Sturgeon Bay, Wis. (May 2, 2022) – Finally, it is May, and it seems like this month, folks all over Door County are making an effort to plant trees and to protect pollinators. Those two worthy objectives come together as a part of our Crossroads Environmental Restoration Project.Crossroads is one of the organizations participating in the Door County Climate Change Coalition’s Door County Big Plant.They will be planting thousands of conifers to help mitigate the impacts of climate change because trees sequester carbon. Trees also provide oxygen, absorb pollutants and filter our air.
But conifers are wind pollinated and their pollen is relatively low in the protein that insects need this time of year. Although Crossroads is planting conifers, one of the goals of the Crossroads restoration project is biodiversity and the creation of wildlife corridors. Consequently, to provide for pollinators (and understand that includes hundreds of species of native wild bees in addition to domestic European honeybees), we will be planting a variety of plants, and many of the trees on this year’s list are trees that bloom in the spring.
As a part of THE BIG PLANT, students from T.J. Walker, Sunrise, and Sturgeon Bay High Schools will be planting trees, shrubs and even ferns to increase the biodiversity of the preserve.
Bees collect pollen to feed themselves, but this time of year, while they may sip nectar to fuel their activities, most bees—whether they are solitary (and 90% of native bees are) or live in hives, bees primarily are gathering the pollen that will be the food for themselves and for their larvae.
For a bee to develop from an egg to an adult bee…it must be fed a high quality pollen…a pollen containing lipids and protein. Protein contains amino acids, and some of these amino acids are essential. This means the organism cannot make them, but must get them from the food they eat.
Alas, many of our introduced and hybrid garden flowers lack pollen altogether. And sadly, dandelion pollen is low in valine, isoleucine, leucine, and arginine, which are essential amino acids for honeybees and for native wild bees. Without these amino acids, young bees simply will not develop.
But bees somehow know to visit trees in springtime. For starters, it is more efficient to visit a blooming tree than to fly from flower to flower, but more importantly, the flower of trees have the nutritious pollen they need.
Currently, bees are visiting pussy willows which are loaded with yellow pollen. They will soon visit red maple, dogwoods and nannyberries.
Later in the month, they will move on to fruit trees, ninebarks, elderberries and native bush honeysuckles.
In summer, bees will be gathering nectar, so we intentionally are planting an extensive variety of native wildflowers to ensure pollen, nectar and floral oils are available to pollinators throughout the growing season.
Restoration volunteers are aptly named “Habitat Healers” because they quite literally are helping convert Crossroads from a degraded piece of land to a healthy wildlife habitat. Habitat Healers meet on Saturdays from 9:30-11:30. No experience is necessary and people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds are more than welcome.
The Door Peninsula Astronomical Society will hold their monthly meeting on May 10. The program will be “Learning with LASERs”. Speaker Tom Minahan will cover light waves, diffraction in astronomy, refraction and quantum physics, or as he describes it “Einstein does it again!” The public is welcome to attend this 7:00 meeting at the Stonecipher Astronomy Center, 2200 Utah Street in Sturgeon Bay.
Crossroads at Big Creek Learning Center and Nature Preserve is located at 2041 Michigan. Crossroads is a 501(c)3 organization committed to offering education, conducting research, and providing outdoor experiences to inspire environmental stewardship in learners of all ages and from all backgrounds. We welcome your support! Become a member of Crossroads by mailing a contribution to P.O. Box 608, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235, or donate online at crossroadsatbigcreek.org
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