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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Second
posting</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
color=#800000>The Great Sunflower Project</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
color=#800000>While most persons have heard about Colony Collapse Disorder in
honey bees, few realize that all of our pollinators, butterflies, hummingbirds,
beetles, wasps, and native bees may also be in decline. Gretchen LeBuhn of
San Francisco State University has created a citizen science project to study
the population of bees in North America. <EM><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The Great Sunflower Project
</SPAN></EM>uses a native annual plant, the sunflower, to attract bees.
Citizens simply plant sunflowers and twice monthly record the time it takes five
bees to visit a blooming flower. If no bees arrive in 30 minutes, the
observation time is finished. <I>The Great Sunflower Project</I> is giving
small seed packets of the variety ‘Lemon Queen’ to participants to reduce
variables in the experiment. 'Lemon Queen' grows five feet tall with 4-5"
blossoms of clear yellow petals around a dark chocolate center and is just
right for flower beds & even containers. For participants who are
able, distinguishing among five different kinds of bees will give even more
information to the project. The bee categories are simple: honey
bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, green metallic bees, and “other” bees.
All data is submitted on-line or by mail.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
color=#800000>This is a very well-planned project and it has received high
praise from Sigma Xi, an honor society for science researchers. <I>The
Great Sunflower Project</I> can be completed by anyone and everyone.
Pollinators, especially bees, are essential to our food supply. Bees are
responsible for every third bite of food.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
color=#800000>Please visit this website for more information:</FONT>
</SPAN><A
href="https://webmail.berwicksd.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://webmail.berwicksd.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.greatsunflower.org/"
target=_blank><SPAN
style="COLOR: purple; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">http://www.greatsunflower.org/</SPAN></A><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><FONT
color=#008080><STRONG><EM>The Great Sunflower Project</EM> has expanded to
include these other plants:</STRONG> * While we really want Sunflower data
from everyone, many people have asked if they can collect data from some other
species. So, we have expanded the list of plants that we are collecting
data from to include Bee balm <EM>(Monarda),</EM> Cosmos (only the purple one),
Tickseed <EM>(Coreopsis),</EM> Rosemary (non-native, herb), Lacy Phacelia,
Purple coneflower <EM>(Echinacea purpurea)</EM> and Goldenrod <EM>(Solidago
canadensis).</EM> When you go to the submit observations page,
you will have the option to choose Lemon Queen sunflower or any of these from
the pull down menu. You can follow the same procedure that you do for a
sunflower. If you would really like to send us data from a plant not on
the list, please do so, however, it isn’t really useful to us unless we have
many people collecting from exactly the same varieties. We also do not
want to bias our data by having everyone only pick the plant that has the most
bees in their garden!! <BR></FONT></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV><FONT
face=Arial>
<DIV><BR>Mary Jo R. Gibson<BR>Penn State Master Gardener<BR>Columbia County
Coordinator</DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>