October 13th, 2008 · No Comments

By Barbara Kessler

Our neighbors probably don’t love it, but we had another outbreak of wildflowers in our organic yard. These things happen when you don’t use chemicals.

I must confess, it was the promise of mutual benefit that prompted me to leave these natives to thrive. They got to bloom, and I got to sit in my room.

When finally I did roust myself to pull them, I noticed a hive of honey bees, dozens and dozens of bees, feeding on the tiny blooms. So naturally, I had to let them bloom some more. We’ll probably pay the price next year for letting these flowers go to seed (though we did pull many of them in the front yard to stifle gasps from passersby), but I like to think we supported a lot of pollinators that would not normally find much to dine on in the usual plain old turf of most yards.

The moral of the story: Let it bee.

(For more on pollinators see the website: The Pollinator Partnership. They are working to save all pollinators, from butterflies to bats, but especially the king of pollination, the bees. Honey bees have suffered a precipitous decline in recent years from the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Syndrome. Pesticides, especially the new generation that act as neurotoxins on insects are suspected of playing a triggering role in CCD.)

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