<h3><b>Find out w</b><b>hat is hurting the bees and what you can do to help our fuzzy friends.</b><b></b></h3>
<img class="wp-image-4040 alignright" src="http://midwestpesticideaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/bee-1726659_1920.jpg" alt="" width="331" height="219" /><span style="font-weight: 400;">With National Honey Bee Day on August 19</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">th</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> fast approaching, we want to </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">celebrate the essential role bees play in the ecosystem and food production. </span>

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<span style="font-weight: 400;">Bees pollinate a third of the food produced by plants, 90 percent of all flowering plants, and conserve the stability and variation of the plant community. For all that bees contribute to the well-being of our earth, recent environmental conditions have not returned the favor. Globally, bee populations are plummeting primarily due to </span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Colony Collapse Disorder</span></a> <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder"><span style="font-weight: 400;">(</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">C</span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder"><span style="font-weight: 400;">C</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">D</span><a href="https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder"><span style="font-weight: 400;">)</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> a phenomenon where the majority of worker bees disappear, abandoning their duties to care for the queen and immature bees, and eventually leading to the rapid death of the entire colony.  </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Four main factors of global warming, pesticide use, habitat loss, and parasites cause CCD. Of these four, pesticides moved front and center as the most concerning contributor to bee population declines. Instead of killing bees instantly, pesticides impair development and behavior by attacking their cognitive abilities including memory and navigation. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Many scientific research articles find that one class of insecticides in particular, </span><a href="http://ento.psu.edu/publications/are-neonicotinoids-killing-bees"><span style="font-weight: 400;">neonicotinoids</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, can cause the disappearance of bee colonies altogether. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span><a href="http://www.piat.org.nz/uploads/PIAT_content/pdfs/Indoxacarb%20and%20other%20neurotoxins%20info/Lu%20imidaclorpid%20and%20colony%20collapse.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Study</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> shows that just a 20 parts per billion dose of imidaclopriod, a commonly used neonicotinoid, can lead to CCD</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in almost all the colonies.  </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Neonicotinoids reach all the way through the plant to the flowers where bees pick up the neurotoxin during their pollination routes. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">While most neonicotinoid use takes place in agricultural settings, urban homeowners can still play their part in protecting bees starting with selecting bee-friendly plants for your garden and/or lawn. Plant flowering plants native to your region to increase bee foraging spaces. The best planting practices select plants with varying bloom times and group similar plant species together to achieve a sustainable food source for bees throughout the year. The Xerces Society provides a </span><a href="http://cues.cfans.umn.edu/old/pollinators/pdf-habitat/uppermidwest-plants-for-bees-xerces.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">list of bee-friendly plants</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> native to the Midwest. When purchasing plants for your lawn or garden, take the proper precautions to ensure the supplier did not grow the plants with harmful neonicotinoids that can stay in plant and flower tissue for up to two years. Please visit </span><a href="http://www.foe.org/beeaction/retailers"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Friends of the Earth</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> for a list of neonicotinoids-free retailers. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Besides needing abundant forage, bees like dead branches, snags, or logs on the ground for nesting sites. If you like a “clean” lawn or garden void of these natural nesting sites, consider providing  artificial nesting materials like bee boxes and tubes. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Finally, avoid pesticides or other chemicals whenever possible, especially during the blooming seasons. As an alternative, practice </span><a href="http://midwestpesticideaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/10StepsToControlPestsUpdated.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">integrated pest management</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and other </span><a href="http://msue.anr.msu.edu/topic/info/home_gardening"><span style="font-weight: 400;">natural gardening techniques</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to help grow healthy, pesticide-free plants for bees. If you can tolerate some weeds such as clovers and dandelions, then you’ll make a friend out of bees and other pollinators who love these plants for food! Don’t hurry to get rid of these weeds. Instead, wait for them to bloom and then trim it off before seed dispersal. For more information on creating a bee-friendly garden, please refer to MPAC’s </span><a href="http://midwestpesticideaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BeeFriendlyGardenUpdated.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400;">fact sheet</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.  </span>

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