News — Native Plants

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t (The Conversation) Varroa mites – notorious honey bee parasites – have recently reached Australian shores, detected at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales last year. If they establish here, there would be significant implications for agricultural food security, as honey bees are heavily relied on for the pollination of many crops. However, while Australia is the last continent to be...

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. She ripped up her manicured lawn and challenged the norms of gardening stories (npr.org, by Melissa Block) "I love a person who talks kindly to plants," poet Camille Dungy writes in her new contemplative memoir. And for sure, Dungy can be counted among those who do exactly that. In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, Dungy describes her years-long project to transform her weed-filled, water-hogging, monochromatic lawn in suburban Fort Collins, Colo., into a pollinator's paradise, packed instead...

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. "New unusual bee species discovered with dog-like snout" (Phys.org) A new native bee species with a dog-like "snout" has been discovered in Perth bushland though Curtin-led research that sheds new light on our most important pollinators. Published in the Journal of Hymenoptera Research, author Dr. Kit Prendergast, from the Curtin School of Molecular and Life Sciences, has named the new species after her pet dog Zephyr after noticing a protruding part of the insect's face looked similar to a dog's...

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. "These Are My Most Trusted Native Plants For Restoration And Here’s Why" (Anna Murray, Xerces Society) I am a pollinator habitat specialist, which means that I plant a lot of plants. In my 15 years of growing native plants in nurseries and restoring habitats in national parks, college campuses, home gardens and farms, I estimate that I have personally grown or planted over 90,000 native plants and facilitated the planting of over 260,000. Here are a few native plants that...