National Pollinator Week (June 20-26, 2016) is a time to celebrate pollinators – and spread the word about what we can do to protect them. As part of this effort, Lawn Doctor, Inc. has become a Feed a Bee Partner with Bayer CropScience.

It’s estimated that honey bees pollinate one out of every three bites of food we eat, so they clearly play a critical role in our ability to grow food! However, bees are facing a food shortage of their own. Bees feed us; we must help feed them. That’s what the Feed a Bee initiative is all about.

Over the next several weeks, Lawn Doctor will be planting wildflowers at its corporate headquarters, and will be working to identify other settings across NJ to create “Pollinator Areas,” which will provide nectar and pollen sources for bees throughout the growing season.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Bees will forage one to five miles from the hive. That’s the equivalent of humans traveling 1,600 miles for food
• A hive of bees must fly almost 55,000 miles to make one pound of honey
• The average foraging bee visits 50 to 100 flowers each trip
• Honey bees have four wings that stroke 12,000 times per minute
• It takes one million blossoms per acre to feed a single colony of bees, and it takes 30,000 bees to pollinate one acre
• A farmer could lose 75% of his/her crop without honey bee pollination
• $15,000,000,000 a year in crops are pollinated by bees, or $500 every second. To put it into perspective, the combined salaries of all MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS teams equals $10,000,000,000
• In the late-1980s, a parasite called the Varroa mite invaded North American bee colonies – and beekeeping hasn’t been the same since. The Varroa mite is the “single most detrimental pest of honey bees,” according to the USDA.11 This parasite weakens bees and helps transmit diseases that can wipe out entire colonies.

We’re excited to be a partner in the Feed a Bee initiative, which is focused on protecting these fascinating, vitally important creatures.