In a previous post, I wrote about houses for birds, bats, ducks and other wildlife. Now, the U.S. Agricultural Research Service has come out with an idea for a home for wild bees.
Bees are important pollinators for everything from backyard flowers to farmland crops. But in recent years, honeybees, which are an imported species, have seen significant declines due to CCD -- colony collapse disorder. As some biologists race to figure out what is happening, why and what to do about it, others have begun looking anew at wild bee populations.
Turns out the native bees also provide significant pollination services, and we need to better understand what they need to survive and thrive. One thing is a place to build their nests, which often in the ground. These are quite another thing from managed honeybees in hives.
So here's information from the ARS on how you can use a plastic corrugated tote -- like the ones used for the mail -- as a nest site. They protect bee nests against wind and rain and can be reused, year after year. They've been tested in California, Wyoming, Oregon and Utah.
GreenSpace - her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life - appears every other Monday in Health & Science.
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