Knowing Your A Bee C's

Honeybees go about their business collecting nectar and, inadvertently, pollinating the many plants they visit. They've been doing it for thousands of years and will continue on for thousands more.

Or will they?

Last night, Nature (PBS) took veiwers on one of its more frightening rides. The series, "Silence of the Bees", searched for answers to the puzzling decline in honeybee numbers. Scientists and beekeepers have a name for it--Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Just last month, the main cause of CCD was discovered by American researchers. From Nature's website:

Researchers have "linked CCD with a virus imported from Australia, IAPV or Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. Over the past three years, genetic tests on bees collected from stricken colonies around the U.S. found the virus in 96 percent of bees from hives affected by Colony Collapse Disorder."

Last winter's loss of tens of billions of bees has not greatly impacted our lives. But if CCD continues, and the pollination that bees provide stops, then crops such as apples, nuts, broccoli, soybeans, celery, squash and cucumbers, citrus fruit, peaches, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and melons will disappear. Without honeybees, animal-feed crops, such as the clover that's fed to dairy cows, will be affected.

Until scientists, hopefully, remedy the situation, we can all do our best to help keep bees nourished and healthy:

Grow flowers and herbs that attract bees:

Basil, Borage, Catnip, Cornflower, Dill, Echinacea, Evening Primrose, Fennel, Goldenrod, Horehound, Hyssop, Lavender, Parsley, Poppy, Thyme, Sage, Bachelor's Button, Black-Eyed Susan, Butterfly Bush, Clematis, Coreopsis, Dame's Rocket, Foxglove, Goldenrod, Heliotrope, Hydrangea, Lantana, Larkspur, Mexican Hat, Plumbago, Rose of Sharon, Salvia, Sweet William, Zinnia

Plant many of the same species close to each other.

Bees are most attracted to gardens with ten or more species of plants.

Wild and weedy is good.

Don't use pesticides!