Ask beekeepers and you will hear many different opinions on Russian Honey Bees. Mostly, they either love them, hate them or know nothing about them.  In this episode, we go directly to the US source of these bees with Dr. Tom Rinderer and Steve Coy. Tom was instrumental in the early days of the research resulting in the introduction of this line of honey bee to the US by visiting Russia to find these varroa resistant bees. He talks about the issues of getting them into this country, sorting out the best lines – very varroa resistant, not defensive, healthy in all aspects and while producing honey! From there they did side by side tests with other domestic lines to see if indeed they would do well here and soon after, they helped to form the Russian Honey Bee Breeders Association to maintain the breed. Steve Coy is one of the producers from the breeder’s association. He talks about what the association is doing and how they are working to increase its adoption.  These are the bees in the US that you can buy that are resistant to varroa and this is their story!

Links and websites mentioned in this episode:

• Russian Honey Bee Breeders Assn: http://www.russianbreeder.org
• Russian Honey Bees - The Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Honey-Bees-Thomas-Rinderer/dp/1655328131

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This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! 

We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum.

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We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected]

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening! 

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"