'm always looking for ways to bring more bees onto my land, and this season I'm thinking about bumblebees.

Bumblebees are kind of like giant pandas, cute and chubby, and no, they don't swarm or attack because they are solitary bees. I work in my garden right alongside them, and they don't even know I exist.Only newly fertile queens make it through the winter. They dig small holes in north facing slopes and freeze until spring. The old queen and her small group of workers die at the end of each growing season. The new queens come out of hibernation when the snow melts and the ground starts to warm up, right about the time the big trees, like maple and oak, come into flower.One thing is on the mind of the queen when she thaws out - food and plenty of it.Bumblebees are strong fliers and can make it up to those tree flowers. She needs to eat pollen and drink nectar right away after her long winter fast. Then she looks for a vacant hole in the ground and makes a little nest.Since bumblebees don't store honey and pollen, they need a constant supply of flowers to feed themselves and their young. I wondered how on earth my little flower gardens could possibly feed her and her cohorts, and then I thought about my lawn.Lawns are big meadows filled with - grass. Nothing much can live on grass, especially bees. Not only is it inedible, but the chemicals we use to maintain the grass are death to a bee.However, there is a way around the problem. I can devote the areas where the grass meets the woods to make a bee lawn.I know that my bee lawn has to survive the lawn mower, so my flowers need to be short and hardy. That's not a problem if I'm willing to convert my idea of lawn weeds into lawn flowers. Some of them are already in my lawn. White clover, dandelions and creeping Charlie come to mind.To get constant flowering until fall, I'll need to add more. I've got May and June covered. In May, I have ajuga and little bluets (also called Quaker ladies). Then my white clover blooms and so do my oxeye daisies.That still leaves hot and dry July and August, and for that I'll turn to the University of Minnesota arboretum where they have a demonstration garden showing how to add flowers to the lawn.One idea I like is to include bulbs and herbs like oregano and creeping thyme. Bees love members of the mint family.If you want to see the University of Minnesota demonstration garden, search "University of Minnesota arboretum bee lawn." Also, if you realize your bee flowers will try to invade your grass, remember that clover is a legume and adds nitrogen to the soil. With a little clover at work, you may be able to stop buying lawn fertilizer.