{"id":49,"date":"2022-09-26T19:09:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T19:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/?p=49"},"modified":"2022-10-20T17:28:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T17:28:24","slug":"bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/bees\/","title":{"rendered":"Educating Beekeepers, Protecting Pollinators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Keeping honeybees isn\u2019t just a hobby. The pollinators play vital roles in food production and the environment. But climate change and pesticides are weakening hives and reducing honey production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help reverse these trends, Nebraska runs Great Plains Master Beekeeping, a program providing educational materials and hands-on training to the region\u2019s beekeepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an overabundance of online resources, but it\u2019s actually causing problems for our area. What works in Texas isn\u2019t going to work here,\u201d said Judy Wu-Smart, associate professor of entomology and director of the UNL Bee Lab. \u201cThe idea is to provide beekeeping training that makes sense for the Midwest region.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Judy Wu-Smart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For example, the program counters the popular message of letting weak hives die out. With the region\u2019s high concentrations of beekeepers, that\u2019s a recipe for mites and other diseases to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program partners with beekeeping associations to create open apiaries, places where all levels of beekeepers receive hands-on training, a critical component that\u2019s largely been lacking regionally. Educational materials cover everything from managing hive health to liability and marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program trains and funds local beekeepers to run the educational component and maintain the apiaries. Husker undergraduate and graduate students conduct much of the training, providing valuable services while honing their extension and science communication skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wildly popular, the program has grown more than 600% since it started in 2019. More than 1,600 beekeepers in six states have participated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Judy<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Keeping bees healthy also means caring for the environment. The program incorporates land stewardship training, including conservation practices and pollinator-friendly landscaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beekeepers become advocates for the environment. They talk with farmers about integrated pest management and conserving natural resources to benefit bees and the crops they pollinate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt brings more awareness to the role beekeepers play in our agroecosystems,\u201d Wu-Smart said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize that honeybees provide critical pollination services to numerous food systems. If we lose our beekeepers, it\u2019s going to be harder for us to be successful in our farming as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s National Institute of Food and Agriculture funds the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keeping honeybees isn\u2019t just a hobby. The pollinators play vital roles in food production and the environment. But climate change and pesticides are weakening hives and reducing honey production. To help reverse these trends, Nebraska runs Great Plains Master Beekeeping, a program providing educational materials and hands-on training to the region\u2019s beekeepers. \u201cThere\u2019s an overabundance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[100,102,99,98,93,101,24,103],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-community-outreach-and-engagement","tag-environment-and-conservation","tag-great-plains-master-beekeeping","tag-judy-wu-smart","tag-science-and-technology-literacy-for-society","tag-science-communication","tag-student-experiential-learning","tag-u-s-department-of-agriculture-national-institute-of-food-and-agriculture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}