Texas bees are ready for the spotlightMay 20, 2016 Updated: May 20, 2016 4:16pm
Chris Garza is pointing out the longhorn bees bouncing off the Seussian wild bee balm flowers.
"The males go to the flower for nectar, but they're not interested in pollen," Garza explains. "Pollen equals female. The males are only interested in mating."
Garza, an applied ecologist at the Houston Arboretum, is looking for native pollinators.
Everyone knows that the nonnative European honeybee is in trouble, but not many know that native bees - Texas bees, y'all - are ready and able to take over some of their pollinating chores. This is especially relevant because the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has just released native pollinator management guidelines for landowners who want to get a wildlife tax exemption.
That's right. For those with enough land, it's possible to get a tax break for making a property bee-friendly.
Most crops grown for their fruits - including vegetables, fiber and hay - must be pollinated by insects. Bees are the primary pollinators among insects and play a major role in the health and survival of natural plant communities. When pollen from the male part of a flower is transferred to the female part of the flower of the same species, pollination occurs.
How to plant a bee-friendly garden
Use native plants and avoid heavily modified varieties. Some that work well here are:
Redbud (Cercis canadensis)
Bee balm (Monarda)
Blanket flower (Gaillardia)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
from "The Bees in Your Backyard," by Joseph S. Wilson and Olivia J. Messinger Carril
The day's mission for Garza is to find and identify native pollinators at the 155-acre Arboretum, located in Memorial Park. Many of the desirable bees are so-called solitary bees, Garza says, the kind who don't make hives or live in groups.
He holds up a piece of farkleberry wood (a type of wild blueberry and totally, he promises, not a thing he made up) to show a couple of small holes. The bee - often a mason, carpenter or leafcutter bee - packs the hole with pollen and lays a solitary egg. She then plugs the hole with whatever her species dictates: leaf bits for leafcutters, mud for masons.
After that, she departs, her work done. "They are very caring mothers, and they do a lot," Garza says, though the mother never gets to see her offspring.
Inside the tiny hole, miracles happen. The egg hatches and the larva begins to eat the life-giving pollen. The bee goes through multiple life stages in that tiny hole before finally emerging, a complete adult.
A Houston-area backyard can be home to an abundance of native bee species, says Olivia Messinger Carril, the author, with Joseph S. Wilson, of the comprehensive new book "The Bees in Your Backyard." In fact, she says, Houston is blessed to have not only Eastern varieties, but many who come up from Mexico.
"They are pretty opportunistic and take care of themselves if given a chance," she says. "They just need food and a patch of bare dirt."
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And the best news? Solitary bees hardly ever sting. "They've really got so much to do - it's a long to-do list," Carril says. "They're more afraid of you, so they'll just fly away."
Managing land for bees and butterflies isn't hard, says Michael Warriner, leader of TPWD's Nongame and Rare Species Program. The department has a list of 10 desirable protocols, and landowners can choose any three to follow. "You can make a big difference on a small scale," he says. Doing something as simple as not removing a dead branch or drilling some holes (not all the way through) in a block of wood can make anyone with even a small patch of earth landlord to some great bee homes.
Warriner says most Texans don't realize the economic impact of pollinators, not just on plants but on deer and quail, as well.
Texas alone may be home to 600 or 700 species of native bees. "Probably many have not been described or discovered," he says.
They are especially good pollinators, he says, because they tend to fixate on one flower species, and thus none of the pollen they move from flower to flower is wasted.
Back at the Arboretum, Garza is trying to identify as many bees as possible. He has collected specimens of bees that look like flies, bees that look like ants, shiny metallic bees and fuzzy bumblebees. Tiny sweat bees got their name because they will land on a human to lap up salty sweat. The hairs on the back legs of bees - the ones that collect pollen and make the bees look very "Flashdance" - are called the scopa.
After the recent drought years, the Arboretum is moving more of its land into its natural state as savannah or prairie, a good home for native wildflowers and, of course, pollinators.
But anyone can play a part. Carril recommends starting a small bee garden, maybe just a few sunflowers. If that goes well, the gardener can add something from the mint, pea or rose families - the more native and unmodified the better - and step back and watch.
"You can start seeing stories play out right in front of you," she says.