Pollinator Paradise Yard

Here are the four “P’s” to create a pollinator friendly garden and yard. With a little bit of planning  you can create an ideal environment for your bees and subsequently enjoy the harvests of their labors.

Plants/Pollen Source

Bees use pollen as food. They eat it themselves and collect it for their offspring.  For optimal pollination and bee reproduction follow these tips:

  • Plant diversity: It is ideal  for bees to have blossoms to pollinate for their entire life span. Adding multiple types of plants that bloom through out the season ensures the bees won’t go through a “dry spell”  without blossoms to pollinate.
  • Lawns: Though green grass is nice to look at, and play on, it is essentially a barren wasteland to bees. Think about ways to break up large stretches of lawn with flower beds or put flowers around the perimeters of  grassy areas. It doesn’t hurt to leave a few dandelions either (wink, wink).

Pesticides

All insecticides harm bees; we suggest avoiding them. However there are a few tricks if you must use an insecticide to help minimize the damage to the bees.

  • Only spray at night (they sleep in their holes at night).
  • After the bees stop flying for the day cover the house with a plastic sac.
  • Try to avoid spraying the blossoms as much as possible.
  • Use the mildest and least amount of spray possible to get desired result.
  • Remove the plastic bag before the bees need to get flying in the morning.

Protect From Predators

We go into more detail with this here on our pest page. A few of our suggestions include:

  • Ensure the house is at least three feet off the ground.
  • place chicken wire over the face of the house.
  • Clean out used reeds.
  • Take down the house in the winter.

Place to Nest

All of our bees are tunnel nesting bees. They make their homes in tunnels they find. In the wild they will use holes in dead trees, crevices under rocks, ect.. If bees can not find a good place to nest they will fly away. You can create your own bee house or buy one here. Our bee houses are made to attract bees and are an ideal place for bees to lay their offspring. Check out our top nesting materials page here  for more information on choosing a bee house.

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