This month’s book, The Bee-Friendly Garden by Kate Frey and Gretchen LeBuhn, is a garden book about bees. These two authors know their bees and how they live in our gardens, when we give them the chance. The reader learns about honeybees and native bees. Pollination is the daily activity of the bee and this activity plays a great part in thriving gardens and crops. During pollination, adult bees gather the pollen to feed their young and use the nectar for energy. Honeybees turn nectar into honey that they store to help the colony survive the winter. 

The first chapter explains the difference between these two species beginning with the reassurance that native bees rarely sting while honeybees may when their nests are disturbed. The authors describe the lifecycles of the different bees and provide detailed descriptions of a few native bees, illustrated with small photographs. There are 4000 native bee species in the United States. 

Chapter two describes bee-friendly plants for your garden, emphasizing the importance of annuals, perennials and shrubs. The photos of plants are wonderful. The authors give suggestions of how to choose plants based on location and size of the garden and include information from areas around the country. This section covers blossom size, shape and color, bloom time and cultural needs. Frey and LeBuhn stress the importance of including native plants in the garden, but do not link the necessity of providing native plants for the native insects as much as they could have. Biodiversity and the creation of habitat is mentioned in the chapters.

Chapter four on bee garden basics gave me useful new information on what bees need, how they forage and their needs for pollen and nectar. They require a variety of and repetition of plants and a variety of flower color and shape. Native bees nest in the ground and in cavities such as hollow plant stems, fence posts--the bees drill the holes, dead trees, old wood or beetle holes. Gardeners can build nesting boxes and the book shows examples. Water, sun and healthy soils help maintain a bee population.

Chapter five on designing a bee garden suggests the gardener considers both the functional and aesthetic aspects of outdoor spaces. Once these are determined, arrange the planted spaces around them and choose the plants. Now is the time to use what you have learned about how bees live in the garden from the earlier chapters.

The book includes plant lists for different areas of the country and other resources.