SBA meeting September 9, 2026

Hybrid meeting (Zoom and Ag center)

6:30PM Ask a Beekeeper

7PM Izaak Gilchrist and Jonathan Nixon from the Harpur lab at Perdue will discuss their work on drones

1. Drones are more than sperm with wings

2. Targeted Nutrition: Drivers of Honey Bee Development

8PM Beekeeping short with Dona Bushong: Apiary Biosecurity

Speakers

Jonathan Nixon is a Ph.D. candidate at Purdue University investigating the nutritional drivers of honey bee development, a concept he calls "targeted nutrition." His research asks whether nurse bees fine-tune the food progressively provided to worker (female) and drone (male) larvae throughout their development, using a multi-omic approach to examine how the larval diet shifts over time and shapes gene expression in the developing bee. Professionally, Jonathan is a Research Entomologist at Corteva Agriscience with more than 13 years of experience spanning insecticide discovery, ecotoxicology, and pollinator safety, where he serves as a biology lead in an early-discovery insecticide research program. He also leads the Bee Friendly Initiative to deliver more sustainable, pollinator-friendly solutions to growers, and runs a free beekeeping mentorship program with over 100 annual mentees.

Izaak is a PhD candidate focusing on the behavior of honey bee drones. Although workers generally stay in their own colonies, up to 89% of the drones in a colony come from other colonies and drift in. Izaak seeks to understand why drones drift, why workers let them drift, and how it affects colony health. No more are drones dismissed as flying sperm, but rather as their own unique entities with fascinating behaviors, physiology, and life histories.