bees & butterflies

Sorta OT, but the bees, butterflies, birds, etc. add so much to the
gardening experience for me. Feverfew (tanacetum sp.) is supposed to
repel bees of all kinds.  While I wouldn't go so far as to agree with
the books that say "...bees will avoid an entire bed where feverfew
grows," I've never seen bees or any insects on my plants, and they are
great fillers.

We have tons of bumblebees and have never been stung, but what I thought
were honeybees turned out to be yellow jackets, busily building a nest
inside one of our buildings. Sadly, I had to have them eliminated to
prevent them from getting inside the apartments and pestering our
tenants (though we were never stung by these, either).

There are some good bee & insect sites on the Web, some of which are:

http://users.aol.com/queenbjan/kinsbee.htm
http://www.insect-world.com/main/socbees.html 

I was told by the Illinois Dept. of Agriculture that if you're fortunate
enough to have a honey bee nest, professionals will come and take it
away (carefully) if you don't want it around, and give it a proper
home.  Try your state department of agriculture to know more.

To encourage swallowtail butterflies, I grow extra plants of parsley,
dill, & fennel, which provide food for the larval stage. Orange
butterfly
weed (and other varieties of asclepia) are big Monarch attracters.

Anne - Chicago

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