For any beekeeper, queen breeding could be considered leveling up!-it involves a whole new skill set that is not covered in basic beekeeping practices. There is an entire industry within beekeeping that focuses on producing quality queen bees, we got a sneak peek into the methods for producing Hilo queens this season.

With Hilo queens the focus is on keeping varroa resistant traits while also selecting other qualities that beekeepers want in a commercial operation, such as honey production. 

Here Saira Mendez Urbina is using a magnifying glass to find and carefully graft eggs into queen cups.  She places a newly hatched worker larvae inside the queen cup, then queenless bees will feed the larvae royal jelly and draw out the rest of the queen cell. (pictured right)

Another preparation for inseminated queen production is to catch drones and harvest the sperm. Drones are too large to pass through a queen excluder, so by placing one in front of the entrance the drones returning from a flight are stalled, and can be caught and taken to the lab. Drones do not sting and are easy to grab by hand! The first photo shows Bob Danka catching drones this way. Another tool, a drone catching cage, also allows you to capture drones. Just like with mating in the wild, this is a one-way trip for these drones.​

Once in the lab, the drone's sperm is carefully collected.  When the queens emerge from the cells, virgin queens will be carefully inseminated using sperm collected from drones (previously caught in the apiary).  The middle photo shows Juliane Steckel in the middle of this process, and the last photo is a screen shot from a short video demonstrating insemination of an earlier batch of Hilo bees. 

Finally the inseminated queens are installed into nucs-together they will become a new full-size colony of known pedigree as she lays more eggs and their population grows. To learn more, check out the Hilo bees website!

Survey data is extremely important to researchers and beekeepers to keep a pulse on bee health trends, economics of beekeeping, best management practices, and emerging threats to honey bees. Completing surveys is an easy, anonymous way to contribute directly to honey bee health research!

​ Here are two efforts that we encourage you to participate in. The first survey, from UC Davis, will gather information that can help growers provide benefits, such as flowering cover crops, to beekeepers (and bees) while pollinating almonds. The second survey, from the Bee Informed Partnership, collects the crucial colony loss and management information that researchers and beekeepers rely on for an up-to-date picture of honey bee health and beekeeping practices year after year.  ​

Economic Value of Contract Enhancements in Almond Pollination

From Dr. Goodrich:
Almost no documented research exists quantifying beekeeper preferences for certain contract features, so this research will provide much-needed information to the beekeeping and almond industries. This survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. As compensation for your time, you will be provided with a $20 Amazon gift card. 

This survey closes on April 15th! Download the letter of consent here.

Take the survey here! (password: Apism2021)

Beekeepers have been re-locating their apiaries from Nebraska for years. Well before the public became aware of an ethanol plant producing pesticide-laden by-products, there had already been a concerning trend of beekeepers leaving Nebraska.
 
Dr. Marion Ellis, head of the Bee Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) saw the pattern begin during his tenure. Beekeepers were migrating out of the state as more pastureland in the area was planted with corn, and especially when that corn was treated with organophosphate insecticides to control corn rootworm. Organophosphate insecticides are persistent in the environment and are highly toxic to bees, but beekeepers were reluctant to complain to friends and family who farmed the land. As Ellis said, “It became really hard to keep bees in the Corn Belt.”

More recently, large-scale career beekeepers with thousands of colonies have continued that exodus from Nebraska because they cannot afford the high bee losses year after year.1 A new publication representing a major collaboration across state and federal organizations puts some concerning data behind the trends.  It highlights that bees in Nebraska are dealing with a disproportionately high number of pesticides detected at higher levels than most other states and the neonicotinoids clothianidin and thiamethoxam contributed significantly to the hazard quotient (the risk) posed to bees in Nebraska.2

Many of us experienced pandemic-related shipping issues over the last year-especially around the holidays. The United States Postal Service (USPS) in particular is still recovering from the holiday crunch. USPS is required to ship lives bees, and helping businesses connect with their customers is part of their mission:
 
“-To serve the American people and, through the universal service obligation, bind our nation together by maintaining and operating our unique, vital and resilient infrastructure.
-To provide trusted, safe and secure communications and services between our Government and the American people, businesses and their customers, and the American people with each other.
-To serve all areas of our nation, making full use of evolving technologies.”
 
With package bee season right around the corner, and spring queen orders kicking into high gear, how is a strained USPS impacting queen and package producers?
 
Dr. Jeff Pettis, who has worked on improving bee shipping protocols said “Most shippers I know have used UPS more than USPS, but if they use the post office it’s always priority mail.” And a representative from Kona Queens indicated they are having success with FEDEX lately.

​These state-of-the-art Varroa-resistant bees show promise as a practical, sustainable Varroa control option for commercial beekeepers, which could pay great dividends in healthier bees, reduced colony losses and improved pollination security.

Detailed project history, progress and videos are available at www.HiloBees.com.

Since beginning in 2006, Project Apis m. has endeavored to fund bee research that will improve honey bee health. Translating the research into improvements on a large scale means not just funding the work, but providing beekeepers with the knowledge and tools quickly so they can benefit from the research. Over time, with the help of an engaged research community, PAm has created a funding process and pipeline to drive innovation and solutions for years to come. 

In 2014, a new pollinator habitat collaboration was initiated by a group of stakeholders that saw land use changes threatening pollinator health in the upper mid-west region. Acres of row crops were rapidly rising, conservation land was being lost, and with the expansion of row crops, agricultural chemical use was also expanding.   From the initial success of that collaboration, The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund (BBHF) was formed.  

While beekeepers and environmentalists have been aware of land use changes impacting bee health for a long time, these changes have intensified over the past few decades – and at the same time, honey bee and native bee health issues have come to the forefront of public awareness.