From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Jun 17 06:53:34 2000 Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by luna.oit.unc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA29433 for ; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA10494 for ; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200006171053.GAA10494@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:15 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0006B" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 106501 Lines: 2352 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 17:17:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Organization: University of Michigan Subject: Re: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > I am presently experimenting with a two queen hive system....I placed a > queenright hive on top > of another queen right hive, separated by newspaper and a queen excluder. > The problem is, that drones will be trapped in the top hive, and I will have > to let them out every few days. However the unfortunate insects may still be > killed in numbers as they get stuck in the queen excluder, and I wish to try > to avoid this, and also the necessity to let them out. I have maintained 2-queen systems for years. The newpaper is not needed, and after a month of union, I remove the intervening excluder as well (but always keep the one between brood chambers and supers). The simplest escape way is to drill a 1 inch hole in the front of the brood chamber, giving drones as well as workers another entrance. In fact, I have such holes in every one of my hive bodies, and the bees love them. Such 2-queen hives will often produce 300 lbs of honey and more. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 23:13:51 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Brodie Subject: Re: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom asks about drone escapes. Why bother, Tom, simply prop the front end of the top brood box up above the excluder on a couple of 1/4 inch thick bits of dowelling or bits of twig. This means you have two entrances, but this shouldn't be a problem. Done this hundreds of times, it's standard practice in NZ especially for producing honeycomb for cutting. The combined force of young bees from the two brood nests working together means that they can draw out foundation or starter strips at a phenomenal rate. Rick Brodie, Scotland. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:34:04 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: cement hives In-Reply-To: <200006071453.KAA26366@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Of course there may be some advantages, but for disadvantages would'nt cement >(concrete) hives be very poor insulators? The thermal insulation value (U, or its reciprocal R) of concrete is not an immoveable feast. In particular, if you can tolerate the even weaker physical properties, incorporation of pumice in concrete increases its thermal insulation value very considerably. And don't forget those coefficients U are for a given thickness, whereas a concrete hive (once you abandon portability) can be several times thicker than normal wood. So, even in climates where high thermal insulation is desirable for beehives, concrete might be OK. R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 07:46:52 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lear, Eddie(ENL)" Subject: Re: cement hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Cesar, When I started beekeeping in 1980, I bought over a beekeeping concern, which entailed buying the hives, extractor, safety equipment etc. Out of the twenty hives a few were concrete. The bees were never successful in these hives, absconding regularly. I also found them heavy to move about, particularly the supers. I also found they broke easily when vandals entered, and they could not be repaired either. The advantages I found were that they were the only hives left in my one apiary after a fire had swept through. Also after the bees absconded, although the frames were mutilated by wax moth there was no damage done to the hive body. Eddy Lear South Africa -----Original Message----- From: HStarJE@AOL.COM [mailto:HStarJE@AOL.COM] Sent: 07 June 2000 04:32 To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Subject: Re: cement hives Of course there may be some advantages, but for disadvantages would'nt cement (concrete) hives be very poor insulators? Cesar Flores Colorado p.s. thanks for all the replies about comb in jars ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 23:12:36 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Removing bees from structures Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Our scouthouse is a rather historical looking building: 3 stories high, shingled with lots of holes drilled by woodpeckers. For as long as people can remember, there have always been bees in the walls. This year the building is scheduled for some major rennovation and I have volunteered to remove the 11 colonies (yes - 11!) inhabiting the wall. The bees are thriving this year. I opened up one of the wall colonies today, it measured 16" wide and 56" long. Dark comb and lots of honey. I have a question regarding the longevity of chemicals used to destroy bees. Apparently several years ago, a chemical (perhaps Sevan?) was used to destroy the 3 colonies in the North-facing wall.. Since I am removing the colonies I have noted a lot of honey but wonder if there would be residue from the chemical used to destroy a previous colony. Due to this history of chemical use to control these colonies and possible honey contamination, I have decided that this honey is NOT fit for human consumption. I am going the throw the combs and honey into the garbage. Seems such a was OR could I feed the honey back to the bees to stimulate wax production and draw comb? Thanks for any input. Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA This material is presented for private discussion, research and educational purposes only. Do not publish, broadcast or otherwise distribute this material without prior written authority. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 21:52:54 +1200 Reply-To: bobhog@pin.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pav Organization: KarPav Subject: FUNGICIDES and surfactants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 6/8/00, Thomas Vic VM wrote: >I'm told that spraying bees with water containing a surfactant or detergent >can kill bees by a chilling effect. If this is true, could this explain the >incident that Ian Farber recalled with Bravo 500 on a ginsing crop in BC? > I should probably just wait and let Nick Wallingford reply to this (as the report I am citing comes from his site), but in case he doesn't, here are some excerpts from the report: Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides and insecticides on honey bee mortality Dr R.M. Goodwin, H.M. McBrydie - June 1999 Full report: http://nba.org.nz/surfactants/ I don't know what the brand names would be in North America... "Surfactants are used with fungicides, herbicides and insecticide sprays to aid the penetration of the active compound. They reduce the surface tension of the spray so the droplets, which form when the spray leaves the nozzle, are reduced in size. As surfactants are not classed as pesticides they are not required to be registered and carry honey bee warning labels, however they have been implicated in bee deaths in the Bay of Plenty and Canterbury Region." "The symptoms reported in the Bay of Plenty fit most closely with the probable effect of surfactants. Soapy water can be used to kill bees, possibly because the soap allows the water to get through the body hairs and to penetrate the trachea. Although surfactants are used in much lower concentration, they may have similar effects. For example, the label claims for Citowett® reports that the product will rapidly penetrate waxy, water repellent cuticles of insects." "Four (Citowett®, Pulse®, Boost® and Ethokem®) of the 11 surfactants tested were toxic to bees when applied. Only three of the surfactants (Pulse®, Boost® and Ethokem®) were toxic when used at the recommended rate. Temperature, concentration and amount of surfactant applied all affected mortality. Pulse® showed activity against honeybees at 10% of the recommended rate. Ethokem® and Boost® also showed oral toxicity." "The results of this study suggest that surfactants should go through the registration process and carry warning labels were appropriate. It is also suggested that an education programme for spray operators be undertaken. Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides on honey bee mortality." The report also includes photos, 1 pair of which provide a telling contrast. Photo 6 shows a bee that has been sprayed just with water: the bee has fine beads of moisture glistening all over it. Photo 7 shows a bee sprayed with a surfactant: it looks like it has just been fished out of a pool. -Pav bobhog@pin.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 07:06:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Drutchas Subject: uncapper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Im trying to find parts for an old uncapper made in Timaru N.Z. by R. Davidson Jnr. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. Rick ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 13:43:00 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Two Queen Colonies/Drone Escapes Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Thanks for the many replies to my question on the above. The consensus seems that the problem is best solved by having two entrances. You know when I think about it, I must confess that the answer is so simple that I immediately said 'Now why did I not think of that?'. George Imirie (whom you disregard at your peril), sounded a downbeat note about the idea. So perhaps like many beekeepers before me maybe I just have to work the two queen idea out of my system. But meantime it 'looks' attractive, and I will provide the second entrance and see how things go. Again thanks for the help. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park Foxrock Dublin 18 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:04:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: tomas mozer Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa Comments: cc: tommozer@hotmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fyi, found websurfing the net at: http://www.anc.org.za:80/ancdocs/briefing/nw20000606/6.html FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa A study into conservation priorities in the Cape floral kingdom has found that fynbos indirectly contributes pollination services worth up to R1 billion to the Western Cape's fruit industry. Fynbos is the natural habitat of the Cape honey bees used to pollinate fruit orchards, which implies that any major threat to the indigenous vegetation may have repercussions on the export-driven fruit industry. Dr Jan Turpie, a resource economist attached to the University of Cape Town's Percy Fitzpatrick Institute for African ornithology, and Barry Heydenrych of SA National Parks calculated that fynbos and its endemic bees contributed R964 million to the gross value of the Western Cape fruit industry in 1997 terms. The Cape floral kingdom which stretches along the coastal mountains and plains from Nieuwoudtville in the west to Port Elizabeth in the east, covers less than 0,04 percent of the Earth's land surface. Yet, of its 9000 plant species, 6000 are found nowhere else and its 1406 Red Data Book species are the highest number found in one place anywhere in the world. In recent research for the Cape Action Plan for the Environment (CAPE), Turpie based her calculations on the use of some 15000 hives for twice-yearly pollination of fruit orchards. Beekeepers earn about R4,41 million annually for this service. "Through the pollination services of these beehives, the fruit industry in the Western Cape is thus indirectly reliant on the existence of fynbos vegetation," Turpie said. "If R800 million of the turnover of fruiting crops is attributable to bees which, in turn, are 80 percent reliant on fynbos for their survival, then a value of R640 million could be attributed to the fynbos in terms of the gross value of the Western Cape's fruit industry for 1992. "In 1997 rands, this value approaches R1 billion," Turpie said. Turpie's findings on the economic value of fynbos and related natural systems forms part of a research effort to develop a strategic conservation plan for the Cape floral kingdom and its sustainable use. Managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), CAPE has harnessed the expertise of a high-powered range of biologists, conservation experts and social scientists to map a five-year action plan for the Cape floral kingdom with support from the Global Environmental Facility. The findings of the study and priority projects to advance sustainable development i the Cape floral kingdom will be presented at a conference in Cape Town in September. source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/2000/news0606 processed Tue 6 Jun 2000 09:40 SAST. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:17:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom Barrett asked about drone escapes. Tom, Thorne (and some US dealers as well) sells the plastic cones (red) that are the basis of the Canadian bee escapes. They work great as one-way drone escapes. You will have to make up a board to put them in. However, you don't really need drone escapes to use the two-queen system you are describing. Such two queen systems are commonly used here in the US as comb honey production colonies. Here in the US, the hives are run with two queens (as you describe) until the honey flow commences. The top hive has an upper entrance (below the excluder) that is used by drones and some workers, as well. Usually these two hives each get quite large just before the honey flow, with each often consisting of two deep Langstroth boxes, plus a medium! When the flow starts, the upper set of boxes is taken off and set aside. All the field bees from this hive will return to the remaining hive, and find the entrance. As you know, during any flow the bees to collect the nectar will principally be those old enough to be field bees at the start of the flow. Supers (two or three) need to be added immediately when the top hive is taken away, and more may be needed in another 7-10 days! The disadvantage of this two queen system is that the combined hives get too large before the start of the flow...and if they are not allowed to get very large they will swarm! However, if one is willing to put up with such large hives, they will get a truly astounding amount of honey. I hope this helps. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 11:57:59 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Musashi Subject: Re: Drone escapes Tom Barrett asked about drone escapes and Lloyd Spear responded. There are a couple of points I would like to add to the discussion that I have not seen mentioned so far. First, several folks talked about a queen excluder over the top colony, but I don't remember anyone talking about using two queen excluders, one between the two queens and one over the top colony. Maybe two queens excluders are not necessary, but I would think you would want to have the one between the two colonies to keep the two queens apart. Second, you would naturally need to have an upper entrance to allow for the possibility of queen supercedure. If drone escapes were used, then a virgin queen would be able to leave to mate, but would not be able to return to the hive, so you could lose the 2nd queen in the part that didn't have an entrance. Correct me if I'm wrong, since I've never kept a 2 queen hive system, but I thought from my reading that you would want to have an excluder between the two queens as well as a second excluder between the top hive and the honey supers. If you remove the top half with the second queen in it before putting on supers for comb honey production and allow all the field bees to return to the bottom hive, then of course you would only need one (if that) excluder at that point above the brood area and below the honey supers. If you combine two hives and each has a queen, don't you run the risk of losing one or both queens if you don't have an excluder between them? Layne Westover, College Station, Texas, U.S.A. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 13:41:50 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Two-queen systems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Layne Westover raised some good points: 1. In our climate, by which I mean most of the US, I can't imagine running supers over a two-queen hive configured as mentioned by Tom. The beekeeper would need a ladder to get through the flow! While I know of three beekeepers using such a system, all reduce to one colony for the flow. For that reason, only one queen excluder would ever be necessary. 2. The three beekeepers I know only use the excluder while there are two queens present. As soon as the top hive is taken away they remove the excluder, figuring the top hive body on the bottom hive is so packed with honey a queen will not cross it to get into the comb honey supers. 3. While Layne is surely right about a supercedure queen not being able to get back into the hive through the drone escapes, this system is only used in the spring/early summer, when beekeepers do not worry much about supercedure. A "better" two-queen system that is used involves setting up two nucs in the spring in one hive body. Of course, the nucs are separated by a divider board. Above the deep is a medium, also separated by a divider board, and above that is a queen excluder and "lots" of supers. With new queens and all young bees, the swarming impulse is minimized. Two queens produce a lot of brood, making a huge field force available for summer (July and August) flows. The advantage of this method is that the stack never gets as high, and the beekeeper avoids the work of moving the top hive. The disadvantage is that the carpentry has to be reasonably precise so that the divider boards for the deep and the medium match up. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 22:47:54 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Brodie Subject: Re: IBList & Bee-L Two Queen Colonies/Drone Escapes Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com, Computer Software Solutions Ltd MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi everyone, both Bee-l & IBList, Re: Tom's post to both lists To clear up a few points re: Two Queen System. Here goes :- If you overwinter colonies on two brood boxes then:- In spring/early summer - start with a strong, healthy, queen-right colony. - separate the two boxes. - find the queen (yes, I know!!!) and put her/make sure she's in the bottom box. - most brood and stores will be in the top box, - depending on your judgement, swap a couple of frames of stores to the bottom box if you feel that the (parent) colony will need it. - Put an effective queen excluder on the bottom brood chamber - the parent colony. - Put a super/extracting box/whatever above the excluder, on top of the bottom brood chamber. - Put a division board/floor on top of this to separate the parent colony from what will become the new (child) colony (make sure you provide an entrance to the new colony). - The child colony needs a queen, so - introduce a mated queen with characteristics you desire (Hurray!), or, make sure the child colony has 2-3 good looking queen cells (Hiss!), or, make sure the child colony has a frame containing eggs (Booo! Hiss!). - Bearing in mind that foraging bees from both colonies will return to the parent colony, if the child colony seems light in population, temporarily block its entrance with grass (which will dry and fall out) to retain as many as possible of its foraging force. Do this anyway if you are relying on queen cells or emergency cells. - Later, assuming you now have two separate, queen-right colonies (it doesn't always go smoothly, obviously), remove the super and place a 1/4" wooden baton (or piece of twig) across each of the front corners of the bottom brood box above the excluder. - Remove the division board/floor from under the child colony's brood chamber and place the colony down on top of the parent colony's excluder - the batons provide a separate entrance to the child colony. - Take a can of air freshener (what do you mean, you forgot to bring any?) and spray into the gap between the top and bottom brood chambers. If you are a traditionalist or have plenty of time and it's not windy, you can use newspaper between the two colonies and between the child colony and the super which you are about to replace..... - Put another effective queen excluder above the child colony. - You can safely put another empty super/extracting box on immediately above this excluder before replacing the (presumably) half filled or half pulled box that was on previously as this unit will now really start to motor if there is any sort of a flow. - Continue to put on supers before you think they need any. For colonies overwintered on a single brood box, you will need to provide another brood box and make up a nucleus to serve as the child colony or combine colonies, possibly from different apiaries. Points to note in vertical Two Queen Systems (even three or four queen systems, the sky's the limit!):- Why do it? - In partial answer to Rex Boys on IBlist and other sceptics, yes, it seems that the young bees especially, from both colonies co-operate on essential tasks such as feeding brood, hygiene, maintenance and, most important to us, on comb building. They also mediate transference of queen pheromone, so a two queen system should no longer be thought of as two separate colonies but as one larger system. Regarding honey production, most honey stores and nectar gathered will be moved out of the brood chambers and stored in the supers to provide room for the queens to lay. This results in sheets of brood in the brood chambers with little or no arches of honey over the brood nests and more lovely honey for the beekeeper. Problems and NoNos Try and ensure that the queen in the upper brood chamber is younger and more prolific than the lower queen, otherwise her brood space is likely to become filled with honey/nectar (honey-bound). Don't put the supers between the two brood chambers, ie with the child colony on top, as the top brood chamber is liable to become honey-bound in a heavy flow no matter the profligacy of the queen. When you remove a crop, be very aware that there is liable to be very little food in the brood boxes and the bees will need fed if there isn't a flow on and you don't leave them something. Depending on your breed of bees and size of brood chamber, running a two queen system can put enough pressure on the bees to increase their predeliction to swarm and, it seems, that when one part of a two queener swarms it is more than likely that the other joins in (enough there for someone's PhD). So check regularly for swarm cells (yes, I know it means all the backache of lifting all those nearly full boxes of honey!) and take appropriate action. And finally - To achieve the grail of beekeeping, ie- requeening with a proven, desirable young queen to stand you in good stead for next year, remove the excluder between the parent and child colonies before the end of the season - allowing the young queen (9 times out of 10) to do a hatchet job on the old queen, giving the expanded force of foragers an opportunity to gather a large, late crop (eg. heather) and ending up with a well-found colony for wintering down. Have fun and good luck, Rick Brodie. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 17:51:22 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ron Law Subject: GM Honey Comments: To: "nbalist@beekeeping.co.nz" , NZ Bkprs , Multiple recipients of list gE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Post from http://www.genetic-id.com/newsletter/newsl44/page6newsl44e.htm British Bees Making GM Honey Bee farmers in Britain want a meeting with the government after their honey was found to contain “GM components” – specifically GMOs for weedkiller tolerance, said the Independent (London) report. Traces of GM pollen was found in two honey samples out of nine that came from an area that grew test trials of GM crops last year. Food campaigners want the government to take immediate action “to protect this multi-million pound industry from the GMO threat.” An official with the Bee Farmers Association of the UK said its members were being advised to move hives at least six miles from any GM crop site. According to a government spokeswoman, “The minute amounts of GM pollen found in honey pose no risk to human health.” However, a Scottish beekeeper said that if honey is food and it contains GMOs, “then the trials are insecure and illegal.” ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 23:21:12 +1200 Reply-To: bobhog@pin.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pav Organization: KarPav Subject: FUNGICIDES and surfactants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides and > insecticides on honey bee mortality > Dr R.M. Goodwin, H.M. McBrydie - June 1999 > Full report: http://nba.org.nz/surfactants/ Just as well Pav replied, as I don't keep up with this list too regularly just now... The address for that surfactant report is: http://www.nba.org.nz/surfactants Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz And just as I pressed send I saw it was going to [Pav] rather than back to the BEE-L! Could you forward that on for me, please [Pav]? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 07:25:56 -0400 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: northern beekeeper's salvation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been meaning to post this for quite some time. What with all the rain, and all the "swarmers" to manage, I've hardly had time to take a breath this spring. Ahhh...pshew. There I've had my breath. Seriously, if you are a northern beekeeper, and are losing a significant number of colonies each winter, listen up. Before tracheal mites, I could winter bees very sucessfully. Never had more than 10% winter loss, and was able to make increase each spring. The TM took care of that. I tried menthol. Didn't work for me. Resistant bees (Buckfast) made things better, but I still had about 20% loss over all (1000 colonies). After watching a beekeeper here in Vermont have great sucess over wintering nucs, I decided to try it. The first time, I made up mid-summer nucs and gave them bought queens. While most made it through the winter, I wasn't impressed. Many were weak, and didn't build up well come spring flows. This past summer I decided to try it "his" way. I broke up 30 colonies into 4 frame nucs, each getting 1.5 to 2 frames of bees. These were in double 4 frame nuc boxes. I gave each a queen cell within the next three days from one of two breeders that I chose. From approx. 180 nucs started, 170 raised a queen. Because I used Buckfast bloodlines (hybred) I had a wide variety of results. Some were wicked strong, some were not. Some had chalkbrood, some did not. Etc, etc, etc. In the fall, I moved these double nuc boxes onto the top of strong colonies(actually every colony in three yards). I fed them HFCS if they needed it, and packed them away for the long winter. In mid-March I checked them for the first time since November. Some were boomers, full of bees. None had brood yet. Some were dead, but most were at least alive. My first feelings were of disappointment. Too many weak ones. Then pollen began comming in. By the beginning of May, things had entirely changed. The boomers were bustin' out all over, and the weak ones had turned around. The final results were amazing. I'm not one to be easily impressed. I've been in bees too long and seen too many "all ya gotta do is" turn sour. Well let me tell you-I am impressed. For the first time in years I didn't have to make up nucs from my strong colonies to replace my winter loss. Even the weak nucs had 4 frames of brood. I've restocked several yards that I moved out of for lack of bees. For the first time in years my strong colonies weren't split and are making honey from early flows. What a plus! The boomers--12 days after transfering them to 10 frame equipment they went from from 4 frames of brood to eight. Believe me when I say - this is the northern beekeeper's salvation. Do it! Michael Palmer St. Albans, Vermont ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 13:40:10 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit tomas mozer wrote: > FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY > CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa The Western Cape Bee Industry Association also carried this article in its latest newsletter CAPENSIS. Beekeepers here are in two minds on the issue. Firstly: Large tracts of Fynbos are under the control of the Department of Nature Conservation (DNC). Their domain is expanding due to the dangers of informal settlements on unused land in the Western Cape. Their policy is simple: beekeeping is not allowed within DNC controlled areas. To the extent that even historically accessible sites are now included under their control and beekeepers asked to leave. Their policy is simple, yet, unproven: According to them bees could be responsible for inbalances in the food chains within the fynbos biome. Competition with other pollinators (mammals, insects and birds) has not been proven, but there could be disadvantages to these in the event of hives being placed in those areas. One of their arguments even went so far as to say that beekeeping was a consumptive activity, in that carbohydrate was removed from the food chain - totally discounting the positive effect that bees have in pollination dynamics and the resulting biodiversity in the fynbos. This report is, therefore good news, as it could lead to a moderation of their attitude Secondly: DNC is removing all foreign plants, including any eucalypts - the main source of nectar for our bees in the hot dry summers - from these newly acquired areas. Tree erradication is all the rage in Cape Town. Ostensibly because large trees "use up" all the water. Subsequent to their project of erradication, however, Cape Town has never experienced such heat and drought as during this past summer. Be that as it may. The "fynbos" people (lobbyists demanding the erradication of anything considerd "alien"), will now have fuel for their fire. They will demand that, as beekeepers can make do with the fynbos, eucalyptus must be removed at an even faster rate. Hmmm. Not an easy one. As bee Industry we are actually in desperate need of studies of pollination biology within the fynbos in order to strengthen our arguments that, as the bee is part of the fynbos biome, there can be no possible detrimental impact. Any helpers? Robert Post Cape Town South Africa Hosts to Apimondia 2001 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 09:47:38 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa In-Reply-To: <200006091152.HAA21247@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I sympathise with Tomas and his fellow beekeepers wanting to use the 'fynbos' ecosystem (of which I know nothing special). Could you add to the argument a more fundamental question about the relationship of the fynbos - or any other ecosystem in which bees can thrive? I have in mind to query the 'zero sum' assumption from that depraved trade economics - that one's gain must be another's loss. God has not made nature like that. It is my belief - which I admit I have not tried to check scientifically, so please let us hear from the apiscientists on this list - that bees stimulate flowering plants to produce more nectar & pollen. I am suggesting a net gain in the productivity of the ecosystem, rather than an economists' zero-sum process in which the bees' gain is assumed to cost other spp. If this is a proven fact, at least in some cases, then is it not possible that the fynbos habitats lose nothing from the viewpoint of other organisms when stimulated by the noble honey-bee? (In my country we have many fine nectar-eating forest birds, some of which are threatened, and many hives near those forests; but I have not heard the honey-bee accused as a cause of the birds' decline.) From a practical, political viewpoint, could not the burden of proof be placed on those who claim the fynbos will be harmed by beekeeping, rather on those who think as I do? Whether this can be legally done will depend on whether the postulate I mention has been tested in fact. R >tomas mozer wrote: > >> FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY >> CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa > >The Western Cape Bee Industry Association also carried this article in its >latest newsletter CAPENSIS. Beekeepers here are in two minds on the issue. > >Firstly: Large tracts of Fynbos are under the control of the Department of >Nature Conservation (DNC). Their domain is expanding due to the dangers of >informal settlements on unused land in the Western Cape. Their policy is >simple: >beekeeping is not allowed within DNC controlled areas. To the extent that even >historically accessible sites are now included under their control and >beekeepers asked to leave. > >Their policy is simple, yet, unproven: According to them bees could be >responsible for inbalances in the food chains within the fynbos biome. - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 22:54:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Juandefuca Subject: Re: Screened bottom boards Hi Screened bottom boards are THE method of ease of observation and good housekeeping.I elaborated on the original ( as mentioned in "Apis" letter by Dr Tom Sanford in Jan 1999) by placing a removable / adjustable board ( 1/4 inch) beneath the screen serving as a "sticky " Board and adjustable ventilation feature.( fabricated July / August 1999 ) This design was improved upon (H."Eric"Garz ,US & Jack Percival, Australia , September 1999 at Apimondia / Vancouver / Bc/ Canada) by making the Screen also removable to clean larger debris accumulating onto the screen, such as dead bees. All other material including falling mites goes right through the material. The mesh used is so called 1/8 th galvanised "Hardware cloth". This design proved to be the best for convenience and least disturbing when inspecting the bottom board feature. As the case may be this design can be fabricated either in line or in right angles to the combs.Furthermore some beekeepers used the rear of the hivebox for manipulating the "catchtray".The movable screen/bottom board incorporates the flightdeck. the space between top and bottom affords plenty ventilation and can be closed if so desired. This feature makes it possible to reduce the entry for the workers to a minimum to keep pests out and ease of defense. The bees have NO trouble negotiating ( walking on) the mesh. The maximum ventilation feature ( Complete open bottom) Has no adverse effect noted to this day.( Open since February, Pacific Northwest). At this time one live varroa was detected, no chalk brood , but I did have Nosema and TM infestation last fall.Lost 4 colonies out of 14.But this had no bearing relative to the screened boards since they were installed in late August/ early September.Note: this Bottom board does not affect the propagation of Varroa but curbs or radically erases the mite finding their return to the bees once they fell off them , It is an INDIRECT "control" of the mite population. e-mail; hommes@olympus.net Catfish ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 00:22:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Subject: Moving Eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings All, I hope everyone is doing well, and that your bees are busy! I think summer has arrived to the St. Louis area. I have had an odd occurrence in one of my hives, and I don't know how to explain what I found. I am hoping that those of you out on the list can help. I have one hive that I am 99% sure was queenless. Earlier in the week, I went into the hive and could not find a queen. I also found no eggs, or open brood. I did find numerous queen cells throughout the hive (in excess of 15 of then in various locations on the comb), and the bees had placed nectar in most of the open cells in the brood area, despite having plenty of super space above. I can't say that the hive didn't swarm on me, and I just missed it. It is a hive I keep in my yard to use as a teaching tool, and am in and around it frequently. Swarmed or not though is beside the point. I know in the time frame that they could not have raised a queen. I introduced a new caged queen on Wednesday, and checked to see if she had been released yet. I checked the upper box, and found several play cups, but the odd thing was, there were eggs in 5 of them and the new queen was still caged! I went through and did a thorough search of the hive, and found no more eggs anywhere in any other cells! I don't think the hive would have a laying worker in it that quickly, and if there was, I would think there would be more eggs elsewhere. I have read on the list about the bees moving eggs around the hive before. Is it possible that the queen could have passed the eggs through the screen? Has anyone seen or heard this before? It has me scratching my head! Thanks for your help! Scott ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 23:13:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Helmut Bose Subject: LEAF HIVE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HI , my name is Helmut Bose, i have been keeping Bees for a long time.one of my interests is constructing different kinds of Beehives. I wold now like to build a FEAF HIVE like the were using in EUROPE. If anybody has a set of PLANS for such a HIVE i would like to hear from you. my E MAIL is hbose@macn.bc.ca I live in BC CANADA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 20:13:07 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA - APISERVICES Subject: Re: Comb in glass jar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Does anyone have advice for getting > comb built inside a narrow glass jar or bottle? Have a look at http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/alveoles.htm Several pictures and an article in... French ( For translation use http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn Best regards, Gilles RATIA gilles.ratia@apiservices.com http://www.apiservices.com Latitude : N 45° 17' Longitude : E 001° 01' ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 11:31:38 +0200 Reply-To: Ahlert Schmidt Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ahlert Schmidt Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <8ht7ek.3vv6vrl.1@schmidt-22766.user.cis.dfn.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi to all reading this list. One remark to the observation of Scott. I am from Germany, following this list for about 3 years. I have been on a beekeeping meeting at the Institue for Bee research at Celle (Niedersachsen, northern part of Germany). On that meeting one scientist said, that even the workers of the european honeybee will be able to lay under certain conditions fertile eggs wich could lead to females i.e. queens. I this would be correct, than the many observations of single eggs found sometimes above queen excluders could be eggs from laying bees (not queens). So far i did not see published validated data on that matter but at least this opinion was mentioned within a lecture. Ahlert.Schmidt@t-online.de ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 06:27:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "john f. mesinger" Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <200006100542.BAA19952@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Since I have watched a laying queen go through a queen catcher three times, I would say you should allow for the possibility with small queens that the 4mm screen will not prevent movement of the prime egg layer. John F. Mesinger jfm6f@unix.mail.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 10:21:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: tomas mozer Subject: fwd: foulbrood Comments: cc: BigBee@spydee.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cross-posted from sci.agriculture.beekeeping for info/discussion purposes: interesting thread on drug-free afb control http://www.remarq.com/read/4586/qA2g695QAn2gC-yaY#LR ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 12:41:22 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: No worms (and no poisons) in my 'maters (slightly off topic) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have a secret weapon that keeps my garden free of many insect pests. Talk about Integrated Pest Management! This is the ultimate IPM! Curious? You can take a peek at: http://pollinator.com/tomatoworms.htm No charge. Dave Green SC USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 20:25:52 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <200006110400.AAA17970@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Re: Moving eggs. Most likely you are seeing the eggs of laying workers. Laying workers develop very quickly in queenless hives and (according to what I have read and personal testimony of beekeepers) *very rarely* they will lay a female egg that will develop into a queen. If workers moved eggs with any regularity then they would certainly find it easy enough to go to a hive a few feet away and get eggs. They seem not to be willing or able to do this. -- pb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:23:58 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Kilty Subject: Re: The Honeybees of the British Isles In-Reply-To: <200006071321.JAA23542@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <200006071321.JAA23542@listserv.albany.edu>, Aaron Morris writes snip >I'm a bit confused by this. My interpretation is that James is saying that >IOW disease endemic in Britian in the 1920s may have been vectored by >acarine but now is believed to be the Slow >Paralysis Virus (SPV) which is being spread by varroa. Actually, I'm not >sure what is being said. Perhaps that SPV has always been around, acarine >vectored the outbreak in the '20s and that varroa is a more efficient vector >today? James, if you will, please set me straight. I have not read Beowulf >Cooper's writings. I think you are correct. The viruses have always been around and acarine was the vector. Actually this statement is within the prevailing paradigm of disease. >Having read some of Brother Adam's writings I thought Britain's bee >populations were left quite devastated by IOW disease and Brother Adam >searched Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East for genetic material to >breed with the survivors. Beowulf Cooper claimed that the mortality figures were much exaggerated having discovered that a great many beekeepers throughout the country had bees which did survive. His figure is more like 50%: most of the mortality was in the south east of the country. He was able to document the characteristics of the surviving bees and estimate the percentage of the native characters in each part of the country. Recent genetic studies confirm that the bees selected for study in the UK are very close to those selected in Sweden and elsewhere which are as pure A.m.m. as you can get. Pockets have also been found in Tasmania where natural selection favours the descendants of the original imports rather than crosses with Italians. > Does Mr. Cooper assert that perhaps things would >have been better off without Borther Adam's importation of genetic material? I don't think Beowulf said anything like that. He and BIBBA members (myself excepted) are much too polite to polarize the debate and risk alienating people. My way of putting it is "think what might have been if Adam had done his work with the native stock"! But was it not his goal which sent him off in search of bees already with one or more of his desirable characteristics. >Admittedly I am not up to snuff on BIBBA's (Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders >Association) stance on the issue. I think one of their goals is to >reestablish the native dark bee. Is the intent to "filter out mongrel >genes" or to select from existing stock the characteristics that are most >desireable while concentrating towards those attributed to the native dark >bee? Any enlightenment will be appreciated. I think filtering genes is much too difficult to do consistently. The aim is to improve the stock. Repeated culling and selection coupled with mating isolation by the weather and drone producing using selected colonies is practised. Some geographical isolation is also practised. So some beekeepers buy in from Ireland or high ground such as the Peak District. I will look out the book and recent BIBBA publications and pull out some further information to post. Perhaps any more experienced BIBBA member reading BEE-L will also reply. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:30:28 +0200 Reply-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Servel?= Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Servel?= Subject: Re: fwd: foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit You can find the very interesting book "elimination of AFB without the use of drugs", by Mark Goodwin and Cliff Van Eaton at : Northern Bee Books Scout Bottom Farm Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge West Yorkshire HX7 5JS UNITED KINGDOM You can contact Jeremy via email at: jeremy@peacockpress.demon.co.uk François SERVEL -----Message d'origine----- De : tomas mozer À : BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Date : samedi 10 juin 2000 17:06 Objet : fwd: foulbrood >cross-posted from sci.agriculture.beekeeping for info/discussion >purposes: interesting thread on drug-free afb control > >http://www.remarq.com/read/4586/qA2g695QAn2gC-yaY#LR ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 03:26:04 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Attractiveness of Russian Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron sent me several interesting photos of a shipping box containing Russian queens and Buckfast queens for publication on the web. The attendants (of unknown heritage) seem to prefer the Buckfast. These pictures and his comments can be seen at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Russians.htm allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 11:22:47 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: West Nile returns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit June 10, 2000, New York Times Dead Birds Are a Portent Of Return of West Nile Virus Three crows found dead -- two in New York State and one in New Jersey -- were confirmed yesterday as this year's first known victims of the West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease that killed seven people in New York City last year, health officials said. Last summer's outbreak prompted widespread fear of the virus, and sweeping efforts by city, county and state health officials to monitor for the disease this year and to try to eradicate the mosquito population through treatment of breeding grounds with larvicide and public education campaigns. Officials hope to avoid the aerial spraying that was used last year, when the outbreak was discovered late in the summer and many less-drastic methods of preventing mosquitoes from hatching would no longer have been effective. Yesterday's cases surfaced much earlier in the year than the first cases last year, but Dr. Ostraff cautioned against any inference that the disease may be more widespread this summer. "Last year," he said, "nobody was looking for the virus." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 22:21:05 +1200 Reply-To: peter@airborne.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Bray Subject: Re: uncapper In-Reply-To: <200006081121.HAA21311@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Try Robert Davidson Fax 64 3 686-1029 Ph 64 3 686 1069 Or try Ecroyd Beekeeping Supplies Fax 64 3 358-8789 > Im trying to find parts for an old uncapper made in Timaru N.Z. by R. > Davidson Jnr. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. Rick > _________________________________________________________ Airborne Honey Ltd., PO Box 28, Leeston, New Zealand Fax 64-3-324-3236, Phone 64-3-324-3569 www.airborne.co.nz peter@airborne.co.nz We Accept MS Word 2.0 Files, Excel 4.0, Corel Draw 8.0, *.BMP, *.JPG, *.GIF *.TIF, *.PCX ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 13:27:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." Subject: Weather MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, At this time of year "good" beekeepers should be tending to their bees rather than pondering theories. Sometimes I do my best thinking while I am doing bee work. (There is something a psycho-analyst can spend days on.) As with all theories if you throw them around enough sooner or later you will find someone to agree with you. Disclaimer: This post is probably going to be a rambling of thoughts that have been going through my head the past few months (being driven by the bee loss I had this winter) trying to answer questions that start with "why". Some I have answers, others I am not too sure. Hopefully, you will also ponder these and come up with your own thoughts or ideas. Observation: I maintain an observation hive at a nature center. It was built BM (before mites) so the design does not allow for easy treatment. I had trouble keeping it going for a few years (mid '90's) but now it has been up and running for almost two years without any treatment. It has a screened bottom with a debris pan underneath. I have not seen any varroa in the pan. This colony is doing well on its own. WHY? Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? Known fact: Bees survive in very cold climates, and very warm ones too. My climate is neither. So WHY do I keep going back to the weather issue? I have no experience keeping bees in very cold or very warm climates, or do I? We are seeing 100 F days with 80% humidity in the summer (sounds like Florida), and 0 F degree days with -30 F wind chill in the winter (Canada?). Beekeepers will be quick to point out that bees do well no matter what the weather and my problem is somewhere else. Possible, however the weather is changing. In my area the past few winters were mild. Bees are flying around at Christmas. Ten years ago this was uncommon. This past winter was the same but we had severe cold spell. I lost a number of colonies during that period. If a colony has TM and they take a cleansing flight on a "warm winter day" they may not make it back causing the population to dwindle. Eventually they cannot maintain cluster temperature and perish. Theory: Let's assume there is no mite problem. What do bees do on warm days in the winter? They fly around looking for forage just like they would any other time. These are not cleansing flights, and some may fly a good distance from the colony. If they do this towards the end of the day the temp may drop and they may not make it back, causing the population to dwindle. If the weather stays mild this may not affect the cluster and they will survive the winter. But what happens if this goes on for a month or two and then a few weeks of really cold weather sets in. Those smaller clusters will have trouble surviving. The whole scenario resembles TM so the beekeeper writes it off to mites. A few years back I started switching from Italians to Carniolans. One reason was because of the smaller winter cluster and a break in the brood cycle. Could this cool weather trait work against them in a warm/cold winter? I found someone who agrees with this theory. Actually he is person who proposed it, and it fit well with my thoughts and observation. He mentioned that in the 12th century bee houses started showing up in Europe. This coincided with a warming trend in the climate. The bee house would keep the colonies cool on warm winter days and prevent them from flying. I don't know much about the history of bee houses but it makes sense. The honey flow will not be extended because of warmer winters until plants become established. This takes time. But if you artificially control the climate keeping things cooler the bees will be less affected. I am not a weather expert and I can only comment on what I actually observe, but I think this theory has some merit. It may only apply to small fringe areas. You probably don't want to think about winter at the beginning of summer, but if you do care to share your thoughts on this I would like to hear them. If this is a problem it will be the first one in while that we won't try to control with a new chemical. Also, if anyone has knowledge on the evolution of bee houses, it would prove to be interesting. Take care, Ron Bogansky Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 20:24:35 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Dead Brood Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight really but at least I will not make that mistake again. The question is what do I do with it. I can hardly expect the bees to clean it out - will it start decomposing with time?. Any suggestions as always most welcome. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18, Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 15:43:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Peter W. Plumley" Subject: Re: Weather In-Reply-To: <200006121748.NAA11212@syr.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > >Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan >resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have >problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind >survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my >head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? Ronald: I've, unfortunately, experienced two consecutive years of about 60% hive lose, and have wondered also if the weather was responsible. Winter 98 - 20 hives in the fall, 18 survived Winter 99 - 20 hives in the fall, 10 survived Spring 00 - 12 hives in the fall, 4 survived The mites are present, but in check, and the hives that perished did so with adequate supples of honey - starvation was not a contributing factor to their demise. My hives are at 1200 feet elevation in central NY State (the hilly apple country), and it is not uncommon to have some really severe cold spells (-20) with high chilling (30 mph) winds. But in the last two years, every January we experienced a significant warming trend (temps above 70!) which lasted 6-10 days. Butterfly bushes (a hardy zone 5 - 9 deciduous shrub) growing around my hives have even leafed out during these January spells - consequently many showed real stress in the following spring - and in fact, many have perished - never sending up another green shoot. Previous years, the Butterfly bush has been dormant all winter long (and covered by snow) and then thrived in the spring. And in previous years captured June swarms would stretch and capacity of my bee yard. So, if all 'common' contributing factors to hive heath are known (mites in check, queen OK, honey in the comb), as I (and you) believe them to be, I too look at this weather and wonder......and my spouse looks at me and asks why I keep spending money on new swarms every spring. PWP PlumleyFarms plumleyfarms@aol.com 3188 Sentinel Heights Rd. LaFayette, New York 13084 315-677-7743 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 17:47:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Weather How do bees manage in areas where warm winters are the norm? There must be a region where they will repeatedly cluster, break cluster and fly, and recluster during the winter, so does this harm them? Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:12:08 +0800 Reply-To: "Joel F. Magsaysay" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Joel F. Magsaysay" Organization: ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Subject: Re: Dead Brood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom, May I sugest that you put the whole thing on an anthill. Depending upon the species, ants will clean out the dead brood and leave the combs intact. Joel F. Magsaysay ilogmria@cav.pworld.net.ph ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Cavite Highlands, Silang, Cavite Philippines > > Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went > wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight > really but at least I will not make that mistake again. > > The question is what do I do with it. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 22:35:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Al Subject: Re: Weather In-Reply-To: <200006130016.UAA09714@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Robert Brenchley wrote: > How do bees manage in areas where warm winters are the norm? There must be > a region where they will repeatedly cluster, break cluster and fly, and > recluster during the winter, so does this harm them? > They seem to do just fine down here in Florida. We have some things blooming year round and the honey flows start in late January. They may cluster one or two nights a year durring a cold snap. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 23:02:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Roy Nettlebeck Subject: Re: Attractiveness of Russian Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Allen , Aaron and All The picture is worth a thousand words. It seems to be standard for the workers to stay away from the Russian Queens. It is very difficult to come out with proof that the Russian queens have a pheromone problem. I would bet on it , but the mix of the queens pheromones are not completely understood at this time. I have gone over Mark Winstons papers that he sent me on his research and there are more questions that need to be answered. I was able to get some eggs from the Russian queens that I received and have some queens that are half Russian.The hives are still too small at this time to make any type of judgment on there traits. The picture is worth looking at if you plan on getting any Russian queens. Thanks for putting the picture on the net. Best Regards Roy Nettlebeck Allen Dick wrote: > Aaron sent me several interesting photos of a shipping box containing Russian > queens and Buckfast queens for publication on the web. The attendants (of > unknown heritage) seem to prefer the Buckfast. > > These pictures and his comments can be seen at > http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Russians.htm > > allen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 09:52:13 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Dead Brood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Computer Software Solutions Ltd" To: Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 8:24 PM Subject: Dead Brood > Hello All > > Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went > wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight > really but at least I will not make that mistake again. > > The question is what do I do with it. > > I can hardly expect the bees to clean it out - will it start decomposing > with time?. Why not? If you are certain of the cause of death not being disease. give one frame each to 11 colonies. (place them just inside the fringes of the main working area (3 or 4 frames in). You will be surprised how quickly they will clean them up. Try dragging an uncapping fork over the cappings to scratch or lightly cut them (but not hard enough to rip them badly) this will give a focus for the worker bees attention to deal with the situation. You will probably see evidence of larvae being thrown out within minutes. Best Regards Dave Cushman G8MZY Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Web: http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:49:57 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Cannaday Subject: Honey Bound I have had a question that has been on my mind and was wondering if someone could set me straight. I have heard that if you want to move honey out of a honey bound broad super whether an old super from storage or currently in use you can scratch the cells and place it above the inner cover and let the bees move it down to your honey supers. My question is... if the bound honey you are wanting to move was part of the broad area and treated with medication, wouldn't moving it be pointless since it is was medicated and now un-useable or is this method of moving only for winter preparation, which, in that case why would you want to scratch and move when you could leave in place? Thanks ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 09:00:19 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Honey Bound MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/13/00 5:13:27 AM Pacific Daylight Time, bobcan@CLOVER.NET writes: > My question > is... if the bound honey you are wanting to move was part of the broad area > and treated with medication, wouldn't moving it be pointless since it is > was medicated and now un-useable or is this method of moving only for > winter preparation, which, in that case why would you want to scratch and > move when you could leave in place? You don't want to use it where it could get extracted. I like to have some saved over the winter, where I can put a frame into each nuc. The honey is consumed as the nuc builds. Dave Green http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:37:14 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A number of prominent people in positions of authority -- and who should know better -- have lately been repeating conjecture as fact. I'm talking about the slander against antibiotic extender patties. As far as I know, there is not a shred of proof that they are a cause of oxytetracycline (OTC) resistance in the bacillus that causes American Foulbrood (AFB). The mechanisms behind resistance appearing are many and generally badly misunderstood. Many of the ideas promulgated in the popular media are simplistic at best and just plain wrong and dangerous at worse. The mechanism(s) by which an organism may develop resistance to a particular substance depends on the organism and the environment. A practice that is a cause of resistance developing in one case may be the prescription for preventing resistance in another. In the past several years, a number of mechanisms that were simply unbelievable in the past have become common knowledge. On is horizontal gene transfer. Please check out http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398levy.html where you will find the following statement: "Bacteria can acquire resistance genes through a few routes. Many inherit the genes from their forerunners. Other times, genetic mutations, which occur readily in bacteria, will spontaneously produce a new resistance trait or will strengthen an existing one. And frequently, bacteria will gain a defence against an antibiotic by taking up resistance genes from other bacterial cells in the vicinity. Indeed, the exchange of genes is so pervasive that the entire bacterial world can be thought of as one huge multicellular organism in which the cells interchange their genes with ease." http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398levybox2.html is another interesting reference, as is http://www.pilotonline.com/news/op0420ant.html I also quote below the text of a letter I wrote to a friend of mine who is also a regulator: ---- begin quote --- "I notice you repeated the suggestion that extender patties may cause resistant AFB... I have phoned and written around to trace the origin of this rumour some time back, and have not been able to find any credible source for it. In the process, I have, however found a number of people I respect who think it lacks any merit and just provides a handy scapegoat. I personally have a very high opinion of this method of control and it distresses me to see my neighbours who were hit hard by AFB in 1998 and saved entirely from AFB in 1999 -- in spite of showing positive for resistant AFB due to buying equipment from (deleted) -- scraping off the patties earlier this spring when they read the newsletter. I hope they don't go through the 1998 experience again. >From my 30 years experience with AFB and the various controls, I am worried that we are discarding the best method -- by far -- I have ever seen (since sulfa) for AFB control -- on the basis of mere rumours and speculation. Do you have access something that proves more than an anecdotal, hypothetical, or circumstantial linkage? If so, I would certainly appreciate being made aware of any evidence or scientific study that in any way proves the allegations against a product developed by the USDA and duly tested and licensed for sale and use in the USA. In view of the rigour of US testing and regulation, I would expect that if there were any merit to the hypothesis, that Mann Lake would be forced to take it off the market. They say that is not happening. As for more credible explanations for emergence of resistance , I submit horizontal gene transfer -- possibly related to accidental side-effects of genetic modification work -- as the original cause fro the sudden emergence, and trade in honey and bee equipment as the mode of spread. The former is hard to prove, but I suspect will eventually be the accepted explanation. The latter is obvious and ongoing: the spread in the case of equipment is not hard to follow. As for spread due to international sale and housewives discarding honey into open landfills and bees licking out imported honey drums, that is again hard to trace. How many *unique* cases of resistance evolving can we document? And, how many cases are just the spread of the same outbreak?" --- end quote ---- Lets either prove this allegation -- or drive a stake through its heart once and for all. allen -- A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/ Package installation & performance experiments, winter loss, fondant feeding, Pierco vs. Permadent vs. dark comb, unwrapping bees, spring splitting tricks, AFB, varroa, protein patties, daily mumblings and more... Thousands served... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:01:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen Dick is "tired" of hearing the "slander" involving a connection between the use of extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline. Well, I too have heard something that "sounds like", but is not, a cause and effect situation. In fact, I heard it again several weeks ago during the Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar. Dr. H. Shiminuki, who works for the USDA and has personally spent a great deal of his career on AFB discussed the subject of resistance. What I heard (contrasted with what he may have actually said) was that the use of oxytetracycline in extender patties probably accelerated such resistance. This had to do with both their wide spread use and the length of time the oxytetracycline is on the hive. Both being compared to the use of oxytetracycline pre-patty days and the length of time oxytetracycline was on the hive in those days. So...these may be the reasons that resistance never showed up until extender patties were widely used. Dr. Shiminuki's e-mail address is hshimanu@asrr.arsusda.gov, for those who would prefer to get a direct (and undoubtedly more accurate) view. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:46:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Lloyd Spear wrote: > ... "sounds like", but is not, a cause and > effect situation. In fact, I heard it again several weeks ago during the > Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar. I was at the same seminar, and what I heard (contrasted with what Shim may have actually said) was that the use of extender patties may not be the culprit, but they certainly may have exacerbated the problem. In other words, had extender patties not arrived on the scene we would probably still be seeing oxytet resistence in AFB. However, the conditions Lloyd mentioned (wide spread use and the length of time the oxytetracycline is on the hive) coupled with unsure dosage (both in formulation in patties and amount consumed by the bees) has made the surfacing problem worse. Dusting remains a less convenient but more sure way of delivering a better known does to a hive over a shorter period of time. Another recommendation from Dr. Shimanuki was to start to wean your bees from the oxytet merry-go-around on a per yard basis. If you are a regular treater, pick a yard to simply stop treating. Watch for outbreaks, cull if any, and stop the treating cycle. He did NOT recommend to cold turkey your entire operation, but start with a yard to see what happens. If you have success, attempt weaning another yard. Learn as you go and make an attempt stop using the drugs. There are also alternative treatments to oxytet on the horizon. One was named (I don not have my notes and do not recall the name) but as I recall, the residual half life was 10 times that of TM. The other treatment was not named by request of the manufacturer until they release the product. I am in the process of summarizing the Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar for their newsletter which will go to press near the end of next week. I will post to BEE-L a copy of that summary. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 12:18:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lipscomb, Al" Subject: Re: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I think that if extender patties were the "cause" of the resistance those who are using that methodology would be the ones with the biggest AFB resistance problems. While there is no doubt that low level exposure to an antibiotic and lead to a population of bacteria that do not respond to that treatment there are other possible answers. One of the key points made a while ago was the debate over the term SAFB (South American Foul Brood). Like many of the other problems we have seen over the years the cause may be transportation of the new strain into an area where it causes damage due to lake of resistance in the native stock. The resistant AFB could have come from several places but once it hit North America it became a problem. Maybe a case where AHB has less of a problem with that strain than the EHB does. I guess this amounts to another load of speculation. At present I do not treat for AFB or EFB. I have not needed to, yet. My feelings are mixed on this but for me (and others have different needs) I think I would rather spend my money on new frames and a package of fresh bees than on a lot of chemicals. Of course if I have an entire yard showing AFB I may change my mind in a hurry! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 16:35:07 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA - APISERVICES Subject: Message from the Standing Commission of Apitherapy of Apimondia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Sir or Madam, The Standing Commission of Apitherapy of Apimondia would like to get some information on the countries below. Would you be so kind as to help us to find names, addresses, phone and fax numbers and, if possible, the e-mail addresses of the: - distributors of beekeeping equipment, - bee product outlets, - beekeepers' associations. in the following countries: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brasilia, Bulgaria, Byelorussia, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Yugoslavia. Thank you for you help. Write to roch.domerego@euronet.be Yours faithfully, Roch Domerego. Vice-President of the Standing Commission of Apitherapy. - APIMONDIA roch.domerego@euronet.be ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 13:05:02 -0400 Reply-To: midnitebee@cybertours.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Midnite Bee Subject: [Fwd: Bee Problem] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We received the following message: "O'Shea, Brendan" wrote:"O'Shea, Brendan" > Do you know of anyone in western Mass who could help get rid of honey bees > from a residential home ? It seem the exterminators are at a loss. I think > I have honey bees since the exterminators have been out 5 times spraying > already with no luck. Any helpm would be appreciated -- Herb/Norma Holly-B Apiary PO Box 26 Wells,Maine 04090-0026 "an educated consumer is YOUR best customer" The Beekeeper's Home on the Internet http://www.mainebee.com Stony Critters http://www.stonycritters.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:01:29 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Dead Brood Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Some of our members asked me to describe the experiment which I carried out and which went wrong, resulting in the loss of all of the brood in a Brood Chamber. What I did was to split a colony using a Snelgrove Board, such that the child colony (without the queen) was under the parent colony. I decided on this positioning so that I would not have to lift off the child colony each time I wished to examine or indeed put a super on the parent colony, as I theorised that the child colony would not need any attention. I placed a piece of linoleum on the wire mesh which I had in the Snelgrove Board in order to (mistakenly) prevent the queen in the upper colony being aware of queen cells in the lower colony and swarming as a result. I say mistakenly, because I came across additional information afterwards which says that the queen in the upper colony could become aware of events in the lower colony only by trophallaxis (food transfer). Apparently it does not matter if there is a mesh between the two colonies so long as the mesh is double and there is a gap of at least 12mm to prevent the bees touching one another and thereby transferring the information. It appears that being in the same atmosphere does not occasion transfer of pheremones. Can anybody say if this is correct? I did this manipulation three times so far this year. It succeeded twice and failed once. The problem with this approach is that too many bees return to the parent colony and one cold night can spell disaster for the child colony. It would thus appear to be a 'chancy' procedure. The proper procedure is of course to put the child colony over the parent colony's supers, and have a double wire mesh in the Snelgrove Board (with the 12mm space between the two meshes) so that the child colony has the benefit of heat rising from the parent colony. Ok you now have the need to lift the child colony each time you wish to do anything to the parent colony. Placing a new super on the parent colony would presumably cause some stress to the child colony because the position of their entrance has been changed. Also I would theorise (there I go again!) that manipulating the parent colony during the time when the queen might be returning from her mating flight could possibly cause her to enter the disassembled colony in error and be lost as a result. But it seems to me as if the approach I took cannot be recommended, so next time I am going to use the Snelgrove Board in the 'official' manner. Thanks to all for the help I got in handling the problem of the dead brood. Could I ask for some comments on the above, just in case there are still bugs in the procedure. A further refinement on the above is that when the queen in the top colony is laying, that the Snelgrove Board be removed, and replaced by a Queen Excluder and an entrance. Thus you have a two queen system as was discussed in an earlier thread. I look forward to comments on the above please. Wouldn't it be great to have next year's beekeeping knowledge this year!. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 22:39:21 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Roy Nettlebeck Subject: Re: Weather MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." wrote: > > > > > Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan > resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have > problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind > survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my > head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? > > > > A few years back I started switching from Italians to Carniolans. One > reason was because of the smaller winter cluster and a break in the brood > cycle. Could this cool weather trait work against them in a warm/cold > winter? > Hi Ron and All, Weather is always a factor in wintering over.Here in western Washington State US we had a mild dry winter compared to the year before. I had bees flying a lot of the time. Not all hives would break cluster. That's where the genetics comes in to play. I had about 70 hives in late Feb. expanding at an alarming rate. I started to feed them and that just made things worse. So I called over to the Islands to get some queens so I could start splits. That worked . To put everything in line. The fall of 99 had a warm spot in September for two weeks and the bees made very good use of it for winter. I had clean bees and good queens. I went into winter heavy and a good population of young bees. Then you add the mild, sort of dry winter and I have had an outstanding spring. I pulled honey on April 15 this year against July 13 th. last year.Thats a big difference , but it had more than just the weather to bring in the good results. Location is very important here in western Washington. Put bees on rocky ground with good air flow. Moisture in the hive will cause you more problems than you can fix. You will have population depletion with weak stressed bees.They get caught in the cold and they can't make it home.Dry healthy bees can fly over the snow and you do not have a large lose.We did have snow last winter at my place for 2 weeks. The bees at home did not do as well as the bees that I had down at sea level by Puget Sound. 500 feet makes a difference around here.The weather affects the bees and that's a given. The how is complex.The more hives you run , the greater the range of results in any given area. That's my nickel. Best Regards Roy Nettlebeck ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:31:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Begin rant- As far as I know there is no scientific evidence that extender patties have led to AFB resistance.... but. I was told when Apistan treatment started that we had ten years before resistance would be detected. That prediction was right on schedule. When did terra patties come on the scene? The application method insures a sub lethal dose will be administered to some colonies, just because they will not consume the entire or even most of the patty. When my doctor gives me an antibiotic, the label directions are quite clear- take all of it as prescribed. But in many cases the bees are not doing that, enough to suppose that resistance could develop. So even though the proof is not there, circumstantial evidence is fairly strong. There does seem to be a cause and effect relationship. The worst part of this discussion is that we are arguing about a treatment that should not be used in the first place. I really do not care if AFB is resistant. Burning is still the best and most effective method of controlling AFB, since AFB has not developed resistance to that, even after ten years. We should follow the example set by New Zealand. All that terra is doing in ensuring AFB will be there for those of us who do not treat. End rant, and I feel much better. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:55:33 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Attila31@AOL.COM Subject: Hubam white annual sweet clover. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. I am looking for Hubam annual white sweet clover for a reasonable price. The price should bee less than $2.1 if possible. The bees love this clover. I live in VA. Thanks for your help. Attila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:59:17 -0500 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Truesdell wrote: > > Begin rant- > > The application method insures a sub lethal dose will be administered to > some colonies, just because they will not consume the entire or even most > of the patty. > > So even though the proof is not there, circumstantial evidence is fairly > strong. There does seem to be a cause and effect relationship. > Hello Bill, In my opinion both you and Allen raise valid points and are on the same page. Allen is correct is saying when applied at the correct time and consumed by the bees they work great for the purpose intended and shouldn't cause resistance. You are saying that when not correctly used and not totally consumed by the bees they cause resistance which i believe could be correct also although the proof is not there thru lab testing. I will also state there are beekeepers not using any treatment for AFB other than burning all equipment found to contain AFB. Beekeeping was almost wiped out in the 1940's in the U.S. because of AFB before the use of the sulfa drugs. Burning equipment was not working as the problem grew larger. I started beekeeping after sulfa was in widespread use and AFB was in check but remember all the beekeepers talk about how the problem grew and grew and seemed as though the entire industry was in dire straits before sulfa was discovered to work by a obscure university in Missouri. Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:55:09 +0200 Reply-To: Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: help to expand this list ???? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have put a star on those important! *Bacillus larvae (AFB) *Streptococcus pluton (EFB) secondary bacteriel in conjunction with (EFB): Bacterium eurydice strepcoccus faecalis bacillus alvei bacillus laterosporus Bacillus para-alvei bacillus gracilosporus Bacillus apidarium Bacillus fetuum amoeba attachs: *Nosema apis Malpighamoeba mellificae Mites: *Acarapis Woodi (Thraceal mites) *Varroa jacobsoni secundary mites : Acarapis dorsalis Acapis vagans Acarapis externus disease courced by fungus : *Ascosphare apis (chalc brood) Aspergillus flavus Asfergillus fresonius virus : *black colloring diesease (you have a better word in english ?) *sack brood *Acute paralysis Virus Insect parrasites : braula coeca(bee louse) other parasites : small hivebettle Yoy have more ??? best regard Jorn Johanesson mailto:Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk http://apimo.dk MultiLingual beekeeping software since 1972. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 10:00:33 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Moye Subject: Selection for AFB resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Bacteria are able to aquire new genes in a variety of ways. When discussing the use of tetracycline grease patties, it does not matter how the resistant strains developed rather that they now exist. Improper use of antibiotics keeps constant selection pressure on the bacteria so that the resistant strains will predominate. Allowing a time of reproduction without this selection pressure will enable the bacteria to continue to change genetically and enable a mixture of strains to exist. The the most suitable strain will become the predominant type. (Survival of the fittest). Likely there will be a mixture of strains. This can in time weaken the resistant strain and decrease its prevelance. Ideally in an integrated pest management situation, you only use a pesticide or antibiotic when needed - not prophylactically. In some instances, it may be impractical or impossible to measure the level of infestation and prophylactic measures may be all that is available. Proper use of both antibiotics and pesticides will lengthen their life and reduce residues in the foods that we consume. Leaving Apistan strips and tetracycline grease patties in your hives all the time is very irresponsible and hurts everyone. Hopefully with the constant selection pressure of varroa on honeybees, tolerant strains will survive and reestablish a strong feral bee population. Russian Queens may bring to us a genetic mechanism for tolerance. Let's keep our fingers crossed. We may be able to use less antibiotics and pesticides in beekeeping in the future. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:15:11 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jonathan Ruel Subject: entrance for greenhouse In-Reply-To: <200006140402.AAA22799@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed How can I allow my bees entrance to the greenhouse but exclude grasshoppers? We have so darn many grasshoppers in my area that the only way to grow anything is in a greenhouse or screen box. But I still want my bees to have access for pollination. Any ideas on how to build an entrance for bees that won't also allow the grasshoppers? The young grasshoppers are quite small so making a small hole for the bees still lets them in. Interesting observation - lately, I've seen grasshoppers (which obviously usually stick to plants) eating dead bees in front of my hives. Jonathan Ruel Flagstaff, AZ, USA 7,000 ft. a.s.l. From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Jun 17 06:53:34 2000 Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by luna.oit.unc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA29433 for ; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA10494 for ; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200006171053.GAA10494@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 06:53:15 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0006B" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 106501 Lines: 2352 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 17:17:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Organization: University of Michigan Subject: Re: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > I am presently experimenting with a two queen hive system....I placed a > queenright hive on top > of another queen right hive, separated by newspaper and a queen excluder. > The problem is, that drones will be trapped in the top hive, and I will have > to let them out every few days. However the unfortunate insects may still be > killed in numbers as they get stuck in the queen excluder, and I wish to try > to avoid this, and also the necessity to let them out. I have maintained 2-queen systems for years. The newpaper is not needed, and after a month of union, I remove the intervening excluder as well (but always keep the one between brood chambers and supers). The simplest escape way is to drill a 1 inch hole in the front of the brood chamber, giving drones as well as workers another entrance. In fact, I have such holes in every one of my hive bodies, and the bees love them. Such 2-queen hives will often produce 300 lbs of honey and more. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 23:13:51 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Brodie Subject: Re: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom asks about drone escapes. Why bother, Tom, simply prop the front end of the top brood box up above the excluder on a couple of 1/4 inch thick bits of dowelling or bits of twig. This means you have two entrances, but this shouldn't be a problem. Done this hundreds of times, it's standard practice in NZ especially for producing honeycomb for cutting. The combined force of young bees from the two brood nests working together means that they can draw out foundation or starter strips at a phenomenal rate. Rick Brodie, Scotland. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:34:04 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: cement hives In-Reply-To: <200006071453.KAA26366@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Of course there may be some advantages, but for disadvantages would'nt cement >(concrete) hives be very poor insulators? The thermal insulation value (U, or its reciprocal R) of concrete is not an immoveable feast. In particular, if you can tolerate the even weaker physical properties, incorporation of pumice in concrete increases its thermal insulation value very considerably. And don't forget those coefficients U are for a given thickness, whereas a concrete hive (once you abandon portability) can be several times thicker than normal wood. So, even in climates where high thermal insulation is desirable for beehives, concrete might be OK. R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 07:46:52 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lear, Eddie(ENL)" Subject: Re: cement hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Cesar, When I started beekeeping in 1980, I bought over a beekeeping concern, which entailed buying the hives, extractor, safety equipment etc. Out of the twenty hives a few were concrete. The bees were never successful in these hives, absconding regularly. I also found them heavy to move about, particularly the supers. I also found they broke easily when vandals entered, and they could not be repaired either. The advantages I found were that they were the only hives left in my one apiary after a fire had swept through. Also after the bees absconded, although the frames were mutilated by wax moth there was no damage done to the hive body. Eddy Lear South Africa -----Original Message----- From: HStarJE@AOL.COM [mailto:HStarJE@AOL.COM] Sent: 07 June 2000 04:32 To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Subject: Re: cement hives Of course there may be some advantages, but for disadvantages would'nt cement (concrete) hives be very poor insulators? Cesar Flores Colorado p.s. thanks for all the replies about comb in jars ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 23:12:36 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Removing bees from structures Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Our scouthouse is a rather historical looking building: 3 stories high, shingled with lots of holes drilled by woodpeckers. For as long as people can remember, there have always been bees in the walls. This year the building is scheduled for some major rennovation and I have volunteered to remove the 11 colonies (yes - 11!) inhabiting the wall. The bees are thriving this year. I opened up one of the wall colonies today, it measured 16" wide and 56" long. Dark comb and lots of honey. I have a question regarding the longevity of chemicals used to destroy bees. Apparently several years ago, a chemical (perhaps Sevan?) was used to destroy the 3 colonies in the North-facing wall.. Since I am removing the colonies I have noted a lot of honey but wonder if there would be residue from the chemical used to destroy a previous colony. Due to this history of chemical use to control these colonies and possible honey contamination, I have decided that this honey is NOT fit for human consumption. I am going the throw the combs and honey into the garbage. Seems such a was OR could I feed the honey back to the bees to stimulate wax production and draw comb? Thanks for any input. Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA This material is presented for private discussion, research and educational purposes only. Do not publish, broadcast or otherwise distribute this material without prior written authority. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 21:52:54 +1200 Reply-To: bobhog@pin.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pav Organization: KarPav Subject: FUNGICIDES and surfactants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 6/8/00, Thomas Vic VM wrote: >I'm told that spraying bees with water containing a surfactant or detergent >can kill bees by a chilling effect. If this is true, could this explain the >incident that Ian Farber recalled with Bravo 500 on a ginsing crop in BC? > I should probably just wait and let Nick Wallingford reply to this (as the report I am citing comes from his site), but in case he doesn't, here are some excerpts from the report: Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides and insecticides on honey bee mortality Dr R.M. Goodwin, H.M. McBrydie - June 1999 Full report: http://nba.org.nz/surfactants/ I don't know what the brand names would be in North America... "Surfactants are used with fungicides, herbicides and insecticide sprays to aid the penetration of the active compound. They reduce the surface tension of the spray so the droplets, which form when the spray leaves the nozzle, are reduced in size. As surfactants are not classed as pesticides they are not required to be registered and carry honey bee warning labels, however they have been implicated in bee deaths in the Bay of Plenty and Canterbury Region." "The symptoms reported in the Bay of Plenty fit most closely with the probable effect of surfactants. Soapy water can be used to kill bees, possibly because the soap allows the water to get through the body hairs and to penetrate the trachea. Although surfactants are used in much lower concentration, they may have similar effects. For example, the label claims for Citowett® reports that the product will rapidly penetrate waxy, water repellent cuticles of insects." "Four (Citowett®, Pulse®, Boost® and Ethokem®) of the 11 surfactants tested were toxic to bees when applied. Only three of the surfactants (Pulse®, Boost® and Ethokem®) were toxic when used at the recommended rate. Temperature, concentration and amount of surfactant applied all affected mortality. Pulse® showed activity against honeybees at 10% of the recommended rate. Ethokem® and Boost® also showed oral toxicity." "The results of this study suggest that surfactants should go through the registration process and carry warning labels were appropriate. It is also suggested that an education programme for spray operators be undertaken. Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides on honey bee mortality." The report also includes photos, 1 pair of which provide a telling contrast. Photo 6 shows a bee that has been sprayed just with water: the bee has fine beads of moisture glistening all over it. Photo 7 shows a bee sprayed with a surfactant: it looks like it has just been fished out of a pool. -Pav bobhog@pin.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 07:06:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Drutchas Subject: uncapper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Im trying to find parts for an old uncapper made in Timaru N.Z. by R. Davidson Jnr. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. Rick ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 13:43:00 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Two Queen Colonies/Drone Escapes Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Thanks for the many replies to my question on the above. The consensus seems that the problem is best solved by having two entrances. You know when I think about it, I must confess that the answer is so simple that I immediately said 'Now why did I not think of that?'. George Imirie (whom you disregard at your peril), sounded a downbeat note about the idea. So perhaps like many beekeepers before me maybe I just have to work the two queen idea out of my system. But meantime it 'looks' attractive, and I will provide the second entrance and see how things go. Again thanks for the help. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park Foxrock Dublin 18 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:04:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: tomas mozer Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa Comments: cc: tommozer@hotmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fyi, found websurfing the net at: http://www.anc.org.za:80/ancdocs/briefing/nw20000606/6.html FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa A study into conservation priorities in the Cape floral kingdom has found that fynbos indirectly contributes pollination services worth up to R1 billion to the Western Cape's fruit industry. Fynbos is the natural habitat of the Cape honey bees used to pollinate fruit orchards, which implies that any major threat to the indigenous vegetation may have repercussions on the export-driven fruit industry. Dr Jan Turpie, a resource economist attached to the University of Cape Town's Percy Fitzpatrick Institute for African ornithology, and Barry Heydenrych of SA National Parks calculated that fynbos and its endemic bees contributed R964 million to the gross value of the Western Cape fruit industry in 1997 terms. The Cape floral kingdom which stretches along the coastal mountains and plains from Nieuwoudtville in the west to Port Elizabeth in the east, covers less than 0,04 percent of the Earth's land surface. Yet, of its 9000 plant species, 6000 are found nowhere else and its 1406 Red Data Book species are the highest number found in one place anywhere in the world. In recent research for the Cape Action Plan for the Environment (CAPE), Turpie based her calculations on the use of some 15000 hives for twice-yearly pollination of fruit orchards. Beekeepers earn about R4,41 million annually for this service. "Through the pollination services of these beehives, the fruit industry in the Western Cape is thus indirectly reliant on the existence of fynbos vegetation," Turpie said. "If R800 million of the turnover of fruiting crops is attributable to bees which, in turn, are 80 percent reliant on fynbos for their survival, then a value of R640 million could be attributed to the fynbos in terms of the gross value of the Western Cape's fruit industry for 1992. "In 1997 rands, this value approaches R1 billion," Turpie said. Turpie's findings on the economic value of fynbos and related natural systems forms part of a research effort to develop a strategic conservation plan for the Cape floral kingdom and its sustainable use. Managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), CAPE has harnessed the expertise of a high-powered range of biologists, conservation experts and social scientists to map a five-year action plan for the Cape floral kingdom with support from the Global Environmental Facility. The findings of the study and priority projects to advance sustainable development i the Cape floral kingdom will be presented at a conference in Cape Town in September. source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/2000/news0606 processed Tue 6 Jun 2000 09:40 SAST. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:17:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Drone escapes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom Barrett asked about drone escapes. Tom, Thorne (and some US dealers as well) sells the plastic cones (red) that are the basis of the Canadian bee escapes. They work great as one-way drone escapes. You will have to make up a board to put them in. However, you don't really need drone escapes to use the two-queen system you are describing. Such two queen systems are commonly used here in the US as comb honey production colonies. Here in the US, the hives are run with two queens (as you describe) until the honey flow commences. The top hive has an upper entrance (below the excluder) that is used by drones and some workers, as well. Usually these two hives each get quite large just before the honey flow, with each often consisting of two deep Langstroth boxes, plus a medium! When the flow starts, the upper set of boxes is taken off and set aside. All the field bees from this hive will return to the remaining hive, and find the entrance. As you know, during any flow the bees to collect the nectar will principally be those old enough to be field bees at the start of the flow. Supers (two or three) need to be added immediately when the top hive is taken away, and more may be needed in another 7-10 days! The disadvantage of this two queen system is that the combined hives get too large before the start of the flow...and if they are not allowed to get very large they will swarm! However, if one is willing to put up with such large hives, they will get a truly astounding amount of honey. I hope this helps. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 11:57:59 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Musashi Subject: Re: Drone escapes Tom Barrett asked about drone escapes and Lloyd Spear responded. There are a couple of points I would like to add to the discussion that I have not seen mentioned so far. First, several folks talked about a queen excluder over the top colony, but I don't remember anyone talking about using two queen excluders, one between the two queens and one over the top colony. Maybe two queens excluders are not necessary, but I would think you would want to have the one between the two colonies to keep the two queens apart. Second, you would naturally need to have an upper entrance to allow for the possibility of queen supercedure. If drone escapes were used, then a virgin queen would be able to leave to mate, but would not be able to return to the hive, so you could lose the 2nd queen in the part that didn't have an entrance. Correct me if I'm wrong, since I've never kept a 2 queen hive system, but I thought from my reading that you would want to have an excluder between the two queens as well as a second excluder between the top hive and the honey supers. If you remove the top half with the second queen in it before putting on supers for comb honey production and allow all the field bees to return to the bottom hive, then of course you would only need one (if that) excluder at that point above the brood area and below the honey supers. If you combine two hives and each has a queen, don't you run the risk of losing one or both queens if you don't have an excluder between them? Layne Westover, College Station, Texas, U.S.A. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 13:41:50 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Two-queen systems MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Layne Westover raised some good points: 1. In our climate, by which I mean most of the US, I can't imagine running supers over a two-queen hive configured as mentioned by Tom. The beekeeper would need a ladder to get through the flow! While I know of three beekeepers using such a system, all reduce to one colony for the flow. For that reason, only one queen excluder would ever be necessary. 2. The three beekeepers I know only use the excluder while there are two queens present. As soon as the top hive is taken away they remove the excluder, figuring the top hive body on the bottom hive is so packed with honey a queen will not cross it to get into the comb honey supers. 3. While Layne is surely right about a supercedure queen not being able to get back into the hive through the drone escapes, this system is only used in the spring/early summer, when beekeepers do not worry much about supercedure. A "better" two-queen system that is used involves setting up two nucs in the spring in one hive body. Of course, the nucs are separated by a divider board. Above the deep is a medium, also separated by a divider board, and above that is a queen excluder and "lots" of supers. With new queens and all young bees, the swarming impulse is minimized. Two queens produce a lot of brood, making a huge field force available for summer (July and August) flows. The advantage of this method is that the stack never gets as high, and the beekeeper avoids the work of moving the top hive. The disadvantage is that the carpentry has to be reasonably precise so that the divider boards for the deep and the medium match up. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 22:47:54 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Brodie Subject: Re: IBList & Bee-L Two Queen Colonies/Drone Escapes Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com, Computer Software Solutions Ltd MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi everyone, both Bee-l & IBList, Re: Tom's post to both lists To clear up a few points re: Two Queen System. Here goes :- If you overwinter colonies on two brood boxes then:- In spring/early summer - start with a strong, healthy, queen-right colony. - separate the two boxes. - find the queen (yes, I know!!!) and put her/make sure she's in the bottom box. - most brood and stores will be in the top box, - depending on your judgement, swap a couple of frames of stores to the bottom box if you feel that the (parent) colony will need it. - Put an effective queen excluder on the bottom brood chamber - the parent colony. - Put a super/extracting box/whatever above the excluder, on top of the bottom brood chamber. - Put a division board/floor on top of this to separate the parent colony from what will become the new (child) colony (make sure you provide an entrance to the new colony). - The child colony needs a queen, so - introduce a mated queen with characteristics you desire (Hurray!), or, make sure the child colony has 2-3 good looking queen cells (Hiss!), or, make sure the child colony has a frame containing eggs (Booo! Hiss!). - Bearing in mind that foraging bees from both colonies will return to the parent colony, if the child colony seems light in population, temporarily block its entrance with grass (which will dry and fall out) to retain as many as possible of its foraging force. Do this anyway if you are relying on queen cells or emergency cells. - Later, assuming you now have two separate, queen-right colonies (it doesn't always go smoothly, obviously), remove the super and place a 1/4" wooden baton (or piece of twig) across each of the front corners of the bottom brood box above the excluder. - Remove the division board/floor from under the child colony's brood chamber and place the colony down on top of the parent colony's excluder - the batons provide a separate entrance to the child colony. - Take a can of air freshener (what do you mean, you forgot to bring any?) and spray into the gap between the top and bottom brood chambers. If you are a traditionalist or have plenty of time and it's not windy, you can use newspaper between the two colonies and between the child colony and the super which you are about to replace..... - Put another effective queen excluder above the child colony. - You can safely put another empty super/extracting box on immediately above this excluder before replacing the (presumably) half filled or half pulled box that was on previously as this unit will now really start to motor if there is any sort of a flow. - Continue to put on supers before you think they need any. For colonies overwintered on a single brood box, you will need to provide another brood box and make up a nucleus to serve as the child colony or combine colonies, possibly from different apiaries. Points to note in vertical Two Queen Systems (even three or four queen systems, the sky's the limit!):- Why do it? - In partial answer to Rex Boys on IBlist and other sceptics, yes, it seems that the young bees especially, from both colonies co-operate on essential tasks such as feeding brood, hygiene, maintenance and, most important to us, on comb building. They also mediate transference of queen pheromone, so a two queen system should no longer be thought of as two separate colonies but as one larger system. Regarding honey production, most honey stores and nectar gathered will be moved out of the brood chambers and stored in the supers to provide room for the queens to lay. This results in sheets of brood in the brood chambers with little or no arches of honey over the brood nests and more lovely honey for the beekeeper. Problems and NoNos Try and ensure that the queen in the upper brood chamber is younger and more prolific than the lower queen, otherwise her brood space is likely to become filled with honey/nectar (honey-bound). Don't put the supers between the two brood chambers, ie with the child colony on top, as the top brood chamber is liable to become honey-bound in a heavy flow no matter the profligacy of the queen. When you remove a crop, be very aware that there is liable to be very little food in the brood boxes and the bees will need fed if there isn't a flow on and you don't leave them something. Depending on your breed of bees and size of brood chamber, running a two queen system can put enough pressure on the bees to increase their predeliction to swarm and, it seems, that when one part of a two queener swarms it is more than likely that the other joins in (enough there for someone's PhD). So check regularly for swarm cells (yes, I know it means all the backache of lifting all those nearly full boxes of honey!) and take appropriate action. And finally - To achieve the grail of beekeeping, ie- requeening with a proven, desirable young queen to stand you in good stead for next year, remove the excluder between the parent and child colonies before the end of the season - allowing the young queen (9 times out of 10) to do a hatchet job on the old queen, giving the expanded force of foragers an opportunity to gather a large, late crop (eg. heather) and ending up with a well-found colony for wintering down. Have fun and good luck, Rick Brodie. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 17:51:22 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ron Law Subject: GM Honey Comments: To: "nbalist@beekeeping.co.nz" , NZ Bkprs , Multiple recipients of list gE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Post from http://www.genetic-id.com/newsletter/newsl44/page6newsl44e.htm British Bees Making GM Honey Bee farmers in Britain want a meeting with the government after their honey was found to contain “GM components” – specifically GMOs for weedkiller tolerance, said the Independent (London) report. Traces of GM pollen was found in two honey samples out of nine that came from an area that grew test trials of GM crops last year. Food campaigners want the government to take immediate action “to protect this multi-million pound industry from the GMO threat.” An official with the Bee Farmers Association of the UK said its members were being advised to move hives at least six miles from any GM crop site. According to a government spokeswoman, “The minute amounts of GM pollen found in honey pose no risk to human health.” However, a Scottish beekeeper said that if honey is food and it contains GMOs, “then the trials are insecure and illegal.” ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 23:21:12 +1200 Reply-To: bobhog@pin.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pav Organization: KarPav Subject: FUNGICIDES and surfactants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Effect of surfactants used with fungicides, herbicides and > insecticides on honey bee mortality > Dr R.M. Goodwin, H.M. McBrydie - June 1999 > Full report: http://nba.org.nz/surfactants/ Just as well Pav replied, as I don't keep up with this list too regularly just now... The address for that surfactant report is: http://www.nba.org.nz/surfactants Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz And just as I pressed send I saw it was going to [Pav] rather than back to the BEE-L! Could you forward that on for me, please [Pav]? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 07:25:56 -0400 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: northern beekeeper's salvation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been meaning to post this for quite some time. What with all the rain, and all the "swarmers" to manage, I've hardly had time to take a breath this spring. Ahhh...pshew. There I've had my breath. Seriously, if you are a northern beekeeper, and are losing a significant number of colonies each winter, listen up. Before tracheal mites, I could winter bees very sucessfully. Never had more than 10% winter loss, and was able to make increase each spring. The TM took care of that. I tried menthol. Didn't work for me. Resistant bees (Buckfast) made things better, but I still had about 20% loss over all (1000 colonies). After watching a beekeeper here in Vermont have great sucess over wintering nucs, I decided to try it. The first time, I made up mid-summer nucs and gave them bought queens. While most made it through the winter, I wasn't impressed. Many were weak, and didn't build up well come spring flows. This past summer I decided to try it "his" way. I broke up 30 colonies into 4 frame nucs, each getting 1.5 to 2 frames of bees. These were in double 4 frame nuc boxes. I gave each a queen cell within the next three days from one of two breeders that I chose. From approx. 180 nucs started, 170 raised a queen. Because I used Buckfast bloodlines (hybred) I had a wide variety of results. Some were wicked strong, some were not. Some had chalkbrood, some did not. Etc, etc, etc. In the fall, I moved these double nuc boxes onto the top of strong colonies(actually every colony in three yards). I fed them HFCS if they needed it, and packed them away for the long winter. In mid-March I checked them for the first time since November. Some were boomers, full of bees. None had brood yet. Some were dead, but most were at least alive. My first feelings were of disappointment. Too many weak ones. Then pollen began comming in. By the beginning of May, things had entirely changed. The boomers were bustin' out all over, and the weak ones had turned around. The final results were amazing. I'm not one to be easily impressed. I've been in bees too long and seen too many "all ya gotta do is" turn sour. Well let me tell you-I am impressed. For the first time in years I didn't have to make up nucs from my strong colonies to replace my winter loss. Even the weak nucs had 4 frames of brood. I've restocked several yards that I moved out of for lack of bees. For the first time in years my strong colonies weren't split and are making honey from early flows. What a plus! The boomers--12 days after transfering them to 10 frame equipment they went from from 4 frames of brood to eight. Believe me when I say - this is the northern beekeeper's salvation. Do it! Michael Palmer St. Albans, Vermont ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 13:40:10 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit tomas mozer wrote: > FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY > CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa The Western Cape Bee Industry Association also carried this article in its latest newsletter CAPENSIS. Beekeepers here are in two minds on the issue. Firstly: Large tracts of Fynbos are under the control of the Department of Nature Conservation (DNC). Their domain is expanding due to the dangers of informal settlements on unused land in the Western Cape. Their policy is simple: beekeeping is not allowed within DNC controlled areas. To the extent that even historically accessible sites are now included under their control and beekeepers asked to leave. Their policy is simple, yet, unproven: According to them bees could be responsible for inbalances in the food chains within the fynbos biome. Competition with other pollinators (mammals, insects and birds) has not been proven, but there could be disadvantages to these in the event of hives being placed in those areas. One of their arguments even went so far as to say that beekeeping was a consumptive activity, in that carbohydrate was removed from the food chain - totally discounting the positive effect that bees have in pollination dynamics and the resulting biodiversity in the fynbos. This report is, therefore good news, as it could lead to a moderation of their attitude Secondly: DNC is removing all foreign plants, including any eucalypts - the main source of nectar for our bees in the hot dry summers - from these newly acquired areas. Tree erradication is all the rage in Cape Town. Ostensibly because large trees "use up" all the water. Subsequent to their project of erradication, however, Cape Town has never experienced such heat and drought as during this past summer. Be that as it may. The "fynbos" people (lobbyists demanding the erradication of anything considerd "alien"), will now have fuel for their fire. They will demand that, as beekeepers can make do with the fynbos, eucalyptus must be removed at an even faster rate. Hmmm. Not an easy one. As bee Industry we are actually in desperate need of studies of pollination biology within the fynbos in order to strengthen our arguments that, as the bee is part of the fynbos biome, there can be no possible detrimental impact. Any helpers? Robert Post Cape Town South Africa Hosts to Apimondia 2001 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 09:47:38 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: Apimondia 2001 - South Africa In-Reply-To: <200006091152.HAA21247@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I sympathise with Tomas and his fellow beekeepers wanting to use the 'fynbos' ecosystem (of which I know nothing special). Could you add to the argument a more fundamental question about the relationship of the fynbos - or any other ecosystem in which bees can thrive? I have in mind to query the 'zero sum' assumption from that depraved trade economics - that one's gain must be another's loss. God has not made nature like that. It is my belief - which I admit I have not tried to check scientifically, so please let us hear from the apiscientists on this list - that bees stimulate flowering plants to produce more nectar & pollen. I am suggesting a net gain in the productivity of the ecosystem, rather than an economists' zero-sum process in which the bees' gain is assumed to cost other spp. If this is a proven fact, at least in some cases, then is it not possible that the fynbos habitats lose nothing from the viewpoint of other organisms when stimulated by the noble honey-bee? (In my country we have many fine nectar-eating forest birds, some of which are threatened, and many hives near those forests; but I have not heard the honey-bee accused as a cause of the birds' decline.) From a practical, political viewpoint, could not the burden of proof be placed on those who claim the fynbos will be harmed by beekeeping, rather on those who think as I do? Whether this can be legally done will depend on whether the postulate I mention has been tested in fact. R >tomas mozer wrote: > >> FYNBOS VITAL FOR BILLION RAND FRUIT INDUSTRY - STUDY >> CAPE TOWN 5 June 2000 Sapa > >The Western Cape Bee Industry Association also carried this article in its >latest newsletter CAPENSIS. Beekeepers here are in two minds on the issue. > >Firstly: Large tracts of Fynbos are under the control of the Department of >Nature Conservation (DNC). Their domain is expanding due to the dangers of >informal settlements on unused land in the Western Cape. Their policy is >simple: >beekeeping is not allowed within DNC controlled areas. To the extent that even >historically accessible sites are now included under their control and >beekeepers asked to leave. > >Their policy is simple, yet, unproven: According to them bees could be >responsible for inbalances in the food chains within the fynbos biome. - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 22:54:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Juandefuca Subject: Re: Screened bottom boards Hi Screened bottom boards are THE method of ease of observation and good housekeeping.I elaborated on the original ( as mentioned in "Apis" letter by Dr Tom Sanford in Jan 1999) by placing a removable / adjustable board ( 1/4 inch) beneath the screen serving as a "sticky " Board and adjustable ventilation feature.( fabricated July / August 1999 ) This design was improved upon (H."Eric"Garz ,US & Jack Percival, Australia , September 1999 at Apimondia / Vancouver / Bc/ Canada) by making the Screen also removable to clean larger debris accumulating onto the screen, such as dead bees. All other material including falling mites goes right through the material. The mesh used is so called 1/8 th galvanised "Hardware cloth". This design proved to be the best for convenience and least disturbing when inspecting the bottom board feature. As the case may be this design can be fabricated either in line or in right angles to the combs.Furthermore some beekeepers used the rear of the hivebox for manipulating the "catchtray".The movable screen/bottom board incorporates the flightdeck. the space between top and bottom affords plenty ventilation and can be closed if so desired. This feature makes it possible to reduce the entry for the workers to a minimum to keep pests out and ease of defense. The bees have NO trouble negotiating ( walking on) the mesh. The maximum ventilation feature ( Complete open bottom) Has no adverse effect noted to this day.( Open since February, Pacific Northwest). At this time one live varroa was detected, no chalk brood , but I did have Nosema and TM infestation last fall.Lost 4 colonies out of 14.But this had no bearing relative to the screened boards since they were installed in late August/ early September.Note: this Bottom board does not affect the propagation of Varroa but curbs or radically erases the mite finding their return to the bees once they fell off them , It is an INDIRECT "control" of the mite population. e-mail; hommes@olympus.net Catfish ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 00:22:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Subject: Moving Eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings All, I hope everyone is doing well, and that your bees are busy! I think summer has arrived to the St. Louis area. I have had an odd occurrence in one of my hives, and I don't know how to explain what I found. I am hoping that those of you out on the list can help. I have one hive that I am 99% sure was queenless. Earlier in the week, I went into the hive and could not find a queen. I also found no eggs, or open brood. I did find numerous queen cells throughout the hive (in excess of 15 of then in various locations on the comb), and the bees had placed nectar in most of the open cells in the brood area, despite having plenty of super space above. I can't say that the hive didn't swarm on me, and I just missed it. It is a hive I keep in my yard to use as a teaching tool, and am in and around it frequently. Swarmed or not though is beside the point. I know in the time frame that they could not have raised a queen. I introduced a new caged queen on Wednesday, and checked to see if she had been released yet. I checked the upper box, and found several play cups, but the odd thing was, there were eggs in 5 of them and the new queen was still caged! I went through and did a thorough search of the hive, and found no more eggs anywhere in any other cells! I don't think the hive would have a laying worker in it that quickly, and if there was, I would think there would be more eggs elsewhere. I have read on the list about the bees moving eggs around the hive before. Is it possible that the queen could have passed the eggs through the screen? Has anyone seen or heard this before? It has me scratching my head! Thanks for your help! Scott ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 23:13:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Helmut Bose Subject: LEAF HIVE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HI , my name is Helmut Bose, i have been keeping Bees for a long time.one of my interests is constructing different kinds of Beehives. I wold now like to build a FEAF HIVE like the were using in EUROPE. If anybody has a set of PLANS for such a HIVE i would like to hear from you. my E MAIL is hbose@macn.bc.ca I live in BC CANADA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2000 20:13:07 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA - APISERVICES Subject: Re: Comb in glass jar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Does anyone have advice for getting > comb built inside a narrow glass jar or bottle? Have a look at http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/alveoles.htm Several pictures and an article in... French ( For translation use http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn Best regards, Gilles RATIA gilles.ratia@apiservices.com http://www.apiservices.com Latitude : N 45° 17' Longitude : E 001° 01' ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 11:31:38 +0200 Reply-To: Ahlert Schmidt Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ahlert Schmidt Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <8ht7ek.3vv6vrl.1@schmidt-22766.user.cis.dfn.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi to all reading this list. One remark to the observation of Scott. I am from Germany, following this list for about 3 years. I have been on a beekeeping meeting at the Institue for Bee research at Celle (Niedersachsen, northern part of Germany). On that meeting one scientist said, that even the workers of the european honeybee will be able to lay under certain conditions fertile eggs wich could lead to females i.e. queens. I this would be correct, than the many observations of single eggs found sometimes above queen excluders could be eggs from laying bees (not queens). So far i did not see published validated data on that matter but at least this opinion was mentioned within a lecture. Ahlert.Schmidt@t-online.de ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 06:27:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "john f. mesinger" Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <200006100542.BAA19952@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Since I have watched a laying queen go through a queen catcher three times, I would say you should allow for the possibility with small queens that the 4mm screen will not prevent movement of the prime egg layer. John F. Mesinger jfm6f@unix.mail.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 10:21:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: tomas mozer Subject: fwd: foulbrood Comments: cc: BigBee@spydee.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cross-posted from sci.agriculture.beekeeping for info/discussion purposes: interesting thread on drug-free afb control http://www.remarq.com/read/4586/qA2g695QAn2gC-yaY#LR ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 12:41:22 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: No worms (and no poisons) in my 'maters (slightly off topic) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have a secret weapon that keeps my garden free of many insect pests. Talk about Integrated Pest Management! This is the ultimate IPM! Curious? You can take a peek at: http://pollinator.com/tomatoworms.htm No charge. Dave Green SC USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 20:25:52 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <200006110400.AAA17970@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Re: Moving eggs. Most likely you are seeing the eggs of laying workers. Laying workers develop very quickly in queenless hives and (according to what I have read and personal testimony of beekeepers) *very rarely* they will lay a female egg that will develop into a queen. If workers moved eggs with any regularity then they would certainly find it easy enough to go to a hive a few feet away and get eggs. They seem not to be willing or able to do this. -- pb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:23:58 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Kilty Subject: Re: The Honeybees of the British Isles In-Reply-To: <200006071321.JAA23542@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <200006071321.JAA23542@listserv.albany.edu>, Aaron Morris writes snip >I'm a bit confused by this. My interpretation is that James is saying that >IOW disease endemic in Britian in the 1920s may have been vectored by >acarine but now is believed to be the Slow >Paralysis Virus (SPV) which is being spread by varroa. Actually, I'm not >sure what is being said. Perhaps that SPV has always been around, acarine >vectored the outbreak in the '20s and that varroa is a more efficient vector >today? James, if you will, please set me straight. I have not read Beowulf >Cooper's writings. I think you are correct. The viruses have always been around and acarine was the vector. Actually this statement is within the prevailing paradigm of disease. >Having read some of Brother Adam's writings I thought Britain's bee >populations were left quite devastated by IOW disease and Brother Adam >searched Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East for genetic material to >breed with the survivors. Beowulf Cooper claimed that the mortality figures were much exaggerated having discovered that a great many beekeepers throughout the country had bees which did survive. His figure is more like 50%: most of the mortality was in the south east of the country. He was able to document the characteristics of the surviving bees and estimate the percentage of the native characters in each part of the country. Recent genetic studies confirm that the bees selected for study in the UK are very close to those selected in Sweden and elsewhere which are as pure A.m.m. as you can get. Pockets have also been found in Tasmania where natural selection favours the descendants of the original imports rather than crosses with Italians. > Does Mr. Cooper assert that perhaps things would >have been better off without Borther Adam's importation of genetic material? I don't think Beowulf said anything like that. He and BIBBA members (myself excepted) are much too polite to polarize the debate and risk alienating people. My way of putting it is "think what might have been if Adam had done his work with the native stock"! But was it not his goal which sent him off in search of bees already with one or more of his desirable characteristics. >Admittedly I am not up to snuff on BIBBA's (Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders >Association) stance on the issue. I think one of their goals is to >reestablish the native dark bee. Is the intent to "filter out mongrel >genes" or to select from existing stock the characteristics that are most >desireable while concentrating towards those attributed to the native dark >bee? Any enlightenment will be appreciated. I think filtering genes is much too difficult to do consistently. The aim is to improve the stock. Repeated culling and selection coupled with mating isolation by the weather and drone producing using selected colonies is practised. Some geographical isolation is also practised. So some beekeepers buy in from Ireland or high ground such as the Peak District. I will look out the book and recent BIBBA publications and pull out some further information to post. Perhaps any more experienced BIBBA member reading BEE-L will also reply. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 10:30:28 +0200 Reply-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Servel?= Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Servel?= Subject: Re: fwd: foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit You can find the very interesting book "elimination of AFB without the use of drugs", by Mark Goodwin and Cliff Van Eaton at : Northern Bee Books Scout Bottom Farm Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge West Yorkshire HX7 5JS UNITED KINGDOM You can contact Jeremy via email at: jeremy@peacockpress.demon.co.uk François SERVEL -----Message d'origine----- De : tomas mozer À : BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Date : samedi 10 juin 2000 17:06 Objet : fwd: foulbrood >cross-posted from sci.agriculture.beekeeping for info/discussion >purposes: interesting thread on drug-free afb control > >http://www.remarq.com/read/4586/qA2g695QAn2gC-yaY#LR ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 03:26:04 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Attractiveness of Russian Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron sent me several interesting photos of a shipping box containing Russian queens and Buckfast queens for publication on the web. The attendants (of unknown heritage) seem to prefer the Buckfast. These pictures and his comments can be seen at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Russians.htm allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 11:22:47 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: West Nile returns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit June 10, 2000, New York Times Dead Birds Are a Portent Of Return of West Nile Virus Three crows found dead -- two in New York State and one in New Jersey -- were confirmed yesterday as this year's first known victims of the West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease that killed seven people in New York City last year, health officials said. Last summer's outbreak prompted widespread fear of the virus, and sweeping efforts by city, county and state health officials to monitor for the disease this year and to try to eradicate the mosquito population through treatment of breeding grounds with larvicide and public education campaigns. Officials hope to avoid the aerial spraying that was used last year, when the outbreak was discovered late in the summer and many less-drastic methods of preventing mosquitoes from hatching would no longer have been effective. Yesterday's cases surfaced much earlier in the year than the first cases last year, but Dr. Ostraff cautioned against any inference that the disease may be more widespread this summer. "Last year," he said, "nobody was looking for the virus." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 22:21:05 +1200 Reply-To: peter@airborne.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Bray Subject: Re: uncapper In-Reply-To: <200006081121.HAA21311@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Try Robert Davidson Fax 64 3 686-1029 Ph 64 3 686 1069 Or try Ecroyd Beekeeping Supplies Fax 64 3 358-8789 > Im trying to find parts for an old uncapper made in Timaru N.Z. by R. > Davidson Jnr. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. Rick > _________________________________________________________ Airborne Honey Ltd., PO Box 28, Leeston, New Zealand Fax 64-3-324-3236, Phone 64-3-324-3569 www.airborne.co.nz peter@airborne.co.nz We Accept MS Word 2.0 Files, Excel 4.0, Corel Draw 8.0, *.BMP, *.JPG, *.GIF *.TIF, *.PCX ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 13:27:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." Subject: Weather MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, At this time of year "good" beekeepers should be tending to their bees rather than pondering theories. Sometimes I do my best thinking while I am doing bee work. (There is something a psycho-analyst can spend days on.) As with all theories if you throw them around enough sooner or later you will find someone to agree with you. Disclaimer: This post is probably going to be a rambling of thoughts that have been going through my head the past few months (being driven by the bee loss I had this winter) trying to answer questions that start with "why". Some I have answers, others I am not too sure. Hopefully, you will also ponder these and come up with your own thoughts or ideas. Observation: I maintain an observation hive at a nature center. It was built BM (before mites) so the design does not allow for easy treatment. I had trouble keeping it going for a few years (mid '90's) but now it has been up and running for almost two years without any treatment. It has a screened bottom with a debris pan underneath. I have not seen any varroa in the pan. This colony is doing well on its own. WHY? Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? Known fact: Bees survive in very cold climates, and very warm ones too. My climate is neither. So WHY do I keep going back to the weather issue? I have no experience keeping bees in very cold or very warm climates, or do I? We are seeing 100 F days with 80% humidity in the summer (sounds like Florida), and 0 F degree days with -30 F wind chill in the winter (Canada?). Beekeepers will be quick to point out that bees do well no matter what the weather and my problem is somewhere else. Possible, however the weather is changing. In my area the past few winters were mild. Bees are flying around at Christmas. Ten years ago this was uncommon. This past winter was the same but we had severe cold spell. I lost a number of colonies during that period. If a colony has TM and they take a cleansing flight on a "warm winter day" they may not make it back causing the population to dwindle. Eventually they cannot maintain cluster temperature and perish. Theory: Let's assume there is no mite problem. What do bees do on warm days in the winter? They fly around looking for forage just like they would any other time. These are not cleansing flights, and some may fly a good distance from the colony. If they do this towards the end of the day the temp may drop and they may not make it back, causing the population to dwindle. If the weather stays mild this may not affect the cluster and they will survive the winter. But what happens if this goes on for a month or two and then a few weeks of really cold weather sets in. Those smaller clusters will have trouble surviving. The whole scenario resembles TM so the beekeeper writes it off to mites. A few years back I started switching from Italians to Carniolans. One reason was because of the smaller winter cluster and a break in the brood cycle. Could this cool weather trait work against them in a warm/cold winter? I found someone who agrees with this theory. Actually he is person who proposed it, and it fit well with my thoughts and observation. He mentioned that in the 12th century bee houses started showing up in Europe. This coincided with a warming trend in the climate. The bee house would keep the colonies cool on warm winter days and prevent them from flying. I don't know much about the history of bee houses but it makes sense. The honey flow will not be extended because of warmer winters until plants become established. This takes time. But if you artificially control the climate keeping things cooler the bees will be less affected. I am not a weather expert and I can only comment on what I actually observe, but I think this theory has some merit. It may only apply to small fringe areas. You probably don't want to think about winter at the beginning of summer, but if you do care to share your thoughts on this I would like to hear them. If this is a problem it will be the first one in while that we won't try to control with a new chemical. Also, if anyone has knowledge on the evolution of bee houses, it would prove to be interesting. Take care, Ron Bogansky Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 20:24:35 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Dead Brood Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight really but at least I will not make that mistake again. The question is what do I do with it. I can hardly expect the bees to clean it out - will it start decomposing with time?. Any suggestions as always most welcome. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18, Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 15:43:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Peter W. Plumley" Subject: Re: Weather In-Reply-To: <200006121748.NAA11212@syr.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > >Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan >resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have >problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind >survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my >head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? Ronald: I've, unfortunately, experienced two consecutive years of about 60% hive lose, and have wondered also if the weather was responsible. Winter 98 - 20 hives in the fall, 18 survived Winter 99 - 20 hives in the fall, 10 survived Spring 00 - 12 hives in the fall, 4 survived The mites are present, but in check, and the hives that perished did so with adequate supples of honey - starvation was not a contributing factor to their demise. My hives are at 1200 feet elevation in central NY State (the hilly apple country), and it is not uncommon to have some really severe cold spells (-20) with high chilling (30 mph) winds. But in the last two years, every January we experienced a significant warming trend (temps above 70!) which lasted 6-10 days. Butterfly bushes (a hardy zone 5 - 9 deciduous shrub) growing around my hives have even leafed out during these January spells - consequently many showed real stress in the following spring - and in fact, many have perished - never sending up another green shoot. Previous years, the Butterfly bush has been dormant all winter long (and covered by snow) and then thrived in the spring. And in previous years captured June swarms would stretch and capacity of my bee yard. So, if all 'common' contributing factors to hive heath are known (mites in check, queen OK, honey in the comb), as I (and you) believe them to be, I too look at this weather and wonder......and my spouse looks at me and asks why I keep spending money on new swarms every spring. PWP PlumleyFarms plumleyfarms@aol.com 3188 Sentinel Heights Rd. LaFayette, New York 13084 315-677-7743 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 17:47:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Weather How do bees manage in areas where warm winters are the norm? There must be a region where they will repeatedly cluster, break cluster and fly, and recluster during the winter, so does this harm them? Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:12:08 +0800 Reply-To: "Joel F. Magsaysay" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Joel F. Magsaysay" Organization: ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Subject: Re: Dead Brood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom, May I sugest that you put the whole thing on an anthill. Depending upon the species, ants will clean out the dead brood and leave the combs intact. Joel F. Magsaysay ilogmria@cav.pworld.net.ph ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Cavite Highlands, Silang, Cavite Philippines > > Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went > wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight > really but at least I will not make that mistake again. > > The question is what do I do with it. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 22:35:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Al Subject: Re: Weather In-Reply-To: <200006130016.UAA09714@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 12 Jun 2000, Robert Brenchley wrote: > How do bees manage in areas where warm winters are the norm? There must be > a region where they will repeatedly cluster, break cluster and fly, and > recluster during the winter, so does this harm them? > They seem to do just fine down here in Florida. We have some things blooming year round and the honey flows start in late January. They may cluster one or two nights a year durring a cold snap. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 23:02:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Roy Nettlebeck Subject: Re: Attractiveness of Russian Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Allen , Aaron and All The picture is worth a thousand words. It seems to be standard for the workers to stay away from the Russian Queens. It is very difficult to come out with proof that the Russian queens have a pheromone problem. I would bet on it , but the mix of the queens pheromones are not completely understood at this time. I have gone over Mark Winstons papers that he sent me on his research and there are more questions that need to be answered. I was able to get some eggs from the Russian queens that I received and have some queens that are half Russian.The hives are still too small at this time to make any type of judgment on there traits. The picture is worth looking at if you plan on getting any Russian queens. Thanks for putting the picture on the net. Best Regards Roy Nettlebeck Allen Dick wrote: > Aaron sent me several interesting photos of a shipping box containing Russian > queens and Buckfast queens for publication on the web. The attendants (of > unknown heritage) seem to prefer the Buckfast. > > These pictures and his comments can be seen at > http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Misc/Russians.htm > > allen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 09:52:13 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Dead Brood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Computer Software Solutions Ltd" To: Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 8:24 PM Subject: Dead Brood > Hello All > > Due to experimentation gone wrong - although thankfully I now know what went > wrong - I now have a Brood Chamber full of dead brood. A terrible sight > really but at least I will not make that mistake again. > > The question is what do I do with it. > > I can hardly expect the bees to clean it out - will it start decomposing > with time?. Why not? If you are certain of the cause of death not being disease. give one frame each to 11 colonies. (place them just inside the fringes of the main working area (3 or 4 frames in). You will be surprised how quickly they will clean them up. Try dragging an uncapping fork over the cappings to scratch or lightly cut them (but not hard enough to rip them badly) this will give a focus for the worker bees attention to deal with the situation. You will probably see evidence of larvae being thrown out within minutes. Best Regards Dave Cushman G8MZY Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Web: http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:49:57 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Cannaday Subject: Honey Bound I have had a question that has been on my mind and was wondering if someone could set me straight. I have heard that if you want to move honey out of a honey bound broad super whether an old super from storage or currently in use you can scratch the cells and place it above the inner cover and let the bees move it down to your honey supers. My question is... if the bound honey you are wanting to move was part of the broad area and treated with medication, wouldn't moving it be pointless since it is was medicated and now un-useable or is this method of moving only for winter preparation, which, in that case why would you want to scratch and move when you could leave in place? Thanks ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 09:00:19 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Honey Bound MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/13/00 5:13:27 AM Pacific Daylight Time, bobcan@CLOVER.NET writes: > My question > is... if the bound honey you are wanting to move was part of the broad area > and treated with medication, wouldn't moving it be pointless since it is > was medicated and now un-useable or is this method of moving only for > winter preparation, which, in that case why would you want to scratch and > move when you could leave in place? You don't want to use it where it could get extracted. I like to have some saved over the winter, where I can put a frame into each nuc. The honey is consumed as the nuc builds. Dave Green http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:37:14 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A number of prominent people in positions of authority -- and who should know better -- have lately been repeating conjecture as fact. I'm talking about the slander against antibiotic extender patties. As far as I know, there is not a shred of proof that they are a cause of oxytetracycline (OTC) resistance in the bacillus that causes American Foulbrood (AFB). The mechanisms behind resistance appearing are many and generally badly misunderstood. Many of the ideas promulgated in the popular media are simplistic at best and just plain wrong and dangerous at worse. The mechanism(s) by which an organism may develop resistance to a particular substance depends on the organism and the environment. A practice that is a cause of resistance developing in one case may be the prescription for preventing resistance in another. In the past several years, a number of mechanisms that were simply unbelievable in the past have become common knowledge. On is horizontal gene transfer. Please check out http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398levy.html where you will find the following statement: "Bacteria can acquire resistance genes through a few routes. Many inherit the genes from their forerunners. Other times, genetic mutations, which occur readily in bacteria, will spontaneously produce a new resistance trait or will strengthen an existing one. And frequently, bacteria will gain a defence against an antibiotic by taking up resistance genes from other bacterial cells in the vicinity. Indeed, the exchange of genes is so pervasive that the entire bacterial world can be thought of as one huge multicellular organism in which the cells interchange their genes with ease." http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398levybox2.html is another interesting reference, as is http://www.pilotonline.com/news/op0420ant.html I also quote below the text of a letter I wrote to a friend of mine who is also a regulator: ---- begin quote --- "I notice you repeated the suggestion that extender patties may cause resistant AFB... I have phoned and written around to trace the origin of this rumour some time back, and have not been able to find any credible source for it. In the process, I have, however found a number of people I respect who think it lacks any merit and just provides a handy scapegoat. I personally have a very high opinion of this method of control and it distresses me to see my neighbours who were hit hard by AFB in 1998 and saved entirely from AFB in 1999 -- in spite of showing positive for resistant AFB due to buying equipment from (deleted) -- scraping off the patties earlier this spring when they read the newsletter. I hope they don't go through the 1998 experience again. >From my 30 years experience with AFB and the various controls, I am worried that we are discarding the best method -- by far -- I have ever seen (since sulfa) for AFB control -- on the basis of mere rumours and speculation. Do you have access something that proves more than an anecdotal, hypothetical, or circumstantial linkage? If so, I would certainly appreciate being made aware of any evidence or scientific study that in any way proves the allegations against a product developed by the USDA and duly tested and licensed for sale and use in the USA. In view of the rigour of US testing and regulation, I would expect that if there were any merit to the hypothesis, that Mann Lake would be forced to take it off the market. They say that is not happening. As for more credible explanations for emergence of resistance , I submit horizontal gene transfer -- possibly related to accidental side-effects of genetic modification work -- as the original cause fro the sudden emergence, and trade in honey and bee equipment as the mode of spread. The former is hard to prove, but I suspect will eventually be the accepted explanation. The latter is obvious and ongoing: the spread in the case of equipment is not hard to follow. As for spread due to international sale and housewives discarding honey into open landfills and bees licking out imported honey drums, that is again hard to trace. How many *unique* cases of resistance evolving can we document? And, how many cases are just the spread of the same outbreak?" --- end quote ---- Lets either prove this allegation -- or drive a stake through its heart once and for all. allen -- A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/ Package installation & performance experiments, winter loss, fondant feeding, Pierco vs. Permadent vs. dark comb, unwrapping bees, spring splitting tricks, AFB, varroa, protein patties, daily mumblings and more... Thousands served... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:01:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen Dick is "tired" of hearing the "slander" involving a connection between the use of extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline. Well, I too have heard something that "sounds like", but is not, a cause and effect situation. In fact, I heard it again several weeks ago during the Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar. Dr. H. Shiminuki, who works for the USDA and has personally spent a great deal of his career on AFB discussed the subject of resistance. What I heard (contrasted with what he may have actually said) was that the use of oxytetracycline in extender patties probably accelerated such resistance. This had to do with both their wide spread use and the length of time the oxytetracycline is on the hive. Both being compared to the use of oxytetracycline pre-patty days and the length of time oxytetracycline was on the hive in those days. So...these may be the reasons that resistance never showed up until extender patties were widely used. Dr. Shiminuki's e-mail address is hshimanu@asrr.arsusda.gov, for those who would prefer to get a direct (and undoubtedly more accurate) view. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:46:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Lloyd Spear wrote: > ... "sounds like", but is not, a cause and > effect situation. In fact, I heard it again several weeks ago during the > Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar. I was at the same seminar, and what I heard (contrasted with what Shim may have actually said) was that the use of extender patties may not be the culprit, but they certainly may have exacerbated the problem. In other words, had extender patties not arrived on the scene we would probably still be seeing oxytet resistence in AFB. However, the conditions Lloyd mentioned (wide spread use and the length of time the oxytetracycline is on the hive) coupled with unsure dosage (both in formulation in patties and amount consumed by the bees) has made the surfacing problem worse. Dusting remains a less convenient but more sure way of delivering a better known does to a hive over a shorter period of time. Another recommendation from Dr. Shimanuki was to start to wean your bees from the oxytet merry-go-around on a per yard basis. If you are a regular treater, pick a yard to simply stop treating. Watch for outbreaks, cull if any, and stop the treating cycle. He did NOT recommend to cold turkey your entire operation, but start with a yard to see what happens. If you have success, attempt weaning another yard. Learn as you go and make an attempt stop using the drugs. There are also alternative treatments to oxytet on the horizon. One was named (I don not have my notes and do not recall the name) but as I recall, the residual half life was 10 times that of TM. The other treatment was not named by request of the manufacturer until they release the product. I am in the process of summarizing the Southern Adirondack Beekeeper's Association spring seminar for their newsletter which will go to press near the end of next week. I will post to BEE-L a copy of that summary. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 12:18:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lipscomb, Al" Subject: Re: Extender patties and resistance to oxytetracycline MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I think that if extender patties were the "cause" of the resistance those who are using that methodology would be the ones with the biggest AFB resistance problems. While there is no doubt that low level exposure to an antibiotic and lead to a population of bacteria that do not respond to that treatment there are other possible answers. One of the key points made a while ago was the debate over the term SAFB (South American Foul Brood). Like many of the other problems we have seen over the years the cause may be transportation of the new strain into an area where it causes damage due to lake of resistance in the native stock. The resistant AFB could have come from several places but once it hit North America it became a problem. Maybe a case where AHB has less of a problem with that strain than the EHB does. I guess this amounts to another load of speculation. At present I do not treat for AFB or EFB. I have not needed to, yet. My feelings are mixed on this but for me (and others have different needs) I think I would rather spend my money on new frames and a package of fresh bees than on a lot of chemicals. Of course if I have an entire yard showing AFB I may change my mind in a hurry! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 16:35:07 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA - APISERVICES Subject: Message from the Standing Commission of Apitherapy of Apimondia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Sir or Madam, The Standing Commission of Apitherapy of Apimondia would like to get some information on the countries below. Would you be so kind as to help us to find names, addresses, phone and fax numbers and, if possible, the e-mail addresses of the: - distributors of beekeeping equipment, - bee product outlets, - beekeepers' associations. in the following countries: Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brasilia, Bulgaria, Byelorussia, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Yugoslavia. Thank you for you help. Write to roch.domerego@euronet.be Yours faithfully, Roch Domerego. Vice-President of the Standing Commission of Apitherapy. - APIMONDIA roch.domerego@euronet.be ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 13:05:02 -0400 Reply-To: midnitebee@cybertours.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Midnite Bee Subject: [Fwd: Bee Problem] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We received the following message: "O'Shea, Brendan" wrote:"O'Shea, Brendan" > Do you know of anyone in western Mass who could help get rid of honey bees > from a residential home ? It seem the exterminators are at a loss. I think > I have honey bees since the exterminators have been out 5 times spraying > already with no luck. Any helpm would be appreciated -- Herb/Norma Holly-B Apiary PO Box 26 Wells,Maine 04090-0026 "an educated consumer is YOUR best customer" The Beekeeper's Home on the Internet http://www.mainebee.com Stony Critters http://www.stonycritters.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:01:29 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Dead Brood Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Some of our members asked me to describe the experiment which I carried out and which went wrong, resulting in the loss of all of the brood in a Brood Chamber. What I did was to split a colony using a Snelgrove Board, such that the child colony (without the queen) was under the parent colony. I decided on this positioning so that I would not have to lift off the child colony each time I wished to examine or indeed put a super on the parent colony, as I theorised that the child colony would not need any attention. I placed a piece of linoleum on the wire mesh which I had in the Snelgrove Board in order to (mistakenly) prevent the queen in the upper colony being aware of queen cells in the lower colony and swarming as a result. I say mistakenly, because I came across additional information afterwards which says that the queen in the upper colony could become aware of events in the lower colony only by trophallaxis (food transfer). Apparently it does not matter if there is a mesh between the two colonies so long as the mesh is double and there is a gap of at least 12mm to prevent the bees touching one another and thereby transferring the information. It appears that being in the same atmosphere does not occasion transfer of pheremones. Can anybody say if this is correct? I did this manipulation three times so far this year. It succeeded twice and failed once. The problem with this approach is that too many bees return to the parent colony and one cold night can spell disaster for the child colony. It would thus appear to be a 'chancy' procedure. The proper procedure is of course to put the child colony over the parent colony's supers, and have a double wire mesh in the Snelgrove Board (with the 12mm space between the two meshes) so that the child colony has the benefit of heat rising from the parent colony. Ok you now have the need to lift the child colony each time you wish to do anything to the parent colony. Placing a new super on the parent colony would presumably cause some stress to the child colony because the position of their entrance has been changed. Also I would theorise (there I go again!) that manipulating the parent colony during the time when the queen might be returning from her mating flight could possibly cause her to enter the disassembled colony in error and be lost as a result. But it seems to me as if the approach I took cannot be recommended, so next time I am going to use the Snelgrove Board in the 'official' manner. Thanks to all for the help I got in handling the problem of the dead brood. Could I ask for some comments on the above, just in case there are still bugs in the procedure. A further refinement on the above is that when the queen in the top colony is laying, that the Snelgrove Board be removed, and replaced by a Queen Excluder and an entrance. Thus you have a two queen system as was discussed in an earlier thread. I look forward to comments on the above please. Wouldn't it be great to have next year's beekeeping knowledge this year!. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 22:39:21 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Roy Nettlebeck Subject: Re: Weather MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." wrote: > > > > > Observation: I lost colonies this winter. Some were due to Apistan > resistant varroa. Some probably to tracheal mite (TM). But I still have > problem blaming it all on mites. Colonies that were protected from wind > survived much better than those in the open. Somewhere in the back of my > head the weather keeps jumping into my thoughts. WHY? > > > > A few years back I started switching from Italians to Carniolans. One > reason was because of the smaller winter cluster and a break in the brood > cycle. Could this cool weather trait work against them in a warm/cold > winter? > Hi Ron and All, Weather is always a factor in wintering over.Here in western Washington State US we had a mild dry winter compared to the year before. I had bees flying a lot of the time. Not all hives would break cluster. That's where the genetics comes in to play. I had about 70 hives in late Feb. expanding at an alarming rate. I started to feed them and that just made things worse. So I called over to the Islands to get some queens so I could start splits. That worked . To put everything in line. The fall of 99 had a warm spot in September for two weeks and the bees made very good use of it for winter. I had clean bees and good queens. I went into winter heavy and a good population of young bees. Then you add the mild, sort of dry winter and I have had an outstanding spring. I pulled honey on April 15 this year against July 13 th. last year.Thats a big difference , but it had more than just the weather to bring in the good results. Location is very important here in western Washington. Put bees on rocky ground with good air flow. Moisture in the hive will cause you more problems than you can fix. You will have population depletion with weak stressed bees.They get caught in the cold and they can't make it home.Dry healthy bees can fly over the snow and you do not have a large lose.We did have snow last winter at my place for 2 weeks. The bees at home did not do as well as the bees that I had down at sea level by Puget Sound. 500 feet makes a difference around here.The weather affects the bees and that's a given. The how is complex.The more hives you run , the greater the range of results in any given area. That's my nickel. Best Regards Roy Nettlebeck ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:31:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Begin rant- As far as I know there is no scientific evidence that extender patties have led to AFB resistance.... but. I was told when Apistan treatment started that we had ten years before resistance would be detected. That prediction was right on schedule. When did terra patties come on the scene? The application method insures a sub lethal dose will be administered to some colonies, just because they will not consume the entire or even most of the patty. When my doctor gives me an antibiotic, the label directions are quite clear- take all of it as prescribed. But in many cases the bees are not doing that, enough to suppose that resistance could develop. So even though the proof is not there, circumstantial evidence is fairly strong. There does seem to be a cause and effect relationship. The worst part of this discussion is that we are arguing about a treatment that should not be used in the first place. I really do not care if AFB is resistant. Burning is still the best and most effective method of controlling AFB, since AFB has not developed resistance to that, even after ten years. We should follow the example set by New Zealand. All that terra is doing in ensuring AFB will be there for those of us who do not treat. End rant, and I feel much better. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:55:33 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Attila31@AOL.COM Subject: Hubam white annual sweet clover. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. I am looking for Hubam annual white sweet clover for a reasonable price. The price should bee less than $2.1 if possible. The bees love this clover. I live in VA. Thanks for your help. Attila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:59:17 -0500 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Origins of Resistant AFB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Truesdell wrote: > > Begin rant- > > The application method insures a sub lethal dose will be administered to > some colonies, just because they will not consume the entire or even most > of the patty. > > So even though the proof is not there, circumstantial evidence is fairly > strong. There does seem to be a cause and effect relationship. > Hello Bill, In my opinion both you and Allen raise valid points and are on the same page. Allen is correct is saying when applied at the correct time and consumed by the bees they work great for the purpose intended and shouldn't cause resistance. You are saying that when not correctly used and not totally consumed by the bees they cause resistance which i believe could be correct also although the proof is not there thru lab testing. I will also state there are beekeepers not using any treatment for AFB other than burning all equipment found to contain AFB. Beekeeping was almost wiped out in the 1940's in the U.S. because of AFB before the use of the sulfa drugs. Burning equipment was not working as the problem grew larger. I started beekeeping after sulfa was in widespread use and AFB was in check but remember all the beekeepers talk about how the problem grew and grew and seemed as though the entire industry was in dire straits before sulfa was discovered to work by a obscure university in Missouri. Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:55:09 +0200 Reply-To: Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: help to expand this list ???? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have put a star on those important! *Bacillus larvae (AFB) *Streptococcus pluton (EFB) secondary bacteriel in conjunction with (EFB): Bacterium eurydice strepcoccus faecalis bacillus alvei bacillus laterosporus Bacillus para-alvei bacillus gracilosporus Bacillus apidarium Bacillus fetuum amoeba attachs: *Nosema apis Malpighamoeba mellificae Mites: *Acarapis Woodi (Thraceal mites) *Varroa jacobsoni secundary mites : Acarapis dorsalis Acapis vagans Acarapis externus disease courced by fungus : *Ascosphare apis (chalc brood) Aspergillus flavus Asfergillus fresonius virus : *black colloring diesease (you have a better word in english ?) *sack brood *Acute paralysis Virus Insect parrasites : braula coeca(bee louse) other parasites : small hivebettle Yoy have more ??? best regard Jorn Johanesson mailto:Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk http://apimo.dk MultiLingual beekeeping software since 1972. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 10:00:33 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Moye Subject: Selection for AFB resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Bacteria are able to aquire new genes in a variety of ways. When discussing the use of tetracycline grease patties, it does not matter how the resistant strains developed rather that they now exist. Improper use of antibiotics keeps constant selection pressure on the bacteria so that the resistant strains will predominate. Allowing a time of reproduction without this selection pressure will enable the bacteria to continue to change genetically and enable a mixture of strains to exist. The the most suitable strain will become the predominant type. (Survival of the fittest). Likely there will be a mixture of strains. This can in time weaken the resistant strain and decrease its prevelance. Ideally in an integrated pest management situation, you only use a pesticide or antibiotic when needed - not prophylactically. In some instances, it may be impractical or impossible to measure the level of infestation and prophylactic measures may be all that is available. Proper use of both antibiotics and pesticides will lengthen their life and reduce residues in the foods that we consume. Leaving Apistan strips and tetracycline grease patties in your hives all the time is very irresponsible and hurts everyone. Hopefully with the constant selection pressure of varroa on honeybees, tolerant strains will survive and reestablish a strong feral bee population. Russian Queens may bring to us a genetic mechanism for tolerance. Let's keep our fingers crossed. We may be able to use less antibiotics and pesticides in beekeeping in the future. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:15:11 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jonathan Ruel Subject: entrance for greenhouse In-Reply-To: <200006140402.AAA22799@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed How can I allow my bees entrance to the greenhouse but exclude grasshoppers? We have so darn many grasshoppers in my area that the only way to grow anything is in a greenhouse or screen box. But I still want my bees to have access for pollination. Any ideas on how to build an entrance for bees that won't also allow the grasshoppers? The young grasshoppers are quite small so making a small hole for the bees still lets them in. Interesting observation - lately, I've seen grasshoppers (which obviously usually stick to plants) eating dead bees in front of my hives. Jonathan Ruel Flagstaff, AZ, USA 7,000 ft. a.s.l.