Free Pollinator Seed Library

"Bees and the Plants They Love", part 3:

European honey bees, Apis mellifera, are probably the most well-known, ubiquitous bees found throughout landscapes. Despite being non-native to the United States, including California, they are pollination powerhouses and contribute greatly to human food crop pollination and more. There are several reasons for their successful naturalization into nearly all kinds of human dominated landscapes.

First, European honey bees have an enormous breath of diet. In my research they found to be foraging on 265 plant genera out of the total 304 total! Next, European honey bees are active most of the year, found every week of sampling for my fieldwork. That means European honey bees are active when other bees stay home due to colder temps and/or precipitation. Finally, know that European honey bees are the extraordinarily different than our California native bees. These bees live in social hives and the individual European honey bees work together in various roles as a superorganism. If you've been stung by a bee, it was probably one of these ladies, fyi!

While European honey bees are not native to the U.S., they have naturalized and are here to stay since we depend on their amazing pollination skills.... and for humans, that's a good thing. Other current research is helping us to understand how European honey bees affect pollination webs. Most studies so far point out that European honey bees are not good news for bee community conservation in general, but in terms of conserving pollination ecosystem services into the future they are the top U.S. pollinator.

With that said, European honey bees are also the ones you hear about in the news with population crashes due to "colony collapse disorder". This phenomenon is likely due to a confluence of disease, pesticide and also lack of habitat. To be clear, the main issue facing most organism populations today is lack of habitat. The Pollinator Seed Library was invented specifically to help reverse habitat issues facing bees and pollinators alike today.
This brings us to what Apis mellifera’s preferred foraging plants. Here are the Apis mellifera’s top visited plants from my fieldwork. Numbers after plant genus names refer to the number of Apis unique* plant visits for the year. *This is a complicated and technical definition from my dissertation, but don’t worry about it too much here, larger numbers demonstrate most-favored plants. There are more plants under the 20 count, but we will leave those for another day…
Salvia (189), Teucrium (102), Rosmarinus (100), Lavandula (93), Rosa (89), Origanum (78), Perovskia (65), Eriogonum (62), Nepeta (54), Grevillea (49), Vitex (49), Epilobium (47), Eschscholzia (46), Myoporum (45), Scabiosa (42), Trifolium (42), Gailardia (40), Gaura (36), Heteromeles (36), Heuchera (35), Veronica (34), Eucalyptus (33), Penstemon (29), Westringia (28), Thymus (27), Erigeron (26), Mentha (26), Geranium (22), Lagerstroemia (22), Leucophyllum (22), Prunus (22), Fremontodendron (20), Isomeris (20), Sedum (20), Verbena (20).

In conclusion, while Apis mellifera may not be a California native bee, they are extremely important for human diets and pollination ecosystem services today. While their populations are stated to suffer from habitat fragmentation and degradation anyone can help their populations by simply planting Apis’ preferred foraging plants. Just by planting some of the plants listed above, you can and help to save the bees… with scientifically backed foraging plants!

My dissertation has officially been published on ProQuest!

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Next bee talk coming soon!

LOVGC April Zoom Program: Successful Landscape Design for Native Bees presented by Kim Chacon, Cal Poly Landscape Architecture Dept. Instructor

Date: Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Time: 6:45 pm - 7:45 pm

See below for how to join. No registration required. Free and open to the public.

Description: Bee habitat infrastructure should be an essential priority for humankind today. Yet, designing conservation landscapes within human dominated systems for a diversity of native bees is complicated. Native bees fill a huge ecological purpose yet suffer from habitat fragmentation. The best design strategies for native bees improve habitat for bees, but also convey education, and improve bee habitat networks. Visit beelandscapes.com to read the full article abstract and for the article link with more details prior to Kim's talk. Paper direct link, pages 223-241: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367336492_Thematic_analysis_of_students%27_submissions_Sustainability_education_in_a_LA_course =229.

Bio: Kim is focused on solving geographical bee habitat issues to protect pollination ecosystem services. Since 2020 Kim has worked as an instructor at Cal Poly's Landscape Architecture department, teaching students to "see like a bee". In September 2022 Kim finished her Geography PhD from UC Davis and has begun consulting work, splitting her time between California's Central Coast and the Bay Area.
(Photo by Kim Chacon)

Join Zoom Meeting - easiest way is to click this LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7536444586?pwd=OHNFcjEybGtCNUpDRHhlWWEvK1hxdz09

In case you need this:
Meeting ID: 753 644 4586 Passcode: LOVGC

Or, if you don’t have a camera or microphone on your device, use your phone to dial in:
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose); Meeting ID: 753 644 4586; Passcode: 678130

Email [email protected] if you have any questions.

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