We Need Bees' Help -- and They Need Ours

Check your clover and dandelions for honeybee activity before applying any treatment to your lawn. McNeal says bees love dandelions. You may want to leave some for them as a food source. Dandelion greens are a tasty and healthy addition to your own salads as well, so hand-pull these whenever possible. Install plants bees like, such as holly, serviceberry, blueberry, verbena, echinacea or lavender.

If you notice bees swarming, call your local cooperative extension service. They have lists of beekeepers in your area who would be delighted to come and get the bees. Swarming is perfectly natural behavior and not dangerous to humans. This activity indicates that the bees are in search of a new home. They won't stay around for more than a couple of days, McNeal said, so if they're not swarming in a threatening location and you don't have inquisitive pets or young children, you can leave them alone. Although swarming is natural for bees, it is somewhat hard on beekeepers, who have to replace the bees and the queen they generally take with them.

You might even want to consider keeping bees yourself.

"You can raise bees in a backyard in a suburb," McNeal said, and you can also raise them on the roof of a townhouse. Ideally, hives should be as far as possible from other structures, preferably adjacent to open or wooded spaces. Talk to your neighbors before taking up beekeeping, McNeal warned: Find out if any of them are allergic to bee stings or if they have swimming pools. Bees need water and will head straight for a pool. Check neighborhood covenants; they may prohibit bees out of an unjustified fear of lots of injuries.

Honeybees are not dangerous and will not attack people or pets unless they are threatened. "They only sting in self-defense," McNeal said. Stinging kills them, so it's a bad strategy for the bee. Its only purpose in life is to go out and get nectar, then go back and get more nectar.

McNeal's hive is close to a boccie court, and no players have ever been stung, she said. She has gone a whole season without being stung and rarely gets more than one sting a year, usually because she has not put on her beekeeper gear carefully enough.

Beekeepers learn to move calmly and deliberately and to actually slow their heart rates, McNeal said. "It's almost yoga-like."

This is the time of year -- early spring -- when bees begin to fly. She saw some of hers emerging from the hive one warm day recently. "I thought: 'Oh, good. They're still alive' " -- and we can all do something to help them stay that way.

Joel M. Lerner is president of Environmental Design in Capitol View Park, Md. E-mail or contact him through his Web site,http://www.gardenlerner.com.