If you create it...... they will come
Help to bring honey bees back to their hives by creating a pollinator friendly garden. Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream has made a large donation to the University of California Davis Department of Entomolgy to launch a nationwide design competion to create a one-half acre Honey Bee Haven garden for their campus. It is open to all. Design submissions for the competition should describe a one-half-acre garden that can be installed for $65,000 or less. Submissions must include a site plan, planting plan, maintenance program and construction cost estimate. The plans should include plant species that provide forage for honey bees, a bee-accessible water source, and environmentally friendly paths for visitors.
Honey bees are disappearing from the US and beekeepers have reported losing from one-third to all of their bees in recent years. Honey bees pollinate more than 100 different U.S. agricultural crops and are dying from an unexplained phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder." First identified three years ago, the disorder is characterized by hive abandonment. The bees disappear, often leaving behind the honey and the immature bees, which die if not fed by the worker bees.
Check out the following website for details:
Photos by NAP 2008 photo contest entrants:
1)Nancy Munson
2)Brad Orr
Posts
2 comments:
Bees are so cute, especially in macro shots! You know, I have good plant diversity so I have good wildlife/bug diversity, too. My plants are hardy and healthy, even though the soil was initially bad. Encouraging everyone to plant for wildlife is great--not only can you enjoy the visitors, but your garden is better off for them.
~Monica
We certainly need to encourage pollinators, but not honeybees. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are not a native species, they were brought from Europe. They compete with native bumblebees, solitary bees, and other pollinators. Until the accidental arrival of some honeybee parasites from Europe and Asia, feral honeybee hives were common in natural areas. They might well have been considered an invasive species in North America.
Sure, honeybees are good to have around, and can be important pollinators for agriculture and gardening. But if you want to benefit *wildlife* then native pollinators like bumblebees, solitary bees, flower flies, and butterflies deserve attention.
Here are sites with more information:
http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/gardening.shtml
http://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/
http://www.nbii.gov/portal/community/Communities/Ecological_Topics/Pollinators/
Post a Comment