RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Continuing a more than 25-year commitment to pollinator health, Bayer CropScience this week celebrated successes and the one-year anniversary of the North American Bee Care Center, at its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park. The unique center continues to bring together significant technological, scientific and academic resources to promote improved honey bee health, product stewardship and sustainable agriculture, Bayer reports.
“We are excited to celebrate an incredibly successful year for our North American Bee Care Center, which was developed to further our agricultural investment and protect resources critical to the success of growers around the world” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience. “The center helps us leave a better world through protecting pollinator health and providing a more sustainable future for growers who depend on honey bees to pollinate their crops. The research and development innovations developed here are a necessary component of providing enough safe, healthy food to nourish a rapidly expanding global population.”
The North American Bee Care Center, part of the company’s more than $12 million investment in bee health last year, hosts researchers including entomologists, apiarists and graduate students who develop comprehensive solutions for bee health. Some of the accomplishments of these scientists and the Bayer Bee Care Program over the past year include:
• Developing new non-invasive technologies known as Smart Hives to track changes in colony health and help improve hive management.
• Developing and testing new delivery systems, including the novel Varroa Gate technology, to prevent colony re-infestation by Varroa mites during the summer.
• Hosting more than 3,000 visitors at the North American Bee Care Center and participating in more than 100 conferences, meetings and tradeshows dedicated to pollinator health.
• Establishing a bee health student research platform, involving visiting graduate students and sponsored research projects among universities.
• Launching “Feed a Bee,” a major initiative to increase forage for honey bees and other pollinators, including growing 50 million flowers and providing additional forage acreage in 2015.
• Working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to create bee-attractant habitats along highway rights-of-ways.
• Working with Project Apis m. to establish pollinator patches across 130 miles in Kansas and 3,000 acres of bee forage in California and Washington.
• Developing Bayer’s Fluency Agent, an innovative technology that significantly reduces airborne dust associated with corn seed planting to reduce potential bee exposure.
• Promoting Bayer’s CARE Program, emphasizing communication and stewardship of Bayer CropScience products and the long-term viability of modern farming.
These and other highlights can be found in the Bayer CropScience North American Bee Care Center Annual Report, available for download at http://bit.ly/1HO6JF9.
The Bayer Bee Care Center, a 6,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility joins the Eastern Bee Care Technology Station in Clayton, N.C., and a Bee Care Center at the joint global headquarters campus of Bayer CropScience and Bayer Animal Health in Monheim, Germany, in working to promote pollinator health. Bayer CropScience leadership, employees and community leaders joined in the ceremony, which included tours of the facility.
The center houses a full laboratory with a teaching and research apiary, honey extraction and hive maintenance space; interactive learning center; and meeting, training and presentation facilities for beekeepers, farmers and educators, as well as office space for a full staff and graduate students. On-site honey bee colonies, pollinator-friendly gardens and a screened hive observation area have advanced education and collaboration to foster significant improvement in honey bee health and stewardship measures and best management practices.
“Congratulations to everyone at Bayer CropScience for the remarkable achievements made in just one short year at the North American Bee Care Center. Their efforts to protect and promote pollinator health take on special meaning when you consider how much impact honey bees, North Carolina’s state insect, have on our state economy,” said North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. “Having healthy honey bees means we have healthier, more productive crops statewide, which directly contributes to the growth of our economy and national agricultural leadership.”
To see photos from the event, click here: https://www.bayercropscience.us/news/press-releases/2015/042715-bayer-cropscience-celebrates-one-year-anniversary-of-north-american-bee-care-center.