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Loading...Bee-friendly Landscaping
- Chaya, selected from Networx
- July 25, 2011
- 3:30 pm
- 204 comments
I heard about the recent decline in honeybees, and I wanted to find out if there was anything that homeowners could do to support local bee populations. I interviewed two apiculture professors (that’s professors of bee science) and found out that there’s a lot that homeowners can do to help local bee populations thrive.
What’s going on with bees?
“The honeybees have been declining since the 1940s, so in some sense it’s nothing new,” said Dr. Keith Delaplane, a professor at the University of Georgia’s Honey Bee program. “What is new is the rate of that decline. In the past three winters, we have seen just a precipitous drop that really caught our attention. It’s kind of a bad thing gone worse,” he said.
Dr. Delaplane attributes a few factors to the sudden decline in honeybees. One is “the results of global mixing of organisms. It’s very easy for somebody to travel to France and bring a honeybee queen back and use it to re-queen one of their beehives back home. It’s illegal, but it happens quite a bit. It’s very easy to imagine how new viruses and parasites can be transported around the world that way. I think that is one of the leading things. We’ve had decades of that with beekeepers traveling around the world and bringing back bees and restocking their hives with a queen from Timbuktu or something. It’s not the bees, per se, it’s the viruses they accidentally introduce that way.”
“There’s all sorts of bee viruses and diseases that are global,” said Dr. Delaplane. “They’re pretty much everywhere now because of the manifested movement. So we have exotic bee parasites from Asia, and bee parasites from Europe, and they’re all here on our bees now.”
Read more: Conservation, Home, Lawns & Gardens, Nature, Nature & Wildlife, Wildlife, bees, honeybees
Chaya, selected from Networx
Networx.com empowers people to make educated, economical and Earth-friendly renovation and home repair choices. We are a community of homeowners, renters and contractors who are committed to sharing home improvement expertise and experience.
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people are talking
cool. i bet that would work anywhere. i use baking soda on the top shelf a teen boys room.
This article~~waste of time except for the butterfly rewards.
I like salt, but I use it sparingly.
Even a cat practices yoga. Cute and healthy video))
The thing in the picture - "bread" - is in fact oscypek, I don't know who put it there... it's made …
204 comments
+ add your ownGood article,Thanks for sharing
Thanks
Thank you for sharing.
good to know
Bees are greatly attracted to the plants we call "weeds." Dandelion and other plants that are often sprayed with herbicides early in the season, just when the bees are really looking for some food. My habit is to let all the weeds flower and when they are done I pull them out or cut them down to the ground. Not to worry, they are ALWAYS back next year. I keep a lot of herbs in the yard because they often bloom early and the bees seem to really like them...well, to be honest, most of the stuff I grow is for the bees...I want them to hang around and pollinate stuff. Also keep very shallow containers of water here and there, not deep or they will drown. Jar lids are good.
I so miss the springs and summers of my childhood when every bush, every glade was filled with the lazy buzzing of bees. We've never used pesticides in my family - my uneducated, down-to-earth, farming grandma would have a fit if we "poured poison on the earth." If only we had known what was happening, what was going to happen, I would have fought harder to make sure no one else ever "poured poison on the earth" either. Thanks to my grandma and her simple understanding of the earth and how things work, at least I've not contributed to the demise of so many precious forms of wildlife.
Very interesting...thanks...
Noted ....love Bees...
Signed. Great article!
Living in a large metro area I have notuiced the decline in different birds, insects, etc. I am sure it's mostly because of chemicals : )
I already have over 2500 sq. feet of flower beds, but the dog needs room too : )
We should, maybe, plant flowers that attract bees in our gardens.
Bees and other pollinators are some of the most sensitive creatures to pollutants and herbicides, not only because they damage the plants that bees feed on, they also weaken the bees’ immune system.
In our efforts to cling to our dominion over the land, we’ve poisoned the environment with pollution and pesticides, destroyed habitat, imported invasive species of plants and animals; in short, rode roughshod over the land.
Yes, the payback is climate change, and the endangerment of the honeybee.
Many people are not aware of the crucial role that bees play in the delicate balance of the ecosystem.
Not only do they provide honey, one of the most complete foods known to man, they play a fascinating and integral part in the pollination of most of our food.
So if you have extra flowers in your yard, transfer some to a wooded area close to your home or go for a drive and find a wooded area or even along a riverbed. Any sort of plants will do. You will even help the butterflies and our bird friends.
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