I don't know if it would work for everyone, but I ground up horseradish into a slurry and poured it in their holes, around plants I wanted to protect, and across the forecasted route. Usually took about a week for them to vacate for the season.
It may come down to importing native bees eventually. Ground nesting bees, mason bees. All I have seen in the last three years is carpenter bees. I've been pollinating my fruit trees with a paintbrush this year. Fine when it's a few blossoms on immature trees, but next year...
I mow around...
This area has been mowed grass for so long that both pollinators and predators are in short supply.
I need to have reliable flowers before I can expect either to return. It wouldn't be fair to bring in a beehive only to have them travel miles after the redbuds stop blooming.
I'll be planting...
With the grains and pseudo-grains I'm more thinking about winter forage for the velociraptors. Many of those plants are pretty drought tolerant, and if they can reseed themselves I can let the chickens in during the winter and lock them out in the spring so the system can recover...
I need to plant corn, finish the beans, and start on cover crops. Experimenting with pseudo-grains this year. Amaranth, quinoa, sesame and chia are in the ground.
Case in point. It was time to plant chia and I could NOT find the seeds. I had them 10 minutes ago! Finally found them, tucked down inside one of the pots I set out to plant the chia in. A logical place, since I intended to plant them. Wasted half an hour searching.
I walked into this room while initially touring the house. There was a grow light in the ceiling fixture and built-in shelves. My growers heart immediately wanted it.
Yup. Me too. Buy a new one, go to put it away in the "logical" place, and viola!
Problem is, I find things when not looking for them and go "Oh, I need to put that away," and I move on.
Then I can't remember where I saw it!
I can't find a bunch of my seeds, and it's getting very frustrating. Clary sage, sage, raspberry, wild plum, serviceberry, aronia, currant. I planted clary sage and sage earlier this spring and now can't find the seeds. I have 5 wild plum seeds in the 'fridge, but where is the rest of the...
Planted persimmons for the shelterbelt, a raspberry and two blackberries for me. Beans are well up. No corn yet. If I do lentils again next year I'll wait until the beginning of April. About half of them have died.
Lost four tomatoes in last night's storm, but two potatoes are up that...
I once had a population that was pretty cold tolerant, but that wasn't my goal so the seeds got mixed in with the rest when I was finished. I wish now that I had kept them separate. I was testing to see if they would flower earlier, and they never did. Four years in a row they were planted...
Planted the first set of tomatoes. I know they'll probably get frosted, but the hope is that the mulch will protect them enough to come back from the root, possibly conferring a bit more cold tolerance to their descendants.