Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting Minutes of NCR-202 January 13, 2005 Reno, NV Administrative Advisor: Chair and Secretary: William R. Woodson Zachary Huang Dean, Agricultural Research Purdue University Purdue University 901 W. State St. West Lafayette IN 47907 West Lafayette IN 47907 Members in Attendance: Marion Ellis - Nebraska, Zachary Huang - Michigan, Greg Hunt - Indiana, Marla Spivak - Minnesota, Nancy Ostiguy  Pennsylvania, Keith Delaplane - Georgia Members Absent: Gary Brewer, Richard Houseman, Gene Robinson, Donald Steinkraus, James Tew Guests: A number of the American Association of Professional Apiculturalists, Eric Mussen-California, Mike Hood  South Carolina, Ed Levi Arkansas, John Skinner-Tennesee, Jerry Bromenshank- Montanna, John Harbo and Jeffery Harris-Louisianna, Jose Luis Reyes Camillo, Bob Cox and Raul Rivera -TX, Mike Hood-South Carolina, and Heather Matilla, Rob currie, and Medhat Nasr  Canada. The third meeting of the NCR-202 was held at John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino Resort, Reno, NV on January 13, 2005. This meeting site and date were chosen to allow interaction with members of the American Association of Professional Apiculturalists (AAPA), the majority of whom conduct beekeeping-relevant research, and whose research results are presented at the annual meetings at the American Bee Research Conference, as well as the American Bee Federation (ABF) and the Apiaries Inspector of America (AIA). The meeting began at 6:20 p.m. immediately following the business meeting of the AAPA. The minutes of the last meeting were accepted as presented. The agenda was reviewed: Introductions Accomplishments of 2004 Items from the Floor Election of Chairman/Secretary Elect Introductions Zachary Huang started the meeting with some brief introductions. General Discussion: Zachary Huang reported that the site for NCR202 was up and running, the address is http://ncr202.bees.net. Zacharys research was similar to 2003, with research on mite sodium channel, nosema spore dynamics in colonies, and field tests and improvements on the Mitezapper. He also travel to China to study mite reproduction and changes of mite cuticular hydrocarbons in relation to different host bees. Greg Hunt worked as a trustee for the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees in 2004. He also revised the 40 year old 4-H manual for youth. Research activities were centered on behavioral genetics and genomics of bees, and a breeding project for resistance to Varroa. Marla Spivak teamed with Marrion Ellis to conduct a 5 day workshop on beekeeping and queen rearing and the event was very successful. She also has her own queen rearing workshop in March. She continues to conduct research on the hygienic behavior of bees which has implications for resistance to both Varroa and American Foulbrood. Marion Ellis continues to do research on using powered sugar for treating Varroa mites and also tested the use of oxalic acid for mite treatment. Marion suggested that his university has the software/hardware available to host pre-recorded powerpoint presentations, so that beekeepers can download the files and both see and hear the presentations. Marion offered to put the website up and maintain it. There was discussion about charging a modest fee to access the site to cover site maintenance with any surplus going to the AAPA's student scholarship fund. The following topics were proposed and different people volunteered to various topics. Getting started? Honey bee colony life history Equipment to house bees Protective equipment for beekeepers Examining a honey bee colony Choosing apiary locations Getting started with package bees Managing bees for honey production Diseases and pests of brood Diseases and pests of adult bees Honey harvesting and processing Beeswax processing Marketing hive products Keeping bees in urban areas Election of Chairman/Secretary-Elect There was some confusion as to whether another election was needed since Marion Ellis was elected as the present at the last meeting. Marion was scheduled take over the meeting at Jan 2006 and a new chair should be elected at that meeting. The meeting adjouned at 7:00 p.m. Zachary Huang NCR-202 Chairman and Secretary 2005

Greg Hunt: In 2004 Greg served as a trustee for the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees, which is an industry-based charitable foundation for education and research in apiculture. The Foundations activities included funding travel scholarships for graduate students and helping to fund an Ag education centre in California. Educational activities included workshops and a college course in beekeeping and re-writing three 4-H manuals (available at the http://ncr202.bes.net). The manuals were written in a way that should be useful for other north central states. Indianas 4-H manuals had not been revised in 40 years and the situation was similar in other states in the region. Research activities were centered on behavioral genetics and genomics of bees, and a breeding project for resistance to Varroa. The selection procedure for breeding mite resistance was simple but labor intensive. The two largest beekeepers in Indiana produced about 2000 queens from Purdues breeding stock. There were sold or or to be used in their own hives in Indiana this year (2005). Greg plans to increase the number of queens produced from the stock and the proportion used in their operations next year. Marla Spivak: Marla and her PhD student Abdullah Ibrahim worked on mechanisms of hygienic behavior in SMR bees (bred by John Harbo, USDA). The main finding was that bees bred for SMR display hygienic behavior: they detect and remove mite parasitized brood. But there is also some physiological effect of SMR brood on mite reproduction, because mites from SMR colonies have lower reproductive success on SMR pupae compared to non-SMR pupae, and mites from non-SMR colonies have lower reproductive success on SMR pupae compared to non-SMR pupae. This physiological effect remains to be investigated. They also continue our field trials in commercial apiaries of bees bred for both hygienic behavior and SMR  they are selecting for both hygienic behavior and reduced mite reproductive success, and are obtaining promising results -- these bees have significantly lower mite loads compared to "pure" hygienic colonies, and produce as much honey as controls. Zachary Huang: Zachary had a high school student working on the possibility of using Electronic Insect Feeding Monitor for monitoring varroa mite feeding behavior. By forming a complete circuit with the mite and bee pupae through electrodes, voltage changes can be recorded on a computer. It was possible to distinguish different wave forms of electric voltage changes when mites were resting, walking, or feeding. Their preliminary findings are being submitted to Journal of Apicultural Research. Their lab continues to improve the mitezapper and obtaining more field data. A postdoc and Zachary have been working a manuscript to determine the comparative lethal temperatures of Varroa mites and the honey bees, by using sophisticated thermal kinetics models. His lab also was continuing (2nd year) the study of determining the distribution of Nosema spores in beeswax, honey, and their relationships to the actual rate of infection in workers. Zach continues to work on the mite sodium channel and together with Ke Dong, has obtained a USDA-NRI recently. Zachary continues to maintain his website http://cyberbee.msu.edu. He administered the site entirely by himself including hardware, software, security, backup and maintenance. The site was mainly used for beekeeping information, which received a total of 3.6 million hits during 2004. The website reached 99,000 unique client computers during the year, transferring about 53.4 gigabytes of information. He also became the webmaster for the official website of Michigan Beekeepers Association (http://www.michiganbees.org) in 2004. Over 60 people from 9 states participated. Marion Ellis: Marion has been doing follow-up research on using sugar dusts to control varroa mites, and also evaluated other chemicals for mite control (oxalic acid, and etoxazole). Oxalic acid is a low cost alternative that shows promise for controlling fluvalinate and coumaphos-resistant mite populations. Etoxaole did not cause any significant decrease in mite population. Bag Bash - an entomology teaching and learning event for youth was a big success. Over 3,500 youth, parents, and teachers attended this years event. Marion also developed a website to support Bug Bash that includes modules for teaching young learners basic facts about insects. Marion continues to do the Master Beekeeping Workshop, which was at its 9th year. Marions Bee Tidings newsletter has a total subscription of 224 members

Extension publications from members are listed at http://ncr202.bees.net. Each member also has produced 3-6 referred publications during 2004. It is recognized that we need to produce regional publications that are specific from the NCR202 group and identified as such.