Facility | U of I Pollinatarium

Pollinatarium continues to evolve

As one visitor remarked, the Pollinatarium has continued to evolve. For the first time, we were on the 2015 CU Garden Walk for sustainable gardening. We made cedar planting boxes for the south side of the building, where we can’t dig because of the buried power lines. We also put a hexagonal flowerbed box under our bee sculpture to give our “bee girl” her own flower patch. We had awesome help from the Master Gardeners getting our yard and plantings ready. All the hard work paid off and we had over 600 visitors that day. One gardener gave us a “10” for our plantings in the pots and beds as well as the inside displays. So, moving forward, donations of seeds will always be welcome so we can start plants and pass them along to increase the habitat available for bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

In 2016, we increased the number of classes and groups visiting the Pollinatarium as well as the number of presentations we did for classes and the public at their locations. We collaborated with the College of ACES to be part of their Summer Academies and taught honey bee biology and beekeeping for their 4H program for middle school through high school students. Planting for pollinators and native bees was the topic of many of the presentations this year.

With all new supplies for beekeeping and gardening in the building, we were beginning to look even more like Grandma’s attic. Our biggest need was a storage/workshed building to store those supplies. A big thank you to May Berenbaum for supplying the funds needed to buy and place a new wooden cabin next to the Pollinatarium building.

We’re officially open to the Public!

The Pollinatarium has officially opened to the public! It is the first free-standing science center in the nation devoted to flowering plants and their pollinators. Why do plants and pollinators merit such special attention? The ecological interaction between pollinators and plants is vitally important because most terrestrial life on Earth depends in one way or another on pollination for survival. Over 75% of all flowering plant species depend on animal pollinators in order to reproduce, so pollination is a key process that sustains all kinds of communities around the world. And among Earth’s inhabitants depending on pollinators for their existence are humans; about one-third of the diet consumed by people around the world—the part with most of the vitamins and minerals–is the result of the pollinator-plant interaction. Pollination is therefore economically important as well. In the U.S. alone, pollinator efforts contribute close to $20 billion to the economy and worldwide pollinator activities are worth over $200 billion. Because so much depends on pollination, the UI Pollinatarium is dedicated to increasing awareness and appreciation of pollination as a remarkable ecological partnership and an essential ecosystem service.

Thank you!

We are exceptionally fortunate that developer Peter Fox has taken an interest in this project and has made an extraordinary effort to bring it to fruition. He arranged for an architect to draw up plans for the renovation, for local businesses to donate HVAC, plumbing, and electric work, and for a Boy Scout Troop to take on site cleanup and prairie restoration as a service project. Mr. Fox has devoted hours to helping us plan this project, with his personal goal of having it as a community resource available for every elementary school in the area for class visits. Our department and our colleagues at the Illinois Natural History Survey are providing expertise and materials for exhibit construction, and we hope to partner with campus outreach organizations, including 4H, Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in maintaining the site. We are also very fortunate to have Glen Davies paint the vibrant murals on the outside of the building. Thank you to everyone who has helped to make this science center devoted to pollinators and pollination a huge success!

The Pollinatarium begins!

The level of knowledge about pollination in the general public is surprisingly low, despite its importance as an ecosystem service maintaining the vast diversity of flowering plants. The UI Pollinatarium is dedicated to all creatures 2- , 4- , or 6- legged that assist flowering plants in meeting their reproductive needs. Our hope is that the Pollinatarium will be both a campus resource for research and teaching and a major regional attraction for the community and its visitors.

The construction of a new Bee Research Facility for Dr. Gene Robinson allowed the Department of Entomology to reconfigure the former Bee Research Facility on South Farms as a science center devoted to pollinators and pollination. Its location in the midst of the Arboretum brings together flowers and pollinators physically and conceptually, for optimal impact and appeal. Multiple exhibits acquaint visitors with a broad range of disciplines involved in the study of pollination, including ecology, evolution, plant biology, insect physiology, animal behavior, crop sciences and conservation. Changing exhibits will relate to world events and ongoing research on pollinators. Moreover, the Pollinatarium is the physical home of Beespotter (http://beespotter.mste.uiuc.edu/), a UI web-based citizen science effort launched in October 2007 to engage the public in monitoring the distribution and abundance of Illinois honey bees and bumble bees.