EPA Releases the First of Four Preliminary Risk Assessments for Insecticides Potentially Harmful to Bees

Posted March 1, 2016

EPA Releases the First of Four Preliminary Risk Assessments for Insecticides Potentially Harmful to Bees

First-of-its-kind assessment delivers on President Obama’s National Pollinator Strategy WASHINGTON– The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a preliminary pollinator risk assessment for the neonicotinoid insecticide, imidacloprid, which shows a threat to some pollinators. EPA’s assessment, prepared in collaboration with California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation, indicates that imidacloprid potentially poses risk to hives when the …

Posted March 1, 2016

Conflict Among Honey Bee Genes Supports Theory of Altruism

Using modern genetic approaches, a team of researchers has provided strong support for the long-standing, but hotly debated, evolutionary theory of kin selection, which suggests that altruistic behavior occurs as a way to pass genes to the next generation. The researchers — who include Christina Grozinger, distinguished professor of entomology, and David Galbraith, postdoctoral scholar …

Posted March 1, 2016

Colony Collapse Disorder – Eight Years Later

Over 3,000 entomologists and insect scientists from around the world descended on Minneapolis, MN to participate in the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). The four day Synergy in Science conference ran from November 15th-18th, 2015. Bright and early on Sunday morning honey bee researchers convened in the convention center to …

Patricia Bohls, the recent recipient of the AAPA Scholarship Award

Posted March 1, 2016

Letters to the Editor – March 2016

AAPA Scholarship Award Recipient I am Patricia Bohls, the recent recipient of the AAPA Scholarship Award. I have attached for you a picture, a brief biography, and a summary of my proposal for your publication. Patricia Bohls Bohls, PA. – PROTEOMIC AND COMPARATIVE GENOMIC ANALYSIS OF SEMINAL FLUID IN APIS MELLIFERA DRONES FROM REGIONS WITH …

Posted March 1, 2016

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – March 2016

UNITED STATES Almond pollination in California this year may very well turn into a mud derby for beekeepers. Some of our reporters indicated very wet conditions in the almond groves, which is something beekeepers will have to readjust to after several years of having passable roads into the groves. Some reporters were also worried about …

Posted March 1, 2016

The classroom March 2016

Q AFRICANIZED HONEY BEES Many moons ago, you may or may have not written a letter to a queen breeder in Arizona about the queens mailed to a beekeeper in FL, who, as I recall, ended up with such “hot” hives, he had to call in reinforcements from your department to help him deal with …

new bottom board with conjoined hive bodies on top

Posted March 1, 2016

More on My Two-queen Colony

One of our readers wanted to know why I am experimenting making a new two-queen system instead of simply using the existing tried and true management scheme already incorporated for many years to have two-queen systems: a traditional hive that incorporates a double screen and an extra hive body? With this traditional two-queen system, the …

Posted March 1, 2016

Honey Bee Colonies as Superorganisms: The Hive or the Honey Bee?

I travel quite a bit, giving lectures about bees to various interested groups. One of the lectures that gets requested of me quite often is the one that I give on superorganisms. This is a topic that I have found quite interesting myself, after being introduced to it about 15 or so years ago. At …

Posted March 1, 2016

How Superorganisms Think

For several months I’ve been talking about the honey bee colony as a superorganism: a group of individuals living together and resembling what humans would call a “society,” but which for various reasons is better understood as a special case of organism. For one thing, the group as a whole, not the individuals that make …

Posted March 1, 2016

Even in Cool Conditions, Hot Bees Continue Hauling Water

Having survived the winter, bees begin foraging with the return of warm temperatures. Even before the early spring flowers yield nectar and pollen in abundance, the colony has begun rearing brood, jump-starting their population growth even in the cold of winter. That is one advantage of wintering as a large warm family unit, instead of …

EPA Releases the First of Four Preliminary Risk Assessments for Insecticides Potentially Harmful to Bees

Posted March 1, 2016