August update
A call for samples, clarifying the protocol and a quick up date.
Data is really starting to come in!! Please, please, please, count your bees! If all of you could get at least one count done, we will be in phenomenal shape. Better yet, get two done! When you look at the averages below, you’ll see that in many gardens, it is taking less than 10 minutes to see 5 bees. As an incentive, we will promise to send a jar of San Francisco honey to the person who contributes the most samples in August and September as well as the person who contributes the most samples this year.
I’ve had several people ask for some clarification of how to sample. In a un-busy, perfect weather world, everyone would sample at 10 am every day. Since that is not realistic, our preference would be that you try to sample on the weekends of August 8-9 and 22-23 as well as September 12-13 and 26-27. However, we know that life and weather do interfere. It is most important that you sample on a warm sunny day so, if Tuesday afternoons are best for you, please sample then. Go outside; spend 15 minutes watching your sunflower. If 5 bees visit before you are done, you can stop. Then enter your data online.
I’ve taken a quick look at some of the early data. The average gardener has seen his or her first bee in 2.6 minutes and has seen five bees in 9.5 minutes - completing a sample in under ten minutes! I'm not sure that I can drink my coffee that fast! You can use these as benchmarks for your garden. I’m a bit surprised at how quickly some of these plants are getting bees and it is motivating to really add bee plants to my garden for next summer. It will be very interesting to see how this changes across the season when other plants come in and out of bloom. In my garden, I’m getting a few honey bees on our nasty invasive but delicious blackberry but none on my sunflower.
I just got sent the perfect children’s book for the Sunflower Project. It is called the Happy Sunflower:A counting book. Joanne Murray has created "a counting book that has pictures of real bees on two different sunflowers that made a smiling face in the center of the sunflower. The sunflower's expression changes as the bees fly around going from ten to none and back to ten again in the story." I just had to laugh! You can preview some of the photos at the lulu.com website. I can't link directly to the preview photos so, search for the book Happy Sunflower and then find the preview.
We’re off to the East coast for some sun. San Francisco has been 60 degrees and foggy for weeks. I hope you are all enjoying the summer.
Best,
Gretchen