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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt'>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062000548.html<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Need Pollinators? Time for Plan B</span></font></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>By Adrian
Higgins<br>
Thursday, June 21, 2007; H01</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Three seasons
after moving to a house with a yard, Mara Shreck is trying her hand at a modest
vegetable garden this summer. In her small plot in the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/Chevy+Chase?tid=informline">Chevy
Chase</a> area of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>,
the 33-year-old trade association lawyer is tending cucumber plants, zucchini,
tomatoes and a bunch of herbs.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
squash and cukes, part of the great cucurbit family, are beginning to produce
their bold orange-yellow blossoms. This should be a moment of joyful
anticipation, but this year hopes are coupled with fears. "Now that
they're flowering, they need to be pollinated, but I haven't seen any
bees," she said. "I'm concerned."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Disappearing
bees -- honeybees -- have worried those who understand their importance, but
the garden is also full of other pollinators. We can also thank a mob of other
industrious helpers: other bees, large and small; familiar and obscure
butterflies; even nectar-guzzling bats. Sadly, many of these are facing tough times
as well.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Pollination
is one of those givens in nature: Plants and pollinators forged a partnership
millions of years ago that is so efficient and seamless it continues largely
unnoticed by most humans, creatures notoriously fixated by their own drive for
cross-pollination. In the garden, the flower entices an insect or other animal
to snack on pollen and nectar in exchange for moving extra pollen to another
bloom or plant for fertilization. The bee makes honey, the plant sets seed.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
equation has been disrupted in recent months as beekeepers report a strange and
unsettling phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, or CCD. Honeybees
leave the hive, but they don't return. Millions of stacked boxes, which should
be home to billions of bees, have fallen empty and silent. Publicity about this
has engendered a genuine alarm by people who don't normally think about the
logistics of food production. About a third of our crops rely on pollinators.
For agriculture, that almost entirely means honeybees, an amenable, prolific
and efficient insect that lends itself to human management.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>As
scientists seek to figure out why honeybees, brought here centuries ago by
colonists, are missing in action, Laurie Davies Adams wants us to spare a
thought for the other pollinators out there. Their ranks include a wide array
of native bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, moths, skippers, beetles,
hummingbirds and bats.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>From <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/San+Francisco?tid=informline">San
Francisco</a>, <st1:place w:st="on">Adams</st1:place> directs the North
American Pollinator Protection Campaign, established in 1999 after a symposium
at the National Zoo.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Working
in a loose partnership with environmental organizations, scientists, public and
corporate land managers and agricultural and horticultural groups, among
others, the campaign has succeeded in getting Congress to establish June 24 to
June 30 as the first National Pollinator Week.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><st1:place w:st="on"><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Adams</span></font></st1:place>'s group sees home
gardeners like Shreck, who are concerned about pollinator decline, as vital
helpers in the protection of pollinators. The campaign's Web site, <a
href="http://www.pollinator.org">http://www.pollinator.org</a>, offers specific
tips on encouraging and protecting them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One
strategy is to plant colorful and long-flowering perennials and annuals, and to
group them in masses. Among the flowers in my garden that seem to draw all
kinds of insect pollinators are goldenrods; any composite, including
coneflowers, sunflowers and asters; the eupatoriums, including joe-pye weed, and
lots of the stellar annuals now around, including improved strains of petunias
and impatiens.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I'm not a
huge fan of zinnias or marigolds, but they are pollinator magnets, too. Plants
that are members of the carrot family produce domed flowers called umbels that
seem to draw a lot of small pollinating bees and other insects. That group
would include dill and angelica as well as parsley allowed to bloom. This year,
I let some overwintering parsnips go to flower, and their resulting yellow
umbels have drawn a lot of interesting little bees, ants and ladybird beetles.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
second important way home gardeners affect pollinators is in their use, or
nonuse, of pesticides. Many products are highly toxic to bees, and if you must
use them, do so in the correct concentrations and at a time of day when
pollinators are not on the wing. Be careful about overspray and windy
conditions, especially if your drift may harm your neighbor's garden. If you
have a lawn and yard service, educate yourself about the company's sprays,
methods and employee training.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A bill in
the Senate would use existing farm bill conservation programs to encourage
farmers and ranchers to establish and conserve habitat for pollinators, and the
<a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/U.S.+Postal+Service?tid=informline">U.S.
Postal Service</a> will launch four stamps on June 29 marking Pollinator Week,
featuring a Southern dog-faced butterfly, Morrison's bumblebees, a lesser
long-nosed bat and a calliope hummingbird.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Last
fall, a <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/National+Academy+of+Sciences?tid=informline">National
Academy of Sciences</a> study concluded that many of these pollinators were in
decline but that more data were needed to establish the extent of the problem.
It also urged better protection for native bees against introduced pests and
diseases, and measures to encourage the greater cultivation of bumblebees and
other pollinators.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The study
came out in October, about the same time as the first reports of CCD in
honeybee hives. <st1:place w:st="on">Adams</st1:place> said the honeybee losses
are "a very clear wake-up call" that we need pollinators, that they
are under threat and that we need to stay connected to the green world and its
health.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It's
a very important connection we can't afford to lose, and we will lose it if we
get paved over, sealed in and glued to whatever [electronic] screen" we
watch, she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Shreck
says she has seen a couple of honeybees and a bumblebee, and has harvested one
small cucumber so far this season.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I'm
feeling a little bit better, but I would like it if there were swarms of bees
pollinating my cucumbers," she said. "I'm just concerned about the
whole environmental implications."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>Jennifer Tsang<br>
<a href="http://coevolution.org">Coevolution Institute</a><br>
<st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">423 Washington St.</st1:address></st1:Street>
5th Fl.<br>
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">CA</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode w:st="on">94111-2339</st1:PostalCode></st1:place><br>
T: 415.362.1137</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'>F: 415.362.3070</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.nappc.org">www.nappc.org</a></span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color="#004000" face=Verdana><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#004000'><a
href="http://www.pollinator.org">www.pollinator.org</a></span></font><font
color="#004000"><span style='color:#004000'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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