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If you're looking to help the bees in your hood, consider adding some native flowering plants to your garden.
Plant These Flowers to Power Bees: Photos
If you're looking to help the bees in your hood, consider adding some native flowering plants to your garden. "Think of the flowers your grandmother used in her garden as a practical guide, especially when using nonnative plants," advises a USDA report. "The pollinators will thank you." Looking for some ideas? Check out these flowering plants that can help give bees a boost. PHOTOS: Go Inside a Rat's Mind and Metal 'Flowers'
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Crocus are a good choice to attract bees in the early spring. They're also pollinated by butterflies. BLOG: Spring Flowers Arriving Month Earlier at Rocky Mountains
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Asters are perennials that provide nectar and pollen, and do well when planted in late summer and fall. NEWS: Global Warming Brings Earlier Spring Flowers
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View Caption + #4: Geraniums are another pollinator-friendly perennial.
Top 10 Flower Technologies
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The Calendula is an annual that's sometimes called a pot marigold. PHOTOS: Oldest Flowering Plant Genome Mapped
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Cleome are annuals that are native to the western United States, and they provide pollen in summer to bees. PHOTOS: Animals And Bugs That Look Like Flowers
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Bees loves sunflowers and sometimes even stop on them to catch a few zzzzs. BLOG: Flowers Communicate With Electricity
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Cut flowers, including zinnia (above), celosia, ageratum and wildflowers like goldenrod are bumble bee magnets. So are herbs including lavendar, anise hyssop, motherwort, basil and sage. Want to see more flowers -- and herbs to help bees? Check out this cool illustration from American Bee Journal.
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There are plenty of ways to get rid of pesky pests, but farmers have lately been moving to more natural, less synthetic ways of ensuring their crops and herds are bug-free. Some opt for elaborate traps, some use adorable terriers, but the scariest option might be parasitic wasps.
These insects naturally prey on all kinds of pests we don’t like, from mealyworms in Thailandto horseflies in North America. The way they work is, well, pretty gross: They lay their eggs directly into the pest, and when the wasp eggs hatch, they eat their way out, killing their pest-home. It’s gruesome! Nature red in tooth and claw!
What happens when a nefarious bug threatens valuable California citrus crops? Unleash a swarm of foreign parasitic wasps to kick the little bug's butt!
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Farmers can buy wasps to use as pest control, though often they’re done as a last-ditch option rather than for prevention since they can be kind of expensive; certainly more than spray-on pesticides. (On the other hand, you don’t forfeit your organic certification if you use wasps as pest control.) The specific ways wasps are used isn’t all that well understood, which a new paper, published in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management , points out.
Horseflies are a perfect example. Horseflies are well-known to humans for their aggressive, blood-sucking bite; they can take a chunk of flesh out with their powerful jaws. But for animals, especially horses, they can be much more dangerous. They can transmit equine infectious anemia, sometimes known as swamp fever, which can resultin lethargy, weight loss, and even death. Parasitic wasps are a great candidate for pest control against horseflies, but not all that much is known about how they operate and what they prefer.
Turns out, individual species prefer specific livestock dung for breeding, which is important for figuring out which variety of wasp is best to provide long-lasting pest prevention. You have to make sure that the wasp wants to stick around your farm and attack your pests, and that means giving the wasp a nice home. And the wasp wants specific kinds of dung. No judgments! Some of us still live in New York City. We all have our weird housing preferences.
Anyway, the study determined a specific species that prefers horse dung, and another that prefers cow dung, which could easily increase the efficiency of parasitic wasps as pest control agents. It’s gross, scary, and weird, but this is what’s involved in figuring out how best to get rid of pests without dangerous synthetic chemical pesticides.
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This article originally appeared on Modern Farmer , all rights reserved.