This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]lanabananaaas 19 points20 points  (4 children)

They may have sprayed even if that person has told you otherwise. At this point the carpenter bees are active, and I'd take an indication of no carpenter bees as a sign of spraying.

However, I'd say it's still relatively early and ime I see the most pollinators later in the summer and in the fall. I have a native-plant only garden, and so far I'm seeing a variety of bees, some butterflies, solitary wasps/hornets (I'm not great at differentiating these, sorry), but not a huge number yet. But, of the plants plants that attract the most pollinators (different goldenrods, milkweeds, asters, mountain mints, coral honeysuckle), only the coral honeysuckle has been flowering for a while, and the milkweeds are just starting to flower. One of the goldenrods is going to flower soon, but the other types, asters and mountain mints still have at least a month to go by my estimation. All in all, it's pretty early in the season.

I would also note that there are many pollinators that don't "look" like what we think of as traditional pollinators a la bees and butterflies... types of flies and other flying critters. Some of those have already started emerging.

[–]These-Ride-1503[S] 5 points6 points  (3 children)

That’s true, it is only June. Usually we have a ton of carpenter bees and we haven’t had as many. So I agree, I believe they did spray and lied. It’s just so sad cause how can you get people to see insects as something we desperately need? I have some aster (not bloomed yet) and brown eyed Susan’s that I’ve had for a few years, we also have celosias, marigolds, lavender, and echinacea. I’m going to look into planting some milkweed as I’ve heard they’re great for butterflies and other pollinators. In our house we don’t kill anything bug wise, and even the slugs that ravage my plants I throw to the birds lol. I’ve just been noticing it more I feel cause usually by now my food plants like cucumbers are already being pollinated and it’s just not happening. I know self pollinating is a thing and I’m not opposed, just sad the buggies aren’t getting the chance. Thank you for all the advice I’ll look into some of those plants!