Don and Nelly Young digging in to some delicious honey at the Sept. 29 Pollinator Workshop. Photo by Jonathan Sabeniano
by Don Young
I didn’t expect surprises but there were many at Dig In!’s Pollinator Workshop on September 29. Gillian Leitch, landscape designer (altereden.ca), beekeeper and a Director with Bee City Canada (beecitycanada.org) led the workshop, which was co-sponsored by The Sierra Club and U of T Bees. We began after a delicious honey tasting that had all licking their fingers as well as their lips.
First surprise – honeybees are not native to North America! They were brought here by European settlers. Honeybees are great pollinators but are viewed by some as a monoculture that threatens biological diversity. An invasive species, they’ve competed with native bees and other pollinators for food, right from the beginning. Native bees and other pollinating insects are equally important, if not more so, in the essential service of pollinating most of our edible and decorative plants, as well as all fruit-bearing trees. Without pollinators – and bees of all kinds are the best – food production would plummet and, along with it, all animal life, including human.
Gillian has helped to make Toronto the first Bee City in Canada and is involved in the City’s Biodiversity and Pollinator Protection Strategies, which have buy-ins from all City departments. A leader in the City’s Pollinator Working Group, she is helping to map habitat, promote pollinator gardens and pollinator-friendly plants and trees, green roofs with shade and deeper soil, linked green spaces, the conversion of old landfill sites and pollinator-friendly roadsides. (For more information, visit livegreentoronto.ca) Bee City is signing up businesses and institutions to support these efforts. Gillian would love to help U of T become the first Bee City University in Canada.
Gillian Leitch teaching us about pollinators. Photo by Jonathan Sabeniano
Neonicotinoids and other pesticides threaten to destroy all of this good work. Neonics are 7,000 times more toxic than DDT and have spread throughout our environment, thanks to commercial agriculture, especially corn and soy production. The kernels and seeds are coated with sticky neonics, which are then separated with talcum powder for planting. The toxin gets into the air during seeding. Neonics are in the air we breathe, in the water we drink and in the food we eat. They are deadly to all pollinators and have been linked to various animal and human ailments – research is currently underway linking them to autism.
For gardeners, the workshop offered much advice on what to grow and, again, many surprises. Who knew that heavy mulching was wasteful and bad for pollinators? Most native bees build their nests in holes in the ground. Covering up these holes can leave them homeless or without a place to dig. At least 10 percent of your garden should remain un-mulched, especially around the edges where bees prefer to nest. Instead of mulch, apply compost around each plant. And ignore the signs telling you to “keep off the grass.” Walk on all the lawns you can. Your footprints create edges where bees can gain access. As Dig In! volunteers, we should help pollinators to dig in too. In turn, they will help us make a success of campus agriculture.
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