For our meeting this fall we are excited that Lindsay Davis will be speaking to us about Hampton Lumber's pilot pollinator habitat enhancement project. When they began the pilot pollinator enhancement program in 2017, there was very little information available about which native bees made use of forest habitat and no substantive information about how post-harvest management might affect bees. Hampton's partners in the conservation and academic community encouraged them to try out different management prescriptions and evaluate their effectiveness.

Over the course of three years (2018-2021) Hampton has treated over 165 acres of recently harvested forestland with different variations of habitat enhancement. Treatments included:

• Sowing seeds of native plants particularly valuable to pollinators, either for food or habitat.

• Creation and maintenance of piles of woody debris to serve as nesting sites.

• Altering woody debris management to increase competitiveness of flowering plants.

• Maintaining small areas of cleared, lightly disturbed top soil for ground nesting species.

• Creation of treatment exclusion zones within the pilot project area for research into the effectiveness of the pilot treatments.

• Doing pre and post-treatment species surveys to provide indications of treatment effectiveness.

Lindsay will be presenting the preliminary results of the project, including how they are providing assistance to other forest landowners interested in improving habitat for pollinators on their properties. For more information see their website https://www.hamptonlumber.com/trees-bees.