03/28/2025
🐝MANAGEMENT MONDAY 🐝
What can you do to help our native bees?
If you are a forestland owner, managing your forestlands is going to be CRUCIAL if you want to support our native bees! However, you don't have to own large acres of forestland to make a meaningful difference to our native bees.
🐝Even your yard could support our native bees! The major takeaway is to plant early blooming trees, shrubs, and/or forbs that are native to your state or ecoregion! It is important to have floral resources available Spring - Fall.
🐝Remove any invasive plants from your forestlands! Our native pollinators are intertwined with the species they pollinate, so having invasive species inherently disrupts that natural system and decreases biodiversity in our forestlands. Just think about a forest that has bush honeysuckle in the midstory. What does your understory look like?
🐝If appropriate for your forestland, CONDUCT PRESCRIBED BURNS! In our upland forests, fire is an important management strategy to maintain floral diversity! However, it is important to maintain a mosaic of burned and unburned areas on the landscape. By doing this, you maintain nesting and overwintering sites for bees and other pollinators.
🐝It is important to maintain overwintering and nesting habitat! Snags and downed woody debris make excellent nesting and overwintering sites for some our native bee species! Added bonus - maintaining snags and downed woody debris helps other insects, birds, and our native herps. 🐦🐛🪲🦎🐍
🐝If you are lacking floral resources in your forestlands, you may need to consider THINNING! It's all about sunlight! If sunlight is limited, think about reducing stand density. This will allow more blooming plants to grow. Again, just make sure thinning is a viable option for your type of forestland!
Having a mosaic of different habitats and/or conditions is important. Remember, there are roughly 4,000 bees that are native to the United States. Each one has different habitat preferences.
