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On a chilly February morning, Christina Neumann welcomed fellow honey tasters Nancy Simpson and James Roccasecca and researcher Robyn Underwood to CoNectar. This charming, cozy space in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a gathering place for multi-sensory education. The mission of CoNectar, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is to connect communities to multi-sensory “flora to table” education by providing programs that demonstrate the key role pollinators play in food systems and our broader ecology. Understanding the connection between

For our 2024 NSF-IRES Pollinators in Changing Climates Program, students traveled to Peru with another IRES group working on “Manifestations of Climate Change in Extreme Events, Social and Biological Systems”. Two groups worked on topics around pollinators and climate change.  Group 1 investigated the effect of microclimate (sun and shade) on the thermal ecology of pollinators and the community assembly of pollinating bees. Specifically, they tested the following three hypotheses: H1. Microclimate shapes bee community

Evaluating species’ thermal tolerance is important now more than ever given the ongoing threats to biodiversity under climate change. Species vary widely in heat tolerance, but the degree of variability in their heat tolerance, and the drivers of this variability among populations, are less understood. We expect that some of this variation in bees may be attributed to microclimate, physical differences among individuals, or differences in their infection status. Among “cold-blooded” animals (internal body temperatures

Wild lupine is a fire-adapted, perennial wildflower found throughout North America. Due to the loss of its primary habitat, wild lupine is currently of conservation concern in roughly 60% of its range. Lack of disturbance and land management that aims to preserve forests (not open habitats) are contributing factors to its habitat loss. In the midwest, large populations of wild lupine can still be found in oak savanna habitats. In contrast, its populations on the

Explore the world one beekeeping story at a time! During this free webinar series we invite beekeepers from around the world to share their unique experiences with us. Most recently, the 2025 series explored France, the Yukon Territory, Kenya, Turkey, India and Brazil. In 2024, we explored the Ukraine, Thailand, Lesotho, Mexico, Sweden and the Himalayas before hearing from a world traveler. This follows the 2023 series, where we heard from the president of Apimondia,