garden: the great sunflower project

Last year, I signed up to be part of the Great Sunflower Project, where people all over the world plant the same kind of sunflowers at regionally similar times and then count the number of bees visiting them a few times a week to see how much pollination we're getting and how the bees are doing. I never did get around to collecting the data; my Lemon Queens died, and the ones that did grow grew much later in the year. But they've loosened and expanded the requirements, and I think I can do it this year!

Here's the letter I just got from them:

Welcome to 2010! Thanks to your help 2009 was an epic year for The Great Sunflower Project. With over 50 thousand participants we are reaching our goal of documenting bee pollination in the US and developing strategies to protect and restore native bees where they are threatened. Building on the momentum from 2009, we are excited to get going this spring! We have made some changes that I want to share early in the year. I'll send out some results in our next newsletter. First, we are simplifying our sampling protocol There are now three steps: 1) count the number of flowers on your plant with pollen; 2) record all bees (not just the first 5) your sunflower for 15 minutes; and 3) enter the data online. You do not need to write down temperatures or the number of other sunflowers in your garden. We have very few people who see five bees in 15 minutes and the analysis of the data becomes much simpler if everyone samples for the same length of time. So, if you can, grab your favorite beverage and write down what time you started and a time for each bee that visits. We are in the process of modifying the data entry form on the website to reflect these changes. It isn’t quite finished though.

Order sunflower seeds here. The second big change is that we are asking that people get their own Lemon Queen sunflower seeds. With 85,000 people signed up, it is becoming difficult to raise enough money to mail seeds. So, we are asking that you get seeds from a local store or from us for $3.00 Click here to get them from us. Three dollars covers our cost for shipping and packing. Many of you wrote to say you were receiving crushed seeds so, we changed to using padded mailers and we also increased the number of seeds in a packet. This more than tripled our cost of mailing. If you do pick up Lemon Queen variety sunflowers at a local nursery, you candownload instructions and data sheets here and on the home page. Renee Shepherd, our seed guru, says sunflower seeds shouldn't be planted until night temperatures stay above 55 degrees so, we'll start sending seeds out in March but will time it so you get them a bit before it is appropriate to plant.

Free seeds for children. We have set aside money to support kids programs and school groups participating. Contact me at sfbee@sfsu.edu and we’ll make arrangements to get you seeds for free. We don’t want cost of seed to be a barrier to participating - yes we haven’t been able to raise money to sustain supporting free seeds for all, however, if you can’t find seeds locally or afford to get them from us, send us an addressed stamped envelope and we’ll send some seeds back to you. I’ll be sending out some summaries of last year’s data in the next newsletter and some updates on what we are learning about bees. Think Spring and Bee Well! Gretchen The Queen Bee

It's gone cold again here, but we're almost at Last Frost Date, and I'm already planning my tomatoes and such, and the community garden is close to up and running, so planing is on my mind. Dereck wants to plant the front garden, where we had the sunflowers before, so I think I might have to find somewhere else to go-- maybe in a big pot round back, or in a corner of the community box (if I keep getting herded out of my own yard by the boys' cleaning bent)-- 25$ will buy me my own box for half the year, and that, I think, is awesome. I might pop for it just so I can have so I can get me some space. Most of our yard is shaded by trees and houses, and has really crappy soil anyway; we talked about putting in a few planter boxes to fix this problem, but then we'd have to find a way to pay for the dirt-- the boxes themselves could be built from cinderblocks and would be moderately cheap and fine.