Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are the most important managed pollinators in the world, including here in the United States. As generalist pollinators, honey bees are effective at pollinating many different plants. Each year, beekeepers truck their hives around the country to pollinate a variety of crops including almonds in California, watermelons in Texas, and cranberries in Wisconsin.
Over the past two decades, beekeepers have been experiencing high rates of colony losses with the 2024-2025 season hitting a record high of 62% of US colonies dying. The cause of these losses is likely a combination of factors including parasitic mites, viruses, poor nutrition, and exposure to pesticides. In any other managed livestock system, veterinary care would be available to help address the health of these animals. Unfortunately, vet care for honey bees is severely lacking with most veterinarians receiving no training in honey bee medicine.
Here at the University of Wisconsin, we want to change that. In collaboration with our colleagues at Michigan State University and the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association, we received a grant to start training veterinary students and veterinarians in honey bee medicine. Starting in 2025, we offered a one week, hands-on course in honey bee medicine for students at the UW vet school and a one day field day for veterinarians.
To better serve the needs of the Wisconsin veterinary medicine community, we are also conducting a needs assessment to better understand how we can provide appropriate resources and training for Wisconsin veterinarians related to honey bee medicine. If you are a veterinarian in Wisconsin, please take a few minutes to complete our survey which is being administered by Michigan State University.
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Hannah Gaines Day (hgaines@wisc.edu), Research Scientist, Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.