Thank you to the 2,500+ beekeepers who already took the survey! As of this morning (4/6/2016), over 2,500 of you already submitted your answers to the Colony Loss Survey and over 1,500 of you continued to the Management Survey. Thank you for your time and continued support! This current rate of participation tracks very well with past years and we are expecting to reach over 7,000 responses by the end of the month. Thank you also for spreading the word about our survey. The traffic on our survey website was very intense on April 1st and we apologize if any of you encountered difficulty or…
Category: Announcements
2015-2016 Colony Loss and Management Survey Is Live: Take the Survey Today!
It is April 1st and that can only mean one thing at the Bee Informed Partnership – our National Loss and Management survey is LIVE! Starting now and continuing until April 30th, your responses from this survey provide invaluable information that helps us obtain a clear picture of honey bee health throughout the country and helps guide best management practices. Thank you for all the beekeepers who, for 10 years now, have taken the time to complete the Colony Loss survey. Additional appreciation goes to those beekeepers who have provided data for our Management survey for the past 5 years. Correlating management practices with colony…
National Colony Loss and Management 2015-2016 Survey
This is no April's fool! The 2015 - 2016 National Colony Loss and National Management Survey will be ready to accept submissions starting April 1st and continuing until April 30th. The results that are received from this survey provide invaluable information that helps us obtain a clear picture of honey bee health throughout the country. Without the aid of the many beekeepers who participate in this survey we would never be able to obtain the results that we have received in the past and hope to continue to receive in the future. If you would like to take an early peek at the 2015 –…
Sentinel Apiary Project
We are breaking ground in modern beekeeping. The stage is set and like most big problems, collaboration is key. As a Sentinel Apiary participant, you will get the tools and information you need to take your beekeeping group to the next level. By doing so you become a guardian of all bees in your region and together we will revolutionize beekeeping. Applications are now available for 2016 and we are seeking beekeeping groups that manage 8 or more stationary colonies. We will arm you with data from Disease Load Monitoring and a Hive Scale so you may combat the challenges of beekeeping. To aid in…
JOIN THE P. APIUM PROJECT! – A CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT TO TEST OUT A NEW HONEY BEE PROBIOTIC
Dr. Vanessa Corby-Harris from the USDA-ARS is currently enrolling participants in a study to look at the effects of a probiotic, Parasaccharibacter apium (or P. apium) on colony health. In both lab and small-scale field studies, she sees a potential benefit of P. apium to colony health. Bees supplemented with this bacterium can survive better in the lab and are more resistant to Nosema. Supplemented hives also show a slight trend of being stronger in the spring. If you are interested in participating or know someone who might be interested, please direct yourself to the project website. Participation can be anonymous and is free of…
Bee Informed Partnership Wins Silver for Website Category at Apimondia
At the 2015 Apimondia International Apiculture Congress in Daejon, Korea, the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) took home the silver prize in the category for the Best Website on a Beekeeping Topic. This meeting of researchers and beekeepers from diverse backgrounds and from around the globe was the 44th meeting of Apimondia under the theme “Bees, Connecting the World!” Apimondia is an organization that promotes scientific, social, ecological and economic apicultural development throughout the world through the cooperation of beekeeping associations, scientific organizations and individuals throughout the world. Scientists, representing many countries from around the world, came to present their research projects, prominently displaying the diverse…
The NEW Bee and Pollinator Research Lab Breaks Ground at the University of Minnesota!
On August 2 and 3, 2015, we had an amazing series of groundbreaking festivities to celebrate the construction of the new Bee and Pollinator Research Lab, that will be built on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota beginning this fall. Beekeepers and friends from across the nation came to celebrate with us, and U.S. Representative Betty McCollum, Minnesota Representative Alice Hausman, President Eric and Karen Kaler, Jack and Betty Thomas from Mann Lake, Ltd, and Lori K. Watso, Secretary/Treasurer of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community were but a few of our fun guests. This 10,500 square foot facility will be built…
National Colony Loss and Management Survey Preview
It's that time of the year again. Flowers are coming into bloom and our bees are beginning to get a bit of cabin fever as they start to venture for new forage. As April approaches and Spring gets its start the 2014 - 2015 National Colony Loss and National Management Survey will be ready to accept submissions starting April 1st and continuing until April 30th. The results that are received from this survey provide invaluable information that helps us obtain a clear picture of honey bee health throughout the country. Without the aid of the many beekeepers who participate in this survey we would never…
Introducing the vanEngelsdorp Honey Bee Lab Website
The Bee Informed Partnership would like to announce the launch of our new website for the vanEngelsdorp Honey Bee Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. The focus of this website will be about projects specific to the lab and the University of Maryland. Our Sentinel Hive program is one of these projects. Sentinel Hives are designed to be an early warning system of honey bee health utilizing automatic and beekeeper monitoring via hive scales. With this program, colony weight gains and losses, pollen variety and abundance, and varroa mite and nosema loads will be monitored. The purpose of the sentinel hive is…
Our University of Maryland Crowd Funding Campaign is Live!
We are very excited to announce that The Bee Informed Partnership has joined together with our home institution, University of Maryland College Park, to launch a kick starter campaign to help fund our Sentinel Hive Scale Project! Similar to the Hive Scale Program, Sentinel Hives monitor honey bee health in real-time using hive scales to track colony weight gain or loss. In addition to weight measurements, monthly disease assessments will be implemented and pollen traps will be utilized to determine available plant forage. This combination of information from our “smart hives” will give insight to what is happening within the colonies. This particular campaign is to fund 8 sentinel…