Plant some Flowers for Your Pollinators!

 

My Pollinator Garden: How I Plant for Bees, Butterflies, Beetles, and More (Books for a Better Earth) 

by Jordan Zwetchkenbaum; illus. by Kate Cosgrove 

40 pages; ages 3-6 

‎Holiday House, 2025

theme: garden, pollinators, ecology

My garden is full of flowers. I like the pretty colors. I like that they smell good.

Those lovely flower smells attract animals that take pollen from one plant to another, so the flowers can make seeds. And those animals, from bees to birds, butterflies to bats, are called pollinators.  Spread by spread readers learn how flowers attract pollinators and how different pollinators carry the pollen. At the same time, we are introduced to a diversity of native bees, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds and bats, flies, beetles, and wasps.

What I like about this book: It’s fun to look at the different pollinators and flowers on each page. There are short-tongued bees and long-tongued bees. Some bees shake the flowers to release the pollen. There’s a fun fact about each of the featured pollinators: what colors they see; whether they fly during the day or night; what attracts them to a particular flower. Back matter includes and author’s note, how to plant for pollinators, a short glossary, sources, and an index to pollinators and their plants.

Beyond the Books: 

Plant some pollinator flowers that are native to your region. You can find a list of plants for your region here at XERCES. If you don’t have a large space for a pollinator garden, plant a way station. A way station flower spot could be as big as the area inside a hula hoop or a few pots on the balcony.

Make sure to have a watering spot for your pollinators. I use a shallow dish with rocks in it. The rocks serve as landing islands once I pour in water. Make sure you keep it filled, especially on hot and sunny days. 

Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Keeping Count of Pollinators

 

The Great Pollinator Count (Community Science Counts!) 

by Susan Edwards Richmond; illus. by Stephanie Fizer Coleman 

32 pages; ages 4-8

Margaret Quinlin Books/Peachtree, 2025

One of the things I do every summer is count pollinators for the Great Sunflower Project, a community science project that I’ve been participating in since … oh, my - 2009! So I was really, really looking forward to Susan Richmond’s newest book about pollinator counts, and she doesn’t disappoint.

Mellie and her friends are part of a science club and they’re planning to count pollinators. The science club advisor, aptly named Ms. Bombus (awesome nod to buzzy sounds and bumblebees!) pairs Mellie with a kid who loves dinosaurs and hates stinging insects. As they count, readers are introduced to honeybees and small bees, carpenter bees and bumblebees, flies and wasps and even a hummingbird moth. Back matter highlights the insects in the book and lists the flowers in the school’s pollinator garden.

Back around Earth Day, Susan joined a bunch of us for “The Fifth Annual GROG Arthropod Roundtable” where we chatted about bugs we love (and those we don’t). She talked a bit about why she wrote The Great Pollinator Count.

“Young children are eager to explore their environment and are natural scientists,” she said, adding that many children (and adults) are afraid of bees and wasps. While respect and caution are a healthy response towards stinging insects, Susan wanted folks to appreciate all pollinators, not just the butterflies. A perfect reason for writing a book … but what’s the hook?

“When I learned that Georgia conducted an annual insect pollinator census, which includes schoolchildren, I knew this would be my gateway!” What better than a pollinator count! Pollinator counts are becoming more common, and what began as a Georgia community science project, The Great Southeast Pollinator Census has now expanded to include four more states: North and South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama. 

“May this notion of promoting a healthy pollinator population continue to grow!” Susan says.     

Pollinator Week Activity: visit a flowery meadow or a garden and count the pollinators you see in 10 minutes.

Susan is a member of #STEAMTeam2025. You can find out more about her at her website at www.susanedwardsrichmond.com  

Explore Outdoors ~ local pollinators

 This is Pollinator Week!  Pollinators, like people, come in all shapes and sizes. Those visiting my garden include bumblebees, carpenter bees, sweat bees and tons of other bees I don't have names for (yet), syrphid flies and other flies, wasps - from bald-faced hornets to paper wasps to tiny wasps, butterflies, skippers, hummingbird moths, beetles, and hummingbirds. I'm sure I've left some out. 

 

Here are a few  of the pollinators visiting my garden and the "weeds" along the road.

Who do you see pollinating your flowers?

 

 

Pollinators are Very Buzzy!

 

The Buzz on Wild Bees: The Little-Known Pollinators that Keep Our Planet Humming 

by Kira Vermond; illust. by June Steube

40 pages; ages 7-10

‎ Owlkids, 2025  

Do you know what bees look like? It’s OK if you don’t. There are more than 20,000 different species of bees on our planet, and most people can only identify a honeybee. This book introduces different kinds of wild bees: leafcutters, oil-collecting bees, cellophane bees, sweat bees and vulture bees and even bees that scrape the fuzz off plants and rolls it up like fluffy wool. It also shows the sorts of places wild bees live, and discusses why they’re so important to the other plants and animals in the environment (including humans).

But … wild bees are in danger and need our help. So this book shares a bunch of ways we can help them thrive, from planting native flowers to ditching pesticides. 

Pollinator Week Activity: Create a wild patch for wild bees! Get permission to let part of your yard go wild and weedy for a month (or the summer!). All you need to do is make sure no one mows that patch. Document the flowers and wild bees that you see in your wild flower patch. Ways to document: draw, paint, photograph, write notes about, write haiku or poetry.  

Welcome to Pollinator Week!

I’m celebrating pollinators all week with books and activities. Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes, from teensy bees to big flappy bats. One thing a lot of them have in common is wings, so I’m starting the week off with…

Wonder Wings: Guess Who’s Flying 

by Rebecca E. Hirsch; illus. by Sally Soweol Han 

40 pages; ages 4-8

‎Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025   

Wings can soar and wings can skim…

Rhyming clues ask readers to guess whose wings these are. For example: wings that buzz and pollinate – and fly back to a hollow tree. Or what about wings that make a thrumming sound, that beat so fast all you can see is a blur? What about colorful wings that drift and float? Or wings that swoop through twilight sky?

Pollinator Week Activity: Make some wearable wings using recycled cardboard and markers, colored paper, and yarn or twine to attach them to your back. This video from the Smithsonian shows one way you can do it.

Celebrating Pollinators of the Gitxan Nation

When I talk about the bees and wasps and butterflies and beetles that pollinate the flowers in my garden and the surrounding meadows, I do so through a lens of western science. But that is only one way of observing the world we live in. So I was very happy to get this book in the mail a few weeks ago, as it reminded me that there are many ways to view the world around us.

The Bee Mother (series: Mothers of Xsan)

By Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson); illus. by Natasha Donovan

32 pages; ages 9-12

HighWater Press, 2024

It’s spring and bumble bee, yellowjacket, and honey bee are finding new homes. Bumble bee (Nox Ap) and yellow jacket because the newly emerged queens must start a new colony. Honey bee because her swarm has left an overcrowded hive.

So begins Hetxw’ms Gyetxw/Brett's picture book about these three different pollinators. Through the lens of Indigenous knowledge carrier, he shows the life cycles of these pollinators through the seasons. He also shows their role in the ecosystem and their connection with humans – sometimes as helper and sometimes (as when the wasps want bits of smoked salmon) as uninvited guests and downright annoying at times.

What I like about this book: I like the way the author integrates his language into the text, from the name of bumble bee to the names of the moons over the changing seasons. These names are explained within the main text. He uses text boxes to highlight facts and define words, such as “worker bees” or “pollinators.” A layer through the book shows how the Gitxan people live through the seasons in harmony with the bees.

There is also back matter: a brief introduction to the Gitxan Nation in the Northwest interior of British Columbia, Canada – and a map of the rivers. Brett also includes a list of the moons through the year, from Stories and Feasting Moon to Getting-used-to-cold moon.

The Bee Mother is the seventh book of the Mothers of Xsan series. Other books include The Raven Mother, The Frog Mother, and The Wolf Mother.  You can find out more about the author and his books at his website, https://thegitxsan.ca/

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by Deborah Sloan and Company.

Pollinators at Work

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Pollinator Scavenger Hunt

 

It's Pollinator Week so of course we're going to head out to look for some pollinators! How many of these can you find? Have Fun!

• a bumble bee
• a beetle on a flower
• a shiny green bee
• a fly that looks like a bee or wasp
• a hummingbird
• a moth that looks like a hummingbird
• an ant on a flower
• a bee with pollen on its body or face
• a fuzzy fly that looks like a bumble bee
• a wasp on a flower
• a butterfly on a flower
• a fuzzy beetle that looks like a bumble bee
  

Pollen-faces!

It's Pollinator Week!

 It's Pollinator Week! That means every day I'll have something fun on this blog. Tomorrow and Thursday it's a look at pollinators at work. On Wednesday there's a pollinator scavenger hunt, and on Friday a review of a special book about bees.

 

 Before the Seed: How Pollen Moves
by Susannah Buhrman-Deever; illus. by Gina Triplett & Matt Curtius
40 pages; ages 7-9
‎MIT Kids Press, 2024

 

 If you want to grow a flower - or a tomato - you need to plant a seed. But before you can have a seed, you've got to move pollen. And if you've ever seen a pollen grain, you know they're too tiny to pick up. So how does pollen get moved? By animals. From beetles to bees, from bats to birds and butterflies, pollen is on the move!

 

 

 The Mighty Pollinators
by Helen Frost; photographs by Rick Lieder
32 pages; ages 2-5
Candlewick, 2024

Meet the pollinators through playful poems and stunning photographs. There are bumble bees and honey bees that carry pollen back to their hive, and solitary bees that live alone. There are beautiful photos of flies and butterflies, bats and fireflies, and back matter that explains more about pollen and pollination. Want to observe pollinators in your garden or park? Just find a flower and stand a few feet away and watch. Once you're still, you'll notice the pollinators visiting the blooms. They are busy working, so if you don't bother them they won't bother you.

Want to learn more about these books and the authors? Head over to the GROG blog and check out my interview with Susannah and Helen at the GROG's Fourth Annual Arthropod Roundtable

More Activities for Pollinator Week

 One way to learn about pollinators and have some fun is to play BINGO. You can download a simple 3 x 3 BINGO card from Keller's Farmstand or, for older kids and adults, check out the 5 x 5 Pollinator BINGO card from Tufts University. Or go wild and create your own BINGO cards featuring pollinators from your area.

If BINGO's not your thing, create a scavenger hunt where people can check off what pollinators they find on an afternoon walk through a park or botanical garden. Or create a butterfly list and visit a butterfly house. 

Looking for more ideas? Click on the Pollinators tab above for links to activities and books - or click here to reach that page (if you're reading on mobile)

 

Whatever you do this weekend to celebrate pollinators, Have Fun!

Bees Lead Busy, Buzzy Lives

Since it is pollinator week, I'm featuring books that highlight pollinators. The themes of the day are: pollinators, insects, nature

Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera 

by Candace Fleming; illus by Eric Rohmann 

40 pages; ages 4 & up

‎Neal Porter Books, paperback edition, 2023

One summer morning deep in the nest, a brand-new honeybee squirms, pushes, chews through the wax cup of her solitary cell and into… a teeming, trembling flurry.

Hmmmmmmm!

This brand-new bee is welcomed into the colony with tongue-licks and antennae-touches and then set to work. Her first job: tidying the nursery. A few days later she is transferred to nanny duty, inspecting the larvae and feeding them. After a few days she moves on to other jobs until finally – finally! – it’s her turn to fly off to collect nectar.

What I like about this book: Candace Fleming does a lovely job shining a light on the life, and death, of a honeybee worker. Reading it, you can almost feel part of the hive. I like that she introduces the bee by her scientific name, Apis mellifera – Apis for short. And I love that every time she is ready for a new job, she wonders: flying? But no, not yet. And then, it is time to fly and we head out of the colony and into the fields with Apis, where we learn that collecting food for the hive is hard work. Back matter includes honeybee anatomy, more buzz about colony living, and how people can help honeybees. 

Bioblitz!: Counting Critters 

by Susan Edwards Richmond; illus. by Stephanie Fizer Coleman 

‎36 pages; ages 4-8

Peachtree, 2022 

A couple summers ago I participated in a Bioblitz at a local land trust preserve. It was in early June and I thought I’d be tallying insects. But it turned out that, due to the wet spring, there were fungi everywhere! Still, it was a great experience and so, when I saw this book I knew I’d want to read it.

Gabriel and his cousin, Ava head out to help count critters during a Bioblitz at a park. Ava loves birds – she was the character in Susan’s earlier book, Bird Count – and Gabriel is a bug aficionado. Over the course of the book, the kid (and other members of the Bioblitz team) visit different habitats and note what they find. Even though this book isn’t focused on pollinators, there is an excellent spread showing a butterfly garden and the birds, bees, butterflies and moths that pollinate the flowers.

What I like about this book: One thing I love about this book is that each spread features a Bioblitz list down the right-hand side, with numbers so you can find the critters in the illustration. There’s also a Bioblitz list at the back with critters sorted into groups: amphibians, birds, insects, etc. And back matter includes some of Gabriel’s “did you know?” facts (imagine a bug-loving kid jumping up and down saying “did you know…?)

Beyond the Books:

Go on a Pollinator Bioblitz. Choose an area – maybe your back yard or a botanical garden – and try to find as many pollinators as you can. Take photos of what you find, and make a Bioblitz list. 

Examine the flowers that your local pollinators are visiting. Use a hand lens or magnifying glass to get a close look at the inside of the flower (when a bee is not inside it!) – can you see the pollen? You can smear a bit on a white piece of paper to see what color it is.

Did you know that a honeybee worker only makes an average of 1/12 of a teaspoon in her lifetime? There are 21 and 1/3 tablespoons of honey in a pound, and it takes 3 teaspoons to make a tablespoon. Can you figure out how many bees it takes to make a pound of honey? You can find lots more honeybee facts at https://www.maine.gov/dacf/php/integrated_pest_management/school-ipm-curricula/elementary/documents/FunBeeFacts.pdf

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copies provided by the publishers.

You Can Help Pollinators!

 

Explore Outdoors ~ Go on a Bee Walk

 One of the best ways to get to know your local pollinators is to go outside and meet them. So today let's head out and meet some bees. 

First, a bit about what bees look like. They have three body parts (head, thorax, abdomen), long slender antennae, large multi-faceted eyes, two pair of wings (that's 4 wings in all!) and, if they're female, a stinger at the end of their abdomen. 

Chances are you're familiar with your neighborhood bumble bees and honey bees, and you may have met a few shiny metallic green sweat bees. For this bee walk, take a notebook and pencil - or a camera - so you can take notes, draw pictures, or take photos of bees you see along the way.

Things to observe on your bee walk:

• how big is your bee?
• what colors does it have on its abdomen?
• what is the pattern of the colors?
• does it have longer antennae than other bees?
• is its abdomen flattish?
• what sort of sound does it make?
• what flowers does it visit?
• also note the date, time of day, and basic weather observations

If you are looking for bee guides, you can find a short North American Bee Identification Guide (free) at Pollinator Partnership. They have some state guides as well. They have a longer Beginner Bee Field Guide available for free download as well.

Happy Bee watching!

Plant a Pollinator Patch

If you want pollinators visiting your pumpkins and strawberries, melons and cukes, then you'll want to make sure your garden is pollinator-friendly. The easiest way to do that is to plant a pollinator patch. You don't need much room - I plant a 3-foot by 3-foot section for the local bees and butterflies. And I've planted some flowers around the edge of the garden as well. But if space is limited, a 15-inch diameter container is perfect for a balcony. The trick is to plant a variety of flowers that will attract a diversity of pollinators. For example, some bees have short tongues and others have long tongues so they'll be looking for different flower shapes.

The best plants are varieties native to your area. You can find regional plant lists at the Xerces Society and the Pollinator Partnership.

Before I plant flower seeds, I check out what flowers the local pollinators are visiting. In my garden and yard, these are red clover, wild mustards, Queen Anne's lace, asters, milkweed, henbit and deadnettle (both in the genus Lamium), and goldenrod. They may look like “weeds”, but bees and butterflies love them. All I need to do is sprinkle some calendula seeds, maybe add a few bee balm plants, and toss in some cosmos and I've got a lazy-gardener's pollinator patch! I also let some of my herbs go to flower. Bees like to hang out on basil, and flower flies love corriander and dill.  

Pollinators need more than flowers, so I keep a shallow dish of water in my garden. I fill it with stones, so the bees and other visitors don't fall in, and put it in the shade of peppers or tomatoes.

There's one more, very important consideration for creating a safe place for pollinators in your garden: don't use pesticides.

Celebrate Pollinator Week with Pie!

This week is Pollinator Week! If you like food - especially pie - you've got pollinators to thank for making them possible. Same for watermelon, pickles, and chocolate.  The birds, bats, and bugs that pollinate plants are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of food.

So, Three Cheers for Pollinators! And let's celebrate by making pie! It doesn’t matter what sort of pie you want – strawberry-rhubarb, peach, apple, blueberry, pumpkin – if you want pie, you need bees. So when I was writing The Pie that Molly Grew, I knew I wanted to include the important work of bees in the book.

Apples,  peaches, strawberries, blueberries – they all depend on bees to pollinate the blossoms which then ripen into yummy fruits. Pumpkins too. And yes, pumpkin is a fruit even though it when it’s baked and smooshed and slathered with butter it looks like a sweet potato. And while peach and apple and strawberry flowers have everything they need in one blossom to produce a fruit, pumpkins don’t.

When pumpkin plants flower, they produce male flowers and female flowers. The male flowers make the pollen and the female flowers, once pollinated, make the fruit. There’s a problem, though: pumpkin pollen is too heavy to be carried by the wind. So pumpkins depend on bees to move the pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers.

Fortunately there are plenty of native bees that will do that job: bumble bees, carpenter bees, squash bees, cuckoo bees, longhorned bees, and sweat bees. And you’ll even find honey bees hanging around pumpkin flowers, too!  

I'm celebrating pollinators all week, so drop by and check out pollinator patches, bee guides, and more!

The Pie That Molly Grew should hit bookstores around August 15, but you can pre-order a copy at Riverow Bookshop in historic downtown Owego, NY.

The Buzz about Bee Books

If you’re a longtime follower of my blog, you know I am passionate about bees. I spent a summer at the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab (RMBL) near Crested Butte, Colorado following - and tagging -bumble bees. So I’m ending Pollinator Week with a couple of picture books that focus on bees. 

theme: bees, mystery, nonfiction

Honeybee Rescue: A Backyard Drama

by Loree Griffin Burns; photos by Ellen Harasimowicz 

40 pages; ages 5-8

‎Charlesbridge, 2022

This is Mr. Connery, and that is his ramshackle barn… a few days ago, on the way to his vegetable garden, Mr. Connery noticed that the rickety old structure was buzzing.

When he looked inside, he discovered that honeybees had taken up residence in a corner of the barn. Now, Mr. Connery raises bees, so he knew that this was a new colony. And he wanted to save it. This book tells the story of how a honeybee rescuer removes the colony of bees from the barn and relocates them into a hive. There is mystery. There is adventure. There is a honeybee vacuum!

What I like about this book: I like how Loree Burns turned a swarm of honeybees into a tale of drama and suspense. Why are the bees in the barn? She explains swarming. How will Mr. Connery get them back into a hive? Loree introduces a beekeeper who specializes in rescuing honeybee swarms – whether they’re in a church steeple or the wall of a house or, as in this case, clinging to the rafter of a derelict barn. 

We get to see the insides of a honeybee hive and meet the queen. We see a Honeybee Sucker-upper in action! And there is a wonderful interview with the bee rescuer, plus lots of great back matter.

Not only does Loree write amazing books for kids, but she is also a scientist. So I had to ask her One Question.

Me: How is writing a book for kids like being a scientist?

Loree: I’ve begun to think about writing as being like a scientist in its iterative nature.

When I was doing bench research, I designed experiments that I hoped would help me understand how something worked. (In my case, how do cells regulate the expression of genes inside their nuclei?) Once I’d done my experiment, I usually had a bit more information about how cells achieve that regulation … but I didn’t have the whole answer. Just enough to think about how to design a new set of experiments that would expand on what I’d learned even further. And so on and so on until a story began to emerge, ever so slowly, about the ways that cells regulate their genes.

Similarly, when I’m writing, I go through a long process of incremental progression. I have an idea for a story I want to tell, and I draft it on paper. Once it’s all written out, I put it aside for a hot minute. When I’m ready, I pull it out to re-read, scouring the storytelling for sentences and paragraphs and pages that work … and also for ones that don’t. Then I revise. With each revision, as with each set of experiments, I get closer to telling the whole story in the right way. It’s all trial and error, fits and starts, bit by bit.  But eventually I get there!

One of the skills I picked up during my summer at RMBL was how to identify bees by their sounds. So I was intrigued by this book.

After the Buzz Comes the Bee: Lift-the-Flap Animal Sounds 

by Robie Rogge; illus by Rachel Isadora 

32 pages; ages 2-5

Holiday House, 2022

After the buzzzzzzzzzzzz… (lift the flap) comes the bee.

Each spread presents a sound: ribbit-ribbit, ah-ah-ah, munch-munch-munch. But you have to lift the flap to reveal who makes that sound. A frog, for sure, but ah-ah-ah? Who could that be? And what’s fun is that the inside of the jacket cover is a poster.

Bee-yond the Books:

Listen to the sounds bees make as they fly by and as they visit flowers. Write down the sounds you hear and see if you can create your own list of buzz-words for pollinators visiting your yard or neighborhood. Check out this article to learn more about why bees buzz and hear two different bees.

Go on a Pollinator Scavenger Hunt. Here's one list you can use to inspire your discovery adventure.

No Bees, No Picnics. Here are some of the foods we eat that depend on bees for pollination. How many do you eat?

Apples, apricots, avocados, beans, blackberries, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cocoa, cranberries, cucumbers, grapes, lemons, limes, mangos, nectarines, peaches, pears, peppers, plums, raspberries, strawberries, tangelos, tomatoes, walnuts, and watermelons  

More books about bees:

Turn this book into a Beehive

Where Have All the Bees Gone? Pollinators in Crisis

Begin with a Bee

books about pollinators for emerging readers

The Queen Bee and Me by Gillian McDunn

and another by Loree G. Burns, Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe

Loree Griffin Burns is a member of #STEAMTeam2022. You can find out more about her at her website. 

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copies provided by the publishers.

There are Flies in my Flowers!

 

Flies are important pollinators. Many of the flower flies (syrphids) are yellow or orange and black, mimicking bees. Some even look like fierce wasps.

This week pay attention to the flies you see on flowers in your garden and neighborhood. 

• Take their photos. 
• Draw a picture of them. 
• Write a short fly-ku!
  

Thank a butterfly this week!

 

Butterflies are busy pollinating flowers all summer long. Some, like the swallowtails, have wingspans nearly as big as my hand. Others are tiny.

 

This week pay attention to the butterflies and moths you see on plants in your garden and neighborhood. 

• Take their photos. 
• Draw a picture of them. 
• Write a fluttery bit of music for a lepidoptera!

Appreciate your local pollinator

 

I love bumble bees, and there are so many different kinds collecting nectar and pollen in my garden. This week pay attention to the bumble bees you see on plants in your garden and neighborhood. 

• Take their photos. 
• Draw a picture of them. 
• Write an ode to a bumble bee!