Healthy Watersheds Need Pollinators

FCWD promotes pollinators as an essential component to a healthy watershed. Bees and other pollinators are critical for sustaining ecosystems all over the world. In fact, they are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of the food we eat! Most pollinators are insects, but they also include birds, bats, and small mammals. These creatures visit flowers to either drink nectar or feed off pollen. As they do so, they transport the pollen grains while moving from place to place. These critters provide a free, invaluable ecosystem service but they are increasingly being threatened by loss of their feeding and nesting habitats, pollution, misuse of chemicals, and a changing climate. 

Bee by Chris Mikolajczyk

Hummingbird and thistle

Monarch on milkweed

Monarch life cycle

Check out these resources to learn how you can protect pollinators and their habitats!

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Articles & Websites

• Teaching kids the importance of bees
• All About Bees and Beekeeping: From Identification to Protective Clothing
• Manitou Springs Pollinator Project
• Manitou Pollinator=Friendly Plants
• Pollinator Districts: Communities Conserving Pollinators
• Pikes Peak Library District Seed Library
• Manitou Springs Seed Library
• "Manitou Springs is now certifiably a friend to bees and butterflies as a new pollinator district," KRCC, Jun 21, 2023

Local Demonstration Gardens

• Colorado Native Plant Society
• Colorado Springs Utilities Demonstration Gardens - Self-guided activity stations, registration required. 
• El Paso County Extension Native Plant Demonstration Garden
• Horticultural Art Society Demonstration Gardens

Local Nurseries

• Rick's Garden Center
• Spencer's Lawn & Garden Centers 
• Harding Nursery
• Summerland Gardens
• Phelan Gardens
• Don's Garden Shop & Landscape Materials
• Britton Nursery

Partner Sites 

·       Audubon Rockies Habitat Hero

·       Black Forest Honey: Black Forest Honey also provides bee and swarm removal services on a case by case basis.

·       Buckley’s Homestead Supply

·       Colorado Federation of Garden Clubs

·       Colorado Native Plant Society and the Southeast Chapter

·       Colorado State Extension Office

·       Colorado Parks and Wildlife

·       Denver Butterfly Pavilion

·       Flying Pig Farm

·       Manitou Springs Pollinator Project

·       Manitou Springs Seed Library

·       Mile High Bug Club

·       Pikes Peak Beekeepers Association

·       Pollinator Week

·       Western Apiculture Society

Videos

·       Bring Back the Pollinators from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation