Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience: Our current Bee Informed Tech Transfer Teams serve over 110commercial beekeepers, who collectively manage more than 450,000 colonies. These beekeepers have been overwhelmingly pleased with the services provided, and preliminary data suggest members lose significantly fewer colonies after their second year involvement in the program. These tech teams are not able to service large, commercial but rural beekeepers outside of the established geographic area. We trained selected individuals (usually women) on the staff of these remote operations to be Remote Tech Transfer Trainees (RTTT). This training has enabled them to sample and survey their colonies and ship the samples to UMD for lab diagnostics. By training remote stakeholders to sample their own commercial honey bee operations using standardized approaches and integrating them into BIPs lab diagnostic and reporting services, we are able to reach these important but until now, less served operations, giving them scientific and analytic training while helping maintain critical pollination units. Changes/Problems: As mentioned previously, the recruitment of the Remote tech team participants has been much more difficult than thought. Despite advertising in Bee Culture, one of the industry's leading journals, recruiting at large outreach events such as the National Beekeeping conferences, and in all local and regional bee meetings, our remote tech team participants are less than we had hoped. Getting the word out to these individuals has been more challenging. In hindsight, the recruitment may be better made by speaking to local bee groups in underserved areas to advocate and recruit remote tech team applicants in the future. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development for this project takes two parallel paths. The first is to train and educate women and minority operational managers of remote tech teams in both structured sampling and data base use and reporting using a web based application for in-field entry. Many of the operational managers of these remote commercial operations are women who are not formally trained in computer applications. The colony health assessment and sample training is provided by representatives of our traditional tech teams. The database and reporting capabilities will be provided by our IT team at ASU and UTN. Using these tools, we hope that the commercial operations the remote tech teams serve will be able to improve their farming operation through data-driven management decisions, safeguarding pollination of American agriculture. Having colony health and management data from remote locations will also improve and enable BIP to provide more accurate regional best management practices. The second path for training and professional development will be with the education and support the next generation of scientists and computer engineers. Our diagnostic labs develop the skills of undergraduate and graduate students in molecular biology, microscopy, epidemiology, and data analysis. These students gain important job skills and leadership skills that enable them to succeed in highly competitive STEM fields. The lab frequently hires students who show potential and dedication. Over 37 undergraduate students have worked in the lab over the last 4 years, of which 57% were women and 24% were underrepresented minorities. The lab's diversity extends to its graduate and post-graduate students and staff. Interns and students learn key lab diagnostic techniques, molecular and microscopic skills, engage in applied scientific research, develop experiments, analyze data, and gain experience in outreach events aimed at beekeepers or the public at large. A large rotating staff requires excellent team work, so students develop team building and leadership skills. Thus far, we have trained twenty-one undergraduate women and/or minorities in modern molecular and microscope lab diagnostics. Through hands-on training they are developing strong applied research skills and collaboration skills with our large team of graduate and post-graduate students to provide key agricultural services to underserved farmers in rural America. The experience in our lab has benefited two minority women and 3 minority men to pursue higher academic degrees. Through interaction with our remote tech team, one of our female participants was reinvigorated to seek a graduate degree while maintaining her queen rearing operation. Students work with the lab's faculty and staff, who are dedicated to helping students develop skills and connect them to networks that can help them secure future jobs in academia, NGOs, and the private sector. At Appalachian State University, women and minority computer programming and computer engineering students workedclosely with our Bee Informed Partnership database staff to design and develop the web based application for in field data entry in addition to the critical database module that enables remote tech team operations to enter, view and generate diagnostic reports necessary for critical management decisions. By doing so, they learned creative processing skills and important teamwork and communication skills by necessary for real world careers. Students are able to interface directly with beekeepers and tech teams to get near immediate feedback on their design, a valuable tool in design iteration. This feedback helps the students learn to take and follow constructive criticism. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Currently, diagnostic reports are being sent within 10-14 days of sampling to the remote tech teams. The capability now exists for these remote tech teams to login and access their own data and generate their own reports. To reach other stakeholders, articles will be published in American Bee Journal and/or Bee Culture on our RTTT program; however, not enough data have been accumulated to draw statistically significant results. Students engaged in the lab diagnostics and web portal development will present findings at the annual BIP meeting, developing public speaking skills. Additional presentations will be made at local, regional and national beekeeping conferences. The web site (www.beeinformed.org) developed for Tech Transfer Teams and servicing commercial beekeepers will report national averages to the general public. Some of the most effective best management practices developed from the large database evaluation will be shared with stakeholders via National conferences, webinars and our BIP website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
A primary goal stated in the grant proposal is to create an interactive web portal that generates individualized reports on honey bee colony health metrics compared to regional norms, supporting remote beekeepers and permitting commercial beekeepers already serviced by our six Tech Transfer Teams to interact more actively with their own data, so they can make better management decisions. Leveraging the existing Bee Informed Partnership web software platform for this project required building additional core infrastructure that provides fine grain control over access to data for individuals and groups as well as integrating disparate data sources into reports. Following are details related to the new infrastructure. Improvements to Tech Team data models for remote team access have included linking virus data tables compatible with two labs (North Carolina State University and University of Maryland / USDA-ARS-Beltsville). Also, pesticide analysis result data is now being entered from EPA and USDA-AMS labs, and is compatible with results from any lab. These data were formerly stored independent of the original BIP Tech Team database. This separation would make interaction by remote users on the system problematic since this data would have no connection to user access accounts in development. Now the data entry, views, and reports, can be accessed through tech team participant records and their related field observation data. The authentication and data access control system have been totally overhauled to provide functionality needed to implement a full self-service platform. Organizations have been added which allow users to be grouped and categorized based on their needs. Organizations can range from a small local bee club that wants to share reports amongst members to large commercial operations entering in and managing all of their own sample data and corresponding reports. Our database contains private and sensitive data, so we keep tight control over user access to it. The new organization system allows us to limit organization members to only see and interact with their own data. The owner of organization can invite new members, remove members, and set fine-grain data permissions all through a self-service interface. A long standing issue with our operation has been the workflow of paper-forms to excel worksheets, to finally uploading and finalizing the data in our database. The remote tech team app allows users to enter all of their observations while in the field and upload directly into our database when convenient. This allows beekeepers to get their data much quicker and there is a far lesser chance of human error. Thus far, we have 4 remote tech teams established in Florida, South Dakota, New Mexico and North Dakota with quarterly samples taken and reports generated. These operations have had training and direct contact with our traditional tech teams.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience: Our current Bee Informed Tech Transfer Teams serve over 70 commercial beekeepers, who collectively manage more than 350,000 colonies. These beekeepers have been overwhelmingly pleased with the services provided, and preliminary data suggest members lose significantly fewer colonies after their second year involvement in the program. These tech teams are not able to service large, commercial but rural beekeepers outside of the established geographic area. We are in the process of training selected individuals (usually women) on the staffof these remote operations to be Remote Tech Transfer Trainees (RTTT). This training has enabled themto sample and survey their colonies and ship the samples to UMD for lab diagnostics. By training remote stakeholders to sample their own commercial honey bee operations using standardized approaches and integrating them into BIPs lab diagnostic and reporting services, we are able to reach these important but until now, less served operations, giving them scientific and analytic training while helping maintain critical pollination units. Changes/Problems:The recruitment of the Remote tech team participants has been much more difficult than thought. Despite advertising in Bee Culture, one of the industry's leading journals, recruiting at large outreach events such as the National Beekeeping conferences, and in all local and regional bee meetings, our remote tech team participants are less than we had hoped. Getting the word out to these individuals has been more challenging than originally thought. We will be giving the lead recruiting and retention role for this project to one of our most experienced Tech Team members in January. She has great rapore with beekeepers and having her head up the recruiting and retention may enable us to grow this project in more rural areas. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training and professional development for this project takes two parallel paths. The first is to train and educate women and minority operational managers of remote tech teams in both structured sampling and data baseuse and reporting using a web based application for in-field entry. Many of the operational managers of these remote commercial operations are women who are not formally trained in computer applications. The colony health assessment and sample training is provided by representatives of our traditional tech teams. The database and reporting capabilities will be provided by our IT team at ASU and UTN. Using these tools, we hope that the commercial operations the remote tech teams serve will be able to improve their farming operation through data-driven management decisions, safeguarding pollination of American agriculture. Having colony health and management data from remote locations will also improve and enable BIP to provide more accurate regional best management practicies. The second path for training and professional development will be with theeducation and support the next generation of scientists and computer engineers. Our diagnostic labs develop the skills of undergraduate and graduate students in molecular biology, microscopy, epidemiology, and data analysis. These students gain important job skills and leadership skills that enable them to succeed in highly competitive STEM fields. The lab frequently hires students who show potential and dedication. Over 22 undergraduate students have worked in the lab over the last 3 years, of which 40% were women and 36% were underrepresented minorities. The lab's diversity extends to its graduate and post-graduate students and staff. Interns and students learn key lab diagnostic techniques, molecular and microscopic skills, engage in applied scientific research, develop experiments, analyze data, and gain experience in outreach events aimed at beekeepers or the public at large. A large rotating staff requires excellent team work, so students develop team building and leadership skills. Thus far, we have trained six undergraduate women and/or minorities in modern molecular and microscope lab diagnostics. Through hands-on training theyare developing strong applied research skills and collaboration skillswith our large team of graduate and post-graduate students to provide key agricultural services to underserved farmers in rural America. Students work with the lab's faculty and staff, who are dedicated to helping students develop skills and connect them to networks that can help them secure future jobs in academia, NGOs, and the private sector. At Appalachian State University, women and minority computer programming and computer engineering studentsare working closely with our Bee Informed Parntership database staff to design and develop the web based application for in field data entry in addition to the ciritical database module that enables remote tech team operations to enter, view and generate diagnostic reports necessary for critical management decisions. By doing so, they are learning creative processing skills and important teamwork and communication skills by necessary for real world careers. Students are able to interface directly with beekeepers and tech teams to get near immediate feedback on their design, a valuable tool in design iteration. This feedback helps the students learn to take and follow constructive criticism. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Currently, diagnostic reports are being sent within 10-14 days of sampling to the remote tech teams. By this fall, we expect to train each remote tech team to access their own data and learn to generate their own reports. To reach other stakeholders, articles will be published in American Bee Journal and/or Bee Culture on our RTTT program; however, not enough data have been accumulated to draw statistically significant results. Students engaged in the lab diagnostics and web portal development will present findings at the annual BIP meeting, developing public speaking skills. Additional presentations will be made at local, regional and national beekeeping conferences. The web site (www.beeinformed.org) developed for Tech Transfer Teams and servicing commercial beekeepers will report national averages to the general public. Some of the most effective best management practices developed from the large database evaluation will be shared with stakeholders via eXtension.org for the Bee Health initiative. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Next steps include additionalrecruitment and trainingof remote team members, retainment of the current remote tech teamsand the testing and ground proofing of the field data entry application. Beginning this fall, we will train the current remote tech teams in the self-service database entry and reporting system. Training will provide feedback on any remaining issues and allow teams then to survey others in their region for comparable results. They will have complete access to all their data and will be able to utilize the approximately 10 standard report generation tools to visualize their data in novel ways.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
A primary goal stated in the grant proposal is to create an interactive web portal that generates individualized reports on honey bee colony health metrics compared to regional norms, supporting remote beekeepers and permitting commercial beekeepers already serviced by our five Tech Transfer Teams to interact more actively with their own data, so they can make better management decisions. Leveraging the existing Bee Informed Partnership web software platform for this project required building additional core infrastructure that provides fine grain control over access to data for individuals and groups as well as integrating disparate data sources into reports. Following are details related to the new infrastructure. Improvements to Tech Team data models for remote team access have included linking virus data tables compatible with two labs (North Carolina State University and University of Maryland / USDA-ARS-Beltsville). Also, pesticide analysis result data is now being entered from EPA and USDA-AMS labs, and is compatible with results from any lab. These data were formerly stored independent of the original BIP Tech Team database. This separation would make interaction by remote user's on the system problematic since this data would have no connection to user access accounts in development. Now the data entry, views, and reports, can be accessed through tech team participant records and their related field observation data. The authentication and data access control system have been totally overhauled to provide functionality needed to implement a full self-service platform. Organizations have been added which allow users to be grouped and categorized based on their needs. Organizations can range from a small local bee club that wants to share reports amongst members to large commercial operations entering in and managing all of their own sample data and corresponding reports. Our database contains private and sensitive data, so we keep tight control over user access to it. The new organization system allows us to limit organization members to only see and interact with their own data. The owner of organization can invite new members, remove members, and set fine-grain data permissions all through a self-service interface. A long standing issue with our operation has been the workflow of paper-forms to excel worksheets, to finally uploading and finalizing the data in our database. The remote tech team app allows users to enter all of their observations while in the field and upload directly into our database when convenient. This allows beekeepers to get their data much quicker and there is a far lesser chance of human error. Thus far, we have 4 remote tech teams established in Florida, South Dakota, New Mexico and North Dakota with 447 samples taken and reports generated. These operations have had training and direct contact with our traditional tech teams.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Local, regional and national beekeeping conferences and meetings
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
Local, regional and state beekeeping meetings and conferences
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