Observation Target: Insect pollinators—a wide range of pollinating insects (with Bumblebees highlighted separately).- Importance to Food & Agr: Many foods are dependent on pollinators rather than wind and other mechanisms. Bees are responsible for every third bite of food!!!
- Issues: Domestic honeybees, imported and raised by humans, are in decline most likely due to pesticides, stress from moving, and diseases. Alternate pollinators—solitary bees, bumblebees, etc—are also impacted by domestic bees, pesticides, habitat loss, and more—and will be needed even more as domestic bees decline. Warming temperatures may put pollinator arrival time out of sync with blossoming.
- Observing Options: Types of pollinators—domestic bees, native and solitary bees, wasps, butterflies, flies, and beetles—including numbers seen, plants pollinated, and arrival and departure dates especially in relation to blossoming of plants to be pollinated. Build bee boards for solitary bees and monitor egg laying.
- Citizen Science: Great Sunflower Project—Watch and submit simple counts of pollinators (especially bees) visiting flowers (especially sunflowers) to help scientists study and protect these diverse pollinators. Also see “Bumblebee Watch” in Bumblebee section.
- Getting Started Tip: Being able to recognize the basic difference between a bumblebee, a carpenter bee, and a Western Honey bee will help you submit your observations to the Great Sunflower Project or just be a better observer. See this slideshow to tell flies, wasps, and these three basic bees apart. You can also go to iNaturalist’s Observations page and select a species and your location or state to see photos of what has been observed in your area, and you can use their app for submitting your photos and getting help with identifying what you have seen.
- Additional Resources: For more background see Great Sunflower Project site above, and Xerces Society website, which also has pollinator conservation info including how to attract and support pollinators with native plants.
Healthy Community Food Systems
Healthy Land, Healthy Food, Healthy People
Being Proactive—as a Community—About Climate Change in our Local Food Systems and Foodsheds
Fickle Monsoons, Summer in March, and Hot Summer Nights: Climate change is here, has been seriously affecting local agriculture, and will certainly get worse. It will take some serious effort to adjust our local food production and local food systems to the extent needed, so why not ramp up efforts now to adapt and help […]