Bee friendly, save the pollinators

By Sarah Bearup-Neal
Sun contributor

The Glen Arbor Garden Club has some news for you: Better living through chemistry is not a strategy that works for bees.

In addition to the threat posed by habitat loss, pesticides used in both home gardening and commercially-produced plants do a real number on our pollinating pals.

Kills them, for one thing.

Why does this matter?

The decline of pollinator populations (i.e. bees) is a threat to the three E’s: ecosystem, eating and economies (of both the human animal and other-animal/insect varieties). Take, for instance, humans’ food supply. One in three bites of food depends upon the pollinating activities of bees, said Sarah Litch, chairperson of the Glen Lake Garden Club’s (GLGC) Conservation Committee. Food doesn’t happen in a world without bees. According to the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), “ Many nutritionally and economically important crops either wouldn’t fruit at all or would produce much lower yields without bees,” among them cherries, apples, peaches, plums and blueberries. PANNA estimates pollinators’ contribution to the U.S. economy at more than $15 billion a year.

And so, the GLGC has taken on the challenge of raising pollinators’ profile. The club has adopted as its year-long project a campaign they’re calling “Bee Aware.” It’s part of a nation-wide campaign spearheaded by the National Garden Club (NGC), of which the GLGC is one of 6,000 clubs. The NGC has partnered with Crown Bees, a Mason bee pollination and education company in Woodinville, Wash.

Mason bees are a good standard bearer for this campaign. They are Michigan natives for one thing. These solitary creatures are gentle, too: They tolerate human behavior and rarely sting. More importantly, however, Mason bees are highly efficient pollinators.

“Two-to-four Mason bees can do the job of pollinating an average fruit tree that would (require) about 320 honeybees,” Litch said. “They only travel about 300 yards (from their homes), and pretty much stay in your yard,” Litch said. This makes the backyard gardener “key to the success of the pollination of food.”

Mason bees are not to be confused with honeybees, social beings who have been much in the news. These non-native bees were brought to the North American continent in the 17th century, Litch said, but are now in severe decline because of parasites and disease. These threats have refocused attention on native bees, which don’t require sting-resistant clothing, transportable hives and an array of other specialized tools to get the job done.

The GLGC’s “Bee Aware” campaign is full of action items intended to get more home gardeners with the program. On the passive end of the spectrum, the GLGC has partnered with Cherry Republic to produce an informational bookmark with tips for creating a Mason bee-friendly yard. Find them at Cherry Republic and the Glen Lake Community Library.

The biggest push in the GLGC’s campaign is to bring about a “Bee Friendly” Glen Arbor. To qualify for “Bee Friendly” status—and to receive a yard sign from the GLGC with those distinctive words painted on it—the home gardener must meet five criteria:

• Say No: No/nil/nada use of herbicides, pesticides and/or fungicides on the property, especially Neonicotinoids. This polysyllabic word, shortened to “neonics,” is a synonym for death. It’s a neurotoxin often used to coat plant seed, found in flea collars, lawn treatments and some garden composts. Many commercially grown plants found at big box garden centers are grown from these coated seeds. And once the neonics are part of the plant’s biology, they stay there and contaminate soil.

As for bees, neonics compromise the insects’ immune system, leaving them vulnerable to pests and pathogens.

“Fifty-four percent of the plants sold at big box garden centers are treated with neonicotinoids,” Litch said. “When planted in the garden, these plants are essentially killing bees.”

Neonicotinoids have been restricted in Europe for a period of two years. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, has done nothing. In response, the GLGC has commenced a multipronged letter writing campaign. One electronic missive urging an end to the use of neonics was addressed to First Lady Michelle Obama (“because she’s in tune,” Litch said); others requesting neonic-treated plants be eliminated from Lowe’s and Home Depot garden centers have gone to Robert Niblock and Frank Blake, the CEOs of Lowe’s and Home Depot, respectively.

• Mi casa, bee casa: Install a Mason bee house so they have a place to nest. These simple structures are filled with reed or cardboard tubes, in which the Mason bee queen deposits an egg. A characteristic of solitary bees like the Mason bee (vs. the honey bee, who is social) is cold blood. They need to heat up in the morning, so place your bee house in a full-sun location. These houses can be found at hardware and garden centers. The Internet is also a source of do-it-yourself building instructions. A short, tip-filled tutorial about Mason bees houses—and how to foster Mason bee eggs through the winter—is on the website, CrownBees.com.

• Bloom Baby, Bloom: Add native flowers, shrubs and trees that flower from spring to fall, to provide a continuous source of bee food. “Research shows native plants are four times more attractive to native bees than exotic flowers,” said the NGC’s Debbie Skow.

“That’s what the bees grew up with,” added Litch.

According to the NGC, blue, purple, violet, white and yellow flowers are “especially attractive” to bees. And the best plants of all are ones that do not start from treated seed. Look for organically grown seed and plants, said Nancy Lawson, editor of All Animals Magazine. “My go-to source for vegetables and annuals is Seeds of Change, but even many conventional suppliers now sell untreated products.”

• Bees like a drink: Provide a source of fresh water outside your home, Litch said. Mason bees need water to create the pollen-nectar “bread” in which they deposit their eggs. If using a basin, add a few stones to it. Bees need a place to sit while they belly up to the water bar.

• Get Dirty: As the name implies, Mason bees use mud to cap off nesting holes—that’s another reason why they need water. They mix spit/moisture with dirt to create the mortar necessary to cover over nesting tubes. Provide a source of dirt. “Open up spots in the garden,” Litch said.

According to Litch, 10 local families have embraced the challenge and now have gardens that are certified “Bee Friendly,” her own included. Of all the frightening troubles that swarm modern life, learning to live amicably and cooperatively with Mason bees by creating a “Bee Friendly” yard strikes one as embrace-ably do-able. The reality is, it isn’t, Litch said.

“We came from another country to tame the wilderness,” she said. It’s part of our national identity and, she adds, “we don’t get things right away. We have to internalize a problem in order to get the impact in our own time.”

But is “our own time” compatible with bee time? Can a paradigm shift to bee friendly living happen in time? The GLGC is going to do its best to see if can bring about a community-wide epiphany—one year and one home garden at a time.

For more information about creating a bee-friendly yard, call Sarah Litch at 231-334-3612. Need some inspiration? Check out the GLGC’s bee-friendly community planters at the Glen Lake Community Library, flower barrels around the village and at town hall, the community garden on Lake Street and at the M-22 tennis courts.