Things are certainly buzzing in the garden these days. Plants are popping out of the ground with vigor, and the bees…oh, the bees. There are so many of them, all wandering about the bushes, delighted that it’s finally a little sunny and that the flowers are out.
Many of us are afraid of bees. While bees can sting, they don’t tend to do so, for the most part. Their cousins the wasps are a little more daring, and they’ve given the bee a bad name over the years. Honeybees will sting if threatened, but they do it at a high cost to themselves: stinging tears away part of their abdomen. The gentle mason bee and bumblebee will sting if you try to hurt them directly, but they rarely do so unless you threaten their nest or squish them by accident.
If we can get over our concerns about being stung, the thing that we really do need to worry about is the health of the bees themselves. The European honeybee is often in the news, since it suffers from diseases that threaten its population. Since people are not overly fond of bees, finding a ground nest of the gentle, native bumblebee might lead to its destruction. A combination of poor habitat and disease have really hurt bee populations.
Why should we care? Well, bees are important. The job of pollinator is very important. Without pollination, many crops could not grow, and bees are one of the main players in pollination.
Whether you have a budding entomologist or you just really like flowers and fresh veggies, watching bees in your garden is a delightful spring activity. The longer you watch, the more you’ll be tempted to create more habitat and food for the bees.
If you’re bee watching, what will you see in the garden?
You will see many creatures. Some are wasps and some are hoverflies that look like bees. They do this to scare off predators. The true bees will be rounder and furrier than these two insects.
The honeybee is slim and looks most like a wasp of any of the bees. It is a little furry, but not as furry as its other bee cousins. This bee is medium-sized and has many stripes, including gray stripes on its abdomen. The abdomen is the bottom part of the bee, below the legs. The abdomen is somewhat pointy.
The bumblebee is larger and furrier than the honeybee. It has a rounder body, and it often has black on it. It tends to have fewer stripes and more large chunks of color on its body. The bumblebee is the earliest of all of the bees to emerge in the spring – it’s the one pollinating on chilly early spring days.
The mason bee comes out after the honeybee. This mild-mannered bee is often mistaken for a fly.It’s smaller and darker than the honeybee, and it’s often found carrying mud to tiny holes. It uses this mud to make its nest.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at some kid-friendly ways that you can do to support the bee populations in your garden!
Image Credit: Royxnavy