A Little Bit of Everything

My knowledge of the extension service before I received this internship was very minimal. I knew that the agents took the knowledge and resources of the university to the citizens of the county, and that was about it! With my time that I have spent as an intern I have learned that extension is that and so much more.

A few ladies enjoying watercolor painting.

My first week of my internship at the Menifee County Extension was a very busy one! We started with a full week of meetings and then the district horse show that weekend. The kids loved showing their horses, and the kids from Menifee County did a great job! The next weekend I learned that extension does much more than just agriculture, as I helped out with an art class. The class was a fund raiser for 4-H camp, the proceeds helped some kids who may not have been able to go to camp go. So throughout my time as an intern with the extension service, I have learned that the agents have to be knowledgeable in many different facets of life.

Preparing the sticky boards to be placed in the

bottom of the hives.

Hale's Honey is where I am

doing a lot of sampling.

He currently operates about

130 hives.

During the first month I have decided on my project for the summer. I will be monitoring Varroa Mites in the local honey bee population and determining if a certain breed of bee has a higher resistance to mites.
Varroas are a parasitic mite that attaches to the bees and then lays their larvae in the same cells of the honeycomb as the bees larvae. Thus, producing bees with deformities, most notably the absence of wings. There are far the data that has come back has been encouraging, as the local population does not have a high infestation rate. However, the infestation rate depends greatly on the beekeepers methods of preventing an infestation.
two ways to sample a hive for Varroas: you can put sticky boards under the hive and the mites will stick to the board when they fall off the bees, or you can do an alcohol wash which is more accurate but kills the bees. I am doing the board tests every other week and the alcohol wash 3 times over the summer. I am excited to learn more and research more about bees.

So over the course of my internship I have learned that extension has many different areas that you can experience while working with the extension service. Anything from working with and researching bees, to helping local farmers figure out problems in their soil, from teaching an art class, to helping 4-Hers wash their hams. Extension is just a little bit of everything.