Bee SAFE Hive Beetle Poison! Exciting Innovation!

The UGA Bee Lab and the beekeeping product company PowerB2B are partnering to test a bee-safe ‘attract and kill bait’ to be used in small hive beetle traps. In 2024 we have partnered to run a study comparing different insecticides put in as baits inside SHB traps. We hope that chlorantraniliprole, a new pesticide which the UGA Bee Lab has been working with, will be approved for use by EPA. This insecticide is a bee safe alternative to neonicotinoids in turf lawn management and is used as a honeybee safe insecticide during the almond bloom.
The research is being led by Bee Lab Professor Dr. Lewis Bartlett and graduate student Ian Collins. Ian graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Science from the UGA Department of Entomology in 2021 and then went on to work as a research technician at the UGA Bee Lab. In 2023 Ian became a PhD student at the bee lab, funded by Project Apis m. and the National Honey Board, and has been working on the use of chlorantraniliprole to control small hive beetles in supplemental pollen feeding as the focus of his research.