Ingredients
□ ½ cup or 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
□ ¾ cup brown sugar
□ ½ cup honey
□ 1 egg yolk
□ 2¼ cup plain flour or all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
□ 1 teaspoon baking soda
□ ½ teaspoon ground ginger
□ 1 teaspoon cinnamon
□ Pinch of salt

Directions
Step 1
In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and creamy.

Step 2
Add honey and the egg yolk. Beat again to form a creamy mixture.

Step 3
Sift in the flour, baking soda, ginger,
cinnamon, and salt.

Step 4
Beat briefly until dough starts to come together.

Step 5
Use your hands to gather the dough and form into a large ball.

Step 6
Wrap the dough in plastic and place in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to rest.

Step 7
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two cookie or oven trays with baking or parchment paper. (Aluminum foil works great too!)

Step 8
Lightly flour your counter and roll out the dough using a rolling pin (or your hands) to about ½ inch thick. Dust your rolling pin as you go to prevent the dough from sticking.

Step 9
Cut out shapes using cookie cutters (or a small jar/mug) and gently place cookies onto the prepared trays.

Step 10
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden on the edges.

Step 11
Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

This is a very ‘simple’ tasting cookie. You can pair it with your favorite tea, coffee, by themselves, or with some ice cream. Enjoy!

Recently, a friend of mine suggested that I watch “an old but prophetic” movie titled, “Soylent Green.” The film, loosely based on Harry Harrison’s 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! features a young Charlton Heston playing the lead role of Detective Sergeant Thorn. Eerily, the movie is set during the year 2022, in New York city, population “40 million people.” I would bet that when Harrison penned this work of fiction some 56 years ago, he thought this number of 40 million to be overly inflated, an absurd amount of people. Or didn’t he?

According to the most recent numbers provided by the United States Census Bureau, New York city had a reported population of 8,804,190 people in April 2020. This was just before the Covid-19 pandemic had fully sunk its teeth into not just our bodies, but our economy, livelihood, bank account and most importantly, our spirit. At the time I am composing this article (February, 2022), New York city has reported a total of 39,011 deaths and a staggering 631,000 jobs lost as a result of Covid-19.

As I watched the movie, I certainly felt the prophetic-ness that my friend had alluded to. Staircases full of sleeping vagrants with physically nowhere else left to go. Everyone appeared uncomfortable and hot, always in a flux of sweat due to the over crowdedness and increased warming of our sphere. Most of the fresh produce items that we in the western world take for granted on a daily basis, are the most precious commodities in Harrison’s projection of 2022. Fruits, vegetables, beef… all available in limited quantities and are only attainable by the most elite. The bulk of the population, can only afford to sustain on a series of man-made, food items that provide just a semblance of nutrition, while large corporations and government profits. Sounding more prophetic by the paragraph, isn’t it?

So, has it already begun?
I try to consume a healthy, whole foods diet, and I can personally attest that since the pandemic, my American dollar goes nowhere near as far as it once did just two years ago. To add insult to injury, Covid also provided an opportunity for industry to price gouge consumers as a result of mandatory governmental shutdowns, supply chain issues, ships stuck at ports, etc. The same number of fresh produce items now costs me on average $80 – $120 more then what I was paying just two years ago. Yet my wages have stayed the same. Bring on that overly processed, fast food dollar menu!

In a documentary that debuted in January titled “The Green Planet,” renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough warns, “the world, it depends upon plants and we treat them with so little thought, so little care and exterminate them without little thought or little care. And we will pay the price.” Attenborough continues, “We caused it; our kind of industrialization is one of the major factors in producing this change in climate. So, we have a moral responsibility even if we didn’t cause it, we would have a moral responsibility to do something about it.” Despite being 95 years young, and living his life day-by-day, Attenborough still feels the responsibility to utilize his worldwide platform to help garner attention to this impending crisis that will begin to affect all of us with more regularity in the coming decades. On biodiversity, Attenborough offers, “it’s never been more important for us to understand the effects of biodiversity loss, of how it is that we ourselves are responsible for it.”

As beekeepers, we are all too familiar with the negative impacts that increased industry has had on our bees, yet rarely contemplate it any further than how it affects our own operation or wallet. The trial is over and the verdict is in. The loss of biodiversity around the world, and especially the reduced biodiversity of insect populations, poses extremely serious consequences down the road for us. Earths conqueror.

The Staggering Loss of Biodiversity
In December 2020, Nature magazine published a report that found that human-made materials now exceeded the mass of all living things on the planet. Let that sink in. The concrete, steel, plastics, and other man-made materials now physically weigh more than the people, plants, bacteria and animals that with whom we share the planet.

One of the most obvious effects of our massive ecological footprint is the staggering loss of biodiversity that we now see. The recently created Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has been given the task of performing regular and timely assessments of knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystem services. According to the IPBES chair Robert Watson, “the health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

More specifically, the IPBES reports that well over one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within the coming decades. Though species have gone extinct throughout human history, the scale of the threat of extinction has never been higher than today. The report goes on to find that the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20% in the past century.

Unfortunately, many people associate this drastic loss of biodiversity with the disappearance of exotic species of plants or animals on the other side of the world. The biologist trying to spot the elusive and nearly extinct Guatemalan Small Eared Shrew. We fail to realize that a decline in biodiversity could have palpable and realistic effects on our own livelihoods. This selective form of naivete’ is self-serving and affords us the luxury of not taking action. Of not implementing changes to our daily lives that would affect the greater good.

Of course, biodiversity is of fundamental importance for all of life on earth. Besides creating more resilient and vibrant ecosystems, biodiversity is at the core of ecological life support. The millions of unseen species of plants, bacteria, fungi and insects combine to create the conditions for life upon which we depend. Oxygen to breathe, clean water to drink, pollination of plants for the crops we grow, pest control, wastewater treatment and thousands of other “ecosystem services” all depend on the complex interactions of bio-diverse ecosystems.

The Underappreciated Importance of Insects
Insect populations around the world are similarly affected by the rising threat of species extinction. According to one recent estimate, more than 40% of all insects are declining worldwide with one third of insect species being placed on the endangered list. This data suggests that the rate of decline for ALL insects is at least 2.5% annually. While we may worry about white rhinos and other emblematic species that are in danger of extinction, insects face extinction rates that are eight times higher than vertebrates!

So, what would a world without insects look like? For one, the amount of food that we could produce would be greatly reduced. The USDA finds that “three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce.” A significant loss of pollinator insects would severely affect the production of crops such as apples, almonds, avocados, cucumbers, onions and hundreds of other common foods. Even without complete extinction, the reduced pollination rates of these plants due to drops in insect population would lead to lower seed or fruit set, lower plant regeneration rates and other, cascading effects on other animal species that rely on plants and their products for food.

Insects also play an important role in other vital ecological functions including pest control, decomposition and maintenance of wildlife species.

Native Pollinator Loss in the Midwest
One of the major causes of the massive drop in insect populations around the world (often referred to as the “Insect Apocalypse”) is the increasing usage of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and other synthetic agricultural chemicals. A 2019 study determined that America’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to honey bees, and likely other insects, than it was 25 years ago. This landscape toxicity is closely related to the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

So how much pesticides are we actually using here in the land of the free? In 2007, for example, we collectively sprayed 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides on our lawns, parks, and farm fields, which is almost a quarter of the total worldwide pesticide use. In my home state of Indiana, a recent USDA report finds that “herbicide was used on 99 percent of Indiana’s 5.7 million corn acres during 2000 while insecticides were applied to 30 percent of the acreage.”

The toxicity of Indiana’s farm fields is not only leaching into our watersheds and affecting aquatic organisms, but is also directly responsible for the loss of native pollinators in the region. According to Purdue University, the native pollinator communities in Indiana face many threats. During the past 15 years, researchers have documented reduced populations of honey bees, bumble bees and several butterfly and moth species. While bees are primarily affected by the use of certain types of pesticides, other Indiana insect species are dropping due to loss of habitat. For example, over the past 100 years, the Karner Blue Butterfly (Plebejus melissa samuelis) has seen its population drop by 99%, mostly due to habitat loss and the slow disappearance of Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis), which is its primary food source.

What Can You Do to Assist Native Pollinator Populations?
The loss of biodiversity, and specifically the drop in native pollinator populations, is an issue that affects all of us. While we may consider installing solar panels or purchasing an electric vehicle as a way to limit carbon emissions that are driving global climate change, most people have no idea how to contribute to the resilience and resurgence of insect populations. To end, I offer a few strategies for supporting and encouraging pollinators and insect populations in general.

• Plant a pollinator-friendly lawn: Instead of monoculture turf grass that requires an enormous amount of synthetic chemicals that hurt insect populations, consider sowing native wildflower seed for a more beautiful, healthier, and pollinator-friendly lawn.
• Eliminate pesticide use in your landscape: For both your yard and garden, eliminate all pesticide use, especially neonicotinoids. There are several “biological pest controls” that are extremely effective for gardens and lawns, and are much healthier for both humans and other non-target insects.
• Extend your flowering season: Planting a diversity of flowering plants and trees can also help increase the food supply for native pollinators. When planning your landscape, consider purchasing flowers, trees, herbs, and other plants that flower throughout the Spring, Summer and Fall.

And if you’ve never seen it, pick-up or stream a copy of Soylent Green. There are several other eye-opening scenes in the film that I haven’t touched on here for fear of spoiling the film for those that want to watch it. Some of these things are already occurring and others I fear will soon begin happening if we all just sit idle and trust in our government.

Come gather ‘round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
if your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
– Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964)

Hopefully those in the Northern hemisphere have your bees situated so they are taking advantage of this month’s bounty of flowers. Bees have evolved with, and driven the evolution of, flowers and honey bees and generally know when and how to harvest the good stuff those flowers produce. In ideal conditions your bees are surrounded by diverse, untainted flowers and resources. This is especially important thanks to the many components of natural pollen, which provides not just body-building protein but bee requirements from plant chemicals to fatty acids and micronutrients. A recent openly available review from Maciej Sylwester Bryś and colleagues in Poland (“Pollen Diet—Properties and Impact on a Bee Colony”, 2022, Insects, https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12090798) hits the key points in the search for beneficial pollens. They end with, “While single species pollen has specific benefits, bees require pollen from diverse sources to maintain a healthy physiology and hive. Multipollen diet should be offered to the bees to derive requisite benefits and at the same time be secure of the colony requirements.” These pollen sources might be gathered over time as new plant species come into flower and others fade, leading to a mixed cupboard in the hive. While I do not know of evidence for this, it would be nice to know if bees, like us humans, draw from different parts of this cupboard for each ‘meal’, to make sure they are getting a range of diversity for their own needs and those of their offspring.

But what happens if your bees aren’t lucky enough to live in a utopia of diverse flowers, or have not been able to store sufficient pollen when that window was open. Also, most of us live in highly seasonal climates and there is often a desire to supplement our bees either for our needs (i.e., fast growth for splits as well as larger workforces for pollination contracts or honey gathering) or the bees’ needs (perhaps when bad weather or post-Winter weakness might conspire to make colonies miss key flowering events altogether).

Three recent papers tackle some of the current options available to beekeepers to give their colonies a boost, via natural pollen supplements or other sources of nutrients. I have no interest in recommending particular products, but appreciated the research insights into how honey bees convert specific supplements into new, healthy offspring. Shelley Hoover and colleagues in Alberta describe a three-year field study of bee feed supplements in their study “Consumption of Supplemental Spring Protein Feeds by Western Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colonies: Effects on Colony Growth and Pollination Potential” (2022, Journal of Economic Entomology, https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toac006). They gathered and scored colonies immediately after Winter storage and fed them feeds containing pollen or alternate protein sources (versions of Bee Pollen-Ate, FeedBee, Global Patty and Healthy Bees). With or without pollen, the feed supplements had protein ratios similar to natural pollen and many of the other diet needs reflected in pollen, albeit with shifts in relative amino acid abundance. All supplements were consumed readily, although FeedBee was taken at slightly lower rates. Interestingly, a ‘Trio’ of three protein supplements that perhaps better mimics a multifloral resource was consumed preferentially to single-type diets, to the tune of over 1,792 grams in five weeks versus the next-favored patty (Global Patty 15%, 1,379 grams). In the end, these consumption rates did not necessarily predict impacts on colony health and all diets were palatable. Here, the tested supplements indeed showed their worth relative to control colonies fed only sugar. The pollen-based diets did better across the three years than others, under local conditions, indicating they can provide bees an early season boost over natural forage, as advertised.

Vincent Ricigliano and colleagues carried out a feed supplement trial across the dearth season of a U.S. commercial beekeeping operation, a key consumer group for bees and agriculture (“Effects of different artificial diets on commercial honey bee colony performance, health biomarkers, and gut microbiota” BMC Veterinary Research (2022) 18:52; https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-022-03151-5). These trials started with 144 equivalent Californian colonies which were provided supplemental patties starting in August for a total of 12 times over the course of the subsequent months. The goal was to see how treated and supplemented colonies looked prior to the next year’s almond pollination event, in apiaries not blessed with great natural forage over the measured time period. Two of the tested supplements held natural pollen (Global and ‘Homebrew’) while the rest used alternate protein sources (Ultra Bee, Bulk Soft, MegaBee, AP23, and Healthy Bees). All supplements had protein ratios within range of natural pollens (15-20%). Nevertheless, they differed significantly from natural pollen and from each other in key components including the ratios of specific essential amino acids and lipid levels. All diets were consumed equally well at the first feedings, although some were eaten less readily as the experiment continued. Six months later, in preparation for almond pollination, there were strong differences in colony strength based both on which of three apiary locations a colony had been placed into and the supplemental diet provided. While the apiary differences highlight the complexities of working with field colonies, the diet results give insights into the effectiveness of specific supplements in at least one part of the world.

Emily Noordyke and colleagues focused on the effects of late-season protein supplementation on colony survival in part of a mild Florida Winter (“Evaluating the strength of western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies fed pollen substitutes over Winter,” 2021: Journal of Applied Entomology; DOI: 10.1111/jen.12957. Experiments were started in November with supplementation via two commercial protein supplements (Api23 or Megabee) compared to a non-supplemented control set of colonies. Experimental colonies faced an environment with diminished natural pollen and were further stressed by pollen traps. Both supplements led to stronger colonies (less weight loss) than those not receiving supplements, although the results were only significant for Api23. Brood mass was higher in both supplemental cohorts than in the controls.

These colony-level and season-relevant experiments show the benefits of protein supplements in times of dearth. For now, your bees are hopefully getting the bounty of great flowers and are building for splits and healthy long-lived foragers now and into the Fall.

Beekeeping is a solitary occupation. Many of us are drawn to the peace of being out with the bees, quiet and focused. Let’s all agree that the best beekeeping companion is one who also gets into the zone; lifting and passing frames almost wordlessly, taking their cues from the hives, working seamlessly together to get whatever job done.
Then convention season hits and suddenly a group of solitude-prone individuals sharing an obsession with social insects, get social. For the new attendee, it can seem like everyone has known each other for decades (many have) and are too busy catching up with old friends to meet a newcomer. At a dinner party, your beekeeping habit fascinates the other guests, but amongst beekeepers… it pretty much still does!
Beekeepers talk bees. For the convention hesitant, we’ve created a little guide to getting social. We do encourage you to attend a convention or two and binge on enough new beekeeping information to last the year.

Let me show you my favorite bee photo!
A great bee themed photo can be a nice conversation starter. If you want to become the center of a crowd, choose a mysterious photo with a tricky brood disease and have people guessing. Photos of bees on flowers always get the nectar conversations flowing. Interesting creatures visiting your hives is a good way to bond with someone from another geographic region (“What? I’ve never seen that type of bumble bee!”). Swarms you’ve caught are fun to look at, and super bad mite infestations are always crowd pleasers (as long as it’s your photo, not theirs).

So, how do you monitor and manage your varroa?
If you are a beekeeper, you are also an unwilling varroa manager. While you might not like the response you get to this question, everyone will have one. Your varroa conversation might get scary if you are talking with someone who says their bees don’t have varroa (perhaps they are into magical realism – you could suggest a novel by Isabell Allende. Or you could ask them about the weather in Australia!). Maybe you’ll hear that your new friend is intimidated by testing their bees for mites? Time to name drop the the Honey Bee Health Coalition’s Varroa Management tool. (You can sound hip by randomly knowing that their 8th edition is out soon – even better than before!) We suggest bookmarking the website. Be prepared to go deep sharing varroa management strategies. Perhaps you can convince a sad annual loser of bees that there is indeed hope, if they face their mite problem head on.
https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/resources/varroa-management/

Hey, did you hear about the Minnesota Honey Producers Association’s Habitat Committee?*
Luckily, the MHPA, led by President Dave Schroeder and his bee habitat loving membership, eagerly supported this organizational initiative. We are admittedly extra biased regarding this conversation starter as we think that every beekeeper should be thinking about bee habitat. Follow up this question with, “Does your local beekeeping club have a Habitat Committee?” It would be a game changer if every beekeeping club had a dedicated committee to: 1) create partnership opportunities with governmental agencies, community groups and the public and 2) report habitat and nutrition research to the membership. Our honey bees deserve an organized effort to get more flowers into the ground.
*The authors both disclose that they are members of the MHPA Habitat Committee

This photo was taken on a trip to Bermuda where the beekeepers were
even lonelier than the bees! It is a great way to get a conversation
started, especially with weather envious northern climate beekeepers.
Photo Credit: Rebecca Masterman

Did you know that (insert state here) has (insert number here) different species of native bees?
What a great way to let your fellow beekeepers know that you take an interest in both honey bees and native bees. With the concern about endangered and threatened native bee species, now is the time for beekeepers to step up and commit to keeping the conversation about supporting all pollinators, not just honey bees. Simply learning more about the native bees in your area can make a difference. In preparation for this conversation starter, we suggest a little Googling. You will be surprised at how much you can learn about your state’s native bees in a simple Google search.

Have you heard about honey bee anarchy? 
A body of research work by Dr. Ben Oldryod in the 1990’s investigated worker reproduction in honey bee colonies (Baron et al. 2001). A more recent anarchy study reported a subset of workers raised in recently swarmed, temporarily queenless colonies as having more ovarioles and being more likely to lay their unfertilized eggs even after new queens emerge (Woyciechowski et al. 2012). This less often discussed honey bee topic might be fun to bring up with a fellow beekeeper: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rebel-honeybee-workers-lay-eggs-when-their-queen-away

Do you know how to get propolis stains out of clothes?
Sometimes conferences are disconcerting: there are so many beekeepers wearing clean clothes! You yourself might feel weird without your propolis-stained bee jacket and syrup-caked boots. Whether or not you’ve gotten propolis out of your clothes is worthy of discussion. And if so, how? https://sciencing.com/remove-bee-propolis-stains-7712909.html

How did you get into beekeeping?
The best part of a convention is learning from the beekeeping elders and hearing crazy beekeeping stories. A few years back, the U of MN Bee Lab and Minnesota Extension’s Dr. Katie Lee spearheaded a collaboration with Story Corps and the American Beekeeping Federation where beekeepers could interview each other about their stories. It’s a treasure trove and worth exploring: https://archive.storycorps.org/communities/american-beekeeping-federation/ But for regional conventions without a story corps booth, try out some of the questions that really get beekeepers talking: how did you get into beekeeping? What do you think about the future of beekeeping? What do your bees mean to you?
We hope to have inspired some shyer beekeepers to get out there and join the Summer convention fever. Try out our conversation prompts. And email us to let us know what happened.

Becky Masterman led the UMN Bee Squad from 2013-2019. Bridget Mendel joined the Bee Squad in 2013 and has led the program since 2020. Photos of Becky (left) and Bridget (right) looking for their respective hives. If you would like to contact the
authors with your own convention conversation
success stories or other thoughts, please send an email to mindingyourbeesandcues@gmail.com

References:
Barron, A., Oldroyd, B. and Ratnieks, F. (2001) Worker reproduction in honey-bees (Apis) and the anarchic syndrome: a review. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 50, 199–208. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002650100362
Woyciechowski, M and Kuszewska, K Swarming Generates Rebel Workers in Honeybees (2012) CAMBRIDGE: Elsevier Inc Current biology Vol.22 (8), p.707-711.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Dr. Marla Spivak for helpful edits and suggestions.

I led a research laboratory for 35 years at Simon Fraser University (SFU), running around 200 honey bee colonies at our peak. Besides data, we also produced many thousands of pounds a year of pretty good honey. Don’t take my word for it; our customers would call as early as May or June to line up for the honey we harvested in August and sold in September.

Why the strong customer base? For one thing, it was excellent honey. Never heated or filtered (both processes drive off aromatics and flavor), our honey was collected from a delightful mix of wildflower nectar that blended into an exquisite taste. The proceeds from honey sales went to support graduate students, and we dropped off quite a few cases to food banks on and off campus.
We had a brand, Heavenly Honey, and a distinctive hand-drawn label on each jar. I traded my barber four jars of honey for a haircut, and soon many of his customers were clamoring to buy a few jars. We gave jars away to anyone at the university who had helped us over that past year, from the President to the cheerful women with Italian accents who made specialty sandwiches at the SFU cafeteria, to the staff who cleaned our lab. Those free jars quickly translated into a wide customer base from the colleagues and friends and families of those who received their annual free jar.
I’ve always been attracted to smaller-scale, artisanal beekeeping, and to small batches of carefully curated honey that come with a story about the beekeepers and the land from which it was harvested. Thus, it’s not surprising that I was intrigued when I recently came across Drizzle, a Canadian honey marketing firm out of Calgary, Alberta. 

Drizzle was founded by backyard urban beekeeper Aja Horsley. She was working as an urban agriculture researcher in Calgary; one of her projects involved rooftop beekeeping for culinary honey. As she notes on their website, Drizzle was inspired because “I believe in responsibly producing honey while also creating a collection of the highest quality raw honey products.”

She saw a potential market for raw honey and started the Drizzle brand, initially selling honey from other urban beekeepers but eventually expanding to bottle and market honey produced by rural beekeepers in a manner consistent with her values for sustainable beekeeping
Drizzle’s branding and marketing are brilliant, much more sophisticated than our Heavenly Honey marketing, focused on specific but broad subsets of consumers, particularly those concerned with sustainability and personal health. Their client base appreciates food that is perceived as high quality rather than mass-produced, and comes with details and stories of terroir: the soil, weather, climate and people that make each bottle of honey unique. Drizzle wants to make us feel good about buying their honeys: “Better for you, better for your cooking, and better for the planet. Elevate your table with deliciously raw, superfood powered honey while helping honey bees thrive.”

What makes Drizzle honey better than the typical packaged honey found on North American supermarket shelves? Drizzle tells us on their website that their honey is “natural,” “raw,” “unheated,” “unfiltered,” and “gluten-free,” terms that resonate with consumers interested in quality assurance and superior products.
“Natural,” is one term with little meaning at the hive, since all honey produced from floral nectar is natural. But it does have a compelling relevance once honey is packaged for sale. In recent years we’ve seen epidemics of honey adulterated with corn syrup and other sweeteners, and imported honey with detectable levels of banned pesticides. Indeed, the largest food fraud case in U.S. history had to do with adulterated honey imported primarily from China, and bottled and sold by American honey packers. Assurances that Drizzle’s honey really is honey is of great value to careful consumers.

“Raw, unheated and unfiltered” are substantive terms that are better defined, and may indeed translate into better tasting and more healthful honey. “Raw” simply means the honey is as found in a bee hive. After being removed from the hive, raw honey hasn’t been heated or heavily filtered, although it may be strained to take out debris and air bubbles. Most commercial honeys are processed with both heating and filtering, and Drizzle’s marketing appeals to consumers who believe that raw honey has more taste and heightened health properties compared to processed honey.

Heating drives off some of the aromatic compounds that give each honey its distinctive taste and smell, and so consumers eating raw honey will have a more flavorful experience. Filtering does remove pollen, and while honey is not full of pollen, it does contain some unless it’s been highly filtered, and that pollen may contribute to the taste and nutritional quality of the honey.

Health claims around raw honey are difficult to prove, but the rationale for raw honey being healthier is that it contains minerals, enzymes, vitamins and antioxidants, nutrients that are reduced or eliminated when honey is heated and filtered. Here we run into the conundrum that characterizes many claims for bee products: there’s not been a lot of rigorous science directly linking honey and health, but there is considerable folk wisdom and passionate believers in the healthful qualities of raw honey.

As to gluten free: well, that’s just clever marketing. Honey doesn’t contain gluten, unless it’s been contaminated. The Drizzle marketeers are recognizing a fad among many of today’s consumers who avoid gluten, not only because of celiac disease but also due to an allergy or sensitivity. And Drizzle also points out that their honey is non-GMO, a term that reassures consumers concerned about genetically modified organisms.

Drizzle also attracts another particular swath of consumers, those for whom “local” and “sustainable” are important. It’s a Canadian company, and they make a point of advertising that their honey is “Canadian Made,” and carries a sustainable designation by the Certified B corporation that certifies products that “meet the highest standards of social and environmental impact.” The details of what Drizzle considers sustainable beekeeping are vague on their website, but include honey sourced from “honey pastures” that are remote, and away from pesticides.

Drizzle is also certified Kosher, which opens up an additional market. A niche, perhaps, but yet another example of how certification to attract a specific clientele can add to the sales potential of a product.

Their final level of certification is as a female founded and run enterprise, with two certifiers, WBE Canada and Women owned. Beekeeping in general has seen an increasing frequency of women involved at all levels over the last few decades, a trend worth celebrating, and again a profile for Drizzle viewed favorably by a specific set of consumers.

Drizzle has not only taken the artisanal route in the honey they market, but made the decision to brand their honey away from the general market and towards specific, albeit still broad, subsets of consumers. Their brand may turn off some sets of consumers, but is highly attractive to those who are health and sustainability conscious, gluten avoiders, and those favorable to gender equality. Drizzle’s advertising appeals to all these segments.

Of course, their honey will ultimately rise or fall on quality. Marketing may stimulate the first purchase, but at the high price point their honey retails at, it’s going to have to satisfy more than just friendliness towards their brand. Drizzle’s Golden Brand honey sells online at $13.40 (U.S.)/lb., considerably pricier than most non-specialty retail honeys in the United States.

So how tasty is Drizzle honey? Well, it’s pretty darned good, flavorful and aromatic. I ordered their Golden and White honeys, both of which arrived crystallized, with nicely designed labels, and with flavor-specific suggestions for pairing with other foods. The White is “a floral, delicate raw honey that is buttery in texture and perfectly paired with fresh, light flavours of fruit, lattes, and warm bread.” The Golden is a “rich, bold, raw honey perfectly paired with daring flavours like hot sauce, aged cheese or a cup of strong coffee.”

Apparently others agree. Drizzle now has 650 retailers across Canada, has been profiled in numerous print outlets from airline to food magazines and was successful at attracting an investment from Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson.
Drizzle offers a pathway for those who want to get off the treadmill of industrially produced honey, and on to the slower but perhaps as profitable a market for artisanal honey with an identified brand.

Think about it: What’s special about your honey, and how can you add value through focused marketing? Honey, after all, is way more than just a carrier for sugars. Let’s make honey the high-end product it deserves to be.

Mark L. Winston is a Professor and Senior Fellow at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue. His most recent books have won numerous awards, including a Governor General’s Literary Award for Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive, and an Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal for Listening to the Bees, co-authored with poet Renee Sarojini Saklikar.

Well, it’s complicated.
Try this. Go to the established bee book of your choice and look up supplemental feeding. Be prepared for some extensive reading. Since I’m writing for Bee Culture magazine, I went to ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture. The supplemental feeding section in the new text is exhaustive – as it would be in most beekeeping textbooks. As is always the case in all-things beekeeping – if you have a lot of options – then the absolute best way for performing the task at hand has not been fully chosen. Supplemental feeding of bee colonies certainly fits that bill. There are presently many proven ways to feed bee colonies.

But it’s not natural
Supplemental bee feeding is little more than beekeeper-assisted robbing. I suggest that foragers taking sugar syrup from a feeder have little in common with that same forager imbibing nectar from an apple blossom. “But Jim, feeding procedures are in every bee book.” All beekeepers do it. Bees obviously love it. All those comments are true and feeding serves a good management purpose, but it’s a beekeeper-developed task and is not practiced by bees in nature. I sense that is why there are so many varied techniques for supplementally feeding needy bee colonies. There is no best way to feed bee colonies.

(Crudely) Estimating colony strength
First, does a colony even need feeding? “Hefting” the colony is a common but easy way to check your colonies relative food stores. If you tip your colony forward, and it feels as though it is nailed down, it probably has good supplies of honey stores. It should be dead heavy. If the colony tips easily, even if it is sitting on a firm hive stand, the colony will surely need extra food stores. At this point, the “north beekeeping vs. southern beekeeping” issue becomes important. Bees can generally be fed during most cool months in the southern and southwestern U.S., but not so much in colder climates.

Figure 1 Sometimes, bad luck just happens. Years ago, a late season Winter squall made it difficult for bees to use my syrup feeders. Happily, most survived.

In more northern locations, bees will be clustered much more during the cold season so they will not be able to leave the cluster to visit a Winter feeder. Feeding wintering bee colonies – anywhere – is a last-ditch desperation procedure. In warm areas, the feed must be continuously present. In colder climates, the bees can’t consume the feed on many days. Going into Winter with colonies light in stores is never the best management procedure but all nectar flows are not necessarily great flows. Even for the best beekeepers, sometimes late season colonies are lightweight. That’s when beekeepers can help.

Supplement bee food options
Honey in the comb
Honey in the comb is the best emergency food for hungry colonies. Obviously, few of us have significant amounts of reserved honey in the comb. But if perchance, it is available and disrupting the colony as little as possible, place full honey frames near the cluster. Ideally, the day should be warm so the bees could move to the honey. If the day is cold, be sure not to break the cluster.

Liquid honey
At first consideration, it usually makes very little sense to extract honey and then feed it back to the bees, but there are occasional instances. In my personal experience, the following event has happened to me several times. I acquired full deep-frames of honey from Winter-killed colonies. In truth, the colonies were Winter mite-killed colonies, but regardless, I had honey remaining in combs. I wanted the old honey removed from the combs so I could reuse them; therefore, I did all the extracting work and acquired honey that I did not want to use for human consumption. So, I acquired several buckets of usable but not high-quality honey (by my standards).

Figure 2 An old photo of a homemade top
feeder used to feed diluted honey back to bees.

Why not just sell it for animal feed use? Why not use it in cooking? Why not strain and filter it, then blend it with better honey? Yes, all these suggestions are viable options, but in theory, I am only selling this substandard honey to acquire money that I will then use to buy granulated sugar.

(I hope I don’t get a lot of unhappy mail for the brief discussion that follows.) Much like the comment I make in the following section on corn syrup, a full discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this general article, but a few comments seem appropriate.

Anytime re-feeding honey is discussed, there is always a stern warning attached that American foulbrood or other viral infections could be transmitted when feeding honey from unknown sources. While I have read that warning hundreds of times, I cannot cite a single instance where it was conclusively documented to have happened. Not a single one. But, yes, technically, it could happen.

In my case, I know the honey source and foulbrood was not the issue that killed the colonies. General recommendations suggest that the honey be cut about 30% with hot water, mixed and fed back to the bees in quantities that the colony can consume overnight. My bees loved it.

Having written all of this, honey stores refed from Winter-killed colonies is not a good way to accumulate feed for hungry bees. But new packages will surely appreciate the food boost.

Corn syrup
Corn syrup is a common carbohydrate supplemental feed for bees. It requires no mixing and seemingly is a nutritious honey substitute and is available from bee supply sources. However, some formulations of corn syrup have become suspect when used as Winter food sources. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is frequently fed to bees but concerned discussion has been directed toward that artificial feed. Some of you like it, some of you don’t1. Maybe in future articles, we can more fully discuss this concern.

Sugar syrup
For beekeepers with a small number of colonies, feeding common table sugar is the traditional bee feed. For Winter feed, mix two parts granulated sugar to one part water by either weight or by volume. Heating the mixture will help it go into a more concentrated solution. The exact ratio of sugar to water is not particularly critical. But always remember that it is the sugar – not the water – that the bees need as a food source. If you scrimp – scrimp on water and not sugar.

Granulated sugar can be fed dry. It is simply mounded around the inner cover hand hole – most likely poured on a sheet of newspaper. Bees move up, gather the sugar, mix it with water, and use it as an immediate food source. If bees can’t fly to water, they can (apparently) use a small amount of metabolic water produced by bees in the hive, but in general, if feeding dry sugar, bees should have ready access to water.

Figure 3 Bees feeding on granulated sugar that was poured on the inner cover.

Fondant
Earlier in my beekeeping youth, in the beekeeping literature, there were common procedures for making candy boards or for making fondant to feed bees. Such procedures, as I recall, required cooking the mixture, mixing cream of tartar and possibly some vinegar. It was a significant task. I don’t recall ever doing it a single time. It was just too easy to feed sugar syrup.
Always searching for easier ways, in later years, I approached a commercial bakery supply. Not knowing what product for which I was searching, I asked the baker for a sugar paste much like that found in the center of Oreo® cookies. I clearly recall the supplier saying, “Oh, you want something like Karps2 bakery fondant.” I bought a box of it. The bees seemed fine with it. In later years, this specific product name was changed, but I have still been able to purchase commercial fondant. You will need to find your own local source. In a few somewhat rare instances, feeding solidified sugar paste could be a useful procedure.

What common feeder device to use?
All feeders are positioned either inside the hive or outside the hive. There are numerous designs of feeders, but none are perfect. Most of these devices have about as many advantages as disadvantages. You decide.

Bulk feeders

Figure 4 An Assortment of Feeders

Bulk feeders can be used to open-feed bees. So far as I know, no bulk feeders are commercially available. Many years ago, I cut a 55-gallon drum in half, the long way and improvised two large troughs. Using wheat straw as floats, I quickly fed large amounts of sugar to the colonies in my yard – and to countless other neighborhood colonies that also found the source.

Sugar feed, usually syrup, is simply put in open containers in the bee yard for the bees to gather themselves. The weather must be warm and flight conditions must be good. While easy to implement, this procedure encourages robbing and fighting among the foraging bees. There is also a risk of disease and pest spread. And finally, you are feeding all the bees in the community – not just yours – when using this system. While the procedure worked for me and was simple, I did not use the system very often.

I know commercial beekeepers who have used this procedure, but it is not the best methods for those of us – like me – who are keeping smaller numbers of colonies in urban apiaries.

Figure 5 Foragers taking feed from an open source. I cannot recommend this procedure.

The classic Boardman Feeder
All beekeepers seem to have one of these gadgets. They are a right-of-passage device for beginning beekeepers. It is used at the hive entrance, and is the most convenient, but least effective of the hive feeders; however, this simple feeder is a good device for new beekeepers to use. The drawback is that wintering bees must walk too far to gather the syrup. Another disadvantage is that leaking Boardman feeders entice robbers to the entrance of the needy colony. You can easily use these devices but be forewarned.

The typical division board feeder
The division board feeder is an internal feeder that gets food nearer to the cluster but often too many bees drown in the feeder; plus, the bees must have warm weather to make the trip to the feeder. The division board feeder can be located essentially anywhere in the hive, but generally the feeder is put at the wall of the hive, where it can be easily filled.

Hive top feeders
Beekeepers, in many ways, this is the best device to use. It has a fairly large capacity and is easily filled. It is readily available to inside bees, and if used during cool months, it is close to the cluster. Several designs are available from commercial supply companies or top feeders can be made in the shop.

I have found that an empty hive top feeder can be a place where burr combs are put for bees to clean them. Also, these empty feeders can be used for storing things like empty queen cages, matches or your hive tool.
A quirk of leaving the empty hive top feeder on the hive is that the bee restricting mechanism should be removed to allow the bees into the feeder basin to chase away ants, earwigs, roaches, or small hive beetles that would otherwise occupy the empty top feeder.

Figure 6 An old photo of a classic Boardman feeder.

A unique variation of the hive top feeder, that I like, is a unit that puts the feeder on top of the outer cover. The bees take the syrup from the feeder through a hole in the outer cover. The plastic feeder attaches to the outer cover with an attachment device where it can be easily viewed and removed for filling without disturbing the bees.

Chicken or bird watering devices
Variations on chicken or quail watering devices can be used to feed bees. While the typical device holds approximately two quarts, and bees readily use it, I have found that forager bees get inside the device as it empties. Dumping the bees from the container agitates them.

Comb filling procedures
Using a new hand compression sprayer commonly used for applying pesticides, sugar syrup can be sprayed into open combs. When sugar-syrup-filled combs are put back into the hungry colony, the syrup is quickly gathered, concentrated, and reprocessed into food stores or is immediately consumed.

Figure 7 A telescoping hive top with attached feeder.

This is one sticky, messy task, but the supplemental feed in combs can be put near the bees. Any syrup not quickly consumed will crystallize, but the bees can still use some of the sugar crystals. Like several other feeding methods, this procedure works, but I rarely use it now. I have too many other options available to me.
For many years, a major bee supply company manufactured a gasoline-powered comb filler, but the device can now only be found as a secondhand device or at bee equipment auctions. Yes, it too was messy and expensive, but it worked.

Some final thoughts and comments
Mold
Many feeder containers will begin to support mold growth after a few uses. While this mold is (apparently) not harmful to the bees, it will plug feeder holes and is unsightly. It is annoying to clean but is a common side effect of feeding carbohydrates to bees.

Controlling the syrup flow rate
Whatever container you decide to use must have a firmly seated lid. Essentially, the upturned jar/container forms a vacuum that allows the syrup to drip or to flow very slowly. If feeder holes are too large (the diameter of a common frame nail seems about right) or the lid is not firmly seated, syrup will drain out too fast and flow out the front of the hive or drip through the screen bottom board. Robbing becomes a problem.

Allowing the bees to propolize the feeder holes closed
After the bees have emptied the feeder container, I leave it on the colony. Within just a few days, the bees will propolize the holes closed. The next time I use the feeder, I only open enough of the holes to allow syrup to flow at a controlled rate. If I want to provide a heavy flow from the container, I will punch more holes open.

It’s not a perfect procedure
Spring feeding is normally practiced for stimulation and brood production. It’s easier than Winter feeding. Feeding bees for survival is always a desperation procedure. At best, colonies will be kept alive but don’t expect them to thrive. If possible, when preparing colonies for Winter, leave abundant honey stores on the hive for the colony to use. All too often, beekeepers spend time, energy and money on desperate Winter bee feeding procedures only to have the colony die anyway. It is far better to go into Winter with the colony prepared than to attempt long-term feeding – no matter what your climatic conditions are.

Feeding protein
I am out of article space here but feeding protein should be acknowledged in this piece. Pollen supplements are commercially available and are significantly helpful. But feeding protein is not like feeding carbohydrates. This process needs its own discussion at another time. Protein feeding is just one more task for the worried beekeeper.

Thank you
As usual, if you are reading this “thank you,” you are a persistent beekeeper. I appreciate your time and any comments you might have on your experiences. Thank you for reading.

In the “girl-boss” dystopia that is the honey bee colony, drones are the dopey, do-nothings that are at best an annoyance, or at worst the signs of disorder and amplifier of parasites. Unlike the workers, queens, or even larvae, drones have no utility in the day-to-day operations of the honey bee colony. In fact, the boys have only a single, shamefully obvious task—to propagate their mother’s (usually the queen) genes to the next generation, flying en masse to mate with any virgin queen they can catch. This task is fatal to the drones, so even the fulfillment of this single job proves overwhelming. To make matters worse, honey bees are highly polyandrous, with several different drones mating with each queen. Therefore, the final fate of the honey bee male is to exist solely as a tiny proportion of stored spermatozoa to be meted out by the queen in the formation of future workers, themselves sterile dead ends, which busily contribute to colony growth, provisioning, and development. It is the rarest drone that will become a grandfather – siring a queen – and successfully pass his genes to the next generation.

Figure 1: Measuring drones is conceptually
identical to how we measure queens. Body size measures are made using a microscope and a scale. We measure head and thorax width, and whole body and thoracic mass. Reproductive
potential is measured both with morphometrics: seminal vesicle and mucus gland length, and by measuring sperm count and viability using
fluorescent microscopy.

I was trained in beekeeping as part of my graduate work on chemical communication among larvae and adults. Drones were a nuisance; we pulled comb and froze the boys in their cells to minimize Varroa. Once, in a fit of bravado induced by an errant internet search, we fried the brood and served them at a party (they tasted like sweetened vegetable oil). So, when I started working for Dr. David Tarpy at NC State and the first project proposed was on the evaluation of drone reproductive health, my first thought was—“why?!” In my mind, these disposable social gametes were as unremarkable as a single spermatozoan, which (despite any Monty Python songs that might be evoked) are generally more interesting in aggregate than individually. Nevertheless, upon joining the Honey Bee Queen & Disease Clinic, I was tasked with doing for drones what Dr. Tarpy and colleagues had previously done for queens (see Tarpy et al., 2012 or my own prior article in this magazine): establish a measure of reproductive quality and variation to develop a national-level database so that we can begin to understand how and why drones vary, and the consequences of this for the queen and colony.
The first thing I had to get over was the idea that the production of drones was, in and of itself, pathological. In my myopic viewpoint, I neglected to consider that while yes, a colony that is anarchical or headed by an aging or poorly mated queen will produce an excess of drones, producing a seasonally appropriate number of drones is a sign of a colony doing well, growing sufficiently well so that it can commit to reproduction! Typically, a healthy colony will produce around 10% of their brood as drones, with that proportion increasing prior to swarming season (reviewed in Boes, 2010). However, colony size also plays a factor, as we learned (anew) that smaller colonies will neither rear nor foster drones. A colony that refuses to produce drones is likely not a colony that is in good shape. Drone production by healthy colonies plays into the second factor that I needed to understand, the overall ecology of the mating environment. Very few operations in the U.S. perform instrumental insemination at scale. That means that the million-plus queens produced commercially each year are largely mating on the wing, with little to no input from the breeders. That means whatever characteristics we want in the workers must be added indirectly by raising colonies for drone production (i.e., large, healthy colonies) that have desirable characteristics and that those drones are successful in mating. But which drones are successful?! Also, what are the characteristics of a successful drone for the traits we want in a daughter colony? That’s a thornier question.
For a drone to successfully mate, they typically need to be LARGE. The research on this usually compares drones reared in drone cells to those reared in worker cells to create a bimodal (two humped) size distribution to show that small drones produce less sperm, are less likely to successfully mate, and tend to sire a lower-than-expected proportion of the worker population (reviewed in Gençer and Kahya, 2020). So bigger is better, right? We-ell, not necessarily, since smaller workers appear to exhibit differential flight behaviors consistent with different mating strategies or life histories (see Couvillon et al., 2010), suggesting the little guys might have other plans. Also, because siring workers is a genetic dead end, the real prize is siring a queen, and it’s not necessarily the father of the most workers that succeeds there. In fact, rather than nepotistically rear their own super sisters, workers tend to select larvae from relatively rare patrilines to become queens (see Withrow & Tarpy 2018 for a recent example). Therefore, maybe size isn’t the only metric important for drones. Certainly, we know from sampling throughout the country that drones adapted to the climate in the southwest tend to be smaller, although no less fecund, than their more northern brethren and they seem to do just fine. That then leaves the other main characteristic of import for a drone: their sperm.

Figure 2: Impact of drones. Measuring drones and the impact of modern mechanized agriculture on their fertility is important for its own end, and to understand potential threats to male reproductive in general. However, the more proximal importance is for understanding how drone quality impacts queen through sperm with lower longevity or other subtle problems.

Since his sperm will far outlive the adult drone, sperm viability at ejaculation and their longevity in the queen are the prime traits which we study. Knowing that a queen spends a ridiculously meager two spermatozoa per egg, lays something like 2,000 eggs a day at peak, we know that to keep the queen laying for the year, we’d want something like 1.5 million sperm (numbers from Baer et al., 2016). Since the average queen from our Queen Clinic database stores about five million sperm, that should give a queen a theoretical lifespan of around four years, if sperm count were the only determinant in her longevity. However, only about 85% of those sperm are viable on average, and since we largely measure queens shortly after production, that’s a big hit to a queen’s stores right off the bat. Thus, it’s incumbent to understand the factors that affect sperm during storage so that this number doesn’t drop even lower.
Even with the best intentions, I still tend to only think about drones in the context of the wider superorganism. But how important are the drones to the colony? It’s unclear how much the health of the drone impacts the health of the stored sperm –which is what we really care about. It’s commonly thought that only live sperm will make it into the spermatheca, so the quality of the drone shouldn’t matter. Although there’s a paucity of data on this, an interesting study by Kairo et al., (2016) showed that drones who were exposed to fipronil exhibited signs of reduced sperm quality but also passed those declines on to the queen. This means that poisoned drones probably provide sperm with a lower shelf life! The laundry list of things that can impact drone reproductive potential is huge (reviewed most recently in Rangel and Fisher, 2019) and all are familiar to anyone in beekeeping today (e.g. parasites, pesticides, temperature fluctuation and disease). The challenge now is to more firmly draw the line from effects on drones to effects on the queen and colony. The prevailing theory I’m therefore operating under, while building this database of drone quality, is that drones can be a prior-generation red flag—the rose bush in the vineyard that will enable us to detect potential problems with reproduction before they have a chance to impact the next generation’s queens. The next steps involve testing drones stressed in various ways and following those drones through the mating process into the next generation.
I want to learn more about drones. The nation-wide database we’ve built at the Clinic has set a baseline for the expected size, reproductive potential and the relationship between the two. We must now learn what disrupts that relationship, what impact that has on colony health and reproduction and what levers we possess to manipulate it. I wish I’d have an answer, but I only have a long list of questions. One of the greatest aspects of the Clinic from my perspective is that I’m not asking questions in an ivory tower; when I interface with beekeepers, it’s their ideas, questions, and perspectives I develop. I then explore those questions until we can learn more about what these little boys are made of after all.

Figure 3: Colony variation in drones. Colonies vary significantly in the size and reproductive quality of the drones they produce. While this has well-established impacts on the competitive abilities of drones, it’s unclear whether smaller, less fertile drones represent a pathological colony condition, differential reproductive choice, or simply random variation. Though we tend to think larger drones means better drones, the best advice we can give the beekeeper is to ensure that there are plenty
of drones flying and trust the natural mating process to sort things out. These data are reported on more fully in Metz & Tarpy, 2021.

Acknowledgments: This work in progress was funded by the California State Beekeepers Association, the USDA, and is supported by beekeeper clients of the NC State Queen & Disease Clinic.

Contact Bradley Metz at bnmetz@ncsu.edu

References
Baer, B., Collins, J., Maalaps, K., & den Boer, S. P. A. (2016). Sperm use economy of honeybee (Apis mellifera) queens. Ecology and Evolution, 6(9), 2877–2885. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2075
Boes, K. E. (2010). Honey bee colony drone production and maintenance in accordance with environmental factors: an interplay of queen and worker decisions. Insectes Sociaux, 57(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-009-0046-9
Couvillon, M. J., Hughes, W. O. H., Perez-Sato, J. A., Martin, S. J., Roy, G. G. F., & Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2010). Sexual selection in honey bees: colony variation and the importance of size in male mating success. Behavioral Ecology, 21(3), 520–525. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arq016
Kairo, G., Provost, B., Tchamitchian, S., Abdelkader, F. ben, Bonnet, M., Cousin, M., Sénéchal, J., Benet, P., Kretzschmar, A., Belzunces, L. P., & Brunet, J.-L. (2016). Drone exposure to the systemic insecticide Fipronil indirectly impairs queen reproductive potential. Scientific Reports, 6(31904). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep31904
Rangel, J., & Fisher, A. (2019). Factors affecting the reproductive health of honey bee (Apis mellifera) drones—a review. Apidologie, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-019-00684-x
Metz, B. N., and D. R. Tarpy. (2021). Reproductive and Morphological Quality of Commercial Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Drones in the United States. J. Insect Sci. 21: 2–3. https://doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieab048
Gençer, H. V., & Kahya, Y. (2020). Sperm competition in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.): the role of body size dimorphism in drones. Apidologie, 51, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-019-00699-4
Tarpy, D. R., Keller, J. J., Caren, J. R., & Delaney, D. A. (2012). Assessing the mating “health” of commercial honey bee queens. J. Econ. Entomol, 105(1), 20–25. https://doi.org/10.1603/EC11276
Withrow, J. M., & Tarpy, D. R. (2018). Cryptic “royal” subfamilies in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. PLoS ONE, 13(7), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199124