Busy As A Bee

Tuesday's Tonic is a having a bit of a variations-on-a-theme moment of late. Regal purple and royalty led me to think of queen bees and how purple plants attract pollinators. Then I learned May 20th is World Bee Day! All this while I've been hearing a faint buzzing sound around flowers outside. 

It's one of life's pleasures to see (and hear) bees going about their business in the garden on a beautiful, sunny day. As flower season is now in full spring and crescendoing toward June, bees are out and certainly busy. Many people aim to provide ample pollen and nectar for bees and their pollinating friends by holding off on cutting the lawn. This is also known as No Mow May. Its effectiveness is dependent on a good assortment of flowering plants, something we can supply throughout a garden or space.

Bees provide us humans with an important service in pollinating plants. We depend on them and their role in cultivating and harvesting food. 

In southern Ontario, we often take notice of several types of bees, including:

• honey bees
• bumble bees
• mason bees
• sweat bees
• leafcutter bees

Honey bees

Honey bees are the most numerous species of bee in Ontario. They're social and build large colonies of up to 80,000 bees. There are three main types of honey bees in our area. 

Bumble bees

There are many kinds of bumble bees in Ontario - over 50 species. You may have noticed this already in your garden or out in nature. Although generally larger than honey bees, bumble bees come in a variety of sizes and colours. This is apparent in some of their names, such as the white-tailed bumble bee. They're also hairier than other bees, giving them their cute, fuzzy appearance.

Mason bees

Mason bees are native to Ontario. They're little guys and usually metallic blue or green with black stripes. They're also solitary, living alone rather than in a large hive. These bees are attracted to bee houses and nesting blocks that people build from wood and tubes. They also benefit from a variety of flowers that bloom at different times throughout the season. They're important in pollinating crops such as strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes and apples.

Sweat bees

These bees get their funny name from drinking sweat off of animals, including humans. Like the mason bee, they're native to Ontario, solitary and small - in fact, they're even smaller than mason bees. They're either black or metallic in colour and often found in gardens, fields and open areas close to trees and shrubs. 

Leafcutter bees

This is another Ontario native, and also solitary. Each female bee builds her own home. To do this, she cuts out circles in leaves to line the nest, often in pre-existing cavities, such as hollow reeds or wood. 

Leafcutter bees are medium-sized and either black or brown in colour. They have a mutualistic relationship with certain types of fungi and are important pollinators of several flowering plants. Sadly, their population has been shrinking in recent years because of habitat destruction and pesticide use.

Do you have a favourite type of bee? Do you enjoy bee motifs? Here are a few bee-inspired items in the shop that have us buzzing:

Do you like bees? Honey? Does watching them in the garden bring you a sense of quiet joy and peace? We hope you've enjoyed a few minutes with us here to appreciate our little friends that help us out so much!