August 2025 Blog: Meet Our Local Pollinators
Buzz, flutter, bloom! Bees and butterflies are important for our ecosystem because they help grow our native plants and flowers through pollination. Pollination is the process of moving pollen from the male part of a plant to the female part of a plant. Pollination is how plants make seeds, which helps plants grow and gives us food to eat.
Did you know? When a bee or butterfly pollinates, they do not do it on purpose! They’re just trying to get that sweet nectar inside of the flowers. They use their long, straw-like tongue called proboscis to reach the nectar stored at the base of the petals on a flower.
Illinois is home to more than 500 species of bees, including a wide variety of bumble, carpenter, and squash bees! Small but mighty, bees can travel up to 5 miles a day to collect nectar and pack their hind legs, or pollen baskets, full of pollen! Unlike honeybees, which live in hives, most bees are actually solitary. Solitary bees live alone and like to nest in bare soil, dead wood, or plant stems. Bees are drawn to brightly colored flowers, especially blue, purple, and yellow ones!
Fluttering butterflies may not be as effective at pollinating as bees are, but they are still important members of the pollinator team. Illinois is home to about 150 butterfly species, but only around 30 are native to northern Illinois. Painted ladies, spicebush swallowtails, eastern comma, red admirals – just to name a few! These are the butterflies you’re most likely to see living and breeding in our local habitats. Butterflies go through a full metamorphosis: they start out as tiny eggs, hatch into hungry caterpillars, transform into a chrysalis, and then become beautiful butterflies. Adult butterflies love to sip nectar from colorful flowers, but growing caterpillars are much pickier! Caterpillars eat from a specific host plant, which depends on their species. For example, monarch caterpillars eat milkweed while swallowtail caterpillars eat dill.
Without pollinators like bees and butterflies, we wouldn’t have many of the flowers, fruits, and vegetables we enjoy! So, how can we help pollinators?
- Plant a variety of native wildflowers that blossom at different times in a sunny spot – this helps pollinators have food all season long!
- Create a tiny water station using a shallow dish and some pebbles for the bees and butterflies to perch on!
- Try not to use pesticides, or bug sprays, in your garden. Pesticides are made of chemicals that are harmful to pollinators.
If you would like to learn more about bees and butterflies and other pollinators, be sure to check out our Habitat Park exhibit where you can witness pollination in action in the Vegetable Garden or chat with our educators at the Butterfly Tent.
See you at the Museum!
-Jasmine Pichardo, Education Specialist II