Cities Need More Native Bees—Lots and Lots of Adorable Bees
These pollinators can help urban gardens grow. That will be critical for cooling cities as the planet warms.
By Matt Simon
Wired Science
Oct 10, 2022
Excerpt:
“The evidence was piled up rather quickly that large bee diversity in cities is a common and very important trend that nobody has noticed,” says biologist Gerardo Camilo, who studies urban bees at Saint Louis University. “Certain cities can be essentially a refuge for insect pollinators. All we need to do is cross the Mississippi into Illinois, where there’s huge amounts of corn and soybean, and bee diversity takes a nosedive.” Country Bee, then, is growing increasingly jealous of Town Bee. And as planners rush to green up their metropolises, there are ways to make cities safer and more enticing for bees. That will—in a fascinating way—actually help cool urban areas as the planet warms.
Camilo is part of a swarm of scientists from six St. Louis institutions who have fanned out across their city to spy on bees and other pollinators. Working in over 250 community gardens, they’re tallying bee species and monitoring their behavior. They’re also checking out how plants respond to healthy populations of pollinators, particularly the native types. Aimee Dunlap, who studies bee behavior at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, is pointing GoPros at flowers to catch visitors in the act. “My team is essentially setting up a bee surveillance state,” says Dunlap. “We are watching to see who’s visiting and what are they doing when they’re on the flowers.”
