Fw: Bee Informed Partnership Sentinel Apiary Project

[jeanne hansen]

Have you heard about this program?  Does any one want to participate?  See below

 

Thanks!
Jeanne Hansen

From: Kelly Kulhanek <kkul...@umd.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2016 1:03 PM
Subject: Bee Informed Partnership Sentinel Apiary Project

Good Afternoon Beekeepers,

Just following up to an email that we sent about a month ago about our exciting new Sentinel program that we are getting ready to launch. With May nearly upon us, this program is ready to start and we are nearly at capacity. Currently, we have a few spots still available and would love to have you participate.

Sign-up information is attached to this email or you can also go directly to our Sentinel Apiary webpage to join and read more:https://beeinformed.org/ programs/sentinel-hive-scale- program/

To apply for the subsidy, please see attached application form, if you answer "yes" to all the questions, then you qualify. We are a non-profit organization so the subsidy is limited to a first come first serve basis.

I have cc'd Dan Reynolds on this email, we will be co-managing this program. Please feel free to respond to this email, or call with any questions. We would be very excited to have you participate with us this year! Thank you for your time, and we look forward to processing your samples!

Best Regards,

Kelly Kulhanek

Kelly Kulhanek

Ph.D Student

vanEngelsdorp Lab

Department of Entomology

4112 Plant Science Building

University of Maryland 

College Park, MD 20742 

[Matthew Hennek]

No thanks.  To rich for my blood.  After their rebate of $300 and buying the least expensive scale they approve, it costs $600 just to get into the program.

Not only do you have to buy a $500-600 scale (broodminder scale will be less than half that cost!), but you have to participate in their "Disease monitoring program" which costs an astonishing additional $400 for 6 months!!!    What do you get for the $400 disease monitoring you ask?  You send them bee's and they (U of Maryland) tell you how much Varroa and Nosema you have....that's it.  No tracheal mites, no foulbrood, no viruses...just Varroa and nosema.  

I'm not saying they're getting rich of it as it must cost a decent amount of time and postage to do this testing, but I can do an alcohol wash for pennies and buy a $350 microscope to do Nosema testing if it really is a concern.  

~Matt