Sustainable Beekeepers Guild of Michigan - Page

In case you missed the live webinar, SBGMI Members may now access the presentation from Lloyd Street Bees on the "Bawden Assay."

You can find the posted video here: https://sbgmi.org/membership-meeting-video

A 2026 COLOSS study confirms what SBGMI has already been observing through its own surveys and member engagement: beekeepers no longer learn through one dominant pathway. Age, experience, education level, and region shape where beekeepers seek information. This validates SBGMI’s hybrid education model, combining surveys, practical field tools, online learning, social media, virtual meetings, and research-based management guidance to reach beekeepers where they actually are.

🐝🐝A new open access article from COLOSS Association, in 's Journal, JAR, has been publised, with very interesting informaiton on HOW BEEKEEPERS collect information!
👉The COLOSS B-RAP (Bridging Research and Practice) group, a Core Project of the COLOSS (prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes) honey bee research association, studies the means for the effective transfer of the latest beekeeping knowledge from scientists and extension workers to practising beekeepers. The study covered 71 countries and received 11,351 responses, mainly from Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America. See more results here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2026.2635698
Taylor & Francis

SBGMI Subscribed Members may now access exclusive email and text notifications for swarms in their selected radius.

Sign up, set your reporting area, and benefit from the 1000's of calls we field per year. Yes, 1000's - bees, mason bees, yellow jackets, bumbles - it is so fun!

Sometimes there is an actual swarm!

Go here: https://sbgmi.org/beeswarmed-swarm-retrieval-list

Celebrate the season with our Sunday flash sale and enjoy a store-wide discount on your favorite items. Take advantage of the deal and save on products, workshops, or membership.

http://www.sbgmi.org/shop

We have more Pin Killed Brood kits back in stock and moving fast.

SBGMI members save an additional $10 click here: https://sbgmi.org/sbgmi-pin-killed-brood-kit-discount

Order the tool here: https://sbgmi.org/product/sbgmipkbkit

Learn more here: https://www.sbgmi.org/pkbinfo

Learn more at the product link and read helpful articles and videos.

Stevens Bee Co. Exclusive SBGMI Member Discount! - https://mailchi.mp/sbgmi/sbc26sbgmigrouporders

Exclusive SBGMI member deal. Save 14% off Missouri Mite Hunter Queens from Stevens Bee Company.

SBGMI members are encouraged to coordinate group orders to save on shipping and get an incredible deal. Hurry though, this will only be good through May 10th, 2026.

Click here for instructions: https://sbgmi.org/stevens-bee-co-discount-code

Spring mite counts can look the same don’t be fooled.

This graph represents data from papers on the subject matter, and there is nuance that is important to understand. Phenotype (observed curve) vs. mechanism (why that curve exists). Survivor colonies don’t just “resist” mites; they interrupt them - so it is essential to understand that though it looks like an optimal outcome, it is not necessarily viable for managed populations. This is why the mission to select exists.

• Susceptible: mites explode with uninterrupted brood
• Resistant: growth suppressed by hygienic and reproductive traits
• Survivor: growth constrained primarily by brood breaks (swarming)

Here’s the part people miss:
Low spring mites don’t mean “healthy.” They mean you haven’t measured the trajectory yet.

If you’re selecting for resistance or going treatment-free, monitoring isn’t optional it’s the only way to see:

which colonies actually suppress mite growth
which ones are just coasting on winter reset
which colonies 'survive' simply because you do nothing - and they swarm the mites away
and which ones are already on a collapse curve

You’re not measuring mites to treat.
You’re measuring mites to select.

The difference isn’t where they start.
It’s how fast they grow.

Thomas D. Seeley (2015) The Lives of Bees; Seeley et al. (2017) – Arnot Forest population dynamics
Ingemar Fries et al. (2006) – Gotland “Bond Project” (natural selection under Varroa)
Robert Danka, Thomas Rinderer et al. – Russian honey bee resistance studies (USDA)
Ralph Büchler et al. (2010–2020) – European resistance breeding programs
Stephen J. Martin (1998–2019) – Varroa population dynamics and reproduction

Clearly, we are having chronological difficulties. We have sent three date corrections for this webinar - and the fingers are moving faster than the brains....

Trevor Bawden, Lloyd Street Bees, will be presenting on a new Varroa sampling and VSH assay called the Bawden assay. The assay was developed by Trevor and provides an extremely quick, cost effective and easy method for accurate Varroa and mite resistance sampling that requires very little training. This novel assay utilizes the Varroa infestation in capped brood as a key detection tool for Varroa resistant queen breeders.

The assay was field trialed alongside the traditional mite wash, the Harbo VSH assay and the uncap/recap assay. He will show how the assay stacks up against the competition with the field data Trevor and his team collected.

Register for free here: https://sbgmi.org/product/a-better-method-for-breeding-selection-and-varroa-sampling-with-trevor-bawden

The Results Are In! Meet the 25 Apiaries Joining the PKB Testing Network 🐝 - https://mailchi.mp/sbgmi/pkb-grant-nqi-winners