[Pollinator] Washington Post: Need Pollinators? Time for Plan B

[Jennifer Tsang]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062000
548.html

 

Need Pollinators? Time for Plan B

By Adrian Higgins
Thursday, June 21, 2007; H01

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
Chevy
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/Chevy+Chase?tid=informline
>  Chase area of Washington, the 33-year-old trade association lawyer is
tending cucumber plants, zucchini, tomatoes and a bunch of herbs.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

>From San
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/San+Francisco?tid=informli
ne>  Francisco, Adams directs the North American Pollinator Protection
Campaign, established in 1999 after a symposium at the National Zoo.

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.

Adams'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, http://www.pollinator.org, offers specific tips on
encouraging and protecting them.

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.

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.

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.

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 U.S.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/U.S.+Postal+Service?tid=in
formline>  Postal Service 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.

Last fall, a National
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topics/National+Academy+of+Scienc
es?tid=informline>  Academy of Sciences 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.

The study came out in October, about the same time as the first reports of
CCD in honeybee hives. Adams 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.

"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.

Shreck says she has seen a couple of honeybees and a bumblebee, and has
harvested one small cucumber so far this season.

"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."

 

 

Jennifer Tsang
Coevolution Institute <http://coevolution.org> 
423 Washington St. 5th Fl.
San Francisco, CA 94111-2339
T: 415.362.1137

F: 415.362.3070

www.nappc.org

www.pollinator.org

 

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