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.

If you’re interested in pollinator conservation policy at the local, state, national, or international level, you may want to read a groundbreaking report in Environmental Science and Policy. Dr. Damon Hall is Assistant Professor at the School of Natural Resources in the Department of Biomedical, Biological & Chemical Engineering, at the University of Missouri (affectionately known as Mizzou), a certified Bee Campus USA affiliate since 2016.  Hall teamed up with Rebecca Steiner of Saint Louis University to publish, “Insect Pollinator Conservation Policy Innovations: Lessons for Lawmakers.”

Until February 24, 2019, anyone can download the report for free using the author’s link:
https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YLKd5Ce0rVvlT
 
The report provides a content analysis of 109 insect pollinator policies passed by U.S. state-level legislatures from 2000 to 2017—notably both before and then after publicity about colony collapse disorder, neonicotinoid insecticides, and highly-visible bee kills. Thirty-six states passed between one and nine laws each that fit into six categories: 1) Laws tightening apicultural management: bees as livestock; 2) Evolving views of bees as beneficial insects: laws to review pesticides; 3) Addressing pollinator declines: task forces on pollinator health; 4) Creating and managing habitats for pollinators;  5) Policy for increasing awareness of insect pollinators; and, 6) Research for insect pollinators.
 
From a positive perspective, these state level actions often bridge political divides and are predictors of what’s to come at the national and international levels. Moreover, they show lawmakers are increasingly seeing pollinators as beneficial insects which changes how lawmakers address pesticides. 
 
The authors organized the laws into a searchable database, characterizing policy trends and documenting the spectrum of policy innovations. Hall says, “These 109 new laws cover apiculture, pesticides, pollinator awareness, pollinator habitat, and research. Together, they narrate an evolution of bureaucratic thinking on insects.” 
 
Perhaps the most comprehensive habitat protection signed into law (MN HF976, 2013) is Minnesota’s Pollinator Habitat Program, requiring the Commissioner of Agriculture to develop best management practices and habitat restoration guidelines for pollinator habitat enhancement, and report to the agriculture and natural resource legislative committee. The report, developed in collaboration with the Pollution Control Agency, Board of Water and Soil Resources, and representatives of the University of Minnesota, must include proposals for establishing a “pollinator bank” to preserve pollinator species, creating “pollinator nesting and foraging habitat…including establishment of pollinator reserves or refuges,” and "provide criteria to evaluate neonicotinoid pesticides."
 
As Americans complain that the government is often gridlocked at the national level, Hall says, “I wanted to see the actual points of agreement at state levels around insect pollinator conservation. In so doing, we could argue that these more than 100 policies passed by state legislatures constitute points of consensus worth exploring for national policies and international agreements. After all, sustaining pollinators crosses rural and urban, and left and right, divides.”

Across the country, individuals and communities are realizing how vital it is to sustain pollinators. In honor of the Winter Solstice, a time of reflection, we asked Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates for their favorite pollinator conservation highlight from 2018.  Here are some of their responses.

Delta College, University Center, Michigan - Linda A. Petee, Sustainability & Risk Management Coordinator 
​"Delta College was honored to join Bee Campus USA this year as the first and only Michigan-certified campus! With the support of the campus community, our Pollinator Alliance Team designated a section of our natural area to develop as a bee habitat trail. We’re excited to plan plantings, interpretive signage, student club projects, community-learning activities, and tours."

Talent, Oregon - Dolly Warden, Chair, Bee City USA Talent Committee
"The most gratifying experience Bee City USA Talent had this year occurred on the 5th of December when the Talent City Council unanimously approved the proposed Integrated Pest Management Report and Recommendation. We first began working on the goal of an Integrated Pest Management Policy in March of 2014, so it has been almost five years. Although many people are responsible for the final outcome, it was Jim Thompson's persistence that saw it to the finish."

Garden City, Idaho - Judy Snow, Chair, Bee City USA - Garden City Committee
"The highlight of the year for me was visiting our pollinator garden and observing the hundreds (thousands?) of bees and other pollinators who showed up in only its second year. It was truly amazing to see the bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds visiting the flowers. We had leafcutter bees make their home in our bee boxes and observed solitary bee homes in the ground. It has proven to me that....If you build it, they will come!"

San Francisco, California - Peter Brastow, Senior Environmental Specialist, Nature, Ecosystems and Biodiversity,  San Francisco Department of Environment​
"In light of the ongoing insect apocalypse and the continuing racial and economic inequity in access to nature, we are working to meet both conservation and justice goals by piloting the installation of a local native plant landscape in a workforce development model at affordable housing sites in San Francisco."

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio - Danielle Trevino, Biological Scientist
"My most inspirational moment was from one of our smaller projects…a monarch waystation we planted with the children from the base youth center in the spring. The kids have taken such great care of it and now have a genuine interest the habitat and the many pollinators that call it home. It was such a small thing, but it is a reminder that big changes start with small steps."

Norcross, Georgia - Mike Brose, Sustainable Norcross Committee
"When I received the signed resolution, I was happy to know that the City of Norcross is now beehav’n!"

Carrboro, North Carolina - Laura Janway, Environmental Planner
"As a new member of Carrboro Town staff, I was excited to see the Town and community’s commitment to pollinators through current and future pollinator gardens, installations of native bee nesting boxes, and educational outreach. I am inspired by the dedication from Bee Cities across the country and hope to keep up the momentum in 2019." 

Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia - Jennifer Kraft Leavey, Ph.D., Principal Academic Professional, College of Sciences
"My favorite urban pollinator-related moment of the year was getting a call about a "swarm" of bees on an island of grass in the middle of a giant parking lot on the campus of Georgia Tech in downtown Atlanta. When I got there the island was covered in mining bee nests that look like little ant hills. Just above there were a cloud of these precious solitary bees working on creating the next generation of mining bees.  By the next week you couldn't even tell they had been there." 

Hillsborough , North Carolina - Stephanie Trueblood, Public Space Manager
"My favorite pollinator moment this year was the day when the swallowtail caterpillars showed up on our bronze fennel. I had heard from friends that they had arrived but our plants were empty. My kids and I checked our garden every day for more than a week and then SURPRISE, one morning we found 10 happy fat caterpillars munching away. We were thrilled.:)"

Are you mesmerized by milkweed fluff? If so, you are not alone!

If you saved your fluff, you may want to have a holiday craft session to turn it into ornaments.  Buy inexpensive clear glass Christmas balls from a craft store, and working inside a large paper bag, use your finger or a pencil to stuff a lot, or a little, fluff into the ball before capping it off with the hanger.  (We suggest the bag because one friend discovered the cause of her printer problems was fluff that worked its way inside the rollers!)

True fluff ornament connoisseurs insert unopened fluff in the narrow glass ball opening, much like putting a collapsed miniature ship in a bottle, but without popping it open afterward.  This showcases the fluff's elegant, silky growth pattern.

After the holidays, you may want to remove any seeds in the ornaments and plant them in time to sprout before the spring monarch migration.