8 top pollinators, and how to invite them over
Butterflies, like the iconic Monarch Butterfly, are among the best-known pollinators of flowers and other plants. But the list extends to wasps, beetles, and even gnats. (Photo source: WikiMedia Commons)
Butterflies and bees tend to get top billing when it comes to identifying pollinators, likely because people tend to be less enthusiastic about wasps, moths, and flies. But these creatures also play a vital role in helping plants reproduce. Learning to identify them, and where they like to get their pollen, is an important part of supporting them.
The honey bee pictured here is among the 3,600 to 4,000 different types of bees in North America. Photo source: WikiMedia Commons.
BEES
The bumble bee is an excellent pollinator, which involves transferring grains of pollen containing reproductive cells between male and female flower parts. They can fly in cool temperatures and a single one can pollinate up to 5,000 plants in a day. This makes bumble bees among the busiest of bees. While the bumble bee is only one among thousands of bee species—somewhere between 3,600 and 4,000 different types live in North America—only two percent of wild bees pollinate plants. In recent years, the population of bumble bees has declined by more than a quarter. Expanding bee habitat by planting organic gardens and pollinator-friendly corridors is one important way to support them.
How to attract them: Bees are attracted to brightly colored flowers with a pleasant mild odor. Depending on the bee species and surrounding habitat, plants like foxgloves, lupin, snapdragons, lavender, rosemary, and honeysuckles are popular options. All are rich in nectar and pollen—critical sources of nutrition for bees.
The pollen wasp is less adept at moving pollen than bees but still pretty efficient. Most wasps won’t sting. Photo source: Wikimedia
WASPS
Wasps belong to the same order as bees but, unlike bees, are not covered in fuzzy little hairs, which makes them less efficient at moving pollen. Still, many are good pollinators, including the fig wasp, pollen wasp, common wasp, and European wasp. Even wasps not well known for their pollinating powers can be helpful to organic gardeners because they can keep pests in check. While some wasps deliver a powerful sting, most are of the solitary, non-stinging variety.
How to attract them: The adults are attracted to a variety of sugary, nectar-rich plants, such as sweet fennel, Queen Anne’s lace, yarrow, and spearmint.
Butterflies care drawn to orange, yellow, and red flowers. (Photo source: Pixabay)
BUTTERFLIES
Butterflies are found on every continent except Antarctica. Though less efficient than bees, they play a critical part in transferring pollen among crops, including cilantro, cabbage, broccoli, sage, and chamomile. Butterfly populations have seen a drastic decline over the past few decades with the loss of hospitable habitats for them to feed, grow, and find cover.
How to attract them: Butterflies prefer perennials and plants with brightly colored landing pads. Plants to consider adding to a butterfly-friendly garden: milkweed, yarrow, coneflower, butterfly bush, alyssum, and calendula.
A Hummingbird Hawk Moth collecting nectar. (Photo source: WikiMedia Commons)
Moths
Some moths flit about during the day but many are nocturnal, and new research suggests moths play a vital role in pollinating a wide range of flowers and plants overnight. They also appear to pollinate flowers that honey bees may skip for not having enough nectar. Since most of the research done on pollinators focuses on bees and butterflies, scientists are still trying to figure out the precise importance of moths for our food system.
How to attract them: Moths tend to be attracted to plants that produce their scent in the evening, such as honeysuckle, jasmine, and evening primrose. Typical moth flowers, like jimsonweed, stephanotis, and honeysuckle, are light-colored, often long and narrow, and lack landing platforms.
The soldier beetle is among the hardest working pollinators in the beetle world. (Photo source: Wikimedia)
Beetles
Most people are familiar with the pest-eating powers of the ladybug—an organic gardener’s best friend. Less well known is that beetles often play a powerful role as pollinators, and have for about 150 million years. While some species truly are pests, and eat through flowering plants and leaves, beetles are so numerous they pollinate 88% of the 240,000 flowering plants around the world. Hard-working beetle pollinators include soldier beetles, jewel beetles, blister beetles, long-horned beetles, checkered beetles, tumbling flower beetles, soft-winged flower beetles, scarab beetles, sap beetles, false blister beetles, and rove beetles.
How to attract them: Beetles can see color but mostly rely on their sense of smell to find food. As such, they are attracted to plants with strong fruity or spicy scents, such as crabapples. They also like large cup-like flowers, heavily scented blossoms, and leathery or tough petals and leaves, along with plants featuring clusters of smaller flowers, like goldenrod, spicebush, yarrow, and sunflower. Beetles tend to do better in perennial gardens, which are less likely to be disturbed, because they pupate in the soil.
The bee fly is one of the most efficient pollinators among the 160,00 species of flies that exist globally. (Photo source: Richard Bartz)
FLIES
While flies can be a nuisance, many of them pollinate plants. Chocolate, for example, is pollinated primarily by gnats. Other notable plants pollinated by flies include pears, apples, strawberries, parsley, and carrots, and many more. In fact, more than 100 crops depend on fly pollination to produce fruit and seeds. The hoverfly is among the most efficient, but other top fly pollinators include some carrion and dung flies, tachinid flies, bee flies, small-headed flies, March flies, and blowflies.
How to attract them: More than 160,000 species of flies exist around the world, each with particular features and needs. Generally, flowers that range in color from pale to dark brown or purple and have pollen, such as catnip and some orchids, will attract flies. Other flies are attracted to flowers that smell putrid. A notable example is the brilliantly colored Red Trillium, which smells like decaying meat.
A hummingbird sipping nectar. Photo source: Pexels.
Hummingbirds
Hummingbirds are important pollinators in the United States since flower nectar is a critical part of their diet. To meet their caloric needs, they can visit between 1,000 and 3,000 flowers a day, scarfing up small insects along the way. When a hummingbird inserts its beak into a flower to drink the nectar, the pollens stick to the side of its beak. This is how hummingbirds transfer pollen grains from one flower to the next.
How to attract them: Hummingbirds are very attracted to red flowers, though they like other bright colors as well. Thanks to their long tongues, they prefer flowers shaped like a tube. Hummingbird-friendly varieties include bergamot, honeysuckle, and columbines are a few of the many options to get more hummingbirds zipping through your garden.
Photo source: Unsplash.
BATS
Bats are famously misunderstood, but they can pollinate an array of plants and disperse seeds. More than 500 species of tropical plants are pollinated by bats, including wild agave, the primary ingredient for making tequila, along with mangoes, bananas, and guavas. They tend to prefer flowers that open at night.
How to attract them: As many natural forest spaces are cleared, you can help bats by building a bat house. The National Wildlife Foundation offers easy-to-use instructions, including how to create tight space, which bats prefer, and the importance of mounting it on a pole at least 12 feet above the ground, for extra security from predators.
Resources: The Pollinator Partnership, a non-profit dedicated to promoting the conservation, education, and research of pollinators, has a set of free planting guides for a variety of eco=regions in the U.S. Each guide lists a variety of native origin plants and the pollinators attracted to them. Your local nursery can be a great resource for discovering native plant species for your next gardening project.
