We were sitting on the porch when the bee zipped by, buzzing loudly. It first passed me then circled to inspect the young girl beside me.
“Eeeeeek!” She screamed as she catapulted herself off the rocker and ran around wildly.
“It’s just a bee checking you out,” I said.
But she wasn’t hearing any of it. She continued to flail her arms. “It’s trying to sting me,” she cried.
What have bees done to instill such fear?
I was stung once, as a child, when I accidentally stepped on one. Growing up in Miami, shoes were optional and usually ignored.
Saving the bees has been the buzz out of the Obama administration this past month. But did you know that honey bees are a European import, and long before they were brought to this country our native pollinators were hard at work making sure plants were pollinated and produced fruit? The massive agricultural projects of the 1800s and 1900s necessitated enormous colonies of honey bees, and now they are suffering from various maladies brought on by decades of pesticides and virus.
European honey bees are very social colonizers. But most of our native bees are solitary ground dwellers. Some live in wood and hollow stems.
The ground dwellers are typically the females building nests for their eggs. Since the males don’t have nests to go home to they find a branch or flower head to congregate on and sometimes sleeping in clusters. Though at night they cling together, during the day they are fierce adversaries dutifully defending their floral territories.
Bumblebees are the only social, colonizer bees native to North America. They are familiar to most, with their large, fuzzy black-and-yellow striped bodies lumbering from flower to flower. With their loud buzzing, they are often heard before they are seen. Flowers droop when they land leaving them clutching on upside down. Although they are honey bees, they only produce enough to support their colony.
Join the Suncoast chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society at SuncoastNPS.org. The chapter meets every third Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Seffner Extension Service office.
TYPES OF NATIVE BEES
SWEAT | They are attracted to the salt in your sweat. Some are so tiny they look like ants with wings.
Leafcutter | The female leafcutter bee cuts a near perfect circular piece out of your leaves or petals to line her nest. You might attribute the hole, the size of a blueberry, to a hungry caterpillar.
Plasterer | Also know as yellow-faced bees, plasterers have a unique method of lining their brood cells with a completely waterproof cellophane-like material secreted from their gland, hence their name. They are often mistaken for wasps.
Mining | They are known for their sometimes conspicuous mounds of dirt they excavate when building their nests.
HOW TO ATTRACT NATIVE BEES TO YOUR YARD
• Eliminate pesticides.
• Provide habitat by leaving bare, sandy areas where ground dwellers can build nests. Leave dried, hollow stems.
• Provide water sources and plenty of native plants that produce the nectar and pollen bees are seeking.
NATIVE PLANTS BEES LIKE
Often the showiest plants are not the ones the bees are looking for. The lowly Spanish needle, which is the bane of most gardeners, is instrumental in Florida’s ecology. Even the tiny fog fruit is sought after, whereas some exotics may be totally unvisited by bees.
In my yard, the thryallus blooms all summer but I never see bees visit it, whereas, my Simpson stopper is covered with bees when in bloom in the spring.
Plant native plants that bloom at different times of the year to keep something always available. Try these:
Blanket flower, dune sunflower, Simpson stopper, fire brush, Spanish needle, turkey tangle fog fruit, spotted bee balm.