Yes, if you want to do something positive for bees then the best thing you can do is plant native and diverse flowers. I admit, I have one honeybee hive in my backyard because of my fascination with bees sense I was a child. I have planted a bunch of different flowers around my property and it definitely is not just beneficial to the honeybee, but a whole host of different species of native bees. I enjoy seeing all the different types big and small in my garden.
Imo the craze about saving the honeybee because of colony collapse disorder is because of the commercial management of honeybee. Wild honeybee colonies have survived varroa and have/will eventually select qualities to sustain survival. Commercial beekeeping does little for natural selection and I fear that because of that we will never see the end of varroa.
Honeybees do not need us to survive. They do a pretty damn good job of doing that on their own. We just need to give honeybees and native bees a more diverse and more abundant resource of pollen and nectar.
Yes, if you want to do something positive for bees then the best thing you can do is plant native and diverse flowers. I admit, I have one honeybee hive in my backyard because of my fascination with bees sense I was a child. I have planted a bunch of different flowers around my property and it definitely is not just beneficial to the honeybee, but a whole host of different species of native bees. I enjoy seeing all the different types big and small in my garden.
Imo the craze about saving the honeybee because of colony collapse disorder is because of the commercial management of honeybee. Wild honeybee colonies have survived varroa and have/will eventually select qualities to sustain survival. Commercial beekeeping does little for natural selection and I fear that because of that we will never see the end of varroa.
Honeybees do not need us to survive. They do a pretty damn good job of doing that on their own. We just need to give honeybees and native bees a more diverse and more abundant resource of pollen and nectar.