Bees

I want bees, and I want to do some research, and want another graphic.  Hold on, I'll be right back.

(....)

Okay, I found the coolest resource.  It has an excellent graph, and good information one how to help bees want to come to the California garden.

• Native bees are mostly ground-dwellers.  Don't mulch everything all the time so they can burrow.
• Native bees like native flowers best and are MUCH less likely to sting than honeybees.
• Big clumps of each flower, so the bees don't have to fly all over, are excellent.
• Many standard culinary herbs are big hits with bees (sage, thyme, mint, verbena, rosemary) so the herb garden may be a good place to stock up on the flowers.
• Purple and blue are bees' favorite colors, followed by yellow and orange.
• In addition to flowers, bees need a source of water if one is not nearby. A small pond, puddle, birdbath, or even dripping faucet fulfills this need.

More more more: Here is a really really big list of bee-feeding plants, and here's where you can ID your bee.




Fun Facts, lifted directly from the Urban Bee Legends page: California actually has about 1,600 species of bees, both native and very few non-native, living throughout the state. This is actually a very large percentage of bees as the United States has only about 4,000 species of bees. Worldwide there is estimated to be about 20,000 species of bees. California is home to a large diversity of flowering plants (~6,000 plant types), most of which are associated and have evolved with native bees. Our statewide survey of California’s urban areas has identified almost 250 species of bees living in seven cities, and we expect to add more species as we survey more cities. Typically, people are most familiar with honey bees, bumble bees, and carpenter bees, but there are many other types that can be easily observed in gardens and other floral rich places. Some of the most common bees we observe in urban areas include many types of sweat bees, the ultra-green sweat bee, digger bees, long-horned bees, leafcutting bees, yellow-faced bees, and wool carder bees.