Combining Pest Treatments May Be Key To Helping Honey Bees Survive the Winter

Posted November 1, 2024

Combining Pest Treatments May Be Key To Helping Honey Bees Survive the Winter

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Winters can be tough on managed honey bee colonies, with beekeepers in the United States reporting that one-third of their colonies die each winter. A new study by Penn State researchers has found that using not one but multiple pest treatments may help bees make it to spring. The researchers found …

Posted November 1, 2024

American Bird Conservancy Pilot Program Pays Farmers to Use Safer Seeds

September 10, 2024 — American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is launching its inaugural Untreated Seed Pilot Program (USPP). The program offers funding on a per-acre basis to American growers and producers interested in sourcing and using corn, soybean, and cereal crop seeds not coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, also known as neonics. By reducing or eliminating the …

Posted November 1, 2024

Contents – November 2024

A vaccine for Deformed Wing Virus? New vaccine for AFB may have wider benefits. Tina Sebestyen – 1175 A History of the Discoveries About the Sexuality of the Honey Bee – Part 1 Frédéric Eggers de Villepin – 1179 What’s Blooming in Your Neck of the Woods? November Ed Szymanski – 1199 Boisterous Buzz-runners Thomas …

Cover for the November 2024 issue of the American Bee Journal. The cover depicts a painting of a bee hive in the foreground surrounded by lavender, with seveal white building with brown roofs in the background. Call-outs: The honey bee is not the enemy - 1185, DWV: Is there a vaccine for that? - 1175, Unlocking the sexuality of the honey bee - 1179

Posted November 1, 2024

ABJ NOVEMBER 2024 COVER

Elysian field: Our beautiful cover was painted by Alicia Moulton of Spring City, Utah, from a scene at a local lavender farm. “We placed some hives at the farm to teach a beekeeping workshop. Our ‘barn hive’ next to the historic style barn was a favorite for photographers that evening.”

A hive entrance up close. The hive is a blueish gray color and is worn in a few places. The entrance is rather narrow due to the bees creating their own reduced entrance. There are a few bees present in front of the entrance with one that was flying by, a blur, when the photo was taken.

Posted October 1, 2024

October Tasks

October is best described in a poem written by William Cullen Bryant called “The Death of the Flowers.” He describes days as melancholy and sad, meadows as brown and dead, and he writes an ode to flowers in their grave. The job of keeping honey bees alive is challenging. Feeding bees and treating for mites …

Posted October 1, 2024

The Classroom – October 2024

Q: Peppermint for small hive beetles I just started using peppermint candy in my hives to combat small hive beetles (SHBs). It is too early to give my honest opinion. I see lots of beekeepers doing this. Some say it is also effective on mites. Can you give any thought on this? Wesley Bryant Alabama, …

Posted October 1, 2024

One Path to Becoming a Lifelong Beekeeper: Getting Into the Zone of Beekeeping

Yesterday’s “Future” is today’s “Past” Readers, I hope you will be patient with me in this piece. I know that more practical topics are being discussed by accomplished writers elsewhere in this issue, but I am — as it were — wandering into the fog of abstract bees and theoretical beekeeping concepts. In this piece, …

A photo of honey bees pollinating white apple flowers that have pink on the edges of the petals. (Malus domestica). There are are about eight flowers bunched together that are centered in the photos with a branch sticking out in the top right corner.

Posted October 1, 2024

Honey Bees Do Half of Crop Pollination, While Other Insects Do The Other Half

Everyone knows honey bees do all of the pollination for our pollination-dependent crops … right? Wrong. I’m guessing most people who read this column probably know there are also other insects that pollinate our crops. Perhaps some people know there are ~20,000 species of bees in the world, and ~4,000 species in North America, many …

Posted October 1, 2024

The Growth and Premature Demise of a New Swarm: Observed in a Large Observation

Most every swarm season delivers at least one surprise; this past swarm season (the spring of 2024) had its share, and one was revealed in a hive at 2:00 a.m., not a typical time. The location is the main apiary at my bee house, where smaller groups of hives scattered nearby begin to launch swarms. …

Posted October 1, 2024

Beekeepers and Their Stuff: The Line Between Helpful Accumulation and Hoarding

I was never a hoarder. As a child, my address shifted whenever a new sibling arrived or my dad’s employment changed. Later, as a camp counselor, my quarters moved along with each influx of new campers. In college, dorm rooms rotated for inexplicable reasons. And then, after graduation, I transplanted to find work and independence. …

Combining Pest Treatments May Be Key To Helping Honey Bees Survive the Winter

Posted November 1, 2024