Silk conducts bee promotion
By Adnews Staff
Danone Canada has begun a promotion for its Silk brand. The promotion is being conducted with Pattison Outdoor Advertising in collaboration with the Entomology Laboratory at University of Montreal. The initiative involves the installation of bee nest boxes attached to ten billboards in Montreal to study solitary bee populations and pollination. The boxes were made by Atelier Zabie of Ayer’s Cliff, QC. The program will run through the summer.
“By placing some of the nest boxes near flowerbeds, we will be able to collect some data,” said Étienne Normandin-Leclerc, an entomologist at the university. “This pilot project will help better understand the environmental characteristics that influence the presence of urban pollinators. The idea is to monitor bees during the summer and then, in the fall, collect straws, the birth cells for the bees, with larvae and pupae in order to identify their content. The goal is to determine which species use these nest boxes and to study the rate of parasitism they contain, depending on their location, proximity to flowerbeds, their elevation, and other factors. The data collected during this pilot project could, in a second phase, lead to a more in-depth scientific study of solitary bees in the city.”