Honey Bee Tips...

• Bees are losing habitat all around the world due to intensive monoculture-based farming practices, pristine green (but-flower barren) sprawling suburban lawns and from the destruction of native landscapes. Just planting flowers in your garden, yard, or in a plater will help provide bees with forage. Avoid chemically treating your flowers as chemical can leach into pollen and negatively affect the bees systems. Plant plenty of the same type of bloom together, bees like volume of forage (a square yard is a good estimate)

Here are a few examples of good plant varieties: Spring-lilacs, penstemon, lavender, sage, verbena and wisteria. Summer-Mint, cosmos, squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, sunflowers, oregano, rosemary, poppies, black-eyed Susan, passion flower vine, honeysuckle. Fall-Fuchsia, mint, bush sunflower, sage, verbena, toadflax. 

• Contrary to popular belief, a lawn full of clover and dandelions is not just a good thing-its a good thing! a haven for honeybees (and other native pollinators too) Don't be so nervous about letting your lawn live a little. Wildflowers, many of which might classify as weeds, are some of the most important food sources for native North American bees. If some of these are "weeds" you chose to get rid of (say you want to pull out that blackberry bush that taking over), let it bloom first for the bees and then before it goes to seed, pull it out or trim it back

• Yes, they make your lawn look pristine and pretty, but they're actually doing the opposite to the life of your biosphere. The chemicals and pest treatments you put on your lawn and garden can cause damage to the honeybees systems. These treatments are especially damaging if applied while the flowers are in bloom as they will get into the pollen nectar and be taken back to the bee hive where they also get into the honey-which in turn means they can get into us. Pesticides, specifically neo-nicotinoid varieties have been one of the major culprits in Colony Collapse Disorder. 

• The honey you buy directly sends a message beekeepers about how they should keep their bees. For this reason, and for your own personal health, strive to buy local, raw honey that is from hives that are not treated by chemicals. It can be hard to find out what is truly "local" and truly "raw" -and even harder yet to find out what is untreated. Here's a few guidelines: If you find it in the grocery store and its imported from China, don't buy it. There have been  number of cases recently of chemically contaminated honey coming from China. If its coming from the grocery store but doesn't say the words "pure" or "raw" and your can't read in the description that its untreated by chemicals, don't buy it. If its untreated, the label will say, as this is an important selling point. We recommend a simple solution for most people. Go to your farmers market and shake hands with the beekeepers you meet. There are beekeepers at nearly every farmers market selling their honey and other products. have a conversation with them, find out what they are doing to their hives, and how they are keeping their bees. If they are thoughtful, respectful beekeepers who keep their bees in a sustainable, natural way, then make a new friend and support them. 

• You may not have known this one-but its easy and its true! If you have allot of bees starting to come to your new garden of native plants, wildflowers and flowering herbs, put a little water basin out (a bird bath with some stones in it for them to crawl on does a nice trick) They will appreciate it!

• What's true for honey generally holds true for the rest of our food. Buying local means eating seasonally as well, and buying local from a farmer that you know means you know if that food is coming from a monoculture or not. This is much easier in the summer when you can get your fresh produce from a local farmers market. Another option is to get your food from local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm. Keep in mind, USDA Organic Certification can be expensive and you may find many great farmers and beekeepers with excellent food and honey that isn't USDA certified simply because they don't produce a high quantity or opt for the expense of the certification. Don't let this get in the way of supporting them and if you're worried about their products-their bees in an area where there is no chemical spray within 3 miles, as this is really what is required to guarantee truly organic honey. (All the more reason for all of us to avoid the use of harsh chemicals)

• Look up a local bee association that offers classes with natural approaches in your community and link up! Here are a few: HBA (Houston Beekeepers Association), Harris County, Fort Bend, Montgomery County. 

• Honey bees are vegetarians. They want to forage pollen and nectar from flowers up to three miles from their hive and bring that food back to provide for themselves and the beehive. Contrary to what the media might have us believe, they are not out to sting us. Here are a few tips to avoid getting stung. 

1. Stay still and calm if a bee is around you or lands on you. Many bees will land on you and sniff you out. They can smell the pheromones that come with fear and anger it can be a trigger for them to sting you.
2. Dont stand in front of a hive opening, or a pathway to a concentration of flowers. Bees are busy running back and forth from the hive, and if you don't differentiate between honeybees and wasps. Honeybees die after they sting humans (but not after they sting other bees!) wasps do not. Wasps are carnivores, so they like your lunch-meats and soda.