Please join us 9 AM at the Pollinatarium: 1030 Meadowbrook pavilion by the Herb garden; Noon back to the Pollinatarium for cool water, AC and to compare pictures/bee finds. Bring lunch and stay to visit if you like.
Thank you visiting the Pollinatarium during the Master Gardeners Garden Walk. We had more than 500 visitors! What a wonderful way to Kick off National Pollinator week.
Lesley
Pollinatarium CLOSED May 4th. Come and join me at the Native Plant Festival at Parkland Saturday, May 4th from 9:00am to 3:00 pm.
Hope to see you there. Lesley
Come and join me for Insect Tales or is it tails?
We will be open Saturdays 1:30 to 4:30 unless posted otherwise.
For appointments during the week please email me at lesleyd@illinois.edu
We’re sorry. Visits to the Pollinatarium are currently by appointment only.
We are scheduling indoor visits for August and September. Visits will be by appointment. Please send an email to lesleyd@illinois.edu
When: Saturday, June 23, 2018 – 1:00-4:00 p.m.
🦋🌷 During National Pollinator Week 🌷🦋
Where: The University of Illinois Pollinatarium
606 W. Windsor Rd., Urbana, IL
For Sale: Lots of toys, games, puzzles, shirts, books, etc.
Also, activities, games and prizes!
Facepainting Balloon Animals Lollipop Board And much more!
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.
The UI Pollinatarium, the discovery/science center dedicated to raising pollinator awareness, is the ultimate in repurposing; the building at the south end of the UI Arboretum was originally constructed as a pesticide storage shed, spent over a decade as Gene Robinson’s Bee Research Facility, and in 2009 was converted into a facility for science outreach (thereby pretty much covering the tripartite mission of the land grant university at one address). Ably managed by UIUC alumna Lesley Deem, in both 2013 and 2014 the Polli hosted over 2500 visitors. Among them were students ranging from preschoolers to undergraduates to Osher Lifelong Learners, community groups, beekeepers, agritourists and drop-in campus visitors. We’re now part of the Museum at the Crossroads consortium spanning Champaign County and we’ve hosted a weekly summer lecture series along with meetings, including the 2013 Central Eastern Illinois Beekeepers Association and the Illinois State Beekeepers Association. Adjacent to the Polli is a reconstructed prairie where visitors can get “up close and personal” with pollinators in their natural habitat, along with various and sundry pollinator-friendly plantings, including, in 2013, a “salsa garden” planted and maintained by local children. It’s also the official UIUC home of National Pollinator Week in June as well as National Moth Week in July. In 2014, we had visitors from 18 different states and three other countries (Brazil, Germany, and Japan).
In addition to the thousands of hours spent educating the public at the Pollinatarium, the Pollinatarium Director, Lesley Deem, also spent hundreds of hours doing outreach outside the Pollinatarium by traveling to schools and public meetings all over the state raising pollinator awareness. The Department of Entomology can’t thank Lesley enough for her unwavering dedication and hard work. We would also like to thank the many volunteers who docent and who help maintain and continue to improve the Pollinatarium and its grounds: Entomology Graduate Students (EGSA), UIUC undergraduate students, Master Naturalists, and Master Gardeners (just to name a few). Without you, we would not be able to maintain the level of excellence the public has come to expect when visiting the Pollinatarium. So…Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
In 2007, National Pollinator Week was officially declared by the U.S. Senate in order to recognize the importance of pollinators to ecosystem health and agriculture and to support efforts to increase awareness about pollinators. Here’s how Urbana-Champaign celebrated with the rest of the nation in 2014…
Week Long Events June 16-June 22
Pollinator Food Guides at Common Ground Food Co-op: Common Ground Food Co-op will have guides all around the store indicating which of the items need pollinators! Stop in and see how much of the food you eat on a daily basis wouldn’t exist without out bees, flies, birds, and bats!
Pollinator Menu at Big Grove Tavern: with all pollinated dishes labeled on the menu
Pollinator Pizza at Pizza M: with ingredients that wouldn’t exist without pollinators
Saturday, June 14
Pollinator Doughnut at Pandamonium Doughnuts: 7:00 AM – 12:00 PM at their booth at Urbana Market at the Square on June 14 featuring “Pollinator Doughnut” made with pollinated ingredients
Sunday, June 15
Pollination Fascination lecture series: Michelle Duennes presents “Finding new bumble bee species: Modern species-seeking and exploration” UI Pollinatarium
Monday, June 16
Urbana Free Library: VIP (Very Important Pollinators)! 10:00 AM – 10:45 AM Featuring the UI Pollinatarium’s Lesley Deem with storytelling and pollinator-friendly seeds to take home for free
Tuesday, June 17
Pollinator Tasting at Common Ground Food Co-op: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM Tuesday’s tasting pollinator-themed! Some of the graduate students involved in making the “Pollinator Guides” you’ll see all around the store will be available to answer questions and serve up some interesting pollinated samples for you to enjoy.
Wednesday, June 18
Douglass Branch Library: Pollinators with Paws 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM National Pollinator Week with Lesley Deem from the UI Pollinatarium. Learn about pollinators who have paws rather than wings, such as geckos and the honey possum, then try being a pollinator yourself! This event will feature story-telling, honey-tastings, and is for school-age kids.
The Pollinator Round at Trivia Night at Pizza M: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM Test of knowledge during a pollinator-themed round of trivia at Trivia Night at Pizza M!
Thursday, June 19
The Amazing Honey Bee by Maggie Wachter: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM. Beekeeper Maggie Wachter will take us inside the hive to discuss the evolution of the honey bee, its life cycle and how bees make honey. Some man-made and natural threats to honey bee survival will be discussed. This class is intended for gardeners, new beekeepers and anyone interested in protecting the environment.
Sunday, June 22
Pollination Celebration! UI Pollinatarium 12:00 – 2:00 PM Arts and crafts for kids, storytelling, and honey tasting
Nurturing Native Bees Workshop U of I Pollinatarium: 2:00 – 3:30 PM Free workshop on how to identify bees and to help them by providing nesting habitat; participants make and receive their own native bee house.
Special Cello Performance by Samuel Araya: Community Center for the Arts UI Pollinatarium 3:30 – 4:30 PM