Orange County Beekeepers Association

Improve Floral Diversity for Bees

Honey Bees on a Maypop in Roos’ Garden

Chatham County Cooperative Extension Agriculture Agent Debbie Roos will talk about the importance of floral diversity to honey bee health and provide tips on how to increase diversity and maximize benefits to honey bees. Debbie will share her top plants for bees and give a virtual tour of her popular demonstration pollinator garden in Pittsboro, NC that features over 220 unique species, 85% of them native to North Carolina. She will also share resources she has developed for farmers and gardeners interested in enhancing pollinator habitat that can be found on her website at www.carolinapollinatorgarden.org.

Bio:

Since 1999 Debbie Roos has been an Agriculture Agent for the Chatham County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension where she is responsible for programming in the areas of commercial vegetable production, organic production, pollinator conservation, alternative agricultural enterprises, forestry, and beekeeping. Debbie delivers educational programming to growers through regular workshops and her award-winning Growing Small Farms website (www.growingsmallfarms.org). Debbie is passionate about pollinator conservation and has planted demonstration habitats and developed resources to teach others about the importance of bees and other pollinators to our agriculture ecosystem.