The regional management reports from the 2012-2013 Winter Loss and Management surveys are posted here: https://beeinformed.org/results-categories/regional-results/ Click on the map in your area of interest and you will be taken to all significant results for that region in pdf format. Because we are only posting those results that showed significant differences, report content may vary from region to region. Please feel free to explore all regions and see the differences! We are excited about some of the results and the Bee Informed Partnership hopes this fosters discussion among beekeepers and bee clubs and powers hypothesis driven research among scientists. There are two states that earned their…
Category: Announcements
BIP Survey Winner: Scott Jaynes
This year and last, the commercial scale beekeepers that fill out the annual Winter Loss Survey had a chance at winning a sampling session with one of the Tech-Transfer Teams. Last year’s winner was Bob Miller in California. The year’s winner was Scott Jaynes. Scott, his brother, and his father all run bees out of the same location in North Dakota and California. The are migratory beekeepers that produce honey in North Dakota and pollinate almonds in California. We met Scott, his brother, and some of his crew at the warehouse in Tioga, North Dakota. Liz and I went out to meet Scott and sample…
National Management Survey Results
Our initial National Management Survey Results for 2011-2012 are posted here. In the coming weeks we will post accompanying vlogs and explinations for each section that explain the results in a broader context. Keep your eye out for these results, and in the coming months 2012-2013 results will be released as well.
Coming soon – BIP Hive Scales
We have been working for over a year to develop a BIP hive scale that will enable beekeepers and beekeeping clubs to gather and use data from their own hives to follow nectar flows, honey production, swarm alerts, theft alerts and other valuable data about what is happening within their own colony. Having these data are helpful in making timely and educated management decisions. Owning a BIP scale will also enable beekeepers to become plugged into a national network of hive scales and receive live feedback about what is happening in their region as well as around the country. Being part of this project makes…
BIP Ad. June 2013
How did you start a new colony? Those who did not install packages lost 33.5% less colonies than those who did install packages. Those who bought existing hives lost 13.5% less colonies than those who did not buy hives and beekeepers who split hives to increase their colonies lost 23.% less colonies than those that did not split colonies.
Bee kill in St. Paul, Minnesota UPDATE
UPDATE from this blog. With help from Lucinda Swanson that commented below, we figured out what actually happened to the swarm of bees. There were two swarms that were spotted in Downtown St. Paul at almost midnight on sunday night. Lucinda estimated that both were about the size of her 6 foot tall son's torso. Because it was so late and the night before the Monday morning rush hour, the St. Paul City Police requested that St. Paul Fire remove the bees from the trees. The bees were killed by the fire crew with flame retardent foam. The whole incident was unfortunate, but the city…
Bee kill in St. Paul, Minnesota
UPDATE for this blog here. Yesterday morning, a woman and her friend were walking around downtown St. Paul. Next to a couple of small trees they noticed "snowdrifts of dead bees." The woman contacted Dr. Marla Spivak and sent a couple of pictures showing thousands of dead bees. With the huge bee kill that went on in Oregon (read Liz's blog here), we were all really worried something similar was going on. Marla went to investigate early this morning, as did the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Unluckily, there was a downpour of rain and they weren't able to get a soil sample, but they did get a dead bee and…
Bee Deaths in Minnesota
On May 7, a beekeeper in Minnesota noticed his bees were dying. I went to the beekeeper's location a few days later and saw all the below symptoms and took samples for the beekeeper. There were bees on the ground with their legs up and twitching. There were bees that, when placed on their backs, couldn’t right themselves. There were bees on willow blossoms (the first blooming plant of the year) that should have been actively collecting pollen, but would barely lift a leg when poked or were dead. There were dead bees all over one of the few remaining snow patches and in front of…
Speaker Request Form
Dear Beekeeper, We greatly appreciate your request for a member of the Bee Informed Partnership team to present to your organization. As our partnership raises awareness, we have been inundated with requests to speak to organizations and groups across the country. Due to the overwhelming number of requests we receive it is important that we are selective in the amount of time we take away from our daily research tasks to prepare and present at events. In an ideal setting we would be able to take the time to honor every speaking request we receive, and as enjoyable as that would be, unfortunately, we are…
APHIS US Honey Bee Pest and Disease Survey 2011/2012 Survey Report
The APHIS 2011/2012 Honey Bee Pest and Disease Survey report This report details the result of a year long, 35 state honey bee survey that, as a primary goal, looked for invasive species such as the parasitic mite, Tropilaelaps spp., the Asian honey bee, A. cerana and Slow Paralysis virus (SPV), not known to be in the US at this time. Further honey bee health data were collected and will be added to the Bee Informed Partnership database to help interpret ongoing and future epidemiological studies. This report and previous year reports are available at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/honey_bees/index.shtml