The past two years I have been more and more interested in pollinators and have tried to find out more about bees in particular. I want more than just a field guide for ID. I want to learn about how they live. I have found a lot about honey bees. But, native bees (to North America specifically) are not as well known and not written about very much.
I have found two books that were very good:
“What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees” by Stephen L. Buchmann
and
“Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them” by Paige Embry.
I wish there were more books out there like this. Most people think bees are honey bees and live in hives. From what I have read, most bees are solitary and nest underground. They need habitat…land to exist. In some cases, native bees pollinate better than honey bees (according to what I read in these books). Efforts to help them thrive and the use of honey bees is probably the way to go for our farmers.
I have also found some information through the Pollinator Partnership. They do have some posters:
My favorites, Nannotrigona perilampoides, whom I admire for their non-pickiness, unflappability, and no-nonsense work ethic, live in little pipes which they close each evening. They are so small but will work together to swarm if they think the hive is endangered.
I have likely spent months of my life watching them if I tot up all the time and not a minute wasted.
Why not brush up on your own research skills? Even if you prefer to only do research online, there are plenty of reliable resources. Don’t try to get your info from social media, but do try to find non-commercial websites. Look for websites that are .edu, .gov, or .org, instead of .com sites.
Lucy and Ken have a good suggestion:
Pollinators, which include bees, wasps, flies, beetles, and more, make good subjects of artwork, as you already know, because you’ve drawn a nice wasp.
iNaturalist itself is a very good source of info. and not just through observations. There are many guides available. Find them in the “More” tab on the website. It’s searchable by keyword, so you can look for “bees” or “pollinators” or anything else you are interested in. There’s good stuff there!
Ants, flies, wasps, butterflies, moths, beetles, bats, hummingbirds…Am I forgetting any? There are probably other insects that pollinate. I think mice do it in some parts of the world. Spiders live on plants and they inadvertently pollinate.
I would like more people to know about how fragile the desert cryptobiotic soil (biocrust) is. Carelessly stepping on it will damage it. Worst are people driving UTV/Razors/side by sides ETC. Once damaged it may take 50+ years to regenerate it, if it ever does.
It’s a big challenge. You don’t want to point fingers, and using the default ‘DO NOT’ lists are, in the offending cases, worse than uselss. A lot of people expect wild shared places to be a place where they can go to NOT be told how to behave.
I’ve been working as a pet side project on ideas for a campaign for my local trail for dog walkers. The problem is that way too many walkers are simply not bagging or worse, bagging and leaving at the side of the trails. Or inside tree hollows, or hanging (discretely?) off tree branches and such. And that’s just the waste issue. And yes, the trail heads all have large waste containers.
There’s also the leash issue.
Now there are also wonderful dog owners who take their responsibility very seriously and are absolutely no problem at all. Others? Well, many seem to share the idea that ‘nature’ means freedom to do whatever they or their pet wants to do. How do we change this attitude without pointing, shaming, etc. The message needs to be powerful and short, and thought-provoking.
From dogs we can move on to waste/litter and going off the trail damages. The list goes on…
Adjacent to my field, but policy makers need to understand that targets are well and good, but for emissions, it’s the area under the curve that matters - emitting Business As Usual until December 2049 and letting a technology eliminate emissions at the 11th hour is not remotely equivalent to reducing emissions early.
