Blue Sky Bee Supply Blog

Blue Orchard Bee (Osmia)Image Credits:USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab via Flickr (Homepage Image Credit: Suzi Rosenberg via Flickr)Colony collapse disorder has devastated honeybee populations over the past decade and brought a major push from beekeepers and scientists to commercialize a native pollinator for orchards in California and beyond. The most promising pollinator for the job is the blue orchard mason bee (Osmia lignaria). The challenge: figuring out how to produce enough of the fi …

The Honey Bee Health Coalition announced today that it has collaborated with an international team of 12 scientists to secure more than $475,000 in grant funds from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to facilitate the testing of chemical compounds that could help beekeepers more effectively treat Varroa mite (Varroa destructor) infestations. This funding, matched by participants and industry members to provide more than $1 million in total support, a …

Socially unresponsive bees share something fundamental with autistic humans, new research finds. Credit: Julie McMahon – University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignHoney bees that consistently fail to respond to obvious social cues share something fundamental with autistic humans, researchers report in a new study. Genes most closely associated with autism spectrum disorders in humans are regulated differently in unresponsive honey bees than in their more responsive nest mates, the study found.Th …

By Jenny Schlecht / Agweek Staff WriterA honeybee sits atop a canola blossom in July 2014 in the Robinson, N.D., area. Canola is one of several flowering crops on which bees in North Dakota feed, and beekeepers would like to see more research on bee nutrition. Mikkel Pates/ Forum News ServiceIf you ask beekeepers what kind of research they would like to see, the answer is simple.“The main thing is bee health,” said Erik Dohn of Danzig Honey in Wishek, N.D. “Everything else takes a backse …

Working in his lab at Texas A&M University in College Station in August 2006, Vaughn Bryant, garbed in a lab gown and gloves, gently lifts the blood-spattered clothes from the brown paper bags they’ve been stored in for decades.Photos by Ray KuglarHe lays the clothes out, a button-down plaid cotton shirt, tan corduroys, blue socks, brown ripple-sole shoes, a pair of underwear, a bra and an oversize red windbreaker with black stripes down the arms, too large for the petite frame o …