Information about how commercial bee keeping functions and its impact to overall bee populations was inquired about by Brent Lewis, Landscape Architect. Below is the response from Adam Donzel, an Assistant Professor in Entomology. 

'Hi Brent,

Yeah, there is work on that.  Here are links to couple studies about it:

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32023

https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/22/1/17/6523145

Basically, yes, there are some stresses involved with migratory beekeeping but sedentary colonies can also have similar issues. In some scenarios, migratory colonies could be healthier as they are moved to areas with good nutritional resources all the time, while those left in place have to deal with times of low food availability. In reality, though, migratory colonies do undergo a lot of stress as they are used to pollinate crops and a lot goes into that - the stress of confinement, heat, exposure to agrochemicals, etc. From a beekeeping perspective, this is calculated into the fees charged for pollination (to some extent at least). Right now, beekeepers charge about $200/hive to pollinate almonds for example (the most lucrative pollination event). Big beekeepers manage 20,000-50,000 hives!  "Small" commercial beekeepers usually have 2-5000.

Migratory beekeeping uses about 85% of the managed colonies in the USA (incredible!). One big issue with this is that, if a new pest or pathogen is introduced, it will be spread throughout the country very fast. And in big pollination events, like almonds, hives are concentrated at very high densities, which does present a lot of opportunities for spreading diseases. They do mitigate this to some extent, however, as there are health checks required to move bees across state lines, and almond growers usually require checks of colonies to make sure they are healthy.

Hope this helps - always happy to answer questions when I can!"

Bicycle registration reached over 1000 fee payments, equating to $9,980 (not including the CFOPAL payments).

From: Leciejewski, Mary leciejewski.8@osu.edu
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2022 12:19 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren dlhulse2@illinois.edu
Cc: Szal, Dominika Patrycja dszal2@illinois.edu
Subject: RE: Scheduling a Waste Management Survey

Hi Daphne,

Pleasure speaking with you last week. I was going to send out an agenda for the Big 10 and Friends meeting on Thursday. Are you still interested in introducing yourself and your project to try to solicit a better response rate? If so, I can put you on the agenda.

Thanks! Mary

From: Scrogum, Joy Joann <jscrogum@illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2022 4:18 PM
To: Hulse, Daphne Lauren <dlhulse2@illinois.edu>
Cc: Samaras, Zach <zsamaras@illinois.edu>; Feher, Savannah <sfeher@illinois.edu>; Vogel, Kealie Diann <kdvogel2@illinois.edu>; Varney, Peter W <pvarney@illinois.edu>
Subject: Information available in the "UC Campus Waste Audit" group on Teams

Daphne, thanks for taking the time to speak with our ISTC team this afternoon.

As noted, the previous two UIUC building waste characterization reports (file names "Baseline_Waste_Stream_Characterization_Study_Final_Report" and "Waste characterization phase 2") are in the “Files” section of the “UC Campus Waste Audit” group on teams, so you can see the buildings previously audited and consider whether to include those in the new study for some temporal comparison.

The document “Waste Audit Activity Zone Summary” provides links to our recent work with Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Missouri State University (MSU). When this document was originally added to Teams, the MSU plan had not yet been published, but it was released this month, so I’ve updated the file with a link to that plan. This summary document shows the activity zones defined at each university, the number of representative buildings analyzed within each zone, and refers to the specific pages within each respective plan in which activity zones are discussed. For all three of these campuses, ISTC conducted waste characterizations using the activity zone approach, summarized current waste management practices, and collected feedback from focus groups (we conducted the focus group sessions for Northwestern an UIC, but MSU conducted their own sessions virtually during the pandemic). We then worked with campus personnel to consider the data collected, along with their waste reduction and diversion goals, and formulated recommended strategies to reach those goals as part of waste management plans.

Beyond focus group sessions, in past studies we’ve also collected feedback from conversations during building walkthroughs, as part of more informal conversations, and from surveys like the UIUC building occupant survey (also on Teams). We’re happy to work with you to find the right balance of approaches for your purposes. The questions from the previous building occupant survey, for example, need not be presented as part of a survey this time around. Perhaps those could be among the questions for discussion within in-person focus groups.

Also within the files on Teams is a copy of an email in which I described the activity zone approach and put forth some possible zones for the UIUC campus, along with some campus buildings that might fall within them (including buildings that were part of previous waste characterizations).

So, take some time to consider all of this material, and let me know some days/times that would work for your schedule later in October or early November to work with ISTC on the definition of activity zones, specific buildings to include, and whether/how to incorporate stakeholder engagement in ISTC’s proposal. We look forward to working with you!

Best wishes,

Joy

Joy Scrogum
Assistant Scientist, Sustainability
LEED Green Associate | Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP)
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Prairie Research Institute
Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC)
Champaign, IL 61820