A man-made food source provided honey bees a nutritious diet at a commercial scale over the course of two winter seasons, according to a new study led by Washington State University researchers. The study, published in the journal Insects, looked at the new feed as used by five commercial beekeepers in California and Idaho from fall 2022 to spring 2024. This study is a follow-up to an initial paper describing the bee feed.

The nutritionally complete feed, which resembles an oversized, very thin granola bar, was developed by APIX Biosciences, a biotech company based in Belgium with a U.S. subsidiary. The company worked with WSU’s Honey Bee Program to test the nutritional supplement.

“The first paper was a trial during the spring and summer pollination season to make sure the feed worked in real-world field conditions,” said Brandon Hopkins, WSU’s P.F. Thurber Endowed Distinguished Professor of Pollinator Ecology and a corresponding author on the paper. “This study happened during the other half of the year when beekeepers tend to see the biggest losses and depend the most on supplemental feeding. It was also done on a significantly larger scale than our previous study.”