National Pollinator Week has arrived: June 18-24! Today, I’m re-running part of a blog I posted last week. It had some ideas on what you might do to celebrate Pollinator Week.
Pollinator Partnership tells us, “National Pollinator Week is a time to celebrate pollinators and spread the word about what you can do to protect them.” Eleven years ago, when colony collapse was at its peak and the end of civilization was near, the US Senate approved “National Pollinator Week” unanimously. Unanimously! Has the US Senate ever approved anything else by undissented decree? That’s a hundred out of a hundred. Congratulations to them for collaborating, for once, on something important. They wanted every American to recognize the pollination services provided by birds and bees and beetles and bats.
Birds and bats working saguaro. (USDA photo)
To help you celebrate, the pollinator people at Pollinator Partnership list some activities on their website. Here are some suggestions:
• Host an educational event at a local library
• Host a pollinator festival or native plant sale
• Plant habitat in your backyard using native plants
• Host a nature walk or pollinator expert lecture
• Screen a pollinator film
• Pollinator planting day at your school, office, local park, or library
• Build native bee houses
• Display pollinator artwork and outreach materials in your office lobby
• Encourage your governor to sign a proclamation
It’s a little late to ask your governor to make a pollinator proclamation, but most of them have already done it, apparently without your help. If you have time, read a few of the proclamations yourself. If you are in the USA, look up your own governor’s proclamation. If you like what you see, send your governor a note, or suggest changes if you must. And don’t forget to plant some native flowers this week.
(Credit: David Miksha, Calgary)
Bad Beekeeping Blog 
As it happens, with great synergicity!—a group of us in my town are launching our campaign this week to change our city’s hiring of a pest control biz to take honey bee colonies and swarms—after they terminated my six year, FREE program and disallowed my application to be a “official vendor” because I do not possess a Pesticide Applicator License. (!!) No one wants pesticides spread in public areas anyway, but the new director of Public Works, who set all this damage in motion when she came on last November, has described the PCOs’ use of insecticide on small meter box colonies (typical occupancies) as “standard procedure” (we have video of the dying, writhing bees after one job they did) She has thereby exposed that she approves of the insecticide, though the PCOs bid document has NO language describing this use of toxics and citizens are outraged that their taxes are being used for such a nefarious purpose. It will not be a short or necessarily successful effort, we know, but we have to start somewhere. On our local NextDoor social app and news dissemination site, we already have over 80 signatures supporting us. National Pollinator Week is the perfect event to deliver our message!
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