Bees and Honeybees are important pollinators that exist in our environment. Unfortunately, disease, pesticides, and other factors have caused bee populations to plummet in recent years.
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Many people have decided to become beekeepers. When you do you become part of this important environmental circle of life. Helping pollinators become more abundant is essential to our eco-system.
Without bees, we won’t have fresh food from the garden anymore. We’ll have no more honey (obviously), no more almonds, apples, avocados, cashews, blueberries, grapes, peaches, peppers, strawberries, tangerines, walnuts, watermelons… And about 100 more flowering plants will be gone, including your morning cup of coffee.
Managing Honeybees
Becoming a beekeeper involves managing bees. You could be a hobbyist or work towards being a farmer. The goal is to keep a colony alive to produce honey and pollinate crops. Also, it is important to ensure the queen is healthy to produce eggs.
Eventually, beekeepers can harvest honey and combs for personal use. In natural and green beekeeping, don’t take all the honey. You leave some for the bees to use for food instead of giving them artificial food choices.
If honeybees were to become extinct, we would lose many species of plants that rely on them. Animals would end up not having these plants to eat or to make their habitats. It would be devastating to our entire ecosystem. Some believe it would lead to the literal collapse of our planet.
Solitary Bees
Does managing honeybees has your mind buzzing? Consider creating a habitat for solitary bees.
There is a wide variety of solitary bees that are native to different areas. These bees are non-aggressive. They rarely sting, most of them don’t have stingers. Due to this they are safe around kids and pets.
Some of the solitary pollination bees to learn about include:
- Leafcutter Bees
- Mason Bees
- Sunflower Bees
- Blueberry Bees
- Texana Bees
Solitary bees don’t colonize, they will construct their nests near each other, in the same house. By having a house that will attract this variety you will have bees all throughout the season. Each variety emerges at a different temperature so it keeps pollinators in your garden all seasons.
To manage solitary bees only takes a few hours each year and four easy steps.
- Set up a bee house in the summer
- If you purchased solitary bees take them out of cold hibernation and place them in the bee house
- In the late fall take the bee house down and place bees in cold storage.
- Store bees in a cold garage or refrigerator.
If you don’t want to tend to any bees, that’s okay. Consider having flowering plants in your outdoor environment to support them. Attracting bees can help you have a vibrant garden. Do not use pesticides or herbicides. These steps can help reestablish our natural pollinators.
