California Bees & Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists

California is home to over sixteen hundred species of undomesticated bees--most of them native--that populate and pollinate our gardens, fields, and urban green spaces. In this absorbing guidebook, some of the state's preeminent bee and botany experts introduce us to this diverse population. California Bees and Blooms holds a magnifying glass up to the twenty-two most common genera (and six species of cuckoo bees), describing each one's distinctive behaviors, social structures, flight season, preferred flowers, and enemies. Enhancing these descriptions are photographs of bees so finely detailed they capture pollen scattered across gauzy wings and iridescent exoskeletons. Drawing from years of research at the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab, California Bees and Blooms presents an authoritative look at these creatures, emphasizing their vital relationship with flowers. In addition to opening our eyes to the beautiful array of wild bees in our midst, this book provides information on fifty-three bee-friendly plants and how to grow them. Just a few square feet of poppies, sage, and phacelia are enough to sustain a healthy population of wild bees, transforming an urban or suburban garden into a world that hums and buzzes with life.

Author: Gordon Frankie, Robbin W. Thorp, Rollin E. Coville
Publisher: Heyday Books
Published: 10/01/2014
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.50lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781597142946

About the Author
Frankie, Gordon: - Gordon W. Frankie is a professor and research entomologist at the University of California, Berkeley. His specialty is behavioral ecology of solitary bees in wildland, agricultural, and urban environments of California and Costa Rica, and he is particularly involved with questions of how people relate to bees and their plants in these environments, and how to raise human awareness about bee-plant relationships. Dr. Frankie also teaches conservation and environmental problem solving at UC Berkeley.Thorp, Robbin W.: - Robbin W. Thorp is a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of California, Davis. He retired in 1994 after thirty years of teaching, research, and mentoring graduate students. He continues to conduct research on pollination biology and ecology, systematics, biodiversity, and conservation of bees, especially bumble bees. He has special interests in native bees of the vernal pool ecosystem.Coville, Rollin E.: - Rollin E. Coville received his Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 and for more than twenty-five years has been deeply involved with photographing insects and spiders. He also has a strong interest in the biology and behavior of Hymenoptera and has published papers on Trypoxylon wasps and Centris bees.
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