The 2022 Sentinel Apiary Program – Pesticide Testing Is On The Menu

This year's Sentinel Apiary Program has got some new flavor! If you are a returning Sentinel participant, you will have noticed a big change in the Sentinel program protocol this year. In 2022, instead of testing Nosema levels at six monthly intervals, you received two months of Nosema results tested from samples collected in the early part of the season. You also received one composite pesticide sample. As in past years, you continue to receive six months of Varroa lab results to keep you updated on your current mite loads. And more good news! These results are now provided to you at a faster pace…

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Sentinel Signup Now Ending May 1st – Register Now!

That's right! It is your last chance to register for Bee Informed Partnership's Sentinel Apiary Program and be a part of the exciting 2022 season! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW! The Sentinel Apiary Program is a citizen-science program designed to help beekeepers become better at inspecting colonies, keeping better records, and making timely, data-driven management decisions. Sentinel participants receive educational resources and materials needed to inspect and sample their colonies. They also gain access to a number of online tools, instructional videos, a live webinar series, and more! We’ve also made a number of exciting changes to the program this year, which includes pesticide testing…

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Sentinel Apiary Program 2021 Wrap-Up and 2022 Sign-Up

Authors: Rachel Kuipers, Jeri Parrent & Nathalie Steinhauer Here at Bee Informed Partnership, we are excited to announce that registration for the 2022 Sentinel Program is open now through the end of April! Don't delay - register today by completing the quick and easy online registration form here. This past season, there were 92 Sentinel participants who sampled over 500 colonies across 129 unique locations. The University of Maryland Honey Bee Lab processed 2,312 samples from Sentinel colonies throughout the season. That’s a lot of samples—a record for the program! We also reached eight of the nine NOAA climatic regions, as well as the non-continental…

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Sentinel Apiary Program 2020 Wrap-Up and 2021 Sign-Up

Happy New Year! The beginning of 2021 marks the end of the Sentinel Apiary Program's sixth successful year—and the beginning of an exciting new one. In 2020, beekeepers with 76 apiaries representing 394 colonies participated in the Sentinel Program. The University of Maryland lab processed almost 2,000 Sentinel samples over the season to monitor Varroa and Nosema! You can see in the map of Sentinel Apiary Locations shown below that we worked with beekeepers from six of the nine NOAA climatic regions (the regions with the most consistent climates across the US). The newly released Sentinel 2020 End of Year Report details 2020's seasonal data…

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Happy Holidays from Bee Informed Partnership!

Season’s Greetings! As the Holiday season approaches, The Bee Informed Partnership team would like to express our sincere gratitude to all of you for the support you’ve shown throughout this year! You have helped us push through many obstacles that the global pandemic has put in front of so many nonprofits, and we can’t thank you enough. With your support, BIP serves the U.S. beekeeping community through several programs: The Technical Transfer Team Program offers commercial beekeepers access to a wide range of resources and reports on the health of their colonies to help them improve on their management practices to strengthen the health of…

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Sentinel Apiary Program October Update

Hello beekeepers, it is hard to believe it is almost the end of the 2020 Sentinel season already! We had a little sabbatical from our Sentinel blogging this year because so much has been going on, but we are back! There are many exciting things on their way for the Sentinel Apiaries program, and I cannot wait to start sharing them with you over the next few months. In the meantime, here is a little sneak peek of what's to come. Before I delve into tidbits from this year, I want to let you know about the Sentinel app that our fantastic IT team is…

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Sentinel Apiary Program 2019 Wrap-Up and 2020 Sign-Up

Last year, 2019, marked our fifth (fifth?!) year of the Sentinel Apiary Program. It was another record breaking year: 2,221 samples were taken from 461 colonies in 85 apiaries! The program continues to grow each year, and we are so excited about the progress we have made, and for what we will continue to do in the future. Take a look at the map below. Don’t see an apiary in your state? Join us and be the first! One exciting thing to look out for in 2020 is another partnership with the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF). ABF is sponsoring ABF members with $100 off a…

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Sentinel Apiary Monthly Memo: November Issue

That’s a wrap on the 2019 Sentinel Apiary Program! This year was a real record breaker with 106 Sentinel Apiaries in 29 states. Sentinel beekeepers put in blood, sweat, and stings to send in over 2,500 samples from 564 colonies. The data collected from these samples helps participants make data driven management decisions. Mite loads are also shared on our public interactive Varroa map, so that Sentinel Apiaries can act as regional benchmarks for colony health. If you would like to help support the Sentinel Apiary program and keep this valuable data accessible, please consider donating to our annual fundraising effort! On average, this year’s…

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Are you annotating your hive scale data?

The Bee Informed Partnership’s Electronic Hive Monitoring program gathers data from hundreds of electronic hive monitors located all over the USA.   Much of this data is publicly available to the beekeeping community in a variety of actionable formats.  For example, if you go over to the BIP research portal at research.beeinformed.org and click on Hive Monitors you can see a public gain/loss map that shows the 7 day moving average weight loss/gain of the hive monitors within that state. We are also doing algorithmic work on the data and attempting to discover more actionable information about colony health from this vast collection of electronically…

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Sentinel Apiary Monthly Memo: June Issue

  I don’t know about you, but my back hurts, which must mean the peak beekeeping season is officially well underway. The honey is flowing and supers are filling up. Do you know what your mite loads are? If not, Sentinel Apiaries are here to help. Sentinel Apiary participants sample 4 or 8 colonies for Varroa every month during the peak beekeeping season. This year marks the largest year of the Sentinel Apiary Program to date with 102 registered Sentinel Apiaries! If there’s a Sentinel Apiary near you, check their mite loads at bip2.beeinformed.org/sentinel. This can help show you what mites are doing in your…

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