Food for Thought
I look forward to the Home Seller insert in the Friday paper every week. This article caught me by surprise for two reasons.
1. I had just seen a news clip on the TV news the evening before. A bee expert from UC Davis was being interviewed about the very study cited here. I can not even pretend to come up with his name, and it wasn't mentioned in this article. The cited author is Clara Stuligross, a Ph.D. candidate in ecology.
2. The results of this study reinforce what we have known for years, so it has haunted me for days. This study was only about one particular insecticide, but what about all the other insecticides out there? We have been taught about IPM strategies in our classes, but have they been thorough enough?
My question is this: ARE WE, AS MASTER GARDENERS, DOING ENOUGH WHEN WE INTERACT WITH THE PUBLIC?
Should we be including something in our presentations about attracting and protecting bees?
Should we be handing out the IPM cards at every opportunity?
Should we be going into the schools at every grade level to teach about our friends, the bees?
Should we have a script supplied by UCD to follow so that we are all saying the very same thing every time? When I was working, even though I didn't like any of the scripts foisted upon us, they did the job with customer satisfaction so long as they were delivered sincerely.
My final question is this: WHAT CAN I DO IN MY OWN YARD TO MITIGATE PAST DAMAGES AND PREVENT FUTURE ONES?
I can figure out ways to tell people this very important message and can create my own script if need be.