Riddle me this: what is informative and well-prepared, whilst being relaxed and friendly? Apparently, PoshBee workshops are – or at least that’s what the participants in PoshBee’s European Bee Course think.

Opening presentation by Prof. Denis Michez.

This two-day dedicated training school, organised by UMONS, was held in Mons, Belgium on the 12th and 13th of April 2022. The workshop was open to all and its goal was to build better bee healthy capacity among early career researchers, veterinarians and other specialists. In order to comprehensively introduce project stakeholders to the new analysis techniques and experiments developed within PoshBee, the school trainers – Prof. Denis Michez and PhD students Alexandre Barraud, Antoine Gekière and Kimberly Przybyla – devised presentations not only on PoshBee’s research but also on wild bees since the laboratory of UMONS is specialised on bumblebee and solitary bee studies. Researchers also presented the main project results, providing insights on their importance for future research and better beekeeping and pollination in Europe.

Experiments with bumblebees.

After presenting the participants with the necessary theoretical background knowledge, the trainers demonstrated several dedicated laboratory and field experiments in a particle way, which allowed the trainees to get some hands-on experience in working with wild bees.

Finally, participants could also count on training materials to help them in acquiring the new bee-related research skills. For example, twelve short instructional PoshBee training videos were available during the workshop. These videos demonstrated the project protocols in practice and contributed to an easier knowledge transfer. You can watch the PoshBee training videos here. 

On the whole, the PoshBee’s European Bee Course seems to have been a success, which definitely inspires project partners to keep up the hard work and fight to support healthy beekeeping and pollination together.