[Pollinator] Haagen-Dazs Brand Launches Bee-friendly Garden Design Competition at UC Davis

[LDA at pollinator.org]

University of California, Davis
December 8, 2008

HAAGEN-DAZS BRAND LAUNCHES BEE-FRIENDLY
GARDEN DESIGN COMPETITION AT UC DAVIS

Honey bees will soon find a pollinator paradise at the University of
California, Davis, thanks to Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream.

Haagen-Dazs has announced that it is making a $125,000 donation to
the UC Davis Department of Entomology to launch a nationwide design
competition to create a one-half acre Honey Bee Haven garden at the
Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.

>From that gift, $65,000 will be used to establish the garden. 
Häagen-Dazs and UC Davis will determine how the balance of the gift
can best be used to benefit the health of honey bee populations. 

"The Honey Bee Haven will be a pollinator paradise," said Lynn
Kimsey, chair of the Department of Entomology and director of the
Bohart Museum of Entomology. "It will provide a much needed,
year-round food source for our bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey
Bee Research Facility. We anticipate it also will be a gathering
place to inform and educate the public about bees. We are grateful to
Haagen-Dazs for its continued efforts to ensure bee health."

The garden will include a seasonal variety of blooming plants that
will provide a year-round food source for honey bees. It is intended
to be a living laboratory supporting research into the nutritional
needs and natural feeding behaviors of honey bees and other insect
pollinators.

Visitors to the garden will be able to glean ideas on how to
establish their own bee-friendly gardens and help to improve the
nutrition of bees in their own backyards. The bee haven is expected
to be the first in a series of pollinator gardens at UC Davis.

"The garden will be extremely helpful in demonstrating that bees are
not a nuisance in the backyard, but instead are obtaining food and
water essential for their survival," said Eric Mussen, a Cooperative
Extension apiculturist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

"Campus visitors will be able to see which flowers are most
attractive to foraging honey bees and how to space the flowers in
order to have bees flying in the most convenient areas of their
gardens," he added.

Garden design competition

The garden design competition funded by the Haagen-Dazs brand is
being coordinated by the California Center for Urban Horticulture at
UC Davis. It is open to anyone who can create a proposal by using
basic landscape design principles.

"This is an excellent opportunity to raise public awareness of the
current plight of honey bees and to educate the public on how they
can help," said Dave Fujino, director of the California Center for
Urban Horticulture. "Planting a garden with honey bee friendly plants
provides nutrition for the bees and has the potential to create
valuable habitat corridors between agricultural sites."

Design submissions for the competition should describe a
one-half-acre garden that can be installed for $65,000 or less.
Submissions must include a site plan, planting plan, maintenance
program and construction cost estimate.

The plans should include plant species that provide forage for honey
bees, a bee-accessible water source, and environmentally friendly
paths for visitors. More design specifications and lists of
bee-appropriate plants can be found at the UC Davis Department of
Entomology Web site at
<http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/dept/beebio.cfm>.

Design plans for the Honey Bee Haven garden must be received at UC
Davis by Jan. 30, 2009. Plans should be mailed to the California
Center for Urban Horticulture, College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences Dean's Office, University of California, One
Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616-8571.

The winning design, to be announced in February 2009, will be
implemented, and the winning team will receive on-site recognition on
the Haagen-Dazs commemorative plaque located within the garden. In
addition, the winner will receive a free year's supply of Häagen-Dazs
ice cream and will be included in a 2009 press announcement.

More information on the design competition can be obtained from
Melissa Borel, program manager at UC Davis' California Center for
Urban Horticulture, at (530) 752-6642 or mjborel at ucdavis.edu.

Honey bee disappearance

Honey bees, which pollinate more than 100 different U.S. agricultural
crops, valued at $15 billion, are dying from an unexplained
phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder." First identified
three years ago, the disorder is characterized by hive abandonment.
The bees disappear, often leaving behind the honey and the immature
bees, which die if not fed by the worker bees. In recent years, the
nation's beekeepers have reported losing from one-third to all of
their bees.

Bee experts suspect that a multitude of causes, including pesticides,
diseases, parasites, stress, climate change and malnutrition, are
contributing to the dramatic decline in honey bee populations.
Seasonal food shortages lead to malnutrition in the bees, making them
more susceptible to diseases.

The Haagen-Dazs brand in February of this year launched the
"Haagen-Dazs Loves Honey Bees" campaign. The company committed a
combined $250,000 donation for bee research to UC Davis and
Pennsylvania State University. It also formed a seven-member
scientific advisory board, created an educational Web site at
<http://www.helpthehoneybees.com> and introduced the new Vanilla
Honey Bee ice cream flavor.

During the last several months, the public has generously responded
to the Haagen-Dazs brand's call to action by donating more than
$30,000 to support honey bee research at UC Davis. In addition,
numerous companies have launched programs that are donating a
percentage of their sales to support UC Davis honey bee research. For
example, Whole Foods Markets generated more than $10,600 in direct
and matching gifts through its in-store promotions.

Anyone interested in donating to UC Davis honey bee research may
obtain information at
https://awc.ucdavis.edu/makeagift.aspx?alloccat=2000.

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public
service that matter to California and transform the world. Located
close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual
research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health
system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers
interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate
majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences,
Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and
advanced degrees from five professional schools: Education, Law,
Management, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. The UC Davis School of
Medicine and UC Davis Medical Center are located on the Sacramento
campus near downtown.

Media contact(s):
* Lynn Kimsey, Entomology, (530) 752-5373, lskimsey at ucdavis.edu
* Eric Mussen, Entomology, (530) 752-0472, ecmussen at ucdavis.edu
* Dave Fujino, California Center for Urban Horticulture, (530)
754-7739, dwfujino at ucdavis.edu
* Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843,
pjbailey at ucdavis.edu

View this story on the Web at
<http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8885>