https://lancasteronline.com/features/taking-care-of-buzz-ness-as-honey-bees-disappear-local/article_a5b4cc9a-f819-11e4-972b-53575ea810f9.html

Taking care of buzz-ness: As honey bees disappear, local pollinators flourish

TOM KNAPP | Staff Writer | May 14, 2015

Don Ziegler slides the lid off a small wooden tray and pokes the contents with his finger.

"These babies hatched," he says, turning over the remains of several ecru-colored cocoons, "but I don't know where they went. Maybe the weather got them. Maybe birds got them. Maybe a spider."

He sighs and slides the tray back in its box. "This year is going to be lean," he says.

A former marketing manager and photojournalist, Ziegler retired last year to Landis Homes in Lititz. He left behind the orchards he'd cultivated in Akron, but he brought with him some 600 pupating pollinator bees.

It was a hard sell with his new neighbors, he recalls.

"Bees scare people, but these are not scary bees," he says.

That's because, unlike honey bees, pollinators don't have stingers or venom, Ziegler says.

"You don't see them much because they're shy and quiet. They avoid people," he says.

He gestures at the trees and wildflowers surrounding Kurtz Run, a tiny rivulet running through campus. "This is about creating a sanctuary."

He's installed 16 handmade boxes so far.

Landis Homes, says community relations director Deborah Laws-Landis, has 114 acres including woods, fields, a restored floodplain, ponds and gardens, "so there are lots of areas on campus that could benefit from these new pollinator colonies."

Ziegler stored the cocoons over winter and seeded the boxes in April. They've been slow to hatch, he says, because of the cold, damp spring.

He's been raising bees for 25 years.

"I grew up on a peach farm in Virginia," he says. "When I moved north, I wanted to plant some fruit trees."

Growing fruit necessitates an interest in pollination, Ziegler says. Lots of folks keep honey bees, he says, because they have the added benefit of producing honey.

But honey bees -- a non-native species -- are a lot of work, and they're rapidly disappearing, Ziegler says.

Besides, he adds, his pollinators -- Osmia cornifrons, or horn-faced bee, and Osmia lignaria, or black orchard bee -- are more efficient at their job.

The 20-some female bees that lay eggs in a single box will pollinate a 1-acre area -- equal to the work of three to five honey-bee hives, he says.

"Honey bees are more interested in nectar for making honey. These guys are looking specifically for pollen," he explains.

"These bees will spread as honey bees disappear. They will take up the slack, and that's significant."

Without pollinators, Ziegler says, food production drops and fewer seeds are available for future crops.

He eagerly points out bees at work, describing the process as mama bees lay eggs in tube-like openings in the box. They pack pollen between the eggs to provide food for babies when they hatch.

When a tube is full, the mother seals the opening with mud.

A box requires little maintenance, Ziegler says, although he checks on them often. Sometimes, he spends hours watching them.

"They're so fascinating," he says. "They're so integrated into the environment -- so necessary, so important. But most people don't know much about them."

Bee box placement

Honey, I'm home

When he lived in Akron, Ziegler also raised honey bees.

He misses the regular supply of fresh honey, he admits. Otherwise, he's happy to have switched solely to pollinators.

Honey bees are "a lot more work," and they require more paraphernalia to sustain them. They also have a higher probability of failure, he says.

"They're all bees, and they're all interesting in their own ways."