The most exposed bees are solitary bees and bumble bees, even though the issues with honey bees seems to be written about more in the press.
It is relatively easy as an individual to give the bees a helping hand. One can buy or build a so called bee hotel [1]. It helps the bees with nesting site locations. When sited it requires essentially zero effort but supports the bees and other insects.
One can also become a honey bee keeper, but it requires more effort. It is quite fascinating though. You can read about our efforts. [2]
I bought two starter tubes of blue orchard mason bees four years ago. Last year, I collected 100 filled tubes (natural reeds) of bees. Crown Bees recommends not using holes drilled in lumber because they're not very reusable and can spread disease (can't be cleaned). The bees seem to like natural reeds the best. I store my bees in their tubes in the fridge in a humidified box during the winter months, and harvest the tubes in April. I split open the tubes and collect and inspect the cocoons. Each tube can have 8-10 cocoons, although some fail completely. The population can grow very quickly when you care for them this way.
I'm living in south west of France where there is more and more of these insects hotels. Thing is, every time I pass by one of it I can't see any insect at all. Maybe it's because the weather was still cold on those times. Still every time I can't help wondering if it's really works as expected.
Each bee species is different. Blue mason bees, for example, are only active for 3-4 weeks when the first flowers appear, then they die. It's a pretty incredible life cycle: 11 months developing from egg -> larva-> then spin cocoon-> finally a few weeks to forage for pollen and lay their own eggs. There are many species of native bee with short cycles like this. The native bees you see in April will be different than the bees in June, different than in August.
I can report that mine is about 2/3's occupied. Its a bit hard to tell if a single tube has been abandoned or the larvae has failed though. I've been considering making a bug hotel with a camera or the like to monitor that.
The insect hotel would generally contain more cocoons with larvae during the autumn and winter, when they stay longer. I saw some the other days that had two dozen or so insects cocoons per "hotel". I have heard of a guy with one of these on the seventh floor in a suburb, which had lots of use.
>> It is relatively easy as an individual to give the bees a helping hand.
You can also choose to NOT spray harmful chemicals on your lawn/garden/landscaping. As a hobby beekeeper in a suburban area, I appreciate it when my bees are not bringing this junk back to their hive and my honey!
I'm not a botanist or anything. This is just what I've read. But I remember growing up there being clover everywhere. It was vibrant, green, felt great under foot and flourished even in South Texas.
You don't see that often anymore. The claim I've seen is that herbicides commonly used to treat weeds on lawns kill it.
So I bought a couple 1lb bags off Amazon (I think about $10). We had a few weeds since we don't use herbicides (not out of principle or anything, I'm just not that into gardening). Anyways, the clover chokes out the weeds completely, looks great, seems to help the grass grow better, and is just nothing but a positive thing.
Really happy with it. Some of my super-gardener neighbors might not appreciate it. It's never come up. But I like that even during droughts my lawn stays vibrant and green with minimal water.
We don't use any pesticides or herbicides and we take a fairly permissive approach to our back lawn: if it's green(ish) and consents to be mowed from time to time, it can stay. Among the grass is a lot of common yarrow, creeping charlie (glechoma hederacea), clover, garlic mustard, dandelions, purslane, chickweed, alfalfa, lamb's quarters and so on. I've always noticed that the bees particularly seem to enjoy the clover flowers.
And clover is really helpful for bees. "UNH researchers also have found that white clover attracted the largest abundance of bees, and red clover supported the highest diversity of bees." http://www.fosters.com/article/20160509/NEWS/160509387
That brings back memories of being a kid with a large, untreated, clover-choked grass lawn. We ran around in bare feet all summer and at least once or twice a summer would step on a bee and get stung.
This actually brings up an interesting property discussion. Normally it's pretty clear when someone is doing something on their property that harms the environment of other people's property (e.g. releasing gases, etc).
In this particular case, it's your bees that are going onto the neighbors property and bringing back chemicals. Clearly you can't control the bees (unless you encase them in a dome) so it's not quite analogous to letting a dog roam around the neighborhood...
I'm very curious what would happen if e.g. you tried to sue your neighbor for harming your bees.
I've heard of a case where some guy put a pot with poisoned sugar water on his lawn to kill neighbor's bees and the other guy sued him. Don't remember what the result was, but it wasn't dismissed as obviously no-issue.
I imagine the lawyer you asked about it would roll their eyes.
There are restrictions on herbicides that can be used in most residential areas, I doubt you are going to get a court to override those rules and give bees priority.
In Sweden there are several court cases where the highest court have ruled in favour of beekeepers, due to benefit to the ecosystem. And fewer (don't know of any) against.
Yes we do. Fortunately using pesticides and herbicides isn't very usual in our nearby neighbourhood. But that is just anecdotal. We have had a very strong support for keeping our bees and been surprised how engaged people are. Stopping by, asking questions, asking when they can buy more honey etc.
Bees will attract pests, so you have to deal with it. The key threats here are: mice (restrict access during winter), birds (some people use netting during winter), bears (not where we are), hornets, ants (restrict access), but the most important pest is the varroa mite. There are several effective of none-pesticide methods, here are some: http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Treating_varroa_mites_organ...
It is relatively easy as an individual to give the bees a helping hand. One can buy or build a so called bee hotel [1]. It helps the bees with nesting site locations. When sited it requires essentially zero effort but supports the bees and other insects.
One can also become a honey bee keeper, but it requires more effort. It is quite fascinating though. You can read about our efforts. [2]
[1] http://www.arkinspace.com/2012/06/welcome-to-bee-hotel.html
[2] https://beginnerbeekeepers.wordpress.com