US beekeeper and specialist Dr. Gordon Wardell, conducted a two-day seminar for beekeepers and honey bee specialists on Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 29 and 30 in Montevideo. The seminar was organized by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS-USDA), the US Embassy, and the Uruguayan Beekeeper Association (Sociedad de Apícola Uruguaya SAU).

More than 150 beekeepers listened to Dr. Wardell’s lectures on the following topics:

1. Liquid Protein Diet formulation for honey bees.
2. Recent developments on honey extracting
3. Honey processing
4. Apis mellifera's nutrition
5. Beekeeping industry diseases
6. Update on raising queen bees

Dr. Wardell has a PhD in Entonology from Michigan State University (1982). He is the Director of the Sensible Alternatives for the Environment (SAFE) Research & Development, a company dedicated to bringing sensible innovations to agriculture and the beekeeping industry. He also established the first Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with USDA-ARS, at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona.

Due to the great interest among the Uruguayan beekeeper community, the seminar was repeated in Balneario Las Cañas, Rio Negro (Western Uruguay), Oct. 2 and 3, 2003. SAU reported about 50 participants from Uruguay and Argentina attended this meeting.