Honey of a deal
Bees do a lot for humans – sheltering them seems only fair
Gardening is most rewarding when you take the time to look. That gnat on the chervil flower may be a tiny wasp that is obligingly pollinating the bloom.
I find these small, harmless wild bees and wasps enormously entertaining as they flit about and feed on nectar and pollen. I can’t distinguish all the species, but I know they are valuable and of no bother to me. Moreover, I draw great satisfaction in feeling that I have helped create an environment where these winged wonders can thrive.
Other gardeners go further, and they put out nesting tubes for bees — bee houses or bee nesting boxes or bee hotels, call them what you will — and they are an effective way to draw certain bee species to your domain.
There are pitfalls and there is disagreement, too, as to how they should be managed, but on balance bee houses offer a great way to invite this hidden universe into your landscape. At the very least, putting a bee house in your garden offers a constructive and educational distraction from pandemic blues, especially in households with young children.
The bee house ranges from something as simple as a few hollow reeds bundled together to elaborate framed structures that you can buy. And yes — unlike slotted butterfly houses (remember those?) — they actually work.
Everyone is familiar with honeybees, an Old World bee long established in North America, but the bees that are drawn to bee houses are principally species of mason and leafcutter bees.
There are approximately 3,600 species of wild bee in the United States.
The most conspicuous type of these, the beleaguered bumblebee, doesn’t inhabit bee houses but nests together in the ground, old mouse nests and even tussocks of grass.
For the most part, wild bees “are small, they’re dark and they’re in the background,” says Jennifer Hopwood, a conservation specialist with the Xerces Society. “But they’re still out there, and it’s important to support them when we can.”
Most wild bees nest in such terrestrial places, but about a quarter of them inhabit tunnels in decaying wood, fallen logs or in hollowed-out stems, making them potential tenants for the bee house, says David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation and author of “Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife.”
These bees are solitary; they don’t live in hives or nests, though they will gather in bundled tubes, one to a tunnel, to shelter and raise their young.
Whether you make your own bee house or buy a ready-made one, Mizejewski and Holly Walker, plant health specialist at Smithsonian Gardens, offer these tips for success: The tubes should be removable for good bee house sanitation; fungal diseases can build up and sicken the bees.
And if you want to go above and beyond, you can collect the tubes in the fall, dismantle them carefully to examine the hibernating cocoons and discard the pupae that have disease or parasites. The keepers are then stored in a cold, sheltered spot — not indoors — over the winter so they can emerge in the spring.
Other experts say you don’t have to go to such bother to be a successful native bee guardian; replacing tubes every year or two is sufficient.
Harvesting and cleaning bamboo is laborious, says Sam Droege, a biologist at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, but reeds and