In Bloom

September 2009

Creating a Bee-Friendly Garden

In preparation for the up-coming Bee Fest at Temple University Ambler on Saturday, October 10, which is being held in conjunction with the Montgomery County Beekeepers’ Association, here are a few easy tips to make your garden friendlier for bees.

A Bee unfriendly Garden?

The first assumption is that we do want bees in our gardens. I never doubted this until I was asked to help design a garden that did not attract bees. The family had a swimming pool and wanted to keep bees away from the children. I can understand if there are serious life-threatening allergies to bees, but most of the time it is an ungrounded fear of being stung.

Bees, especially our domesticated honey bees are passive creatures which die after stinging so it in their best interest not to sting you. Obviously if you start batting at the bee that is another matter; the bee will probably try to sting you.

It is more difficult than you think to design a garden that is unattractive to bees as many of the plants that we grow in our gardens are flowering plants, many of which are insect pollinated. The ones that are not attractive to bees are mostly wind pollinated, which includes many of the grasses.

Why do we need bees?

In the home garden as well as in agriculture, it is important to remember that many of our food crops are only produced when they are pollinated by bees. A hundred years ago this was taken for granted in this area of Southeast Pennsylvania with many mixed farms and no real use of synthetic pesticides. 

Here at the Ambler Campus we have some hives in the Research Garden and it is wonderful to see so many of them here at the Arboretum. Bees have been kept on this site on and off for about 100 years. In the early days when it was the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women beekeeping was taught here.

The key message is that the bee as it is collecting nectar brushes against the stamens (male part) of a flower, picking up pollen in the pollen sacs on its leg. The bee flies to another flower of the same species to collect more nectar and inadvertently brushes some pollen onto the stigma (female part) of the next flower. A pollen tube is formed which takes the genetic material from the pollen down into the heart of the flower where it can fertilize the female ovule. This is called cross-pollination. The resulting fruit, such as an apple or a watermelon begins to form. That is why, as humans, we need bees as so much of the food that we eat is dependent upon this process.

Making your garden attractive to bees

There are many types of bees that may visit your garden. There are many native bees as well as the familiar honey bee. As you probably know, the honey bees have been dying off (Colony Collapse Disorder) so now it is even more important to provide good conditions in your garden to support them.

As with any wildlife it is important to provide all the necessities of life and to enhance their habitat.

• Probably the kindest thing that you can do for bees is not to use pesticides and herbicides in your garden. Any toxic chemical, in minute amounts, can be taken up by a bee and brought back to the hive to infect the whole colony.
• Provide a water source in your garden. A bird bath that is regularly cleaned or a pond that has shallow edges or rocks provides the bees a place to obtain necessary small amounts of water.
• Plant a diversity of different plants in the garden that bloom at different times. Bees are most active in the summer and fall months, but on a warm early spring day they may come out of the hive and forage for food. Make sure that there is something for them to eat. Plant diversity also allows for different bee species to find suitable nectar to collect. Many of our native bees preferentially seek out nectar from native plants, so make sure that you include these in your mix.
• Bee friendly lawns. With the indoctrination that happens each year via television advertisements to provide a perfect grass-only lawn, many people have forgotten that back in the early part of the 20th Century the prized lawn was full of clover. Clover is really a little nitrogen fixing machine that traps the nitrogen gas from the air and, using the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the root nodules, converts it to a form that the plants can use for growth. How much better is that for the lawn? The nitrogen is fixed and cannot wash away in a storm. The added benefit for us is that bees love the clover flowers. Clover honey made by bees that have collected clover nectar is a prized and delicious treat.
• Plant trees in your garden that are loaded with nectar. One large tree when in flower can keep hives of bees fed on nectar. Some of the best include Horse Chestnut, Buckeyes, Lindens, Black Locust, Catalpa, fruit trees and the Tupelo.
• Plant large drifts of bee attracting plants. By providing a larger number of herbaceous plants the same effect is produced as above with one or two big trees. The scouting bees take the message of the whereabouts of nectar sources back to the hive and pass the information on by means of a "dance" that specifies distance and direction to the food.

What to plant in a bee-friendly garden

Here are a few suggestions of plants that are especially attractive to bees:

Find out more about Bee Fest!

Bee Fest is part of Temple University Ambler's Fall 2009 Cultural Affairs Series. Learn more here or visit the links below!

If you have any questions please feel free to email me at arboretum@temple.edu.

Cheers,

Jenny Rose Carey
Director
Ambler Arboretum of Temple University

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