Flowers are now in bloom, providing numerous options for bees.
Some believe, however, that dandelions are the sole source of food for bees in early spring. While dandelions are nutritious for humans and bees alike, they are neither the only food nor are they a complete source of nutrition for the world's most renowned pollinators.
This is according to Graham Parsons, the Pollinator Biosecurity Specialist for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, based in Prince Albert. He said the first flowers of spring, aside from dandelions, are crocuses and willows, the flowers of which have relatively short periods. Crocuses flower for two weeks, and willows for around a month, just in time for the dandelions.
"So there's some overlap there and then once the dandelions come on, a lot of things in our rose family, like our saskatoons, choked cherries, pin cherries, and then our introduced roses like things in the apple family, the plums and the pears and things people have, those fruit trees. All of those are important sources [of nutrition for bees]."
He said he learned from a beekeeper and researcher that dandelion pollen lacks a few essential amino acids for bees.
"It's very good for bees, but it's as part of a healthy diet or a full breakfast," noted Parsons. "They have to have other stuff in there to fill in those essential amino acids that they're missing. Otherwise they're not able to grow and reproduce broods."
In nutritional terminology, 'essential' refers to that which can not be produced by the organism and must be obtained from food.
"Dandelions are good because they produce lots of nectar and lots of pollen, but are missing those two [aminos]. So they need a little bit of that other stuff, those fruit trees to fill in those gaps. And that's where dandelions can be good, because a lot of those fruit trees, sometimes maybe there's not a lot around or they don't produce a lot of volume. So the dandelions can make it up."
He said ultimately, it's all good.
"If you have a lot of volume and lots of quality, that works out good. If you're low in volume and high in quality, then you still need more bulk to get things going, too. So working all together makes it better for the bees."
Parsons said area producers and even urban gardeners can encourage the small but mighty helpers by having a minimum of two, three, or more flowers blooming at any given time.
"Parts of the year where it's really critical for forage for bees is the early springtime, and then the late summer, fall time. Usually in the peak of the summer, there are lots of flowers there, lots of volume, lots of quality and stuff. So it ends up being in the springtime in the falltime that's more essential."
In spring, "Some of the ones that are like heavy hitters are the willows. You wouldn't maybe plant dandelions, but I wouldn't discourage dandelions but maybe would be producing or maintaining willows. That's the ornamental willows that have the pollen."
He said the wild willows around wetlands are really great for bees as well in spring, as are the aforementioned fruit trees in the rose family.
"Those ornamental trees are very highly, highly visited by bees in the spring."
Later in spring, bees enjoy lilacs, especially wild bees but also bumblebees. Parsons said the picture wing moth, which resembles a hummingbird is particularly fond of lilacs.
Caraganas are a great source of nectar and pollen for bees in late spring, providing high-quality nutrition for bees to fill in the gap once spring roses have tapered off, until the clovers and canola flowers bloom in summer.
"Clovers like red clover, white clover, yellow sweet clover, white sweet clover, and the like, those are really good. They're the main source in the summertime, when there are also a variety of options for flowers."
Once most flowers have concluded their seasons, the aster family, particularly sunflowers, ensures bees can continue their important work into the fall.
"We have a few wild species of sunflowers, but introduced ones too as well. They love them because they kind of come in the time of year when lots of other stuff is finished blooming. So if you have a big patch of sunflowers, you'll often see they're just loaded with honey bees or bumblebees. They're great. There's lots of nectar, lots of pollen that's good for bees. They love that as well."
Gardens with poor pollination can encourage honey bees and wild bees simply by adding in some flowers.
"A patch of flowers as big as your garden or even your kitchen table can make all the difference for a handful of bees, and they can help to pollinate the rest of your garden, too," advised Parsons. "If you think of a spot like Weyburn, a city, or in a rural area, you add in all these patches that may be only as big as a kitchen table - one here and one there - and you patch those all together and actually you've got a decent kind of mosaic of different flowers for bees."
While the volume of honey for urban beekeepers isn't as high compared to those in agricultural areas, he said urban beekeepers can often sustain bees for a longer season just by offering a variety of flowers, which also benefits wild bees, resulting in, "A much longer honey flow, and a very diverse or different kind of honey. It's sometimes a peculiar mix or a different kind of taste or flavour because there are so many different flowers out there and the bees find it and take it back to the colony there."
"Urban locations can be good just because of the variety of stuff that people are planting. So it's it's good for bees, good for wild bees, and introduced bees."
Parsons pointed out that there are some areas of the world where there are no wild pollinators left.
"Imagine there's not enough wild pollen and it's like the ecosystem is not doing what it's supposed to do because we've kind of wrecked it with whatever else we're doing. It's kind of a terrifying prospect. So keeping that stuff around and being able to let the bees do their thing is much better than trying to hand pollinate it because it's all that little work and it's tough as you move from flower to flower. You think that bees are not doing much, but they're doing lots and lots of work there."
As for the detriments to bees from weed-control efforts, Parsons said there is not a lot of research to confirm what is claimed on social media posts at this time of year.
"If you can absolutely avoid spraying it on flowers and things, you don't need to, and if you can pull them out by hand. But in some places that's just not practical, so spray round-up and carry on. There's not much research to show that it's detrimental to bees, but of course, they don't need to ingest something like that, it's probably not beneficial to them either. It's always much, much more complicated than a lot of social media posts you see."