Asheville, NC was established as the first Bee City USA and is celebrating 10 years of growing its Bee City Affiliate network to over 300 cities and expanding all the time. We join Bee City USA founder, Phyllis Stiles for a brief introduction and then Brannen Bashem of Spriggly’s Beescaping gives an inspiring presentation about how to to protect and develop native beescapes. He and his wife Jill Jacobs’ offer a variety of interesting educational workshops, exhibits, and services for pollinators, conservation efforts, and nature in general. They have a book, “Finding Home: A Story of a Mason Bee” and many more resources to help people help native bees thrive. They have a special focus on the 4,000+ species of native bees in North America, and work with individuals, businesses, museums, municipalities, and more to increase awareness about native bees and their ecosystems. The vast majority of our flowers, trees, fruits, and vegetables rely on these pollinators to help them grow and produce. However, heavy use of pesticides, loss of habitat, pests, and disease, along with other variables have caused a rapid decline of our pollinators. Now more than ever, insects need our support to prevent their extinction, and as a consequence ours. For every pest, there is a predator that’s better than a pesticide. Learn about this and many other strategies to create a thriving beescape!
Learn more about Bee City USA at www.beecityusa.org
Learn more about Spriggly’s Beescaping and the books, educational services, exhibits, on-demand courses, workshops, presentations, in-person offerings, onsite consultation for pollinator garden design, native bee cabins, and virtual services at www.sprigglys.com.
