National Pollinator Week

June 17-23, 2013

In honor of National Pollinator Week, we are highlighting some of the issues affecting honeybees and other pollinators here, and we will be hosting a Pollinator Awareness “Meet & Greet” on Friday, June 21st. For more information about this event, please go here: Meet & Greet. And for other great Pollinator information, read on!

The Pollinator Partnership is largely responsible for the work behind National Pollinator Week. Here is some background information about this important group:

The Pollinator Partnership (P2) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California. P2 works to protect the health of managed and native pollinating animals vital to our North American ecosystems and agriculture. For more about the mission & message this organization is promoting, please visit their site here.

The CALS Office of Sustainability Programs’ Pollinator Health Initiative, launched last year, is working with researchers in the academic community to support pollinator health issues in the community. Our hope is through research and extension we are able to make some definitive strides in minimizing winter losses and  helping the bee survive. One-third of everything you eat is either a pollinator crop, or survives by the work of pollinators. As of right now, the losses beekeepers are having to replace is not sustainable. So without the intervention of the agriculture community, the bees will be gone. The Pollinator Health Initiative aims to combat this with the support of organizations who have also recognized this urgency and want to partner with CALS to pursue research in this field.

NC State’s Apiculture Program in the College of Ag & Life Science is working hard to research pollinator issues and educate students about beekeeping, pest issues, and bee breeding. They are looking closely in their research to find a better explanation for Colony Collapse Disorder, and exploring all sides of the pollinator debate. You can listen to David Tarpy’s Podcast from our January executive course, where he discusses some of these issues and solutions we need to address.