THE WINNER:
The 2025 Bee Impact Fund awardee is Molly Carlson, of North Carolina State University.
THE PROJECT:
Molly will investigate a novel method to ‘trick’ colonies into accepting new queens.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:
Every time beekeepers requeen a colony or install a package, there is a risk the workers will kill the queen. We need a consistently safe way to introduce queens. It will help our colonies and our wallets (queens are expensive!).
RESEARCH WE ARE FUNDING:
Molly thinks the solution to new queen acceptance may involve adding pheromones, which are chemicals bees use to communicate with each other. With financial support from MCBA’s 2025 Bee Impact Fund, Molly will test two pheromones which are produced by larvae, and are known to control other bee behaviors. If she finds these pheromones play a role in queen acceptance, then beekeepers may one day add a drip or two when they introduce a new queen – just like we add a different pheromone to swarm traps to convince swarms ‘this is a good place to call home’.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Make a quick, meaningful donation.
MCBA is collecting donations to fund Molly’s research. It is easy to donate on our website with your credit card (HERE). We’re a 501 (C)(3) non-profit, so if you have donor-advised fund (DAF account), that works also. Our EIN is 61-1628144
Donations will be accepted until December 31, 2025
BONUS – MATCHING FUNDS: The next 20 people to contribute $50 or more will be matched with a $50 donation by Maureen Jais-Mick. That’s potentially another $1,000 toward this research.
MORE DETAILS
Who is Molly Carlson?
Molly is a graduate student and researcher at North Carolina State University, working for the internationally known bee researcher, Dr. David Tarpy.
Professor David Tarpy’s letter of recommendation describes her as “an exceptionally hard worker… She already has a wealth of experience with honey bee research at two USDA-ARS labs” adding, "the details and sophistication of her project belie her underlying love for beekeeping, which is her main motivation.” In fact, Molly is a long-time hobbyist beekeeper, and is one of the youngest beekeepers to receive certification by the North Carolina Master Beekeeper Program. (see TV report about this!) So, underneath her careful research, she is one of us, and knows the pain of queen acceptance failure.
How will Molly use the BIF funds?
Molly will research chemical signals produced by larvae, called brood pheromones, and their role in convincing worker bees to accept a new queen.
MCBA’s Bee Impact Fund will help pay for special video equipment to document and closely examine bee responses, testing equipment, expendable lab supplies, many specialized cages for observation, intern support, bee colonies, and the more than 90 queens needed to carry out this study – Remember, for each test where the queen is not accepted, there will be one fewer living queen to re-use in the next test!
As beekeepers, we know that pheromones are important and maintain colony homeostasis. These chemical signals
allow worker bees to coordinate everything including raising brood and communicating queen status in the colony.
However, there is a lot about specific pheromones that we are still researching. Brood pheromones are a few of the
most important pheromones when it comes to brood care. Brood ester pheromone is found in older larvae and brood,
while E-beta-ocimene is a newly discovered volatile pheromone, found to be released by young larvae.
Initial findings from studies on these brood pheromones, have found that they may influence whether a colony
chooses to supersede a queen. This is potentially a breakthrough for beekeepers, especially those installing
packages or replacing queens that often deal with queen rejection or supersedure.
This project aims to understand how brood pheromones, E-beta ocimene and brood ester pheromone, affect how
worker bees treat new and foreign queens. We will be running a cage study where worker bees are exposed to these
brood pheromones and observed in a petri-dish observational cages. We will initially test “pseudo-queen” worker bees who have been exposed to a queen mandibular pheromone lure, to identify behavioral differences. In secondary
testing, we will repeat the trials using live, mated queens to prove our observations from the initial testing. Our goal is
to identify if these brood pheromones can help to increase queen acceptance rates for beekeepers, reducing colony
loss from queen failure/rejection.
The proposed cage study will help to support current field work with E-beta-ocimene. As well as provide a deeper
understanding of worker behavior towards queens with the addition or absence of BEP and E-beta-ocimene. The Bee
Impact Fund will support the equipment and personnel needed to carry out this study. These results will be shared
with the beekeeping community in the hopes that it can help to improve queen introduction and acceptance for
beekeepers.