WILD BEES HAVE NEEDS

Dawn Szelc and Clara Aleman, LDG Co-Secretaries

The Landscape Designer’s Group met February 26, 2020, at the McLean Library. Our lecturer Sam Droege of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center ([email protected]) provided a fascinating discussion on native bees.

• These amazing close-up pictures of native bees are available at the Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pwrc/science/native-bee-inventory-and-monitoring-lab?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects. They are public domain on Flicker and Instagram,
• Sam’s FB site is a good place to ask questions https://www.facebook.com/sam.droege

Sam provided a wealth of information and we tried to capture as much as possible. There are 445 native bee species in Maryland who feed on 3836 plants. Virginia has 460+ species and they are finding more all the time. Native bees do not sting, don’t defend their colonies, and no one is allergic to them.  There are no native honey bees; they are all from European species. Honey bees are competitive with native species. Saving the bees involves saving the pollen which they feed on. It only takes 5 flowers to feed a baby bee and an average acre produces 26,000 bees (native/honey) in a year. Most of our native bees live underground, while some nest in hollow stems or holes in wood. You can create bee nesting places by bundling cut hollow stems or using bee houses. They don’t spend much time flying around. They have many different types of “tongues” with which to get at the plants they prefer. The average lifespan of a bee is 1 year.
Sam discussed a number of areas where new species of bees have been discovered recently. At the Mt Cuba Center seven species have been found of specific flowers.  Sandy spots are good places to look for bees because many live in the sand such as at Jug Bay, MD where new species have been found that new names had to be created for them. On Assateague Island 5 species have been found that are only found there. In Baltimore, 19 species with 11 that are not native were found. 

Types of bees:

1. Generalist bees – the crows and sparrows
   1. Use many plants
   2. Conservation issue is low
2. Specialist bees are vulnerable
   1. Baby bees feed on pollen from only one type of plant.
   2. Only 3 types of bees go to pickerel weed.
   3. They are rare bees
   4. Other generalist also benefits from these same plants.
3. Bumble bees
   1. Over winter underground and then emerge in spring
   2. Feed on early spring blooms especially in lawns like clover, and weedy mint
   3. Mint, clover, redbud, horse nettle, thistle, goldenrod

Sam’s Favorite Plants

• Thistles
• Mountain mint
• Figwort
• Shrubby ilex
• Wild plum
• Cup plant
• Germander
• Vacciniums
• Ceanothus
• Sneezeweeds (get both!)
• Shrubby willow
• Blue/swamp Vervain
• Guilty favorite: zinnias

Sam also spoke about the problems of lawns and lawn care in association with a bee friendly environment. A lawn is the worst possible thing to have.  Five percent of all pollution comes from lawn care equipment. Cutting the grass constantly does not allow other plants which bees could feed on to exist. Spraying for mosquitoes is also very bad. At one time in history Virginia was a large area of grassland – not all trees. Natural fires removed many trees. His recommendation is to only mow once a year except perhaps to mow transportation corridors through your property. I don’t know how well this would be accepted in one of our average neighborhoods! Spot treat invasives. He is not an advocate of planting more trees. He felt this brought more deer into an area and competed with flowering plants. He did mention that Tulip poplar and Black locust are good for honey bees and that Serviceberry feeds lots of bees.
Sam’s Slogans

• "Pollinator gardens are like bird feeders – not natural nor native."
• "Save a bee.  Kill a tree."
• "Turf is like paving Yellowstone Park"

Social media and other sites of interest:

1. Flickr/Instagram/Tumblr/Facebook=  @USGSBIML
2. http://bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookdraft3.pdf
3. https://www.flickr.com/people/usgsbiml/
4. https://jarrodfowler.com/specialist_bees.html

Future Meetings:
March:                meeting location TBD
April 18               Kennedy Center the REACH 10am
May 9                  georgetowngardenclub.dc.org  for tickets …O and 31st Street
June 16               Alonso Abiganes Capital Naturalist. Alexandria. Meadow Walk at Dusk