August 19th Speaker: Dr. Lewis Bartlett

Topic: Small Hive Beetles

Dr Lewis Bartlett will discuss small hive beetles, including the "expanding front" of small hive beetle's pressure on the colony, how they damage hives, their connection to protein supplements and ways we can control them through honey bees' naturally evolved defenses. He will also discuss new control agents being developed to trap and kill SHBs in the hive, but safe for bees

Dr Lewis Bartlett is a professor at the University of Georgia, where he co-directs the UGA Bee Lab. Lewis has been beekeeping for 12 years and first started with bees in Yorkshire, England, where he is from. He has kept bees all across England as well as in California, when he was completing his PhD at UC Berkeley, and in Georgia where he undertakes his research. Dr Bartlett's research program specializes in the control of parasites and pathogens in beekeeping, as well as how bees defend themselves against diseases and what we can do to help improve their natural immunity to all the threats they face.