It’s June, and both flora and fauna are in full swing. This month, we focus on native plants and pollinators, which are intertwined because each needs the other to survive.
The library tends a pollinator garden in the back, off the reading patio, and other pollinator-friendly flowers grow in our outdoor garden off the lower level (Enjoy the garden while you take in a little Shakespeare on June 18).
Your garden is probably under way, but there’s still time to make adjustments that will support native plants, butterflies, bees and other nature friends. On June 16, the folks from ReWild Long Island will be here to help you figure out what will work in your yard, whether it’s sunny or shady, wet or dry (See Sustainable Pollinator Garden Plan). On June 23, you can honor the butterfly by painting one on a glass (see Butterfly Wine Glasses).
On June 26, children can learn about the life cycle of butterflies and build a butterfly house (Beautiful Butterfly Houses). Teens can get a lesson on honey and learn about the pollinators that make it, then enjoy some honey snacks (see Sweet as Honey!).
If you wish to go farther afield, Caumsett State Park in Lloyd Harbor is home to the only known breeding colony of the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly on all of Long Island. The park also features several pollinator gardens and maintains a pollinator census database.
You can also visit https://www.pollinator-pathway.org/towns/huntington to see the location of other pollinator and native plant gardens in the area, including Gateway Park in Huntington Station and at the Greenlawn train station. To learn how you can support pollinators in your yard, visit Cornell Cooperative Extension at https://ccesuffolk.org/.
Blog Posts
Hive Talk: A Conversation with a Master Beekeeper
A certified Master Beekeeper buzzed into our library ready to chat about bees, pollinators and gardening. June highlights pollinators and native plants for our year-long sustainability challenge. This month a professional in the apiculture field was interviewed to provide you, our patrons ...
Upcoming Events
Get into the holiday spirit with our festive Holiday Wrap Party!
Join designer Elizabeth and learn how to create these sweet giving cards or tags inspired by nature.
Tweens and Teens are invited to drop into the YA Library to play on a variety of video gaming systems setup with preselected games. This will not be a quiet library night! No registration required.
Help us bring attention to cat and kitten adoption by decorating a tote bag for a new cat owner. Make one tote and earn a maximum of one hour of community service. For SHPL cardholders in grades 6-12. No registration required.
Are you providing care for someone with Alzheimer's Disease or another dementia? You DO NOT have to meet the challenges alone! Join the Alzheimer's Disease Resource Center (ADRC) for their monthly caregiver support group.
Recommended Reads
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The Graphic Guide to Beekeeping
A visual approach to beekeeping, with thousands of detailed illustrations to help you understand what makes a successful hive.
Add some visual zing to your new beekeeping hobby with this graphic guide. These fully illustrated pages, perfect for visual learners, offer you complete, easy-to-understand whys and how-tos on every aspect of beekeeping, plus an entertaining approach.
Thousands of detailed line drawings teach all you need to succeed with beekeeping, whether your goal is honey, beeswax, a backyard adventure, plant pollination, or all of the above. They let you peer closely at the bees' world, in terms of seeing their anatomy, close-ups of their food sources, and the microscopic world in the hive.
This book covers topics such as choosing location, equipment, the best hive types, bee types, the beekeeping year and its tasks, keeping a healthy hive (or dozens), what to do when something goes wrong, how to harvest and process your honey, pollen, propolis, wax, and royal jelly, and more. -
Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife
From renowned National Wildlife Federation naturalist and TV host David Mizejewski comes a new book to show you how to create a magical ecosystem right in your backyard! Invite beautiful songbirds, colorful butterflies, buzzing bees and other fascinating wildlife by nurturing a wildlife habitat garden. With more than 200 high-quality photographs, lists of the best native plants to support wildlife and 17 gardening projects the whole family can enjoy, from building bird houses to creating garden ponds, Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife, Expanded Second Edition is a must-have resource for nature enthusiasts, gardeners, and animal lovers.
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The Bee-Friendly Garden
For every gardener who cares about the planet, this guide to designing a bee garden helps you create a stunningly colorful, vibrant, healthy habitat that attracts both honeybees and native bees.
In The Bee-Friendly Garden, award-winning garden designer Kate Frey and bee expert Gretchen LeBuhn provide everything you need to know to create a dazzling garden that helps both the threatened honeybee and our own native bees. No matter how small or large your space, and regardless of whether you live in the city, suburbs, or country, just a few simple changes to your garden can fight the effects of colony collapse disorder and the worldwide decline in bee population that threatens our global food chain. There are many personal benefits of having a bee garden as well! Bee gardens:
· contain a gorgeous variety of flowers
· bloom continuously throughout the seasons
· are organic, pesticide-free, and ecologically sustainable
· develop healthy and fertile soil
· attract birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects
· increase the quantity of your fruit and vegetable harvest
· improve the quality, flavor, and size of your produce
Illustrated with spectacular full-color photos, The Bee-Friendly Garden debunks myths about bees, explains seasonal flower progression, and provides detailed instructions for nest boxes and water features. From “super blooming” flowers to regional plant lists and plants to avoid, The Bee-Friendly Garden is an essential tool for every gardener who cares about the planet and wants to make their yard a welcoming habitat for nature’s most productive pollinator. -
100 Plants to Feed the Bees
The international bee crisis is threatening our global food supply, but this user-friendly field guide shows what you can do to help protect our pollinators. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers browsable profiles of 100 common flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees that support bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. The recommendations are simple: pick the right plants for pollinators, protect them from pesticides, and provide abundant blooms throughout the growing season by mixing perennials with herbs and annuals! 100 Plants to Feed the Bees will empower homeowners, landscapers, apartment dwellers — anyone with a scrap of yard or a window box — to protect our pollinators.
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Beginning Beekeeping
Learn everything you need to know to start your colony with this straightforward, highly visual guide for beginning beekeepers.
Featuring more than 120 color photos, Beginning Beekeeping will teach any beginner how to foster and maintain healthy, vibrant colonies. You’ll learn how to set up a colony and attract bees, how to incorporate best practices and techniques for keeping colonies strong, and how to troubleshoot and treat a broad range of common hive issues. Along the way, you’ll learn how to harvest your honey and keep your bees healthy and happy.
Included in Beginning Beekeeping:
· Practical information on how a hive works, how and where to set up hives for maximum success, buying and installing bees, feeding bees, and more, with recommendations for both urban and rural settings
· Effective treatment recommendations for dealing with common hive pests and diseases including mites, foulbrood, and colony collapse disorder (CCD), with recommendations for both conventional and organic treatments
· Tips for dealing with common hive issues such as swarming, robbing, absconding, as well as guidance for managing aggressive hives and tips for keeping a queenright colony
· Instructions for enjoying rich, bountiful honey harvests, and instructions for processing and storing the honey and wax from your hives, as well how to make products from your harvest
· Seasonal guidance to ensure your hives return healthy and strong each and every year
If you’re new to beekeeping, Beginning Beekeeping is the perfect companion to get you started!
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Honeybee
Robert F. Sibert Medal Winner
Take to the sky with Apis, one honeybee, as she embarks on her journey through life!
An Orbis Pictus Honor Book
Selected for the Texas Bluebonnnet Master List
Finalist for the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books
A tiny honeybee emerges through the wax cap of her cell. Driven to protect and take care of her hive, she cleans the nursery and feeds the larvae and the queen. But is she strong enough to fly? Not yet!
Apis builds wax comb to store honey, and transfers pollen from other bees into the storage. She defends the hive from invaders. And finally, she begins her new life as an adventurer.
The confining walls of the hive fall away as Apis takes to the air, finally free, in a brilliant double-gatefold illustration where the clear blue sky is full of promise-- and the wings of dozens of honeybees, heading out in search of nectar to bring back to the hive.
Eric Rohmann's exquisitely detailed illustrations bring the great outdoors into your hands in this poetically written tribute to the hardworking honeybee. Award-winning author Candace Fleming describes the life cycle of the honeybee in accessible, beautiful language. Similar in form and concept to the Sibert and Orbis Pictus award book Giant Squid, Honeybee also features a stunning gatefold and an essay on the plight of honeybees.
Cook Prize Honor Book
A Kids' Book Choice Award Finalist
An American Library Association Notable Children’s Book
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, NPR, Shelf Awareness, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly and more!
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book of the Year
A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year!
A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon Book
A Booklist Editor's Choice
Named to the Texas Topaz Reading List
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection -
Beekeeping
More and more people, including teens, are discovering the pleasures and rewards of keeping honeybees. In addition to the sweet honey they produce, bees are critical for pollinating many plants and food crops. In this entertaining and enlightening title, the author first provides general information about bees and how honeybee societies work. A how-to guide on the art of beekeeping follows, with information on gathering the necessary clothing and equipment, setting up and caring for a hive, and harvesting honey. Threats to honeybee health and survival, which have become an important environmental issue, are also addressed. After a taste of this fascinating hobby, teens can decide if they're ready to enter the world of beekeeping!
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The Way of the Hive
"A wonderful graphic novel."--Neil Gaiman
Experience the life of a honeybee in this coming-of-age story about a bee named Nyuki, in this full-color graphic novel by Jay Hosler, perfect for curious kids who are fans of the Science Comics series.
Nyuki is a brand-new honeybee--and she has a lot of questions. Like:
- When does a bee go through metamorphosis
- Why does a queen bee sometimes leave her hive
- And where does all this honey come from, anyway!
But Nyuki's biggest question is, "What is this inner voice I hear, and why does it tell me to go forth to adventure
Follow Nyuki on a lifelong journey as she annoys her sisters, avoids predators, and learns to trust her inner voice as she masters the way of the hive.
And if you still have questions at the end, the back of the book uncovers even more mysteries about the lives of these incredible insects!
- Junior Library Guild Selection
- Kirkus Reviews Best Books
- Evanston Public Library's Blueberry List
- Black-Eyed Susan Book Award nomination
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If Bees Disappeared
What would happen if bees disappeared? Find out in this fourth book from Lily Williams in the award-winning If Animals Disappeared Series that imagines the consequences of a world without bees.
The rolling hills and lush climate of Kent, England are home to many creatures.
These creatures are fluffy, sneaky, spikey, and ... small, like the bee.
Though bees are small, their importance is BIG. Today there are over 250,000 species of bees but all of them are in danger. Because of disease, pesticide exposure, lack of foraging habitats, and poor nutrition, entire honey bee hives are dying.
What would happen if bees disappeared completely?
Artist Lily Williams explores how such a loss would effect not just bees' environment, but the world as a whole in this poignant, beautiful book about the importance of our most important bees. -
Honey Bee (Young Zoologist)
Journey into a beehive to study honey bees in this beautiful nonfiction field guide for kids.
You might know that honey bees dance to let each other know where to find the best flowers, but there’s so much more to learn about these important insects! Turn the pages to discover the difference between the queen bee and worker bees, and how honey bees actually make honey. Filled with simple science and plenty of animal facts, this book also explains how scientists work as beekeepers to study honey bees, and how every bee in the hive works towards the same cause. It also looks at the conservation challenges these iconic animals face due to climate change and insecticides.
Written by bee expert Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu and featuring stunning illustrations by Astrid Weguelin, Honey Bee (Young Zoologist) is part of an exciting series of animal books from Neon Squid aiming to inspire the next generation of biologists and conservationists.
Also available: Humpback Whale, Giant Panda, African Elephant, Emperor Penguin, Koala