Dont Plant Those Bee-Friendly Wildflowers Cheerios Is Giving Away

[JHan]

I asked Kathryn Turner, an ecologist who specializes in invasive plants and who was concerned about Cheerios’ approach, how it can be bad to plant a flower. “Context is important,” she said:

No plant is inherently ‘bad’, but many species can and have caused a great deal of damage when they are introduced into locations outside of their native range. Invasive species can out-compete the natives they encounter, they can take up all the space and use up all the resources, they can spread disease, and cause other physical changes to their new homes, all of which can have detrimental effects on native species, and on humans. It doesn’t happen with every plant and in every location, and scientists (like me!) are working now to figure out why that is, how to predict what will cause a problem, how to manage or prevent invasions.

Here Are Some Far Better Ways to Help Bees

When you’re setting up your bee-friendly garden, make sure to leave space for the bees to lay their eggs in and near the ground. If this sounds a little weird, welcome to the biggest myth you’ll have to confront as a self-appointed savior to the bees: honeybees that live in hives are not the ones we’re really worried about.

So back away from that image of a sad beekeeper with boxes and boxes of honeybee hives. Colony collapse disorder was unfortunate but not devastating. Those bees are employees in big agrobusiness, and they have jobs and caretakers all around the world. Entomologist Gwen Pearson points out that honeybees are “not remotely threatened with extinction” but thousands of lesser-known bee species are. You can see a list of our imperiled bees here; many are marked “PE” for “possibly extinct.”

A lot of these native bees live on their own, not in colonies, and they lay their eggs in little tunnels in the ground. The mother gives each baby bee a loaf of “bee bread” made of pollen and nectar. Since they don’t have a colony to protect, these bees don’t even sting.

So if you want to save the bees by planting flowers, these are the ones you should dedicate your garden to.

(And avoid spraying which puts bees at risk)

Lots of other great tips to attract bees in the article too: http://lifehacker.com/don-t-plant-those-bee-friendly-wildflowers-cheerios-i-1793370883?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Lifehacker_facebook