You can see them out gathering pollen sometimes, on a warm sunny winter day. It helps if you have some nectar and pollen plants. Recently I was at a local nursery and saw a table full of Gaillardia. The honeybees were going from bloom to bloom, gathering what the flowers had to offer. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. The bees get the pollen and nectar they need. The pollen they will make into a product called bee bread, a high-protein food for larvae and adult bees. The nectar will be made into honey. Although the cartoons make it seem like honey is made for bears, it is made for the bees themselves. Bears, humans, and other animals just steal it from the bees. The flowers get the pollen moved by the bees from flower to flower so that pollination occurs, and seeds can begin to grow.
On warm, sunny days the bees venture out to find the things that are blooming. Even when we think nothing is blooming, there are usually things in bloom. By the end of December, maple trees are in bloom. They produce pollen that bees love in those reddish, scraggly flowers. You might have never noticed them before. In December, violets also bloom and sweet alyssum. And soon after, the dreaded dandelions! Honeybees shrink the size of their hive populations in the fall, eliminating the drones and allowing the birth rate to slow down so there are fewer to maintain through the sparse months. Honeybees are challenged by varroa mites, and other pests, but there are tools to keep them in check.
Have you ever considered being a beekeeper? You’d be surprised how many people in the Jacksonville area are beekeepers. We have an organization called the Jacksonville Beekeepers Association that meets monthly at the Duval County Extension Service Office. New beekeepers can find experienced beekeepers to mentor them and get great information at the meeting for care. There is a regional inspector who can help with problems that come up. Bees are amazing and fascinating to watch through the seasons as they come and go through the entrance of the hive. For more information, contact: https://www.jaxbees.com/.
A honeybee hovers around a pumpkin bloom in a patch at Sykes-Cooper Farm in Elkton in August 2010.
While honeybees are not native to the United States, we do have 29 varieties of bees that are native to North Florida and love our plants. They are easy to support. They are attracted to basil plants in bloom. Blue basil, holy basil, Thai basil, and purple basil all draw bees. They must be allowed to bloom to attract them.
Most of the native bees go dormant during the winter. The most noticeable one is the bumblebee. They are large black and yellow bees, very fuzzy and have a deep buzz as they fly about. While honeybees get all the notice for pollination, some plants are pollinated better by the bumblebees because of the frequency of their deep buzz. That buzz helps release the pollen onto the bee and move it to the next flower. Salvias, honeysuckles, coneflowers and raspberries are among the many plants pollinated by bumblebees.
Some call bumbles the gentlest bees. They move slowly and therefore don’t startle people and I think that is part of their friendly persona. They also rarely sting.
In the fall, the queen bumble lays the eggs for several new queens who hatch and mate and after feeding, look for places to hibernate. In the spring, she will emerge and begin laying eggs to create a whole new hive in her nest. It may be underground or in a bird box or tree cavity.
One native bee that perplexes gardeners is the leafcutter bee. I find her kind of delightful because she can cut an almost perfect circle in a leaf. The circle of leaf material is taken back to her nest. It will be used to separate her larvae while they develop.
Much works against her and all the native bees (besides humans). There are parasites, velvet ants and wasps, and blister beetles out to get her. Still, every year, there are neat circles cut out of my rose leaves. It doesn’t really hurt the plant; it’s just a tiny piece of the rose bush.
Beyond these bees, there is the sweat bee, infamous because it is attracted to the salt in our sweat. It is probably hibernating underground somewhere near you. A great pollinator, it will be attracted to plants like the Coral honeysuckle, the Chaste tree, rosemary, oregano, Walter’s Viburnum, and sunflowers.
If you are growing vegetables or fruits, you want to attract pollinators. You may not want to keep bees yourself, but then you are dependent on our native bees. This means reducing the chemicals in your yard and providing the nectar plants to keep the pollinators well-fed. It’s not difficult and now is the time when gardeners plan for the future. All these plants are beautiful. What kind of buzz do you want?
Becky Wern is a Master Gardener Volunteer with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS. For gardening questions, call the Duval County Extension Office at (904) 255-7450 from 9 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and ask for a Master Gardener Volunteer.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bees in Northeast Florida: What you should know about them