Seventh Year Anniversary Special with Pollinator Partnership (282)

282 - Seventh Year Anniversary Special with Pollinator Partnership

Helene Weinstein: Hi. This is Helene Weinstein. I'm from Fletcher, North Carolina. Welcome to  Beekeeping Today  Podcast.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to  Beekeeping Today Podcast, presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

Global Patties: Today's episode is brought to you by the bee nutrition superheroes at Global Patties. Family-operated and buzzing with passion, Global Patties crafts protein-packed patties that'll turn your hives into powerhouse production. Picture this, strong colonies, booming brood, and honey flowing like a sweet river. It's super protein for your bees, and they love it. Check out their buffet of patties, tailor-made for your bees in your specific area. Head over to www.globalpatties.com and give your bees the nutrition they deserve.

Jeff: Hey, a quick shout out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 250 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com. Thank you, Helen, from North Carolina. We appreciate that listener opener all the way from back in January. Can you believe that, Becky?

Becky: January? It's June now.

Jeff: I know.

Becky: We're really holding up the show, huh? Are they lined up until next December?

Jeff: We are almost at the end of our North American Honey Bee Expo listener openers, so we are in desperate need of new openers. Any listener wants to send one in, we'd be happy to take it.

Becky: If they don't, I'm just going to make up different names and people from Minnesota, and just keep adding to the Minnesota list.

Jeff: Not fair. Becky, this is a special day. You know why?

Becky: You're going to have to tell me, Jeff. What's going on?

Jeff: This is the first day of Pollinator Week, and hence our guest, Anthony from Pollinator Partnership.

Becky: It's an anniversary.

Jeff: It is an anniversary.

Becky: Happy podcast anniversary, Jeff.

Jeff: Yes. It was seven years ago today, this Monday, this week, that Kim and I started  Beekeeping Today Podcast. It really is quite the anniversary. This is our 282nd podcast episode, not including a couple special features we put out there one point or another.

Becky: Should we list them all right now?

Jeff: All right. Starting with number-- No. [laughter] No, thanks.

Becky: That is an impressive collection, though, so congrats to you. I'm honored to be part of it now.

Jeff: Great to have you here now. Just as an announcement to our listeners, so in the past, when we set up the podcast, I didn't really understand the process, and I started out using the season and episode approach. Since this is not a serial-type podcast where we have season one, season two with murder in this bee yard, and season two is murder in another bee yard, what we're doing, starting today, this kickoff of season seven, we are just converting directly to episode numbers. Listeners will see in their feeds, this is episode 282, and we're just going to move forward from there and not keep track of seasons, but we will always celebrate the first day of Pollinator Week.

Becky: I love that you planned the start of the podcast so that every year on the anniversary, there would be a huge celebration of bees and other pollinators. That was well-planned.

Jeff: It was really fun. It just was coincidental in some ways, and that we were looking for a start date to release the podcast. We knew that Pollinator Partnership had Pollinator Week coming up, and we scrambled to get the episodes out and planned. We wanted to fill the pipe with episodes, so we released, that first year, an episode every day of Pollinator Week. You think we're busy now, Becky. It was busy leading up to that. We don't do that anymore. Can you guess why?

Becky: Yes. I think once is enough. One week of celebrating every day of Pollinator Week is enough, and let's just celebrate the kickoff.

Jeff: We were talking just briefly before we started the recording. You just got in from the bee yard, smoky and smelly and all the fineness of working in a bee yard.

Becky: Full of ticks and--

Jeff: Yes. Let's talk about bee yard safety and-- not bee ticks, but people ticks.

Becky: Yes, people ticks. I commonly just encounter just your regular old wood ticks, but importantly, we have to really be careful of deer ticks. A couple years ago now, I did have a deer tick bite, and I did get Lyme disease, and I caught it really fast. It means that every time I get back from the bee yard, I try to take special precautions. Actually, before you go into the bee yard, you want to try to deter them. I was hanging out in a lot of grass today, so it didn't work.

Jeff: They hang out in the grass, and they stand there with their little legs flailing along, and they wait for you to walk by.

Becky: I'm an entomologist, so I can say this, but they're kind of adorable. They will sometimes hang out on the side of the bee box, the hive body, and you could see them just stretching out their legs, ready to attach. You really have to respect these buggers because they're persistent, and they're patient, right? They're just waiting for you to come along.

Jeff: I can imagine their little tiny legs getting tired. "Oh, I'm so tired. I'm so tired." I don't have ticks in this location where I live. It's just too wet and damp, I guess, for ticks. Now, I know there's different areas around Washington State where there are, but we don't have them, fortunately. What can a beekeeper do if they have ticks in their areas? I know so many areas around the United States do have ticks.

Becky: Right. You can do a few things. DEET is a really good deterrent, so that's pretty important. I neglected to put it in my bee truck yet this season. I'm really going to get there. It's good to have and just apply every apiary you go in, not just once. I like to wear wellies or rubber boots, so then you're going to have fewer just crawling up your pant legs. The problem really is that the wood ticks are easy to find for the most part. It's those deer ticks, because the nymphal deer ticks are so tiny, and they don't follow the 24-hour before feeding rule. You can get a bite, and you can get infected within hours of leaving the bee yard. You're not just looking for the ticks, but you're looking for any new bites on you. Look for that bull's-eye rash, and get yourself to the doctor.

Jeff: If you have a bull's-eye rash around a spot, I suppose, right? What's the treatment for Lyme disease?

Becky: It's a course of antibiotics. When I used to have employees in the bee yard, if they had a deer tick attached, the rule is you just go to the doctor, and you keep the tick. For the most part, doctors will prophylactically prescribe those antibiotics, which you know doctors do not want to do these days. If they're doing it for deer ticks, it means that there is a really good reason.

We've all probably heard stories of people who've come down with Lyme disease or who've been diagnosed very late with Lyme disease. It can really wreak havoc on your body, so it's something to take seriously.

Jeff: Definitely something to watch for and to be aware of. Well, they're not pollinators, are they?

Becky: They are not pollinators.

Jeff: By the stretch of the imagination. All right.

Becky: Chickens really like to eat them, so they are food for someone, or for some animals. They all play their role, right?

Jeff: The neighbors get a little concerned when they see you stripping down in the chicken coop and you say, "No, it's just for the chicken. It's just for the chicken."

Becky: I have a jar of alcohol that I throw them in. We used to have. I think it's inhumane, but in the bee truck, we used to have duct tape where we just stick them onto the duct tape. They can live quite a while, so I choose a quick death for them now. I don't have chickens. My neighbors do, but that could get a little weird, right?

Jeff: That would be really weird. Okay. This is an exciting week. Let's continue it with our discussion about Pollinator Partnership, Pollinator Week, and we'll be talking with Anthony right after these messages from our sponsors.

Becky: Sounds great.

[music]

StrongMicrobials: Strong Microbials presents an exciting new product, SuperFuel, the probiotic fondant that serves as nectar on demand for our honeybees. SuperFuel is powered by three remarkable bacteria known as bacilli, supporting bees and breaking down complex substances for easy digestion and nutrient absorption. This special energy source provides all the essential amino acids, nutrients, polyphenols, and bioflavonoids, just like natural flower nectar. Vital for the bees' nutrition and overall health, SuperFuel is the optimal feed for dearth periods, over-winter survival, or whenever supplemental feeding is needed. A big plus is the patties do not get hive beetle larvae, so it offers all bioavailable nutrients without any waste. Visit strongmicrobials.com now to discover more about SuperFuel and get your probiotic fondant today.

Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbial site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the celebration. Sitting across this big virtual  Beekeeping Today Podcasttable is Anthony Colangelo from Pollinator Partnership. Anthony, welcome to the show.

Anthony Colangelo: Thanks so much, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

Becky: Thanks for being here during this busy Pollinator Week, Anthony.

Anthony: Thanks Becky.

Jeff: We were telling listeners earlier that we started the podcast on the very first day of Pollinator Week back in 2018. It's a big day for us. For our listeners who may be new to beekeeping and/or new to Pollinator Partnership, tell us about yourself, where you're from, where you got interested in pollinators, et cetera. Then we'll get into Pollinator Week.

Anthony: As you mentioned, I'm Anthony Colangelo. I'm the Outreach and Education Specialist at Pollinator Partnership. I've been working at Pollinator Partnership now for about seven years, working on a whole bunch of different projects and tasks. What I'm currently working on, which I'm really excited about, is this cool project working in the subarctic region of Canada. I live and I'm based out of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories Canada, so pretty far north, and I'm leading a project right now that's studying our native bees and our bumblebees and the native plants that they use as their resources for pollen and nectar. Really cool, interesting study and that's what I've been working on so far at P2.

Jeff: Are you a researcher by training?

Anthony: Yes. I studied biology in university, but I studied birds and interesting parental behaviors in birds. Something about bees and pollinators really pulled me into this world and I haven't left it since graduating. Yes, I love working on pollinators.

Jeff: I'm impressed you're up in Yellowknife. We've had a couple beekeepers on long ago at different times up in the far north and one was situated or lived right around Yellowknife. That's a rugged place to keep bees.

Anthony: It's a tough place to keep bees and I know of one called Arctic Apiary. I'm not too sure how their bees did this winter. I'll have to reach out to them, but it is, it's a tough place to raise honeybees. We have long winters. Our winters are like nine months long. It gets down to negative 50 degrees Celsius and I guess the Fahrenheit conversion is around the same when it gets that cold. To the point where your car won't even start, you don't even try. Just picture the bees during that time of year and what they have to go through just to survive.

I'm sure as all of our listeners here know on how honeybees survive the winter, it's super interesting how they keep the queen warm and shimmer their wings. Think about all those native bees too that just hunker down underground, it's negative 50, and then have to come up for two short months of warmer weather and then have to go all the way back to hibernate. Yes, very difficult place for bees, but it's also interesting, evolutionarily, just to see how they can survive in such intense temperatures.

Becky: Antifreeze comes in handy at that point if you have some in your blood. How many different bumblebee species are in Yellowknife?

Anthony: Bumblebee species? That's a good question. I know there's about 110 species in the Northwest Territories that we have here. The number of species that I've found, personally, is about 20 bumblebee over two Summerfield seasons. Yes, 20 bumblebee species.

Becky: That's a pretty good diversity there, so that's exciting.

Anthony: Bees are obviously one of the main pollinators, but the flies up here as well are really interesting. The flower flies, the hoverflies, they also take over the pollinator worlds in the north.

Jeff: Are your infamous black flies pollinators as well?

Anthony: I know flies, especially biting flies, the males can go to flowers for nectar. I guess they can be pollinators, and even mosquitoes. It's like the female mosquitoes need to get blood to feed their young, so it is a part of their life history and is honorable, but they do still go to flowers and consume nectar when they're not raising young. Also important pollinators. I know sometimes that makes people upset that mosquitoes actually have a really important purpose, pollinator-wise. Even with mosquitoes too, there's a certain orchid that is reliant on mosquito pollination. Yes, mosquitoes are important to the ecosystem, even if people don't want to hear it. Some biting flies, too.

Jeff: Well, we were talking about ticks before you came on the show. What about ticks?

Anthony: I have nothing good to say about ticks.

[laughter]

Becky: Chickens eat ticks, so do other animals, Anthony. They're food.

Anthony: And possums. I know the possums in Canada, they really rely on tick populations for food.

Becky: There we go.

Anthony: Yes.

Becky: I love the pollinator stories you have because part of your job has to be convincing part of our population to not kill bugs or other pollinators. These interesting stories have to help because you obviously have a lot of people who love bees and butterflies and you're trying to get to the other people, right?

Anthony: Yes. What I use is iNaturalist for observing pollinators and getting it out there as a community science tool. I encourage folks to use iNaturalist and take a second to just pause when they're outside and look at the local flowers that they have in their neighborhood and their own gardens and just see what's visiting. It's pretty incredible the diversity of insects that we can draw in with our gardens or even in the local landscape.

I think once they start taking pictures of the local insects and bugs and they see those pictures blown up on the computer, once they upload their observations, they make that connection, they're like, "Wow, they're actually so beautiful. They have such interesting life cycles. They have such interesting features." I think sometimes that you can get them past that initial fear. That is a big thing when talking about pollinators and bees is, "Oh I don't like bees because they sting," but then understanding that not all bees sting and they don't want to sting you, and seeing the beauty in the diversity of bees is-- I think that connection is really important to getting people on board with conservation and supporting insects in general and pollinators.

Jeff: Regarding pollinators, we have a whole week, or Pollinator Partnership has a whole week planned to celebrate pollinators of all types, not only honeybees. Tell us a little bit about Pollinator Week, how it got started, why it got started, and what's going on this week that our listeners can take part in.

Anthony: For sure. Yes. Pollinator Week was started by Pollinator Partnership, I think over 20 years or so at this point. It was started because at the time we needed something that really put pollinators at the forefront of people's minds and in the news. It started off with that idea and with this week and it's really blown into this international sensation. At the time I believe it was just a national-wide thing in the US and now we see events all over the world with people celebrating pollinators, and that's just what Pollinator Week is.

It's a time to celebrate and raise awareness for pollinator issues, why they're important. It's really easy to get involved in. You can pretty much do anything you want that involves pollinators. Common activities include planting for pollinators. If you're really into gardening you can visit other people's gardens and learn about what's visiting their flowers. You can join community science projects, like I mentioned, iNaturalist, you can take pictures of the pollinators around town and upload them and that data is really important just to understand what pollinators are where, and even attending webinars, whether they're virtual or in-person to learn more.

Again, it's just a time to really put pollinators, bees, butterflies, birds, bats, moss, wasp, flies at the forefront.

This year, what's really exciting about Pollinator Week is we have a theme. That theme is Vision 2040: Thriving economies, ecosystems, and agriculture. Obviously all three of those areas, economies, ecosystems, and agriculture rely on pollination and the services from pollinators.

We say Vision 2040 because we want to see a world in the future where pollinators populations aren't just surviving but they're thriving.

We have a really cool poster that we have dedicated to that theme that you can find on our website done by an incredible artist. We also have T-shirts, too, with that same artwork that you can get as well. That's Pollinator Week in a nutshell.

I guess other interesting things happening for Pollinator Week, we have the EPRI Power Party, which will be, I believe, the fourth year. We're running that this year. EPRI being the Electric Power Research Institute. We partner with them every year. We put on the biggest virtual party ever for pollinators every year, so we co-host it with EPRI. You can register for that. It's free to register. It's just all virtual, and you can listen to world-renowned experts talk about different pollinator-related themes. I believe this year we're going to have a cool myth buster session as well, like busting some myths about bees and other pollinators. Definitely, check that out. It starts on June 17th, I believe. Yes, June 17th to the 20th.

If you were interested in that community science that I was talking about, we have the Pollinator Week Bioblitz. That's really easy to sign up, too. You can just create an account at iNaturalist, join our project, and every bee or pollinator picture that you upload will get, I guess, included in this massive dataset, which is really fun to be a part of. Lots of things going on for Pollinator Week.

Jeff: Different cities have participated by lighting different buildings and bridges in the yellow and black lighting, which is really spectacular. You have some beautiful pictures on display. Is that happening again this year?

Anthony: Totally, yes. We do the building lightings, which are really fun. You can actually put in those requests and send them to us, and we can put them on the map on our websites. Maybe I'll rewind a second there and say that all the lightings and activities that are happening are on our Pollinator Week map on our website, so you can see what's happening if there's anything happening in your local area. You can add your own activities and building lightings to that map as well.

Yes, I think this year we have Niagara Falls and a few other big monuments lighting up for pollinators, which is really exciting.

Jeff: Now, which side of the falls? The Canadian side or the American side of the falls?

Anthony: I believe it's the Canadian side.

Jeff: No, I'm not trying to get into any border disputes here on who has the better lighting. I just was curious. That's really exciting, because those photographs-- I think Niagara Falls has been done in the past, and that's really, really cool when they show that. Hey, let's take this quick break for word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back.

Bee Smart Designs: Are you a smart beekeeper looking to stay ahead of the curve? Introducing Bee Smart Designs, the ultimate line of innovative, modular, and interchangeable hive system and cool tools. As a listener of the  Beekeeping Today Podcast, you understand the importance of staying informed on the latest advancements in beekeeping. This is where Bee Smart System comes in. Designed with you and your bees in mind, our core hive system works with all standard Langstroth equipment and is 8 and 10-frame compatible.

Made in the USA using recycled and American-sourced materials, our products are ready to use. Visit beesmartdesigns.com to explore our groundbreaking offerings and links to your favorite dealer. Bee Smart Designs, next-generation beekeeping products for the modern beekeeper.

Betterbee: Hey, lean in just a little. You don't want to miss this. The awesome deals at Betterbee. Swing by the Buzzin' Bargains page to score some discounted beekeeping equipment and gear. You can even find steeper discounts on our scratch and dent products. Plus, there's a special spot for discounted honey labels to make your honey stand out. Check out all the deals at betterbee.com/bargains.

Becky: Anthony, I think for beekeepers, every week is Pollinator Week during the bee season, but I'm wondering if it would be really interesting if they went out to their yards and not just took honeybee pictures but did some other work. I think HiveTracks is interested in this, too, but wandered around the apiaries and collected other bee pictures or butterfly pictures. That's something, if they decided to do that, that would be part of the Bioblitz?

Anthony: Yes. Anything pollinator-related, like any pictures, would go towards the Bioblitz.

Becky: Could they still sneak a couple of their own honeybee pictures into that data collection?

Anthony: For sure.

Becky: Okay. Is that using iNaturalist?

Anthony: Yes, that's on iNaturalist. The cool thing about honeybees, too, is if you got different stages of the honeybees, like if you got the picture of a drone and then a worker and then the queen, that would be cool. Just cool to have uploaded to the dataset.

Becky: Great. Now you're giving everybody a reason to dig through their very populous colonies and try to find their queens. We try to tell people not to do that, Anthony.

Anthony: I'm sorry. Don't listen to me.

Becky: I don't know. I think that ship has sailed now. I think the boxes are going to be cracked. Those frames are going to be gone through. They're doing it for science and for Pollinator Week

Anthony: Exactly.

Jeff: We've been talking about Pollinator Week, and that goes on all week. That's an exciting event, but you have programs that go on year-round. Pollinator Partnership is a big organization involved in many different programs. One of the ones we've talked about in the past is Bee Friendly Farming. Can you talk a little bit about that right now?

Anthony: Yes, for sure. Bee Friendly Farming is such a great program. Just the main concept behind Bee Friendly Farming is to help farmers incorporate more habitat on their lands, more nesting opportunities for pollinators, and also includes integrated pest management practices. It's an amazing program that really works with farmers to not only help with food security but also help with pollinator health.

One of the big updates with Bee Friendly Farming is the third-party verification that just got released, just making it even more of a solid program, having that third-party verification for big companies that they want to really get involved with Bee Friendly Farming. It's this really important program that you know is helping pollinators on their lands.

Jeff: On that program, the farmers commit to best practices to limit and minimize impact on all pollinators. Not just honeybees, but all pollinators.

Anthony: Yes. Obviously, honeybees would be a big one, but, of course, the native bees and native pollinators as well. The third-party verification, too, not just big corporations, but any organization or corporation that wants to get involved in this is able to.

Becky: Is that something they can use then in their marketing of their products?

Anthony: Yes. They'd get the third-party verification, like Bee Friendly Farming logo, and that would go right onto the product.

Becky: Is there anybody using that third-party verification that we might recognize?

Anthony: Yes. Silk Canada, which is a brand from Danone, and KIND Snacks were the first brands to step forward in support of this program, along with two almonds suppliers in California, Harris Woolf Almonds and Treehouse California Almonds.

Becky: Very exciting. We got to support that. It's a great commitment. Since we're talking about Bee Friendly Farming, how about bee friendly forage? Do you have anything specific to support honeybee forage?

Anthony: That's a great question. I know we have this guide for Canadian beekeepers, and maybe this is something that we can work on for beekeepers throughout the rest of North America. We have this amazing honeybee forage guide that we have that you can download for free on our website. It provides you with all the native plants and important pollinator plants that are really good for honeybees.

This forage guide is broken up into regions. Again, this is more Canada-specific for any of our Canadian listeners, but it breaks up Canada into different regions. Whatever region you're located in, we provide you with a nice list of plants that you can use to help ensure that your honeybees are getting that important pollen and nectar that they need for their diet.

Jeff: That would be good. That'd be valuable. Plants don't pay attention to borders, do they?

Becky: I know. I'm close enough to Canada. I'm looking at it.

Anthony: You're totally right. There's a huge overlap in native species from Canada to the US, so I'm sure there's a good overlap within that list that we have made.

Jeff: Subspecies are the same. That's exciting. I think the more that beekeepers can learn about the flora in their general area, the better beekeepers they are for raising bees, producing honey, and providing pollination services. If they're setting down their bees next to a big field of clover and they want to pollinate the pumpkins, they want to be careful there. Anyways, what else have we not covered that Pollinator Partnership is working on?

Anthony: I'm currently leading this really cool program called the Pollinator Steward Certification Program. This is something that started a few years ago, again, a smaller program based out of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, but has now grown into this huge international thing a lot of people have participated in. What it is, we basically provide participants with everything they need to know to help pollinators and get involved in pollinator conservation.

It's a nine-part course that people can take virtually. Again, you can call in from anywhere across North America and even the world. We had folks calling in from all over the world. It goes through everything from the bee basics and pollinator basics, why they're important, who they are. We go into bee biology and ecology and identification of different groups. Then we have a ton of incredible guest speakers, experts in their field to talk about how to create habitat in different settings. We have one module on creating habitat for the home gardener. We have one, creating habitat for large land managers and cities and municipalities. Then we have one as well for farmers and agricultural landscapes, so a whole wealth of knowledge, an incredible program. Once folks watch that, they're required in order to get their full certification, they need to actually go out into their community and do one habitat action and one outreach action.

Once they do that, after a certain amount of time after they've watched the modules, we fully certify them as pollinator stewards. With that badge that they get, and it's a really beautiful badge with a green sweat bee they are then the pollinator experts that have that knowledge and confidence to talk about pollinators.

We just ran this year's program, which went really well. We had about a thousand people sign up. If you think about that too, they need to do a habitat outreach action. That could potentially be a thousand different habitat points and outreach points on the map across the world. I feel really happy about that change that we're making and that promotion and raising awareness of pollinators. If you are interested in getting involved in this program, we are hoping to open up registration again at the end of this year. The program will most likely run again, start next February to April. It ends right before it gets a bit warmer so that way folks can go right outside and start doing their habitat actions.

Becky: If you register for the course, is it set days that you attend or is it recorded?

Anthony: Great question. We do have set live sessions, but they are all recorded so that you can watch them at your convenience. There is nine recordings and you have until the end of the year to watch them before getting to your habitat action.

Becky: Beekeepers do so much outreach and they are so concerned about habitat for all bees. It seems like that would be a real natural to share with our beekeeper listeners because they can add this certification to their resume and go out and share even more information with the public.

Anthony: Absolutely. I've already been going through some of the activities that folks have been doing from this program, and there's been a number of beekeepers who've gotten involved with the program and are doing amazing work, so that's always nice to see.

Jeff: About how much time does it take to complete the program?

Anthony: It is a bit lengthy. Each module is about an hour, hour and a half long and there's nine of them. Then it does require, as I mentioned, that you do one outreach and one habitat action. It is a bit of a time commitment, but you have a good amount of time to get everything complete.

Let's say for this year's program, and we just finished in April, they won't need to complete their habitat action until September of next year, so lots of time to watch the recordings and get things done.

Becky: Anthony, I just have to ask, does a habitat action include driving down the highway and throwing seed out the window of your truck? I know beekeepers who do this.

Jeff: Seed bombs.

Anthony: Yes. I feel like seed bombs have become really popular. I've been hearing a lot about them. As long as you're not breaking any rules or as long as you're including the proper seeds, the proper plants for your region, then I think that's a fun way to do it. I've seen a lot of teachers create seed bombs for their students to put around the schoolyard or their local community and that's been a lot of fun. I just have the greatest visual in my mind from you saying that, just someone driving out, just tossing seed out. That's super funny.

Jeff: I have to ask, does it involve a test? Is there a written test at the end?

Anthony: Super complicated tests. No. If you're watching the recordings, you just need to fill out a short form giving me a one-sentence summary of what you learned from each module just to confirm that, okay, you paid attention a little bit.

Jeff: It's not a multiple answer, an essay question.

Anthony: No.

Jeff: No, that's good. That's encouraging. It sounds doable.

Anthony: Yes. We try to make it accessible and fun for everyone who's taking part.

Jeff: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to bring up? There's so many programs at Pollinator Partnership and we will have the URL for Pollinator Partnership on our website so listeners can click on and look at all the programs you have, especially the Bee Friendly Farming and the other programs we've discussed, pollinator stewardship. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?

Anthony: Yes. Pollinator Partnership, again, has so many programs and I think there's two more that would be great for this group. One is a branch off of Bee Friendly Farming, is Bee Friendly Gardening and another initiative that anyone can get involved in. There's so much landscape that belongs to households across North America. Even if it's just a little bit of that landscape gets dedicated to pollinator habitat, that's creating a huge difference. Bee Friendly Gardening is just you're registering for this program and you're getting your garden registered as a bee-friendly garden. With that, you get a lot of cool program benefits. You get access to different resources on gardening and you also just get to join this really cool community of gardeners and native plant and pollinator lovers. That's been a really great program and that's really kicked off in the last couple years with our Bee Friendly Garden Coordinator, Sara Wittenberg. She's really just propelled the program.

The last one is our partner biologists that we have spread out throughout the US. P2 has a cooperative agreement with the USDA to provide their staff and the producers they serve with pollinator-related conservation planning assistance. We have five full-time partner biologists located across Oregon, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. If there are any  Beekeeping Today listeners out there who want to learn more about farm-build programs and understand how they might qualify for technical or financial assistance, you can reach out to us and we'll point you in the right direction. Again, that's for Oregon, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. Even if you're not in one of those areas, you can still reach out to us and we'll find someone that can help you in your state. That's, I think, another great program that listeners can get involved in.

Jeff: That's a regionally based program?

Anthony: Exactly. Yes.

Jeff: Perhaps reach out to the closest organizer to your location.

Becky: I know that Xerces Society has people in the USDA offices. I never knew that Pollinator Partnership did too, so that's pretty exciting.

Anthony: Yes, it's something new we've been working on in the last maybe couple years, year or so. With our partner biologists, it's been great.

Jeff: Anthony, it's been a true pleasure having you on the show with us today on the first day of Pollinator Week. I know you have a busy schedule ahead of you and I encourage our listeners to join you and the others at P2 in the celebration and look at the activities that you have planned and participate locally if you can.

Anthony: Yes. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Becky, for having me, and happy Pollinator Week, everyone.

Becky: Same to you.

Jeff: Becky, we have to make this quick because I am on my way out the door to celebrate the anniversary and the kickoff to Pollinator Week.

Becky: Does that mean you're going to go check your hives?

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes, and I'm going to put the gaiters on my boots so I have no ticks. Even though there are no ticks, I don't want to even think about them.

Becky: Oh, boy. Yes, it's pretty exciting. Like I said, beekeepers are all about pollinators and so it's great that there's a special week to get everybody else on board. It's great to have an organization out there supporting honeybees and all the other pollinators, so that's exciting.

Jeff: I know there's a minority of beekeepers that may get a little rankled because of the pollinator focus as opposed to honeybees or the [unintelligible 00:39:04] season pollinator, plus they might be appearing to put too much emphasis on all pollinators. I think that we need to accept and participate in everything that supports all pollinators. As the old saying goes, a rising tide raises all boats. Something along those lines. It's roughly stated that way.

Becky: Something about a rising tide means there's more nectar in the flowers.

Jeff: Yes.

Becky: Is that it?

Jeff: Man, we butchered that one. The point being is that Pollinator Week is great for all pollinators. It's really good for beekeepers and the opportunity for beekeepers to get out there and talk about honeybees and the importance of honeybees to our agriculture, to the person's backyard, to their backyard flowering crab tree, or their apple tree, or their pear tree that they might have, not to mention the commercial agriculture. Pollinator Week, I'm excited to be a part of it.

Becky: I think that Pollinator Week, it's important. I wish we didn't need one. I wish we didn't have pollinators who were threatened. I wish we didn't have a lack of forage. I'm going to hope for those days that there's so many pollinators flying around that people are like, "Why are you celebrating them? They're all over the place," but we're not there yet.

Jeff: The root truth test is this windshield test, right? Long ago at night, you drive down the road and you couldn't go anywhere unless you had windshield wiper fluid because of the number of insects in the air at night. Now it's-- I rarely hit a bug, and that's depressing.

Becky: It says something. Actually, as I was driving to my bees today, a bug hit the windshield. It was just so sad, because it's like, "That's all you got? That's it?" It used to be something where the grill of the car used to have just some beautiful insects in it because there were just so many and it didn't matter. I think that it's a really sad loss. People growing up today don't know the abundance that both of us have had in our lifetimes. We need Pollinator Week so that we can have more bugs in the grill of a car.

Jeff: There's a good way of turning that negative into a positive, Becky. Way to go. Happy Pollinator Week, Becky.

Becky: You, too, Jeff.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Betterbee, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the  Beekeeping Today Podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments at the Leave a Comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:42:33] [END OF AUDIO]