11 MAY 8-14, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | At the very least, Mola suggests, “People who want to keep honeybees should ask themselves: Can I provide food and lots of it? Am I willing to upkeep my hives and check for disease? Am I willing to adapt to change?” On the fl ip side, some wonder whether support of native bees could go the honey bee route. Could they be intentionally bred and domesticated? Experts caution against that path. When some species of bumblebee were success- fully domesticated to pollinate fruit trees, pathogens spread more quickly as a result, both to other bee species and among the bumblebees. According to CPW Pollinator Conservation Program Manager Adrian Carper, the recent wave of honey bee colony collapse just underscores the agricultural benefi ts of conserving native bee habitats, which can offer insurance against honey bee losses. Plus, crops like peppers, toma- toes, eggplant, squash and alfalfa are best (and sometimes only) pollinated by native pollinating insects, rather than honey bees. But there are actions that can help. Restor- ing habitat is key for native bees, especially on the edges of cities and suburbs. Planting pesticide-free, fl owering native plants in those areas can increase the range of those species little by little. People with lawns switch out turf for native fl owers, making sure to plant a variety that will bloom at different times in the season. “Continuity is key,” says Mola. “A small amount of food continuously available is better for bees than a boom and bust cycle. And you can discourage your local parks department from installing honey beehives.” As a small-scale beekeeper, Server is on the fence. She sees her honey business as a resource for her community. But she also makes sure to grow plants that will feed bumblebees and other wild species. Server co-organizes the Niwot Honey Bee Harvest Festival, which celebrates not only honey bees but all pollinators; talks there have focused on bats, bumblebees, mush- rooms, wasps, soil, and habitat biodiversity. “There’s room for everybody,” she says. HappyLandings Montoya stands in one of her pollinator gardens, a “pocket park” that she con- vinced Boulder to let her build on a traffi c diversion island in the Goss Grove neigh- borhood where she lives. She comes here several times a week to tend to the plants and watch native bees land on fl owers she grew from seed. “This is why I got sick, to change my career. So the sickness served me,” she says. “Otherwise, I’d still be practicing medicine, which was fi ne and good. But this serves my soul a lot more at this point in my life.” She points to the houses in the neigh- borhood, explaining how she turned the block into a pollinator corridor. “All of these little gardens, in the houses that are privately owned, have little habitats in them that people had already created from either vegetables or native plants,” she explains. One summer, Montoya went around to plant nurseries and asked them to donate end-of-season native plants to her cause. She planted some in the pocket parks, and wheeled others around the neighborhood in a wagon, knocking on doors and showing her neighbors how to plant them. She asked them to volunteer in the new pollinator garden, too. “People bought into it. And they started coming. And every time they came, I felt like I needed to teach them something,” says Montoya. “So I did bee house building. I did native bee classes in the park. I did how to trim a shrub. I did how to plant a plant. Anything I learned, I went and taught them.” While she is still worried about this coun- try’s reliance on honey bees, she remains hopeful about the future. “In the beginning, I felt very defensive about it. And I went at it from the point of view of us versus them,” she admits. Now, she realizes, “we are all in this together. What can we do to come up with a healthy solution? We all want healthy habitat. I hope that we can all come to a place where we are all working together to try and solve the dilemma.” Email the author at [email protected]. Buzz Off continued from page 8 A pocket park with native plants at Goss Grove. ABBY O’BRIEN
