The Prairie Ecologist talking bees

[Gloria]

Always something interesting happening on the prairie.
What do you think? How are we to use this sort of information regarding the native plantings in our gardens? Or at that level does it even matter?
http://prairieecologist.com/2013/08/07/its-bee-week/

On Monday, Mike and I spent the day inventorying bees at several of our prairies, assisted by Anne Stine (Hubbard Fellow) and Sam Summers (TNC volunteer). We are building upon the initial list of 57 bee species we found in 2012. Several new species have already been added to the list, and more are likely as we continue to look.

Pollen specialist bees feed only on pollen from one to a few flower species,
whereas pollen generalists can feed from a wide variety of plant species.

Specialists tend to be less common in small isolated prairies than in larger prairies,
in part because they need a certain minimum population size of their host plants,
which can be difficult to obtain in small prairies.
Restored prairies might also lack that population size threshold,
especially during the early establishment phase of a new seeding.
In addition, restored prairies that are isolated from remnants might be missing specialist bees
simply because the bees in those remnants can’t find them.

[rockerBOO]

Grow large patches of plants together so they can be more easily found by bees.

[NEWisc]

It matters. Our pollinators need all the help they can get. Whether a large prairie or a small urban garden some native bees will benefit. If each of us will do what we can it will make a positive difference. Tallamy has got it right - plant some native plants.