The Great Sunflower Project

With the ground covered in snow and large flocks of snow geese passing low overhead, it’s a good time to start thinking about spring-time flower planting. The Great Sunflower Project is an enjoyable outdoor pastime that gathers important pollinator population data. The project provides an opportunity for anyone in North America to participate as a citizen scientist. The purpose of the Great Sunflower Project is to locate and count honey bees and native pollinators across the United States and Canada. The project, lead by conservation biologist Dr. Gretchen LeBuhn of San Francisco State University, is measuring the bee populations across urban, suburban, and rural areas. The study is also intended to determine the condition of native pollinators, which have not been measured on a large scale. The study seeks to find out how changing pollinator numbers affects garden plants, crops, and wild plants.

The method is simple: everyone participating plants the same variety of sunflower, Lemon Queen; then they count the bees that come to the flowers of a single plant in 15 minutes. Sunflower garden locations are mapped, and bee sightings are recorded. Lemon Queen is highly attractive to honey bees as well as other bees and pollinators. I have observed honey bees, blue orchard bees, bumblebees, carpenter bees, leaf cutting bees, and numerous other pollinators on my sunflowers. Today’s photo from late September shows a honey bee collecting sunflower pollen. The project currently has 90 thousand people participating across North America. The value of the data collected increases with the number of people participating. On average, the citizen scientists are reporting seeing a bee every 2.6 minutes. Twenty percent of the sunflower gardens have no bees at all. This negative result is an important finding. You may participate in this worthwhile study of pollinators by logging onto http://www.greatsunflower.org/. Buy a package of Lemon Queen sunflowers, and then wait for the snow to melt, the snow geese to migrate back to the arctic, and the soil to warm.

--Richard

CCD and Natural Selection

This week’s publication of findings in the study of Colony Collapse Disorder provides beekeepers encouragement that we are closer to having an understanding of the pathogens that are associated with the disorder. With this knowledge, we now want to know if CCD will become a controllable disorder, like so many of the conditions that beekeepers regularly face in managing their colonies. Beekeepers want to know what things they need to do to help maintain healthy colonies. It is remarkable how resilient the honey bee has proven to be. It has survived for millions of years under changing environments and in the presence of myriad pests and pathogens. This survival illustrates the strength and importance of natural selection. Only those honey bees that held the traits that allowed their survival and reproduction in the face of current environmental conditions were able to pass along their genes to another generation. Often for the survivor it is the chance result of being in the right place with the right trait at the right time. The trait may be a natural resistance to a particular pathogen.

CCD has taken a large toll on honey bees. Annual losses of colonies in North America are one in three. Recent years have found a number of pests and pathogens entering the US, most brought in unintentionally through expanding world trade: tracheal mites, Varroa mites, small hive beetles, Nosema ceranae, and a number of viruses. This week’s CCD report also listed two viruses, previously unknown, as now existing in the US. How will beekeepers adjust their hive management with the new understanding of a relationship between Nosema and Invertebrate Iridescent Virus? The larger question is: Will a line of survivor honey bees emerge that are resistant to CCD? There is reason to believe so. When tracheal mites arrived in the US in 1984 they decimated colonies. Now after a few hundred brood cycles, the parasite is much less lethal. Today’s photo: native leaf-cutting bee on perennial sunflower.

--Richard

The Great Sunflower Project

Citizens across North America are planting sunflowers and counting bees visiting the flowers. These citizen scientists are participating in a study of the populations of honey bees and native pollinators. Scientific investigations are based upon observations, and the greater the number of observations that can be made, the more meaningful the results can be. The Great Sunflower Project is looking for the locations of bees and pollinators in North America. Of particular interest are the locations where bees are absent. The project relies upon thousands of participants who each plant the same variety of sunflower plant and then count the number of bees that visit the blooms. The flower in use is the Lemon Queen Sunflower, a plant that is highly attractive to bees. The beauty of the project is its simplicity. The hearty sunflower is among the easiest of annual flowers to grow. The seed is inexpensive, and people of all ages can participate. This enjoyable project produces bright flowers in the yard or garden. The Great Sunflower Project is also a good introduction to individuals everywhere to the importance of bees and native pollinators.

The sunflower planting can be the start of each person’s pollinator garden. With spring approaching, the time is right to participate in The Great Sunflower Project. Seeds can be ordered now, and they will arrive in time to be planted as soon as the soil is adequately warmed. When the plants produce flowers, you are ready to report the bee visitors. The colorful blossoms are highly attractive to numerous species of bees. The planting of great numbers of pollinator gardens can be the quickest method for reversing the decline of pollinators. Those who participate will be eager to learn techniques for maintaining lawns, gardens, golf courses, and farms in a manner that provides food and habitat for the pollinators. Visit The Great Sunflower Project’s web site, http://www.greatsunflower.org/, to participate. Click on today’s photo to see solitary native bees collecting pollen from a sunflower.
--Richard

The Composite Family

The composite family, Compositae or Asteraceae, also known as the sunflower family, is one of the largest in the plant kingdom with nearly 25 thousand species of composite flowers, worldwide. The composites have flower heads that resemble an individual flower, but the head is actually made up of numerous individual small flowers. The composite family is important to the honey bee because many of its members are prolific producers of nectar and pollen. I will list a number of composites; as well as being beautiful wildflowers, many have curious names: pussy’s toes, mayweed, or dog-fennel, Philadelphia fleabane, wooly ragwort. Other composites include the asters, sunflowers, common milfoil or yarrow, burdock, daisy, bur marigold, Indian plantain, common chicory or blue sailors, and thistles. One thistle, knapweed or star thistle, is known for making honey. A number of composites are recognized as common plantings in the flower garden: coneflower, cornflower or bachelor’s button, and ox-eye daisy. Many composites are wildflowers found in meadows and clearings in woodlots: tickseed coreopsis, daisy fleabane, American feverfew or wild quinine, mist flower, boneset, Indian blanket, rabbit tobacco, black-eyed Susan, groundsel, and Joe-Pye Weed. Some composites should be grouped according to their descriptive names: bitterweed, sneezeweed camphorweed, and stinkweed. Important late-season bee plants from the composite family include Canada goldenrod, the many asters, and dandelion. The over-winter food for many colonies is derived from these composites. The survival of many honey bee colonies is often dependent upon a composite wildflower, the dandelion, the last plant to bloom in the fall and the first to bloom in the spring.

Composites of economic significance include lettuce, chicory, chrysanthemum, artichoke, and sunflower. As I am visiting my bee yards at this time of the year, I am finding a few composite flowers in bloom. Whenever we see some bees bringing pollen into the hives at this time, it is usually from composites. Today’s photo shows a honey bee foraging in a perennial sunflower, the Jerusalem artichoke or sunchoke.
--Richard

Sunflowers in Bloom

Sunflowers in bloom are a sure sign of summer. The sunflowers are a member of the important family of bee plants, the composites. The composite family, also called the sunflower family, is among the largest families of flowering plants. Worldwide, composites make up one tenth of the 250 thousand flowering plants. They exist on all continents except Antarctica. We recognize many of the composites: coneflower, dandelion, coreopsis, marigold, asters, and zinnias. Many composites are placed in landscape plantings and in parks for the beauty of their flowers. Composites are producers of nectar and pollen, making them excellent bee plants.

In the photo, you can see sunflowers growing near our bee yard at Whitton Flowers and Produce in Whitton, Arkansas. Jill and Keith Forrester grow cut flowers and fresh produce on their family farm. At this time of the year, Jill’s sunflowers are prized for their bright appearance in flower arrangements. Once the sunflower has been pollinated by a honey bee, the plant produces the distinctive black seeds in the center of the flower. The sunflowers are of particular value to the honey bee for their pollen. Many of the sunflowers, however, produce so much pollen that they were not in demand for table arrangements. The flowers simply spill their abundant pollen onto the table cloth. Horticulturists have developed sunflowers in recent years specifically for floral use that produce little pollen. One variety of sunflowers often grown for bird seed, the black oil sunflower, is not favored by the honey bee. There are many other varieties of sunflower which are very attractive to honey bees and native pollinators. Visit the Forresters’ web site at http://whittonfarms.com/.
--Richard