This week marks National Pollinator Week, a time when we celebrate all the diverse animals out there that contribute to pollination. The western honey bee, the species used across the country to support food production, to provide a natural sweetener, and to quite simply contribute to our leisure and free time, is among the most important of pollinators. To mark Pollinator Week, the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) recently released the results of its 2019-2020 National Honey Bee Colony Loss Survey. Results revealed some interesting insights into the experiences of our honey bee colonies, and their keepers, across the country this past year. From April 1st,…
Author: The Bee Informed Team
The Bee Informed Partnership is a collaboration of efforts across the country from some of the leading research labs and universities in agriculture and science to better understand honey bee declines in the United States. Supported by the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, we’re working with beekeepers to better understand how we can keep healthier bees.
The key to our success is the true partnership we maintain across a wide range of disciplines including traditional honey bee science, economics, statistics, and medical research that makes all these tools available to this important research. And just as important as the tools are the people. We not only have the leading researchers in the honey bee industry, we also have advisory boards from the commercial beekeeping industries, almond and other commercial growers, as well as naturalists and conservationists from across the country.
An extra couple of days to complete the BIP survey?! Excellent!
The Annual Colony Loss and Management Survey is extended until May 8th! Please take advantage of this last opportunity to complete the online survey, and also: Tell your beekeeping friends to do the same. Every answer counts. Don’t you worry though, we are not delaying our results. Expect to see our press release with the preliminary numbers coming out mid May! If you have taken the survey already: Thank you! We encourage you to share our message: Take the Survey Today and support BIP’s long-term colony loss monitoring efforts. May you have a good day, Your Friends at Bee Informed Partnership
IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!
This just never gets old: “IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! DO DO DOO DOOOOOO. DO DO DODODO!” – Europe The Annual Colony Loss and Management Survey is closing on April 30th May 8th! Please take advantage of the last couple of days to complete the online survey and tell your beekeeping friends to do the same. Every answer counts. This is especially true because the participation rate is so far lower compared to previous years. To be fair, this year is different in so many ways, but we are in this together. Therefore, we encourage you to Take the Survey Today and support BIP’s long term…
The Art of Sign Twirling
Now that we have your attention, please note that we do not really have anything more to say about sign twirling. This was, however, the 3rd annual sign twirl for Auburn University student Adler Salem. We think he gets better each year! More importantly, this is the 14th year of the Survey, and for this 2019-2020 edition, we are one week in! If you would like to be a part of history too, head over to our survey portal. We deeply appreciate those beekeepers that have filled out the survey, and we deeply appreciate those of you looking to do it in the near future.…
Now Live – 2019-2020 Colony Loss & Management Survey!
Given the circumstances, we hope everyone is staying healthy these days! Spring is proliferating, with fields of blooming clover, pollen-covered cars, and the buzz of flying bees. Although these are unusual times, let’s do one thing as usual in April: Let’s take the Bee Informed Partnership’s annual Colony Loss and Management Survey! Just click here: Take The 2019-2020 BIP Loss and Management Survey! » The information that you provide will be invaluable to our understanding of honey bee health around the country. Since 2006, many thousands of beekeepers have answered the BIP National Loss Survey. This has enabled us to document and better understand long-term…
(Spo)oktober Blog: Don’t be afraid of State Specific Colony Losses!
Happy Fall y’all! In normal life, “Fall” means Halloween (and dressing up as fatbody-sucking Varroa mite) and Thanksgiving (we certainly are grateful to be part of the beekeeper community). In beekeeping life, “Fall” means that nectar flows come to an end, queens lay fewer eggs, winter bees are being reared and we have to (still) deal with Varroa mites. All this is happening for a reason: To get the bees ready for and successfully bring them through winter. (Hard to believe here in Alabama where it is still blazing hot!) You may remember that we reported the highest honey bee colony winter losses since the…
Donate to BIP when you shop at Amazon!
Today and tomorrow are Amazon Prime shopping days and if you have been waiting to purchase those early (or late) Christmas presents or treat yourself to some much needed items, it is easy to make supporting the Bee Informed Partnership part of all your Amazon shopping. Through Amazon Smile, you can build in a small donation to BIP every time you shop at no additional cost to yourself. With each purchase on Amazon Smile, 0.5% of the sale to a will go to an organization of your choice, and we hope that The Bee Informed Partnership is your non-profit of choice! To add BIP as…
Latest Loss Survey Results 2018-2019
Dear BIP Survey participants, You might have been wondering when the preliminary results of the 2018-2019 Bee Informed Partnership Colony Loss and Management Survey will be posted. Well, today is the day. Thanks for your patience! The “traditional” abstract is now posted on the BIP webpage here, while the Press Release issued by the University of Maryland can be read here. We want to thank all of you – whether you are a long-term respondent or a new-Bee to the survey – for participating this year. The information you provided is critical to building a long-term data set that we can now use to develop…
Colony Loss Survey, Closing Soon!
The end is near; now hear how we got here! April is about to end, and with that the Bee Informed National Colony Loss and Management survey will be hibernating (or summering) for another year. If you haven’t participated yet, we kindly ask you to do so here before the survey closes. This is our final advertising push, in the hopes that we can get another bump in participation! We are trying to beat last year’s number of submissions! It has been an exciting month for the Bee Informed Partnership! Participation rates of the Survey increased, reached a plateau, then rose again after a bit…
Waxing Poetic – A reminder of the BIP survey
Bee Informed Partnership’s Easter Basket By Selina Bruckner, Auburn University Dear beekeepers of America, Easter Sunday is so close; but before celebrating we would propose, For you to read this piece of poetry; which is much more than pure pleasantry. April is almost coming to an end; most of which our bees have spent Foraging on blooming flowers; while you invested all your powers In adding boxes and catching swarms; because now that the weather warms Bees get busy and buzz around; making their beekeepers really proud. The question is: Have those bees, survived last winters’ freeze? Or did you lose a colony? What an…