Author: margaritamlopez

Last Saturday the we attended the Queen Improvement Field Day hosted by Burgh’s Bees in Pittsburgh. The day was lined with speakers that are participating in the PA Queen Improvement Program. The topics included how to conduct mite grooming assays to detect “mite-biting behavior”, quantify winter survival, queen rearing techniques, and installation of virgin queens. Most beekeepers attending this event had previously participated in educational sessions earlier in the month regarding how to prepare queenless nucs. So early Saturday morning, each participant arrived with a queenless nuc ready to receive a virgin queen. The queens that were given to participants are of the Purdue improved genetic stock, also known as ‘Leg Chewers’ or ‘Ankle-biters’ because of their characteristic mite-biting behavior (MMB). The virgin queens are to be open mated by drones from Russian, NWC, VSH and survivor drones from colonies in the immediate area.

The ‘Ankle-biters’ genetic stock was produced by Dr. Greg Hunt at Purdue University. The development of this stock was based upon evidence that some colonies showed a high proportion of dropped mites that were chewed or physically damaged (also known as MMB), and that these colonies showed a reduction in mite populations. Throughout recent years, honey bees that displayed the MMB behavior were selected to be part of the Purdue improved genetic stock which is available for purchase.

The workshop was in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Queen Improvement program which aims to improve the quality of bee stocks in PA by introducing honey bee genetic stocks that can better tolerate mites. This was one of the several queen rearing and queen improvement workshops being hosted throughout the state. The most important take home message of these workshops is to encourage beekeepers to become backyard scientists and to conduct their own experiments regarding different genetic stocks, evaluating their own stock, mite management methods and incorporate more IPM tactics into their seasonal management plan. There are ample resources available in Pennsylvania and we encourage beekeepers to take advantage of them. Participation in these events and conducting your own backyard experiments is a significant step forward in the development of a more sustainable beekeeping industry in PA.

Written by Katy Evans, Field Technician in the López-Uribe Lab

Queen rearing is an important skill that beekeepers need to learn in order to keep important bee traits among the colonies in their bee yards. For example, it may be of interest to keep bees that have a milder behavior, produce more honey, or that are capable of better dealing with mites. Rearing queens is not a trivial task, but it is an art and it requires a lot practice. It requires good eyes, a steady hand, and a delicate touch to handle the fragile larvae during grafting process. But the outcomes of this laborious process is very rewarding. Being able to use healthy queens with desired traits in your bee yard, is probably worth your time investment.

There are many classes state-wide that teach the basics of queen rearing and last Saturday the Lopez-Uribe Lab attended the Pennsylvania Queen Improvement Program at Meadow View Beekeeping, LLC in Bethel, PA. We took the beginners class, also known as ‘Queen Rearing 101’. We learned the basics about the process, and even got a chance to try grafting some bees!

This workshop was part of the Heartland Honey Bee Breeders Coop [HHBBC], a collaborative project between Jeff Berta, Mark Gingrich, and Dr. Greg Hunt from Purdue University. This group is trying to establish a sustainable breeding program for the leg mite chewer bee genetic stock.

Last month we talked to the Centre County Beekeepers and they helped us to locate our 17th feral colony in the State College area. Thank you to all for your support, we are very excited!

After our talk on the biology of feral bees, we took a small survey and we would like to share with you the results of the survey. Many beekeepers had significant annual losses last year. This is not surprising since Pennsylvania was one of the hardest hit states for the winter of 2016-2017, with annual colony losses recorded at 60.6% according to BIP report. Only Oklahoma (63.4%), Illinois (62.4%), Iowa (61.4%), Delaware (61%) and Maryland (60.9%) had higher recorded losses. We also found out that commercial packages from southern states is the most common source of bees and that the most common times to apply mite treatments is during the fall. The three most common treatments were oxalic acid, Apivar, and Apiguard.

participant bee in our summer study

Keeping bees is a challenge and losing some, or even all, of your colonies is not uncommon these days. Beekeepers are having to replenish empty hives every spring with new packages or local nucleus colonies and it can be expensive after several years of continual losses. There are many factors contributing to their decline and it can be unpredictable. Varroa mites are considered to be one of the largest problems in honey bee health. There is ample research on various mite management methods including hygienic genetic stocks, chemical treatments and non-chemical methods such as drone comb removal and screen bottom boards. This summer we have begun a project that focuses on implementing a seasonal IPM management strategy to reduce mite populations and increase our overwinter colony survival. Stay tuned for our results!

Museum collections are an extremely valuable resource for recording the history of populations of bee species. Physical insect specimens are essential for 1) morphological identification of species, 2) recording when adults are active during the season, 3) where the bees were found, and 4) what flowers they were visiting. All of this provides rich historical data of bee populations over time. However, some data can be sparse, sometimes inaccurate, or incomplete because identifying bees is difficult and often different species look very similar to each other. Furthermore, collecting only a few specimens each year does not provide an estimate of the size of the population at that time.

Research using genetic information has dug deeper into the history and evolution of insect species. Often species show signs of genetic change or differentiation that cause speciation well before the show obvious changes in morphology. What if we could access this information from rare or extinct bee species, now only found in museums, to get a better understanding of the structure of the tree of life?

Also, we are concerned for the status and health of bee populations all over the globe. But because studies of bee population sizes and bee disease have only begun recently, we have very little to compare to from the past to find evidence of change. Genetic studies can actually determine measurements of population size from small numbers of samples when comparing populations in the same region. Also, using genetic information is the most accurate way of detecting diseases and pathogens. Therefore, museum bee collections may be the only way to estimate bee population sizes and disease prevalence in the past.

We are currently conducting a study to determine what genetic information can be accessed from museum curated bees, while causing little to no damage to the specimens (Fig. 1). Our study includes developing detailed and specific methods for how to extract and purify DNA from museum bees, and what the overall quality of this DNA would be (because it does degrade over time). We are then testing this DNA to determine if we can use genes for resolving taxonomic differences and detecting diseases. Finally, we are using the most current next-gen sequencing techniques to find out if we can determine population size and structure from the past. These methods we are developing are the first step in opening a new door to a wealth of information about the history of our planet.

Written by Anthony Vaudo, Postdoc in the López-Uribe Lab

Spring is here, as we saw today with one of our first sightings this year of a the mining bee of the genus Andrena sp. These medium sized bees (similar to the size of a honey bee) burrow nests about 2-3 inches into the ground and are common during the spring time. We found a large number of nests on a hillside in State College. The nests are easy to identify as they are commonly found on hilly areas with sparse vegetation and loose soil, with their entrances facing toward the sun and a small pile of dirt surrounding the nesting hole. We found close to 50 nests in that one spot today!  We collected a sample for the Bee Germs project that is striving to better understand bee pathogens in native bee species that live in cities and agricultural landscapes.