urban bee garden website
I would like to recommend the following website from UC Berkeley: http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens There is a lot of good information about bees and how to make your garden a friendly place for them. There are also good plant lists, though they are probably most useful for Californians.
Their site has this page about mulch which was very enlightening to me: http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/general_mulchmadness.html
It states that between 60-70% of the native CA bee species dig tunnels in soil and provision a series of nest cells, each of which will contain one new bee offspring. To do this the female must find a patch of bare dirt, excavate a tunnel and then make repeated visits between the tunnel entrance and flowers for their pollen and nectar. If a nest-searching female encounters 1-2 inches of mulch or plastic where there should be bare dirt, she will not excavate through this material and will leave in search of an appropriate site. When a high number of gardeners in an area mulch or plasticate their soil, this can have a negative impact on bee populations. Very interesting!
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