It’s National Pollinator Week!
It’s easy for us in the Seed Farming industry to get excited about bees…after all, we understand how important these buzzing buddies are for propagating plants! And if you’re not hip to bees, maybe you should consider a world without them. Name a fruit you enjoy—anything from apples to oranges. Yeah, that whole industry shrivels up without bees. Well, if you can’t have apple pie, at least you can still have the scoop of vanilla ice cream, right? Wrong. Bees are essential for the growth of vanilla beans as well.
Unfortunately, the world’s bee populations are struggling right now. The good news is that helping them is relatively simple. If gardeners and other landowners plant just a few pollen-producing flowers, this will help stimulate local bee populations.
Interested? Great! Hancock Seed can help get you started. We offer three distinct blends of wildflower seeds aimed at benefiting bees.
TAKE NOTE: There are two major varieties of bees in the United States—Honey Bees and Bumblebees—and both prefer a different variety of flower. Remember this when shopping for seed!
Honey Bee Wildflower Seed Mix
As you can guess, this is the blend that’s best for Honeybees, and not their bumbly buds. One thing that few people realize about bees is that not all species produce honey. Honey Bees do, obviously, and Bumblebees do not.
If you’re someone who wants to cultivate Honey Bees for your own honey collection service, this is the way to go.
This blend features wallflowers, coreopsises, poppies, coneflowers, blanketflowers and a range of clover for your viewing (and their dining) pleasure!
Bee Feed Wildflower Seed
OK, so Honey Bees produce honey and Bumblebees don’t…don’t they both still gather pollen from the same flowers? No!
Bumblebees might not look very flexible, but they actually have much longer proboscises than Honey Bees. This is so they can reach down into tighter flowers, such as those included in our Bee Feed Wildflower Seed blend. The Honey Bee seed mix features more “open-ended” flowers.
This blend includes Hyssop, Forget-Me-Nots, Gilia, Alyssum, as well as some of the flowers from the Honey Bee mix for good measure.
Hancock’s Bee Seed Mix
“But Hancock,” you say. “I don’t know what kind of bees live in my region!” or “I want to help ALL of the bees!” No worries, we’ve got a solution for that too!
Hancock’s Bee Seed Mix is a great catch-all, combining a blend of flowers that appeals to both Honey and Bumblebees. It doesn’t hurt that its array of colors will also appeal to your eyes!
So if you’re looking to establish a flowerbed soon, consider one that benefits bees as well. The bees, and your stomach, will thank you!
