Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Catch this buzz via Zoom

Bee Haven offers free classes online in November; sign up now

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED OCT 13, 2020

Bees flock to a pollen party on this Lemon Queen sunflower. (Can you spot all nine bees?) Learn how to help bees in your garden through Zoom classes offered by the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Bees need flowers – and friends. Learn how you can help bees in your garden with a series of fun and informative online classes devoted to these important pollinators.

Due to the pandemic, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis will host its fall classes via Zoom. Offered free to the public, each class will include a 20-minute presentation followed by questions and answers, according to Christine Casey, who oversees the Bee Haven. The classes will be presented at 6 p.m. on the first three Mondays of November. Sign up in advance to make sure you have a spot.

Here are Casey’s course descriptions:

Creating a Bee Garden (6 p.m. Nov. 2)

We’ll cover the basics of building a garden that has the components needed to provide good habitat for bees and other pollinators. Bees need more than flowers, and not all flowers meet bees’ needs equally. If you’re interested in starting or expanding your bee garden, join us to learn more.

Bees love zinnias, but they need more than flowers to flourish.

Common Bees in Gardens (6 p.m. Nov. 9)

Those big black “bumble bees” you see so often? They’re not bumble bees at all! Learn how to identify common bees in California gardens and how to distinguish bees from other insects.

Bees in the Home Food Garden (6 p.m. Nov. 16)

Good yield from your home food garden starts with successful pollination. Learn about the common bees that pollinate food crops and how you can support them in your garden.

Registration links for each session: http://beegarden.ucdavis.edu

Meanwhile, check out the Bee Haven for yourself. The Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is open during the pandemic, Casey said.

Visitors are welcome to see the bees at work in the half-acre garden, devoted to bee pollinator conservation and education. It’s located at 1 Bee Biology Road on the UC Davis campus.

Admission and parking are free. The Bee Haven is open daily from dawn to dusk with a later opening time on Tuesdays (10 a.m.) and Wednesdays (11 a.m.) to accommodate social distancing during garden maintenance.

For directions and more: http://beegarden.ucdavis.edu .

- Debbie Arrington

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

Sacramento pollinator habitat classes online classes UC Davis gardening vegetables bees COVID-19 pollinators Honey Bee Haven flowers

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Local News

Thanks to our sponsor!

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!