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Bees and Butterflies: At Home In Your Garden

Updated 5/28/2025

National Pollinator Week

Lavender and honey bees.

In 2007, the U.S. Senate passed a bill designating one week in June as National Pollinator Week. This legislation recognizes the importance of pollinators, including bees and butterflies, in our food supply and in the health of all ecosystems.

Every third bite of food we consume is directly attributable to insect pollinators. The global economic value is worth between $250 billion and $600 billion per year. Around 85% of all flowering plants are pollinated by insects and small animals, ensuring the regeneration of forests and fields as well as high yielding edible crops.

Our morning coffee beans are primarily self-pollinated, depending on crop species. Introducing bees, however, can increase yields and lower costs of production.

In tropical regions of South America, Africa, Indonesia, and, more recently, Australia, a tiny midge is responsible for pollinating cacao trees, bringing us chocolate. Chocolate contributes $100 billion annually to the global economy.

In the southern hemisphere, pollinator awareness programs take place in November. The Australian Government’s Department of the Environment recognizes a week in November as their pollinator week. Many countries throughout the world observe this initiative, with local organizations sponsoring programs to raise awareness.

An outdoor project can be an enjoyable and healthy way to use our time. Having the children participate teaches them valuable skills they can carry with them wherever they live.

**If there’s one thing we could use more of, it’s nature.**

A bee house or insect hotel.

What Bees and Butterflies Need

All living creatures need food and water, shelter, and a place to raise their young. By adapting the way we maintain the property around our homes, we can achieve both an attractive landscape and one that fosters native wildlife. Currently, 40% of the insect pollinator species are at risk of extinction. A few of us can make a small difference in our neighborhood; millions of us can begin to shake it up!

Houses—entire communities—generally have been built after felling all the native trees, bulldozing the rest, and covering the ground with high maintenance lawns. Streams diverted to concrete pipes underground take habitat from frogs, salamanders, turtles, and dragonflies. Where this tradition is changing, developers are roping off and protecting native stands of trees and understory species.

Maybe the builder spotted in a fast growing silver maple, a row of clipped hollies along the foundation, and a couple of forsythias in the back. Well, that won’t do much for all the bees and butterflies, or for the hummingbirds, bats, moths, and beetles that pollinate our crops and wild plants. And right there, in this yard and in that yard, lie the broken links in the food chain. Our monocultured and unnaturally manicured properties are sold as low maintenance, but there’s little life there.

The Missing Elements

We concentrate instead on creating an “indoor oasis”, untroubled that the quiet stillness outside the door is not what Mother Nature had intended. No birds chirping or warbling… no cicadas or katydids… no lizards leaping for their dinner… nowhere for the dragonfly to land.

Yes, we need more nature in our lives. By cultivating a relationship with the natural world, there’s more than just a pretty sight beyond the living room windows. There’s life. Birds will continue to follow million-year-old migration paths. Mason bees and swallowtail butterflies will secure homes for their young. And there will be less talk of scarcity.

Need to feel better? Try gardening! Just being outside—in nature—can lift your spirits.

A Garden of Annuals for Bees and Butterflies

Bumble bees in the marigolds.

Maybe this week’s goal is to carve out a section of the big lawn in the sunny back yard, and plant a flower garden. From spring through midsummer, we can plant annuals from seeds or from transplants. In the off-season, consider how your family can use the property in the future or expand existing gardens. It’s always a good time to decrease the amount of lawn space we have to mow, fertilize, and treat for insects and diseases.

Be sure to plant significant drifts of flowers instead of a dot of zinnias here and a couple of marigolds over there. Large blocks of similar colors are more likely to get attention from pollinators. If your space is limited, though, there are some options. Sunny windowbox gardens and pots filled with bright colorful flowers will generate interest from the pollinators. Or perhaps there’s room for a few blooming hanging baskets.

Each pollinator has its preferences. Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red, but bees can’t see it. Bees are initially attracted to blue, yellow, and white, and then visit a red flower nearby. Hummingbirds feed from long tubular flowers, but hover flies need short little flowers.

At night, moths can detect white or pale colored sweet-smelling flowers that are open at that time. Almond flowers are pollinated primarily by honey bees, and tomatoes by bumble bees. Butterflies are especially interested in landing platforms, such as those found on plants with wide, flat flowers.

There’s a direct correlation between the number of plant species in our gardens and the number of insects that will want to visit them. Creating a palate of various colors, scents, and flower forms will bring in a diverse assortment of insect species. For our pollinator friends, conserving energy is paramount in their search for food. That’s why a large grouping of annuals rather than a few plants spotted in here and there is more efficient for visiting bees.

What Is An Annual?

An annual grows from a seed that germinates, generally, in spring or summer. It grows for several weeks to a few months, matures, and then begins to flower. Many species of annuals bloom all summer, until frost ends their lives in autumn, roots and all. But, by then, the plant will have set seed, with help from the local pollinators. An annual completes its life cycle within one growing season.

Those seeds remain dormant over the winter, protected by their seed coats. With favorable weather conditions next spring, some of the seeds will germinate. Many, however, will be consumed by small mammals, birds, and insects.

What Do Pollinators Do?

Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), a perennial vine, with bumble bee. Note the placement of anthers and stigmas in contact with the bee.

Bees and butterflies, and other pollinators, transfer pollen grains from the male anthers of a flower to the stigma, the female part of a flower. Sometimes male and female flowers grow in separate flowers on the same plant (that’s a monoecious plant). And other plants have either all male or all female flowers (dioecious plants). Some have both male and female reproductive elements within each flower (perfect flowers).

Pollinators don’t do this intentionally. Instead, their goal is to collect the flowers’ pollen and nectar. They inadvertently pick up the pollen on their hairs or wings, after being lured in by the flowers and the sweet nectar. Many species of plants evolved flower structures that facilitate pollen dispersal (photo, above). Then the pollinators transfer pollen from flower to flower, from plant to plant, as they forage. Thus, they enable fertilization of the ovules—germ cells in the ovary of the female flower.

The male and the female plants must be the same species in order for their chromosomes to be compatible—for seeds to develop. However, interspecific and intergeneric hybrids sometimes do occur among closely related individuals.

The end result is a ripe fruit with viable seeds. That could be a zinnia’s seedpod, for example, or a blueberry, a peach, or a tulip poplar’s samara.

Cross Pollination

Ah, the genius of nature. Pollen grains and stigmas in many species mature at different times, preventing self-pollination.

Moving pollen among different plants of the same species permits cross-pollination, resulting in genetic diversity and, potentially, a better future for the species. Apple trees and blueberries are two crops that benefit from cross-pollination.

Single? Double? Or Triple Flowers?

double pink vinca--less nectar for bees and butterflies

Catharanthus ‘Soiree Double Pink’, an annual vinca. Extra petals replace reproductive parts.

Flowers with single rows of petals usually have more pollen and nectaries than those with a more complicated petal structure. Plant breeders all over the world have introduced to the marketplace thousands of these fluffy double-flowered hybrids, and they are beautiful. That’s fine, for aesthetics.

But, for bees and butterflies, there’s less treasure for them in flowers filled with petals. Reproductive structures that produce nectar and pollen are often reduced and replaced with additional petals (photo, above) in the breeding process. Collecting pollen or nectar from these packed doubles is less efficient, and requires extra visits to gather sufficient quantities, if they offer any sustenance at all. So, pollinators will look for more desirable plants elsewhere to conserve energy, avoiding such anomalies of nature.

When choosing varieties for your annual garden, keep these details in mind. Gardens loaded with heavy producers of nectar and pollen (in other words, single or uncomplicated flowers) will better serve the pollinators that visit them.

Have you ever wondered why bees linger among certain flowers, but leave immediately upon landing on others? I see this with cultivars of Echinacea, the coneflowers. Simpler hybrids have more pollen and nectar. But the thickly petalled cultivars have virtually no resources to offer the pollinators.

Sunflowers

Many varieties of recent sunflower introductions have been hybridized to grow flowers with very little or no viable pollen at all. When looking through catalogs, make note of the ones called “pollenless”. These varieties will make less of a mess on the credenza and won’t cause you to sneeze. But they have little to offer bees and butterflies.

Pollenless sunflowers won’t develop mature seeds filled with enough food for birds and other animals. If pollinators and full seedpods are what you want, ask the seed supplier for varieties that make edible seeds, not just edible flowers.

These varieties of sunflowers attract pollinators and make edible seeds:

‘Big Smile’
‘Black Peredovik’
‘Chocolate’
‘Giganteus’
‘Hopi Black Dye’
‘Mammoth Grey Stripe’
‘Mammoth Russian’
‘Paul Bunyan’
‘Royal’
‘Royal Hybrid 1121’
‘Sunzilla’
‘Super Snack’
‘Titan’

Sunflowers have a row of showy ray florets surrounding the disc florets. Disc florets open slowly over time, from the outer edge to the center, ensuring many visits from different pollinators.

The Asteraceae family is perhaps the largest, with 1900 genera and over 32,000 species of trees, shrubs, annuals, and perennials. (The orchid family is its main rival, but no one knows exactly how many species are in either family.) Members of this extended family include sunflowers, lettuce, coreopsis, ageratum, marigold, zinnia, coneflower, gerbera daisy, chrysanthemum, and Shasta daisy. Their composite flowers provide a rich source of nectar and pollen, but, again, be cautious of the highly hybridized cultivars.

Visit a botanical garden or a garden center, and observe which blooming plants attract the most pollinators. Take note of the species and varieties that keep bees probing the flowers for the longest period of time.

Where to Plant?

Thin peduncle (flower stalk) under summer squash flower indicates a male flower. A female flower has a rounded peduncle.

A large bed of color around the patio or the mailbox, a free-standing raised bed, and a border close to the vegetable garden are just some of the possibilities. Farmers often include wide bands of wildflowers alongside their fields of crops for better pollination and heavier yields.

One plant that attracts all sorts of pollinators is ‘African Blue’ basil. This is a sterile herb—unable to set seed—so it flowers constantly. Other varieties of sweet or flavored basils customarily are used in the kitchen. Plant an ‘African Blue’ basil in early summer, close to tomatoes, peppers, and squash to encourage bees to visit the veggies. And let it flower.

Check with local garden centers to see what they have available. Ask for help choosing annuals—seeds or transplants—that attract pollinators.

Before you do any digging, ask your municipality (call 8-1-1) to mark underground utilities. Whether you’ll be tilling the area or digging it by hand, you’ll certainly want to avoid damaging any of those lines.

Locate the garden where a source of water is easily accessible. New transplants and young seedlings need consistent moisture until they’re established. During summer drought, water the bed thoroughly every week or so.

Sun or Shade?

Fuchsia flowers.

Find an area that gets full sun if you want lots of flowers. Full sun is at least 6 hours, but annuals will positively thrive in more sun than that. Summer annuals blooming heavily in sun will attract the most pollinators.

But several species prefer shade, such as impatiens. The ‘Imara’ impatiens, resistant to impatiens downy mildew, provides a carpet of color under the trees and shrubs. This annual plant attracts bees and butterflies, and also hummingbirds.

Where summers aren’t too hot, fuchsia baskets (photo, above) entice the hummingbirds to visit every day, like clockwork. This plant does well in dappled shade or morning sun. And it likes moist soil. As the temperatures climb and fuchsia fails, hummingbirds flock to the single petunias and salvias, which need lots of sun. They also visit herbs in bloom, including basil and lavender.

How Big Is Big?

Hummingbird.

With proper soil preparation and regular maintenance, a plot that measures 10′ x 6′ can become a magnet for pollinating insects. The flowers will buzz with activity from perhaps dozens of species of bees and butterflies, and moths and hummingbirds, too.

This country is home to over 4,000 species of bees alone! More than 20,000 species live around the globe. Some live in colonies, and many are solitary creatures. Interestingly, the honey bee is not native to the United States. It was brought by European settlers hundreds of years ago and proliferated throughout the country.

To increase the activity and the number of pollinating species lured in, make the bed even larger. And include more variety in the plants selected. Use masses of the same plant, and repeat elsewhere in the garden, if possible. Planting larger blocks of a particular color or flower type will attract more pollinators than scattering them about.

If this is your first gardening effort, keep the garden a manageable size so you’re not overwhelmed. There will be maintenance involved! Weeds, no doubt, will have to be pulled. And your garden will need fertilizer a few times through the growing season for the best results. An inch or two of mulch moderates soil temperatures, retains moisture, and suppresses weeds. You can always expand the area as you gain confidence in your skills.

In One of My Gardens

***Update***: In early 2024, I germinated and planted a flat of wildflowers, comprising perennials and biennials. The 15′ x 6′ bed filled out beautifully, and this year I grew more wildflowers (from the same pack of seeds) for another section near the first one.

Well, the first bunch are in full bloom now—absolutely gorgeous and buzzing with little winged creatures. Lots of great spangled fritillary butterflies, with more species showing up daily. 5/28/2025

Container Gardens

Even in a very limited space, some of the local bees and butterflies will find the lovely combination pots on your balcony or the patio. Use bright colors, and have your camera ready—for the flowers and their visitors. Once they find their preferred flowers, pollinators will come back day after day.

Remove seedpods to encourage more flowers to develop, although finches and other birds will feed on seeds remaining on stalks late in the season. Fertilize regularly to keep the plants in prime condition. Plants in containers might need daily watering.

Headings

Page 1: National Pollinator Week, What Bees and Butterflies Need (The Missing Elements), A Garden of Annuals for Bees and Butterflies (What Is An Annual?, What Do Pollinators Do?, Cross Pollination, Single? Double? Or Triple Flowers?, Sunflowers, Where To Plant?, Sun or Shade?, How Big Is Big?, In One of My Gardens, Container Gardens)

Page 2: Added Benefits (Vegetables and Fruits, Braconid Wasps, For the Birds, Let ‘Em Seed About, Water, Cut Flowers, Try Some of These for the Bees and Butterflies), Perennial Favorites for Bees and Butterflies (Permanent Residents, More Perennials, Lavender, Herbs, The Apiaceae Family, The Lamiaceae Family)

Page 3: Brush Piles for Pollinators (Go Native), A Comprehensive Garden Plan (Dream, Plan, and Implement, On the Right Path, Stone, Diversify, Some Native Woody Plants, Asking for Help, Check With Local Sources, Dig In!, More Considerations, Small Is Beautiful), Links

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No Fruits On Your Tomato Plants?

Jun24

2018

Here Are Some Simple Solutions If Your Tomato Plants Have No Fruits In July and August

No Fruits In Hot Weather?

It looks as if we’re in for more above-normal temperatures in the Southeast through the growing season. No surprise there! I’m going to spend a few minutes to explain why we often have no fruits on our tomato plants when it gets real hot outside. In most years, though, production picks up again in late August or September when the temperatures drop several degrees.

The main crop that most home gardeners are concerned with is the tomato, although this could happen to peppers, eggplants, and other vegetables as well. When temperatures soar into the 90’s F, the pollen produced in the flower is “denatured”, or, essentially, killed. No pollen means no fruits!

When the air is very still or humid, the pollen grains are less likely to be dispersed. But, we can’t control the weather, so I’ll concentrate on what we can do.

Try Some Shade For Tomatoes With No Fruits

Before you replace your vegetables with agaves and astroturf, there is something you can try in order to harvest a continuous crop. If temperature is the problem, and not lack of pollinating insects, you can simply provide a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day, usually from 1:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon.

Here’s How:

Some tall stakes stuck in the ground and an old sheer curtain could work. Make sure any covering is above the foliage, so air flow is not impeded. One day, a customer stopped by the garden center where I used to work and wanted to thank me for the suggestion. He said he finally (after many years of trying!) was able to get tomatoes in the hot summer months by simply repositioning the patio umbrella to shade his tomatoes for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Look for black UV stabilized polyethylene mesh, sold as “knitted shade cloth”, from garden supply companies. Johnny’s Selected Seeds lists the product in their catalog. For the hot south, a product that casts 30% shade works well. Or you might find that 50% shade works better. Position it overhead, and on the west side to cut the harsh afternoon sun. A little experimenting will indicate the best arrangement.

Rat snake caught in bird netting. yes, it was freed.

This non-venomous snake was freed by snipping the mesh, starting at the tail end.

If you have a package of black deer netting, folding it over several times will give you about the same effect as the shade cloth. Check it daily, though, for snakes that can get caught up in it. A few times, I used sharp-pointed scissors to free non-venomous snakes that had become entangled in the netting.

Another option is lattice or snow fence attached to a sturdy frame.

The point is not to block all the light. You just want to moderate the harsh sun for a few hours a day, dropping the temperature to below 90 degrees. Not every growing season will require this mitigation. But, if you don’t see tiny tomatoes growing on your plants in mid-summer, this is one option you can try. When the temperatures moderate, remove the covering.

Shading the Flowers and Fruits

Sometimes it’s not practical or necessary to entirely shade the large plants on the deck. So, I’ll use those mesh bags found in the produce section at the grocery store (holding avocados, tangerines, etc.). When it’s hot, I drape the mesh over the young flower cluster. It will stay in place as the fruit develops. This helps keep the animals away and prevents sun scald.

Occasionally we have summers when the temperature hovers in the mid to high 90’s for weeks at a time, not cooling off much at night. We might not get any tomatoes at that time, until the weather cools. But we do harvest more tomatoes by shading than if we did nothing.

Cultivars

‘Sun Gold’ tomato with netting to keep animals away.

Select varieties that are more heat-resistant; their pollen tolerates higher temperatures. Names that allude to the south or to heat are clues that those varieties could grow better in warm climates. ‘Phoenix’, ‘Estiva’, ‘Arkansas Traveler’, ‘Florida 91’, ‘Creole’, ‘Heatmaster’, and ‘Summer Set’ are cultivars often cited as being heat-resistant.

‘Better Boy’, ‘Terenzo’, and ‘Black Krim’ also should do well. The bright orange cherry tomato, ‘Sun Gold’, produces abundantly in our hot summers.

‘Big Beef’ has always been quite productive here and is highly disease resistant. If you must grow your favorites that are susceptible to heat, try using the shade cloth.

Check online or ask your local cooperative extension agent for information on recommended cultivars in your region. The varieties that had bountiful harvests every year when you lived in Buffalo, New York, might be disappointing in Birmingham, Alabama.

Pick Earlier

During very hot weather, fruits might not fully “color-up” to catalog pictures, so don’t leave them too long on the vine. Pick them once they’ve developed some color.

Let them ripen on the kitchen counter, but never in the refrigerator. Tomatoes exposed to temperatures below the mid 50’s undergo cellular changes that rob them of flavor and texture. Certain genes that enhance flavonoids in ripening fruits become inactive in cool temperatures.

Especially during periods of drought, thirsty animals know what’s inside those juicy ripe tomatoes! You won’t miss out on much flavor by picking them a day or two early…but they will.

Letting ripe fruits stay on the vine inhibits the production of new flowers. The plant thinks it has done its job by providing seeds for the next generation. Removing ripe or almost ripe fruits reminds the plant to resume its responsibilities.

Mulch

Pine straw.

Mulch the soil all around the plants with a thick layer of airy mulch, such as pine straw or oak leaves. Clean chemical-free grass clippings mixed with shredded leaves can be used, but not so deep that decomposition generates even more heat. These materials add organic matter to the soil as they break down, keeping the earthworms and the microbes happy, and provide nutrients to the plants.

Mulch also helps prevent disease spores lying dormant in the soil from splashing onto the lower leaves of the plant. And, of course, it holds moisture in the soil and keeps it a little cooler.

Water

Water thoroughly during hot, dry weather to moisten the top 10″ to 12″ of soil once or twice a week (more often in sandy soils). Established vegetables, in average soil, need 1″ to 2″ of water per week. Here’s why:

Lack of water causes wilt, stressing the plant.
Lack of water causes flower-drop. (Incidentally, flower-drop early in the season can be caused by cool weather.)
To prevent blossom-end rot, there needs to be enough moisture in the soil to keep calcium in solution.
Fruits that crack are responding to uneven soil moisture levels, although some cultivars are more susceptible to this. Cracked fruits are still edible, after checking for little critters (insects, slugs, sowbugs) that might be sipping the fluids. Ordinarily, it’s safer to discard fruits that have been partially eaten by raccoons or squirrels.
And a good watering in hot weather cools down the soil. But first check the temperature of the water coming out of a hose that sits in the sun. It could be too hot for plants. Don’t overdo the watering, which will dilute the flavor of ripening fruits and cause other problems.

Thorough and deep soil preparation invites roots to grow where the soil is cooler and where there’s more moisture. The more we can minimize stressful conditions, the more likely our vegetable garden will perform the way we’d like it to.

Better Pollination

Hand-Pollinate Flowers If No Fruits Are Growing

: Sweet bell pepper.

: Cherokee Purple tomato.

If pollinating insects are not plentiful around your garden, try hand-pollinating your tomatoes and peppers. Usually just shaking, tapping, or vibrating the flower is sufficient for the task.

Each tomato and pepper flower is perfect, containing both male and female flower parts. So, they can self-pollinate as well as receive pollen from other tomato plants. This will work if the pollen hasn’t already been killed by heat.

Photo, above right, shows simple procedure for pollinating a tomato flower. Gently flick, or tickle, a mature, but not old, flower to move pollen to the stigma.

The pepper (photo, above left) was unlabeled and purchased at a big box store. It had a big floppy habit. There were no fruits on it for the longest time, and I was about to remove it. But I gave it one last try, and hand-pollinated all the flowers. Since then, it has yielded a dozen big bell peppers, and it’s still full of fruit.

‘African Blue’ Basil

Plant an ‘African Blue’ basil near the garden. This is an ornamental basil and a pollinator magnet! Because it is sterile and can’t set seed, it keeps flowering all summer long. You can find this variety in late spring or summer as potted transplants.

Few plants attract as many pollinators. Having one of these plants near your vegetables will guarantee visits from honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. In fact, bumble bees often spend the night among its flowers, ready to go to work as soon as the sun comes up.

*** * * * * * * * ***

So, if you’re following sound horticultural practices and can’t understand why your vegetables have no fruits, try shading them for a few hours. Or perhaps one of the other suggestions will work for you.

I’ve had dozens of customers over the years who have tried shading when nothing else worked, and now they enjoy vine-ripened tomatoes and peppers without interruption. Tomato-basil salad, coming up!

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Pollinators: What’s All the Buzz About?

Jun2

What’s All the Buzz About Pollinators?

Trips to the garden center and articles about landscaping and edible gardening. Radio garden programs and school field trips. What do they have in common?

The subject of Pollinators will come up!

And for good reason: we rely on pollinators for more than a third of our entire food supply! Without the bees, butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds, we would not be able to feed our growing populations. Apple, peach, and nut trees, tomatoes and peppers. Zucchini, cucumbers, berry bushes, and farm animal feed. These are just a few crops that depend on these little critters. Trees, grasses, shrubs, and wildflowers also rely on pollinators for procreation.

Pollinators are attracted to the flowers’ sweet nectar, for carbohydrates, and to pollen for proteins and lipids. Insects and other pollinators gather nectar and pollen from the flowers they visit. During this beneficial arrangement, called mutualism, they unintentionally transfer pollen grains from one flower to the next.

The Fruits of Pollination

Pollen (the male component) deposited onto a receptive stigma (female) in a flower belonging to the same species initiates the fruiting process. The half set of haploid chromosomes in ovules and sperm are recombined during fertilization. (This is not the kind of fertilization that involves nutrients). This restores the full diploid chromosome count. The ovary (fruit) grows and toughens, protecting the seeds until the fruits are harvested or the seeds dispersed.

Fruits, though, aren’t limited to the recognizable apples, peaches, and pears on a grocery store shelf. Botanically, a fruit is any seed- or spore-bearing structure in flowering plants and other organisms. This includes wheat, a kernel of corn, a plump blueberry, a sweet cherry, or an heirloom tomato. Even fungi, including mushrooms, have “fruiting bodies”.

Animals attracted to these nutritious fruits aid in seed dispersal, although in many cases, the seeds themselves are consumed and digested.

And there are some anomalies in Mother Nature’s kingdom that permit us to call strawberries “fruits” or “berries”, although they are neither! The luscious little strawberry is the swollen receptacle, the part that connects the flower to the stem. The actual fruits, or achenes, are those little brown things on the outside. And there’s a seed inside each achene.

No pollination means no fruit in up to 80% of our edible crops!

Honey Bees

A honeycomb.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are not native to the Americas. They originated in Africa and migrated to Indonesia, Europe, and Asia. The early colonists brought them here, where they proliferated throughout the frontier, preceding the settlers’ expansion into new territory. Before this species was imported, thousands of other types of insects and animals pollinated flowers. And they still do!

As the nation’s population grew, more crops entered cultivation. Agriculture became even more dependent upon these easily domesticated pollinators.

Almonds.

California’s almond harvest relies entirely on bee activity for nut production. In fact, beekeepers ship 75% of the country’s “beehives for hire” to flowering almond orchards to ensure a good crop.

Of the many thousands of bee species found worldwide, the honey bee is the only one that makes honey. Forager bees returning to the hive with nectar give this bounty to the processor bees. Processors pass the nectar among themselves, helping to lower the water content. Then they deposit the liquid into cells and fan it with their wings to concentrate the honey. After that, they cap the cells with wax to seal the compartment.

Forager bees mix their saliva with the pollen they collected, which the processors place in the cells. Once they’re capped, the mixture begins fermenting, resulting in a substance called bee bread. Both types of cells, with pollen and nectar, also contain enzymes from the bees. Nurse bees feed this bee bread to all larvae, and the colony can access it for sustenance during winter. Enriched bee bread, called royal jelly, is reserved for queen larvae. Not all the honey is harvested by beekeepers; most is kept in the hives.

Why All the Fuss About Pollinators?

A syndrome known as Colony Collapse Disorder has raised the alarm to protect the honey bees. It is not precisely known what prevents most of the bees from returning to the hives. However, it is known that the queen, the larvae, and the honey have been abandoned. Without help from the drones and worker bees, the colony fails.

This is not a new phenomenon, though. Farmers a hundred years ago reported losing up to 90% of their bees to this “disappearing disease”.

CCD was named around 2006, when sudden losses affected increasingly larger proportions of total hive counts. By then, some honey bee operations had lost 50 to 90% of their hives. For the next 8 years, farmers reported hive losses averaging 33% per year.

Current Research

Research has pointed to several possible explanations, although combinations of factors are probably in play. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency joined forces to monitor CCD.

Various avenues of research are being pursued involving mites, fungi, loss of habitat, and lack of genetic diversity. Additional issues include chemical contamination of food sources and agricultural pesticides, notably the controversial neonicotinoids and fungicides. The Varroa mite and phorid flies are being researched for diseases that they could be vectoring into the hives.

Another question centers on pollen’s nutritional content from our crops, which might be weakening immunity.

In 2006, the honey bee’s genetic code was sequenced, opening up molecular approaches to treating CCD. Continuing research projects, through surveys, samples, and mitigation techniques overseen by the USDA, are getting closer to solutions. Unfortunately, there are no definitive answers for now.

Courses of action currently being followed include using antibiotics, fumigants, and genetic stock showing immunity to disease.

Honey bee on aster.

So, What Can We Do About It?

To Spray Or Not to Spray

We can manage our properties in ways that are less harmful to the bees’ health. First, consider whether or not we really need to spray every insect that shows up in our landscape. No, of course we don’t!

Maybe you’ve been using a certain product for the last 30 years because it has delivered a 100% kill rate. Overkill? Okay, then, now might be a good time to reassess the need for it. By the way, most municipal recycling stations take old or unwanted containers of chemicals. Please don’t throw them in the trash or pour them down the drain or in the yard!

Make some changes today that help restore ecological health and predator/prey balance to your landscape.

If there are only a few pests damaging your plants, hand-pick them. Cutting them in half or squashing them is more humane than salting them or dropping them in a bucket of soapy water. Never use salt in the garden. A strong spray of water from the hose will wash away most of the aphids.

It’s unrealistic to be entirely free of insect life. And no one wants to live in that world.

Try Using These

In my gardens, I rarely use anything stronger than horticultural oil, organic Sluggo, or Bt. All of them are available in garden centers. See if you can tolerate less than perfect foliage or fruit in return for a cleaner environment. As I grow older, imperfection becomes increasingly acceptable.

Investigate some of the organic options, which are gaining favor throughout the gardening world. The products I mentioned are available from some manufacturers that have been licensed to print the “OMRI” logo (Organic Materials Review Institute) on their labels. Some companies choose not to pay the licensing fee, but their products are “just as organic” as the OMRI products.

Most importantly, don’t spray plants when pollinators are actively visiting them. The products mentioned above do not harm honey bees if used according to label instructions. Follow them carefully, paying special attention to dilution rates and time of application.

Bt

Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is a naturally occurring bacterium that paralyzes the digestive system of moth and butterfly larvae by changing the pH in their gut. After ingesting some of the Bt, the caterpillar stops feeding and dies a day or two later. It is more effective on younger caterpillars.

Dinosaur kale with caterpillar holes.

I use it on the brassicas (broccoli, kale, etc.) to prevent utter devastation by caterpillars. Not using it at all means more than just a few holes in the leaves. The leaves disappear!

It works on gypsy moths, canker worms, cabbage worms, cutworms, squash vine borers, tent caterpillars, and the “very hungry caterpillar” known as the tobacco hornworm, among others.

The tomato hornworm looks similar to the tobacco hornworm (photo, below), except it has V-shaped lines and a black “horn” instead of a red one. But, again, if you see entire tomato stems denuded of their leaves, look for that hornworm first before filling the sprayer. There might be only one or two on a large plant. (Tip: if you see their poop pellets, look above them.)

Different strains of Bt also control fungus gnats, potato beetles, mosquitoes, and nematodes.

Tobacco hornworm with parasitic wasp pupae.

Braconid Wasps

This species of Braconid wasp, Cotesia congregata, will kill or severely weaken the tobacco hornworm (photo, above). First, a female wasp lays eggs on or in the caterpillar. After hatching, the wasp larvae feed on the caterpillar’s internal tissues, and then pupate in the white cocoons.

Although it looks menacing, there’s really no need to spray this one. Simply remove the weakened caterpillar to the shrubs. The adult wasps will emerge, and then a bird or a lizard might finish off the caterpillar. The adult form of the hornworm is a type of hawk moth.

Headings

Page 1: What’s All the Buzz About Pollinators? (The Fruits of Pollination), Honey Bees (Why All the Fuss About Pollinators?, Current Research), and So, What Can We Do About It? (To Spray Or Not To Spray, Try Using These, Bt, Braconid Wasps)

Page 2: Planting for Pollinators (For Bees, For Butterflies and Moths, For Hummingbirds), Pollinators In the Landscape (Plant Selection, Host Plants and Nectar Plants, The Importance of Native Plants for Pollinators, Water and Minerals, Shelter), Attracting Pollinators to Your Garden, and National Pollinator Week

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