No Mow May: Count all the flowers and bees

06/26/20 • 47 min

This week on the podcast we're talking about mowing lawns - or rather not mowing lawns - and the impact it can have on urban bees.

You may have heard about No Mow May, an initiative from Plantlife in the United Kingdom which encourages people to stop mowing for the entire month. One of the communities participating in the initiative was Appleton, Wisconsin.

And Israel Del Toro, an assistant professor at Lawrence University, went out and surveyed the bees of Appleton at the end of No Mow May. So he and I chat about the fieldwork, the results and what it was like working with the city government to make this happen.

Israel Del Toro
• Twitter @IsraelDelToro

WEEKLY UPDATE
• Leafcutter bee video (Twitter, Hella Bee Nerd @sfbaybees) https://bit.ly/3g5h5UR

• Is #PollinatorWeek just #beewashing? (Twitter, Charlotte de Keyzer @cwdekeyzer) https://bit.ly/2Yzw2Z7

• EPA signs first ever Pollinator Week Proclamation (Environmental Protection Agency) https://bit.ly/3dBRFMN

• ‘National nature service’ needed for green recovery in England (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/3i59Wpl

• Entomological Society of America donates 100 two-year memberships to EntoPOC (Twitter, Entomologists of Color @EntoPOC) https://bit.ly/31ig1Zy

• Database being assembled for early career pollination ecologists (Twitter, John Mola @_JohnMola) https://bit.ly/3eAWmb4
- Enter info at https://bit.ly/2YwHzbN
- Database at https://bit.ly/3i3h6ug

• Scientists decode honey bee queen toots and quacks in hive (BBC) https://bbc.in/381nDkp

• Soap bubbles could assist with pollination (CNN) https://cnn.it/3g23WLU

STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.

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Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.

Get in touch at [email protected].

Previous Episode

Flowers are like dirty doorknobs: Spreading disease among bees

Thank you very much for allowing me an additional week to work on the many projects I have going on right now, including today’s story for the podcast. Never a dull moment here.
I promised you a story about flowers, pathogens and bees, and that’s exactly what I have to share with you today. I had the incredible good fortune of speaking with both Lynn Adler from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Laura Figueroa from Cornell University on the exact same day about the role flowers play in spreading disease among bees. It was like binge watching everything we currently know about this aspect of the bee-flower relationship. Lots of information. Very satisfying. And I will do my best to summarize it all in four key points.
Lynn Adler
• Disease where you dine: plant species and floral traits associated with pathogen transmission in bumble bees (2018) https://bit.ly/3h26nzt
• Flowering plant composition shapes pathogen infection intensity and reproduction in bumble bee colonies (2020) https://bit.ly/2z7zUqq
• Science Poetry @Science_Poetry
Laura Figueroa
• Landscape simplification shapes pathogen prevalence in plant-pollinator networks (2020) https://bit.ly/2XE3EVa
WEEKLY UPDATE
#BlackInNature #BlackInSTEM #DiversityInSTEM #BlackEcologists #BlackBirdersWeek
Being black while in nature: 'You’re an endangered species' (The Guardian) https://bit.ly/3gVd7iG
Black Ecologists statement (Twitter @BEcologists) https://bit.ly/2BE2PDv
Why black lives matter to entomology (Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/377GwBy
We speak their names: statement of solidarity for racial justice (Xerces Society) https://bit.ly/2A6LyCu
Judge rejects Trump administration attempt to toss endangered species lawsuit (The Hill)
https://bit.ly/3eYQfx5
Trump administration makes major changes to protections for endangered species (NPR) https://n.pr/2UgF3Uy
17 states sue feds over Endangered Species Act rules (AP) https://bit.ly/3dyJUYK
Bees grooming each other can boost colony immunity (EurekAlert/University College of London) https://bit.ly/30cbLdl
Once is enough for long-term memory formation in bees (The Scientist) https://bit.ly/2UihjiV
A call to refocus away from bowl traps and towards more effective methods of bee monitoring (Annals of the Entomological Society of America) https://bit.ly/2XE2V6o
STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.
Visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.
Hit me up on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.
Get in touch at [email protected].

Next Episode

"We're not alone": How racism can exist in entomology – and how we can change it

Our story this week on the podcast is very much a product of this current moment in American history, in which race and racism are at the front of all of our minds. It’s a story about acknowledging and addressing the disparities that exist for people of color in the field of entomology – and in science generally.
In this episode we’re talking with Dr. Jessica Ware and Ph.D. candidate Stephanita Sallqa Tuwa BondocGawa MaflaMills. They are both members of Entomologists of Color, a group that’s seeking to improve the participation and experience of people of color in entomology through a very specific initiative: increasing their participation in scientific societies.
We talk about this initiative, but we also talk about Jessica and Stephanie’s experiences as women of color in science, and some of the things that all of us can do to be part of the solution.
Entomologists of Color
• www.entopoc.org
• [email protected]
• Twitter @EntoPOC
WEEKLY UPDATE
• About 94% of wild bee and native plant species networks lost (York University) https://bit.ly/3jeRPO7
• Community scientists identify bumble bees correctly 50% of the time (York University) https://bit.ly/2ZG2YQu
• EU has failed to halt decline of bees and butterflies, auditors say (Reuters) https://reut.rs/2WwpiKi
• Are pollinators at risk from road pollution and being hit by vehicles? (Twitter, Ben Phillips @ben_phi11ips) https://bit.ly/32rL4m2
• Group genomics drive aggression in honey bees (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) https://bit.ly/2ZF3eyQ
• Mixing of European and African ancestry plays role in ‘killer’ honey bees’ aggressiveness (York University) https://bit.ly/399h67C
• Who likes – and doesn't like – bees? (The Wildlife Society) https://bit.ly/398xdCM
STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to the Bee Report Podcast. Leave a 5-star rating and review.
Share the podcast with a friend!
Visit TheBeeReport.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter.
Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram @bymattkelly.
Get in touch at [email protected].