Plants have certain traits that entice pollinators such as flower color, shape and scent. Bees prefer purple, blue, orange, or yellow flowers with short tubes or no tubes that are easily accessible. Butterflies favor white, pink, red, yellow, or purple flowers with a place to perch while they sip on nectar. Hummingbirds love flowers in vivid shades of red, yellow, and purple with a tubular shape that they can access with their long narrow beaks.
Pollinators Love Color
There was more bad news on the honeybee front last week. A U.S. Department of Agriculture report found that honeybee losses in managed colonies—the kind that beekeepers rent out to farmers—hit 42 percent this year. That number grabbed most of the headlines, but there was more troublesome data below the fold. The magic number in beekeeping is 18.7 percent. Population losses below that level are sustainable; lose any more, though, and the colony is heading toward zero. A startling two-thirds of beekeepers in the USDA survey reported losses above the threshold, suggesting that the pollination industry is in trouble. For the first time, the USDA reported more losses in summer than winter. Experts can’t explain the reversal—especially since the colony collapse disorder epidemic that peaked several years ago seems to have abated. The summer losses may have a single, unknown cause, or a group of known and intensifying causes, such as pesticides or mites.
Can We Live Without Bees
Nature needs our help. It is under siege from habitat loss, the use of toxic chemicals, and climate change – all man-made ills. And yet our lives depend on a healthy natural world. The good news is that each one of us has the power to help create such a world, where we can feel awe and wonder and gratitude at the beauty of nature merely by stepping outside. Imagine what we can accomplish when we join forces with neighbors, creating green corridors woven together by the sharing of seeds, seedlings, cuttings, and knowledge, and filled with threatened and endangered native plants that provide sustenance for important and beautiful wild creatures.
“IN WILDNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD"