Beginner Gardening: Bees Please, 0 by HoneybeeNC

HoneybeeNC wrote:
Horseshoe - I didn't know lettuce was self-pollinating. As a past bee keeper, I've learned which plants/trees keep these ladies happy. For instance, orange trees don't need bees, but a larger fruit set is obtained with them. I suspect this is true for other fruit trees, but I only kept bees in South Florida, so didn't pay much attention to other fruit trees as most of them don't grow there. As far as I know, other tropical fruit trees are not reliant upon honeybees, either.

Quoting:There are no honey bees native to the Americas. In 1622, European colonists brought the dark bee (A. m. mellifera) to the Americas, followed later by Italian bees (A. m. ligustica) and others. Many of the crops that depend on honey bees for pollination have also been imported since colonial times

quoted from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bees

I encourage all gardeners to set up suitable habitat for both bumble and native bees.

Photo taken June 2011