Is My Community Honey-Bee Friendly?

Honey bees and other pollinators have been in the news lately. Many beekeepers have experienced colony losses to the yet-unexplained Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. These unexplained losses have caused some people to wonder: What can I do to help? For this essay, you should survey your community to see what is being done, or could be done to help honey bees. Perhaps there are classes to attract new beekeepers – or laws that probibit beekeeping. Does your community allow roadsides and open land to grow up in blooming plants in the spring – or not? Are there resources to help home gardeners make bee-friendly choices? When insecticides are required for pests (for example, mosquito control), are the insecticides chosen or applied with bee protection in mind. Include your state in your survey if there is some reason; for example, your state may have declared the honey bee your state insect, or your state highway department may have a wildflower seeding program.

Students interested in writing should contact their local 4-H offices for contest details. The state selection must be done through the 4-H system. Beekeepers are encouraged to contact their local 4-H offices to see that the essay contest information has been distributed in their states.

The complete announcement and rules are available for download in Adobe PDF format.

May 1, 2009

Essayists Dance with the Honey Bee

Honey bees don’t do the Electric Slide, admits Helen Coats in her first place essay in the 4-H Beekeeping Essay Contest, but their Honey Bee Dance makes them successful at producing honey – “So let’s hear a round of applause for our little friends, who communicate through circles, wiggles, and waggles…in order to create one of the world’s favorite sweeteners – honey.”

The 2009 essay contest, sponsored by the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees, drew state-winning essays from 27 states. The assigned topic was “The Dance Language of Honey Bees.” Essayists were to learn about the honey bee’s dance language, how it was discovered, how it works and how it provides colonies the ability to find and exploit floral resources.

Helen, 10, lives in Rock Hill, S.C. She combines music with her love of nature and hopes to become an accomplished violinist and singer. She titled her essay: “The Bee Dance – Not Exactly the ‘Electric Slide’!” As first place winner, she receives a $750.00 cash award.

“BZZZZT! BZZZZZT! A honey bee buzzes wildly while walking on the honeycomb. Becoming suddenly quiet, she circles left and downward…” Leslie Pike,11, of Hodgenville, Ky., began her essay with a word-picture of the dance. She won second place and a $500.00 cash prize.

The third place essay earned a cash award of $250.00 for Traci Sirotiak, 18, of Newberg, Ore., who plans to continue in 4-H as a volunteer in her adult years. Because the four best essays were of such good quality, the judges are awarding an honorable mention prize of $100.00 to Solly Burton, 17, of Sullivan, Ind. He has taken beekeeping in 4-H for eight years.

Each state winner, including the national winners, will receive a copy of a book about beekeeping.

Complete list of the winners (including all the state winners)

First Place - Helen Coats, South Carolina

Second Place - Leslie Pike, Kentucky

Third Place - Traci Sirotiak, Oregon

Fourth Place – Honorable Mention - Solly Burton, Indiana

State Winners

• Joseph Coleman, Arizona
• Emily Pigeon, Arkansas
• Peter Schafhalter, California
• Brandon Hamon, Colorado
• Ryan Cutts, Florida
• Jessica Jackson, Idaho
• Carlie Calais, Louisiana
• Michael Buscemi, Maryland
• Hannah Miller, Mississippi
• Trevor Koger, Nebraska
• Bailey Jennings, New Hampshire
• Corey Burrows, New Mexico
• Chester Mills, New York
• Sam Christensen, North Carolina
• Casondra Rutschke, North Dakota
• Eric Glaze, Ohio
• Jared Wade, Oklahoma
• Shawn Applegate, Pennsylvania
• Kiera Leddy, South Dakota
• Phillip Adams, Tennessee
• Carlie Shirk, Texas
• Lydia Davis, Virginia
• Kelsey Schoeppler, Wisconsin

Milagra Weiss is an M.S. student at the University of Arizona. She is investigating the effects of high fructose corn syrup on honey bee colony founding, overwintering and physiology. She works in the USDA’s Carl Hayden Bee Research Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Diana Sammataro.

Suresh Desai is a Ph.D. student at the University of Manitoba. He works on the identification and characterization of deformed wing virus in honey bee cells and its inhibition by RNA inteference. His research is supervised by Dr. Rob Currie.

Juliana Rangel is a Ph.D. student at Cornell University. She is investigating the mass departure of honey bee swarms, the signals that induce synchronized exodus and the effect of relatedness on partitioning between the parent colony and its swarm. Her mentor is Dr. Tom Seeley.

Eva Forsgren is a Ph.D. student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Her research is focused on developing molecular tools for the diagnosis of honey bee diseases including American and European foulbrood, Nosema ceranae and honey bee viruses. Her work is supervised by Dr. Igemar Fries.

Josephine Johnson is a Ph.D. student in the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Department of Epideomology and Preventative Medicine. She is investigating the effects of pesticides on honey bee health. She is conducting her research at the USDA’s Beltsville Bee Research Laboratory, where she is being advised by Dr. Jeff Pettis. At UMSM, her advisor is Dr. Katherine S. Squibb.

“With the sustaining funding available to us, the Trustees are providing the scholarships and other support to educational and kid-oriented activities. The graduate student scholarships are one of the important forward-looking programs we have made into an annual offering,” says George Hansen, chairman of the Foundation Trustees. “The Trustees’ goal is to invest in the future by encouraging by the young emerging honey bee scientists to be involved in the industry.
“The Kids and Bees program and the 4-H Beekeeping Essay Contest attempt to cause children to become interested in honey bees. We provide other incentives to kids all over the country take up beekeeping, and associations and clubs to become mentors of young beekeepers.”

The students receiving the scholarships are:

• Geoff Williams – Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada. M.S. Degree student, David Shutler, advisor. Mr. Williams is investigating the effects of Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae on western honey bees. His research examines both seasonal abundance and control of both species.
• Elina Niño – North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C. Ph.D. student, David Tarpy and Christina Grozinger, advisors. Ms. Nino ’s research investigates factors affecting the reproductive quality of honey bee queens. Her research includes behavioral, physiological and molecular approaches to evaluating queen quality.
• Jodi Swanson – University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minn. Ph.D. student, Marla Spivak, advisor. Ms. Swanson’s research explores the chemical cues associated with diseased brood to determine which of them elicit hygenic behavior. The goal of her work is to provide beekeepers a fast and reliable test to screen stocks and select for hygenic behavior.
• Queenie Chan – University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. Ph.D. student, Leonard Foster, advisor. Ms. Chan’s research examines the honey bee immune system at the molecular level, in particular its response to American foulbrood using biochemical and mass spectrometry techniques to identify proteins and protein levels in diseased larvae. She is also involved in annotating the genome of the causative agent of the disease, Paenibacillus larvae.
• Alban Maisonnasse – University of Avignon, Avignon, France. Ph.D. student, Yves Le Conte, advisor. Mr. Maisonnasse’s research examines volatile compounds emitted by honey bee larvae that are involved in the communication between nurse bees and brood. He has identified 2 volatile molecules emitted by brood and is currently conducting experiments to explain their role in colony life.
• Katie Lee – University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minn. M.S. student, Marla Spivak, advisor. Ms. Lee’s research examines how to best sample colonies and apiaries for Varroa mites. The goal of her research is to provide a basis for good IPM practices under migratory beekeeping conditions.

• Amanda Ellis, University of Georgia
• Brad Metz, Texas A&M University
• Michael Simone, University of Minnesota
• Jeremy Wagnitz, University of Nebraska
• Michael Williams, Penn State University

• Umberto Moreno, University of Minnesota and University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao, Brazil.
  Genetics and biology of propolis collection by honey bees.
• Brendon Fussnecker, North Carolina State University.
  Molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate honey bee behavior.
• Bradley Barnd, Purdue University.
  Genetic influence on metabolic rate in honey bees.
• Andrew Ammons, Purdue University.
  Genetic basis of sensitivity to alcohol in honey bees
• Cecilia Andere, National University of Central Buenos Aires Province, Tandil, Argentina.
  Quality of drone semen stored in different conditions.

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.

Honey bees possess the ability to communicate the distance and direction of resources to their nest-mates. They employ a symbolic dance language in which the position of the sun is symbolically represented by gravity, and a trained observer can watch their dances and predict where they are foraging. The use of symbolic language by an insect has made them one of the most studied animals. This year’s essay contest invites participants to learn about the honey bee’s dance language, how it was discovered, how it works and how it provides colonies the ability to find and exploit floral resources.

Students interested in writing should contact their local 4-H
offices for contest details. The state selection must be done through
the 4-H system.

For more information on the 2009 Essay Contest, including the rules and deadline information, please visit the 2009 4-H Essay Information Page.