Research Episodes

Max Cherney is Director of Operations at Nectar Technologies and Dr. Rae Olson is a postdoctoral researcher at Washington State University. Together they work with Precision Beekeeping in Quebec, Canada developing a data driven app for commercial...

In this episode we talk with Dr. Gene Kritsky, who has authored or edited 10 books and over 250 papers on subjects as diverse as entomology, Egyptology, evolution, history of science, dinosaur biology, insect poetry and insect mythology. The Tears of...

We continue this week exploring the work of the Honey Bee Health Coalition we started on the March 29th. The HBHC has several goals, tasks and programs it is pursuing and the one we are exploring today, with Dr. Dewey Caron, Representing the Western...

Dr. Geoffrey Williams and Dr. Nathalie Steinhauer join us in this episode to discuss the just released survey of colony losses between April 1, 2020 and April 1, 2021 conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, BIP. The numbers are not getting better...

Season 4 Kickoff

Today, we invite Dr. Robert E. Page, Jr.  to the podcast to talk about his research on honey bee genetics and his new book, The Art Of The Bee. Shaping the environment from Landscapes to Societies. Rob is an Emeritus professor at both Arizona...

Dr. Sam Ramsey is back with us again, looking at all sorts of questions than bother beekeepers, and working with smart kids and science! Sammy hasn’t not let any grass grow under his feet since he was forced to return home from his research in...

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Christina Grozinger, from Penn State’s Department of Entomology. Her recent research and and plant growing season has confirmed many suspicions on the long term impact these changes have on all bees, both native...

In this episode, we have a return visit with Washington State Department of Agriculture’s Sven-Erik Spichiger, to see how our honey bees’ newest threat, The Giant Asian Hornet, did last season in the Pacific Northwest. The AGH was wildly...

Today, we talk with Jessie and Bobby Louque, of Louque Agricultural Enterprises.  Testing the interactions of pesticides and honey bees is what this company does on a daily basis. They have combined their passion for bees with their passion for...

Our guest this week is Boris Baer, Professor of Entomology at UC Riverside. Boris is the recent recipient of a $900,000 grant from the University of California’s Office of the President.  He is the Principal Investigator of a four-campus...

Marla Spivak is a honey bee researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Her work has covered a variety of subjects over the years including queen breeding and disease prevention and lately she has been working on the relationship of...

On this special Holiday Replay, we bring back one of our favorite episodes from the first season, when we invited Dr. Sam Ramsey to the podcast to talk about the Varroa Mite. Sam Ramsey is a life long entomologist. His interests in all things insects...

In this week’s episode, guest cohost, Kirsten Traynor, editor of , talks with Michael Smith, Ph.D. Michael grew up in Panama, then went to boarding school in Wales, where he chanced upon a beekeeper with honey in a hallway. Together the two ended up...

In this episode, we invited Dr. Brittney Goodrich to discuss what her research has found in almond pollination contracts.  Brittney is a Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California, Davis. She is an Agricultural Economist and...

Dr. Jay Evans is the Research Leader at the USDA Honey Bee Research Lab in Beltsville Maryland. He and the resident scientists there are involved in many projects, including mite studies, nutrition supplements for bees, queen health and nutrition....

Dr. Sam Ramsey joins us again to share what he has found from his most recent work on Tropilaelaps mites in Thailand. He has been looking at the history of this mite’s movement around the world, the biology and its life cycle.  Just as...

In this episode, we talk with James Wilkes and Joseph Cazier from , who spearheaded the World Bee Count program just completed this spring. Bee Count is an annual event that aims to identify pollinators around the world and also measure pollinator...

Andony Melathopoulos is the Pollinator Health Extension Specialist for Oregon State University. He’s not just about honey bees, but every pollinator out there. But honey bees are a big part of what he does because of the multitude of crops grown in...

This week, we talk with Dr. Jamie Ellis, from the University of Florida about The BEEMD website, the UoF Bee Lab, Coloss, research, teaching and his extension work! All his work is centered on honey bees, is beekeeper driven and embraces...

Guest co-host and 2 Million Blossoms Editor, Kirsten Traynor and Tucka Saville chat this week, talking about treatment free beekeeping, having bees in Florida and Upstate New York, raising queens with Michael Palmer in Vermont, and working with Sam...

Dr. Jeff Pettis left the USDA some time ago to pursue other avenues of research. His current work is studying issues with queens, primarily longevity, affect of pesticides, virus interactions, shipping problems and more. Relatedly, he is working with...

Fifty years ago today, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, there was a celebration of the very first Earth Day, sponsored by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had organized the event as a teach-in on campuses across the country. It was...

January 7th marked the ribbon cutting ceremony for the newest USDA Honey Bee Research Lab in Davis, California. Drs. , the lab’s Research Leader and  are the initial staff, looking at colony health and stress factors. Dr. Fine joins...