Progress report for SPDP24-030
Project Information
The goal of this project is to mitigate the unsustainable die-offs of honey bee colonies every year by fostering a local supply of queens and starter colonies for regional beekeepers. By training Master Beekeepers in collaboration with the state beekeeper’s association on basic and advanced queen-rearing techniques, we will enable participants to take advantage of the economic opportunities of supplying locally sourced queens. It is well known that honey bees are indispensable to agriculture through their pollination services, and that their colonies are witnessing unsustainable mortality every year. One major factor in this crisis is the reduced longevity of queens, stemming in part from the lack of a supply in locally produced queens, nucleus colonies, and packages. Training numerous small-scale, local queen producers will help reduce colony mortality because of poor queens that are better adapted to local environments (rather than being produced and shipped from states like HI and CA). Developing numerous “microbreeders” within the region will provide new economic opportunities in agriculture, improve the overall health of the honey bee population, help secure our needs for pollination, and stimulate a new niche economy to bolster a challenged beekeeping community and apiculture industry.
The goal of this project is to mitigate the unsustainable die-offs of honey bee colonies every year by fostering a local supply of queens and starter colonies for regional beekeepers. It is well established that first-year colony survival is much higher for those started from small nucleus colonies (“nucs”) compared to traditional methods (e.g., packaged bees). The major bottleneck in being able to supply new nucs is the production of queens, which are typically produced by large-scale operations out of state. By training Master Beekeepers in collaboration with the state beekeeper’s association on basic and advanced queen-rearing techniques will enable participants to take advantage of the economic opportunities of supplying locally sourced queens, thereby improving colony success and ensuring a more reliable population of managed pollinators.
- Objective 1: offer initial training for would-be queen producers through our online Beekeeper Education & Engagement System (BEES) to recruit intermediate and advanced beekeepers taking part in the NC State Beekeepers Association’s Master Beekeeper Program (MPB), specifically incorporating English as a Second Language (ESL) communities;
- Objective 2: in collaboration with the NCSBA ‘Born & Bred’ initiative, conduct numerous queen-rearing workshops for participants in Objective 1 and other beekeepers in basic hands-on techniques so that they can raise their own local queens and not depend on stock from outside the state;
- Objective 3: deliver advanced short courses (‘BEES Academies’) focusing on how to improve overwintering success so that beekeepers can create their own “nucleus” colonies to promote the supply of local honey bees every year with the potential to grow into businesses;
- Objective 4: hold high-level, multi-day, bee-breeding clinics for a selected population of sideliner queen producers to train them in basic genetic selection, business plan development, and breeding theory in order for them to create sustainable microbreeding operations.
Cooperators
- - Technical Advisor (Educator)
- - Technical Advisor - Producer
- - Technical Advisor
- - Producer
- - Producer
Education
Objective 1: we will develop an online curriculum in the biology
and management of queen production using existing and new
materials. We will then advertise and recruit through the NCSBA,
our own social media platforms, and NCCES. We will then conduct a
winter online “bee school” using the ‘flipped’ model popular in
virtual courses; students will have a period of time to view the
online content and assimilate the information on their own time,
then we will meet in real-time to discuss and answer questions.
To increase exposure and promote equity among non-English
speaking communities, we will have our lectures transcribed and
translated into Spanish. There are many Spanish-speaking
beekeepers and would-be beekeepers, but there are few extension
resources available for training and advancement. Given the
asynchronous platform of the BEES content, it is an ideal
platform for translational education for non-traditional
communities.
We will use standard metrics of the number of new beekeepers
enrolled, their average score on the post-training comprehensive
quiz, and percentage who committed to continuing their education
by enrolling in queen-rearing workshops. Our REPORTER
registration system and Moodle online teaching platform will
verify attendance and is easily quantifiable. The project has a
high likelihood of being self-sustaining, as our BEES courses are
fee-based and thus can provide a revenue stream for continuous
offerings.
Objective 2: we will provide hands-on training in the physical
rearing and management of queens so that Master Beekeepers and
program participants can incorporate into their beekeeping
operations in such a way that it can scale with operation size
(see above).
We will again use enrollment numbers as a proxy for success, as
well as follow-up surveys to estimate the number of trainees who
successfully reared queens in their own operations. Our baseline
by which we will measure success will be enrollments in the NCSBA
‘Born & Bred’ trainings over the last 5 years. Our target will be
to double the enrollment by the end of the first year, and to
enroll over 200% of the attendees from the average county bee
school.
Objective 3: we will have focused, multi-day, in-person trainings
with lecture and demonstration on how to not only sell locally
produced queens but to produce and sell local nucleus (starter)
colonies each with a new queen. Since first-year colony survival
is significantly higher for local nucs compared to packaged bees,
the demand is high for such a supply. The lessens will focus on
colony growth, parasite management, and overwintering success.
Since colonies that survive the winter (based on BMPs of the
above), they can generate 4-8 “splits” the following spring that
can be sold as nucleus starter hives. The bottleneck in doing so,
however, is that each will need a new queen, making the training
and experience from Objectives 1 and 2 necessary to complement
local sustainable nuc production.
We will calculate the total number of intermediate beekeepers who
take the training, and we will perform questionnaire surveys the
following spring to estimate the percent survival of their
colonies. We will do so by emailing each participant, following
up with phone calls for non-responses, then compare their
overwintering success to the state-wide survey results from the
Bee Informed Partnership (www.beeinformed.org).
Objective 4: for highly advanced participants, we will also hold
trainings on bee breeding (genetic selection) to improve traits
of interest and productivity in the local stock. Such emphasis
goes above and beyond simple propagation of queens but instead
implements selection and breeding techniques to make local queens
better adapted for local beekeeping conditions. This will help
improve the genetic health of the local population of honey bees
and reduce colony mortality. We will form a basis of bee breeding
through lectures on evaluation, breeding design, and genetic
theory. We will then finish with a practicum on basic genetic
selection, breeding practices, and business plan development so
that they can better implement their breeding efforts into
increased local queen- and nucleus supply.
Unlike those in Objectives 1-3, participants for the bee-breeding
clinics will be chosen by soliciting detailed applications that
require each to provide evidence of their current operations and
prior experience in queen rearing. As such, only larger-scale or
experienced beekeepers will be eligible to ensure that they are
capable of turning their operations into local queen-rearing
enterprises. Therefore, it is possible that we may not achieve
the targeted 15 beekeepers per year at these upper-level
trainings, but given this unique opportunity we suspect it to be
very popular. If we exceed that number of applicants, we will
automatically convene a selection committee of local and
out-of-state apiculturists to review all applications, including
the collaborators mentioned in the application. We will secure an
equal number of unaffiliated professionals to maintain
objectivity and avoid any potential personal bias. Our grading
rubric will be scored on factors such as years of experience,
prior queen rearing success, operation size, prior
tobacco-farming experience, and likelihood to succeed. We will
therefore select the top 10 scores to invite to participate.
We will establish a Facebook group of all microbreeders trained
in the bee-breeding clinics so that they may advertise their
availability of local queens, nucs, or both. We will advertise
the availability of this resource so that would-be customers can
coordinate with different queen producers through the site, then
use sale percentages as an economic indicator of success. We will
also monitor the economic livelihood and sustainability of the
different operations through quarterly online discussions of
progress and productivity, which will include anonymous surveys
of their queen and nuc sales, prices, and customer profiles. We
will also track the number of in-state beekeepers who are
authorized to provide queens or nucleus colonies through the NC
Department of Agriculture Apiary Inspection Service over the last
5 years. Our target will be to increase the number of local
suppliers of live queens or colonies by 30% by the end of the
project.
Education & Outreach Initiatives
Offer initial training for would-be queen producers through our online Beekeeper Education & Engagement System (BEES) to recruit intermediate and advanced beekeepers taking part in the NC State Beekeepers Association’s Master Beekeeper Program (MPB)
We held multiple offerings of an online beginner beekeeping course through our Beekeeper Education & Engagement System (BEES), serving 122 people in 2025. Our online BEES course was a "flipped" design, where individually watched the lectures asynchronously in their own time then convened virtually on Zoom with instructors to discuss what they have learned and provide an opportunity to ask questions.
All students passed their online quizzes, demonstrating effective knowledge transfer and understanding.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation summary:
Learning Outcomes
Project Outcomes
Through our extension trainings, we were able to impact beekeepers at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Our four objectives were fulfilled to help foster a local population of small-scale queen producers, making apiculture more sustainable and robust against changes in the national population declines.