My EcoBirder Life
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BEES & Other Pollinators
DIY Mason Bee House
An old wooden birdhouse can quickly and easily be turned into a mason bee house. Fill with these paper tubes, or you can also use flower stalks from the garden from plants such as Milkweed, Joe-Pye Weed, and native Asters. Note that the hole should be only as large as a pencil.
Take the front entrance board off any birdhouse. Drill and nail where necessary to make up for the structural support lost by the removal of the front. I also tilt the floor up just slightly so that the paper tubes will stay in better.
I made my rectangles 4 inches by 6 inches. Seems like overkill now...4"x3" is probably plenty.
then put a small piece of tape to keep it rolled up.
Add sticks that you've colored in the ends of, randomly spaced throughout the tubes. This helps the bee find her correct hole when she returns to make more chambers for her offspring.
In the fall, bring the whole house into a safe, unheated area, such as a garage or shed. Otherwise, hungry birds will pick those tubes clean during the winter.
Birds do it, bees do it...
I wasn't sure at first what these bumble-bees were doing. I thought they were fighting! But then a second male arrived, and after the first male (right photo) departed, this one began stroking the female on top of her thorax (far right photo). Oh my!! LOL
...let's do it, let's fall IN LOVE!!
Ssshh! The Bees Are Sleeping!
Do you ever wonder where bees go at night? I took these shots at dusk of some of the bees here in my habitat. They sometimes just rest on top of flowers or leaves, but most of them crawl under the petals of their favorite flowers.
Bumblebee Identification
All pollinators are in serious decline and need our help. I think a lot of people don't "like" bees, and so those of us who understand their importance need to work that much harder to turn our habitats into bee-friendly spaces. Make note of the flowers you see bumblebees on, and plant more of them. Leave patches of bare ground so that ground-nesting bees have a home.
As well as nectar plants, native bees need plants that provide them with materials for nesting. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Xerces Society put together a list of such plants on this site: http://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?collection=xerces_nesting Narrow the list down to your state using the controls on the left-hand side of the page.
Here are two wonderful PDFs on Bumblebee identification:
http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/documents/BumbleBeeGuideEast2011.pdf
http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/documents/BumbleBeeGuideWestern2012.pdf
If it looks like bee, is it always a bee?
Or, Why does this bee need a shave?
Not everything that looks like a bee IS a bee. Many insects
mimic other insects in order to protect themselves. This is
actually a Robber Fly, and it sure fooled me for awhile!
