Wildlife Wednesday, February 2016: Bee House Buzz

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Tina

It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time to celebrate those wild things who live in, visit, and NEED your garden! Welcome to Wildlife Wednesday for February. I’m still enjoying my backyard birds for Cornell Lab, but didn’t want to bore with the usual suspects from last month, though I have witnessed a Sharp-shinned Hawk, Accipiter striatus, visit a couple of times, no doubt looking for a tasty bird meal. I was too excited to grab the camera, so there are no pics of that gorgeous raptor staring hungrily at the White-winged Doves.

Because it’s deep, dark winter,

…or not, I thought I’d share a project that Bee Daddy and I undertook this past year. It’s not related to our honeybees this time ’round, but to our beautiful native bee residents. I’ve long left well-aged wood in my gardens so that bees can make a home for their offspring. It’s easy to do: leave wood out in the garden for bees to find.

They drill into the wood,

…to lay their eggs and then tuck those eggs in with pollen, soil, and such, and voilà,

…more native bees are made.

I do so love my honeybees. But the fact is that honeys are lazy pollinators and if you want bees with pollinating pow-wow, you need to attract whatever bees are native to your area of our little planet. Native bees are the best pollinators around. They pollinate food sources (one in three or four bites of food, depending upon your reading source) and approximately 90% of native plants are pollinated by native bees.

Native bees are vital for the health of the world.

According to the US Geological Survey, there are roughly 20,000 native bee species in the world, about 4,000 of which live in the U.S. They do not suffer the many maladies of honeybees, but we know that they are declining. The decline comes primarily because of human encroachment on natural areas, the move away from using native plants in home and commercial landscapes, and pesticide use. Additionally, native bees nest in wood and in open ground–all places and things that most folks rush to scrap in their home gardens. The sterile, pristine landscape paradigm is not kind to wildlife–of any sort–but it’s especially unkind to native bees. Wild bees need wild space. There’s not much we can do about urbanization, but gardeners can easily make our home landscapes amenable and attractive for these incredibly valuable and fascinating insects.

Last spring, Bee Daddy and I designed templates for wood cuts of varying circles sizes and patterns on the computer,

…that we (okay, Bee Daddy, not I) then drilled into cut, untreated wood.

The wood doesn’t need to be expensive (Bee Daddy used inexpensive fence pickets and 2×4 boards), but it shouldn’t be treated with any chemicals. Remember, we’re trying to make nice homes for bees, not homes laden with icky, insect unfriendly chemicals. You want to drill a variety of circumference sizes as well as varying depths for the holes in order to attract different species of bees.

Additionally, we (okay, Bee Daddy, not I), cut various sizes of bamboo (harvested from a friend’s home who was glad to share) to insert between the holey wood.

Ta da!! A bee/insect hotel! Or townhouse! Or apartment! Or condominium! Or nesting box!

Whatever!!

What this bee house really does is create something cute for gardeners to look at and safe for bees to nest in and nurture their offspring. Native bees rest-n-nest in a variety of situations like the ground and natural cavities of wood or even rock. People-made insect hotels have become popular garden-art additions for those wild gardeners wanting to attract even wilder bees, as well as other important garden residents.

I stacked the two insect hotels for “my” native bees, one on top of the other, with both popped atop an unused and upturned terracotta pot. Many insect hotels are free-standing and some are made to hang on fences or posts.The insect hotels can be as elaborate or as simple as your time and interests allow for. My bee condo is situated in a shady spot and both stories have a little overhang so that the entrances to the holes are somewhat protected from weather conditions. The different sized holes assure that bees of all kinds can find refuge for their young. Additionally, lizards and other insects will probably use this as a shelter and also to hunt critters who happen by.

Such is nature.

Don’t have a handy honey-do, carpenter-happy Bee Daddy to do the drill-baby-drill part of this project? That’s perfectly okay. Aged firewood, or smaller, broken or trimmed tree limbs make great homes for native bees–and all you have to do is place these soon-to-be-bee homes in your garden and the bees will come.

Can you see this little gal, squirreled away in her hidey-hole?

Available wood makes life easier for bees like this female Horsefly-like Carpenter bee, Xylocopa tabaniformis. .

This mother-to-be drilled all afternoon one day last spring, only to abandon her nesting site. I hope she found softer wood here in which to lay her eggs.

On my back patio, there are holes in the limestone rock that were drilled for shelves that we removed some years ago. Instead of filling those holes with mortar, I’ve left them open and I’ve seen several species of bees use these holes as nurseries for their off-spring.

Nice! I’m looking forward to viewing whomever emerges from that hole and who will be a pollinating fool all spring, summer, and fall.

Along with setting out wood or building insect hotels, if there are fallen leaves from autumn, on the ground waiting for “someone” to pick them up–don’t! Or, at least, leave some leaves on the ground. Better yet, place that fallen foliage in your gardens. Many insects, including bees, take refuge in the cover that crinkly leaves and small tree limbs provide. Plus, the leaves don’t end up in the landfill and it’s less work for the gardener if the leaves aren’t bagged.

“Less work” for the gardener is always a good thing.

Lastly, don’t be shy about allowing some open dirt space in your habitat. There’s no garden rule that says every square inch of your property must be mulched, gardened, turfed, or hardscaped. About half of native bees are ground nesters and some of the most threatened native bees are those that need bare ground, either to over-winter in or to nest in. You’ll do everyone a favor if there’s a little naked dirt on your property, here and there.

As of now there are no residents in our native bee houses. Because life gets in the way, it took us a while to complete this project: we made the templates last May, but we (okay, Bee Daddy, not I) finished the frames, bamboo cuts, and holes in November. I imagine there will be some residents in place by late spring this year.

For more information about building your own native bee/insect house, check out this link from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. There are many Internet sites with information about native bees and how to make insect hotels. If you have children, this is an especially fun project in which to include them and teach the importance of nurturing wildlife and providing habitat.

Don’t forget to plant gorgeous native plants for your bee buddies to nectar on.

Lovely non-native bloomers also fit the bill and provide for pollinators.

The world will be a better place for their survival because of your efforts.

Did wildlife visit your garden this past month? Please post for February Wildlife Wednesday–share the rare or mundane, funny or fascinating, beneficial or harmful critters you encounter. When you comment on my post, please remember to leave a link to your Wildlife Wednesday post so readers can enjoy a variety of garden wildlife observations.

Happy wildlife gardening!

Frostweed (Verbesina virginica): A Seasonal Look

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Tina

It’s seldom frosty here in temperate Austin, Texas, but when Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, graces a garden, it beautifies with icy-white, frothy flowers from late summer through autumn.

A native North American herbaceous perennial, Frostweed is a great plant to profile for A Seasonal Look, because it’s lovely, interesting, and home gardeners, as well as visiting pollinators and birds, should enjoy this plant.

The most common of the common names for V. virginica is Frostweed, but according to the LBJ Wildflower Center, it also goes by the names White Crownbeard, Iceplant, Iceweed, Virginia Crownbeard, Indian Tobacco, Richweed and Squaweed. While I don’t know this for certain, I’m guessing that the Crownbeard variations might refer to the clusters of lovely autumn blooms that V. virginica displays.

Additionally, Frostweed leaves provided a tobacco source for some Native Americans, which presumably gave rise to those last two common names. On a healthier note, Frostweed was also traditionally used as a fixative for gastrointestinal issues, urinary, and eye problems.

I like it because it’s pretty and tough and a great wildlife plant.

As for the various names suggesting more frigid attributes, those names are not referring to the cool white of the flowers, but instead to an unusual process that occurs with this plant early in winter, at the first hard freeze. As the temperature plummets , sap in the trunk cools and expands, eventually breaking through the epidermis of the plant. The sap hits the freezing air, solidifies in thin sheets, moving up along the vertical structure of the plant.

The ice sculptures freeze in a ribbon-like design. Conditions for this awesome display are particular: the ground must be moist, assuring the roots are actively drawing water into the plant. Also, the temperature drop must be relatively rapid.

The ice ribbons are fragile and thin, melting at the touch or quickly by air once temperatures rise above freezing. The Frostweed ice extravaganza is an ephemeral event. Not many plants ice dance this beautifully, but Frostweed is one that does. If you’d like to see more wavy-groovy Frostweed ice sculptures, click on the LBJ Wildflower Center’s Frostweed, 68 photo(s) available in the Image Gallery.

Once a hard freeze occurs and Frostweed concludes its frozen display for the year, the plant is rendered dormant. I don’t necessarily prune my plants at that point, but one can–it’s a matter of your aesthetics and time. Some winters are mild and in those conditions, Frostweed doesn’t produce ice sculptures, but the plant will become dormant, or mostly so, even with a light frost.

Additionally, in mild winters even after Frostweed is dormant, new growth can appear from the ground when temperatures are warm enough, well before calendar springtime.

That’s always tricky because if a late hard freeze occurs, the Frostweed will die back again. An established Frostweed plant is robust enough to overcome that shock, but new plants might succumb. So, the stalwart gardener rolls up his or her sleeves and plants more Frostweed.

Newly emerged foliage is exuberant and verdant, but like others in the Asteraceae (Aster) family of plants, Frostweed’s leaves are sandpaper rough. The leaves are also a bit awkward because they’re also quite large, even those on the new spring plants. Frostweed is the plant version of a puppy with large paws.

I like the showy, scrappy foliage. I plant my Frostweed with complementary fine or small leafed shrubs and grasses, and also mix it with evergreens (when possible), since Frostweed itself is pruned back in winter.

Throughout the late spring and summer months, Frostweed grows and the plant eventually catches up to the leaf size. The puppy grows into its feet.

Frostweed’s height ranges from 3 feet to about 6 feet, depending upon soil, sun, and moisture. It’s a woodland plant and considered an understory, so it grows and blooms well in shade–with or without extra watering. It’s an excellent dry-shade plant. Some of my Frostweed get a reasonable amount of afternoon (Texas!!) summer sun and those specimens tend to grow to about 6 feet. Some years (depending upon rainfall) I stake with rebar because at the first heavy fall rains, Frostweed can flop a bit and I prefer their stand-at-attention persona.

By early August, here in Central Texas, regardless of whether it’s been a dry or a wet (hah!) summer, Frostweed flowering begins. At first, a tiny bit of bloom.

…then more.

And more.

It can take 6-8 weeks from those emergent blooms for the whole set of flowers to burst forward in full cauliflower-style glory, but when they do, stand back and enjoy.

A favorite of many pollinators, Frostweed’s blooms are timed for the autumn Monarch migration.

Many other pollinators visit too:

This Tachnid fly is one that I never see–except when Frostweed blooms.

Frostweed blooms from August through early November. Once the blooms begin fading, they turn a pale green,

…then toasty brown.

At this point in late autumn, seed development is well underway; finches and warblers are present and snitch Frostweed seeds from time-to-time.

Still, there are plenty of seeds that drop, germinate, and produce seedlings for the next growing season–either to give away or to transplant to other places. Overall, I think that Frostweed is a superb insect nectar source, but it’s also a fair seed provider for the avian set and for future Frostweed production. In short, Frostweed is a great wildlife plant addition to any garden.

Frostweed is found throughout a large area of North America, from Texas to the deep South and northwards to the mid-states of the US. I would imagine that in the areas where freezes are a sure thing, Frostweed’s ice show is always a winner, though that’s not always true where I live in Austin.

I would also suggest that Frostweed is a casual plant. In literature about using Frostweed in the garden, it’s often suggested that it’s best planted in an informal setting or as a transitional plant situated between a cultivated garden and a more natural wildscape.

Frostweed is not something that is pruned and shaped, nor is it something that you want to tidy too much. For the more formal garden and gardener, Frostweed’s crinkly winter leaves won’t appeal,

…nor will its rangy growth be a desired outcome. Frostweed’s beauty lies in its hardiness and value as a wildlife food source,

..and of course, those pretty, pretty blooms.

Left to its own devices, Frostweed will create a thicket and that is typically how you’d find it growing in a wild area. It’s deer resistant and needs no irrigation–gosh, the perfect plant! So where do you get this perfect plant? If you’re in or around Austin, I’ve seen it for sale at the LBJ Wildflower Center’s spring/fall plant sale. If you live in Frostweed’s native range, check out your locally owned nurseries and if they don’t carry Frostweed plants or seeds, request that they do. Native American Seed, an online native seed source, carries Frostweed, as well as many other native North American seeds. In my quick Google search on where to buy Frostweed, I noticed that Amazon also carries them, along with everything else. No word though whether a drone would drop off seeds at your house. Best bet? Find a garden buddy who’ll share his/her seeds–and enjoy the results.

A year in the life of Frostweed, Verbesina virginica:

Winter:

Spring:

Summer:

Autumn:

Plant it!

Bee Mama Missive: Mufasa No More

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Tina

Mufasa, one of the two beehives that Bee Daddy and I have fretted and fussed over, has died, or if not dead, is mostly on her way out. Unlike her namesake, she wasn’t pushed off a steep edge by a rival, but sadly succumbed to an all too common infestation of honeybees: varroa mites.

That’s what we think, anyhow. In December, long after our last hive check of the year before the days grew chilly, I was out and about in the back garden. I noticed some bees crawling along an open space in the garden a little ways in front of where Scar and Mufasa are situated. Then I realized that it was more than just a few bees–indeed, there were hundreds of bees crawling along the ground. I observed this massive and confused exit from the hive for several days, reading what I could about what I was observing. I contacted a leader of the Austin Area Beekeepers Association and he confirmed what I suspected: my honeys were abandoning the hive because of sickness from a varroa mite infestation. Varroa mites, Varroa destructor, are probably the greatest single threat to honeybees. The mites have a complicated life cycle, but essentially they feed on the blood of adult bees and the brood, causing disease, deformities, and general mayhem in honeybees. I didn’t witness any deformed wings which is a common visual symptom of disease, but Mufasa’s honeys exited the hive in droves and that’s another sign that the bees are infected and dying.

The honeybee expert I consulted called the honeybees leaving Mufasa, “walkers.”

Zom-bees. That can’t be good.

Not only were the bees walking out of the hive, but they were dying in droves. They died along the landing board,

…and were in piles on the ground around the beehives.

Sob.

My bees are BeeWeaver bees, touted as varroa resistant through genetic selection of queens resistant to the varroa mites. Of course varroa resistant doesn’t necessarily mean varroa proof. BeeWeaver claims that fewer than 5% of their queens will succumb to varroa mites and apparently, Mufasa’s queen landed in that statistical range.

BeeWeaver bees are the descendants of bees who survived the initial onslaught of varroa mites in the late ’80s. An idea behind their survival is that they’re particularly tidy bees and they rid themselves of varroa when the varroa arrive–and sooner or later, varroa mites will arrive. Varroa mites are the biggest invasive scourge that North American honeybees and their keepers must deal with. Bee Daddy and I have been fortunate–this is the first hive we’ve lost in the almost two years since we began this buzzy backyard adventure.

In fact, in early summer of 2014 shortly after we started beekeeping, we removed a couple of frames of comb from one of our new hives and on some of the larvae I saw several varroa mites; I just knew that the hive was a goner right then and there. But true to their varroa resistant genetics, the bees rid the hive of the mites and the hive continued successfully, despite occasional (some might say, constant) beekeeper ineptitude.

Until now.

I think my mistake was in assuming that my bees were immune to an infestation, rather than keeping a keen watch on the goings-on of the hive, year-round, winter included. I became a complacent bee keeper.

We treated Mufasa with an organic product called HopGuard II, which is made from hops.

Apparently, beer helps all situations.

HopGuard comes in a sealed package and contains a series of strips coated with a thick and sticky hops solution.

We placed two gooey hops strips in each box of each beehive, each draped over a comb.

Though not showing any symptoms of infestation, we treated Scar because as Mufasa was dying, she was also robbed of her stores of honey (yes, honeybees do that) and it’s possible the mites could migrate from Mufasa to Scar if we don’t stay ahead of the mite situation.

In this picture,

…there are lots of bees buzzing around Mufasa (left in the photo), but this was taken after many (most?) of Mufasa’s bees absconded and died. I’m guessing that the bees are Scar’s bees, or even bees from another nearby hive, robbing poor Mufasa with abandon.

The HopGuard procedure was simple enough, though it’s messy. I could smell the grainy fragrance for a day or so afterwards.

For the moment, Scar appears healthy and we’ll treat with HopGuard II again when temperatures are appropriate. I’m sad about Mufasa’s death, but life is full of loss and one must learn from experience and move forward. If we’re going to lose a hive, now is not a bad time. Bee Daddy is busy making two new Langstroth hives and we’ll have two new honeybee packages (mated queens each with 10,000 workers) delivered in April. With our plans in place to hive new honeybees in more easily managed and efficient hives, we were going to let Scar and Mufasa just…bee, allowing them to swarm (if they want) or to just hang out to pollinate and nectar as they see fit. For Scar and Mufasa we would become honeybee havers rather than honeybee keepers.

There is a bit of activity in Mufasa even now, though very little; the difference between Mufasa (left) and Scar (right) is telling.

As of this post, I haven’t opened the hive up fully since treating with the HopGuard, but I did peek in about 10 days after treating and things were very quiet, certainly in the top two boxes–I can’t see into the bottom box. There was no buzzing and no concerned guard bee coming to the top to check me out, bum in the air ready to warn the rest of the hive of an invader, so I’m guessing there’s little life left. If this winter continues mild, it’s possible that there might be a bit of Mufasa by springtime, but I’m not hopeful about that. We’ll just have to wait, be patient, and accept the outcome.

In the days that followed the revelation that we were losing Mufasa, I was out dealing with leaves in the garden. I spied a probable drowned honeybee in one of my birdbaths. I hate to see their floating bodies, so I always fish them out and deposit them in a garden; a garden seems like an appropriate resting place for a dead bee. This little girl vaguely waved a leg at me, so I cradled her in my palm in the hopes that my warm skin might revive her, all the while depositing rakes and other garden utensils in their appropriate places with my other hand. Within about 5 minutes, she’d revived, was licking off the offending bird bath water and then, without so much as a by-your-leave, she flew off to her next pollinating date.

The resilience of that little bee was affirming in the wake of Mufasa’s death. Her drive to live and continue her community responsibilities and her acceptance of life in that moment, was touching and a good reminder of the importance of purpose. It’s been a transformative adventure to learn about honeybees–to work in the garden closely with them and to learn about their remarkable lives. Becoming a backyard bee keeper has also strengthened my commitment to providing for native bees and all the other pollinators so important to the health of our ecosystem. I’ve loved and planted native plants, focusing on gardening for wildlife in my personal garden and beyond. By actively encouraging pollinators to live and breathe in my gardens by what I choose to plant–or not–I hope to continue an intentional repair of the world, in my own small space, giving respite and nourishment to wildlife despite occasional losses and setbacks.

Lastly, Bee Weaver shared a lovely and locally produced film by Dylan Tidmore profiling two Austin beekeepers, Tanya Phillips and Chuck Rayburn–and of course, the real stars of the production: honeybees.

Enjoy…learn…appreciate.