Best Gifts of 2014 for Nature Lovers

With honey bees threatened due to colony collapse disorder and pesticide exposure, encourage your friends to turn their apartment balconies and backyards into safe havens for native pollinators. The non-aggressive garden lovers rarely sting and are hugely helpful pollinators. In early spring, mason bees will quickly take up residence in these compact, high-rise tunnel homes. Find a south-facing wall and mount the nest about 7 feet high and within about 300 feet of their favorite spring-blossoming foods—azaleas, dandelions and coneflowers. Leave some moist mud handy so that the female can manufacture the nesting plugs that give the creature its name. The bees will return the favor, helping to pollinate all your wildflowers, vegetables and especially fruit trees.

Suggested by Beth Py-Lieberman, museums digital editor