Katelyn Wilburn, Campus Carrier opinions editor

The temperatures are dropping, apple cider is on our minds and it is officially pumpkin-carving season; fall, what a beautiful time of year. We all know how beautiful Berry becomes, the green chlorophyll leaving the trees with the cool breeze, and the season of fall painting the campus with fiery colors. The leaves will fall around us in a delicate manner, then make their way to their previous home’s roots. 

With so many trees surrounding our campus, there are countless autumn mornings I walk from Ford and bear witness to the landscaping crew, using their leaf blowers and their rakes to maintain an aesthetically pleasing lawn. 

Although there are other problems with this, such as the coughing fits I succumb to when breathing in the dust, perfect sidewalks are detrimental to one of nature’s kindest creatures: bees. Solitary bees and queen bumblebees hibernate within the fallen leaves during our cold seasons, snuggling inside to warm their small bodies for higher chances of survival. Blowing away leaves give bees a decreased likelihood of survival on main campus, ultimately negatively impacting the bee population. By adjusting our landscaping procedure, Berry can retain the romantic beauty of autumn along with preserving the small creatures the benefit our ecosystem. 

The Conservation Foundation said, “queen bumble bees bury themselves an inch or two into the earth to survive the winter. Fallen leaves form a layer of insulation over them.” When the cold fronts hit, the queen bee roams off by herself to find safe ground to snuggle up in for the winter, taking with her the ability to produce more bees for future increases in population. This is when they reduce their metabolisms and survive strictly off fat for the winter. Imagine how difficult it would be for you to fall asleep without any blankets in weather below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This is what we force bees to do when blowing away their leafy blankets. 

But, if you can’t imagine why the comfort of our precious pollinators is important, here is another perspective. “More than 8% of the world’s flowering plants need a pollinator to reproduce; we need pollinators too, since most of our food comes from flowering plants,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Along with this, there are more than 4,000 bee species pollinating in the United States. So, bees are the ones that pollinate our precious pumpkins for carving, our apples for apple cider and many other plants that bring us the nostalgic beauty of fall. 

Now, understandably, we can’t have all of Berry overtaken by leaves. There needs to be some leaf blowing, no matter how annoying I find it to be, to maintain functionality on campus. However, pollinators depend on us just as much as we depend on them, and there are ways we can maintain Berry’s needs while protecting these precious insects. Instead of just blowing the leaves completely away or turning them into shreds with a lawnmower, make purposeful piles for our small friends. Everyone deserves a home, no matter how small they might seem.