Monitoring Form
Developed by Honey Bee Watch's Monitoring Task Force, anyone can download and use this open-access monitoring protocol form, which aims to standardize data collection around the world.

Monitoring Guidelines
These Guidelines accompany the Monitoring Form and serve to explain certain terms, best practices, and procedures.

A Protocol for Monitoring Populations of Free-Living Western Honey Bees in Temperate Regions
Moro, A. et al., 2024

Introduction to Honey Bee Watch
Project Director of Honey Bee Watch and moderator of the Symposia Series, Steve Rogenstein introduces our study, its mission, vision, objectives, current situation, past and future events, and how you can get involved.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Monitoring Protocols (28 June 2023)
Jovana Bila Dubaić (Part 1)
Jovana shares her team's research of free-living honey bees in Belgrade, Serbia, and talks about their monitoring protocol.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Monitoring Protocols (28 June 2023)
Grace McCormack (Part 2)
Grace shares her team's research of free-living honey bees throughout Ireland, and talks about their monitoring protocol.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Monitoring Protocols (28 June 2023)
Filipe Salbany (Part 3)
Filipe shares his team's research of free-living honey bees at Blenheim Palace & Estate (UK), and talks about their monitoring protocol.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Monitoring Protocols (28 June 2023)
Prof. Thomas Seeley (Part 4)
Tom shares his research of free-living honey bees in the Arnot Forest in upstate New York, and talks about his monitoring protocol.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Data Rights & Sharing (28 Sept 2023)
Roger Dammé (Part 1)
Roger explains the Honey Bee Wild project in Luxembourg and talks about their approach to data rights and data sharing.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Data Rights & Sharing (28 Sept 2023)
Paolo Fontana (Part 2)
Paolo explains the Bee Wild project in Italy and talks about their approach to data rights and data sharing.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Data Rights & Sharing (28 Sept 2023)
Noa Simón Delso (Part 3)
Noa discusses BeeLife's EU-wide mission and initiatives and how they've dealt with data rights and sharing issues, especially related to the new EU Pollinator Hub project.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Defining "Wild" (13 Dec 2023)
Hannes Bonhoff (Part 1)
Hannes shares his work with free-living honey bees in Sweden, reflects upon the term "wild," and proposes new ways to describe such populations.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Defining "Wild" (13 Dec 2023)
Patrick Kohl (Part 2)
Patrick summarizes his research in Germany, then explains population demographics and why he feels that free-living honey bees should be designated "wild."

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Defining "Wild" (13 Dec 2023)
Fabrice Requier (Part 3)
Fabrice talks about his research in France, competition between managed and free-living honey bees, factors threatening the latter, and where populations could potentially be found.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Defining "Wild" (13 Dec 2023)
Michael Joshin Thiele (Part 4)
Michael shares his work with free-living bees at Apis Arborea and talks about "novel perspectives" in conservation and Life Sciences, which could lead to new ways of thinking about and studying these populations.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Bee-lining (21 Mar 2024)
Tom Seeley, Michael J. Thiele, Cheyanna Bone, and Joe Ibbertson share anecdotes and best practices on this ancient craft to find free-living honey bee nests.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Tree Cavities (20 Jun 2024)
Kevin Smith (Part 1)
Kevin dives into research and anecdotes about trees, wood decay, and fungi, contextualizing how tree cavities form and what mechanisms trees employ to defend against damage.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Tree Cavities (20 Jun 2024)
Barbara Zajdel (Part 2)
Barbara shares a new study investigating the diversity and richness of fauna that accompany honey bees living in loghives in Polish forests.
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Tree Cavities (20 Jun 2024)
Mick Verspuij (Part 3)
Mick talks about using loghives to rewild Apis mellifera mellifera, conservation areas throughout Ireland, and the importance of protecting veteran trees. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Wild Bees (26 Sep 2024)
Jamie Strange (Part 1)
Jamie contextualizes his research on both honey bees and bumblebees, then dives into the many controversies surrounding the interactions between honey bees and other species. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Wild Bees (26 Sep 2024)
Marija Tanasković (Part 2)
Marija dives into population genetics, her team's study of Serbia's Apis mellifera subspecies, and how genetic variability is essential for maintaining healthy, sustainable populations of honey bees. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Wild Bees (26 Sep 2024)
Kit Prendergast (Part 3)
Kit introduces her research on wild native bees in Australia and how honey bees compete with them for resources like nectar and pollen. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Citizen Science (19 Dec 2024)
Carolina Doran (Part 1)
Carolina introduces the concept of Citizen Science: what it is, why it's important, who gets involved, and how to recruit, retain, and communicate with them. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Citizen Science (19 Dec 2024)
Nathalie Steinhauer (Part 2)
Nathalie shares anecdotes, best practices, and advice on launching and managing a citizen-science project, based on her experience running the Bee Informed Partnership study. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Citizen Science (19 Dec 2024)
Adelaide Valentini (Part 3)
Adelaide describes the Resilient Bee Project, a citizen-science study of free-living honey bees throughout Italy, and how to effectively attract and engage Bee Guardians. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
FREE-B (20 Mar 2025)
Grace McCormack, Joachim de Miranda, Andrzej Oleksa, M. Alice Pinto, and Fabrice Requier describe this Biodiversa+ funded study: its research questions, methodology, deliverables, and implications for beekeeping.

Working Webinar Africa: Land of Bees & Opportunities (29 May 2025)
Emmanuel Piiru, Nina Chauvel, and Maina Muniafu share their projects and hopes for studying and protecting free-living honey bees on the continent, while Nicola Bradbear and David Mukomana join the panel discussion.

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Africa (19 Jun 2025)
Dr. Janet Lowore (Part 1)
Janet gives an overview of African bees, beekeeping, and the challenges and opportunities for both, from her continent-wide perspective after 20 years working at Bees for Development. 
 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Africa (19 Jun 2025)
Tibeebu Alemu (Part 2)
Tibeebu summarizes the history of beekeeping in Ethiopia, shares his own beekeeping history, and introduces traditional/indigenous practices in contrast to modern techniques. 

Honey Bee Watch Symposia Series
Africa (19 Jun 2025)
Jason Runo (Part 3)
Jason shares his personal beekeeping journey, which includes travels around the world and to indigenous tribes in Kenya, and talks about the need to protect free-living colonies and spread widespread appreciation for their preservation. 

Honey Bee Watch Café
(Part 1, 20 July 2023)
Paul Honigmann tours his Oxfordshire village and shares what signs he searches for when siting free-living honey bee nests

Honey Bee Watch Café
(Part 2, 20 July 2023)
Nichol Ruth Piniak explores the connection between humidity and bee health in Bermuda and talks about colony removals in Canada

Honey Bee Watch Café
(Part 3, 20 July 2023)
Jack Golds reflects on his free-living-bees journey and discusses making and installing horizontal cork hives in Portugal

Honey Bee Watch Café
(Part 1, 19 Oct 2023)
Ollie Visick presents interesting and surprising anecdotes and discoveries as part of his PhD study on free-living honey bees at University of Sussex. 

Honey Bee Watch Café
(Part 2, 19 Oct 2023)
Ivan Pigarev summarizes the history of tree beekeeping in Russia and explains how they're trying to preserve this centuries-old craft there.

Honey Bee Watch Café
(16 Nov 2023)
Julian Wormald talks about winter foraging bees in West Wales, UK, and the variety of nectar- and pollen-bearing, pollinator-friendly plants grown there.

IUCN Red List status for Apis mellifera
De la Rúa, P.; Paxton, R.J.; Moritz, R.F.A.; Roberts, S.; Allen, D.J.; Pinto, M.A.; Cauia, E.; Fontana, P.; Kryger, P.; Bouga, M.; Buechler, R.; Costa, C.; Crailsheim, K.; Meixner, M.; Siceanu, A. & Kemp, J.R.

Honey Bees in the Wild, Part 1: "What Can We Learn from Them?"
Roger Patterson, National Honey Show 2017

Honey Bees in the Wild, Part 2: "What Do We Know about How They Live?"
Thomas Seeley, National Honey Show 2017

Website to share stories and projects about free-living honey bees

The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild

The Darwin cure for apiculture? Natural selection and managed
honeybee health
Neumann, P. & Blacquière, T., 2016

Pitting Wild Bees Against Managed Honey Bees in Their Native Range, a Losing Strategy for the Conservation of Honey Bee Biodiversity 
Alaux, C. et al., 2019

A Plea for Use of Honey Bees’ Natural Resilience in Beekeeping 
Blacquière, T. & Panziera, D., 2018

Natural Varroa mite-surviving Apis mellifera honeybee populations
Locke, B., 2015

Norwegian honey bees surviving Varroa destructor mite infestations by means of natural selection
Oddie, M. et al., 2017

What We Can Learn from Wild Honey Bees
Grace McCormack, National Honey Show 2022

Using Citizen Science to Scout Honey Bee Colonies That Naturally Survive Varroa destructor Infestations
Moro, A. et al., 2021

Urban ecosystem drives genetic diversity in feral honey bee
Patenković, A. et al., 2022

Wild Bees in Hollow Power Poles in Galicia, Spain
Patrick Kohl, Alejandro Machado, Benjamin Rutschmann

Semi-natural habitats promote winter survival of wild-living honeybees in an agricultural landscape
Rutschmann, B. et al., 2022

A Day at Blenheim Palace & Estate
Honey Bee Watch organized a tour of Europe's largest and oldest ancient oak woodlands in search of bees in trees, led by Filipe Salbany and Francis Gilio

Density of wild honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies worldwide
Visick, O. & Ratnieks, F., 2023

Точка возврата
(Point of Return)
The Natural Beekeeping Association of Russia produced this 53-min. video about human-bee interactions throughout history, the craft of tree beekeeping, and current beekeeping practices. (In Russian with English subtitles)

Honeybee conservation in Ireland
Mick Verspuij from Boomtreebees Ltd. in Ireland talks about free-living honey bees, carving and installing loghives, and honey bee conservation.

Spearheaded by Drs. Przemysław Nawrocki and Thomas Seeley, and resulting from the Learning from the Bees conference (Berlin, 2019), it outlines urgent next steps for the well-being of wild Apis mellifera.

Arising from the Apis Silvatica conference (Pantelleria, IT, 2022), and led by Dr. Paolo Fontana, it is an appeal to protect all free-living Apis mellifera colonies and to encourage their rewilding.

Honey bee conservation and rewilding through habitat creation, education, and advocacy

In Poland and Belarus, tree-beekeeping has been recognized as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

Short film about Matt Somerville (Bee Kind Hives, UK), loghives, and the need for more research on and protections for free-living honey bees