Meet the pollinators!

Okay, so you may not enjoy the company of bees, but they’re vital for plant reproduction and biodiversity. Without bees and other pollinating species, a significant portion of our global food supply would be in jeopardy. On the latest episode of Your Region Pod we take a look at the top three pollinators in Waterloo Region (you may be surprised!), what our community partners are doing to help them get where they need to go, and how you can as well.   

Vicki Wojcik, the Executive Director for Pollinator Partnership Canada joins us to help us identify who these pollinators are. Spoiler: It's not just bees. 

Dr. Jennifer Leat from Waterloo Region Nature talks about the pollinator roadside program.

Brydon Rayner, the Region's expert on forestry and horticulture shares his insights on ideal habitats for pollinators.

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Transcript

SHERRY

Some of the smallest creatures on earth play a big role in our existence and they do it by accident. 

VICKI WOJCIK

For the most part, they're being tricked into it. 

SHERRY

Hey, I'm Sherry. 

SAM

And I'm Sam. 

SHERRY

This is Your Region Pod. And today we're going to find out who...

VICKI WOJCIK

 ...literally the birds and the bees of pollination.

SHERRY

Exactly who is the top pollinator in Waterloo Region. 

VICKI WOJCIK

They lick the sweat that mammals perspire...

SAM

Plus the lesser known pollinators who don't get the credit they deserve. 

VICKI WOJCIK

You have to trust me on this one. 

SHERRY

And how we're building pollinator roads for them so they can keep doing what nature intended

BRYDON RAYNER

Creating a pollinator pathway, if you will. Right. So that they can get from point A to point B and take breaks along the way. 

SAM

Roads for bees. 

SHERRY

Yep. Don't worry, we'll get there. 

SAM

Okay, well, let's start from the beginning.

SHERRY

Of time?

SAM

Of pollination. 

VICKI WOJCIK

So pollination is actually the movement of pollen from one plant to another.

SAM

That's Vicki. She's with Pollinator Partnership Canada. 

VICKI WOJCIK

My name is Vicki Wojcick. 

SHERRY

She breaks it down for us. 

VICKI WOJCIK

So basically a pollen grain has to go from the male part of a plant to the female part of a plant to be able to fertilize the plant egg.

A pollen grain actually does contain a sperm. And in a plant there is also an egg. And with plants it gets a little more complicated because some of them are perfectly happy self pollinating, which means they can move their own pollen and accept their own pollen.

And then some, which is actually the majority, need to have their pollen moved to a different plant by an animal. And that's where pollinators come in. 

SHERRY

So who are we protecting here? 

VICKI WOJCIK

Most of us think like pollinator, we go automatically to bees. Which is correct. 

SAM

No surprise there. But who else? 

VICKI WOJCIK

I would say bumblebees, leaf cutter bees, and then sweat bees. 

SAM

Bumblebees, we know leaf cutters and sweat. Well, that needs some explaining. 

VICKI WOJCIK

Leafcutter bee is a bee that you might look at it flying, you're like, wait, that's a strange really large fly.

They tend to be solid in color, maybe black, shiny blue sometimes. So they have some of those fly qualities, but they are really abundant and they're a nice large size bee and they pollinate a lot of really important and interesting foods that we grow in southern Ontario.

A lot of the tree fruits. And then I mentioned sweat bees. Those are the ones you might not even notice. They tend to be a little smaller. They get their common name from the fact that in more southern Regions closer to the equator, that group of bees tends to land on mammals.

People being a mammal, and they lick the sweat. That mammals perspire as a source of electrolytes. But they're really great pollinators of smaller flowers, also important for food. But a lot of the wildflowers or even garden flowers that you would be planting would be pollinated by them.

So the top pollinators are bees. And if we go down the list of other types of pollinators, then you have four flies, and you have to trust me on this one. Flies are actually pretty good pollinators. And then wasps, they're pretty good, too. 

SHERRY

I do feel like we need to give some love to the flies.

VICKI WOJCIK

This is true, though, when we start moving into the natural landscapes, a lot of wildflowers, especially ones that are in more forested areas, flies are the ones that are pollinating them more often than bees.

So, yeah, I. I do like flies. They're not that kind of fly you might envision when you're like, oh, gosh, that black fly is coming for me. They. They're usually quite nicely colored. They're cute and fuzzy, just like bees. And they do play a really important pollination role as well.

SHERRY
So these, like, busy bodies, they're. They're kind of accidentally supporting our survival, right? 

VICKI WOJCIK

For the most part, they're being tricked into it. You can think of it that way. So they're going about their business, they're going about drinking nectar because they need to eat something, and they end up getting covered with pollen because they're usually fuzzy and sticky and everything gets covered on them.

However, bees, because I said they're the best pollinators, they actually, in addition to going to flowers to drink nectar, they are going to actively collect pollen because they're a little bit unique in the pollinator world in that they collect that pollen so that their young can grow on it and eat that pollen as a food source.

SHERRY

How worried should we be about our pollinators? 

VICKI WOJCIK

I really appreciate that question because I think there certainly should be a level of worry, because when we neglect or think everything's okay and, you know, go about our business, we could lose something really important.

A lot of different pollinators will visit a lot of different plants. However, if we continue to not pay attention to these systems, they could be weakened. And because of these factors that impact pollinators, we could eventually lose them as well.

BRYDON RAYNER

Hopefully you're good at editing. 

SAM

That's Bryden Rayner. 

BRYDON RAYNER

All right, good to go. 

SHERRY

He's the forestry and horticulture supervisor at the region. Essentially, he looks after our trees and garden beds with a team of arborists and landscapers. They help keep our pollinators healthy with food and shelter.

BRYDON RAYNER

Trees actually play a huge role for pollinators. So a lot of native species, like serviceberry, for instance, they flower early in the year, so they give bees something to feed on when there's not much else that's in bloom. And it's not necessarily just about food and nectar and pollen for the pollinators.

It's also about shelter. So, you know, the trees will provide nesting spots, cooler climate, microclimates that help the pollinators, Pollinators survive, especially in more exposed areas and during, like, hotter times. So basically, like, a tree is kind of the anchor of our ecosystems.

It's not just like a pretty backyard feature. Like, they, they kind of punch above their weight class, for sure. And are these habitats, these pollinator habitats under threat in the region? Yeah, for sure. So we're, we're growing at a astronomical rate as far as, like, development goes.

So with that, you know, we lose a lot of our natural areas. So this is like meadows, wetlands, wildlife patches, all these key areas that help, you know, not only pollinators, but wildlife in general. And what, what's kind of left and say specifically our right of is more of the turf grass monoculture.

And when we're looking down at turf grass, it's essentially like a desert when it comes to pollinators. There's not a lot of benefits, you know, as far as food or shelter is concerned. And, you know, another byproduct of it is how much maintenance it takes to maintain these turf areas.

So lots of emissions that, you know, further propel global warming and all that negative stuff. So one of the things we're kind of working on right now is working with a group called Waterloo Nature. And what we're doing is identifying spots specifically in the right of ways.

So, like, along our main roads, where it's a lot of turf grass, we're. We're removing the turf grass and installing pollinator gardens in the hope that we can increase, like, pollinator habitat and increase biodiversity within these areas. 

JENNIFER LEAT

There's a lot of native plants growing up here. So that's really encouraging to see. 

SHERRY

That's Dr. Jennifer Leet. 

JENNIFER LEAT

I have a fairly big garden. I've been, you know, I come from England, and gardening is a very big tradition in England. I think everybody does gardening there. 

SHERRY

She's with Waterloo Region Nature. They partnered with the region to create pollinator gardens along our Roads. 

JENNIFER LEAT

We're along Fisher Holman Road near the intersection with Glasgow Street. We looked at many different sites across the city, actually using Google Maps and actually visiting them in person.

We had a whole list of criteria. So, for example, one of the criteria was that it would be on a fairly busy road and ideally near traffic lights so that the cars would slow down and sort of see what was here, because there is an educational aspect to this whole project.

SHERRT

What kinds of plants are we looking at. 

JENNIFER LEAT

Oh, I knew you'd ask me that. It's difficult to tell when you, you know, when they're so young. This is a native strawberry. That one there grows low. I think there's some cone flowers coming up here.

I think that might be a cone flower. All those. Those bigger ones at the back is evening primrose.

I think there's some Black Eyed Susans coming up. It's early days because, as I said, perennials really do take a couple of years, like three years to really get going. We're hoping that the region and the cities and maybe even the MTO will take up this method of planting.

BRYDON RAYNER 

It might seem like a small little, you know, garden in a huge right of way, but if we can start creating these kind of little connections or waypoints throughout the region, that's going to make a big impact for all the pollinators. If we can have a garden here and then a garden at your house and then a garden at my neighbor's house, then it just starts increasing, increasing.

And it's like creating a pollinator pathway, if you will. Right. So that they can get from point A to point B and take breaks along the way. If you live in a city that's well connected and we have all of these pockets of habitat, then pollinators can freely move from the city to the rural areas and into the farmland.

VICKI WOJCIK

So what we do can matter either directly or even planting a native garden and showing people how beautiful it is can help change impressions and opinions, and that has a lot of value as well. 

SAM

Vicki's group has many unique projects on the go all over the country.

VICKI WOJCIK

We are a conservation nonprofit focused on pollinators and all the good stuff that they do for us. Part of their work involves encouraging nurseries to sell more native plants.  

SHERRY

What are the challenges there with trying to get more of those plants into nurseries and more people into those types of plants?

VICKI WOJCIK

If you're talking to folks that have gotten into gardening the classical way, where there's a certain aesthetic that drew them in, and then that's obviously, that's an aesthetic that is being marketed to. There's entire industries that are set up to help promote it.

It's a, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes to introduce native plants into that mix. And another challenge is that like, oh, gosh, sometimes native plants get a bad reputation where they're like, well, they only are going to look good for a small part of the year, you know, so there's all of these things that people have as.

And some of them are misconceptions, but some of them are quite factual. You know, native plants do have great bloom periods, but then they have rest periods where they've learned to adapt to the local conditions where there might be less availability of water. So I like to encourage people to try a little, you know, try a native plant that you, you like the look of, see how it works in your garden and go from there.

SAM

I'm on board with easy to keep alive. 

SHERRY

Bryden is too. 

BRYDON RAYNER

Native species are, you know, they're adapted to growing in our environments. Right. And a lot of the native species are pretty tolerant. Know some of these urbanized environments that are rather harsh.

SHERRY

We asked Bryden what his pollinator garden would look like. 

BRYDON RAYNER

Mine would be very low maintenance. I'm pretty busy at home with four kids. And so mine would just be. Yeah, like a meadow. So it'd be a lot of grasses, low lying trees, like nothing that gets too tall and just let nature do its thing. 

SAM

That pretty much sums up what this pollinator buzz is all about. And my apologies there to the audience, but our communications manager, Lynsey, has directed me to say at least one bee related pun in this episode. So that was it. 

SHERRY

You're a good citizen, Sam, and I think Lynsey deserves the credit for that one. Okay, so if you want to build a pollinator garden or add native plants to yours, Bryden says to start with a nursery. 

SAM

Yeah, they'll help you make sure that you're armed with the info that you need, the makeup of your garden, the soil size, all that stuff.

SHERRY

Best of luck. Thanks for joining and we'll see you next time.