Pollinators – but not as we know them!
Think of a pollinator and you invariably conjure up an image of a bee or perhaps a butterfly bounding about your garden flowers in search of nectar, picking up pollen along the way. But this is just the tip of the iceberg – there are a whole cast of characters you might not expect that do their bit. They’re the unsung ‘key workers’ of the pollination world, and I’m here to sing their praises – though I’ll stop short at clapping them all every week in the garden!
Of course honey bees and bumble bees are given the most credit, while solitary bees, of which there are 260 species in the UK, such as the wonderful pantaloon bee, the hairy-footed flower bee and the wool carder bee, carry out a lot of the work. Butterflies and moths can also be excellent pollinators – many of the latter taking on the night shift while day pollinators are at rest.
Social wasps, such as our much-maligned picnic-botherer of late summer, have their uses, as do their solitary wasp cousins – there are over 200 species of these, including the beautiful jewel wasp and the more sinister-looking spider wasp. Next we have a huge family of hoverflies, our friendly wasp mimics. I just popped into the garden to take a look at what’s been visiting today, and I could count five or six different hoverflies at a swift glance, smothering my anthemis. Many carry pollen quite far distances. Other flies also chip in quite a bit, as do beetles, which have been pollinating for millions of years, much longer than our introduced honey bee – the primitive magnolia is one such plant that benefits. Oil beetles, soldier beetles and, of course, the pollen beetle all have a part to play.
Essentially, any insect that visits a flower can be a pollinator. They're therefore vital to our biodiverse garden ecosystems, and should be thought on favourably as they pass by your plot. It’s commonly claimed that one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat is reliant on pollinators, and we take it for granted that they’ll always be there to perform their duties.
Pesticide use and declining habitats are to blame for a steep decline – us humans, in other words. The best we can do is provide a welcoming habitat for them all in our own gardens and hope the tide will turn the other way soon.