AT: Specialist Bees Webinar

The monarch butterfly is probably the most famous insect specialist (the caterpillars only feed on milkweed), but did you know that many native bees are also specialists?

Female native bee specialists or oligoleges, only collect pollen from a narrow range of native plants; this could mean just one plant genus or many genera that belong to one plant family. During this Walk in the Garden, Heather will highlight many of these native plant-bee specializations as well as the overlapping habitat requirements of the bees and plants.

The presentation will also include the threats to specialist bees such as habitat loss and climate change.

NOTE: The speaker specializes in Midwest/NE bee species, but hopefully, we have some in common.

Heather Holm had an avid interest in natural history and botany at a young age and spent much of her childhood exploring the woodlands and prairie on the family property. She studied horticulture and biology at the University of Guelph and later web programming and digital design at Seneca college, Canada.

Heather is an award-winning author and nationally sought-after speaker spending much of her time passionately educating audiences about the fascinating world of native bees and the native plants that support them. Her first book, Pollinators of Native Plants, was published in 2014, and her latest book, Bees, published in 2017, has won six book awards including the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Heather’s expertise includes the interactions between native bees and native plants, and the natural history and biology of native bees occurring in the upper Midwest and Northeast.

Heather currently lives in Minnesota with her husband. She is a self-employed author, designer, and publisher. For the past few years, she has been assisting with native bee research projects. In her spare time, Heather is an active community supporter, writing grants and coordinating neighborhood volunteer landscape restoration projects. Currently, she is working on three projects with volunteers, restoring approximately ten acres of city-owned land in her neighborhood for pollinators and people.