The University of Southern Indiana has become an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program, designed to marshal the strengths of educational campuses for the benefit of pollinators.  

This affiliation journey began with a USI Endeavor Grant of $2,500 awarded to Nolan Durham, a biology major, who worked to help the University become an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program. “I am interested in this project since the entirety of its breadth is what I envision a career for myself looking like,” says Durham. “I want to be a wildlife biologist, and it’s my dream to be a proponent of the issue of climate change.” 

With this affiliation, USI joins many other cities and campuses across the country united in improving their landscapes for pollinators. 

“The survival of pollinators depends on the presence of native plant species. That’s why I was excited to join the effort to help USI become a Bee Campus,” says Dr. Edith Hardcastle, Associate Professor of Biology. “This designation makes our campus a living laboratory for conservation studies and provides unlimited student research opportunities. It has already fostered collaboration across disciplines, with other institutions of higher learning and our broader community.” 

USI will be bringing the campus and community together starting this Fall Semester in a beekeeping group, with a wider scope of interests including sustainability, native plants and pollinators of all types.  A bee yard or apiary is planned for a sunny hillside on the eastern part of campus with hives and bees to be installed in Spring 2025. 

“Our designation as a Bee Campus provides us a connection to a national organization with an established guide and framework to implement positive change,” says Dr. Jason Hardgrave, Interim Assistant Provost for Academic Affairs and beekeeper. “It also brings us into a group of similar people to share ideas and support these important activities.” 

Long term, the University will have to meet several requirements to maintain its affiliation. Hardgrave says the first step is establishing a committee that includes faculty, staff and students. Other work includes reviewing current policies and procedures regarding pesticide and herbicide usage and working to design and implement a plan to reduce the use of chemicals and promote natural methods of plant and insect control less harmful to pollinators, people and the environment. Education is also a key component, both on campus and extending into the wider community. Hardgrave says visiting student organizations, working with local groups and hosting conferences on campus are all on the agenda. There is a Bee City designation as well, and having Evansville work to achieve that designation is a long-term goal of the project. 

As a part of the Bee Campus project, the University has already established a garden on campus that supports a diversity of pollinators and serves as a demonstration of how to create spaces where pollinators can eat, reproduce and survive the winter. Exotic, invasive plant species have been removed and leaves and plant stems which harbor the next generation of pollinators and provide winter shelter are an integral part of the demonstration.  

“When people think of bees, the European honeybee is universally known and loved because of its importance to crop pollination and honey production. In the Bee Campus project, the honeybee serves as an ambassador for all pollinators to spread the word that Indiana is home to 420 native bee species,” says Hardcastle. “And that butterflies, moths, beetles and even flies are essential to pollination.”  

Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA are initiatives of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country. Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities and campuses to sustain pollinators by providing them with healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants, and free of pesticides. Pollinators like bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees, honeybees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost 90% of the world’s flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.