Bayer Opens North American Bee Care Center

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – On April 15, Bayer CropScience opened its North American Bee Care Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The 6,000-square-foot, $2.4 million center will support scientific research, product stewardship and sustainable agriculture to protect and improve honey bee health, as well as educate stakeholders and the general public about the beneficial insects.

The center has a laboratory with a teaching and research apiary, honey extraction and hive maintenance space; interactive learning center; meeting and training facilities for beekeepers, farmers and educators; office space for staff and graduate students; on-site honey bee colonies, pollinator-friendly gardens and a screened hive observation area.

The North American Bee Care Center, part of the company’s $12 million corporate-wide investment in bee health in 2014, brings together experts in agriculture and apiology to develop comprehensive solutions for bee health, including entomologists and apiarists, graduate researchers and more.

The facility complements Bayer’s Eastern Bee Care Technology Station, a 1,200-square-foot field station that opened in November in nearby Clayton, N.C. Bayer’s first Bee Care Center opened in 2012 at the company’s global headquarters in Monheim, Germany.

“Honey bees are essential to modern agriculture production, and our North American Bee Care Center will help facilitate the research needed to help honey bees meet the increasing global demand for crop pollination,” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience LP North America. “Bayer CropScience actively seeks to promote bee-responsible use of Bayer products through worldwide communication activities and education. What we are developing here will serve not only to protect honey bees and their ability to effectively pollinate crops but will also help us leave a better world, one hive and one harvest at a time.”

Among those in attendance at the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony were Dr. Becky Langer, manager, North American Bayer Bee Care Program; Dr. David Fischer, manager, North American Bayer Bee Care Center; Mark Schneid, chief marketing officer; Dr. Iain Kelly, Bayer CropScience issues manager; North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler; Dr. Richard Linton, dean of North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; NPMA Executive Vice President Bob Rosenberg, NPMA President Billy Tesh and Vice President of Communications Janay Rickwalder; Aaron Hobbs, RISE president, and Karen Reardon, vice president of public affairs, RISE; and numerous members of the trade and consumer press.

Chief Marketing Officer Mark Schneid said the opening of the North American Bee Care Center is an indication of Bayer’s openness to “collaboration and engagement” with its university partners, beekeepers, educators and various industry stakeholders, including the structural pest control industry. “Opening the Bee Care Center is an important next step for us.”

Dr. David Fischer, manager, North American Bayer Bee Care Center, added that the facility is critical to “further our understanding of pollinator health,” a sentiment echoed by Jim Blome, president and CEO, Bayer CropScience LP North America. “We’ve been working on bee research for a long time,” he said. “It’s imperative we stay focused on science-based solutions.”

Dr. Iain Kelly, Bayer CropScience issues manager, said ongoing education is essential when addressing issues of pollinator health, particularly as it relates to applying products in bee-active areas around structures. It’s important for PMPs to use products “per the label” and be sensitive to honey bee activity around both residential and commercial accounts. Kelly, who spoke at NPMA PestWorld on the topic of colony collapse disorder and pollinator health, said Bayer is actively communicating with PMPs about industry best practices as it relates to bees. “I think there is an educational opportunity for the pest control industry (as it relates to pollinator health),” he said.

One of the more positive by-products of the growing public profile of the pollinator health issue in North America, according to Dr. David Fischer, manager, North American Bayer Bee Care Center, has been renewed interest in this area of basic research.

“This whole field of bee research five years ago was tiny and dying off,” he said. “There just wasn’t that much interest in it.” However, in recent years, Fischer observed, “it has captured the attention of the media and it has captured the attention of the research community. It’s exciting because there are young people who have a lot of enthusiasm for this (subject). They really love working with bees.”

For more information about the North American Bee Care Center and various Bayer initiatives relating to pollinator health, visit www.beecare.bayer.com/home.