Blue Sky Bee Supply Blog
FARMERS, SCIENTISTS AND BEEKEEPERS ARE WORKING TO RAISE BLUE ORCHARD MASON BEES TO POLLINATE VALUABLE ORCHARD CROPS.
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
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29th May 2018
Honey Bee Health Coalition, Partners Secure $475,000 Grant to Test Potential Treatments for Destructive Varroa Mite Infestations
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
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19th Mar 2018
STUDY FINDS PARALLELS BETWEEN UNRESPONSIVE HONEY BEES AND HUMAN AUTISM.
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
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12th Mar 2018
North Dakota offers money for honey bee research. Lots of it. Soon. Hurry.
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
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26th May 2017
Forensic Pollen Science is a way of life for Vaughn Bryant. Solving murders is one of the perks.
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
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7th Jul 2016