The NHBA Research Committee works to promote honeybee health in NH. This work takes two different forms – NH Honey Bee Health Citizen Science Projects and donations to teams doing research to improve honeybee health.
Citizen Science Projects:
1. Winter Hive Survey: Since 2017, NHBA has run a Winter Hive Loss Survey to better understand the trends in our losses.The Winter 2019-20 Survival was 65% a 20 point improvement over the previous year! You can see all of the survey results and analysis by downloading this file:
2019-20 Winter Hive Survey Results
Please follow these links to download survey results for each previous years:
2018-19 WInter Hive Survey Results
2017-18 Winter Hive Survey Results
2016-17 Winter Hive Survey results
2. NH Healthy Hives 2020 : “HoneyBee Nutrition – NH is Blooming”, is focused on honeybee nutrition and being led by Deb Slocum. The goal of the project is to build a database of when plants, trees, shrubs, etc. are blooming and whether pollinators are collecting from them.
3. Deadout CSI Data collection – A key component to understanding our hive loss is so high is to start collecting the observations people are making when they autopsy their deadouts. We have put together a hive-side checklist to record what you see as you go through the dead hive. Details and a checklist can be found at: https://www.nh-honeybee-health.com/deadout-autopsy
Outside Research currently being funded by NHBA:
- Project Apis-M
- Project Apis-M funds honeybee research ($340K in 2013). Past research has included:
- Additional cost sharing for the pesticide testing
- On line learning programs through the University of California
- Many studies on migratory bees and the almond pollination
- Their website: http://www.projectapism.org has education material (including videos), research reports and a lot of other interesting information.
- You can sign up for their newsletter at the web page: https://www.projectapism.org/pam-enewsletter.html
- Project Apis-M funds honeybee research ($340K in 2013). Past research has included:
- Randy Oliver (http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com)
- Dr. Samuel Ramsey : Tropilaelaps Mite Research
- Bee Informed Partnership
- Zac Lamas, University of Maryland: Nano-colony Research