For the past four years, Lower Phalen Creek Project has hosted an Annual Pollinator Festival at Wakan Tipi/ Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary to educate, inspire, and engage our urban community members about pollinators and the importance of protecting them! This event - showered in music, food, dance, and pollinator activities - has brought together a wide range of organizations and community groups involved in protecting pollinators and pollinator habitats throughout the Twin Cities. In the past, we have hosted groups like the Monarch Joint Venture, UMN Bee Lab, DNR, Dragon Fly Society, Urban Birding Collective, St.Paul Parks & Rec and more! However, due to the ongoing threat of COVID-19, we had to cancel this year’s Pollinator Festival — but fear not! We’re taking space in this month’s blog to showcase the great work being done across the metro to protect pollinators and create large swaths of attractive and functional pollinator-friendly habitats.
Culturally Important Pollinator Plants and Beings
Pollinators and pollinator habitats are something that we are deeply passionate about, however, it might not be for the same reason as most. When we enter conversations around pollinators we usually hear the same buzzwords (pun intended!) like “Save the Bees,” “Plant Native Wildflowers,” or “Restore our ecosystems.” These are all incredibly important conversations, but they come with questions: Why do the bees need saving? Who or what destroyed our ecosystems? Who were the original caretakers of these Native plants and how can we learn from their relationships? And when we do restoration work, who is included? Which perspectives do we revere, and which ones do we ignore?
At each Pollinator festival, we talk about these relatives — pollinators and pollinator plants — through a uniquely Dakota perspective. Knowledge passed down to us for centuries tells us that these plants and pollinators each have their own important role in our societies. The bees, monarchs, coneflowers and more are all their own nation — their own community - all with responsibilities to play within in our circle of life. The birds and the plants were among the first nations to teach us humans how to walk and survive in this world. They showed us their medicines and how to use them. They nurture us. And we, in turn, nurture them by never depleting their nations and spreading their seeds, just like our pollinator friends taught us.
As Dakota people we can never really talk about pollinators without talking about how they are medicine. Just like the coneflower is one of our favorite medicines and healers, the dragonfly is like the eagle of the insect nation who brings medicine wherever he goes.
Our relationship to these nations are interwoven with who we are as Dakota people. Our relationship to these plants and pollinator beings are deeply rooted in storytelling, ceremony, medicine, art, and community. The following pictures and descriptions are just some of the ways we relate to these pollinating plants.
Wahíŋheya íphiye
Swamp Milkweed
Our community uses the young seed pods for cooking. An infusion of the roots is used to treat asthma, rheumatism, syphilis, and a weak heart.
A beautiful host plant for monarchs and great nectar sources for bees and beneficials
Asáŋpi iyátke
Yellow Coneflower
It is said that the cone was sometimes used as a pacifier for babies. A decoction of the whole plant is used as a wash for snakebites. Tea is used to treat chest pains and stomach aches.
A wonderful host plant for bees including sweat bees, digger bees, cuckoo bees, small and large carpenter bees, and bumble bees.
Waȟpe yathápi
Anise Hyssop (agastache foeniculum)
Our community will chew the leaves for their great licorice flavor which can also be added to other foods like cooked meats and fruits. A beautiful tea of the leaves is used to treat colds and fevers, and to strengthen the heart.
A beautiful host plant for honey bee, bumblebee, native bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, skippers and moths.
Thatéte Čhaŋnúŋǧa
Prairie Blazing Star (Liatris Pycnostachya)
During times of famine Dakota people pulverize and eat the roots to improve appetite. The roots are best collected in the early spring when they are still tender, as they get very woody later in the year.
This wonderful plant relative supports bees as well as many butterflies including monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, and sulfurs
Pté Ičhiyuha
Curlycup Gumweed (Grindelia squarrosa)
For community members with severe sicknesses like asthma and/or bronchial symptoms, an infusion of the tops of the plants is used to relieve constricted airways and even help to dry phlegm. (not for those with heart or kidney disorders).
The name “gumweed” refers to the sticky, resinous material that is secreted from the flowers before they open. This species is highly attractive to over 40 species of Native bees.
Ičhápe hú
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia)
One of our favorite medicines - the chewed root and its juices are applied to venomous bites and are also applied to burns. The dried, prickly head is used to brush hair. A tea from the root is used to boost the immune system and relieve flu and cold symptoms. Echinacea is also being investigated as a treatment for cancer.
This amazing plant relative is attractive to a wide range of pollinators, and a key nectar source for skippers.
** While we love sharing this knowledge with everyone and anyone who might stumble across our small blog, we want to highlight that these uses and ways of relating to these plant nations come from generations of traditional ecological knowledge followed by the proper spiritual and cultural protocol of our peoples. Please do not go rip up the roots of any native flower that is helping our pollinator relatives - especially if this is not the ways of your people (try to avoid ever pulling up any roots). **
Pollinator Efforts to Follow
Dream of Wild Health
Dream of Wild Health has set out to find out which Native pollinators are doing the "heavy-lifting" by pollinating the crops at our farm. We are working with entomologist Julia Brokaw from the University of Minnesota to identify them. We have put out sticky traps, and through observation with our teenage Garden Warriors, we are attempting to track the pollinator species. We are maintaining native pollinators by providing food, habitat--including wintering stems, and water. We have included a pollinator meadow and native orchard at our farm to encourage native pollinators. We attempted to sustain bee hives in the past, and we are thankful that we do not need to "hire" pollinators to support our food production.
Urban Roots
This summer Urban Roots has kept busy while staying safe, employing 10 teen interns to help in restoration efforts at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary along with work at Trout Brook Nature Sanctuary and Pig's Eye Regional Park. There has been a strong focus towards pollinators, with youth helping to manage 3 honey bee hives kept at one of their urban farm sites, participating in a bumblebee survey at Trout Brook, and designing five different pollinator gardens to be installed at the parks they work at in the fall. For an example of a large pollinator garden the youth installed in the past, check out the Sunray Library, where there is a large garden with over 40 different native species on display. Urban Roots staff are also working with an additional 50 teens in an online program where they received activity kits and direction to engage in a mix of activities, with one week focusing on pollinators and encouraging the teens to visit a nearby park and count the number of pollinators in action they see.
How to Get Involved
Researchers at the University of Minnesota Bee Lab are conducting studies like the one currently underway at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary -- look for the fenced-in bee hives on the western edge of the oak savanna! But you don’t need to be an expert to help protect pollinators in your area. One of the best tools we have for studying pollinators is citizen science. That means you -- yes, you! -- can help identify which pollinators are present throughout a given area, which plants they pollinate, and how commonly they can be found.
There are many resources and tools to help you simultaneously learn more about pollinators and contribute to important research. One option is the easy-to-use Bumble Bee Watch app, which operates similar to iNaturalist, allowing you to upload photos of bumble bees to a national database, get your photos verified by experts, and view entries from other users across the county.
The Xerces Society offers a more in-depth program for citizens who want a long-term observation project. The Citizen Science Monitoring Guide for Native Bees is an extensive introduction to observing native bees and other pollinators in a specific area over a period of time. In observing activity in the same site over time, citizen science observations help researchers better understand the dynamics of pollinator habitats. Keep an eye out for opportunities to get trained in this work!
