Vita announces its 2017 honeybee health initiatives competition, inviting beekeeping groups to apply for an award that highlights voluntary work to combat threats to honeybees. The competition's inaugural winner in 2015 was the Devon Apicultural Research Group in the UK, which received a microscope to aid its research on increasing drone-laying queens. Interested groups can submit entries by July 31, 2017 describing their initiative, and winners will be announced in September 2017 at Apimondia in Istanbul.

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PRESS RELEASE
Date: 21st
March 2017
Title: Vita announces 2017 honeybee health initiatives competition
Groups of beekeepers are invited to apply for Vita’s 2017 award for honeybee health
initiatives. The Vita Honey Bee Initiatives Award highlights the vital work of voluntary
beekeeping groups to combat the ongoing health threats to honeybees. Vita will help
publicise their work for the benefit of other beekeepers.
Anyone can nominate a group. The entry form is short and straight-forward, the closing
date is 31 July 2017 and results will be announced at Apimondia in September 2017.
The overall winner of the inaugural competition in 2015 was the Devon Apicultural
Research Group in the UK. The group is researching the apparently increasing
number of drone-laying queens. The project is ongoing and the drones are being
examined with the help of a high quality microscope provided by Vita.
Sebastian Owen of Vita (Europe) Ltd said: “The inaugural competition brought to light
many fascinating projects across the world. We never cease to be amazed by the work
that so many groups do voluntarily. The excellent submissions included a lecture and
mentoring series in Canada, a children’s project in the USA and a bee breeding
programme on the Isle of Man. We welcome all sorts of projects.”
Award Entry Details
Closing date is 31 July 2017.
Vita will announce the winners at Apimondia 2017 in Istanbul in September.
Entries should be submitted by email to awards@vita-europe.com. Photographs, video,
audio recordings and other supporting material may also be submitted through
attachments or weblinks. (See below for details.)
Entries should contain the following information:
Contact Details
Name

2. Organisation if appropriate
Address
Telephone
Email
Initiative Title (max 20 words)
Summary (max 150 words)
Initiative Outline — including aims, who is involved, timescales, results (max 1000
words)
Additional materials — web links are preferred, but emailed attachments are
acceptable if they do not exceed 5 MB in total.
Notes To Editors
Vita (Europe) Limited is a mite control and honeybee health specialist. It is the world’s
largest dedicated supplier of honeybee health products to the honey and pollination
industries. With a rigorous and ethical approach to research and development into
honeybee health, Vita has no commercial interests in crop pesticides or crop breeding
that may be harmful to honeybees.
Vita researches, develops, and manufactures a range of honeybee health products. Its
headquarters are in the UK, it has offices in Italy, France and Russia, and partners
across the globe. These products are marketed internationally through a network of 60
distributors in 50 countries.
Vita’s honeybee health product range includes anti-varroa acaricides – Apistan®
(outside the USA/Canada) and Apiguard® – chalkbrood and wax moth
controls, foulbrood diagnostic kits and health-promoting feeds. Vita also
supplies Asian hornet traps, Small Hive Beetle traps, a Bee Gym varroa grooming
aid and swarm lures. Vita products have been registered by more than 60 veterinary
authorities.
Vita promotes sustainable beekeeping through Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Its
treatments are designed to inhibit the build-up of resistance and wherever possible

3. contain natural compounds and biological controls that are benign to all but the target
pests.
Vita invests a very high proportion of its turnover in research and development.
Research partners include universities such as Thessaloniki, Cardiff, Milan, Udine and
Naples and institutes such as the FERA Laboratories in the UK and the USDA in
America. Vita’s innovative research and development work has been recognised by and
has received support from the UK Government.
As a result of its primary research of natural control agents, Vita is currently engaged in
new projects exploring mite control in the agriculture, veterinary, and horticulture
industries as well as public health and human allergen control.
See www.vita-europe.com for more information and a web app which can be accessed
at www.healthybeeguide.com.
Follow Vita as “Vita (Europe) Ltd” on Facebook and Google+ and as @vitaeuropeltd
on Twitter.
Media Enquiries
Stephen Fleming at Palam Communications
+44 (0) 1635 299116
s.fleming@palam.co.uk
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