Keep Bees Alive
It is a hard time to be a honey bee! Honey bee colonies have been dying at high rates every year for many years. This is hard on bees and beekeepers. The Keep Bees Alive project has been designed to help beekeepers with some of the most common causes of colony death.
Most beekeepers who are losing bees are losing them to varroa and varroa-associated diseases. Often, beekeepers lose bees in their first few years of beekeeping. After losing bees year after year, some discouraged beekeepers quit and others find a way to keep their bees alive. We want healthy bees and happier beekeepers. Here are some resources that will help you keep your bees alive and healthy.
Understanding honey bee colony death from varroa:
This video is the first in a series of three by Michigan State University as part of the Keep Bees Alive campaign. It examines the most common causes of honey bee colony loss for small-scale beekeepers in North America.
Why did my honey bees die? [PDF] handout
Monitoring your honey bees for varroa:
- Understanding varroa risk webinar video
- Varroa mite monitoring [PDF] using a sugar roll to identify populations of Varroa destructor in honey bee colonies
- University of Minnesota Bee Squad videos include instructional videos on the powdered sugar roll to monitor varroa
- Keep Bees Alive: Information and resources for keeping your bees healthy in the era of varroa
- Mite check with Becky Masterman webinar from The Ohio State University with Dr. Rebecca Masterman from the University of Minnesota Bee Squad
- Varroa mites: a step-by-step guide to monitoring in New York [PDF] from Cornell University
- The use of IPM in beekeeping to control parasitic varroa mites webinar recording with Robyn Underwood from the Northeastern IPM Center
- Mite and virus management plan [PDF] worksheet to plan your mite management plan from Cornell University
- Varroa monitoring and treatment [PDF] worksheet to record varroa monitoring from Cornell University
- Varroa Integrated Pest Management - sampling & control tracking worksheet [PDF] from the Honey Bee Health Coalition
Keeping varroa under control:
- "Now or never": Late season colony management for survival, varroa treatment options and the importance of timing from the Ontario Animal Health Network and Ontario Beekeepers' Association
- Making a plan for the varroa mite webinar video
- Keeping your bees safe from the varroa mite [PDF]
- Tools for varroa management: A guide to varroa sampling & control from the Honey Bee Health Coalition
- Varroa management decision tool from the Honey Bee Health Coalition
- Tools for varroa mite management videos from the Honey Bee Health Coalition - instructions on how to properly apply varroa treatments
- Varroa Bee Club program - download a video and/or PowerPoint presentation to learn about varroa or share with your beekeeping club - from the Honey Bee Health Coalition
- Protect your bees from varroa mites video from the Honey Bee Health Coalition
- Varroa mites: A guide to control methods in New York [PDF] from Cornell University
- Varroa mite control: Using integrated pest management from Cornell University
- Varroa-resistant queen breeders in the USA [PDF] from Cornell University
- Managing varroa mites in honey bee colonies from Mississippi State University
- A beekeepers guide to using oxalic acid from Perfect Bee
- No evidence to support the use of glycerol–oxalic acid mixtures delivered via paper towel for controlling Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) mites in the Southeast United States - a study about oxalic acid glycerin towels
Our philosophy
Honey bees are animals, and they deserve to be well fed, healthy, and free to live their life as a bee. When we keep honey bees in the United States, not only are we keeping them outside of their native range, but we are often asking them to live in places with a lot of environmental stress - not enough nutritious flowers, too much chemical exposures, and pressure from disease that are new to them. As beekeepers, our job is to make sure that our bees are not too stressed, so our colonies can live healthy lives, and go about their business of being bees!
Our Goal
Our goal is to reduce the number of honey bee colonies that die each year. Our objective is to provide support and guidance to beekeepers who have lost colonies so they can determine the cause of death, and take actions to prevent the same stresses from affecting future colonies.
If you have a specific topic that you would like addressed, or have questions, email honeybees@msu.edu.
This work is supported by a NIFA CARE grant "Mite Check: A national strategy to reduce honey bee colony loss from the varroa mite“ [grant no. 2017-08680] from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
This work is supported by the teams at the University of Minnesota Bee Squad and University of Maryland.