August 2024 | View as Webpage

Sneak Preview! Bee City USA & Bee Campus USA IPM Toolkit

One of the core components of Bee City USA is having a quality integrated pest management (IPM) plan that emphasizes pesticide reduction and pollinator health. To help, this fall we’re launching a new IPM Plan Toolkit to guide affiliates as they create or improve their IPM plans. 

In the meantime, we're sharing a sneak preview of one component of the toolkit a new IPM Plan Checklist!

View the IPM Plan Checklist

We'll be unveiling our full IPM Plan Toolkit in a webinar in October. We hope you can join us!

October 10 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

IPM Toolkit Webinar

Free

Read more and register

In Case You Missed It: Read Your Amazing 2023 Achievements

In 2023, city and campus affiliates created habitat, reduced pesticide use, conducted dozens of bioblitzes and bee surveys, started seed libraries, tabled at farmers markets, taught kids to make seed bombs — and wore a lot of amazing bee costumes while they did it!

Read our 2023 annual report and peruse nearly two hundred affiliate renewal reports. Take a look, learn something new, and get inspired.

Myrmecochory: How Ants Shape Plant Communities

Birds aren’t the only animals that help plants move their seeds to new places! ?Ÿ?œ

Once a plant produces seeds, pollinators can dust off their legs to celebrate a job well done, but for some ants, there is still much to do. Many plants actually have a secret seed-carrying partnership with these ants! Around the world, over 11,000 plant species worldwide depend on ants to carry their seeds, in a partnership called myrmecochory.

Learn how plants evolved special seeds to attract ants, and meet many familiar flowers that rely on this important partnership. Read more

Bee City USA - Louisville, CO Celebrates Local Pollinators with Street Mural

Louisville, CO has a new street mural celebrating the city’s Bee City USA certification! Artist Megan Morgan, coordinated with city workers to depict the Hunt bumble bee (Bombus huntii), a native pollinator.

Angrea Grajeda of Prairie Mountain Media writes: "Abby McNeal, parks superintendent, said the city’s horticulture staff are committed to supporting local pollinators though planting annual and perennial plants, and the urban forestry team have planted flowering trees [and] city workers have focused over the past five years on reducing chemical usage on plants."

Read the story in Colorado Hometown Weekly

Funding Opportunity for Urban Forestry (External Grant)

Are you ready to accelerate urban forestry as equity-centered community development in your community? 

Center for Regenerative Solutions and Urban Sustainability Directors Network just opened applications for a new Accelerating Urban Forestry Grant Program as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. 

These grants are available to communities interested in enhancing or expanding their urban forestry capacity and workforce development through a Community Forest Corps program and Urban Forestry Equity Fellowships in 2025-2027. 

This is an important moment for communities to improve their climate resilience and community development through youth employment and equity fellowships to protect urban forests and collect urban heat data during the hot summer months. 

Eligible entities: Municipalities and community-based nonprofit organizations

Amount: $100,000 to $600,000 over a 3-year period.

Application deadline: August 30, 2024 5pm ET

Visit Center for Regenerative Solutions to apply

Welcome, New Bee City and Bee Campus Affiliates!

Thank you for joining us!

• Earlham College, IN
• Easthampton, MA
• Fredericksburg, VA

Xerces is Hiring

Join the Xerces team working on pollinator conservation!

Pesticide Program Specialist, Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management, Eastern US

LOCATION: Fully Remote

COMPENSATION: $61,027.20 annualized

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Today! August 15, 2024

Learn more and apply: Xerces Society's application website

August 22 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

In The Life Of Wasps: Hunters, Pollinators, Masons, And More

September 1 - September 30

National Recreation & Parks Association Parks for Pollinators BioBlitz

October 10 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

Bee City USA Webinar debuting new IPM Toolkit

October 12

World Migratory Bird Day for Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean

October 24 - October 31

Bat Week

Bee City/Campus application and renewal fee address:

The Xerces Society

??‹PO Box 84274

Seattle, WA 98124-5574

Contact:

beecityusa@xerces.org

503.212.0894

Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA are initiatives of the Xerces Society.

The Xerces Society is a donor-supported nonprofit organization that protects our world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.

Your tax-deductible donation will help grow and sustain that essential work.

Become a member

Fundraise

Learn about Xerces

Photo credits (top to bottom)

Annual report, top, L to R: 

Bee Campus USA California State University Northridge, CA. Credit: James Forrester

Bee City USA Hampton, VA. Credit: Wendy Iles

Bee City USA Lookout Mountain, GA & TN. Credit: Bee City USA Lookout Mountain, GA & TN

Annual report, bottom, L to R:

Bee Campus USA East Carolina University, NC. Credit: SustainabiliBEES

Bee Campus USA USA University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, TX. Credit: David Pike

Bee Campus USA Tufts University Medford-Somerville, MA. Credit: Erin Treanore

Ants: Julie Michaelson

Louisville, CO: Cliff Grassmick