By Phyllis Stiles, Bee City USA Founder & Pollinator Champion, Xerces Society
 
Most bees and other pollinator species are under stress, and while we wish could prescribe them some Prozac, the better action would be reducing as many of their stressors as possible. According to a United Nations study released in 2016, stressors include: fragmented habitat, poor nutrition, pesticides, diseases, parasites, and climate change, which are interacting to put 40% of insect pollinators at risk of extinction.

Step 2
Identify the meeting facilitator and promote the meeting–invite your email lists and run a guest editorial or ad in local media for a few weeks to announce the public meeting to recruit tree planters.

RESOURCES

• Native Trees Spreadsheet–Nearly comprehensive Excel spreadsheet of trees native to the United States with columns for pollinator usage; salt, drought and fire tolerance; browsing/grazing risk; and commercial availability. The "workhorse" column refers to trees known to establish well, that are readily used by revegetation experts. They receive a "workhorse/pollinator" designation if they are "workhorses" AND support pollinators.  This data is a portion of a national native plant database for restoration practitioners (http://www.nativerevegetation.org/era/) that Xerces contributed pollinator data to, as part of a project with FHWA, USFS, and others. 
• Xerces Blog: Climate News Round-Up: The Power of Trees!
• 100 Plants to Feed the Bees
• Heather Holm’s Tree & Shrub List
• Pollen Sources
• Nectar Sources
• USDA National Agroforestry Center Wildlife & Pollinator Resources

Wildlife & Watershed Focused Agroforestry (also benefiting pollinators)

• Working Trees for Wildlife - 2014
• Working Trees for Water Quality - 2012
• Riparian Forest Buffers - February 2017
• How to Plan for and Plant Streamside Conservation Buffers with Native Fruit and Nut Trees and Woody Floral Shrubs

By Phyllis Stiles, Bee City USA Founder & Pollinator Champion, Xerces Society

Pollinator-friendly garden programs, like Xerces' own Bring Back the Pollinators Pledge, and the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, are growing (no pun intended!). 

As I started writing this blog, three pedestrians stopped to read my pollinator habitat sign nestled in my front yard flower bed. So I left my computer to greet them and tell them about how we need insects and pollinators to feed birds and other creatures and to help nearly 90% of flowering trees and plants reproduce. That's why we welcome pollinators into our yard by planting a variety of locally native plants and not using pesticides. They were delighted to hear from the gardener and, in turn, shared stories about their own yard and community.

But do those kinds of exchanges really cause people to enhance more habitat for pollinators in their yards?  At Bee City USA, our goal is a paradigm shift away from ornamental landscapes—dominated by lawns and exotic plants treated with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides—to untreated landscapes dominated by a diversity of locally native plants. So we are asking the age-old question—are rewards more effective than punishment in changing human behavior? The famous psychologist B.F. Skinner has written volumes on the topic of behavior modification. This blog will explore the psychology of pollinator garden certification programs for eliciting behavioral change and share information about two programs started by Bee City USA affiliates.

Conventional Landscaping
The conventional model of landscaping in the United States that features expansive lawns with a few exotic trees and shrubs has evolved for "ease of maintenance" and a "tidy" appearance. Sadly, turf grass and exotic trees and shrubs rarely provide food for pollinators. Most trees and shrubs in American yards were chosen because they were inexpensive and widely available, not because they support wildlife. Repetition, after all, is actually a guiding principle of landscape design. Additionally, our natural desire to blend in also caused us to mostly copy our neighbors. Ironically, that meant buying lawn mowers and devoting untold dollars and hours to lawn care most of the year. Many homeowners do so to increase the value of their homes.

​Many homeowners’ associations and municipalities offer disincentives (fines) to residents who don't keep their yards tidy enough and lawns mowed short enough; some for fire prevention and rodent control reasons; and many simply for aesthetic reasons. Some impose harsh fines for having plants that get too tall. This reflects the punishment approach to behavior modification—but according to a 2017 study, reported in the Harvard Business Review, rewards can be as effective, if not more effective, than punishment for persuading people to behave in a desired fashion. So, what would it take to get Americans to break with convention and, as Bringing Nature Home author and Bee City USA science advisor Doug Tallamy says, "Garden as if life depended on it"?

What Would Motivate Landscapers to Change Behavior?
There will always be both early adopters and reluctant adopters of any new behavior. (I'm old enough to remember all of the grumbling when safety belts were first introduced to cars. Some people didn't use them until they were threatened with fines (i.e. punishment). As for landscaping, some people simply have no interest in landscaping of any kind, conventional or otherwise. Those people may either let nature take its course (which actually could support pollinators) while others might hire landscaping crews to manage their landscapes. Landscape designers and maintenance businesses are beginning to recognize the role landscaping can play in conservation, and also that it could provide them a competitive edge in their industry (a "reward"). As for individuals, the reward could be beautification, or cutting the costs and time associated with lawn care. If they understand the vital role pollinators play in sustaining our planet and human diet, the reward could be helping to sustain pollinators. Having a better yield (pollinators often enhance the quality and quantity of vegetable production) could be the reward for vegetable gardeners, or providing baby bird food (caterpillars) could be the reward for birders. The bottom line is that until a person understands the potential benefits, they have no reason to landscape for pollinators.

How Should Pollinator-Friendly Landscapers Be Rewarded?
Individuals, organizations, agencies, and businesses can enhance habitat for pollinators and hopefully feel an intrinsic reward of having done something that makes people and the planet healthier. But does the old question of whether there was a sound if no one heard the tree fall in the woods apply here? Indeed, many people respond to external validation, and if their good deed is not publicly recognized with a sign or otherwise, there is no extrinsic reward. Each time they see the sign marking the pollinator habitat, they, as well as other viewers, are reminded that this landscape is different because somebody went to the trouble to make it pollinator-friendly. You may want to think of it as an ongoing, visual pat-on-the-back. Seeing your garden included in an online map or in a local list is also a sort of public reward.

Ensuring Reward Is Merited
If the saying "When you expect more, you get more" is true, expecting more is definitely the way to go! It's a rare person who goes above and beyond expected standards, but if they are asked to do so, most people are usually willing if given a good reason and good incentive. If someone gardens as usual with mostly exotic plants and routinely using pesticides and still gets recognized for their pollinator habitat, the recognition has not caused a change in behavior. Even worse, recognizing a garden that does not actually support pollinators sends the wrong message to the entire community.

Want to Start a Local Pollinator Habitat Certification Program? 
A local pollinator garden or habitat certification program is a good way to generate interest in gardening for pollinators, establishing qualifying standards, and rewarding the people or organizations who achieve them.

A wide diversity of existing certification programs offer a spectrum of program design possibilities. Some are very explicit like the Penn State University's Master Gardeners Pollinator Garden Certification Program and require a modest application fee and site visits prior to certification, while others, like Xerces' program, use the honor system and require applicants to accept four commitments: grow pollinator-friendly flowers, provide nest sites, avoid pesticides, and spread the word. The former takes more administration on the part of the certifying group, while the latter reaches a larger audience (it is designed to be implemented in a variety of landscapes, from community gardens, to suburban backyards, to farmland) and offers a map of certified habitat locations and a wealth of resources for enhancing pollinator habitat online. Some organizations provide signage, while others make signage available for purchase or as a thank-you gift for a donation. Another option is to provide artwork for certified gardeners to use, so that they can produce their own signs.​

​Bee City USA–Talent, Oregon, also has a garden certification program and even installed Bugingham Palace, for tunnel-nesting insects in 2018. They are thrilled each time they certify a new garden and enjoy praising the garden owners publicly. In addition to their 31 certified private gardens, they also now have six public gardens—in the roundabout in the center of town and at city hall, the police station, the post office, the historical society, and the skate park. The garden club, under club member Gerlinde Smith's guidance, is leading the pollinator garden effort, recruiting two volunteers for each public garden to be “garden stewards.” Stewards commit to checking the garden each week to weed, water, and plant as needed. 

​About Pollinator Garden Signs
Garden signs may offer some education, or even have a QR code, and refer the viewer back to a website (as Xerces' sign does); they may have the logo of the certifying group; or they may simply have a picture of a pollinator. The pollinator may even be painted by a child. Some say the latter is ideal since it engages children in pollinator conservation. However, there is power in being part of something larger. Seeing the same sign in location after location is a repetitive invitation to join the movement and create pollinator habitat corridors in the process. Such signs also refer the viewer to a resource for more information.​

​Pollinator Garden Tours
Just ten certified pollinator gardens may provide enough destinations to host a pollinator garden tour. An avid gardener, my husband has even allowed our Asheville, North Carolina, garden to be included in Asheville GreenWorks' pollinator garden tour. As though I needed to be reminded of the need for a paradigm shift when I was helping plan that garden tour, it was difficult to find many native plants in most yards in my own neighborhood, much less milkweed for monarch butterflies.

​Using my husband as an example again, he has traditionally avoided going on garden tours because it makes him feel his garden doesn't measure up. As beautiful as formal pollinator gardens can be, at Bee City USA, we hope the focus of pollinator garden tours is how gardens are supporting pollinators more so than how stunningly gorgeous they are. While the two are not mutually exclusive, with large budgets and manpower, anyone can create a stunning garden. Ideally, gardens that support pollinators also are beautiful and tidy. But in the end, we want visitors to feel educated and empowered, more than awestruck and overwhelmed. That's why we created reusable "factoid signs" to produce and place at strategic locations along the tour. Of course, the factoids should be customized to local conditions.

By Peter Helfrich, Chairperson, Bee City USA - Decatur, GA (Beecatur)
beecaturga@gmail.com
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​
As the chairperson of Decatur’s Bee City USA committee, I’m frequently asked if backyard mosquito spraying harms bees and other beneficial species. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. The pesticides most mosquito spraying companies use are non-targeted and also kill bees, butterflies, moths, ladybugs, dragonflies, and lightning bugs. In run-off, these pesticides can also be highly toxic to fish and other aquatic life.

Backyard Mosquito Control Services On the Rise
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of backyard mosquito control services operating here in Decatur and throughout Georgia. In fact, there are now more licensed mosquito control providers in our state (690) than McDonald’s restaurants (453)!  Most backyard mosquito barrier treatments consist of a broad-spectrum insecticide, usually a pyrethroid. Pyrethroids are synthetic versions of pyrethrin, a toxin found in Chrysanthemum flowers. Thus, mosquito control companies will often market their services with words like “derived from flowers,” “organic,” "green," “environmentally friendly,” “biodegradable,” or “natural.” Pyrethroids are in fact chemical nerve agents.

Application is commonly performed via a backpack sprayer or fogger. This is problematic due to the possibility of drift into areas containing blooming plants that attract bees and other pollinators, and drift across property lines. Other services install automatic misting systems that function similar to programmable lawn sprinklers. Such misting systems are neither EPA-approved, nor endorsed by the American Mosquito Control Association, which states they can put pesticides unnecessarily into the environment, kill non-target insects, and promote resistance in mosquitoes, thus exacerbating the mosquito control problem.

Some service providers offer bee-safe blends of essential oils or garlic designed to repel mosquitoes. Though some homeowners swear by them, the effectiveness of these formulations is unclear.

Prevent Mosquito Breeding
Because it’s virtually impossible to protect non-target species, trying to kill biting adult mosquitoes is difficult. Instead, eliminating mosquito breeding areas is a critical first step for homeowners in addressing mosquito problems. That means emptying sources of standing water (flower pots, buckets, etc.), cutting back overgrown vegetation and keeping rain gutters clear of wet leaves. Dunk-style larvicides (Bacillus thuringiensis) can be safely used in birdbaths and ponds, stopping mosquitoes from ever reaching their adult stage. Pumps or fountains that keep the water in garden water features moving also help deter adult mosquitoes from laying eggs.

 Most Bee City USA affiliates regularly table at events, especially farmers’ markets. These smiling volunteers (“pollenteers”) stand ready to share literature, collect emails for newsletter lists, and answer questions about Bee City, pollinators, and more.
 
At Bee City USA, we hope this blog helps you better prepare volunteers to be pollinator advocates at events.
 
Although we’re sure many of you already have some great tabling tricks up your sleeves, coaxing people into a conversation can sometimes pose a challenge. Perhaps you’re new to tabling, or are trying to brainstorm a solution to a tricky scenario, or are simply looking for fresh ideas. Wherever you are in your tabling journey, here are some tips to help make your next event your most productive yet!
 
Setting the Table
​Your table could have a plate or basket filled with colorful foods reliant on pollinators, contrasted with a bland-looking plate or basket filled with a variety of wind-pollinated grains. A lovely vase of diverse, native flowers is always a nice touch—as well as a recommended regional plant list to share with visitors. You can also demonstrate the amazing diversity of the world’s 20,000 bee species with laminated posters. Volunteers could provide a scavenger hunt for children to track down food and other products pollinated by an animal. (Instructions and supplies for a scavenger hunt, as well as artwork for posters for farmers markets, are available here.)
 
Messages That Bring People to Your Table
What should volunteers say to entice the waves of passers-by to their booth?  Here are some simple messages that have worked for us in Asheville, North Carolina, home of the first Bee City USA.

• FOR ADULTS: “Hi! We’re here today talking about pollinator conservation,” or “Would you like to take our pollinator protection pledge?”
• FOR CHILDREN: “Would you like to go on a scavenger hunt or make a bee?” or "Would you like to have flower and bee knuckles?" (See below. You can put your knuckles together to feed the bees flowers!)

By Celeste Ets-Hokin

Have you been wondering about the best flowering plants to include in your bee-friendly garden and the different kinds of bees that each plant might attract? Now there’s an app for that! Get to know North America’s native bees and the plants they love – check out the new Wild Bee ID website and app by Celeste Ets-Hokin and Center for Food Safety. Read the blog below to learn more about our native bees and the story of Wild Bee ID!
 
What are native bees and why should we care about them?
 
As many of you Bee City USA blog readers may know, North America is home to roughly 4000 species of native bees, the premiere pollinators that are essential to the survival of at least three quarters of our region’s flowering plants. You may also be aware that the familiar and iconic honey bee (Apis mellifera), is not one of these bees!  Honey bees, valued for their wax and honey, were brought to North America by European settlers in the 1600’s. Honey bees have since become integral to modern industrial agriculture.
 
But it is our V.I.P. (Very Important Pollinators!) native bees that ensure the healthy reproduction of the trees, shrubs and wildflowers that anchor America's terrestrial ecosystems. Without native bees, these flowering plants would eventually disappear, and along with them the countless species of animals – from tiny birds to giant grizzly bears – that depend upon the plants for food and shelter. But as our natural and semi-natural areas have been steadily diminished by industrial farming and suburban development, native bee populations across North America have suffered alarming declines over the past several decades. The loss of habitat, coupled with pesticide poisoning, have already driven a number of species to extinction, and many others are threatened with a similar fate. 
 
The good news is that we, as individuals from coast to coast, can offer many of our native bee species valuable habitat in our own backyards and community gardens. These adaptive pollinators are always on the lookout for urban and suburban real estate, and when you build it, they will come!

Tip #2:  Go Native! One way to ensure that you are selecting plants that offer local pollinators a good source of pollen and nectar is to choose a variety of native plants for your garden. Studies have shown that native plants are at least four times more attractive than exotics to the native bees in a given region.   
 
Tip #3: Avoid mulch madness! Did you know that 70% of our native bees are ground-nesters? These bees need access to bare, undisturbed ground.  Try to leave areas of your yard free from a thick layer of mulch, as this prevents our ground nesting bees from excavating their nests. Once established, native plants shouldn’t need a thick layer of mulch, and areas where annual wildflower seeds are sown won’t usually present a barrier to ground-nesting bees. They will often find space to nest near the base of these plants. 
 
Tip #4: ID your guests! A good way to know who’s coming to your garden party is to pay attention to the season in which they appear and the flowers they choose to visit. The emergence of native bees is often  timed to their favorite floral resources. For example, mason bees (Osmia) emerge when orchard fruit blossoms appear in the spring. So when you see that shiny blue bee on your apple blossom, you’ll know it’s a mason bee. 

Who likes writing annual reports? Honestly? Probably very few of us.  But here's the rub. If you do some wonderful things, but nobody documents them, did they really ever happen?  Okay, so maybe the people directly involved will remember some of them, for a year or two, but no one will remember all of them.

Ever stumbled on an old college paper you wrote when you were cleaning out a closet and been astounded at how smart you sounded?  What if you hadn't found that paper; would you remember that you once knew a fair amount about some obscure topic?  I certainly wouldn't—and didn't when that happened to me.

Bee City USA & Bee Campus USA Annual Renewal Reports Are Treasure Troves
The fact is, we are receiving information at hyperspeeds these days, and were it not for their annual renewal reports, the pollinator conservation work Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates are doing might be forgotten. We so appreciate the effort it takes for affiliates to share that information with us each year for numerous reasons. As national program managers, we learn how affiliates are engaging their communities in conserving pollinators, and often discover great ideas that other affiliates could replicate. Take the seed collection and giveaway programs that Portland State University and UNC Asheville do. And how about the pollinator garden certification and annual guided tour programs in Ashland and Talent, Oregon?  Seattle, Washington's committee is a broad-based coalition of city department representatives and nonprofits that enhances habitat under utility lines, at the airport, in volunteer-managed patches; and works with the University of Washington and Washington State University to monitor how their habitat augmentation is impacting bee diversity. South Dakota State University, Mineral Area College in Missouri, and Greenwood, South Carolina, grow their own native plants for their pollinator gardens. Morehead State University in Kentucky teaches students to identify pollen in honey.

Annual reports are helping us assemble best practices and guide Bee City USA's resource and educational efforts, but they are also providing institutional memory for affiliates. It's easy to get caught up in planting pollinator gardens and hosting events, and not documenting any of that work. In Asheville, where Bee City USA started, our AmeriCorps member established a fantastic pollinator garden at a city park several years ago and continued to maintain it for three years after she left the AmeriCorps position. If she hadn't contacted me a few days ago to ask if I could locate a replacement volunteer to maintain it, I might have forgotten it entirely.

Now that Bee City USA is seven years old, affiliate staff and volunteers are experiencing turnovers for all of the reasons you'd expect—relocation, new jobs, retirement, illness. And their replacements are asking us to educate them on what was done in the past. When they do, we share all of the annual reports we have. Most affiliates proudly post their annual reports on their own Bee City or Bee Campus web pages and share the reports with their volunteers and communities to remind them of everything they accomplished together the previous year.

Need a Little Lift?
Many of the reports on 2018 are already published on our website.  Soon, we should have all reports for last year's accomplishments published. You can read Bee City reports here and Bee Campus reports here.  

Whenever you need a little lift, we hope you will take a few moments to read some of the reports. Despite the busy lives we all lead, people across America are finding the time, mostly as volunteers, to welcome pollinating bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, beetles, wasps, bats, and flies into their yards, traffic islands, parks, school yards, church parking lots, businesses and roadsides. They are telling their neighbors how they can integrate native plants into their landscaping and reduce herbicide, insecticide and fungicide use and say hello to the magical creatures that enable nearly ninety percent of the world's flowering plant species to reproduce. (Glorious blossoms and fruits aren't so bad either.)

Passover, Easter, Earth Day, honey bee swarm season, World Bee Day, preparation for National Pollinator Week in June, and more!  What's NOT happening in spring? 

Every time I look out my window or walk outside, I can barely contain myself. The planet seems to be shedding its winter clothes and loudly inhaling and exhaling to ooze millions of shades of lush green colors. One day nothing seems to be happening with one of our flame azaleas, and the next day it's awash in glorious blossoms. If it makes me feel almost drunk and giddy, what must the pollinators be feeling?

How about America's 40+ species of fuzzy bumble bees?  Mated bumble queens hid away all winter and are now building up their few hundred-strong colonies of worker bees. You can report your sightings to Bumble Bee Watch, ​a community science project that is working to broaden our understanding of bumble bee distribution and will inform future conservation efforts.

Have you seen any monarch butterflies  or hummingbirds migrating northward? You can report your sightings at Journey North and witness the migration progressing up the continent.

How about the ground nesting mining or digger bees?  Seventy per cent of the world's 20,000 bee species nest in the ground! Following Portland, Oregon's Sabin Elementary "tickle bees" has become a Xerces tradition.

Bees and other pollinators make great neighbors, even in urban areas! Positive stories of pollinator species returning after decades-long absences let us know that if we provide habitat, there's hope that they will return. The silver digger bees' return to San Francisco's Presidio was a recent one. In an interesting twist, the Presidio is actually the last known habitat of the Xerces blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces), for which the Xerces Society is named. Although it’s too late for the Xerces blue, we are pleased to hear that the Presidio’s habitat is recovering enough to support more pollinators!

As I have fallen in love with ever-fascinating and diverse pollinators this past decade, the year is increasingly measured by the arrival of the pollinator of the season.  This spring, I fully intend to witness my first busy leafcutter bee trimming off a leaf medallion to wallpaper her nursery!  What's your pollinator-watching goal for 2019?

By Phyllis Stiles, Pollinator Champion & Founder of Bee City USA (2012). Bee City USA has been an initiative of the Xerces Society since 2018

As the days grow brighter and the grass greener, most of us experience some measure of spring fever. Here are five things Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates can do to take advantage of that primal urge to grab a shovel!

1. Tell your community that urban and suburban landscapes matter.
​The National Pollinator Garden Network (with which Bee City USA and the Xerces Society are partners) announced vastly exceeding the goal of one million pollinator gardens on February 27. In the announcement, they referenced a growing body of research showing significant impact from small scale gardens. While honey bees usually fly in about a three-mile radius from their hives, some native bees have very small home ranges and may fly as little as 500 feet from where they emerge as adults. Therefore, they need a succession of flowers nearby throughout the growing season. Bee taxonomist for the US Geological Survey and coauthor of Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World, Sam Droege said, “A little goes a long way. Homeowners should think of their gardens as restitution. Most American gardens have access to a hundred species of bees. Indeed, Prince George’s County, Maryland, hosts 260 bee species in contrast to the entire United Kingdom which hosts only 250 bee species. In some cases, when we plant a diversity of native plants, we can attract even more pollinator species than may have been there before.” 

2. Promote the recommended native wildflower and tree species list that Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates commit to create and disseminate.
Pollinators co-evolved over thousands to millions of years with native plants for their mutual benefit. By planting exotic trees, shrubs, and plants that are often unrecognizable or unpalatable as food to many native pollinators, we have degraded pollinators’ food sources. Making your community more pollinator-friendly starts with incorporating a diversity of native flowering plants. Many trees, shrubs and grasses that don’t even flower act as larval hosts for hungry butterfly and moth caterpillars. Others offer nectar—a pollinator’s carbohydrate—for native bees, moths, beetles, flies, butterflies, and hummingbirds, and their pollen provides bees with essential protein, fats, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. 

3. Promote growers and retailers that sell native plants.
Pollinator advocates can ardently encourage the public to plant natives, but if those plants are not available for purchase, the public can’t plant them. Nurseries are businesses, and businesses need customers to buy their products or services. Since the nurseries that supply native plants are often very small, their tolerance for risk is smaller than larger businesses. If they’re selling trees and shrubs, they have to plan several years ahead before the tree or shrub matures enough to sell.  Likewise, if they sell perennials, they don’t want to have to overwinter them if they don’t sell. If you want to be able to find native plants, it’s important to support those local nurseries and retailers. Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates can promote nursery openings and spring plant sales, and highlight the pollinators to be supported by certain native plants. Guest editorials, letters to the editor, news stories, E-newsletters, emails, and social media posts can bring the customers those growers and retailers need to survive. The more people ask for particular native plants, the greater the chance the growers will propagate them for the next season. We also recommend using the Xerces Society’s Milkweed Seed Finder and Pollinator Conservation Resource Center to locate, support, and celebrate vendors near you!  

Most of us picture blooming meadows when we think of pollinator habitat. While wildflowers are essential for supplying nectar and pollen, a small bee must expend enormous energy to fly to flowers strewn across a landscape. In contrast, a single blooming tree offers a flower feast. To highlight this point, the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign’s annual poster for 2016 was “Trees for Bees.”
 
Bee Culture Magazine recently ran an article about the importance of hedgerows and trees—still an agricultural norm as late as the early 1900s—for providing pollinator forage, as well as nesting and overwintering habitat.  The Xerces Society wrote this article about the benefits of hedgerows in farm landscapes in 2016.