pollinator resources

If you’re interested in learning more about pollinators and how to support them, below is our ever-growing list of favorite resources. And if you have suggestions for additions or have questions on something you can’t find, let us know!

This list of “Top 10 Things You Can Do for Bees” from Common Native Bees of the Eastern United States by Heather Holm can be a great starting point to thinking about what and how much there even is to learn. Although the list may be specifically for bees, they’re great for other pollinators and native wildlife as well!

Feed Bees
1. Plant a diversity of flowering plants (trees, shrubs, and perennials) that are native to your region. Instead of cultivars, use straight native species and include host plants for specialist bees.
2. Provide flowers with a variety of colors and forms—both simple (open) and complex.
3. Ensure that your garden provides a continuous succession of flowers for the entire growing season.

House Bees
4. Provide areas of bare soil for ground-nesting bees.
5. Avoid landscape fabric, plastic, or other soil coverings that inhibit nesting opportunities for ground-nesting bees.
6. Leave standing dead trees (if they don’t pose a hazard), as well as logs lying on the ground and dead perennial plant stem stubble, all of which provide nesting opportunities for cavity-nesting bees.
7. Do not disturb existing bee nesting sites.

Protect Bees
8. Refrain from using pesticides of any kind or synthetic fertilizers.
9. Remove invasive plant species that outcompete native plant species that native bees depend upon. Avoid introducing non-native bee species that may compete for food and transmit diseases to native bees.

Celebrate Bees
10. Place a pollinator habitat sign in your garden and talk to your neighbors about the importance of native bees and other pollinating and beneficial insects.

online resources

Pollinator Partnership: The largest nonprofit organization in the world dedicated exclusively to the protection and promotion of pollinators and their ecosystems, based in North America. Their website includes a plethora of free resources like their learning center, ecoregional planting guides, brochures, and posters. Their work also includes the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, a program for Bee Friendly Farming, offering a school garden kit, managing National Pollinator Week, and much more.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation: An international nonprofit science-based organization that protects the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats. They both conduct their own research and rely upon the most up-to-date information to guide their conservation work—the key areas in which they work being pollinator conservation, endangered species conservation, and reducing pesticide use and impacts. Their website includes tons of free webinars, resources for creating pollinator habitat, a directory for where to get native plants and seeds, a library of their publications from brochures and fact sheets to books, and more!

Tribal Alliance for Pollinators & The Learning Center at the Euchee Butterfly Farm: Native-led non-profit organizations that help improve the lives of Native people, plants, and pollinators, especially on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation in rural Oklahoma. The Learning Center has several programs and initiatives, the Tribal Alliance for Pollinators (TAP) being one of them. TAP combines traditional ecological knowledge with cutting edge technical resources to create an innovative model for conservation and restoration of tribal lands. They provide training, support, and resources (including a seed bank and equipment lending library) for tribes and tribal members.

Native Land Digital: A digital map to help you learn about the Indigenous people of the land where you reside and around the world. Clicking on an area of the map will not only tell you the names of the Indigenous communities of that area but will also direct you to resources written by those Indigenous peoples where they can represent themselves and tell their own stories. As we celebrate and support the native pollinators and plants of our home, it is vital that we remember the Indigenous people who have always been and continue to be their original stewards. We encourage you to learn about and from the people native to where you reside!

North American Native Plant Society: A volunteer-operated charitable organization committed to preserving native plant habitat in wild areas and restoring indigenous flora to developed areas. Their website includes gardening tips, a native plant database, free webinars, a list of local native plant societies in Canada and the United States, and more. We highly suggest checking out your local native plant society’s website as well which will likely have a native plant database specific to their locale!

Native Plant Finder: A tool for finding what plants are native to your zip code, ranked by the number of butterfly and moth species that use them as host plants for their caterpillars, based on the scientific research of Dr. Douglas Tallamy. You can also find what butterflies and moths are native to your zip code and learn what host plant(s) each species utilizes.

iNaturalist: A nonprofit organization and citizen science initiative that helps people identify plants and animals around them while contributing data for science and conservation through their website and mobile app. You can upload your own photos of a plant or animal you find and either input information that you know yourself or wait for other users to help you identify what you’ve observed. The observations you submit can greatly contribute to scientific research and you can learn about the nature around you at the same time!

Bumble Bee Watch: A community science project aiming to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. Similar to iNaturalist but specifically for bumble bees in North America, you can upload photos of bumble bees you find, their identity will be verified by experts, and the information you provide will help researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumble bees.