Our Work
Save the Bee is addressing the root causes that threaten the health of honey bees and humans
Planting Pollinator Habitat
Pollen and nectar collected from a wide variety of plants, provide bees with a diet rich in protein, carbohydrates, and essential minerals, to build hives, raise their young, and make honey. Yet, natural habitat for bees and other native species is rapidly disappearing.
Because native flowering habitat is crucial to bee health – and the health of their fellow pollinators like butterflies and birds – Save the Bee is committed to planting 1 million square feet of pollinator habitat in farmland and elsewhere across the U.S.
The benefits of planting pollinator habitat reach beyond providing food for honey bees. Pollinator habit in farmland protects and conserves local biodiversity and helps to mitigate the environmental impact of certain agricultural practices. The introduction of flowering plants also helps our nation’s farmers by improving soil health and contributing to regenerative and sustainable agriculture.
Help plant pollinator habitat
Every $15 you give plants 10 square feet of flowers for hungry bees.
You’re one in a million
You can help us plant a million square feet of pollinator right from home when you grow a pollinator garden.
No yard? Even one square foot of pollinator habit – about the size of a large planter – will help bees and improve the environment.
Every square foot we plant makes a difference to the bees and their pollinator friends.
Accelerating Research in Honey Bee Health
Everything we know about what’s harming bees comes from the efforts of dedicated bee scientists across the U.S.
Save the Bee funds research to speed the discovery of solutions to address the issues affecting honey bees and provide beekeepers with best practices in hive management to increase the chances of colony survival.
Current Save the Bee funded research initiatives include:
- Evaluating stressors on honey bees during crop pollination
- Examining the long-term effects of pesticide exposure on colony health
- Analyzing the nutrients in various pollens to understand the best foods for bees
- Investigating how well common treatments work to stop the Varroa mite
Research is critical to understanding the threats facing honey bees and developing new technologies to better their health, and ours.
Meet our research partners
Learn more about the innovators driving change in the welfare of honey bees.
Our work contributes to these UN Sustainable Development Goals
Inspiring the Next Generation of Beekeeper
Commercial beekeeping is a tough but vitally important job. As honey consumption in the U.S. has increased, the number of beekeepers has decreased – since the 1940s, we’ve lost about half the total commercial beekeepers.
At Save the Bee, we are inspiring the next generation of beekeeper through education, support and connection to others in the industry. Of particular importance, is supporting aspiring beekeepers from underrepresented groups through scholarships to master beekeeper programs that prepare students for careers in commercial beekeeping.
Key to saving the bee, is nurturing a movement of people concerned about climate change and food safety and responding with action, oftentimes starting in their own backyard. We campaign to bring together bee-lovers from all over the U.S. to inspire them to be backyard scientists, plant pollinator habitat, raise funds, and spread the word on the importance of bees on the lives of every one of us.
Thank a beekeeper
Six ways beekeepers contribute to your health and wellbeing.
Our Impact
Plant
Planted nearly 500,000 square feet of pollinator habitat on farms, ranches, parks, and vineyards
Invest
Funded best practices research, resulting in annual savings of $5 million for Oregon’s beekeeping industry
Innovate
Supported the development of an app to help farmers avoid harmful pesticides when bees are pollinating
Advocate
Advocated for the successful phase out of the hazardous pesticide chlorpyrifos in Oregon
Guide
Trained 60 growers to create pollinator habitat for foraging bees on their organic farms
Inform
Educated more than 3,000 bee-lovers to become good stewards of pollinators in their communities
Curious what else you
can do to help?
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