These tiny […]

Bye, columbine

The last of my columbines are still attracting bees (this one is a Lasioglossum), but they are fading and raising up fistfuls of seed pods. They’ll be back. They’ve come back and spread with glee, ever since I planted a few seeds years ago. All I remember of the variety is that supposedly the dark […]

Bees in the berries

The bees are busy in the berries. Lots of bumblebees rush from flower to flower in the raspberries. This one seems to be trying to choose between a berry in progress and a fresh flower. So many berries, so little time. And there’s other bees to compete with.