April 17, 2011
Make a Home for Native Bees
Native bee enthusiast Gaynor Bigelbach showed participants in this program how to cut dry Japanese Knotweed stems and stack them in wooden frames that Gaynor had made just for this event. Native Mason Bees are docile, solitary, nectar-gathering insects that use small cavities such as these cut stems to lay their eggs. The adult will also place pollen that she has gathered in the cavity as a food supply for the larva. She then covers the opening with mud so that the larva is safe until it emerges as an adult. Mason Bees are very effective pollinators.
Each participant went home with a bee nursery, and several others will be placed in one of the meadows on the Reservation