Pollinators
Roughly a third of the food on your plate depends on an insect moving pollen from one flower to another. These are the insects doing that work, what they need from a garden, and how to tell the regulars apart.
Pollinators at a glance
Every insect here, rated on the same three scalesI score each one 0 to 10 for what it does for your garden, how much trouble it causes, and whether its sting or bite is worth worrying about. Same scales on every page, so the numbers are comparable.
Bee, hoverfly, or wasp?
The three most people mix up at a flower. Here is the quick read.
| Bee | Hoverfly | Wasp | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wings | |||
| Waist | Thick | Thick | Pinched |
| Body | Furry | Sleek, flat | Shiny, smooth |
| At your lunch? | × | × | ✓ |
Most pollination isn't honey bees. Flies, moths, beetles, and wild solitary bees quietly do a huge share of the work.
The Heavy Lifters
Bees
Bees do more pollination than every other insect group combined, and it isn't close. Honey bees get the headlines, but most species are solitary: no hive, no swarm, just one female provisioning a nest in a stem or a patch of bare ground.
Bumblebees buzz-pollinate by gripping a flower and vibrating it, which tomatoes flatly require. Once you know that, you look at a scruffy corner of the garden differently.
My bee guides run from honey bees to the solitary species nobody notices.
Bees
Pollinators You Can Watch
Butterflies
Butterflies are the pollinator people actually notice, and I photograph more of them than anything else. They're fussier than bees about host plants, which makes them useful: regular butterfly traffic means a garden is doing several things right.
The species list changes through the season, so half the skill is knowing what to expect in which month. The other half is standing still.
Every butterfly guide I've written is in here.
Butterflies
The Bee Impersonators
Hoverflies
Hoverflies wear bee costumes but carry no sting, and the disguise fools nearly everyone. I count wings to settle it: flies have two, bees have four.
The adults pollinate almost as well as the bees they imitate, and their larvae clear aphids by the hundred. One insect, both sides of the garden ledger.
Start with my hoverfly notes and you'll spot the costume every time.
Hoverflies
The Night Shift
Moths
Moths outnumber butterflies about ten to one, and once the sun drops they take over the pollination shift. Hawk moths hover like hummingbirds; I've watched one work a honeysuckle for twenty minutes straight.
A porch light and a white sheet is still the best survey tool I own. What turns up on a warm June night beats most museum drawers.
My moth guides cover the night shift species by species.
Moths
Build It and They Come
Pollinator Gardens
Most of what I know about pollinator gardens is a list of things to stop doing: spraying, over-tidying, mowing every inch. The insects arrive on their own once you quit evicting them.
Native flowers help, but a patch of bare soil for ground-nesting bees does more than another wildflower mix. Nobody sells bare soil, which is probably why nobody recommends it.
What actually works
Most of it is habitat, not products, and the second list matters more than people expect.
Start doing
- Leave a patch of bare soil Most native bees nest in the ground, not in the bee hotels people buy.
- Plant natives in clumps A big block of one flower is far easier for a foraging bee to work than a scattered mix.
- Keep something in bloom all season Early spring and late fall are the hungry gaps that decide whether they stay.
- Let one corner go wild Long grass, seed heads, and leaf litter are nesting and overwintering sites.
Skip
- Spraying, even the organic kind Insecticide doesn't read labels; it takes the pollinators with the pests.
- Tidying every inch Bare, mulched, mown perfection is a food desert with good curb appeal.
- Mowing the whole lawn weekly Let the clover and dandelions flower and you have fed bees for nothing.