Detroit area greenhouse in business for almost 100 years back open and not concerned about murder hornet

BELLEVILLE, Mich. (FOX 2) - The past 9 weeks have seen a lot of things change at Robson's Greenhouse in Belleville. Ten weeks ago, Valentine's Day was in the past and Easter and Mother's Day were both approaching with business looking to start taking off. Then coronavirus shut the state down.

After Governor Gretchen Whitmer's executive order closed all non-essential businesses in late March, Robson's was on the side and waiting for her to allow businesses like theirs to reopen.

On April 24, she announced restrictions could be loosened and now Robson's is back and open for business. It's just a bit different.

"You can simply call out your order from your couch and we'll have it ready for you the next day," Kevin Robson said.

The greenhouse has been open since 1929 in Belleville and his family has been on the property since 1871. This is their favorite time of year.

"We want to make sure our customers can get their flowers anyway that they deemed safe," he said.

Since the pandemic, they've had to become digital experts and are now preparing online orders and doing curbside pickups.

"When they place their order on a Monday it's ready Tuesday, by 10 o'clock the next day," he said.

There are other protective measures in place to keep customers and employees safe - but there's one big difference.

"You can't see everybody smiling in our facility when they're looking at all the flowers, there are masks covering it."

With business coming in again, the family is returning to their roots and are pretty much experts when it comes to plants and pollinators. So what does Robson think of those so-called murder hornets that have now reached the US?

"We are not concerned at all. We're not gonna get wiped out by a hornet. It's just not gonna happen," he said.

Robson is thankful for the entomologists at Michigan State University who said there have only been a few isolated detections in the Pacific Northwest. That means Michiganders and our bees aren't at risk.

"They're an Asian hornet that came from southeast Asia. They came in one hive in British Columbia. There was one bee in Washington," he said.

The university goes on to say that the hornets may never arrive in Michigan and it's highly unlikely they'll pose a threat to humans or our honey bees in the state.

"There's no way that a hornet is going to wipe agriculture off the map," he said. "There's nothing to worry about."

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