Lab News
Research News
Below are some highlights of recent activities in the lab.
How You Can Help Count and Conserve Native Bees
New York Times, 7 December, 2020. Article on the newly established U.S. National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network.
RCN website goes live
The US National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network (RCN) is now online.
Wild Bees Amidst the Trees
The New York Forest Owner, January/February 2020. Article on Kass Urban-Mead’s work on bee diversity in the forest canopy
Bees! Diversity, Evolution, Conservation
Our new exhibit, Bees! Diversity, Evolution, Conservation, opened September 27th, 2019 at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY. The exhibit will run through January 15, 2021.
Hive Mind: With its long tradition of honey bee research, Cornell is a leader in the fight to protect pollinators
Cornell Alumni Magazine, September 2019. Article on bee research at Cornell.
Natural habitats, bee diversity key to better apple production
Cornell Chronicle, 17 January, 2019. Article on Heather Grab’s work on landscape simplification and “phylodiversity” of apple pollinator communities.
The interaction between mass flowering in apples and fruit set in strawberries
Cornell Chronicle, 30 March, 2017. Article on Heather Grab’s work on the implication of co-flowering in strawberry and apple on wild bee abundance and seed set.
Rusty patched bumblebee listed as an endangered species
Responding to a petition from the Xerces Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will list the rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis) as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
Leap of faith proves pollination can be honeybee free
Cornell Chronicle, 3 June, 2015. Article on Cornell Orchards increased reliance on wild bees for apple pollinatin.
Betting on nature to solve the bee crisis
Bloomberg Businessweek report on how apple growers are increasingly relying on wild bees for apple pollination.
Impacts of fungicides on wild bees in apple orchards
The Guardian, 18 June, 2015. Article on Mia Park’s work on apple bees.
New York state establishes pollinator protection plan
New York State Governor Mario Cuomo announces taskforce to develop a Pollinator Protection Plan to protect New York’s agricultural economy.
Undergrad research
Cornell Daily Sun, 10 February, 2015. Article on Graham Montgomery’s work on Rediviva bees.
Thomas Say Award, 2014
Bryan Danforth was recently awarded the Thomas Say award from the ESA for significant work in the fields of insect systematics, morphology, or evolution.
Climate change and orchid bees
Cornell Chronicle, 20 March, 2014. Article on Margarita Lopez-Uribe’s work on orchid bees.
Northeast Pollinator Partnership
CALS News, 24 October, 2011. New project aim to promote home-grown apple pollinators.
Pollen or pollinators — which came first?
Report on Cardinal & Danforth 2013 published in Current Biology.
Impact of CCD on local farmers and beekeepers
WSKG radio report on the impact of CCD on Finger Lakes beekeepers and farmers.
All abuzz…
Cornell Alumni Magazine, 1 March, 2012. Cornell entomologists ponder the pollinators.
Native bees and climate change
Cornell Chronicle, 11 December, 2011. Native bees and climate change.
Empire State Native Pollinator Survey
Our lab is involved in a state-wide survey of bees and other pollinators as part of an effort led by the NY Natural Heritage Program to develop an “Empire State Native Pollinator Survey”. The goal of the Empire State Native Pollinator Survey is to determine the conservation status of a wide array of native insect pollinators in nonagricultural habitats, including bees.
The project will involve extensive surveys throughout NY state to help determine the conservation status of the most important pollinators in the state, with a focus on Andrena, Megachile, Melissodes, Macropis, and Bombus. In addition to the extensive surveys we will be conducting targeted habitat surveys, focused on habitats that are rare of threatened and targeted species surveys, focused on specific taxa including oil bees in the genus Macropis and bumble bees. The project will have a significant “citizen science” component.