Happy Holidays to our Pollinator Pathways!

Looking for a way to properly discard your Christmas tree? Our pollinators can use it! 

Native pollinators need habitat for nesting and overwintering. According to the Xerces Society, "The primary habitat features used by pollinators and other insects for shelter include stems and branches of trees, shrubs, and wildflowers; leaf litter; undisturbed ground; bare ground; dead wood; brush piles; and rock piles.” By adding these features to your yard, along with not using pesticides and introducing native plants, you can attract and support native pollinators. 

Metallic Green Sweat Bee, nesting in a log laying on the ground

Photo by Heather Holm

“Compared to artificial nesting options such as bee blocks and bee hotels, natural nesting habitat features often better mimic the natural nest site density of insects and also break down naturally with  time, limiting disease and parasite issues.” 

Once you remove all decorations and lights from your Christmas tree, place it in your backyard in a “quiet corner” that is out of the way for wildlife to enjoy. Fallen logs and brush piles offer critical habitat to pollinators, including “hibernation sites for mourning cloak and other butterflies, soil access for ground nesting bees, daytime shelter for fireflies, and food for a diversity of wood-eating beetles and other organisms.” Brush piles also provide great habitat for birds- “chickadees, warblers, and other songbirds enjoy the hiding places provided by the branches and small mammals create warm burrows in the pile that later provide protected spaces for bumble bees to nest.”

Check out Xerces “Nesting & Overwintering Habitat for Pollinators & Other Beneficial Insects” to learn more.