Bee-friendly pollinator garden a cause we should all support

So many national and international threats hanging over the heard of humanity these days seem so complex and distant as to defy meaningful impact at the local level.

Fortunately, though, there is at least one where individuals and communities can make a real difference — supporting pollinators contributing in important ways to our physical and mental well-being, starting with the lowly honey bee. In fact, we are noticing new signs of progress all around us of late.

You may not be able to disarm a foreign nuclear power, but by teaming up with your neighbors, you can help create a personal or community pollinator garden. And as it happens, you many well end up contributing to better living on a global scale.

To many among us, honey may seem as quintessentially American as apple pie and the honey bee as fundamentally American as the bald eagle. However, we Americans are prone to falling victim at times to myopic ethnocentrism.

Consider this:

Though there are about 20,000 known species of bees in the world, including about 4,000 in the U.S. and 500 in Oregon, two varieties account for virtually all our planet’s honey production.

They are the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, predominating in Europe and the Americas, and the eastern honey bee, Apis cerana, predominating in Asia and Africa. And neither is native to the Americas.

Apis mellifera — domesticated for honey production about 2,600 B.C., more than 45 centuries ago — is believed to have originated in Africa or Eurasia. It was imported to the U.S. primarily from Germany and Italy.

The world counts more than 100 hone bee colonies, averaging around 40,000 bees each. Asia accounts for 45 million of them, Europe 25 million, Africa 18 million, the Americas 12 million and the U.S. only 2.7 million.

China is the runaway leader in global honey production, followed by Turkey, Iran and India. Mexico leads in the Americas, followed by the U.S.

However, 75% of the world’s flowering plants and 35% of its food crops depend on pollination. Honey bees account for about 80%, including pollination of more than 130 fruits and vegetables, with species of wild bees accounting for much of the rest.

Pollination is critical to agricultural production valued at up to $500 million in Oregon, $34 billion in the U.S. and $575 billion around the world. Dependent crops include blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cherries, apples, pears and an array of seed varieties in Oregon.

As the 21st century unfolds, both wild and domestic pollinators are coming under increasing threat from climate change, habitat loss, environmental pollution and creeping urbanization.

We have also been losing honey bee colonies to mite infestations and colony collapse disorder in growing numbers, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. And the spread of aggressive Africanized bees remains a concern.

So, yes, it is incumbent on us to do all we can to protect both the domesticated western honey bee and its scores of undomesticated pollination partners, including bumblebees and butterflies. By doing so, we will, in fact, be contributing on a global scale.

Locally, Sheridan seems to be taking the most aggressive and impactful stance.

It started with a decision to greenlight backyard beekeeping about three years ago. That ignited a movement leading to a ban earlier this year on use of toxic fluoroalkyl PFA chemicals and nicotine-based neonicotinoid pesticides in city parks, landscaping and rights of way.

The latest move, turning city fall grounds into a “pollinator paradise,: bubbled up with local resident David Stearns. Proprietor of the commercial six-acre Treedemption Gardens nursery, he is dedicated to organic, natural, regenerative techniques in his business and offered to lead the way.

Noting city hall serves as a central hub for Sheridan, he promised he could make it “flower from April all the way ‘til October.” And the council unanimously took him up on it.

Last year, Carlton celebrated the dedication of a new community garden, underwritten by Hampton Lumber, on a plot at First and Monroe streets. But it was largely traditional in nature.

During a council meeting earlier this month, local native plant and bee stewardship advocate Robin Geck offered to convert the space into a true pollinator garden that increasingly transitions its plant mix to the natural side. She not only got the go-ahead, but councilors suggested they discuss her planting in additional space across the street.

Geck said her vision includes an educational effort in the schools and larger community on bee stewardship. “Bees need us, and we need the bees,” she said.

In McMinnville, the McMinnville Garden Club, Master Gardeners and Native Plant Society have worked with the OSU Extension Service and Soil and Water Conservation District on civic beautification and native plant projects. Meanwhile, volunteers have committed to managing flower and vegetable plantings along Alpine Avenue.

A pollinator garden movement seems as if it would be a natural. And the seeds have already been planted, so to speak, by Hillside’s Pollinator Project.

The senior living community used goat power to clear a suitable site last year. Resident Givi Pullen said she and fellow advocates, working with Soil and Water, planned to rely on native plants to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

Let’s hear it for the bees. This is the kind of project we should all be able to get buzzed about.