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LinkedInPosts Tagged: gardens
Build Your Own Bee Haven -- Planting and Maintenance
A previous blog covered the steps to take before starting a bee garden. Now it's time to talk about the plants and how to take care of them. Plant selection depends on many factors, including personal preference, climate, soil type, irrigation frequency, and plant availability....
Build Your Own Bee Haven -- Preparation
I've spoken with countless gardeners over the years who wish to start their own bee haven. That's great -- the bees need all the help we can give them. But the most misunderstood part of the process is how much preparation needs to take place before a single plant goes in the ground. As the Haven...
Haven Research Summary 2024
I've written previously about the Haven's research on bees and gardens. This work included a look at bee preferences for common California landscape plants and work to help growers and landscapers provide the healthiest plants for bees. Studies on bee plant preferences were described in this...
Research to Create Better Bee Gardens
Regular Haven visitors notice that we frequently change our planting. It's one of the joys of gardening -- there are always new plants to try and experiment with. At the Haven, research on new plants and methods for bee gardens is essential to our educational mission. Previous posts have...
A Very Hungry Bumble Bee
She was all bees-ness, this yellow-faced queen bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii. There she was, foraging in a bed of steely blue-purple flowers, Eryngium amethystinum, a genus that belongs to the carrot family, Apiaceae. A native bee on a non-native plant. It...
Can you spot the bumble bee in this bed of Eryngium amethystinum in the Sunset Gardens, Sonoma Cornerstone? (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This image shows the characteristic yellow face and yellow stripe on the abdomen of a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii. She is nectaring Eryngium amethystinum, in the Sunset Gardens at Sonoma Cornerstone. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
With her long proboscis, B. vosnesenskii sips nectar from an Eryngium amethystinum. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of the yellow face of the yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bombus vosnesenskii moves around the Eryngium amethystinum. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bye, Bombus vosnesenskii. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
