Native Bees Help Farmers

I’ve enjoyed watching the native bees in my orchard for years. Many of them are so small that you might not recognize them as being a bee. Everyday they make hundreds  more visits to flowers than hive honeybees,  so they are super pollinators. As the hive bees are in decline due to many reasons, the native bees are going strong. Along the lower side of my orchard, as a buffer between the orchard and the creek, I have planted a long hedgerow  full of native plants. The native bees are dialed into the flowers of these plants and they love Ceanothus; the beautiful wild lilac, twin berry, ribes;  the flowering currents, aster, wild rose, yarrow, buckwheat, sage, and more. They also like flowers like cosmos,  penstemon, echinacea and butterfly bush. If you plant it, they will come!