Mitigating Decline of Honey Bee Colonies
Dr. Millet, a Research Scientist in the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, established an agreement or contractual relationship (2019-2022) with the State Department of Agriculture to lead and execute a project for new efforts to combat honey bee devastation in Tennessee and beyond. Dr. Millet and his team of students are innovating, testing, and implementing technological innovations to reduce or eliminate insect pests that afflict honey bees. The goal of this work is to lower colony stress and the burden of disease inside the hive to mitigate decline of honey bees. He uses biological, behavioral, and environmental observations to guide technological innovations and scientifically based practical measures to understand how insects influence over-wintering of honey bee colonies in hive structures.
Technological Innovations for Honey Production
In the Center for Environmental Biotechnology, we see the need for developing technological innovations to promote and maintain the production of high-quality honey from local farms and natural resources. The goal of our innovation efforts is to decrease production costs while improving honey quality for small to moderate-sized beekeeping operations. As our innovations pass rigorous quantitative measurements, we look forward to engaging with local honey producers in Tennessee to make a positive impact on the quantity of authentic local honey.
Honey Authentication Measurements
Our research efforts utilize standard and highly sensitive analytical measures to better understand the chemical and structural composition of honey produced in Tennessee. The Center for Environmental Biotechnology has the capacity to perform chemical processes and microscopic measurements and evaluations required for authentication of local specialty honey.
Please consider giving to support these efforts through the Honey Bee Environmental Biotechnology Research Fund in the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville: https://giving.utk.edu/honeybee
To learn more about this research, please contact Dr. Larry Millet at lmillet1@utk.edu.
