I’ve Been Stung by a Bee!!! - (With a List of Plantings that Support Native Pollinators)

I’m kidding, I don’t get especially alarmed by a bee sting.  I realize that not everyone has the luxury of such an attitude, but I come by it rightly enough.  My earliest memory is of finding a bee dead on my t-shirt, then finding its stinger still stuck in the skin of my left arm.

Certainly, however, the world has become a much scarier and more complex place since 1986, and the world of both melissophobics and bee lovers alike has grown far more complex as honey bee colonies collapse, Africanized bees invade new territories and, this year in particular, bee populations continue a recently documented recovery that has many of our clients and local members of our Nextdoor.com community inquiring about bee removal or relocation services.

I should, therefore, start with some local-business-love and not bury the lede:

Campion Walker highly recommends the services of Beecasso Live Bee Removal, Inc., a friendly and highly professional team of experts familiar with the local microclimate and both the native and common introduced species in Topanga Canyon.

But that is not why I have decided to devote my second blog posting to these wondrous and vital members of the environment and the agricultural economy.  In fact, I intend to range far beyond the scientific clade Anthrophila to discuss other pollinators who commonly visit the Canyon, from the beautiful but transitory Monarch butterflies who were migrating through the pass when I first started work at Campion Walker to the eleven different species of bats that have been confirmed in the Santa Monica Mountain Range, because ultimately I want this posting to inform our neighbors about all of the wonderful pollinators who share responsibility for the propagation of the beautiful native plant varieties we promote whenever possible in our design work.

For those not aware, pollination is the plant equivalent of sex.  Plants that flower, from fruit trees to dandelions, have organs that produce a (usually) powdery substance called pollen that contains the ‘male’ reproductive material.  Usually this is found at the center of the flower, often it is a prickly mound or even an elongated cone, like the ‘eye’ at the center of a daisy, the large brown hump in the middle of a sunflower or the fuzzy lumps on the multiple stems at the center of a lily.  Deeper inside the center of the flower is the ‘stigma,’ the receptive region containing the ‘female’ half of the flower’s reproductive DNA.  This area often produces nectar, a sweet compound that gives off the scent that attracts the animal or insect actors who are responsible for providing the energy that transfers reproductive material from the stamen (the ‘eye’) to the stigma.

Had enough biology to make your head hurt?  (Me too!)  Sadly, the rest of this post won’t be much less sciencey.  But I’ll try and keep it as simple as possible, since I’m a books and research nerd myself, and not the safety goggles kind.

Some insects and animals eat pollen, and some subsist entirely on in.  Others prefer the sugar-based nectar of a flower that has no other purpose but to draw their attentions.  Many pollinators have evolved in ways that directly leverage particular features of one or multiple species of plant, while many plants have evolved to make it easier for some pollinators to access their organs and more difficult for others.  When both plants and animals have adaptations that increase the effectiveness of the feeding/pollination process, their interactions are called a symbiotic relationship, which, if you haven’t heard it elsewhere, is a minor plot element in the Episode 1 movie from the Star Wars franchise (Star Wars: A Phantom Menace).

Bees are the most common and best known of these pollinators, and, notably, honeybees have an adaptation unrelated to pollination which makes them particularly interesting to human beings (and many other animals).  In addition to being crucial to the growth and production of farmers’ crops, honeybees produce a preservable, preservative, husbandable resource (honey) on which they may subsist in lean seasons or years.  In addition, honeybee ‘wax,’ the semi-solid substance used to plug holes and build walls within the bees’ nests, is a highly useful resource with a variety of health and industrial applications.

Now, full disclosure, this blog’s author firmly believes that animal husbandry is affirmatively moral and that dietary choices from omnivorism to veganism are entirely amoral, that is, have nothing to do with morality and only concern body chemistry and personal preference.  For a start, without bee husbandry, the levels of vegetable (fruit and nuts especially) food production that sustains 7 billion human beings in (on average) sustainable nutritional conditions would. not. exist.  And if your response to this is “good, better for the planet,” then you are changing the subject and not interested in reasoned morality but rather are indulging your personal whims.  7 billion people do exist, they came to be here by the natural method, and the only route through history to lower numbers involves constant, widespread famine (and, by the way, more extreme disparities of wealth than Imperial Rome).

In the case of honeybee husbandry, the commercially useful resources are in constant production both in good years and in bad, and surplus is produced regardless of the need, a lot like wool on a sheep.  Prior to the discovery of so-called “bee space” by the Rev. L.L. Langstroth in 1851, entire colonies would be destroyed in order to harvest the collected honey.  While new colonies were propagated (where they would not otherwise have existed), and kept in specially designated baskets, hollowed logs or boxes, the outright destruction of habitat in the harvesting of resources can fairly be described as a violation of the ethical-and-sustainable principle.  Modern bee-boxes, however, have the requisite ¼” to 3/8 inches of space between hanging frames and between the edges of frames and the sides of boxes require no damage to the habitat of husbanded bees.  Proper parceling of resources, therefore, can easily ensure that kept bees will always have sufficient stored honey for their own needs even as the surplus honey—and the attendant wax plugs—are harvested for human use.

Campion Walker owner Nicholas Walker keeps several bee boxes himself and is always happy to talk to another bee-lover about his own challenges and triumphs

What remained unsustainable in the beekeeping industry for many decades (right up until…2015 appears to have been the watershed year), and is considered a major cause of colony collapse, was the extreme levels of stress put on colonies, and the frequent (untracked) use of bee colonies to pollinate the same type of crops over and over again.

Wait.  Seriously!?  That turned out to be the big problem?  That bees were being sent north and south, over mountain and under dale and were fed only corn or only wheat or only almond-flower nectar for years at a time?  Really?

In a word, yes.  Except the dale part, I have Tolkein on the brain.

Seems a bit simple for a widely-touted ‘disease’ that threatened the total collapse of civilization as we know it, huh?  But bees tell the time of year by the temperature.  They get more active in the months when the flowers common in their home territory are in flower and they go dormant through the winter, feeding off the honey they’ve produced over the warmer seasons, or, in the case of non-honey producing species, they hibernate.  As for the diet question, one scientist I read compared feeding only off one type of flower to eating at the same fast food outlet every day, and those meals come garnished with lettuce and tomatoes on top of the meat.  If you recall the drastic health effects suffered by the human subject of the documentary film Super Size Me, then pile on the effects of a car being constantly red-lined, then left to cool outdoors in a snowdrift, you get some idea of the level of stress being put upon semi-domesticated colonies in the commercial beekeeping industry.

Are you with me still?  I know it’s a lot, and we still haven’t even gotten to the landscaping part.  Honeybees are referred to by entomologists and environmental scientists as ‘generalized pollinators,’ pollinators who operate throughout the warm months and across many, and in the case of honeybees, basically all plant species, so long as the flowers are accessible to their tiny ‘proboscis’ mouths.  Many plant species, however, particularly important threatened native plant species are closely adapted, if not symbiotic with a native pollinator, like native bees, while others are adapted to the long, narrow beaks of hummingbirds, or the nocturnal activities of moths or bats.  So while honeybees are highly efficient pollinators on a monocrop industrial farm, they can be rather less efficient when in the wild, visiting a wide variety of flowers, each of which will begin a reproductive cycle with whatever pollen granule lands upon its stigma, whether of the same species, a hybridizing one, or a non-crossing plant.

Native bees tend to visit the same type of flower for weeks at a time, and if they have a variety from which they feed, that variation is distributed across flowering seasons, so that they go from one flower of a certain type directly to another flower of the same species, ensuring maximum effect from whatever pollen is shaken loose at the new flower.

So, long story made short (I know, it’s a character flaw…) healthy native pollinator populations increase fruit, nut and seed yield, size and even quality, due to the lower likelihood of native bees fertilizing flowers of the same plant with its own pollen (something to do with the way they evolve together).  To improve your garden’s support of native populations, I have collected as short a list as I can of the most effective strategies from a number of sources, including the U.S. Forest Service, the University of California’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Laboratory and the Xerces Society.

So here goes:

1.       In order to provide nectar to native pollinator species throughout the active seasons (and have flowers in your garden all summer!!!) you are looking at having at least 20 different plant species in your garden.

 2.       These plants should be kept in like-species plots, so that once the pollinators find one, they can do the whole tour in a set, maximizing the probability of fertile pollination (and also increasing the yield and size of whatever fruit, berry, nut or vegetable your plants produce!!!).

 3.       There should be a water source, with a little landing spot for the bees, moths, butterflies and other insect pollinators to land on.  This could be a little mound of sand in the middle of a birdbath, a piece of cork floating in a bucket or a little fountain with the water level kept near the brim.  Ideally, a muddy creek bed with a tree containing hollow spaces will run right beside your garden, giving you the chance to play host to the real jewels of the Southern California native bee community, the Valley Carpenter Bee, the Mason Bee and the Ultra Green (yes, green!!!) Sweat Bee.  These bees range from black to blue to a shiny metallic green.  Don’t be alarmed if one of the sweat bees lands right on your skin to lap up salt and moisture, and the large black carpenter bees don’t even have stingers!!!  Don’t forget that mosquitoes pupate in standing water, so either find a way (like a fountain pump) to keep the water circulating or remember to refresh it frequently.

 4.       Remember that many flowering plants prefer full sun, so a few trees are ok, but save the shaded canopy spaces for your own activities!

 5.       Consider leaving an open patch of ground with a few sparse native weeds and wildflowers.  Many local bee species nest underground, so leave the patch untilled and don’t pull the weeds until you see them seeding.  You may lose some ground in your battle against the outsiders in other parts of the garden, but the resident pollinators nesting beneath should more than offset the extra effort and often these native bee species have parallel adaptations for local flowering weeds that can help smooth over any gaps in your season-oriented plantings.

 6.       Don’t forget to include plenty of white flowering plants, for the moth and bat species who come out in the evenings, and, of course, milkweed to support the Monarch butterfly migration.  Wooly bluecurls, Cleveland sage (any sage really) and Manzanita are all great for hummingbirds.

 7.       On mulching: thickly laid mulching (3 to 4 inches) can inhibit bees from ground nesting, but a more penetrable layer, perhaps an inch thick, should not cause the same challenges.

Finally, below is a list of native plantings and common introduced species that work well in most Southern California gardens to encourage healthy, diverse pollinator populations.  Sadly, I made the mistake of compiling lists from three different, highly reputable sources and the number of plants, while not exhaustive, may be quite exhausting to read through.  To help, I have organized them (very roughly) by flowering season.  This, however, might be slightly misleading because a month-by-month detail would have been even more overwhelming and some of the flowers, of course, straddle the seasons.  As a rule, I included the plant on the list for the first season it fully covers, or, if equally split, the earlier of the seasons.  For plants that flower throughout more than one season, like California Poppies, I have entered them during every season during which they can be expected to flower throughout the whole season.  While this ignores a month of flowering or not flowering here and there, the result is more than one hundred and fifty plant species you can grow (or, better yet, Campion Walker will grow and maintain them for you!) to improve local pollinator species diversity and the health of your entire yard.

Have fun in those gardens and be sure to call Campion Walker for assistance with all of your bee-friendly landscaping projects!

WET SEASON - JAN, FEB, MAR
Bladderpod	Peritoma arborea (Isomeris arborea)	Lavender	Lavandula spp.
California buttercup	Ranunculus californicus	Nevin's Barberry	Berberis nevinii
California Evening Primrose	Oenothera californica	Pacific Bleeding Heart	Dicentra formosa
California fairyduster	Calliandra californica	Padre’s Shooting Star	Dodecatheon clevelandii
California peony	Paeonia californica	Red Larkspur	Delphinium nudicaule
California Poppy	Eschscholzia californica	Red Flower Currant	Ribes sanguineum
Chiapas Sage	Salvia chiapensis	Seaside alumroot	Heuchera pilosissima
Desert Globemallow	Sphaeralcea ambigua	Wavyleaf Barberry	Mahonia pinnata
Hairy ceanothus	Ceanothus oliganthus	Western columbine	Aquilegia formosa
Hollyleaf Cherry	Prunus ilicifolia	White Mt. Lilac	Ceanothus thyrsiflorus
Lantana	Lantana spp.	Woollyleaf Manzanita	Arctostaphylos tomentosa
SPRING - APR, MAY, JUN
Autumn Sage	Salvia greggii	Heartleaf Keckiella	Keckiella cordifolia
Baby Blue Eyes	Nemophila menziesii	Hoaryleaf Ceanothus	Ceanothus crassifolius
Beach strawberry	Fragaria chiloensis	Hummingbird Sage	Salvia spathacea
Big Leaf Maple	Acer macrophyllum	Imbricate Phacelia	Phacelia imbricata
Black Sage	Salvia mellifera	Kinnikinnick	Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
Bladderpod	Peritoma arborea (Isomeris arborea)	Lacy Phacelia	Phacelia tanacetifolia
Blue Flax	Linum lewisii	Lanceleaf Coreopsis	Coreopsis lanceolata
Bluehead Gilia	Gilia capitata	Lantana	Lantana spp.
Brandegee's Sage	Salvia brandegeei	Lavender	Lavandula spp.
Broadlead Stonecrop	Sedum spathulifolium	Lemonade sumac	Rhus integrifolia
Brown dogwood	Cornus glabrata	McMinn Manzanita	Arctostaphylos 'McMinn'
Bunchleaf Penstemon	Penstemon heterophyllus	Mendocino Bushmallow	Malacothamnus fasciculatus
Bush Snapdragon	Galvezia spp.	Minor Phacelia	Phacelia minor
California Desert Bluebells	Phacelia campanularis	Mission Woodland-star	Lithophragma heterophyllum
California Buckeye	Aesculus californica	Monkey Flower	Mimulus aurantiacus
California Buckthorn	Frangula californica	Mountain Blue Penstemon	Penstemon laetus
California buckwheat	Eriogonum fasciculatum	Narrowleaf Willow	Salix exigua
California False Indigo	Amorpha californica	Oregon Grape	Berberis aquifolium
California Flannelbush	Fremontodendron californicum	Palmer's Indian Mallow	Abutilon Palmeri
California Gilia	Gilia achilleifolia	Pincushion Flower	Scabiosa atropurpurea
California Hedgenettle	Stachys bullata	Pink Sand Verbena	Abronia umbellata
California Lilac	Ceanothus 'Concha'	Pot Marigold	Calendula officinalis
California Milkweed	Asclepias californica	Purple Chinese Houses	Collinsia heterophylla
California Phacelia	Phacelia californica	Red Willow	Salix laevigata
California Poppy	Eschscholzia californica	Redbud	Cercis orbiculata
California saxifrage	Saxifraga californica	Rosemary	Rosmarinus officianalis
Canyon Gooseberry	Ribes menziesii	Rosilla	Helenium puberulum
Cardinal Catchfly	Silene laciniata	San Luis Purple Sage	Salvia leucophylla
Cascade Barberry	Mahonia nervosa	Santa Barbara Milkvetch	Astragalus trichopodus
Caterpillar Phacelia	Phacelia cicutaria	Scarlet Bugler	Penstemon centranthifolius
Chamise	Adenostemma fasciculatum	Scarlet Larkspur	Delphinium cardinale
Chiapas Sage	Salvia chiapensis	Scarlet Monkeyflower	Mimulus cardinalis
Chinese Wisteria	Wisteria sinensis	Shortspike Hedgenettle	Stachys pycnantha
Coastal Prickly Pear	Opuntia littoralis	Silver Bush Lupine	Lupinus albifrons
Common Tidylips	Layia platyglossa	Starflower	Trientalis borealis
Desert Globemallow	Sphaeralcea ambigua	Sticky cinquefoil	Potentilla glandulosa
Desert Willow	Chilopsis linearis	Tacky Phacelia	Phacelia viscida
Distant Phacelia	Phacelia distans	Tansy Phacelia	Phacelia tanacetifolia
Dwarf Cherkerbloom	Sidalcea malviflora	Telegraph Weed	Heterotheca grandiflora
Dwarf Coastal manzanita	Arctostaphylos edmundsii	Western Azalea	Rhododendron occidentale
Elegant Clarkia	Clarkia unguiculata	Western Vervain	Verbena lasiostachys
Fringe cup	Tellima grandiflora	White Sage	Salvia apiana
Garden Cosmos	Cosmos bipinnatus	Yarrow	Achillea millefolium var. californica
Globe Gilia	Gilia capitata	Yucca	Yucca
SUMMER - JUL, AUG
Apache beggarticks	Bidens ferulifolia	Hollyhock	Alcea rosea
Autumn Sage	Salvia greggii	Hyssop	Agasache spp.
Baby Sage	Salvia microphylla	Indigo Spires	Salvia 'Indigo Spires'
Bladderpod	Peritoma arborea (Isomeris arborea)	Lantana	Lantana spp.
Blue Flax	Linum lewisii	Laurel Sumac	Malosma laurina
Bog Sage	Salvia uliginosa	Monkey Flower	Mimulus aurantiacus
California Goldenrod	Solidago californica	Moonflower	Ipomoea alba
California Poppy	Eschscholzia californica	Mountain Monardella	Monardella odoratissima
Chiapas Sage	Salvia chiapensis	Narrowleaf Milkweed	Asclepias fascicularis
Cleveland Sage	Salvia clevelandii	Orange Eye Butterflybush	Buddleja davidii
Coast Buckwheat	Eriogonum latifolium	Orange Sticky Monkey Flower	Diplacus aurantiacus
Coyote brush	Baccharis pilularis	Pot Marigold	Calendula officinalis
Coyote Mint	Monardella villosa	Red Monardella	Monardella macrantha
Deerweed	Acmispon glaber	Rosemary	Rosmarinus officianalis
Desert Buckwheat	Eriogonum spp.	Slender Sunflower	Helianthus gracilentus
Desert Globemallow	Sphaeralcea ambigua	Summer Lupine	Lupinus formosus
Evening Primrose	Oenothera biennis	Sunflower	Helianthus annuus
Foothill Penstemon	Penstemon heterophyllus	Telegraph Weed	Heterotheca grandiflora
Germander Sage	Salvia chamaedryoides	Toyon (California Holly)	Heteromeles arbutifolia
Gumplant	Grindelia camporum	Wollypod Milkweed	Asclepias eriocarpa
Gumweed	Grindelia stricta	Woolly Bluecurls	Trichostema lanatum
FALL - SEPT, OCT
Autumn Sage	Salvia greggii	Gray Rabbitbush	Ericameria nauseosa (Chrysothamnus nauseosus)
Bladderpod	Peritoma arborea (Isomeris arborea)	Lantana	Lantana spp.
California Aster	Symphyotrichum chilense	Lavender	Lavandula spp.
California Fuchsia	Epilobium canum	Mexican Sunflower	Tithonia rotundifolia
California fairyduster	Calliandra californica	Pot Marigold	Calendula officinalis
Chiapas Sage	Salvia chiapensis	Purple Top Vervain	Verbena bonariensis
Desert Globemallow	Sphaeralcea ambigua	Telegraph Weed	Heterotheca grandiflora