Tag: pollinator security project

I have worked at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station since 1992, and over the course of my career have provided assistance on a variety of projects, including insect pest management on organic farms and apple orchards in Connecticut.  Recent projects focus on pumpkin/squash pollination and wild bee diversity on farms, and also surveying the state for exotic and invasive insect pests.

My interest in pollination and documenting wild bee diversity began about five years ago while working on a project …

John Burand is an Insect Pathologist in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst working on microbes, particularly viruses that cause diseases in bees. Before joining the faculty at U-Mass Dr. Burand was a research and postdoctoral associate at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University and in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University. He received his Ph.D. degree at Washington State University working on insect viruses in the Department of Bacteriology and Public …

Tom Stevens is a natural resource economist. He has a PhD degree from Cornell University and is currently a Professor of Resource Economics at Umass-Amherst. Tom’s work on this project focuses on using contingent valuation methods to estimate the extra amount consumers would be willing to pay, if any, for blueberries, cranberries and other crops that are pollinated by native as opposed to commercial pollination.

Contact Information:

E-mail: tstevens@resecon.umass.edu…

David E. Yarborough is the wild blueberry specialist with Cooperative Extension and professor of horticulture in the School of Food and Agriculture at the University of Maine, where he has worked for the past 34 years. He attended the University of Maine where he received a B.S. degree in wildlife management in 1975 and an M.S. degree in resource utilization 1978.  He received his Ph.D. degree in Plant and Soil Science in 1991 from the University of Massachusetts. 

His research …

Kalyn Bickerman is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maine under the supervision of Dr. Frank Drummond and works on investigating the health of native bumblebees in Maine’s lowbush blueberry fields. Before arriving at UMaine, Kalyn completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Conservation Biology at Columbia University in the City of New York. 

Although her Master’s work focused on the health of …

Dr. Eitzer received a B.S. with a double major in chemistry and environmental science in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay.  He went on to receive a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Indiana University in 1989.  Since that time he has been employed by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.  He is an expert in the analysis of organic contaminants in a wide variety of matrixes.  These contaminants can include industrial products such as polychlorinated biphenyls or agricultural …

Professor of Insect Ecology and Blueberry Insect Pest and Pollination Extension Specialist 

I am the director of Maine’s efforts at providing sustainable pollination for lowbush blueberry in the Northeast through the Pollination Security Project. Day to day tasks are to advise graduate students that are conducting vital research on this project (9 students) and to be the spokes person for the project, especially involving contact with blueberry growers, honey bee keepers, and Maine state and non-profit agencies. In addition, …

Dr. Kimberly Stoner leads the study of pumpkin and winter squash pollination for the Pollination Security Project, counting bees on flowers on 20 fields in Connecticut, and relating those bee counts to pollen deposition on the stigmas of the female flowers. In addition, she collects samples of pollen and nectar for measurement of pesticide residues and samples of bees for molecular analysis to track movement of RNA viruses and various microbes in different species of bees. 

In her other bee …