Training will be offered in Mesa County and other areas of Colorado under a new effort to monitor honey bee health and educate hobby beekeepers.

Colorado State University Extension, the CSU College of Agricultural Sciences and Colorado Department of Agriculture have been awarded a $132,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for a three-year program.

Training will be offered in Mesa County as well as Adams, Chaffee and El Paso counties and the San Luis Valley.

“The health needs of bees and the commitment to become a beekeeper is often misunderstood,” said Laura Pottorff, apiary program manager for the Colorado Department of Agriculture. “The receipt of this award will help CSU and CDA work to preserve the beekeeping profession and protect the health of all pollinator populations in Colorado.”

Maintaining healthy bee populations has been challenging for a variety of reasons including communicable diseases that bees are contracting, mite infestations, lack of forage and misuse of pesticides. Colorado is home to 946 native bee species belonging to 66 genera. Preliminary indications are that new beekeepers who don’t receive instruction and mentoring from beekeeping clubs or other experts are more likely to have hives that carry diseases and other health issues that spill over to other honey bees and native bees.

“The goal of the project is to educate new beekeepers and decrease disease and parasite presence in apiaries managed by hobby beekeepers across Colorado by helping them to recognize honey bee pests and diseases and to adopt integrated pest management practices,” said Kurt Jones, county director for Chaffee County Extension.

Program participants will be educated on scientific beekeeping practices and monitoring for honey bee health, specifically addressing re-emerging diseases, their prevention, and control. In return, participants must commit to the training program, volunteer to help train other new beekeepers and agree to allow monitoring and inspection of hives for mite levels and other health metrics by state apiary inspectors.

For more information, contact Pottorff at (303) 869-9070, Jones at (719) 539-6447 or Arathi Seshadri at (970) 491-6804.