Yes, Davie, bees are in the offing too. Not honey bees, though. Well, not yet. The design of the lean-to I am enclosing as a temporary chicken house includes an outer wall with wood blocks drilled for native bees to lay their eggs and some blocks for ladybugs to overwinter.
For all the fears of "total honey bee die-off" you might hear it must be remembered that all pre-contact new world crops were developed without the honey bee. Corn, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, sunflowers..... you name it .....were all pollinated by native (solitary) bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, moths and other bugs. One of the benefits of encouraging native bees around our home (rather than a honey hive) is that they are not subject to colony collapse disorder. They also tend not to sting.
For all the fears of "total honey bee die-off" you might hear it must be remembered that all pre-contact new world crops were developed without the honey bee. Corn, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, sunflowers..... you name it .....were all pollinated by native (solitary) bees, flies, wasps, butterflies, moths and other bugs. One of the benefits of encouraging native bees around our home (rather than a honey hive) is that they are not subject to colony collapse disorder. They also tend not to sting.
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