This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Pithy Stems
Sharing a post from a Facebook Page I found interesting:
https://www.facebook.com/beeactivenow

https://www.facebook.com/beeactivenow

PITHY STEMS
The survival of wild bees depends, among other things, on finding a suitable nesting site as quickly as possible. To achieve this goal, a wild bee constantly scans its surroundings during flight. In doing so, it falls back on its genetically fixed search grid.
For wild bees, which gnaw their nest tunnels into the marrow of plant stems, the key stimuli are single, vertical structures, which then are examined more closely for their suitability as nesting sites.
Then they gnaw into the soft plant marrow a passage for the nest. The fracture or interface allows the bees access.
Only Osmia tridentata is able to gnaw a hole in the side of the woody stem wall.
The natural orientation of the stems is without exception vertical or oblique.
Those who do not leave their garden "broom-clean" for winter in autumn can leave an important habitat for some wild bee species.
The first and most important protective measure is to simply leave the dry tendrils and stems of blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), dog rose (Rosa canina), mullein (Verbascum), etc. and break off or cut off their ends to allow the bees to enter.
If you still want to cut them off completely, you can collect the stems and tie them vertically or slightly diagonally to a pole or garden fence in a sunny spot in spring.
You can also tie them to a rod driven into the ground with wire. Individually standing stems are better accepted than bundled ones.
If the stems are driven directly into the ground, they rot very quickly in the soil moisture and break off easily at the transition point between soil and air.
Cut off blossoming mullein or other pith-containing plants with garden scissors to expose the pith. However, the wild bee offspring will not hatch until the following spring, so the stalks must remain in place at least until then.
Whether they have been colonized can then be easily recognized by the drill holes, either directly at the top of the cut edge or at lateral fractures.
Many thanks for the photos to Nestor Gomez (Huixtan, Mexico)
The survival of wild bees depends, among other things, on finding a suitable nesting site as quickly as possible. To achieve this goal, a wild bee constantly scans its surroundings during flight. In doing so, it falls back on its genetically fixed search grid.
For wild bees, which gnaw their nest tunnels into the marrow of plant stems, the key stimuli are single, vertical structures, which then are examined more closely for their suitability as nesting sites.
Then they gnaw into the soft plant marrow a passage for the nest. The fracture or interface allows the bees access.
Only Osmia tridentata is able to gnaw a hole in the side of the woody stem wall.
The natural orientation of the stems is without exception vertical or oblique.
Those who do not leave their garden "broom-clean" for winter in autumn can leave an important habitat for some wild bee species.
The first and most important protective measure is to simply leave the dry tendrils and stems of blackberry (Rubus fruticosus), dog rose (Rosa canina), mullein (Verbascum), etc. and break off or cut off their ends to allow the bees to enter.
If you still want to cut them off completely, you can collect the stems and tie them vertically or slightly diagonally to a pole or garden fence in a sunny spot in spring.
You can also tie them to a rod driven into the ground with wire. Individually standing stems are better accepted than bundled ones.
If the stems are driven directly into the ground, they rot very quickly in the soil moisture and break off easily at the transition point between soil and air.
Cut off blossoming mullein or other pith-containing plants with garden scissors to expose the pith. However, the wild bee offspring will not hatch until the following spring, so the stalks must remain in place at least until then.
Whether they have been colonized can then be easily recognized by the drill holes, either directly at the top of the cut edge or at lateral fractures.
Many thanks for the photos to Nestor Gomez (Huixtan, Mexico)
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
1
Posts