Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of garden plants to feed honey bees in Canada

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to List of Northern American nectar sources for honey bees. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 02:02, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of garden plants to feed honey bees in Canada[edit]

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Partial duplicate of List of Northern American nectar sources for honey bees, while consisting primarily of original research. Redirect reverted by author. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:20, 20 May 2019 (UTC) Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:20, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merge -- would the author consider including a table on garden plants in the Northern American nectar source article (or flag species currently in the tables to identify them as common garden plants, with a footnote at the end signifying their importance in preserving the honeybee population)?
Orville1974 (talk) 22:26, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 23:00, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 23:00, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included by Aquataste in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect Unclear what the advantage of the separate list is. Reywas92^Talk 03:08, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The page is not a duplicate. For example, it contains rosemary, which is a valid entry, but the other page doesn't. Note also that the page started as quite general with the title list of plants to feed bees. I'm not seeing the point of dividing these lists by geography as garden plants tend to be global. If there are sublists, these would be best be divided by climate type rather than location -- temperate, tropical, etc. The topic is, of course, quite notable per WP:LISTN as there are even books about such plants for Canada -- see this for example. Andrew D. (talk) 10:35, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Info contained has encyclopedic value. Laosilika (talk) 12:38, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep: Hello, I am the originating editor for the article. There is a serious decline in insect populations in particular the honey bee. Part of the reason for the decline of the bees is a lack of food due to a lack of bee friendly flowering plants. The 49th Parallel where most major Canadian cities are located has it’s own specific climate where only certain bee friendly garden plants can grow. Hence, Wikipedia requires an article specific for garden plants than can be grown in Canadians gardens that are bee friendly. This article is currently a +stub with plenty of potential to expand, which is all that is required at Wikipedia for an article to qualify to be allowed. Thank you Aquataste (talk) 12:56, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

a) Wikipedia requires an article specific for garden plants than can be grown in Canadians gardens that are bee friendly. Wikipedia emphatically does not. We are not a gardening manual, and we don't "spread the word".

b) This article is currently a +stub with plenty of potential to expand, which is all that is required at Wikipedia for an article to qualify to be allowed. Errm... no. It also depends on a number of other factors, one of which is whether the material is already covered (which it is - Andrew D.'s standard "I googled a book with this title!" argument for rampant proliferation notwithstanding). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:08, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article is not intended to be a "gardening manual". There are a lot of books written about World War I, Christianity and the United States, should we delete those articles too -:) Aquataste (talk) 14:36, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The point I'm trying to make is that "people need to know how to do X" is not a suitable motivation for creating a specific article. It's a laudable ambition but it is not what Wikipedia is for. That's not to say that such a motivation can't dovetail with our actual goal (to summarize information that has already received widespread coverage), but you shouldn't expect a desire to, e.g., enjoy more cherry orchards on the Orkneys to have much impact when trying to start a separate article "Cherry varieties that don't mind snowstorms in July". Expect other considerations, which are being discussed here, to determine that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:55, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Let's say we both agree to disagree, take care. Aquataste (talk) 18:26, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Looking at the two articles, I don't see how they would be easily merged, conceptually. But then the concept of List of garden plants to feed honey bees in Canada seems a little unwieldy. Aquataste says it is primarily for 49°N, then really it's List of garden plants to feed honey bees along the 49th Parallel. If it's about the country, it should be about the country and not just the population centers. I think something along the original concept that Andrew Davidson mentioned would be good, but closer to list of temperate garden plants that feed bees. If we had 'List of garden plants to feed honey bees in...' for every country there would be too much overlap. zones or climates would serve readers better. I commend the desire to help pollinators, but the current article excludes temerate readers outside Canada who could actually use the plants of their gardens, and misleads Canadians living in colder climes. That leads to more hungry bees, not fewer. --Nessie (talk) 14:14, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The title of the article mentions honeybees, but the body of the article and the cited sources mention bumblebees. Is this supposed to be a general article covering all bees? Only covering bees native to Canada? Only covering honeybees (which aren't native to Canada)? Plantdrew (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is more than one-type of honey bee used in Canada including the non-native western honey bee (Apis mellifera). If the consensus is to change the word "honey bee" to "bumble bee" or "bee" I am happy to abide by that. Aquataste (talk) 14:45, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe any honey bees are native to the new world. Bumble bees are not honey bees, even if they make honey. --Nessie (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to List of Northern American nectar sources for honey bees then delete this one. The title is written in a way that it infers the article is a guide and should not be a redirect. Ajf773 (talk) 20:24, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete — Wikipedia is not a guide to beekeeping or wildlife conservation. (Although as mentioned above, honey bees aren't even native to North America.) The article title would also not make a useful/realistic redirect. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 14:30, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is a guide. Also, I doubt that this would be a useful redirect page. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 15:07, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into List of Northern American nectar sources for honey bees. Some of the ecological concerns raised in this article should be added to the list as well. The title should probably be deleted after the merge, as I can't see it being a viable redirect. The original writer should be commended for his or her good faith efforts to improve Wikipedia. schetm (talk) 16:06, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge as suggested in the nomination. This list is simultaneously overly broad (a plant which grows in Nova Scotia might not grow so well or at all in Alberta) and overly narrow ("honey" bees as opposed to all beneficial pollinators, generally the focus of such articles). The more general North America list is suitably focused (notwithstanding my point about non-honey-producing pollinators) such that a reader, if they're interested, can review the list and determine which plant species might be suitable for their own local climate. As a redirect to the other list, this title is fine. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:21, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I think the general concept of a merge is a good one, but a concern that I would have with using the current pagename as a redirect is that it does imply a how-to, even if that was not the intent, and that would go against WP:NOT. I also think that the North America page can be improved by revising it to reflect the differences-by-latitude that have been pointed out in this discussion. That does indeed sound like useful and encyclopedic information, but it can be presented better by using multiple page sections instead of multiple pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge what little can be added. Redirect if we add sections with a paragraph summarizing large regions in the other article. Maybe adding zone info to the tables would help people find their area. StrayBolt (talk) 18:34, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I had been mulling over what to do with this one for awhile, but there's functionally nothing to merge as it's essentially covered in other articles in better detail. The North American article already has its problems, and this term isn't really a useful redirect either. In the end WP:NOTGUIDE policy is very clear, and Wikipedia is not the place to be cataloguing all possible pollen sources, etc. or creating redirects for search terms used as such. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:48, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I think this could be useful information for a how-to guide or directory but it's out of the project scope of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 12:43, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Worthwhile material that ought not to be consigned to the dust heap of Wikipedia. WP:Not paper Worth a transplant. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:51, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what is being called worthwhile material here. The first sentence on bumblebee decline is about the only usable content bit, and that's fleshed out much more over at Pollinator_decline and other articles. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:15, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per user Ivanvector comments Lubbad85 (☎) 15:16, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Kingofaces43. I agree with his sentiment that there are very few parts of the article worth merging, and those bits are already better covered elsewhere. The title would not make a useful redirect at all, so a plain deletion would be the most logical step here. Rorshacma (talk) 15:46, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to List of Northern American nectar sources for honey bees since the topic is already covered there. Dream Focus 16:56, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or delete: Merge if possible, delete otherwise. Plants included in the Canada article and not the North America one are bluebells, cornflowers (though other Centaurea species are listed), cosmos, crocus, hellebore, primrose (Primula), rosemary, black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia). I can only find a reference for one of those, though I haven't looked very hard. Rudbeckia and possibly other plants not listed in either article are listed at the end of [1]. There's another list of plants about 4/5 of the way down [2]. Someone less lazy than me might want to add those to the North America article, if they're not already there. This isn't a very useful redirect to leave, so I'm also fine with deleting. Iamnotabunny (talk) 22:25, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.