Blog

Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability.1. Do you have a glossy green front lawn? What is this, the 1950s?Are our conceptions of gardening outdated and harming the planet? It turns out, yes, they are! So what should we do? Check out this article in The Guardian to learn how the "perfect lawn" is harming our pollinators and guidance on how you can create and maintain a pollinator-frie …

1. Biodiversity protects bee communities from disease The University of Michigan - A new analysis of thousands of native and nonnative Michigan bees shows that the most diverse bee communities have the lowest levels of three common viral pathogens.  "This result is exciting because it suggests that promoting diverse bee communities may be a win-win strategy to simultaneously reduce viral infections in managed honeybee colonies while helping to maintain native bee biodiversity," s …

First and foremost, we hope you are staying well.Despite the challenging circumstances of 2020, it was a big year for Crown Bees - not only for our team but for our community of bee raisers who helped provide bee houses and spread awareness of the importance of our solitary bee species. Thank you for making this year possible and for being part of this incredible community.A glance at what you had helped us accomplish in 2020:This year, you installed 4,000 new houses and supplied over 1.2 millio …

Messing with the microbes within their hive-stored pollen hurts bumblebees Of the 20,000+ bee species on Earth, only about a dozen are used by farmers in commercial agriculture, and these crucial populations of managed bees have been declining at an alarming rate. Several factors, including increased use of pesticides, habitat fragmentation, emerging diseases, and reduced genetic diversity may be responsible for such bee losses. In response to this pollinator crisis, recent conservation effort …