Pollinator Paradise

There's been trouble in paradise far too long.

Now, thanks to a generous donation from Häagen-Dazs, there will be a pollinator paradise--in the way of a bee friendly garden--at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. 

Häagen-Dazs announced this week it will donate $125,000 to the UC Davis Department of Entomology to launch a nationwide design competition to create a one-half acre honey bee haven garden on Bee Biology Road. Häagen-Dazs has commited $65,000 of the $125,000 to establish the garden.

"The honey bee haven will be a pollinator paradise," said Lynn Kimsey, chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. "It will provide a much needed, year-round food source for our bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. We anticipate it also will be a gathering place to inform and educate the public about bees. We are grateful to Haagen-Dazs for its continued efforts to ensure bee health."

And you are invited to design it. The nationwide contest is open to anyone who can design a garden, using basic landscape principles. The rules, a list of bee friendly plants, design examples and other information is on the UC Davis Department of Entomology Web site.

Häagen-Dazs is funding the design competition and the California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis is coordinating it. 

"The garden will be extremely helpful in demonstrating that bees are not a nuisance in the backyard, but instead are obtaining food and water essential for their survival,"  Eric Mussen, a Cooperative Extension apiculturist and a 32-year member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty, told us.

"Campus visitors," he said. "will be able to see which flowers are most attractive to foraging honey bees and how to space the flowers in order to have bees flying in the most convenient areas of their gardens.”

The deadline to submit a design is Jan. 30, 2009. Mail your design to the  California Center for Urban Horticulture, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean's Office, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616-8571. 

More information on the design competition is available from Melissa Borel,  program manager at UC Davis' California Center for Urban Horticulture, at (530) 752-6642 or email her at mjborel@ucdavis.edu.

You should also check out the Häagen-Dazs educational Web site at http://www.helpthehoneybees.com. In February they commited a total of $250,000 in honey bee research to UC Davis and Pennsylvania State. And now: another way to help the honey bees.    

The design competition winner will receive recognition on the Häagen-Dazs commemorative plaque at the entrance to the garden. Another gift will be a year's supply of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

The real winners, however, are the honey bees. The bees at the Laidlaw facility will receive their very own fully-stocked pantry right in their back yard. 

A pollinator paradise, to be sure.