My Garden of a Thousand Bees will be screened at Westlake Porter Public Library on August 6, 2022 at 2:00 pm. Before and after the screening, take part in family friendly “pollinator” activities.
See bees like you’ve never seen them before in the PBS Nature documentary, My Garden of a Thousand Bees. Locked down during the coronavirus pandemic, acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn set out to record all the bee species in his tiny urban garden in Bristol, England. Filming with one-of-a-kind lenses he forged at his kitchen table, he catalogs more than 60 different species, from Britain’s largest bumblebees to scissor bees the size of mosquitoes. Over long months, Dohrn observes how differences in behavior set different species apart. He eventually gets so close to the bees he can identify individuals by sight, documenting life at their level as we have never seen it before.
We are pleased to offer this event as part of the nationwide #PlantWildflowers campaign that highlights the critical role bees and other pollinators play in healthy ecosystems. Find out more at One Square Foot (WWF) and Airwick.
Video Shorts
The Power of Pollinators from Day’s Edge Productions (5-6 mins)
Sym-BEE-o-sis from Day’s Edge Productions (10-12 mins)
The Threat to Bees and Our Food Supply from Elements (7 mins)
Native Bees from Seeker Bites (1 min)
Commercial Migration from Seeker Bites (1 min)
Earlier this summer, through the #PlantWildflowers campaign, Westlake Porter Public Library was able to provide seed packets with wildflower seeds native to the area. The seeds are Non-GMO and neonicotnoid-free. These packets included Prairie Aster, Blazing Star and more (21 native wildflowers).
The flowers listed below are what you might find in a typical Native Midwest Wildflower Seed Mix:
Aquilegia canadensis (Red Columbine), Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly Weed), Aster novae angliae (New England Aster), Aster tanacetifolius (Prairie Aster), Coreopsis lanceolata (Lance-Leaf Coreopsis), Coreopsis tinctoria (Plains coreopsis), Echinacea pallida (Pale Coneflower), Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower), Eryngium yuccifolium (Rattlesnake Master), Gaillardia aristata (Gaillardia), Gaillardia pulchella (Indian Blanket), Heliopsis helianthoides (Ox-Eye Sunflower), Ipomopsis rubra (Standing Cypress), Liatris pycnostachya (Prairie Blazing Star), Lupinus perennis (Wild Lupine), Monarda citriodora (Lemon mint), Oenothera lamarckiana (Evening Primrose), Petalostemum purpurea (Purple Prairie Clover), Ratibida columnaris (Yellow Prairie Coneflower), Ratibida pinnata (Grey-Headed Coneflower), Rudbeckia amplexicaulis (Black-eyed Susan), Rudbeckia hirta (Common Black-eyed Susan), and Rudbeckia triloba (Brown-eyed Susan).
If you were able to pick up and plant a Midwest Mix #plantwildflowers seed packet, please let us know how your One Square Foot is growing!
What’s the Buzz About Pollinators?
So why is pollination so important? According to the U. S. Forest Service, “The Simple Truth: We Can’t Live Without Them!”
According to Pollinator Partnership, “Somewhere between 75% and 95% [1] of all flowering plants on the earth need help with pollination – they need pollinators. Pollinators provide pollination services to over 180,000 different plant species and more than 1200 crops. That means that 1 out of every three bites of food you eat is there because of pollinators [2, 3]. If we want to talk dollars and cents, pollinators add 217 billion dollars to the global economy [4,5], and honey bees alone are responsible for between 1.2 and 5.4 billion dollars in agricultural productivity in the United States [6]. In addition to the food that we eat, pollinators support healthy ecosystems that clean the air, stabilize soils, protect from severe weather, and support other wildlife [7].
- Ollerton J, Winfree R, and Tarrant S (2011) How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals? Oikos 120:321-326.
- Klein AM., Vaissiere B, Cane JH, Steffan-Dewenter I, Cunningham SA, Kremen C (2007) Importance of crop pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 274: 303–313;
- Buchmann S, Nabhan GP (1996) The Forgotten Pollinators. Island Press, New York.
- Gallai N, Salles JM, Settele J, Vaissiere BE (2009) Economic valuation of the vulnerability of world agriculture confronted with pollinator decline. Ecological Economics 68:810–821
- Losey JE, Vaughan M (2006) The economic value of ecological services provided by Insects. Bioscience 56: 311–323.
- Southwick EE, Southwick L (1999) Estimating the Economic Value of Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) as Agricultural Pollinators in the United States. Journal of Economic Entomology 85:(3):13
- Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, Faber S, Grasso M, Hannon B, Limburg K, Naeem S, O’Neill RV, Paruelo J, Raskin RG, Sutton P, and van den Belt M. 1997. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:254-260.
Books
Check out the “What’s the Buzz About Pollinators” display in the reference section of the library (near the public computers) throughout August, 2022.