Seattle is a Bee City-one of 70 in the nation that promote strategies to expand habitat for native pollinators. Pollinators, don’t forget, do all the real work towards feeding the planet. No fruit without the bee.

As Joe Strummer sang, “you want to get the honey, don’t go killing all the bees.”

Honeybees are in decline. You’ve heard, yes. But it turns out a lot of the pollination humans depend on comes not from the bee in the hive, but from the sweat bee nesting in a bare patch of soil in the corner of the field. Or your yard.

Pollinator Week, June 18-24 celebrates all the little-known pollinators. Even Congress is part of the accolades, designating Pollinator Week 11 years ago.

The Rainier Arts Center is the site of a symposium on Tuesday June 197h, 2018, 7 pm as part of Pollinator Week. It is presented by Town Hall Seattle and Common Acre, a non-profit linking people and the land through art and ecology. Scientists and citizens who want to learn how to save the native bees and bugs and flies that are critical to our food supply will mingle and share ideas.

Raymond Williams is one of the speakers. He is a science teacher. He helped form the Black Farmers Collective. They are developing Yes Farms, a community farm being built at the Seattle public housing development, Yesler Terrace .

Allison Rinard is one of the organizers. She is Executive Director of the artists and farmer non-profit Common Acre. In 2013 they partnered with the Port of Seattle to provide bee habitat at Sea-Tac airport.

She also helps steer the urban farming collective Alley Cat Acres.

Both look at this specific ecological crisis through a social justice lens. They both argue that thriving urban farms can rebuild ecological systems and offer communities economic and social opportunities. We met at Town Hall Seattle’s office, smack dab in the core of the urban center.