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Bee Experts Provide Answers on the Internet

Got a question about honey bees? Now you can send your questions by computer to honey bee experts at the Agricultural Research Service’s Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Ariz. The center’s researchers, who are international authorities on honey bees, will reply via Internet in about 24 hours, according to entomologist Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman.

This new Internet service, free to the public, is called, “Expert Forum on Honey Bees.” It lists a wide range of frequently asked questions, along with answers from scientists. Examples include: “What should I do if I find Africanized honey bees nesting on my property?”, “How do I keep honey bees out of my swimming pool?”, and “How can I get started keeping bees?”

In addition, the Forum also has answers to questions about beekeeping as a hobby or profession, crop pollination, honey bee biology and research conducted at the center.

A special category called “Student Forum on Honey Bees” gives kindergarten through 12th-grade students the opportunity to use pre-existing questions as a template to help develop new questions on their own.

Users will play a key role in expanding this state-of-the-art, user-friendly, electronic question-and-answer service, according to DeGrandi-Hoffman. Each question answered by center experts will be kept in a database. That way, answers to subsequent similar inquiries will be available to anyone, anytime day or night, seven days a week. What’s more, when new information becomes available, the laboratory staff will review and update old answers on the Forum.

“Expert Forum on Honey Bees” is part of the Hayden Center’s award-winning web site at:

http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific research agency.