Become a Mobile Bee Watcher And Help Us Expand Our Data Collection
We have just added 18 sites throughout the 5 boroughs where you can now visit a bee garden and collect additional data for the Bee Watchers program. Collecting data from new areas where we have no volunteers will add greatly to our database and give us a much better picture of the health of bee populations all across the City.
We are inviting you to visit as many of these gardens as you can and take the exact same Bee Watchers data. To locate the gardens please click on the name of the Park you are interested in under the Bee Garden Park Sites heading in the right-hand menu, where you will find directions and visual references to the site.
Each garden is planted with an identical array of 20 plant species- 10 natives and 10 garden annuals- all highly attractive to bees. If there are any bees in the area we want to be sure to attract them to the observation gardens! Included in the twenty species are the same 6 natives and 1 garden sunflower we have distributed to current Bee Watcher for your own observations. You’ll find them all clumped together to one side of the garden.
| N1 | Monarda fistulosa | Bee balm | (June thru September) |
| N2 | Pycnanthemum tenuifolium | Mountain mint | (July thru September) |
| N3 | Asclepias syriaca | Common milkweed | (June thru August) |
| N4 | Helianthus decapetalus | Woodland sunflower | (August thru October) |
| N5 | Symphyotricum laevis | Smooth aster | (August thru October) |
| N6 | Solidago rugosa | Rough-leaved goldenrod | (September thru October) |
| N7 | Penstemon digitalis | Beard-tongue | (May thru June) |
| N8 | Rudbeckia hirta | Black-eyed Susan | (June thru October) |
| N9 | Lespedeza capitata | Bush-clover | (July thru September) |
| N10 | Eupatoreum purpureum | Joe-Pye weed | (July thru September) |
| A1 | Helianthus annuum | Annual sunflower var. 'Lemon Queen' | 'Lemon Queen' |
| A2 | Viola sp. | Violet | (early spring) |
| A3 | Fragraria sp. | Strawberry | (April thru early June) |
| A4 | Lobularia maritima | Sweet allysum | (April thru early July) |
| A5 | Gilia capitata | Blue thimble flower | (late April thru mid July) |
| A6 | Centaurea cyanus | Cornflower | (May thru early August) |
| A7 | Borago officianalis | Borage; starflower | (June thru frost) |
| A8 | Cosmos bipinnatus | Cosmos | (June thru frost) |
| A9 | Zinnia sp. | Zinnia | (June thru frost) |
| A10 | Nicotiana sp. | Flowering tobacco | (July thru August) |
N = Native perennial, A = Garden annual
Follow all of the regular Bee Watcher instructions and use the same data sheet found elsewhere on this site. PLEASE NOTE: It took a lot longer (and a lot more effort!) to plant these gardens than we originally thought. Some of the gardens may not have a full array of the attractant species- we ran out and will have to replant next spring.
Each garden is marked with this sign. So you’ll know when you’ve arrived at the site.
For those of you looking for a little more adventure or who might want to visit and get to know a new neighborhood in the City, pick a garden, grab your Metro Card and visit a bee garden!
Or Become a Mobile Bee Watcher In Your Own Neighborhood
Walk around your neighborhood. When you find a blooming, sunlit flower observe it following our Bee Watcher guidelines and using our data sheet for as long as you can. Note when you see bees visit, following the Instructions and filling in a separate data sheet for each plant observed. If you cannot identify the flower you observed, please send a digital image of the flower (along with your completed data sheet) to beewatchers@gmail.com .