Spring has sprung and the bees they are are a’buzzin! I have been fascinated by pollinators for as long as I can remember.  As a child, I loved sneaking up on the monarchs that danced around my mom’s flower garden. I thought the huge carpenter bees that hung around our home were the cutest thing I had ever seen with their big fuzzy bodies, and I was so impressed by the precision at which they drilled their perfect holes into our patio wood, much to my father’s dismay. When I first learned that bats and opossums play an important role in certain plant pollination, they jumped up about 5 points on the cuteness-scale. These days, working with students in school gardens, I get a lot of up-close interaction with pollinators that frequent the spaces I visit. Last summer, the students and I got the greatest kick out of observing a crew of squash bees sticking out their extra long tongues as they collected pollen from our tromboncino flowers. Still, with 1 in 3 bites of our food dependent on animal pollination, pollinators play a much greater role than just being fun to look at!

Recently, a group of local researchers from 6 institutions in the St. Louis region (University of Missouri-St. Louis, Saint Louis University, Maryville University, Webster University, Missouri Botanical Garden, and the St. Louis Zoo) teamed up to collect data on the benefits of urban orchards in terms of supporting local insect diversity and minimizing the ecological impact of cities. The researchers collected data from 36 different urban orchard sites around St. Louis. When presenting some of their research at Seed St. Louis’ Community Agriculture Conference this year, I learned some fun facts about bees in the St. Louis region. Did you know Missouri is home to over 450 species of bees? Of those, the researchers observed 211 species in St. Louis urban orchards! That is nearly half of all MO bee species! The team noted that of the bees that were generalists, meaning they feed off a variety of different flowers, they still tended to be fairly constant in their individual flower choices. Blue and purple flowers were favored among the bees, with bright and pure spectral colored flowers being another popular choice. Other bees observed were specialists, which means they are extremely inflexible in their diet choice. For example, the native hibiscus bee, specializes only on hibiscus plants, favoring our three Missouri native hibiscus species. The researchers also revealed that bees generally do not travel more than a mile in a day, while some, such as sweat bees, only travel up to 150 meters in a single day. Given the bees limited range of travel and the specificity of their diet needs, it is clear that we need many diverse food sources spread throughout the land in order to support pollinator biodiversity and maximize food production in our gardens. Turning vacant lots throughout the city into gardens, orchards, and parks is just one way St. Louis is doing this!

Read more about this local pollinator study here.

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