Podcast: Community Cafe Bainbridge:
New local project seeks to bring pollinators back to Bainbridge

In this podcast, City employees Amber Richards and Heather Beckmann explain why they – and so many Bainbridge organizations and individuals – are working to make Bainbridge a safe haven again for bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators.

In its first months, the number of partners of their Pollinator Improvement Project has grown to include: ASANI and the Grow Community; Commodore Options School; Bay Hay and Feed (where bee hive education occurs); Bloedel Reserve; Friends of the Farms; beekeeper Charles Shafer (who educates about bees and hives at the Farmers Market); Islandwood; Sustainable Bainbridge; Sweetlife Farm; and, now, BCB!

Pollinators face a number of challenges in modern society and many species are in serious decline. Pesticide use, specifically the use of neonicotinoids, have caused massive die-offs.

See this webpage for advice on how you can make a difference and avoid harmful pesticides in your home garden.

Pollinators (bees, birds, moths, butterflies, and bats) are critical to human survival. Globally, pollinators account for pollination of approximately 85% of the world’s flowering plants and the vast majority of foods worldwide.

One way to help grow the pollinator population is to become a beekeeper.

Beekeeping is pursued worldwide. For one example, BCB discovered an apparently easy-to-use beehive invention called Hive Flow on the crowd-funding website called Indiegogo. If anyone tries that Hive Flow system, or any other beehive system for beginners, please let us know and we’ll do a future podcast about it. This is not intended, however, as an endorsement of Hive Flow or any other product by the Pollinator project.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.