Gardeners, nature enthusiasts, educators, community organizers and others with a drive to help pollinators can join in the Great Southeast Pollinator Census in August.

North Carolina Cooperative Extension is launching the state’s census effort with a webinar at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 15. Register for “Getting Started with the Great Southeast Pollinator Census in NC” through the online form.

The community science effort to track pollinator visitations across the Southeast is designed so that anyone, regardless of scientific background, can contribute.

Amanda Bratcher, the state’s census coordinator based at the extension office in Lee County, will lead the 90-minute webinar, which will review the 15-minute method for counting pollinators, and how to identify the insect.

A University of Georgia Project, the Great Southeast Pollinator Census was launched in 2022. In that time, more than 1.2 million insects across 66,000 individual counts have been documented in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

A seven-week online course is also being offered Tuesday afternoons from June 16 to July 28. The cost of the course is $50 and the commitment to lead, assist or participate in a Great Southeast Pollinator Census event this year. Registration is open for the few remaining seats for the course.

“Help us capture a snapshot of pollinator activity in communities across North Carolina, including the types of pollinators and which flowers they visit, and help build a southeast-wide data set with other states,” organizers said.

There are resources for those who want to participate as well as for groups interested in hosting a counting event on the extension’s webpage for the census.

Most of us know that bees and wasps are pollinators, but what else pollinates flowers and various plants? Sadly, no honey is involved, but no sting, either.

It’s butterflies!

Who doesn’t love butterflies?

Delicate looking as they flutter by, ephemeral, like catching a glimpse of fairies out of the corner of your eye.

Butterflies come in all shapes and sizes and colors. The colors are mostly due to pigments in their scales.

What? No, fish have scales.

Not that kind of scales.

Lepidoptera, the scientific name for butterflies and moths, means scaly wings. Scales on butterfly wings are microscopic and laid down like shingles on a roof. There can be upward of 600 scales per square millimeter. The shape of the scales varies, everything from teardrops and rectangles to more ribbon-like shapes. Scales on different parts of the wing can even be different shapes, such as hair-like or even duck-footed.

If you’ve ever touched a butterfly’s wing — hopefully not a live one — you know that the scales shed off like glittery pixie dust, which is why we’ve been told since we were little children not to touch a butterfly’s wings.

While losing scales impedes a butterfly’s ability to fly and shortens its lifespan, it can be a lifesaver should a butterfly get caught in a spider’s web. The scales will stick to the web, allowing the butterfly to escape, the way a toddler can peel out of your hold on their jacket and scamper off.

Scales aren’t just colorful to make us happy, although they certainly do for many. Butterfly scales serve numerous purposes.

They aid in flight, affecting airflow and reducing drag. Scales can help camouflage a butterfly in order to better hide from predators. The color pattern of the scales can help butterflies communicate or find mates. Some butterfly wing patterns even mimic poisonous kin, the better to fool predators into leaving them alone.

For instance, monarchs, Danaus plexippus, the famous orange-and-black butterflies, are brightly colored to warn predators of their toxicity, or aposematism. In other words, they taste awful. Monarchs can also be toxic to invertebrates.

In a ploy called Müllerian mimicry, viceroys, Limenitis archippus, mimic the coloring of monarchs in a bid to avoid being eaten. Bright colors such as reds and oranges often signal danger, and mimicking the color pattern of something known to be poisonous gives both species a better survival rate.

Some butterflies have spots that look like giant eyes to warn predators, and some use camouflage to better blend in with their surroundings.

Made of chitin, like an insect’s or a crustacean’s carapace, the tough yet flexible scales have ridges and pockets that contribute to aerodynamics. Once lost, scales will not regrow and cannot be replaced. Each scale — actually a modified hair — is attached via a stalk, or pedicel, that fits into a small socket.

Butterflies are cold-blooded, so the color of their scales can also help them regulate body temperature. For instance, the dark bands or whorls on some butterflies can help warm them up by absorbing more sunlight.

They don’t collect pollen in the way bees do, so butterflies are not as efficient as pollinators, but some wildflowers can’t survive without them.

So what kind of plants do butterflies like? Butterflies are drawn to bright colors such as pinks, oranges, reds and yellows. Zinnias are always a favorite, as is butterfly bush, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, bee balm, asters, and coreopsis.

Zinnias are the workhorse of the garden. They’re easy to care for, will grow just about anywhere, like heat and drought, make great cut flowers for bouquets, and they come in a range of vivid colors. Alas, they are annuals, so they have to be planted every spring.

Butterfly bush, Buddleia, is known for its sweet scent and being a butterfly magnet. If you’re worried about it being invasive, as it can be in some areas, native alternatives — summersweet (Clethra alnifolia), Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica), and buttonbush (Cephalanthis occidentalis) — can be planted instead.

Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is an old staple, and it’s perennial. Same with black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and bee balm (Monarda). Asters and coreopsis, both of which have many native varieties.

Keep in mind, annuals have a longer bloom time but have to be planted every year — annually.

Perennials — longer word equals longer lifespan — come back every year but have a limited bloom time. Plant a good mix of both in order to keep your flowerbeds, yourself and your pollinators happy.

Watch the roadsides and any weedy lots to see what most attracts butterflies. That will give you a better idea what you need to plant in your garden, and it also depends on what kind of butterfly you’re hoping to attract.

As much as we love butterflies, many of us are not so happy with their offspring. Those nasty little cabbage loopers that destroy our collards and broccoli, for instance.

Butterflies need nectar plants, but they also need host plants for their caterpillars. Monarchs are all about milkweed (Asclepias). Several varieties grow naturally here. Dill, parsley, and fennel are great for eastern black swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes). In fact, if you don’t watch carefully, swallowtails will strip your dill and parsley practically overnight. They love anything in the carrot family, so Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), which grows wild here, is also on their menu.

Gulf fritillaries love passion vine (Passiflora incarnata). Make sure you get the native one and not one of the hybrids, the take-over-your-world kind. Gulf caterpillars look like something from a Halloween nightmare, virulent red with black stripes and black spikes – and totally harmless.

Caterpillars may freak out some of you, and they can be destructive and yucky but birds eat caterpillars, and birds and wasps feed them to their young.

Long story, short: It’s impossible to have beautiful butterflies — and moths — without first having destructive caterpillars.

Everything has to eat something.

So, if you’d love to see more butterflies, plant pollinator gardens and leave natural areas unmowed.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust invites you to celebrate all things pollinators at this year’s “Pollinator Palooza!”

The event being offered at no charge will take place 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 26 at the land trust’s headquarters office, 3 Pine Valley Drive, Wilmington.

The family-friendly event will include educational activities and information regarding pollinators and native plants.

Organizers encourage attendees to arrive early for a chance to receive one of the 30 parsley plants that will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis. There will also be seeds available for strawberry, cosmos, basil, nasturtium, and borage plants, which may be planted to create a pollinator garden.

The land trust is hosting multiple workshops with elementary afterschool programs in Onslow, Pender, New Hanover, and Brunswick counties.

The event is part of the @ncscifest, a monthlong celebration and educational program that runs through April and highlights the importance of pollinators in nature and our food supply.

If you have questions about the event you may contact Bryce Tholen at bryce@coastallandtrust.org.

Featured Image

An agile, busy and well-laden pollinator nearly blends into the yellow of a sunflower recently in a barely maintained part of a garden near Morehead City. Photo: Mark Hibbs

NAGS HEAD — Standing Wednesday at the end of a short path lined with beautyberries and seaside goldenrod at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, North Carolina First Lady Kristin Cooper told a gathering of about two dozen that, although she was here to celebrate North Carolina Native Plant Week, Oct. 16 to 22, it wasn’t plants that first drew her attention — it was her fascination with birds.

And because native plant species are so vital for North Carolina’s birds and pollinators, Cooper has been a vocal advocate for planting native species of trees, flowers and vegetation almost from the time her husband Gov. Roy Cooper took office in 2017.

Birds, she explained, began to thrive and increase in numbers at the North Carolina Executive Mansion soon after a project that stripped away dozens of nonnative ornamentals that had choked out other species in the garden there and replaced them with native plants.

“We put it (a native plant garden) in October, and the next spring, we had the kids come out and do a bird count,” she said. “Then a couple of years later they came back … and we saw a 25% uptick in the variety of birds that we saw — just in those two years.”

In July, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources instituted a policy that required all landscaping and planting at state parks, including Jockey’s Ridge, historic sites and other facilities the department manages to use only native plants in their landscaping.

“This is government trying to lead by example, by doing this, we’re trying to encourage businesses, homeowners, homeowners associations, other government agencies to embrace native plants as well,” said Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson, who, along with Audubon North Carolina Executive Director Curtis Smalling, were at the event.

The project at the mansion had sprung from a conversation Cooper had with folks with Audubon North Carolina when her husband was still the state attorney general.

“I’ve got to give a lot of the glory to the Audubon Society,” she said. “Some very astute person must have been at some place hearing me talk about how much I like birds.”

Cooper wasn’t here just to talk about plants. She also joined in planting a persimmon tree by the visitor center at the state park. Persimmon trees are abundant among the dunes and maritime trees of Jockey’s Ridge. The trees are a magnet for wildlife with innumerable birds and mammals gathering at the trees when the fruit ripens.

After the event, Cooper told Coastal Review why she is so passionate about native plants.

“Birds, even hummingbirds, mostly what they eat are bugs,” she said.

And while birds do eat seeds, insects make up the bulk of their diet, she noted. “A native oak tree might have 250 insects they can eat. A crepe myrtle maybe has two.”

It’s not just birds that thrive among native plants.

“I had a problem with a rabbit just eating my native plant, and that’s the point — they won’t eat that (other) stuff. They just hop right through it (nonnative plants) and come over and eat the plants you want there,” she said.

Wilson, during his remarks, also extolled the virtues of native plants.

“They are part of our natural and cultural heritage,” he said. “They are better able to survive and thrive because they’re adapted to our weather and to our soils.”

Smalling, with Audubon North Carolina, said the organization had begun the initiative 10 years ago as a collaborative effort among a group of volunteers including state park staff, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, aid groups and others. It was Cooper’s advocacy, however, that really moved the idea forward.

“One of the significant things that happened early in the process was First Lady Cooper stepped up and really became an important partner for us. Elevating the role of native plants and what they do for birds was really critical to understanding the connection,” Smalling said.

But a big issue that could hurt the campaign to get more native plants in the ground is nurseries’ inventories.

“Now that we want everybody to be planting native plants, we’ve got to make sure they’re available,” he said.

Smalling told Coastal Review that 2014 had been the first year that Audubon North Carolina began the native plants push. He said that initial effort illustrated what can happen when an idea gets too far ahead of inventory.

“The first year we did this, we said everybody needs to plant a spicebush because it’s great for migratory birds,” Smalling said. “Immediately, everybody was sold out of spicebush. We created the statewide shortage.”

Audubon North Carolina has subsequently developed a short list of six or seven plants it recommends each year so that nurseries can plan accordingly. Nonetheless, there are still supply chain issues, but now, Smalling noted, to the state’s native plant initiative is critical to making native plants more available.

“That’s why the policy that Secretary Wilson was talking about is really important. If you can drive that demand, as long as the growers see that there’s built-in demand, they can start ramping up,” he said.

Last in a series on pollinators.

KITTY HAWK — Denise Deacon inspects her bees. This year she only has one hive, although in years past she has had more — as many as eight.

She gently pries the lid off and points to the dark brown resin that lines the top of the inside of the hive.

“That’s the propolis,” she says, explaining that it’s resin the bees collect from trees and other plants that they use to weatherproof the hive.

She slides a frame out and looks at it critically. It’s still early in the season for honey production — they’ll get around to that later in the summer. Right now, the bees are concentrating on foraging for food, building the hive and reproduction.

The bees in this frame have been working on the honeycomb for some time and the comb fills almost the entire frame.

She pulls out another frame and in this frame the honeycomb is clearly a work in progress, the comb filling perhaps a third of the frame. Each cell appears to be identical, although they are not. The largest are reserved for the drone bees, smaller ones for workers and the queen bee gets her own shape and size.

The comb, the wax the bees produce to seal the honey in the combs, and the honey are unique to the honeybee. Other bees die off in the winter and emerge as the weather warms. Honeybees stay active in their hive all winter and the honey is their food source.

They produce more honey than they need for the winter, although beekeepers vary in how much honey they’ll harvest. Some, like Deacon, leave enough honey for the hive to get through the winter. Others take all the honey and feed the bees sugar water as a substitute.

“Some people do take off honey and then feed them sugar water, to make it through the winter. They will survive but they won’t be as healthy is my understanding,” she said.

This is Deacon’s 10^th year raising her own bees, although the idea had been in the back of her mind since childhood and the onetime attempt by her father.

“In my teens, my father started beekeeping,” she recalled. After a weekend away, “We came back and the house had been broken into and they had kicked over the beehive. He didn’t continue from that point forward. (But) that was just something in the back of my mind that might be a cool thing to do.”

She is a member of the Outer Banks Beekeeper’s Guild, one of the founding members, although she downplays that role.

“In my mind. I may have made phone calls to people to say, ‘Hey, let’s get together and talk about getting a group together,’” she said.

The guild is part of the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association, an amateur beekeeping organization that may be the largest in the country.

“We do have the largest state (bee) association, with nearly 5,000 paid members,” said Dr. David Tarpy, apiculture professor and extension specialist at North Carolina State University. “Compared to even large states like California and Texas (we have) more beekeepers. In Texas and California, those are large-scale commercial guys so they have more colonies but fewer beekeepers.”

There are some large commercial beekeeping operations in the state, but Tarpy, when comparing North Carolinas commercial beekeepers to other states, said they are, “vanishingly small.”

The number could be fewer than a dozen.

Not all the commercial operations take place in the state; they are, in fact, somewhat migratory.

“There are large-scale beekeepers that reside here full time and go out to California every winter for the almonds and up to Maine for the blueberries and things like that,” he said.

There are 4,000 or so species of bees that live in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and the honeybee is not even native to the continent. The first shipment of honeybees arrived in the Virginia Colony in early 1622. By the end of the 17th century, they were part of everyday life, although beeswax was the more valuable commodity at that time.

As an introduced species, there is controversy surrounding honeybees. Deacon pointed out that even her lone hive could have an effect on the local ecology.

“The problem with honeybees, you’re bringing 40,000 insects into this realm of 3 to 5 miles and all these other native bees that are all out there competing for the same plants,” she said.

Tarpy sees the issue of competition with native species as overblown and, perhaps, one that misses more significant questions.

“Whatever competition has happened, it’s been going on for 400-plus years. Ecology responds a lot faster than that,” he said. “There probably has been competition and certainly when beekeepers move their hives into a very fragile area like a desert, they can swamp whatever species are there. So it certainly is an issue and one we need to be cautious about. But is it driving the extinctions of these other bees? I think there are bigger fish to fry for that: pesticides, those kind of things.”

The pollinator population in general is under stress. And, although careless pesticide use does threaten honeybees, the most significant natural peril is the varroa mite.

It is not the mite itself, though, that is the threat, rather it is the disease the mites carry.

“I would say that public enemy No. 1, 2, and 3 are all called the varroa mite,” Tarpy said. “They’re like little vampires, sucking the bees until they’re so anemic that other stressors start to compound. But the biggest thing that we’re actively researching is that it’s not really the varroa mites that kill bees. It’s the viral pathogens that they’re vectoring. They’re like little dirty hypodermic syringe needles.”

There is no easy way to protect bees from varroa mites. The N.C. State Apiculture Program is concentrating on two areas of research: strengthening hives so they can better withstand stress and early detection of infection.

“We offer this service that if you send in your bees, we can … look at all of these different pathogens and see if we can identify if you have an overwhelming pathogen load within the colony,” Tarpy said.

Tarpy’s research is finding ways to identify the strongest queen for a colony. The apiculture lab has developed empirical measurements that can be applied to queen bee health, and Tarpy’s research has shown healthy queens correlate to a healthier hive.

“If you have a bad queen, your ceiling is low. If you have a good queen, your ceiling is high. The queen is this singular thing that beekeepers have control over,” he said.

The work is currently conducted in a dilapidated building on the N.C. State campus.

“Research is being conducted in one of the worst facilities in the University of North Carolina system,” according to the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association’s website. “There is inadequate room for instruction, storage and research … The teaching classroom is in the former kitchen and dining area where long leak stains adorn the sheetrock ceiling. During rain showers, buckets are strategically placed in order to catch rain water that drips through the sheetrock.”

The association lobbied state legislators for funds to replace the building and the North Carolina General Assembly responded in 2019 with $4 million for a new apiculture center.

“We’re on the downhill slope of the design phase, which is the fun part for me because we get to decide what kind of rooms we want, what we’re going to put in it and how we’re going to use it. We’re building this facility exactly the way that it would really work well for apiculture, science and extension. It’s having all the elements that we could ever want,” Tarpy said.

Construction is estimated to be completed in August 2024.

Part of a series on pollinators.

What began as a grassroots effort in the North Carolina mountains a decade ago to save honeybees has become a nationwide initiative to protect pollinators.

The program, Bee City USA, got its start in Asheville as an independent nonprofit in 2012. Founder Phyllis Stiles grew the program by welcoming affiliates across the country and adding Bee Campus USA for colleges and universities.

In 2018, the nonprofit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation absorbed the programs that provide a framework for communities and campuses “to come together to conserve native pollinators by providing them with healthy habitat that is rich in a variety of native plants, provides nest sites, and is protected from pesticides.”

The Xerces Society, like many other pollinator conservation programs, offers special programing during National Pollinator Week, June 19-25.  

The seed for the awareness campaign was planted when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in 2006 designating June 24-30, 2007, as National Pollinator Week, and recognizing the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, or the Pollinator Partnership, which now holds National Pollinator Week the third week of June.

Bee City USA Coordinator Laura Rost told Coastal Review that the organization celebrates National Pollinator Week with a different theme. This year, the theme is “Bee Safe” and the organization is focusing on reducing pesticides. Information on National Pollinator Week can be found on the website.

Bee City USA, and the Xerces Society’s pollinator conservation program as a whole, are based on four principles: plant native plants that bloom throughout the growing season, reduce or eliminate pesticide usage, protect natural nesting sites for bees, and spread the word.

“The key ideas of pollinator conservation are really quite simple, native plants blooming consistently, and pesticide reduction. If you can have those two elements and you’re paying attention to natural nesting sites, the habitat comes together on its own,” she said.

Rost said that while Bee City USA initially concentrated more on honeybees, the focus has shifted to native bees.

“It’s not just honeybees that feed us, it’s our native bees as well,” she said.

“We can thank bees for one in three bites of food we take,” Rost said. For example, 85% of all flowering plants rely on pollinators for reproduction, and 67% of agricultural crops rely on pollination.

“Honeybees, though they serve a lot of functions for agriculture, are nonnative,” Rost said. There are 3,600 species of native bees in the United States, but many are in decline. “There’s this whole diversity of native bees that need protection.”

She added that of the 3,600 native species, 90% are solitary nesting, so they’re not in hives, and then 70% are ground-nesting species. Most native bees rarely sting, rather they tend to be very gentle and keep to themselves.

Rost is based in Oregon and oversees both Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA. As of Thursday, there were a total of 354 city and campus affiliates in 46 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

To become a certified Bee City USA, a town needs to apply, establish a standing Bee City committee for the town, pass a resolution or memorandum of understanding committing to conservation measures, and pay an application fee that depends on the size of the city population.

New affiliates have a year to meet the requirements detailed in the resolution, which are to host a pollinator-focused activity, implement a pollinator-friendly habitat with native species on public and private land, create a list of recommended native plants, and adopt an integrated pest management plan that guides pesticide usage. Affiliates receive Bee City USA signage and must include on their website information about the program. 

Communities can base their native plants list on those provided by the Xerces Society’s Pollinator Conservation Resource Center. The organization recently updated its native plant lists for every area of the country. The list contains suggestions about plants that tend to be easier to grow.

There is also a new list, Buying Bee-Safe Plants, that offers ways to help find plants that are safe for bees, and includes tips and questions to use at the nursery, a guide to reduce pests without pesticides, and suggestions on creating and maintaining habitat on the website as well.

Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA are great ways to build community and create a sense of identity. You can create projects that reflect the beauty of your own ecosystem and add your own interests and priorities as a community, Rost said.

Each town or campus can create its pollinator habitat project and “it can look like a million different things” — vegetable gardens, a meadow in a park, wildflowers along a roadside, a green roof and even bioswales and rain gardens.

You can incorporate pollinators into existing projects, too, and it doesn’t have to be flowers, either.

“It could be trees and shrubs because those are kind of the unsung heroes for native bees, especially early in the season. A lot of newly emerging bees really rely on crab apples and willows and actually fruit trees in general,” Rost said, adding that trees have been called the meadows of the sky. “If you think about it, there’s so many blossoms in one tree.”.

Additionally, choosing native trees for streets that attract pollinators is “a beautiful way” to incorporate a pollinator habitat. A bonus is native plants are low maintenance.

“The nice thing about native plants is you probably don’t need to water them as much because they’re adapted to your ecoregion,” Rost said. “They may not get as much disease or pest pressure because they’re happy and healthy in their environment.”

They’re encouraging people to rethink how they see their yards, and see them as habitat, where plants and animals are welcome, Rost continued. Residents can add more pollinator habitat without eliminating your lawn. Allowing their yard to be a little messier, a little wilder “can really go a long way.”

If plants have bites taken from the leaves, that doesn’t mean that your plant is dying, especially with native plants, it means you’ve created an ecosystem by bringing in those native plants.

“Pollinators may be really subtle at first or even subtle long-term, but if you hold still, especially in the early morning and in the evening and you look at some of your flowers, you’ll be surprised by that diversity you see,” she said.

Rost, who has a degree in environmental studies, with an emphasis on social science and policy, said she feels “insects are where it’s at for conservation because if you protect the biodiversity of insects and invertebrate life, everything else comes together.”

The foundation of life is all these insects and invertebrates that all these other species rely on, she continued. “If you create good habitat for invertebrates, you create good habitat for everything else … and it’s not very often you have such a fun way to help with environmentalism … planting beautiful flowers.”

Which is what they’re doing in Southport.

Kate Singley, a representative from the Southport Beautification Committee, said the Brunswick County town’s designation was approved in April 2022.

“Being an affiliate of Bee City helps bring communities together to sustain pollinators, increase the abundance of native plants, provide habitat and nesting sites, and reduce pesticide use,” she told Coastal Review.

The Southport Beautification Committee has supported a native plant pollinator garden at Lowe-White Park, 226 E. Leonard St., since 2017, where brochures are available as well as at the Fort Johnston-Southport Museum and Visitors’ Center at 203 E. Bay St. 

“One of the goals was to plant a demonstration garden for the community to show the ease and importance of using native plants to attract pollinators and educate, regarding the important the role pollinators play in our ecosystem and everyday life,” she said. “Southport has shown that being a Bee City is important by staying aware, and the town does not spray any mosquito pesticide near the pollinator garden.”

Awareness and educational programs have taken place over the years, and the committee has a display highlighting Southport’s Bee City USA designation planned for the month of August at the Fort Johnston-Southport Museum and Visitors’ Center, she added.

“Beautification volunteers working in the garden hear many positive comments from people who frequent the garden daily or visitors to Southport. One highlight was a letter from a high school student who visited the garden while on vacation with his family. He was the editor for the school newspaper and wrote an article about the garden for Earth Day,” Singley said.

Learn about the importance of pollinators during the Museum of the Albemarle’s History for Lunch beginning at noon Wednesday, June 21, in the Gaither Auditorium.

Beekeepers of the Albemarle member Paul Wand will share information on the importance of bees and beekeeping. The talk will highlight the exhibit, Pollination Investigation, on display now through March 2024 in the Elizabeth City museum.

The museum will offer History for Lunch in-person and through Zoom. Register in advance through the museum’s Facebook page or its website to receive a link to attend the lecture virtually.

“Pollination Investigation” showcases how pollinators are vital for a strong ecosystem as most plants need their help to fertilize flowers and reproduce, according to the website. Presented by Smithsonian Gardens and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the poster exhibition covers the the who, what, when, where, why, and how of pollination by interpreting the unique relationship between pollinators and flowers. The exhibit went on display in March.

The virtual program is supported by Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle.

Part of a series on pollinators.

Spring is the time of year when things start growing and blooming. It’s also when pollinators like bees come out and get to work.

An awareness campaign called “No Mow May” is urging people not to mow their lawns this month, or even this whole season, as a way to help make sure that these pollinators have enough to eat. Many of the small flowers that pop up in the spring can provide a critical food source for bees. Mowing these blooms robs the bees of this potential sustenance.

Bees are critical to the health of our ecosystems, but they are also in trouble.

Wild bee populations have experienced substantial declines due to factors including urbanization, pesticides and undiversified agriculture. Increased urbanization has led to the fragmentation of pollinator habitat — a widening in the space between areas where bees can find food or live. Without bees, our food system would never be the same.

“(When) we think of habitat loss, we think of forests being logged and things being plowed and built on,” said Matthew Shepherd, director of outreach and education for the Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation. “But then, every acre of featureless grass is just as much loss of habitat as anything else.”

History of the Green Lawn

The American attachment to the perfectly trimmed green lawn aesthetic has a history rooted in settler colonialism. Americans modeled their landscaping after wealthy European elites, who used a pure grass lawn as a way to signal their wealth.

This thing that originated as a status symbol is now a hallmark of the American backyard. Despite that it is an extremely common sight now, most green turf grasses are not native to the United States. Therefore, they can require a lot of upkeep — excessive water, pesticides — to keep them going.

Covering 40 million acres across the country, grass is now the biggest irrigated “crop” in the U.S. — surpassing even corn. And yet, it gives little to nothing back to native ecosystems.

No Mow May

Green grass lawns, in effect, extend the fragmentation of pollinator habitat. That’s why Plantlife in the United Kingdom started the awareness campaign, No Mow May. This movement has also taken hold in the U.S. The idea is that not mowing your lawn for even a month can allow for the growth of things like clover that bees can use for food.

Of course, not mowing your lawn can present issues, such as enforcement of local ordinances, or even just the local status quo. There are homeowner associations bylaws and legal prohibitions on any deferred lawn maintenance that could be characterized as overgrowth.

Related: Celebrate pollinators Saturday during World Bee Day

Facing ordinances like this, some U.S. residents have challenged the idea of what a yard should look like. In Maryland, one couple pushed back on an HOA requirement and it resulted in legislation that prohibits unreasonable restrictions on low-impact landscaping such as a pollinator-friendly yard.

Beyond May

Ultimately, said Shepherd, No Mow May should ideally serve as a springboard for a more comprehensive conversation about making spaces pollinator friendly all year round. Shepherd said there are three things you can focus on: creating nesting areas, flowers for food, and quitting pesticides.

If all you’re doing is not mowing your lawn for a few weeks, said Shepherd, you’re not achieving any long-term benefit. Because if you don’t have any blooming flowers in your lawn, you’re just growing long, green grass. And if you do, teaching bees that there’s a food source in your yard and then taking it away can be harmful. So ultimately, true support for pollinators has to go beyond the campaign.

“The real benefit from (No Mow May) is that people are talking about lawns — they’re talking about the bad things of lawns, how the lawns could be, what the changes can be,” Shepherd said. “And we’re seeing a much broader conversation about pollinator conservation in our neighborhoods, and what we really should be doing to support the bees.”

Advocates say focusing on native, flowering plants is also a good idea, as is spreading awareness to other people in your community and beyond. Critically important is eliminating things from your yard, like grass, that might require regular pesticide applications.

“Anything we can do to bring habitat back into our neighborhoods, our towns, our farmland and so on, is going to be beneficial,” Shepherd said.

After May wraps up, June is National Pollinators Month. Follow along for more in this series about pollinators.

World Bee Day Saturday is part of an effort to bring awareness to the more than 20,000 known bee species around the globe.

The United Nations designated May 20 as World Bee Day to highlight the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.

“World Bee Day 2023 calls for global action to support pollinator-friendly agricultural production and highlights the importance of protecting bees and other pollinators, particularly through evidence-based agricultural production practices,” U.N. officials said.

Not only do pollinators contribute directly to food security, but they are key to conserving biodiversity. More than 75% of the world’s food crops and 35% of global agricultural land depend on pollinators.

“Pollinators allow many plants, including many food crops, to reproduce. Indeed, the food that we eat, such as fruits and vegetables, directly relies on pollinators. A world without pollinators would equal a world without food diversity – no blueberries, coffee, chocolate, cucumbers and so much more. They also serve as sentinels for emergent environmental risks, signaling the health of local ecosystems,” the U.N. states.

There are more than 4,000 native bee species in the United States, and over 500 in North Carolina. The bees come in an assortment of sizes, shapes and colors, have different seasons of activity and carry pollen in various places on their body, a guide from N.C. Cooperative Extension explains.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program designs and develops surveys for native bees. Part of the project is an online tool that helps the public identify native bee species in their yard.

In the United States, native bees are the primary insect pollinator of agricultural plants.

“Crops they pollinate include squash, tomatoes, cherries, blueberries and cranberries. Native bees were here long before non-native honey bees were brought to the country by European settlers. Honey bees are key to a few crops such as almonds and lemons, but native bees like the blue orchard bees are better and more efficient pollinators of many North American crops,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bees are under threat, U.N. officials say. At present, species extinction rates are 100 to 1,000 times higher than normal due to human impacts. Close to 35% of invertebrate pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, and about 17% of vertebrate pollinators, such as bats, face extinction globally.

Intensive farming practices, land-use change, mono-cropping, pesticides and higher temperatures associated with climate change all pose problems for bee populations and, by extension, the quality of food grown.

“Loss of the complex native woodland, field, and meadow habitats to agriculture and housing/businesses causes native bee populations to crash because their pollen flowers are gone or replaced by weeds. You can reverse some of those losses by planting and managing native plants in your yard and property,” the Eastern Ecological Science Center says.

“Bees are tiny, one bush or one clump of perennials is often all it takes to foster native bees in your yard. Within a mile of your yard (urban or rural) there are at least over 100 species of bees looking for the right plants. Attracting and tending these native bees on your property is all about planting the right flowers and flowering bushes,” the program notes.

The Museum of the Albemarle will host a poster exhibition that explores the process of pollination by interpreting the unique relationship between pollinators and flowers.

Presented by Smithsonian Gardens and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, “Pollination Investigation” will be on display starting March 20 and will showcase how pollinators are vital for a strong ecosystem as most plants need their help to fertilize flowers and reproduce.

The exhibit will be on display until March 2024 in the museum in Elizabeth City. There is no charge to visit the museum.

The exhibition features seven “pollinator profiles” for bees, beetles, butterflies, hummingbirds, flies, moths, and wind, along with special references to bats and water. Using a field-journal theme, each profile describes the pollinators’ favorite flowers based on floral characteristics encouraging exploration into flower shape, color, scent, and more.

The set of 14 posters is in both English and Spanish and designed to educate and inspire people to explore the natural world looking at flowers and insects.

Distributed at no cost to schools, libraries, museums, and community organizations, “Pollination Investigation” was created by Smithsonian Gardens in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History and made available by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It is funded in part by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee.

New Hanover County Parks and Gardens is spreading the word this month about the importance of pollinating animals to the ecosystem.

The department has two BioBlitz events planned as part of the Parks for Pollinators national campaign, which is aimed at raising public awareness about the importance of pollinators and positioning parks as leaders in advancing pollinator health and native habitats.

The first will be 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Cape Fear Museum Park. Registering online before the event is suggested.  

The second will take place 9 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at Smith Creek Park.  Register online.

The BioBlitz programs are free and suitable for all ages.

“Pollinators are important to our entire ecosystem, so taking steps to protect them is critical for the health and wellbeing of our community,” Tara Duckworth, New Hanover County Parks and Gardens director, said in a statement “These BioBlitz events will help us understand how we can all better protect pollinators and other important wildlife in our community, and they will engage more citizens in this effort. We also want people to explore parks they haven’t been to before and we hope this fun and interactive program will allow them to do that.” 

The event is being organized by the National Recreation and Park Association and The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation.  

Pollinators are a vital component of the world’s ecosystem and an essential link in the global food supply.

During the last 30 years, the United States has seen a steady decline of pollinators, such as bees, bats and butterflies, at an alarming rate of 30% annually, making it crucial to take action on pollinator protection, According to the White House’s Pollinators Health Task Force.

Participants may join the New Hanover County Parks and Gardens team on the INaturalist app and then upload photos taken on their own of plants, insects and animals during the month of September as well as at the BioBlitz events. 

“Bees and Blooms,” a new photography exhibit at Tryon Palace, celebrates the art of nature, and the beauty and wonder of bees and their relationship with blooms.

The new exhibit opened Tuesday in the Cannon Gallery in North Carolina History Center in New Bern and closes Aug. 28.

The collection by photographer and beekeeper Deana B. Marion features large images of colorful bees and blooms. The large glossy metal and metallic canvas prints use high-definition photographic imaging to enhance the details, depth of field and background illumination.

Marion began studying macrophotography in 2002. Since 2010, she has specialized in photographing bees on blooms in detail, taken from only several inches away. 

The plight of pollinators, their value to food supply, and the causes for their declining population have received national attention. Honeybee pollination is responsible for one-third of the country’s food and nearly $20 billion in value to agricultural crops each year, officials said. Having witnessed the alarming population decline of pollinators firsthand, Marion understands the importance of these issues.

The North Carolina History Center at 529 S. Front St., New Bern is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information visit www.tryonpalace.org or call 252 639-3500.

NEW BERN — National Pollinator Week is this week and Tryon Palace is offering free tours, lecture and movie to celebrate the importance of pollinators.

Palace guests learn how to help pollinators with posters and take-home items as well as meet the bees in the observation hive at the North Carolina History Center.

The palace is offering pollinator garden tours starting at 10 a.m. Tuesday through Friday at the Waystation, across the street from the palace gate. The tours are free of charge with purchase of one-day, galleries or gardens pass or free of charge for Tryon Palace Foundation members.

On Saturday, “Intro to Apiculture: So you want to be a beekeeper” will start at 10 a.m. in Cullman Performance Hall in the North Carolina History Center. Hadley Cheris, Tryon Palace Apiary beekeeper, and D.J. Moran, educator liaison with the Craven-Pamlico Beekeepers Association and the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association Master Beekeeper Program committee member, will be on hand to discuss the importance of honey bees and what becoming a beekeeper entails.

And at 2 p.m. Saturday, “Disneynature – Wings of Life”will be shown in the Pullman Performance Hall in the North Carolina History Center. Movie screening is free and appropriate for visitors of all ages. Seating is first come first seated.

#PollinatorWeek has officially begun and every day we’ll be featuring a new pollinator! Today’s is the honey bee! Tryon Palace is the proud owner of 3 honey bee hives. Learn more about this week and join us for Pollinator Tours, Tuesday – Friday at 10am! https://t.co/bKaRXSGBD8 pic.twitter.com/qxhForXJJ5

— Tryon Palace (@tryonpalace) June 17, 2019

First of two parts

While planning your spring garden, consider adding native plants and more diversity to make your yard a haven for pollinators and wildlife.

“As agriculture has intensified and our populations have grown, a lot of habitat has been lost, so even a pot of flowers on the front porch can make a big difference by supporting hundreds of pollinators,” said Nancy Lee Adamson, senior pollinator conservation specialist with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Greensboro.

The Xerces Society is a nonprofit invertebrate conservation organization. Invertebrates are animals without backbones such as insects, spiders, mollusks such as mussels and crustaceans like crabs.

If you’re adding plants with pollinators in mind, you’ll want to include a diversity of plants that bloom throughout the year, Adamson explained. “Ideally, include native wildflowers, shrubs, trees and even grasses. Native plants are best for butterflies and bees … but many other plants can benefit pollinators,” she said, adding that Xerces and other conservation organizations encourage avoiding invasive plants, a list of which can be found at the North Carolina Native Plant Society.

Pollinators are important because, besides pollinating 90 percent of wild plants and 75 percent of crops, “pollinators ensure the growth of plants that provide oxygen, clean water, materials for shelter, medicines, shade, reduce wind and noise, support the other wildlife we love to see like birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and amphibians, either as food themselves or the seed, fruit, or structure provided by plants,” she said.

One way pollinators support other wildlife is by being a food source for hatchlings. Audubon North Carolina Field Organizer Kim Brand said that large native trees are ideal larval host plants for butterflies and moths, which baby land birds survive on.

“Caterpillars are the most important food for baby land birds. A nest full of chickadees needs more than 5,000 caterpillars just from hatching to the time they leave the nest,” Brand said. Large native trees such as oaks, hickories and pines are an excellent source of caterpillars because so many species of butterflies and moths lay eggs on them.

“For example, more than 500 species lay eggs on oak trees native to North America; for comparison, fewer than 10 species of native moths and caterpillars lay eggs on ginkgo leaves. The ginkgo is a food desert as far as caterpillars and parent birds are concerned,” she said. “We can also support a lot of caterpillars – and therefore feed the baby birds – with native perennials like goldenrods, asters, and joe-pye weed. All species that also feed adult pollinators, doing double-duty.”

Adamson recommends Doug Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home” and Sarah Stein’s “Noah’s Garden” as resources for understanding connections between native plants, native pollinators and other wildlife, including many birds. Xerces offers online plant lists and planting guides.

Edible plants or plants with fragrant leaves are pollinator plants that are also fun for kids.

“Strawberries, lavender, mint, parsley, dill, blackberries, black raspberries, onions, okra, squash, and passionfruit are all very easy to grow,” Adamson added. Just remember that caterpillars are butterfly larvae and eat the plants. The black swallowtail butterfly depends on parsley family plants, such as fennel and dill.

Eliminate Pesticides

Another simple way to provide habitat is to eliminate the use of pesticides, including herbicides, and leave unmown areas, dead trees or brush piles. Adamson recommended placing signs in your yard to help others understand that an unmown area or brush pile is intentional and help start a conversation about pollinator conservation.

“If no pesticides are used, the plants also support diverse predatory and parasitoid insects that eat the insects we consider pests, such as aphids and whiteflies. We might not think of ladybugs as pollinators, but they do some pollination, and depend on the same diverse flowers that bees and butterflies do, while their larvae are also voracious aphid and insect egg eaters,” she said.

An added benefit of using native pollinator plants is that the plants help protect soil. The roots and the microorganisms they support help water infiltrate deeper into the earth and reduce flooding.

“The plants not only help slow the movement of water, hold soil in place, and create deeper channels for water to reach underground, but the microorganisms that live in connection with the plants help clean the water,” Adamson explained. “Besides adding beauty to your landscape, native pollinator plants can also provide shelter from wind and shade.”

She recommends evergreens such as wax myrtle, inkberry holly, yaupon, sweet bay magnolia and eastern red cedar to support diverse pollinators, including one of her favorite butterflies, the juniper hairstreak butterfly.

“Many of our shade trees like red maple and black gum produce huge quantities of nectar and host diverse caterpillars. Even native grasses are vital, sheltering bumble bee nests when they lodge over, keeping the colony dry and out of site from predators like hawks.”

Proper Viewing

Adamson reminds you that if you get too close to bees, wasps or other insects on flowers, they will fly away.

“Only bees and wasps with colonies, like honey bees and yellow jackets, become defensive if you get too close to their nests, but not flowers. Most of our bees and wasps are solitary, “she said. “Unlike honey bees and yellow jackets that have colonies with a queen, young and food to protect, most bees and wasps are single moms, collecting food to place in a nest cell underground or in a cavity where she will lay an egg and never see her young hatch,” she said.

An example is the mud dauber wasp that collect spiders to lay eggs on. “Even though several tubes may be placed close together, single wasps are making each tube, so will either hide or fly away if you get too close. You can buy a wasp-deterrent paper lantern to keep yellow jackets from nesting near your door or paint your porch ceiling blue to keep them from nesting close to your house.”

She explained that if you place a bee observation box for solitary bees by your front door, “It is fun to watch them depositing pollen and nectar, laying an egg, then sealing the cells. Remember, your plantings stewardship can help support pollinators while also contributing to the well-being of your whole community,” she added.

“We just joined up with Bee City and Bee Campus USA a wonderful group that started in Asheville, NC www.beecityusa.org, so we hope to be able to support more urban greening work and fun art related efforts in future.”

Adamson pointed out that riparian areas and wetlands are especially important for pollinators. “During droughts they may be the only places where pollinators can find nectar and pollen producing plants. As urban areas grow, protecting riparian corridors is vital for pollinators and other wildlife, and can also help ensure green space for our own well-being. More and more research is highlighting the importance of green spaces on our health, cognitive abilities and creativity.”

Some folks think that pollinator gardens could cause allergies, but only wind-pollinated plants cause hay fever, she said. “Plants that require a pollinator have sticky, heavy pollen and are never listed in pollen counts, only wind-pollinated plants like oaks, pines, ragweed and grasses.”

Next: The Butterfly Highway

Featured Photo

NEW BERN — Learn about the key role pollinators play June 18-24 during Tryon Palace’s National Pollinator Week celebration.

The state historic site will show how pollinators thrive during several free pollinator-themed events at Tryon Palace and the North Carolina History Center.

There will be an opportunity to meet the bees in the observation hive at the history center, learn about pollinators at tours, lectures and movies throughout the week, and take home information and items. All free, the events are sponsored by the Duke Energy Foundation.

Events include the following:

• Pollinator Garden Tours: Tours will be at 10 a.m. June 18, June 20 and June 22 and at the Tryon Palace Waystation at the corner of George and Pollock streets. The tours are led by Hadley Cheris, gardens and greenhouse manager and beekeeper for the palace. During the tours, Cheris will discuss her favorite pollinator plants and the pollinators those plants attract. The tour will also show how the palace has been working to create a pollinator prairie and the benefits of honey bee hives.
• “Monarch Butterflies” with River Bend Community Organic Garden Lecture: Learn about the role monarch butterflies play in pollination and discover how to create your own monarch garden. The event is at 10 a.m. June 3 in the North Carolina History Center’s Cullman Performance Hall.
• “Disneynature – Wings of Life” Movie: The free film that begins at 2 p.m. June 23 explores butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, bats and moths that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply. The film will be shown in the North Carolina History Center’s Cullman Performance Hall.

Tryon Palace began with two honey bee hives in March 2013, adding two more in 2018. The intention is to expand to the historic six hives that Gov. William Tryon was recorded to have.

Tryon Palace was awarded a Duke Energy Foundation grant for its pollinator program in January 2018, which allowed the palace to expand its National Pollinator Week program by offering take-home seeds, informational materials and a screening of the Disneynature film. The grant also allowed the palace to purchase a pollinator curriculum to be incorporated into children’s programming.

“We look forward to adding more events to celebrate pollinators throughout the year,” Cheris said in a statement. “We’re working on creating our very own pollinator prairie garden so that visitors can see the idea in practice and implement similar things in their own yards. With the growth in our Tryon Palace apiary, we’re even hoping to supply Tryon Palace honey in our Museum Store, as well as our regular honey sale at the Tryon Palace Fall Plant Sale in October.”

Learn More

• Tryon Palace’s National Pollinator Week

RALEIGH – While most people are familiar with Venus flytraps and their snapping jaws, there is still a lot that scientists don’t know about the biology of these carnivorous plants. Researchers have for the first time discovered which insects pollinate the rare plants in their native habitat – and discovered that the flytraps don’t dine on these pollinator species.

Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) are in a genus all their own, and are native to a relatively small area, restricted to within a 100-mile radius of Wilmington.

“These findings answer basic questions about the ecology of Venus flytraps, which is important for understanding how to preserve a plant that is native to such a small, threatened ecosystem,” said Elsa Youngsteadt, a research associate at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on the work. “It also illustrates the fascinating suite of traits that help this plant interact with insects as both pollinators and prey.”

“Everybody’s heard of Venus flytraps, but nobody knew what pollinated them – so we decided to find out,” said Clyde Sorenson, co-author of a paper describing the work and Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor of Entomology at N.C. State.

To that end, researchers captured insects found on Venus flytrap flowers at several sites during the plant’s five-week flowering season. The researchers identified each insect and checked to see if they were carrying Venus flytrap pollen – and, if they were carrying pollen, how much.

Out of about 100 types of insects found on the flowers, only a few were both common and carrying a lot of pollen: a green sweat bee (Augochlorella gratiosa), a checkered beetle (Trichodes apivorus) and the notch-tipped flower longhorn beetle (Typocerus sinuatus).

The researchers also retrieved prey from more than 200 flytraps at the study sites. The three most important pollinator species – despite being found so often on the flowers – were never found in the traps.

“One potential reason for this is the architecture of the plants themselves,” Youngsteadt said. “Venus flytrap flowers are elevated on stems that stand fairly high above the snap traps of the plant, and we found that 87 percent of the flower-visiting individuals we captured – including all three of the most important species – could fly. But only 20 percent of the prey could fly. The pollinator species may simply be staying above the danger zone as they go from flower to flower, making them less likely to be eaten.”

But other factors may also come into play.

“We know that the snap traps are different colors than the flowers, and may possibly lure different species,” Sorenson said. “We don’t yet know if they release different scents or other chemical signals that may also differentiate which portions of the plant are attractive to pollinators versus prey. That’s one of the questions we plan to address moving forward.”

Researchers also plan to investigate additional Venus flytrap sites to see if the plant relies on these same core pollinator species in other parts of its native range.

“We also want to learn more about the flytrap’s pollination biology,” said Rebecca Irwin, study co-author and a professor of applied ecology at N.C. State. “How much and what kind of nectar do they produce? How much pollen do they need to reproduce successfully?

“And we know that Venus flytraps need periodic fires in their native habitat in order to thrive, but how do these fire events – and their aftermath – affect the plant’s reproductive success? There is still a lot to learn about these plants and their pollinators,” Irwin said.

The paper, “Venus Flytrap Rarely Traps Its Pollinators,” was published Feb. 5 in the journal American Naturalist. The paper was co-authored by Michael Kunz of the North Carolina Botanical Garden at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Dale Suiter of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Alison Fowler, Sara June Giacomini and Matt Bertone of N.C. State. The work was done with support from N.C. State University.

Front page feature photo: Clyde Sorenson