The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees is again offering scholarships of $2000 each to five graduate students in apiculture. This is the Foundation’s seventh year to award such scholarships.

The Foundation is a charitable research and education foundation affiliated with the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF). The Foundation has benefited from a generous gift from the Glenn and Gertude Overturf estate, and is sustained by ongoing gifts from ABF members and other supportive individuals.

The Foundation Trustees have chosen to use a portion of the grant to offer graduate student scholarships to foster professional development for young apicultural scientists. The purpose of the scholarships is to allow the recipients to attend the 2012 North American Beekeeping Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 10-14, 2012. The recipients will have an opportunity to meet other researchers and beekeepers and to present their research at the meeting. The Board of Trustees looks forward to their contributions to the conference. The scholarships are available to all graduate students.  Graduate students at universities outside the U.S. are invited to apply.

Application deadline extended to October 15, 2011.

Applicants should submit to the Board for consideration:

1. A cover letter from their advisor outlining the student’s progress toward their graduate degree, tentative graduation date, and any other information about the student and their research that would help the committee “get to know” the student.
2. A curriculum vitae, or resume, not to exceed 2 pages.
3. A research proposal (not to exceed 3 pages). This proposal should outline the specific research experiments the student is conducting for their degree. The proposal should clearly state how the research benefits bees and/or beekeeping. The proposal can describe research that the student is planning to perform, or the progress the student already has made toward that research. The proposal should begin with an introduction to the research problem, and should follow with clear goals and objectives that state the research questions and hypotheses. The student should then discuss the methods that will be used to answer their research questions, and the expected results or results to date.   All students including international students:  Please follow these instructions for submitting research proposals very closely.  Your proposal may be disqualified if it does not contain all the required information.

Recipients will be selected in November of 2011.
Applications should be submitted electronically to:
Troy H. Fore Jr., Executive Director
Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees
Email: troyfore@honeybeepreservation.org

If you have questions or need more information about the scholarship program or submitting your proposal, please contact:

Marla Spivak
Scholarship Program Coordinator
Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees
Email: spiva001@umn.edu

The Results of Honey Bee Pollination in my Community

Honey bees pollinate a wide variety of plants. The food crops that benefit from honey bee pollination have been said to contribute one-third of the American diet. In addition, many non-food plantings and natural environmental plants benefit from honey bee pollination. The 4-H’ers are encouraged to investigate the plants in their communities that benefit from honey bee pollination and determine the results of that pollination.

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.

First Place – Rachel Ricchiuto, California [ read the essay ]

Second Place – Kayla Ackerman, Texas [ read the essay ]

Third Place (tie) – Mikayla Ockels, Delaware [ read the essay ]

Third Place (tie) – Seth Fuchs, New Mexico [ read the essay ]

State Winners

• Grace Costello, Arkansas
• Rianna Campagne, Arizona
• Chad Schlagel, Colorado
• Grace Schultz, Connecticut
• Amanda Rosauer, Florida
• Murphy Doran, Georgia
• James Jackson, Idaho
• Hannah Wheeler, Indiana
• Kayleigh Jowers, Louisiana
• Tiffany Jo Bystra. Michigan
• Katelin Wallace, Mississippi
• Meaghan Page, New Hampshire
• Grace Sayward, New York
• Evan Avery, North Carolina
• Ezra Holben, Ohio
• Taylor Fogle, Oklahoma
• William Ellinger, Pennsylvania
• Marissa Hines, South Carolina
• Emma Allish, Tennessee
• Lydia Davis,Virginia
• Morgan Carlson, Washington

May 9, 2011

Essayists Ask: ‘U.S Honey: A Taste for Every Preference’

For the 2011 4-H Beekeeping Essay Contest, the essayists were asked to investigate the local/regional honeys of the United States and see how they differ in taste and color. The 23 state-winning essayists took varied approaches to this task.

The top essayist, Rachel Ricchiuto, 14, of Gold River, Calif., assembled five honey samples and invited 25 people from age 7 to adult to judge the honeys on color, smell and taste.

“I chose clover honey and 4 others with very distinct color and taste differences that I thought people wouldn’t have tried before,” she reported, “these were orange blossom, sage, buckwheat and eucalyptus…. I had them rate on color first, then smell and finally taste. I found that some people rated a honey high in color and smell but when they actually tasted it, they didn’t like the flavor very much. I tallied up the results and was surprised to find that in overall scores more people preferred sage.”

Rachel concluded: “In researching this topic I learned a lot about different types of honey that I didn’t know and I had a lot of fun watching the expressions on people’s faces when they judged my honeys…. With over 300 honey varieties in the United States, there is definitely a honey for everyone’s taste preference.”

Her first place prize is a cash award of $750.00.

Second place essayist, Kayla Ackerman, 11, of College Station, Texas, receives $500.00 for her efforts. She identified the various factors that determine a particular honey’s color and taste. “Americans delight in many varieties of honey from mild, light flavors, to rich, strong tastes,” she wrote. “Honey is delicious whether from one flower or many, whether whipped or liquid, and whether raw or pasteurized. From the table to baking, honey is enjoyed day to day.”

There was a tie for third place. Mikayla Ockels, 12, of Milton, Del., and Seth Fuchs, 14, of Santa Rosa, N.M., each receive $250.00. Mikayla detailed the varieties of regional honey. Seth explored the physical properties of honeys.

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

The essay topic for 2012 is “The Results of Honey Bee Pollination in my Community.” The 4-H’ers are encouraged to investigate the plants in their communities that benefit from honey bee pollination and determine the results of that pollination.

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.

Complete list of the winners (including all state winners)

CHICAGO—A honey-bee breeder, a jellyfish scholar, a stone carver and an Emmy-winning screenwriter were among 23 people awarded $500,000 “genius” grants Sept. 28, 2010, by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation here.

“It just blew me away,” said Marla Spivak, a 55-year-old professor of apiculture at the University of Minnesota. “I thought they might have the wrong person.” She won the grant for breeding honey bees that can restore health to beehives stricken with pests or pathogens, which in recent years have devastated U.S. bee colonies. She plans to use the grant to launch new bee-related projects

The award winners can use the grants for whatever they wish. This year’s picks were the usual eclectic mix of artists, scientists, economists and others the foundation recognizes each year.

While most aren’t well known outside their fields, this year’s crop includes David Simon, the Baltimore author and screenwriter responsible for such popular shows as the Emmy-winning HBO television series “The Corner,” as well as HBO dramas “The Wire” and “Treme.”

The MacArthur foundation said it gave Mr. Simon a grant because of his ability to “craft richly textured narratives that probe urban America’s most complex and poorly understood realities.”

In an interview, Mr. Simon, 50, said that while he was honored to receive the award, he also felt a tinge of guilt. Past winners have been “people directly engaged in trying to improve the environment or trying to address social injustices,” he said. “To be blunt, I’m in the entertainment industry…and my contracts are well funded right now.”

Other award winners include Amir Abo-Shaeer, a physics teacher at Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy in Goleta, Calif., who is using robotics as a teaching aid; Jessie Little Doe Baird of Mashpee, Mass., who is working to revive the Native American language of Wampanoag; Carlos D. Bustamante, a population geneticist at Stanford University School of Medicine; and Carol Padden, a sign-language expert at the University of California, San Diego.

The grants, which are taxed and are paid in quarterly installments over a five-year period, are designed to give people the freedom to delve deeper into their creative pursuits and reward “exceptional people who are likely to make great things happen,” the foundation says. While often referred to as “genius” grants, the foundation says it avoids that designation because it too narrowly defines award winners.

“Creativity is at the heart of this” fellowship program, said Robert Gallucci, president of the MacArthur Foundation. “The most vexing problems are not going to be addressed without creativity.”

John Dabiri, a 30-year-old associate professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at California Institute of Technology, won a grant for his pioneering work on jellyfish. Mr. Dabiri determined that swimming jellyfish leave vortex rings in their wake that help them move through the water more efficiently. He is finding practical uses for this phenomenon, from diagnosing heart failure to creating more efficient windmills.

In an interview, Mr. Dabiri said he hadn’t decided how to use the MacArthur money, but hoped to use some of it to keep studying jellyfish and other ocean fauna. “Our oceans are full of unknowns,” he said.

Nicholas Benson, a stone carver and calligrapher who is also a third-generation owner of a stone-carving shop in Newport, R.I., won the award for his “meticulously executed inscriptional works” that “are noted for their uncompromising craftsmanship and beauty in form and line,” the foundation said.

Mr. Benson, 46, still does most of his work with a mallet and chisel, even though stone carving today tends to be done by machine. He is currently working on the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. 
Mr. Benson said winning the grant was a “great affirmation” of his work. “I toil away at this very, very odd little business, and I get great kudos from my clientele,” he said. “But there are times when I wonder if anybody really gets what I’m up to here.”

Another winner was violinist Sebastian Ruth, 35, founder of Community MusicWorks, a Providence, R.I., music academy that works with disadvantaged inner-city kids, teaching them how to play string instruments. The foundation said Mr. Ruth “and his fellow quartet members have taken up residence within the inner-city community they serve, in keeping with their vision of music as a nurturing neighborhood necessity similar to a library, a church or a health clinic.”

This year’s MacArthur Fellows found out over the last week or two that they had won the award and were sworn to secrecy. Before that, most had no idea they were even under consideration. The foundation’s unconventional selection process involves a group of anonymous “nominators” in a variety of fields who secretly suggest candidates. A panel of anonymous judges then narrows a pool of hundreds to about 20.

The MacArthur Foundation was created in 1970 by Chicago businessman John D. MacArthur and his second wife, Catherine, and today pursues many philanthropic endeavors in addition to the “genius” grants. That program was launched after a board member proposed rewarding people “genuinely interested in research and exploration of the unknown to advance knowledge…without the annoyances and distractions imposed by grant applications, reviewing committees, and pressure to publish.”

Since the first group of fellows was named in 1981, there have been 828 recipients, including this year’s group.

(From Wall Street Journal Online — www.online.wsj.com — Sept. 28, 2010)

For more about the MacArthur grants program, see http://www.macfound.org/

The purpose of the scholarships is to allow the recipients to attend the 2011 North American Beekeeping Conference, which will include meetings of American Beekeeping Federation, American Honey Producers Association, American Bee Research Conference, and Apiary Inspectors of America, in Galveston, Texas, Jan. 4-8, 2011.

Applications for the scholarships will be accepted until October 30, 2010. Applicants should submit to the Board for consideration:

1. A cover letter from their advisor outlining the student’s progress toward their graduate degree, tentative graduation date, and any other information about the student and their research that would help the committee “get to know” the student.

2. A curriculum vitae, or resume, not to exceed 2 pages.

3. A research proposal (not to exceed 3 pages). This proposal should outline the specific research experiments the student is conducting for their degree. The proposal should clearly state how the research benefits bees and/or beekeeping. The proposal can describe research that the student is planning to perform, or the progress the student already has made toward that research. The proposal should begin with an introduction to the research problem, and should follow with clear goals and objectives that state the research questions and hypotheses. The student should then discuss the methods that will be used to answer their research questions, and the expected results or results to date.

Recipients will be selected in November of 2010.

Applications must be submitted electronically to:

Troy Fore
Executive Director
Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees
E-mail: troyfore@honeybeepreservation.org

If you have questions or need more information about the scholarship program, contact:

Marla Spivak
Scholarship Program Coordinator
Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees
E-mail: spiva001@umn.edu

Foundation Funds $25,000 in Varroa Research

Two varroa mite research projects have received funding totaling $25,000 from the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees.

The Foundation Trustees utilized contributions received mainly from the beekeeping industry to make the grants. Quality proposals were received from several other researchers, and the Trustees expressed regret that the limited Foundation resources prevented their funding all the worthy projects.

The projects being funded in this round of grants are:

• Drs. Zachary Huang and Zhiyong Xi, Department of Entomology, Michigan State University. Research project: “Exploring using RNAi as a method for controlling Varroa destructor.”
• Drs. Jay. D. Evans and Robert S. Cornman, USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. Research project: “Discovery and Characterization of Infectious Agents for Varroa Mite Control.”

In addition to funding research projects as funds become available, the Foundation supports several ongoing programs, including the 4-H Beekeeping Essay Contest, scholarships to graduate students in apiculture, and the Kids and Bees programs.

Contributions toward the Foundation’s programs may be directed to:

The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees
P.O. Box 1445
Jesup, GA 31598

For more information about the Foundation, call 912-427-4018. Contributions may also be made online.

The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) research and education foundation; contributions are tax deductible to the extent provided by law.

U.S. Honey: A Taste for Every Preference

The taste and color on honey varies according to the flowers where the nectar originates. Each different type of plant will yield honey with a different taste. The same plants, growing in different soils and climates, can yield different honey. The 4-H’ers are encouraged to investigate the local/regional honeys of the United States and see how they differ in taste and color. Is a honey dark with a rich flavor, or light in color and mild-tasting? Actual access to the honey for tasting is not required – just find out about some of the characteristics and write about them.

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, 2010

Essayists Ask: ‘Is My Community Bee-Friendly?’

Beekeepers go about their business, making allowances for a farmer who favors frequent insecticide sprays, or the county road department that mows roadsides, or neighbors who know little or nothing about bees. But, how do all these factors add up? Is your community bee-friendly?

That was the question for the 2010 4-H Beekeeping Essay Contest, sponsored by the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees. Essayists were to survey their communities to see what is being done, or could be done to help honey bees. Are there classes to attract new beekeepers – or laws that prohibit beekeeping? Entries were received from 22 states.

The top essayist, Shelby Kilpatrick, 16, of Copper Canyon, Texas, did just as suggested: she created a survey form and circulated it around her community, drawing 135 responses. She concluded her essay, entitled, “For Bee or Not For Bee,” saying, “There is no doubt that my community is ‘For Bee’ and wants to be even more bee!” She plans to “reward survey responders with educational tips enabling them to become more honey bee friendly.”

Shelby is a beekeeper herself and a member of the local and state beekeeper groups. Her first place prize is a cash award of $750.00.

The second place essay came from Sean Huss, 15, of Spencer, Ind., who receives $500.00 for his efforts. Sean is also a beekeeper and was named “Young beekeeper of the Year” for 2009 by the Indiana Beekeepers Association. He developed a definition for a bee-friendly community and decided that his fits the bill. His definition is a community “that (1) does not discourage beekeeping and has no legal restrictions to keeping bees; (2) contains good bee habitat – a diverse range of native plants and wildflowers and cultivated crops, fruits and vegetables that can be used by bees as sources of nectar and pollen; (3) has people who care about the environment and limit their uses of pesticides; and (4) has good sources of help and education for farmers and beekeepers.”

There was a tie for third place. Abby Lyons, 11, of Dwight, Neb., and Ann Barlow, 14, of Milford, N.H., each receive $250.00. Abby decided that her community is bee-friendly, while Ann resolved to help her community improve. Abby is a beekeeper and Ann’s 4-H club has bee, giving all four national winners first-hand exposure to honey bees.

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

The essay topic for 2011 is “U.S. Honey: A Taste for Every Preference.” The 4-H’ers are encouraged to investigate the local/regional honeys of the United States and see how they differ in taste and color.

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.

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

First Place - Shelby Kilpatrick, Texas [ read the essay ]

Second Place - Sean Huss, Indiana [ read the essay ]

Third Place (tied) - Abby Lyons, Nebraska [ read the essay ]

Third Place (tied) - Anna Barlow, New Hampshire [ read the essay ]

State Winners

• Rachel Ricchiuto, California
• Kyle Spillane, Delaware
• Mary-Thomas Hart, Florida
• Jessica Jackson, Idaho
• Brooke Lee, Kentucky
• Sarah Theall, Louisiana
• Allison Kaiser, Michigan
• Merry Johnson, Mississippi
• Kalee Emery, New Jersey
• Tevyn Driever, New Mexico
• Liam Sayward, New York
• Matthew Griffis, North Carolina
• Eric Glaze, Ohio
• Sandie Shelton, Oregon
• Dalton Driver, Tennessee
• Jacob Wright, Virginia
• Tynan Gosset, Washington
• Tori Fletcher, Wyoming