Tell us your journey and how your interest in agriculture developed.

NIFA-funded researcher Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu serves as an associate professor at Mississippi State University. Image courtesy of Dr. Basu. 

My interest in agriculture came about when I started my bachelor’s degree. Even though I studied zoology, some special topics in entomology showed a strong relationship between insects and plants, especially food crops. The more I learned, the more I was fascinated. India has a strong history of food shortage and food abundance before and after the Green Revolution respectively. Connecting with local farmers, hearing their stories and listening to them was informing. Then when I started studying bee pollinators, my interest in agriculture has since peaked as I realized that food production, crop protection and bee protection are all interconnected. Working with both growers and beekeepers has helped me understand the dynamics of different aspects of agriculture.

My research focuses on understanding the impacts of multiple stressors on bee pollinators, especially pesticides and poor nutrition and what can we do to mitigate such stress. I work at the interphase of both basic and applied sciences. I employ various interdisciplinary tools across fields such as insect physiology, apicultural practices, pollination biology, molecular ecology, insect neuroethology, mass spectrometry and insect toxicology to answer the research questions.

Could you catch us up on one of your NIFA-funded projects? What is the goal of your project and what impact do you hope it has on your institution and trainees?

My lab is helping to build the first ever pollen nutrition database for all bee pollinators in North America through a NIFA-funded project in collaboration with Dr. Ramesh Sagili at Oregon State University. The habitat for bees is usually chosen based on relative attractiveness of the plants to the bees without an understanding of the nutritional quality of such plant pollens and nectars. Through the help of this project, we are now analyzing the nutritional quality of the various bee pollinated plants (crops, noncrop, natives and ornamentals) and determining the pollen protein and lipid contents, amino acids, phytosterols and metabolites. We are partnering with various collaborators and citizen scientists across U.S. and Canada to help collect pollen to build this database. Even though this project is only for three years, this is a lifelong commitment for me, and I see myself working towards expanding this database for years.

This project has been very well received at the institution and this also raises a lot of general awareness for creating optimal forage habitats for bee pollinators. The project has brought a lot of interest and support for our research program and the institution. The students are learning valuable interdisciplinary techniques in apiculture, insect physiology, mass spectrometry and horticulture, along with working with a wide diversity of stakeholders. In addition to the pollen nutrition database, as a part of this project, we are also examining the impacts of 24-methylenecholesterol, a vital micronutrient in honey bees and the impacts of certain groups of fungicides on both plants and honey bees.

How has the NIFA specific program/funded research shaped your professional development as a scientist?

The NIFA-funded project has helped me expand partnerships in bee research. I have collaborated and worked with various partners across many USDA-Agricultural Research Services research centers, USDA pollinator group program managers and research coordinator, United States Geological Survey, Natural Resource Conservation Service and others. Thus, I now have the chance to work with motivated students, eager citizen scientists and brilliant researchers. This project has also supported my first graduate student in the new lab. And most importantly, this project has allowed me to examine very critical unanswered questions in bee nutrition, thus laying the foundation for my long-term career goals and objectives.

What advice to you have for current students who may be interested in pursuing a similar career path?

My suggestion would be to focus on more than just the aspects of learning that students enjoy and cherish. Establishing oneself independently takes time and fantastic mentors to help guide you. To be aware of what is needed to follow this path (for example, academic job in a university, or scientist with USDA, etc.) is the first important step to achieving the desired career goals. We will all fail at many things, but my advice would be to continue pushing ahead and trying. Networking, building relationships and pushing intellectual limits will help mold and sharpen students further. I am a lifelong learner, and I also encourage you to continue to learn new things and continue to polish your skills. Follow your passion and foster your scientific curiosity about all bees (managed and native), beekeeping and pollinators. It is also important to be respectful and kind to everyone.

Anything else you would like to add?

I truly enjoy learning about bee pollinators. My favorite part of my job is to be able to find questions that are still unanswered and keep trying to solve them. Most importantly I get to do this with a fantastic group of students (both graduate and undergraduate students) who are as committed and driven as I am. I also mentor and work with minority students, first-generation college students, and students representing the LGBTQ+ community. This itself is a learning curve for me, and I take immense pleasure in being able to train, teach, and mentor students. In addition, I get the opportunity to work closely with our stakeholders and Extension partners, which gives me various possibilities to work on problems that matter for both beekeepers and growers.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: World Honey Bee Day Profile: Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu | National Institute of Food and Agriculture (usda.gov)

Dr. Eric Mussen at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Honey Bee Authority Dr. Eric Mussen Passes

Celebrated honey bee authority Dr. Eric Carnes Mussen, an internationally known 38-year California Cooperative Extension apiculturist and an invaluable member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, died Friday, June 3 from liver cancer. He was 78.

Dr. Mussen, a resident of Davis, was admitted to a local hospital on May 25. He was diagnosed with liver cancer/failure on May 31 and returned to the family home June 1 for hospice care. He passed away the evening of June 3.

“Eric was a giant in the field of apiculture,” said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “The impact of his work stretched far beyond California.”

Dr. Mussen, known to all as “Eric,” joined the UC Davis entomology department in 1976. Although he retired in 2014, he continued his many activities until a few weeks prior to his death. For nearly four decades, he drew praise as “the honey bee guru,” “the pulse of the bee industry” and as “the go-to person” when consumers, scientists, researchers, students, and the news media sought answers about honey bees.

“Eric’s passing is a huge loss,” said longtime colleague Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. “He was always the go-to person for all things honey bee. He worked happily with hobbyists, commercial beekeepers and anyone just generally interested.”

Colleagues described Mussen as the “premier authority on bees and pollination in California, and one of the top beekeeping authorities nationwide,”  “a treasure to the beekeeping industry,” and “a walking encyclopedia when it comes to honey bees.”

Norman Gary, a noted UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology who served as a faculty member from 1962 to 1994, described Eric as “by far, the best Extension apiculturist in this country.”

“Eric’s career was so productive and exciting that a book would be required to do justice for his many contributions to his profession as extension entomologist specializing in apiculture, better known as beekeeping,” Gary said. “His mission basically was facilitating productive and reciprocal communication between beekeeping researchers at UC Davis, commercial beekeeping as it affects California’s vast needs for the pollination of agricultural crops, providing helpful information to hobby beekeepers, and educating the general public concerning honey bees.  His great professional successes in all areas have been recognized around the world.  He has received numerous awards, especially from the beekeeping industry.  He was by far the best Extension apiculturist in this country!”

“In addition to professional duties, he enthusiastically tackled other projects for entomology faculty,” Gary said. “For example, he critically reviewed most of my publications, including scientific papers, books, and bulletins.  He worked diligently to help create the Western Apicultural Society and later served as president. (Mussen served six terms as president, the last term in 2017.)  I especially appreciated his volunteering to moderate a video that historically summarized and recorded my entire 32-year career at UC Davis.  And his tribute would not be complete without mentioning that he was one of my favorite fishing buddies.”

See more at  https://bit.ly/3zi9Jdi

• By Don Wilkins Messenger-Inquirer

Steve Hahus, a retired teacher and beekeeper, walks through his Utica home’s backyard where six of his 13 hives are located. Hahus, who is also the president of the Green Valley Beekeepers Association, has been a beekeeper for 11 years.

Eleven years after purchasing his first beehive, Steve Hahus still considers his beekeeping a hobby.

But it’s not uncommon for the 62-year-old retired Apollo High School (Kentucky) teacher to field calls about how to care for honey bees, build his own wooden boxes for his hives and collect swarms from around the county.

During his time at AHS, Hahus taught biology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, zoology and outdoor education.

“I had a really good background for beekeeping, I guess you could say,” Hahus said. “All of that stuff is involved in beekeeping.”

Hahus’ interest has gone beyond backyard beekeeping.

He spent three years tracking honey bees to see what types of trees and plants they collected nectar and pollen from.

Hahus called honey bees “extreme generalists,” which is the ability to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and make use of a variety of different resources.

“I walked I don’t know how many miles and hours — all over — looking to see what bees were collecting from,” Hahus said. “It’s over 80 plants.”

Photos of all of the plants that Hahus documented can be found at greenvalleybeekeepers.org/plants-for-honey-bees.

In January, Hahus became president of the Green Valley Beekeepers Association.

His involvement with beekeeping and the local association started with a fellow teacher.

“A friend talked me into it; Obbie Todd, who I taught at Apollo with,” Hahus said. “He had bees, and he kept aggravating me and aggravating me.”

That persistence from Todd led Hahus to buy one hive in 2011 from a local beekeeper.

And since then, Hahus has had as many as 15 hives, which are now down to 13 — 12 of which he maintains on his Utica property. The other hive is kept at his brother’s home.

“I catch swarms, and that’s where I got all my other bees,” Hahus said. “Last year, I caught 17. I caught six here, and the rest of them were from people who called me and had swarms around their houses. It’s a good way to get free bees, and a lot of free bees, if you want them.”

Hahus added that swarms usually occur between late and mid-May.

“That’s how bees reproduce and establish more hives — they swarm,” Hahus said.

But before honey bees can swarm, the hive must survive the winter.

During the winter months, honey bees — as many 20,000 — will cluster together to generate heat and will not break cluster until the outside temperature gets around 55 to 60 degrees.

Hahus said the bees will even starve to death before they will break cluster, which is why he monitors his hives’ food levels on mild winter days that allow the honey bees to break cluster to forage for food. If the hives are low on food, he can add a frame of honey or sugar boards to the box.

And to ensure his hives survive the winter, Hahus said there are three keys — keep them from losing a lot of heat, add food when necessary and treat them for Verroa mites, an external parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees.

“In 10 winters, I’ve only lost one hive, so I know it works,” Hahus said.

Hahus also extracts honey, which he bottles and sells, from his hives twice a year — in June and September. He also sells hives and queens.

Along with raising honey bees, he builds his own wooden bee boxes known as superstructures, or “supers” for short. It’s where the hives live and store their honey.

“People give me scrap lumber, so I don’t have to buy lumber,” said Hahus, adding that he applies deck stain to preserve the supers longer.

When he started attending Green Valley Beekeepers Association meetings, Hahus said there were about 12 people. But now their numbers have increased to around 80.

Hahus credited immediate past president Jim Mason for helping expand the group.

“When it was in that feeble state, he really did a good job of promoting us,” Hahus said.

Hahus said he’s come to enjoy introducing others to beekeeping, which has given him “something to do.”

“I’m retired, and I guess this is what you’re supposed to do when you’re retired,” Hahus said.

https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/features/buzz-thrill-retired-educator-using-science-background-for-beekeeping-hobby/article_51e865b3-1bcc-5095-bd88-f0ff4f1e5e11.html

Don Wilkins, dwilkins@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-691-7299

From engineer to beekeeper: Highgate woman smashing stereotypes

Sally Patterson

Highgate’s Helen Rogers has been named one of the UK#s most “inspirational and dynamic female entrepreneurs” – Credit: Jon Challicom

A Highgate beekeeper is selling home-made honey, candles and soap – when she’s not working as a structural engineer.

Helen Rogers, who lives in the Holly Lodge Estate, moved to London from rural Oxfordshire in the 1990s to study engineering.

However, she has “always been fascinated” by nature, and was delighted when her husband presented her with a beehive 10 years ago.

Helen told the Ham&High: “When I moved to London, I noticed beehives hidden away everywhere I looked.

“They’re in bushes, on buildings – they’re little secrets few people know about.”

Since then, the mother-of-two has been beekeeping alongside working as a consultant engineer, and founded Highgate Honey four years ago.

The business sells honey, candles and bees-wax wraps, and runs honey-

Helen’s talents were recognized in the f:Entrepreneur #ialso100 campaign, which profiles 100 female entrepreneurs across the UK.

Founded by Small Business Britain in 2017 to “celebrate the multi-achievements” of women running businesses, including a disability activist, grief coach and dog rehabilitation expert.

Helen said: “It aims to spotlight women doing more than one thing, women who wear lots of hats.

“We don’t have nine to five office jobs. It’s a fantastic group of women and I’m overwhelmed to be part of it.”

Although there are few studies about gender ratios within beekeeping, research from The Magazine of American Beekeeping has found that just a third of leadership positions in the industry are held by women.

ttps://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/business/highgate-beekeeper-recognised-as-woman-entrepreneur-8613154

Helen runs honey-tasting workshops from her Highgate home – Credit: Helen Rogers

The 44-year-old also found time to write a book, ’80 Flowers for Bees’, with her horticulturalist mother during lockdown.

“People want to help bees but have no idea where to start,” Helen explained.

“I feel confident that I’m not exploiting the bees – I see many bad practices in beekeeping which I don’t subscribe to.

“I ensure my bees are left with plenty of honey, as it’s good for humans but also good for bees. There’s a lot of misconceptions about bee-keeping out there.”

Helen’s products and workshops can be found at highgatehoney.com/shop/.

This NYPD Beekeeper Has Subdued His Last Swarm

BY DANNY LEWIS, WNYC

DARREN MAYS

In late August, tourists and New Yorkers in Times Square spotted something above the heads of the costumed characters and tour bus ticket sellers: a swarm of bees taking up residence on a street pole right at 47th Street and 6th Avenue.

But the NYPD’s official beekeeper for the last eight years, Officer Darren Mays, had retired just the day before. And he was not coming back for one last swarm.

“They called me for it, but I told them that I’m officially retired and my job is done!” Mays said.

Instead, the department’s new beekeeper, Det. Robert Travis, had the honor of removing the swarm and preventing passersby from getting stung.

Det. Travis on the scene in Times Square in August.

Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

Mays had taken on the mantle of the police department’s beekeeper following the retirement of Detective Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis in 2014. Since then, when not patrolling the streets of the 104th Precinct in Queens, Mays has been one of the first people to respond when clouds of bees take pit stops in populated places while searching for a new, permanent home.

While Mays is leaving the NYPD behind, he’s sticking with the bees by learning more about the commercial side of the beekeeping business, in order to make his longtime hobby and side-gig into a full-time career. But first, he spoke with Gothamist/WNYC about what it’s like being the NYPD’s official beekeeper. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

A lot of people might be surprised to learn that the NYPD even has official beekeepers, right? Is this a normal thing that police departments have, or is this unique to New York?

You know, people think it would go to the Parks Department, but it became a police thing, you know, who’s going to get the first 911 call? Police officer.

Is it a full-time gig? Or are you also going out on normal patrols?

Yeah, it’s a seasonal position. And I was, you know, midnight patrol police officer in the 104 Precinct. The beekeeping just runs from April until September and October, because I got a lot of calls for yellow jackets and hornets nests and everything like that. But for the honeybee swarming, July’s usually the end of it.

What are some of the craziest things that you’ve had to respond to?

Well, yellowjackets are no fun, honeybees are fun because, you know, you can have them land on a bicycle, the side of a building, even our police cameras, probably one of my biggest and best one was on Dyckman Street a few years back. A large swarm, probably like 40,000 bees.

Oh my God.

In a tree on Dyckman Street. I shook them into a box, half of the bees fell on the ground. So I put this box on the floor. I opened the opening on it. Within 15 minutes, 15,000 bees that fell on the ground were marching in that box. They follow the pheromone scent of their queen. Once they know that queen is inside, they all going to start marching in. It was exciting.

This NYPD Beekeeper Has Subdued His Last Swarm – Gothamist

Viktor Plyushchev, owner of Smart Bee Pollinations, and his daughter Albeena open one of their beehives on their farm in La Center.

PHOTO BY MADYSEN MCLAIN

Local beekeepers advocate for health benefits of honey

For millennia, humans have used honey from bees for medicinal purposes but now, consumers hope to naturally decrease allergies, soothe a sore throat or increase their antioxidant intake.

Although research studies have yet to prove that honey decreases the effects of seasonal allergies, Clark County beekeepers swear by it.

Honey can help soothe sore throats and coughs, as well as heal wounds because of its antibacterial and antifungal properties, according to the Mayo Clinic. Honey may even have anti-inflammatory effects.

Honey used in hospitals has been sterilized and inspected, while raw honey bought from local vendors usually isn’t.

“When I get that itchy feeling when I’m about to get a sore throat, all I do is eat a teaspoon of honey,” Smart Bee Pollination owner Viktor Plyushchev said.

Others add it to hot tea with lemon.

One allergy treatment, immunopathology, exposes a person to small doses of an allergen in hopes of causing the person’s body to react normally to it, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Specks of pollen, the same material causing allergies, are left in raw honey when it’s harvested out of honeycomb.

Half Moon Farm owner Brenda Calvert says that in order for the honey to be effective against allergies, the honey needs to be purchased from a beekeeper within 75 miles of the person’s home. The pollen specks in local honey are similar to the pollen that causes sneezing, runny noses and other allergy symptoms.

Calvert, who started keeping bees 16 years ago as a hobby with her husband Rob, said she believes wildflower honey works the best for helping with allergies.  She also makes candles out of beeswax and lotions using honey as she cares for about 20 hives.

Many customers will purchase honey in April and will take a teaspoon of it every day for two weeks.

As a third-generation commercial beekeeper, Plyushchev learned how to care for bees from an early age. Throughout the years he witnessed health benefits from honey.

When his family moved to Oregon from Tajikistan, his father’s first job was working as a beekeeper. Plyushchev and his wife made their home in La Center around 2009.

He operates over 1,000 hives in 36 different locations around the county. The hives need to be spread out because bees travel up to three miles to collect pollen, Plyushchev said.

Those interested in beekeeping lend Plyushchev space on their property during the summer, without having to do the work of caring for them, he said.

Plyushchev harvests honey after certain plants or flowers bloom, such as maple, hawthorn and cascara trees, as well as blackberry bushes. The blooming season determines the flavor and color of the honey, he said

“It’s almost like wine tasting,” Plyushchev said. “Every flavor of honey is different.”

He said the honey won’t be made of pure maple or pure blackberry nectar because the bees will pick up other nectar as well.

“I personally think that all honey can be beneficial for allergies,” Plyushchev said.

He would previously sell the harvested honey to packers that would then be processed, bottled and sold in grocery stores around the state.

Packers mix honey from local beekeepers and pasteurize it. Plyushchev says the honey loses some pollen by the time it has been processed.

Now, he sells raw honey, bee pollen and honeycomb at a few local farmers markets and through a honey stand on the Smart Bee Pollination farm in La Center, 32110 NE 40th Ave.

Calvert said some store-bought honey will have additives, like high fructose corn syrup. She processes her honey by pouring it through a screen to collect unwanted wax chunks or other materials.

“I would definitely give honey a shot,” she said. “It’ll probably be the most painless for allergies.”

Research suggests avoiding feeding honey to children ages 1 year and younger because of the possibility of infant botulism, a serious form of food poisoning.

Local beekeepers advocate for health benefits of honey | The Reflector

Madysen McLain / madysen@thereflector.com

SOFTWARE FOUNDER HELPS ALMOND GROWERS MONITOR HIVE STRENGTH

By:AMY WU

Editor’s Note: The following profile is an excerpt from Amy Wu’s book, “From Farms to Incubators: Women Innovators Revolutionizing How Our Food is Grown,” which tells the stories of women entrepreneurs who are transforming agriculture through high technology.

Ellie Symes could easily pass for the girl next door. The petite brunette, with her dimpled ear-to-ear smile, is affable and easy to converse with. Symes is in her mid-twenties, and her youthful persona not only makes her stand out in a sector known for being male-dominated but belies her expertise: she is a ninja when it comes to talking bees and bee pollination.

Symes launched her agtech company, The Bee Corp, in 2016. The Bee Corp offers a software platform that monitors and grades the quality of hives before pollination. The technology, delivered through a mobile app, helps beekeepers and growers make sure their hives are healthy and ready to go. The start-up includes Symes and a small team of engineers and researchers who are based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

At the Forbes AgTech Summit in Indianapolis in 2018, she held the stage during the “Show Me the Honey: Innovating to Insure Healthy Bees and Honey” panel. During the question-and-answer portion before an audience made up of top executives, Symes fielded a question on what her company’s technology is taking pictures of. She explained that the Bee Corp’s Verifli is an infrared image analysis tool that helps growers measure pollination value. It captures an infrared image of the clusters of bees inside the hive box from a device that is attached to the user’s smartphone.

“It’s an infrared image and we are reading thermal heat coming off the hives, produced from the body heat of the bees. The bees are actually creating body heat to heat the eggs, just like a bird sits on a nest,” Symes said. Once the image is uploaded, a prediction of hive strength is made in four seconds and shared with growers.

The company’s tagline is “Snap. Grade. Go about your day.” “We focus on inspection and ensure growers they have strong hives and make sure they measure their pollination contracts. We can inspect earlier in pollination and be able to make decisions,” Symes said, noting that the technology is such that the process does not require the hive boxes to be open, thereby avoiding manual inspection.

Something new

Symes was an undergraduate at Indiana University in Bloomington when she began working on the project that would later become The Bee Corp. She has no farming background and fell into both entrepreneurship and agriculture. At the end of her freshman year, as she was looking beyond the prospect of lifeguarding again in the summer, Symes began researching internship opportunities in areas of the environment and ecology: “My goal [at the time] was to build a career and get the studies I needed to solve environmental problems.”

A beekeeping internship piqued her curiosity. “It was something new and different,” she recalls. Little did she expect that she’d get hooked on beekeeping.

To read the complete article go to; Women in agtech: Ellie Symes | The King City Rustler | Your Local News Source in King City, California

Dr. Olav Rueppell says that it isn’t the bee populations that are diminishing, but rather their caretakers.

“The honey bee is not going to go extinct because it is so intensely managed, and a lot of beekeepers are putting a lot of effort into keeping their populations up,” Rueppell explained. “But we have to be somewhat worried about the extinction of the beekeeper.”

Paige Miller

UAlberta

For Olav Rueppell, a biologist studying social insects, honey bees are much more than a friendly buzz heard overhead in the summer.

Rueppell joined the University of Alberta this past semester as a professor of Biology in the department of biological sciences. His research uses honey bees and other social insects as a model to help explain general biological questions, such as the phenomenon of ageing. A key aspect of his research focuses on finding sustainable solutions to maintain the health of these important pollinators.

With both parents working in the field, Rueppell was exposed to biology from a young age. Though initially intent on studying birds, Rueppell was drawn to the research of social insects by a professor in his undergraduate degree.

Rueppell’s research with honey bees is grounded in social biology theory, which examines the link between social organization and behaviours, and genetics.

“It’s an area of biology that has a relatively well-established theory behind it, but it also offers opportunities to do experiments and observations and empirical work, and this combination between theory and practical work attracted me,” Rueppell said.

“Social insects are really special because of their integrated colonies that function almost like a superorganism. They function as a unit where individuals are almost like the cells in our body contributing to one bigger outcome, and that’s the functioning of the colony.”

Rueppell’s research looks at how honey bees can help explain biological phenomena like ageing.

“It turns out that honey bees and other social insects are very good models because they are extremely plastic in their ageing rates,” Rueppell explained. “Some individuals age much faster than others even though they live in the same colony, they have the same genome, and so forth. The question is, how do they manage to age much slower in some instances?”

Honey bee health is also a research priority for Rueppell, due to their important role in pollinating our food production, as well as the functioning of ecosystems as a whole. Researching viruses, parasites, and other stressors on honey bees constitutes the bulk of Rueppell’s work.

His work in this area ranges from behavioural observations, to studying lifespans of colonies, to extracting deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the lab.

“As humans are transforming our environment more and more through agriculture and other practices, we have to be careful to preserve the functionality of the ecosystem,” Rueppell said.

However, preserving plant and pollinator systems can be tricky due to a symbiotic relationship: flowers depend on pollinating insects to transport their pollen, while pollinating insects depend on pollen as a food source. This balance between plants and pollinators is also essential to food production to pollinate staple food crops, like blueberries and strawberries.

“If one partner falls away, then potentially the other partner in the symbioses will suffer, and potentially go extinct,” Rueppell explained.

But Rueppell says that it isn’t the bee populations that are diminishing, but rather their caretakers.

“The honey bee is not going to go extinct because it is so intensely managed, and a lot of beekeepers are putting a lot of effort into keeping their populations up,” Rueppell explained. “But, we have to be somewhat worried about the extinction of the beekeeper.”

Rueppell hopes his research into honey bee health will lead to an improvement in the beekeeping sector. Though Alberta’s landscape and long summer days make for ideal honey-producing conditions, beekeepers must contend with between 20 and 40 per cent of their honey bee colonies dying each year, which can be expensive to replace.

After 20 years in the field, Rueppell said he’s still learning new things about honey bees.

“I could never understand how so many people work on honey bees and still have new questions, and now I can’t understand how I didn’t see that many questions,” Rueppell exclaimed. “That’s what I love about it – to see how one experiment or answer opens up so many new and fascinating things that we can still learn about bees and insects.”

Rueppell is currently recruiting students of all levels to help him continue to ask questions about honey bees in his new lab at the U of A.

“I think that’s part of the fun of academic research, you work with people from very diverse and different backgrounds, and that’s what I’m trying to do in my lab as well.”

“I’m really happy to be here, and it feels like a great opportunity to start a new lab in such a great university.”

https://thegatewayonline.ca/2021/03/buzzing-biology-honey-bee-researcher-joins-the-u-of-a/

Noah Manskar

Bill Gates and his book picks from 2020. – Courtesy Gates Notes

Bill Gates may no longer be the world’s richest man, but he can claim a new title: America’s farmland king.

The billionaire Microsoft co-founder has become the largest owner of farmland in the United States by quietly buying up massive plots across the county, a new report says.

Gates’ portfolio comprises about 242,000 acres of farmland and nearly 27,000 acres of other land across 19 states, according to The Land Report, a magazine for land investors that tracks the nation’s biggest landowners.

The biggest chunks of Gates’ holdings are in Louisiana and Arkansas, where he owns 69,071 acres and 47,927 acres, respectively, the outlet’s research found.

He also reportedly owns about 16,000 acres in his home state of Washington, including a 14,500-acre tract in the Horse Heaven Hills region that was purchased for nearly $171 million.

The land is owned both directly and indirectly by Cascade Investment, the Seattle-area firm that Gates — the world’s third-richest man with a net worth of $132 billion, according to Bloomberg — set up to manage his massive fortune, according to The Land Report.

A hint at Gates’ huge farm holdings emerged in a 2014 Wall Street Journal profile of Michael Larson, the money manager who serves as Cascade’s chief investment officer. The piece noted that the firm owns “at least 100,000 acres of farmland in California, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and other states — or an area seven times bigger than Manhattan.”

It’s uncertain why Gates has invested in so much farmland or how his tracts are currently being used. Cascade did not immediately respond to a phone message Friday, and the company declined to comment to The Land Report “other than to say that Cascade is very supportive of sustainable farming,” the outlet said.

Agriculture is also a key focus area for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the massive charity run by Gates and his wife. The foundation aims to “support country-led inclusive agricultural transformation across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” according to its website.

________________________________________________________________________________

Ashley Mortensen, Ph.D., began her career as a zookeeper, and she picked up beekeeping as a hobby. Later, she pursued graduate studies in apiculture, which led her to her current role as a senior scientist in the Bee Biology and Productivity Team at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research. Here, she pauses during a visit to one of the institute’s research colonies during a swarm.

By: Erika Machtinger, Ph.D.

Editor’s Note: This is the next post in the “Standout ECPs” series contributed by the Entomological Society of America’s Early Career Professionals (ECP) Committee, highlighting outstanding ECPs that are doing great work in the profession. (An ECP is defined as anyone within the first five years of obtaining their terminal degree in their field.) Learn more about the work ECPs are doing within ESA, and read past posts in the Standout ECPs series.

Ashley Mortensen, Ph.D., received her doctorate from the University of Florida under Jamie Ellis, Ph.D., and then faced the challenge as an early career professional of moving to a new country with her family. Mortensen is a senior scientist in the Bee Biology and Productivity Team at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research where she develops, secures funding for, and oversees the completion of research projects related to bee biology and behavi

Machtinger: Were you always interested in insects?

Mortensen: I haven’t always had a strong interest in insects in particular. I have always been really interested in animal behaviour and biology. I studied animal science during my undergraduate programme and then got what I thought was my dream job as a zookeeper caring for a variety of species including okapi, snow leopards, elephants, gibbons, and tamarins.

What drove your interest in pollinators?

I left my position as a zookeeper to move out of state for my partner’s career and got a job as a vet nurse. I then started doing wildlife rehabilitation as well to fill the wildlife niche that was missing in my life after leaving the zoo. One of the other rehabilitators at the organisation I volunteered with had just started keeping bees, and it sparked my own interest to start keeping bees as a hobby. As I learned more about bees, I became fascinated with their biology and behaviour, and then I began a graduate study programme in apiculture.

What do you find the most challenging about your current position?

Managing people. I have had a lot of past experience in independent projects or roles in which I was following the direction of a supervisor. This is my first position where I have overseen and been responsible for the productivity of several direct reports. I am still learning how to best facilitate accountability, productivity, and positivity in my team.

What is your favorite part about what you do?

I really enjoy getting to identify a question, explore hypotheses that answer that question with a group of enthusiastic colleagues, and then go out and test those hypotheses.

What is your biggest goal to accomplish in your career?

I would like for the results and conclusions that come out of my research programmes to be regarded as creative, innovative, considered, and robust.

You recently relocated to New Zealand for your position. What was that like? What cultural challenges were there, and what do you like the best?

Moving to New Zealand was an exciting adventure. The economic drivers of the beekeeping industry are a bit different here from in the U.S., and therefore there are different pain points in bee management and pollination here as well. Culturally, my whole family has loved learning more about Māori culture and the history of Aotearoa (New Zealand). The biggest challenge has been moving from Florida to a place that gets cold and has a proper winter!

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to your undergraduate student self?

There is still plenty of opportunity past university. You don’t have to have all of the answers about who you are going to be and what you are going to do for the rest of your life right when you graduate.

What advice would you give students transitioning from a graduate student position to a professional position?

Build a support system for yourself: Find good mentors that you can look to for guidance and advice when needed; and, just as importantly, identify “your people” (colleagues, friends, family, etc.) that are in the same career or life stages as you and who can offer support and validation when you need it.

You are a mother of two young children. What specific challenges does this present? Conversely, what positive impacts does this have on your life and career?

Having a family presents obvious constraints on my availability and flexibility at work, but it also forces me to clearly define my work and (just as importantly) my not-work time. I started graduate school with one child and had my second in the first year of my Ph.D. I believe the responsibility to my children has forced a level of work-life balance that I think many early-career scientists struggle to maintain.

If you could be an insect, which would you choose and why?

Drone fly, because you’re constantly mistaken for a bee and even end up on nature magazine covers because people think you are a bee, but you’re just a really sneaky fly.

Erika Machtinger, Ph.D., CWB®, is an assistant professor of veterinary entomology at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. Email: etm10@psu.edu.

All photos courtesy of Ashley Mortensen, Ph.D.

From Zookeeper to Beekeeper: How One Entomologist Found Her Way to Bee Research

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Photo by Kevin Van Paassen

Sunnybrook Hospital abuzz with beekeeping first

Bees said to make ‘excellent ambassadors for wellness and environmental health’
By: Rebecca Melnyk

Sunnybrook Hospital has become the first healthcare facility in Toronto, and quite possibly Canada, to welcome honeybees to its property.

Thirty thousand honey bees in three hives are now located on the Bayview campus, about one kilometre away from the main hospital buildings. The goal is to support this declining pollinator population, as well as provide in-person educational sessions for staff and visitors to learn more about the bees.

“Besides providing an opportunity to learn more about the fascinating inner workings of a bee colony, and a connection to nature in the city, we think the bees will provide a great way to connect with employees and the community about broader environmental issues, and ideally spur additional sustainability initiatives,” says Michael Lithgow, manager, energy and climate action at Sunnybrook.

As it stands, a few hospitals in the U.S. host hives. Local non-hospital sites include the University of Toronto, the Royal York Hotel, rooftops of several shopping malls and some mixed-use residential properties. Toronto became Canada’s first official “Bee City” in 2016. As Lithgow adds, cities are often ideal locations for beekeeping due to abundant flowering plants, fewer pesticides than rural areas and many sources of water.

Set on a 100-acre property, home to 4600 trees and extensive gardens, Sunnybrook offers such a habitat. It is also managed on low-impact principles, including minimizing water use, pesticides and waste.

“The bees are a natural and interesting addition to the landscape,” says Lithgow. “In the early planning stages of the project, it rapidly became apparent this would be a great way to engage staff and the public on a far-reaching sustainability issue. Almost everyone we engaged with expressed an appreciation for bees and other pollinators.”

It took just over a year to bring the hives to the campus with help from internal and external stakeholders, although the thought started percolating among residents in the Veterans Centre a few years ago. Genny Ng, performance improvement specialist at Sunnybrook, jump-started the idea of partnering with local beekeepers.

“As an organization with so much green space, our staff enjoy walking around the property and eating outside for their breaks,” says Ng. “We have a wonderful team that maintains our flower and vegetable gardens for staff to enjoy, bringing bees to the property will enhance these gardens and support a greener community.”

The pandemic is putting even more strain on the physical and mental health of Canadians, according to Robin Edger, executive director and CEO of The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. He says “nature offers a prescription” of sorts, as there is “a growing body of evidence indicating that spending time outside in nature is one of the best things we can do for our well being.”

“Bees make excellent ambassadors for wellness and environmental health,” adds Lithgow. “We understand how important they are for our food and plants, while we’ve also heard how so many pollinators are threatened by pollution, disease and climate change.”

The three hives are expected to produce about 100 to 150 pounds of honey each year. At no direct cost to the hospital, a modest revenue is expected. Once the hives are established, honey will be available for purchase in the Sunnybrook gift shop and at the vendor tables through Fairhaven Farm—the beekeeper who is managing the hives in exchange for space. As the bee colonies grow, plans call for adding more hives if and when appropriate.

https://www.reminetwork.com/articles/sunnybrook-hospital-beekeeping/

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Living the sweet life

Having bounced back from a troubled past, third-generation beekeeper says God is the CEO of his successful honey-packing business.

By:Kathleen Hilliard

 Nathan and Marcela Carmichael

“With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:26

This Scripture passage is one that hangs outside of the Carmichael Honey packing facility in honor of the company’s true CEO — God. It stands as one of the physical signs of Nathan Carmichael’s faith that brought him through one of the worst moments of his life and into some of the best.

Carmichael’s Honey is a local honey-packing business that blends local honey from local beekeepers. The raw product is shipped to the packing facility and, with minimal straining and filtering, is bottled and made available at local retailers. They blend regional, high-quality honey to sell in each region in states such as Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. The company sells about 765,000 pounds of honey each year. Their goal? That each bottle of honey is a representation of them and what they stand for — integrity, honesty, good service and quality.

The company is active in the local community and believes that “helping others and doing the right things are not options but commands from a Heavenly Father. Our goal is to provide our customers with a healthy product and to honor God in our business and outside of our business in our personal lives.”

“U.S. honey to support the U.S. beekeeper,” Carmichael said. “Their market is undercut by foreign honey. Foreign honey is legal and it’s brought in and branded and it sells — it’s a lot cheaper. It impedes on their (U.S. beekeepers) cashflow and the money that they make.”

He said he hopes to double the size of their facility and increase their production from about 1 million pounds of honey to 3-7 million pounds in the next 3-5 years.

The company began with an Amazon order, a lot of faith and dedication.

“I ordered some empty bottles on Amazon and my fiancee at the time, my wife now, she helped me get on the computer and … she was able to get address labels and print my name and number on them,” explained Carmichael. “I had a 1999 Durango that broke down probably every 2 or 3 days, and the days it was running I would get in that thing and deliver honey one case at a time to local grocery stores. That was my beginning into the business sector. I didn’t even have insurance — I really bootstrapped this thing. Today, we’re a multi-million organization and we ship honey all over the country from Amazon, Walmart, Sam’s, Kroger, Rouses, Albertson’s, Market Basket — you name it, we’re there. But we didn’t start out that way.”

Years ago, at 23 years old, Carmichael found himself in a car with his grandparents, who were dropping him off at a local crisis center in Hurley, Miss., after he realized he needed help.

“I knew that there was more for me than that, so reluctantly but without really a choice because I was hungry and tired and beat up by the world, I went to … a crisis center in Hurley. My grandparents took me there and dropped me off and they fed me, they clothed me. When I got there I was so dyslexic that I could barely read or write, very poor speller, very very academically challenged. I was made to feel by the school system … like my purpose — there was no purpose because I was so academically challenged. I got in there, and one of the first things they do is they handed me a Scripture, and it said ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ and that was kind of … one of the first times that I had to believe that because at that point in my life I could do nothing. I just hoped God was real and that was really His word, because I needed His help and His strength,” he said.

Carmichael then attended Mercy House Ministries in Hurley, which was then a crisis center for homeless people. He stayed for a month before being sent to Adult and Teen Challenge in Cape Giradeau, Mo.

Marcela and Nathan Carmichael. “My wife is a tough woman — she inspires me. I’m very proud of her,” Nathan Carmichael said.

The Adult and Teen Challenge is a Christian-based residential program for people in situations like Carmichael was in. Their mission is to provide men with an effective and comprehensive Christian faith-based solution to life-controlling drug and alcohol problems so they can become productive members of society. After graduating from the program, he went back home to start a career and settle down with a family. He began work as a salesman and made a modest income before latching on to his beekeeping roots and buying a few hives in hopes to be able to earn more.

The venture out of graduation from the Adult and Teen Challenge program into beekeeping and the honey business stemmed from the fact that he is a third-generation beekeeper.

“If you grow up in the Carmichael household, you’re expected to work bees. I know a lot about beekeeping, a lot goes into it. To put it simply, it’s like any crop that a farmer would farm. It depends on the weather, it depends on the health of the hive, and all that hinges on what your crop looks like and your crop is how much honey you produce,” he said.

For the rest of the story go to:
https://www.americanpress.com/news/local/living-the-sweet-life/article_21c48b10-7c09-575b-be04-fd1ab498ae9a.html

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Nuclear physicist found her calling in Apiology.

Eva Crane being offered grapes while visiting Sukhumi State farm apiary in Georgia in 1962.

Eva Crane Trust

By: Jeff Glorfeld

When nuclear physicist Ethel Eva Widdowson married James Alfred Crane, a stockbroker then serving in Britain’s Royal Navy, in 1942, their wedding gifts included a hive and bees.

The tale is recounted in a 2016 article, “The secret life of bees: the life and work of Eva Crane”, published by Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The article provides evidence that Eva Crane, as she became known, had already taken up beekeeping, but the gift was nonetheless prophetic, as she went on to become one of the greatest writers on bees and beekeeping in the 20th century.

Born in London on 12 June 1912, she attended Sydenham School then King’s College London, where she was one of only two women studying mathematics. She finished her degree in two years, completed a master’s in quantum mechanics, then in 1938 earned a doctorate in nuclear physics.

She took a position lecturing on nuclear physics at Sheffield University in 1941 and married James Crane the following year.

Peter Marren, writing in The Independent newspaper on 14 September 2007, also recounts the wedding gift story, adding that “the idea had been for the couple to use the honey to eke out their wartime sugar ration, but Eva quickly became fascinated with bees and their ways”.

Honey was no doubt a sweet attraction, but Crane was looking further afield. “‘It wasn’t the bees I was attracted to at all. I am a scientist and I wanted to know how they worked,” she is quoted as saying on the website of the Eva Crane Trust, which she founded to further the science of apiology.

Marren says Crane became active in the local beekeepers’ association and served as secretary of the research committee of the British Beekeepers’ Association. In 1949 she founded the Bee Research Association, “dedicated to ‘working to increase awareness of the vital role of bees in the environment’.” It became the International Bee Research Association in 1976.

“The rest of Eva Crane’s life was devoted to building the IBRA into a world centre of expertise on beekeeping,” he says, which included “compiling and publishing regular research abstracts, Apicultural Abstracts, which she edited from 1950 to 1984. It is now one of the world’s major databases on bee science.”

Crane collected and filed scientific papers, “which eventually resulted in an archive of 60,000 works on apiculture”, housed at the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, Marren says.

A 2007 New York Times article by Douglas Martin says Crane’s honeybee studies took her to more than 60 countries, “sometimes traveling by dugout canoe or dog sled to document the human use of bees from prehistoric times to the present”.

In 2001, Martin says, an official of the US Department of Agriculture in the southern state of Louisiana read about Russian bees in one of Crane’s books. “They had developed a resistance to mites, which had been devastating local bees, The Sunday Advocate of Baton Rouge reported. The agency imported some Russian bees, and the Louisiana bees were soon mite-resistant.”

Crane wrote and published hundreds of papers, articles and books, in particular what Peter Marren calls “two mighty, encyclopaedic tomes”, Bees and Beekeeping: science, practice and world resources (1990), and The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting (1999).

“These distilled a lifetime’s knowledge and experience and are regarded as seminal textbooks throughout the beekeeping world,” he says.

Crane died on 6 September 2007, in Slough, Berkshire.

Explore #bees #Women in STEM

Beekeeper Sam Torres looks over some of the hives in his apiary at Glen Foerd in Philadelphia. Torres, 27, sells his honey and provides beekeeping consulting services under the name Keystone Colonies. He is part of a growing group of millennials in the Philadelphia beekeeping community.
David Maialetti / The Philadelphia Inquirer

Beekeeper Sam Torres checks on his apiary at Glen Foerd in Philadelphia.
David Maialetti / The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — Every few days, Sam Torres heads to Glen Foerd in northeast Philadelphia to check his beehives.
He gets there about 8 a.m. because bees get up with the sun, and goes through the hives carefully to make sure his “girls” — beehives are a bona fide matriarchy at 85 to 90 percent female — are doing just fine. Smoker in hand, Torres looks at how many cells the bees have capped with wax, meaning that they’ve filled them with honey, and observes the larvae that will eventually grow into worker bees that clean and forage for the hive.

During one of these checks on a sunny Friday morning, Torres glanced up at the clear blue skies as he popped open one of the six hives he keeps at Glen Foerd. The beekeeper also works as the gardener at the estate, and in exchange he’s allowed to keep hives on the property. Each of the hives has 30,000 to 50,000 bees, producing 65 to 70 pounds of honey a year, on average.

“I don’t usually wear a beekeeping suit anymore,” said Torres, who has been beekeeping for five years after taking a class on it at Temple University. “Only when the bees get anxious because there’s a barometric pressure drop, which means that rain is coming. Rain means that they can’t work, and they basically exist just to work.”

Torres, 27, sells his honey and provides beekeeping consulting services under the name Keystone Colonies. He is part of a growing group in the Philadelphia beekeeping community: millennials. According to Michael Gonzales, a board member of the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, the organization has recently experienced an influx of younger, tattooed and smartphone-wielding members. Although there are no regulations prohibiting beekeeping in Philadelphia, apiaries must be registered with the Department of Agriculture.

“I’ve definitely gotten a lot of inquiries from colleges and high schools about beekeeping,” Torres said. “Millennials want to have more of a positive impact on things, and they’re also anxious about all the stuff they see in the media about bees dying, which we call colony collapse disorder.”

Colony collapse disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a hive abandon the queen and the immature bees. Researchers have not pinpointed exactly why this happens, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2016 that a widely used neonicotinoid insecticide poses risks to hives. Researchers have found that neonicotinoids short-circuit bees’ memories and navigation abilities.

Torres said that the way farming has changed over the years has affected beehives. Pesticides hurt bees, as well as the lack of diversity in crops. The bees that he keeps at Glen Foerd have access to all kinds of plants, judging from the rainbow of pollen seen on the legs of the foragers.

Eli St. Amour, 23, a member of the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, has been beekeeping for 11 years. It was a “dying profession” when he discovered his interest in it during a field trip, but St. Amour said that he’s seen a lot more interest from young people recently. Today, he manages hives at 10 different locations, including ones at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College, and teaches an apprenticeship course for those who want to get started in beekeeping.

“A good way to start is just by shadowing other beekeepers when they go around to their hives,” St. Amour said. “People need to learn a lot before they start their own hives, and it’s helpful to meet a lot of beekeepers and see how they handle their hives because everyone has their own way of doing it.”

St. Amour pointed out that shadowing and helping out a beekeeper with hives was the most realistic option for many young people who want to get started in the craft but do not own their own houses or yards yet.

Torres said that how you start beekeeping is crucial to the success of your hive. He recommended purchasing a nucleus hive, which is a smaller, complete hive with a queen, rather than a package of bees with a separate queen off the internet. Often in those cases, the bees may not accept the queen, killing her, instead. Torres said that anyone who wants to start a hive in the area should wait until next spring.

But for the most part, the bees on were calm. They went about their business, occasionally bumping into an arm or a leg harmlessly.

According to Torres, bees sting only as a last resort because they die afterward. Because bees live to work, doing so is pretty wasteful. It’s best to remain calm and keep from flailing if a bee comes near you.

If you’re looking to start a rooftop hive, you’ll need much of the same equipment: frames, brood boxes, a hive tool, and more. However, it may be difficult to find an accessible rooftop where you can start a hive. Hives should also be placed where the bees have access to water and plenty of flora.

“Keeping bees is like keeping livestock,” Torres said. “It takes a lot of work and it’s a lot more labor now than it used to take. When people come ask me how they can get started, I ask them about their schedules and their end game. It takes a lot of commitment.”

By Eric Hrin | Times West Virginian

Otto and Amy Kaiser display their plaque they were awarded for being the West Virginia State Bee Keepers of the Year.

Frames hang on a rack that Otto Kaiser designed an built to store the frames when not needed in the hives.

MONUMENTAL — Evidence of Amy and Otto Kaiser’s love for honeybees can be found everywhere at their country home just outside Barrackville.

From their “Got Bees” license plate to their basement room where honey, beeswax and other bee-related items can be found, the beekeepers live a life devoted to the winged insects.

They have five hives in their backyard. On an unusually warm winter day Saturday, the bees were abuzz, flying around the hives as Amy and Otto watched.

“It’s important to keep bees,” Amy said. “Without pollination, our food supply is threatened.”

Now, the husband and wife have been honored by the West Virginia Beekeepers Association with the WV Beekeeper of the Year 2019 award.

They were pleased to receive the award.

“We like the fact that it brings attention to beekeeping,” Amy said. “We’re trying to promote more and more people to keep bees because it’s good for the environment and the population needs to be maintained for pollinating.”

They were humble about receiving the award, having been nominated by the Marion County Beekeepers Association, where they are members.

“It’s a nice recognition, but there are others that are deserving of the same title,” Otto said.

Amy traces her fascination with bees back to her childhood interest in insects. When she was about 10 years old, she was involved in a year-long 4-H entomology project.

As an adult, she and Otto took a Beginning Beekeepers Course sponsored by the Marion County Beekeepers Association back in 2012. That spring, they started beekeeping.

Amy said she finds their hobby relaxing, though it can be exciting when the bees swarm.

She admires the tiny insects.

“They’re extremely intelligent creatures, and they work in harmony with one another,” she said. “Bees will sacrifice themselves for the hives.”

A hands-on individual, Otto has made various items to assist with their beekeeping, including a rack for the beehive frames.

They’re also experimenting with a windbreak for their beehives.

Amy said they lost all their bees the first year of their beekeeping, perhaps because the bees were too exposed. They have constructed a windbreak that encloses their beehives, and they’re hoping that it will protect the creatures.

She added that beekeeping can be challenging, with such threats to the bee population as the varroa mite. According to the West Virginia Extension Service, infestations of varroa mites, when left untreated, can kill bee colonies within one year.

“We learned ways to treat for the varroa mite and control the population,” Amy said. “You’re always going to have the varroa mite, but we try to keep the population down with treatments.”

On the administrative side, Amy served as the Marion County Beekeepers Association president from 2014 — 2016. Since 2016, she has been serving as treasurer. Together, Amy and Otto have mentored five new beekeepers and assembled an annual MCBA Directory for members to contact each other more easily. In addition, Otto is the MCBA Alternate Representative to the West Virginia Beekeepers Association Executive Board.

“They both are very committed to helping with the beekeeping association, and Amy really enjoys working with the bees,” Aretha Kees, a long-time member of the Marion County Beekeepers Association, said. “Otto helps her. They’re both very talented.” She felt they were very deserving of the award.

She said their mentoring of new beekeepers has been valuable.

“There’s a lot of things to know, and there’s a lot of factors that make beekeeping very difficult, especially for new beekeepers, because the mites often kill the bees if the beekeepers don’t how to treat for them,” she said.

Amy and Otto mentored Louisa Householder of Bridgeport as a beekeeper back in 2016. She has five beehives.

“It was valuable,” she said. “They’re willing to take their knowledge they’ve learned over the years and share it with new beekeepers.”

She said the most valuable thing that Amy and Otto taught was how to be a good beekeeper and keep things “basic and simple.”

She added that they also helped her pick up her first hive of bees in Pleasants County back in 2016 and bring them back to her house, which she said was very helpful.

Amy and Otto have made presentations to the Fairview Book Club, the Lifelong Learners of Pierpont Community and Technical College, and classes at Monongah Elementary School, Fairview Elementary School and Taylor County Middle School, as well as a homeschool group that meets at Trinity Assembly in Fairmont.

“It’s a fun challenge because once you start explaining bees or about the bees themselves, you’ve really a good captive audience at that time, and then it just goes off from there,” Otto said.

And like many beekeepers, Amy and Otto gather honey each year — 85 pounds this year. Otto said the members of their church are quick to snatch it up.

But it doesn’t cause them to lose sight of the bees’ important role.

“We enjoy the honey, but it’s not the main thing bees do, it’s the pollination,” Otto said. “Otherwise, our food sources will just dwindle down to nothing.”