Pollinators and Fire Smoke

Pollinators

With the recent fire epidemic in the US a lot of smoke was produced for everyone. You may have been in one of the communities affected where air quality warnings were issued. Perhaps you had to shut your windows because the smell bothered you, or it was bad enough to avoid being outside at all. If you were in the epicentre you probably had breathing gear on. 

Have you ever stopped to wonder what happens to bees and other wildlife? They are my first thought. The innocents. The animals, the precious flora and fauna, the delicate butterflies, the eggs in nests, the young ones, the ones that can't run or fly away.... Tragic. Just tragic. Not to mention the forests themselves. The diversity. The environmental impacts to come. 

Thankfully there are thousands of organizations out there that work for pollinators, bee and butterfly organizations, bird and wildlife rehabilitation centres, tree planting and native seed supply organizations. Numerous organizations also support fire fighting efforts and the first responders. If you can, please do get involved in this in anyway you can. Donate to support their efforts. Drop by their "shops" to see what might be a nice gift come holiday season. Any and all of our collective efforts can help, including changing your own yard or balcony or front step area to become a little green oasis that produces food and flowers too. Doing this can help local bee keepers a great deal, ensuring a local food and honey production.

I'd love to pass on this article on how smoke in the air affects bees, some great advice on what to do in this situation, and a few linked resources at the end of the article:

https://mcusercontent.com/d3fc276110a2ce56101ecad16/files/b21461e2-8564-476e-8e4b-ef44b0671a79/Beekeeping_and_bushfire_recovery.02.pdf

We've personally attained bee, wildlife and butterfly certification for our yard due to the efforts we put in over the last 10 years converting this property, including the balcony, to a little green oasis. Every season has us increasing or improving the plantings. For instance we built a bed for our blueberry plants and also for an asparagus planting (10 plants).

The bees absolutely love their flowers. We did try planting some sedum around the blueberries but the sedum just took over the surface and so we removed it from that spot. Sedums produce flowers that all kinds of pollinators enjoy. We also doubled the size of the wildlfower zone we started on the street side, under a large evergreen tree - where some of the sedum was transplanted. Dave built us 9 flower boxes that were filled with flowers and herbs for the outdoor sitting area we created out of a former parking spot. We do the best we can with what we have... and hope it inspires others. That's all we can do. 

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