Winter is but a memory, and the summer heat hasn’t arrived to knock us flat. It is a pleasure to work outside in the garden, and I sometimes forget to stop for the day. I do too much weeding, digging, and transplanting, so at night, I head for the ibuprofen to ease my assortment of aches and pains. Overuse of lazy muscles is a column for another week.
Today I want to write about trees for bees. I read an online article published by a beekeeper service company about trees that will attract numerous species of bees to your property. The article was accompanied by a colorful poster that highlighted specific trees and their flowers and fruits that will lure bees to your garden.
One of my favorite spring and summer garden activities is bee watching, especially the endearingly clumsy flight of one of our native bumblebees, Bombus impatiens. My second favorite activity is snapping photos of the bees bumbling about the flowers or napping on a favorite bloom. Did you know that the name “Bombus” refers to the buzzing sound that bumblebees make? The enchanting B. impatiens is one of 14 species of bumblebees found in Virginia.
I am aware that some trees buzz with activity when they blossom in the spring, but the bees are too high up for me to take their pictures, so perhaps I haven’t given enough credit to the trees for attracting bees onto our property. My awareness of bees in trees was raised after I studied the poster, and I started counting the species of trees we have that are filled with bees in the spring.
My favorite bee tree was our massive redbud (Cercis canadensis) that we sadly lost several years ago. It stood at the edge of our large (now removed) daylily garden. When the redbud bloomed in the spring, thousands of bees flocked to it. The masses of sweetly fragrant lavender-pink blossoms provided pollen and nectar for the bees for several weeks. The sound of the bees’ humming could be heard from dozens of feet away, and the branches and leaves swayed with the bees’ movements.
The second bee-charming tree that comes to mind is the littleleaf linden (Tilia cordata). Several linden trees line either side of the drive onto our property. Littleleaf lindens reach 40 to 60 feet in height. In April, the slightly asymmetrical, toothed, heart-shaped leaves bud out. In June, tiny, creamy white to pale yellow flower clusters appear. Each cluster, or cyme, bears a single terminal blossom that opens first. The other flowers in each cluster develop on lateral stems.
The sweet fragrance of the flowers is intoxicating, and attracts masses of bees and butterflies. Like the redbud, the linden canopies sway with the movements of the bees. The small, round, hairy, brown nutlets that appear when the flowers fade provide food for birds and small mammals.
Tupelo, or black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), is a native tree that grows slowly to a mature height of 40 to 60 feet with a tall straight trunk and branches that reach out at quirky angles, twisting and meandering nearly to the ground.
Some tupelos are dioecious, which means a male and female tree must be planted near each other for the trees to produce flowers. Other trees have both male and female flowers on the same tree. The white to pale-green, nondescript flowers appear in May and June, providing an excellent nectar source for many species of bees. In the past, decayed sections of tupelo trunks were used as “bee gums” or natural beehives. The fruit, a fleshy, sour-tasting, dark-blue drupe, ripens in the fall. The drupes provide food for many birds, including the eastern bluebird, cedar waxwing, and American crow.
Other trees that attract bees include tulip poplar, flowering dogwood, and crabapple, all of which are commonly found on the Middle Peninsula. Eastern carpenter bees (Xylocarpa virginica), Andrenid bees (Andrena spp.), orchard mason bees (Osmia lignaria), and other bee species will join the bumblebees in your trees and gardens.