Canadian Resources for Victory Gardens for Bees

 

 

I am about to do CBC interviews with weekend morning shows across Canada and I’ve put some links to here for extra information.

 

First of all, I would advise you to get yourself a good local wildflower/shrub/tree guide and support your local native plant nursery. Purchasing plants sold by a native nursery is a solid investment because of the expertise the growers have and because native plants will be less maintenance and more likely to thrive in your garden. Just ask the grower any questions you might have about the plants that would work for bees in your garden. This will help you use the plant charts in my book to help you plan your garden.

 

I also encourage you to join iNaturalist and start posting photos of the bees in your garden. It’s empowering and thrilling to get to know your local native bee species! I would encourage you to go to local parks with wild habitat and post the bees in the plants you see there. You can also use iNaturalist as a research tool to see the plants that bees are observed feeding on in your area.

 

Here are some resources for learning how to post bees on iNat:

 

How to make useful INaturalist observations

 

 Identification Etiquette on iNaturalist

 

Pollinator Partnership has some good gardening resources that are specific to regions within Canada. Check to see if they have a growing guide for your bioregion.

 

https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/find-your-roots

 

https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/ecoregional-planting-guides

 

This online tool can help you find a local native plant nursery near you. https://networkofnature.org/where-to-buy.htm/

 

Bee City Canada also has a tool for this: https://beecitycanada.org/native-plant-nurseries/

 

 A Trio of Alliums for Bees:

I will be talking about alliums for bees, and for western Canada, the nodding onion (Allium cernuum) is a fantastic native plant for bees. It’s beautiful and it’s edible too. For eastern Canada, you could plant the Canadian onion (Allium canadense). Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are great to put in your garden for bees. They are edible, of course, but I think they’re pretty enough to put in a perennial border and butterflies love them too. You might not know this, but chives are native to many areas in North America and Europe. I also recommend a bee-loved allium cultivar called ‘Millenium’ which is long-blooming and hardy. Putting a trio of alliums in your garden will really help your local pollinators. Be sure to include one square meter of each of these alliums if your spaces allows it. Even one pot of chives on your balcony can make a difference!

 

 Some other native plants that are must-haves in your garden are fireweed, native asters and goldenrod, which are essential late summer plants for bees.

 

 Companion Books for Victory Gardens for Bees:

 In Ontario and the Great Lakes Region, you’ll want to buy a copy of A Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators: Ontario and Great Lakes Edition by Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla.

 

For the prairies, you’ll want to buy a copy of Native Plants for the Short Season Yard: Best Picks for the Chinook and Canadian Prairie Zones by Lyndon Penner

 

 

 

 

Let's Celebrate World Bee Day on Tuesday May 20, 2025!

 

An ashy digger bee drinks some "lemonade" from lemon weed on Mt. Kobau. Notice the rusty long hairs on her back legs and the matching elbow pads!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's that time of the year again when a biodiverse collection of bees are actively foraging and nesting and keeping our ecosystems healthy and beautiful. Let's celebrate by going out and adding bee observations to iNaturalist. It's so fun to look at bees emerging all across Canada when the pussywillows are providing that early source of pollen and nectar for the earliest emerging guilds of bees and the queen bumble bees. I've been thinking about the earliest and latest plants for supporting bees. If you're on the coast of BC, you could think of bee season "from pussywillows to gumweed." Here in the Okanagan, I would say "from pusywillows to rabbitbrush." Those key early and late plants will vary in each bioregion. Can you find out which are the earliest and latest native bee plants in your area? Check iNaturalist and see which observations are the earliest and latest. Generalist bees like bumble bees need forage from those earliest plants all through the early pussywillows to the late goldenrods and asters when the newly emerged gynes are fattening up for hibernation. Think of it as the "gyne to gyne" period.

 

We've almost passed the gyne season here in the Okanagan and the little worker bumble bees are bringing the pollen back to the nest to feed their baby sisters. When I'm identifying bees on iNaturalist I like to add information about the plants the bees are visiting and whether they are collecting pollen. On Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, the workers and solitary bees are mining the camas pollen right now. Here in the south Okanagan, the silky lupins are starting to bloom and provide pollen for worker bumble bees. On the coast and the interior, citizen scientists are making quite a few observations of the death camas bee. If you do come upon a patch of the flowers, keep you eye out for these toxic-tolerant mining bees!

As you can see, on the Native Bee Society of BC Bee Tracker Project we are close to the 65, 000 mark for bee observations in BC. Let's blast past that milestone to honour World Bee Day!!!! We want to see your bees! We want to ID your bees! And please let us know which flowers you are seeing the bees feeding on. It really helps us to have this information, if you know it.

 

And please check out Bob McDougall's World Bee Day Project which is inclusive of other pollinators. In the project journal he writes eloquently about why we need to protect and celebrate these keystone species. And you may find some rare insects when you're looking for bees. I've found the nine-spotted ladybug, Behr's hairstreak butterfly and a rare bee fly when I'm out taking photos of bees. (I consider these FOBs or Friends of Bees!)

 

 

I'd like to thank all the folks across Canada that are adding bee observations to iNaturalist. Together we can protect and celebrate over 800 species of native bees that live here. And remember . . . every day is a bee day!!!!

First Bee of 2024!

 

Had to come to Vancouver to have my first bee sighting of the year--a long-faced Bombus flavifrons in the heather. It shows that even one small pot can help queens get busy finding and furnishing their nest. You can see the pollen grains deposited on the hairs on her face as she sticks her face and tongue into the blossoms to access the sweet spring nectar.

 

Super Seedy Saturday in Cawston

 

 

I LOVE Seedy Saturdays!!! This one was really special.

 So pleased I could give out so many handouts from the Native Bee Society of BC on gardening for bees in the Southern Interior.

 I had merch for sale, including hand-made heart ornaments, haskap shortbread cookies, super-food chocolates and photo cards.

 So many wonderful vendors on site!

 

Similkameen Seedy Saturday

 

 

 

Looking forward to presenting at Similkameen Seedy Saturday on March 15th! I'll be giving a sneak preview of what's in the revised edition of Victory Gardens for Bees. Hope to see you there!

The Revised Edition of Victory Gardens for Bees is Coming Out Soon!

 

Well folks, here it is . . . the new cover for the revised edition of Victory Gardens for Bees! Coming at you in May, 2025 in Canada and August, 2025 in the US. 

 

More native plants! More specialist bees! More about how you can become a better naturalist to make you a better ally for bees in your garden!!! So grateful for the wonderful team of editors, publicists and designers!!!!! 

 

My passion for gardening started in Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan where my mother grew a bounty of flowers, fruits and vegetables, most of them from seed. I also spent many hours in solitude in the nearby wild prairie grasslands, studying the bees in the meadows. Now as an adult, I find myself with a mission: to get people growing more food for bees as they garden to feed themselves and their communities. I also want to shine a light onto some of the lesser-known bees that pollinate our cultivated and wild plants. These are the bees we need to save. When I see people growing pollinator gardens that feed bees and humans, I am filled with a sense of hope and delight. There is a rainbow of bees of all shapes and sizes that hold the fate of our future on their wings. I wrote this book to get you working for these beautiful bees.

 

 

Here's to the new edition: https://douglas-mcintyre.com/collections/lori-weidenhammer/products/9781771624404

 

Flax Eggs

 

Has the recent egg recall left you in the lurch? Try flax eggs in your pancakes or waffles. I don’t mean eggs from chickens that have been fed flax seeds, I mean an egg substitute using two ingredients: ground flax seeds and warm water. Simply grind one tablespoon of flax seeds, add them to three tablespoons of warm water and let soak for three minutes, stirring a couple of times to help it gel. And there you go! You can use this as an egg substitute in your favorite waffle or flapjack recipe. I suggest adding a couple more tablespoons of the ground flax seed into the batter to get that extra Omega 3 boost.

 I suggest you only grind as much seed as you need or store any extra in the fridge or freezer because ground seed can go rancid at room temperature. It can be tricky to grind. A coffee grinder repurposed as a spice/seed grinder works, or small amounts at a time in a blender.

 

 

 

I grew up on the prairies when there were fields of flax flowers that made the meadows look like lakes against a flax flower blue sky. Bees love flax flowers and if you’re lucky you’ll see turquoise Agapostemon sweat bees gathering nectar and pollen in wild flax flowers. Try a few seeds in your garden this year for some added beauty. The bees will thank you by pollinating your fruits and veggies!