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The Bees of Rushton Farm: A Pollinator Perspective on Willistown Conservation Trust & Environmental Education

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One Sunny midsummer day in 2012 on Rushton Farm, the bees decided to swarm. Noah, a certified apiarist–and the sustainable gardening manager teaching our cohort agro-ecology best practices–knew exactly what to do, and quickly sprang into action. He was able to quickly and safely locate the queen bee and remove the correct branch the swarm had formed on. It was a quick and mesmerizing event that created a lasting memory for all us interns and students who were there for the swarm…and then it was back to tending the row crops we were growing for the community supported agriculture (CSA) and food donations. It was a unique and fun way to work and learn, and an experience that would only have been possible due to the efforts of the Trust to not only create and restore the 6-acre sustainable farm but to make it accessible to us city dwellers and students that would have otherwise never known what existed beyond the hedgerows.

This experience reminded me of a time growing up in the Midwest. While playing outside in my backyard on a south facing slope, I discovered bees entering and exiting a nickel sized hole in the ground. Curious to see what they were doing, I went inside and got a jar. Then I put the jar over the hole, and for about 5 stings worth of time, or 20 minutes or so, I could study the bees. This event, like the swarm at Rushton, created an indelible and memorable window of observation that I would forever remember. As the interns and I worked with the staff and hosted student groups at the farm, I could not help but be reminded how such events can make a lasting and meaningful impact on young people as they begin to explore their natural world and make ecological connections. 

As my internship progressed as part of the Penn MES program, the opportunity to study bees, and specifically native pollinators, arose. Working with Lisa Kiziuk and Fred de Long, I was able to reach out to bee expert Sam Droege from the Beltsville, MD bee lab. He assisted me with designing a baseline pollinator survey, told me where to get the glycol for the pan traps (painted yellow, blue and white solo cups with PVC holders) I would hand make and deploy in three areas around the farm, and even where to get the specimen collection bags and how to store the specimens for later ID (which Sam’s lab and interns there performed). 

I would soon conclude my field research at Rushton after collecting the specimens from the pan traps throughout the summer and sending them to the Bee lab for ID. Thanks to the sustainable farming practices, focus on native plantings and abundant open space, we were able to identify 49 unique species of bees at Rushton Farm.

My capstone project at Penn would focus on deadly and pervasive insecticides and crop protection products called Neonicotinoids–which are used as seed treatments on over 95% of corn and soy planted in the U.S–and which were not used anywhere on Rushton Farm. At the end of 2012, after all the Rushton farm crops had been sustainably grown and harvested, I published “The Producer Pollinator Dilemma: Neonicotinoids and Honeybee Colony Collapse.” This project was the most in-depth project I’d taken on to date, and it began with “The Bees of Rushton Farm, A Pollinator Perspective on Sustainable Agriculture,” which was the independent project preceding the capstone, and where we published our baseline pollinator survey with the native pollinators we observed and collected in and around the farm that summer.

What began as a summer internship spurred a lifelong academic and ecological interest in native bees, agro-ecology, and how we can all work together to restore our land with an optimal mix of wildflowers, native grasses, and sedges. This is how the PollinatorPatch nonprofit campaign to restore One Million Acres, One Backyard Patch at a time, soon evolved from my new job with Applied Ecological Services as part of the large scale Restoration Field Crew in the Midwest, and then Project Manager for the Wetland Reserve Program in Iowa, in conjunction with the NRCS and State DNR.

It was during these projects and assignments that I realized a pollinator optimized seed mix was needed, by eco-region, and bloom period, and with more than the CP42 standard of 9 forbs (3 in each bloom period). On Earth Day in 2015 PollinatorPatch.com was launched to offer folks the best available 30+ species seed mix for their backyard and to show them why it’s important to help the bees, just like Noah did that one sunny midsummer day on Rushton Farm when the bees swarmed. 

This past summer the entire experience came full circle when Monarch Joint Venture conducted a vegetation survey to see what native plants and wildflowers particularly were in bloom from a pollinator-optimized seed mix in the 3rd year of maturation.

“Everything is everything,” and we are all connected on our planet and by our collective actions. Small events can lead to bigger learning experiences and the unique and memorable outdoor education offered at Rushton is invaluable and makes bigger impacts in time thanks to the work of the Willistown Conservation Trust and its dedicated team.

Ben Reynard | was an Intern at Willistown Conservation Trust’s Rushton Farm in 2012. After earning a Masters’s degree in Environmental Studies at Penn, Ben went on to work for Applied Ecological Services as an Ecosystem Restoration Supervisor. Additionally, he has launched the nonprofit, Pollinator Patch to restore backyard habitat. Ben is father to a three year old son and is restoring a 3-acre goat prairie and an 1850’s pioneer cabin he hopes to make into an eco-home for his son to learn eco-homesteading and ecological restoration. To learn more about Ben and his path visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-reynard-03a4b358/ or https://www.lps.upenn.edu/degree-programs/mes/community/0514.

From Tops of Trees to the Base of the Food Chain

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There is a chill in the air and the leaves are starting to turn, signaling that fall is here! Have you ever wondered what happens to the leaves that fall every autumn?  When the trees shed their leaves, the leaves continue to play an important role in the environment. They fall onto the land and return the nutrients back into the soil or blow into streams, where they are vital in sustaining our freshwater ecosystems through winter months.  As the leaves gather in our waterways, they get caught on rocks and on sticks and form masses called leaf packs.

Leaf packs are so much more than just bundles of leaves and sticks. They are nutrient rich pockets in the stream that provide cover and food for a wide diversity of stream insects. Raw leaves that enter the stream are hard to for insect larvae to eat, and need to be broken down before they can be consumed.  When leaves enter the waterway, they quickly become coated in a slimy biofilm, a name for a collection of algae, fungi and bacteria, which work quickly to condition leaves and turn them into a more palatable meal for macroinvertebrates. Some insects, like stoneflies, prefer to scrape the biofilm off of the leaves while others, like mayflies enjoy eating the leaf itself! As the leaf is broken down by the biofilm or shredded by insects, nutrients get carried downstream by flowing water and provide sustenance for other parts of the stream. Insects like caddisflies, live just downstream of the leaf packs and collect the floating leaf particles to eat.

Aquatic insects are a discerning group of organisms, and have preferences in what leaves they consume. Just as you and I may not order type of food at a restaurant, not all insects will prefer the same leaves! It has been documented that stream insects prefer native plants to non-native plants, and most insects studied have preferred types of native plants. It is important to have a diverse community of trees and shrubs along our waterways to provide a variety of leaves every fall to feed the aquatic community.

Leaf packs sustain a variety of insects throughout the winter months, and the annual addition of leaves into our headwater streams is critical for the health and survival of the aquatic ecosystem. These leaves feed the insects at the base of the food chain, which in turn feeds the many fishes, birds and mammals that rely on streams to survive.  We can be good stream stewards by planting a diverse community of native trees and shrubs along waterways and leave leaves where they fall to allow the nutrients to be reincorporated into the ecosystem to sustain another generation of life!

You can learn more about leaf packs from our friends at Stroud Water Research Center here!

Stonefly larvae are scrapers or grazers and eat the biofilm off of leave.
Predators exist wherever there is prey!  This dragonfly larva hunts the shredders and grazers in and around the leaf pack, and nutrients from the leaves are transformed up the food chain.

Mayfly larvae are shredders, and prefer to eat leaves which have been conditioned by biofilm.
Leaf packs gathering in Okehocking Run at Rushton Preserve.

Trails Workshops (Part 1 & 2)

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Do you love trails? We do! Willistown Conservation Trust is offering virtual trails workshops! Hosted by Andrew Kirkpatrick, Director of Stewardship and Mike Cranney, Preserve Manager, they’ll be discussing trail planning, construction, and maintenance. Learn more about materials, tools, and demonstrations of techniques like bog bridge construction, turnpikes, grade reversals and how to handle wet spots on trails. 

This workshop is funded in part by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Pennsylvania Recreational Trails Program funded through the Federal Highway Administration. 

Trails Workshop: Part 1 | Trail Materials

Trails Workshop: Part 1 | Trail Tools

Trails Workshop: Part 2 | Turnpike

Trails Workshop: Part 2 | Bog Bridges

Videos created by Sophia Gross, Communications & Marketing Intern.

Mapping the Ashbridge Tree Planting

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The most important part of a tree planting usually comes after the trees are in the ground.  Recently planted trees can not be left unattended or else they will be out-competed by invasive plants or eaten by deer. Consistent tree maintenance is crucial to the survival of a young tree until it can get established in its new environment. For a tree planting in a rural setting, like the recent planting at Ashbridge Lake, maintenance includes weeding, mowing, pruning, and replacing tree tubes to keep deer from damaging the trees. Performing all of this maintenance on a tree planting with close to 1,000 trees can get complicated. Fortunately, we can use technology like a geographic information system (GIS) to help us organize tree maintenance and keep track of every tree on a site. 

Over this past summer the Watershed Protection Team did exactly that. Using software from ArcGIS, our team mapped every tree that was planted over the last two years at the Ashbridge Lake site in Ashbridge Preserve. That is a total of 691 trees with a few hundred more set to be planted sometime in 2021. We collected the latitude and longitude of every tree and recorded the species, size, health, and date each tree was planted. We also recorded the last time each tree was maintained.  All of this data was compiled and each tree was represented with a point to create the maps shown below.

  • Trees planted at Ashbridge Lake on both banks of Ridley Creek and along the Ridley Creek Loop trail. Each color represents one of the 29 different species planted. 
  • The health of each tree was broken down into four different categories.

In addition to creating a visualization of all of the trees planted along Ridley Creek these maps create a database of information on all of our trees. Keeping track of when each tree was last maintained will help us create a streamlined maintenance system. Data on health helps us monitor the success of the tree planting and look for any unresolved problems in the planting site like areas with poor soil or frequent flooding. Measuring the size of each tree will allow us to look at growth rates to see which species are best suited for our site. All of this information is very valuable when planning for the next stage of planting at this site or for scoping out other sites that need to be reforested. 

The goal of the tree planting at Ashbridge Lake is to restore the riparian buffer along the creek which will provide habitat and food for native wildlife while improving the water quality of the stream. To achieve these goals it is necessary that as many trees as possible reach full maturity. Creating a tree map to help organize a maintenance plan and collect detailed information on each tree is one tool we can use to assure our tree planting reaches its fullest potential as soon as possible. 

This tree planting was made possible by generous funding provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and TreeVitalize. See below for the full interactive map and list of species.

View larger map

EVAN HUNT joined the team as a Conservation Associate in January. Evan Hunt is a native of southeastern Pennsylvania and graduated from Ursinus College in 2018 with a BA in Environmental Studies. Since then, he has worked on a number of riparian buffer restoration projects and become well-versed in native plant identification.

Legacy of the Land: A History of Land Conservation in Willistown

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Trust’s Executive Director and co-founder Bonnie Van Alen, co-founder Alice Hausmann, and Director of Land Protection Erik Hetzel, discuss the history of land protection in our region. Bonnie, Alice, and Erik explore the history of our land and early days of conservation, including the founding of Willistown Conservation Trust. You will also learn more about conservation easements that have helped lead to the protection of more than 7,500 acres in the Willistown region, and ways you can contribute to land conservation in your own backyard.