permaculture

["Lisa Rollens" <rollens@fidnet.com>]

Roxann,

Bees always go to the best and easiest source of pollen and nectar.  Gardens 
are "small", relatively speaking and it sounds like the bees just went to a 
place with more flowers and therefore more pollen and nectar.  I have 
noticed the same in every state we have had bees in.  In Ohio, the clover 
started blooming and there were no bees to be found.  They were in the tops 
of the black locust and catalpa trees.  Remember, a bee has to visit 
numerous flowers to get a load before going back to the hive.  An area with 
a large number of flowers provides that load easily.  Leaving flowering 
weeds around your garden and in the fields surrounding it would possibly 
encourage them to hand around the garden.

I noticed that the bees came when the cucumbers were blooming....lots of 
plants and lots of flowers.  Not quite such abundance with squash and 
pumpkins maybe???

Lisa


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "roxann" <roxann@ancientearthwisdom.com>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Reaction to 60 minutes piece on Bees


> earlier this year i had thought my bees were gone, too. all spring growing 
> season went by without hardly one bee pollinating in my garden. of course 
> my squash and pumpkins did terribly. but later during the year i found the 
> bees - they were across the valley pollinating and quite happy over in the 
> wildflowers! I could hear them before I saw them, and when i made it to 
> where they were, I had to walk carefully through the "weeds" to make a 
> path without disturbing them too much. So the bees were not gone at all, 
> but boycotting my garden for some reason. I don't use pesticides and where 
> we live is very rural and sheltered by mountain ridges from any 
> agricultural parts of the state where pesticides are used. i wonder what 
> made the bees avoid my garden, which was near the house? i have another 
> garden far away from the house and the bees were there, just not at the 
> garden by the house. We have no cell phone reception in our area, either, 
> so that can't be the issue. I wonder if i pla
> ce a hive on my side of the valley, will the bees stay there to pollinate 
> next spring? Or will they leave the hive and seek out the wildflowers on 
> the other side again?  This season's bee boycott could have been an 
> anomaly but next year if it happens again i will suspect something 
> electronic or otherwise at my house is keeping them away.
>
> Roxann, NW AR
> http://blog.ancientearthwisdom.com
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