At the last BCHPA AGM in Richmond, Dr. Dewey Caron did an excellent presentation called “Reading the Brood Frame” about how to determine what is going on in your colony’s brood nest. I came across this eXtension website where you can practice your brood frame reading and collect useful data for a scientific study at the same time. This is called a citizen-scientist project where lay people volunteer to help collect data that can then be used for science. A common one that happens every year are the bird counts done by birders that are then used for migratory bird studies. Our own annual over-wintering and honey production surveys could also be considered citizen-science. Anyway, the introduction to this project can be found here;
The original study started in 2010 to investigate the synergistic interactions between the products beekeepers use to control Varroa mites and the chemicals that bees might be bringing into the hive from the field (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides). You can read about that here;
http://www.extension.org/pages/61004/miticide-and-fungicide-interactions#.VJBpMieNnJI
If you are interested in trying this, you will find the page here;
Make up a Username and password to get in and then start with a 15 – 20 minute tutorial that teaches you how to do the counts. You really have to be observant, particularly when trying to find eggs. I got “gonged” a number of times!! This is a very good win-win endeavour where you as a beekeeper get to practice your skills and at the same time produce valuable data for ongoing scientific studies to further bee health. It doesn’t get much better than that! 🙂
West Kootenay Beekeepers 