Sam Droege, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Biologist, and a bee expert who has studied native bees all around the world, gave a presentation on specialist bees and the plants that support them at the Arlington Library on May 11, 2015. The talk was sponsored jointly by the VNPS Potowmack Chapter, and the Arlington Regional Master Naturalists. Rising awareness of the important role of native bees along with a recent.
A Spartan-led research team has uncovered an answer — at least for the most recent population decline — with a huge assist from volunteers. Read the article here: https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2021/eastern-monarch-butterfly-disappearing
Bees, bats, birds and butterflies do us an important service: As they visit flowers to feed on nectar, they carry pollen from plant to plant. This movement of pollen from a flower’s male stamen to its female stigma — or that of the next flower — fertilizes plants and produces fruits and seeds. Read more here.
As summer begins to fade and fall creeps into the air, the monarch butterflies we’ve enjoyed during the heat of summer begin to migrate to their overwintering grounds. Most will migrate to Mexico, and some will migrate to southern California. This is an amazing, one-of-a-kind journey made only by monarch butterflies! From September 5th to September 12th, we invite you to celebrate – and protect – the migration by participating.
In need of more outdoor activities? Consider participating in this tri-national community science effort! Join us and thousands of volunteers across North America from July 24 – August 2, 2020 for the 4th annual International Monarch Monitoring Blitz (the Blitz). To participate, simply go out and look for and report milkweed plants and all life stages of monarch butterflies (monarch eggs, caterpillars, pupae, and adults). To take part in the Blitz, submit your data to the.
Lawns across Minnesota will become a little more colorful and wild this spring after several thousand residents applied for state funding to plant wildflowers, shrubs and other prime bumblebee habitat in their yards. The state’s Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) will select the first 500 or so homeowners this week to receive funding under the trial program, which will pay residents up to $350 to plant pollinator gardens or.
Some people have mowed their lawns five times or more this season. Tara Witherow hasn’t mowed hers once. And she doesn’t plan to. Witherow is anti-lawn. She looks up and down her Davenport street at the nicely shorn rectangles of bright green in front of the homes and she sees “wasted space.” See full article here.
The monarch butterfly has a new chance at recovery, thanks to the launch of the Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange and inspiring commitments from early participants. The Monarch Butterfly Habitat Exchange is an innovative market-based program dedicated to restoring and conserving high-quality monarch habitat on America’s private working lands. It’s been dubbed an ‘Airbnb for butterflies’ because it’s the only program of its kind that can open the vast untapped potential.
I don’t know about you, but one way I cope with winter is by planning my garden. It’s my philosophy that it’s never too early to be thinking about the next growing season and lately my thoughts have leaned towards how I am going to transform my property into a Monarch butterfly (and pollinator) paradise! How many of you also have this goal? read entire article here
WASHINGTON — When researchers collected honey samples from around the world, they found that three-quarters of them had a common type of pesticide suspected of playing a role in the decline of bees. Even honey from the island paradise of Tahiti had the chemical. That demonstrates how pervasive a problem the much-debated pesticide is for honeybees, said authors of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. They said it.
The pleasure afforded by the shade of the giant bur oak overhanging my garden is more than doubled these days by the flitting of monarch butterflies. As they flutter from milkweed to corn tassel to oak leaf, seeming to leave orange and black contrails in their wake, they heighten nature’s beauty while distracting a shade-seeking gardener from unpulled weeds and unmown grass. read entire article here
NEW ULM — A little over a year after being sown, the New Ulm Pollinator Park is going strong but has some room for improvement. To help out, volunteers joined Regional Ecologist Megan Benage with the Department of Natural Resources to weed out some invasive grasses Saturday, July 15. “Basically (the park) all came to be really through the efforts of Deb Steinberg, who is a local citizen,” Benage said..