How gardeners can help native bees in Tucson yards
Many people conflate all bees together, but native solitary bees are actually very different from honeybees. Solitary bees are native, while honeybees are introduced species. The article discusses how gardeners can help native bees in their yards in Tucson, Arizona. Factors such as climate change, pesticides, loss of habitat, and introduced diseases are causing many bees to struggle. The key to helping native bees is providing them with their natural food source - native flowering plants. These plants are often co-evolved with native bees and will be the best food and habitat sources for them. Another way to help bees is to provide them with places they need to reproduce. About 70% of native bees are ground-nesting bees, so keep some bare soil for them in your yard to allow them to dig their nests. The other 30% of solitary native bees build their nests in various cavities. The article also suggests that gardening experts can design a pollinator garden to provide the best habitat for these bees.
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Native bees are very calm and docile, since they live on their own and have no hive to defend. They live short lives, about a year in total, of which about six weeks is in the adult phase which we see. In this phase, they fly around collecting pollen and nectar for food, and then reproduce.
Unfortunately, due to factors like climate change, pesticides and loss of habitat, as well as introduced diseases, many bees are in trouble, and it’s very difficult to study solitary native bees on a large scale to document the true extent of the issue. The good news is that gardeners are in a great position to help them out, by providing habitat and food. The key to helping native bees is to provide them with their natural food source — native flowering plants. These plants, which have co-evolved with native bees, will be the best food and habitat sources for our fuzzy flying friends.
Another way to help bees is to provide them with the places they need to reproduce. About 70% of native bees are ground-nesting bees, which means it’s vital to keep some bare, loose soil for them in your yard to allow them to dig their nests. This is one exception to my “always mulch” rule. Leave a patch of bare ground, and make sure it’s in a well-drained, warm spot. You can also have a 2-foot deep sandy loam pit in your yard for the bees. The Xerces Society has great tips on building bee nesting sites.
The other 30% of solitary native bees build their nests in various cavities, including small holes in dead trees, yucca stems or abandoned beetle burrows. If you have a larger property, consider leaving these stems and even dead trees in place to give native bees a place to build their burrows. They may also burrow in your plant stems. Again, don’t worry about this, and be happy that bees have chosen your yard to reproduce in — you must be doing something right.
To give native bees the greatest amount of help you will need a wide variety of native plants in your yard. It’s important to select a grouping of plants that will provide pollinators with blooms all year round. If you have limited space or budget, choose plants that bloom at atypical times of year — like November through February. This will give your local bees a food source when few flowers are present in the desert.
Make sure you get your plants from reputable, local nurseries that don't use pesticides, or you will be doing more harm than good. As a rule, if you see some bugs on the plant, that's probably a good sign. You can check out my earlier article "How to have an Earth-friendly garden in Tucson" to help you choose a good place to buy your plants.
One way to design a great bee garden is to get help from experts like Tucson Audubon Society, which can help you design a pollinator garden to fit your space and provide the best habitat you can. You can either use the resources on their website at Habitat at Home or hire them to design and install the whole thing.
If you choose to design your own bee garden, another great resource of plant names is the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s list of native plants for pollinators which you can search through by bloom time. Another helpful resource is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s database which you can also search by bloom time. Note that the link provided will return a list of native plants in all of Arizona, so be sure to select ones that will do well in our low desert.
How to help native bees