Beekeepers in northern climates have a special challenge of making a honey crop while getting their bees ready to handle many cold months without food.
Beekeepers can be more sustainable and can make a larger crop if they keep their colonies strong and healthy all-season long, while keeping an eye on the upcoming
winter. Meghan Milbrath will be teaching seminars for beekeepers focused on improving honeybee colony health and survival rates through winter.
Meghan started beekeeping as a child with her father in Northern Wisconsin. Since 2011, she has run a beekeeping and queen rearing business in Jackson
County, Michigan. In 2012, she began working at Michigan State University’s Department of Entomology, where she currently performs honeybee research and teaches honeybee medicine in the College of Veterinary Medicine. The first seminar, Honeybees winter, will cover the biology of winter bees, including changes to behavior and nutritional needs. We will highlight management strategies that can be carried out to increase winter survival.
In the second seminar Keeping Honeybees Safe from tbe Va11″oa Mite, we will focus on strategies that beekeepers can use to manage this pervasive and highly deadly
parasite. This talk will be very practically focused, and beekeepers should leave the seminar with a clear plan of what they should do in the upcoming year to monitor
and manage this pest. Both talks will be directed to people with some beekeeping experience, but will have plenty of time for questions and ways to receive further
beekeeping information.