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by Nick Dorian, Ph.D. - Pollinator Pathway Advisory Board Member Finally: sweater weather. In the early October sun, bumble bees nuzzle into a blanket of wood-asters. A patchwork leaf-cutter bee hurries up a wand of goldenrod, her belly held high in the air. Green sweat bees glimmer like flecks of light, and others, smaller and darker, dance across the garden like shadows. For several weeks this fall, I spent mornings with the bees in my backyard, coffee in hand, watching as they sipped nectar and made arrangements for the long winter ahead. By the time cold had settled on the city, the bees had vanished with the flowers, but I knew they’d both be back next year. As an ecologist, I have spent a decade unraveling the mysteries of bee life cycles, with particular interest in what bees are up to when they are away from flowers. So, what were the bees up to? Bees have two main strategies for surviving winter. Strategy 1: Fatten up The first strategy is to fatten up. Sweet nectar from fall-blooming flowers is converted into internal lipid and carbohydrate stores, much like how other animals fatten up before lean times. Having feasted on nectar and found a mate, females tuck into overwintering sites known as hibernacula . Males, having already mated, die with the onset of cold. Females typically return to their natal nest for winter, whether an underground burrow, a hollowed-out stem, or a rotting log. Bumble bee queens take a slightly different approach, excavating new hibernacula just inches below the surface. How bees select wintering sites is still somewhat of a mystery, but our understanding has been aided greatly by observant gardeners who report their discoveries to citizen science programs like iNaturalist and Queen Quest. Female pure green sweat bees (Augochlora pura) spend winter in rotting logs, emerging in spring to construct nests of their own. PC: Nick Dorian This strategy is adopted by a minority of the nearly 500 bee species in New England, mainly social bees like bumble bees ( Bombus spp .) and some solitary sweat bees like bicolored striped sweat bees ( Agapostemon virescens ) and pure green sweat bees ( Augochlora pura ). Since only females survive the winter, these species exhibit two distinct activity periods the following year: an early-season window when mated females emerge to nest and a second late-season period when both males and females—the offspring of spring nests—emerge to mate. Strategy 2: Leave behind a legacy Not all bees fuel up on flowers before winter. Instead, a second strategy exhibited by many solitary bees is to leave behind a legacy—to reproduce before winter and leave offspring to survive in the nest. Take aster mining bees ( Andrena asteris ). Males and females are common fall visitors to gardens across the eastern US, but the adults you see will die before Thanksgiving. Only their offspring pass the winter underground, resume development in spring on food provisions within the nest, and emerge in fall to repeat the cycle. Diapause: not just life on pause Regardless of strategy, all overwintering bees enter a physiological state of dormancy known as diapause during which they slow how fast they live. Metabolism drops by over 95% to help conserve energy, enabling survival over long periods without the need to dip too much into fat stores. However, diapause is not just life on pause. Critical regulatory and physiological pathways are still at work under the surface that, among other things, allow a bee to successfully cue seasonal activity after winter.  Diapause is necessary for bees to emerge in the same way that cold stratification is necessary for native seeds to germinate. In other words, bees in temperate climates have evolved to not simply tolerate winter—rather, they require it. Aster mining bee (Andrena asteris) is a common fall-active solitary bee. Offspring pass the winter in nests underground, resume development in spring, and emerge in fall to repeat the cycle. PC: Nick Dorian Stewardship Guidelines Bees in winter may be out of sight, but they can’t be out of mind. When we steward our garden according to some simple guidelines, we can ensure the survival of bees from one year to the next: Plant fall-blooming native plants : Asters and goldenrods produce energy-rich nectar that is the lifeline for fall-active bees, regardless of overwintering strategy. Leave the leaves : A light layer of leaves over garden beds provides safe wintering homes for bumble bees and some ground-nesting species without smothering next year’s plants. Leave stems standing to benefit adults of leaf-cutter, resin, masked, and small carpenter bees by creating habitat structure. (A simple sign can reveal to neighbors your good intentions!) Leave soils intact (i.e. no tillage) in spring to avoid disturbing overwintering bees. And, finally, having taken these actions, remember the enduring value of spending time with the bees in your garden. Move slowly and pay close attention. Which bees are drinking nectar, and which bees are collecting pollen? Are certain flowers visited more often than others? How might these observations offer clues about the strategies that bees use to survive winter? Often the answers to our questions about the natural world are hiding in plain sight. Nick Dorian, Ph.D. ( nicholasdorian.com ) is a New England-based ecologist, speaker, and consultant. Nick studies and publishes on the ecology and conservation of wild bees and native plants, and he develops awardwinning strategies to enhance biodiversity within the built environment. He is a cherished public speaker, coauthor and photographer of watchingbees.com, and teaches an annual course at Eagle Hill Institute.

By Sam Rohe Hi reader, I’m Sam from the Frank St Bee & Butterfly Garden located on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation, which encompasses the Ottawa River Valley and surrounding area. I am a white, non-binary settler and I have recently stepped down after serving on the Frank St Garden organizing team for five years. If you want to learn more about the garden, you can read our previous article in The Buzz! At the Frank St Bee & Butterfly Garden, we shape our programs and outreach with the unique demographics of our neighbourhood in mind. When the garden was two years old and began attracting a lot of new volunteers, we were concerned that our volunteer population was over 90% white. Our mission statement was “to provide a beautiful space to build friendships and community while learning how to support local pollinators and ecosystems.” If our volunteer demographic was overwhelmingly made up of white people, then we were not fulfilling our mission of building community, and our work would have been contributing to structural inequalities. We have participation guidelines that new volunteers sign, including statements condemning bigotry and discrimination, but we recognized that this alone was not enough to ensure racialized individuals feel safe in a Two garden organizers leading attendees on an educational walk around the garden during our annual Pride event. predominantly white space. To better support the racialized gardeners in our community, we created the Microgrant for Racialized Gardeners program, which distributed small grants during peak gardening season. If you are not familiar with the term “racialized”, it is a sociological concept related to racism. We like to share this definition: “People seen as belonging to racialized minorities are people who could be perceived as being socially different from, for example, the racial or ethnic majority. In Canada, the term “racialized minority” usually refers to [non-white people]. The word “racialized” stresses the fact that race is neither biological nor objective but is a concept which is societal in origin.” (from Racialized Minority | The Canadian Encyclopedia ) We like this definition for our community initiative because it is a relative term that frames racialization as societally created from an ideology that erodes personal and cultural identity to create divisive racial hierarchies. In this article, we will also use the term “BIPOC,” which stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Colour. Because language evolves over time, terms like “racialized” and “BIPOC” may shift in meaning or fall out of use by the time you read this. We welcome your feedback on any ideas related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The ways people are racialized in the area surrounding our garden are unique to this community, and community gardens in other areas should reflect on their own local contexts when creating programming. In the lands surrounding the Frank St Garden, the larger picture of land stewardship and cultural practices of connecting to the land have been disrupted or systematically made inaccessible to Indigenous and racialized individuals in Canada. This is the legacy of settler colonialism, namely the forced displacement of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people from their unceded lands, the prioritization of white settlers in land ownership, and the consequences of those and other racist practices in the present day. The impact of the resulting interlocking systems of oppression vary in each individual experience and contribute to an individual’s likelihood of participating in the garden. We recognize that running a program solely within our garden does not effectively support racialized gardeners, because our demographics indicate existing barriers for BIPOC community members. Instead, we decided to offer a program external to the garden that would take a small step towards building the world that we want to live in; where the “Canadian” outdoors is not viewed as a predominantly white space, systematic barriers of all kinds are lowered and reparations address the enduring impacts of settler-colonialism and racism. The garden organizing team in 2025. When we conceived of the microgrant program, we also happened to be the lucky recipients of a grant that gave us more money than we needed to run the garden. We decided to share these extra resources with local gardeners who are systematically denied access to land and resources because of historical and ongoing racism. We created the Microgrant for Racialized Gardeners, which ran for two years and distributed one or more grants of CAN$50-100 per month during peak gardening season (April to September). Microgrant recipients were chosen by random draw every month to ensure fairness. Microgrant recipients were chosen by random draw every month to ensure fairness. After two years of grant distribution, we were unable to secure enough funding for basic garden operations and unfortunately, had to end the grant program. A group of white volunteers working on a program for the BIPOC community without collaboration are likely to miss crucial details at best, and at worst, increase marginalization and reinforce systemic racism. To help avoid the worst case, we consulted with BIPOC community members including members of other gardens, members of local anti-racism groups, and students in social justice domains. In return we showed appreciation to our newfound collective of community consultants for their expertise and lived experiences by offering payment to compensate their labour. The community consultants identified a few places in the program where we had increased barriers to obtaining the grant instead of lowering them. For example, a member of our team suggested that we screen applicants by asking them to submit photos of themselves in the application form because without screening, the microgrant could be “scammed” by white applicants. However, further consultations with community members broke down the many reasons why it is both impossible and racist to attempt to guess someone’s race using a picture. These discussions revealed how adding a photo requirement could stop many deserving applicants from applying. We further lowered barriers to obtaining the microgrant by: Working in partnership with other community organizations that serve BIPOC populations to promote the microgrant. Having minimal requirements for application. To apply, individuals only need to self-identify as racialized and as gardeners or land stewards. They are asked to provide just enough contact information to receive the grant and to share their postal code. Applicants could remain semi-anonymous. Distributing grants to both individuals and to organizations that served initiatives for BIPOC gardeners. Added broad definitions of “gardeners” and “land stewards” to avoid restricting application access to colonial gardening practices. Not requiring applicants to participate in any other Frank Garden programming. Not requiring the grant money to be spent in a certain way. Examples of what "gardening and land stewardship" mean for grant applicants from a Frank Garden Instagram post. We had an optional field on the form where applicants could share information about their personal connection with gardening, or any other gardening groups they worked with. This way, we could promote the efforts of our applicants consensually and without pressure to share. While many applicants chose not to share, we were excited to learn about applicants who were part of gardening groups that were created to welcome newcomers. These groups facilitated familiar gardening practices, provided a small form of food security, and cultivated a safe place to share both familiar and new language. Additionally, many of our applicants shared stories of gardening in challenging places, like high rise apartment balconies. These stories highlight the difficulty of finding access to land in urban settings and the importance of accessible community land-sharing and stewarding programs. Confronting issues of demographic disparity in a community group is challenging, especially when the community group does not have many volunteers of diverse cultural backgrounds to drive the direction of internal improvements. It’s also unfair to expect volunteers of a marginalized demographic to represent that entire demographic and give organizational-level guidance, though when this does happen, these efforts should be respected and followed. Volunteers smiling around the Garden's tall vegetable bed after narrowly avoiding rain. We did not think that a small microgrant program would solve systemic issues. We also did not expect that the microgrant program would “fix” our group’s demographic disparity. We, however, did think that this small program contributed to the mosaic of community efforts dedicated to addressing systematic inequalities. Resources should be shared until no one is underresourced. Community organizations best serve their communities, and by extension their other goals, by taking small but sustainable steps towards building a future that is grounded in fairness, justice and belonging. Is your outdoorsy group working on this mosaic too? Do you have thoughts or feedback about the microgrant program? We would love to hear from you! Please email Sam or contact the Frank St Garden directly via Instagram ( @frankstbbg ) or email ( fbgardener@proton.me ). Edited by Athourina David and Nkosinothando Mhlanga

By Nancy Farwell Before (left): Lawn dominated the front of our headquarters. After (right): The Lawn has been replaced by hundreds of pollinator plants grown primarily from seed. The first phase of our pollinator garden installation involved removing sod and laying gravel paths. Because the garden is an educational space and open to the public, safe access was a concern and focus. The decision to construct smooth, gravel pathways drove the installation process which involved hiring a contractor to remove unwanted shrubs and sod and build the paths. We did not amend the topsoil. Once the plants were installed, 34” of wood chips were spread to suppress weeds, hold moisture and give the garden beds a tidy appearance while the plants grew. The garden was designed by me – I have a degree in landscape architecture. As part of an ecological landscape design class, the students were challenged to design a native plant garden. I presented the idea of taking up the whole lawn to my former director who loved the idea and the project took off from there. The garden was installed and planted in summer 2024. I did most of the planting with help from Northern Woodlands staff, my daughters, kids of other staff members, and a volunteer or two. Plant selection was based on having a long bloom period from early spring to late autumn. I wanted lots of color, varying heights, textures, and plant shapes. I incorporated big swathes of the same plants throughout the garden, and it now includes about 50 different species. Most of the plants were started from seed and that turned out to be a fun, successful, and very cost-effective process. The seeds were started in March and April for July planting. Some of our favorite plants: Spotted bee balm - I love the unique stacked flower stalk and how the bracts change from green to white to pink. Very lovely overall. Upland white goldenrod - a nice low, mounding plant with small daisy-like white flowers. I highly recommend it. Rattlesnake master - Besides having a great name, this interesting species looks like narrow-leaved yucca with tall branching flower stems and spiky, round, dull green/white flower pods. Beardtongues - I planted the hairy and foxglove beardtongues. They started blooming in late May and produced flowers for at least a month. The tubular blossoms, white on foxglove and lavender on hairy, attract bees who wiggle their way in where you can’t see them, but you can hear them! Given that the garden is very prominent and visible to the public, we wanted to show intention with “Cues to Care.” Well-defined, gravel pathways are edged with 4-5” stones and wood chips in the planting beds create a tidy appearance. A few stepping stones in some larger beds indicate where one can walk to reach the inner portion of the bed. The transition back to lawn is a defined edge. There are large sweeps of the same species indicating intentional planting as do labels naming each plant species. Benches (photo left, below) were placed around the garden to invite one to stop and watch for pollinators and appreciate the beauty of the space. The garden has minimal weeds, and the path is kept clear of debris, demonstrating to our neighbors and community that the garden is a proud achievement and we intend for it to be beautiful in all seasons. We have attracted so many interesting pollinators including hummingbird pairs and monarch butterflies. The hummingbirds were battling over the cardinal flower. Monarch butterflies were numerous and a neighbor reported it was the first summer she’d seen a monarch since moving in 10 years ago! We had a visiting tree frog, a crab spider defending its prey from interested flies, and an enormous fly that looked like a wasp. It has been so rewarding to see such variety and quantity in the pollinators attracted to the garden, as well as the positive reactions of passersby. All this beauty and activity and no lawn to mow anymore! Nancy Farwell is the Circulation and Ad Sales Coordinator for Northern Woodlands Magazine. Nancy’s background in design, library science, and education lends well to her role as advertising ace, information curator, and community outreach champion. Nancy is an avid knitter and side gig crafter who enjoys downtime outdoors to walk, hike, or XC ski. Photo credits: Northern Woodlands magazine staff.

By Margaret Fisher The unfortunate fact is that people create invasive plant problems. The closer you get to an urban center, the worse they are, and Northern Virginia is a very populous area. The most visible of these problems is the invasive vines blanketing the trees, especially English Ivy and Wintercreeper in residential areas and Porcelain Berry, Oriental Bittersweet, Asian Wisteria, and Japanese Honeysuckle along roadsides and in the parks. The Plant NOVA Trees campaign decided to join the existing efforts to control invasives by quantifying and increasing public awareness of the threat to trees. Volunteers for the Tree Rescuers project of Plant NOVA Trees do two things. One is to walk or drive around, counting the number of trees that are at serious risk from invasive vines in a given area. In residential areas, they also drop off door hangers (photos left and above) that alert the owners to the problem and show them how to address it. The results have been both alarming and highly encouraging. Hundreds of people stepped forward and together have counted 85,000 trees. Extrapolating that data to all of Northern Virginia results in an estimate of 3 million trees at risk. The encouraging part is that the idea of rescuing trees has really grabbed the attention of the public and our elected officials. New people are helping at existing volunteer events, but more importantly, new initiatives have sprung up to address the problem on a global scale, increasing the outreach to the public exponentially, making improvements to public policy, identifying and addressing barriers, and seeking new funding sources. The problem is massive and extends beyond just the invasive vines, of course, but we have confidence that if enough people step forward, we can at a minimum stop the tree loss from the vines and get a handle on at least the worst of the other invasive plant infestations. If you are interested in learning more about these initiatives, you can find some of them here. Plant NOVA Trees Tree Rescuers educational program Fairfax County Park Authority Tree Rescuers volunteer program Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM Loudoun Invasive Removal Alliance Fairfax Invasive Removal Alliance The Plant NOVA Natives website has an extensive library of attractive campaign materials which can be downloaded for outreach purposes. Margaret Fisher is one of the coordinators of the Plant NOVA Natives/Plant NOVA Trees campaign and the new Fairfax Tree Rescuers PRISM. She also volunteers on wildlife surveys and as a Virginia Master Naturalist and a Fairfax Invasives Management Area site leader.

The CT General Assembly passed SB9 May 28, 2025 which bans the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on lawns and all turf grass. Congratulations to Connecticut! More than 500,000 acres of grass will soon be free of pollinator-killing neonics. This is a good step forward, but there is more to do. A last-minute weakening of the bill exempts trees and shrubs from the law unfortunately. More work is needed to better protect birds and pollinators as well as reduce the harmful levels of this pesticide in rivers in Connecticut and across the country. Advocates are seeing steady victories, though, and this is one. Thank you to everyone who supported this effort and those going on across the country. Check HERE to see what is happening in your state.

Who's on your gift-giving list this year? Why not give a gift to the earth? Make a plan for one thing you'll do in 2025 that helps our planet.  Perhaps you'll reduce your lawn, add native plants to your garden or a container, or turn off exterior lighting to protect pollinating moths. Or maybe you'll team up with friends or neighbors to do something on a larger scale.   One of the most important gifts you can give the earth is to learn more about its stunning complexity and the intricate, interdependent web of its flora and fauna. Dig into (no pun intended) a great book and be inspired to act on behalf of the environment! And keep spreading the word about what you know so well- that we must all work together to protect the pollinators that make life on Earth possible. With that in mind, today we're sharing  a few of our favorite gifts for spreading seeds and spreading the word. And stay tuned for Part 2! Later this week, we'll share  Doug Tallamy's book recommendations and some of our own! Read more...

Looking for a last-minute gift? Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants  (a must-read book) and founder of Homegrown National Park , has clued us in on some of his favorite books. In case that's not enough, we've also added some of our own favorites! ( Read more... )

If you’ve never tried winter sowing in a DIY mini-greenhouse or would like to experiment with a different container option, you’ve come to the right place. A “newbie” to winter sowing? We’ll tell you where to find all the information you need to get started. If you’ve tried it before but you’re looking for a change, we’ll direct you to alternatives to the tried-and-true milk jug mini- greenhouse that so many sites recommend. (Read more. .. ) Almost any plastic container can become a mini-greenhouse for winter sowing. #wintersowing,#gregwolgast,#perennialseeds

The journal Science reports  on a new study showing drastic declines in butterflies. The abstract states: " Numerous declines have been documented across insect groups, and the potential consequences of insect losses are dire. Butterflies are the most surveyed insect taxa, yet analyses have been limited in geographic scale or rely on data from a single monitoring program. Using records of 12.6 million individual butterflies from >76,000 surveys across 35 monitoring programs, we characterized overall and species-specific butterfly abundance trends across the contiguous United States. Between 2000 and 2020, total butterfly abundance fell by 22% across the 554 recorded species. Species-level declines were widespread, with 13 times as many species declining as increasing. The prevalence of declines throughout all regions in the United States highlights an urgent need to protect butterflies from further losses." You are part of the solution though! Our iNaturalist community science project is helping with data collection and the pesticide-free plants we are all planting are helping the butterflies directly. Another thing we can do is buy organic food. Many of the pesticides used to grow our food are those devastating pollinator populations, like neonicotinoids and diamides. Go organic in your yard and in your kitchen!

A University of Connecticut report  combining two decades of data with recent tests reveals widespread contamination of the state’s surface and groundwater by neonicotinoids, insecticides linked to falling populations of birds, bees and other pollinators. The Report Highlights the Urgent Need for Connecticut to Address Neonicotinoid Insecticide Pollution in Waterways. The report, by UConn’s Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, adds to the growing body of research and evidence that neonicotinoid insecticides are finding their way into streams and rivers from turf grass including lawns and golf courses as well as from agricultural uses. In addition to the connection to pollinator and bird declines, neonics also pose a health risk to humans. Connecticut has a bill this year before the legislature to end some high harm, low benefit uses of neonics to help protect bees, butterflies, river insects, birds and people. For more information about the bill and how to support it if you live in Connecticut, visit CT Pesticide Reform.

It was a perfect May evening in Newtown, blue skies and warm temperatures. A number of friends and members of Protect Our Pollinators had gathered just beyond the Newtown dog park where a line of hemlocks displayed the white, woolly-looking clusters, evidence that these trees had been infected with Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA). Left unchecked HWA can destroy enough hemlock needles to put the tree in serious condition in just a few years. So, it was beetles to the rescue as two containers of St (Sasajiscymnus tsugae) beetles were about to be released into the tree branches. These beetles are native to Japan where they act as predators and keep the adelgids under control. However, St beetles are not native in the U.S. and are raised here by one grower in Pennsylvania (Tree-Savers) who is the supplier of St beetles to sites in the eastern U.S. states. These tiny beetles are shipped in round plastic containers which contain up to 100 beetles, a damp wafer-like sponge, and some excelsior material, all of which were kept in a cool place where the beetles had become quite inactive. But once they were exposed to the warmth of a sunny day, they showed that they were ready to call Newtown their new hometown – and that they were ready for a meal. Third-grader Josie Rivera holding beetles. Third-grader Josie Rivera, a lover of science and especially insects, was more than happy to help with the release. As a container of beetles was handed to her, she intently focused on her “charges” as she helped to attach the contents of the plastic container to the tree. Once done, she was all smiles, knowing that she had helped the beetles and the trees. The release of St beetles has been done by the Connecticut Agriculture Experiment Station since the early 1990’s. Success of this program is evident by healthy hemlocks in hundreds of acres of state forest and park lands that have been saved through the release of this beetle.  The St beetles feed only on adelgids, making them a perfect bio-control method in that they do not impact non-target species. Luckily, they survive Connecticut winters, making them a sustainable control measure since new beetles do not have to be released the following spring. They are smart enough to leave some adelgids to allow for food for future generations, but eat enough adelgids to provide for health of the hemlocks.  Protect Our Pollinators was proud to initiate this project, with the approval of Newtown Land Use and the help of Dan Holmes who identified the site and made it accessible for the event. Written by Mary Gaudet-Wilson

The CT Clean Rivers Campaign is on a mission to test levels of neonicotinoid pesticides in state rivers, and we need your support to make it happen! Learn more and DONATE HERE Your donation will be matched 100% by Sustainable CT When pesticides are applied to fields, lawns, or golf courses, they eventually wash into nearby streams where they kill aquatic insects. Testing rivers for neonics is one way to show where these pesticides are showing up in the environment. The Clean Rivers Campaign is sponsored by Connecticut Pesticide Reform (CPR) , a grassroots coalition of individuals and CT conservation organizations, including Pollinator Pathway, whose mission is to achieve reductions in the use of pesticides harming human health, birds and pollinators, and contaminating the state's waters.