Cultivating a Healthy Englewood for Pollinators

In the winter months honey bees gather in a ball around their queen and shake to stay warm. This vibrating ball slowly travels throughout their hive eating the honey reserves they have worked so hard for. In Colorado there are 946 native bees, not just honey bees. These indigenous bees play a key role in our agriculture and wild landscapes. 

Pollination is a keystone process in biodiversity: 80 percent of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, including vertebrates and mammals - but the main pollinators are insects.  Bees, birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world’s crop production; this means that one of every three bites of food we eat has grown thanks to a pollinator.

To support pollinators plant a variety of native plants that bloom throughout the growing season.  And let those dandelions grow! They are the first food source for bees after the long cold winter. Bees also love the wild clover, common sage, and anything wild that comes out of the ground and flowers.

Ask your local nurseries for pesticide-free plants to avoid the neonicotinoids, which are a new class of systemic pesticides that can cause an entire plant to have a pesticide within it – leaves, pollen, etc.   Pesticides and herbicides are intended for specific pest species, but studies show that both immediate and long-term lethal consequences happen for non-target species such as bees, butterflies, and birds.

See the EWG’s ‘Clean 15’ and ‘Dirty Dozen’ lists for easy grocery shopping references on what foods tested low and high for pesticides each year.  Volunteers are needed to help plant the statewide pollinator highways - just check out the People and Pollinators Action Network website.

Let’s reduce and phase out biocide usage in Englewood for the health of our pollinators, people, and environment.  A large list of alternatives to biocides can be found at the Moms Across America website.