As the weather gets warmer pollinators are coming out. Some people are trying to help them thrive by not cutting their grass for the entire month - letting dandelions and flowers grow - which especially helps out bees. 

“The bees need the nectar and the pollen from different flowers and they take it back to the hive and they make bee bread and that’s what they feed the young babies,” Bruce Deafenbaugh, President, Columbiana Mahoning County Beekeepers Association said.  

When the bees are done pollinating the bloom of the dandelion starts closing and that's when mowing is a good idea.

“The bees have already pollinated it so they got their nectar and pollen from it so this was its okay to mow it down,” Deafenbaugh said about closed dandelions. 

Experts at the Ohio State University Extension Office in Mahoning County said it's not a bad idea to participate in no mow may but it can come with some problems. High grass can attract more mosquitoes and more ticks. The problems can continue after the first mow in a long time becuase a significant amount of grass clippings can cause problems for the yard.

“You create more open areas, you create more ground and if it becomes really hot in June then nothing's going to germinate there. It’s going to be dry. We don’t have that humidity and moisture for a lot of insects to live in the soil in those areas,” Eric Barrett, Extension Educator at the Ohio State University Extension Office said. 

Instead of not mowing, Barrett said the better option is to manage your turf well and plant a pollinator garden.

Pollination gardens have a mix of native and other diverse plants in a plot to provide more food and habitat for the pollinators. 

“It's really thinking about ‘what can I do to plant different diversity in my landscape, even if I want a perfect landscape, so that I can attract different pollinators throughout the year?’” Barrett said.  

Barrett said anything we can do to help pollinators is going to help us as humans. 

“Pollinators are good for every living thing, he said. “You can see a lot of things falling off the oak tree right now that's part of the reproductive system of that oak tree and those pollinators help produce those acorns which then feed wild life that then maybe feeds us or other parts of the ecosystem.”