Practical Conservation

From the Pollinator Partners in co-op with the Forest Service – a nicely illustrated publication on the basics of bee biology and an overview of major bee pollinators.

“Beautiful wildflowers, perhaps as alluring to bees as they are to people, might someday be planted in “bee pastures.” These floral havens would be created to help propagate larger generations of healthy, hard-working bees.”

From SARE, a new conservation planning document for pollinators. 

“ ‘Managing Alternative Pollinators: A Handbook for Beekeepers, Growers and Conservationists‘ is a first-of-its-kind, step-by-step, full-color guide for rearing and managing bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees and other bee species that provide pollination alternatives to the rapidly declining honey bee.”

Thanks to my graduate student Jolie Goldenetz-Dollar  for finding this.

The Xerces Society has re-organized their pollinator resources – now you can get regionally-specific information on native plants, pesticides, pollinator conservation, and native bee nest management.  If you are coming here for pollinator resources, hop over there because they do pollinators better than anyone.

227 in New York City!!   Maybe there is hope for an agricultural urban Detroit.

June 22-27, 2009 is National Pollinator Week to recognize the importance of pollinators to our food system.  The Pollinator Partnership and US Fish & Wildlife Service both have lots of resources about pollinators in recognition of this week.

Here are two videos for this week.

One about the problems pollinators face:

And one about what NRCS is doing and can do to help:

A new research advance entitled “Evaluating Pre-emergence Herbicides for Establishing Native Grasses and Forbs” from Mississippi State’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center.  And yes, it’s a shameless plug for my own research.

From Native Pollinators in Agriculture Project.

Southeast AGNET discusses the reasons for and dangers of importing bees….

If ever there was a reason to start creating habitat for native pollinators, this is it.