Public Service Announcement:

The other day I heard on NPR news (at least I think that’s where I heard it) that when the weather gets warm and people start working on outdoor home improvement projects, bees collect the sawdust of treated lumber as if it were pollen and take it back to their hives. Unfortunately, treated lumber is treated  – with insecticides, to keep termites from chewing it up. To bees, the sawdust looks like pollen and they collect it and fill their honeycomb with it, like in the photo above. Next thing you know, they’re waggle dancing and telling all their friends where to go and find the best pollen sources, and the whole hive is collecting treated lumber sawdust, thinking it’s a gift from heaven. In doing this, they might very well kill off the entire hive. So please, if you’re sawing away on treated lumber in your yard this spring or summer, please sweep or vacuum up the sawdust as best as you can so that the bees don’t collect it.

Here’s an article I’ve posted on Facebook that gives more great tips for how to help honeybees:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/87341/7-easy-ways-you-can-help-bees-right-now

Yay! Take “lawn treatment for dandelions” off your to-do list! Let ’em grow! Let ’em grow! I’m suddenly feeling inspired to write new lyrics to the song, Let It Go (from Frozen)…