EAS Awards Programs – 2007 Awards

The James I. Hambleton memorial award was established by the Eastern Apicultural Society of North America to recognize research excellence in apiculture. The EAS Student Apiculture award was established to recognize students studying apiculture at the undergraduate or graduate level in a recognized college or university in the United States or Canada. The Roger A. Morse Outstanding Teaching/Extension Service/Regulatory Award is given annually to recognize an individual in teaching/extension and/or regulatory activity in the field of apiculture. Nominations for this award are solicited annually and must include supporting evidence. A Committee approved by the EAS Chairman of the Board makes decisions in mid-spring. The EAS Foundation for Honey Bee Research Grant is a competitive grant program developed from donations received from beekeepers and others interested in funding research on topical problems in honey bees. Proposals for support are annually solicited. The Divelbiss Award is presented at the closing Awards Banquet to the person or team that has reached beyond the beekeeping community to educate the non-beekeeping public about the values and virtues of honey bees.

The 2007 J.I. Hambleton Award
The winner of the J.I. Hambleton 2007 Award is Greg Hunt. Greg received a B.S. in biology from John Carroll University in 1979 and an M.S. in Plant Pathology in 1984. While working in a research position at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he began keeping bees and became interested in studying their behavior and particularly their genetics. This interest lead him to pursue a PhD program at UC-Davis under Dr Rob Page, the 1988 Hambleton Award winner. While in California he constructed the first genetic map of the honey bee genome and mapped genes that influence behavior.

In 1995 he took a position in apicultural research with extension responsibilities in the Department of Entomology at Purdue University. At the start of 2002 his position was converted to a faculty position at Purdue. In Indiana he has been involved in many beekeeping education programs and he teaches a class in beekeeping each year. Along with Tom Webster of Kentucky State University he helped to establish the Heartland Apicultural society (HAS), with financial backing of EAS.

Greg maintains close to 100 bee hives for breeding for resistance to Varroa mites and for behavioral genetic studies. He is best known for his behavioral genetic research. He has collaborated with Dr Ernesto Guzman-Novoa for the past 15 years and together they have mapped and confirmed the presence of genes that influence guarding and hygienic behaviors. The genetic research of Dr Hunt helped to lay the foundation for the Honey Bee Genome Project that now has resulted in successfully mapping of the entire bee genome.

Greg was recognized by one fellow faculty member for pioneering work on the honey bee genome saying “the honey bee was sold as a genome model for behavior based on Greg’s research.” Another said of Greg “clearly [he] has a world-wide reputation as a leading authority in honey bee genetics” and acknowledged Greg’s “outstanding contributions to training students in the art and science of conducting scientific research.” It is our pleasure to recognize Greg Hunt as the 32nd J.I.Hambleton winner. He will be present at our meeting this summer to once again grace our EAS program.

EAS Graduate Student 2007 Award Winner
The EAS graduate student Award winner is Nicholas Aliano of University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Currently Nick is a PhD student of Dr Marion Ellis, our EAS Roger Morse award winner in 2005. He also received his MS under Dr Ellis and his undergraduate degree was completed at Nebraska. During Dr Ellis’ current sabbatical leave in France, Nick is teaching the popular beekeeping course [ENTO 109] at Nebraska, while continuing his PhD studies on oxalic acid control of Varroa. His thesis research will include determining the toxicological properties of oxalic acid, establish its mode of action and develop treatment for broodless colonies and packages; he has already been able to demonstrate that oxalic acid is NOT effective in suppressing mite populations if used when brood is present. Nick plans to graduate this coming December.

Nick’s MS studies were on powdered sugar use in varroa control and he has had three papers published on his research already. Nick has spoken to a large number of beekeeping groups, including the CT group in April of this year, and as the John Ambrose student Award winner to the NC State Bee meeting last summer. He has received the top American Bee Research Award for paper presentation the last 3 years and been recognized twice by the Entomological society for paper and poster presentations at Society meetings. He was also a member of the University of Nebraska Linnaean team, national winners of the Entomological Society Linnaean Team Competition (a Jeopardy type competition - he nailed the questions on bees and beekeeping). He has been invited to be on our EAS program in August at UD and if his first child cooperates he will be able to attend. We are honored to recognize Nick Aliano as the 2007 EAS Graduate Student Award Winner, our 24th student to be so honored.

Roger A. Morse Teaching/Extension Service/Regulatory Award
Our 8th winner of the Roger A. Morse Outstanding Teaching/Extension service/Regulatory Award is Clarence Collison. Probably only 1st time EASers do not know Clarence nor have benefited from his numerous contributions to EAS. He is our popular chairman of the EAS Master beekeeper program and MB certification supervisor. He has been on many conference programs and again this year is a featured Short Course instructor. Clarence is author of the popular Bee Culture column “Do you Know” and the book of the same title of his columns.

Formerly extension Apiculturist at Penn State, Clarence is currently Head of the Entomology and Plant Pathology Department at Mississippi State University. He has been active with the Mississippi beekeepers and currently serves as President of the state association. He teaches their annual beekeeping short course and is a regular contributor to the Association newsletter. He has been a valued leader in the Mississippi 4-H Entomology Camp program and brings beekeeping to the 4-H program. It is a befitting honor that Clarence be recognized with our Roger Morse award this year by EAS.

Charles Divelbiss Award
At the closing Awards Banquet of the Eastern Apiculture Society 2007 Conference, Robert Mitchell, Delaware State Beekeeper was honored as the recipient of the Divelbiss Award. This award is presented to the person or team that has reached beyond the beekeeping community to educate the non-beekeeping public about the values and virtues of honey bees. It honors Charles Divelbiss, a dedicated Ohio beekeeper from Mansfield, Ohio, a lifelong school teacher and school administrator.

Robert (Bob) Mitchell has had a long and illustrious career in the beekeeping field and at the Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA). He became Apiary Inspector (State Beekeeper) in 1985 and continues in the position today. He is the longest serving State Apiarist in Delaware history. Mitchell is also a beekeeper in his private life. He has kept bees since 1972 using them to pollinate vegetables on his family’s Century Farm and as a pollinator for watermelon growers in Delaware.

Dr. Faith Kuehn, Mitchell’s supervisor and DDA Plant Industries Administrator, said, “Bob's dedication to Delaware agriculture, straight talk and quick wit have earned him great respect within the agricultural community. He has supported the beekeeping industry in many ways, from presenting educational displays and outreach programs at schools, to working diligently with industry on disease prevention programs, and raising awareness about prevention of the spread of Africanized honeybees.”

Bob Mitchell was nominated for this distinguished award by a group of his peers who said the following:

Bob has given extraordinary service to education of the general public about honey bees, well above and beyond his job duties. Bob annually visits over 20 classrooms to bring the honey bee message to 2-5th graders, the age-group that includes a series of science lessons on entomology. He tailors his presentation for the age group and brings a good mix of show-and-tell items to get his point across. Additionally, Bob gives a number of presentations annually to adult groups like garden clubs, service organizations and the like. His message is straight forward and delivered with humor and grace. He has been active with our major Ag museum in Dover and helped develop a honey bee exhibit (since retired). He is always taking the lead to get the beekeepers display at the State Fair to have a professional look, We can rely on Bob for the details and for pulling a great display together for the public. He often then mans the booths putting in countless hours when volunteers are lacking.

Bob has two special projects going this spring. Bob has been the technical advisor to a honey bee project at Sussex Tech HS, Students care for three colonies, with Bob’s cabable assistance and a recent student who did a senior project was given a scholarship by the Farm Bureau for his efforts. A new project was just started at Sussex Correctional Institute by Bob. He is helping establish an apiary for inmates to manage. The bees are used to pollinate the variety of vegetable crops the inmates raise for distribution to DE state institution kitchens. Inmates are building their own equipment and with Bob’s assistance develop some skills necessary to keep bees for when they are released (it is a minimum security prison). Bob helped get beekeeper donations of nucs to establish the colonies this spring.

Bob Mitchell is a tireless promoter of the honey bee and helps educate others about the critical benefit of their pollination service for the public of all ages. He brings a great enthusiasm and energy to his bee presentations and displays which are always first rate and well received. Bob is a fitting recipient of the 2007 Charles Divelbiss Award for Public Education on Honey Bees.

EAS FOUNDATION FOR HONEY BEE SCIENCE
The EAS Foundation for Honey Bee Science is awarding two research grants this year. In addition to the regular Foundation grant, we solicited for proposals to award a special emergency grant application for research on CCD. As usual we had several excellent applications and again it was again a tough decision to fund only two programs.

The Foundation selection committee decided to award the CCD grant to Penn State University team of Dennis vanEnglesdorp and Diana Cox-Foster. Their proposal was to utilize the $5000 EAS grant to build upon a National Honey Board grant of $45,832. EAS funding will now be enable them to speed up analysis of samples already taken of collapsing colonies by increasing sample process capacity and to purchase the lab supplies needed to process an increased volume of samples being collected by the USDA Beltsville Lab. It was fitting of our Foundation to award Foundation funds to extend and enhance existing research in progress. Faster sampling processing should speed up the development of experiments to test how pathogens and pesticides might contribute to the epidemic of losses we call CCD. We wish them speedy success with sample analysis toward resolution of the CCD mystery.

Our regular Foundation grant received proposals for investigations on several important aspects of honey bee science. Our decision to award only a single proposal was a difficult one once again. We are proud to award a $5000 grant to the Texas A&M program of Dr Tanya Pankiw (with Dr Shane Tichy) for support of Brad Metz in his PhD studies on “Semiochemical communication of larva nutritional status in the Honey Bee” This study will build upon continuing studies at A&M that have demonstrated that individual honey bee larvae can communicate their nutritional status to nurse bees which then respond to the larvae. Their studies use a unique nursing pheromone bioassay that has been developed to show this interaction. Some of the effects of this larval pheromone (termed SBP – synthetic brood pheromone) are to increase the number of pollen foragers, increase pollen payload of returning foragers and increase the number of pollen foraging trips. Colonies treated with this 10 fatty acid ester mixture rear more brood and nurse age bees are able to produce glandular secretions from their brood food glands for a longer time period. The EAS grant will extend the analysis of additional compounds, especially those from larvae that are not fed as faithfully and chemicals from the queen larva that may also play a role in communicating larval nutritional status. The specific objectives our EAS Foundation Grant will enable are 1) to determine what these materials are and 2) to test these additional compounds for their activity alone or in combination with SBP. Further clarification of larval pheromones would perhaps lead to better assessment of colony nutritional status and enable changing the foraging profiles in accord with developmental needs.

EAS Foundation funds have provided over $50,000 to research programs since 1994. Funds are generated from donations from beekeepers and bee associations and some of the annual auction proceeds are used for the fund. Proposals are solicited annually dependent upon funds available. We welcome donations from all beekeepers interested in supporting research of importance. The 2007 awards are for current season research programs. The Penn State folks will be on the EAS program this year and CCD will be a topic for discussion. The Texas A&M studies will hopefully be featured at EAS next summer.

Dewey M. Caron, EAS Foundation Chairman