Stepping up for Stepping Stones

Spring really begins on April 14 at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich when the exhibition “Wild Bees” opens. It features exquisite color photographs of wild bees in their natural habitats, along with an exploration of their varied lifestyles. The photographs are part of an ongoing wild bee project undertaken by photojournalist and writer Paula Sharp and nature photographer Ross Eatman, who began documenting wild bees inhabiting New York”™s Rockefeller State Park Preserve and neighboring Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in 2014. 

With bee communities, both domestic and wild, being stressed by environmental changes and the impact of pesticides, their importance as pollinators for everything from wildflowers to our basic foods has been increasingly recognized. Although domesticated honeybees often are used to pollinate cultivated plants, wild bees are able to pollinate many flowers and crops that honey bees cannot. 

The Bruce Museum”™s exhibition will include spectacular views of a variety of pinned bee specimens magnified by a video microscope, as well as three detailed, enlarged models of wild bees, an interactive bee Identification guide and examples of a few wild bee homes. “Wild Bees” runs through Nov. 11.