News

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Do you have a glossy green front lawn? What is this, the 1950s? Are our conceptions of gardening outdated and harming the planet? It turns out, yes, they are! So what should we do? Check out this article in The Guardian to learn how the "perfect lawn" is harming our pollinators and guidance on how you can create and maintain a pollinator-friendly garden. 2. Feds’ Plan To Save Endangered Rusty Patched Bumble Bee Misses Mark, Critics Say Four years after...

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Helping trees survive the drought Trees, both urban and rural, especially our native trees, provide habitats for birds, insects, and other animals. Trees provide food and nesting sites for many of our native bees, the shade that can reduce our energy use during extreme heat and help clean the air of pollutants. And as droughts become more intense and frequent, the trees are hurting.Learn what you can do to help our trees (and bees) in times of drought in this article published...

Global climate change already has observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have melted, extreme weather is more frequent and intense, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and plants are blooming earlier. Figuring out how something as complex as climate change affects bee populations is challenging but not impossible. Recent research has found that climate change affects our pollinators on a physiological level and alters phenology. Since animal pollinators, especially bees, are crucial to our global food supply, we wanted to use this post to explain the connection between climate change and bee declines in a bit more detail. A Crash Course on...

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability. 1. Support Saving America's Pollinators Act! During Pollinator Week 2021 in June, U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Jim McGovern (D-MA) reintroduced Saving America’s Pollinators Act (SAPA) to reverse ongoing declines in wild and managed pollinators. The bill suspends the use of neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides and other pesticides harmful to bees and other pollinators until an independent board of experts determines that they are safe to use, based on a strong scientific assessment. Click here to tell your congressional reps to...