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Project Apis m. Blog

PAm Celebrates $10M in Honey Bee Research!

9/26/2022

1 Comment

 
“Anyone who thinks their work is too small to make a difference, has never met the honey bee.” I love that quote, adapted from the Dalai Lama (1). Determined and durable like our namesake, Project Apis m. is celebrating a milestone so impressive that our founders would have never dreamed: PAm celebrates funding $10M in honey bee research!  

$10M is impressive, and those dollars started with beekeepers and grower’s own donations- which were- and still are- a critical vote of confidence. When PAm approaches sponsors, our support from commercial beekeepers and beekeeping clubs shows our connection to the industry. Focus and solution-oriented work continues to attract funds from partners and corporations who want sustainable supply chains and resource management, and brands who know consumers care about giving back to bees. It’s you, our supporters, who made such successful fundraising possible.   

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Extreme Weather Demonstrates the Need for More Cover Crops in Almond Orchards

5/11/2022

1 Comment

 
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Rory Crowley with his son Pax, and his Father In Law George Nicolaus
Greetings from Project Apis m. (PAm)! My name is Rory Crowley and I am the new Director of Habitat Programs, managing Seeds for Bees. I live and work in Chico in the Northern Sacramento Valley. For the last seven years, I have helped operate our family’s ranch of almonds and walnuts.

​Although my first year as an almond grower was mostly about learning in the school of hard knocks in the orchards, I quickly jumped into the science of “soil health.” I learned about the vast potential of cover crops, and that fall we planted our first batch of seed.


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Project Apis m. Funds Dr. Judy Wu-Smart to investigate the impacts of pesticide-treated seed recycling in Nebraska.

3/16/2021

1 Comment

 
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

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Shipping Queens During a Pandemic Brings New Challenges to Beekeepers.

3/15/2021

2 Comments

 
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.
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A lot of work goes into producing queens for sale. In this photo are queen cells produced as part of the ongoing Hilo Bee project, a partnership that aims to produce high-quality, Varroa-resistant queens at a commercial scale in Hawaii. https://www.hilobees.com/

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The Big, Bold World of Pollinators

12/14/2020

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The author, Kirsten Traynor.
Everyone should have the experience of opening up a honey bee hive. That first interaction brings up so many emotions: curiosity, a touch of fear, awe, all mingled with the scents of the hive. I fell into beekeeping almost by accident in 2001 and honey bees have completely changed my life trajectory. I went from English major to beekeeper, then, just enthralled, earned my PhD in bee science. ​

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PAm-Costco Scholar Spotlight:  Reflections from Morgan Carr-Markell

2/19/2020

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As I get close to finishing my dissertation, I am reflecting on the way that the PAm-Costco Scholar Fellowship has helped me to take my interest in honey bee foraging behavior and apply it to helping beekeepers and land managers who want to support honey bees.
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I started studying bees a few years after increased colony mortality had drawn international public attention and concern. Research since that time has highlighted four major stressors that contribute to high mortality: parasites, pathogens, pesticides, and poor nutrition. Good nutrition is not only essential to day-to-day activities of bees, but it also helps colonies deal with the other stressors. Finding apiary spots that lead to good colony nutrition is challenging because honey bee colonies have a very wide foraging range, in some cases traveling over 8 miles to collect food. If we consider that most foraging happens within 2 miles of a hive, that’s still over 8,000 acres that foragers are covering to find rewarding flowers.

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Honey Bee Health Coalition members release corn, canola guides for bee protection

3/12/2019

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National Corn Growers Association, U.S. Canola Association partner with Coalition to develop best practices growers can use to reduce risk to honey bees, other pollinators.
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Joe Traynor's Beekeeper Newsletter

3/5/2019

3 Comments

 
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BEEKEEPER NEWSLETTER . . . . . . March 5, 2019
  • 2019 Almond Season
  • Bee Removal
  • Fungicides
  • New Almond Plantings
  • Self-Fertile Almond Varieties
  • Beekeeping Trends​
  • Costs to Maintain Bee Colonies

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The Pulse of Beekeeping - BIP Tech Transfer Teams

2/6/2019

0 Comments

 
The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) and Project Apis m. (PAm) have a long history of partnership.  Since 2012 PAm has deeply supported the BIP Tech Transfer Teams (TTTs), who are the “boots on the ground” to survey honey bee health, and often acting as liaisons between research, and beekeepers.   Their unique position not only allows them to share research developments and management practices with commercial beekeepers, but they also understand the most current beekeeping needs and trends and can help inform researchers about what is going on in the beekeeping industry that needs to be addressed.    
 
Commercial beekeepers who work with the Tech Transfer Teams on average lose 30% fewer colonies each year than beekeepers who do not.  That is significant!  Quite a few participating beekeepers have also reported saving money by working with TTTs - some very major losses have been avoided, and many beekeepers report overall improved condition of their bees as well.  

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The HilΩ Bee Project

11/28/2018

3 Comments

 
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Gus Rouse, Ca 1982 from the American Bee Journal
Hawaii is a chain of many islands, and of the seven inhabited by people and bees, only two have Varroa mites. I know, in beekeeper minds, that quickly conjures an image of paradise and perfectly healthy booming colonies with no Varroa! Having worked with bees on all those islands since 2010, I can report with confidence that the bees on these mite-free islands fall far short of this fantasy. Although there are no Varroa, these bees are a great example of how the many years of breeding and selection have provided us with the important traits beekeepers rely on, like gentle temperament, large populations and brood nests, reduced swarm tendencies, large honey stores and winter survival. Although they were abundant and successful in Hawaii’s conditions, the bees throughout the Hawaiian Islands were not, on average, large, gentle, productive colonies. They were mostly small, mean colonies of A. mellifera mellifera, brought by ship in 1850’s, and then naturalized in the jungle without beekeeper selection or improvement. The first time I met with a beekeeper as the Hawaii state apiarist, a bee met me over 50 yards from the undisturbed colony and immediately stung me in the face! This was a hobbyist, whose colonies were captured from the jungle. He likely didn’t know any different, but his bees had traits in stark contrast to the selected stocks I was used to throughout the USA and Canada. To be fair, they were also very different than the bees kept by Hawaii’s queen producers, which were painstakingly selected and improved by breeders such as Gus Rouse at Kona Queen. (See old ABJ article). 

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Project Apis m. is a 501(c)5 nonprofit organization. Your donation is not deductible on your individual income tax form. There are other business, foundation, or trust tax benefits, please consult your tax advisor about the deductibility of your contributions.
Copyright © 2017 Project Apis m. All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Project Apis m.
    • PAm Staff
    • Scientific Advisors
    • PAm Board of Directors
    • Annual Reports >
      • 2022 Annual Report
      • 2021 Annual Report
      • 2020 Annual Report
    • Contact Us
    • Join The Team
  • News
    • PAm eNewsletter
    • Project Apis m. Blog
    • Inside the Hive TV
  • Honey Bee Research
    • Honey Bee Research
    • PAm-Costco Scholars
    • Request Funding
    • RFPs
  • Seeds For Bees
    • Apply to Enroll
    • Seeds For Bees FAQs
    • Seeds For Bees For the Grower >
      • Water Requirements
      • Cover Crop Competition
      • Nitrogen Management
      • FAQs for Growers
      • Seeds for Bees Resources
      • Seeds For Bees Net 30 Agreement
    • PAm Seed Mixes >
      • PAm Pollinator Brassica Mix
      • PAm Annual Clover Mix
      • PAm Bio Build 3 Mix
      • Pollinator Wildflower Mix
      • NitroBuilder Mix
  • Forage
    • Forage (Home)
    • Forage Videos
  • Resources
    • Guide to Indoor Storage of Honey Bee Colonies in the USA
    • Guide to Shipping Honey Bee Queen Cells
    • Guide to Honey Bee Queen Banking
    • Best Management Practices For Beekeepers (Home) >
      • Honey Bee Nutrition
      • Varroa
      • Nosema
      • Honey Bee Equipment Management and Maintenance
      • Honey Bee Colony Management
    • Best Management Practices For Almond Growers
  • Video
  • Supporters
    • Support Us
    • Christi Heintz Scholarship
    • Corporate Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Testimonials