There is much variability within land types, even from parcel to parcel or land use categories such as single-family home, residential, high density residential, commercial and industrial. In areas which are highly hostile to bees, pollination is decreased, even among European honey bees, Urban landscape types: Classifications of different landscape cover types were done in somewhat coarse aggregates. For example, park vegetation, road edges, lawns, etc. This was a common choice among students who could quickly select green on maps via Photoshop . Alternatively, some students took the time to trace vegetation with Illustrator or In Design with similar results. Finally, some students also utilized ArcGIS land cover categorizations in GIS data using ArcGIS . Future studies could be done to compare each technique.Landscape design for bees is explored with help of student designers from California Polytechnic’s Landscape Architecture program . Students in both a studio and specialty interest course were given design tasks by author KC over two quarters. Their illustrations and work help to exemplify KC’s vision of designing bee habitat in a thorough ecological, but also provocative and engaging ways. KC’s design ideas for bees are rooted in scientific knowledge and aim to tackle bee pollinator conservation as a multiprong approach. Designs focus around the biological and ecological aspects of bees. The best designs look to celebrate what is unique or interesting about each focal bee. In addition to habitat creation, square black flower bucket wholesale maximization, and conservation, landscape designers can help to show how bees’ stories can be shared.
A seed library network has potential to provide opportunities for improved neighborhood pollinator habitat. Moreover, seed library patrons would be empowered to make positive changes within their vicinities with minimal physical labor and intrusion into private land spaces which are otherwise often inaccessible. Participation in seed library usage would be entirely voluntary for users. A network of seed libraries will act as a system of structural resiliency for urban pollinators. By using geographic analysis, mapping techniques could help to shed light into where seeds are being planted and also where important pollinator plants exist. With the help of citizen science data, areas of low pollinator plantings can be targeted for future landscape design for pollinators.Students were asked to show site visitors about special bees. Figure 1 shows how one student envisioned providing nesting habitat for Megachile bees in a sculptural way, conveying meaning to site visitors . This clever solution helps people to gain landscape literacy about these fascinating cavity nesting bees. Mutualism exists here, presenting opportunity for both bees and humans. Design mutualism is an opportunity for multiple species to benefit from a landscape change . In this case, bees benefit from habitat design for nesting and foraging, while people benefit from gaining landscape literacy about the pollination world around them. Another wonderful design focused on endangered Hylaeus bees in Hawaii. As it turns out the student lives on Oahu, the same island where the endangered Hylaeus species are found. By researching the foraging preferences and last sighting locations of these rare bees, a plan was made to help both conserve and celebrate these now rare bees. Interestingly, the possible conservation area overlapped with an already existing botanical arboretum.
Adding an installation to highlight the special traits of endangered Hylaeus appears to be an opportunity for public education. The student was able to research the face patterns of the local Hylaeus bees and designed an interactive walking tour which would appeal to a large age range of visitors. This project was serendipitous, and holds potential for implementation.Students were challenged to envision and demonstrate what a vegetated landscape looks like from a bee’s point of view, focusing on the valued elements. This project forces students to look at the landscape from their organism’s value system, which is an essential part of good ecological design. Figure 2 shows how Xylocopa favors some forage plants over others in this residential landscape. This student shows clearly which plants have ecological value to Xylocopa with the use of color, in contrast to the colorless portions of the image. This image is particularly good at transmitting meaning to human viewers, helping people to understand this organism’s preferences and landscape opportunities or limitations. Another intelligent “see like a bee” design solution shaped the ear pieces of glasses to look like tubular Megachile nests. The work was completed with an annotated design plan with callouts to highlight favorite foraging plants. The idea of ecologically based ‘bee glasses’ seems like an opportunity for helping capture the imagination of children and with educational presentations. There are many aspects of the bee’s biology, ecology and foraging preferences which could be highlighted and made possibly more memorable with the help of glasses props, for example.An aspect of bee biology which has potential for design is for bees which cavity nest above ground. It is possible for designers to create cavity nesting areas on any vertical surface. The form of these sorts of projects is limitless. One of the best student work’s shows a concept for spelling the desired nesting bee’s genus name . A design like this is fairly simple, yet demonstrates much more knowledge and information than a standard bee box from a standard retailer. Other students looked to maximize wall design space.
One student created a huge silhouette of Megachile and planned drilled holes of the correct diameter all over the entire surface. It is conceivable to imagine that design as both striking and memorable. Other students strove for more abstract geometric patterns, which though artistic in nature, were not effective at communicating as much information about the bees.Author KC has envisioned a new way to help achieve higher quality pollinator habitat in neighborhoods via the installation of free seed libraries. A prototype pollinator seed library was made from a repurposed windowed cabinet and painted to advertise its contents. Since pollinators are suffering from habitat fragmentation and degradation due to human land use activities. Habitat design is critical to solving these connectivity issues today. Improvements to habitat networks are on the forefront of research and design by urban and landscape ecologists. Seed libraries, a grass roots phenomenon, aid in accessibility for people to start their own seeds. These cabinets originated in effort to provide free resource availability and seem like an opportunity for growing pollinator habitat. Seed libraries are small outdoor cabinets which can be curated to a palette of the provider’s choice. The seeds contained within are available free to whoever accesses them. Seed library users are also encouraged to leave seeds for others as well. Seed libraries are a “spin-off” of the popular “Free Little Libraries” program for exchanging books. Cabinet-style libraries are hyper local in design scale, often with one every few blocks in a neighborhood. Designs are often creative, attractive and fun to elicit usage. Specializing seed libraries to help meet the needs of local pollinators has great mutual potential, both for humans, and also pollinators. So far, author KC’s “Free Pollinator Seed Library” has been extremely popular. Well over 800 hundred seed packets have already been exchanged in the months of its existence thus far.The reception of the Grover Beach, California surrounding neighbors and users has been extremely positive. Efforts have been made to create a ‘buzz’ online. Basic information about the project can be found at author KC’s personal website, plastic square flower bucket and it even has its own Facebook page, titled, “Free Pollinator Seed Libraries where author KC can post updates. However, the highest interest occurred by posting on the Nextdoor . Seventy-four people within the immediate neighborhood liked the post and twenty took the time to post comments, all with positive words about the project. Of the commenters, all were within a maximum 12.5 km radius from the seed library. The average distance of a commenter to the seed library was 6.3 km and the median was 3.4 km and 2.1 mi. Commenters show which neighborhood area they are posting from, which are defined by local’s sense of geographic area, in this containing the following regions: Corbett Canyon, Edge of San Luis Obispo , Fair Oaks-Grand, Grover Heights, Horned Toad Trail, Huasna Valley and Huasna Corridor, Just Off The Pike, Lopez Drive, Oak Park Streets, Oceano, Ocean South, Old Oak Park, S. Oak Park and Trilogy. Most recently a Google Business listing was also made , which has further increased page views and visits. For example, in mid-January 2022 there have been over 1,100 visits to the Google page, which has increased exposure significantly. Therefore, the seed library captured the attention of people in the general geographic area as well as in the local neighborhood. There is a lot of enthusiasm among the neighborhood to help bees. Designing pollinator seed libraries seems to hold a great potential for making the largest positive changes in short amounts of time with limited budgets.
One of the most engaging potential design themes explores the contrasting nature of various bee genera. One student came up with a particularly interesting sculpture idea to celebrate two very different native bees. The student was keen enough to focus on the materials for each bee, wood for Xylocopa, and soil/ceramics for Andrena. The project shows two large bees of contrasting colors diving into the ground with their paths dynamically crossing. This work helps to demonstrate the various nesting substrates each bee would use. Furthermore, the student carefully imagined the body size and shape of each bee. . It would be an impressive sight to see this design implemented. Different bees could be chosen at geographically different places to highlight locally special bees. Other well thought out contrasting bee designs included, showcasing different bee nesting styles or foraging preferences. Some students juxtaposed different style nesters along a human walkway. Others used a human path to separate two very different foraging habitats on each side, for bees with extremely different foraging preferences. Overall, these themes have a lot of potential and should be explored more. Particularly, displaying uniqueness of bees and/or local adaptations seems like an excellent way to support local bee populations.Designing for bees over large areas of human dominated landscapes will require renovation of landscaping with little to no ecological value. Learning to maximize bee habitat with small planting areas is very important. When added together, these small snippets of micro-habitats contribute to pollinator habitat networks, which are essential for resilient landscapes. One of the best submitted images shows one student’s attempt to maximize bee habitat foraging area in their family home. This student wisely recommends more pollinator plantings on the ground level, but also imagines creating more foraging area by utilizing vertical wall space for habitat. Some students were bolder with their designs. They thought through how to maximize the area of foraging plants for bees, whether that was on the roof, walls, driveway, getting rid of grass or paving. Students were urged to think about a design they would like to look at every day, thus, in this way, it was easier for them to imagine if it was their own home or property. Since much of the human-built environment is already in existence, it is very important that we strive to update and augment the ecological functionality of such places for bees and other pollinators.Students tackled the bee habitat map categorization in a variety of ways, each producing effective graphics to demonstrate habitat patchiness of bees in human-dominated environments. Figure 4 shows an attempt at classifying landscape in Oakland, California from Bombus’ perspective. This is a somewhat typical classification of open space, park land, street and sidewalk vegetation. Looking at the landscape with spatial distances between habitat is essential to better understand how bee habitat fragmentation patterns play out for bees at a city-wide scale. Figure 4 was made quickly by using an extension of ArcMap within Illustrator , a more illustrative software. This method was quite quick and accurate, creating quite effective results. Other students tried to streamline the tracing task by utilizing Photoshop’s select by color tool which was perhaps the fastest method, but also lacking in accuracy. More mapping technique results are described below. Other mappers strove to add more detailed information, with varied categories for example, including: natural landscapes, parks, redwood tree dominated areas. This categorization scheme made more sense for the student working out of Mill Valley, California. Some students missed the opportunity to demonstrate human residential areas as possible habitat for native bees. The best projects, also show well the possible geographic connections between denoted patches.