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A Pollinator Garden at the Dauphin County Agriculture and Natural Resources Center. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture along with Penn State University are conducting a citizen scientist project monitoring native bees. Two of the main goals of the project are to determine which plants native bees are most attracted to and to continue to add to the known species of bees found in Pennsylania. |
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This is the first Gigapan I took on my first trip to Hawaii. It was taken from an overlook off the Crater Rim Trail that runs along and through the Kilauea Caldera.
I was sent to Hawaii to help run an experiment conducted by the USDA testing the effects of Varroa mite treatments in honey bee colonies. I arrived a day early in Hilo and rented a car. I got up early the next morning determined to drive the entire way around the island in a day, while stopping to do some things along the way. My first stop was a convenient store for breakfast. Next it was Volcano National Park! I hiked the Crater Rim Trail Loop and then hopped in the car and drove through the park to the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum (where I stopped to take my second Gigapan)… |
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Image by Mike Andree. This is an image of several cranberry bog's in south Jersey. My hopes were to capture images of honey bees foraging on cranberry pollen. See if you can spot any? |
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This image was taken by Mike Andree. The image shows several hives in a single apiary in the blueberry barrens of Deblois, Maine. Every year honey bee colonies are deployed to various regions of the country to pollinate crops. Colonies are put on to pallets, loaded onto tractor-trailers and driven across the country. Beekepeers are the last of the nomadic farmers and are not easily replaced. Therefore, it is imperative that commercial beekeepers and their ailing colleagues (honey bees) get the attention they deserve. Honey bee foragers can be seen at the entrance of each hive primed for flight. |
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Hundreds of colonies sit in a holding yard outside of Chowchilla, California. The beekeeper that owns this particular set of bees has come all the way from Louisiana to take advantage of the huge demand for honey bees as pollinators of almond crops. These bees will hold in this yard for several weeks until the onset of the almond bloom at which time they will be moved into almond orchards located throughout California's Central Valley. Each year migratory beekeepers, from all over the country, move hundreds of thousands of honey bee colonies, by truck, into the Central Valley.
As part of a national survey on honey bees led by the USDA, researchers from the Pennsylvania State University will help collect data on hundreds of colonies of bees originating from different regions of the country. The colonies will be tagged and followed through the almond pollination process. Each time the colonies are visited researchers will collect samples to test for viruses, varroa mites, and nosema spores, as well as conduct colony assessments to determine the overall health of individual colonies. For information on almond pollination visit: http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap_2.html |
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This Gigapan image was taken by Mike Andree in the Shenandoah River Valley, Virginia. My hopes were to capture images of bees foraging on clover and wildflowers in this meadow located along the river bank just outside Shenandoah National Park. This was one of my first Gigapan images taken and unfortunately I only took one row of pictures. Each time I use the Gigapan I learn something new and hope that because of this my Gigapan’s will improve over time. Take a look, enjoy, and see how many bees you can find. I can’t say exactly how many bees I captured on these images but I can tell you that while I was taking the images I was overwhelmed by the diversity of insects I saw in and amongst this meadow. It’s a shame that we in this country (and in others I’m sure) feel the need to constantly groom our landscape by mowing down beautiful meadows such as this. Grass, what a waste of time and habitat! |
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Image by Mike Andree. This is an image of a honey bee frame with cells containing pollen, honey, eggs, and brood. This honey bee colony has an abundance of chalk brood. If you look closely you can also notice cells containing the sacbrood virus. Chalkbrood, a fungal brood disease of honey bees, is reportedly on the increase in Pennsylvania. The disease is caused by the spore-forming fungus, Ascosphaera apis. Worker, drone, and queen larvae are all susceptible. Dead larvae are chalky white and usually covered with filaments (mycelia) that have a fluffy, cottonlike appearance. These mummified larvae may be mottled with brown or black spots, especially on the ventral sides, due to the presence of spore cysts or fruiting bodies of the fungus. For more information on chalk brood and other honey bee diseases please visit www.maarec.cas.psu.edu
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Image by Mike Andree. This image depicts our standard for sampling honey bee colonies in an apiary in North Dakota. Pink pollen traps have already been installed on three hives, can you spot them? Also be sure to look for the clear Nalgene bottles we use to take alcohol samples of honey bees. The sample bottles are then shipped back to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to be tested by technicians for Varroa mites and the fungal spore Nosema. During our sampling trips bees are also collected and frozen on dry-ice in centrifuge for virus analysis at the Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, MD. In this image you can also see me taking notes on colonies in the apiary just before getting ready to do colony assessments. Colony assessments are used by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, headed by Dr. Jeff Pettis, to define strong and weak colonies amongst different apiaries. Together the colony assessments and the biological sampling gives Dr. Pettis and his team a better understanding of the true health of both individual colonies and apiaries as a whole. |
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This image depicts a healthy honey bee frame versus two unhealthy honey bee frames. Search the frames for good and poor brood patterns, eggs, larvae, pupae, adult bees, and brood diseases. Food stores can also be spotted in the form of bee bread (pollen) and honey. |
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Image by Mike Andree. Bee researchers from the USDA, Penn State University, and Browning Honey do colony assessments and collect honey bee samples in an apiary in Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota. |