Vince Alloyo will have a mini presentation on winter feeding.

Our main speaker will be Dr Simone-Finstrom. 

He will present an overview of the wonders of propolis and the exciting nature of how honey bees’ use of antimicrobial plant resins as their own type of colony level immune defense. New research on the role of propolis in bee health and productivity in commercial beekeeping will be presented along with a discussion of ways that propolis can be collected and used by beekeepers.

Dr. Simone-Finstrom has been a Research Molecular Biologist at the USDA Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Research Unit in Baton Rouge, LA since 2015. He earned his PhD at University of Minnesota, where he pioneered a line of work devoted to understanding the impacts of antimicrobial resin use by honey bees on colony health, which he still continues to study. Dr. Simone-Finstrom then earned a post-doc position and fellowship jointly with NC State University and the University of Pennsylvania on topics ranging from queen quality to migratory beekeeping to social immune defenses in honey bees. The overarching goals of all of his projects focus on how honey bees can be made stronger, healthier and more productive using their own natural defenses and traits. His current work aims to understanding how these traits work in concert in order to promote them within the beekeeping industry and identify components of viral resistance in honey bees.