Plant ohia, yellow flowers to nurture bee population

Question: My keiki and I are so worried about bees disappearing. We hear there is something attacking the hives. What can we do? What can we grow that they like to eat? — Jolyn, Manoa

Answer: Without bees we will not have food. They provide far more than honey. Honeybees pollinate most of our major food crops, vegetables and fruits.

The simplest way to help is to plant flowers that they like, avoid use of chemical pest poisons and provide a safe water source for them.

Try plants adapted to your particular microclimate, as they will have fewer pests. Bees love ohia lehua, a native flowering plant. I water my blossoms in the morning, and this cleans pests off the leaves and provides water along with ohia nectar for the bees (and native Hawaiian birds) to sip.

Yellow flowers are especially appealing to bees — even my not-so-favorite ground cover wedelia, a member of the sunflower family. It is tough and less thirsty, and bees love the yellow daisylike flowers. Kai choy, ung choi and all the Brassica vegetables have yellow flowers that bees adore.

During a tour of Reppun Farm in Waiahole Valley, Paul Reppun told us how they scattered a mix of seeds of these delicious mixed greens near the reach of a sprinkler to produce a gorgeous field of cheerful yellows, set to the humming and buzzing of happy bees and other beneficial insects collecting pollen and nectar and pollinating the vegetables.

Cucumbers, kabocha, tomatoes and hechima are other vegetables with yellow flowers from which bees gather pollen.

Look around and spot other, mostly yellow flowers that bees like. Plant and nurture more of those so they will stick around and do their pollination thing. This is a simple, attractive and beneficial technique to help bees.

Some favorite vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers and beans, as well as passion fruit and lilikoi, also will attract bees to your garden, and in turn the bees will pollinate your food crops.

Aquaponic systems that use a tank of fish, circulating water and a growing bed for vegetables can boost your garden’s bee population, as they are drawn to water.

You can also put a beehive in your garden and harvest the honey. This is a lot of work, but it will increase the amount of happy bees in Hawaii gardens. The simpler thing to do is buy Hawaii honey at your local grocery store or favorite farmers market. Hawaiian beekeepers really help our food farmers and all of us.

Pesticides can harm bees as well as pest insects. The bees visit the sprayed flower and die. I say grab a zori, rather than an aerosol can of pesticide, and whack the cockroaches in and around your home. Use water and liquid soap on the aphids that are sucking on your gardenia leaves. Wipe the ants off your counter with a soapy sponge.

Heidi Leianuenue Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant specializing in native, xeric and edible gardens. Reach her at heidib@hawaii.rr.com.