How to Save the Honey Bees, and Butterflies, and Other Pollinators

0:00 in a world brimming with complexity few creatures embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless precision she dances from bloom to bloom each motion guided by millennia upon millennia of instinct each act in service to the whole and then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist, part poet, they move along their hives with the efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to the bees' needs as best they can comprehend, and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Lovey Keeping presented by our good friends over at Man Lake.

1:25 I'm not in my normal place today, in my office. As you can see, we're at Appamondia Congress, which is in Copenhagen, and we had a great first day yesterday. Can't wait to see what's on tap today. We're gonna have all kinds of learning sessions and see all the new products. Someone keeps walking in the frame. That's okay, this is natural going on back here. And we're not gonna try to film the whole conference for you. But just to let you know in the coming weeks we're going to have people on the show that we're speakers here. We're going to be showing all kinds of new products and it's going to be a ton of fun. So let's go for it. Fast forward a few days, I'm back home. The conference was amazing. Epimonia is really a blend of where beekeeping meets science. There were hundreds of different speakers talking about their science that they're working on and all of the things that they're learning that are going to help us with ViroA and all kinds of other things in beekeeping. And the expo, wow, it had so many businesses from around the world, all kinds of new things for beekeeping. We'll talk about some of those in the future, but since my voice isn't going to last long, let's get to the interview pre -recorded. Here it comes and it's a nice feel -good story today. I'd like to welcome Elsa Gallagher to the show today. Elsa, you are, are

2:57 you in North Dakota? I'm in Missouri. You are not in North Dakota. I wasn't even close, but the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, that's where you're headquartered, right? Yeah, yes. We have a big reach and everyone works remotely in our team. Well, give me an idea of what you do for the fund. So I'm our habitat program director. I work with landowners that we work with to put projects on the ground. So I work one -on -one with individual landowners, corporations, companies, corporate campuses, cities, parks, conservation departments, and we work to put good quality pollinator habitat on the ground. at a reduced rate for those partners that we work with, the land partners that we work with. So let's start with a 30 ,000 foot view and then we'll narrow down to a bunch of topics, talk more detail.

3:54 But in general, why should a beekeeper or somebody that's thinking about it or someone that just loves honeybees, why should they care? Sure. Well, it's not just the honeybees and the bees these days. You know, the monarch butterfly is about to be listed. as either an endangered or a threatened species through the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We've got multiple bee species that are in jeopardy, in danger, not just for our food supply and for things like that, but just general biodiversity and having those species out there. To me, that's an important thing. And I think most beekeepers would agree that having great pollinator services is also a benefit that certainly the honeybee provides. Boy, there's just been so much that keeps hitting the beekeeper these days and die -offs. We want to focus on what we think is one of the bigger issues and that is having high quality habitat or high quality forage for bees. So let's be more specific. What do you guys get into as far as habitat and forage?

5:00 So what we do is we develop a pollinator seed mix for a landowner. Say a landowner comes in, you know, Joe Bob Smith is coming in tomorrow and he wants to work with us on developing habitat or forage in his area. So we develop a plan for him to get the site prepared, get the site ready, and if his site is between two acres and 25 acres in size. we provide free seed for that project. And we break the project up into two pieces. So if he's doing 20 acres, we give him 10 acres of a very high diversity seed mix that's native to his local area. And then the other 10 acres is planted separately. to a bee mix. And that bee mix has a lot of clovers in it, has a lemon balm in it. There's a lot of different... Fasalia in some states is included in that bee mix, but the bee mix is really very forage rich for honeybees especially. And then the other mix is more of a diverse native mix that takes a couple more years to establish, but eventually provides a ton of diversity for that site. So let's say I have a 10 acre place and I'm growing corn or alfalfa or soybeans or something like that. And I realized the benefits of having a border of some kind of forage for pollinators. Can I get with you and say, hey, I'm going to plant this

6:32 whole 10 acres, but I want a ring. Everything was some good habitat. Is that something that would qualify and how would you figure out what I need to do? It would qualify if it met our minimum of two acres. So we we don't do projects smaller than two acres in size. That's just not our niche. We do projects larger than 25 acres in size though with more of a cost share approach where we have you pay for part of it. However, if you had an existing area and you wanted to put in like you're talking about like a buffer the habitat buffer around the outside and that's that's kind of how we encourage our landowners to plant anyway is to plant our our honey bee mix our bee mix around as a as a border around the native mix, which is usually planted in the middle. So it's like a picture in a picture frame.

7:20 The frame is the bee mix around the outside and the inside is the actual picture or the native planting. And then that helps us, like if you say you ever wanted to manage your site with prescribed fire and manage that native planting using burning, you can use that nice green strip of clover. species, your bee mix, as a green fire break. So it works really well. But in a situation where you're just wanting to plant like a border around a crop field, you can definitely do that with both of our seed mixes. That can work as well, as long as we can come up with that two acre. Or, you know, you could do an acre on your place and the neighbor could do an acre on his place. We've done many projects like that as well. Let's say I live in more of an urban area and I want to get my city leaders to realize Hey in some of the park strips or along the highways and along the roads We need to have this kind of stuff planted You have any guidance for me or do you reach out to those people for me or how does that work? It's easier if a local person reaches out just because they have those connections in the community and At least with the beekeeping groups that I've worked with come and given programs to and worked with.

8:35 They all seem to ask that same question and want to be more active locally with their city. So I'll give you an example of a Quincy Illinois project that we worked on. The beekeepers came to me, I came and gave a program about our habitat program and No one in the room really raised their hand and said, you know, I've got four acres or two acres to do this. But one of the guys said, you know, I know the parks guys. And the parks guys might be interested. And so we've ended up planting, working with their local parks group on planting two different projects now over the past couple of years for their pollinators. And it was all because of that beekeeping club, the Quincy Beekeepers. They did a really great job of kind of communicating and trying to. open a few doors for us. But we did do a few Zoom calls with the city and I've also talked to folks at universities. There's just a lot of different opportunity and we're happy to get on a call and try and help make something happen. But usually those kind of things do better locally. We have one project in Ohio that became a Bee City, a certified Bee City. After doing our planting, and we worked with them, they worked with their FFA students, and the FFA students in the high school actually did the planting. They did the site prep, they did the planting, so any way that we can get the community more involved in the project, people have a little more buy -in and are more interested in it. And so, for example, we had a local beekeeper come out and bring an observation hive when we did the planting that

10:06 day, and we had the local homeschool kids do the planting. So we've done quite a few. different things. People are excited about bees, really. It's interesting to me. I think there was a lot of really bad things about COVID. I think a few of the good things are that people got a little more interested in the homesteading movement and really trying to keep bees. And so if we can keep those people educated and they can be good beekeepers and go through a mentor program and learn how to do it right, I think it could be a great thing for someone to take on and make a part of their life. Okay let's talk for a minute about just a lot of people out there that okay they're not on 10 or 20 acres they live in much more of a suburb kind of place and their house is on a quarter acre and and they have one beehive in the backyard. or they have no beehives but they care about the pollinators. And on their quarter acre they've got this beautiful Kentucky bluegrass that some people call a green desert.

11:15 Give us an idea. What can we do? We may not be able to get seeds from you but that's okay. There are things that we can do. Give us some advice here. There are. So cut that mowing down. I'm not a fan of the lawn. As a wildlife biologist my entire career, I do not see much benefit in a lawn. There's bee -friendly things that you can do to lawns. You can add a lot of species to a lawn to make it a little more bee -friendly. I would be tempted to kill off a portion of the lawn and to plant something that would have more pollen benefit, that would have more nectar resources for migrating insects. So for me, that's what I would do on a small site. You know, I would go ahead and do a little planting. I think you can have good habitat and provide a resource for your pollinators that are moving through the area, even if you can't keep them there full time, you know, in your area, because you don't have a large enough space, but you can always do something. And you'll be amazed at the way the insects start to use the area when you've got more diversity. you know, less pesticide use, those types of things. Just be aware of those types of things on your property. And I think if you can get some different species in there, try and get as many different types and varieties as you can because that benefits, you know, more species. There's new research out there that shows a little bit and I could talk to you a little bit about that, Eric, but it was I saw a really great talk just recently at

12:46 the Minnesota Honey Producers Association meeting from Louis Bartlett down at UGA. and he talked at length about how, even if the forage was better, so better quality, more protein, more carbs, it was just a better quality forage, but it was a monoculture, just one, it was one planting, that bees always do better, even if the forage is lower quality, they always do better if there's more diversity. So they showed that if there's a lot more diversity in the pollen, and they're bringing in food from lots of different plants, that they always do better than they do on a strict monoculture diet of just one species.

13:31 And I thought that was really interesting, and he spoke right before I did, so it worked really well when I was talking about trying to get people to plant more diverse species and to get our seed mixes are... A minimum, the native mix is a minimum of 40 native species. Our Missouri mix is 69 native species. Yeah, that just makes sense. Not only for honeybees, but honeybees are sharing their area with other native pollinators. The state that I live in, we have 2 ,000 native bee species, for example. And if you want, I'll name them all alphabetically in just a minute. kidding, but we see so many of them around here.

14:14 For example, I've mentioned on this podcast before one of my favorite things in our yard, and I'm planting more of them because the pollinators like it so much, is a pussy willow tree. And it doesn't just attract honeybees. It's the first thing that they're attracted to in the spring. But I go out there and there are I don't even know how many different species of native bees and bumblebees and butterflies. And it's just really cool to see. And one doesn't exclude the others. I know there have been some articles recently about honeybees. Well, just Taking all that forage and then the native bees are dying off. I Don't know where I am I see them all working together and having fun together and singing kumbaya together and maybe I'm naive but But I see a lot of synergy between all of them some of the things that we've planted here Specifically for honeybees this particular summer. We're covered with bumblebees cool, okay At the Be a Waterfly Fund, Eric, we really do believe that a high tide floats all the ships. You put in a lot of different habitat, you put in a lot of diversity, you are going to help a lot of different species.

15:35 And I do know, and I can't even quote it for you because I think it was just in a recent meeting, we work with a group called Farmers for Monarchs, and they were just talking about some recent research that was showing that there isn't as much truth to the old wives' tale that honey bees are using up all the resources. And we should worry more about native bees. You know what? I am happy that somebody's worried about a bee. If they get started with honey bees and then they become more interested in other pollinators, that's great. If they get started with honey bees and they're very interested in honey bees and they become a quality beekeeper that takes good care of their hives and provides a resource out there, that's great too. If you're a beekeeper like me, we're getting into that favorite time of year, honey harvest. But it can be a lot of work. That's where Mad Light comes in. They have everything you need to make the job easier, cleaner, and more efficient. Removal aids, refractometers, uncapping tools, extractors, tanks, wax melters, even the jars and labels. Plus they have free shipping on glass containers. Whether you're a hobbyist with two hives or a full -blown commercial operation, Man Lake has it all. And don't forget your discount code MLBLove10. It's in the show notes. For $10 off your first $100 purchase.

16:59 Yeah absolutely we believe that if you put that habitat out there they're going to come in and a lot of different species are going to be using it as well. Let's get back to this quarter acre example for a second because I want people to not be afraid of this. We used to live in a neighborhood where it was almost a competition whose grass looked the best and the most perfect. And I had neighbors that would mow in diagonal directions and try to make it look like a baseball field and perfect edging and all that kind of stuff. And if you didn't do that, you were almost looked down upon in the neighborhood. I live in a more rural kind of area now, but I've done some of the things with my yard that I wanted to do there and that I know are okay to do there. For example, Before we knew better, we started with a whole front yard of just regular green turf grass.

18:01 The last few years I've been overseeding with clover. I didn't have to rip out or kill all of the grass, which some people do to plant clover. just over seeded with clover or here's a bare spot I'm gonna put some clover seed down and that kind of thing and I would say if you were to look really closely now at the grass you would see grass and clover roughly 50 -50 it's a beautiful lush lawn from the driveway it just looks green that's what people care about and the other thing that is great about that here and in some other places is it uses a lot lot less water I just want people to not be afraid of it. If you live in one of those picture -perfect neighborhoods, be the rebel, plant some clover or something, and it still is going to look beautiful. I'm with you, Eric, because I don't believe that you don't have to go out there and plant a native five -foot tall grass with sunflower plantings to provide a benefit. You can go in and put some of these smaller, shorter growing things into your lawn. The bee lawn program in Minnesota is really active. The Minnesota Bee Lab works with them and they just do a great job of trying to get people to add something to that grass mix. And I think you're exactly right. Mike, I have a dog yard where I let my dogs run every day and it's about an acre and fenced in and I've been doing just what you're doing. I'm taking

19:31 Dutch white clover and I am just broadcasting it in any of the bear spots and the bees just... Love it. Now it drives my husband absolutely nutto because I will avoid some of the bigger patches if they're really dense and there's bees using them a lot. I'll avoid them when I mow and he just he prefers to be more of a strict mower but I'm enjoying it very much and I think the bees are too. And I find when I mow and it's not all that often anyway but when I do if I just leave the lawnmower set as high as it'll go it leaves a lot of those clover flowers in there. it doesn't cut them all off. The other thing that we've done that everybody can do is there's some things that pop up on their own you can call them weeds whatever that we used to rip out or heaven forbid spray with something which we don't anymore and now some of those things we just let grow like one of the things that we have here sunflowers they grow native we don't have to water them they'll grow in the middle of a gravel driveway if you don't care and It's okay to leave some of that stuff. And it'll be covered up with insects. I mean, you'll just be amazed. I was down in Oklahoma last weekend and my sister has a bunch of just common sunflower growing along her road ditches. And it was just covered in all kinds of a lot of butterflies.

20:53 There was just there was a lot of bees in there. It was just amazing to me how how much diversity there is. when you leave a little bit of something for them. You don't have to do these larger projects. As long as you do a little bit of something, you can make a benefit to the pollinators. And you had mentioned monarchs a few minutes ago. We used to kill milkweed because it was a weed. My wife is now trying to find some to plant. Tell us about milkweed and monarchs. Well, one I'll tell you about where she can get it to plant because Monarch Watch is the name of the organization out of Kansas. They do a really great job of providing milkweed plugs, small milkweeds. Don't know if Utah is in their range, but I'm guessing it might be. But common milkweed. So the life cycle of the monarch butterfly is really incredible for people that don't know. They're hatched all the way from Texas all the way up into Canada and the monarch butterfly overwinners in the OML for forest in Mexico one spot like what literally when I say one spot I mean just a couple acres in one spot That's where all the monarchs go to every year on the top of this forest. So they'll fly up to Texas They'll lay an egg and then that monarch dies the egg hatches and then that egg will fly up to Missouri Or as a as an adult it'll fly up to Missouri and then it lays an egg and then it dies and then that egg that is hatched in Missouri flies up to say Minnesota and then

22:24 it will on the fourth generation which is happening right now as we're going through the fourth generation is being hatched right now it's that fourth generation will head all the way back to that OML fir forest in Mexico which I mean to me though that's a migration incredible story that this species has adapted It's never seen the OML fir forest. It's four generations removed from anybody that ever has. And then all these generations are built just to lay eggs and let them move forward and then they die. So it's just an incredible story. And the number one food source for monarch caterpillars is common milkweed, which is the one that you said, Eric, is every farmer had their kids out there. cutting milkweed plants for years and years and years. We didn't understand the importance of that milkweed to the monarch butterfly, and it's mostly common milkweed. There's a lot of other prettier ones you can plant, but common milkweed is probably 90 % or more of the monarch caterpillars are raised on a common milkweed plant. I was mowing earlier and I just went around two little baby, I'll send you a picture later, but I literally went around these two little milkweeds and I was gonna, I was like, nope, they're in the, he's gonna get mad if I don't mow it. And I was mowing and I looked down and I saw two caterpillar and they're good sized right now. I was like, whoa, look at that. I just went right around them. So, yay. And I haven't seen a monarch butterfly around here in a few years, unfortunately. So if I plant a milkweed,

23:56 is it even gonna do anything? because how's a monarch going to find it to lay eggs? I bet they will find it. I'm telling you. Yeah, they'll find it. They really do. It's amazing to me how they will find and plant a couple. And if you and if you don't like the look of the. Common milkweed as much it's a little scruffier of a plant the swamp milkweed is probably number two in their preference range Swamp and swamp milkweed is a little shorter and it's a little prettier of a plant I really like and it likes a little wetter area So it may not work real well everywhere in your area But it might work in some places where you've got like a depression or something or just water it more But yeah swamp milkweed is a good one as well, but common milkweed I will tell you, I challenge everyone listening to this podcast, when the common milkweed is in bloom, go out there and smell it. It is the best smelling plant I think we have on the planet.

24:53 I mean, I seriously believe that. It smells so great when it's in bloom. It's surprising. We're gonna find some milkweed. We're gonna get it planted. It may be a little bit ugly. I have enough room. I can put it out of the way. That's fine So but I'm gonna watch and we're gonna look for those monarchs. I can't wait Alright next on my list Pesticide use what are we going to do? A lot of people live in places like I do where the county goes around and sprays the side of the roads and not only do they do that but they do it on days where it's too hot for the chemicals they're using so there's a lot of drift and and we get 2 ,4 -D and Roundup everywhere.

25:38 As a wildlife biologist who does as part of my career have used chemical to Alter the landscape to get something better out there than what we've had or to deal with invasive species or even to get the site prepped and ready to go so that we don't have to use it anymore. You know, so we've gone from a soy say a soybean field to a pollinator planting. Well, we have used, you know, herbicides to get us from one point to the next point. But then in the future, you know, you're you're taking that chemical use almost totally out of that. project once you've got the good pollinator habitat established. I think that has to be a local thing. Again, Eric, like I said earlier, it has to be a local. We have to talk to our leaders in our cities and in our counties. I don't know as much about the Bee City program as I probably should. I just know that two of our cooperators who are both working with cities have both signed the Bee City Pledge and that they are working as a Bee City. My guess would be that there's something in there. When we have mayors sign the Mayor's Monarch Challenge, we ask for things like judicious use of herbicides if they need to use them or pesticides if they need to use them. But I can't even imagine being in a city like Houston, for example. I was visiting a friend and they were coming around and spraying for mosquitoes. She's like, well, we have to go in now. And I'm like, why are we going in?

27:08 She goes, we have to go in now because they're spraying. And I'm like, what are they spraying? And why do I need to go inside? And what's happening here? To me, that's more of a local situation for people. And that's where people should get involved. I mean, I know where my legislators are. I go down to our Capitol and talk to them about conservation issues. I'm not afraid to do that. And I think... Once they learn your story and they can put a face to it, I think it makes a lot of difference. There are places around here that do the same thing with spraying the mosquitoes. I haven't talked to the administrators directly. It's not in a city that I live in. But what I have been told and seen in the news is they think they're fine because they're spraying at night. So they'll actually take helicopters at night and fly over huge neighborhoods and just bomb the whole thing for mosquitoes. And they say, well, your bees aren't flying at night, so they're fine. Is there no residue left anywhere that bees are going to get into? Let's think through this, people. And I don't know. I am not as educated on this as some folks really are. You know, as a as kind of a habitat person, I deal mostly with habitat. projects and plantings and seed mixes, that type of thing. As a young person, when I first started my career as a wildlife biologist, I netted Indiana bats in Missouri.

28:30 And netting bats that are out feeding at night, that are eating those insects, that gives me a little bit of pause. What's happening there? What's that food chain look like? What are we doing? Maybe an unintended consequence. All right, enough preaching. I didn't mean to go down any kind of negative road here. Really this is all positive because your group, the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, is doing good things for honeybees and other native pollinators and that is a fantastic thing. And I want you to leave us with some kind of a good wrap up here. Of how we can help whether it's and we'll put a link to your website by the way in the show notes if people want to donate Or just get more information they can get it there. But how else can we all help? Yeah, that is a good question. I think Everyone can do something and if you're in a situation where you can't plant something good for For your bees for the other pollinators then you can't donate, you know through our program and something good will get planted we are such a We're a pretty lean organization, so we work pretty quickly on projects.

29:38 We do a Euro site prep with the landowner and then pretty quickly that habitat turns right in. We turn it right into projects. We really try to spend every dollar we can on getting more great habitat in the ground. In the end, that's what makes the difference. I go to many of these beekeeping meetings and they talk about pesticides, they talk about Varroa, they talk about a lot of different things and they always end up in the end saying something about forage, but it's always a little small something. And I think to myself, isn't that kind of the building block? Isn't the building block us having health as a hive, you know, being healthy, being able to eat well, having a lot of diversity. So to me, having this great habitat out there is just, it's priceless really. And we are funded 100 % by donations as an organization. And the more acres we can get in the ground, the more likely we are to benefit bees. butterflies and all the other pollinators. I totally agree with all that and I think part of our problem is things like Varroa we feel like we can do something about okay I can measure it, I can treat it, I can measure it again, I can see what we've done but my bees are flying for a couple of miles maybe to forage. I admit it feels out of our control because the bees are going everywhere and I can't control My neighbor a half a mile from here that's planting that roundup ready alfalfa and the reason

31:09 he does it is so he can bomb it with glyphosate all the time okay i can't do anything about that i've talked to these neighbors. We try to remain friends and. There's only so much i can do it maybe that's why it gets ignored because we feel like we can't do anything but. You're at least a place where we can do something and we can get some direction or we can make a little donation or something That helps and Eric we do have a great We have a great resource on our website where our website just got revamped So I would love for everybody to come in and take a look at it give us some feedback But we have a habitat establishment guide for establishing habitat.

31:50 There's Lots of different ways people can do it. They can do it with herbicide, without herbicide. There's all different options for getting your site prepared and getting it ready to go. But overall, it's a pretty good guide, pretty comprehensive guide for people to get habitat established. And anyone can use that. Anyone can plant something. I think there's room on every piece of property for something something that will benefit Pollinators on every property and if you don't have a property and you're living in a city and you don't have a yard and you know We absolutely would use donations and turn them into Habitat projects somewhere and just spreading the word, you know letting people know that the larger commercial beekeepers that we do work with, we try to provide them these flyers so that they can hand them to the people they have their bee yards on and say, hey, it's really important because they get questions.

32:41 If they don't bring their bees back, they'll get questioned about why aren't the bees back this year? Well, because, you know, you've got a desert here of nothing. You know, it's all just grass and there's the bees aren't finding enough to forage on. So we can work with anyone. Like you said, bees move a little planting in your city park, a little planting. In a conservation area, a little planting, we've done plantings in the prisons. I mean, we will do plantings anywhere someone is ready to get the site ready and work with us and provide habitat. So we're happy to work with anybody on projects. And I wish we were more out west yet, but we're not there yet. We're in 14 states now, kind of in this smack in the middle of the US. So if you're in the Midwest, you can get help. You can probably even get free seeds and things. If you're not, you can get some good information and you can donate and you can help out with this whole cause.

33:35 Anyway, Elsa, thank you. It's the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund and that's beeandbutterflyhabitatfund .org .org. Correct. All right. Thanks. Take care. Thanks for joining us on Be Love Beekeeping presented by Man Lake. If you like this content I hope you'll share it with a friend, follow and subscribe to this podcast, and even sign up for our newsletter at BeLoveBeekeeping .com Also, just a shout out to Vita B Health for their support, we appreciate them. Vita's Varroa Control range of products includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Veroxen, Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Thanks guys. And remember, if you're not just in it for the honey or the money, you're in it for the love. See you next week.