“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find itself hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir
Every year our participation in the @EarthShareNC Corporate Challenge is a great way to celebrate Earth Month. It’s a day we roll up our sleeves alongside other locally minded folks to dig into a shovel-ready environmental project that benefits the Triangle. This year we got dirty with Keep Durham Beautiful to work on behalf of bees, pollen and beer.
But first we had to move the truck. Motivated by the fact that bumblebees can carry nearly 90% of their weight in pollen, ten of us worked the mulch truck free from the mud. Getting unstuck provided the ideal scenario to understand the impact of urbanization on ecosystem services such as pollination. Bee Fact #1 – 0ver 75% of our crops require pollination via pollinators like the one we were constructing in downtown Durham. Bee Fact #2 – a variety of yeast, used to make beer, lives in flower nectar and requires pollinators who will hang out around this project. With the help of the City of Durham we began shoveling mulch and moving telephone poles to frame the garden.
Like a swarm of worker bees the crew from Harris Beverages helped with the heavy lifting and to provide cerveza for the after party at @ThePitBBQDurham where they introduced @CervezaPatagonia.us , a brewery from the Patagonia region that has recently expanded distribution into North Carolina. It was just the perfect ending to our EarthDay project as we tasted the fruits of our labor and were reminded of the importance of pollinators with whom we share the Planet.
