The following story appeared in the January 2012 issue of the North Central Region Intergrated Pest Managment Center's newsletter, The Connection.

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Source: The Connection

In Rochester, IL, Stu Jacobson, a retired researcher for the University of Illinois at Springfield, has been working for years to increase interest and understanding among beekeepers in Illinois, eastern Missouri, and southern Wisconsin.

While Jacobson’s interest in bees started decades ago in Cape Cod, Massachusetts where he lived and kept bees from 1970 to 1991, he eventually started beekeeping in central Illinois in 1993. He has a PhD in biology and he did his postdoctoral research studying African bees when they first arrived in Venezuela in 1978. Through grant work with NCR-SARE, Jacobson has been raising and marketing a line of mite and disease-resistant honeybee queens, an alternative to battling the mites with chemicals.

Bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables. About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination. Jacobson believes that bees play a vital role in the sustainability of agricultural systems, and is concerned about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). One factor leading to CCD could include high levels of infection by the varroa mite, a parasite that feeds on bee blood and transmits bee viruses, so Jacobson been working on the local production of disease and mite resistant queens and small colonies because he is concerned about a lack of adoption of disease and mite resistant or tolerant lines of bees and an over-reliance on queens from Sun Belt states. 

“The continued decline in the number of beekeepers and colonies is not good news for farms,” said Jacobson. “Addressing honey bee colony losses are important for fruit crops because over-wintered colonies are far more efficient at pollinating flowers of early blooming fruits such as apples, cherries and peaches. Furthermore, when keeping bees is more profitable, it enables beekeepers to remain in business or expand their operations, making a larger number of colonies available each year for pollination.”

Jacobson’s NCR-SARE grant-funded work has increased understanding and adoption of disease and mite resistant lines among beekeepers in Illinois, eastern Missouri, and southern Wisconsin. A major thrust of his projects has been educational presentations to beekeepers on disease and mite resistant lines of bees. Venues have included the Bluegrass Beekeeping School, which draws beekeepers from Indiana and Ohio; the Kankakee Valley, IL Beekeepers Association; the Lincoln Land Beekeepers’ Association; the Illinois State Beekeepers’ Association (ISBA); State Line Beekeepers Association; and the Eastern Apicultural Society, among others. In addition to education, Jacobson’s work has also included the production and sale of disease and mite resistant queens to local beekeepers. Several operations have been involved in Jacobson’s projects, from a mixed grain farm of 250 acres in Loami, IL, to a 2.6 acre homestead near Rochester, IL. Either no treatments or only “soft,” botanically-based ones were used for varroa mites in a given year.

Jacobson uses standard cell grafting methods to raise queens. The cells are introduced individually into small colonies called mating nuclei, from which the virgin queens take mating flights and remain until they begin laying eggs, at which point they are sold or placed into larger colonies. “Use of these lines will lessen the industry’s dependence on harsh chemical and antibiotics, which can contaminate honey and cause reproductive problems for the bees, and should be at the core of strategies to address Colony Collapse Disorder,” explained Jacobson. “Beekeepers in Illinois who use locallyadapted bees experience much lower annual losses than those using stock from Sun Belt states; frequently 15 percent or less. If beekeepers were able to reduce annual losses to only 10 percent, the result would be both significant savings and an increase in income,” he continued.

A major result of his NCR-SARE grant work has been the formation of the Illinois Queen Initiative (IQI), an organization that furthers the objectives of his NCR-SARE projects. In October 2011, the IQI held its first annual meeting. They worked on a coordinated breeding plan for 2011-2012 and listened to presentations by Jeff Harris, a Research Entomologist at the USDA ARS Honey Bee Lab. The group hopes to increase the number of beekeepers raising queens and bees for sale in Illinois, improve queen producers’ skills to select, produce improved, northern-adapted, disease and mite resistant honey bee stocks, facilitate a regular exchange of both information and improved stock between queen producers, and promote Illinoisproduced queens and bees to beekeepers in Illinois. 

Through his NCR-SARE grant projects, Jacobson and project participants have trained hundreds of beekeepers in queen production, and will offer at least four hands-on, introductory workshops for 15-20 persons each in 2011 and 2012, as well as follow-up meetings for 150 persons. Additional activities will include an annual state-wide Illinois Queen Initiative meeting focusing on queen production and bee breeding. The proposed project will also develop an informal “train the trainers” component so that beekeepers with one year of successful experience raising queens will be encouraged to become mentors and some of those with at least two years of queen raising also will teach sections in the introductory or follow-up workshops. 

In addition to Jacobson, Steven Staley, a bee producer, Richard Ramsey, past president of the Illinois State Beekeepers’ Association, David Burns, a queen bee producer and beekeeping equipment supplier, Joe Latshaw, a queen breeder from Ohio, Phil Raines, a commercial beekeeper in Illinois and Wisconsin, Tim Arheit, a bee breeder/inseminator, Carolyn Gerberding, IQI secretary-treasurer and website developer, Jeff Ludwig and Terry Combs, both of whom taught queen reading workshops, and Margaret Larson, University of Illinois Extension regional director in Winnebago County have made important contributions to Jacobson’s projects. 

While every farming system is unique, the principles of integrated pest management (IPM) apply universally.  NCRSARE has funded more than 120 projects on ecologically based pest management and the strategies of farmers throughout the region who are addressing pest problems. Our investment in pest management strategies to has help develop more complex, more diverse ecosystems in the region.

Want more information about SARE’s work with pollinators?  Read more about Stewart Jacobson’s NCR-SARE grant project reports online on the SARE project reporting website. Simply search by the project numbers, ENC03-072, FNC06-641, FNC08-705, and FNC10-822, or contact the NCR-SARE office for more information at ncrsare@umn.edu. Also, Managing Alternative Pollinators: A Handbook for Beekeepers, Growers and Conservationists is a first-of-its-kind, step-by-step, full-color guide for rearing and managing bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutter bees and other bee species that provide pollination alternatives to the rapidly declining honey bee.