Category Pollinator Gardening & Native Bees

Gardening for honeybees, native bees, butterflies and other pollinators: plant choices, garden design, and habitat for the many bee species that are not honeybees. Most bees in a North American garden are solitary. The female provisions her own nest in the ground, a hollow stem or an old beetle hole, and dies long before her offspring emerge the following spring. Gardening for them is a different task from keeping honeybees.

One group profiles the native bees you are likely to meet: mason and leafcutter bees in orchards and stem bundles, squash bees in pumpkin flowers before sunrise, mining and sweat bees in bare ground, bumblebees, wool carder bees and cuckoo bees, plus an identification chart sorted by nesting behavior. A second group covers the garden itself: fall-blooming flowers, container gardens, companion planting, and what the research says about lavender, No Mow May and bumblebee nest boxes. A third looks at habitat: bee bricks, mason bee houses that do not become a disease trap, and pesticide-free lawn care.

It is for gardeners who want their planting to do real ecological work, for beekeepers wondering whether their hives compete with wild bees, and for anyone who has found an unfamiliar bee.

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