Honey bee specialists and native-pollinator experts will address the 31st annual Western Apicultural Society Conference Aug. 17-20 in Healdsburg, located in Northern California’s Sonoma County.

“The conference will provide an opportunity to learn about bee health and disease research and to interact with professionals,” said society president Eric Mussen, a Cooperative Extension apiculturist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

The Western Apicultural Society is a non-profit, educational, beekeeping organization that includes beekeepers from throughout western North America.

Presentations will focus on bee health and disease research, beekeeping with minimal chemical input, cooperative rearing of local honey bee stocks, identifying pollinators that are not honey bees, impacts of native bees on commercial crop production and the biology and management of honey bees. In addition, the relationship of honey to human health will be addressed.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, conference participants will be given the opportunity to attend a presentation by Anne Teller of Oak Hill Farm, an organic producer of field crops, flowers and baked goods near Sonoma, and to visit the Glen Ellen hilltop apiary of Serge Labesque, who will discuss demonstration hives and watering devices.

UC Davis speakers presenting talks during the conference on the following topics will be: Neal Williams, a newly recruited assistant professor of entomology, on native bees and crop production in the Eastern states; Susan Cobey, bee breeder and geneticist, on queen bee mating; Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, on native bees; nutritionist Liz Applegate, on honey and exercise physiology; Claire Kremen, a UC Berkeley conservation biologist and affiliate of the UC Davis entomology department, on native bees and crop production in the Western states; and Michelle Flenniken, a UC Davis postdoctoral fellow and UC San Francisco researcher, on honey bee resistance to viral infections.

Registration forms, the conference schedule and hotel reservation suggestions are online at http://groups.ucanr.org/WAS/.