1. A minimum acreage of public land in each state may be set aside under specific
pollinator-friendly practices including a complete chemical ban; this would aid
wild bees and other pollinators specific to each state to repopulate and sustain
healthy ecosystems. Such protected pollinator areas could also serve as reservoirs
for nearby crop pollination when necessary. The National Wildlife Refuge is
already on track to ban neonicotinoid pesticide use from its crop lands by 2016,
but this approach may be further expanded.
2. A tax incentive may encourage private landowners and Homeowner Associations
common in the United States to adopt pollinator-friendly practices on their
residential properties. Though private lands do not individually provide much
area for pollinators, numerous small oases would provide increased forage
diversity and also help migratory pollinators such as certain butterflies.
Finally, consumers who buy food products to feed ourselves should become
aware of how pollinator decline and its challenges would affect us, such as increased
costs and lowered nutritional value and availability. Public awareness correlates with
political awareness and increased dialogue, a necessary ingredient for the creation
and implementation of national strategies to address the complex problems our
pollinators face.
Glossary
Absconding swarm: An entire colony of bees abandons the hive, often because of
disease, wax moth, excessive heat or water, lack of resources, or other reasons.
Annual plant: A plant that completes its life cycle from germination to the
production of seed within 1 year and then dies.
Apiary: Colonies, hives, and other equipment assembled in one location for beekeeping operations; also known as a bee yard.
Apiculture: Beekeeping; the keeping of bees, particularly on a commercial scale.
Breeding: In the context of managing domesticated animals, to cause an animal to
produce offspring in a controlled and organized manner.
Brood: Immature bees that have not yet emerged from their cells; brood of different
ages can be in the form of eggs, larvae, or pupae.
Colony: All the worker bees, drones, queen, and developing brood living together
in one hive or other dwelling.
Drone: The male honey bee.
Fallow: (Of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to
restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.
Field margins: Generally, the least productive areas of a field and just a 1-metre
grass strip between the outer edge of the hedge and the crop edge can benefit
wildlife in many ways.
Forage: (Of a person or animal) search widely for food or provisions.
Fungicide: A chemical that destroys fungus.
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C. Li
pollinator-friendly practices including a complete chemical ban; this would aid
wild bees and other pollinators specific to each state to repopulate and sustain
healthy ecosystems. Such protected pollinator areas could also serve as reservoirs
for nearby crop pollination when necessary. The National Wildlife Refuge is
already on track to ban neonicotinoid pesticide use from its crop lands by 2016,
but this approach may be further expanded.
2. A tax incentive may encourage private landowners and Homeowner Associations
common in the United States to adopt pollinator-friendly practices on their
residential properties. Though private lands do not individually provide much
area for pollinators, numerous small oases would provide increased forage
diversity and also help migratory pollinators such as certain butterflies.
Finally, consumers who buy food products to feed ourselves should become
aware of how pollinator decline and its challenges would affect us, such as increased
costs and lowered nutritional value and availability. Public awareness correlates with
political awareness and increased dialogue, a necessary ingredient for the creation
and implementation of national strategies to address the complex problems our
pollinators face.
Glossary
Absconding swarm: An entire colony of bees abandons the hive, often because of
disease, wax moth, excessive heat or water, lack of resources, or other reasons.
Annual plant: A plant that completes its life cycle from germination to the
production of seed within 1 year and then dies.
Apiary: Colonies, hives, and other equipment assembled in one location for beekeeping operations; also known as a bee yard.
Apiculture: Beekeeping; the keeping of bees, particularly on a commercial scale.
Breeding: In the context of managing domesticated animals, to cause an animal to
produce offspring in a controlled and organized manner.
Brood: Immature bees that have not yet emerged from their cells; brood of different
ages can be in the form of eggs, larvae, or pupae.
Colony: All the worker bees, drones, queen, and developing brood living together
in one hive or other dwelling.
Drone: The male honey bee.
Fallow: (Of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to
restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.
Field margins: Generally, the least productive areas of a field and just a 1-metre
grass strip between the outer edge of the hedge and the crop edge can benefit
wildlife in many ways.
Forage: (Of a person or animal) search widely for food or provisions.
Fungicide: A chemical that destroys fungus.
44
C. Li