G R A C I A S

Photo by Benjamin D. Esham for the Wikimedia Commons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reflections_of_Earth_9.jpg


OVER THE TOP!

Check out the Kickstarter site at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meyergrelli/a-community-apiary-in-pittsburgh?pos=1

66 Backers / $3,695 PLEDGED of $3,500 goal

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYBODY!

BURGH BEES OPEN APIARY

Another great day at the Apiary.

On Sunday Burgh Bees hosted the year's first Open Apiary, from 1 to 3 at the Susquehanna Street site. The event was rained out from its originally scheduled date on Saturday, and given the last minute change in plans and the hot muggy weather on Sunday, we had a surprisingly good turnout of Burgh Bees members, neighbors, and friends. Steve Repasky and Robert Steffes introduced the bee-curious to the complicated art of opening active hives for observation. Veils and gloves were provided, and our guests included some very young - and intrepid - future beekeepers. Take a look:

4 trumpet vines, 8 ilex, 8 hawthorns, 1 Siamese cat - ready to transplant

Newly transplanted trumpet vine ready to take off and over the busway fence


Burgh Bees member Jeff Irwin came out today to transplant donated herbs to the 3 pollinator garden planters

Planter 1 features several varieties of thyme

Planter 2 is the 'pasta planter' - the large sage plant at the center was donated by Viv Shaffer

And Planter 3 will hold the balance of those bee-friendly plants researched, selected, and settled in by Burgh Bees member Anna Kim and our workday volunteers

Sunday's Best - Guests Gearing up for the May 23rd Open Apiary

Burgh Bees' Steve Repasky and Robert Steffes were on hand Sunday to give visitors a bee's eye view of the art of beekeeping

Sunday's Open Apiary was a family affair - on the left - John, Maddie, and Elise Silvestri

And on the right - Meghan and Corinne Olson

Our hosts

Hands-on learning with the Burgh Bees hives

The new sign looks great - and will look even better surrounded by plants (come on out and give us a hand at the next Apiary Workday!)

A few sidebar notes . . .

Burgh Bees members and apiary neighbors Terri Howard and Ron McConnell were on hand to help out and help everyone stay cool with iced down apple cider – our hosts with the most – thanks Terri and Ron.

Taylor Call donated a tray of black-eyed Susans to add to our busway fence planting – G R A C I A S !

John Silvestri offered up some sound strategy suggestions on dealing with less than bee-friendly neighbors, and we are grateful for his input and advice.

Mary Ellen and Mark Meyer stopped by to check out the apiary’s progress since they last worked so hard with us on previous workdays. While we could all see that the seeds planted 2 weeks ago are sprouting, the weeds are sprouting faster – and the thistles are cropping up with a vengeance. Mary Ellen recommended tough gloves and a no-mercy weed-out day – perhaps before the next workday.

Which brings us to “Upcoming Events” – check out the website or send us a line at communication.bb@gmail.com for details, comments, questions.

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, May 25 . . . . . . Burgh Bees Beekeeper Meetup
Saturday May 29 . . . . . . Phipps Talk: Bees & Gardens
Saturday, June 5 . . . . . . United Nations World Environment Day: Pittsburgh 2010 Host City
Sunday, June 13 . . . . .Burgh Bees Volunteer Potluck
Monday, June 21 . . . . . . National Pollinator Week
Thursday, June 24 . . . . . Burgh Bees Screening: Nicotine Bees & Botany of Desire
Saturday, June 26 . . . Burgh Bees Open Apiary
Monday, June 28 . . . . . . BVABA Meeting
Tuesday, June 29 . . . . . . Burgh Bees Beekeeper Meetup
Saturday, July 10 . . . . . .BVABA Out-yard Picnic & Meeting
Fri/Sat, July 23-24 . . . . .PSBA Summer Picnic
Saturday, July 31 . . . . . .Farmers @ Firehouse: Cooking with Honey

Thanks to Christina Neumann, Burgh Bees e-bulletin editor

MAY Kids' Page

Sunday, May 23, 2010
BEE'S EYE VIEW . . . by Mary Anne Watson












Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim - see (1) below

The life cycle of Apis mellifera

"There was an Old Lady who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do!"

So the nursery rhyme begins that all children can recite by heart, even before they can read. Ever wonder how that "Old Lady" kept so many children inside that shoe? Well, long before that nursery rhyme was written, Apis mellifera (the scientific name for the honey bee) had everything figured out.

The queen bee is the original lady in the shoe, but she lives in a hive with her many thousands of children. Yes, thousands!

Every honey bee begins its life as a tiny egg. This is the first of three stages, or different appearances, that the bee will have before it will look like what is a typical honey bee. Each new egg has its own little room in the hive called a cell. The eggs look like a tiny grain of white rice inside the cell. That's a lot of rooms when you think about the queen laying as many as 1,500 eggs a day!

After about 3 days, the egg begins to develop into a glistening white larva. This is the second stage. At first, the larva looks like a small letter "C" lying at the bottom of the cell. Here the larva is cared for by other bees.

Everything the larvae need is given to them; they just lie around glistening and looking spectacularly white. After about 6 days the caring bees seal the cell with the larva inside. The cap is made from beeswax. So while the cell is sealed or capped the larva stretches itself out lengthwise and spins a thin silken cocoon. Now the magic begins. Inside the capped cell the larva changes its form to an adult honey bee. The compound eyes begin to appear - big, round and brownish purple. Then the body begins to gradually take on the form of the adult bee that we all know and love. All of this magic takes roughly 8 to 14 days.

Mother's Day may be Swarm Day

From the beginning of their existence the queen bee and all her children have known exactly what to do when the hive becomes too crowded. They wait for a perfect day to travel and find a new home that will accommodate their numbers.

A perfect day is typically sunny and warm, and when the bees make up their minds to leave (swarm) there is no stopping them.

When this happens, the queen and her children leave the hive. For a few minutes they will fly somewhere near the hive, but then they all leave and fly high into a tree or possibly to a roof top. The children will stay with their mother (the queen) and find a safe secure place to begin building a new hive.

So, while May is the month for celebrating Mother's Day all around the world, it seems fitting that it is also a month when bees throughout the country will swarm. Funny, nature has been celebrating motherhood long before humans ever did!

~ Page 2 ~

ABOUT THIS MONTH'S PHOTOGRAPHS & ILLUSTRATIONS:

(1) This photograph, "Apis mellifera flying," was taken by Muhammad Mahdi Karim, a Tanzanian student living in Bangalore, India. To see more close-ups of bees and other insects, visit his website at http://www.micro2macro.net/. (Note: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.)

(2) The source for this illustration is My First Picture Book, by Joseph Martin Kronheim, published in New York by George Routledge and Sons in 1875.

MORE, PLEASE . . . advanced investigations . . .

Some of the best close-up photos ever of the honeybee life cycle can be found at http://beediary.wordpress.com/, the blog address for "Border Bees Diary: Diary of a Beekeeper in the Scottish Borders." Four of "borderglider's" photographs and captions are included below: please visit!

1) "Young bees building new comb" (top left)

2) "The white eggs standing-up in the centre of these cells have been laid in the last 24 hours. By the second day they will flop-over and lie down in the cells and the larvae will then hatch and begin to grow." (top right)

3) "Sealed brood, bee larvae and eggs: Sealed or 'capped' brood in upper left; the pearly white grubs are unsealed brood which are about half-grown. On the ninth day of growth they will fill the cells and be sealed-in; after this they spin a cocoon and pupate into adult worker bees." (bottom left)

4) "Brood nest of the beehive: This is one frame of four or five which make up the brood nest . . " (bottom right)

The Glories of June – Swarming

Posted by borderglider on July 11, 2009:

"May and June are wonderful months for the beekeeper, when the colonies are expanding fast, queens are laying between 1 -3000 eggs a day and the colony is expanding rapidly. It is also the time when bees reproduce by swarming – the colony divides and the old queen leaves to found a new colony – taking about half of the hive’s bees with her. The swarming impulse is usally triggered by a large population increase within the hive."

From: http://beediary.wordpress.com/, "Border Bees Diary: Diary of a Beekeeper in the Scottish Borders."

G R A C I A S

Burgh Bees Community Apiary Ribbon Cutting: Friday, May 14, 2010

Friday afternoon, under the tent on Susquehanna Street, was the most serendipitous, genial, gathering of 'good neighbors' you would ever hope to attend.

You should have been there.

We had Irish cheese and apple slices, brownies and homemade cookies, and iced-down sham-pon-yuh (Christopher Walken sent his apologies).

We had Councilman Patrick Dowd and daughter Evyn, Councilman Bill Peduto in finest form, Christy Berger representing Mayor Ravenstahl's office, Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak (to whom we owe a new pair of shoes), and both Mike Masiuk and Sandy Feather from the Penn State Cooperative Extension. We had Susquehanna Street neighbors, Burgh Bees Co-Founders, and Burgh Bees members and friends. And we had the real 'guests of honor' - a demonstration hive buzzing with some of the newest Susquehanna Street residents: brand new members of one of the apiary's six resident colonies of honeybees, transplanted to their new home from neighborhoods all around Pittsburgh. Braddock, Mt. Washington, Shadyside, Hazelwood: four neighborhoods representing the diversity of Pittsburgh all at home today in Homewood.

(For more on the actual 'hive move' and what that entailed see the blog entry for Saturday April 9th.)

"Bees Gone Wild"

Before the Apiary Ribbon-Cutting actually got underway we had an interesting visit, from beyond the busway fence, from two Port Authority employees out investigating bus driver complaints - about yellow jackets further down the line. En route they were stopped by another driver alerting them to the fact that there were a "bunch of bees" further along the busway that might need to be checked out as well. These two gentlemen, Jack Hodge and Timothy Eubanks, really knew their bees. Mr. Eubanks: " Bees are essential. They're essential to our crops. And now they're endangered - and they have been for, oh, at least five years now." We swapped conversation for brownies, and were given good advice on how to contact Port Authority Customer Service if we wanted to discuss having Burgh Bees members weed the busway strip in lieu of having PAT spray weed killer so close to the hives. Messrs. Eubanks and Hodge: G R A C I A S !

Short & Sweet

Severe thunderstorms and flash flooding moved in and around the Pittsburgh area briefly on Friday afternoon, and our guests kept their comments and kudos short, sweet, and to the point. Since a picture truly is worth a thousand words, we will do the same.
Our Apiary Ribbon Cutting Photo Gallery:

1) Behind the scenes at the Apiary Ribbon Cutting
2) Burgh Bees Co-Founder Meredith Meyer Grelli welcomes the apiary's guests
3) Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto holds forth
4) Pittsburgh City Councilman Patrick Dowd shares a story
5) Frank, Scott, and Joan share a laugh
6) Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak greets the group
7) Burgh Bees member Terri Howard takes the stage
8) Penn State Extension Director Mike Masiuk makes a point
9) Christy Berger, Community Outreach Coordinator for Mayor Ravenstahl's office
10) Burgh Bees members Ashley Brickman and Meredith Meyer Grelli unveil the demo hive
11) Burgh Bees members Ashley Brickman and Terri Howard cut the ribbon - photo 1
12) Burgh Bees members Ashley Brickman and Terri Howard cut the ribbon - photo 2
13) Good food, good neighbors, a good cause
14) Neighbor Alfie Newberry and Penn State Extension's Sandy Feather
15) Burgh Bees' indispensable catering duo, Ashley Brickman and Kimberly Musial
16) End of the day---what goes up, comes down
17) Our true colors - - - busway fence beautification by Lucia Aguirre and Christina Neumann
- - - click on photos for a full-screen view

Noted in passing . . .

- - - Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak was glad to see that many aspects of the apiary's development remained somewhat fluid, essentially a work-in-progress: "The process is the journey." Amen. Ms. Rudiak also mentioned revitalization efforts underway in neighboring Beechview that are most definitely worth a look-see: check out the PUB blog at http://cleanupbeechview.blogspot.com/.

§ From the website: "Pretty Up Beechview is an all-volunteer, community-based organization that is dedicated to the creation and maintenance of a clean, healthy, safe and prosperous neighborhood and the promotion of those qualities therein through community action, partnership and awareness."

- - - Sandy Feather, Commercial Horticulture Educator with Penn State Cooperative Extension, noted an upcoming FREE community screening of the film Food, Inc. at our nearby Homewood Branch of the Carnegie Public Library. This MUST-SEE film will be shown on Wednesday, June 9 at 5:30 PM, and will be followed by a panel discussion on the topic, “What we can do to improve the health of our neighborhoods.” For more information check out Penn State Extension's really cool new spinoff, "yumpittsburgh." Here's the scoop: " yumpittsburgh is part of a Penn State project which strives to strengthen the local food infrastructure in Western Pa by connecting the supply and demand sides of our foodshed. This site will highlight timely info for and about farmers, food, events and resources in our community." And here's the link for more info about the showing of Food, Inc.: http://yumpittsburgh.com/?p=573.

§ From the website: " Food, Inc., a feature-length documentary by director Robert Kenner, lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing a system controlled by international corporations that prioritize profit over the health and safety of consumers. Please visit http://www.foodincmovie.com/."

- - - Roberta Jones and her dad, Robert Eberhart - Burgh Bees members and graduates of the original 2009 beekeeper's class - were on hand to welcome guests and check out the results of the latest apiary workday. Roberta noted that the native and bee-friendly plants recommended by our new good friends at Sestili Nursery were looking especially healthy.

A final note on support

An event like this one represents the culmination of hours, months, and even years of planning, hard work, give-and-take, and belief - in a vision of community cooperation on a citywide scale and in the certainty that a seed will take root if sufficiently nourished. Burgh Bees would like to take a moment today to thank everyone who has given so generously to our cause: donations in kind, of time, support, cash, advice - and seeds! We are just $277 short of our Kickstarter Fundraising goal, with just 2 weeks left to go. We will reach that goal thanks to the generosity of each individual who has wished us well. June's "G R A C I A S" column will be "In Appreciation" of our community of support - our neighbors near and far. Thank you so much.

Westinghouse High School Rocks!

Richard "Muzz" Myers and a group of hard-working spirited students from nearby Westinghouse High School came out in the steady rain on Tuesday and did the neighborhood proud. These teenagers spent several hours at the apiary, setting in shrubs and herbs, and planting a 160-foot (really!) stretch of land up against the busway fence with sunflowers, goldenrod, and black-eyed Susans. Also on hand to help out were Burgh Bees members Mona Abdel-Halim, Randall Hall, Mary Ellen Meyer, Meredith Meyer Grelli, Viv Shaffer, and Linda Rathburn. (And Randall, we owe you a growler for your heroic efforts with the shovel and pickaxe this month and last.) Westinghouse High School: you are the bees' knees! Check out the photos below -






- - - and here is a little bit of info on WHS for any readers unfamiliar with the school's proud history:

From : http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07050/763271-53.stm

Wall of Fame Extols Westinghouse High Grads
Monday, February 19, 2007
~ photo by Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette















Valeria Williams is the organizer and creator of the Westinghouse High School Wall of Fame, a photographic display of some of the great students and teachers who walked through the school.

By Ervin Dyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

There, sitting in front of a piano, is Billy Strayhorn, the jazz musician who recorded with Duke Ellington; there's Chuck Cooper, one of the first black NBA players, aiming for a basket; and Naomi Simms, one of the country's first black supermodels, as sharp as she wants to be.

They are among the nearly 100 photographs that line the main hallway of Westinghouse High School. All are members of the Westinghouse Wall of Fame, a collection of alumni who have gone on to bright lights, big dreams.

Before they made it, at one point, whether in bobby socks or sky-high afros, they walked the halls of the mystical, memorable, magical ol' Westinghouse High, a place they affectionately referred to as the 'House. When they left, they gained local, national or worldwide recognition in sports, politics, music, business, social justice and education, often breaking barriers as they went.

The Westinghouse stars have lined the hall since about 1991.

About five years later, alumni Valeria Williams, Tommy Tucker and John Brewer created the Westinghouse High School Commission of Recognition to find and honor the classmates they'd heard about growing up.

Ms. Williams, class of 1967, began her research in the 1990s, the height of gang activity in Pittsburgh, and was deeply concerned about the crime and negative images that daily touched students' lives.

So, she pored over yearbooks, going all the way back to 1913, determined to present the students with more positive images.

It's a wonderful idea, said then-Principal Lester Young. "Fill every wall in the place."

And, so she tried to.

Ms. Williams gathered a world of achievers.

She found jazz legends such as Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal and Dakota Staton. She found Tuskegee airmen. She found actors and singers and professional football players. She found millionaires and dedicated, sacrificing community workers.

The list of names stretches from 1918 to 1991. Some classes ruled -- the wall is full of students from '51 and '52.

She found fathers and sons, such as Bill Nunn Sr., a civil rights activist and first black football player at Westinghouse, and his son, Bill Nunn Jr., one of the first black football scouts.

She found husbands and wives, high school sweethearts such as Elaine Casey and Erroll B. Davis, who trail-blazed in education and business. She found brothers and sisters: the Sloan family had Bev, Doris, Joann and Linnwood, a national radio reporter, two community service stalwarts and an arts leader.

In their cheerleader uniforms, she found Esther Bush, head of the Pittsburgh Urban League, and Carolyn Bright Smith, the mother of actor Will Smith. The youngest on the wall are twins Keith and Karl Edmonds, nationally recognized gospel mimes. They graduated in 1991.

"I thought the kids needed to see something positive," she said. "Some of these folks started off even worse than these kids had it."

The folks on the wall, she said, survived poverty, broken homes and troubles at school but they made it.

"I thought if the kids knew that these people on the wall lived in the same community, in the same houses that they do, it could make a difference."

The wall offers a mirror into yesteryear.

It harks back to a sepia-toned innocence when students took their class photographs in their Sunday best.

Their backs are straight, their clothes are starched, their eyes are fixed on a dream. They are the beautiful children who breathed in the lessons that in a world of segregation they would have to work twice as hard to go half as a far.

The 'House was packed with pride. Built in 1917 to honor the industrial engineer George Westinghouse, the hulking stone building first opened its doors to the wealthy white students who once lived in Homewood.

At its height, there were more than 1,500 students in the school. Its football team, the Bulldogs, chomped its way to championship after championship. Before shifting economics transformed it into a mostly black school, it was a model of integration for the African Americans and Italians who went there.

Ms. Williams said her classmates grew up in a wonderful time with strong teachers and heady expectations.

By most accounts, the bloom has faded.

A favored principal has retired. Enrollment has fallen to about 600 students and state reports reveal that students lag behind their counterparts in reading and math. In 2003, 40 percent of its seniors did not graduate.

Though the school was threatened with closure a few years ago, the community has not given up on Westinghouse.

There are special programs in culinary arts, cosmetology, finance and math and science to reach out to students. And, if students ever feel down, all they need to do is look at the wall to understand that they, too, can beat the odds.

Each face that hangs there offers a profile in courage.

While not all the faces are household names, each tells a story about a community of individuals -- doctors, lawyers, social activists -- who did not give up.

The glamorous Ms. Simms once bought her clothes at the Goodwill. Now, she's an Oprah Legend recognized for breaking ground in modeling.

Helen Faison, the first black (interim) superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, often shares the story of how her Homewood neighbors collected bus fare for her to commute to the University of Pittsburgh after her family was hit hard by paying some of the estimated $100 in tuition each semester.

Perhaps most inspiring is the story of Hal Brown. He lived in an East Liberty home with a dirt floor and had to go to work at 13 to help his family.

At one point, he worked five jobs. He got his big break in radio when a WAMO employee heard his mellifluous voice and suggested he be a deejay. His radio show became one of the station's most popular and he used his platform to rail against drug pushers. He later went to television, where he was an advocate for minority hiring. He never forgot the 'House and came back often to encourage a generation of journalists who came after him.

Now 73 and living in Florida, he confessed he thinks Westinghouse students believe the faces on the wall had so much help.

"But we had less opportunity than they do," he said. "There were no riots in my day by someone trying to push open doors. There was no Martin Luther King."

What the students had then, he said, "was pride and the fact that we loved each other."


- - - And here are some 2010 candidates-in-the-making for that very same Westinghouse High School Wall of Fame!





- - - click on photo for full-screen view


From left to right: Sonnikqua McKamey, Muzz Meyers, Kiyona Banks, Tobias Bullock, Kandace Cooper, Kijev James, and in front - Valerie Broughton

NEIGHBORHOOD BUZZ . . . by Viv Shaffer

Sunday, May 2nd ~
Seen at the Bee Scene

Neighbors and beekeepers swarmed to the North Point Breeze home of Woody Shaffer-Carr and his parents for a “Bee Garden Party” to celebrate Burgh Bees’ new community garden and apiary, and to welcome the bees to the neighborhood.

- - - Woody takes the stage

After an appreciative toast to the bees from the new apiary, the host welcomed the human guests and let everyone know how pleased he is that all those present, including the bees, are his neighbors. He then introduced Burgh Bees director Meredith Grelli, who spoke about the importance of bees, pollinating, as they do, a full third of the foods in a typical human diet. Gardeners in the room especially appreciated her remarks about sustainable gardening, knowing that there is much that all of us can do to “give back” to the bees.

- - - Meredith introduces the Burgh Bees' mission

While most of the guests knew of the challenges facing the bees world wide, many were unaware that the number of beekeepers in Pennsylvania is declining as well. Burgh Bees was commended for training more than one hundred fifty new beekeepers, more than half of that number in this year alone. After Meredith introduced Burgh Bees beekeepers Jennie Wood, Steve Repasky, Joe Zgurzynski, Linda Rathburn, Jeff Irwin, and Anna Kim, the room was abuzz as guests took advantage of the chance to learn everything they had always wanted to know about bees, but didn’t know who to ask. Questions were raised about the power of honey to cure pollen allergies and the difference between a bee and a wasp, and conversations ranged from how to attract bees to your garden to how to keep them out of your walls.

Although Meredith noted in her remarks that “It’s not just about the honey,” that famously flavorful bee treat was the centerpiece of the refreshments of the day. Honey was provided by bees from Highland Park, New Brighton, Alaska, and also from undisclosed locations, and transported to the party by Meredith and Steve. Varieties included clover, buckwheat, goldenrod (from New Brighton), and fireweed (from Alaska,) served over apples, cheese and bread. Also delicious were the strawberry jam-dark chocolate vegan brownies, the strawberries and cream cheese dip, and the orange banana almond honey cake provided by generous guests.

Black Strap Stout, Fat Gary, Monkey Girl, and Witte beers from East End Brewing, another favorite neighborhood enterprise, were also on hand. Having discovered that Woody’s parents had already purchased all of the Meade in stock at the local state store, Linda Rathburn stepped up with a bottle of Irish Mist. Some neighbors from Meade Street preferred lemonade over the Meade, but did enjoy speculating as to whether or not the street might have been named for the beverage made of fermented honey and wine.

Undeterred by rain, some strolled into the garden to admire the profusion of dandelions on the lawn, praising the homeowners for maintaining such an attractive habitat and nectar source for spring bees. The future of beekeeping was evident as Joe’s children played in the sunroom, and the bees, no novelty to these beekeeping kids, provided fascinating entertainment for the less experienced adults.
- - - Burgh Bees' youngest beekeepers

The bees were the focus and highlight of the festivities, but created their own buzz in Steve’s observation hive. As one observer was heard to remark, “They never stop working, do they, not even at their own party!”

- - - The guests of honor

The gathering allowed neighbors to make new connections and, in some cases, to renew old friendships. As the guests prepared to buzz off, parting conversations centered on plans to meet at the bee garden for the apiary ribbon cutting on May 14, and the on site party coming up in June. We’ll be hoping to see you there!

- - - Viv Shaffer

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE . . . by Jeff Irwin

May: Downward is Beeward

If there’s a trend from the last post a few weeks ago, it’s that the bees are moving vertically, from the established heights of the flowering trees, to the understory shrubs, and finally to the new season’s emerging growth and groundcovers. Downward is beeward.

You need water if you are to bloom and the rain in the last part of April helped out. We even got a full on gulley washer to cleanse the town of the excess pollen from the old school wind pollinated plants. There’s something to be said for not going along with the latest evolutionary fad, but the massive pollen bombing really highlights the compact economy of bee pollination. Bees may be the most direct path from anther to stigma – and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

The flowering spring trees have left the stage after a great first act and moved onto the more serious business of photosynthesis. While their collaboration with bees and other pollinators is finished for the year, we can still look forward to their second and third acts as they fruit and colorfully senesce. So thanks trees, we’ll catch up with you later.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in the past couple of weeks:

The yellow leaves of locust trees look great, but we need to be attentive to the details with these guys. Honey locusts, despite their name, don’t offer much to bees. The black locust is a much more interesting nectar source, but it typically doesn’t produce in consecutive seasons and last year was a banner year.

A few shrubs like the viburnums, azaleas and rhododendrons have begun to bloom, proving that the woody plants still have something to offer.

Closer to the ground, the dandelions and violets are still going strong in unmowed areas. In my yard, they’ve been joined by a white wildflower and a purple flowering groundcover. I’m not exactly sure what they are, but the bees are into them.




As a side note while we’re looking at the ground, look for young ants that still have their wings. These hymenopteran relatives of bees fly to new areas in order to establish a new colony and then lose the wings when they head underground. Feel free to roll out the welcome mat for your new neighbors in the garden.

Moving our gaze upwards slightly to the season’s new growth, we see a few edibles that are teasingly close to flowering. Chives have been in bud for a while and the raspberries are starting to think about flowers. Also, I’ve received great reports about flowering asparagus.

At the moment, overwintered kale is king, shooting seed stalks several feet into the air and showing off bright yellow flowers covered in bees. Who knew that this stodgy green, often beloved by CSA farmers for its hardiness and volume, occasionally bemoaned by CSA subscribers who can’t think of another way to use it, could make such a display?


It’s impressive, and worth investigating further. Kale is an insect pollinated biennial that will cross with other brassicas if they are within a certain range. Since bees display remarkable floral fidelity, only visiting the same kind of plant on a foray, how do these outbreeding crosses happen? In my ignorance, I’m going to blame flies. At any rate, long live kale!

It’s neat to see the bees on flowers at different elevations. Vertical diversity can be a pretty interesting element to our pollinator garden so let’s continue to watch for more examples as the season progresses.
- - - Jeff Irwin


Post your comments to Jeff - and observations on what's UP in your neck of the woods - directly below.
And watch for Jeff's column on the First Sunday of every month.