George Shirley wrote:
....
If you can grow salvia in your area it will definitely attract bees. We
have no bee keepers in the surrounding area that we can find. Plus our
HOA says no bee hives.

what the HOA doesn't know won't hurt them.
"that's just a wind chime", or "a pile of
sticks" just make sure a few of them are
hollow and of various sizes.

if you have an east facing spot to capture
some morning light put a small slope of dirt
with some loose chunks of wood or bark on
top in a few places, but make sure some of
the area is bare and exposed to the light to
warm it up. they'll use sandy soil or soil
with clay as long as they can dig into it.
the bits of bark and wood help hold some of
the moisture in and will also help moderate
the temperatures. those bits of bark are also
the places they'll use to start hiding under
to build/dig a nest hole.

our paper wasps like the eves of the house
but we knock those nests down, they have
plenty of other nests around too on the back-
side or underneath rocks in the gaps. the
raccoons come around from time to time and
search for them.


The large salvia plant in our back garden attracts honey bees, mason and
carpenter bees, and lots of bumble bees. So many that at any given time
they are all over the vegetable garden getting their own. In addition we
have had, off and on, bee flies. Look like tiny little bees but actually
are pollen eating fly's. A time or two they have saved our crops,
particularly when European honey bees have been in decline.

we've got some salvia around but we also have
a long list of other flowers (i'll append the
list i cooked up a few weeks ago, by no means
is it complete) which keep bees and the other
bugs happy.

often i will sit down near a plant and see who
is visiting. we have some of the smaller types
of bees and flies around, some which sound like
mosquitoes, but are larger and louder. and the
hummingbird moths are quite fun to watch.


I worry about all the bees though, a new builder is destroying the woods
behind us to build another subdivision. I think most of the bees we see
are coming from that former wilderness area.

likely, you can help them out by adding some
places for them to nest.


We go out during the day and use a hose with a sprinkler head to put
water on all the plants. Bees seem to love it and we don't have to worry
about birds and other critters eating the bees off a bird bath, which I
have seen before.

i've not noticed a huge number of bees on the
birdbaths here, but we also have a normally running
drainage ditch so they are likely getting the
water from there. when it gets very dry for
extended periods of time we'll start seeing deer
tracks around the birdbaths.

the most likely bee feeders here are the purple
martin families which come through feeding on a
regular basis (i wish they'd figure the thing out
about the japanese beetles). i consider it the
natural cycle of things so am not discouraged, i'm
just glad that we have healthy food for the birds
to eat and unsprayed plants for the bees.


plant list:


aconite
alfalfa
alliums
asters
astibile
babies breath
baptisia
beans
beareded irises
bee balm
bergamot
blackeyed susans
buckwheat
buttefly bush
butterfly weed
catnip
chicory
chives
clematis
clovers
comfrey
cone flowers
cosmos
creeping jenny
creeping phlox
crocosima
crocus
daffodil
daisies
dandelion
daylilies
dollar plant
early iris
flashing lights
flaxes
forget-me-nots
garlic chives
geraniums
hedge mustard
hollyhocks
honeysuckle
hyacynth
joepye weed
lavender
lavender mountain lily
lilac
lilies
lily of the valley
love in a mist
milkweed
mints
mosquito weed
moss roses
onions
oregano
other iris
other thymes
peas
perennial poppies
pinks
poppies
queen-annes-lace
russian sage
salvia
sedum
shasta daisies
squash
strawberries
sunflowers
taller phlox
thymes
trefoil
tulip
turnips
viperloss
wild irises
wild roses
yarrows
yellow loosestrife


songbird