Denise Ellsworth: really grateful to heather home for being with us again. Heather is uh really a regular on our Webinar series. I'd love to um learn so much from heather. She's an author of uh many different books. Um, my my intro slide is a little um crowded because she has so many great books that I wanted to feature, if you're not familiar with it. Um, she did tell me this morning that wasps is uh her book wasps is, uh, back in print and available as a soft cover. So I do have the link to her website.
Denise Ellsworth: Um, if you want to try to get some of those books on your shelf.
Denise Ellsworth: Um! I use pollinators of native plants all the time, and the the bees book as well. And what I love about heather. Is she? Is she such a knowledgeable biologist? She's also an amazing photographer, and she has a graphic design background. So she has an ability to really translate that biological information in a way that's accessible um for lay people, and and she creates these wonderful infographics and other resources. Um, you can see the one on the left of the screen, how to create habitat for
Denise Ellsworth: stem nesting bees, which i'm sure she's going to talk about today. But these uh resources and posters and handouts are on her website, and she she shares them freely. So um really appreciate all that she does to to spread the knowledge, to teach other people. She coordinates some um large habitat projects there in the Twin City. She's in Minnesota and um. So, taking what she loves and knows, and helping to um expand that to other people.
Heather Holm: So heather. Thanks so much for being with us. Let me stop sharing, and i'll pass the screen over to you, thanks to Nice. Good morning. Everybody had a lot of fun watching where everybody is zooming in from this morning.
Heather Holm: Many places I've been to or um,
Heather Holm: and have not. Uh, we'll hopefully get to, uh, specifically, Alaska have yet to get to Alaska.
Heather Holm: Um. So thank you, Denise, for another uh invitation to present for this Pollinator series
Heather Holm: just getting sorted up here, all right. And uh, as I said to Denise and Marcia, I I really kind of went back to basics, since this is sort of a introduction and refresher uh series, so as Denise mentioned, be sure to tune in to some of the other very amazing
Heather Holm: uh presentations and recordings that are already up online that um are not but necessarily introductory. Uh: So today i'm going to be talking about creating and managing habitat for native bees. So we're just
Heather Holm: looking at the landscape uh, and how we are planting in the landscape specifically for beads, today, and I will start off by talking about uh, where native bees nest in our gardens. And this is something to always keep in mind and understand.
Heather Holm: Uh, with this large diversity of bees. Uh, you have to think about. Where are they trying to find a place to live? And we obviously want to encourage uh, nesting opportunities in our landscapes that we're managing. And then what do bees eat?
Heather Holm: So i'll talk a little bit about their diet, and then get into the things that I often think about when i'm trying to enhance or or start a new pollinator garden. So plant selection considerations,
Heather Holm: and then thinking about it from a broader perspective, since uh people are tuning in from all all parts of the the Continent. I tried to just think about what are some common principles that that I would approach a specific site,
Heather Holm: and then finally, i'll finish off by some tips About how do we maintain these uh these pollinator gardens and be habitat? But I know some of the other uh presenters in this series will get more into design, and that may be what you're looking for. But i'm kind of taking a a broader look at
Heather Holm: uh things to think about, and I wanted to start off just by talking about uh the sociality of bees. And this graphics a little bit busy. But again, uh! With three thousand six hundred species occurring in the Us. And Canada we have to think about. Oh, my goodness, they all have these different
Heather Holm: nesting strategies Uh, the vast majority of these have solitariness,
Heather Holm: but we do have some bees that are social. But so, besides the uh, introduced honeybee, which is a highly social species. We do have native bees that have social nests. So what does this mean? From a gardening perspective? It means that, uh, basically a social colony, whether it's a bumblebee or a species of sweat bead,
Heather Holm: They are active
Heather Holm: uh, throughout the growing season. So our social bees need a continuous succession of flowering plants. Because if you look at this graphic, they're foraging Activity starts in early spring, when an overwintering female, an adult female emerges, and then starts to look for a place to nest, and then, as she uh produces her first brood, uh, usually all female.
Heather Holm: Then you have more sweat bees or bumblebees out foraging in the landscape
Heather Holm: uh followed by males, and then reproductive females. So our social bees are over wintering this just the females. The new reproductive females are over wintering as adults in our landscapes, and so they again need this continuous succession of flowering plants through the growing season.
Heather Holm: So if we take a closer look at the life cycle of our native bumblebees, and and depending on what state or province you live in, uh, you may have anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five species occurring in specific place where you live. So we have a number of different bumblebees in North America,
Heather Holm: and that nest is established in early spring by a hibernating uh new queen or dine, and so she's going to come out of the her really shallow hibernation borough early in the spring uh forage for just some food sources for the first uh seven to ten days, while she busy, looks for
Heather Holm: a site to establish her nest, and then she gets to work at collecting pollen in order to have a food source to lay her eggs on. So as uh the growing season progresses and we're out busy in our gardens uh usually late spring. Early summer is when we start to see
Heather Holm: more bumblebees out foraging in the landscape on the flowering plants that we have planted, and then uh activity increases over the summer months. The one wonderful warm months in the summer uh more males are out foraging, and new queens are produced, and those males are searching for those new queens while they're out foraging during the day. And that's when mating occurs,
Heather Holm: and then this but colony is annual, so unlike a a honey bee colony which is typically perennial. Uh, our native bees have annual colonies. So at the end of the growing season this time of year. We've already had some cold temperatures here in Minnesota, so the bottle bees are uh pretty much finished as far as the colony cycle. But those uh newly mated females uh the reproductive females or dimes, have uh burrowed into the ground
Heather Holm: just a couple of inches, so that right image is showing a common Eastern bumblebee, and she's busy excavating a shallow burrow in the ground. And that's where she will spend the winter. So, thinking of this life cycle from a a gardening perspective,
Heather Holm: uh, we need to think about where a Queen bumblebee would be searching for a place to nest in the spring in our gardens and landscapes. They like, uh abandoned rodent or chipmunk girls below ground. We do have some species that will nest right on the ground, but under usually heavy layers of
Heather Holm: plant debris or leaf litter. So there's something, some places providing some initial insulation for that that colony establishment.
Heather Holm: Okay, So to communal, I talked about social and that that first graphic cat, semi social, and in addition to communal communal is a really fun um sort of
Heather Holm: uh type of sociality. And this is a a nesting aggregation that I found this summer, and the bees in the genus egg, a postman or communal. And what does communal mean? Well, it's basically like condo living. So many females are sharing uh, perhaps multiple nest entrances. You can see this image of sort of multiple borough holes in in a one,
Heather Holm: so they may have uh multiple exits and entrances, and they're going down below ground. But each individual female is provisioning their own brute cells. But these semi social or communal nests that have multiple females living within
Heather Holm: uh, sometimes cooperatively, and and in the case of the communal nest um sort of just sharing the space, but doing their own thing below ground. Um! They will have nest guards, so that right image is showing a female sweat be, and she's actually perched at that entrance, and she's guarding the nest, and to ensure that
Heather Holm: no uh natural enemies are trying to enter. So this is something that if you spot uh uh, maybe an aggregation of this and the ground, or uh, in some cases uh holes in wood in logs uh, and you see multiple females and some activity and some nest guarding.
Heather Holm: Uh, you can maybe conclude that this nest is semi-social, or perhaps communal.
Heather Holm: So we move on to the solitary B uh nesting strategy, and that can make up about ninety percent of the total number of B species. And in general, you know, there's I'm going to say in general, because there's always exceptions. Um. But you can think of the solitary d life cycle as being uh, basically twelve months from the time that the egg is laid by the adult female until that be emerges from the next. So with the
Heather Holm: three thousand six hundred species that occur, or perhaps
Heather Holm: hundreds of species that occur in the state or province where you live. Uh, each individual species has their own window or phonology through the growing season that they are active. So the spring active species, as you can see, are obviously coming out of their natal nest. Nest. Emergence occurs in the spring uh the females then mate with males after they emerge, and then they go about looking for a a new place to establish an S. So, obviously.
Heather Holm: If they are a spring active species, they're foraging activity to flowering plants would occur in spring, and so the pattern continues with the
Heather Holm: mit ctl, and uh, the summer active adults, and in addition to the fall act of adults, so this life cycle is the same, but it's staggered, depending on when they are active in the growing season, two hundred and fifty,
Heather Holm: and then you can see uh their overwintering strategy is uh a little bit different, depending on what stage of development they are in their life cycle. So those spring, active species
Heather Holm: are able to get their nest established, lay their eggs, the larvae develop over the summer, the larva prepare for uh pupation. Go through pupation, and then the adults are actually over wintering. Um! So they're ready to come out in the spring early when maybe the first willows bloom.
Heather Holm: So the over wintering stat strategy is a little bit different, based on when the adults are actually active, and the nest provisioning is occurring.
Heather Holm: Uh in some of our solitary species. So many, just the females just find a ideal soil type or a place in an above ground cavity, and they're just off provisioning their nest by themselves. Not um near any other type of be nesting uh, but in some cases specifically with the ground nesting species uh some females will nest in aggregation. So these are the slide shows two examples
Heather Holm: uh the Andrina asterisk is an aster specialist. So she comes out as an adult in late summer, and then specializes on collecting pollen from plants in the Aster family,
Heather Holm: and she preferentially likes to nest in uh sandy areas. So this is where some species may not be common in our gardens or urban habitats, because, uh, they have much more specific soil preferences, or nesting preferences.
Heather Holm: So the Andrina asterisk, those little soil mounds in the uh left image. Each of those are individual solitary nests, but the females are nesting together in this ideal uh site
Heather Holm: in nest aggregations. Similarly, a type of mining be the Calyopsis and Dren a formis. This is just a bare soil footpath in a park,
Heather Holm: and you can see that's uh they really like compacted sand for their nesting uh soil soil type. So multiple females are digging and excavating us in close proximity, which forms aggregations. But there's no sort of sociality going on with these
Heather Holm: aggregations of solitariness. So about thirty percent of our aob species do nest above ground in various types of pre-existing cavities.
Heather Holm: Uh, one uh exception to note of course, is the large carpenter bees, and they are a wood boring uh cavity nesting species, so they make. They will actually make their own cavity, and they can be destructive of uh human structures. Sometimes, because we have a wonderful decks and sheds that are attractive to them for boring their would hold. But they they are kind of the exception to the rule. Uh most of our cavity nesting species are out.
Heather Holm: The females are looking for pre-existing cavities
Heather Holm: holes in standing dead trees that have been created by beetle larvae uh cavities and stem. So i'll go through some different examples. My graphic is showing uh, ideally that cavity has a dead end. So one end is uh closed, and the female begins by provisioning the first brood cell at the back of the cavity,
Heather Holm: and then those brown um uh walls in in my illustration are part partitions are made of various types of natural materials, so depending on the bee species, they will use uh resin uh pe lea leaf pieces, mud. In some cases
Heather Holm: a piff, so you can sometimes tell what type of B maybe nesting in a cavity based on the natural material you use to partition, or close the actual cavity
Heather Holm: uh holes in wood. So for those of you who are tuning in from uh, specifically, the Eastern North America, with more forested or wooded habitats.
Heather Holm: Um. A number of these species solitary species do nest in wood. So this is just an old log lying on the ground. You can see the polls that were created likely by beetle larvae, and these provide some opportunities for some types of wood nesting species. So uh lazio glass on the small sweat bees. It's a very diverse genus. Most are ground nesting, but a handful of species do nest in wood.
Heather Holm: Similarly, the pure green metallic sweatby, which is a entirely Eastern North American species. Uh, also, you'll find nesting at ground level or up in trees in holes in in limbs,
Heather Holm: but they preferentially seem to like uh logs lying on the ground. So think about this as a habitat piece in your home landscape, or place that you are uh managing for pollinator habitat. Um this. It's easy to incorporate some wood. They tick typically like dry running wood, so the the piece of log is very, very wet.
Heather Holm: Um. It would need to kind of dry out for it to become attractive for these bees
Heather Holm: uh some of the smaller cavity nesting bees, including, uh, some in the genus hoplitus, in addition to Sarah Tina or the small carpenter bees. Uh they're nesting in often in piffy flower stocks or piffy stems of woody plants. So this uh sort of collage of images is showing uh the small carpenter bees. Specifically, the females bore out that star phone like pith material from the center of the woody stock
Heather Holm: or perennial flower stock,
Heather Holm: and then they bore down and make a long linear cavity uh in order to provision their brute. So so the top image uh colleagues image there of a stem broken open,
Heather Holm: shows the they're reusing that pith material as the
Heather Holm: Uh brute cell partition, and then the females provisioning each individual brute cell with a combination of Colin and nectar. So as as Denise mentioned the Graphic that, uh, I helped develop with some other uh awesome B people. Um, We put this together because uh talking about leaving stems double was uh sort of resulting in a lot of confusion about when to do what and so the Graphic is,
Heather Holm: uh not only shows what to do with the plant um during the different uh periods or months of the growing season. But then it also explains what's going on inside of the stem. If you do leave stems double.
Heather Holm: So in my home garden I I leave everything up and standing for the winter, the perennial plant material. And then in the spring, I just basically take large garden cheers and chop and allow that material to fall to the ground
Heather Holm: on top of the leaf litter that I've left uh from the previous fall, and then you can leave anywhere from eight to twenty inches of this stem stubble. This picture is at a visitor center on the Mississippi River. Uh. So the volunteers are maintaining the uh native garden for pollinator habitats. So they started creating this uh stem stumble. You don't need to um include all plants in your garden. There are some that are much better for stems double and
Heather Holm: more attractive to some of the cavity nesting. Be so. Plants in the Aster family are are usually very good, but you can also just do a look and feel test If those stems are nice and strong and fibrous. Um, they're not hollow. They have a Pithfield center.
Heather Holm: Uh, you think they're gonna weather, and last for at least twelve months to house uh developing larvae and in the actual nest, Then that's probably a good plan to experiment with the other plant. That's kind of unusual is the um monardo the while Bergamons
Heather Holm: uh the Saratina specifically seems to really like nesting in the the Monarda stems
Heather Holm: so back to the partitions. And this is what's so fun about native bees. Not only are they busy as a be quite literally um looking for a place to nest looking for provisions, pollen and nectar on flowering plants near where their nest has been established.
Heather Holm: But bees in the family uh mega Kylie day, which is the leaf cutter B family. Um, They're going to a whole bunch of extra work in order to uh find natural materials to envelop or partition in their individual brute cells in cavities. So these uh photos are of bees in the genus Mega, Kylie,
Heather Holm: and the females have very large mandibles with uh various numbers of teeth, which really act like scissors, and they will uh elegantly land on the edge of a leaf, and then start chewing or cutting a leaf piece, so they'll cut oval shape pieces,
Heather Holm: and that will form the outside of the cylinder, and often go back to the same plant over and over again. So if you see some activity um, you can actually just camp yourself there and wait for the female to come back, and then she'll cut circular shape pieces to cap the nest. So if you find leaf cuts
Heather Holm: in your garden, and this is why I thought i'd include this in the presentation, then you know um. You have some species of of leaf cutter B. That is present or close by that is, uh nesting within your yard, or perhaps next door in your neighbor's yard.
Heather Holm: Um! So the study back in two thousand and sixteen, by uh Scott, Mckiber, and colleagues, they actually sort of started to. Uh, look at what plants are used by leaf, cutter, bees. And so this is a Eastern North American study, but they found fifty, four different plant species and
Heather Holm: uh the majority forty-eight of the plant species. The leaves had antimicrobial properties. So all of this extra work that the females are doing to line and partition the individual brute cells with leaf pieces uh, maybe maybe providing some added benefit to the developing larva with inside. If you are on my I naturalist. I just wanted to mention. There's
Heather Holm: a wonderful project where you can take a photo such as the one I have on the right here of the ashtree um uploaded I, that online naturalist and add it to the Mega Kylie B. Leaf Cut Project. And so the uh researchers out of the University of Minnesota are trying to expand upon that list to better understand,
Heather Holm: uh what types of uh leaves and plants are used by leaf cutter bees.
Heather Holm: Sometimes partitioning can in include not just whole leaf pieces, but these in the genus Osmian, in addition to hop lightest um, they will actually chew or masticate the leaves, so they uh similarly land on the leaf. Uh starting on the leaf edge, the females will just start chewing, and as they um sort of cut the leaf pieces, they chew it up in their mandibles, forming more of a leaf pulp, so that we've Pulp is used to line
Heather Holm: the individual brute cells in addition to capping a cavity nest. So I just discovered
Heather Holm: sort of these two marks on some leaves a couple of years ago in a little Restoration project, and uh waited around because they look quite fresh. And sure enough, this this uh Mason be arrived and started chewing on the wild strawberry leaves where I live in the upper Midwest. I've only found them using uh, rosacious plants. So the wild strawberry uh, in addition to some native uh potentilla species. But That's another thing that we can expand our knowledge on
Heather Holm: to figure out what other plants may be utilized by some of these species that do masticate leaves,
Heather Holm: and then resin. So what a sticky and uh arduous substance for a native B to try and use inside of the nest uh. So things like pine sap. Sometimes some of our poplar and cottonwood trees. There's resinous material on the leaf buds that is used by bees. But uh, so far, I think pine Sapp is sort of one of the known North American resin sources,
Heather Holm: and so the the females are looking for the resin
Heather Holm: um sort of manipulating it and carrying it in their mandibles, and then using the resin to again line and partition. The nest so resin also has antimicrobial properties. So, even though I wouldn't be my first choice, as it be to use resin given how hard it would be to manage.
Heather Holm: Uh, we have a number of these in the in the leaf cutter be family that
Heather Holm: seek out resinous sources. So again, uh, some of these species may be uh had very tied to specific habitats, where uh a resin source is located nearby, so they may be choosing to nest near pine pine trees in order to have that resin source to uh line their cavity nest.
Heather Holm: Okay, So what do Bees eat? Switching gears? And of course I think most of you already know that these are often characterized as vegetarian. Uh my lost book kind of focuses on a large part on some of their ancestors, which are
Heather Holm: primarily carnivorous uh hunting various insects and spiders to put in the nest to feed their offspring. But bees uh have switched to a primarily plant based diet. They're getting their all of their nutrition
Heather Holm: from the floral resources from flowers, and that includes nectar. Of course, nectar is, basically I consider it their fuel. So it's the the source of carbohydrates nectar are providing them with various types of sugars, and the nectar can also have
Heather Holm: uh minerals and various kinds of amino acids, and even in some cases secondary metabolites.
Heather Holm: And but really the the more more important floral resource in regards to rearing larvae would be the pollen, because pollen is providing
Heather Holm: uh their primary source of protein and fats. Uh, in addition to some of the other micronutrients, the vitamins and minerals, uh and amino acids similar to the nectar and pollen, is essential specifically for females they need that protein source in order to produce eggs, and it also, of course, is very important, for overall be health and disease resistance.
Heather Holm: So with the solitary species you'll often find,
Heather Holm: uh, the solitary bees visiting flowers. The females not only are actively, perhaps, collecting the pollen, but you'll also, maybe observe uh pollen consumption by adult solitary. Be so that female uh small, sweaty picture there she's, she's busy consuming some uh hepatica pollen and early spring, because it's here in the midwest one of the first woodland plants to bloom. So she's looking for some
Heather Holm: added nutrients likely to get her egg production
Heather Holm: uh in full gear. And So the females in the b lifecycle are the ones that are actively visiting flowers and collecting the pollen to take back to the nest. And so they have various types of pollen collecting structures. Bumblebees and honey bees have pollen baskets. So this is the sort of a back photo of a worker bumblebee. And you can see the pollen basket or curbicula
Heather Holm: is essentially uh they're lower part of their hind leg. The tibia is enlarged and has a smooth indentation, and the it's also surrounded by long, briskly hairs, which you can see in that image which help hold that pollen mass in place on the corbicula.
Heather Holm: Most of our other solitary beasts. So, looking at those right images, have uh hairs of varying links on their hind leg. Sometimes, uh pollen is even collected on the side of the Thorac. So in the case of that picture of the Andrina, the mining B species,
Heather Holm: and then the Leaf Cutter B family is a little unusual uh the females collect pollen on hairs on the bottom of their abdomen, so that you can see that lavender uh colored pollen on that Mega Kylie female, and she's busy
Heather Holm: um visiting a companion of flower, one of her favorites here in the midwest, because the pollen is presented on the style of the flower, so it's a very convenient touch point for her to um place her abdomen on that style and pick up the pollen on her uh pollen, collecting structures on her abdomen.
Heather Holm: And this uh little uh a um fact was I picked up from Jamie strang's uh past, presentation for the Osu series, and this is, uh related to bumblebees, but just thinking about your gardens and landscapes, and the number of trips that an individual uh solitary female, or perhaps a worker in a semi social or social nest needs to take in order to find enough pollen just to feed one larvae. So
Heather Holm: uh the stat here is that eighteen pollen foraging trips for a worker bumblebee
Heather Holm: in order to be able to have enough Colin to feed a single uh bumblebee larvae, So that's uh again, busy as it be is, is no joke. They're They're all in the landscape really uh, hopefully looking for these nutritious pollen sources in close proximity to where they have established their nest,
Heather Holm: and, as I mentioned, pollen is probably the most important food uh ingredient in the provisions that the female is providing. Here is another example of different
Heather Holm: natural materials that are used by native bees for partitioning the brute cells. So this is a look inside an orchard mason be larvae nest, and the mom has used um mud as her nestlining, and uh wall partitions,
Heather Holm: so pollen back to pollen. It's the uh really important floral resource. It's a central nutrient, because it's providing uh that combination of protein and lipids. But uh, more importantly, um, it's sometimes the bacteria and fungi that gets introduced by the mother B,
Heather Holm: or from uh, naturally occurring bacteria and fungi present on the pollen, on the flowers that really starts the fermentation process of the provisions and fermentation is likely very critical in order for these be larvae to be able to digest the pollen, because pollen is very complex and
Heather Holm: hard outer coding, so fermentation likely helps to break down some of those complex proteins in order for it to be edible by by the larvae.
Heather Holm: So plant can selection considerations. And I, As I said at the beginning, I thought i'll take kind of a broad look at
Heather Holm: what I think about when i'm um trying to enhance or create pollinator habitat. So we we We've already covered sort of the number of different species They're varying life cycles. Uh Next, we'll talk about some of their flower preferences. So really a be an individual be uh what will influence the flowing plants they visit would be based upon when they are active as an adult, and what flowers may be present and blooming in the landscape
Heather Holm: also just physical traits. So tongue, length, physical size, will determine whether a bee can access a flower or um get at the floral resources. Bees are looking for pollen sources in some case, on their foraging trip. On on another forging trip they may be looking for a flowering plant that's offering the nectar that they want. So there they may be, switching off from different flowering plants, depending on the purpose of their foraging trip,
Heather Holm: and then, of course, uh those really specific nesting preferences. So if it's a species that will nest only in compacted sand, then the a female would be
Heather Holm: really limited to the flowing plants that are growing in close proximity to those ideal nesting conditions.
Heather Holm: And what's really uh important to think about If you are planting a pollinator garden, of course, and I know Doug Tell me likely talked about this as well as the importance of native plants. We can't um have a completely non native garden, and expect to support all types of bees.
Heather Holm: So, in fact, many of our uh native bee species are pollen specialists uh, and they have a varying degrees of host plant specialization. So what is a pollen specialist? It means that the uh female be of a given species
Heather Holm: we'll collect only pollen from um, perhaps one plant genus or a couple of plant families, so you can see again how her habitat uh may become very restricted. She's going to have to find a nesting site close to where her host plants occur, so she has that pollen source. So it goes from very, very narrow, so of a single female just collecting pollen from one plant species um to very broad, so polylectic,
Heather Holm: and that would be
Heather Holm: the case of our bumblebees, who again are social and active throughout the growing season. They'd be um capitalizing on a wide variety of plants, so they wouldn't be considered a specialists.
Heather Holm: And just uh, because you are all zooming in from different parts of the Continent. Just to note that. Uh, if you're in the Eastern us. And this is some wonderful information from Jared Fowler's website. The link is at the bottom. I encourage you to explore um all of the really interesting information. He's basically compiling everything that is known about specialists
Heather Holm: uh in in North America. And you can see in the Eastern us approximately. Twenty-five of all species are pollen specialists of native plants, and then the number increases as you go west. So central us thirty percent
Heather Holm: and then the Western United States thirty-five uh specifically in the Western United States, and the Southwest, of course, is where we have very high B diversity, so that could also um be influencing the number of pollen specialists. If you're tuning in from Canada, I saw lots of people noting their uh tuning in from Ontario Um, then probably similar numbers, so the Eastern us would be twenty-five percent of likely pollen specialists
Heather Holm: that would occur in Ontario for example,
Heather Holm: and Doug tammy uh partnered with Jared Fowler and they've come up with some really nice sort of
Heather Holm: distilled Uh guides for keystone species, and I know he talked about keystone species, as it relates to hosting a high numbers of Laper doctrine, larvae or um moth and butterfly caterpillars, which his research focuses on. But we can also think about keystone species from the standpoint of of native bees and pollen specialists. So they came up with some really nice two page guides for each of the
Heather Holm: eco-regions in North America,
Heather Holm: and so just go to the National Wildlife Federation website and search on keystone plants, and then you can explore what Ec region that you live in. And so I just uh plugged in the Eco region Number eight, the Eastern temperate forest, thinking that that's probably where most people are tuning in from today for the Webinar,
Heather Holm: and it's a two-page guide. Uh, on the front page you can find all of the top woody plants, shrubs and flowering perennials that host uh high numbers of caterpillars, and then Jared has notated uh, how many calling specialists for each of those. And then on the back uh second page, Um Jared has pulled out
Heather Holm: and listed the top thirty native host plants for pollen specialist bees. So this is something we really should keep in mind. Um, Not all pollen specialists are rare. Uh some are quite common. All we have to do is start incorporating
Heather Holm: some of these uh keystone pollen plants into our gardens, so he's got the top thirty, and then it notes the number of individual species that specialize on collecting that Colin. So these are just six from that list. So Golden Rod is a heavy hitter uh hope um supporting forty-two different Colin specialists, sunflowers, the plants, and the genus how the antis uh fifty specialists, and so on. So some of the others Here asters tixie
Heather Holm: thistles uh noting our native thistles, please, Don't, allow our invasive thistles to proliferate proliferately in the landscape
Heather Holm: and then of course uh black eyed Susan
Heather Holm: so the other uh no, so it's not just perennials, but perennial is kind of uh sift up to the top of the list for pollen specialist bees,
Heather Holm: but these are some of the woody plant uh genera that we're also on that top thirty list plants in the genus vaccinium. The erequacious plants, such as blueberries, billberry, cranberry, uh our native dogwoods support for their four types of specialist bees.
Heather Holm: Uh, in addition to willow willow is a really heavy hitter. Um, if you compare both with Willow, was at the top for both the butterfly and moth caterpillars numbers, in addition to the number of B. Pollen specialists, and that makes sense. Willow blooms pretty early in the spring. Here, in in the upper midwest, it's usually the first plant to bloom,
Heather Holm: and it attracts a wide variety of
Heather Holm: many kinds of flowering, visiting insects, not just uh bees, so very good uh source of pollen and nectar for uh, all kinds of bees, and then also thinking about perhaps those um over wintering new Queen Bumblebees, they come out of their hibernation, their little shallow borough in the ground
Heather Holm: uh willows can provide them with some first nectar sources to help fuel their nest searching activities.
Heather Holm: So no matter where you live uh, we have to think about trying to incorporate more native plants into our landscape. Um. Doug's research is also demonstrated that uh seventy percent native is a good target
Heather Holm: uh less than seventy percent native than your uh. Your diversity really decreases. And thinking about uh the whole growing season. So some of you have much longer growing seasons than I do where I live. But,
Heather Holm: um! Starting to do an evaluation of your existing plantings thinking about? What am I missing? Specifically People often are missing good foraging resources. In the spring they tend to focus on
Heather Holm: a lot of perennials in a planting that bloom from uh early late spring into into autumn. So don't forget about the spring resources, and that can include sometimes flowering insect pollinated trees
Heather Holm: in addition to some of the native shrubs, but having that flower restaurant open twenty, four, seven throughout the growing season is really important for supporting a wide diversity of native bees.
Heather Holm: So the other thing I think about with plant selection considerations is first off uh what are some very good pollen sources for native bees, because they can find nectar from a a variety of different plants. But as I talked about earlier, pollen is just the most important floral resource for, uh be reproduction for for the larvae food. So these are some families from that Eastern,
Heather Holm: that Ec region eight, the Eastern temperate forest,
Heather Holm: and I look at it from as the standpoint of plant families. So the P family, the the Erica's family, the Aster family, the Rose family Uh. These flowering plants in these plant families uh typically are providing a lot of good uh nutritious pollen for bees,
Heather Holm: and you can also think about nectarless plants. So we have a number of flowering plants that actually don't offer pollen,
Heather Holm: or excuse me, they don't offer nectar um. They're just offering pollen. So the flowering plants put more resources into the production of pollen and um. That's a fail safe uh choice. If you're trying to figure out what is a good pollen source versus nectar source for for native bees.
Heather Holm: So nectar list plans are usually uh good choices.
Heather Holm: So some examples. Here are the wild center which um Dr. Patch uh talked about briefly in his presentation last week. Um! The plant is buzz pollinated. So That's another fun thing about it. You can
Heather Holm: camp out next to the flowering, wide, wild Santa and and listen to the bumblebees buzz, pollinating the flower, and In fact, many nectar list plants are are buzz pollinated by our native bees, so that they um not. They don't necessarily need that sonication to extract the polling, but they tend to, uh like sonicating um nectar list plans.
Heather Holm: So others include uh the wild roses, the native wild roses, and the genus Rosa.
Heather Holm: Our our native spider warts are also nectar, and then another sort of heavy hitting plant family that I didn't have on the previous slide is the night Shade family. So the solinaceous plants
Heather Holm: uh the five Zealous, or the native ground. Cherries also support a number of different um pollen specialists, and the solanacious plants are um for the most part, and I have. I don't want to say all because I didn't didn't um check that. But I believe most are all our uh nectar lists,
Heather Holm: so moving on to nectar. So i'm not saying that these plants don't offer pollen, or there aren't um specific native piece, that there's some bees that specialize on collecting the pollen from some of these
Heather Holm: genera. But uh, this is just a generalization of thinking about. Okay, I've got plants that are ensuring that i'm providing nutritious polling sources.
Heather Holm: And now I can think about plants that also uh, or maybe bees are heavily utilizing for for nectar. So the Mint family tends to be one,
Heather Holm: a a firing plant family that gets heavily utilized by native bees. For as a nectar source, so some examples uh Monardo, the wild Bergamons.
Heather Holm: Pakistani, the anesthes of a mountain mint, is a a very good plant for attracting, not just bees that are maybe seeking out the nectar, but a of a wide variety of beneficial insects are attracted to mountainment
Heather Holm: and similar. You'll see some overlap, so the P. And Aster family overlap between the pollen and nectar sources, so you can't go wrong if you're planning a pollinator garden to think about those two plant families as a starting point,
Heather Holm: and then our milkweed uh milkweeds, of course, are not uh overtly offering Colin that pollen is actually packaged into sticky uh sacks. So most are all visits to milkweed plants by insects is to feed on the nectar.
Heather Holm: So of course, there's a number of things that are impacting uh native be populations. And this is something i'm thinking about with plant uh selection considerations as well. And some of these interacting factors, such as climate change, habitat laws, just a real, a lack of uh flower rich landscapes. Um. In some cases this is causing uh nutritional stress. So I think about landscapes and pollinator have
Heather Holm: mit ctl. And and how can we reduce nutritional stress for some of these uh native B species, and that can include thinking about really nutritious pollen sources. One hundred and fifty
Heather Holm: planting for keystone uh native bee species. But it it's really no surprise to think about how humans have radically changed the landscape here in North America.
Heather Holm: This is uh a map of the city where I live, which is approximately five miles by five miles, or sort of the size of a old township,
Heather Holm: and and that uh image on the left is the pre-european settlement uh plant community map so largely intact. Natural habitat um When Europeans arrived here in in Minnesota, and then you can see the change in the fragmentation and the loss of natural habitat. Uh, when a survey was conducted in two thousand and eight, so those remaining little brown fragments for the most part are some, some is privately owned land.
Heather Holm: Most of it is a parkland that is owned by either the municipality or county.
Heather Holm: Um, And then the city actually conducted a natural resources master plan. So they updated some of the mapping and overlaid on that new map On the right. You can see the red is representative of impervious surfaces, so not only do we have to think about Ah! Be dispersal and movement through the landscape, but all of those red um parts on the map are representing a a lack of nesting habit
Heather Holm: specifically for obviously for ground nesting bees. So it's a really challenging environment in our built landscapes, whether you live in an urban or suburban situation, it's really hard for native bees to eke out an existence because of our radical land use change.
Heather Holm: But the last map I wanted to show is the uh amount of privately owned land and the amount of lawn or turf grass. So look at all that bright green on the map. Uh, that is really um an opportunity for making really high and diverse pollinator habitat. So we have to think a glasses, hassle. We can capitalize on
Heather Holm: influencing um. People like you tuning in that, maybe starting a pollinator garden. But I thought i'd show these maps just for you to think about not only the place where you're trying to put in habitat, but more of a regional look
Heather Holm: uh, and how you can connect uh to wilder or natural landscapes uh, and that will help influence uh how long it takes for native bees to find your new pollinator habitat.
Heather Holm: So some of the other things I think about from a landscape perspective in regards to creating pollinator habitat. Um, I do a lot of ecological restoration work, so working on much larger scales in a home garden. But I think we can use some of the same principles, and these highly disturbed urban and suburban landscapes have many invasive plants present,
Heather Holm: and that is a great place to start. I bought my house, and
Heather Holm: in the suburbs twenty years ago, and we had, you know, five, six, seven types of native, an invasive plants um growing rate in our yard. So, starting with restoring or creating native habitat uh begins with removing the plants that really are causing ecological harm, and then the connectivity. So, for example, the back of my uh yard backed on to a wooded fragment.
Heather Holm: So uh, I decided that I needed it to expand on that and and make it larger. So the the larger these pieces of habitat that we can add on to or create will help uh increase the number of native bee species that we can support.
Heather Holm: We can also think about urban infrastructure projects that help improve water quality. So doing a planting along uh the edge of a water body putting in a rain garden, so capturing the water that's coming off your downspout. These are all uh win-win situations for improving water quality in addition to creating pollinator habitat. And then I really think about a lot about. How can I continue to reduce the use of
Heather Holm: resources? So I I maintain my,
Heather Holm: you know, two thirds of an acre landscape without um firing up any gas powered tools. I can do this all manually, So resources include uh the use of fossil fuels. And then, of course, if we're creating thriving pollinator habitat we want to, uh, try and eliminate any kind of pesticide use. So all of these things to think about from a broader perspective turning problems into viable solutions
Heather Holm: that create really diverse habitat for bees and other flower visiting insects, providing those nutritious pollen and nectar sources. So again, connectivity is really the thing to think about. Um. Sometimes we buy a new home, and we essentially inherit what the previous homeowner has maybe done or planted. Uh, you may inherit a blank slate, and lucky you cause now you can um do a master plan and think thoughtfully
Heather Holm: about what makes sense from uh solving some of these problems, such as water, drainage, or turf, grass, conversion. But it's all about making that those spaces connect rather than having isolated fragments like that left graphic of of a residential yard.
Heather Holm: So connectivity is very, very important specifically, for those really really tiny uh solitary B species that don't fly more than a couple of hundred yards. So uh, they may have specific nesting preferences, and if they really have to spend a lot of energy flying back and forth from one part of your yard into your neighbors and back
Heather Holm: uh making that connection, having sort of gas or fueling stations on their way, could help with their reproductive goals.
Heather Holm: So where to start. Uh, here's a blank slate situation, this homeowner in my zip code uh, really nice property. It's relatively flat. Uh, you don't have too many uh what i'd call uh opportunities or problems to solve, that you could put in pollinator habitat uh but places to start again thinking about what don't you want to do in your landscape. So I, My house sits up on a hill. The first thing we did was convert this steep slope, which was turf grass
Heather Holm: into a a native planting, because there is no way that I wanted to mow that steep slope. Um, where are you having issues trying to grow turf grass. That's a good opportunity just to uh undo the turf grass there and put in a viable and diverse pollinator planting. And, as I mentioned, earlier, wet areas or drainage issues. You can turn that into a really nice uh solutions for pollinators in the form of rain gardens, or
Heather Holm: or perhaps a a swale depending on the your the size of your property. But the other place that um been thinking about more intensely recently is under the drift line of keystone trees. So Doug Talami talked about
Heather Holm: the importance of keystone trees for moth and butterfly larvae, the left a doctrine larvae, and those keystone trees are supporting very high diversity of different caterpillar species. And my good friend Leslie Pilgrim, who has um a nonprofit called Neighborhood Greening said to me,
Heather Holm: I think we're missing something with Doug Telome's messaging, and perhaps we can help sort of with that of the other parts of the life cycle. So I said, you're absolutely right. Um. If caterpillars are feeding on the foliage of this tree in this picture, and if it's a keystone tree
Heather Holm: uh at some point, they will be ready to pupate, and some counterparts will attach their
Heather Holm: uh chrysalis or cocoon uh to the vegetation where they've been feeding, but many will uh crawl away from the host plant and look for a safe place to pupate. So under the drip line of keystone trees
Heather Holm: is a new initiative that, uh! We came up with called soft landings. And this is the graphic that Doug Tal, Me and Desiree N. Orango had an artist render that supports their research uh of keystone species for caterpillars. So, including these keystone species, whether, if you're focusing on
Heather Holm: the butterflies and moss, i'm looking at those national wildlife federation lists
Heather Holm: um will more efficiently restore insect diversity. So their research demonstrated that fourteen of tree, generous support ninety of all types, species of caterpillars. So that's significant. These are quite literally ecosystem hubs that we can start putting back into our gardens and landscapes.
Heather Holm: So we need to also think about the habitat under these trees in order for all of these uh caterpillars to complete their life cycle. So this is the uh idea that Leslie came up with called soft landings, and we commissioned the same artist, and worked with Dog and Desiree
Heather Holm: um to get their blessing on this idea.
Heather Holm: And so it's really about putting intentional plantings under trees, and I have, uh, as Denise noted, there's a link that she's provided to the soft landings information we focused on the uh, upper midwest and northeast for the plant list, but I think,
Heather Holm: uh, if you know your plans, you could easily adapt the planting to the place that you live, and our plant lists included uh short, low growing plants to keep it more tidy looking.
Heather Holm: And the other thing, of course, is, once you do this planting under the tree. It's a place that you can leave the leaf litter
Heather Holm: uh, and then providing some insulating materials and habitat for other species. Other beneficial insects that need that for over a wintering, and it also picks up on this idea of planting um not using as much wood malt in our landscapes. So we often traditional landscapes plant
Heather Holm: uh various perennials uh eighteen inches on center, and then bolts in between them. So plants are growing in these isolated conditions, and that's not how nature occurs. Plants like to grow together in communities, so using the plants as a green or living mulch is helping with weed suppression. So this is can be applied with soft landings as well, planting very small plants. We have tips about
Heather Holm: erez agmoni, not damaging your tree If you're planting under your tree so really sourcing, very, very small plant plugs carefully digging holes in this particular for an old mature tree. You want to be careful that one hundred and fifty.
Heather Holm: You're not uh damaging the trees root system, planting the soft landings. Planting. This is a an example of what a soft planning planting could look like. So thinking about. Again, a continuous succession of flowering plants for the growing season. This was at the Uh Minnesota landscape, barbarian, and early spring.
Heather Holm: You have Virginia bluebells in bloom, and that's an ephemeral plant, so the plant will die down and go dormant. But behind that plant or a number of native ferns that will pop up
Heather Holm: uh, while the large flower trillion is blooming. But thinking about what other uh part sheet or shade tolerant plants that you could incorporate into this layered uh season long flowering phenology in order to make sure you're supplying pollinators with pollen and actors through the growing season.
Heather Holm: The Uh staff from the University of Illinois Extension reached out, and they, in fact, have been doing soft landings, type plantings on campus.
Heather Holm: So they've converted what was formally uh turf grass into these wonderful, soft, textured, diverse uh native plantings under their trees. So it's actually likely saving them money and resources. They're no longer um burning fossil fuels to to mow what was formally turf grass under these trees.
Heather Holm: And here in this example, they have uh Pennsylvania, sedge so sedges are wonderful. Our native sedges, their cool, season grass-like plants that are typically green up really early in the spring and uh remain green through through the summer and autumn.
Heather Holm: And uh, so again, this Pennsylvania section in the example. And this image uh tierrella, or phone fire, which is a native plant similar to Hugo and then wild geranium. So we're thinking about all you could have a number of
Heather Holm: uh shade tolerant golden rods pop up through that sedge for later bloom uh in summer and autumn,
Heather Holm: so i'll finish off by, I think, sort of giving some tips about other things to think about. If you were a bee and planting in masses, so a mass planting design
Heather Holm: works very well when that means that you're uh purchasing anywhere from five to uh, maybe seventeen perennials for, and then massing them all in one place. So sometimes as a beginning beginner, gardener, people uh, by one of something and by one of many things. And then they have singular plants in the landscape from a design perspective. That's that's really hard for
Heather Holm: we humans to sort of focus and um really appreciate and find the garden aesthetically pleasing. So putting things in masses helps not only the be to find the flowering plant out on their foraging trip that they're looking for.
Heather Holm: It just makes this larger visual color block to. If you're uh foraging through the landscape as a bee, and then it also uh really helps with their energy expenditure. So a bum will be landing on the cone flowers in the foreground. Uh, and that's the specific pollen or nectar that they're interested in on that foraging trip. They don't have to fly very far from flower to flower. They're remaining within that mass of the same species, so that ultimately helps improve
Heather Holm: pollination as well. This is the right pollen is getting deposited to the right species of plant,
Heather Holm: and then thinking about flower forms. I didn't go into detail about different tongue links and physical size, but with the very high diversity of the species that occur where you live.
Heather Holm: Um! They all have different physical traits that will influence what flowering plants they can or cannot visit, so the Aster family is great as a broad um sort of generalist plant, meaning it's typically has large flower heads like that Joe Pie. We in the foreground with very shallow flowers. So a a small B with a short tongue can easily access the floral resources from a flower structure such as that.
Heather Holm: But you also want to think about uh firing plans with complex flowers that limits the number of uh pollinating insects that can access the resources. But that also is, uh, in that case, a higher reward for those that that can um get at those for resources.
Heather Holm: So pesticide free landscapes, don't create this beautiful pollinator habitat, that this is my friend Marilyn's garden.
Heather Holm: Don't do this, and then continue to use harmful pesticides. It's not fair to the pollinators um If this is the goal to provide nutritious resources and provide beauty for you to enjoy in your landscape. Then, uh leave the pesticides on the shelf,
Heather Holm: and finally thinking about
Heather Holm: uh, doing less so less is more for insect diversity in our gardens and landscapes, mimicking Mother nature's patterns. So Mother Nature Doesn't uh rake up leaves and put them at the curb for pick up. Uh the more we can incorporate these and recycle these natural materials, the the plant debris that you cut down the leaf litter that falls from your trees. The more we can kind of leave that in place we're providing
Heather Holm: some really nice habitat for not only bees, but also a number of beneficial insects. And then these passive ways that we can provide additional nesting opportunities. So logs lying on the ground. If you have a larger property you could leave a standing dead tree for, uh be nesting habitat,
Heather Holm: and then don't spend any more money on Mulch. So uh allocate those funds that you were going to spend on Mulch and uh buy some more plants and talk to your local native plant.
Heather Holm: Um society, your botanical club, your wild ones uh chapter, your prairie enthusiasts, all of those really knowledgeable local people will help you. Um! Figure out what plans for are going to work for your uh specific situation.
Heather Holm: So thank you so much. I hope I uh didn't make it too basic for some of you tuning in. But I appreciate
Heather Holm: that you did to an in, and I look forward to answering some questions. If Denise thinks we have time to do so,
Denise Ellsworth: alright, Great heather, Thank you so much, folks. You heard it here. Heather Home told you that you need to go buy more plants, so your partner uh cannot protest. Uh! It came under good authority. Thank you so much for having for some really wonderful ideas. I think we all have a to do list of of plans to find, and uh some tasks in our garden, and I really wanna um Thank you for the soft landings concept. I think it really gives a practical and beautiful way to incorporate some of this habitat for being,
Denise Ellsworth: and you know we didn't really talk about it, but it's so great for our trees to not have Turk turf grass right under the trees. That's the really the the prime benefit there and then everyone else kind of benefits uh out from there.
Denise Ellsworth: So, folks. If you have to go uh, I understand we'll keep recording the question. You can come back to that later. Um, if you do have to head out. I know that Heather will appreciate a Thank you in the chat box. Lots of uh you are doing that already,
Denise Ellsworth: and so we have um. Let's talk about stems, heather. There's a lot of questions about stems, and this is a really good time to um to to talk about stems for for a lot of the country, so Beth wants to know if she can cut stems and now and move them this fall.
Heather Holm: Yes, you you certainly could, Beth. Um. So if you're keen to cut down plant material, you certainly can do it now in the fall, and then just leave this double up for the winter, depending on where you live. Um, you know that's another uh year of wet snow, potentially maybe rotting those stems,
Heather Holm: but that also would be the case if you let them intact, and we did until the spring. So the other idea, too, is you Don't, necessarily have to leave that stem double rate where the plant occurs. You can cut uh longer pieces of those strong fibrous flower stocks. That so again do the feel and look test,
Heather Holm: and then um! You can put them in, stick them in the ground elsewhere in your garden, so you're not tied to specifically where that plant occurs. So if you don't want to look at stems, double in the front of your perennial border, then cut longer pieces, and ensuring that you know you're sinking a little bit into the ground,
Heather Holm: and you could stick them at the back of the garden. But you want to leave those stems indefinitely Right? Because that egg to adult timeframe um generally is twelve months. So if you cut the stems, provide those opportunistic openings
Heather Holm: uh, you have to leave that indefinitely, because at some point you're always going to have a larvae or some kind of nest occurring in there. So
Denise Ellsworth: So there are a couple of comments about when the bees are using that stubble, so it went before it's cut. They're not using it right. They're using it after It's cut. They're using it next year,
Heather Holm: right? Yeah. So they generally aren't chewing or boring a whole into the side of a stem. Um, it's a Us. Pruning them, or naturally occurring
Heather Holm: things such as breaking with snow load would provide the opportunistic openings. But, uh, in fact, some people cut back their plants that get really tall midsummer something the Brits called the Chelsea chop,
Heather Holm: and
Heather Holm: uh, these will actually use those as opportunistic opening. So it's not that just necessarily. Um The dead stuff from last year's growth. If you're doing some, you know pruning uh to keep plants shorter when you prune that flower stock mid summer, the beast may actually take up residence in in that room. So uh, yeah, it's only until you provide. That opening is when nesting May Nest established. It may occur,
Denise Ellsworth: Okay? And then you Math mentioned Asters and Menardas as really great stones. Um. And So there were questions about whether the stems need to be open or pivot, or or both; and if you have some other suggestions for the the plants that are maybe favorites.
Heather Holm: Yeah, I I kind of look for the again the strong fibrous and and pithy um that's not to say uh when you're pruning or cutting stuff back. Uh, you may find some are hollow, and they may be utilized.
Heather Holm: Um, you want to kind of steer away from uh those really big plants, such as Joe Pie. We they get five, six feet tall. Um! They do have hollow stems, but the diameter is really big, and most native Bees Aren't interested in that big opening. So something three, eight of an inch or smaller, if it is hollow, would be potentially attractive. And just experiment um more more time spending in your garden. Um doing observation will really help
Heather Holm: uh help. Inform others about what what is working and what's not. And Xeroxes all mentioned. Um, they're developing sort of a comprehensive list of plant stems or plant species that these are are nesting in the stem. So I think that might be online. I'm constantly sending them new um species. So
Denise Ellsworth: check that out. Oh, great super! We'll ask Matthew about that next uh next week as well in the Webinar Um, if you soil nesting questions, how deep do these bees tend to nest in the soil? Um! Do they all make the little volcano at the surface. Uh? And then how how about foot traffic on those sites?
Heather Holm: Yeah, So it it's. It's very broad. What a a ground nesting be! Nest may look like many will have that soil, mound or tumulus around the nest entrance. Um, Again, it depends on the soil type. If it's pure sand. Um, it it. Really, the borough could be
Heather Holm: really hard to spot, because the sand is collapsing
Heather Holm: in on itself. Uh, we have native bees that build almost like soil turrets uh that stick up above their nest entrance. So it's dependent really upon where you live and what uh the nest may look like. But as as a starting point I would look for
Heather Holm: um sort of what I So I showed in that picture of the eggaposum in this. So the the whole uh smaller than the diameter of a pencil, with a a sort of a round tumulus or soil mound around it.
Heather Holm: So with solitary species, there's really no concern about um stinging, and I would imagine that's what the question is related to um. The solitary females aren't interested in defending their nest again. They're they're busy trying to get their life's work done in a very short period of time. So you can sit next to solitary nest, whether it's a be or was.
Heather Holm: Observe and and watch their activities, and that you're not going. You're not going to get stone. So
okay,
Heather Holm: Um, There were a couple of questions about uh choosing plants, whether that's for shade or sun, or that offer nectar or pollen through the season. And I wonder if you can just highlight uh because you have so many those great resources on your website. Yeah, I think I would suggest, if the person is sort of in more in the eastern part of the Continent to check out the plant list for the soft landings.
Heather Holm: Uh, and those are shorter part shade uh plants. Savannah plants in some cases uh so that would be a great place to start from a list. Um. Otherwise, if you're not in that area
Heather Holm: again, talk to some of your local folks that are knowledgeable, and and they may be able to help you develop a a good plant list as well. Okay. A couple of questions about B hotels kind of your feeling on that, and also whether just drilling holes in wood is helpful.
Heather Holm: I'm kind of i'm on the side of um, providing these natural opportunities rather than constructed supplemental nest made by humans. Um. The hotels have become very, very popular, and uh primarily are now commercialized and sold in big box stores and everywhere,
Heather Holm: and um people with great intentions. But I don't think the architecture or design of some of those houses is really they're not thinking about the be so. Some are uh, very shallow. So thinking about that that again, that cavity, length, or depth
Heather Holm: supporting a a number of individual brood cells. If it's shallow. It's going to be highly susceptible to predation by woodpeckers or natural enemies. And you're not going to have successful these nesting in there. They also require maintenance. And so that's the other reason why I don't um encourage people to put up
Heather Holm: um be houses or be hotels, You know everybody has great intentions, but we are also very busy. And um thinking about cleaning and replacing stems in a B hotel, I i'm.
Heather Holm: I'm not confident that everyone will will do that so? Stems double logs on the ground those kinds of things that are easier. Um, start with that, and then do some observation again. Look for leaf, cutter be cuts, then you, then you will know you have some
Heather Holm: some cavity. Nestors. Uh, perhaps nesting in your yard.
Heather Holm: Good. Let's end with Eva's question. She is hoping there's a good reason for Ragweed Holland, you know, of any bees will uh gather rag we calling. Yeah, and that's that's the exciting um sort of
Heather Holm: piece of some, some new research. You know we have largely ignored these uh wind pollinated plants that you know, are not insect pollinated. So are are those floral resources actually used by these, but in fact
Heather Holm: um some some work by cast urban mead. Uh she! She climbed up trees and and watched what was going on in the tree canopy of what we consider wind pollinated trees, and found that, in fact, native bees are consuming some of that wind pollinated pollen, and that is the case; for, uh, I believe for right weed as well. So the plant
Heather Holm: it's strategies to get it's pollen dispersed by when it's producing a copious amount of pollen, and in some cases that pollen can be pretty nutritionally significant. So um! These may be utilizing it, but if you have allergies. I don't think it'd be one that I continue to keep in my garden uh get some golden rods in there instead, of course. Oh, great thanks so much heather. Really appreciate again your time and your expertise, all your great practical ideas and lots of
Denise Ellsworth: uh thank yous and the Chat Box folks. Thanks for joining us, and hope to see you on the the next Webinar. Um thanks again, Heather. Thank you, Denise bye. Everybody.