Madeleine Ostwald with Kirsten Traynor (S3, E9)

This week, guest co-host Kirsten Traynor joins us with Madeleine Ostwald. Madeleine studies bees, having worked with both honey bees and carpenter bees. When days get hot, we seek out ways to cool off with water. Beekeepers (and sometimes their neighbors) know that honey bees do the same.  As an undergraduate student in Tom Seeley’s lab, Madeleine turned up the heat on a honey bee hive to find out just how they do this. Madeleine observed some bees adapt to heat stress by acting like water storage containers, always ready to chill things down when days get hot.

Madeleine now investigates desert carpenter bees in Arizona. Wood is a precious resource in these barren lands, so carpenter bees end up sharing a home. To learn how these large bees shape, modify, and change their nest structures over time, she enlisted the help of a local hospital and their CT-scanner.

Also in today’s episode, Kim reviews the new book by Jay Evans, USDA Bee Research Leader at Beltsville, and regular columnist for Bee Culture magazine. Lots to learn, lots to hear. Hit the play button now!

Links and websites mentioned in this episode: 

• Maddie's paper, "The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies"
• Maddie's carpenter bee video showing the CAT scan results: https://youtu.be/H0Xt2oMwGgU

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Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee’s mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! 

We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum.

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We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected]

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening! 

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"