ASIAN GIANT HORNET COMPLETE GENOME RELEASED BY THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Posted October 1, 2020

ASIAN GIANT HORNET COMPLETE GENOME RELEASED BY THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

BELTSVILLE, MARYLAND, AUGUST 6, 2020–The first complete genome of the Asian giant hornet has been released by a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. ARS has made the genome available to the research community in AgDataCommons and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, even before publishing the results in a scientific journal to make …

Posted October 1, 2020

October 2020 Contents

Autumn Reads: Book reviews Carol Hrusovszky and Eugene Makovec – 1085 The Gold Rush and the Honey Bee Peter L Borst – 1097 Darwin, Design, and the Honey Bee, Part 2: The morality of the hive Piers J. Hale – 1103 Questing for the Wonder Bee, Part 2: The Hilo bee project M.E.A. McNeil – …

Posted October 1, 2020

October 2020 Cover

David Thomas pauses with his hives in the Hawaiian coffee in Ka’u. Although coffee benefits from pollination with earlier, larger crops, bees aren’t typically rented — possibly because of the abundance of natural pollinators and managed bees. For Thomas, the richness of tropical forage on the island makes up for it. Read about David’s part …

Posted September 1, 2020

The Classroom – September 2020

Q European Foulbrood I have read your excellent guide on the treatment and diagnosis of European Foulbrood at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in1272. In the past I have tried: Mite treatments Shook swarm Culling older frames (but not all frames) Feeding sugar syrup/pollen patties Requeening Last year, requeening a hive was very effective; this year’s results are disappointing. I …

Posted September 1, 2020

Queen Introduction: Part 4, The Effects of Attendant Bees: Their Presence and Absence in the “Same” Colony

In this series of queen introduction articles, the candy release method counts down the time to release the queen. With my queen cages mounted on the glass of the observation hives in the bee house, I can even see the bees tunneling their way through the candy to the queen. Figure 1 shows a closeup …

Posted September 1, 2020

Notes from the Lab – September 2020

Neonicotinoid insecticides: When there’s risk to bees, when there are economic benefits to users, and when there are viable replacements Neonicotinoid insecticides. If you’re like many people who we interact with, you just read those two words and already have an opinion. Perhaps such a strong opinion that there’s little point to us writing more. …

Posted September 1, 2020

Thinking Like a Scientist

As scientific thinkers, we need to re-examine our beliefs constantly and question what we “know” to be true. As we learn, our cumulative knowledge increases, often giving us a better perspective. For example, I recently had a wake-up call that forced me to re-evaluate the idea of the windshield effect. The windshield effect is a …

Posted September 1, 2020

Working with Queen Cells

Queen cells are the unsung heroes of sustainable beekeeping. Most beekeepers still seek out mated queens for splits and replacements when queen cells work just as well or even better. There are many advantages to using queen cells over mated queens. A huge advantage is seen in the spring, as queen cells are available earlier …

Posted September 1, 2020

A Closer Look at Canola

Canola yields a lucrative honey crop. Is there a downside, or is everything golden? In July, much of the Canadian prairie is an endless sea of yellow flowers, broken only by roads every mile or two and the occasional clump of trees. By now, those fields are probably browning and farmers are likely busy harvesting …

Posted September 1, 2020

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – September 2020

On the whole, the outlook for bees and beekeepers is positive this year. Most of our reporters have fair to good news to share about honey production and markets. We live in uncertain times, but we are not without hope. While seasonal labor is hard to get in some areas, and equipment suppliers are hard …

ASIAN GIANT HORNET COMPLETE GENOME RELEASED BY THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Posted October 1, 2020