PolliNation Podcast

Starting to keep bees can be overwhelming. To help you get started we have two Oregon Master Beekeepers answer the 10 most common questions that beginners ask. 

Michael O'Loughlin and his family farm a total of 200 acres in Yamhill County. The O'Loughlin Farms and garden is a private research station tracking onsite precipitation, testing slug biocontrol, and studying beetle predation and Northwestern garter and ringneck populations. Michael has been a Master Gardener since 2014 and Oregon Bee Atlas since 2018. Since then, he has mentored new Master Garde...

With people either reving up to start or spruce up their pollinator garden, we sat down with a local nursery owner about some of the plants he most recommends for bloom across the year.

This week we hear how Soil and Water Conservation Districts are working to establish cost-effective and pollinator habitat on County roadsides. 

Honey bees and native social bees are important crop pollinators and key parts of healthy native plant ecology. However, it's very difficult to examine how these groups of bees interact in the floral landscape. In this episode, we discuss competition between bumble bees and honey bees in an landscape where they are both native, the UK, to uncover what influences they have on each other and the flo...

Japanese beetle is a devastating exotic pest. Eradication efforts are underway across the US, including in Oregon. We hear about what is involved with eradication and how it can be done in a way that minimizes impacts to pollinators.

Managed solitary bees have been a part of crop pollination in the Western US for decades, particularly in alfalfa seed production. But over the last decade, the use of these bees has expanded. We look at the recent expansion and where it might lead in this episode.

Renting a honey bee colony for pollination seems simple enough, but frequently colonies are contracted months before pollination and a lot can go wrong from the time a contract is inked to when bees are delivered. In this episode we take a deep dive into the fascinating world of beekeepers, growers and pollination brokers.

Gardens are increasingly appearing in schools. In this episode we learn about strategies to use these gardens to introduce pollinators into school curriculum. 

There is an almost inexhaustible amount of options for pollinator gardens. But this can not only be a cause for invigoration, but also confusion. This episode will set you straight on how to take your pollinator garden to the next level.

Carolyn Breece and Ellen Topitzhofer support the field research of the OSU Honey Bee Lab. Together they manage the lab's 80 research and educational colonies, preparing them for experiments, and collecting data. They also teach classes and workshops to community beekeepers, OSU undergraduates, and Oregon Master Beekeeper participants.

There have been two exciting developments with Oregon Flora. The first is vol 2 of the flora, which includes an amazing section on Oregon pollinators. The second is there new website, which allows you to do amazing searches for Oregon plant communities.

Honey bee queens are durable insects, but new research shows that the sperm they store can become quickly degraded by temperature extremes.

Pan traps are one of the key methods for surveying for native bees. They are cheap and easy to use, and they aren't subject to the collector bias of studies that rely on netting. This week we hear about the limitations associated with using pan traps. 

Washington contended with two invasive insects in 2020. The first is well-known, Asian Giant Hornet, but the second less so, the common eastern bumble bee.  We caught up with the Washington Department of Agriculture for an update on both insects. 

It was hard to keep track of developments in bee health in 2020 because so much else was going on. In this episode we catch-you-up with a guest who wrote a post per day for since January showcasing what was new in bee health. 

The Washington State Legislature just received a set of ground-breaking recommendations on pollinator health from the state's Pollinator Health Task Force. In this episode we hear about what is being recommended and the next steps towards addressing those recommendations.

Stem nesting bees like mason bees are particularly amenable to being introduced to distant lands. In this episode we hear about research looking into the impact of these introductions on native bee populations.

Devastating wildfires ravaged Western states this summer. In this episode we find out what is known about the effect of forest fires on bees, how bees respond to the land ravaged by fire and how you can help bees while also protecting your property from future fires.

US beekeepers have been struggling to manage varroa mites for over 30 years. Our guest discusses why a solution to varroa has been so elusive and what it would take to finally turn the corner with varroa over the next decade.

In this episode we learn about an initiative in Texas that engages thousands of families in education around pollinators, headed by the National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC) and Prairie View A&M University. 

We have a very dim picture of the flowers bees collect pollen from. In this episode we hear about how lab techniques can be combined with field records of plant occurrences to show that bees may be using a lot more sources of pollen than we once thought.

The highest period of honey bee colony mortality is during the winter. But there are a number of tricks to ensure high colony survival. In this episode we visit a Canadian bee yard to learn about what they do.

Identifying bees is notoriously difficult and often is an obstacle to beginners interested in contributing to native bee surveys. In this episode we learn about a new initiative to identify bees with machine learning.

We have all heard about Asian Giant Hornet, but what are some of the other invasive pests that threaten pollinators? We hear about species of concern in Oregon as well as measures taken to prevent their introduction.