Here’s a sweet program from UNL: a bee lab.
Beekeepers across the United States lost 43.7% of their managed honey bee colonies from 2019 to 2020, according to Science Daily. It’s a serious issue that has the attention of The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Entomology, where Professor Judy Wu Smart said the program is studying bee decline.
Students research the environmental and pesticide factors that can impact bee populations. While last year, experts saw a slightly less severe decline in nature’s pollinators – there’s still cause for concern. One solution is to gain a better understanding of how colonies work.
Some of the students are even training to become beekeepers. Others are studying environmental factors, or even helping the USDA sample the environment.
The Nebraska program also offers public programs to promote awareness, including a virtual series with the Nebraska Wildlife which just ended.
“Bees, and especially honeybees, happen to be the crossroads of preserving the environment and also helping people,” Courtney Brommel, a master’s student said in the program’s ad, “because the process of pollination [lead to] where we get a lot of our food.”
They hope to pollinate a difference in the world.
