Bee City USA News July 2025

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Bee City USA News July 2025

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July 2025 | View as Webpage

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Next Week is National Moth Week!

July 19 - July 27 is National Moth Week and we're excited. Moths rarely get enough credit for their pollination services. We hope you are able to take some time next week to highlight some of the fascinating and important moths in your region.

Moth Week is held annually worldwide during the last full week of July and celebrates the beauty, life cycles, and habitats of moths around the world. Visit nationalmothweek.org to find events and activities near you.

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Renewal Report Update

We know many of you are anxiously awaiting your renewal report PDFs. We appreciate your patience! Your reports will be uploaded to our website by the end of July. Your renewal reports and our collective annual report will be posted in August's eNewsletter.

We know, it's a slow process. We have hundreds of reports to review and it takes months to review and process them. If we haven't already, we will email your Bee City/Campus committee chairs when your report has been approved.

Please note: If you were first certified in 2023 or earlier and you have not reported on your 2024 activities, please do so. Though you will likely not be included in our annual report, we still need your report. If we do not receive a report from a Bee City/Campus for two years in a row, we reach out at the end of the year to discuss decertification. Read: How to Prepare Your Bee City or Bee Campus Report

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Rescheduled: How Nurseries Can Provide Pollinator-Safe Plants: A Talk with MNL’s Greenhouse Manager

Thank you for your patience as we rescheduled our webinar with Ridge Campbell. We're back on for July 22nd. We hope you can join us!

How Nurseries Can Provide Pollinator-Safe Plants: A Talk with MNL’s Greenhouse Manager

July 22 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

How do you ensure your pollinator plants are bee-safe? Many pesticides are harmful to pollinators, but are permitted for use in nursery plant production, even on plants attractive to bees and butterflies. Plants can retain some pesticides long after they are applied, creating a hazard for visiting pollinators sometimes even after being planted in gardens and parks.

Come to this webinar to hear the story of how Minnesota Native Landscapes, Inc. (MNL), a large Midwest native plant nursery, collaborated with the Xerces Society to grow native plants without toxic pesticides. Ridge Campbell, Greenhouse Manager at MNL, will relate MNL’s experience growing 30,000 native plants for Xerces, while strictly limiting more than 100 insecticides and fungicides considered harmful to bees and butterflies. In this webinar, you can learn what it takes to make a “contract grow” succeed for both the grower and the buyer.

This webinar is a collaboration between Xerces Society and MNL and is supported by the Carroll Petrie Foundation. This webinar will be recorded and available on our YouTube channel. Closed Captioning will be available during this webinar.

Past Webinar Recordings

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our online events the past few months. It's been really excellent to see such a high level of engagement, including all of your thoughtful questions and comments. We appreciate you! If you missed our ground nesting bees webinar or your regional meeting, here's how you can watch them:

Webinar: Learn about Ground-Nesting Bees with Cornell’s GNBee Project

Watch the webinar (closed captioning provided)
Visit GNBee's website for more info
Follow GNBee Project on Instagram
Learn how to upload ground nesting bee data to iNaturalist

Regional Meetings -- that's a wrap!

Our spring 2025 regional meetings have concluded. Unlike past meetings, we are making these private going forward. That means these are not posted to YouTube. If you would like to watch your regional meeting, listed below:

North Central
Northeast
South/Southeast
West

Please email Carly and Laura at beecityusa@xerces.org for the recording.

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8 Common Pesticide Questions, Answered

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Have you ever turned to advice from online gardening forums about damage on your garden plants? Chances are, you’ve asked one of these eight common questions about pesticides — and possibly encountered a common myth in response. In this blog, Emily May separates pesticide fact from fiction to help you take a pollinator-first approach to garden management. Read more

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Disaster Relief Funding Available

Was your Bee City or Bee Campus community recently affected by a natural disaster? Bee City USA has limited funding available to assist affiliates in restoring habitat and other pollinator conservation resources destroyed by natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires through its Disaster Relief Project Funding (DRPF).

The purpose of DRPF is to support affiliates in fulfilling the purpose and goals of the Bee City USA initiative.

Deadline: Within 6 months of the natural disaster. (Note: Those affected by Hurricane Helene have a year to to apply)

Funding Amount: Up to $1,000 per applicant Bee City/Campus. Funding will be distributed by reimbursement on the basis of receipts submitted.

Eligible Entities: Bee City USA or Bee Campus USA in good standing

Learn more and apply

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Now Accepting Applicants: Xerces Society Ambassadors

As many of you many know, our parent organization, the Xerces Society relies on the expertise and dedication of a team of trained volunteers. Xerces Ambassadors officially represent Xerces at events across the continent. With a wide geographic reach and a range of valuable skills, they increase our capacity to educate and inspire allies in invertebrate conservation.

If you like to engage with people, have experience with outreach, plus a passion for invertebrate conservation — we need you!

Becoming a Xerces Ambassador requires an an application and interview. We have a limit on the number of people we can accept into the ambassador program. Due to the high volume of interest, we may not be able to accept all applicants into the program at this time.

Learn more and apply to become an Ambassador

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Host a Free Screening of My Garden of a Thousand Bees

You may have seen some beautiful slow-mo video from the documentary My Garden of a Thousand Bees buzzing around social media recently. If you enjoyed those clips, we have some good news: you can screen the film for free!

Back in 2022, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios offered Bee Cities and Campuses a chance to screen the film. We recently checked back in and they said you are still welcome to screen it, even though they are done promoting the film.

With the resurgence on interest on social media, this is a great time to take advantage of this offer and get your community excited about pollinator conservation through this beautiful documentary.

View a clip, watch the full film, and check out our screening toolkit. Enjoy!

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Welcome New Affiliates!

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
North Dakota State University ?Ÿ?‰ Our first affiliate in North Dakota. Our 48th state! ?Ÿ?‰

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The Great SE Pollinator Census is Coming

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The Great Southeast Pollinator Census is coming up August 3-5! Created by the University of Georgia (a Bee Campus), the census now takes place in FIVE states: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Alabama.

Many Bee Cities and Campuses have found the census to be a great activity for individuals and groups -- and it can really help researchers understand the status of our pollinators year-to-year.

GSPC provides resources, many in both Spanish and English:

Insect ID guides
Counting sheets
Video tuorials
Printable "I Counted" stickers (pictured below)
Participation certificates

Learn more at gsepc.org

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Join the Monarch Monitoring Blitz July 25 - Aug 3

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The International Monarch Monitoring Blitz invites community scientists from across North America to come together to protect and conserve the beloved and emblematic monarch butterfly. Data collected by volunteers each year support trinational efforts to better understand the monarch butterfly’s breeding productivity, range, and timing in North America.

We encourage you to promote and join in on this year’s International Monarch Monitoring Blitz from July 25 to August 3!

Media Release:

English: Support Monarch Butterfly Conservation
Español: Conservación de la mariposa monarca
Français : Appuyez la conservation du monarque

Social Media Posts:

English: Facebook, Instagram
Español: Facebook, Instagram
Français: Facebook, Instagram

Learn more about the Blitz

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Upcoming Events

June 6 - Aug 6

Proposal Window Open: Xerces Southern California Residential Habitat Kits

July 19 - July 27

National Moth Week!

July 22 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

Rescheduled!: How Nurseries Can Provide Pollinator-Safe Plants: A Talk with MNL’s Greenhouse Manager

July 25 - Aug 3

International Monarch Monitoring Blitz

July 31 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

Monarchs and Pesticides: Understanding the Risks, Creating High-Quality Habitat

Aug 3 - Aug 9

National Farmers Market Week

Aug 14 @ 10 AM PT / 11 AM MT / 12 PM CT / 1 PM ET

The State of The Bees

Aug 22 - Aug 23

Great Southeast Pollinator Census

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Have a event, funding opportunity, or volunteer opportunity you would like us to promote? Email beecityusa@xerces.org. If you have a Bee City/Campus login: you can add events here.

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