Super Eco

Photo credit: ms.lume, flickr

What's happening to the bees?

At moments, the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder, and the fear that bees are headed on a collision course with a terminal crisis that will reverberate through the natural world, seems so crushing. What can we do? The Great Sunflower Project provides more than one answer to my question. The grassroots organization encourages urban dwellers to plant sunflower seeds in their gardens (the Lemon Queen annual sunflowers from Renee's Garden are the choice for the project) and then record your observations about how many bees you see in a 30-minute window. That's it!

The Great Sunflower Project sends out free seeds to participants, or you can purchase the Lemon Queen sunflower on your own and plant it within the next several weeks. Sunflowers are very easy to plant and grow; basically, you put them in the dirt about an inch deep in a spot that gets full sun and let them go crazy. And the value of your input into the project is both diagnostic and rejuvenating. Choosing sunflowers that produce pollen gives wild, urban bees a source of food and helps to maintain the ecosystems within a city; providing data to scientists will help them understand how much the pollinators are declining, and what effect this is having on the natural element to the urban environment. As the Great Sunflower Project developers write, your 30 minutes of data will help give "insight into how our green spaces in the urban, suburban and rural landscapes are connected as well as shedding light on how to help pollinators." It's a start.

Interested in helping butterflies too? Go here.