Do your part to help bees

There are few gar­den­ers who clock as many hours as hon­ey­bees. Many are out at first light of morn­ing and con­tinue to work until the last light of the evening sun from late spring-autumn. While hon­ey­bees do not mulch and weed they do pro­vide us an invalu­able ser­vice: pol­li­na­tion. When bees leave their hives to for­age for pollen, they bring life to mil­lions of plants along the way. A 2000 Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Study esti­mates that one out of every three bites of food we take relies on the pol­li­na­tion of hon­ey­bees; either plants that directly rely on pol­li­na­tion to pro­duce fruits and veg­eta­bles or live­stock who are fed diets of plants depen­dent on insect pol­li­na­tion. In 2006 when bee­keep­ers started los­ing mas­sive por­tions of their bees, it did not take the media long to notice.

A new term was born — Colony Col­lapse Dis­or­der (CCD). CCD essen­tially applies to hives that lose their bees for no appar­ent rea­son. There is no sign of dam­age from mites who prey on bees, no signs of trauma to the hive, and no dead bees any­where in sight. Essen­tially when bees van­ish with­out a trace, as they started to do in astro­nom­i­cal num­bers in 2006, it is called Colony Col­lapse Disorder.

Of course as with any story sen­sa­tion­al­ized by media, a num­ber of the­o­ries arise from all cor­ners of the world. Bee­keep­ers in France and the United King­dom fought gov­ern­ment and the Bayer Cor­po­ra­tion for stronger restric­tions on pes­ti­cide use. Some the­o­rized the rapidly declin­ing hon­ey­bee pop­u­la­tion were a result of global warm­ing and cli­mate change. Other the­o­ries are tossed around with mod­ern farm­ing prac­tices to blame. Accord­ing to a Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture Study, since 2006 the num­ber of CCD cases has risen con­sis­tently every year. A healthy bee­hive rou­tinely loses 15 to 20 per­cent of its bees over the win­ter, a hive with CCD aver­ages about 40 per­cent of bees lost.

Because many U.S. com­mer­cial crop pro­duc­tions like almonds, blue­ber­ries, pump­kins, and cran­ber­ries rely on pol­li­na­tion from com­mer­cial bee­keep­ers. These bee­keep­ers shut­tle thou­sands of hives on 18-wheeler trucks across the coun­try, set­ting up their hives in fields of farm­ers who con­tract them. Because of the decline in their bee pop­u­la­tions, the price of their ser­vice has almost tripled since 2005. This is reflected in the climb­ing costs of many of these crops.

While this is all very big, and my abil­ity to help is very small, I am excited to incor­po­rate as many new plants to attract hon­ey­bees in my gar­den as pos­si­ble. Unfor­tu­nately I do not know the cause of CCD or how to fix it, but I can def­i­nitely pro­vide addi­tional habi­tat for bees in my gar­den. I am inter­ested in keep­ing my own hive, but not ready to take that leap at this time.

Many of the plants favored by hon­ey­bees are beau­ti­ful spec­i­mens of stun­ning flow­ers and fra­grant herbs. Even one con­tainer planted with a few pollen-producing plants is a step in the right direc­tion and valu­able for­age for bees.

A few favorite plant­i­ngs for bees:

• Bor­age (Bor­ago offic­i­nal­lis): With beau­ti­ful and edi­ble blue blooms, this herb stands out as a win­ner for any gar­den. An annual herb that often seeds itself and returns year after year. The leaves have a light and fresh cucumber-like taste and fra­grance and are often used in sal­ads. It grows well in full sun-partial shade. Also is often used as a com­pan­ion plant to toma­toes and strawberries.

• Cos­mos (Cos­mos): Incred­i­bly easy to grow from seed, these flow­ers are an inex­pen­sive and beau­ti­ful addi­tion to the home gar­den. Full sun.

• Sun­flower (Helianthis annus): Who doesn’t love sun­flow­ers? These icons of late sum­mer attract bees and always stand out as cheer­ful and wel­com­ing. Full sun.

• Lemon Balm (Melissa offic­i­nal­lis): Melissa is actu­ally Greek for hon­ey­bee. Lemon balm has a light lemony fra­grance that can be used for any­thing from fla­vor­ing tea to a nat­ural mos­quito repellent—while attract­ing bees. It grows best in par­tial sun, although mine thrives in full shade. Because it is a mem­ber of the mint fam­ily, it must be planted in a container—otherwise it will spread rapidly.

Not only can we feel good for pro­vid­ing them with for­age, but they will thank us by pol­li­nat­ing our gardens.

If you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about bee­keep­ing, there is actu­ally an Ohio State Bee­keep­ers Asso­ci­a­tion that can get you started. Visit ohiostatebeekeepers.org to learn more.

Com­mu­nity Gar­den Day planned

Join the Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers for the annual com­mu­nity gar­den day. This year it will take place on Feb. 9 at the Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity Col­lege Delaware branch location.

The top­ics are designed for com­mu­nity gar­den lead­ers and gar­den­ers in gen­eral. A Year in Veg­eta­bles will be pre­sented by Bar­bara Arnold of the Franklin Park Con­ser­va­tory and Botan­i­cal Gar­dens. She will be show­ing you how you can have a full year of veg­eta­bles in our cen­tral Ohio cli­mate. Grow­ing Com­mu­nal Gar­den and Build­ing Rela­tion­ships is being done by Trish Clark of Local Mat­ters. She is the Grow­ing Mat­ters Pro­gram man­ager. Her topic is so impor­tant to all the com­mu­nity gar­dens that have come up over the recent years. We are always look­ing for ways to involve the local res­i­dents, com­mu­nity lead­ers and gar­den­ers into the com­mu­nity gar­den concept.

Next will be two fel­low Mas­ter Gar­den­ers from Lucas County to present their fea­tured pro­gram called From Plant to Plate. Find out ways to improve your gar­den­ing expe­ri­ence using local items, con­nect­ing the kids to pro­duce, and how you can incor­po­rate their ideas into yours.

Shawn Belt from the R.E.A.P. pro­gram in Cleve­land, will present a very fun pro­gram titled “Lasagna Gar­den­ing.” He will explain in detail how to treat your gar­den like lay­ers of our favorite Ital­ian dish, lasagna. How cool is that?

The com­mu­nity gar­den day will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Feb. 9. The reg­is­tra­tion is open to the pub­lic, but reser­va­tions must be made by Feb. 1. To reg­is­ter, call the OSU Exten­sion Office at 740–833-2030 or down­load a reg­is­tra­tion form at delaware.osu.edu and mail to the exten­sion office. Seat­ing is lim­ited, so make sure you sign up soon. The cost is $20 for the day and includes a box lunch, cof­fee and hand­outs. Hope to see you all there for a great day full of gar­den­ing inspiration.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jan 7 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.