Ruud Kleinpaste: No-Mow November, December, January

Saturday Morning with Jack Tame

No-Mow November started a few weeks ago. For me it started on the grounds of Tekapo Primary School, where we had a decent discussion about pollinators… especially bumblebees!

Mating season!

The kids love bumblebees! They are gentle and very active – even in the coldest months of the year. They can warm themselves up through wing-beating action while having the wings set to “neutral”.

I told the kids that we have four different species of Bumblebee in New Zealand – all four imported from the UK (in the 1800s), to help with the pollination of plants, crops and trees from all sorts of parts of the world. Mostly to do with the various lengths of their tongues, which pollinate different sized flowers.

Three of the four species are quite easy to find in New Zealand, but the fourth (the short-haired Bumblebee – Bombus subterraneus) is quite rare. It occurs largely in the Mackenzie country and in a few patches of inland of Otago.

When I told the kids that Tekapo Region is where they are found every now and then, the kids pricked up their ears. They wanted to know what it looks like and what sort of flowering plants it gets its nectar and pollen from.

But when I revealed that this bumblebee is now considered extinct in the UK, the interest grew a notch or two. And so did the development of serious questions…

Can we grow the favourite plants in the school grounds? Could we raise their population density in the Tekapo area? And if that is successful: can we ship some fertile queens back to the UK to translocate them to their country and habitat of origin?

A few weeks ago we dug some gardens on the edge of the school grounds and playing field. We sowed some seeds – lots of seeds, provided by the New Zealand Bumblebee Conservation Trust and specialist seed merchants such as Kings Seeds.

Most Gardeners will know these names… Wild Flower World and Geoff and Liz Brunsden… there was an army of support

Zonda sent them a live Bumblebee hive, just to get the kids completely engaged with the Bumbles and the Bees, in anticipation of luring this rare species back to the Mackenzie country – HeadQuarters: Tekapo Primary school!

The Zonda Live BumbleBee hive – my goodness they really have a go at pollinating tomatoes!

The kids learned how to get rid of weeds, fertilise the soil and sow the seeds in patches for the future of these pollinators. There was talk about creating a huge edge around the Sports Field where the grass would be taken off the field and replaced by a colourful melange of flowering plants for the bumble bee whanau.

Now, THAT reminded me of the No-Mow-November we talked about many times before: A monocultural grassland replaced by a colourful meadow of wildflowers for our nectar and pollen eating invertebrates!

There’s even a list of students signing up for the watering duty during the summer Holidays…

I bet Simon (the principal), Maria, Libby, Angela, and Jane will be chuffed.

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