Posted: October 1, 2019
With summer now behind us and autumn nectar flows drawing to close, your honey bees will likely spend less time foraging as the temperature continues to drop.
This time of year often corresponds with either stabilization of colony weights or even the beginnings of the decline we naturally expect during the colder months. Many Beescape 'Pro' users are also contributing weight data to Beescape (in addition to monthly inspection data) -- the graph below shows one colony from an anonymous Beescape user - as you can see from the graph, this colony, like many, began losing weight in the month of September and continued through the winter as resources were consumed by the bees. Do you think your colonies begin losing weight this time of year? Stay tuned for more updates as the Beescape Team analyzes data from users on WEIGHT GAIN/LOSS as well as overwinter survival (all users) and even month-to-month colony dynamics (Pro users). 
Additionally, we have good news to share - our collaborators, The University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign (IL Dep't of Agriculture) and Penn State University (PSU Extension) secured new grant funding to continue the Beescape effort - we LOVE collaborating with other universities (as well as numerous labs WITHIN Penn State) as we continue to grow and expand the Beescape project! Cheers to many more!
Finally, we would be remiss if we did not share a recent interview from Indiana (PA) Radio with Dr. Christina Grozinger on how bees are doing in Pennsylvania and what people can do to help them, which, of course, includes the Beescape project!
We hope to increase our user base as we continue to improve Beescape in the coming months - we continue to remain hard at work making improvements to the Beescape site with our partner web developers at Azavea. We are excited to continue sharing edits with you on this email list and on Beescape.org. We are also on Twitter! Follow us: @beescapepsu
Note: If you would like to register for Beescape, please go to our website, Beescape.org. As always, feel free to contact us at beescapepsu@gmail.com with any questions or concerns!
