CEW-MR-2-Bee wellness970Submitted by Katie Navarra
Beekeeping is a challenging vocation; recognizing and diagnosing honeybee disease is important to maintaining healthy bee hives and beekeepers have a responsibility to understand basic bee biology as well as have the ability to recognize the diseases that can afflict honey bees.
For the second consecutive year, the NY Bee Wellness Workshops offered in conjunction with the Empire State Honey Producers Association (ESHPA.org) have offered intensive, two-day workshops covering basic beekeeping skills and hands-on demonstrations.
Led by a team of nine bee experts with the workshops are designed to explain how to identify and treat the diseases that most commonly afflict honey bees. Diseases such as varroa mites, a parasite; nosema — an intestinal fungal type disease and the American Foul Brood, which is a highly contagious spore forming disease, this is a reportable disease with no true cure, all threaten the wellbeing of honey bees.
The workshops are designed, “to teach beekeepers techniques in diagnosing, treating, and preventing honey bee diseases,” Pat Bono, Project Director, NY Bee Wellness Workshops.
The workshops are funded in part by USDA NIFA Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program grant with matching funds from the Empire State Honey Producers Association. The wellness workshops are part of a three year train-the-trainer project.
Primarily the workshops are geared towards New York beekeepers with less than 10 years experience. “Beekeepers have a responsibility to know bee diseases, techniques are taught,” Bono added.
For individuals unable to attend the workshops, the NY Bee Wellness website (http://nybeewellness.org/) provides access to countless resources covering topics such as NY Apiary Laws, record-keeping, mite check protocol and more. The site also includes information about upcoming workshops and events.
For additional information contact Pat at Pat@eshpa.org or visit http://nybeewellness.org