Wild bees and rosemary

The Earthly Gardener by Bobbi A. Chukran
February 20, 2007

Dear friends,

I’m sitting gazing out the window to my garden, and am happy to see that my little swarm of wild bees are back! They disappeared for a few months, and I was worried about them. I have no idea where they live, but a beekeeper friend identified them for me soon after they appeared here a few years ago…turns out they are honeybees! He told me he’ll help me capture them and put them into a hive, but I’m not sure I want the responsibility of tending a beehive. The bees seem to be doing fine on their own.



One surprise…they LOVE rosemary! My rosemary plants bloom off and on year-round here, and I never thought about that being a good source of pollen, or nectar. Apparently the bees think otherwise. I see a handful of them swarming the plant this morning, but last August there were thousands out there. The idea of rosemary-flavored honey is intriguing, I will admit.

I was glad to see the bees in the garden because they help the plants with pollination. One reason I have a totally organic garden is so that the beneficial insects can thrive in it and aren’t killed off by pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Too many of our native pollinators are disappearing because of widespread spraying of crops. For me, that’s reason enough to go organic.

Until tomorrow….dig it!

bobbi c.
Copyright ©2007 bobbi a. chukran.

More on the disappearing bees...

The Earthly Gardener by Bobbi A. Chukran
March 20, 2007

It seems that I was one of the first to report on the disappearing bees story, a few weeks ago. Since then, the story has blazed across the ‘net like wildfire, and many experts are getting worried that there might not be enough bees to pollinate all the food crops in the US. This is a serious matter!

I’m getting news items from all over the US. It seems that garden groups, and beekeeping groups, are urging home gardeners to keep a hive or two of bees. I’ll admit that the idea crosses my mind every once in while, but I really didn’t want more chores to do around here. As is, it’s a full time job taking care of the garden, house, cats and Husband . But now it might make sense for me to do so.

Sure, I have a swarm of honeybees that stay around my garden. They love the rosemary, especially, and were “on the job” with my blooming fruit trees. I’m not sure where they live, though…perhaps in a dead tree on the property. A friend suggested they might live in the walls of my house. Eeek. Of course, I’m really curious about where they are hiding the honey.



All I know is that the swarm has gotten larger over the last five years when they appeared here. I hope they stick around, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure they do. Which means being extra careful in the garden. We never spray anything in or near our property, but I also want to make sure they have a good supply of blooming plants for them to forage on. That, and a good water supply.

I’m not suggesting everyone rush out and start a beehive, although, if you can, that would be great! But you can do other things….do not spray pesticides in your gardens, make sure there’s at least a small water source (see my previous article about the low cost birdbath), and plant things that bees love. They really love the rosemary, that would be a good start!

Until tomorrow,

dig it!

bobbi c.
Copyright © 2007 by Bobbi A. Chukran all rights reserved to text and photos.

More on the disappearing bees...

Earthly Gardener by Bobbi A. Chukran
April 3, 2007


I’ve been watching the disappearing bee story carefully. Seems that reports are coming in that colonies of *organic* bees are not being affected as much as the non-organic hives. Huh. Can we say “I’m not surprised”? Anyway, I just ran across this story written by Dan Sorenson in the Arizona Daily Star. It seems that Dee Lusby, the owner of Lusby Apiaries, has 900 hives of “free range” organic bees. She’s only lost several hives since this whole mess started. Fascinating story! (BTW, it seems that the Africanized “killer bees” are also immune to whatever’s bothering the domestic hives.)

The experts now are agreeing that it might be a number of factors causing the disappearance….pesticides, lack of organic (as in, non-genetically modified) crops and plants, or perhaps some mite that has spread among susceptible bee populations.

It never occurred to me that my bees—actually, they aren’t MY bees, but I like to call them that–are a free-range organic hive. That has a nice ring to it! They’ve been BEEzy (groan) this week with the native yaupon holly, which is starting to bloom.

In other news, I’ve been working on a short piece about how you can build your own easy, inexpensive raised bed garden using plain old cement blocks you can buy at any home center, garden center or hardware store, and I hope to run that tomorrow with photos of some of mine.

Until then, dig it!

bobbi c.
Copyright©2007 by Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights to photos and text reserved.