A $900,000 grant from UC Office of the President will establish a four-campus network of bee researchers and engineers to strengthen honey bee health and crop pollination. 

The three-year grant, titled "Strengthening Honey Bee Health and Crop Pollination to Safeguard Food Availability and Affordability" and headed by principal investigator Boris Baer, a UC Riverside professor of entomology, also includes the San Diego and Merced campuses. “I'm very excited about so many different kinds of bee expertise joining forces through this project,” Baer said. 

"Most excitingly, this funding will not only support research that will help improve pollinator health so crucial for California's agriculture, but it will provide opportunities for training of students and postdoctoral scholars,” said co-principal investigator Elina Lastro Niño, UC  Cooperative Extension apiculturist of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “Work focused on improving honey bee stocks via novel tools aligns well with ongoing work in the Niño lab and will further cement collaborations with beekeepers and growers.” 

See more at https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=45587.