 Hello, everybody. My name is Scott Swanson. For those that have joined us every week, you may have seen me because I did host a couple weeks ago when Julie was our presenter, but I'm usually one kind of hanging out in the background, monitoring things here on Zoom. But today I get to be your host again as Julie's out of town for a conference. So excited here to be your host for another field of work webinar. As always brought to you here. These webinars are brought to you by North Dakota State University Extension. This is our ninth year we've done this series, and so glad that you guys are able to join us here today. A special welcome to all of our watch parties out there. As always, we want to remind you that we've archived all these webinars from the previous years, and the links are all on the field of work webinar page. We also are providing a certificate of attendance on the website, and that is posted with the recording. The next slide shows our upcoming webinars. We hope you'll be able to join us for these as well. On the next slide we show our webinar controls because of our large number of participants. We invite you to post your questions and comments in the chat. And so good. I know many of you are already doing that. So thanks for doing that. But if you want to go ahead and practice finding the chat box down the bottom there in the middle, you can ignore the Q&A. Just go ahead and click on the chat to open it. And then you can type in your city and state and let everybody know where you're joining us from today. We've already seen a lot of people doing that. We've got people from all across North Dakota, many in Minnesota, and I've seen even multiple other states joining us today too. So that's exciting. The next slide provides an acknowledgement. And as you're still typing in your city and state here, I want to remind everybody that we have a special request. This program is sponsored in part with grant funding from the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. So we will ask all of you to complete a short online survey that will be emailed to you right after today's webinar. And as a thank you, there are going to be prizes provided to some lucky winners of a random drawings. And as a reminder, there's two years on those. So scroll down past 2023 to define the ones for 2024 and fill out that survey. I am pleased to introduce today's speaker. Dr. Janet Kanotl is the professor and extension entomologist at North Dakota State University. For the past 26 years, she's provided leadership in extension entomology and the North Dakota Integrated Pest Management Program with emphasis on field crop insect pests. She is an active gardener and enjoys studying pollinators. Dr. Kanotl has authored and co-authored more than 600 publications in professional, extension, technical and trade journals and newsletters including over 600 or excuse me, over 60 peer reviewed papers and six book chapters. Jan, take it away. Okay, great. Well, thank you, Scott. And good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining today and we're going to learn about bees. So first, I got to cover pollination. I'm sure most of you already know what pollination is. But it is the deposit of pollen grain from the answer, which is the male structure onto the pistol, which is the female structure. And it can be on the same plant species or it can be transferred between, you know, separate flowers. Successful pollination results in viable seeds and a fruit, which we enjoy eating. Most of the field crops are pollinated by insect or wind. However, insects are very important for fruit and vegetables, and we really depend on our pollinators, including bees, butterflies and flies. Of the pollinators, the bees are the most important in our garden. So just to give you a little background, you know, we always start in the spring with the seed from the plant, say a squash that we're growing. And then it'll go to the shoot stage. This is the seedling stage very small. And it's also a very important stage to getting that plant established. So if it's attacked by an insect pest or a disease, you know, oftentimes it can be easily succumbed to the disease or insect and die at that point. However, if it gets established and then it gets developed and we see a beautiful flower, and then we see when the pollination starts with the bee. So the bees are flying around and they're attracted to certain flowers. And when the bee goes into the flower, though the tongue is actually going after the nectar, they're at the base of the flower. And however, when it's in there, it oftentimes the answer, which carries the pollen touches the bee, and then it will carry that pollen around. And it sticks to the hairs or the trichome of the bee. And then they go to another pollen. And if everything's mature stigma is touching, that's the female part of the flower, then it will get fertilized and it will develop into the fruit eventually. And that's what we want to happen. So it's easy to see how bees can be beneficial to our garden and gardening. And, you know, it's actually very important for us. And we want to be able to attract bees to our garden so we can improve pollination and end up getting more fruits. So it goes deeper than that, though, it's pollination and it's so vital to agriculture and our natural ecosystems. Some of the bee populations are 25% are specialists, and they're very specific to either plant species or, you know, just a group of species. And they really help improve the genetic diversity of those species of plants and makes it more vigorous. So, you know, besides producing more food, which is very important. You know, there's many other things that bees help us with. So, of course, honey bees is what everyone thinks about, because they do depend on pollinators and honey bees, you know, accounts for 80% of insect pollination and agriculture crops. So that's usually the first bee that you'll think about when we talk about bees and pollination. And they're certainly very valuable, you know, $30 billion in the US alone. And most of you may or may not know that North Dakota is number one in honey production. We produce 31.2 million pounds of honey over valued over $82 million every year. So we're like New York City, I always say in the summer, because a lot of the migratory honey beekeepers come up into North Dakota because we produce many of the crops they like to use for honey production like sunflower and canola. Both of them very nutritious for the honey bee. So why are bees so effective in pollination? Well, for one thing, they have certain structures, which makes it very easy for them to collect pollen. They got certain specific hairs. They're called scopay. And you can see them over here on Ape de Melisodes. You know, look how hairy that leg is. All of that, it makes it easy when it's walking on a flower to collect pollen. Same thing with mega kylid. Here you can see the hairs on the underside of the abdomen. Again, easily, you know, for the pollen to get attached to it. And then other species like our honey bee, they have baskets they use called corbiculae for collecting pollen. And they have hairs on the edge, which prevents it from falling out. And they have these balls that they create and carry quite a bit of pollen. But the hairs are just not normal hairs that are slender and filament like. They're very branched. And you can't see it unless you look under a microscope. But you can see all the branching here in the hairs. And that helps them keep the pollen attached to the body when they're flying and moving around. And here it's a nice picture of a bee just covered in pollen. So there's lots of different fruits and vegetables we grow in our backyard. And here's a table that shows you, you know, whether it's honey bees or bumble bees or other native bees that are used in pollination. And also whether it's required. So for apples, cucumbers and musk melons, it is required. And you can see, you know, mainly it's honey bees and bumble bees and then some of the smaller bees that you may or may not be familiar with. We'll go over some of these in a little bit, just show you some pictures so you know what they look like. And then here, moving down the table, you can see pears and plum is required for bee pollination. And again, you know, it's mainly honey bees, bumble bees. And then we have some of the other mining, macing bees, digger bees that are also pollinators. And then for the pumpkin squash zucchini, I think everyone knows bee pollination is very critical for these crops. And if you don't have a lot of bees around, you're not going to get very many fruit. And then here's sour cherry, but then raspberry, strawberry and tomatoes. No pollination is required, but beneficial. And bumble bees, especially here for the tomatoes because of their buzz pollination, where they grab the flower and vibrate with a certain vibration that releases the pollen. So it can fertilize the tomato and you can end up with some tomato fruits. So very important, you know, like the honey bee here is not effective. So there's many other species of bees that are also effective and we're learning, you know, more about these species of bees and how valuable they actually are. So here's just for bumble bee only. You can see there's quite a few different fruits and vegetables that are, you know, required bumble bee pollination. So we also can increase crop yields through bee pollination. And again, it's a whole large group of different types of bees is beneficial. In fact, for sunflower, some of the research that's been done on wild bees and honey bees show that the interaction between the two when you have both wild bees and honey bees on the flower, it actually increased the efficiency of pollination up five times. So compared to just honey bees alone. So there's a lot more research coming out showing that this interaction of having multiple species of bees is beneficial to many different plants. And, you know, there's a lot of more research coming out every year on how the bees, you know, increase seed set and played, you know, a significant role in pollination compared to moths and just wind. So here I have to mention canola oil seed rape. Again, there is some smaller bees, some mason bees as me and we'll talk just a little bit about those. And they really do help increase fruit set yield and number seeds per pod. And honey bee two is very beneficial, increasing oil and decreasing chlorophyll content. For those of you not from North Dakota, canola were number one in canola production and we do put out mason bee hives into canola to help increase the yield. And here honey bees and wild bees again, interaction between the two really helped increase the yield 37%. Even a crop like soybeans that's not very, you don't think of it as a good flower for a bee to visit, you know, it's a very tiny flower. But here the honey bee has been shown to increase the yield and the number of seeds. In this study it was 18%. So they're very, very valuable and, you know, we do need our bees to show you how critical they are. And we can, you know, help get good pollination in our gardens and our fruit orchards by just creating an oasis for the bees. You know, plant it near or in your fruit or vegetable gardens and, you know, plant it and they will come. So we'll go over some of the things that you can do to improve bees making pollination in your garden and making the garden more attractive. Here's what we'll talk about, provide nectar and pollen sources and what to provide, provide water, habitat and shelter for nesting and wise pesticide use. So I'll talk about each one of them. So for the first one, I know a lot of you are real active gardeners and probably know a lot of this, but we'll just quickly go over it. You know, we got to provide a variety of different plants from early spring through fall to keep the bees active in your gardens. And the bees have evolved with native species. So you should try to put a few native species into your garden. There's many that aren't, you know, invasive and growing through underground rhizomes. So many of them stay where they're put if given, you know, proper care. And then some of the non-native cultivars, too, though, are very beneficial. So, you know, just stay away from any cultivar that's been converted in the flowering stage so you don't have any nectar resources for the bee. And usually planting in groups has been more beneficial than planting a single specimen. So plant in three or more species. So for influencing bees, some of the flower color that they like is the white, reddish, purple, yellow, and then the blues. So any of those colors, which are most of the colors that flowers come in are attractive to bees. And then bees also rely on the odor of flowers to make them attractive. And it varies depending on the bee species, but some of them like the flowers that provide more odor. And then the structure and the shape of the flower can also influence whether a certain bee species likes that. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then nectar and pollen, they're going after both. So they need the nectar, you know, for food as well as the pollen for their young. So we want to be sure that we're providing all the different factors that can influence whether a bee will visit their flower or not. So native versus cultivar, we've done some research and we were pleasantly surprised that many of the cultivars we tested. We actually found that they were just as useful and attractive to bees as non-native species or as native species. But the mouth parts of the pollinator can really make a difference on what type of plant they go to. So many plants have shallow nectar reserves like an aster or a milkweed. So these will be attractive to some of the smaller bees and butterflies that have shorter tongues. So we're thinking about like sweat beads. This is Agapastaman on an aster here. And then other plants have deeper nectar reserves like the bee bombs. So it's going to require some of the larger, longer-tongued bees like bumblebees to get that nectar. And then for butterflies it would be swallowteals. And bees overall belong to the order hymenoptera. So it includes a large group of bees, wasps, ants, and soft flies. But for the bees we have about 4,000 specimens in North America. And in North Dakota it's anywhere from 250 to 300 bee species. And there's a lot of work that's going on right now in identifying exactly how many species we have. But here you can see a short-tongued bee and they're in the family Andrenidae and Callitidae. And here you can see more longer-tongued bee, Apidae, Callitidae, and Megacylidae. So we'll just cover each one of those. And these are the most important families we have in North Dakota, these five. So and here's some additional flower sources for short-tongued bees. So we want to make sure we provide, you know, sources for both short-tongued bees and long-tongued bees. And some of my favorites are Catnip, Sedum, Veronica, and Yarrow. And then I actually like all the long flowers here for the long-tongued bees. But this is one of my favorites. These are some pictures from my garden. And we got to remember many bees are solitary bees and nest in the ground. So here you can see these piles of dirt. And these are nesting solitary ground-nesting bees. And they do prefer hot, dry, sandy areas. So let's just talk a little bit about the families here. Andrenidae is called Mining Bees. And there's generally small up to 100 species in North America. And they're identified by their depressions that they have. If you look at them head-on, you probably will need a microscope for this. But you can see these little depressions here on the head. And also we use these two cells in the wings to help with identification, these two sub-marginal cells. And you can see that one is a little bit smaller here than the second one. So then they're very dark colored. And sometimes you'll see these hairs on the abdomen, these bands of hair on the abdomen. So that's another characteristic that you can use. And they carry their pollen and their armpits here. So then we have the colidits, the salophane and mass bees. And they're about the size of a honeybee for the salophane bees. And again, if we look at those two cells that help us identify the bees, you can see they're about equal size this time. And again, they're solitary ground nesting, but sometimes they do occur in groups. And the interesting thing about this bee is they line their nests with descriptions. And it kind of looks like salophane or polyester-like substance. In fact, we have used the substance to help us improve our plastics. And mass bees is the other one. And just like the name says mass, they usually have some color on the face of the head. That is why they are called mass bees. It's either yellow or white usually. And you can see they don't have a heart any ears on them compared to other bees. And that's because they store their pollen and nectar in a crop. It's called a honey stomach. So it's internal instead of being external. And these guys nest in hollow branches or cavities and sometimes so round nesting. And here's the one everyone knows, the European honey bee in the family Apidae. Again, this is our non-native bee that we have here in North America. And it's all over used for pollination as we discuss. It's a medium size and it's pretty easy to identify with all the hairs on the body. And they also, if you take a look at the top photo here, you can see all the hairs that they have on their eye. You can actually use that as a ID characteristic. And then we talked about their pollen basket there on the hind leg. And they nest in our man-made colonies, you know, the hives that we have. And in the wild, wild bees can nest in open cavities that we have in trees. And I often get calls every year about, you know, some of the, when the queen has escaped from the hive and it's trying to find a new nesting place. So they often disturb coming to the town and, you know, they try to get into people's trees and looking for holes and cavities. Mumblebees, also Apidae. They're one of the largest bees and there's about 20 species in our area. Again, they're pretty easy to identify as the bumblebees, black and yellow. Again, they have the basket area on the hind leg and the tibia. And they do the buzz pollination that we already discussed. Here's a couple of species. We have the common eastern bumblebee, Impatias. And then the western yellow banded bumblebee, bombastericholus. And this one happens to be in decline. Then there's the longhorn bees and the digger bees also in the Apidae family. On the top here is the Melisodes. And again, I use this one as an example with the hairy legs. Several of them are, you know, long antennae, usually the male. You can see the male here and then this is the females for the digger bee. And they often nest in lawns. They like the dry, sandier soils. And you sometimes see that they can be kind of pesty when they get in large groups, especially if you have children around, people don't like that. But they're easy to get rid of by just watering the area frequently because they don't like wet areas. And then the leaf cutter bees make a chyletae. They have the hairs on the underside. Again, it's a fairly small bee to medium size. But you know when you have them around from the holes that they cut in the leaves. So they can also nest in cavities. About 30% of our bees overall nest in cavities. And then also in the megachyletae family, we have the basin bees. And they nest in the structures that we provide for them. And it's again, small, medium size bee, but they're beautiful metallic green blue color. And they're used commercially in many crops, canola. Also in blueberries. And they can nest either solitary or in groups, it depends on the species. And you can see here that they use mud to line their nest. So it's fun to put these boxes out to see how many you get. And moving on to the helicidae family, their common name is the sweat bee. And this is probably the most difficult group of bees to identify. There's many, many different species. But unfortunately the taxonomy of them is very difficult and hasn't really been worked on completely. So but these two here are fairly easy to identify. For essence, beautiful metallic green. And then the more drab abdomen with the hair bands. And then here we have agapossum and texanus and lasioglassum. So and they are indeed called sweat bees for a reason because they're attracted when you sweat to the salt. And they use that at the salt for some nutrition. So moving on to all the flowers that we need to plant. So for some of the spring flowering perennials, crocuses are one of my favorite things to plant. They're easy to plant too. They're only three inches deep in the soil, so you don't have to dig down that deep. And then there's also hyacinths and Siberian squill. And a past flower prairie smoke and red column bind that is pictured here. And I should explain what this means here under the pollinator column, the B stands for B. And then the BF is butterfly and hummingbird. So there's also besides bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. And which flowers they like. June flowering perennials. Golden Alexander here is a must. It's a native perennial. It's very nice to have in a garden though. It stays in a nice clump so it doesn't spread readily or aggressively. Butterfly milkweed, of course. Baptisia, false indigo, another one of my favorites, catnip and selvia. These are all good to have because we really need early flowering plants for the bees as they first emerge. And I've already seen some indredded bees out because of the early spring that we're having. Summer flowering perennials. There's quite a long list there of everything that we have. Again, you know, planting Mardarda is always a good choice. And this is Blazing Star, the atras. So there's quite a few to choose from here. You know, just see, you know, what the conditions are that you have, whether sun, part sun or shady and select plants that will do well in that area. And the fall flowering perennials. Stiff goldenrod. I like this one and I have quite a bit of it in my garden. Again, it's not an aggressive plant. It is a native plant, but it's so it's good to grow. It's fairly tall though. It'll get four, four feet high about. And then tall seed them again. Sneezeweed is okay if you have a moist area. It does need moisture. And then all the asters, of course, are good. But the thing we struggle with here in North Dakota is whether or not they will flower before our first frost. So sometimes, you know, they don't have time to finish their flowering. We'll see a few blooms, but if we get a hard frost, we often lose the later blooms and asters and here in our northern climate. Annials. There's lots of annuals and I love using them to fill in between some of the perennials. And these are attracted to just about all these. So anything you'd like, you know, go for it. Xenias is one of my favorite in sunflowers. Merry Goals, Cosmos and Elysium. But I do plant some of the others as well. Don't forget about the herbs. We can also use them in our salads and for cooking as well. Lavender is one of my favorites. I always put that one in some pots. Then there's, you know, the chives, which you can use on your potatoes and other things. So that's the fun thing about using some herbs and maybe either growing them on your patio or in your garden. And then we have quite a few different trees on the Boulevard. If you live in a city, you know, I always love Lindane because of their beautiful scent. Ohio Buckeye is another tree that is becoming more popular. It has a smaller size. So if you have a smaller yard, it can fit in. There's some beautiful flower here from the Ohio Buckeye. And here's the Lindane. Okay, then there's small trees and shrubs we can plant as well around, you know, your garden area. Apple, of course, choked cherry, crab apple. There's a long list and bees are attracted to all of these. So this is dogwood here and this one is crab apple. And the crab apples are particularly beautiful shrubs. There's a lot of different shrubs you can plant. Again, bees love all these. So you can kind of pick what fits into your yard. Lead plant is one of my favorites. But just make sure this is a native plant. Make sure that you plant it where you're going to keep it because it has a very long root on it once it's mature. But it's fun to try these different trees and see what comes in and is attracted to them. So we grow quite a bit of honeyberries. In fact, honeyberries is often grown here in North Dakota for berries and I believe lime production. Water sources, again, bees do need water just like butterfly stews. So if you can have a real shallow dish, you can make them yourself out of cement here. And put water in them and oftentimes if they're too deep, the bees can drown in them. So I usually put in a flat rock where they can land on to, you know, get the water. And then habitat, you know, we can put these out for the mason bees. And you won't have to go quite this fancy, but it is fun to put out a few houses just to see if you have them in your area. And then also people, if you're in the city, you probably won't want to leave dead trees. But if you're out in the country, you know, there's a lot of bees will use dead trees for nesting in just like woodpeckers do. And then there's the habitat. Now, if you don't have a sandy area, you can make one just like a sandbox for the bees and put that out near the garden. And see if you can get any ground nesting bees in there. Prairie drop seed is good and the bumblebees love prairie drop seed for nesting and hiding their nest in. So pesticide use, unfortunately, along with gardening and fruit orchards comes insect pests. So we oftentimes need to control these pests. So there's certain rules we can follow, though, to help reduce the impact on bees. So and we do know pesticides has caused, you know, decline in bees, as well as in the monarch. So and for pesticide, that would include, you know, not only insecticides, but fungicides and herbicides. So we'll talk just a little bit about that. So obviously we want to protect any bees from pesticides. And most of our pesticides that homeowners use our broad spectrum insecticides that kill all insects, including the beneficials, natural enemies, bees and pollinators. So, you know, when we're using them, we need to be very careful. We always read the label, so you know how to use it, use the labeled rate. So it'll be effective against the insect pest. And if you see this on the label itself, this symbol means that this pesticide is highly toxic to bees. So you would want to avoid using anything that has this on the label. So be sure you always check the label. Neonicotinoids would be an example for the symbol here. Neonicotinoids are those insecticides that have been responsible for those huge bee kills. And some of the Walmart and other supermarkets and stuff, they've had some trees and there was a problem many years ago in Oregon where they killed thousands of bumblebees. Herbicides. So generally herbicides we use for weeds and killing other plants. So in general, it's not a big concern to bees and insects. However, indirectly you are negatively impacting the bees because you're reducing their food sources. And we've seen this with the monarch. We used to not have a roundup insecticide and now with roundup our crops are fairly free of weeds until recently when we develop roundup resistance weeds. But anyway, we used to have plenty of milkweed for the monarch to feed on as they migrated up from Mexico and now there's very little. So that has significantly impacted the monarch butterfly. Fungicides are used mainly for diseases. So for insects, it's generally not a concern. However, some research that has been going on has shown larvae or pupal mortality. This was with the honeybee and then also the larvae died and the adult could not emerge from these two, captain and roveral. So and then we also found some interactions with some of the fungicides and synthetic perethrites, which is the largest group of insecticides that we use right now for homeowners. And we found when we use them together, there's a synergistic effects and the fungicide reduced the bees ability to detoxify the insecticide. And this was also observed in the neonicotinoid. This is the worst insecticide that you could use. Immunoculprate is one of the active ingredients. So there's some that are relatively non-toxic to bees. There's insect growth regulators, which impact insects as they develop. So you won't it won't be able to molt or go to the next growth stage when you use these chemicals. So these are fairly safe for the bees. Another one is called confirm that is a molting disruptor. So the insects need to bolt as they grow. And if they can't do it, they will die. So then there's a number of oils that are fairly safe for spraying for like scale insects. And then some of the fungicides have been safer. As long as they can dry and the insect doesn't come into contact with the wet fungicide, usually they're fairly safe. So and again, you don't want to treat any flowers. So that's pretty obvious. So during peak bloom when the flowers are blooming, you want to avoid killing the bees off, especially because that's when they're doing the pollination. So this, you know, just avoid treating during flowering, even if you have some insect pests, either delay your treatments until after flower if you can. If you can't, you know, you can always either cover the flowers up or do a very targeted spray where you're only focusing on reaching that insect pests. Again, you know, you can spray in the late evening when the bees have gone back to their hives and no longer actively foraging. Usually it requires temperatures, you know, higher than 50 for foraging. Once it gets some below 50, most bees do not forage anymore, except the bumblebee. That one will forage at cooler temperatures. And then high temperature. Keep that in mind because the last couple of years we've had really hot summers. So that's going to impact how bees forage and they're going to be starting earlier in the morning and continuing later into the evening. So again, try to avoid insecticides that have a long residual. Those are more hazardous to bees. So if you can use a shorter insecticide. And then the least hazardous formulation formulation of the insecticide can impact how negative it is on bees. Last obviously is just more like pollen. So it's easy for them to pick that up and any powder insecticide, those are the worst. And then you move up to more liquid situation it improves and it becomes less toxic to the honey bee. And then finally a granular solution because the granular is usually don't go and you mix them with water or you plant the. Into the soil for soil insects like cutworms. For control. And then you don't want to buy any plants from any nurseries that are treated with a systemic insecticide like a neonic. Because these are systemic and they get translocated from the roots up into the leaves and then the flowers. So make sure your garden center is not using neonic. Insecticides. And then we have high temperatures again. Remember the foraging I kind of touched on this already begins earlier. And then when the temperature is real low. In the nights and do this in the forecast. And you're going to spray in the morning. Try to avoid those situations because when you have the do it's going to. Get into the. Residue and it's going to become a place as toxic to the bee. So bees have a number of challenges right now that we're facing a lot of our natural areas are being converted over into cities or developments. So they're losing habitat quickly and a lot of the habitat is becoming very fragmented. And then we're seeing our temperature and humidity is going down. So temperature. Is increasing and that is some actually helping some of the mites that attack like honey bee become a bigger problem. Because they're reproducing faster. And then there's a number of diseases that they're dealing with. And then there's the ecosystem where we're, you know, cutting down trees or small fires. And there's less habitat available to them. Pesticides of course we talked about. And then, you know, the healthy bee can only take so much. So we're hoping you know that planting more pollinator gardens near your vegetable and fruit orchards will help. But overall we're it's not looking very promising right now we're in a worldwide decline in bee species. This research was done in 2021 and we're seeing a sharp decline. So if things don't change, I'm actually expecting to see fewer and fewer bee species. But hopefully we can make a difference and stop this decline. So we have a number of pollinator extension resources that are available to you. A lot of the things they talked about in those pictures are on the flowers during spring, summer and trees and shrubs came out of this publication. So that should have been sent or put up on the website for you. So you'll have that as a resource. So here's a couple books from Xerces. They have a lot of good information on their website and some fact sheets. So if you're looking for a fact sheet on the mason houses, that is a good place to go. They tell you how to set them up and how to maintain them. Okay, that's all I had. I'll be happy to take any questions. Jan, nice job. You definitely have some questions here. I'm trying to copy them over as quickly as I can. There's a bunch more coming in but we'll start the talk. Just when they came in, so they had a question, is it true that you shouldn't disturb or blow out your flower beds until it's consistently 50 degrees because of the bees still hibernating? Yeah, there's also a lot of natural enemies that over winter in our flower gardens. And yes, in general, that is true. It's the longer you wait to let things emerge, the more, you know, beneficials and bees that you'll have. But we can't always do that. Obviously at North Dakota, it's such a short season. So what I do is I may have some stem nesting bees that I'm not aware of if you have some hollow stem perennials. So I just cut them down and then I put them on my mulch pile in the spring and I still let them emerge. I don't disturb them and I leave the leaves in my garden because it's good nutrition as well. It decomposes into nutritious soil. So yeah, that is true, but we have to work with our conditions we have here in North Dakota. Next question, are double flowered flowers, for example, teddy bear sunflower, less attractive to bees? Yes, and they often don't have as much nectar as well. So you're better off planting no double flowered flowers. Makes sense because oftentimes they're taken away from the nectar resources to make more petals on the plant. Sounds good. All right, next one. What size of the holes should be for the ones that are drilled for the mason bees and similar nesting bees? What size for the holes? Well, it really varies depending on the species. So they recommend different size holes that you have. And I don't remember all the different sizes, but the Xerces website has the fact sheet that mentions all the different sizes that you can drill into a piece of wood. And I know they should be at least four to six inches deep into the wood. And then they do need to be maintained. You can buy, you know, commercial tubes that are made out of cardboard and use those. And then what I do is I, in the spring I let them hatch and then I'll put the hatched tubes. I'll take them out and put clean tubes in that have never been used before. And then I just set the ones that have emerged, in case there's any lead to mergers in a bucket and put them out somewhere in my garden where it's shaded and then they can emerge when they're ready. Sure. Makes sense. Okay, kind of similar lines. How high should you mount native beehives? How high should you mount the native beehives? Yeah, the mason bee box is the little holes with the nest. Yeah, they're, it's four to four to five feet, I believe. And that's what I got mine in and they're doing quite well. And I don't get 100% every single tube filled up, but I've gotten a couple of different species in there. So they seem to like it. I put it in the facing the east because that way they get the morning sun and they're kind of protected from the hot afternoon sun. Question of what's going on in their yard or garden. So this person says it's not in their lawn, but in the spring they have bees that are in the ground. Again, not in the lawn, somewhere else in the ground, but within a month or two they don't see them anymore. And they're worried and wondering if they either moved or maybe something bad happened, like maybe wondering if the lawn care service sprayed too close to them. Okay. Any ideas? Yeah, I could, and you actually saw, I'm assuming they saw bees because there is other things that make holes. So there's several wasps, like there's a spider wasp that makes a hole in the ground. So they probably are not there if you don't see them in the summer, you know, they would be actively visiting it to provision their nest with pollen balls. So the young can feed on that and develop. So, yeah, if they're not, if they're not active, something happened to it, you know, they can, they don't like water. So it could have been drown out as well or gotten too wet and killed the young. So then they would have abandoned and go elsewhere. Yeah. It's hard to say without seeing it. Exactly. Those are the tricky ones. So we'll go on to the next one. What are the four best flowers to plant? If you only have room for that many, four best flowers. Yep. The four best. For bees in general or mumble bees? That's what I'm assuming it's for. They didn't specify. I would probably why I would plant my favorite, I would plant a couple of shallow nectar, nectar flowers, and then a couple of for longer tongue bees with the deep nectar reserves. So I probably go with, I like can't nap a lot because it blooms all summer long, especially if you cut it back. So I probably go with the can't nap salvia and probably a fall flower, like a tall sedum. And then one other short flower I would go with them. I probably put some annuals like a asters very easy to grow and make sure you don't get the double ones. Double pebbled ones get the single for the astern. Some of the Elysium's good. Sunflower, if you have some room in the back for sunflowers, which is taller. All right. I have too many favorites. I was actually thinking that was going to be a problem for you. That was going to be a problem to narrow down four of them. I knew that coming. All right. So how do you know if garden shops are using insecticides? You'll have to ask. Some of them do put signs out, but you need to ask. Most of them do not use it now because I think everyone is aware that the neonicotinoids insecticides are so deadly to the bees because it's systemically transported up into the nectar and the flowers. So most garden supply centers want to support the bees. So I think now it used to be more common. I don't think it's quite as common anymore. Sure. Just ask the manager. Yep. All right. I think this person is hoping for a little advice. They have a problem with carpenter bees boring into the wooden crossbeams in their patio. Okay. Yeah. Carpenter bees can be a problem that way. What I do, I actually had that happen to me when I lived in New York and they were in the beam of my garage door in the front garage door and I just waited until they emerged in the spring, you know, so I would, and then I would plug it up so they wouldn't get in there again. So I usually, I think you'll have to wait till about June to, before you plug it up to make sure they all the young have emerged. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe check with, I'm not sure what state you're from. So maybe check with your local extension office. Yep. They are helpful too. All right. I've got two other ones here. We can try to wrap up quicker before we get done. How can you keep wasps out of bee houses? Oh, the predatory wasps. I'm assuming that go into honey bee hives. We'll assume that, yes. Yeah. That is, or the wasps out of the mason being asked, I bet. Yeah. I had trouble with that too. There's not a good, you can put up a screen. Because usually the mason bees are much smaller than some of the wasps. So in fact, I had trouble with woodpeckers going in to get the larvae out of the tubes. So I had to put up a screen. I think it's just regular house screen. And that would protect the mason bees. But it would allow the larger insect, like the wasps to get in. Like a hornet or a yellow jacket, I'm assuming. I've seen them try to get in there and build nest. Thank you. I might have just answered the last question. They were saying, what about moving the bee box in the spring in order for the woodpeckers not to have the new bees? Well, they'll find it. So the woodpeckers will. But yeah, I can't remember what size screening it is, but I think if you just Google it, I'm sure it'll pop up. Yeah, the woodpeckers are pretty good about finding things. So it might work for a little while until they find it. They'll figure it away, right? Yeah. All right. Well, that was all of them. And that's perfect. We only went a couple of minutes long and got to everybody's questions answered. So that was great, Jan. Thank you so much. And thanks everybody for joining us today and join us again next week for another field of fork. So thanks, Jan. Good job. Thanks.