Texas Bee Watchers

For Bumblebee Watchers in Texas

I met Michael Warriner at The Wings Over the Hills Festival in Fredericksburg where he told me about his new website and bumblebee photographing project. Click on over to Texas Bumblebees to see his new website.

It's a really nice site with descriptions of all the bumblebees found in Texas, really cool diagrams to help you identify those bumblebees, and a link to a Facebook page where you can post a photo of a bumblebee in your garden. Michael will even try to identify the bee from the photo (so get a good photo of the abdomen).

One of the coolest features is a set of maps showing county-level distribution patterns for each Texas bumblebee. These maps are far from complete. And that's where your photos of bumblebees come in. Good digital photos will allow Michael to work on completing the maps. Maybe your bumbleebee photo will be a new record for a Texas County. You'll be famous!

So, now you have a two-fer. At Texas Beewatchers you can get your garden certified as bee-friendly and at Texas Bumblebees you can help Michael map the bumblebee distribution in Texas.  

Go visit Michael's new website. Let him know you heard about here at Texas Bee Watchers! And have fun gardening for native bees and taking photos of bumblebees.

 

Blogs, Bees, and Texas' Official Certified Bee-Friendly Garden # 6

 Photo provided by Meredith at Great Stems. (www.greatstems.com)

Can you remember life without the Internet?

I can, and, believe me, the Internet is worth every bit of the bother!  There are so many interesting blogs written by people who are willing to share their knowledge.

One such blog is Great Stems. Written by Meredith in Northwest Austin, she keeps a garden blog about the wildlife habitat she has created in her yard and often reports on the pollinators and other creatures that frequent her garden.

According to Meredith:

Most of the plants in my garden are native Texas plants, but I do sometimes choose a few non-natives because of their wildlife value or fun value. My best bee attractors are sunflowers, veggies, Gregg’s Mistflower, Zexmenia, Texas Kidneywood, Mealy Blue Sage and other sages, Fall Aster, to name a few. 

Click on What's Growing in the Great Stems Garden to find a full list of the plants in Meredith's garden.

Meredith's garden is a great example of a bee-friendly garden. If you click on the link below:

Reflections on the First Year (2008-2009)

you can see what she has done in only one year of conscious planting in her yard.

Not only is Meredith's garden described on her website, she's also a great photographer and documents her garden with some outstanding photos. Click Sunflowers and Megachilids to see some very colorful photos of Megachilid bees on Sunflowers in Meredith's yard.

And, if you want to add some more bee Nest Boxes to your own Bee-Friendly Garden, check out Meredith's Bee Nest Boxes. I can promise you'll love them!

Welcome to the Bee-Friendly community here at Texas Bee Watchers, Meredith. Your garden is now the 6th Official Certified Bee-Friendly Garden in Texas.