A lot happened in 2025, so I’m ending the About Bees, Culture & Curiosity podcast year (Season 6 Episode 12) with stories from bee news that you might enjoy. Listen to this short (30 minute) collection of some of the science and practical beekeeping pieces from the past year. Here’s a link to this episode: Here!

Links to our featured news stories from 2025:

62% Bee Losses Honey Bee Health  https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/survey-reveals-over-1-1-million-honey-bee-colonies-lost-raising-alarm-for-pollination-and-agriculture/

Washington State study on colony losses  https://news.wsu.edu/news/2025/03/25/honey-bee-colony-declines-grow-as-wsu-researchers-work-to-fight-losses

USDA pinpoints reason for colony collapse  https://www.dvm360.com/view/usda-pinpoints-cause-of-recent-mass-honeybee-collapse

Michigan State  https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/reports-of-high-honey-bee-colony-losses-and-how-farmers-and-growers-can-support-honey-bees

USDA study shows virus magnification via mites  https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2025/usda-researchers-find-viruses-from-miticide-resistant-parasitic-mites-are-cause-of-recent-honey-bee-colony-collapses/

UBC Pheromone signalling reduced by viruses, leading to supercedure  https://www.med.ubc.ca/news/ubc-research-reveals-why-honey-bees-overthrow-their-queen/

Developmental and Caste Regulation (weak queen resistance to pesticides)  https://d197for5662m48.cloudfront.net/documents/publicationstatus/241858/preprint_pdf/b569fa5471ba21b61111b60552fd7aa0.pdf

California Almond Growers PDF https://www.almonds.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/Cover%20Crops%20Best%20Management%20Practices%20BMPs_0.pdf

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems – natural mix of pollens leads to better bee success  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1555238/full

Engineered yeast provides rare but essential pollen sterols for honeybees. Nature   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09431-y

First continent-wide bee strategy (Canada and USA) plan to protect bees  https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/NABS/

Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in December 2025.

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About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

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This episode was recorded in December 2025. 

There are already over 70 episodes of About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity. And you can listen to all of them completely free. I’m amazed that I have so many already. Sort of like when you are extracting honey. At first, just a few drops piddle out of the extractor, then a few hours later, you have some containers filled. Soon, a big truck arrives to haul off a semi load of 65 big steel drums of honey. It’s been like this with the podcast.

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