‘The Buzz about Pollinators’ Opens May 11 at The Farmers’ Museum

COOPERSTOWN—On May 11, The Farmers’ Museum opens a new exhibition in its Main Barn, “The Buzz about Pollinators.” The exhibition looks at three of New York’s important agricultural products—apples, maple syrup, and honey—with a particular focus on the role of bees and other pollinators in their cultivation. Furthermore, the exhibition examines what we can do to help pollinators thrive in the face of climate change and other challenges.

One out of every three bites of food we eat depends on pollinators. Around the world there are 1,400 crop plants that produce all our food and plant-based products, and most require pollination by animals. Crops such as apples, grapes, cherries, onions, pumpkins, and cauliflower in New York State rely heavily on pollinators. Native bees accomplish about a quarter of insect agricultural pollination in the United States, serving commercial crops such as fruit trees, berries, melons, and garden vegetables. There are an estimated 450 different species of bees in New York and around 430 of these are native bees—the most important wild pollinators. However, a New York State survey, supported by Cornell University, found that more than half of our important native pollinators may be at risk of disappearing. As in other parts of the country, our native bees, and butterflies such as monarchs, are suffering a decline in numbers. Half of studied bumble bee species in the U.S. are in decline, while Monarch butterfly populations have decreased by 80 percent over the last 20 years.