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Feature: Pollinator ConservationProtecting, enhancing, or providing habitat is the best way to conserve native pollinators. Habitat enhancement with native plants provides multiple on-farm benefits. In addition to supporting pollinators, native plant habitat will also attract beneficial predatory insects that may lessen the need for insecticide use. Pollinator habitat will also provide habitat for other wildlife and birds, serve as windbreaks and buffers, help stabilize the soil, and ultimately improve water quality. In other words, many of the core factors that the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides to farmers on a daily basis. Pollinators have two basic habitat needs:
Many producers may already have an abundance of habitat for native pollinators. Marginal lands such as field borders, hedge rows, sub-irrigated areas, and drainage ditches offer both nesting and foraging sites. Wood lots, conservation easements, farm roads, and other untilled areas can also provide habitat. Many times poor quality soils, unfit for crop production, may be useful as pollinator habitat. To assess pollen and nectar resources, it is important to look at all potential plant resources on the producer’s property and note which plants are heavily visited by bees and other pollinators. For pollinators to be most effective, nectar and pollen resources are needed all season. Evaluation of the existing plant communities on the margins of crop land should include and conserve early-season and late-season blooming plants. Early spring-flowering plants provide an important food source for bees emerging from winter hibernation, and late fall-flowering plants help bees build up their energy reserves before entering winter dormancy. Bees need nesting and overwintering sites. In fact, for supporting native bee populations, protecting or providing nesting sites is as important as providing flowers. Native bees often nest in inconspicuous locations. Most of North America’s native bee species (70%) are ground nesters. These bees need direct access to the soil’s surface to excavate and access their nests. The majority of ground-nesting bees are solitary, though some will share nest entrances or cooperate to excavate and supply the nest. Still other species will nest independently, but in large aggregations with thousands of bees excavating nests in the same area. Approximately 30 percent of bees in North America are exclusively solitary wood nesters. These bees nest in abandoned beetle tunnels in logs, stumps, and snags. Thus, dead limbs, logs, and snags should be preserved as pollinator nesting areas wherever possible. A few bees can chew out the centers of woody plant stems and twigs to make nests there. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has been working closely with NRCS to increase the agency’s capacity to implement pollinator conservation projects across the U. S. The society will help state and regional technical support teams to develop tools necessary for implementing high-quality habitat. This collaboration is particularly valuable in light of the pollinator provisions in the 2008 Farm Bill. Feature Credit: NRCS Manhattan Plant Materials CenterMore Information
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