A Human's Guide to Pollinators by Zoe Hall

Pollinator Weekly A HUMAN’S GUIDE TO POLLINATORS

EVERY THING YOU’VE WANTED TO KNOW! WRITTEN BY HUMANS FOR HUMANS

Did you know that you can pay a beekeeper for BEES? There are roughly 1600 migratory beekeepers in the U.S. They ship their bees all across the world!

Commercial honey bees provide pollination services for a great majority of our crops, adding an estimated $15 billion to the U.S. economy.

But they aren’t doing it alone, thanks to...

1

Wild bees are among a great variety of pollinators on Earth.

These scrappy, patchy little guys perform 50% of pollination on farms for FREE!

Well, almost.

The Rusty Patched Bumble Bee is the first bee species to be listed as endangered by the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Their demise started with a bee disease spread by commercial bees from Europe, but it’s much larger than that.

Wild bees are dying from other human practices like urban development and pesticide use. An estimated 25% of the wild bee population is in danger.

This doesn’t bode well for Earth’s ecosystems.

Bees are a keystone species, which means many organisms rely on their pollen-spreading for survival.

Here are just a few crops dependent on bee pollination: Tomatoes Apples Almonds Peppers Cucmbers Berries Melons Pumpkins Bears eat the berries, birds eat the seeds, humans enjoy the nature paths and fresh pro-

-duce.

It may take a while for it all to disappear, but we are certainly headed in that direction.

Never fear! Humans got us into this mess, and we can get ourselves out of it.

Listing a species on the Endangered Species List is a huge step towards its protection, because the list requires governments to establish protected areas for the endangered species and consider environmentally-friendly alternatives when developing new projects.

To get the basics, follow the EPA’s pollinator protection guidelines for governments, or better yet, apply to be a BEE CITY! (Go to www. beecityusa.org.)

In

the

meantime,

donate to organizations dedicated to pollinator research and protection (Xerxes and Pollinator. com are a few) and support your wild pollinators at home by planting the things they like.

Resources

Need more garden guidance?

Go to thehoneybeeconservancy.org for all the deets.

Apply to be a Bee City at beecityusa.org

Want to know more about this extinction thing?

Read the IPBES report!

It’s super easy to read, and outlines exactly what we’ve gotten ourselves into.

THANK YOU!

C r e at e d by : Z o e H a l l p l a n e t z o e h a l l .c o m

Sources https://www.uaex.edu/farm-ranch/special-programs/beekeeping/pollinators.aspx https://www.intechopen.com/books/beekeeping-and-bee-conservation-advances-in-research/rearing-bumble-bees-for-research-and-profit-practical-and-ethical-considerations https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=295868 https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/more-than-honey-a-new-documentaryoffers-spectacular-close-ups-of-bees-mid-flight-and-perspective-on-the-worldwide-honeybee-crisis/ https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/extension/wild-pollinators/ xerxes.com nrdc.org