4-H Bee Club Members are...Busy as Bees!
Posted: March 21, 2012
4-H Bee Club members getting their garden ready for spring.
The 4-H Beekeeping Club Project this year is to obtain Pollinator Friendly Certification for their garden bed. The goal is to create a welcome environment for butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, wasps, moths and flies. The club members researched flowers and chose those with large amounts of nectar and pollen and also included larval host plants.
You might notice that some of the plants have simple flowers and might not be as showy as other gardens; this is because they selected plants that insects prefer. The 4-H members have raised many of these plants from seed themselves. Depending on when you visit our garden you might see native plants golden rod, bee balm, cone flowers, New Jersey tea or milkweed in bloom.
A sign is attached to native bee houses. Native bees come in all sorts of sizes, which makes natural bamboo and other hollow plant stems great places for them to nest. These are solitary, gentle bees and there is no need to fear them!
Getting a close look might even provide you with the opportunity to spot some of the showier species, which bring their bright colors and iridescent metallic sheens to this, and your own garden.
Certify Your Pollinator Friendly Garden with the Penn State Master Gardeners
Pollinator Planting to Conserve Native Bees
Native Pollinators Video by Penn State
This is a well produced video produced by Penn State Agricultural
Sciences. It discusses the role native bees play in commercial
agriculture today and in the future.
