Most people only know about honey bees and maybe bumblebees,” she said. “The vast majority of pollinators are bees. Sibul said there is an incredible diversity of pollinators and they serve an integral role in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. “So I just took a deep dive into this realization that, oh my goodness, insects are incredibly important.” “Part of what I had to do was study what might be pollinating that particular plant and it turns out that a variety of bees were pollinating this amazing plant,” she said. Sibul first got interested in bees when she was in graduate school and was studying the Parachute Penstemon, a rare plant only discovered ten years prior to her study. “So if anyone’s looking to add more bee-friendly plants, they can just take a stroll around the garden and take some notes from us.” The Buzz about Bees “We have a little bee symbol for any of our plants that are bee-friendly,” she said. “We’ll put in some new signs in the pollinator conservation garden that can help teach people about the importance of pollinators and why we need to pay attention, and what we can do to preserve habitat and limit pesticide use,” she said.įrohn wants to encourage people to come to Red Butte and take a placard identifying bee-friendly plants to grow in their home gardens to make their own backyards a pollinator safehaven. In addition to these already established initiatives, Sibul wants to implement more signage around campus. In order to keep its status as a Bee Campus USA affiliate, the U has to maintain all of its conservation efforts, which Sibul said will not be a problem. Sibul said the Xerces Society was impressed by the U’s already-established pollinator conservation habitat on campus as well as their public outreach initiatives. “So this felt like a fantastic thing to try to set as a goal and to achieve and to give everyone some good news.” “2020 is a rough year, there are so many really hard things to swallow, whether it’s remote classes, social isolation, illnesses that many of us are dealing with in our friends and family circles,” Sibul said. The committee started filling out the application for the designation in August 2020, and it was officially awarded in December 2020. “So we try to have a bunch of different kinds of plants in the garden and as we redesign spaces we keep that in mind and try to grow our plant collections.” “We have at least 132 native bee species found at the garden and that is due in part to the vast amount of different plant species that we have,” Frohn said. “There’s this wonderful synergy between having organic, sustainable food produced on campus pollinated by native Mason bees that we provide nest boxes for,” she said.Īs the chair for the Bee Campus USA Committee, Sibul worked with individuals from Red Butte Garden, the Natural History Museum of Utah and various students and staff on campus in order to achieve this designation.ĭanielle Frohn, the assistant horticulturist in the children’s garden at Red Butte was a part of Sibul’s committee and was tasked with highlighting the work of Red Butte on the application to the Xerces Society. Sibul also cited the edible campus gardens as an important part of their application because of their native bee nest boxes. (Photo by Jack Gambassi | The Daily Utah Chronicle) ( Jack Gambassi) A bee outside the Mariott Honors Community on campus. “So, when I learned about this possibility of getting this wonderful national recognition from the Xerces Society, which is a kind of national-level nonprofit organization that focuses on insect and invertebrate conservation, I was really excited,” Sibul said. In partnership with the College of Architecture, the Beekeeper’s Association installed a pollinator conservation garden on campus. The Beekeeper’s Association was given permission to install honeybee hives on campus, which they used as a means of communicating with the public about the importance of pollinators, as well as the science and art of beekeeping. Sibul began doing outreach about pollinator conservation back in 2012 when she became the faculty advisor to the newly established U of U Beekeeper’s Association. “This Bee Campus USA designation recognizes that the University of Utah has paid attention to biodiversity when it comes to pollinators, and we can be looked at as a role model,” said Amy Sibul, a professor of biology at the U and the Chair of the U’s Bee Campus USA committee. The University of Utah has been making strides since 2012 to create safe havens for bees on campus, which has culminated in the U becoming a certified Bee Campus USA affiliate in December 2020.
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