Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. More than 3,500 species of native bees help increase crop yields. Some scientists estimate that one out of every three bites of food we eat exists because of animal pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths, birds and bats, and beetles and other insects.
In Montana, native and nonnative pollinators such as native bees, honey bees, beetles, flies, moths, and butterflies forage on almost 40 agricultural crop species grown in Montana. Montana is also one of the top honey-producing states in the nation.
Creating and Enhancing Habitat for Pollinator Insects NRCS Montana Biology Technical Note MT-20 Rev. 9, December 2018 (PDF; 594 KB) This document is needed for planning EQIP and CSP pollinator plantings in Montana. It provides a list of suitable pollinator plant species for Montana, their bloom period, and their standard seeding rates.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service