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A bee egg is 1/1000 th the size of the eventual adult bee. It may surprise you that all the eggs a queen lays in beeswax comb cells are NOT the same size.  Younger-aged queens, not surprisingly, lay more robust, larger eggs than older-aged queens. Two-year old queens lay eggs that weigh 1/3 rd less. And eggs from older-aged queens are less likely to survive. The mortality rate of eggs increases as queens age - from 3.5% to 8.9%  by the time the queen is 2-years of age. Eggs

WVBA members are encouraged to complete a web-based survey document in a continuing effort to define overwintering losses/successes of backyard beekeepers in Oregon. This was the 15 th year of such survey activity. I received 171 reports from Oregon beekeepers keeping anywhere from 1 to 41 colonies; Willamette Valley members sent in 13 surveys, less than ½ the previous year (26) but an improvement of the low number the previous year when only 10 WVBA respondent surveys were

The pnwhoneybeesurvey is OPEN. The members of WVBA have been especially supportive of this annual survey of Oregon and Washington backyard beekeepers.  Please participate before May 1st @ https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com/survey/   If you want a quicker survey experience please print the note sheet @ https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com/notesheet/  which is a great tool just to have in your bee yard as a reminder for all that can be done, not to mention for ease of tracking for next yea

Just in time for our early season decision making on what is best to feed our bees is the latest release from the Honey Bee Health Coalition  Honey Bee Nutrition Guide . https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/nutritionguide/ The guide reviews the basic of bee nutrition and serves as a manual for supplemental feeding in bee hives. It is a straight-forward, uncomplicated coverage of the complex and nuanced world of honey bee nutrition. It was prepared by Dr Priya Basu, recently a

The Varroa mite is a formidable foe? As my April PNW survey shows, our annual loses, most specialists agreeing due to varroa mites, continues around 40%. We need better tools (better bees/weaker mites/better controls) to combat the mite. Here are three promising developments that might help.   Weaker Mites: Greenlight Biosciences https://www.greenlightbiosciences.com/ of Rochester, NY presented a seminar recently on their development of a very novel type of miticide,  Vades