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This is the first chapter in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel. It covers the benefits of bees, pollination in cities and towns, and how bee hotels can support native bees.
Identifying bees on the wing is known to be tricky. The Bees of North Carolina: An Identification Guide is a beginner’s resource designed to help quickly and generally identify native bees in North Carolina. Developed by experts at NC State Extension, it provides an overview of some of the most common groups of bees in the state. The guide will help users learn to recognize bees according to key characteristics and, eventually, according to their overall appearance.
This chapter of, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, describes building materials and features of different bee hotels. It covers tunnel size, shelter, shade, orientation, navigation, and other features.
It can be a challenge to manage a perennial garden to look tidy and maximize benefit to wildlife. To benefit native, solitary bees, we recommend trimming perennial stems in their first winter to a create a 12"-24" stubble. Bees occupy these cut stems as nesting space over the following year. Recommendations are based on participatory research conducted with Extension agents and Extension Master Gardener℠ volunteers in North Carolina.
This collection describes how to design and build a bee hotel to support native pollinator species.
Appendix 3 of the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides a list of plants that create hollow or pithy twigs and stems that can be used as a source of nest materials for bee hotels.
This appendix to the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, summarizes the best practices suggested throughout the document.
Appendix 4 in the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides detailed building plans for constructing a simple bee shelter.
Abstract 2 of the collection, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, lists plants that may be used in nesting materials for bees.
Appendix 5 of, How to Manage a Successful Bee Hotel, provides a list of additional resources about bees, wasps, and pollinator gardening.