It’s All Food and Sex: Pollinators By Nancy Taylor Robson

Pollination, as most of us know, is about reproduction – of fruits, vegetables other plants. But from our self-interested point of view – and that of most of the animals on terra firma – it’s about food. Apples and pears and squash and watermelon (and so much delicious more!). Pollination is responsible for one of every three bites of food.

“So many of our fruits and vegetable species require pollination before they set fruit,” says Christy Wilhelmi, author of High Yield, Small Space Organic Gardening. “So, we need these guys to survive. If the pollinators die, we die. It’s that simple.”

According to a 2016 study by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, pollinators have declined by approximately 75% in the past 27 years. Staggering, but potentially reversible.

As the name suggests, pollination is the transfer of pollen (male) to the female part of a plant. (This is the sex part for those not paying attention). Many plants need more than one visit to a blossom for good pollination. For example, a female zucchini blossom needs about five visits for a single good fruit to develop. Many plants will not produce fruit without pollination from other plants, but even self-pollinated plants benefit from pollinators. A recent University of Vermont study showed that when birds and bees protect coffee plants (and in the course, pollinate them), the result is bigger and more plentiful beans. Bigger, better crop; bigger, better income for growers; more for us grateful caffeinators.

According to the National Park Service, three-quarters of all the flowering plants on earth are pollinated by insects and animals. Of course, we could possibly do it ourselves as China has been forced to do. In Sichuan Province, pesticides and pollution have so decimated the pollinator population there that orchardists must hand-pollinate fruit trees. It’s a painstaking process that needs to be repeated as many as five times per blossom to ensure marketable fruit.

We might do it all ourselves, but why? It’s designed to work efficiently without our intervention. So, if we restore what the pollinators need, it can run on autopilot while we eat caprese salad and grilled chicken with mango salsa.

Pollination is one of the key ecological services provided gratis in an intricately orchestrated regenerative system that also helps stabilize our soils, clean our air, supply oxygen, and support wildlife. Virtually everything in life multitasks.

“The pollinators might be catching prey to provision their nests or feed their larvae, and as adults they are going to flowers to feed themselves, so in that they are transferring pollen around from plant to plant,” says naturalist Nancy Lawson, author of Wildscapes. “And many are decomposers, who are helping to break down wood and other organic matter. Dead animals and other insects who have died would be piling up all around us without these decomposers.”

So, who is a pollinator? We often think primarily of honeybees, who get lots of press – especially since there have been two overturned tractor trailers of them recently.

“Honeybees are not native, but they are such fascinating, self-directed creatures,” says Wilmelmi, who is also a beekeeper. “They run a democracy within their colony, and they are so hardworking.”

Honeybees are interesting to non-beekeepers, too, because in addition to the amazing intricacy of their lives, we realize that the pollination of almonds and other food trees is currently dependent on professional beekeepers hauling thousands of hives around the country in semis. It’s not hand-pollinating, but it is a necessary pollination industry run by human beings. Yet the original arrangement is more complex – and yet so much simpler, less work for us. And cheaper.

A pollinator is anything that helps carry pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the same or another flower. Bees of all kinds, (yes, even annoying carpenter bees), butterflies, moths, flies, bugs, beetles, thrips, and wasps. Also, birds and mammals – for example, opossums, who also eat ticks.

“Pollinators come in many forms,” explains Lawson “They’re beetles and flies and wasps, especially. There are so many solitary wasps that people don’t realize are not threatening to us, and they’re all out there pollinating flowers and being natural insect control.”

While we can see the various flying pollinators during the day, the process continues mostly unseen at night.

“Bats not only hoover a thousand mosquitoes out of the sky every night,

but they are nighttime pollinators of cactus, succulents, and tropical fruits like mangos and bananas,” Wilhelmi says.

“Ethiopian wolves pollinate Red Hot Pokers (Kniphofia),” notes Lawson. “They lick the flower, and the pictures of them with pollen all over their faces makes me wonder what other pollinators we just don’t know about [yet].”

So, how can each of us help? Restore habitat for one thing. Just as we need fueling stations and places to sleep on a cross-country road trip, pollinators of all kinds need well-supplied way stations in addition to established communities.

“People already know they should be planting native flowers that native bees and other animals have evolved with,” says Lawson. “They also need to think about massing the same plants, so pollinators pick up on these visual and olfactory signals and cues. If you only have one or two, it won’t have much for many creatures, but start with five near each other and let them spread. And plant really fragrant flowers like native Clematis (Clematis virginiana) and the trees and shrubs – Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum), Woodland Phlox (Phlox divericota), native roses, Carolina Rose (Rosa carolina) – because scent is really important to bees and other pollinators to help them locate what they need.”

Another key thing is to reduce or eliminate pesticides, (another cost-saving). Then let the good times roll. Once you’ve got a good mix of symbiotically living things, the whole system tends to take care of itself. The result is both productive and fascinating. Discovery channel in your own backyard.

RESOURCES:

https://www.pollinator.org/pollinators

https://www.humanegardener.com/humane-gardening-tenets/

https://www.uvm.edu/gund/news/secret-better-coffee-birds-and-bees

https://www.xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/whats-at-stake

https://extension.umd.edu/resources/#!/category/2/subcategory/68

High Yield, Small Space Organic Gardening  by Christy Wilhelmi (Creative Homeowner, 2025

Wildscape: Trilling Chipmunks, Beckoning Blooms, Salty Butterflies, and other Sensory Wonders of Nature by Nancy Lawson (Princeton Architectural Press)

Longtime journalist and essayist Nancy Taylor Robson is also the author of four books: Woman in The Wheelhouse; award-winning Course of the Waterman; A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, a Modern Love Story; and OK Now What? A Caregiver’s Guide to What Matters, which she wrote with Sue Collins, RN.