Bee-Friendly Berkeley

A proposed resolution will turn Berkeley's green spaces into viable habitat for bees -- as reported in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Inspired by distress in honeybee colonies and reduced numbers of pollinators, city officials are looking to landscape Berkeley's open spaces with bee-friendly flora, assisting bee survival and, in the process (no exaggeration), our own.

Crops depend on healthy pollinator populations. But environmental stressors such as pesticides and habitat destruction contribute to their declining numbers. The process of pollination is additionally complex in that specialized pollinator-plant relationships have evolved to propagate individual species. A loss in one species of pollinator can spell doom for the plant which depends upon that relationship. (Check out my discussion with The Orchid Doctor for examples of specialized pollination among orchids.)

The City Council will decide the bee issue on Tuesday, March 24.

Related link: Bay Area Beekeepers

^{Photo © Ingrid Taylar}