The March 28 Meeting was jam-packed full of great information!
Native Pollinators
Erin Ingram, UNL Dept. of Entomology graduate student, started off the meeting by giving us great information about native pollinators. Here are just a few fun facts we learned (from my notes – so I hoep they are right!):
- There are 4,400 species of bees in North America – over 20,000 species worldwide!
- Over 95% of bees are solitare and of these, 70% live in the ground.
- Mason bees are good pollinators or orchards. The lay their young in twigs and use mud to plug up each section that they have laid an egg, adding a pollen ball for food. They are bluish in color.
- Carter bees scrap things link Lamb’s Ear fuzz and roll it into a ball and use this for a really soft nesting material
- Leaf cutter bees look like “flying Cheetos” because they carry the pollen on the underside of their bodies. They also have heart-shaped abdomens.
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| Nesting Can from Knox Cellars | Reed bee house | Bee houses for different kinds of bees. Knox Cellars. |
Erin encouraged us all to provide homes for pollinators. To help us get started, she showed us several nesting houses and a nesting can. Then, we got to each build our very own home for native bees using phragmites (reeds). This was really easy – and would be a great project for kids. We gathered a dozen or so reeds that Erin had provided precut. We secured the bundle with rubber bands. Before securing the rubber band on one end, we put a piece of wax paper around the end as any home for bees should have one end sealed in some way. Then we tied a string around the bundle for hanger.
Join Bumble Boosters! Bumble Boosters is a pollinator conservation, research and education organization based out of the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Like Bumble Boosters on Facebook.