Championing pollinators at Denver Botanic Gardens

Bugs are awesome! 

Did you know Colorado has over 1000 species of bees and 300 species of butterflies, that’s ½ of the butterfly species in the United States.

Everyone knows that many fruits and vegetables need pollinators, but how about cheese and other dairy? Guess what? Alfalfa feeds dairy cattle and alfalfa is pollinated by bees. Pictured above is one of the bees that does that job — the Alfalfa Leaf Cutter Bee.

Do all bees sting?

Nope, male bees (drones) don’t sting! We caught bees in nets at the event for closer examination and then let them go. We only handled the drones because we didn’t want to get stung. Like birds, drones are more colorful than females, so we could pick out which were males. Some bee species don’t sting at all.

Thanks to The Big Day of Bugs, hosted by the Colorado Pollinator Network at the Denver Botanic Gardens, people learned all this and more through guided explorations of the gardens, observing insect relationships firsthand, and engaging in “Science Chats” about native plants and bugs.

But we can’t celebrate bugs without also acknowledging the threats. Our team was on hand, engaging with attendees and gathering support for our ongoing campaign to limit the use of neonicotinoid-coated seeds in Colorado.

Neonics are a huge problem! These insecticides frequently coated on seeds are designed to make whole plants toxic, and they’re super potent—like, 1,000 times stronger than DDT. They easily spread through our environment and are used everywhere, from farms to backyards. This widespread contamination is devastating to essential insects like bees, throwing entire ecosystems out of whack. That’s why we’re acting  now to protect our pollinators and the health of our planet.

Shout out to the other groups at the Big Day of Bugs, including the Xerces Society, CU Museum of Natural History, People & Pollinators Action Network, Butterfly Pavilion, Audubon Rockies, CSU Extension, Mola Lab, and others.