May 17, 2019
In the United States, honey bees and wild bees contribute $20 billion each to agriculture and industries that depend on agriculture, meaning that fewer bees could lead to smaller harvests and increased food prices.
May 14, 2019
Within the past decade, beekeepers across the globe have observed massive declines in managed honey bee populations. Given their critical role in the nation’s agricultural industry, Penn State’s Christina Grozinger and the Center for Pollinator Research are implementing creative approaches to protecting bee populations in Pennsylvania and beyond.
May 7, 2019
Inside this issue: Pollinator Garden of Merit, Outstanding Pollinator Plants, Protecting Pollinators, News from the Center for Pollinator Research and Beescape: An online tool
May 7, 2019
For close to a decade, Jorge Manzo has worked at McCleaf’s Orchard, a fifth-generation family farm near Gettysburg in Adams County, where he is responsible for preparing a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables for market, including a few of his favorites — kiwi, blackberries and raspberries.
May 2, 2019
Each winter Pennsylvania beekeepers lose nearly 50% of their honey bee colonies and several wild bee species are threatened or endangered, reflecting trends around the world.
April 30, 2019
Researchers have discovered a gene that drives color differences within a species of bumble bees. This discovery helps to explain the highly diverse color patterns among bumble bee species as well as how mimicry--individuals in an area adopting similar color patterns--evolves. A study describing the gene, which occurs in a highly conserved region of the genome that provides blueprints for segmentation, was led by researchers at Penn State and appears April 29, 2019, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
April 19, 2019
After years of planning and research by Penn State’s Center for Pollinator Research, a large pollinator garden is set to break ground at the Arboretum in the fall 2019.
April 17, 2019
Undergraduate research aimed at supporting pollinator health is flourishing at Penn State's Center for Pollinator Research, thanks to philanthropic support.
April 17, 2019
Visitors to The Arboretum at Penn State now can explore the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens with the Arboretum's new, interactive Plant Finder.
April 11, 2019
North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) Task Force for Honey Bee Health Selects 2019 Research Projects
April 11, 2019
Penn State’s Christina Grozinger and the Center for Pollinator Research are implementing creative approaches to protecting bee populations in Pennsylvania and beyond.
April 9, 2019
Researchers at Penn State and around the country have come together to create a website that will offer an inside look into the lives of nature’s pollinators.
April 8, 2019
Trying to decide which plants to include in your garden? The USDA-SCRI funded, "Protecting Bees" project has developed a pollinator plant selection tool that lets you search for flowering plant species according to zip code, bloom time, sun exposure, soil moisture levels, and relative attractiveness to different types of pollinators - including flies, which are the second most important group of pollinating insects, after bees!
April 5, 2019
Spring is a busy time of the year for beekeepers as it marks the arrival of bee packages. Package bees have become a staple for beekeepers in North America as more people take up beekeeping as a hobby and overwinter colony losses have increased.
April 3, 2019
A new online tool and community, called Beescape, enables beekeepers, or anyone interested in bees, to understand the specific stressors to which the bees in their managed hives, home gardens or farms are exposed, according to researchers at Penn State.
April 2, 2019
Honeybees play essential roles in pollinating plants that humans and animals rely on for food. Declines in bee populations - including 20 percent of honeybee colonies per year in Indiana - threaten our food supply. Insecticide exposure, loss of flowering plants, and fewer nesting habitats, disease and parasites are all factors.
April 1, 2019
Beescape.org provides a tool for beekeepers, gardeners, growers and land managers to assess the quality of their landscapes for supporting managed honey bees and wild bees. It was developed through a partnership led by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, Center for Pollinator Research and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
February 28, 2019
The “Authentic Plant Pollinator Landscape Research for Educators” workshop, co-hosted by Penn State's colleges of Education and Agricultural Sciences, is slated for June 24-28 at the University Park campus.
February 27, 2019
With insect species declining and agriculturally-important pollinators at risk, it’s important to know what species are present in an area to help protect them. PhD student Shelby Kilpatrick is trying to find out what bees are present in Pennsylvania, and is creating a list that could help with future conservation efforts.
February 25, 2019
This is the 1st of eight short news articles written by students, during the professional development class, about each other's research.
February 21, 2019
Let's catch up this week on some gardening news and interesting tidbits ... Bird and pollinator gardens coming to Penn State
February 7, 2019
The abilities of various bee species to disperse influences the pattern of their population's genetic structure, which, in turn, can constrain how they respond to environmental change, as reported by an international team of researchers.
January 16, 2019
When the temperature drops and the days get shorter, honey bees don’t hibernate—they huddle. Meanwhile, worker bees produced in the fall are plump and have longer lifespans than their spring counterparts. These winterized workers form a “thermoregulatory cluster” around their queen. Powered by honey stores, they shiver their muscles to produce heat, keeping temperatures at the center of the cluster around a comfortable 21 degrees Celsius (C). Still, winter is a stressful time for honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. In the United States around 30 percent of colonies don’t survive until spring.
January 16, 2019
For university scientists and student volunteers, the reality of bee deaths during winter is harsh. Just last year, the Beekeepers Club lost all of its bees to the cold weather, thus slowing its productions and making this year one of rebuilding.
January 8, 2019
A unique teacher professional development experience for middle and high school teachers. June 24th - 28th, 2019
December 5, 2018
Dicamba herbicide drift onto plants growing adjacent to farm fields causes significant delays in flowering, as well as reduced flowering, of those plants, and results in decreased visitation by honey bees, according to researchers at Penn State and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture.
December 3, 2018
Penn State has become the 55th educational institution in the nation to be certified as an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program, designed to marshal the strength of educational campuses for the benefit of pollinators.
October 26, 2018
Penn State’s class of 2019 has chosen as its class gift legacy the Pollinators’ Garden Entry Gate at the Arboretum at Penn State.
October 15, 2018
A club in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is creating quite a buzz around campus.
October 9, 2018
Every fall, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies make their way from the United States and Canada to overwintering sites in Mexico. In recent years, this phenomenal migration is threatened by habitat loss in North America and at their overwintering grounds, so people across the continent have been setting up monarch way stations to help protect this species.
