Blog
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On a chilly February morning, Christina Neumann welcomed fellow honey tasters Nancy Simpson and James Roccasecca and researcher Robyn Underwood to CoNectar. This charming, cozy space in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a gathering place for multi-sensory education. The mission of CoNectar, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is to connect communities to multi-sensory “flora to table” education by…
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For our 2024 NSF-IRES Pollinators in Changing Climates Program, students traveled to Peru with another IRES group working on “Manifestations of Climate Change in Extreme Events, Social and Biological Systems”. Two groups worked on topics around pollinators and climate change. Group 1 investigated the effect of microclimate (sun and shade) on the thermal ecology of…
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Evaluating species’ thermal tolerance is important now more than ever given the ongoing threats to biodiversity under climate change. Species vary widely in heat tolerance, but the degree of variability in their heat tolerance, and the drivers of this variability among populations, are less understood. We expect that some of this variation in bees may…
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Wild lupine is a fire-adapted, perennial wildflower found throughout North America. Due to the loss of its primary habitat, wild lupine is currently of conservation concern in roughly 60% of its range. Lack of disturbance and land management that aims to preserve forests (not open habitats) are contributing factors to its habitat loss. In the…
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Explore the world one beekeeping story at a time! During this free webinar series we invite beekeepers from around the world to share their unique experiences with us. This year, we’ll be exploring Italy, Israel, Zimbabwe, Korea and Canada. The 2025 series explored France, the Yukon Territory, Kenya, Turkey, India and Brazil. In 2024, we…
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¿Sabías que la apicultura puede proporcionar ingresos adicionales a tu hogar y al mismo tiempo beneficiar la producción de cultivos a través de los servicios de polinización?Este programa ofrece oportunidades para que trabajadores agrícolas de habla hispana reciban capacitación sobre los conceptos básicos de la apicultura a través de seminarios web y un taller presencial.…
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Climate is changing at accelerated rates across the globe, and under these novel environmental conditions species will need to adapt or perish. For the 3rd year of the Pollinator in Changing Climates NSF-IRES course, we have continued investigating the physiological and functional traits of plants and pollinators to better predict species responses to the rapid…
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The impact of climate change on plant-pollinator interactions This International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program will provide undergraduate students with an eight-week international research experience working with mentors from Penn State and Universidad Militar Nueva Granada in Colombia. Projects will focus on studying how environmental factors impact plant-pollinator interactions in mountain ecosystems. Students will…
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Many members of the López-Uribe Lab are presetting at the upcoming 2022 Entomological Society Meeting. Here are all the details, hope to see you there. Dr. Margarita López-Uribe Recent history and future trends in entomology concerning bees. Sunday, November 13, Room 122 @ 9:50 am Adaptive processes in agricultural pollinators: The case study of the squash…
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by Robyn Underwood The Spotted Lanternfly (SLF), Lycorma delicatula, is an introduced plant hopper from China that is rapidly expanding its range in the United States. Since arriving in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 2014, lanternflies have spread to and become established in 13 states (CT, DE, IN, MA, MD, MI, NC, NJ, NY,…
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There are around 4,000 bee species in the US and over 400 in Pennsylvania (Figure 1). With so many species it’s very difficult to know what’s going on with each species and any collection of species that co-occur at any given location. There’s growing concern that bees are declining because of a variety of stressors…
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The impact of climate change on plant-pollinator interactions This International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program will provide undergraduate students with an eight-week international research experience working with mentors from Penn State and Universidad Militar Nueva Granada in Colombia. Projects will focus on studying how environmental factors impact plant-pollinator interactions in mountain ecosystems. Students will…
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This post is contributed by Tony Shaw, a Master Gardener who is a member of the Pennsylvania Bee Monitoring Project. Early in Summer 2021, the Master Gardener Leadership Team invited Master Gardeners across the Commonwealth to participate in a new partnership with PSU professor Dr. Margarita López-Uribe. Her lab spearheads pollinator and bee research…
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Varroa mites are, without a doubt, one of the most difficult challenges for beekeeping management. Treating for mites is tricky: if you don’t treat for mites the probability of colony survival decreases by ≥55%, but if you overtreat mites may evolve resistance to treatments or there can be negative side effects for the bees. Thus,…
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Pathogen transmission from honey bees to wild bees has been attributed as one of the major negative impacts that managed honey bees have on wild bee populations. Among the many pests and pathogens that attack honey bees, the varroa mite and its associated virus, deformed wing virus (DWV), are most abundant and detrimental to honey…
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With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a group of biologists, engineers and climate scientists from Penn State (USA), University of Kansas (USA), Universidad Militar Nueva Granada (Colombia), and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Peru) launched a summer research program for undergraduate students to help shed light on how pollinators and pollination are…
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I visit pumpkin farms across Pennsylvania to investigate host-pathogen dynamics in bee communities. In pumpkin fields, we typically see three bee species foraging – honey bees, wild bumble bees and wild squash bees. Haven’t heard of squash bees before? These are incredibly important, solitary bees that specialize on the pollen of pumpkin and squash. In…
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The impact of climate change on crop-pollinator interactions This International Research Experiences for Students (iRES) program will provide undergraduate student eight-week of a virtual research experience working with mentors from Colombia and Peru. Projects will focus on studying how environmental factors impact plant-pollinator interactions in agricultural areas. Students will participate in interdisciplinary research guided by…
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Honey bee colonies have been in decline in recent years due to many factors, including lack of high-quality nutrition, exposure to pesticides, and pressure from pests and pathogens. Infestations of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor play a large role in these staggering colony losses. These mites feed on the fat body and hemolymph of bees,…
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The Entomological Society of America is hosting its annual meeting virtually this year due to the pandemic. Check out the talks that members of our lab will be presenting during the next 2 weeks! All talks are pre-recorded and available on-demand! Engaging young audiences into scientific discourse through beekeeping activities Robyn Underwood, Brooke Lawrence, and…
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Wednesdays @4PM (EST) – 1h 15 min via zoom; weekly from November 4th to December 16th Join us for the Beekeeping Winter Webinar Series organized moderated by Tom Butzler, Robyn Underwood, and Margarita López-Uribe from Penn State Extension. These six webinars will cover a number of timely topics about beekeeping biology, basic and advanced management…
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The year 2020 has been difficult for multiple reasons. With businesses shut down, then opening with limited capacity, the pocketbooks of beekeepers have been lighter than hoped. A recent announcement should bring some aid to those who need it. If you are a honey producer who makes less than $900,000 per year, you could get…
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Wednesdays @3PM (EST) – 1h 15 min via zoom Join us for the Pollinator Webinar Series organized moderated by Tom Butzler and Dr. Margarita Lopez-Uribe from Penn State Extension. These eight webinars will cover a whole range of topics from beekeeping management to wild bee biodiversity and how to create habitat for pollinators. Webinars will…
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The Spotted Lanternfly (SLF), Lycorma delicatula, is an invasive planthopper that is rapidly expanding its range from Pennsylvania into the rest of eastern North America and beyond. In an effort to stop the further spread of this damaging pest, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) has established quarantine zones for all counties where the SLF…
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The second bee-year of the COMB project was a time of splitting, swarming, and honey production. After winter losses of 62.3% in the chemical free (CF) management system, 13.0% in the conventional (CON) management system, and 14.7% in the organic (ORG) management system, we set out to recover our numbers. If a colony had at…
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Honey bees are critical for crop pollination in the United States. The US is the first global producer of almonds and blueberries, and both of these crops require large numbers of managed honey bee colonies to maximize yields. In California, almond trees cover 1.4 million acres that supply about 70% of the demands worldwide. In…
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Are you using IPM tactics to manage varroa mites? When it comes to keeping levels of parasitic mites low, there are numerous options available. In our latest Penn State Extension article, we outline the options and how they fit on the IPM pyramid (figure 1). IPM stands for Integrated Pest Management. The pest is the…
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López-Uribe Lab at Penn State University Spring has arrived and there is much to be excited about. Check out our research and local events from the Center for Pollinator Research and Penn State Extension. Our research and extension programs aim to integrate basic research with citizen science to understand how agricultural practices impact pollinator populations.…
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Wind is common in winter in the northeast. This winter, there was a particularly distressing wind event that blasted the northeast Sunday into Monday 24-25 February 2019. Strong eastward winds whipped through the area causing downed trees, destroyed fences, partial building collapses, and lost power to many residents and businesses. With wind gusts often breaking…
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The beekeeping industry is facing serious challenges to maintain the necessary number of colonies to supply the demands for crop pollination. One of the major problems that honey bees have comes from the ectoparasitic mite, Varroa destructor, which transmit lethal honey bee viruses. Currently, most managed honey bee colonies cannot survive the winter without varroa…
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2018 COMB Stakeholder Meeting On November 30th 2018, 33 beekeepers and researchers met at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Boalsburg, PA to discuss results of the first year of the COMB project, and next steps for beekeeping management decisions for year two of the project. The day was filled with updates about how the project went…
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Since 2016 the López-Uribe lab has been leading a citizen science project that aims to map and characterize the health status of feral bees across Pennsylvania (check out our website: Tracking the Health of Feral Bees in PA). We had reports of 17 known feral locations by the end of 2017. Since then the project…
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In late April, we established 288 honey bee colonies in three regions of Pennsylvania and one region in West Virginia for the COMB (Conventional and Organic Management of Bees) project. In each region, we are working with two certified organic farmers who allowed us to place three apiaries, each holding 12 colonies. In each apiary, four…
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National Pollinator Week, #pollinatorweek “Shoo fly”, we often think; but think again, that fly might be an important pollinator for some of your favorite foods, including mangoes, kiwi, coffee and canola. Insects are the most common of all pollinators, pollinating roughly 90% of all flowering plants. The most common pollinators include bees, wasps, moths, butterflies,…
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Set-up for the COMB project is complete! The process of purchasing new equipment, irradiating used boxes, manipulating equipment to match the stakeholders’ suggested protocols, organizing and distributing all the right items, and then setting them up for the bees was quite an undertaking! All told, 35 pallets of equipment were purchased and 5 pallets of…
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Our honey bee packages for the Project COMB are scheduled to arrive this coming April and we are getting ready for their arrival! Because used equipment can carry on microorganisms to new colonies, we are irradiating older equipment for disease prevention. Irradiation is a sterilization procedure that kills microorganisms present on the equipment using gamma radiation powered by…
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Tracking Feral Bee Health in Pennsylvania, preliminary results 2017 What a better way to start 2018 than with an update about our exciting and ongoing citizen science project, Tracking Health of feral Bees in PA. It was a busy 2017. We sampled 19 feral colonies coupled with 11 managed colonies in six different cities throughout…
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Stakeholders at our first COMB meeting in November 2017 On November 17, 2017 stakeholders from across Pennsylvania converged to State College to discuss beekeeping protocols for our upcoming research project. The project, funded by the USDA’s Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), will be a side-by-side comparison of honey bee health using three…
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What would Halloween be without pumpkins; where would pumpkins be without bees? Non-existent! [ Pumpkins and Halloween go hand in hand. Jack O’Lantern carving is one of the most popular fall activities and pumpkin pies are a definite favorite for many at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Pumpkins were first cultivated in northern Mexico. However, they are now…
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On a warm sunny day in late summer, one would expect to find many insects and other bugs in central Pennsylvania. The monarchs are beginning to migrate southward, the caterpillars are getting fat on the vines and trees, wasps and bees are visiting flowers, dragonflies are flying and perching around streams and ponds, crickets and…
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Peponapis pruinosa, commonly known as the squash bee, is a specialist pollinator of plants in the genus Cucurbita (a.k.a. squash, pumpkins, gourds, zucchini, among others). Over the past several weeks, members of the López-Uribe lab visited 19 pumpkin farms throughout central and eastern PA to collect squash bees, bumble bees, and little green sweat bees! These three species,…
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Last Saturday was the 9th annual ‘Wings in the Park’ at Tudek Park in State College. Wings in the Park is an educational event hosted by the Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Centre County. It is a family fun day centered around celebrating the butterflies, bees, and all of our beneficial pollinators. People from the Lopez-Uribe, Hines, and…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Cotton, Fabric of Our Lives Cotton Pollinator Connectivity Workshop was held at Penn State University at State College February 16. It has been shown that increasing the diversity of pollinator species can dramatically increase cotton production. Researchers at University of Texas in Austin estimate that in South Texas, increasing the diversity of pollinators could boost…
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The Bee Tells “Strawberry Fields Forever” Things are well underway for the project, “Integrating pest and pollinator management”. The goal of this project is to better understand how pesticide use, honey bee stocking density, and landscape context are influencing native pollinator communities. Using the national land cover use database and GIS software, we’ve characterized the…
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The Tracking of Feral Bees project at Penn State is underway. Last Thursday night, we set out on our first feral bee adventure of the year! About 45 minutes south of State College, in Huntingdon County PA, we sampled individuals from the our feral colony of our study. A great sycamore tree, close to 100…
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[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] It was a wonderful weekend at the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association conference in State College. Beekeepers came from all over PA to listen and learn about honey bees and beekeeping. I am Margarita, a new assistant professor at Penn State and leader of the Lopez-Uribe Lab. I was a guest speaker at…
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If you need it, we will have it! Buzz on over to the Wiley Bee Lab at Penn State, State College PA this Saturday November 12 from 3-6pm We are selling beekeeping equipment at a discount Inventory: Shallow, medium and deep hive bodies with frames and plastic foundation, tops, migratory lids, inner covers, bottom boards, screen…
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Methods of oxalic acid (OA) treatments We have begun our first project in the Lopez-Uribe Lab (@lopezuribelab). Our aim is to compare the effectiveness of two methods of oxalic acid (OA) treatments for mite control: the trickle method (trickling of OA sugar syrups into honey bee colonies) and vaporizer method (OA fumigation through vaporization). Background: Oxalic…
