News story at: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2011/2011-05-19-092.html UNIVERSITY PARK, Pennsylvania, May 19, 2011 (ENS) - A new nationwide network to monitor and maintain honeybee health is being created by the Bee Informed Partnership. Their goal is to help honeybees to recover from assaults such as mites, fungii, pesticides, competition by alien species, the disappearance of flowering plants, air pollution and climate change that have caused bee colonies to collapse not only across the United States but around the world....
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.
PSU Leads Multidisciplinary Effort to Save Honeybees
News story at http://www.pamatters.com/2011/05/26/psu-leads-multidisciplinary-effort-to-save-honeybees/ Researchers from seven universities, beekeepers in every state, economists, epidemiologists and others have joined the Bee Informed Partnership. Senior extension associate at Penn State Dennis vanEngelsdorp is leading the project, and tells us honeybees are essential to agriculture. “About one in every three bites of food we eat is either directly or indirectly pollinated by honeybees,” he says.... News story at http://www.pamatters.com/2011/05/26/psu-leads-multidisciplinary-effort-to-save-honeybees/
BIP at farmdocDAILY
Read farmdocDAILY's May 2011 article about Honey Bee Health and the Bee Informed Partnership http://www.farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2011/05/honey_bee_health.html
Winter Loss Survey 2008 – 2009
A survey of honey bee colony losses in the United States, fall 2008 to spring 2009 Published in the Journal of Apicultural Research, this survey found that an estimated 29% of all US colonies died over the winter of 2008-2009. vanEngelsdorp, D., J. Hayes Jr, R. M. Underwood, and J. S. Pettis. 2010. A survey of honey bee colony losses in the United States, fall 2008 to spring 2009. Journal of Apicultural Research. 49: 7 -14.