I spent the last week in Las Vegas at the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) annual conference. Some years the American Honey Producers, the Apiary Inspectors of America, the American Beekeeping Research Conference, and the ABF all meet together. Joint meetings are the best meetings since so many people make it out. If the meetings are separate, then you either have to choose one meeting or spend more than one week traveling. This was not a joint meeting, so attendance was down, but there were some fantastic talks. I am going to give a quick summary of some the talks I saw and summarize what I…
Category: Around the Country
HoneyBeeNet: The Nectar Flow by Hive Scale Data and Satellite Imagery
honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov Hive scale data collected by participating beekeepers, satellite imagery of hive scale sites, and instructions on how to participate in collecting hive scale data is available at honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov
Hive Beetles in Paradise
My primary purpose for going to Hawaii was to share and show Hawaiian bee breeders the type of work we are doing with the California bee breeders, and to see if they would be interested in participating in the future. It was also to train the two women I talked about in my last post, Danielle Downey Lauren Rusert, to assess colonies and take samples the same way we do in CA. This way, they will be able to work with the bee breeders in the future and be a part of the BIP. I visited a total of four beekeepers during my visit and…
Coconuts
I ended my day last Thursday by using a hive tool to break into a fresh coconut with Lauren Rusert on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. From December 4-18, I was in Hawaii working with the queen breeders to introduce them to the BIP program. Lauren and her boss Danielle Downey run an apiary program for the beekeepers across the Hawaiian Islands. They run tests for beekeepers, certify for shipping queens, teach classes, take samples for the National Survey, monitor for swarms, along with a host of other tasks. The program has been in operation for just over a year, and they have really established…
What’s Happening…
Last week Rob, Katie, and I traveled to Rohnert Park, CA for the California State Beekeepers Association Convention. The three of us presented Tuesday morning, introducing our work with California bee breeders. There were many good speakers at the convention whose work and presentations helped to spark conversation in the hallway. The fun part, for me, was being able to interact with many beekeepers and scientists who had come to discuss anything and everything pertaining to bees. This week we had some friends from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture visit. Apiculture Specialist Danielle Downey and Technician Lauren Rusert crossed the Pacific to have a look…
Samoan Honey
Dan Gordon, a hobby beekeeper and his wife, Becky, were kind enough to have me over for dinner last week. Besides cooking the best squash dish I ever had, he gave me a jar of honey. This was no ordinary honey. He purchased it from the only commercial beekeeper in the small country of Samoa in the South Pacific. The beekeeper has one of the best jobs you can do from home, owning the Tropical Honey Company. The jar label reads “This is pure natural tropical honey, with a unique flavor, is gathered from a variety of nectar sources found in the plantations and rainforests…
California Bee Breeders Conference
Last week was the California Bee Breeder’s Association meeting. Mike, Rob and I attended and Dennis flew in from the East to go. I always enjoy the meetings in a large part because we get to watch all these independent personalities interact. We work with each beekeeper individually and get to know them, but only at the meetings do we really see this bigger image of how they all fit together. Sure, they disagree (and can be pretty vocal about it), but their goals are the same in that they all want to breed the best bees possible. If it helps their bees, they will…
The Promised Land
This past week has been incredibly busy. We just started our major sampling for beekeepers – collecting about 100 samples in alcohol for Nosema and Varroa and recording information for each of the 100 sampled colonies like frames of bees, queen status, colony weight, temperament, bee color, and any diseases. The goal is to help them choose colonies to breed the next generation of queens. Queen breeding season doesn’t start until the end of February, so we are helping them get a jump start on grading colonies. Last Wednesday, a reporter, Robin Wise, from program called The Promised Land came out to the first beekeeper…
Pesticide Kill
Northern California is a beautiful place. I am located in the Sacramento Valley between the Sierra Nevada and Northern Coastal mountain ranges. The good soils partnered with a Mediterranean climate makes the Central Valley (the northern Sacramento Valley and the southern San Joaquin Valley) one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world. The intense food production means it is a breeding ground for insect pests that feed on the crops. Growers need to control these pests in order to produce a viable crop. One repercussion of this is sometimes beneficial insects take a hit. This is what I saw on a visit to…
Nectar Flow
It’s August in Northern California and the nectar flow from the Yellow Starthistle is on… In fact, some beekeepers have already begun extracting honey. For those beekeepers trying to make pure Starthistle honey it’s important to have their bees in locations where there are few other nectar producing plants. Starthistle nectar and honey have a distinct green tint that is visible in both the cells of the hive and the jars on the shelves. Last week, Rob Snyder and I were in the field with Shannon Wooten to sample some of his hives. He took us to a few of his locations in Shasta County…