Pollinator Periscope . . . by Jeff Irwin

July - A Bee’s World

The queen pokes her head into the cell, sizes up the situation, and determines the type of egg to lay. Smaller cells house fertilized eggs that will develop into female worker bees and slightly larger cells receive unfertilized eggs that will become male drones. It’s the first instance of how the bee’s environment impacts its life, even before it enters the world.

Once hatched, the worker bee spends the first couple of weeks of its life inside the fascinating architecture of the hive. The hexagonal comb pattern leaves no wasted gaps, and the cells are capable of storing everything needed by the colony, including developing brood, pollen, nectar, and honey. Depending on its age and current role, the interior worker bee tends to the contents of these cells.

Our hives at the apiary are based on the movable frame design pioneered by Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth. His discovery of “bee space”, the ideal gap between frames, ~ 3/8”, allowed for removal of frames without destroying comb. Bees control their colony’s environment quite precisely, and any bee space violations will be quickly remedied. Gaps smaller than 3/8” will be filled with propolis and larger gaps will be filled with honeycomb.

Honeybee colonies are not autotrophs and rely on the plant world outside of the hive for sustenance. In his blog, Kim Flottum recently estimated how much bees eat. As he put it, “the rule of thumb is that it takes an acre of flowers to feed a colony of bees. But that's a constant acre of bloom to feed a colony of bees, not just a field of dandelions blooming in May then gone and the bees have enough for the rest of the year. Nope, doesn't work that way.” It’s clear that the ½ acre garden around our apiary won’t be sufficient for the multiple hives on site even if we plant as densely as possible, up vertically, and with a well-timed succession of blooms. The bees will forage elsewhere, expanding their world in search of their continuous acre of flowers. Another general rule of thumb is that they’ll go anywhere from 1-2 miles to find them.

For most bees in a stationary hive, this foraging zone represents the limits of their world. But queens and drones may travel further to drone congregation areas. As the name implies, these are places the drones gather in hopes of mating with a virgin queen. They tend to stay established over multiple years—and many generations of drones—and it’s still unknown how queens find them. For additional reading, Bee Culture sums up the state of our understanding of drone congregation areas.

That’s the world as the bee might experience it. In an upcoming Pollinator Periscope we’ll look at the beekeeper’s world--the larger, more abstract areas that also impact the hive.
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Recently blooming plants that are hopefully in your local bee colony’s foraging area: sunflowers, blazing star, bee balm, oregano, lemon balm, echinacea.

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE . . . by Jeff Irwin

June: A Bee’s Place

This month, let’s focus our attention on the Susquehanna Street site.

If you're new to our blog, take a moment to catch up with previous posts on all the activities that have taken place in the past month: bee curious neighbors came together for a honey tasting party, Westinghouse HS students energized the site with their enthusiastic volunteering, community and city leaders officially inaugurated the site, and the first open apiary at the new location was well attended. Lots of great activity and plenty of buzz!

Not to mention that several hives and many plants are becoming established in the apiary and pollinator garden. While there’s still much work to be done, it’s shaping up to be a great place for bees.

Even in these initial stages we can note several important features that you can use to create your own great bee place. First off, and most noticeably as you approach the site, there’s a solid fence surrounding the apiary that serves multiple functions. It protects the hives from wind and predators. It also forces bees to adjust their flight path upwards to a height where they hopefully won’t be a nuisance to anyone. Such a fence just might be the most important tool for good beekeeping in dense urban areas.

Inside the fence, we can see the hives arranged so that the entrances face south. This helps maximize exposure to the sun’s warmth, particularly in the morning, and revs the bees up for a full day’s work. There’s a water source inside the fence. In our case, it’s a simple large container of water that gets refreshed regularly. Bees generally don’t hover to drink, so it’s important to provide surfaces that they can land on. In this case, we’ve used old wine bottle corks.

There’s also an unintended water source for bees. After heavy rains, the water flows down the slope and onto the asphalt where it forms very shallow pools. It’s pretty cool to watch the bees walk along the ground sipping.

A good water source is perhaps the second most important feature for good urban beekeeping. Around your home, you could also place some rocks in a shallow birdbath or let bees crawl into a spigot set to drip very slowly.

Outside of the fence is the pollinator garden portion of the site. It’s very much a work in progress, more potential than finished product. We’re still building soil to support our castles in the air, and finding out which plants take to the site and which don’t. In other words, we’re learning and the adventure continues.

Hopefully you’ll consider helping bees in your garden by planting some pollinator plants or even just letting the “weeds” flower for a bit. Offer sources of pollen, nectar or water—without using any pesticides—and the bees will come, along with many other beneficial insects.

The last element in our site tour sums up the attitude needed to establish a great place for bees, for pollinator plants, and for visitors:

We’re having this Party, Please Come

…the flowering garden is a place you immediately sense is thick with information, thick as a metropolis, in fact. It’s an oddly sociable, public sort of place, in which species seem eager to give one another the time of day; they dress up, flirt, flit, visit ~

--- Michael Pollan - The Botany of Desire

Help us celebrate the grand opening of our place for bees on Susquehanna Street! Potluck dish and $5 donation requested, folding chair or blanket recommended. Click on the invite image for a larger view.

Not sure what to say to that social butterfly or shrinking violet at the party that you’d like to meet? Recently flowering plants are always a surefire conversation starter.

Buttercups: I didn’t know that these were good pollinator plants, but a wise elder beek said so. Who am I to go against the word?

Canadian Thistle: Perhaps best appreciated along roadsides or in fictional “rather boggy and sad” places. This is a pretty good pollinator plant, but it sure does take over if you let it. Somewhere, though, I’m sure there’s a hardcore pollinator protector who lets this into the yard on purpose.

Clover (white and red): A life in clover with a field full of bees - can anything be better?

Comfrey: Beloved by permaculturists for its roots that dive deep into the lower soil horizons, and by bumblebees that love its flowers.

Hyacinth: Another great bumblebee plant with lots of bell-shaped flowers. Be careful tossing Frisbees around them, though.

Chives, Raspberries: The edibles mentioned last month have flowered and, in the case of the raspberries, fruited.

Sage: For a couple of days, it seemed like I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing another flowering sage. We live in an abundantly beautiful place.

Lamb’s Ear: This is a fun, tactile plant with tiny purple flowers that bees really go for.

Angelica: While only mildly interesting to bees, angelica nourishes a ton of beneficial insects. Not to mention it’s an ingredient in gin. Cheers!

Catmint: A favorite bee plant in public gardens, these purple flowers last well into the summer.
Coreopsis: Great yellow flowers on top of all that spiky green!

Cornflower or Batchelor’s Button: Vibrant blue flowers that bees like, a perfect boutonniere for the beekeeping prom
~ or apiary grand opening . . . 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.

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.

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE . . . by Jeff Irwin

MARCH: A Great Invitation

Honeybees are excellent guides to the natural world. With a whiff of nectar or a taste of pollen, and a quick dance lesson, returning foragers relay precise directions to the waiting group of worker bees. They will find the food source with little difficulty. The success of the hive depends on this accurate communication.

Bees can also guide the rest of us. They're able to find pollen, nectar, and propolis even when it seems that nothing is in bloom. On a sunny, snow-covered day in February, chances are good that the bees are out and about, bringing in whatever the plants provide. It's remarkable, really, even for those of us in tune to the plants around us. But the bees and plants have been partners for far longer than we've been paying attention. There's much yet to learn.

So the next time you pass a tree or shrub, maybe a flower planting full of bees, consider the buzz an invitation: something wonderful is happening here, an experience open to all who place themselves under the influence of plant and pollinator. Won't you stop and look?





APRIL: Spring Gathering

What a spring! Perhaps we were due for some great weather after last year’s poor fall flow and the February snowmageddon. Whatever the cause, I’ll take it.

Here are some of the blooming plants that I’ve been keeping an eye on this spring:

Daffodils: The heralds of spring, all brass and circumstance standing in the late winter mud. Too bad they’re not very interesting to bees, as they’re often abundantly planted. Too many toxic alkaloids, perhaps, and not enough pollen.



Crocuses: Playing a quick game of peek-a-boo before taking their leave, the crocuses provide some pollen to bees. The crocuses around me are usually pretty sparse and only seem to be out in damp, cool weather, but I think that a mass planting could be attractive to bees if there’s a sunny day while they’re blooming.

Maples: Maple trees showed up on a lot of my pollinator research lists, so I was watching for bees in maples. Apparently I don’t know what exactly to look for as I didn’t see much happening. Now the seeds are fully formed and ready to whirl, so I’ll have to wait until next year’s buds to look again.

Bradford Pears: Not so delicately referred to as “tuna on a trunk” by Southern Living's garden blogger Steve Bender, (http://grumpygardener.southernliving.com/grumpy_gardener/2009/03/bradford-pear-.html), this tree used to be a favorite of urban developers. Consequently, there are lots of mature Bradford Pears around the boulevards and business districts. I liked the effervescent white blooms, but is there any buzz in this tuna bubbly? In theory, all pear trees should be ok for bees, but the stink of these trees might be more attractive to flies.

Redbud: One of spring’s most striking colors and good for bees. We should all get to know the redbud a little better.

Apple, Crabapple: Lots of blooming crabapple trees around town right now, so head out and look for bees. The larger bumblebees, in particular, are neat to watch bobbing around the blossoms.

Dogwood: Slender and elegant, attractive to a wide range of pollinators. Still in bloom at the moment.

Hawthorn: There are a few hawthorn volunteers at the apiary site. It appears that they’ve already flowered.

Dandelions: A key plant for bees and beekeepers. By my account, the first dandelion showed its trusting face in late March with the full bloom coming shortly thereafter during the warm period in early April. They’re now starting to go to seed, if they haven’t already been mowed down.


Violets: Another great lawn wildflower. There’s a kind of white butterfly or moth that I like to watch flit about the violets.

Forget-me-nots: A good symbolic plant for your true love’s tussie-mussie, particularly if your true love is a bee. So find a field of forget-me-nots, drink tea, and spend afternoons measuring time in spoons. It’s that kind of plant.


Ok, what have I missed? Where are the bees in your garden and neighborhood?
- - - 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.







- - - a Victorian tussie-mussie

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE: What's UP in the Apiary?

Easter is a fitting day to post our first monthly column, and this Sunday we invite you to observe a moment of gratitude for the beauty of spring here in Pittsburgh.

What's UP in your neck of the woods? Or better yet, what's blooming in your garden today? Send us a post - and your photographs - and join the conversation.

Later on this month Jeff Irwin will join us as your host for the Pollinator Periscope column. Until then, send us your comments, questions, garden news - and especially your garden photos.

"A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town." ~ Henry David Thoreau

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE: Photos from Northmoreland Park, Easter Weekend 2010

. . . click on photos for a full-screen view ~

POLLINATOR PERISCOPE: More photos from Northmoreland Park, Easter Weekend 2010

. . . click on photos for a full-screen view ~

Photos by Mike Kirven and Linda Rathburn