10th Annual Pollinator Summit Wrap-up
- Idelle Fisher & Jane Shellenberger
- 13 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Idelle Fisher:
Dr. Samuel Ramsey of CU's Boulder Bee Lab was the engaging keynote speaker on the first day of this year’s Pollinator Summit. With a good dose of humor, he addressed the “wrong bees" topic, describing how our non-native honeybees have gotten a bad rap in recent years because they can negatively affect our important native bees.
Honeybees are important for agriculture, but he stressed how vital it is to treat honeybees like pets or livestock with proper management so that pathogen spillover and competition with native pollinators can be prevented. He emphasized that IF you decide to keep bees, not only do you need to be a GOOD beekeeper and keep them healthy, but it is also essential to add more native flowers to your landscape to reduce competition so that all bees can thrive. Some of the natives he suggested planting included asters (Blanketflower, Goldenrods), mints (Monarda/BeeBalm, Agastache) and legumes (Lupinus, Vicia/Vetch), plus other shrubs and flowers like Penstemons that bloom throughout the season to provide food for all bees.
Gemara Gifford, researcher from CO State University’s Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and consultant at Mending Mountains Collective, talked about what we can learn from indigenous people to incorporate diverse, environmentally-friendly agriculture that benefits both wildlife and us. Dr. Talia Karim shared fascinating slides and info about Colorado's Fossil Pollinators, many of which can be found at CU's Museum of Natural History.
Planting more native plants and reducing pesticides was a common thread across all presentations. Dr. Kevin Burls of the Xerces Society discussed the State of Butterflies. He mentioned the 22% decline in butterflies from 2000-2020 and how we can help them by incorporating imperiled species biology into planning, expanding habitat, including food plants and, of course, reducing or eliminating pesticides. Jaqueline Buenrostro, also from Xerces Society, shared the surprising fact that 93% of butterfly host plants have been contaminated with an average of 3 and up to 18 pesticides – and that pesticides do not stay where applied. We can help with butterfly conservation by providing pesticide-free native plants and habitat in our urban communities including schools, public parks, and neighborhoods.
Dr. Rick Adams', President and founder of the Colorado Bat Society, shared how bats fly, pollinate, and locate and capture insects, which greatly reduces agricultural pests as well as the spread of zoonotic diseases like West Nile Virus. Who knew that Colorado has 21 species of bats? Read more about the speakers and their presentations here.
While full of troubling information about pollinator decline, the Pollinator Summit also promised hope for the future and specific things we all can do to make a difference.
10th Annual Pollinator Summit Wrap-up Day 2
By Jane Shellenberger:
Dr. Jonathan Lundgren—agroecologist, Director of ECDYSIS Foundation, and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm, was the keynote speaker on Day 2. A working farmer, Lundgren stressed that we don’t have a bee problem, we have a soil and diversity problem. Farmers are supposed to be stewards of life, he said, yet we are killing our soil (and our pollinators) - and our farmers. He discussed the “1000 Farms Initiative” a survey which included 1700 farms in 38 states; 120 of these were farms in Colorado. Results show that our farmers are experiencing depression, anxiety, allergies and asthma at levels much higher than the national average. He said that farmers thought Science could help but that scientific research has been suppressed by the USDA. “We need to change our methods instead of supporting a broken system… Scientists need to be farmers and beekeepers.”
The current agriculture system has resulted in widespread pesticide contamination (30% of land in eastern Colorado is planted with neonics, for example), and collapse (Florida citrus production for example). Neonic contamination is spreading everywhere including into wild deer and predator populations. On the other hand, Regenerative Agriculture celebrates life and biodiversity. Its outcomes include: Climate cleanup, improved nutrition, carbon sinks, reduced pollution, better water infiltration. “We need to grow food, not commodities... on smaller, better farms.”
Dr. Nick Haddad from the Long Term Ecological Research site at the Kellogg Biological Station of Michigan State University and author of The Last Butterflies: A Scientist’s Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature, gave the closing keynote address.
“Over the past two decades, the United States has lost a quarter of its butterflies. This includes loss of common species like monarchs and cabbage whites, and rare species on the verge of extinction. We know this from data accumulated by thousands of individuals, and not only scientists, who have done tens of thousands of surveys and recorded millions of butterflies. Solutions to reverse declines are in our grasp, but need to be acted on now.”
For more info on the presentations, the speakers and the organizations involved in the Pollinator Summit visit: www.coloradopollinatornetwork.org/summit-2025
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