protecting pollinators

This positive case study demonstrates the possibilities for farmers interested in supporting native pollinators and reducing or eliminating pesticide use.

October's featured staff members recently attended a carbon farm planning training in California, and spoke at an event that paired art and conservation in Iowa.

Recent media coverage of a study on Tilia trees could lead to a dangerous misinterpretation of existing science—incorrectly exonerating neonicotinoid insecticides, which are known to harm pollinators.

September’s featured staff members have been providing Monarch and Pollinator Habitat Kits to select organizations in California, training Colorado Department of Transportation staff on roadside pollinator habitat, and attending the America’s Grasslands Conference, held this year in North Dakota.

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society, encourages gardeners to increase the diversity of native plants, ensure that there are places for insects to nest, and avoid using pesticides.

Sarah Nizzi, Farm Bill Pollinator Conservation Planner and NRCS Partner Biologist, writes about a recent workshop in Iowa and a sighting of the endangered rusty patched bumble bee.

August’s featured staff members conducted a successful pollinator habitat workshop in Nebraska, and have been busy building beetle banks in Iowa.

Introducing Protecting Pollinators from Pesticides: Fungicide Impacts on Pollinators.

In partnership with AC Foods and Oregon Tilth, we’re pleased to announce the arrival of California Giant brand Bee Better Certified organic blueberries.

June’s featured staff share their work with partners in large-scale agriculture in central Washington, family farms in Wisconsin, and a unique urban agriculture fellowship program in Virginia.

Without a doubt, every week is Pollinator Week here at the Xerces Society. Here are a variety of ways to support our efforts to conserve these vital invertebrates throughout the year—no matter where you live!

The Xerces Society is working across the U.S. to conserve this beloved species, and there are a number of ways you can help!

Providing nesting sites and reducing or eliminating pesticide use is key to supporting these important pollinators.

Many Xerces Society members create wildlife gardens that are particularly hospitable to invertebrates. Here are three wonderful examples.

Work alongside researchers to collect data and support bumble bee conservation.

Collectively, urban and suburban areas have the potential of offering millions of acres of life-giving habitat to pollinators.

With Pollinator Week upon us, now is the time to reaffirm our commitment to protecting these vital invertebrates. Here are some tangible ways to help.

May’s featured staff share stories of building pollinator habitat that will also support monarchs—one project on a farm in Iowa, and the other in a park in Missouri.

From 2015–2019, the Xerces Society brought a series of 61 day-long courses on conservation biological control to 49 states and 2,000 participants, with far-reaching results.

April’s featured staff—all Farm Bill Pollinator Conservation Planners—are driving the adoption of cover cropping in California, guiding farmers to support pollinators in Maine, and teaching the importance of rangeland to pollinator conservation in North Dakota.

Earth Week is an inspiring time, brimming with opportunities to make a difference—including getting your community certified as a Bee City USA.

With a robust set of requirements on pesticide use and the highest standards for protecting and restoring pollinator habitat of any food certification, Bee Better Certified represents a new era in biodiversity protection on farms.

During Earth Week 2019, we are asking you to consider taking simple, yet impactful, steps to make the world better for bees, butterflies, and other essential invertebrates.

After a year and a half of Bee Better Certified, we have analyzed how the standards work for the many operations that are already implementing them, and have adjusted our requirements accordingly.

Climate change will bring higher temperatures and greater extremes in weather, as well as increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves. These variations will be exacerbated in cities in ways that may spell trouble for bees.

February’s featured staff member has been working on a hedgerow incorporating diverse native species in North Carolina. Here she reports on its progress and the interesting invertebrates sighted on the plantings!

Jenni Denekas, Xerces' web and communications coordinator, writes, "Being assigned to create an interpretive panel for Cedaroak Park Primary School, where I attended grade school, was a special experience."

January’s featured staff have been working on establishing pollinator habitat in California’s Central Valley and helping farmers both navigate the ins and outs of the Endangered Species Act and provide restored habitat for native bees in Maine.

Although we did not get everything we wanted in the 2018 Farm Bill, pollinators are still a priority and formal commitments to support conservation efforts are now in effect for at least the next five years.

December’s featured staff hail from Iowa and Minnesota, and have been making significant impacts in their respective states by educating farmers and other members of the public, helping to restore and build new habitat, and pushing for policies that support pollinators and other beneficial insects.

November’s featured staff hail from Minnesota, Indiana, and California, and have been conducting training and outreach events, helping General Mills to implement their plan to plant 3,300 acres of pollinator habitat, and monitoring farm habitat plantings in the San Joaquin Valley.

About a third of Britain’s sixty resident butterfly species may be encountered on chalk grasslands, but it is a handful of blues—common, chalkhill, small, and Adonis—that may be most characteristic of this habitat.

The growing season may be winding down, but fall is an important time to create habitat. The work you do now will help support overwintering pollinators and the next generation of bumble bees.

October’s featured staff hail from Oklahoma, California, and Nebraska, and have been providing workshops for the public, planning pollinator habitat for arid agricultural areas, and assessing the success of pollinator plantings.

Focusing solely on crop pollination and failing to take the pollination of native plants into account may well lead to a deterioration in the plant communities that make up the very fabric of our environment.

Klickitat Canyon Winery is teeming with life of many kinds, from flowers and bees to birds and spiders. The organic vineyard is working towards becoming Bee Better Certified.

Bee kill incidents have marred Pollinator Week—which should be a week of celebration. Will other states learn from Oregon to prevent future incidents and protect pollinators?

Bee City USA brings a unique approach that encourages cities and college campuses across the United States to develop and implement a plan for helping pollinators.

Our Mid-Atlantic Pollinator Conservation Specialist Kelly Gill visited the Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, DE, to tour the gardens and give a talk on the best trees for bees. Kelly shares highlights of this visit and her top picks for spring-blooming trees for bees.

Also known as wild feverfew, this plant has a long history of medicinal use by Native Americans and the US Army. During World War I, wild quinine was used as a substitute for the bark of the Cinchona tree—as the active ingredient of quinine used to treat malaria.

It won't protect you from a snake bite, but rattlesnake master still has many virtues to recommend it.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire - but where there’s prairie smoke, there are bumble bees, buzz-pollination, and a bit of thievery.

Here are some ways you can work to promote a healthy planet for invertebrates and the people they let share their planet.

Milkweed is in demand, and that demand has been filled in recent years by tropical milkweed, a non-native species. But is planting tropical milkweed potentially doing more harm than good?

The Xerces Society's Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count provides a long-running record of the number of monarchs overwintering in California-including the steep decline of recent decades.

Pesticide Program Director Aimee Code shares thoughts on her garden, information about pesticide impacts to our watershed, and news about upcoming Xerces projects in this article from Wings Magazine.

Sran Family Orchards, the world’s largest grower of organic almonds, has long committed to sustainable farming, with flower-rich pollinator habitat as an integral part of the almond orchards. This investment recently paid off when Sran Family Orchards gained certification as a Bee Better Certified grower.

What are cultivars, and do they have the same benefits to pollinators as non-cultivars? The answer depends—not all cultivars are created equally.

With earlier springs and warmer fall days - pollinators need plants that provide resources at the farthest fringes of the growing season.

One of the most valuable things you can do to support pollinators and other invertebrates is to provide them with the winter cover they need in the form of fall leaves and standing dead plant material. Frequently however, this is the hardest pill for gardeners to swallow.

Observations from Bumble Bee Watch show the common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) far outside of its native range.

In Telluride, Colo., Soleil Gaylord has been growing and sharing seeds since grade school, initiated a habitat revegetation project, and more recently, organized an art show in support of pollinators. This is her story, in her own words.

Happy Moth Week! National Moth Week is the last full week in July and is a time to get outside—day or night—and appreciate these less-celebrated Lepidopterans.

A new study from the USGS, Univ. of Arizona, and partner organizations finds 1.3 additional milkweed stems are needed in the Midwestern U.S. to recover monarch butterfly populations.

Thanks to a partnership between General Mills and the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, in June 2017, Xerces' pollinator conservation team added six new conservation specialists.

Pollinators need habitat that is protected from pesticides. Learn how you can encourage your local government to adopt policies that protect pollinators.

Can the nation establish a network of one million pollinator gardens within two years? Yes we can!

Early garden cleanup could be removing critical habitat and leaving pollinators out in the cold.

Recent research suggests that pollinators do better in urban environments, yet these mowed, mulched, and managed landscapes frequently lack a sufficient amount of nesting habitat needed to support large numbers of bees. As wild bees move off ag lands and head for the cities and suburbs, they may struggle to find their “dream home” amongst ours.

What you can do to defend invertebrates in your backyard and beyond.

This news comes after more than a decade of work by the Xerces Society and our partners: Scientists, farmers and land managers, filmmakers, advocates, and community members who all care about native bees and their plight.

To bring clarity to the debate and to inform discussion, the Xerces Society has published How Neonicotinoids Can Kill Bees. Summarizing hundreds of studies, the new report provides an in-depth look at the science behind the role these insecticides play in harming bees.

While we are pleased that the EPA released this initial assessment, our review of the documents shows severe shortfalls in the methods and omissions in the evaluation.

Last week, a butterfly found along the North Carolina coast was officially named as a new species.

A new study from USGS greatly expands our understanding of the level to which to native bees foraging in agricultural fields and nearby grasslands may be exposed to pesticides.

A barge, a tractor, hundreds of pounds of seed, and half a dozen tough farmers are the recipe for restoring a 50-acre wildflower meadow in the middle of the Columbia River.

Interpreting recent research about the impacts of climate change on bumble bees, providing context for the results, and examining how they may affect conservation efforts.

Alice Vaughan wrote a lovely narrative of her bee garden on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Alice’s son, Mace (who co-directs our pollinator program), added his memories of sharing in the garden.

Spring wildflowers are an important first food of the season for pollinators. Jennifer Hopwood discusses the importance of these harbingers of spring.