BEES IN THE GARDEN

Not ready to take up beekeeping but still want to help? Here are some tips from the Honeybee Conservancy.

› Rethink your lawn. Replace part or all of your front lawn grass with flowering plants, which provide food and habitat for honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

› Select single-flower tops for your bee garden. Choose daisies and marigolds, rather than double flower tops such as double impatiens. Double-headed flowers look showy but produce much less nectar and make it much more difficult for bees to access pollen.

Skip highly hybridized plants. They have been bred not to seed and thus produce very little pollen for bees.

Plan for blooms season-round. Plant at least three types of flowers in your bee garden to ensure

blooms through as many seasons as possible. This will provide bees and other pollinators with a constant source of food.

For example:

Spring: Crocus, hyacinth, borage, calendula and wild lilac.

Summer: Bee balm, cosmos, echinacea, snapdragons foxglove and hosta.

Fall: Zinnias, sedum, asters, witch hazel and goldenrod. › Build homes for native bees. Leave a patch of the garden in a sunny spot uncultivated for native bees that burrow. Some native bees also need access to soil surface for nesting. For wood- and stem-nesting bees, this means piles of branches, bamboo sections, hollow reeds or nesting blocks made out of untreated wood. Mason bees need a source of water and mud, and many kinds of bees are attracted to weedy, untended hedgerows.

› Use only natural pesticides and fertilizers. Not only are herbicides and chemical pesticides toxic to bees, but they also are best not introduced to children or adults who visit your garden. Ladybugs, spiders and praying mantises will naturally keep pest populations in check.

Create a “bee bath.” Bees need a place to get fresh, clean water. Fill a shallow container of water with pebbles or twigs for the bees to land on while drinking. Make sure to maintain the container full of fresh water to ensure that they know they can return to the same spot every day in your bee garden.

No room for a garden? You need only a small plot of land — it can even be a window container or rooftop — to create an inviting oasis for bees. Every little bit can help to nurture bees and other pollinators.