CLICK HERE FOR 2012 POLLINATOR PARTY INFORMATION Bees play a keystone role in the productivity of American agriculture through the pollination of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. You can help bees by learning more about the flowers you can plant to keep bees healthy and on their own six feet. Spend the evening of Thursday, July 28, 2011 at Lake Harriet’s Lyndale Park Gardens celebrating the life and work of bees.

The event, beginning at 5:00pm, offers a chance to learn about honey bees and their importance to our lives, bee-friendly native plants and urban beekeeping. Observe live honey bees and meet this year’s American Honey Queen, Teresa Bryson and enjoy educational games and live music by Quaking Bogge.

The movie “Queen of the Sun” will be shown at dusk.

The free event is co-produced by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and the University of Minnesota Bee Lab.

MOVIE: QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are the Bees Telling Us? examines the dire global bee crisis through the eyes of biodynamic beekeepers, scientists, farmers, and philosophers. On a pilgrimage around the world, the film unveils 10,000 years of beekeeping, highlighting how our historic and sacred relationship with bees has been lost due to highly mechanized industrial practices. Featuring Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, Gunther Hauk and beekeepers from around the world, this engaging, alarming and ultimately uplifting film weaves together a dramatic story that uncovers the problems and solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature.

BACKGROUND: Butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, and bees are but a few of the millions of invertebrates at the heart of a healthy environment. Invertebrates are essential to the reproduction of most flowering plants, including many fruits, vegetables, and nuts; and they are food for birds, fish, and other animals.

Bees play a keystone role in the productivity of American agriculture through the pollination of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Habitat destruction, pesticides, bee diseases and parasites have led to the new mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder creating a honey bee crisis. Our native bees are also declining due to unprecedented habitat loss, pesticide threats and their own introduced diseases.

Humans can make a difference. Planting bee-friendly flower species in your garden, local park, roadsides, crop borders and set-aside farm land will help bees thrives and will beautify our environment.

For more information visit:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/honeybees
www.xerces.org