Make a little bee-house in your soul

Wild bees

There are many thousands of varieties of bees besides those which make honey. In Canada we have at least 730, which is only 4% of the approximately 19,000 species world-wide, but only 39 of those reside in Ontario (as far as we know right now, as insects are notoriously difficult to find). (1)

Bees developed from digger wasps, but instead of killing prey for their young they switched to pollen. Bees are almost as old as flowers in the timeline of the earth. Most bee species do not live in colonies, but provide a store of pollen for their young in a safe place where the egg is deposited. The only species native to Canada that rear their young and live in colonies are Bumblebees, which live in abandoned rodent burrows. Of those who do not live in colonies most make their nests in the ground, but a good number of them like the pithy stems of plants, beetle-holes in wood, or other naturally occurring cavities (like snail shells). A few make a nest under rocks.(2)



If you take a look at the report below you can see that many of the bee species are not the friendly, fuzzy yellow that we expect from Italian honey bees- some look more like flies, and others more like wasps. Some are even a metallic green or blue.

There has been a fad lately for creating bee houses. This is NOT a bad thing. Usually there is a block of wood with a few holes drilled in it of various sizes. Occasionally there are some lengths of bamboo. However, if you want to make a place for more than the couple variety of mason bees it might be best to include some raspberry canes, and other pithy-stemmed plants, plus a spot at the back of your yard with a small pile of rocks. Also, most wild bees can't live on horticultural flowers. If you can include a few native wildflower species in your garden plans that might really help. You can buy a good variety of seeds from the Ontario Seed Company.

Alternatively, if you don't have space in your garden or yard, you could buy some native wildflower seeds and take them for a walk in a wild or abandoned area. Make sure you read the directions on where the flowers like to grow so you don't waste your money and time. The best time to broadcast is in the fall, but some do quite well being planted in the spring as well. It's the best kind of graffiti...

We can all make the world a more beautiful and bee-friendly place.



More information-
Conserving Native Pollinators in Ontario
Pollinator Guide

Identifying Bees

Toronto Master Gardener's Pollinator Guide





Source referenced-

1. p.1, The Bee Genera of Eastern Canada, Laurence Packer, Julio A. Genaro and Cory S. Sheffield, in Canadian Journal of Arthropod Identification No.3 (September 2007), accessed online January 22, 2016- http://cjai.biologicalsurvey.ca/pgs_03/pgs_03.pdf

2. p.2, The Bee Genera of Eastern Canada