According to UH Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture, honey bees are the single most important pollinators for agriculture in Hawaii. They help with macadamia nut, coffee, and cucumber products to a tune of almost $212 million! Hawaiian honey is awesome and ranks first in the US for pounds of honey produced per colony. You may have heard that honey bees face numerous threats including parasites, pesticides, and inadequate nutrition.

Through Civil Beat, I came across this awesome chart for Native Hawaiian plants for honey bees that we can grow on our island. In my backyard, I have a Pōhinahina tree that I got from the ag program at Hawaii Community College.

I am lucky that we have a few ‘ohi’a lehua on the perimeter of our property but there are a few of them that are succumbing to Rapid Ohia Death. Click on this site to find the chart of Native Hawaiian plants that you might want for your island. https://cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/pollinators/BeePlants Let’s help our bees! I want to plant more plants to help our pollinators. Living Hilo Style!