By now, we hope that you have taken time to reflect on this past year’s honey bee colony losses – both your own losses, as well as those experienced by beekeepers across the nation. In case you missed it, you can view our official preliminary results abstract here: https://beeinformed.org/results/honey-bee-colony-losses-2017-2018-preliminary-results/ We fared worse this year compared…
Bees have incredible navigation abilities that allow them to fly miles away from the colony to forage and return home with enough precision to locate the entrance to their colony, even when there are dozens of nearly identical hives within a small apiary site. The current understanding of navigation is that a combination of position…
I have a few perks working with Bee Informed Partnership out of the University of Minnesota: 1)I get to build relationships with many commercial beekeepers, 2)I have access to the University of Minnesota lab equipment and 3) I get to utilize Marla Spivak’s great mind along with other members of the lab. Because I have…
Cue Europe’s classic song: https://youtu.be/9jK-NcRmVcw?t=1m57s Yes! This is it folks. Your last chance to participate in this year’s Bee Informed Partnership’s National Survey. Completed paper surveys are being returned daily – you only have to see Selina’s mailbox to agree! The online survey will close at 11.59 PM on Tuesday, April 30th. That means this…
We know that pollen is a key resource for honey bees, a resource they must be able to find in sufficient quantity and quality in their local forage. Yet, we know little about the quality of forage available to honey bees throughout the U.S. The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) is working to fill this knowledge…
Here we go! As of this morning (4/13/2018), over 2,200 of you have completed the Colony Loss and Management Survey. Thank you for your time and continued support! So far your response rate is tracking previous years, but we of course want to beat last year’s numbers! This year marks the 12th anniversary of the Colony…
And no, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke! You’re busy! We know that. You’re out catching swarms, picking up packages, and checking your colonies! So grab a coffee or tea, sit down, relax, AND… …take the Survey Today! The information that you provide will be invaluable to our understanding of honey bee health around…
Most beekeepers have come to realize that due to lack of natural forage in our urban and agricultural landscapes, feeding pollen substitute has become necessary to keep bees healthy in most parts of the country. Last summer was an especially challenging season in the West due to extremely hot and dry conditions. Despite a wet…
The changing agricultural landscape and current economic conditions of the bee industry have led most commercial beekeepers to undertake significant migrations to pollinate crops, access better forage, and seek favorable wintering conditions. General beekeeping activities and short distance moves are generally accomplished with a variety of light and medium duty flat-deck trucks, but long haul…
Honey bee viruses have been widely surveyed and sampled for through the USDA APHIS Honey Bee Survey, BIP Tech Team samples, Emergency Response Kits, and other samples processed through joint co-operations through the University of Maryland bee lab. To share the results of these surveys through an openly accessible visualization, we have released a dynamically explorable map…
