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.
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)
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No matter how you do it, you must stop robbing or you may lose your colony. Robbing bees will tear open all the honey cells and clean up every last drop. Fighting between bees will kill many and, once the hive is overpowered, predators such as wasps will move in and kill any remaining [...]
On Thursday past I reduced all of my hive entrances. Here at my place it’s the year of the bald-faced hornet and they are everywhere. The garden, the chicken yard, and the planter boxes each have their own cloud of these vulturous creatures. And so do the hives. The hornets dive, swoop, dip, snare [...]
I love these photos. Yesterday my top-bar hive was bursting at the seams. My husband kept urging me to check it for swarm cells and I kept putting it off. But finally, I dug through an egregious number of bees only to find a skeleton!
It is so cool. It was lying on the [...]
Absconding is the term used when a colony of honey bees leaves its home in search of another. It is not the same as swarming. When a colony swarms, it splits in two parts: one part stays in the old home and one part finds a new home. Swarming is a form of reproduction. [...]
If you have never seen a small hive beetle, I encourage you to take a look at these portraits by biologist and photographer Alex Wild in Illinois. Small hive beetles (Aethina tumida) can do vast amounts of damage to honeycombs and they are rapidly spreading throughout North America. I haven’t written about the small [...]
The truth about yellow jackets is this: I never paid much attention to them until last year. Even when other beekeepers complained about yellow jackets ravaging their hives, it didn’t register with me. Sure, I used to see them around, but I didn’t think they could possibly cause a problem.
All that changed last [...]
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Copyright Unless otherwise noted, all text and images used on HoneyBeeSuite.com are copyright Rusty Burlew 2010-2012 and may not be used without permission.
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