MSU Sentinel Apiary Update: 2019 Varroa Trends
This article was originally posted on the Michigan Sentinel Apiary Blog, on Dec. 23, 2019 As part of the Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) Sentinel Apiary program, the MSU Honey Bee Program monitors apiaries throughout Michigan. Each month, we took notes on our colonies and management. We also sent a bottle of bees from each colony to the Bee Informed Partnership for the lab to quantify the number of bees and mites in each sample. We sampled 8 colonies per yard in Lansing and No
Queen Quest: the search for overwintering bumble bees
How you can help researchers understand where bumble bees spend the cold months Bumble bees are an important group of pollinating insects for Michigan agriculture. Bumble bees’ quintessential large, fluffy bodies help them tolerate the chill of Michigan’s spring season, verifying their MVP status in pollinating many spring-blooming crops like blueberries and cherries. But populations of bumble bees face serious threats across the globe, and in our own backyard. Habitat degrad
