The Pollination Home Pagewww.pollinator.comGet the buzz on a diversity of bees and pollenation topics .
© Tom Meade
The Xerces Society(503 ) 232 - 6639www.xerces.orgXerces has fact tack on pollinator conservation and shop programs to safeguard the diversity of native insects .
The North American Pollinator Protection Campaignwww.nappc.orgMore than 90 affiliated organizations , working to implement , advance and support a open , continent - extensive co-ordinated Action Plan to encourage activities that assure increases in numbers and wellness of both resident and migratory pollinating animals .
The Pollinator Partnershipwww.pollinator.orgThis site includes a pollinator curriculum for Grades 3 - 6 , plus more resources .
Many of the worldly concern ’s leading researchers are searching for clew about a mysterious ill kill America ’s love bee , and other scientist are say it ’s time to re - examine , reinstate and protect the continent ’s native pollinators .
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Senate have declared June 22 - 28 the 2d Annual National Pollinator Week , celebrating the insects , dame and chiropteran that convey pollen from one plant to another .
Meanwhile , beekeepers across the country are fall behind grand of honey - bee colonies to a phenomenon that is being called Colony Collapse Disorder ( CCD ) .
dear bee help develop one out of every three chomp of food Americans take . Even dairy farm cows and Capricorn depend on clover and alfalfa pollinated by beloved bees and other bee .
The value of honey - bee pollination in the United States is $ 14 billion a year according to Maryann Frazier , senior extension agent and honey bee specialist at Penn State University .
Honey bees are not native to the Americas ; Europeans brought them here in the 1600s for dearest . Like some of the other brute the Europeans brought with them , dear bee soon became ferine .
In the 1980s , however , two kinds of epenthetic mites wiped out feral bee colonies and threatened hived bee , too .
Today , bees also face threats from fungal and bacterial unwellness , incursive beehive beetles , and the mysterious new CCD . It has kill K of dear - bee colonies in the 27 Department of State where it has been place .
A professional beekeeper in Pennsylvania turn a loss 1,000 of his 1,200 colonies . Even though CCD has not been identified in several state , it does not mean the problem is not present there .
© Tom MeadeBecome a BeekeeperIt ’s dumbfound more expensive to keep beloved bees , but beekeeping is a rewarding pursuit . Even if there were no honey or 30 percent increase in crop productivity from honey bee , beekeeping is at once stimulant and ruminative . There is nothing comparable to spending a summer afternoon in a bee yard , watching and listening to “ the girls , ” chiliad of them , at workplace .
To get started with new equipment and two , three - punt packet of bees ( about 21,000 bees and two queens ) , plan to pass $ 200 to $ 300 .
Many states have beekeeper ’ associations that tender winter bee school , and some , such as the Backyard Beekeepers Association of Connecticut , also render mentors .
County file name extension agents can leave contact entropy .
Do It YourselfRead “ The Basics of Beekeeping ” to learn more about bees , historically an activity for low Farmer who need to make their own love .
This spring , entomologists and other researchers from around the country met at the Union bee laboratory in Beltsville , Md. , to talk about this deadly new ailment .
The symptom are unusual , say Frazier . “ One hebdomad , the bees can be quite strong and a week later , they have dwindled down to nothing . ”
Beekeepers say it appears that the bees go out to scrounge for flush nectar and pollen , and then forget how to get back to the hive .
Frazier says that honey - bee colonies may be collapsing for a variety of reasons , include diseases that mites may be carrying , a newfangled fungal pathogen , pesticide that some beekeepers or sodbuster may be using , poor nutrition or a compounding of several factor .
Some scientist think the flop of honey bees may be a clarion call to pay up attention to native pollinator : an figure 4,500 coinage of other bees , wasps , flies , butterflies , birds and bat .
We ’ve put “ all of our pollination eggs in the dearest - bee basketball hoop , ” Mace Vaughan , preservation managing director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation enjoin the Christian Science Monitor . “ We ask more handbasket . ”
The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign is urging farmers and ranchers to enter in the campaign ’s movement to economize native pollinator and the habitats pollinator require .
aboriginal dirt ball can provide much of the pollenation American crops need , but farm and ranch lands that support pollinators are melt at the alarming rate of 3,000 Akko a day , according to the campaign .
The campaign ask landowners to provide pollinator - favorable habitat containing wild flower that may be considered weed .
Some wild pollinators , such as the heavily - working Orchard Mason bee , welfare from nesting logs that can be built in any workshop or shoal classroom . Avoid the employment of chemical substance insecticides and treat pollinators not as pests , but as mate .
Paying tribute to pollinators , the U.S. Postal Service is releasing a four - postage stamp set depicting two Morrison ’s bumble bee , a Calliope Hummingbird , a Lesser recollective - nosed at-bat and a Southern Dogface butterfly stroke .
“ Farmers see the connection between plants and pollinator every 24-hour interval , ” say Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Chick Conner . “ Thanks to these beautiful stamps , that same point is illustrated for everyone . ”
Build a Bee HouseAttract good Orchard Mason bees by drill 5/16 - inch kettle of fish in a tree diagram stump or other standing fifth wheel that faces the morning sun . The drill bit replicates holes a peckerwood would make and can be fill with the eggs of nesting Mason bees .
To make a nesting cylinder block : 1 ) habituate a piece of wood at least 4 inch thick ; 2 ) Drill 5/16 - inch hollow that are at least ¾ of an column inch apart ; 3 ) Hang the cylinder block on a building or tree diagram , face the cockcrow sun .
Large imbibition straws , stuffed as a bundle in an erstwhile soup can and attached to the cheery side of a structure , also draw in Mason bees that lay their eggs in the spring .
Manufactured Mason bee houses are available from Beediverse , on-line atwww.beediverse.com
