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Bumble bees are ground nesters and will over winter. Honey bees swarm in spring and colony collapse(likely varroa mites) have been killing the bees. One issue

Bumble bees are ground nesters and will over winter. Honey bees swarm in spring and colony collapse(likely varroa mites) have been killing the bees. One issue we have been having in California is the planting of natives. Honey bees are Italian bees..not native CA bees. At least where I am, there has been so many California Buckeye planted and they are the first to bloom in spring. Their pollen is also toxic to honey bees. When they swarm in spring, they’d go to the first nectar source after they emerge. Sadly, it would be the Buckeye. I always tell people to plant bramble(these days there are thornless varieties)..and bramble blossoms come before or around the time of the buckeye bloom..and much earlier than the rest of the spring bloom. Of course, each region has a different story. In the south…iirc..yellow jessamine pollen is bad for honeybees. Honeybees are just one of the species..native bee varieties are numerous and often honeybees chosen for beehives and honey extraction from them are not native bees. Where I lease land for my lavender fields, they won’t let me set up beehives because they don’t want Italian honeybees to compete with native bees and other native pollinators. Lavender honey is a very lovely product and bees forage for upto 5 mile radius ..but infused lavender honey works too. Native pollinators and bees need protection too. But most people don’t know about their importance. That’s changing (here in California, at least!)

bregma 4y ago
Native pollinators have a lot of trouble with the non-native lavender because they're not adapted to its flowers. Same way honeybees have problems with squash and sunflowers. There isn't a conflict there other than your lavender fields encroaching on native pollinator habitat. Setting up a couple of honeybee colonies won't upset the local balance as long as they're permanent.
- jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  Hedgerows of natives as well as salvias must be encouraged. I have a very small farm(for California/America). I am trying to convert it to a fully no-till or a semi-till set up. I know food growing commercial farms would find it unprofitable/difficult to be ecologically friendly but it’s not impossible to incorporate a few hedgerows in the middle of 100 acre fields. It’s stark now. We even truck in bees to pollinate our almond orchards, but that’s another story for another post. Right now, I have hedgerows every half acre. The diversity of pollinators is pretty impressive. I use fennel, sage/salvias, yarrow to attract them. I also have elderberry and coyote bush for wintering birds. Grass..native grass is important too and when they drop seed. There are many bird species that are seed eating. Finches especially love them. Most seeds are high in oil. The insects are tasty too. For whatever reason, this year we got tree swallows nesting in the bluebird nesting boxes and it was a sight to behold to watch them swoop and swoon for their supper. At home, there are passifloras for hummingbirds and other proboscis pollinators. Orchards also need a variety of pollinators. Figs for example need wasps because the fruit is an inverted flower. But everyone is afraid of wasps. So there’s that. Butterflies need both nectar plants as well as host plants for larve. Usually they aren’t the same ones. Pollinator hedgerows should never be harvested and should be more or less left alone. I have mulberries and rugosa hedgerows for birds and deer. The deer love the rosehips(that’s why the roses shouldn’t be picked) and is a good food source for them in winter. Bunnies like to burrow under it. We even found some fox kits one winter. The benefit of wild hedgerows as perimeter planting is that it keeps the critters and birds full and busy at the edges of the farm. They won’t come in and devastate the orchard fruit. Sterilized and clean stripped farms are aesthetically pleasing to the eye but they are inefficient and require so much fossil fuel to maintain the illusion of order that farms are like literal open factories without the smoke stacks.
- jelliclesfarm 4y ago
  Btw, there are still plenty of bees in the lavender field. We get both bumble bees and honey bees. But here is the interesting bit..I have many kinds of lavender..in one section, I planted a block of purple lavender next to white lavender..and bumble bees and honey bees picked the white and purple sections respectively and never mixed!! It was the weirdest thing!! I wonder if it’s a strategy for them to watch out for predators that are different coloured than them. I have seen bumblebees in purple lavender and honeybees in the white section and on white flowers..but when they swarm in large numbers, they keep separate. And I know they are not colour blind. I have also heard that humming bird prefer red flowers..that’s not true. Thor is the resident humming bird of the oldest elderberry tree(all farm hummingbirds are called ‘Thor’) and I have seen the same Anna and Rufus hummingbirds at the passionflowers too. So..don’t know..they must have some territorial divide and dine strategy. The hummingbirds at least get super territorial and can be mean with each other…they just look cute. Humming birds are lean mean flying fighting machines with a sword attached to their face.

bregma 4y ago

Native pollinators have a lot of trouble with the non-native lavender because they're not adapted to its flowers. Same way honeybees have problems with squash and sunflowers. There isn't a conflict there other than your lavender fields encroaching on native pollinator habitat. Setting up a couple of honeybee colonies won't upset the local balance as long as they're permanent.

jelliclesfarm 4y ago
Hedgerows of natives as well as salvias must be encouraged. I have a very small farm(for California/America). I am trying to convert it to a fully no-till or a semi-till set up. I know food growing commercial farms would find it unprofitable/difficult to be ecologically friendly but it’s not impossible to incorporate a few hedgerows in the middle of 100 acre fields. It’s stark now. We even truck in bees to pollinate our almond orchards, but that’s another story for another post. Right now, I have hedgerows every half acre. The diversity of pollinators is pretty impressive. I use fennel, sage/salvias, yarrow to attract them. I also have elderberry and coyote bush for wintering birds. Grass..native grass is important too and when they drop seed. There are many bird species that are seed eating. Finches especially love them. Most seeds are high in oil. The insects are tasty too. For whatever reason, this year we got tree swallows nesting in the bluebird nesting boxes and it was a sight to behold to watch them swoop and swoon for their supper. At home, there are passifloras for hummingbirds and other proboscis pollinators. Orchards also need a variety of pollinators. Figs for example need wasps because the fruit is an inverted flower. But everyone is afraid of wasps. So there’s that. Butterflies need both nectar plants as well as host plants for larve. Usually they aren’t the same ones. Pollinator hedgerows should never be harvested and should be more or less left alone. I have mulberries and rugosa hedgerows for birds and deer. The deer love the rosehips(that’s why the roses shouldn’t be picked) and is a good food source for them in winter. Bunnies like to burrow under it. We even found some fox kits one winter. The benefit of wild hedgerows as perimeter planting is that it keeps the critters and birds full and busy at the edges of the farm. They won’t come in and devastate the orchard fruit. Sterilized and clean stripped farms are aesthetically pleasing to the eye but they are inefficient and require so much fossil fuel to maintain the illusion of order that farms are like literal open factories without the smoke stacks.
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
Btw, there are still plenty of bees in the lavender field. We get both bumble bees and honey bees. But here is the interesting bit..I have many kinds of lavender..in one section, I planted a block of purple lavender next to white lavender..and bumble bees and honey bees picked the white and purple sections respectively and never mixed!! It was the weirdest thing!! I wonder if it’s a strategy for them to watch out for predators that are different coloured than them. I have seen bumblebees in purple lavender and honeybees in the white section and on white flowers..but when they swarm in large numbers, they keep separate. And I know they are not colour blind. I have also heard that humming bird prefer red flowers..that’s not true. Thor is the resident humming bird of the oldest elderberry tree(all farm hummingbirds are called ‘Thor’) and I have seen the same Anna and Rufus hummingbirds at the passionflowers too. So..don’t know..they must have some territorial divide and dine strategy. The hummingbirds at least get super territorial and can be mean with each other…they just look cute. Humming birds are lean mean flying fighting machines with a sword attached to their face.