Our Mother Earth, along with Haagen Dazs Ice Cream, the Pennsylvania State University and the University of California at Davis, are calling on you to save the honey bee! While the universities study why so many hives are dying, Haagen Dazs Ice Cream is trying to fund these projects and encourage all of us to pitch in.
The most important thing you can do is roll out a welcome mat for bees by planting a garden--it’s as simple as that. A large variety of colorful plants is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for bees. The more food, the more honey, the better the hives will thrive. On its website (you can visit by clicking the picture above), Haagen-Dazs gives these tips:
Check
with local nurseries, read internet and book articles, or call the horticultural
department at a local college to find out which plants are attractive and beneficial
to bees in your area. (Different climates, locations, and bee species require
different plants.)
Plan
your garden to bloom continuously; some plants bloom only in the Spring, some
in the Fall, and others throughout the Summer. Try to plant a variety so that
there will always be something in flower--at least ten different plants attractive
to bees is best, but with limited space, anything will bee appreciated!
Bees
need water too, so set out a shallow dish and keep it wet. Butterflies and hummingbirds
will also come calling!
Avoid
herbicides and pesticides as much as possible to keep your garden pretty and
under control--NO chemicals! There are many green options for weeding (like
a good pair of gardening gloves!) and pests like aphids which may kill off the
plants can be controlled with ladybugs.
Leave
flowers in place until they are brown, then prune them. This will give a larger
number of bees access to the blooms. Remember, bees travel thousands of miles
to find food; you may be helping to feed bees from far away.
What else can you do? Spread the word to your friends, family and neighbors. Support your local beekeeper, learn about honey bees so you know what you should and shouldn’t do, and plant, if not a garden, then pots of flowers. Oh, and you can also eat a Honey Vanilla ice cream cone--when you buy this flavor of Haagen Daz ice cream, they donate money to bee research! Bee good to bees!