2024/25 Winter Capped Honey Bee Brood Monitoring Program

Capped-Brood-of-Auburn-Alabama-Honey-Bees-Hive-Monitoring-Colony-during-winter-USA-2022-sm
Logos of the partners for the 2024-2025 Winter Bee Brood Monitoring Project

The status of capped brood in honey bee colonies during winter is critical information beekeepers must consider when choosing an appropriate control product for the mite Varroa destructor. As colonies emerge from winter, insight into colony brood rearing also helps beekeepers plan for early spring management, such as feeding and swarm control. 

Although colonies located in many parts of the United States experience predictable extended periods without brood, this may not be the case for those in coastal and southern regions with mild winters. 

To help beekeepers make appropriate management decisions during winter and early spring, 12 land-grant universities, 1 state community college, 1 statewide cooperative extension system, 5 USDA ARS labs (Baton Rouge, Beltsville, Poplarville, Stoneville, Tucson), and 4 beekeepers are jointly monitoring amount of capped brood in their colonies throughout the country from mid-October 2024 to the end of February 2025.

This page will be updated approximately every 2 weeks so that amount of capped brood in the monitored colonies can be communicated to the beekeeping community.

Biweekly Static Maps

Each blue point on a map below represents the average amount of capped brood among all monitored colonies at a particular location, as expressed as deep frame equivalents. One deep frame equivalent represents 100% coverage of capped brood on both sides of the frame.

Week of November 21, 2024

Winter Brood Monitoring map for the week of November 21, 2024

Week of November 7, 2024

Brood map for the week of October 24, 2024

Week of October 24, 2024

Brood map for the week of October 24, 2024

Collaborators

This work is being supported through funding from Project Apis mellifera M-SGA 312, the Southern IPM Center 2022-70006-38002, the USDA ARS Cooperative Agreement 58-6066-3-029, and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture 2022-70006-38002.

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Contact

Geoffrey Williams
Associate Professor
301 Funchess Hall
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-5068

Rogan Tokach
Ph.D. Student
PAm-Costco USA Scholar
rtt0016@auburn.edu