Experts scrambling to understand losses in hives across the country are finally identifying the culprits. And the damage to farmed bees is a sign of trouble for wild bees too
My lawn isn’t totally natural because I mow it, but I don’t use any chemicals. Despite some trees and shrubs, my yard doesn’t have ticks. We have grubs, mice, shrews, squirrels, birds, and occasional poison ivy that we pull up, but no ticks. They are in the park (with forest) a couple blocks away, but not in the trimmed lawns in my chunk of suburbia.
Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation. The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn’s edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found.
In context of bees isn’t the trim important? I mean, for the grass to have flowers for the pollinators, shouldn’t it be untrimmed? And hence prone to inviting ticks?
You are correct, but I mow kinda high and my lawn has lots of low flowering weeds and flowering shrubs. In the spring, there is patch of … probably purslane? and daffodils on the border. Then the comfrey has its first bloom, then the clover and dandelions. Right now there’s more dandelions and comfrey’s second bloom. Next comes the invasive morning glorys and rose of sharon. There are a bunch of other things that flower, like wild strawberries, wild violets, and yarrow that is stanted by getting chopped down every week or two – but there’s more and I don’t know all their names.
We also have some type of carpenter/bumble bee trying hard to destroy the edge of the porch overhang. I’m just letting them do their thing and plan on repairing it if/when it becomes a structural issue.
I’m curious, when the lawn is kept natural, doesn’t it have a lot of ticks?
My lawn isn’t totally natural because I mow it, but I don’t use any chemicals. Despite some trees and shrubs, my yard doesn’t have ticks. We have grubs, mice, shrews, squirrels, birds, and occasional poison ivy that we pull up, but no ticks. They are in the park (with forest) a couple blocks away, but not in the trimmed lawns in my chunk of suburbia.
from Wikipedia:
In context of bees isn’t the trim important? I mean, for the grass to have flowers for the pollinators, shouldn’t it be untrimmed? And hence prone to inviting ticks?
You are correct, but I mow kinda high and my lawn has lots of low flowering weeds and flowering shrubs. In the spring, there is patch of … probably purslane? and daffodils on the border. Then the comfrey has its first bloom, then the clover and dandelions. Right now there’s more dandelions and comfrey’s second bloom. Next comes the invasive morning glorys and rose of sharon. There are a bunch of other things that flower, like wild strawberries, wild violets, and yarrow that is stanted by getting chopped down every week or two – but there’s more and I don’t know all their names.
We also have some type of carpenter/bumble bee trying hard to destroy the edge of the porch overhang. I’m just letting them do their thing and plan on repairing it if/when it becomes a structural issue.
Probably not unless you have lots or animals crossing it. Ticks require hosts to feed and transport over significant distance I think.