When spring and summer flowers bloom, pollinators get to work. In California, where much of the US’s produce is grown, including more than three-quarters of the country’s nuts and fruits and half of its veggies, the work of pollinators is crucial to our food supply.1 In fact, almost a third of the value of California’s agricultural products, including almonds, strawberries, and citrus, rely on pollinators.2 While nonnative honeybees pollinate most of the agricultural industry’s pollinator-dependent crops, native bees, butterflies, and birds do their part locally too.
Spring and summer are ideal seasons to teach kids about the importance of pollinators and how to spot them locally, but some pollinators work year-round. This post describes pollinators’ jobs and where to find them in the Bay Area, turning nearly any trip to the park or down the block into a nature walk and an opportunity to talk about how to help preserve habitat for native pollinators.
Busy Bees
Honeybees are the best-known pollinators, but they are not native to California. However, slow-moving bumblebees, small ultra-green sweat bees, and blackish-blue mason bees can all be found in the Bay Area. Unlike honeybees, which live in large colonies and travel in swarms, most of the 1,600 native species of bees found in California are solitary bees that live in small groups of just a few bees. Honeybees are social but live in groups of only about fifty bees.
How Do Bees Pollinate?
The variety of shapes and sizes of bees mean different bees can pollinate different plants. The smaller, narrower bodies of sweat bees can reach into smaller flowers, while larger bees, like bumblebees, can pollinate larger blooms.
Most bee pollinators are female. When a bee lands on a flower, she is looking for sweet nectar to keep her going on her journey to find food to bring back to the nest. The bee pollinates flowers as she travels. The flower’s pollen, a powdery substance on the stamens, sticks to fuzzier parts of the bee’s body or legs. When she moves, the pollen transfers to the stigma of the flower. In some fruit trees, pollen has to transfer from one tree to another, a process called cross-pollination. When the bee flies to the next flower, some pollen brushes off the bee and onto the new flower. When flowers are pollinated, they move to the next stage in their life cycle, eventually dropping their petals and bearing fruit or seed pods so that the next generation of plants can be produced.
Where and When to Find Them
Bees can be found anywhere flowers are growing! Look closely at planters and pots on windowsills or in gardens on warm spring or summer days, or at flowering trees in parks or on the street. Listen closely, and you might hear bees buzzing!
Native bees can be seen in different seasons, depending on which plants they pollinate:
- Mason bees: Early spring, when fruit trees begin to bloom.3 Look for mason bees where they make their homes, around holes drilled by woodpeckers or in special mason bee houses.
- Bumblebees: Late winter to late fall. Bumblebees forage on many types of flowers and don’t rely on specific flowers for food. Their large bodies and long tongues mean they can reach into flowers before they bloom, making them special all-purpose pollinators.4
- Sweat bees: Early spring to late fall. Ultra-green sweat bees nest in the ground and are sometimes mistaken for flies.
Flitting Butterflies and Moths
Like bees, butterflies and moths land on flowers to feed on for nectar and transfer pollen as they search for food. In the Bay Area, the coastal green hairstreak butterfly and the monarch help pollinate flowers
How Do Butterflies and Moths Pollinate?
Because of their longer, thinner legs, butterflies and moths perch on top of open flowers and are not as good as bees at pollinating, but their movements still help plants.
Where and When to Find Them
Butterflies love brightly colored open flowers in red, yellow, and orange.5 Moths tend to prefer night-blooming flowers with strong scents, though some moths are also active during the daytime. Find them fanning their wings on clusters of flowers that make good landing pads.
- Green hairstreak: Spring. Find green hairstreaks in restored habitats in the Inner Sunset in the Green Hairstreak Corridor.
- Monarch: Late winter. Monarch butterflies can be seen in the Bay Area around butterfly habitats like Strawberry Hill. An excellent annual viewing spot is the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary, close to Monterey.
Hovering Hummingbirds
Speedy, tiny, and shiny, hummingbirds may resemble large dragonflies when they’re in motion. But look closely, and you’ll see that these fast-moving creatures with buzzy wings are small birds with long, skinny bills specially shaped to reach nectar in long, thin flowers. Native to the United States, Anna’s hummingbirds can be found in the Bay Area year-round. Females are light green, while males have darker heads with reddish-pink throats.
How Do Hummingbirds Pollinate?
Like bees and butterflies, hummingbirds help pollinate on their search for nectar. Pollen grains stick to the birds’ feathers and brush off onto the next flower.
Where and When to Find Them
Year-round. Because flowers are abundant in the Bay Area, Anna’s hummingbirds don’t need to migrate. Look for them at hummingbird feeders, or visit Golden Gate Park, Alamo Square Park, and the Presidio to see them in action.
How to Protect Pollinators
Butterflies, moths, bees, and birds (and even some bats!) all pollinate, playing important roles in plants’ life cycles. They help farmers grow food and keep our urban areas biodiverse. But shrinking habitats, climate change, and pesticides mean many pollinators are in trouble, including the monarch butterfly.
What can you do to help? Here are some kid-friendly activities to help pollinators thrive in your
neighborhood and beyond:
- Plant native flowers. Whether you have a balcony, just a window box, or a plot in a community garden, growing pollinator-friendly native plants can help. Try California poppy, hummingbird sage, or yarrow and see who visits!
- Seek out local pesticide-free or organic produce. California is well known for its amazing produce. Teaching kids to eat what’s in season and choosing food that’s grown without pesticides can help them build awareness about how their choices affect native pollinators.
If the science of pollinators piqued your kid’s interest in the natural world, sign them up for more STEM-based activities at STEMful to engage their curiosity during the upcoming school year and beyond.
Footnotes:
1. “California Agricultural Production Statistics,” California Department of Food and Agriculture, accessed June 9, 2026, https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/.
2. “Pollinator Week Wrap-Up: Just How Important Are Pollinators?,” California Department of Food and Agriculture, Planting Seeds Blog, June 23, 2023, https://plantingseedsblog.cdfa.ca.gov/wordpress/index.php/2023/06/23/pollinator-week-wrap-up-just-how-important-are-pollinators/.
3. “Mason Bees,” University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, The Real Dirt (blog), February 16, 2024, https://ucanr.edu/blog/real-dirt/article/mason-bees.
4. “About Bumble Bees,” Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, accessed June 9, 2026, https://xerces.org/bumble-bees/about.
5. “Butterfly Pollination,” US Forest Service, accessed June 9, 2026, https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/animals/butterflies.shtml.
6. “9 Pollinator-Friendly Plants,” SF Environment, accessed June 9, 2026, https://www.sfenvironment.org/sites/default/files/fliers/files/sfe_bd_pollinatorplantlist9_85x11_web.pdf.