Bayer CropScience Celebrates One-Year Anniversary Of North American Bee Care Center

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (April 27, 2015) – Continuing a more than 25-year commitment to pollinator health, Bayer CropScience today celebrated successes and the one-year anniversary of the North American Bee Care Center, at its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park. The unique center continues to bring together significant technological, scientific and academic resources to promote improved honey bee health, product stewardship and sustainable agriculture.

“We are excited to celebrate an incredibly successful year for our North American Bee Care Center, which was developed to further our agricultural investment and protect resources critical to the success of growers around the world” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience LP. “The center helps us leave a better world through protecting pollinator health and providing a more sustainable future for growers who depend on honey bees to pollinate their crops. The research and development innovations developed here are a necessary component of providing enough safe, healthy food to nourish a rapidly expanding global population.”

The North American Bee Care Center, part of the company’s more than $12 million investment in bee health last year, hosts researchers including entomologists, apiarists and graduate students who develop comprehensive solutions for bee health. Some of the accomplishments of these scientists and the Bayer Bee Care Program over the past year include:

• Developing new non-invasive technologies known as Smart Hives to track changes in colony health and help improve hive management.
• Developing and testing new delivery systems, including the novel Varroa Gate technology, to prevent colony re-infestation by Varroa mites during the summer.
• Hosting more than 3,000 visitors at the North American Bee Care Center and participating in more than 100 conferences, meetings and tradeshows dedicated to pollinator health.
• Establishing a bee health student research platform, involving visiting graduate students and sponsored research projects among universities.
• Launching “Feed a Bee,” a major initiative to increase forage for honey bees and other pollinators, including growing 50 million flowers and providing additional forage acreage in 2015.
• Working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to create bee-attractant habitats along highway rights-of-ways.
• Working with Project Apis m. to establish pollinator patches across 130 miles in Kansas and 3,000 acres of bee forage in California and Washington.
• Developing Bayer’s Fluency Agent, an innovative technology that significantly reduces airborne dust associated with corn seed planting to reduce potential bee exposure.
• Promoting Bayer’s CARE Program, emphasizing communication and stewardship of Bayer CropScience products and the long-term viability of modern farming.

These and other highlights can be found in the Bayer CropScience North American Bee Care Center Annual Report, available for download at http://bit.ly/1HO6JF9.

The Bayer Bee Care Center, a 6,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility joins the Eastern Bee Care Technology Station in Clayton, North Carolina, and a Bee Care Center at the joint global headquarters campus of Bayer CropScience and Bayer Animal Health in Monheim, Germany, in working to promote pollinator health. Bayer CropScience leadership, employees and community leaders joined in the ceremony, which included tours of the facility.

The center houses a full laboratory with a teaching and research apiary, honey extraction and hive maintenance space; interactive learning center; and meeting, training and presentation facilities for beekeepers, farmers and educators, as well as office space for a full staff and graduate students. On-site honey bee colonies, pollinator-friendly gardens and a screened hive observation area have advanced education and collaboration to foster significant improvement in honey bee health and stewardship measures and best management practices.

"Congratulations to everyone at Bayer CropScience for the remarkable achievements made in just one short year at the North American Bee Care Center. Their efforts to protect and promote pollinator health take on special meaning when you consider how much impact honey bees, North Carolina’s state insect, have on our state economy,” said North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. “Having healthy honey bees means we have healthier, more productive crops statewide, which directly contributes to the growth of our economy and national agricultural leadership.”

A hub for worldwide honey bee health initiatives, the Center supports scientific research and development, and education of the public on honey bees’ integral role in agriculture. The Center gathers premier technological, scientific and academic resources to protect and improve honey bee health and sustainable agriculture. Additionally, the North American Bee Care Center has achieved LEED Silver certification, which will produce a surplus of energy. The environmentally sustainable facility helps Bayer CropScience reduce its carbon footprint to support efforts to promote corporate environmental stewardship. Products and technology developed at the Center help control parasitic mites in honey bee hives, help manage a Healthy Bees program, assess the safety of crop protection products to bees, and much more. Other activities conducted on-site over the past year include a Sentinel Hive monitoring program, varroagate testing and development, Varroa resistance monitoring and varroacide screening.

For more information on the North American Bee Care Center and the Bayer CropScience commitment to honey bee health, visit http://www.bayercropscience.us/our-commitment/bee-health.

Bayer CropScience Twitter Page:
http://twitter.com/bayer4cropsus
http://twitter.com/bayerbeecare

Bayer CropScience Blog:
http://connect.bayercropscience.us

Bayer CropScience is committed to bringing new technology and solutions for agriculture and non-agricultural uses. For questions concerning the availability and use of products, contact a local Bayer CropScience representative, or visit Bayer CropScience online at www.bayercropscience.us.

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About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 9,494 million (2014) and is one of the world’s leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high value seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 23,100 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: bayercropscience.us.

Contact:
Bayer CropScience Media Hotline, 1-877-879-6162, or

Beth Roden
Head of Communications & Bayer CropScience NA Coordinator
Bayer CropScience
Tel: (919) 549-2030
Email: beth.roden@bayer.com

Erin Smith
MMI Public Relations
Tel: (919) 233-6600
Email: erin@mmipublicrelations.com

Find more information at www.bayercropscience.us.

Forward-Looking Statements
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