Get the buzz on the new Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative — why it’s needed, what it will do, how it will help — in today’s The Outdoor Wire.
pollination
Feb. 10: About wild bees and organic farms
Next in eOrganic’s free organic farming webinar series is “Wild Bee Monitoring, Education and Outreach in Organic Farming Systems” at 2 p.m. Feb. 10. Speaking will be scientists from Washington State University. Register here. Check out the full series schedule here.
Talk on bees’ health, genes, social life
Penn State scientist Christina Grozinger, distinguished entomology professor and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, presents “Bee Health: From Genes to Landscapes” from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, in 121 Fisher Auditorium at CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. You also can watch by video in 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s campus in Columbus. Grozinger, for example, has been quoted this month in “A Hardier Honeybee That Fights Back By Biting Back” on NPR and “Conflict Among Honey Bee Genes Supports Theory of Altruism” on Phys.org.
Pollinator workshop in Wooster
CFAES’s Bee Lab hosts a workshop on Creating Pollinator Habitat from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, in the Shisler Conference Center, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. The event features about a dozen experts from CFAES and elsewhere speaking on creating pollinator habitat in diverse ecosystems, including vacant urban land, roadsides, field edges, utility rights-of-way, pastures and gardens. Registration is $50 and includes handouts, morning refreshments and lunch. Learn more and register.
3:30 talk today: What’s going on in the beekeeping world?
Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture magazine, published by Medina’s A.I. Root Co., speaks today at CFAES’s research arm, OARDC. He’ll talk on “What’s Going on in the Beekeeping World” from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in 121 Fisher Auditorium, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster. There’s also a video link to 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s campus in Columbus. Free. Everyone’s welcome. Read a Mother Earth News interview with him here. (Photo: Bee Culture.)
New pollinator planting at Ohio State Mansfield
What can you grow under electric transmission lines? Plants for butterflies, bees and other pollinators are one idea. A new multi-partner project, called A Monarch Right-of-Way: A Pollinator Demonstration Plot, is underway at Ohio State’s Mansfield campus, and CFAES’s Marne Titchenell and Denise Ellsworth are part of it. Continue reading
Half our bees are not to be, due to some mysterious injury
Ohio lost nearly half of its honey bee population last year, according to a recent survey quoted in a June 26 Cleveland Plain Dealer story. Written by James F. McCarty, the story also quotes CFAES scientist Reed Johnson and retired CFAES scientist Jim Tew, both experts on honey bees. Honey bees pollinate about a third of the crops we grow for food. (Photo: iStock).
Pollination elevation
Steve Bennish of the Dayton Daily News reports on a new project aimed at helping honey bees and other pollinators. A partner on the project is CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension.
Details aflutter
Two recent stories in the Youngstown Vindicator, both by experts with ties to CFAES, talk about Ohio’s butterflies and specifically about its monarchs. (Photo: iStock.)
Steps to save monarch butterflies
James F. McCarty writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the Monarch Wings Across Ohio project:
“As recently as three years ago, migrating monarch butterflies covered the trees at Wendy Park on Whiskey Island in the fall as they sought shelter on their epic migratory journey southward toward Florida or Mexico.
“Last year, the huge flocks of orange-and-black butterflies had disappeared from the lakefront park — anecdotal evidence of the monarch’s declining population caused, in part, by the loss of milkweed.”
CFAES’s Bee Lab is one of many partners on the project, which aims to plant milkweed and other plants needed by the butterflies. Read the story. (Photo: iStock.)