GREAT NEWS FOR THE BEES! We have been funded for another year of field research from the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Department. Here is the project title and description: Pennsylvania queen bee program and Heartland Honey Bee Breeders Cooperative: Mite-biting behavior and overwintering success Research from the North Central SARE region has identified a genetic trait that triggers varroa mite biting behavior in honeybees. The farmer will measure this...
On June 27, 2015 beekeepers from Pennsylvania and Ohio met at Slippery Rock to exchange queens, as part of the USDA SARE outreach. Instead of exchanging fully mated queens, we exchanged queen cells that are only 48 hours old. The beekeepers then go back to their bee yards and finish raising the queen, and then she open mates with locally adapted drone stock. This is a quick and inexpensive way...
