The Canadian prairie region is home to the bulk of that country’s colonies. Last year it suffered crippling losses to varroa mites. In this episode we see what we can learn from these periodic heavy varroa infestation years. 

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a key dimension of pollinator protection. This week we head to Chispas Farm in Albuquerque, New Mexico on how they use an integrated method to protect their plants from pests and encourage pollinators.

Varroa resistant bees have been on the horizon for over a decade. This week we learned how close these lines are to being used commercially through a recent study of the POL line.

A new study uses machine learning to classify whether a pesticide is toxic to bees or not. 

Central to honey bee mating are drone congregation areas (DCAs). In this episode we learn how to locate DCAs using unmanned aerial devises (aka, drones).

Honey bees have complex societies, which makes their response to environmental stressors difficult to understand. Consequently, the ways in which pesticide risk is assessed for bees can be complicated, nuanced and overwhelming. In this episode we cut through the tangle of all this complexity through a new extension publication.

Grasslands are often overlooked in terms of pollinator habitat. But they are key to many of the bee and butterfly species in the U.S. In this episode we hear about programs from the World Wildlife Foundation Fund to preserve grassland habitat in Montana.