Citizens and gardeners:
- Buy polyfloral honey (this signifies diverse diets and diverse habitats that support other bees too!). Embrace the complexity and inconsistency of flavor.
- Collect data via citizen science projects like The Great Sunflower Project and iNaturalist
- Plant flowers, especially native flowers
- Tolerate leafcutters and carpenter bees. They won’t do any significant damage
- Let your gardens get a little wild (bare ground, brush piles, dead stems)
- Set up Mason/Carpenter/Leafcutter hotels and Bumble bee houses if you’re prepared to do some light, consistent upkeep
- Let your lawn bloom. Planting clover is a great option for those who like to keep it short. Clover also fixes nitrogen which lawn grasses need. Just be sure to keep your mower height at 3.5″ so they can bloom.
Farmers:
- Preserve or restore floral diversity
- Permaculture
- Pollinator meadows, shrubs, or trees
- Flowering cover crops
- Year-round flowers
- Reduce mowing and tilling
- Avoid pesticides or minimize impact on pollinators
- Rotational grazing
“Native plants, which are adapted to local soils and climates, are usually the best sources of nectar and pollen for native pollinators. Incorporating native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees into any landscape promotes local biological diversity by providing shelter and food for wildlife.” Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation