Bring Back the Pollinators: Four Simple Steps to Save the Bees

Listen Now

Guest Information

Aaron Anderson is a pesticide program specialist with the Xerces Society. He works to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting alternative pest control measures and pollinator-friendly gardening practices. Matthew Shepherd is the director of outreach and education at Xerces. Matthew has worked for the Xerces Society for more than 25 years, and in his current role focuses on supporting neighborhood-level efforts such as pollinator gardens and small habitat projects in parks, as well as guiding the Bring Back the Pollinators campaign and promoting the No Mow May and Leave the Leaves initiatives.

Show Notes & Links

In this episode, we explore the 'Bring Back the Pollinators' campaign, which includes steps like planting native flowers, providing shelters, reducing pesticide use, and spreading awareness. The episode offers practical guidelines for creating pollinator habitats, even in small or urban areas, and emphasizes community involvement and education.

Transcript

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society, where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate.

Rachel: Hi, I am Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Raven: I'm Raven Larcom in Richmond, Virginia.

Rachel: I want to welcome our guest co-host, Raven Larcom, to the podcast. Raven is Xerces’ pollinator program specialist and administrator. She promotes the conservation of pollinators through direct technical support, outreach, and participates in events in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Rachel: Welcome, Raven. Very excited to have you co-host with me today.

Raven: I'm so happy to be here. So, for years now, there’s been a growing buzz—pun intended—about how to save our pollinators. Bees, butterflies, and so many other important species are really struggling. But the good news is that each of us can make a big difference right in our own backyards. From planting native flowers, to rethinking our use of pesticides, simple choices can transform any outdoor space into a thriving pollinator haven. Today, we’re diving into what it really takes to bring back the pollinators and how you can be part of the solution.

Rachel: Joining us are two guests that have become regulars on the podcast: Aaron Anderson and Bug Banter’s very own co-host, Matthew Shepherd. Aaron is a pesticide program specialist at Xerces. He works with the public and Xerces staff to reduce pesticide use in residential landscapes, including promoting alternative pest control measures and pollinator-friendly gardening practices. Matthew is Xerces’ director of outreach and education. He has been with us for over 25 years, working in pollinator conservation in towns and cities. Much of his work focuses on guiding neighborhood-level efforts such as pollinator gardens, and small habitat projects in parks, as well as supporting the Bring Back the Pollinators campaign, and promoting initiatives such as Leave the Leaves.

Rachel: Welcome back, Aaron and Matthew!

Matthew: Thank you. It's exciting being on this side of the microphone.

Aaron: Yeah, thanks so much for having me again.

Raven: So Bring Back the Pollinators is a campaign that Xerces started and has been promoting for many years now. Can you tell us when was it created and why?

Matthew: I think I'll answer that one because I was around when we started it. It's funny, I've been asked this question, and I don't remember exactly when we started it, but 15 years ago, something like that, maybe a little longer. And at the time we were beginning to do a lot of work working on agricultural lands, and helping farmers, and so on, as well as getting more involved in protecting endangered species, and working on public lands. And we realized that we had this gap—we didn't have anything that we could offer to gardeners, and, in particular, something that was focused upon the needs of so many of our members and individual donors. And they're so important to us. They keep the organization running. And so Bring Back the Pollinators came about over a period of about six weeks leading up to Earth Day. So that's the history of it, but I know that it didn't really have the full resources that we needed to sustain it. The basic purpose of the campaign is to give people a simple framework so that wherever they are, they can follow the straightforward principles of having flowers, having nest sites, avoiding pesticides, and spreading the word. And those simple principles can be adapted to any location.

Raven: Yeah, that's really great. So, we are in the midst of refreshing and relaunching this campaign. Can you give us a quick sneak peek at what's coming?

Aaron: There's been a group of us that are working to revitalize and relaunch this campaign. In addition to providing that framework for people who want to create pollinator habitat, we really wanted to revitalize this to try to develop the community around the program, and also to continue to help support people as they're either beginning, or they're continuing their pollinator conservation journey. Our goal is that anyone who signs the pledge will join this community of other conservation-minded individuals. And we're planning to share resources with pledge-signers. And then also host some quarterly Q&A sessions for Bring Back the Pollinator pledge-signers, send out quarterly newsletters with topics like seasonal tips, success stories. We're also going to highlight a pollinator of the season. And then Rachel, you're organizing our Xerces’ webinar series that will take place monthly, I believe, with a great diversity of topics that are all gonna tie into Bring Back the Pollinators and pollinator conservation. So yeah, we're just hoping to build this community and provide resources to people who are interested in conserving pollinators.

Rachel: Thanks, Aaron. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the webinar series. So how does the campaign work? Can anyone participate?

Aaron: Yeah, so anyone can participate. In general, like Matthew was saying, it's geared towards home gardeners or community gardeners. Ultimately, you just need to have a space that you can create pollinator habitat on, whether that's a personal or communal space. And the wonderful thing about pollinator conservation is that pollinators live in all sorts of landscapes—they can thrive in urban and suburban areas. And we just need to manage these spaces thinking about the needs of these essential creatures. Anybody can participate.

Rachel: Are there any particular pollinators this campaign focuses on, or is it all-inclusive?

Matthew: The primary focus is on bees. And when I say bees, I mean native bees. So we're not talking about honey bees, and hives, and boxes, and so on. So the primary focus has been on native bees because, for a number of reasons, they are generally reckoned to be the most important single group of pollinators in North America. But we also encourage people to support butterflies, as well as just welcoming the full range of pollinators into their garden, which includes various different types of flies, and beetles, and all sorts of unexpected things might be pollinators. Because frankly, there are so many different plants, and so many thousands of different pollinating animals that we don't really know what all the relationships are. And so by focusing on bees and butterflies, we're creating the conditions that will support the full breadth of pollinators, and other wildlife.

Rachel: So as we think about this campaign, and the pledge, someone might be thinking, “Well, I'm just one person.” Do the actions of one person really have that large of an impact?

Matthew: Yeah, definitely. I mean, if you imagine that you're a bee that's like an eighth of an inch long, you don't need a really big area to live in. I know there are places around here where I live where I see small carpenter bees nesting up blackberry stems, and they're just like 10 feet from a patch of flowers, and it's—that's all they need. It's like that their entire life can happen within one tiny patch. And so what that means is even if you have a small yard, a deck, a big yard, whatever area you have, you can create some kind of habitat. And individually that patch will support things. You just have to stand back and watch what happens over the weeks, and months, and years after you create this, and you'll see the benefit that it brings directly to the insects that come to your yard.

Matthew: But also, if you step back and you think about it, what—you are doing something in your yard. What's your neighbor do? What does your friend down the block do? And then you add in roadsides, and parks, and community gardens, and you realize that there's this astonishing mosaic of small habitats. And I know it sounds a bit silly—bees fly, right? And so they can get between all those little patches, and collectively we can transform our landscapes.

Matthew: I remember one time I used the analogy of IKEA store. Because, you know, if you go into an IKEA store, they have these small room setups in these small apartments to show you how you can live within a 200-square-foot, or 400, or 600, or whatever it is. And each one of those model apartments have somewhere you can prepare food, somewhere you can sleep, somewhere you can relax, somewhere your kids can play. And that's basically what we're trying to do in our gardens for our pollinators. We're trying to provide all the elements that they need in a small area.

Matthew: And another thing I often think about when talking about pollinator conservation is that these insects connect us all. They connect us in our neighborhoods by moving between our gardens. If you're a monarch butterfly and you need to fly from—wherever, Minnesota to Mexico, say—that individual butterfly is connecting us across thousands of miles. And so what we do in our yard really does have an impact.

Raven: Yeah, that's really amazing. Even this summer, I had a small container garden on our deck—not a lot of space at all—but we saw evidence of leafcutter bees, which was a huge surprise, and really wonderful to see this evidence, these little like cut circles out of these leaves.

Matthew: Someone I've been corresponding with in Germany who's a Xerces member and just started emailing me to say, “Hey, he was creating this pollinator garden on his apartment deck.” And it happened that I knew a bit about what was going on in Germany, and some plants, and stuff because I'm from Britain. And over the few years he's been recording the number of different bees and butterflies that come to his apartment deck, and I think he's somewhere close to 20 different species now that he's recorded. I just find that amazing that you can have such success.

Aaron: One of the most, I think, rewarding parts of gardening for pollinators at home, or wherever you may be doing it, is keeping your eye out and seeing that change in the wildlife in your yard. Going from lawn and more conventional gardening plants, and seeing what insects are in your yard. But then year after year, as you're putting more and more pollinator plants, and whether you're tracking it formally, or it's a little bit more casual, it's really amazing to start seeing incredible diversity of pollinators, as well as other invertebrates that you really can support in a yard.

Raven: Yeah, it's—it is really amazing how we all can actually make a difference just starting at home. And that's honestly my favorite thing about this entire campaign, and why I feel so lucky to be a part of this, is that people always reach out to us, and email us, and call us, and are asking, you know, “What can we do?” And this campaign is really breaking down what you can do into four simple steps. And I think it'd be great if we could dive a little bit deeper into those four steps, starting with the first action: planting pollinator-friendly flowers. Are there any good guidelines to help people know which plants to choose? And also, how many should they plant?

Matthew: The simple answer to that is plant as many as you can. I realize that's not what everybody wants to do, but the more you can plant, the more insects that you'll be able to support.

Matthew: But stepping back a little bit, we know that native plants are better for our native insects. There's research that's been done looking at the association between bees and the plants in gardens, and those gardens that are richer in native plants support a greater diversity of native bees, and a greater abundance of native bees. There's the work that—I'm sure many of our listeners have heard of Doug Tallamy—and the work that he's done, and has promoted so effectively through bringing nature home. Tying the presence of native plants, particularly trees and shrubs, to the extraordinary abundance of caterpillars as associated with that—and that's butterflies and moths. But it's, I think it's like an order of magnitude greater—it's 12 times greater—if you have the native plants as opposed to non-native plants.

Matthew: And I've seen other studies that have been done looking at plant, bugs, and beetles, et cetera, et cetera, and consistently the outcomes shows us that native plants are better for supporting a greater abundance and a greater diversity of native insects. And it makes great sense. You know, the plants and insects have co-evolved over the millennia, hundreds of thousands, millions of years—whatever it is. And so we can't be too surprised that local plants support local insects.

Matthew: I think there is a place in gardens, in particular, and more formal landscapes for some non-native plants, but we do need to just think very carefully about what we're bringing in and why. I know in my own garden, for the late summer I have the native Douglas aster, or Pacific aster growing. But when that begins to fade, I also have New England aster that blooms even later. New England isn't native to this side of the country, but it helps extend that season for the late-flying bumble bees, and so on.

Matthew: How many should they plant? Sure. As many as you can. But we also have some evidence that suggests that if you have several species of flowers blooming at any one time, you get a—again, you get a greater diversity and more abundance in your yard. And here at Xerces, our normal recommendation is to try and have at least three plants in bloom at any one time, or three different species of plants in bloom at any one time. So that's the simple answer.

Raven: So what are some good resources for deciding which native plants to choose? Where can you find them?

Aaron: We have some really wonderful Xerces pollinator planting lists available that cover all regions of the country. They have dozens of different plants for each region listed—herbaceous, woody plants—talking about when they bloom, what pollinators they support. So I think that would be a wonderful place to start. For more local recommendations, too, local native plant groups, and also university extension offices often have really great information for your local area. So I'd also recommend looking at those resources, as well.

Raven: Are there any particular places where people can find native plants? You know, I think a lot of like box stores, or bigger stores don't always have what we're talking about here with being native and local to the region. So where can people find these native plants?

Matthew: I would say the good news is that I think more garden centers and big box stores are now carrying native plants. It's usually a fairly limited range and fairly much focused on the popular plants, but it is getting easier for people to find these. But you're more likely to find a good selection of plant species from a local grower. And again, there are more and more small local native plant nurseries cropping up, and growers. It's increasingly easy to find these plants, although, equally, I know if you live in the middle of New York City, you're probably not very close to a native plant grower, but—. Again, it amazes me where some of these growers are now located, and they really are in major urban cores, which is really good. Track down a native plant nursery near you.

Matthew: You'll also find native plant sales at nature centers, native plant groups will have them, conservation districts will have them. And so those can also be a really good place to find not just the plants, but also information. Because often you'll go to those sales and there'll be either someone there with information for you, or there'll be a little sign up saying, “This is a great plant, and it'll support bees and butterflies [with] its nectar,” or, “It's a host plant,” or whatever. So there are some great places to find native plants and also find information. And again, to shamelessly plug Xerces’ resources, if you go to our website, you'll find the Pollinator Conservation Resource Center. And for each region there's information—not just the plant lists, and so on that Aaron mentioned, but there's also a link through to the Native Plant, Seed and Services Directory, and also the Milkweed Finder for each region. So that's one place where you may be able to find local suppliers.

Rachel: Thanks, Matthew. I got lucky when I first moved to Missoula. I was going to our farmer's market all the time. And it turns out the first farmer's market in June, the Native Plant Society, they actually sell native plants that they've cultivated in their own yards, and they're a lot less expensive. And that's where I source a lot of my native plants here. And it's just a wonderful resource.

Rachel: So the next step in this campaign is to provide shelter. And that's something that is sometimes overlooked that we don't often think about. Let's start with the spring and the summer. What type of shelter do our pollinators need?

Aaron: Yeah, this is a great question, Rachel. This is really so important. Bees, butterflies, all insects need places to nest and overwinter. And in the spring and summer they need places to create nests. Thinking about our native bees, about 70% of them are ground-nesting, which means they either dig little holes or burrows in the ground, or use existing holes where they then lay their eggs and their offspring develop. So this means, in a garden context, leaving some bare soil, places that aren't mulched or covered in plants is really important for these species so they have a place to create those nests in the spring and the summer.

Aaron: And then the other, roughly 30% of our native bees are cavity-nesting. This means they lay their eggs in little cavities, often places like old hollow plant stems. So “Saving the Stems,” as we like to say. You can cut them back a little bit, but not all the way to the ground. You know, you wanna leave some stem to actually have those bees create their nest chambers in is a really great way to provide habitat for those species. You can also leave things like old logs, and snags, things that can provide natural cavities and places to nest for those bees.

Aaron: And then butterfly larvae, or caterpillars, they develop on their host plants, growing as they munch away. So it's really important to include butterfly host plants when you're planting for pollinators, as well.

Rachel: So moving into the fall and winter. What type of shelter do we need to provide for our pollinators in those seasons?

Matthew: It's fall, so that's when the leaves come down. And leaves are a hugely important resource that is often dismissed as trash, or litter, and so often gets raked, and blown, and generally disposed of. And so if people want to know more about that, obviously I'm gonna recommend Bug Banter with Max Ferlauto who did a fascinating episode all about leaves. But the simple way of keeping leaves is—you probably won't keep them everywhere because there can be some places where they're can be problematic, whether that's blocking a drain, or smothering something you really care about, or creating a trip or slip hazard. So there are places where you don't want leaves, but there must be some places where you can keep leaves in your landscape. And again, my friend in Germany, he has some little stick piles, and leaf piles on his balcony, on his deck, which is just astonishing. It's just reaching that balance between what looks attractive, what meets your multiple needs for your gardens.

Matthew: And Aaron mentioned stems, and I guess we have to acknowledge here that there are cities, and neighborhoods that have all sorts of weed and landscaping regulations, and HOAs with rules and restrictions on what you can and cannot do. So sometimes creating pollinator habitat means that your yard won't look like that manicured “perfection” image that people so often are exposed to, or even pursue. And so sometimes you may well be finding yourself having to be creative to achieve wildlife ends, and bring some of this, kind of untidiness in a way, some of these nooks and crannies, some of this variety, and structure into your landscape in a way that doesn't get you sighted or fined. People have sometimes talked about the mullet-style approach to landscaping and gardens where [it’s] neat and tidy at the front and long and shaggy at the back. And there are also studies that show that people, if they know why it's done for wildlife, they accept your yard looking different. But they don't always like it right next door.

Matthew: So again, you look for compromise in your own garden, but also compromise in your neighborhood. And so if you're doing things in your backyard, there's a chance—there's a better chance you can do what you need, and your front yard may need to look more how other people want it to look maybe, rather than how you want it—anyway. There's always gonna be compromises and balances to be reached.

Raven: I can definitely assure you that our back deck is absolutely not neat and tidy at all. But even as the snow is falling today, looking at these leaf piles, I know that something must be in there. I mean, If I were getting snowed on, that's where I would want to be. It's great to just see that even in small areas it really does make a difference, so. In previous episodes you've discussed reducing pesticides in your pollinator habitat. Can you give us an overview of all the ways that people can reduce pesticide use?

Aaron: That's a great question, Raven. And it's a huge question. And one that I could go on and on about, so I'll try to be somewhat brief. As we mentioned earlier, pesticides are a major contributor to pollinator and other insect declines. And just to take a step back, pesticide is an umbrella term, it includes insecticides, which kill insects, herbicides, which kill plants, fungicides, which kill fungi. There’re more different groups of pesticides, but these are what we're most concerned about generally. And when you're creating habitat for pollinators or other insects, it really is important to not use pesticides in these areas because they can be so harmful to insect life.

Aaron: So the first thing that I always recommend is encouraging people to think of their yards or their community gardens as this habitat that will provide resources for all sorts of insects that really can and will thrive there if you let them. So this involves accepting some level of cosmetic damage to plants in your garden because ultimately, this means your yard's being used by these pollinators, by this broad community of other insects, birds, other animals. Butterfly caterpillars need to feed on leaves to develop, and that's okay. That's, in fact—that's wonderful. And even damage from herbivores is okay at low levels because these support the natural enemies, like lady beetles or lace wings, that eat pests and actually help keep their populations in check. So healthy plants can tolerate a good amount of pest image without being at risk. And if you're installing these plants to provide habitat, it's great that insects are using them as a resource.

Aaron: And that kind of brings me to my next point. A really important way to reduce pesticide use is a diverse suite of native plantings that will support a wide variety of those natural enemy species. Again, so these are predators like lady beetles, lace wings, predatory bugs, dragonflies, or parasitoid wasps, or flies. And these creatures do really an amazing job of keeping pest populations in check. And the more diverse your habitat plantings are, the more diverse the community of these natural enemies are. And something that's really wonderful is that most of the same plants that support pollinators will also support predators and parasitoids. So creating this kind of multifunctional habitat is actually pretty easy.

Aaron: And another way I think to reduce pesticide use at home is to ask questions. The trouble with pesticide use is that it's invisible—you can't see it. And it often comes from places that we don't necessarily realize. And pesticides can and will move across the landscape. So if you have a land care company, for example, ask what they're using. If you have any questions about it, feel free to email us. We recommend people not hire companies to spray for mosquitoes or other pests in the yard because those can impact pollinators in your pollinator habitat. And instead, you can find ecologically friendly ways to deal with these pests in ways that won't put those pollinators at risk. And we have a lot of resources in our Xerces library on pesticide reduction at home, ecologically friendly mosquito management. And if you have questions, again, feel free to just contact us and we can help troubleshoot.

Aaron: So many situations are so species-, and pest-, and context-specific. So I can't give you all of the answers right now, but these are some of the kind of main overviews we think of when we're thinking of home pesticide risk reduction.

Raven: Thank you so much, Aaron. I really love the idea of thinking of pest problems as a symptom rather than the cause of a problem, so. I had this friend in Philadelphia last year who was growing a native hibiscus plant. And she collected seed, which is amazing—it's another amazing way to get more native plants out of your plants. But when we stored them, we noticed all of these tiny beetles coming out of them. And it turns out that there's a beetle that the larvae are developing in the seeds. And so she was a little bit upset at first. But then I was like, “Look, you're doing what we're asking you to do. You're providing a habitat and a home for them to develop.” And then most of these beetles are hatching, and then they're feeding birds, they're feeding other wildlife—it's a part of that system. And there were still enough seeds for us to grow out tons more of these plants. So it is really great to just know that sometimes pests are not—. I don't know, it's not the end of the world. Like they have a job to do, too.

Aaron: That's a great way to look at it.

Rachel: So we’ve talked about planting pollinator-friendly flowers. We’ve talked about providing overwintering and nesting habitat. We’ve talked about reducing or not using pesticides. The fourth action item is to spread the word. What are ways that people can share this information?

Matthew: Any way someone wants. For sure, you can put a sign up, and we often recommend people put a sign up just to explain, “Oh, my yard looks different from yours, but there's a reason behind it.” It's like putting up a sign that just says, “Pollinator Habitat,” or, “Wildlife Garden,” or something as simple as that tells passersby, neighbors, and others that this is not an abandoned lot. This is something that's like this on purpose. It's considerate, it's thoughtful. It's the result of conscious decisions and not just that everybody's been ignoring it. You know, Xerces has our habitat signs, our pesticide-free signs, our Leave the Leaves signs that you can get from our gift center. But equally, you can just put up anything you like. It's your garden, right? I've seen people with a bit of cardboard and a Sharpie go out there and write, “No spray. This is organic. There are no pesticides used here.” And that works as well as anything else. I've seen people have their kids do pollinator, butterfly drawings, and plant drawings, and post those in their garden to help explain. So, you know, that it is one of the things, there's no—there's really no right or wrong way of doing it. It's just a nice thing to do.

Matthew: Some people have hosted their own garden tours. Some people are more active within other local groups at promoting what they do, and encouraging other people to get involved. We have our Bee City, Bee Campus affiliates, and it always astonishes me—the remarkable range and the creative ways that the communities have of promoting pollinator conservation. From trivia nights, and art shows, and photography workshops, and garden tours. Pollinator mini beast safaris, having a float in the city parade, doing garden classes. There was even one—and this is not necessarily one we should promote—but there's even one that did a bar crawl—get buzzed for the bees. Haha. And it is just great. But all of these are ways to get out there and spread the word.

Matthew: And again, earlier, you asked, Rachel, whether one person doing something can have an impact. And I have seen this, and I've had other people tell me, and then I've seen it in my own neighborhood, that you don't always realize that other people are noticing what you do and then copying until they tell you. And so you put a sign up, and then you discover that someone else went, “Oh, that's a good idea.” And so then they started doing it in their garden. They started bringing some more flowers in, they reduced the area of lawn, and so on. And so even if you don't think that what you're doing is having an impact, it often is. Because it's like that analogy of drop a stone in a pond and the ripples go out. And so that's what you're doing—you're making a change. And the impact of that change ripples out without you always knowing.

Rachel: Thank you, Matthew, for sharing that. How can people learn more and sign the pledge?

Aaron: I would recommend that you go to our website and you can find the link to sign the pledge there. There's a lot more resources linked for each of those four different principles of the pledge, as well. Each has a landing page that kind of describes what we've been talking about today, and provides some of our Xerces resources on each of those topics.

Raven: So a big feature or part of this campaign really relies on having the space to implement habitat, and talk to your neighbors about that habitat, and reduce pesticides on the land. But what else can somebody do, especially if they don't have the space to plant flowers?

Aaron: Yeah, that's a really great question, Raven. Even if you don't have a yard, if you have an outdoor space, like a patio, or a balcony, you can always put pollinator plants in containers. Create little habitat patches that still will be used by these pollinators. Another thing you can do is volunteer with a community science project that helps conserve pollinators, like volunteering for the Xerces’ Bumble Bee Atlas, for example. Which is discovering really important information about bumble bees and their habitat, and relies on volunteers. And as Matthew was saying, you can talk to your neighbors, and spread the word. So many people just don't know about pollinators and how important they are. That community outreach really is so important.

Aaron: You can also try to work at the community level, potentially work with your community to become a Xerces Bee City affiliate, which really will amplify that conservation effort across your entire community. A lot of local areas, as well, have different volunteer programs you can become involved in, where you might be able to volunteer on your community parks property. You can get involved in community science projects more locally, as well. So looking for those opportunities in ways that you can engage in pollinator conservation that aren't necessarily right exactly where you're living, I think are great ways that you can try to contribute to pollinator conservation. Because it really is such a big task and it takes place in all sorts of different areas.

Matthew: I just had a couple of other thoughts on what people could do. One of them is, if it's within your budget, go for organic, sustainable produce at the grocery store. Go to your farmer's market. Rachel mentioned her farmer's market as being a source of native plants, but working with local growers—. Again, often these are small growers, often they're organic, and they're also supporting pollinators on their farms. And so if you are supporting them, it makes their farms better for pollinators.

Matthew: You also could step forward. The park departments often have advisory committees. If you've got the time, the wherewithal, get yourself onto an advisory committee, and then you can start guiding and influencing policy across many acres in your community. You can advocate for your city council to adopt pollinator conservation, whether, as Aaron suggested, that's affiliating to Bee City or Bee Campus, if you're a college or university. But also, you don't have to do that. It's more important to do something. I'd much prefer a city to be reducing pesticides across the city, and putting habitat in than affiliating with Bee City. And I know I shouldn't say that because, obviously, we want everybody to affiliate to Bee City. But it's more important the change happens on the ground and people are doing things. And you can influence that through your social media, through letters to the editor, through writing opinion pieces for your HOA newsletter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there are so many things that you can do as an individual to support pollinate conservation that doesn't revolve around having space.

Rachel: Thank you for all those suggestions. I'm also gonna put in a plug for our X Kids program. I think inspiring next generations to get involved is super important, too.  It's a great activity book.

Raven:  You know, speaking of wonderful books, especially science education and conservation related, what is your favorite science or conservation related book and why?

Matthew: I have difficulty coming up with only one answer at times like this, so I brought two I just think are just fabulous books. Jean-Henri Fabre, who is—who was, I should say, basically a community scientist. Back in the 1800s, in southern France, he was just obsessed with insects. I forget what he did—I think he was a tutor and a school teacher, if I remember correctly. But then the rest of his life, he spent studying insects. And people would find him sitting in the middle of a road, watching a hole in the ground because there was something coming and going. His books are still available, and I've got three or four of them now in the early editions. And I just love them because [they’re] a century old, and the information is just astonishing, and just an insight into his life. The one I have here is The Mason Wasps. And for example, he had a mud dauber wasp that made a nest inside his fireplace chimney. And so he went through a whole winter without a fire so that he could see what happened to the nest at the end. And that's the kind of observation that has led us to understand what happens in a mud dauber nest.

Matthew: But then a more modern one—this is a really great one, this is Bugs Britannica. And this is one of a series of books that Richard Mabey has been behind. It's about insects and invertebrates in Britain, but it's all about the cultural connections, and the local common names for them. And that's one thing that I have been fascinated in for a long time is how people interact with, and engage with their environment, and understand and communicate around it. And so this is just a—it's a big heavy one, there's hundreds and hundreds of pages—but it's just a wonderful book that I dip into every now and then because it's got some really interesting natural history. But just also seeing the names that people had for some of these insects, and all because of the local associations and how they interact with them.

Aaron: Yeah, Matthew, I love your answers. I think some of the writing of those early naturalists who are just making these really amazing observations—that are still groundbreaking to our understanding of insect behavior and biology—are such great reading. Mine's gonna be a little bit, maybe more practical to this conversation, and specific to this topic. But I really like the book, The Bees in Your Backyard. It's a really great guide to North American bees designed for the non-scientists, so it's really approachable. It was definitely very helpful to me in grad school diving into pollinators to kind of identify different bee groups quickly, to learn about bee identification. And it makes it very approachable. It talks a lot about how to identify these different major groups of bees, their natural history, and then also has practical tips for bee conservation. So I think pretty topical to what we're talking about today. I also had difficulty picking a book because there's so many great conservation books.

Rachel: Thank you both. I'm actually gonna do something a little bit different today. I have our last question—I'm switching over to ask Raven, since she's a guest on Bug Banter, and Matthew, which you have not answered this question yet, but you've asked it many times, so I'm excited to hear what your answer is. If you could see any bug in the wild, what would it be?

Matthew: Again, I have a two-part answer, sorry. The one that I would really love to see is the Goliath beetle because it's one of the biggest insects in the world. It's in Africa, and I was in East Africa for a couple of years, but never got to see one. I don't think it occurred in that part of the continent. But I just love the idea of an insect that's big enough to fill your hand and has weight to it. And there's not many insects that I've come across—one or two that have actually had a—you put them in your hand and, “Ooh,” they actually feel heavy. But it's just this beautiful black and white beetle. And they say it can lift like 500 times its own weight, kind of thing, which is just astonishing. But more likely for me to see are the rainbow scarabs that are here in North America. Again, they’re startlingly beautiful, amazing, multicolored, metallic sheen. So those are two I'll pursue.

Raven: That's really great. I got to see a Goliath beetle. I think—I don't remember, it might've been one of my friends that had one, or it might've been at like a reptile expo. But yeah, those things are massive. They're just incredible to see. I can't believe that they're insects, especially like having worked with like such tiny insects for most of my career and through grad school.

Raven: But I think, for a bug that I really want to go see—I would really love to see some orchid bees. I just think they're so beautiful. And not only are they beautiful with their like gemstone-like bodies, but they're also sort of romantic, or at least like as romantic as a bee can be. The males have these like really cool uniquely modified legs, which are used to collect and store different scents from orchids. And I'm a huge orchid fan. I have a lot of orchids. Of course I'm gonna love an orchid bee. But they collect this—these scents to create unique perfumes, which actually they use to attract and prove their genetic quality to their mates. After all, gallivanting across the rainforest to find and curate unique orchids is a lot of work for something so small. And they're most commonly found in the forests from Mexico to Southeastern Brazil. And, I think, actually now there's an introduced species in Florida, which is really not that far for me, so I probably should just go down there. But hopefully soon. I just, I think they're so magical. And very unique, I feel like, as well. So, definitely, I recommend everyone should look them up and go try to find them one day.

Rachel: That's so interesting. Thank you for answering that question. And Matthew, it's good to hear your answer, as well.

Rachel: Thank you, Matthew, Raven, and Aaron for being here today, for answering our questions. And I'm really looking forward to seeing this relaunch and this campaign. Again, if you're interested, please check out our website.

Aaron: Yeah, thank you so much, Rachel and Raven. This was a lot of fun.

Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us.

Rachel: If you are already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work, go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast or for show notes, go to xerces.org/bugbanter.