Pollinators & Our Observation Bee Hive

“One in three bites of our food requires pollination, and honey bees are amazing pollinators. But bees are declining in population because of colony collapse disorder. The bees are like the canary in the coal mine, and they are dying off.”

Tami Enright, Executive Director of The Bee Cause Project and Master Beekeeper

MUSC Urban Farm Bee Keeper Volunteers

Pollinators

Pollinators are critical to a healthy ecosystem to aid in pollination and serve as a critical link in the food chain. Pollinators such as bees, butterflies, wasps, bats, and birds are incredibly important to the urban ecosystem in Charleston. The Urban Farm strives to provide a safe habitat for pollinators to get food, water, and shelter. We have partnered with a number of organizations to certify and maintain the farm as a critical refuge for pollinators to visit and thrive at the Urban Farm. MUSC is a certified Bee Campus and monarch waystation. 

Bees

Beekeepers started noticing the disappearance of bees in 2006. They call it Colony Collapse Disorder because the bees were abandoning their hives in mass numbers and never return.

Reasons they're declining:

  • They are losing their food sources due to the cultivation of land.
  • Their genes don’t allow them to fight diseases and poisons very well.
  • Global warming is causing flowers to bloom earlier or later and this can no longer coincide with the bees coming out of hibernation.

The Urban Farm has an observation beehive donated by The Bee Cause Project to support our mission of building a healthier community by inspiring people with local, nutritious, and delicious food. On the farm, we use integrated pest management and other organic practices rather than harmful pesticides, grow a variety of crops and provide flowers and opportunities for these pollinators to feed year-round and provide education on the importance of bees to the food cycle and encourage visitors to learn about these communal insects.

"MUSC’s hive helps in the push to shift public perception from seeing bees as menacing stingers to critical foragers so the next generation will less likely reach for that bottle of pesticide. Seeing the bees in the hive goes a long way in helping to reduce fears about bees and is a platform to help visitors see the tie between insects, food, and health, especially since most fruits and vegetables rely on pollinators. We have such a bug phobia that we’re spraying and killing everything – butterflies, ladybugs. We’re killing the good things too. There are so many life lessons that can come from slowing down and realizing where our food comes from and all the different spokes on the wheel. It’s all an interconnected web. Bees are as important as sunlight and water when it comes to growing our food.”