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To feed bees or not to feed bees? If you read Jeremy Barnes letter to the editor (in most recent ABJ, September 2020) you might wish to hit the pause button. Jeremy summarizes studies involving feeding sugar syrup to bees confined in cages in the lab. Worker bees fed sugar syrup do not live as long (compared to bees fed honey), the different pH may disrupt the normal gut microflora, the pure sugar diet  might overwhelm body functions evolved for nectar and/or the bees fed sug

AFB is a bacterial disease of developing honey bee brood.  AFB spores infect the larva in the earliest larval stage (newborn to 2 days old), generally through nurse bees supplying infected food. Infection spreads quickly among the larvae, as nurse bees, which carry the bacteria but are not affected by it, move from cell to cell feeding larvae. Only a few spores (<10) may be infectious. Once ingested by the larva, the bacteria in the active vegetative form grows and reproduces

We should seek to enhance colony growth in Spring for surplus honey but seek to flatten the growth curve of mites.

I have received a very low response this year from WVBA members (<10) for the annual pnwhoneybeesurvey. It will only be up until end of day Friday May 1. Please if you have not yet had the opportunity won't you take a few minutes and add your overwintering success and management information so I can generate a report for the club? I do not generally do individual club report unless I get minimum of 20 responses. Last year I had 38 club members complete survey, 34 the year bef

The PNW honey bee survey is now open extending to end of April. WVBA has had consistently great participation in past surveys (38 survey returns last year – loss level 46%) and I AKS PLEASE complete a survey again this year. Go to https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.om/survey To examine past survey results look for WVBA survey report on same site under survey results. NOTE: I prepared the information below on necropsy for posting in March – somehow it did not get on the site. So I wi