Story Time Saturday 2PM

Come and join me for Insect Tales or is it tails?

Monarch & Pollinator Fair 1-4pm at McKinley Foundation ; Pollinatarium closed March 2nd

Come visit with me at the fair today. More than a dozen people with information, crafts, games and face painting will be at the McKinley Foundation at 410 E. Daniel St, Champaign.

Out of town this Saturday

Hello I will be out of town Saturday February 17th. Please come and visit next Saturday February 24th before the Insect Fear Film Festival!

Happy New Year! Come and Visit!

We will be open Saturdays 1:30 to 4:30 unless posted otherwise.For appointments during the week please email me at lesleyd@illinois.edu

Pollinatarium visits are currently by appointment only

We’re sorry. Visits to the Pollinatarium are currently by appointment only.

Pollinatarium building will Open August 2nd, 2021

We are scheduling indoor visits for August and September. Visits will be by appointment. Please send an email to lesleyd@illinois.edu

Pollinatarium Bee-zaar!

Thank you for supporting the Pollinatarium Bee-zaar! We had a great turnout for our first ever Pollinatarium Bee-zaar! Thank you to everyone who came to support the Pollinatarium, and thank you to the Entomology Graduate Students for hosting the event and donating their time and energy to help set up, run, and take down the read more »

Beekeeping Kickoff for 2018

We will be hosting the first meeting of the CEIBA (Central Eastern Illinois Beekeepers Assoc.) on  January 27th, 2018. *   *   *   *   *   * Pot Luck Noon to 1 PM. Meeting starts at 1 PM. Tim Wilbanks will be speaking and taking orders for packages of honey bees. *   *   *   *   *   *

Pollinatarium continues to evolve

As one visitor remarked, the Pollinatarium has continued to evolve. For the first time, we were on the 2015 CU Garden Walk for sustainable gardening. We made cedar planting boxes for the south side of the building, where we can’t dig because of the buried power lines. We also put a hexagonal flowerbed box under read more »

Thousands get up close and personal with pollinators

The UI Pollinatarium, the discovery/science center dedicated to raising pollinator awareness, is the ultimate in repurposing; the building at the south end of the UI Arboretum was originally constructed as a pesticide storage shed, spent over a decade as Gene Robinson’s Bee Research Facility, and in 2009 was converted into a facility for science outreach read more »

National Pollinator Week 2014

In 2007, National Pollinator Week was officially declared by the U.S. Senate in order to recognize the importance of pollinators to ecosystem health and agriculture and to support efforts to increase awareness about pollinators. Here’s how Urbana-Champaign celebrated with the rest of the nation in 2014… Week Long Events June 16-June 22 Pollinator Food Guides read more »

Over 2700 visitors in 2012!

In 2012, over 2700 people came to visit. In their numbers were students in every second grade class in Champaign, home schoolers, Urbana school district fourth graders, Parkland College classes, visiting beekeepers, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, passers-by, Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, an agricultural tour group from Montana, and a few bee biology celebrities. We’re now read more »

Celebrity bee biologist visitors

Celebrity bee biologist visitors have included Nathan Schiff (USDA Forest Service), Walter “Steve” Sheppard (Washington State University), Hachiro Shimanuki (USDA retired), and Peter Kevan (University of Guelph).  

Champaign classes visit

We’re off to a great start! Every second grade class in the Champaign school district visited the Pollinatarium during the Fall 2009 semester.

National Pollinator Week 2009

National Pollinator Week in Champaign-Urbana is June 22-28, 2009 and includes Pollinator Discovery Day at the Pollinatarium on Sunday, June 28, from 1:00-4:00 p.m. In addition to the current displays, there will be games, crafts, a bee hive and a pollinator-themed magic show. The day will also feature workshops on insect photography and on becoming read more »