Visit the Pollinator Demonstration Park at Apex Nature Park
Located across from the Soccer Fields at Apex Nature Park, check out a garden of native pollinator plants and get inspired for ideas of how you can make part of your own home yard pollinator friendly. The garden is in its first year, with community support from local Girl Scouts, Garden Club and Apex’s Bee City Committee.
"My Garden of a Thousand Bees" Film Screening
Halle Cultural Arts Center Wednesday, June 29, 7pm - FREE
Tickets are not required. Seating limited to 150. Q&A discussion following the film screening. Learn about efforts the Apex Bee City Committee are taking to protect pollinators and improve habitat.
Locked down during the coronavirus pandemic, "My Garden of a Thousand Bees" follows acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn as he sets out to record all the bee species in his tiny urban garden in Bristol, England. Filming with one-of-a-kind lenses he forged at his kitchen table, he catalogues more than 60 different species, from Britain’s largest bumblebees to scissor bees the size of a mosquito. Over long months, Dohrn observes how differences in behavior set different species apart. He eventually gets so close to the bees he can identify individuals by sight, documenting life at their level as we have never seen it before.
Viewers will marvel at moments timely captured in "My Garden of a Thousand Bees", such as bees laying tiny eggs preparing for the next generation, green-fanged spiders feasting on male flower bees and a female yellow-faced bee attacking a Gasteruption wasp to protect her nest. Other fascinating behavior featured in the program includes two male bees fighting each other over a female, different species of bees competing over territory and one busy bee building a nest with a shell and hundreds of sticks. Intrigued by the intelligence of one particular wood-carving leafcutter bee, Dohrn dubs her “Nicky” and sees life at her level as she leaves a lasting legacy in the garden.
Check out the Pollinator Display
Halle Cultural Arts Center, through the end of June
Learn all about bees and their critical role in pollination and our food sources.
- Foragers must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey
- The average forager makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime
- Bees are important because they pollinate approximately 130 agricultural crops in the US including fruit, fiber, nut, and vegetable crops. Bee pollination adds approximately 14 billion dollars annually to improved crop yield and quality.
- Bees are vital. But they’re dying off in droves: 33 percent of our nation’s honeybee colonies died last year, an amount that experts say is unsustainable. Scientists have pointed to several causes behind the problem, including global warming, habitat loss, parasites and a class of bee-killing insecticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics).
Original source can be found here
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