The ABC, in partnership with The University of Lethbridge (UofL), are hosting a 1-day Southern Alberta Beekeepers (SAB) Field Day event this June 16, 2022, at the UofL, Alberta.
This education and networking event will focus on best management practices around pollination activities, grading hives for pollination, pesticide practices, and strengthening collaboration between beekeepers, crop producers, and seed companies.
Dr. Shelley Hoover is an Apiculture and Pollination Scientist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Lethbridge. Her research focuses on honey bee health and management, queen production and breeding, and nutrition, as well as canola pollination. Previously, Shelley was the head of the Apiculture Program for the Province of Alberta and has held Research Associate positions at the Universities of Canterbury (Christchurch, NZ) and British Columbia (Vancouver and Beaverlodge, Canada). She completed her PhD on honey bee worker ovary development, nutrition, and behaviour at Simon Fraser University. Shelley is also the current President of the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.
Andony Melathopoulos is an Assistant Professor in Pollinator Health Extension in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University, which was the first such position in the US. He also sit on the Steering Committee of the Oregon Bee Project, which coordinates pollinator health work across state agencies, leads the Oregon Bee Atlas and hosts a weekly podcast called PolliNation.
I am interested in collective behaviour and epidemiology in social insects, and how these can be leveraged to solve applied problems in biology. I completed a PhD at the university of Bristol in the UK, examining self-organisation in ant colonies, before working as a postdoctoral researcher with the USDA, investigating the key determinates of colony losses in US migratory beekeeping. During this time, I focussed on Varroa-virus epidemiology, and the validation and field testing of Varroa-resistant honey bee stocks. I am currently a research fellow at the university of Exeter, principally researching ecotoxicology in Bumble bees (Bombus impatiens), detection and control of the invasive Asian hornet in Europe (Vespa velutina), and honey bee disease modelling.
Dr. Renata Borba recently joined the Alberta Beekeepers Commission (ABC) as the Alberta Tech Transfer Team lead. Before joining the ABC team, Renata was a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Steve Pernal’s apiculture research lab at Beaverlodge Research Farm, Agriculture Agri-food Canada, studying the intercorrelation of several important pathogens and phenotypes, so as to better understand drivers of colony health and productivity. Renata received her Ph.D. in Entomology in 2015 from the University of Minnesota studying under Dr. Mara Spivak. Previously, she received her B.Sc. in Animal Science from the Universidade Federal of Ceara, Brazil. Renata’s doctoral research focused on evaluating: 1) the seasonal benefits of propolis (a bee-produced resinous material) on the health and immunity of honey bees; 2) the role that types of resins play as a defense against two highly infectious brood pathogens, Ascosphaera apis (a fungus causing chalkbrood disease) and Paenibacillus larvae (a bacterium causing American foulbrood disease); and 3) the effects of the propolis “envelope” within the hive as a natural defense against disease.
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