Dalea candida, White Prairie Clover

Artist: Sarah Red-Laird

Title: Bee Habitat in Cyanotype 15

Location: 777 Bison Ranch, South Dakota

Project: Bison & Bee Habitat

Flower: Dalea candida, White Prairie Clover

Bee(s) in cyanotype: Apis mellifera, Honey bee

Materials: Cyanotype, encaustic, ink, barnwood

Field Season: 2023

Composed: 2023

In the summer of 2022 I met the bison and their people at 777 Bison Ranch. My goal was to collect bee pollen for two days (for a project I was working on) and then continue on down the road. But I became stuck in a tar pit of wonder and I couldn’t move.

I ended up taking refuge at the ranch for about a week. Mimi, Moritz, Cody, and Justin were so kind, hospitable, and interested in my work.

I threw my project out the window and started devising a whole new way to look at the landscape.

In 2019 researchers found that the 777 Bison Ranch, unique for their approach utilizing adaptive multi-paddock grazing, boasted improved fine litter cover, improved water infiltration, two to three times the available forage biomass, improved plant composition, and decreased invasive plant levels and bare ground, relative to both light and heavy continuous grazing (Hillenbrand et al, 2019). 

We believe the aforementioned attributes of bison grazing could provide excellent habitat for bees, and we would like to deepen our understanding of this dynamic.

We plan to understand the potentially synergistic or mutualistic interactions between honey bees, native bees, and bison by installing multi-year vegetation and pollinator monitoring areas at the 777 Bison Ranch. These efforts will examine:

🦬 Bee nesting frequency – examine the presence/absence of soil nesting bee sites in areas grazed by bison,

🦬 Bee habitat – identify the full complement of flowering forb species in the study area, and determine which forbs support pollinators while avoiding consumption by bison,

🦬 Bee communities – comprehensive sampling the of native bee species (including soil, stem/twig, wood, hive, and cavity nesting bees) using different passive and active trapping methods,

🦬 Pollen availability and nutritional content in flowers (joint project with USDA Tucson Bee Lab).

Learn more about 777 and their holistic practices here.

The 777 Bison Ranch is host to many honey bee apiaries belonging to a local beekeeper. They purchase the honey from the beekeeper and sell it in their online shop, and in their storefront in Rapid City, SD.

Honey bees are common around the ranch and especially love the introduced plants like alfalfa, sweetclover, sand lucerne. However, I did see them on a native flower here and there as well. They love the sunflowers, as well as the white prairie clover.

The prairie clover used to make this piece came from the edge of a bison wallow. We’re especially curious about the wallows, and how they influence bee habitat. Male bison wallow to spread their musk around and to make giant, impressive dust clouds during the rut. This is a massive disturbance to the soil, and BGO is studying effects this might have on creating room for more flowers to grow, and clearing the way for soil nesting bees to make their homes.

Not only do bees love this flower, It is classified by the USDA as a "high" nitrogen fixer, a category few native plants fit into. It is a larval host to the clouded sulphur, marine blue, Reakirt's blue, and southern dogface.

According to the National Park Service, Native Americans used white (and purple) prairie clover to treat cardiovascular disease (leaves and blossoms), diarrhea (leaves and blossoms), measles (roots), and stomach aches. They were also used as a wash to treat open wounds (poultice made from steeped bruised leaves). The dried leaves could also be used as a kind of tea.