Queen Certification Pilot Project

We are pilot testing a new beekeeper-led queen certification program for assessing queen quality and health. Through consultations with beekeepers, we are determining the fertility and pathogen thresholds that are desirable in order for a queen producer to gain certification. We are now testing these parameters in queens submitted by producers and are using these data to determine if the desired thresholds are realistic to attain. These data provide important benchmarking information to further develop and refine certification models while also providing emerging pathogen surveillance information to help guide efforts to address queen disease. The long-term goal is to develop a beekeeper-led queen certification framework that can be adopted at a national scale.