May 2026

Last Chance to Share your Input! 2026 Pollinator Extension Needs Survey – closes June 30.

We are conducting an annual survey to help track Extension efforts by our WSU Bee Program.  Please click this link to fill out this 2026 Pollinator Extension Needs Survey. It should take less than 5 minutes to complete. Share this with clubs and friends!  Reach out to Priya (priya.basu@wsu.edu) with any questions. Thank you for helping us shape the future of pollinator health. The survey will stay open until June 30, 2026.   

Bee Program Events in 2026

WORKSHOPS

Thank you to everyone who attended our Mite Management Toolbox Workshop in Othello on May 2nd. We were thrilled to see all 21 of you in attendance and fully engaged.

Beekeepers in Othello listening to Brandon Hopkins talk about Varroa mites
A group of beekeepers listening to Dr. Brandon Hopkins talk about different Varroa monitoring techniques before demonstrating in a honey bee colony.

UPCOMING: Bee Strong: Fungi, Nutrition, and Winter Survival @ WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center on JULY 25th 2026. This event will focus on nutrition, how to help bees overwinter, and the power of fungi in improving honey bee health. Dr. Chase Beathard, Director of Research and Development at Fungi Perfecti will be one of our speakers! Registration for the Bee Strong Workshop is OPEN on May 25, 2026! Navigate here to learn more information about this event and register.

FREE WEBINARS – Webinars in 2026 will start at 6pm PT on the third Thursday of the month.

Go here to find more information and register for events.

Congratulations, Dr. Ritchie!

A few weeks ago, Dr. Kiersten Ritchie, Dr. Steve Sheppard’s last graduate student, successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation about Reproductive Mechanisms of Evolutionary Differentiation of the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)! Her researched focused on understanding cryptic barriers to reproductive isolation arising from female choice and sperm competition in Italian and Caucasian Apis mellifera queens from commercial breeders that were instrumentally inseminated with either Italian or Caucasian semen. In short, her findings suggest that there may be sperm competition among Italian and Caucasian strains in the female reproductive tract. Kiersten is currently our WSU Bee Program apiary manager and continues to work with the Caucasian breeding program. She is looking forward to continuing work with Dr. Hopkins on honey bee semen cryopreservation and getting married next spring.

Read it here first! New WSU Extension Factsheet

Dr. Dewey Caron, Bri Price, and Dr. Priya Basu recently published a WSU Extension publication titled Honey Bee Colonies that Fail to Overwinter Have a Tale to Tell. Use the 5-part diagnostic tool to try to ascertain possible causes of colony death and read about:

  • Common causes of why honey bees fail to survive the winter months
  • How to look for symptoms of potential deadouts in fall
  • What to do if you have a deadout

Call for Volunteers for Bri Price’s Research!

Bri is looking for volunteers in Washington State to participate in a 3-year longitudinal survey-focused research project! She aims to conduct annual surveys with Washington State beekeepers, 2026 through 2028. The first survey will be a little longer and ask for foundational experiential and demographic information. I am interested in colony loss information, sources people use most to learn what they know about Varroa management, what strategies they employ, and how networks within and amongst beekeeping associations influence strategies used. This work will be crucial to understanding current Varroa management strategies that Washington State beekeepers are using.  Later, participants will watch a new open-access 10-part video series about comprehensive Varroa management, titled HIVE PNW (Holistic Integrated Varroa Education for the Pacific Northwest) that will be released in December 2026. Then participate in two more surveys (one in 2027, one in 2028).  To boost and retain participation, we will provide non-monetary incentives to everyone that completes each survey. Please contact Bri if you have any questions – briana.price@wsu.edu

Directions to participate:

  • Step 1: Navigate to this link first to read more about the project and if you consent to participate, enter contact information, and get a unique 3 or 4-digit identifier code.
  • Step 2: Keep or store your identifier code! This code will be used to answer three surveys (one in 2026, 2027, & 2028). This will help keep your identity separate from the answers you give but conserve an individual’s data over three years.
  • Step 3: Navigate to the first survey by using this link. Use that 3 or 4-digit code from Step 1. This survey should take you less than 20 minutes. Once you complete it, she will send you a cool, uniquely designed magnet from the WSU Bee Program!
  • Step 4: Watch the new video series that will be released on our YouTube channel in December 2026.
  • Step 5: Answer the survey she sends you to fill out the 2027 and 2028.

First Ever Local COLOSS North America Conference Happening in Pullman WA in June 2026

The first ever North American event supported by COLOSS (Prevention of Honey Bee Colony Losses), will be held at the Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, USA from June 6-12, 2026, and it is expected to connect more than 200 participants from scientific to beekeeping and agriculture fields across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Activities Planned:

  • Scientific talks, posters, and panels
  • Veterinarian hands-on colony inspections
  • Instrumental insemination demonstrations
  • Exciting tours of commercial grower & beekeeper operations
  • Engaging tours of WSU Bee Program & Vet School facilities

Register here. Cost: $50 online. In-person registration is now closed, but online registration is still OPEN and will close May 31, 2026. 

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS

Washington Pollen Atlas

The Washington Pollen Atlas is a part of the National Pollen Phenology Wheel that Dr. Priya Chakrabarti Basu created. The goal of this program is to create a searchable database with information about floral nutritional profiles, and what is in bloom and when!

What is involved?

  • Install a pollen trap on your hive(s)
  • Leave the trap on for 48 hours once a month
  • After 48 hours, empty trap into labeled bag
  • Store pollen in freezer
  • Mail in, deliver, or be available for sample pick up every 2-3 months

What happens to the pollen you send in? The pollen is weighed and color sorted using Pantone color matching, then pollen is subject to nutritional analyses, metabarcoding, and acetoylsis and imaging. Data about pollen color, flower origin, structure, protein and lipid content, and region collected is being compiled into a database that will become publicly searchable. Many thanks to the Washington State Department of Agriculture Apiary Advisory Board for funding the Washington Pollen Atlas initiative. To sign up, please fill out this form linked here.

If you have any questions about this program, please email briana.price@wsu.edu. If you live outside of Washington State but are still interested in participating, please use the same link to sign up. Your efforts will help build the National Pollen Phenology Wheel database too!  If you are not a beekeeper but wish to participate, please email briana.price@wsu.edu to request a separate form.

APHIS National Honey Bee Disease Survey:

WSU Bee Program is looking for beekeepers with 8 or more hives in their bee yards. The Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) conducts a yearly survey to document which bee diseases, parasites, or pests of honey bees are present and/or likely absent in the U.S. Specifically, this survey has verified the absence of the parasitic mite Tropilaelaps, small hive beetle, and other exotic threats to honey bee populations. 

People from the WSU Bee Program will travel to your apiary, collect samples with you, and submit them to the University of Maryland Bee Lab and Washington State Department of Agriculture Diagnostic Lab for analysis.

Participation is FREE! From this survey, you will contribute to national surveillance of any exotic pests like Tropilaelaps mites, and receive information about your apiary’s health including Varroa and Nosema populations and presence/absence of 10 common honey bee viruses. Additionally, if you participate in a ‘longitudinal sample’ and get your colonies sampled twice in a year, your wax will be sampled, and you will receive a report of what pesticides are found in your wax.

You can expect a report about your colonies 6-9 months after sampling. For more information about what to expect when sampling, please watch this video: please watch this video.

Sign up on this form if you are interested in letting us sample from your colonies.

Note: in this form, you can opt to be a part of a longitudinal study. This means you would get your colonies sampled twice in the year. Longitudinal samples involve wax sampling for pesticide residues, and you will receive a report about pesticide analyses. There is a limited number of longitudinal samples available each year; it is first come first served.

Do you want to get emails from us about events, volunteer opportunities, and more?

Join our WSU Bee Program email list by filling out this form.

Looking for speakers for an event?

Check out our Request a Speaker page.

Looking for more updates on beekeeper happenings in Washington? Check out the Washington State Beekeepers Association newsletters

Author: Bri Price, Honey Bee Program Extension Coordinator