The WFSU Ecology Blog
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      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
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Kayak and Canoe Adventures
RiverTrek 2021: Five Days on the Apalachicola River
Lower Lake Lafayette: Kayak Tallahassee’s Hidden Swamp
Chipola River Paddling Trail | The Ovens and...
Kayaking Bald Point | Adventure on a Living...
Wacissa Springs Adventure | Kayaking a Wild Florida...
A Geologist’s View of the Apalachicola River |...
Upper Chipola River Kayak Adventure | Ghosts &...
Tate’s Hell & the Apalachicola River Delta |...
Kayak Scouting Mission on the Ochlockonee Water Trail
Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves

The WFSU Ecology Blog

  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • Observations From the Field
      • White Pelicans Visit Dr. Charles L. Evans Pond in Tallahassee
      • An April Walk at Ochlockonee River WMA
      • Nesting Raptors at Honeymoon Island State Park
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • In Their Words: Black Legacy Communities in North Florida
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Aucilla/ Wacissa Watershed
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • My Year in Bugs: the 2022 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
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      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
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      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • The Seasonality of Bees (and Bee Plants) in North Florida
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
      • Flies of North Florida are More Diverse than You’d Think
      • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
      • Devil’s Walkingstick: Your New Favorite Thorny Pollinator Plant?
      • Florida Native Milkweed | Tips for Growing Your Monarch Friendly Garden
      • Mistletoe | A Parasite for the Holidays (But Maybe We Like it Anyway?)
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources

Bee in My Garden Days: Creating a Bee Friendly Yard in North Florida

by Rob Diaz de Villegas September 22, 2021
Bee in My Garden Days: Creating a Bee Friendly Yard in North Florida

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Scroll down for resources on creating a bee friendly garden in north Florida. We cover everything from plants, nesting habitat, and water supply. We also have a guide to local species. Aside from maybe fruits and veggies, nothing is as satisfying to a gardener than bees and butterflies on your flowers!

This page was created for WFSU’s My Garden of a Thousand Bees project, in support of Nature’s episode of the same name. The project was funded by a grant from Nature | PBS and HHMI | Tangled Bank Studios.


Thank you to our project partners:

Bee Garden Resources

With the help of its partners, WFSU has put together the following videos and blog posts full of the information you need to make a home for bees in your yard.


Bee Friendly Plants

30+ Bee Friendly Plants for North Florida

Different bees emerge at different times. Does your yard have flowers to support them all from spring through fall?

Florida Friendly Plants Seasonal Planting Guide

The UF/ IFAS Leon County Extension created this guide to what plants you can put in the ground in each month of the year.

Identifying Your “Weeds”

Some of the bee friendly plants we’ve learned about actually want to grow for free in your yard. Here are some tips for identifying and learning about the weeds in your yard.

Devil’s Walkingstick

We spotlight one plant that, for a few weeks in the summer, is swarmed by pollinators.

The Seasonality of Bees in North Florida

A tour of bees and pollinator plants throughout the year; you can mark the season by the bees and blooms you see at a given time in the year.

Bee Nesting Habitat

Nesting and Overwintering Habitat for Bees

Tips on keeping your garden a little more like a natural habitat, with places where different bee species can build their nests.

Creating a Wildlife Pond in Your Yard

Like all animals, bees need water. Learn how to create a pond in your yard featuring native plants, and which includes places for bees to drink safely.

Bee species

Get to know the bees of north Florida/ south Georgia

A guide to the common bees we see in north Florida, plus a few that are less common.

The American Bumblebee

Beekeepers in Tallahassee raise a nest of American bumblebees. Once the most common bumblebee species in the US, habitat loss has reduced their numbers, and the bees are now federally listed as Vulnerable.

UF/ IFAS Bees of North Florida Poster (PDF)

WFSU Bee Activities for Kids

Bee videos, podcasts, and activities for kids from WFSU, PBS, and American Public Media.


NOW STREAMING- PBS Nature: My Garden of a Thousand Bees. The story focuses on wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn. With the world on lockdown in 2020, Dohrn turned his camera on the small garden in his backyard, discovering the diverse world of wild bees.

Through a grant from PBS Nature, WFSU hopes to create a similar experience for our viewers in the north Florida/ south Georgia area. Any outdoor space has potential to attract bees. Our partners at Native Nurseries of Tallahassee, the UF/ IFAS Leon County Extension, and Florida Native Plant Society are sharing their considerable knowledge with us. We hope you’ll join us and create a bee friendly habitat in your own yard. On this page is the information you need to get started.


Support for Nature: My Garden of a Thousand Bees was provided by The Hite Foundation, Bradley L. Goldberg Family Foundation and The Sun Hill Family Foundation in memory of Susan and Edwin Malloy. Series funding for Nature is also made possible in part by the Arnhold Family in memory of Henry and Clarisse Arnhold, The Fairweather Foundation, Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Kathy Chiao and Ken Hao, Charles Rosenblum, Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, Leonard and Norma Klorfine, Sandra Atlas Bass, Colin S. Edwards, Gregg Peters Monsees Foundation, Koo and Patricia Yuen, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by public television viewers.

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog

Close up of monarch proboscis sipping nectar from Brickellia flower.

Dig Deeper into Backyard Ecology

What can we do to invite butterflies, birds, and other wildlife into our yards? And what about the flora and fauna that makes its way into our yards; the weeds, insects, and other critters that create the home ecosystem? WFSU Ecology Blog takes a closer look.

An iPhone with the iNaturalist app open.

Apps and Citizen Science mentioned in the Backyard Blog

iNaturalist

Identify plants, animals, lichens, and fungi in your yard. Other users correct your identifications if you’re wrong, and even if they don’t, it can be a good springboard to further research.

Seek by iNaturalist

Instant identification, and it doesn’t record your location. This is a good option for kids with phones.

Monarch Larva Monitoring Project

Enter information about monarch caterpillars in your yard, and help researchers get a sense of the health of the monarch population that year, and how and when they’re migrating.

Great Sunflower Project

Record the number of pollinators visiting your flowers, and help researchers map pollinator activity across the country.

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iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

iNaturalist


View robdv’s observations »

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