BC Tech Transfer Program

An ideal hive arrangement is a wide expansion of brood that fills 7-10 frames of the body before an additional super is added.

Adding a super prematurely causes bees to build upward instead of sideways, leading to an inefficient use of space and equipment for both bees and beekeepers.

🐝

And that’s a wrap on Spring Field Days! Our last workshop this spring, hosted at in Ladner, was a big success. Thanks to Urban Bee Supplies for hosting us, to Julia Common and Dan Mawson for their talks on spring management and hive splits, and to Fahim for his overview of integrated pest management strategies.

Lastly, thanks to all that attended our workshops this spring! We hope you found it valuable, that you connected with your beekeeping community, and that you feel more prepared to enter into the next part of your season.

🐝

We’ve been busy doing hygienic sampling this month! A huge thanks to Brad Ingram in Kelowna (slide 3) and Diana & Bruce Grimshire in Merritt (slide 4) for hosting us at their bee yards the past few weeks — our research relies on these valuable collaborations between beekeepers across the province.

And a big shoutout to Keith Rae (slide 5), President of the North Okanagan Beekeepers club, for helping us out on one of our days in Kelowna!

🐝

Happy Day of the Honey Bee to all our BC beekeepers and Happy World Bee Day to those outside of BC!

To celebrate this day, we are offering 20% off ALL our online courses until May 31, 2026! Visit ttp-bchpa.ca/our-courses or click the link in our bio to explore our courses.

Take a moment today to appreciate honey bees and their vital contribution to our food systems and our local and global economy 🐝🌷💛

Meet the BC-TTP’s 2026 Research Intern, Sumedha Sharma! We are so excited to have her on our team and are looking forward to helping her build her skills in the areas of fieldwork and research and contributing to her growing knowledge of bee biology and pollinator ecology.

Swipe through to learn more about Sumedha ☀️

🐝

For many of us, swarming season has already arrived! Read our article to learn what they are, why they happen, and how to control or prevent them.

Click the link in our bio or visit ttp-bchpa.ca/swarm-control.

🐝

Hygienic behavior, further described in our last post, is a honey bee colony’s defense mechanism to prevent the spread of disease and pests in the colony. UBeeO is a tool designed to measure the level of hygienic behavior a honey bee colony has against Varroa destructor by testing the efficiency and effectiveness a colony has in removing parasitized or damaged brood. It works similarly to the pin prick method and liquid nitrogen test, both of which are also used for hygienic testing.

For full instructions on how to use this tool, read our new article by clicking the link in our bio or visiting ttp-bchpa.ca/ubeeo.

🐝

Honey bee larvae, when infected by disease or pest, release a pheromone that nurse bees respond to by removing the larvae from the colony. This is referred to as hygienic behavior and is the natural defense mechanism that honey bees have developed to prevent the spread of infection in the colony.

The graphic was adapted from:
Optera Bees. (n.d.). Image from Optera Bees website. https://opterabees.com/

🐝