Search

This week, representatives from USDA have been down on the National Mall, staffing hands-on exhibits about food safety, bioenergy and even bees. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have, for years, been studying Colony Collapse disorder (CCD), which has been attacking honey bee colonies...

There’s a lot of buzz right now about honey bees—their health and their future. The good news, where honey bees are concerned, is that there is good news. Just last month, the results of the annual winter bee loss survey were released, and losses of managed honey bee colonies from all causes were 23...

Written collaboratively by: The People’s Garden Team Today, Sam Droege with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) led a workshop on The Native Bees in Your Garden at The People’s Garden at USDA Headquarters. Did you know there are about 4,000 species of bees in North America and that one eighth of them...

A recently awarded USDA Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) will fund research into bee-friendly seed mixes. A partnership made up of the Xerces Society, University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Wisconsin is working to...

After suffering severe winter losses beginning in 2007, the honey bee population is making a comeback. Still, losses are high, which means beekeepers have to spend a lot of time and money replacing their bees.

She leans over her dead subject and deftly pushes a pin through its body, securing it to the foam below. To be clear, this is not about a morgue or a serial killer. This is about taxonomy, or the science of identifying, classifying, and naming organisms. The woman in question is a scientist, and her...

Everyone wants healthy, thriving honey bee colonies. One-third of the food we eat requires pollinators, and commercial beekeepers transport honey bees hundreds of miles each year to pollinate almond trees and other crops.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. You’ve probably heard that the honey bees in this country are in trouble, with about one-third of our managed colonies...

About one mouthful in three in our diets directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination. That makes bees critically valuable to humans’ existence. For this reason the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) documents issues affecting honey bee...