Counted 14 kinds of bees in my yard since April, didn't expect that

I started keeping a list back in April just to see what was buzzing around my yard in Boise. I'm at 14 different kinds now, mostly on the lavender and the volunteer sunflowers near the fence. The weird part is I only planted two things for pollinators on purpose, a bee balm and some borage, and the rest just showed up on their own. Has anyone else kept a list like this, and did adding a shallow water dish actually bring in more?

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michael80721d ago

I'd push back on the idea that the water dish matters much. Every time I've set one out it just turns into a mosquito farm and the bees barely touch it, they get most of their water from nectar and dew anyway. The 14 kinds you're seeing probably has way more to do with Boise being surrounded by wild land and all that unmowed stuff out past the edges of town, not anything you did. Volunteers like sunflowers and whatever weeds pop up usually pull in way more bees than the stuff you buy at the nursery, so the "they just showed up" part is really the whole story.

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