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 up to 10.6% of your total 2019 honey sales in financial aid through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP2). […]
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 take place on consecutive Wednesdays, starting on June 3rd at 3 PM (EST), 2 PM (CST), 1 PM (MST), and […]
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 has been reported. In 2019, only 14 counties were part of the quarantine zone. As of March 5, 2020, 26 counties were […]
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 least 8 frames of brood in the spring, it was split to make a second colony. The split colony was […]