Rumors are circulating that Dr. Nicholas Calderone is retiring from Cornell.
This is not a rumor!!
It is true he will be departing this position and the Entomology department is debating how limited money for 2 new hirings should be partitioned. It is disheartening that there is a push by our land grant university not to replace this valuable agricultural position at a time when our industry is still in the clutches of CCD and a time when we have so many newby beekeepers joining our ranks.
This position is the last (Apicultural) University Research & Extension position in the Northeast and Cornell has had a professor of apiculture for nearly 100 years. New York State had an estimated 45,000 hives in 2012 and was rated at number ten in honey production in the US (NASS, March 2012). Pollination services adds an estimated $300,000,000 value to a 4.4 billion dollar agriculture income in New York. To maintain a strong industry we need an educational program for new beekeepers, scientifically sound principles provided by extension program to address honey bee health problems and we need a basic research program to provide answers to honeybee disease, pollination ecology and genomic studies that may reveal solutions to future problems.
This position has produced a rich reputation through published research, training of students and post graduates and public service to apicultural throughout New York and the entire USA. This has been an important resource to the beekeeping industry, backyard beekeepers and to agriculture of New York. Beekeepers, farmers and the New York economy need this position to help maintain the numbers and health of honeybee colonies to continue providing the valuable resource of pollination for New York agriculture. The entomology department, and Cornell University receives a benefit by maintaining this position because of the impact that basic and applied research and extension generates in this discipline and imparts on the lives and economy of New York.
Should you and/or your local bee association choose to write a letter in support of the continuation of this position at Dyce Laboratory for Honey Bee Studies you should send a stamped addressed letter, (not email) to both the department chair and the Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences soon!
Dr. Jeffery Scott
Department Chair
Cornell University
Department of Entomology
Comstock Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
Dr. Kathryn J. Boor
CALS Dean's Office 260 Roberts Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-590