Bee Pastures May Help Pollinators Prosper

By Marcia Wood
August 4, 2010

Beautiful wildflowers might someday be planted in "bee pastures," floral havens created as an efficient, practical, environmentally friendly, and economically sound way to produce successive generations of healthy young bees.

The pesticide-free pastures could be simple to establish, and—at perhaps only a half-acre each—easy to tend, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entomologist James H. Cane. He's based at the Pollinating Insects Biology, Management, and Systematics Research Unit operated by USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Logan, Utah. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.