Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Protecting your Pollinators

Ms. M. Stewart has again lead me to a new blog post ( I admit with trepidation). The latest issue of Martha Stewart Living has a two page article stressing the value of honey bees, but also of the bee species that are native to North America. According to the article, 4,000 species of bees buzzed about prior to English colonist introducing the honey bee, and the chemicals as well as the vast monocultures of industrial agriculture.
The Xerces Society and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign are two references suggested by the article for anyone interested in learning what they can do to help all of our pollinating species. The Xerces Society describes itself as "An international nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting biological diversity through invertebrate conservation" as part of their pollinator protection program their website houses great information on things you can do to provide shelter, food and a safe environment for some of our own native pollinators, including native bee populations. The website for The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign is a bit more straight forward. I went on the site looking for a list of easy plants to add to my garden that would benefit native pollinators like the Nasturtium recommended in the MSL article. After reading the site I see it may not be that simple, but I am going to try and learn and do what I can for native pollinators and honey bees alike.

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