In 2004 six graduate students were awarded scholarships. The winners were:
Nick Aliano – University of Nebraska. He is completing his M.S. work now and will being Ph.D. work in the fall. He has been working on use of powdered sugar to remove varroa mites from bees. His Ph.D. work will continue to focus on varroa control strategies.
Abdullah Ibrahim – University of Minnesota. For his Ph.D. he is collecting data on the degree of mite resistance of the Hygenic/SMR hybrid colonies and investigating the relationship between the two resistance traits, hygienic behavior and suppression of mite reproduction.
Heather Mattila – University of Guelph. Her Ph.D. research involves manipulating the protein (pollen) status of colonies in fall and early spring and quantifying the effects on both individual bees and their colonies. She is also investigating the effects of pollen nutrition on resistance to nosema disease.
Ramesh Sagili – Texas A&M University. For his M.S. research, he is studying the how the pollen from genetically engineered crops that utilize insecticidal genes might affect the colonies where pollen from the transgenic plants is fed to larvae.
Paul Timm – University of Nebraska. A high school agricultural education instructor who has found novel ways to use bees and beekeeping in his classes, he has enrolled in an M.S. in entomology program and is developing a beekeeping curriculum for vocational agriculture education programs.
Robyn Underwood – University of Manitoba. Her M.S. work in formic acid efficacy was so successful that she was moved into a Ph.D. program where she is working on fumigating colonies with formic acid in wintering buildings and on understanding how formic acid acts when used on colonies treated outdoors.
