It's time to start thinking about holiday gifts for your favorite bee gardener (or yourself!) Beyond the obvious choice of a gift card to the local garden center, here are some suggestions from the Haven.

Books

2014 has been a good year for bee and gardening books; along with the classics California Native Plants for the Garden and the Sunset Western Garden Book consider gifting one or more of these to round out a bee gardener's library.

The Bee: A Natural History, written by Noah Wilson-Rich with Kelly Allin, Norman Carreck, and Andrea Quigley, was published earlier this year by Princeton University Press. Full of beautiful photographs and drawings, this book is an attractive, thorough introduction to the world of honey bees. The authors go into enough detail to make it interesting, but not so much as to lose the interest of a reader who is not a bee biologist. The single chapter on bees other than honey bees covers an assortment of species from various regions of the world.

California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists was written by Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville, and Barbara Ertter. This definitive guide is a must-have for anyone interested in knowing more about native bees in California urban gardens. I only wish they had recommended other ceanothus varieties, such as 'Valley Violet' and 'Concha' that do well here in the Central Valley!

The California Native Landscape by Greg Rubin and Lucy Warren came out late in 2013; I'm including it for anyone who might have missed it for gifting last year. Although it might better be called The Southern California Native Landscape, it still has much to recommend it for northern California gardeners. Good information about soil and garden design is very helpful, as is the pest section.

Apps

A new app called Wild Bee Gardens is available for iOS devices.  The great photos will be helpful in learning more about native bee biology and identification.  The plant section conveniently lists the common bees found on each plant, although the plant descriptions are often general for a national audience.  For California, refer to a state-specific plant guide.

Bee observation tools

Two options for folks interested in getting a closer look at bees are close-focus binoculars and hand-held vacuums. The binoculars are often sold as butterfly binoculars; here's a review and outline of what to look for.  Hand-held vacuums can be purchased from scientific supply houses, although at the Haven we have used vacuums sold as toys without problems. Features to look for are a removable viewing chamber and a wide, round opening.  The chamber MUST be in line with the suction tube; many of them have the chamber perpendicular to the tube.  This makes it nearly impossible to remove the chamber without the bee escaping.

 

 

 

Bee housing

Building bee condos for your own garden is an easy project; a gift card to the local hardware store or home center is a great way to help make this happen. A bee condo to hold individual bee blocks or nest tubes can be built from redwood fencing; this requires basic carpentry skills. 

For the nests, a two- or three-inch ABS pipe cut to fit at the hardware store can be sealed at one end to hold bamboo reeds; spray paint was used to decorate ours. The short length is seven inches with the overhang cut at 45 degrees. The end is sealed with a test cap; these don't always fit exactly so a bit of glue may be needed. The reeds are called mason bee reeds and are available from beekeeping suppliers.

This bumble bee-colored ABS tube serves nicely to decorate the garden and provide bee housing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hap"bee" Holidays!

This summer I have had the joy of being an intern at the Honey Bee Haven. It seems quite unfair that many students were taking summer classes or holed up in labs while I got to be outside working in a beautiful garden!

If you have visited the garden recently, you will have noticed the multitude of new plants signs. Updating the signs has been a summer-long project that started during my first week at the Haven. Back in June, Chris showed me around the garden and had me take notes on what plant signs we needed to add to the garden. I come from a botanical background, so I thought I knew plants, yet I found myself having trouble connecting the plants in the garden to the plant names I recognized.

In the following weeks, I worked with and among the garden's 250-plus plants, I researched the best bee-friendly plant families, and I drew and painted dozens of flowers for Haven displays. The time flew by and soon enough it was the end of September - time to finish updating and replacing the plant labels. By then, I could easily recognized most of the plant families and individual species. As Chris and I placed signs throughout the garden, I was also reminded of the things I had seen and done throughout the summer. The shasta daisies, yarrows, california buckwheat, and gum plant had become my constant companions through the our survey of natural enemies; the catmint, calamint, and cape balsam were buzzing with honeybees as they had been all summer; and the zinnias were busier than ever with visits from honeybees, native bees, skipper butterflies, and gulf fritillary butterflies.

While I will take away many things from this experience – a special fondness for mantids, an appreciation for combining art and science, and a much greater knowledge of plant and bee biology – my greatest take away will be the genuine interest and excitement of the people that I met in the garden. All garden guests, energetic children to master gardeners, were always happy to learn something new and share their garden experience. The garden is a wonderful place to let your imagination run wild whether you're seeking out cool critters or new garden ideas.

Overall, I have come to realize that, to be a good gardener you have to understand and appreciate insects, and to be a good entomologist you have to understand and appreciate plants. So being a gardening entomologist certainly has its advantages!

Garden intern Kirsten Pearsons staffs the Haven's display at the Sacramento County Master Gardener's Harvest Day 2014

Hand painted bee nesting house, one of Kirsten's summer projects. These were sold at our recent Open House to raise funds for the Haven.

The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven will hold our last open house of the year on October 3, 2014. Please join us for special events and activities from 5:30pm to 7pm. Specimens of the garden's most common bees will be available for viewing and tips on identifying bees will be presented. A guided tour at 6pm will focus on fall- and winter-blooming bee plants and several styles of bee houses will be available for purchase to support the garden.

The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is a half-acre garden located on the UC Davis campus devoted exclusively to bee pollinator conservation and education. We offer free admission and are open every day from dawn to dusk. From Hutchison Drive, take Hopkins and make the first right onto Bee Biology Road; the garden is at the end of the road.

Fence-mounted bee house. These will be available for purchase at the open house, with all funds supporting the Haven.