Celebrate National Pollinator Week and learn what you can do to help the bees and other pollinators.
Happy National Pollinator Week!
In celebration, I’m sharing some ‘bee’ favorites and tabletop fun in the Potting Shed.
The hum of bees is the voice of the garden.
From Pollinator.org:
National Pollinator Week is a time to celebrate pollinators and spread the word about what you can do to protect them. Many pollinator populations are in decline attributed to a loss in feeding and nesting habitats. Pollution, the misuse of chemicals, disease, and changes in climatic patterns are all contributing to shrinking and shifting pollinator populations.
Somewhere between 75% and 95% of all flowering plants on the earth need pollinators. Pollinators provide pollination services to over 180,000 different plant species and more than 1200 crops.
That means that we should be grateful for pollinators, as we have them to thank for 1 out of every 3 bites of food we eat.
Most pollinators (about 200,000 species) are beneficial insects such as flies, beetles, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and bees. About 1,000 of all pollinators are vertebrates such as birds, bats, and small mammals.
Pollinators add 217 billion dollars to the global economy and honey bees alone are responsible for between 1.2 and 5.4 billion dollars in agricultural productivity in the United States.
In addition to the food that we eat, pollinators support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, stabilize soils, protect from severe weather, and support other wildlife.
Gardeners are encouraged to create pollinator-friendly habitats with native flowering plants that supply pollinators with nectar, pollen, and homes.
Select old-fashioned varieties of flowers whenever possible, since breeding has caused some modern blooms to lose their fragrance and/or the nectar/pollen needed to attract and feed pollinators.
🐝 Bee Kind to Pollinators:
🐝 Reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides. If you must use them, use the most selective and least toxic ones and apply them at night
when most pollinators aren’t active.
🐝 Plant in clusters to create a “target” for pollinators to find.
🐝 Plant for continuous bloom throughout the growing season from spring to fall.
🐝 Select a site that has shelter from wind (by trees and shrubs), has at least partial sun, and can provide water.
🐝 Allow material from dead branches and logs remain as nesting sites; reduce mulch to allow patches of bare ground for ground-nesting bees to utilize; consider installing wood nesting blocks for wood-nesting natives.
I love stalking bees with my camera. . .salvia and bee balm have been buzzing with bees.
Along with Verbena Lollipop.
Flatware is buzzing with bees for this table. . .
As well as napkin rings.
Garden flowers and a sunflower ready to bloom, fill a beehive shaped watering can. . .
Along with Bormioli Rocco Quattro Stagioni Canning Jars . . .
That have an adorable embossed (hard to photograph!) bee skep design with fruit and flowers.
A vintage Bradshaw’s Clover Blossom Honey can is blooming with hydrangeas, Queen Anne’s lace, verbena, loosestrife and sunflowers.
I decided it needed a companion, and found a vintage Beekist Blue Label Honey Tin on eBay to join it in the Potting Shed .
A Woodman’s Famous Bee-Ware Smoker was a find at a favorite antique mall a couple of years ago. . .
It hangs from rafters in my Potting Shed when it doesn’t hang over the window.
I was smitten with the graphics of the bee keeper on the smoker. . .
Beauty is in the eye of the *bee* holder. ;) 🐝
Did you know most species of bees don’t sting? Female bees are physically capable of
stinging, but most bee species native to the U.S. are “solitary bees,” that is, not living in
colonies and don’t sting unless they are physically threatened or injured. Only honey
bees are defensive and may chase someone who disturbs their hive.
Table Details:
Bee Salad Plates / Tim Coffey for Creative Co-Op
Embossed Bee Skep Plates / Naturewood by Pfaltzgraff, discontinued
Bee Stamped Spoons / MilkandHoneyLuxuries, Etsy
La Rochere Bee Glasses/ World Market
Wallace Napoleon Bee Flatware/ Horchow
Ratan Chargers/ World Market, several years ago
Flower Chargers & Napkins / Pier 1
Placemats / Target, several years ago
Bee Table Runner / Sur la Table, several years ago
Bormioli Rocco Quattro Stagioni Jars / T.J. Maxx
Bee Skeps / retail days
Bee Napkin Rings and Bee Melamine Plates / Amazon
Beehive Watering Can / antique mall
Honey Tin Cans and Bee Smoker / vintage
Just Bee 🐝
Find out more about what you can do to help pollinators, HERE.
As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase anything through an affiliate link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
🐝🐝🐝
Thank you for your visit, sharing with:
Thank you for providing the bee facts and as always, “bee” utiful photos!
Oh, I adore that “bee can!” Just because. (StillI working on “little red truck centerpiece.) franki
I love your bee decor! Thanks so much for the link. I cannot wait to get finished with our new house and get all my plants in for bees and birds!!
Thank you for another wonderful blog post brimming over with beautiful photos that leave me feeling good all over and lots of useful information too. I have been following your blog for many years now, mainly through facebook too but now I have moved away from facebook and am fully into WordPress blogs. Enjoy the beauty of the summer as I am sure you do. Kind regards from Agnes
Always a delight to see what theme and beautiful decor you have in store for readers. Certainly enjoyed today’s ~ very interesting facts, comments and again, all the wonderful, detailed place settings!
Oh Mary, your table is 🐝-u-tiful!!! Ella and I would’ve loved using your bee runner for our bee tea party that we had. Thank you for sharing the information on how valuable bees are! 🐝💛🐝
Wonderful post. I just started a pollinator garden about a month ago! I just love hearing bees in it, and look forward to adding to it. Your photography is marvelous!
Such an important message Mary and you Bee super creative with your tribute to bees! Gorgeous photos and wonderful tabletop display in your Potting Shed. We all need to Bee aware of the importance of bees!
Jenna
I love the pollinators especially the bumbles. I love to hear them coming in for a landing like a big jet plane. I am going to need all Bormioli Rocco canning jars with bees now!
Bee happy!! I purposely looked for annuals this year that are attractive to pollinators and I see many among your list!! I have noticed the decrease in our population of bees in the last few years! Hope that is remedied soon!! Beautiful post too!! Thank you!!
Love your website. Always beautiful. I planted a bee friendly garden last year and it’s wonderful. Love listening to the hum of all those busy bees. The spoons are beautiful, unfortunately they don’t seem to carry them anymore. Just my luck. Thanks for sharing.
Mary, thank you for all the important info about our pollinators, particularly the bees. The bees love our vitex, and I love trying to get that perfect photo. I love all things bee that you have collected!
Bee-u-ti-ful post Mary. Your photography is stunning! I share much of the same tableware, but never knew honey came in cans —- love ‘em!
Love all of your spoons!
Mary, your blogs are always lovely and creative, but this one is instructive as well! I’ll be on the lookout for bees and other pollinators in my garden!
On how I loved that! I just found my bee cupboard the other day and it made me smile thinking of future fun to be had as my garden grows! Love your bee stamped spoons, adorable, surprised you didn’t do them yourself, to which I was going to ask to buy some from you! Had I known it was bee week I too would have celebrated, they are the crux of life, I too stalk them daily in the garden, why I love bees and hate wasps baffles me! I am just so grateful to have color enough now that they show up! I have a very mature tree that this spring was SMOOTHERED with bees, you could hear them 100′ away for several days as they gathered their nectar, never heard of seen anything like that in my lifetime. Gorgeous tribute, cheers to the bees!