> What is accurate in Norman's assessment is that suburbia is a forage desert for the most part ... NYC has multiple massive parks in central locations - Central Park, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, and hundreds of smaller parks and community gardens, plus an actual counted million street trees and forest trees, many of them chosen specifically for their bee forage values.

Well, seems like you are saying two different things. But I lived in suburban San Diego for decades and that was an oasis for bees. Even in the city you could count on year round forage and crops of 200-300 lbs per colony. L.A. is like that, San Francisco, Seattle -- these are not devoid of bee forage. 

Whereas the so-called back country in California and elsewhere is overstocked with bees and dependent on rainfall and wild plants, or irrigated cropland which is hazardous to bees and people, at best. The notion that suburbia is all poisoned lawns is a bit of a myth, in my opinion. 

Homeowners may use more pesticides per capita than farmers, -- but on the whole the variety and profusion of blooms tends to make up for it. Most people aren't so dumb as to plant attractive blooming plants and then kill the visiting pollinators. Except maybe rose gardeners. 

My wife was a professional in a public garden for 30 years, she never used pesticides. If a plant had a pest problem, she dug it up and put something else there. Not hard to do. 

At our home, we lose some ornamentals to bugs or deer, but there is always a profusion of native bees on the plants in the yard. My honey bees seem to avoid foraging on our land, they tend to far and away from the property.

PLB

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