Pollination | A Pollinator Health Podcast

Learning the bees of your local area can be a daunting task. Most guides and keys, for example, include bees that don't even exist where you live, and are packed with hard-to-understand terminology. This week we talk to August Jackson, who has come up with a solution - a concise guide to the bees of the Willamette Valley. 

The Fourth International Pollinator Conference was held in Davis, CA. In this episode you will hear about some of the interesting new research happening on pollinator health from around the world.

Honey bee queen quality is an often overlooked dimension of colony health. In this episode we catch up with Dr. Shelley Hoover who is the Apiculture Researcher with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. She tells us about work to assess different commercial queen stocks and to fit queen production into crop pollination. 

In this episode we talk with Dr. Rosalyn Johnson from Yardbio.com about how to establish local, native, and drought-tolerant species in backyards to support pollinators and wildlife.

Although solitary bees make up the bulk of bee diversity, there hasn't been a comprehensive biology book about them. That is until now. This week we catch up with Dr. Bryan Danforth about his new book, The Solitary Bee, authored along with Frances Fawcett, John Neff, and Robert Minckley.

Squash bees were discovered in Oregon last year. This week we talk to Dr. Jim Cane about this bee, as well as a bee that is widespread in Oregon gardens, the sunflower bee.  

There has been a lot of attention lately to historic declines of insect abundance across the world. This week we catch up with Tyson Wepprich who recently reported on butterfly abundance declines in Ohio over the past 20 years. 

Public outreach may seem simple, but impactful and effective outreach is an art. Bonnie Shoffner from Portland Metro is a real pro at pulling off pollinator outreach events and this week she shares here secrets for success. 

Oregon and Florida may seem miles apart, but the role of bees in both states has remarkable parallels. This week Dr. Rachel Mallinger University of Florida talks about blueberry pollination, bees in forest systems and interests of gardeners around bees in the Sunshine State. 

Watermelons are hard to pollinate. But they can also experience reduced yield from pest damage. This week we hear from Jacob Pecenka who tells us about the trade-offs from managing pests and loosing pollination and how Integrated Pest Management can provide an excellent way to navigate these trade-offs. 

There has been a lot of demand for nursery plants that are good for pollinators, but also confusion on whether these plants have been grown using practices that minimize impacts to pollinators. This week we hear from Sharon Selvaggio, Program Director at Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP), about a pilot study to see what consumers respond to when labeling pollinator plants around the practices they were grown under. 

For the 100th Episode of PolliNation we assembled our crack team of OSU pollinator faculty together to answer your burning questions. 

Commercial bee pollination is an integral part of food production in the US. In this episode we catch up with Adam Allington, a reporter with Bloomberg Environment, about a new podcast "The Business of Bees" that explores how the food system has evolved to become  dependent on bees, and the future consequences of this dependency.  

Pollinator strips are exceedingly tricky to establish. This week we drop by Washington County Master Gardener and Master Beekeeper Bob Falconer’s house to see how he establish magnificent strips of Phacelia and clover.

Not all bee communities across a region might use the same flowers. But how might gardeners be better informed about what local bees like? Also, do regional bee communities confront different disease pressures. Hear how Hannah Levenson is addressing these issues in a project taking place at North Carolina State University.

How do you measure the success of restoration projects for bees? Dr. Mia Park from North Dakota State University catches us up on work she is doing around urban prairie restoration.  Learn more about this episode of PolliNation at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/05/13/mia-park

Listen in to learn the role of the Oregon Bee Atlas, how it has grown in only a year, and which plants are best for pollinator biodiversity in Oregon. "It's easy to document common species; it's really difficult to assess the extreme biodiversity that exists here." - Lincoln Best. Learn more about this episode of PolliNation at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/04/29/oregon-bee-atlas

Listen in to learn what native plants are best for your garden, both for increasing the health of local pollinators and adding beauty to your garden. "There have been very few studies that have been done on the relative attractiveness of different plants to pollinators, especially in a garden-type setting." - Aaron Anderson. Learn more about this episode of PolliNation at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/04/15/aaron-anderson #fpshows

Listen in to learn how growers can improve their pollinator effectiveness, the benefits of certain overwintering solutions, and the key to great queens. "I know there's a lot of talk about letting natural selection do it's thing, but we have to think about what we're doing. When we put the bee colony into a hive, it's no longer considered to be, in my mind, natural. So I think they definitely need some help." - Dr. Elina L Niño. Learn more about this episode of PolliNation at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/04/08/dr-elina-l-nino/

Listen in to learn about the two key pollinators of alfalfa seed: the alfalfa leafcutter bee and alkali bee. "If [alfalfa] bloomed in the spring, there would not be enough hours in the day for a female bee to complete a nest cell for one offspring." – Jim Cane. Learn more about this episode of PolliNation at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/2019/04/01/jim-cane/