Bee's Bliss Sage

Spring has come early to my California garden and the Bee's Bliss sage is blooming, and like its name, it is creating bliss-filled days for the bees and other pollinators. It is a great plant to consider for a Western garden as it is drought tolerant once established. It can handle a wide range of garden conditions, growing around 2 feet high and 6-8 feet wide. With grey-green leaves and spike-like, lavender flowers, Bee's Bliss is a favorite of hummingbirds. Deer detest it; another good reason to add it to your garden favorites!

Those Wily Wasps!

Yellowjackets are probably the most feared enemy of every summer picnic. While bees are minding their business collecting pollen, wily wasps, namely, yellowjackets, are in search of food and attack your plate with greedy ferocity. They have a nasty sting, along with their close cousin, the hornet, that is also highly aggressive. 

Yellowjackets and hornets are social wasps. Yellowjackets live in underground nests, whereas hornets build the stereotypical hive that looks like a papery, grey football. Surprisingly, most wasps live a solitary existence and don’t sting. Like bees, wasps bring huge ecological benefits to our ecosystem. They pollinate flowers and food crops as bees do and control the populations of crop pests such as whiteflies, caterpillars and beetle grubs. Many farmers know the benefit of using wasps as natural pest control for food crops, which minimizes the need for toxic pesticides that destroy pollinators and their environment. A small colony of wasps can eat up to 3,000 mosquitos and flies per day, killing off insects that carry human diseases. They keep the environment clean, feeding on dead animals like mini-garbage disposals. While often eating their prey themselves, they also bring food back to their nests to feed their growing larvae.

Bees have started to attract a lot of public interest and support as news of their decline has made headlines. Not so for wasps, which are also threatened due to climate change, habitat loss and pesticides. Because they play an important role in the ecosystem, wasps also deserve appreciation and support, as do all the other pollinators in decline. 

                                            A Mud Dauber wasp on a Bird of Paradise flower

Carpenter Bees

"I'm a carpenter bee and I dig a tunnel in wood that becomes a nest for my brood..."

Excerpt from: Can You See If I'm A Bee? By Melissa Garrick Edwards

 

Carpenter Bees

 

Carpenter bees get their name because they usually excavate tunnels in wood to build their nests in. Some carpenter bees and bumblebee queens are the largest native bees in the United States. They don't eat the wood they carve, but they can cause damage to structures that are dry, weathered, and in need of replacement. 

 

Carpenter Bee Habitat

 

Carpenter bees are not social insects like honey or bumblebees, which is why they don't live in hives and create individual nests in trees, eaves, or sides of structures. They overwinter in old nest tunnels and in the spring they emerge to mate. While the mated female chooses a suitable piece of wood for her nest, the male spends most of his time protecting the nest site by hovering and chasing intruders away. The female makes a tunnel using her mandibles and then furnishes her nest with a mixture of nectar and pollen called "bee bread." She lays an egg and then chews the wood into a pulp to plug the nest cell with. 

 

Carpenter Bee Behaviors

 

Male carpenter bees don't have stingers but act threatening while protecting a nest. Female carpenter bees usually won't sting because they'll die and won't be able to take care of their eggs. If someone is allergic to bee venom and is stung by a carpenter bee, they should seek medical attention immediately.

Illustration of Carpenter Bee by Jonathan Woodward from: Can You See If I'm A Bee?
 

Give Thanks To Squash Bees

Thanksgiving and Halloween are over, but I forgot 

to show my appreciation for a very special bee! 

 

A critical pollinator, the squash bee is often mistaken for honeybees. Still, there is a difference as squash bees only pollinate plants in the group of herbaceous vegetables in the gourd family, including pumpkins, summer and winter squash, zucchini, and gourds. 

Thanks to the squash bee, we have pumpkins to carve for Halloween and tasty vegetables to eat at Thanksgiving! 

 

The Mason Bee - A Mighty Pollinator!

 

The Mason Bee - A Mighty Pollinator!

When most of us hear the word “bee,” an image of a honeybee or bumblebee comes to mind. However, there are so many other kinds of bees that most people don’t know exist.

There are two distinct groups of bees; some are social, and others are solitary. Honey and bumblebees are social; they live together in large colonies or hives. Other bees, like the mason bee, live solitary lives, building their nests, laying eggs, and stockpiling food for their young in them. So how are mason bees different than honey or bumblebees?

First, they don’t make honey, nor do they sting (unless you squeeze them!). If a mason bee stings you, the sting isn’t painful. Mason bees are super-pollinators because one mason bee can do the work of about seventy-five honeybees! A very impressive bee!

Bees And Blooms

 Bees and Blooms

What plants do bees prefer? Different species of bees prefer different types of flowers. Bees generally prefer plants that produce both nectar and pollen and are attracted to gardens with various flowering plants.

The Pollinator Partnership (www.pollinatorpartnership.org) has a fantastic website to help with plant selections for your garden. Their plant selections are tailored to specific areas of the United States. You get a free guide per your “ecoregion” by entering your zip code. You’ll get a manual with beautiful photos that include 24 pages of native planting information and in full PDF format.

A honeybee on a Blue Daze (Evolvulus species) in my Florida garden. This plant is a rarity as it offers genuine blue flowers! It also blooms non-stop and the sky-blue flowers stand out against its silvery, greyish-green foliage. It is excellent for containers, garden beds or borders where it spills out over edges creating a soft-looking landscape. Check your planting zone for compatibility.

Read and Rhyme!

 Why it is Time to Read and Rhyme!

 

Now a classic fable, Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" was my childhood favorite. Why? Because it was silly, it rhymed, and my dad used to make funny faces whenever he read it to me. The rhyming cadence of the book made it easier for him to alter the rhythm in his voice; it didn't slip into a monotonous one as it did with the boring "Dick and Jane" books.

 

I started to make up my rhymes just for fun and jot them down in my stories as I was learning to write. When I became a teenager, I immediately developed a love of poetry. As an adult, I'd make my kids laugh (or roll their eyes) as I spoke to them in rhymes. I read all of Dr. Seuss's books to them too. 

 

Today's research shows that Dr. Seuss' books served as a gateway to the phonics-based approach to learning how to read. Rhyme is essential for teaching children to read the structures and patterns of both spoken and written language. It also prepares them to make predictions while learning words, giving them crucial decoding skills.

 

Besides, it is fun to read a rhyming book, so I like to write children's books that rhyme. Children should enjoy learning, and they will experience how fun rhyming books are, whether they are read to by you or read it themselves. So, create delightful memories while building your child's self-expression confidence to read. You'll discover teaching children to rhyme is anything but a waste of time! 

Below: A sneak peek at the first page of my rhyming children's book: "Can You See If I'm A Bee?"