Welcome welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented by the experts over at Man Lake. We're doing something different today as the team is currently all in preparing for next week's launch of the future of Be Love Beekeeping podcast. I'll just tease it like that and say be sure to come back next week for a funny new opener, a great new
guest, and an entirely new format. And today shows a little different too in that we're not having a conversation with a beekeeper, but we will be talking all about honey bees and native bees. I don't know about you, but lately I've seen all kinds of articles popping up with clickbait titles about how honey bees are killing off the native bees. Here's one headline. Want to save the bees? focused on habitat, not honey bees. Here's a few others. Your bees are hurting native
pollinators. Hungry honey bees threaten food supply of native pollinators. Americans are saving the wrong bees. The problem with honey bees. Honeybee invasion, a growing threat to native pollinators. And lastly, voracious honeybees threaten the food supply of native bees. I've even had someone who when finding out that I'm a beekeeper started giving me a hard time about how I'm hurting the native bees. Granted, that's
still rare. Most people when they discover I'm a beekeeper ask the one question, You know what you want I'm talking about. Do you ever get stung? Today's guest is Jennifer Michelle. She's an expert on native pollinators and what we can all do to help them. Does that mean getting rid of your beehives? Let's find out. I would love to welcome to the show today, Jennifer Michelle, coming to us from... Uh -oh, I have to check
my notes. Jennifer, where are you from? I live in upstate New York, so I'm a little bit north of Saratoga. That's right. We had talked about animals in your area last time. Anyway, welcome to the show. I'm going to let our listeners know this is going to be a very unusual episode because even though we're talking about honey bees, we're talking about other kinds of bees and pollinators. And we're talking with someone who's not a regular beekeeper. Not a beekeeper. But Jennifer, welcome.
We're happy to have you here. Would you just take 30 seconds or a minute and give us an idea of your background so we know where you're coming from in this conversation? Well, I'm a sustainable health strategist. So really what I try and do is help people bring public health into their discussions of infrastructure. And I include ecological health with that, which is how I work on the issues of bees. So my background's public health and epidemiology, but I did a lot with
medical entomology as well. And over the course of my career, I've expanded that into sustainability and began with pollinators, so ecology as well. So I've kind of taken all the pieces of that jigsaw. and brought it together. Now I do consulting and try to help municipalities and engineering firms understand how to make communities healthier, not just for humans, but for bees as well. So Jennifer was referred to us by Cindy, who was
on the show recently. You had spoken at their bee club in a talk that I guess was called What Beekeepers Need to Know About Native Bees. Yep. I want to start right there. Why does a beekeeper need to know anything about native bees? Well, because native bees are endangered because native bees are impacted by honey bees and because if we think about bees the way we think about honey bees, we can negatively impact native bees. But if we think about bees like native bees, we can
help native bees and honey bees. So let's get into some of the nitty gritty. Let's talk about native plants. Let's talk about pesticides. Yep. Let's talk about monocropping. Where do you want to start? Well, first of all, I'm going to say that I consider myself a bee enthusiast. I'm not a bee expert. So if anybody wants to learn a lot about native bees, I'm first going to give a plug to Heather Holm, who I think has written fantastic books about bees and native wasps.
So I always say, if you read something that she's written that disagrees with what I said, you go by what she wrote. So just always want to say that. Yeah, let's dive in. Where should we start? The 4 ,000 different species of native bees in North America or the honey bees? Yeah, let's talk about these native species of bees.
Okay. I was in a class here in Utah a few years ago, this advanced beekeeping class, and we had somebody from Utah State University who studies native bees, and he had done this big project in southern Utah. And in a small area, he identified 600 different bee species. I thought that was unbelievable. I had no idea. It kind of blew my mind. And he said, just in our state alone, there are 2 ,000 different species of bees. Give me some background on that. I mean, where are
they? How are they here? They're everywhere. This is their continent. This is their home. So honeybees were brought in from Europe. And they're a single species for the most part. one species and they were brought here because people like honey. So that's how they got here but they're not native here and yet there are a ton of flowering plants here and there are a ton of different kinds of trees and flowers and all kinds of plant life that require help from pollinators. So native
bees are really good at that. And in fact, they still are the best at pollinating our forests and our wetlands and our wild areas. They also help with crop pollination, but obviously that's more of a honeybee forte. But they can help each
other sometimes too. I think one of the reasons that it pricked my interest to talk to you specifically was because from time to time, I hear someone who has read some kind of a news story about how with a headline and not a lot of detail, headline how honey bees are killing the native bees. And so I figure it's just a topic we should know a little bit more about because we're not the bad guys. Honey bees aren't bad guys. So talk us through that whole relationship a little
bit. Well, I kind of feel like that's just a weird way that people think right now. People get very polarized. There's a good guy and a villain. And life is more complicated than that. And I tend to think that what we keep forgetting is that it's really a question of balance. And right now, things are not as imbalanced as they need to be. And that's why there are such impacts
right now on native bees. So when I give the talk that I gave to Cindy's group, I always start with how they're similar, and then I go into how they're different. And once you start knowing those differences, it starts like, I don't then need to tell you why honeybees might be. having such an impact on native bees, you start to get it. So just to go through a couple of things, 90 % of our native bees are solitary. So they
don't live in a hive at all. There is just one female who... spends her life she's going to maybe lay 15 maybe 40 eggs in a lifetime and for each one she is going to gather up pollen she's going to gather up nectar and she's going to dig a little nest maybe in the ground 70 % of our bees nest in the ground 30 % nest in cavities like um stalks of plants or logs or things like that but she will chew her way and down and make a cell and lay one egg on this little bit of
bee bread that she makes and seal it in and then do it again. So she doesn't have a hive of sisters to help her. If she can't find the food that she needs, no one can do that little waggle dance to help her out. There's no one to help her. There's no one else who's going to be her backup. They also, as a general rule, don't fly as far as honeybees. So that becomes a big issue. Some of them might only fly like 300 feet or something in their lifetime. They are very tiny, some of
the size of like a grain of rice. So they have an entirely different physiology and different life cycle. And while honeybees are active the whole season, Native bees might be active for only a few weeks as adults in the season. So if the plants that they need are not there when they need them, there's not really much they can do. There are just differences in the life
cycle. It depends on who you read, but 20 to 40 % of our native bees are what they call specialists, which means they need a specific pollen to feed their baby. It's kind of like monarchs and milkweed. Their baby food is milkweed. If you want monarchs, it doesn't matter how many butterflies you see on other plants. If there's no milkweed, there will be no monarchs. And it's the same with our
native bees. Many of them need a specific pollen from a specific native plant, or they literally have no food for their babies and they die out. So what's going on is we have, for the last, you know, bit by bit over the last several decades, we have removed a lot of habitat. We put in asphalt. We've put in concrete. We put in a lot of lawn where there used to be flowering plants that
were what these native bees needed. And then on top of that, we brought in honeybees, which are, well, I mean, how many thousands and thousands and thousands of bees are in a hive. But a native bumblebee hive might have 500 bees in it. So, in their annual, they die out at the end of the season and one female will start it up again the next year or she'll overwinter. So, they
have very different life cycles. So, having a honeybee hive near native bees can quickly overwhelm that food source because the honeybees will be able to fly farther and eat more and they can eat from a wider variety than some of our native bees. So, that's the idea. And the number that you hear, the statistics that they've seen show that. Honey bees can eat in a single season what 100 ,000 of our native bees can eat. So it is a large impact. So my answer to that isn't get
rid of the honey bees. My answer to that is, well, the real issue is lack of habitat. So that's why I come back to, why don't we plant native flowers, native species? Those native plants help honey bees, but they especially help native bees. There you go. Well, I appreciate that. I really don't think it's an either or. It's honeybees or native bees. I think there's ways
to coexist. And some of the things that you mentioned like planting native habitat is so foreign in so many of our cities and suburbs and things, but it's something that's got to be done. Now, is that some of the consulting that you do? Well, I certainly help if a municipality is thinking of putting in an apiary, I would help them want to think about, well, what kind of native plants
are you planting there? Because I always say that honey bees are one of the few animals that you can get, and you don't necessarily need to provide food for them. If you think there's a field nearby, I mean, you're going to take care of them in the winter and all these things, but it's not like a chicken where you have to have so much feed or so much land if it's cattle. So that's something to help people think about
if you're going to start raising honeybees. Where are the native plants that you're adding and the actual numbers that I've seen is they recommend five acres of native plants per hive Which is a huge amount and more than most people could do so that's where I get excited because to me that means Honey beekeepers can become advocates for native plants and pollinator pathways and pocket parks in their community as they're advocating for municipalities to switch from having tons
of lawn for no reason, tons of pocket parks with non -native plants, put that plant forage back in there and help all of the bees. So that's what I try and do. I also try and encourage people to think a little bit. If you're right near a wilderness area that has a lot of biodiversity, maybe you don't want apiaries too close. Maybe think of how far the bees might fly and maybe space it out a little bit, maybe four or five
miles away. And the reason for that is also that honey bees will often be very happy with some of the invasive plants that are in our areas that are not good for our native bees. And so that can be spread more by them. So keeping them separate from places with native plant biodiversity, like more wilderness areas, that can help out. So it's just thinking about balance. It's about how do we think about where they are and what we're feeding everybody. But it's not just to
help native bees. There was a beekeeping trend in London in 2013, and I actually would have to look it up. I think they had like, what was it, like 10 hives per square mile in London. There's no plants for that, so their bees died. Quick break to thank our presenting sponsor, Man Lake. Whether you're a beekeeper or not, you know that nutrition is key for healthy honeybees, native bees, and other pollinators. The Man Lake app is a great resource for determining pollinator
friendly plants that thrive in your area. And its plant identification feature is super helpful and fun. When I see a plant covered in bees, I fire up the app on my phone, I find out what that plant is, and then I can put them in my own yard. The bees love it. If you haven't already downloaded the Man Lake app, give it a try today. Oh, and by the way, it's free. A couple years ago, Slovenia, they're a very big honey culture.
They're big on bees. And it got so popular that they were having more hives but less honey because there wasn't enough food. So people have to start thinking about that. It's really, is there enough food for all of them? And the answer is probably not. And we can fix that. It's an easy fix. We can plant. We can plant the species native to our area. So one of the things that I have found personally, and I have mentioned our pussy willow tree on this show before, but I absolutely love
this thing. I'm going to be planting a few more of them. I love it because where I am, it's the very first food source that the bees have in the spring. Yep. When I go out to this tree, I see honeybees, a few different kinds of native bees, bumblebees. butterflies, and they all seem to be getting along great. And they're all foraging on this tree just fine. So is that an example of how they can get along? I mean, hopefully that's not pushing some native bees out. Or is
it? I think it's about quantity. You know, is there enough of the willow to go around? I mean, I don't think people realize how much forest and how much prairie we have removed. So if you really look around your neighborhoods, you are going to see these big mown lawns everywhere. You're going to see a lot of road. You might see sidewalk. We've removed what used to be solid prairie, solid forest. So you can always add
more, in my opinion. And I very much advocate for people replacing lawn with pollinator gardens. Doesn't mean you can't have some lawn. It just means think about how much lawn you really need and is there something else you could do with it. So willow is very nutritious. It's especially good for a lot of native bees, and it has a very high protein count compared to some other pollens like dandelion, which is not native. So it's very nutritious, and it's very desirable. And
at least in my area, it blooms very early. So it's very good for native bees who are waking up after the winter and need food right away. So it's great. I'd say plant more. Let it spread. So how do we balance the whole fact that we need more housing, so we need more development, yet we need prairie and we need all this other stuff? I think that's part of what you do in your consulting is helping municipalities figure out a good balance. Well, you really, it's not a choice with housing.
It's the way we landscape and it's the way we build. You can create a lot of housing and have pollinator gardens. instead of lawn. You can create a beautiful city and have rooftop gardens that are filled with native plants. You can have a beautiful city that has a lot of shade trees that are native instead of non -native trees that don't provide the same habitat in their
parks. You can create roadways that are not just asphalt with concrete and have lots of trees and under those trees you could have little native plant gardens all along the sidewalk. These have multiple benefits for a community. It's not just for their bees. It's not just for the other It also makes it a cooler city. Even plants that don't provide shade cool the air around them just because of the way they do transpiration. So they're always putting moisture back in. So
there are multiple benefits, plus drainage. One of the things that happens when you have a lot of asphalt and brick and lawn is the storm water, when it comes, doesn't drain into the ground like it should. And so that leads to flooding. It can overwhelm sewer systems. But if you have native plant gardens, they will absorb that. And we've seen that in our yard. We used to get like big standing water every year when it rained and rained in the spring. And now we just don't
get that even when it pours for days. So it has multiple benefits. And it doesn't require not building housing. And what you're describing would be a much more beautiful city anyway. That's what I think. They just need to talk to people like you to figure out how to do it and do it right. There you go. There's your plug for your business right there. Talk to me. Do it and do it right. Yeah, I'll work on that tagline. But I think the idea is that it can get so antagonistic.
And I heard this when I spoke to Cindy's group that somebody had been upset that someone had posted on Facebook that they were going to start beekeeping and somebody started trolling them about how awful that was for native bees. It's just emblematic of our culture at this moment in history that we attack instead of finding balance. There are ways to have honeybees that
don't have to be such a problem. It takes a little consideration and I think that beekeepers can be a huge advocate Just a huge lobby for native plants and you can put them on solar farms. You can put them on rooftops You can put them in parking lots instead of just straight asphalt I mean, I think we've all parked in parking lots where you just dread the walk into Wherever you're going because it's so hot to get there But there are different ways you can landscape that and
still have parking. There are also alternative modes of transportation that might be a little nicer also, but certainly that works. So I think people are just very quick to take sides and attack when there are ways to come together. And I think native plants are just an easier answer than yelling at each other. Just plant more native plants. And beekeepers really should be a good advocate. Yeah. as far as a group, because in general, beekeepers are in tune with
the environment. They're looking at what's blooming. They care about that sort of thing. And it's not that they don't care about native pollinators. They do. I mean, you can love your honeybees and love the native pollinators. And I think that's the mindset of most of us beekeepers. We need a little education too. Most people don't know. Let's talk about pesticides. herbicides. Yep. I would guess that anything that is bad for honeybees is also bad for native bees. Is
that the case? Damn it. And that's why I always talk about avoiding pesticides as much as possible. Because one, they're not good for us either. But what happens is when a pesticide is tested in the lab, it's one... You know, it's the one compound that is tested. But in real life, the bees are experiencing all of them at once. They're experiencing neonicotinoids and other organophosphates and fungicides and herbicides and all these different
things all at once. And that bioaccumulates in their bodies, so they're not just responding to one thing. and that even if they don't die, it creates problems. And that is something that affects native bees as well as honey bees and other pollinators as well. And people have a tendency to spray for mosquitoes, but spraying for mosquitoes is not the way to get rid of mosquitoes.
So that's just not where they breed. And in fact, if you plant for pollinators, you might bring in more of the predators that would eat those. So again, it's more of a balance. How do I know and other people know what kinds of native plants I should be planting around me. In fact, what plants are native to here in the first place? Where do we go to get that information? Because
it's going to be different everywhere. Yep. And that's good because that means you're getting stuff specific to your area and not just some wildflower packet, which is usually packed with all kinds of tropical things that are not native here. I will say it is so much easier now than it was even five years ago, or let alone the 90s, which is when I did my first pollinator garden, which was a total fiasco. And there are a couple things you can do. One, you can Google
it. You can literally just put in your zip code or say native plants by zip code. Another thing is there is a a national nonprofit called Wild Ones. And there are chapters all over the country, and you can go online. And they are all about promoting native plants. And if you find your local chapter, they will probably be able to show you exactly where your local native plant nursery is. They can also help you find different people online that are selling that are going
to find the ones for your area. So you can look for range maps from there. And I think, let's see, National Wildlife Federation has some wonderful ecoregions, Homegrown National Park as well. can really help you see for your specific area what you should be planting. So Google's your friend and there are a lot of resources out there to help you. That's also going to help you save
on water and things like that too. If you're planting what belongs in your area, if you're in a really dry area like I am, we shouldn't be putting in Kentucky bluegrass, for example, that uses so much water. Yeah. Exactly. Okay, what about, would my local extension service also be a good resource for that? I think that depends on your local extension service. Hopefully they've heard about native plants at this point.
It just depends. A lot of master gardeners know, I mean they know more than I will ever know about plants in terms of vegetable gardens and the non -native plants that are so popular. Not all of them are as familiar with native plants. So I would first look for people who have some kind of pollinator specialization or go to your wild ones for more information. Because they'll have seed swaps to get you started and that's also can be very inexpensive. They'll know the local
nurseries. But certainly start with your extension if that's a group that you know seed and ask about it say you know can you help me find the native plants that might be a great resource now you're not a beekeeper but you did tell me previously that you had a wild and crazy story you mentioned one about honeybees and one about wasps where do you want to start okay well so wasn't a honeybee was just bees I don't know what kind of okay all I know is Many, many, many
years ago in my long gone youth, I did Renaissance Festival in Minnesota. And so you're wearing those big skirts, right? And I must have sat down on some kind of hive or something. So I'd never been stung by a bee before and I'm in the audience watching some other performer give his show and I leapt up, I think higher than I've ever leapt up in my life just screaming and it had just blown up my skirt and gotten trapped. And I will say the only other time in my life
I've ever been stung. It also flew up my shorts and got me on the thighs. So I always thought they were freakish little pervs. I was like, what is the problem? So that's my only experience being stung by a bee. That's my only real. bee experience other than planting for them. I love to plant for them. Yeah and we don't know what kind of bees those were. I know it. Do most native bees have stingers and sting is a defensive weapon?
Most native bees do not sting. They do not because 90 % are solitary so they're not going to sting you. They don't have the instinct to defend that nest. So now some might, you know, some if there's a hive, certainly might, but a lot of our hive nesters are bumblebees and you have to really step on them to annoy them in my experience. So they're not usually a big stinging risk and
some can't sting me at all. How does somebody find out what native bees are around them or if they see something they can't quite identify? I mean is there a resource for this? Like if I took a picture of a bee and I'm like I have no idea what kind of bee that is or is it a fly? Is it even a bee? How do we figure that out?
Okay so two questions. First of all I would say iNaturalist is an app where you can upload and other people who love identifying bugs and other things in your area will jump right on and help you identify. Also, there's a lot of information out there about how do you distinguish wasps from flies from bees because there are a lot of mimics out there, and that's a lot of fun to do. Like, I found out that a lot of critters that I'd been calling bees turned out to be flies,
so I had no idea. So that was really interesting. All right, I'm going to let you have the last word. Go ahead and wrap up with, just in general, what kinds of things can we and should we be doing. that are going to help these, I'm just going to say native pollinators because it's more than just bees. We're trying to help them all. That is true. The number one thing you can do is plant native species to your area. The other thing you can do is stop using pesticides.
Advocate for people to not so wantonly use pesticides. People spray them all over their lawns and that floats. That doesn't just go right where people spray it. 70 % of our native bees are ground nesting. So when you spray that into the ground, that affects them. That's where they're living. So this whole approach to just having to recklessly spray everything to keep a perfect lawn is a problem. So I would say those are the two things to help support native bees and other pollinators
and your honeybees. And what's a good way to advocate with our city or town, wherever we are? Well, That's always a fun one. You can call them up or email them. You can show up at your town meetings. I find that showing up and just introducing yourself or setting up a meeting with your town supervisor or your mayor and saying, this is important to me. And I raise honeybees, but I know that native bees are important, too. And I want to make sure that there's enough forage.
And I would like to encourage native planting here. I find that to be very helpful. Maybe talk to them about their landscaping contract. Yeah, I've certainly had success working with communities on that to say maybe stop spraying pesticide on the lawn. Is that necessary? Maybe you don't need to fertilize. Maybe you can just overseed. Maybe you can reduce some of that lawn. help them start thinking about it, start advocating. And I always recommend not coming in all angry
and agitated. Come in and educate. People don't know. Most people only know about bees as honeybees, and most people don't even know much about that. So they certainly don't know about all the variety of life cycles in native bees. And most people don't understand pollinators. They think if they plant a lot of zinnias, they're helping pollinators. And that's not really how it works. So people want to help. I have found over the years people
tremendously want to help. They just don't know how because nobody's really educated about this. So educate. Help them find resources and encourage them. And then when they do what you want, thank them. It encourages them to do more. Help them plant a pollinator garden. Work with your local Wild West chapter to get some gardens in your community. Jennifer, Michelle, I really appreciate
your time. We will stick a link or an email, whatever you want, in the show notes in case people want to reach out to you and see if you can be some kind of a resource for them. Would that be okay? That would be great. And thank you so much for the chance to come and talk to you and all of your audience. Thanks again for joining us here on Be Love, Be Keeping presented by Man Lake. Remember right now to follow or
subscribe and share this podcast. Also a quick shout out to Vita B Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control range of products includes Apistan, Apigard, and now Varroxan 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.