Mission

Honey Bee Suite is dedicated to honey bees, beekeeping, wild bees, other pollinators, and pollination ecology. It is designed to be informative and fun, but also to remind readers that pollinators throughout the world are endangered. Although they may seem small and insignificant, pollinators are vital to anyone who eats.

Categories

Gallery

organized-feet dragonfly-3-sharp hornet-in-jar unknown-bee outer-yellowjacket-hive porcupine

 

May 2012
S M T W T F S
« Apr    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Plants that Attract Pollinators

Popular Garden Plants:

Basil (Ocimum)
Bee balm (Monardia)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
Borage (Borago)
Caltrop (Kallstroemia)
Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster)
English Lavendar (Lavandula)
Escallonia (Escallonia)
Globe thistle (Echinops)
Hyssop (Hyssopus)
Licorice Mint (Agastache)
Marjoram (Origanum)
Mexican sunflower (Tithonia)
Milkweed (Asclepias)
Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome)
Rosemary (Rosmarinus)
Russian Sage (Perovskia)
Sage (Salvia)
Wallflower (Erysimum)
Wild lilac (Ceanothus)
Zinnia (Zinnia)

Northwest Native Plants:

Aster (Aster)
California poppy (Eschscholzia)
Currant (Ribes)
Elder (Sambucus)
Fireweed (Epilobium)
Goldenrod (Solidago)
Joe-pye weed (Eupatorium)
Larkspur (Delphinium)
Lupine (Lupinus)
Madrone (Arbutus)
Mint (Mentha)
Oregon grape (Berberis)
Penstemon (Penstemon)
Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus)
Rhododendron (Rhododendron)
Saskatoon (Amalanchier)
Scorpion-weed (Phacelia)
Snowberry (Symphoricarpos)
Stonecrop (Sedum)
Sunflower (Helianthus)
Wild buckwheat (Eriogonum)
Willow (Salix)
Yarrow (Achillea)

Pollinators smile and say cheese

I admire folks who can take good insect pictures. Regardless of the equipment you have, they are extremely difficult to do.

Yesterday I noticed a tiny bee going in and out of a mason bee condo. She was much smaller and quicker than a mason bee and I really wanted her portrait. I snapped several dozen of her coming and going, and all I got was several dozen pictures of empty holes.

Eventually, I got a picture of her tail end. Not good, but better than nothing:

Tail end of an unknown bee. Photo by the author.

Then I got a shot of her pollen-smudged face. No good for identification, but at least she’s kind of cute:

Tiny bee with pollen. Photo by the author.

After giving up on her, I found a bumble bee that was slightly more accommodating:

Bumble bee on Ceanothus.

This cross spider was building a trap for my pollinators:

Cross spider preparing for supper.

But, here is my favorite. This is a fly. I don’t know anything about flies except to say this one was holding still. For that, he (she?) won a place in my heart:

Fly holding still. Photo by the author.

Rusty

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>