Minnesota Will Pay Homeowners to Create Bee-Friendly Lawns

Would you agree to grow your lawn with plants and flowers that attracted bees? I would consider this if someone paid me to do it! We have a lot of clover and tons of dandelions that come around every year which inherently helps attract bees and it's fairly low maintenance.

The Star Tribune reported the state of Minnesota will help homeowners turn their lawns into bee-friendly habitat under a spending plan approved by the Legislature and sent this week to Gov. Tim Walz.

"The state will set aside $900,000 over one year to assist homeowners by covering much of the cost of converting traditional lawns by planting wildflowers, clover and native grasses in an effort to slow the collapse of the state's bee population."

The rusty patched bumblebee is the focus of this campaign. It was formally listed as endangered in March 2017. The hope is that the wildflowers like Clover will attract and help this specific bee. Mother Nature Network hopes this program will be in place in 2020. The story also reports that these critters have suffered an 87 percent decline in population.

"The fuzzy, striped critters have suffered an 87% decline in population since the mid-1990s due to factors such as climate change, pesticide exposure, habitat loss, population fragmentation and diseases transmitted from infected commercial domesticated honeybees."

A fun fact about "bee lawns" is that yards that have been seeded with small common flowers such as Dutch white clover, creeping thyme, self-heal, ground plum and dandelions to grow up along with grass have proved to be an excellent food source for bees while being cheap to plant and maintain. Are you in?  

Would you agree to do this? Please leave a comment below!

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