STAY CALM, STAY CURIOUS. Dr. Katie Lee from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Katie Lee is an Extension Educator and Researcher at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lee educates the public in Minnesota about honeybees. She has also been involved in colony assessment services for beekeepers. She has worked with seventy-five plus beekeepers, testing for them, sometimes specifically, checking for diseases, while other times, general health assessments involving testing for varroa mites. Knowing mite levels is perhaps one of the main measures for understanding colony health according to Dr. Lee. She says a big part of hive health maintenance is keeping the mite level low year around, maintaining good nutrition and queen health. Dr. Lee emphasizes that managing varroa mites is one of the primary challenges for hive survival issues, recommending keeping the varroa mite levels low throughout the year. Dr. Lee works tirelessly to educate individuals about bees and her hive assessments have always kept her very busy. She in fact developed a parasitic mite sampling protocol.

When asked how her interest in bees started, she mentioned she was always fascinated by insects in high school. Then, later when she took Professor Spivak’s class (Spivak Lab, University of Minnesota) she became amazed by the workings of honey bee colonies. Dr. Lee refers to honeybees as COMPLEX. She recommends staying calm near honeybees, being curious, and learning more about them. The more one learns about them, the more one gets calm around them.