The Great Georgia Pollinator Census August 2019

August 23rd and 24th of 2019, citizens of Georgia will be conducting the first ever statewide pollinator census. This includes YOU if you live in Georgia! You will want to be a part of pollinator history!

We have been working towards this project for some time and even though it is still 14 months away, we want to make sure that every Georgia citizen has the date marked on their 2019 calendar. We have already been asked a few questions so I wanted to answer those most frequently asked:

What is the Great Georgia Pollinator Census? The Great Georgia Pollinator Census is a statewide project where all Georgia citizens will be asked to count pollinators on either August 23rd or 24th of 2019. Training and all supporting information will be provided through the website, https://GGaPC.org, closer to the August 2019 date.

How will it work? Each citizen scientist (YOU) will choose a favorite pollinator plant that is blooming in their garden for counting. You will count all the insects that land on that plant during a 15-minute period. After you tally the counts, you will upload your data to the webpage. Very simple. The data will be used for researchers to see a snapshot of which pollinators are at work in Georgia on those dates.

Do I have to be an entomologist to participate? NO, definitely NOT. We will be asking you to place the insects you see into one of eight categories:

Carpenter bees
Bumble bees
Small bees
Honey bees
Wasps
Flies
Butterflies
Other insects

The online training, conducted and posted online in 2019, will teach you how to tell the difference between flies, bees, and wasps. We will give you the tools to understand the basic skills needed to place insects in the categories. It will be very simple and straightforward. Of course, we will be available for any questions.

Can school groups participate? ABSOLUTELY! One of the reasons for the August date is to make sure school groups do participate. We will have lesson plans available for teachers use. We have conducted smaller censuses and school groups have really enjoyed the activities. The teachers can tie the census to their STEM activities.

If you are a teacher and have a lesson plan on pollinators that you want to share we would love to put the plan on our website and to feature you on upcoming social media. Just email me at beckygri@uga.edu to submit a lesson or for more information.

What about families? Can my small family participate? OF COURSE. The census is set up so that individuals can count in their gardens.

Will groups be holding special events around the census? YES, the State Botanical Garden in Athens and the Coastal Botanical Garden in Savannah have already started planning special events. Other gardens will follow. Also, contact your local UGA Extension office to see what they have planned.

Starting in January 2019 we will have supporting social media so that as you get ready for the census you will have fun, and educational, snippets to use in classrooms or in family discussions.

Why are you announcing the census so early? So that everyone can mark those dates on their calendars. And, it gives those who don’t have a pollinator garden time to design and plant one! (https://ugaurganag.com/pollinators)

What can we do now to get ready for the census? Plan and plant a pollinator garden, check the webpage and bookmark it (https://GGaPC.org), and contact me at beckygri@uga.edu if you have any questions.

Be part of Georgia pollinator history. Mark your calendar! Happy Pollinator Week 2018!

Becky Griffin

Pollinator Week 2017

It is Pollinator Week 2017!  Since last year the rusty patched bumble bee has been put on the Endangered Species List and honey bee keepers in the United States reported hive losses of 33% over 2016-17.  How can the average Georgia gardener help our pollinators?  These steps are easy and will make a real difference to our pollinating insects:

Read Georgia’s Pollinator Protection Plan

University of Georgia entomologists collaborated with stakeholders across the state to develop Protecting Georgia’s Pollinators.  There is a role for every Georgia citizen whether you are a farmer, a landscaper, or a homeowner.

Plant Flowering Plants

Adding flowering plants to your food garden attracts pollinators and as a bonus can also attract other beneficial insects.  To attract butterflies, adding plants that sustain the caterpillar stage of the butterfly is important.   The University of Georgia has done research on pollinator plants and has suggestions for plants that do well in our climate.

There are many pollinator plants that thrive in our Georgia climate.

Plan for a Succession of Bloom

Strive to have plants flowering as much of the year as possible.  Even during the winter months if temperatures rise above 50 F, bumble bees and honey bees are flying and looking for nectar and pollen.

Winter Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) is not a true honeysuckle and blooms in the winter months.

Create a Water Source

Adding pebbles or stones to your birdbath makes a wonderful water source for small insects with  delicate legs.  By cleaning the birdbath once a week you will avoid any mosquito problems.  If you don’t have a birdbath the drainage pans used to catch the water running out of potted plants can be used.

Wisely Use Any Pesticide

Examine your use of any pesticide.  Is the pesticide really necessary?  Your UGA Extension agent can assist you with any pest situation and guide you in deciding if a pesticide is the best answer.  Make sure you thoroughly read and follow any pesticide label.  The label is the law.

Have Your Garden Certified as a Georgia Pollinator Space

The Georgia Pollinator Spaces program is an initiative designed to recognize gardeners that consciously make an effort to improve pollinator health by creating pollinator habitat.   To get inspiration take a look at some of the gardens that are part of the program.

However you decide to celebrate Pollinator Week be sure to check our daily pollinator posts on the UGA Community and School Garden Facebook page.

Happy Pollinator Week!

 

 

This is the Year to Add Pollinator Spaces to Your Garden

Adding pollinator spaces to your community or school garden is a fabulous idea.  If you are a food grower, more pollinators means more pollination and increased food production!  Even if you aren’t growing food the benefits of attracting native bees, butterflies, and even honey bees are numerous.

This is the Year to Add Pollinator Spaces to Your Garden
Honey bee on winter honeysuckle

UGA’s Center for Urban Agriculture has created the Pollinator Spaces Project.  The mission is to make it easy to add pollinator habitat to any sized garden.  The process is easy:

Step #1  Learn

Learn about pollinators and pollinator plants using the Pollinator Spaces Project webpage.  The page includes a research-based plant list as well as links to pollinator events around the state and instructions on building bee homes and butterfly puddles.

Step #2  Create

Create your pollinator space.  Your garden can be as simple or as detailed as you want to make it.

Step #3  Share

Once your garden is complete and blooming send Becky Griffin (beckygri@uga.edu), our community and school garden coordinator, a photo of your new space.  Be creative.  If you work in a school garden, get your students in the picture.   When sending your photograph include some information about your garden.  You will then receive a beautiful certificate acknowledging your participation in this part of Georgia pollinator history.

This is the Year to Add Pollinator Spaces to Your Garden

At the end of 2016 we will create a map of Georgia showing the new pollinator spaces and we will design a storyboard telling the story of the project.  We will also feature new garden spaces during the year on our UGA Community and School Gardens Facebook page.

During the year we will be sharing pollinator facts, tips, and information through the webpage and the Facebook page.  So stay tuned!

Make 2016 the year YOU help pollinators by adding a pollinator space to your garden.  For more information about the project contact Becky at beckygri@uga.edu.  If you want more information on creating a garden unique to your area your local UGA Extension agent is a great resource.

Happy Gardening!

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia

Because of real concerns about our pollinator population the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked each state to develop a customized pollinator protection plan with recommendations on improving pollinator health.  This is not a regulatory document but just guidelines to help our pollinators.

Georgia’s plan is finished!  Protecting Georgia’s Pollinators (PGP) was developed as a joint effort between UGA’s Department of Entomology and the Georgia Department of Agriculture.  The author committee is made up of Jennifer Berry, Kris Braman, Keith Delaplane, Mike Evans, Philip Roberts, and Alton Sparks.  Those of you who are beekeepers may recognize several of these names as people heavily involved in pollinator research.

The draft of the plan was sent to over 35 groups across the state for their input – Georgia Beekeepers Association, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Peach Commission, the Blueberry Commission to name a few.  The result is a plan that has a role for all of Georgia’s citizens.

As community and school gardeners we have a vested interest in pollinator health.  More pollinators means more food from our gardens.  Not to mention the beauty of enjoying the insects at work.

Guidelines from the pollinator plan that we can garden by include:

If possible leave areas of your property permanently undisturbed for soil-nesting bees.  Sun-drenched patches of bare soil, roadsides, ditch banks, and woodland edges are prime bee habitats.

Dedicate pollinator habitat spaces in your garden.  UGA’s Pollinator Spaces Project has many resources to help with this.  Bees need a season-long unbroken succession of bloom.  Many plant species bloom in the spring.  Remember to plant plants to bloom in mid- to late-summer including Vitex, sages, and sunflowers.  Your local UGA Extension office will have information on what pollinator plants grow well in your area.

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia
Pollinator spaces are useful and beautiful!

Know the beekeepers in your area.  If your garden has a bee hive you want to be very careful about pesticide application and you will want to review in detail the section on pesticide users in the plan.

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia
Bee hives can be located in urban areas

Consider increasing bee nesting sites by providing bee homes.  These consist of solid wood pre-drilled with 1/4 to 1/2 inch holes that are at least 3-inches deep.  It is important that the tunnels terminate in dead-ends.  These are easy to create and a nice addition to any garden.

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia
A easily constructed bee home – photo from PGP

Educate your gardeners about insect behavior.  For example, the flight and nesting behavior of certain solitary bees happens in bursts of extreme activity.  In the spring or summer you may see a large number of bees flying out of tunnels in the grass over your garden all at once.  These are solitary bees and they are gentle, and their sting risk is extremely low!  Enjoy watching them!

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia
Digger Bee Nests

If you think insects are a problem in your garden take steps to correctly identify the insects and determine, with the help of your UGA Cooperative Extension Agent, if remedial action is necessary.

If your garden is located in a park or other public space that is maintained by local landscape crews, make sure that if they need to apply insecticide for turf pests that they mow the grass immediately before applying the pesticide.  The mowing will get rid of weed flowers that may attract bees.

White Clover
Clover, a bee favorite, is often found in lawns.

Follow all pesticide label directions and precautionary statements.  THIS IS THE LAW.  EPA is now requiring a “Protection of Pollinators” advisory box on certain pesticides labels.  Look for the bee hazard icon and instructions for protecting bees and other pollinators.

Pollinator Protection Plan for Georgia
Bee Hazard logo – photo from PGP

Take some time to look at Protecting Georgia’s Pollinators and you will see we all have a role to play.  If you need any information about the plan or protecting pollinators contact your local UGA Cooperative Extension Agent.

Happy Gardening!

Pollinator Week 2015

Pollinator Week 2015Welcome to Pollinator Week 2015!

This is a great opportunity for your gardeners to reflect on the role of pollinators and their role in your food production.

If you are getting flowers from your cucumbers or squash plants but no fruit – you NEED pollinators.  Even plants like tomatoes and beans that are self-pollinating can benefit from pollinators.

If the homeowners around your garden use pesticides, your garden can suffer.  If your garden is part of a park do you know the pesticide program of the grounds maintenance crew?

This pollinator week I challenge you to plan something for the pollinators.  Need ideas?

  • Educate property owners around your garden about pesticides
  • Add plants in your garden to attract pollinators, especially plants that bloom in late summer
  • Educate yourself about the different types of bees, honey bees and native bees, and their habitat needs
  • Investigate becoming a Certified Pollinator Garden or a Monarch Waystation
  • Plan a story time for children using books about pollinators
  • Host a local beekeeper at your garden to learn about honey bees in your area
  • Contact your local UGA Extension office to see if they have any special events planned around Pollinator Week
  • Become familiar with the Georgia State Pollinator Protection Plan

 

Pollinator Week 2015
A clump of pollinator plants in the Cherokee County Senior Center Garden

Happy Gardening!

What Are You Doing for Earth Day 2015?

What Are You Doing for Earth Day 2015?What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day 2015?

By being part of a Georgia community garden you are already doing quite a bit.  Community gardens help the environment in several ways.

Pollinator Conservation

As a vegetable gardener you know how important those pollinators are to your food production.  You may have a special pollinator garden area and you are very careful about the use of pesticides.  This example teaches new gardeners and garden visitors to also protect pollinators.  The result is not only a healthy pollinator population in your garden, but in the surrounding community as well.

What Are You Doing for Earth Day 2015?
Bee on Zinnia – a great pollinator plant!

Locally Grown Food

Growing food locally in your garden means that a bit less food is shipped across country saving gas, limiting air pollution, and lowering  refrigeration energy.

What Are You Doing for Earth Day 2015?
NF Annex CG Composting System

Soil Health

Hopefully you have had a soil test.  You know what nutrients to add to your soil so that you are not over-fertilizing.  Overuse of fertilizers is a big pollution concern.  Unused fertilizer can end up in  streams and rivers.  By meeting just your soil needs you are cutting down on pollution.  Maybe you all have a compost system where you change garden waste into soil compost.  Talk about recycling!

Environmental Awareness

Just by having a garden in your community you have raised environmental awareness.  No doubt you have had people stopping by as you all are working to ask questions about the garden.  And no doubt you told those people, with pride, about your sustainable growing practices.   You probably gave them a tour telling them about the food crops you are growing.  Those people may not become gardeners but they are now more aware of where food comes from and what it takes to grow it!

However you decide to celebrate Earth Day today take a moment and reflect on what you are already doing for our earth on a daily basis.

Happy Earth Day!

Honey Bees in the Community Garden-A Guest Post by Jennifer Grimes

The Georgia Tech Urban Bee Project
The Georgia Tech Urban Bee Project

As people become increasingly aware of the importance of pollinators, more community gardens are considering establishing a honey bee hive (or three) of their own. Not only do bee-flower interactions increase garden productivity, bee hives can provide great educational opportunities for the communities that keep them.

By providing pollinator support to your garden, you are greatly increasing the chance that your crop yield will be heavier and of better quality than without bees. To give just one example of this, the Honey Bee Project of the University of Hawaii found that the addition of one hive to a hectare of cucumber plants can result in three times the fruit production as compared to a plot with no hives. Moreover, in terms of fruit development, they found that a minimum of eight to ten bee-flower interactions is necessary to produce a cucumber of adequate quality.

Bees provide crucial agricultural support to gardens, but they also afford us with important learning opportunities in regard to the ecology and interconnected nature of our food systems. The practice of keeping bees permits communities to learn about the living systems that provide food for us. Around one third of our global food production and 90 percent of wild plants are dependent on pollinator services. As bee populations decline due to Colony Collapse Disorder, rampant pesticide use, loss of habitat, pests and diseases, and genetic uniformity caused by selective breeding, the spreading of awareness is increasingly critical in our efforts to reverse the problem. The bees give us an opportunity to increase awareness of how to not only live sustainably within the system, but how to nurture it as well.

Now that we know how the establishment of bee hives in our community gardens can help us as gardeners, we need to ask ourselves how we can help the bees. Beekeeping is a fun, rewarding hobby, but taking upon the responsibility of caring for a colony of bees not a task to be taken lightly. Establishing beehives in your community garden requires either procuring a local beekeeper or becoming a beekeeper yourself in order to maintain the hives. Beekeeping associations often offer beekeeping courses in the early spring. Though these are not required to become a hobby beekeeper in Georgia, they are highly recommended for the benefit of the bees and the keepers.

Honey Bees Coming Home - photo by Jeff Martin
Honey Bees Coming Home – photo by Jeff Martin

In order to ensure a healthy, happy hive, take part in best management and good neighbor practices. It’s critical that your hive has a variety of non-pesticide-laced wildflowers to forage for food when crops are not in bloom. Strategically planting varieties of native wildflowers that bloom when crops are not blooming will provide season-long food supplies to keep your honey bees, as well as our critical native pollinators, healthy and productive. Plus they are pretty!  It is also important that the bees have access to a clean nearby source of water; they need this to help produce food for baby bees as well as to cool their hives during the hot summer months. Keeping these necessities close by will discourage bees from traveling long distances and wasting energy that could be used to make honey, as well as from becoming a nuisance by spending too much time around your neighbor’s pool.

In regard to liability issues, there’s no guarantee a neighbor or visitor won’t bring a nuisance or negligence case against you regardless of the precautions you’ve taken. As Georgia has no laws protecting beekeepers from these legal actions, this topic is open for legal interpretation. However, the liability risk is negligible in comparison to the great ecological benefits that these insects provide. Moreover, honey bees are an extremely docile species of bee and the likelihood of being stung is extremely low, especially when they are not in their hive. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe they have been stung by a honey bee when in fact they were stung by a yellow jacket or other aggressive stinging insect. Considering that the act of stinging causes the bee to die, this action is only taken as a last resort when defending their colony. Some beekeepers claim that honey bees are so docile that, when foraging for food in flowers, they can even be pet.  Keith Delaplane, a UGA entomologist has a thorough publication, Honey Bees and Beekeeping.  Helpful information on all types of bees can also be found through the Xerces Society.

If you’re interested in establishing a bee hive in your community garden, you can learn more by visiting local beekeepers, taking some beekeeping classes, or by contacting your local UGA Extension office.

Jennifer Grimes is a City and Regional Planning Graduate Student at Georgia Tech. She is currently an intern with the Georgia Tech Urban Honey Bee Project. Jennifer is also a home brewer and plans on making mead in the near future using local honey – Honey Bee-r!

Happy beekeeping!

 

 

 

Happy Pollinator Week

In honor of National Pollinator Week we ask the question “how important are pollinators in our community garden?”  VERY!! Technically pollination is the process where pollen is transferred from the male flower parts (stamen-anther and filament) to the female flower parts (pistil-stigma, style, and ovary).   Sometimes the male and female parts are on the same flower and sometimes they are on different flowers on the same plant, like squash and cucumbers.  Pollinators visit flowers to collect pollen and nectar.  The pollination process is a consequence.

 

Honey Bees - Jeff Martin photographer
Honey Bees – Jeff Martin Photographer

Pollinators are an integral part of any garden.  They play a major role in the production of 150 food crops in the United States.  Apples, almonds, melons, strawberries, blueberries, onions, squash, cucumbers, and broccoli are just a few food crops that are dependent on pollinators.  One third of every bite of food we eat is due to pollinators.  So, they are vital to your community garden.  How do you attract and keep pollinators?

Some community gardens have common areas set aside for flowers.  This is a great spot to add plants that attract pollinators.  Plants like black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia spp.), bee balm (Monarda didyma), anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), zinnia (Zinnia elegans), butterfly weed (Asclepias spp.), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), dill (Anethum graveolens), and aster (Aster spp.) are all great choices.  These not only attract pollinators but other beneficial insects like lacewings, praying mantids, and parasitic wasps.  Plan your area for a long bloom time.  Bee balm and black-eyed Susan start blooming early in the summer while many asters bloom late into the fall.  Some gardeners may want to include a few of these in their individual garden plot.

102_2015
Bumble Bee on Orange Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Perennial shrubs are also great for common areas since they create a more permanent landscape.  Consider fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii)  which starts blooming early in the spring.  Sweet pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia) blooms in midsummer and is usually covered in pollinators.  Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) provides flowers in the cooler months when the hairy bumble bees may be active. UGA Commercial Horticulturist, Jeffrey Webb, has a great publication, Beyond Butterflies:  Gardening for Native Pollinators, which has a comprehensive list of plant choices.

Use pesticides ONLY when necessary.  If you have to use them, spot spray rather than cover spray.  Apply pesticides that are the least toxic to pollinators.  And, spray when the pollinators are less active.  Your local UGA Extension agent can help you decide which pesticide is most effective with the least damage to the beneficial insects.

With a few additional steps your garden can even become a Certified Pollinator Garden.  The pollinators win since they have a great place to collect nectar and pollen.  Your food crops win because their flowers get pollinated.  You win because your vegetables are more abundant and extra delicious!

Happy Gardening!