Bee City USA April 2018 E-News
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It's Spring and Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA affiliates are buzzing to keep up with mama mason bees like the one in the photo above. As she took a break from nest building and egg laying during the spring rain, we opened the door of our bee box to peek through the plexiglass window at all the cells she constructed from mud. If you look very closely, you can see a perfect whitish egg laid against each yellow pollen ball. As she rests on her side, the pollen on this adult bee's belly gives her identity away. Unlike most bee species, mason and leafcutter bees carry pollen underneath their abdomens rather than on their back legs.
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Bee City USA Certifies 100th Affiliate!
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Bee City USA®, a national nonprofit organization founded in 2012 to make America’s landscaping paradigm more PC (“pollinator conscious”), has reached a major milestone. We have just certified our 100th affiliate--Salisbury, Maryland!
Salisbury, Maryland, Mayor Jacob Day, said, “We feel like we’ve won the lottery! Not only are we excited to embark on this new campaign to welcome vital pollinators to Salisbury, we were lucky enough to be the 100th affiliate to be certified. We’re really buzzing now!”
A special welcome to the 11 cities and campuses certified so far in 2018: Mount Holly and Highlands, North Carolina; Mountain Home, Idaho; Salisbury, Maryland; Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO); Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY); College of Lake County (Grayslake, IL); Washington College (Chestertown, MD); Owen Community College (Findlay, OH); College of Southern Maryland (LaPlata, MD); and Westfield State University (Westfield, MA).
At the highest levels, certified cities and institutions of higher education have committed to reviewing their landscape design and maintenance plans with pollinators in mind. But their commitment extends well beyond simply reviewing those plans.
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Beeville? It's no joke, this banner
is from Beeville, Texas,
certified in 2016.
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Report the First Bumble Bee, Monarch or Hummingbird In Your Area This Spring
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Have you thought about posting your first bumble bee sighting in 2018? You can at
Bumble Bee Watch
where you can upload photos, start a virtual bumble bee collection, have your identifications verified by experts, and interact with other citizen scientists. They even have an IPhone and IPad app to download.
It's just human nature to want to be first. You can be the first in your area to record a monarch returning from her overwintering refuge, or the first to record a hummingbird returning from her winter jaunt to Central America. The
Journey North site
lets you easily record Nature's firsts each spring.
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When you upload your photos to Bumble Bee Watch, they take you through steps to identify your species. The heart shape on this bee and the single fuzzy yellow first segment of the abdomen are important clues.
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Ask Your City Council to Make Proclamation for National Pollinator Week
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June 18-24, 2018 is National Pollinator week!
Eleven years ago the U.S. Senate’s unanimous approval and designation of a week in June as “National Pollinator Week” marked a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations. Pollinator Week has now grown into an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles.
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Need Inspiration for Engaging Your Community in Pollinator Conservation? Check Out Bee City USA & Bee Campus USA Affiliate Reports for 2017 Now Online!
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Thanks to volunteer Scott Offord at
beepods
, Bee City USA realized a longstanding dream this year. When cities/counties and institutions of higher education become certified as Bee City USA or Bee Campus USA affiliates, one of the commitments they make is to provide an
annual report
that is published each January summarizing their previous year’s accomplishments in pollinator conservation and awareness.
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The College of San Mateo in California engaged lots of students in planting pollinator habitat as part of their service-learning program in 2017.
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1st World Bee Day Launches This May
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Did you know that after more than three years of efforts by the Republic of Slovenia, the United Nations adopted a resolution declaring May 20 as
World Bee Day
? Passed unanimously in November 2017, the resolution was co-sponsored by 115 member states including some of the largest: USA, Canada, China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, India and all EU Member States.
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