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Bayer’s Bee Care program

March 6, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Bee keeper Veldon Sorenson looks on at the bee display during Commodity Classic.

Bee keeper Veldon Sorenson looks on at the bee display during Commodity Classic.

Bees play a vital role in the daily role of agriculture.  During last week’s Commodity Classic, Bayer Crop Science unveiled their We Care for Bee’s Exhibit. 

Veldon Sorenson is a beekeeper and works for Bayer.  He says the new exhibit highlights the importance of the honeybee.  “The almond growers are very aware of how important bees are,” he says.  “But if you go to the Midwest where they don’t have the vegetable crops and fruit crops – maybe they aren’t as familiar.  What we’d like to do is open that dialogue to show that bees are important regardless of where they are.”

AUDIO: Veldon Sorenson, Bayer Crop Science (2:51mp3)

Robyn Kneen is the manager for the North American Bee Care program for Bayer.  She tells Brownfield they’ve developed a program to look at some of the challenges affecting bee health.  “We’re doing research into things such as solutions for varroa mite, for small hive beetle, and other pests and parasites that are affecting bees,” she says. 

This year, Kneen says they are in the process of building the Bee Care Center at Research Triangle Park, NC that will focus on research, education, and training.

AUDIO: Robyn Kneen, Bayer Crop Science (4:13mp3)

Learn more about Bayer’s Bee Care Program HERE

Filed Under: 2013 Commodity Classic, 2013 Events, Featured Tagged With: , , ,

Missouri beekeepers have difficult year

August 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With a mild winter and early spring, honey production got off to a good start in Missouri.  But that changed this summer.

“Things were looking really great and then this drought hit and things came to a screeching halt. So it has been a marginal year, at best, for most beekeepers,” says John Timmons, with Three Rivers Beekeepers in St. Peters, Missouri who is Vice President of the Missouri Beekeepers Association, says the season started out 30 days ahead of normal which did not last.

Timmons tells Brownfield, “The drought has really caused the plants to dry up and, of course, dry plants mean no nectar and no nectar means no honey.” 

The bees survived the extreme heat but they sought out water – from bird baths or anyplace they could find it – which they brought back to their hives to store and keep cool, he says, “They flap their wings at a very high rate of speed, obviously, and they develop drafts throughout the hive and that, combined with the moisture of the water, helps to kind of keep the hive air-conditioned a little bit.”

Some beekeepers, Timmons tells Brownfield, have had a bumper honey crop – in places that got more moisture than others. But the whole region took a hit with this drought and he says the price of honey may go up a little as production has gone down.

Overall, he says, this has been a difficult year but not a devastating one for Missouri’s beekeepers.

AUDIO: John Timmons (6:00 mp3)

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , ,

Honey harvest should be real good

June 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The honey harvest is getting underway a bit earlier this year. Missouri State Beekeepers Association Vice President John Timmons says spring came early, so the bees have been busier than normal.

“So, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty good year for honey production. And, I think that’s the case from the reports I’m getting across the region,” Timmons tells Brownfield Ag News.

The current dry spell is not likely to affect honey production, Timmons says, unless it becomes a prolonged drought or, conversely, if there is a rainy season. At this point in the forecast, a lot of rain doesn’t appear likely.

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , ,

Fewer honey bee colony losses last winter

May 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There were fewer losses this past winter of managed honey bee colonies according to a survey by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the Bee Informed Partnership and the Apiary Inspectors of America.

Losses from all causes were about 22 percent nationwide for 2011/2012 – a substantial drop in mortality from 2006 through early 2011 when losses were as high as 36 percent.

The ARS says the unusually warm weather throughout this past winter could be a reason for the decline in colony losses. Less stress on bees may help them resist pathogens and other problems.

While there was an absence of dead bees among about a third of the beekeepers who reported losses, it is not clear if that is because of Colony Collapse Disorder. The absence of dead bees is a sign of CCD, which was first reported in the U.S. in 2006. There are still no definitive causes for colony collapse disorder.

More than 55-hundred beekeepers who manage about 15 percent of the nation’s honey bee colonies took part in the survey.

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , ,

Honey’s healthy for most of us

November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What makes honey so healthy? We found out from the 2011 American Honey Queen who made a recent stop in central Wisconsin.  Teresa Bryson is a college student and beekeeper from Pennsylvania who promotes honey and beekeeping. She says honey is good for you inside but also on the outside.  However, it’s advised that infants NOT be fed honey until they are at least a year old because infant botulism can develop in their immature digestive systems.

HEALTHY LIVING PROGRAM – Honey (1:30 mp3)

American Honey Queen

National Honey Board’s Honey Locator

Filed Under: Feature Programs, Healthy Living Tagged With: , ,

Homeless honey bees

June 6, 2011 By 1 Comment

This rogue swarm of honey bees found temporary lodging on a limb in a sycamore tree along the lane on my farm for several days before moving to a sugar maple tree in my front yard.  When I left this morning, they were gone. 

Hopefully they found a hive-home.

The Farmgirl Follies blog features a really great post with several pictures and a ton of information about how a beekeeper rescued a rogue swarm of honeybees on a farm in Ohio.

Filed Under: Behind the Scenes Tagged With:

Wet summer hurts honey production

September 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Honey production in much of Missouri has been hurt by too much rain this spring and summer. Brownfield talked with the eastern director of the Missouri State Beekeepers Association, Steve Harris, at the Missouri State Fair.

“The rain is just cutting down on the amount of nectar the plants produce,” said Harris. “So, there is no nectar for the bees to collect so there is no honey.”

Harris says if they’re lucky and it doesn’t rain too much in the coming months, they might get some honey harvested this year.

“There is a fall honey flow—nectar flow is actually what it is called—that might work out,” said Harris.

Harris says beekeepers will do what they can to try and keep the bees alive over the winter.

“Feed them sugar, try to keep them alive and just hope, there is not much more we can do,” said Harris.

In addition to the weather, there are other problems. Harris says CCD (or, Colony Collapse Disorder) seems to be creeping in, but is less of a problem for beekeeping operations that are stationary. He says the Verroa mite is still present and the small hive beetle has also been a problem this year.

AUDIO: DeanSanders & SteveHarris (4 min. MP3)

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , ,

Opportunities in beekeeping

August 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ag Secretary Vilsack and here in Indiana, Governor Mitch Daniels proclaimed this past Saturday Honey Bee Awareness Day. David Shenefield, of LaFountaine, Indiana, president of the Indiana State Beekeepers Association says that while many take honeybees for granted there is a growing interest in beekeeping.

Audio: David Shenefield, Pres. Indiana State Beekeepers Assn. (3:00 MP3)

Filed Under: Feature Programs, Rural Issues Tagged With: ,