(BugGuide ID request for this bee) I heard a nice story on NPR the other day (The Buzz On Bees: Coping With Vanishing Colonies, August 7, 2009). Mostly about urban bees. I didn’t know there are 227 bee species in New York City – all year-round residents. And 4,000 across the US. Its wonderful to think of such biodiversity in backyards. Unfortunately, bee numbers are still declining. “There’s been an estimated … 36 percent decline .. since last year.” I was interested in the description of a recent study. So…

I’m not seeing many honeybees this year. Noticeably less than last year. But I can usually spot one or two in my garden in the heat of midday. This is one I found today gathering nectar in the platycodon flowers. I planted a lot of extra flowers earlier this summer to try to attract more honeybees to my garden and it does seem to help. I have many other types of bees this year (metallic green bees, bumblebees, and lots of small black bees), but still its nice to see…

To attract bees, I have planted a bunch of flowers. I went down to Mahoney’s Garden Center, an enormous place that has every imaginable plant, and walked around looking for flowers with honey bees on them. The busiest plant by far was the nepeta (catmint), which had several honey bees working away. There were also some small bees on the heliopsis table. I asked an employee which plants attracted most bees and he thought the lantanta, daisies and petunias were good. I purchased yellow lantana, nepeta, a daisy and two…