Congratulations to Epernay on winning a Waikato Graduate Women Educational Trust Masters Study Award! Phew that’s a mouthful! Epernay is doing her MSc(Research) with Chrissie and Ashley Mortensen at Plant & Food Research, investigating the ways honey bees respond to increases in sperm competition pressure. Epernay spent many hours in the lab analysing the sperm counts of drone bees from apiaries held at different densities, as well as days in the field counting drone comb at each colony. She’s now busy analysing all the findings and we’re excited to see in what ways (if any) the colony is responding to increased population density in regards to drone and sperm production.

Awesome work Epernay!