This week on Discover Nature, keep an ear-, and an eye out for native bees buzzing about the bushes, trees, flowerbeds, and even the ground beneath our feet.
Missouri is home to more than 450 species of native bees that play a critical role in pollinating agricultural crops and maintaining reproductive processes for native plants — in turn, supporting diverse wildlife species, soil health, and water quality.
Fear not! Most of our native bee species don’t have stingers long enough to penetrate human skin.
Some of the best ways we can help these perennial pollinators include:
- Minimize mowing and mulching;
- Mow-high, and delay to later in the season;
- Leave strips or patches of unmown, unmulched areas;
- Plant Missouri-native wildflowers;
- Always avoid use of herbicides and pesticides.
Even clover, violets, and dandelions can provide our native bees critical food sources, especially in early spring before other flowers have bloomed. And since bee pollination is responsible for 1 in every 3 bites of food in America, feeding our bees helps us meet our own dietary needs.
Learn more about Missouri’s native bees, and how you can help them with the Missouri Department of Conservation, GrowNative!, and the Xerces Society.
Discover Nature is sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation.
