Apiology

The study of honeybees...

The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies

This study investigated how a honey bee colony develops and quenches its collective thirst when it experiences hyperthermia of its broodnest..

More:Thirst

Home sick: impacts of migratory beekeeping on honey bee (Apis mellifera) pests, pathogens, and colony size

Honey bees are important pollinators of agricultural crops and the dramatic losses of honey bee colonies have risen to a level of international concern. Potential contributors to such losses include pesticide exposure, lack of floral resources and parasites and pathogens.

More:homesick

Population growth of Varroa destructor (Acari: Varroidae) in honey bee colonies is affected by the number of foragers with mites

Varroa mites are a serious pest of honey bees and the leading cause of colony losses. Varroa have relatively low reproductive rates, so populations should not increase rapidly, but often they do.

More:VarroaGrowth

Busy Bees Take a Break During Total Solar Eclipses

The 2017 North American eclipse gave researchers an inside look at how bees respond to light—with the help of a few hundred elementary-schoolers.

More:Eclipse

Pollen trapping and sugar syrup feeding of honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) enhance pollen collection of less preferred flowers

Honeybees are well adapted to collect and transfer pollen and thus are the most commonly used crop pollinators.

More:Pollen

Catch the Buzz

General Beekeeping News...

Beekeeping in Vermont...

VBA October Board Minutes Posted

VBA Members: The unapproved minutes from last week's Board Meeting in Middlebury have been posted in the Members Only area of the VBA website. Please check them out!

Treatment Free Beekeeping from Ross Conrad

A great finale to the 2018 ACBA season with Ross Conrad presenting his approach to treatment free beekeeping. Forty guests coming from Fairfax, Chelsea, Addison County and even Massachusetts...

Special shout out to the UVM bee club for coming on down to our meeting.#honeybee #vba.

More pictures on our Facebook page.

Proposal: VBA Recognition Program

The VBA Board of Directors is considering enhancements to the VBA Recognition program. We would like to form a committee consisting of one or more Board members as well as interested VBA members to develop any ideas and potentially implement the Recognition program. The information below was proposed as a starting point at our last VBA Board meeting. If you would be willing to help out on this effort, please contact VBA Board member, Fred Putnam, at 802-247-3323 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thank you for your interest!

Support Request for the Vermont Bee Research Team

Dear Vermont Beekeepers,

In December 2016, we appealed to the beekeeping community to make a donation through Experiment.com to support a research project on effects of migratory beekeeping practices on honey bee disease (link). We were fortunate to receive enough support to conduct an experiment in which we compared disease loads in a group of stationary hives with those in a group we sent to California for almond pollination. We have some very interesting results with real-world applications to improve honey bee health, and are excited to report that a manuscript describing this work is accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal!