A pollinator-friendly solar farm in Minnesota. Photo by Rob Davis, Center for Pollinators in Energy, used with permission. By Sue Smith-Heavenrich Solar farms are sprouting everywhere, from small community clusters of arrays to large industrial installations. Colby College, in Waterville, recently flipped the switch on its 9-acre, 5,300-panel solar field. The Madison Business Gateway in
Two native sweat bees. Photo by Daniel B. VanWart Carpenter bee. Photo by Daniel B. VanWart Eastern bumblebee. Photo by Daniel B. VanWart Half black bumblebee. Photo by Daniel B. VanWart By Gail J. VanWart Photos © Daniel B. VanWart, used with permission My husband, Daniel, and I steward an organic wild blueberry farm in
While the southern range of bumble bees is moving north, the northern range seems to be stationary. English photo By Sue Smith-Heavenrich As the planet warms, many animals – and even plant populations – are migrating to cooler areas. Some expand their ranges northward; others move upslope, to higher elevations. But not bumble bees. A
For this pollinator study, tomato plants in 5-gallon buckets had some of the flower clusters covered with net bags before they went into the field. Photo courtesy of San Francisco State University By Sue Smith-Heavenrich A study released earlier this year from San Francisco State University shows that native bees provide an important pollination service
Clethra alnifolia Liatris and a Monarch butterfly Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) By Heather McCargo Photos by Jean English Native plant corridors attract pollinators and wildlife to your farm by stretching across your property to connect your piece of native habitat to nearby meadows, wetlands or woodlands. This creates a much larger area for native pollinators
Buckwheat growing at Khadigar Farm. Photo by Will Bonsall. By Will Bonsall Gardeners rarely include buckwheat among their garden crops, except occasionally as a green manure. That’s not a bad idea, although often not the best. For soil that already has a modicum of fertility, other green manures – oats, for example – return more
Blue orchard bee. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_orchard_bee By Adam Tomash Photos by the author The honeybee is the pollinator we most depend on, but other pollinators exist, and 4,000 species of feral (native) bees live in North America. Roughly one-third of these bees nest in small cavities or tunnels, such as hollow plant stems, borer tunnels and
Organic blueberry grower Doug Van Horn, left, and insect ecologist Frank Drummond, Ph.D., of the University of Maine, Orono, stand by a newly installed native bee nesting box at Twitchell Hill Blueberries in Montville. Lynn Ascrizzi photo. A leafcutter bee (Osmia atriventris), commonly called the Maine blueberry bee, forages on blueberry blossoms. This native bee,
By Sue Smith-Heavenrich I spent 10 minutes one morning last summer watching the bees in my blooming asparagus – the bumblebees, honeybees and a number of smaller bees I couldn’t immediately identify. They were incredibly busy, moving from one flower to the next. In the squash and pumpkin blossoms, small bumblebees were vibrating, making quite
Pollinator Profiles More than 270 species of bees are native to Maine. Here are a few that you might see in your meadows and crops this summer: Bumblebees (family Apidae) – Sixteen species of bumblebees live in Maine, ranging in size from under 1/2 inch to about an inch long. They are hairy, and usually
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