On our farm we currently have six honey bee hives and have become fascinated with these amazing creatures and the vital role they play in our food production. About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination! When we first began keeping bees we thought that because we had an abundance of flowers in our gardens that there would be plenty of food for them. We quickly learned that they can greatly prefer one variety of flowering plant above another and will travel great distances to get to their favorites. Because nothing blooms forever, we also needed to make available to them a succession of blooms from early spring into the late fall. Keeping hives of honeybees is also another reason we strive to be organic. All of this study and learning led us to create our orange colored “pollinator friendly tags.” With these varieties you can grow a garden that’s both beautiful and attractive to honeybees, butterflies and other native pollinators. Viva la pollinators!
