From MAILER-DAEMON Sun Jan 14 07:55:40 2001 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 HAA05196 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:55:37 -0500 (EST) 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 HAA00279 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:58:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200101141258.HAA00279@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:58:30 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0012A" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 235378 Lines: 5085 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:10:43 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jean-Jean Menier Subject: Braula ...(bis) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sorry for double posting. I simply forgot to give my address iin case someone could send me some Braula. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ message : Dear beekeepers, I would be interested in receiving specimens of Braula caeca (preserved in any alcoolic medium, or dry) for our collections where they are as rare as in bee hives now ! Sincerely, Jean J. MENIER Professor, Head of Coleoptera Dept. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Laboratoire d'entomologie 45, rue Buffon, F-75005 Paris Telephone : 01 40 79 33 92 Telecopy : 01 40 79 36 99 >From abroad, drop the 0 and dial : 33 1 40 79 33 92 or 33 1 40 79 36 99 the Museum site : http://www.mnhn.fr ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 02:54:00 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: Chemistry of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Well, Rick, see how easy it is to divert attention from one's main point by saying something to which people can object? Don't you find it tedious to have to be percise with everything you say? All I meant by "dry" was less than 18.5%. Fructose plus glocuse plus no more than 18.5% water will not ferment and will provide useable food for bees indefinitely, unlike sucrose with 80%, more or less, water. For those without a religious explanationm for everything, like me, I thought this was a dramatic development. All in favor of dropping this subject, please signify in the obvious way. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 03:05:22 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: Winter hive ventilation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I was the one who started this (latest?) focus on dispensing with restricted ventilation on both bottom and top by posting a quote from Langstroth. I'm not about to quarrel with him or with posters who confirm his contentions. But I have repeatedly experienced what seems to me to be a contrary indication. I saw a hole in all my inner covers to accept a quart jar lid for feeding and then cover this hole with a rectangle of 1/8" hardware cloth to keep the bees below that cover. Very many times I find the bees propolizing that screen. And, most suprising, it happens here on Guam as well as in my WA home. And especially the feeding holes in my Kelley observation hive which I close the same way. And for some time we have seen advertisements for a commercial product which actually provides power ventilation. I don't know how to reconcile all this with my bees' apparent distaste for upper ventilation holes. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 11:52:09 +0100 Reply-To: gilles.ratia@apiservices.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA Subject: Re: screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Have a look too at http://beekeeping.com/plateau-anti-varroas/index_us.htm Best regards ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 08:28:40 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: upper ventilation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dan suggests that since bees want to propolize 1/8" wire mesh above the hive that they don't like upper ventilation. Don't know if one premise leads to the other, in this case...? I suspect they propolize the 1/8" wire mesh primarily because of the opening size, not because it is an opening! In fact, they make no attempt to propolize my 1/2" upper ventilation that extends across the full width of the hive body. That said, when I used to use a 1" hole drilled just above the hand hold for upper ventilation somewhere around 10% of the hives would propolize that! Go figure! Based on seeing 50-100 bees just beyond my 1/2" opening, fanning like heck, all summer I would say they actually like the added ventilation. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 08:48:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Clustering and clustering behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom questioned some of the comments I made concerning the mechanics of clustering and use of food during the winter. Tom, at about the same time as I was making my comments another person was as well. Perhaps Blane? Regardless, he referred to the same study as I, but he identified it. I believe the study was at the University of Minnesota. While I have deleted the reference, you may still have it or it can be found in the archives. (If I were looking, I'd first try the keyword Minnesota, then look for a date this week.) You mentioned brood rearing and, yes, brood rearing during cold weather complicates everything. Sometimes so much that the entire hive will perish! As I look back on 35 years of beekeeping, one of the most significant changes has been the "development" of the Carnolian strains. 25-35 years ago the #1 difficulty of beekeepers here in the Northeast was over-wintering bees. In hindsight, that was because we were all using Italians, and they were maintaining huge clusters and brood-rearing all winter! In the mid-60's a Canadian named Hastings introduced a decent strain of Carnolians that had been selected for honey production, gentleness, and moderate swarming behavior. Carnolians has always been known for over-wintering with small clusters and no brood, but were "nasty", and built up brood so fast in the spring that they were always swarming! In the 1980's Sue Cobey assembled several strains of Carnolians and made further selections. By then the technology for instrumental insemination of queens had advanced to the point where it was possible to maintain strains to a degree unheard of with open mating. The result was the New World Carnolians that continue today. Today, Carnolians strains are the most prevalent used in the Northeast, and perhaps in all states with similar climates as well as in Canada. As a result, if moderate amounts of food are left, hives are likely to over-winter in fine condition. I dislike making flat statements, but am tempted to say that it would be a waste of effort to try to over-winter Italians in Alaska. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 15:49:28 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Denis Brothers Subject: CONGRESS - AFRICAN ENTOMOLOGY 2001 Comments: To: entomo-l@listserv.uoguelph.ca, env-dev-africa@mailbase.ac.uk, parahym@nhm.ac.uk, roysoc@psipsy.uct.ac.za, reg@royensoc.demon.co.uk, biolsyst@ruhr-uni-bochum.de, taxacom@usobi.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit AFRICAN ENTOMOLOGY 2001 13TH ENTOMOLOGICAL CONGRESS organised by the ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA in association with the UNIVERSITY OF NATAL Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal SOUTH AFRICA 2 - 5 July 2001 FIRST CIRCULAR The entomologists of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, invite you to participate in this conference which will be held on the campus of the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, in the John Bews Life-Sciences and Rabie Saunders Agriculture buildings. We will provide a forum for the dynamic exchange of information and ideas relevant to entomologists of all persuasions and with particular emphasis on the needs of Africa. The response to the Announcement has been very encouraging with a wide variety of topics offered and the prospect of attendance by a wide variety of exciting participants. Symposia planned Biodiversity and Insect Conservation Biotechnology, Insects and Plants Entomology and Sustainable Development Forensic Entomology Hymenoptera Insect Pathology Workshops Final workshop of the Southern African Stem Borer Management Project Insect Rearing Permits and Legislation for Collection of Invertebrates Post-Congress morning workshop on Spatial Data and the African Entomologist Other Sessions To be organised as necessary to group papers sensibly Papers Oral papers should be no longer than 15 minutes; discussion of 5 minutes will be allowed. Posters Posters will be grouped in cognate sessions. The size should be no larger than A0 portrait (840 X 1176mm). Awards There will be prizes for the best student paper (a copy of the text to be supplied in advance) and the best student poster. Language English is the preferred Congress language, in consideration of international participants, but other South African official languages may be used. The abstract is to be in English only. Travel There are seven flights daily from Johannesburg to Pietermaritzburg and two from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, provided by SA Airlink. There is one morning and one afternoon minibus trip from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, provided by Cheetah Coaches. We will provide transport from the Pietermaritzburg airport or coach stop only. Registration Fees Member of ESSA R350 (foreign US$60) Non-member R400 (foreign US$65) Student Member of ESSA R200 (foreign US$35) Student non-member R250 (foreign US$40) 1-day visitor R150 Companion R50 (excluding excursions) Late registration penalty R150 (foreign US$25) Spatial Data Analysis Workshop R75 An electronic file including additional information and the registration form may be obtained from the Chairperson of the Organising Committee, Prof. D.J. Brothers (brothers@nu.ac.za). Professor Denis J. Brothers School of Botany and Zoology (and Centre for Environment & Development) University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg Private Bag X01 Telephone: (+27) (0)33-260 5106 Scottsville Fax: (+27) (0)33-260 5105 3209 SOUTH AFRICA e-mail: brothers@nu.ac.za ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:57:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "KAMRAN F FAKHIMZADEH (MMSEL)" Organization: University of Helsinki Subject: Mite detector MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear Rimantas Zujus, and all; As I have promised to many of you that the electronic version of my article about "A rapid method for the detection of the varroa mite" with figures will appear in the net. Now you can see the article in the following web sites; " in the "Virtual Beekeeping Gallery" http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/detection_varroa.h in Midnite bee under Bee reports http://www.cybertours.com/%7Emidnitebee/html/ in Rimantas Zujus home page in English and later It will appear in Lithuanian language. http://rizujus.lei.lt/Beekeeping/Sveikata/gafs97ap.htm I am sure you will enjoy their skilful editing and their contribution to the world beekeeping. Best regards Kamran Fakhimzadeh ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 15:31:38 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: Re; The difference Between Mites and Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave wrote: There is a move afoot to encourage "mite damaging" behaviour. *On a lighter note!* How about putting a varroa and a bee (known for mite damaging behaviour) in a small ring with the other bees looking on! Best Regards Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:30:48 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: upper ventilation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lloyd Spear wrote: Dan suggests that since bees want to propolize 1/8" wire mesh above the hive that they don't like upper ventilation. Hello all, I think most all beekeepers agree some amount of ventilation is needed. The problem seems to be the location and size of said ventilation opening. In my opinion i believe you could safely say and put in the beekeeping books (never saw before). That bees are quicker to use propolis than to remove propolis. As a experiment i have left the entrance on a strong colony open pointed north thru winter. I believed they would close the entrance to the size of a small hole used by bees in trees. What i found was the size of the opening was related to the size of the colony. I repeated the experiment several times with different size colonys and got the same result about the opening being related to the size of the colony. I have found bees are slow to remove propolis once in place. Bee are quick to propolize a top screen but slow to open up the screen when air flow is needed. I still believe the most common ventilation used by bees in summer is air in one side of the entrance and out the other side of the entrance by fanning. I think man would like for his bees to ventilate like a attic fan but my observation has been the opposite. I allways find a propolized mouse interesting. How well preserved are they by being encased in propolis. Are the bees worried about disease, smell or just keeping the place tidy? The mouse having been cought inside after the entrance was reduced had to be encased using precious time maybe best used in other hive duties in cold weather. Could as many have speculated propolis was used in Egypt to embalm their dead? Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 08:38:23 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Winter hive ventilation In-Reply-To: <200012011212.HAA21556@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I was the one who started this (latest?) focus on > dispensing with restricted ventilation on both bottom > and top by posting a quote from Langstroth. Yes, I remember, and I'm still waiting for the rest of the story -- if it is available. What *did* Langstroth have to say in May about those same hives, or was he -- like so most of us -- happy to expound when he is winning and very quiet when in difficulty? Regardless of whether bees need ventilation in winter or not (I think they do), in early spring in cold country they need to have that ventilation and hive volume reduced and controlled if they are to build up early, or even in some cases, even to survive. Lloyd put his finger on an important point when he started talking about the strain of bees being used. Once again, so much depends on the location and the strain of bees as well as the hive configuration used by the individual beekeeper that general statements only serve to confuse us. allen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:47:29 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Wire mesh bottom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John asks about using just 3/8" wire mesh under his hives. Yes, John, I think it would work fine except if you ever wanted to move the hives or the pallets you wouldn't have any way to stop the bees from flying. If you are never going to move them, or don't mind the extra step of putting on bottoms at that time, your idea would work just fine. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 09:28:06 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Wire mesh bottom In-Reply-To: <200012011545.KAA27866@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > John asks about using just 3/8" wire mesh under his hives. > > Yes, John, I think it would work fine except if you ever wanted to move the > hives or the pallets you wouldn't have any way to stop the bees from flying. > If you are never going to move them, or don't mind the extra step of putting > on bottoms at that time, your idea would work just fine. I posted some time back about the video I saw at a booth selling Liquid Smoke at Apimondia. As far as I could see, the beekeeper in the picture simply set the hives on pallets without any floors and the bees flew where they could. Ahead of his time? allen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 10:04:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dennis M Murrell Subject: Re: Clustering and clustering behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit An interesting two part paper entitled "Rethinking Our Ideas About the Winter Cluster" appeared in the July 1998 edition of the American Bee Journal. Data was obtained from hives over wintered in various configurations such as large cluster size, extra hive wall insulation, etc. Metabolic rates were also obtained from caged bees at different ambient temperatures. The importance of a "water balanced economy in an optimum size colony" was proposed as a major factor controlling winter cluster behavior. This idea explains much of the personal observations I have had overwintering bees both indoors and outdoors in dry, cold climates such as Wyoming and interior Alaska. It could explain some of the behaviours attributed to temperature. The bees efforts to limit upper ventilation may be an attempt to control water resources rather than retain cluster heat . In climates that would provide the winter cluster with sufficient water resources through humidity, frost accumulations around the cluster or outside flight activity, the impacts of upper ventilation and water balance may not be so apparent. The importance of water balance to the winter cluster was also demonstrated by a Canadian beekeeper during the 1970's. He used water vapor to initiate brood rearing in indoor wintered colonies and sold the extra early production as packages. He wrote a series of articles for the American Bee Journal. I have lost the references. Sorry! During the spring the factors that provide an optimum hive environment are drastically different that those during the winter. Wrapping, ventilating or insulating a hive during one season could provide the optimum environment for the bees. During a different season the same treatment could kill or weaken the hive. Best Wishes Dennis Murrell ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 23:31:28 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Kilty Subject: Re: Help with honey bee chemistry In-Reply-To: <200011272008.PAA16706@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <200011272008.PAA16706@listserv.albany.edu>, Robert Mann writes >>The result is a more stable, higher-solid product which increases the >>efficency of the ripening process. >The sucrose molecule is split, by adding a water molecule's constituent 3 >atoms (a process called hydrolysis), to produce one molecule of glucose and >one of fructose. > I can make little of the final sentence in the quote. Sucrose is >not inherently unstable under the conditions of ripening; and 'the >efficiency of the ripening process' means little to me; it sounds as if >written by an economist. I wonder if the original statement referred to the removal of one molecule of water per molecule of sucrose which means less for the bees to remove by evaporation. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 13:02:06 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rick Green Subject: Re: Help with honey bee chemistry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone know if glucose and fructose is easier for the bees body to process? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 14:44:57 -0400 Reply-To: ajdel@mindspring.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: AJ Organization: Zeta Subject: Re: Help With Honey Chemistry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit RE: Does anyone know if glucose and fructose is easier for the bees body to process? Easier in the sense that the necessary job of inversion has already been accomplished. Sucrose must be broken down into its monosaccharide components before entering glycolysis. In higher animals, the hydrolysis occurs before intestinal absorbtion. In yeasts, an invertase is induced on the cell membrane. In the bee eating honey neither of these is required. As sucrose is especially easy to hydrolize, I don't immagine the difference is much anyway besides which the bee (or another bee) has done the hydrolysis earlier. -- A.J. deLange CT Project Manager Zeta Associates 10302 Eaton Place Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 359 8696 855 0905 ajdel@mindspring.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:21:07 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Clustering and clustering behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob and Elizabeth Harrison wrote: > > Hello Lloyd, > I allways enjoy your posts and thought for the sake of discussion > posting the opposite view point. I agree in part with everything you > have posted and have respect for Sue Colby & Dr. Marla Spivak's work. > Having met both and attended lectures given by both(more than one each) > and read i believe every article each have wrote in bee magazines I am > qualified to comment. I regret to say i have not tried Sue's queens but > have Marla's with good results. Italians are the bees i prefer. When > properly managed Italians outproduce all other strains i have tried. > > As I look back on 35 years of beekeeping, one of the most significant > changes has been the "development" of the Carnolian strains. 25-35 > years ago the #1 difficulty of beekeepers here in the Northeast was > over-wintering bees. In hindsight, that was because we were all using > Italians, and they were maintaining huge clusters and brood-rearing > all winter! > > Many beekeepers winter Italians with little problems even as far north > as Stirling,Ont.. My friend David Vanderduesin (spelling?) of River > Valley Apiaries Sterling, Ont. winters Italians in a single deep hive > body. He sells a tape showing his operation and wintering methods. I > haven't talked directly with david in several years so I hope he doesn't > come on line and say he has quit those *non-wintering Italians* and > switched to Carnolians! > > Carnolians has always been known for over-wintering with small > clusters and no brood, but were "nasty", and built up brood so fast in > the spring that they were always swarming! > > Glad you put the above in your post. Supercedure queens from the most > popular sold today Carnolian's seem to exhibit many of the above traits. > I would change "built up brood so fast in the spring that they were > allways swarming to simply *allways swarming*. I never found the > Carnolians to be *nasty* but feel they were not as forgiving a bee when > handled incorrectly. I would add finding a queen in a strong Carnolian > hive can be a challange. I might add they allways seemed to run on the > frames a but more than my * well behaved* Italians. > > In the 1980's Sue Cobey assembled several strains of Carnolians and > made further selections. By then the technology for instrumental > insemination of queens had advanced to the point where it was possible > to maintain strains to a degree unheard of with open mating. The result > was the New World Carnolians that continue today. > > With all due respect to Sue, Marla, Gary and others any selective > breeding should help the strain. I believe all the *bad* qualitys could > easily be bred out. Wouldn't you agree? I wonder what kind of super > bee my mongrel Italians might would become with Sue, Marla and Garys > guidence? Dr. Kerr saw possiblities for the Italians! Dr. Kerr remains > one of the best bee breeders and after all are not all of us entitled to > one mistake? > > Today, Carnolians strains are the most prevalent used in the Northeast, > and perhaps in all states with similar climates as well as in Canada. > > I don't believe Carnolians are the most popular strain with commercial > beekeepers but they may be in the Northeast. > > As a result, if moderate amounts of food are left, hives are likely to > over-winter in fine condition. > > Thats what the Carnolian lovers say. I find the methods of checking one > hives use of winter stores to another hard to pin point. As is why when > several hives which are treated exactly alike, there is always one which > out preforms the others. The only selction many queen breeders make for > Italians is to raise queens from said hive if all other traits are > average or above average. > > I dislike making flat statements, but am tempted to say that it would > be a waste of effort to try to over-winter Italians in Alaska. > > Any beekeepers wintering Italians in Alaska on the list wanting to > comment? > > Sincerely, > Bob Harrison > Ps I also dislike making flat statements,but am tempted to say Italian > queens are the easiest to find with their yellow color. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 12:25:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Clustering and clustering behavior In-Reply-To: <200012011743.MAA01728@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The importance of a "water balanced economy in an optimum size colony" > was proposed as a major factor controlling winter cluster behavior. Good post Dennis. Henry Pirker was the gentlemen who wrote "Steering Factor, Humidity". I saw him around not too long ago. He kept bees in a bee house where they could fly on nice days, yet he could work on them inside at any time of year. He was/is? at Debolt, about as far north as you can go in Alberta, and about 400 miles north of me. He showed how he could trigger massive brood rearing in indoor wintered hives just by raising humidity. He had good bees and lots of pollen in the hives. Beekeepers wintering indoors have observed how the bees can get hard to control and begin roaring and generating heat if water runs under the walls and across the floor, thus raising humidity in the building in spring. Water is a huge factor in bee behaviour. Water conservation and management is a problem for bees exposed to cold winds in our country. Even if there is a block of ice near the cluster in a wintering hive, that doesn't help a lot; they can die or suffer badly from desiccation. When the ice melts, the resulting dripping and humidity can kill or weaken them -- if they have survived the dryness. In other locales with better shelter and more humid conditions, the problems associated with excessive dryness are not even suspected. As I have mentioned before, around here, it is so dry that most of our snow never melts. Most of it sublimates directly into the atmosphere. Wooden furniture brought from the southern and eastern areas of the country often splits from the dryness here. allen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 13:32:11 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: Clustering and clustering behavior MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dennis M Murrell wrote: The importance of water balance to the winter cluster was also demonstrated by a Canadian beekeeper during the 1970's. I have lost the references. I will be looking thru a few of those years over the holidays and will see if i can post the high points and references. During the spring the factors that provide an optimum hive environment are drastically different that those during the winter. Wrapping, ventilating or insulating a hive during one season could provide the optimum environment for the bees. During a different season the same treatment could kill or weaken the hive. Exactly the reason many do not wrap in the midwest. Many beekeepers underestimate the value of even a simple windbreak in the Midwest. With at times windchill of -10 to -60F below and with a hive body R factor of 1 you can quickly see the value of proper wind protection if hives are not wrapped. My bees made cleansing flights on Wednesday for the first time in a month. Unlike the last two years this November has been one of the coldest Novembers on record. Many beekeepers in our area report not having their fall feeding and meds done before the cold weather hit. I was ready this year but would have been cought unprepaired if the cold weather had hit early last year. Best Wishes Bob Harrison Odessa,Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 11:42:29 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: the 3 genders Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I would be grateful for any criticisms of the following which I've drafted for some men interested in gender. My hope is that humans confused about human gender may gain some clarity on the subject by the indirect route of understanding gender in bees. I am hoping this summary will give approximately 'first things first' facts. R I would like to clarify the 3 genders of that marvellous species the honey bee. Some unfortunately established figures of speech give wrong ideas about them. The male, commonly called 'drone' for its louder flying noise, has been very little studied, with the result that we know very little about what it does. The drone develops from an unfertilised egg and therefore is haploid (half the chromosome number of the worker bee). It is commonly depicted as a bludger, and indeed the word 'drone' has long meant this, because all we know of its functions is that it mates with a queen on the wing (and shortly dies). Drones cover areas of hundreds of square miles, nomads between hives. What they do in the hives is not known. Drones have no sting. They do not gather nectar, or anything for the queen or anyone else. The picture that they are bludgers is based on lack of knowledge. (Similarly,the bulk of DNA in typical cells has no KNOWN function, on which ridiculous basis it is routinely called 'junk'.) The nectar-gathering is entirely done by the immature females commonly called workers. Some workers instead gather water, or pollen, or gum from certain tree buds to make the marvellous antiseptic glue called propolis. The queen is a mature female, laying a thousand or more eggs daily in spring & summer. She is obviously bigger than a worker. The large differences are due to feeding an ordinary diploid grub more royal jelly (secreted by young workers before they fly). She is entirely dependent on the workers and is in no useful sense a dictator. This species is the second-best studied animal. That its males have been so very little studied is one of the many lines of evidence that science has not been male-chauvinist. - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 01:00:33 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: pdillon Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is it not considered that the Drone has a role in supplying heat to that of the colony. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 19:50:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Coldiron Subject: Labels Can some of you recommend some good sources of labels for honey jars? I'd also be very interested in hearing how some of you designed your labels and got them printed. Advice on avoiding pitfall would also be helpful and greatly appreciated. Thanks Mark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 21:03:02 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Labels MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have been buying MANY labels for many years from R.M. Farms P. O. Box 684 Dearborn Heights, Michigan 48127-0684 phone 734 722-7727 Bob is HONEST, FAST, has a huge selection, and will give you FREE ADVICE that will give you a fine label He advertises in both Bee Culture and ABJ. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:16:43 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rick Green Subject: Botantist help with nectaries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is there a botanist that can explain why sucrose is produced by the nectaries rather than other sugar forms? If nectaries could efficently produced fructose and glucose then the bees job would be easier, so presumably making sucrose is easier. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:26:56 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stan Sandler Subject: Re: fw: Canada keep info on bees a secret Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All: Robert Mann forwarded the edited following article: >WHAT'S THE BUZZ?: >A LEADING BEE SCIENTIST GETS A GOVERNMENT RUNAROUND >November 15, 2000 >Canadian Business, pg.128 >Andrew Nikiforuk In view of threads on this list by Jerry Bromenshenk and others regarding the altering of the facts by journalists, I thought bee-listers might be interested in the actual thoughts of Mark Winston on this subject, not the interpretation of them by a journalist. Thus what follows is Mark's own writing on this. In this case, however, the journalistic accuracy seems to have been impeccable. Regards, Stan July 18, 2000 The Vancouver Sun Editorial A15 Opinion Mark Winston Iım a bee scientist and beekeeper by occupation and pastime. Beekeepers have two concerns about genetically modified crops. The first is that European consumers have become shy of anything genetically modified, and our Canadian beekeepers export honey to Europe. Genetic engineering does not affect honey directly, but bioengineered crops such as canola are major sources of honey in Canada, and so honey has been swept along in the general biotech hysteria. The second concern is that a protein resulting from genetic engineering of plants might get into pollen, which bees collect and feed to their young, and perhaps could have some unforeseen negative effects on colony populations or bee behaviour. There is no evidence to date that either honey or bees have suffered from genetic modification of crops, and nothing of concern was revealed at a recent ``bear pitıı panel I participated in during the annual beekeepers conference in Saskatchewan. Included on the panel were a honey packer, a representative from the canola industry and an official from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Nevertheless, I remain a hard-core scientist at heart, and when the CFIA spokesman said that pollen from GM crops did not harm bees, my data-sensitive antennae twitched and I made a mental note to obtain the relevant studies. Upon returning to Vancouver, I e-mailed the CFIA staffer, asking him to substantiate the results alluded to in his talk. In my circles, providing data for fellow scientists to corroborate statements is akin to passing the salt at the dinner table. Itıs good manners, if nothing else. I knew something was amiss when my e-mail message was bumped up to a higher-level civil servant. The questions I asked were straightforward, seeking information needed to develop an informed opinion about an issue that could seriously affect beekeepersı livelihoods. The answers also were straightforward, although not in the way I expected: Have honey bee adults or larvae been examined in tests to evaluate effects of GM pollen on bees? Answer: Yes. What GM crops were tested? Answer: Canıt tell you that; itıs proprietary information. Where did the data originate‹from industry or an independent source? Canıt tell you that; itıs proprietary information. Can you provide me with the experimental protocols for these tests? Canıt tell you that; itıs proprietary information. What were the results? Canıt tell you that; itıs proprietary information. Why canıt you reveal the protocols and results from these tests? We deem those to be confidential business details. Iıll be blunt. There is absolutely no reason for this information to be kept confidential. I can understand a novel process, or even the nature of a particular gene product, being kept under intellectual-property wraps. But how could information like number of replicates, methods and experimental protocols used, what plants were tested, and how many bees lived or died possibly be considered a threat to patent protection or industrial confidentiality? If a GM crop is safe for bees and people, the public should be allowed to see the data that says itıs safe. If itıs not, we should have clear information about the danger. Period. Our government needs to be a trustworthy arbitrator of such issues, and their secrecy stance torpedoes credibility. Itıs not just bee data, and itıs not just GM crops that we should be concerned about. As one CFIA official put it, ``secrecy is business as usual as far as weıre concerned.ıı There are many issues larger than bees and pollen. Our government makes decisions about biotechnology products, pesticides, antibiotics fed to livestock and myriad other health and safety matters based on copious data provided by industry. I donıt happen to share the deep distrust expressed by many on the environmental left about industry-generated data, but I do share the opinion that such information should be publicly accessible when it relates to human and environmental health. Nor do I have any particular reason to mistrust the quality or professionalism of the staff at the CFIA or other Canadian government agencies. Iıve worked with regulators on many issues, and found that the on-the-ground workers are dedicated, honest and as helpful as they are allowed to be. They often have told me stuff they are really not supposed to reveal because they, too, see the foolishness of overdone silence. The problem lies in government policy that has handcuffed our civil servants. Stealth may be necessary for an undercover military spy. But can someone explain to me why the number of bees killed or not killed by GM canola pollen is a government secret? Or, if a pharmaceutical company develops a new antibiotic for livestock, why canıt I see the data presented to government on residues in meat, even without top-secret information on the identity of the antibiotic? How about the inert ingredients in which pesticides are dissolved before being sprayed? The underlying issue is trust. The consequence of secrecy is that we perceive conspiracy by shadowy government-industry cartels at every turn, whereas the opposing perspective, transparency, would reduce our anxieties about new and potentially beneficial technologies. Anything less than full disclosure on information pertinent to human and environmental health is an affront to the public interest. How about it, Ottawa? I await the data. Mark Winston is a professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, and a regular contributor to The Sun. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 00:08:45 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mann wrote: The large differences are due to feeding an ordinary diploid grub more royal jelly (secreted by young workers before they fly). I have heard of only the nurse bees being able to secret royal jelly. Is there a change which takes place caused by flying or is flying your way of saying approx 2 weeks? Are you saying i could trap flying bees and put in a small nuc with a freshly dry grafted queen cell and they could not produce enough royal jelly to produce a queen? In spring i could easily do this experiment. Once these royal jelly glands dry up they can NEVER produce royal jelly again? She is entirely dependent on the workers and is in no useful sense a dictator. I believe she and she alone controls when the swarm leaves the hive. Not what the books say and only my opinion. Books say:egg laying queen can't fly and queen quits laying eggs for three days before swarming. I used to believe the above (as did our forefathers believe there was a king bee). I might believe a old queen(most times) isn't likely to fly and quits laying eggs prior to swarming for a unknown reason or because flight is easier. I have taken a old laying queen and put her in a single box with nine frames of emerging brood and shook other bees in on top and watched her bring a swarm out of the hive. I discovered the fact by accident. I was making comb honey over queenless bees when i accidently put a queen in the box. I couldn't believe what i was seeing and found i had by accident put a queen in a very crowded box. The swarm went about 250 feet to a oak tree. I had to stand on a ladder in the back of a pickup to get the swarm. I shook the swarm thru a queen excluder and got my old queen and put her back in the hive she came from originaly and put the bees into the comb honey box. What do i think i learned? 1. queen can swarm at the drop of a hat without scouts reporting back,queen cells or even eggs for the bees to raise a queen from. 2.Location was most likely picked in flight and i believe most likely by the queen . 3. old egg laying queen can fly if she wants to. I have seen many week to two week old queens fly which have been laying eggs but not (i wouldn't think)up to maximum laying. 4. the box she swarmed out of had bees from three hives. Almost all (if not all)field bees left with her and none tried to ball her. If they had i think i would have seen as i ran the whole swarm thru a excluder. Once i had her safely back in her colony and the field bees trapped in my swarm box i looked thru the box the swarm issued from. Emerging brood and some fuzzy nurse bees. From the number of bees left the bees from three different hives left in the swarm with her. Sincerely, Bob Harrison comment: Some hives will make the sound of a queenless hive within minutes of the queen being removed from the hive. To beginers reading this trust me if you keep bees long enough you will learn the sound of queenless bees. I believe a possible answer is because i had twelve hives tore apart at one time and working on several hives at the same time that the hive which swarmed had realized they were queenless.I had been working non stop for a couple hours so i can't remember exactly how long the bees had been in the box. I can't say for sure they were making the queenless sound because i was very busy and working by myself. When i added her they must have bonded and within approx fifteen minutes they swarmed. I had allready put the lid back on and was working in another area of the yard when i saw them leave. Maybe the whole thing was a unusual happening. Maybe not. maybe i should have tried to repeat the experiment before telling the world. Maybe not. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 05:20:00 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Chemistry of Honey etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Green writes: <> Have to say I've seen creationists behaving just as badly. I wish the two could just respect each other more! Trouble is, they work on totally different philosophical bases, so it's very hard to find common ground. It isn't true to say that evolutionism makes 'an a priori assumption of no Creator', by the way. The issue of a Creator isn't within the remit of science, so isn't addressed. It's true that evolutionary theory has been abused in order to attack the concept of a Creator, but it would be better to tackle this as either an abuse of science, or in some cases as bad science. I personally have met numerous scientists and others who affirm the theory of evolution, as I would, and who have as strong a belief in God as anyone I have met. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 10:51:45 GMT 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: Ventilation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Allen Dick wrote as follows: >Regardless of whether bees need ventilation in winter or not (I think they do), >in early spring in cold country they need to have that ventilation and hive >volume reduced and controlled if they are to build up early, or even in some >cases, even to survive. Would I understand from this that Open Mesh Floors must have some sort of board placed under or over them in spring to give the hive additional warmth. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock, Dublin 18 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:27:25 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: pollen substitute dry/patty form MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi all, Just read Allen Dick's web page on feeding pollen substitute/ = supplement. He states that to ensure the bees consume the mixture = (patties),and to minimize waste either a high sugar content (50%+) or a = high natural pollen content (15%+) is necessary. Assuming a high sugar = content is opted for using BEE PRO and no pollen added. Question #1: = What would be easier for a wintering bee cluster to utilize dry = substitute or patty form ( answer shouldn't be based on convenience for = beekeeper)? If dry form what % ( by weight) of extra fine sugar should = be added to guarantee acceptance? Does the moisture in pollen patties = create stress on the wintering cluster? Would the lack of moisture = create stress? I realize that colonies can use either dry or patty = form, but does one form or the other cause the bees to utilize their = winter stores inefficiently? In other words would the added moisture in = the patties cause the bees more stress thus using up more winter stores = due to an excess of moisture compounded upon the moisture from their = respiration? I plan on experimenting with dry\patty pollen substitute = to see its effect on the wintering cluster and brood populations. Any = info would be appreciated. Thanks. Clayton Huestis Crown Point, NY=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:37:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: pollen from gm plants and other similar issues MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In a message Stan Sandler sent to Bee-L, Mark Winston is quoted as saying "I donıt happen to share the deep distrust expressed by many on the environmental left about industry-generated data, but I do share the opinion that such information should be publicly accessible when it relates to human and environmental health." These few words reflect my views, and I am envious that I have been unable to formulate the expression as well as Mark. When all the dust is settled, many years from now, my guess is that today's fuss and bother will look reasonably silly. Nonetheless, the ag. firms, all of us, and many others would be better off if those with detailed information concerning GM crops were freely releasing it to the public...and their critics. I know the response, it is approximately "If we gave them (the environmental left) this data, it would only be misconstrued and misquoted and would end up biting us in the ass." Sadly, this is probably correct and is an indictment of those with "the cause". Nonetheless, secrecy adds to paranoia and, IMHO, is not appropriate in these instances. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 12:31:48 +0100 Reply-To: gilles.ratia@apiservices.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gilles RATIA Subject: Mite detector MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, Unfortunately Kamran FAKHIMZADEH gave a wrong Web address (he certainly did a mistake with Copy/Paste), it is not: http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/detection_varroa.h but http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/detection_varroa.htm Best regards, Gilles RATIA Beekeeping Consultant Webmaster of the "Virtual Beekeeping Gallery" http://www.beekeeping.com President of the Apimondia Standing Commission on Beekeeping Technology and Equipment APISERVICES Beekeeping Development "Le Terrier" F-24420 Coulaures - FRANCE Phone: +33 (0)5 53 05 91 13 Mobile: +33 (0)6 07 68 49 39 Fax: +33 (0)5 53 05 44 57 Do not dial (0) out of France Email: gilles.ratia@apiservices.com Web: http://www.apiservices.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 10:05:54 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeCrofter@AOL.COM Subject: Re: pollen from gm plants and other similar issues MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/2/00 9:49:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, lloydspear@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes: > These few words reflect my views, and I am envious that I have been unable > to formulate the expression as well as Mark. When all the dust is settled, > many years from now, my guess is that today's fuss and bother will look > reasonably silly The discoverer of DDT 's usefullness as an insecticide recieved a Nobel prize in 1948. Now we know better. Perhaps GM crops will be as big a benefit as DDT was or as big a mistake. Right now the only mistake is to hurry. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 10:19:31 -0500 Reply-To: peter.bussell@sympatico.ca Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Bussell Subject: white is best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It irks me that we label honey as #1 white #2 light golden etc and understood by the public is that white is better than any other. We find the same distinction made by big processors who want and pay more for light coloured honey and suggest that darker honey is suitable for baking. I find the same sort of grading in maple syrup. And like honey it is the tasteless water white stuff that is heralded as the "best". I have tasted and enjoyed honey from many sources and continue to be amazed at the subtle differences. Colour had little to do with the differences. So why do we continue to label our honey as if there is a "best"? peter ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:10:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Ventilation In-Reply-To: <200012021440.JAA01532@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >Regardless of whether bees need ventilation in winter or not (I > think they do), > >in early spring in cold country they need to have that ventilation and hive > >volume reduced and controlled if they are to build up early, or even in some > >cases, even to survive. > > Would I understand from this that Open Mesh Floors must have some sort of > board placed under or over them in spring to give the hive additional warmth. Tom, This is what I have been thinking and I have not seen any real suggestion or design for what I suspect might be ideal. Maybe I have just missed it, but in my mind, a floor using an 8 mesh galvanized hardware cloth surface for the full area and being about 1 inch below the bottom of the frames would be ideal. If designed well, a thin (1/4"?) solid bottom could slide in (either under or over) whenever the open bottom was not considered desirable such as in late winter and early spring. Moreover, a solid bottom with a 30 square inch hole in it could be inserted instead when only part of the screen area is needed, such as for winter. Assuming the solid and semi-solid bottoms slid *under* the screen, either could be painted white and greased or oiled, and give us a visual count of mites when desired. allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 10:35:16 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: white is best Comments: To: peter.bussell@sympatico.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Bussell wrote: We find the same distinction made by big processors who want and pay more for light coloured honey and suggest that darker honey is suitable for baking. Hello Peter and all, With big packers its a supply problem. There is less of the water white honey produced in the U.S.. When blending honey which most large packers do to get a uniform product they use usually two drums of water white to 8 drums of amber. The formula can be different than the example i have shown but the formula i have personally seen used the most. Allways a market for water white honey with packers in the U.S.. Producing water white honey in the U.S. is a big problem as our main floral sources produce a extra light amber at best. Dark honey is allways the lowest price in the drums so bakeries shop price. I sell to *Golden Harvest bakery* and he wants my best honey and is willing to pay the price. I believe as he does that the better the honey the better tasting the product but when you are talking cooking involving high temperatures many bakeries tell me the end product tastes the same whether the white or dark honey is used. Canada and parts of Alaska produce some of the finest white honey in the world. My Canadian friends tell me packers will come up on published prices when buying the white honey. Please forgive me packers but thats the rumor! If for the sake of discussion all U.S. honey was water white then the same would be true for dark honey. I do get calls now for people wanting a true dark wildflower honey as many Missouri beekeepers are treating early rather than produce the dark fall honey. Buy Missouri Honey! Three adds run every month in ABJ. Drums or buckets! Sincerely, Bob ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 11:02:48 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Van Roekel, Bill" Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Robert Mann [mailto:robt_m@TALK.CO.NZ] I would be grateful for any criticisms of the following which I've drafted for some men interested in gender. The nectar-gathering is entirely done by the immature females commonly called workers. I believe the workers are mature females with underdeveloped sexual organs. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 12:29:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: Fall Honey Crop Hello All, Many parts of the northern U.S. enjoy similar weather patterns as Missouri. When Varroa first came to Missouri (without invitation) there was talk of pulling supers around July 15th and treating for Varroa and then approx 6 weeks later putting supers back on for a fall crop. Terramycin could not be used in the fall with this method because time had to pass after treatment. Apistan,Coumaphous,apicure and Menthol could be used but two weeks would have to be waited after *Checkmite* strips were removed before replacing supers. After all the talk at bee meetings I myself have not tried the above and i have not talked to a beekeeper which has. Are there any beekeepers in the midwest or north which have tried the above and would care to share their results with us good or bad? if so how did the hives look in the spring after ending all treatments by September 1st.? Bob ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 22:43:58 +0100 Reply-To: Ahlert Schmidt Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ahlert Schmidt Subject: Re: Botantist help with nectaries In-Reply-To: <90afd3.3vv5gon.1@ID-22766.user.dfncis.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Rick, I like to comment on your question why are nectaries excrete sucrose? First of all, not all nectaries secrete sucrose, other sugars, expecially glucose and fructose are excreted by differennt plants and even the ration of glucose to fructose is not always in the ratio of 1:1 as would be expected from sucrose, which is composed of one glucose and one fructose. So why is sucrose the preferre sugar? This has to do with the stability of either glucose ore fructose in solution. Glucose at C1 in the partly oxidized form of an aldehyde and Fructose has en keto-group on C2. Thus both forms are less stabel as the combined sugars in sucrose where both groups are masked in an alpha-1-beta-two-binding, which is more stable. This is also the reason why the transported form of sugares in the plant ins mainly sucrose. Best regards, Ahlert Schmidt (Botanist) mailto:Ahlert.Schmidt@t-online.de ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 09:26:59 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: 'Creationism' v. evolution Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Robert Brenchley wrote: >The issue of a Creator isn't within the remit of science, so isn't addressed. It's true that evolutionary theory has been abused in order to attack the concept of a Creator, but it would be better to tackle this as either an abuse of science, or in some cases as bad science. I personally have met numerous scientists and others who affirm the theory of evolution, as I would, and who have as strong a belief in God as anyone I have met. This can hardly be called 'chemistry of honey' so I think it should be renamed. I have worked for some years on this fraught issue of 'Creationism' v. evolution. I believe it is essentially a non-issue, a misunderstanding, and I hope we don't waste much time on it. The best book I know of is 'How Blind Is the Watchmaker' (Ashgate 1998) by Neil Broom, with whom I recently published an article on the subject in the NZ magazine _Stimulus_ . This is not on the infobahn so I'm prepared to send it as a M$W file to any who request it. We hold that science in general and evolution in particular can offer no genuine conflict with true religion. There are well-known general grounds for our attitude. The purview of science is restricted: it is as narrow as the physical realm of matter & energy (including living organisms), but no spiritual entities. The fact that science can study only this restricted realm (within which it has achieved very impressive discoveries) is no handicap; it is simply a fact that the scientific method applies only to energy and matter as defined by science, and when science attempts to pronounce on moral questions, let alone spiritual questions, it is a trespasser. My namesake is correct. The fundamentalists who make out that EITHER organisms have evolved OR God has created them are confused. Theirs is a phoney antinomy. Evolution - life unfolding over time with increasing complexity & variety - is simply a fact. But the final cause of this process cannot be illuminated by science. if there's room, may I append a newspaper article by Prof Broom & myself? The reason I think this topic is worth space on Bee-L is that the way bees are handled, and many questions of how they should be confronted with e.g. pesticides or GM pollen, do depend on whether we believe nature is mere mechanism or God's Creation. That issue is not basically dependent on whether there has been evolution or not. Life's Biggest Question Still Needs an Answer NZ Herald 22-3-99 The origins of human existence cannot be explained by discoveries of where and how life developed, but rather by asking why, write NEIL BROOM and ROBERT MANN . Professor Paul Davies is certainly one of the most successful modern scientists in guiding towards "a rapprochement between science and spirituality". But his latest book, The Fifth Miracle , asserts that, if we find life elsewhere than on our planet, "the ramifications are profound in the extreme." "They transcend mere science, and impact on such philosophical issues as whether there is a meaning to physical existence or whether life, the universe and everything are ultimately pointless and absurd" he writes. "That is the momentous import of the search for life on Mars and beyond. The search for life in the universe is thus a search for ourselves - who we are and what our place is in the grand scheme of things". The notion - called panspermia - that life first arose elsewhere and then came across space on to our planet has exerted only minor, fitful influence on evolutionary theory. The similar notion that our planet may have 'seeded' microbes far afield has an even scantier history. The other logical possibility is that life arose independently in two or more places. Few scientific facts point to such hypotheses, and none in any conclusive way. But, whatever facts science may yet uncover on Mars or further away, these can not be important for the spiritual understanding which Davies seeks. Davies says that the existence of life elsewhere, if factually confirmed, "would be the most definite indication of there being a purpose or direction to life . . . the closest we could get to proof of the existence of a 'god'." Similarly, he says that should life be found off the planet this would be "the greatest evidence for a creator". These statements are, rather obviously, wrong. The spiritual questions grandly outlined by Davies cannot be illuminated by technical facts about where life first arose, or where else it moved to, on or off our planet. 'Where?', and even 'when?', are vastly less important, and infinitely less spiritual, than 'why?' - the question about causes & meaning. Scholarly consideration of causes in biology is famously illuminated by William Paley's scenario of finding, during a stroll on a heath, a watch. The evident order of this mechanism - especially if it was working when found - would rightly force the finder who studied it to infer the existence of a design and, therefore, a designer. Watches can never be said to have arisen from an entirely impersonal, mindless cause. Such mechanical contrivances are always the expression of creativity, of some person who decided to construct a mechanism for the purpose of telling time. Paley argued that the living mechanisms of nature - the complex machinery so evident in biology - must similarly be inferred to be designed. However materialistic one's views might be and however many millions or billions of years of evolution may be granted to us, the machinery of life surely requires an explanation of a personal rather than impersonal kind. We believe this argument has been wrongly neglected - certainly not refuted. Megatime is no substitute for purpose. To discuss causes of life, one needs traditional understanding of the term 'causes'. The four categories of cause, identified by Aristotle and little challenged for 2.3 millennia, have rarely been taught to science students let alone the general public, but they are crucial for explanation in biology. Two of the four are simply ignored today by most scientist-philosophers. Before the recent decline in the philosophy of science, the Auckland biologist John E. Morton, using science, as Aristotle of course could not, illustrated the 4 categories of cause in his 1972 'claret cameo', which we paraphrase below {see Box}. ************************** Morton's 'claret cameo' What are the causes of my bottle of claret? The material cause includes the grape juice and the yeast, materials transformed by the efficient cause into this peculiar substance claret. The efficient cause is the action of the yeast on the grape sugars and some minor components, resulting in aqueous ethanol and some minor new chemicals characteristic of claret. But my bottle of claret has also a final cause: a man (named Babich) exerted his will to organise suitable vessels for the substances which are the material cause, and planned a sequence of operations for the purpose of making claret by maximising the likelihood that the efficient cause for claret would operate, i.e. the particular chemical action of the yeast on the grape juice leading to claret. What Aristotle called the formal cause, on which we here say no more, is the 'claret idea' in Babich's mind. ********************** {photo of a frog - caption Design secrets rest with the humble frog} If a bottle of claret is required by human reason to have a final cause, how could it be denied that a frog also is designed? The attempt to explain life is, we believe, severely incomplete until one faces up to final cause in biology. This is little assisted by panspermia, which merely pushes back one stage the scientific question of where & when life first showed up in the universe, and has negligible spiritual significance. The "enlightment" assumption that science can, and soon will, give an essentially complete description and explanation of the physical (including biological) world constitutes scientism - faith in science as the "only" way of knowledge. The only type of final cause - person acting to bring about the observed change - is, in this modern approach, human will. 'Who designed this watch?' is thus an allowed question, but 'who designed this frog?' is not. The attempt to illuminate spiritual questions by studying only nature without recourse to special revelation is called natural theology. One of us has recently tried to bring natural theology up to date in a small book concentrating on design in biology (How Blind is the Watchmaker ? , Ashgate 1998). The existence of life on Mars or elsewhere seems to us a scientifically interesting but theologically trivial question. Attempts to discern anything about God, or spiritual matters more generally, from this sort of science are, in our opinion, doomed. There is compelling evidence much 'closer to home' for a transcendent cause. Just take a look at any one of the marvellous mechanisms found in the living world. Such living 'machines' embody and express a degree of complexity, sophistication, and purposefulness, that far surpasses anything created by human hands. Are we then to conclude that there is no evidence of mindful orchestration in the living world? No Mastermind? The really important questions about what we are and why we exist are not scientific, and science is a trespasser when it pronounces on such matters. This fundamental limitation of science was admirably summarised by Professor Morton a quarter of a century ago [in his book 'Man, Science & God' Collins 1972]. The feeling of breathless enchantment can be evoked by natural theology, and can lead the children of atheism & agnosticism to investigate more important parts of theology. But bugs winging their way to or from Mars, or any other version of panspermia, are incapable of shedding light on the really important questions concerning purpose and meaning in life. ~~~~~~~~~ Neil Broom is associate professor of engineering, and Robert Mann was until retirement senior lecturer in environmental studies, at the University of Auckland. --- - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 22:56:54 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: pdillon Subject: Re: white is best Comments: To: peter.bussell@sympatico.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Honey produced in France is also graded but as follows: Price of White honey - usually Rape (Canola) like Sunflower(golden/ lemon yellow) has the least "respect" due to it being produced in quantity. Dark honeys such as Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) command a mid price. Others such as light coloured Lavender higher still, then Heather/Ling (both being dark) finishing with specialised honeydews and pine "honeys", again very dark in colour. This list is only an indication of how colour may/ may not influence the price. The classic honey for the French population is "Acacia" (False acacia - Robinia sp.) - mainly due to it resting in a liquid state over many months. So, prices vary according to taste, production levels and blending ability. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 13:58:23 -0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill, You are correct. The workers are often referred to as "sexually immature" females, but of course they are as mature as they are going to get. My main concern with this whole thread is the use of the term genders. There are only two sexes of bees, and as used here that is the meaning of the term gender. The traditional term Castes seems more appropriate to me. Tom > I believe the workers are mature females with underdeveloped sexual organs. -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@gci.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 14:04:52 -0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: 'Creationism' v. evolution MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The fossil record certainly shows an abundance of life having existed in the past. There is no evidence that any of it "evolved" and in that sense while the record of the past is certainly a fact, evolution is hypothesis. > Evolution - life unfolding over time with increasing complexity & variety - > is simply a fact. But the final cause of this process cannot be illuminated by > science. -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@gci.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 17:51:23 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mann wrote: The large differences are due to feeding an ordinary diploid grub more royal jelly (secreted by young workers before they fly). Bob Harrison wrote: I have heard of only the nurse bees being able to secret royal jelly. Is there a change which takes place caused by flying or is flying your way of saying approx 2 weeks? Are you saying i could trap flying bees and put in a small nuc with a freshly dry grafted queen cell and they could not produce enough royal jelly to produce a queen? In spring i could easily do this experiment. Once these royal jelly glands dry up they can NEVER produce royal jelly again? Hello All, Because Robert Mann is busy working on the problem of *Creationism V. Evolution* I will thru the help of a friend try to answer my above questions. A friend sent me a email saying he has a published study by John B. Free ,"The Social Organization of Honeybees" from the mid 70s (he thinks). We can search for positive information but for the purpose of this post i see no need. Because i have never read the study and my friend is quoting from memory Bee-L readers feel free to add to or correct us. The study makes much of scientific trials showing bees could regenerate glands which had ceased to be used ,effectively rejuvenating themselves in order to ensure the survival of the colony, or even of hungry brood given to a swarm. We are fairly sure of the title and author. Sincerely, Bob & friend ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 13:17:24 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: the 3 genders In-Reply-To: <200012022301.SAA07702@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tom Elliott wrote: >My main concern with this whole thread is the use of the term genders. There >are only two sexes of bees, and as used here that is the meaning of the term >gender. The traditional term Castes seems more appropriate to me. I have been gratified at the thoughtful responses to my questions. The traditional term Castes seems to me the least appropriate - the issue I wanted to get to, and now we have got there indirectly. A caste is a subculture of humans who have organised for many generations to specialise in a particular social niche. (India is of course the main arena where society has been thus organised.) Well, the bees 3 types are not at all like that, are they? A drone does not choose to be what he is; a queen is similarly predetermined for her biological & social role; and a worker once mature (tho' sexually immature) is also committed. Of the three terms on offer, I now favour 'sex' as the most suitable. Gender, and even more extremely caste, are social constructs. The fact that the human has 2 sexes doesn't seem to me to preclude another species from having 3 sexes. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 20:51:24 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: HStarJE@AOL.COM Subject: screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There have been some interesting ideas about screened bottom boards lately. Here is what I do: I fold a sheet of 1/8 mesh on the bottom of the lowest hive body with one or two inches of extra material to fold up along the sides and staple all around (using t-25 wire staple gun.) two paralell cuts about 3 inches apart and 6 inches long are added at the front end in the center. This forms a peice that can be bent down to form an entrance ramp for the bees. It also can be bent back up and stapled to seal the hive for moving. The entire mesh can be removed and restapled for reversing etc. No bottom board is used at all. The hive is set on an old AUTOMOBILE TIRE for a stand. The tire has a hole drilled into the sidewall on the ground for water drainage. The tire is cheaper than free, gets the hive off the ground, will not rot and allows enough room for mite drop and ventilation. Cesar Flores Colorado USA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 19:35:44 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard E Leber Subject: Re: Labels MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 19:50:57 -0500 Mark Coldiron writes: > Can some of you recommend some good sources of labels for honey jars? > I'd also be very interested in hearing how some of you designed your > labels and got them printed. Hi Ya'll; Nancy & I have divided our retail marked in half...flea market, roadside fruit & vegetable stands, U-Pick farms, independent grocers and health food stores are grouped together and the other side of the supply coin supports gift baskets, upscale coffee shops, boutiques and a hotel here in Mobile, Alabama. For the down home packaging we selected from the wide assortment offered by R.M. Farms, P.O. Box 684, Dearborn Heights, Michigan 48127-0684 Phone: 734-722-7727. Our upscale custom labels were designed locally by a professional advertising artist and we relied on his recommendation for a print shop with the skills required to produce the five color artwork. The two critical requirements for our operation are a quality professional look (for store shelf appeal) and "self adhesive" labels to ease the packaging workload. Even if you're working in a temporary 'honey house' arranged in your wife's kitchen or a space cleaned out in the garage don't let your packaging detract from the quality found inside. Rick & Nancy Leber Beekeeping & Honey Production Since 1987 Mobile, 'Sweet Home Alabama' ricks.toy@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 08:19:03 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark G Spagnolo Subject: screened bottom boards & other stuff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Last Spring I built 50 screened bottom boards. Even though I keep my = hives a foot or so above the ground on timbers, quite a few of my old = boards were beginning to fall apart. =20 The bottom boards are built out of 1X4 lumber, so they were not = expensive. I did have some difficulty finding the right mesh screen, = but soon discovered it at a local hardware store. I am able to slide a = 1/4" piece of plywood under the screen when needed to block off the = ventilation in the winter and spring. I am currently wintering hives in an un-heated, insulated shed. Each = hive went into the shed as a strong single with a candy board on the = top. The screened bottom board is covered with plywood except for a = 3x5" hold cut in the center for ventilation. We have long winters here = in Minnesota. The bees went in the shed on November 4 and won't come out = until April 1st or so. As this is the first year I have tried this = method I am anxious to see how it works, or doesn't work. Any advise, ideas or questions? Mark in Northern Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 10:30:28 -0800 Reply-To: honeyboy@pacbell.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Honeyboy Subject: Auto fillers MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Season's Greetings Bee L-ers, I did a search and come up with nothing regarding auto bottle fillers. Is there anyone out there who uses these fillers who can tell me the pros and cons of the different fillers that are available? Please respond to me personally as not to bore the rest of the list. Thanks, Mason ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 13:50:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: Black Mangrove honey Hello All, A beekeeper which keeps a apiary near the Everglades in Florida tells me how the Black Mangrove honey will darken soon after extracting. I know Black Mangrove grow with their roots in salt water. He says the honey has a high mineral content ,and although golden brown when extracted,turns dark due to the acidity of the honey. Is there something in the mineral content which causes the dark color later or is the cause the acidity? Will all honey with high acid content darken later? Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 14:31:21 EST 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: Auto fillers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/3/00 1:59:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, honeyboy@PACBELL.NET writes: > I did a search and come up with nothing regarding auto bottle fillers. > Is there anyone out there who uses these fillers who can tell me the > pros and cons of the different fillers that are available? Please > respond to me personally as not to bore the rest of the list. Oh, please DO "bore the rest of the list!" Dave Green The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 16:34:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: Bees & winter Hello All, I have been looking through a few of the *bibles* of beekeeping and what they say about wintering. I also went back several editions back to the early 1900's. I find that much of the information is copied from edition to edition. Two corrections on wintering need to be made. 1. bees cluster at 57 degrees. Phillips & Demuth (1914) first reported at 57 degrees F.(14C.) the cluster becomes well defined. I have opened many bee hives at 45 and 50 degrees F. and i cannot detect a cluster. At temperatures of 40 degrees or less a well defined cluster as described in the bee books is easy to see. If Phillips & Demuth had said bees start ot cluster then i might halfway agree but most clusters are well defined at 17 degree lower temperature. 2. Main reason for insulating hives. Packing a hive with insulation has the advantage of letting the interior of a hive cool down slowly with a SUDDEN DROP in outside temperature so that all the bees in the hive could get to the cluster before they got so cold they couldn't move. Sudden drops in temps of 30-40 degrees in a short time are not uncommon in winter in our northern states. This reason should at least be talked about. Best wishes, Bob Harrison Odessa,Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:19:55 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: C.C. Miller Memorial Collection Hello All, I have been searching the webb site at the Steenbock Memorial Library at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Miller collection was at the library in 1985 but there was talk of moving the Miller collection to another location. Does anyone know if the collection is still at library and available to the public like it was in 1985? For those not familiar with the Miller collection the collection contains over 2,ooo books about beekeeping printed since the early 1500's. Thanks in advance! Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 17:11:45 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Creation and Evolution MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mann writes: << I have worked for some years on this fraught issue of 'Creationism' v. evolution. I believe it is essentially a non-issue, a misunderstanding, and I hope we don't waste much time on it.>> Yes, it is a misunderstanding, but if the moderators will allow, perhaps its worth looking at the causes of the misunderstanding. I have qualifications in both geology and theology, and an ongoing interest in the dialogue between scientists and theologians. The philosophical basis of science is essentially NOMINALISM, which was developed by late medieval theologians under the influence of Aristotle's writings, and adopted by the Protestant reformers, from whom it was inherited by the first scientists. It says that the fundamental 'essence' (I'm avoiding the medieval terms, which might be confusing) of an object is to be found in the object itself, so if I want to know more about bees, let's say, the logical way to do it is to study the bees, and interpret what I see. From this basic idea, science developed on the basis that verifiable, repeatable observations (and nothing else) could be analysed by a system of formal logic, taken over from medieval theology, in order to gain information about, and understanding of, the world around us. This has obviously proved to be an extremely powerful tool, but it's nothing more than that. It can never, for instance, 'prove' anything finally or absolutely, a scientific theory is nothing more than the interpretation which seems to fit the available facts better than any other. I accept the theory of evolution, for instance, because it fits the facts. If anyone can come up with any better idea, or can come up with verifiable facts which contradict the theory, I don't think I would have much difficulty in changing my mind. I am aware that 'creation science' claims that the facts don't fit the theory, but I don't think it is legitimate science (see below), and I don't accept their 'facts'. For instance, it has often been claimed that human fossils have been faked. Apart from Piltdown Man, which was gleefully exposed by the scientists themselves as soon as the techniques became available to do so, there is no evidence of faking, and having handled some of the fossils myself, I can see it just ain't so. Creationism is based on a sort of incoherent REALISM, a philosophy which dominated much of medieval theology. It holds that the ultimate essence of a thing is not to be found in the thing itself, which is merely an 'appearance', but elsewhere. It therefore makes no sense to attempt to learn about a thing by studying it; answers are to be found elsewhere, normally by appeal to authority, in this case the Bible. So if the Bible clearly says (and I reserve the right to dispute this) that God created the earth in seven twenty-four hour days, and if it really supports Archbishop Ussher's dating of the process (originally 9am on the 23rd October 4004 BC - that's what was printed in the margin of some early editions of the King James Version), then the whole of geology *must* be wrong whatever the facts say. That's why 'creation science' isn't science, and why the two sides usually end up shouting past each other. To the creationist, Biblical authority settles the matter, and the facts are irrelevant (so I wonder why they claim to offer an alternative 'science' - I never could understand this one); to the scientist, the facts are what matters, and the Bible is irrelevant, at least while they are at work. If we could only deal with this on the basis of philosophy, not as a polemical attack on science with the real issues submerged, we might be able to build some understanding on both sides. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 20:05:51 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Queens and swarms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree with Bob when he says that laying queens can fly. I have seen it happen many times when a hive is disturbed. However I do not agree with his statement that the queen and she alone controls when the swarm leaves the hive. Maybe she does some of the time or even most of the time. I don't know. But I have seen a swarm issuing from an over crowded mini nuc. The swarm was in the air. The queen was on the board in front of the hive and she was most reluctant to go and was being chivvied, hustled and urged by the workers trying to get her to take off. I herded her with my fingers back in through the entrance and closed it with a piece of QE. The swarm returned within say 10 minutes and I was later able to remove the queen for use elsewhere and allow the bees to rear the single sealed Q cell in the nuc to replace her. In that case it was definitely the workers who were the dominant force behind the swarm and not the queen. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 21:04:03 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: eat(and drink)more honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George Richtmeyer wrote: I make cream honey in five flavors,plain, strawberry,lemon,orange and maple I bottle it in 8oz.jars. Hello George and All, I saved this post to respond to but i didn't think would be a month later. Sorry! Many beekeepers (myself included) have went to plastic cups because creamed honey in glass jars wants to pull away from the side. The creamed honey allways sells better in the glass jars until it starts pulling away from the sides. I have got a machine which will spin 40 gallons at a time and follow the *Dyce method* to the letter. I have been told that if you use a honey with a 19 to 19.5% moisture content the creamed honey will not pull from the jar sides. Have you ever had the creamed honey pulling from the jar sides problem? I have read articles from overseas where much creamed honey is made and they use the same process i do. Any solution for the jar side problem Bee-L people? Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 09:49:57 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jean-Jean Menier Subject: Re: white is best Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Bee-lers, I would say "liquid" rather than "white", just to avoid any misunderstanding .... ! All what Pater says is right about what French like. Current prices in France are to day, (american "buck" considered at 7 FF to make it easier) "Acacia honey " (Robinia) is considered as the best : mean price is ca. 42-43 FF per kilogram (just under $ 6 /kg). Dark honey called "Forest honey" is between 38 and 40 FF / kg, White honey (rape, sunflower) between 32-35 FF / kg, sometimes less. I use this honey to cook my own honey bread. Prices given here are those commonly found on markets and shops. Industrial prices (for honey bread for example) are lower. Acacia honeys from Hungaria are much cheaper, not talking of chinese honeys ... Sincerely to all, Jean J. Menier amateur beekeeper (5 hives) At 22:56 02/12/00 +0000, you wrote: >Honey produced in France is also graded but as follows: >Price of White honey - usually Rape (Canola) like Sunflower(golden/ >lemon yellow) has the least "respect" due to it being produced in >quantity. Dark honeys such as Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) command a >mid price. Others such as light coloured Lavender higher still, then >Heather/Ling (both being dark) finishing with specialised honeydews and >pine "honeys", again very dark in colour. This list is only an >indication of how colour may/ may not influence the price. >The classic honey for the French population is "Acacia" (False acacia - >Robinia sp.) - mainly due to it resting in a liquid state over many >months. > >So, prices vary according to taste, production levels and blending >ability. >Peter > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 09:45:01 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: P-O Gustafsson Subject: eat(and drink)more honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Many beekeepers (myself included) have went to plastic > cups because creamed honey in glass jars wants to pull away from the > side. The creamed honey allways sells better in the glass jars until it > starts pulling away from the sides. I have got a machine which will > spin 40 gallons at a time and follow the *Dyce method* to the letter. I > have been told that if you use a honey with a 19 to 19.5% moisture > content the creamed honey will not pull from the jar sides. Have you > ever had the creamed honey pulling from the jar sides problem? I have > read articles from overseas where much creamed honey is made and they > use the same process i do. Any solution for the jar side problem Bee-L > people? Don't know about the "Dyce method", but spinning honey is not the way we do it. And the expression "creamed" lead to think the honey has been beaten like you whip cream. This is not the case. I prefer to call in fine crystallized as this is what it really is. A detailed step by step description is on my homepage. You are right about the water content affecting the result. Actually, it's the relation between water and glucose in the liquid honey that determine the end result. More glucose-less water, harder honey. The harder it gets during crystallization, the more it shrinks and you will get the space between honey and the inside of the jar. You can get around this by letting the honey "pre crystallize" for a day or so before filling it onto jars. This way a part of the process has been done and the honey will not get so hard in the jars. You can fine tune the process until you get the consistency you want of the honey. Personally I want it to be like butter, that is also what most consumers prefer. -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 22:41:07 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii What a strange name for a wide-ranging thread! 1. I keep a queen excluder UNDER my hive to cause swarms to be self-retrieving. Within 2 hours the swarm is back in the hive. I find it hard to think that the queen is leading the swarm. Does she put herself on a diet? Does she direct nurse bees to start new queen cells? I don't think so. 2. Bees in my observation hive move honey out of the queen raising area in the spring but spread honey throughout in the fall. Is the queen controlling her rate of egg laying?: 3. I overpopulated an observation hive one year with a swarm so moved the frame of capped brood into a full hive to emerge there. I did this four times before I permitted their brood to emerge in the OH. The bees, now quite old, continued to nurse the new brood. Didn't this require rejuvination of brood food glands in the forager age bees? 4. When I have removed a queen from a newly-hived swarm prepatory to combining it with another hive, the bees obviously respond to her absence almost immediately, running around disconsonately on the bottom board. But I have returned from winter to find a hive hoplessly queenless but bringing in pollen and acting entirely normal. I am not tuned to queenless buzzing but I doubt I would have heard such then. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 11:33:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Opinions on GM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I really, sincerely, don't want to fight...but, this quote bothers me: "The discoverer of DDT 's usefulness as an insecticide received a Nobel prize in 1948. Now we know better. Perhaps GM crops will be as big a benefit as DDT was or as big a mistake. Right now the only mistake is to hurry." I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel Prize. How many millions of people were saved from death from Yellow Fever and Malaria? I have heard it said that no human ever died from DDT, despite the fact that persons' bodies were regularly sprayed with the stuff (to kill parasites). However, DDT was terribly misused and this led to environmental tragedies, from which we are just now recovering. DDT had to be banned in the US and most if not all developed countries, but it was a political decision, not a sound scientific decision. For many years thereafter it continued to be used in less-developed countries to save human lives, and I just hope it was used in manners safe to the environment. I agree that there is no reason to "hurry" in the use of GM crops, but I also think that the decisions of whether or not to use these crops should be in the hands of the scientists and, perhaps, the public health authorities. IMHO, the use of GM crops should not become a political issue. Obviously, there are those who disagree with me because they distrust the scientists and/or think that the public health authorities are ineffective, or for some other reason. I choose to agree with those who term these part of the "environmental left". Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:48:06 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: darn@FREENET.EDMONTON.AB.CA Subject: Re: white is best Comments: To: Peter Bussell In-Reply-To: <200012021555.KAA02555@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Peter Bussell wrote: > It irks me that we label honey as #1 white #2 light golden etc and > understood by the public is that white is better than any other. We find Hi Peter: In Canada the #1, #2, #3 refer to the water content. They do not say anything about the color. Best regards, Donald Aitken Edmonton Alberta Canada ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 13:34:43 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Midnitebee Subject: job(Beekeeper) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Greetings! "I have a question: How/where I can find a job as a beekeeper in USA? I will be very grateful to you if you can help me." Thank you in advance. nvalkov@yahoo.com Nick Me thinks this person is from Bulgaria. Herb/Norma Bee 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 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:33:01 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T'N'T Apiaries Subject: Re: white is best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >It irks me that we label honey as #1 white #2 light golden etc and >understood by the public is that white is better than any other. Here in Canada our system is somewhat better than what you describe whereever you are Peter. The system however is still not well understood by the public. The number and colour provide two different pieces of information. You can have #1 Dark. What is not understood by the public is the suttle differences between the #s 1,2,&3 and what pasturization "really" means with respect to honey. In Prepackaged Honey we are allowed White, Golden, Amber, & Dark. In Bulk containers, White can be broken into Extra White or White and Amber is broken into Light Amber and Dark Amber. The Number or "Grade" refers to the levels of moisture, foreign material, texture and any off flavour. Canada #1 having the most stringent regs and Canada #3 the least. David Tharle Ardmore, AB ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:52:04 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: TM in crisco MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen Dick wrote: > > > If there are no right or wrong answers then why bother? > > Take careful measurements for the experiment? Why bother? > > You will not get a "right" answer. > > I think you purposely missed my point and set up a straw man in order to keep > this going. You know I'm *not* saying that there are no truths, I am just saying > that a fascist one-size-fits-all approach won't cut it any more. People are > better informed these days and know their rights. Wow. I go away for a while and now New Zealand has become a Fascist state. Gotta keep better informed. The threads on this subject were interesting and, for a while informative, even though they did go far from the original question. What has not been discussed is the mechanism that continues the spread of AFB. I know that it can come from contaminated honey. So how does it get in the honey in the first place? And are there other ways for the bees to contract it? My guess is the honey is the source from nectar placed in contaminated cells. Every mechanical control is directed toward removing the source, which are the contaminated frames, either by burning, scorching and new foundation, or other forms of disinfecting. If my guess is correct, it gets me back to my original premise. That those who use TM and remove infected frames are burning by other means. They eventually arrive at the same state as those who burn. They have removed the source of the infection. Those who use TM and do not remove contaminated frames might be masking the problem and, if my guess is correct, could have AFB if the TM treatment is ended. There are a lot of variables here which could explain why it sometimes happens and sometimes does not, such as the gradual covering of the spores with each generation of bees. Or the cells are not used for honey storage for an extended period. Or residual effects of TM. And I apologize for saying in my eariler post that there are bad beekeepers. There are only some beekeepers who are not good, but mean well. What have you people been drinking during the time I was away? Fights on religion, name calling, wow, just like the good old days before moderation. I feel like starting a thread on FGMO. Entropy of the Universe is still fairly low and we should all do are part to increase it. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 11:00:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "KAMRAN F FAKHIMZADEH (MMSEL)" Organization: University of Helsinki Subject: Mite detector MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hello all, Some of you didn't find the article in Midnitebee as I have written in my recent post, in Midnitebee under Bee reports; http://www.cybertours.com/%7Emidnitebee/html/ The direct address is; http://www.cybertours.com/%7Emidnitebee/html/fieldtest.htm Best regards Kamran Fakhimzadeh ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:51:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: white is best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At every Fair and Ag show I like to offer a taste test to people who visit our MSBA booth. I tell them that I can determine if they eat honey a lot or little. If they like the light honey, it is little. If the dark, a lot. I am right most of the time. If it is a youngster, I tell them I can guess which honey they like the best. It is almost always the light. The darker honey has more flavor which is looked for by those who appreciate honey. There are exceptions, like basswood honey, but we sell wildflower, which are usually blends. I have no idea if that may be one reson for light honey's higher price- it has a broader buying public because of taste. Bill Truesdell ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 11:20:29 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adony Melathopoulos Subject: Caste vs gender Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Caste is a specific term pertaining to societies, invertebrates or vertebrates. Gender is a wider term pertaining to indviduals with opposing gametes, who, when coupled, exchange genetic material. I would suggest that the terminology is not an issue of mere semantics as there has been considerable thought devoted to the construction of both definitions. There are two papers and two books that provide good background as to the orgins and recent discussions on the term caste; Crespi, B. J. and D. Yanega. The definition of eusociality. Behavioral Ecology. 6: 109-115. Keller, L. and H. K. Reeve. Partitioning of reeproduction in animal societies. TREE 9: 98-102. Mitchener, C.D. 1974. The Social Behavior of the Bess, a Comparative Study. Harvard University Press. Camridge, Mass. Wilson, E.O. 1971. The Insect Societies. Harvard University Press. Camridge, Mass. Caste, is generally agreed upon as a term exclusive to societies where there is a reproductive skew among the members of the society, that is to say a small subset of the society has more offspring than other members of the society. There are different degrees of caste and this is an area of hot debate. Among most mammals, caste are, in most cases physiologically irreversable during an individual's life. Wolves are a good example. Only a few wolves reproduce at a time, skewing reproduction, however, the wolves not reproducing are fertile and, if opportunity arises, they can and will have or sire offspring. Honey bees females, by contrast, are only plastic to caste determination up to three days after the egg has hatched. After that time, their physiology is fixed and they can not become a queen, no matter what the conditions. Not many mammals have such rigid caste structures, a possible exception being the naked mole rats of Africa. Bumble bees are more plastic than ho! ney bees and other social bees are more plastic yet, resembling the pattern observed in wolves. Adony Melathopoulos Apiculture Biotechnologist Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Beaverlodge Research Farm Box CP 29 Beaverlodge, Alberta CANADA T0H 0C0 T +1 780 354 5130 F +1 780 354 8171 >>> Robert Mann 12/02 5:17 PM >>> << A caste is a subculture of humans who have organised for many generations to specialise in a particular social niche. (India is of course the main arena where society has been thus organised.) >> As you can see from above, the term has broader useage than that used by sociologists. <> If they were truly different 'genders', as defined, then drones, workers and queens would all produce different gametes, which is not the case, queens and workers both produce eggs and drones sprem. Gender is related to sex, not to irreversibility of ones condition or the type of work one does. <> I agree. Sociobiology is a difficult topic as it is easy to imagine the patterns which run our societies is common with other social creatures. Imagining outside these confines is very difficult, making it a very difficult but rewarding area of inquiry. Regards Adony ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 18:22:46 +0100 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home sweet home Subject: Re: white is best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Honey Color on http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/Pfundscale.html Water white, white, ect. T'N'T Apiaries wrote: > In Prepackaged Honey we are allowed White, Golden, Amber, & Dark. In Bulk > containers, White can be broken into Extra White or White and Amber is > broken into Light Amber and Dark Amber. -- Jan Tempelman Kerkstraat 53 NL 7471 AG Goor xx.31.(0)547.275788 mobile: 06 10719917 http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/index3.html mailto:jtemp@xs4all.nl -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 13:22:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Milt Lathan Subject: Natural Comb Query The discussion of screened bottoms & hive ventilation has put a "bee in my bonnet" especially regarding the orientation of the main hive opening. Can anyone tell me - Do honeybees in the wild naturally orient their comb facing the opening or perpendicular to the opening? Or do they care at all? Thanks for listening. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:36:13 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: screened bottom boards & other stuff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" This message was originally submitted by drone@PGONLINE.COM to the BEE-L list at LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU. It was edited to remove quotes of previously posted material. processing large numbers of messages. > > ---------- Original message (ID=C31E8D9C) (77 lines) ------------ > Date: 3 Dec 2000 20:10:14 -0000 > To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology > > From: drone@pgonline.com (Ivan McGill) > Subject: Re: screened bottom boards & other stuff > > >>I am currently wintering hives in an un-heated, insulated >> shed. Any advise, ideas or questions?> > >> Mark in Northern Minnesota > > > Hi Mark: > I have been wintering in a building for over 20 to 25 years years. > One question I have is how much ventilation do you have? If > not you are > going to lose quite a few if not all. The smaller the > enclosure the more > fresh you will need. Most have fans on timers or the bigger > the buildings > some have fans that run continuously. > > One other thing that I do is sweep down the rows and under > the stacks. Bees > have off a terrible odor if left too long. When you go in the > building it > should smell almost as fresh as outside. > > Standby heat. Most of the people I know have. Not a big heater just > something to take the cold off when it gets -10F to whatever. I use a > thermostate that goes from freezing up to control the heat. > It is set at > about 35-39F, but you can set it to what you are comfortable > with. Bees > generate heat but if you can make them comfortable at about > 40 - 45F they > will consume less feed and it is easier on them over the confinement > period. When you have an unheated insulated building after it > gets cold > will not warm up as fast after temperature rises outside. > > Moisture is another problem with wintering inside. Outside > the bees get > moisture from inside the hive. If your bees get restless > about the middle > of Feb. to 1st of March it may be lack of moisture. > > I Bring my bees outside when the temperature gets to 50F > during the day > even if it goes below freezing at night, the days are longer > and sun is up > ealier as you know. I have found over the years it you don't > gain anything > by keeping them inside too long. In some cases you lose more > bees that way > on the floor of the building. When it gets to 50F outside and > are bringing > air in to keep the temperature down. Remember 57F to cluster break. > > I don't know how much information you gathered before > attempting this. So > if you are interested contact me direct and have any more > questions that I > am be able to answer. > > Ivan > Prince Geroge, B.C. > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 13:16:20 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: Natural Comb Query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Milt Lathan wrote: Do honeybees in the wild naturally orient their comb facing the opening or perpendicular to the opening? Or do they care at all? Hello All, In the wild up to approx 14 half oval combs are built and bees seem to enter from the bottom. In hollow trees the bees seem to orient thier combs facing the opening with the first few combs containing honey. In round swarm traps many are perpendicular to the opening. I read a experiment years ago asking the question you ask and the answer was in percents of ways they build comb. I believe from memory *comb facing the opening* had the largest percent. Hope i have helped. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 13:24:48 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: screened bottom boards & other stuff Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Thanks for the posts on overwintering in a building. Mark asked for some comments but I suspect that Mark is actually using a much simpler system. There appear to be two ways to winter bees inside one "high tech" with fans for ventilation and air circulation some heating and even cooling the other "low tech" involving limited ventilation and often some type of flight through the wall arrangement. Both work as long as the needs of the bees are met. Any unheated shed will provide excelent wind protection for the colonies and allow the beekeeper to monitor and do simple management such as some feeding if needed during the winter. Don Jackson from Pequot Lakes MN has written some articles published in Am Bee Journal and Bee Culture on his low tech wintering building and methods which work very well for him in central MN. More than one way to keep bees alive over winter in the north. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 11:31:14 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Opinions on GM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lloyd Spears wrote: > I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel > Prize. How many millions of people were saved from death from > Yellow Fever and Malaria? Malaria is still killing people by the millions. The best guess estimate is that at least one million people die each year due to the lack of use of DDT. A recent article in Science News http://www.sciencenews.org/20000701/bob2.asp explains the situation in some detail. Excerpts: "According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year another 400 million people come down with the parasitic disease. This newly infected group equals the combined populations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico." "Though cures exist, malaria claims several million lives every year. Deaths occur most often among malnourished people in countries that can't afford adequate treatment. WHO has joined several other UN agencies and health organizations in advocating the retention of DDT for malaria control." "Despite the support of such organizations, politics and economics may soon make DDT unavailable in many malaria-stricken regions, including the places where it's needed most." "last summer the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) campaigned for a 2007 target for DDT elimination worldwide." Paul Cherubini ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 14:42:34 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Keim Subject: Screened Bottom boards, Natural Comb Query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: Opinions on GM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us >>> cherubini@mindspring.com 12/04/00 01:31PM >>> Lloyd Spears wrote: > I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel > Prize. How many millions of people were saved from death from > Yellow Fever and Malaria? "Malaria is still killing people by the millions. The best guess estimate is that at least one million people die each year due to the lack of use of DDT." Just a comment: The reason DDT is no longer used for vector control is that is no longer works - resistance has developed. On the other hand India has had considerable success suppressing mosquito populations using guppies. The small fish are placed in temporary ponds and puddles that mosquitos use for breeding. A side benefit is that the mosquitos don't develop resistance so the same program can keep going and expanding over time. Reports are a 70% reduction in malaria as I recall. From a small news report in Scientific American a while back. FWIW Just like beekeeping there is more than one way to manage mosquito populations. blane ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 11:27:22 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeCrofter@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Opinions on GM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/4/00 10:31:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, lloydspear@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes: > Obviously, there are those who disagree with me because they distrust the > scientists and/or think that the public health authorities are ineffective, > or for some other reason. I choose to agree with those who term these part > of the "environmental left". > I doubt science enters into it as much as dollars. The big hurry is centered around a return and a profit on investments made. It was a money decision to dump PCB's in the Hudson or to dump DDT offf the coast of California. I trust the multinational corporations to spend more on lawyers denying responsability than they will on any effort to remedy any problems that arise from their mistakes. The producers of GM crops have fought tooth and nail to keep a big made with genetically modified ingrediants off of any consumer labeling otherwise the marketplace would make the decision for them. Given a choice I would have an heirloom vegetable before the GM "Frankenfoods" Come to think of it corn syrup is cheaper than honey and I bet I can find scientists who will agree it is a safer food. China however is going full steam ahead with GM research and crops. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 10:29:47 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: Opinions on GM In-Reply-To: <200012041531.KAA10692@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lloyd wrote: >>"The discoverer of DDT 's usefulness as an insecticide received a Nobel >>prize in 1948. Now we know better. Perhaps GM crops will be as big a >>benefit >>as DDT was or as big a mistake. Right now the only mistake is to hurry." > >I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel Prize. Lloyd may think it was deserved, but it did not happen. The convenient Britannica listing of Nobel prizes will prove that for you. Where did the falsehood arise? Could the person who posted it tell us please? >I have heard it said that no human ever died from DDT, despite the fact that >persons' bodies were regularly sprayed with the stuff (to kill parasites). Lloyd has been fed a misleading statement. We have known for decades that DDT causes cancer, in lab mammals; whether it also causes cancer in the human is not known for sure. The time-lags between exposure to a carcinogen and the noticing of a human tumour are normally a decade or several, and cancer has become so common that attribution of a given cancer to any cause is usually impossible. So DDT may have been causing large numbers of cancers without proof of cause. Low acute toxicity is no guide whatever to a chemical's potency in causing cancer. A good book for all this is: S S Epstein 'The Politics of Cancer'. > How >many millions of people were saved from death from Yellow Fever and Malaria? >However, DDT was terribly misused and this led to environmental tragedies, >from which we are just now recovering. DDT had to be banned in the US and >most if not all developed countries, but it was a political decision, not a >sound scientific decision. It is not banned in some poor countries. The BBC just had a World Service doco on the continuing use of DDT, featuring a US asst secy of state for environmental affairs who hoped a complete ban would be achieved. Anyhow, such questions are certainly not just scientific; they are unavoidably political (using sound science, we hope!); what else could they be? Governments have to decide such questions, and must do so on criteria outside science, while taking due notice of scientific facts & reasoning. > For many years thereafter it continued to be >used in less-developed countries to save human lives, and I just hope it was >used in manners safe to the environment. fond hope >I agree that there is no reason to "hurry" in the use of GM crops, but I >also think that the decisions of whether or not to use these crops should be >in the hands of the scientists and, perhaps, the public health authorities. >IMHO, the use of GM crops should not become a political issue. I cannot see that it could or should be anything else! Elected governments must be the deciders on such matters. >Obviously, there are those who disagree with me because they distrust the >scientists and/or think that the public health authorities are ineffective, >or for some other reason. I choose to agree with those who term these part >of the "environmental left". Here Lloyd has spotlighted a grievous mess. Paranoid nihilistic groups such as Greepneace try to tear down without making positive suggestions for alternative governmental procedures. Whether they are accurately termed 'left' is another question. DDT and its derivatives such as DDE are very persistent in the environment, and concentrate up food-chains causing real harm. See Ehrlich, Ehrlich & Holdren 'Ecoscience' for details. Less obnoxious insecticides could be used, but are more expensive. To go on using DDT in such circumstances is just another sordid item in the recent history of Mammon-worship. The relevance to GM is of course that if this more menacing technology is not controlled MUCH better than DDT has been then we may see much worse disasters with self-propagating pests. DDT persists, but it does decay somewhat; a GM pest may multiply enormously. R - Robt Mann Mulgoon Professor emeritus of Environmental Studies, U of Auckland consultant stirrer & motorcyclist P O Box 28878, Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:48:36 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: the 3 genders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Dan & all, I will add a few thoughts to your questions and ideas. Since proving a right and wrong is impossible we have only got two longtime beekeepers talking about their observations. dan hendricks wrote: 1. I keep a queen excluder UNDER my hive to cause swarms to be self-retrieving. Within 2 hours the swarm is back in the hive. I find keeping a queen excluder during the year under your hive to prevent swarming a method i never thought of. I have used a piece of excluder at the entrance of a swarm i cought for a day to keep them from leaving the hive and going to the trees. I practice the open brood method of swarm control. I find it hard to think that the queen is leading the swarm. Does she put herself on a diet? Does she direct nurse bees to start new queen cells? I don't think so. I don't know if she does all those things and i imagine we will never know for sure without asking her. Your senario does suggest all chiefs with one Indian or all imperfect females dictating to a perfect insect. Hmmm. 2. Bees in my observation hive move honey out of the queen raising area in the spring but spread honey throughout in the fall. Is the queen controlling her rate of egg laying?: You ask good questions Dan and i don't know the answers. I would imagine under normal conditions a queen simply looks in the cell, inspects the cell, measures the size and if everything meets with her approval turns and deposits a egg but there is no doubt in a beekeepers mind she controls the amount of egg laying in early spring and winter. One thing i have allways noticed is when hives are ravaged by varroa the queen starts reducing egg laying accordingly. Same way with tracheal mites. Allways a small ball of bees and brood in the spring. I never see a small hive with a big hives amount of brood. If a small band of bees survive winter then the queen only lays a small amount of brood even when there is plenty of honey,pollen and open cells in the hive. This is allways the senario with tracheal mite infestations. When i got trachael mites for the first time. Every hive in the yard had plenty of pollen,honey and open cells but all the queens(all were alive) were only laying eggs in porportion to the amount of bees to cover the brood. 3. I overpopulated an observation hive one year with a swarm so moved the frame of capped brood into a full hive to emerge there. I did this four times before I permitted their brood to emerge in the OH. The bees, now quite old, continued to nurse the new brood. Didn't this require rejuvination of brood food glands in the forager age bees? I allways thought they could under emergency conditions. I would say they did or a few emerged when you were not looking. 4. When I have removed a queen from a newly-hived swarm prepatory to combining it with another hive, the bees obviously respond to her absence almost immediately, running around disconsonately on the bottom board. I believe cought swarms are aware of the queen phermones more than a normal colony and i believe research on the subject suggests so. But I have returned from winter to find a hive hoplessly queenless but bringing in pollen and acting entirely normal. What i find is not the same as you. I never find queenless bees (after all brood has emerged) bring in pollen. 50% of the time i find laying workers. Many times I find only a small band of bees. In all cases they are not acting normally. Late honey flow queenless bees will gather a honey crop. I make comb honey many times over queenless colonies when the black Locust flow is on using Dr. C.C. Millers method. I use queenless bees because they don't bring in pollen to ruin the comb honey as the pollen is bitter at that time of the year. I am not tuned to queenless buzzing but I doubt I would have heard such then. My first mentor was around 90 years old and i was thirteen and he tought me the sound by removing the queen from the hive. He could catch a bee in his fingers without getting stung,pull the pollen of its leggs and release the bee unharmed. Needless to say my fingers were allways swollen trying to impress him. After awhile he showed me to practice catching drones first. He said after i could pick up bees without getting stung and hurting the bee i was ready to pick up and handle queens. I learned things about bees from the old beekeeper i have never seen in books. Sincerely, Bob Harrison __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. > http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 17:52:16 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Bees & Winter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <> My hive clustered during a recent spell of temperatures in the high 40's - mostly around 47F - during which they wer visible through the central hole in the inner cover, but not through the hole at the side. I didn't think to look for the exact temperature at which the cluster was formed. They flew for a couple of days when the temperature rose to around 53F; for the last week it has been back in the high 40's. This time they show no signs of clustering, and they are visible at work through the side hole. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 18:53:01 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: white is best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill, The main reason for the higher price of light honey is "It is PRETTIER". Same reason most 19th century beekeepers switched from apis mellifera mellifera to apis mellifera ligustica was the Italian bee was "prettier" - it was GOLDEN! Keep up the fine dialogue. George ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:40:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Opinions on GM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mann wrote: > It [DDT] is not banned in some poor countries. The BBC > just had a World Service doco on the continuing use of > DDT, featuring a US asst secy of state for environmental > affairs who hoped a complete ban would be achieved. Yes, Robert, according to the Science News article, http://www.sciencenews.org/20000701/bob2.asp "Some wealthier nations have demanded that poorer countries ban DDT as a condition for receiving foreign aid." > DDT and its derivatives such as DDE are very persistent in the > environment, and concentrate up food-chains causing real harm. > See Ehrlich, Ehrlich & Holdren 'Ecoscience' for details. To go > on using DDT in such circumstances is just another sordid > item in the recent history of Mammon-worship. The Lancet, a respected British medical journal published two articles in July 2000 that made a surprising and passionate case for DDT. In the second Lancet article, titled "How Toxic Is DDT?" A.G. Smith of Leicester University, United Kingdom, states DDT is safer than many other chemical insecticides. Even in DDT-sprayers and occupants of DDT-sprayed households, Smith notes, "associated toxicity has not been found." His conclusion: "The effects [of DDT] on human beings at likely exposure levels seem to be very slight." "Whatever [adverse] effects on the environment there may have been resulted from intensive over-utilization of DDT in agriculture, not from malaria control. The theoretical environmental benefits of banning DDT were not, and are not, worth the very real, deadly toll in human life and suffering." "Hundreds of doctors and public health experts, including three Nobel Prize winners, recently petitioned the United Nations not to ban DDT for house spraying in malarious regions." As The Lancet editorial puts it, "Whose health is being protected? The answer seems to be that the health of people in poorer countries is being put at a very real risk to protect the citizens of wealthier countries from a theoretical risk." Paul Cherubini ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:56:43 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Morris Subject: AFB question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In the interim, before my ordered books arrive and I can start to expand my knowledge of bees, their behavior and the various problems that can arise while keeping them, I have been "surfing" the web for information. >From what I am reading, AFB is not curable. Not so much in that the disease can't been cured, but that the spores are everywhere, and re-infect the bees. In fact Dr. Imirie has informed me that there are hives from the 1920s that can still infect bees, and they do this at the lab in Maryland, I assume to check the virulency of the AFB. Treatments are rather harsh, destroy the bees, char the hive parts, soak them in lye, or in some parts of the country Ethylene Oxide is used. I was wondering if anyone has heard of or tried sealing the hive walls and outsides with a polyurethane or other coating to seal off the spores? There are many wood sealants, some are waterproof/resistant and there are coatings that can make the wood airtight. I know that one doesn't paint the inside of a hive (though Im not sure exactly why- I assume the bees really don't like the paint) This may be the same thing with sealants. I apologize in advance if this seems a silly question. Im trying to learn as much as I can as quickly as possible. Thanks for your patience, TIM MORRIS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 18:53:13 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: DDT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel Prize. > Lloyd may think it was deserved, but it did not happen. > The convenient Britannica listing of Nobel prizes will > prove that for you. Where did the falsehood arise? > Could the person who posted it tell us please? FWIW, my Britannica clearly shows the listing to which Lloyd refers under Physiology or Medicine in 1948. I had also encountered this fact in several places in the process of my recent web research on the topic of insecticides in relation to the increasing use of imidacloprid. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see Lloyd so coldly rebuked on the list for his presentation of simple fact, but I also found this quite illuminating for what it shows about the reliability of the logic of some the source. If there is any doubt, those who lack a copy of Britannica, may visit http://www.nobel.1001designs.com/medicine.html to learn more the about the 1948 Nobel Prize. I quote: "1948 PAUL HERMANN MÜLLER for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods". We have been deluged on this list in past months by selected, slanted opinion pieces and wordy high-sounding dissertations on topics only loosely related to our mandate and we have been exhorted to take positions on topics most of us like to know a bit about and discuss, but usually like to trust to experts. I wonder how often the same kind of faulty reading, misunderstanding and precipitous judgement that is demonstrated in the introductory quote is behind the politicised pieces with which we have recently been presented on matters ranging from antibiotic resistance to pesticides and GMOs. A quick search of the web using any of the engines or Webferret will show that pretty well all the topics on which we have we have been mercilessly lobbied are far from resolved. There is still open and free debate among people of good faith and intent. Not everyone involved has an axe to grind. BEE-L is here for open-minded discussion that respects all points of view and I think that is how it should be. To help balance the issue of the dangers of DDT, I submit the following sites. I did NOT select them, but merely picked them at *random* from what Webferret found under 'DDT and Nobel'. http://www.altgreen.com.au/chemicals/ddt.html http://www.newaus.com.au/news8d.html allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/ Too Hot for some! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:15:05 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: AL Subject: Re: AFB question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tim Morris wrote: > > >From what I am reading, AFB is not curable. Not so much in that the disease > can't been cured, but that the spores are everywhere, and re-infect the bees. > I was wondering if anyone has heard of or tried > sealing the hive walls and outsides with a polyurethane or other coating to > seal off the spores? Tim, This might be of interest: http://www.nba.org.nz/pms/manual/man08.htm It was posted on the sci.agriculture.beekeeping newsgroup. AL ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 16:35:59 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: DDT In-Reply-To: <200012050216.VAA00054@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Correction: Allen is correct. I apologise for my oversight. I had looked in the Chemistry prize list, and failed to check on the different page of Physiology & Medicine prizes, where I then found Paul Muller (Switz.) Properties of DDT. I'm glad to see that senior list members are so alert. But now I have to answer Allen's tirade. >I was therefore somewhat surprised to see Lloyd so coldly rebuked on the list >for his presentation of simple fact, but I also found this quite illuminating >for what it shows about the reliability of the logic of some the source. You ain't seen any cold rebuke yet. >If there is any doubt, those who lack a copy of Britannica, may visit >http://www.nobel.1001designs.com/medicine.html >We have been deluged on this list in past months Every contributor is in the hands of the moderators - the only system worth having for email discussion lists, I agree, and I'm grateful as I'm sure all of us are for their work. I rely on them to curb excesses. One can find out what's too much only by offering more till one gets to a limit which had not been evident. The net deluge is the responsibility of the moderators. If Allen wants them to be more restrictive, fine. > by selected, slanted opinion This is a serious, offensive charge. I leave it to others to judge. >pieces on topics only loosely related to >our mandate and we have been exhorted to take positions on topics most of us >like to know a bit about and discuss, but usually like to trust to experts. Has some coercion been attempted on your opinions? If you feel some of your opinions have been challenged, perhaps they should be. Many of mine have been not only challenged but changed, to more informed opinions on several topics e.g. AFB, ventilation, and most importantly varroa. Allen also however accuses me of > and wordy high-sounding dissertations expressing a widespread attitude to academics. What can be done about this? >I wonder how often the same kind of faulty reading, misunderstanding and >precipitous judgement that is demonstrated in the introductory quote is behind >the politicised pieces with which we have recently been presented on matters >ranging from antibiotic resistance to pesticides and GMOs. This is a very old trick: find a particle of error in a person's evidence, and on the strength of that one error suggest that the person is generally unreliable. I had thought better of the list moderators. If as I seem to think Allen is one of the moderators, then we have arrived at an old question, now surfacing in the form 'who moderates the moderator'? >A quick search of the web using any of the engines or Webferret will show that >pretty well all the topics on which we have we have been mercilessly >lobbied are >far from resolved. There is still open and free debate among people of good >faith and intent. Yes please. No-one had said there's only one side to any argument. > Not everyone involved has an axe to grind. What is this supposed to mean? If the complaint is that I hold opinions which Allen dislikes, but he has not been able to argue against them, that is no reason to accuse anybody of having 'an axe to grind'. >BEE-L is here for open-minded discussion that respects all points of view >and I >think that is how it should be. Exactly. That is why I am continuing with it. ------ I feel this flareup will get resolved soonest if I add: The American Corn Growers Assn leader Gary Goldberg has testified in my nation's capital today before the Royal Commission on GM. He averred that GM crops are undesirable (and are already selling less in his country - he said, on national radio from the hearing, USA corn 33% last year, approx 25% this year). People who come to realise they've been duped & betrayed normally get very angry for a while. The target for that anger may be anyone handy. My response is: look who told you what; who failed to tell you what they should have; and who are the independent experts in the matter. Mr Goldberg has evidently proceeded thru those stages. I commend this to all. I entreat you to read the statement of AN ACCOMPLISHED GENE-JOCKEY Prof Patrick Brown of the biggest aggie campus in the USA {OK you Wisc or Mich fellas - no fight, I could be wrong on this fact too ;-)} http://news.gefree.org.nz/patrick-brown-jul-2000.html I hold the opinion that GM is the most dangerous technology yet. My academic experience happens to fit me for understanding this issue, and I became interested in it soon after it was invented in the mid-1970s. I have tried to point this list to the most reliable scientific pubns on it, especially the Union of Concerned Scientists, a superb USA group. Yes, I am the sort of person who was a friend of the founder of UCS; should I apologise for that? Allen and everyone else will go on forming their own opinions; I have put in their way some very worrying evidence that the USA FDA and many other arms of govt have been duped. I can only urge people to direct their anger where it belongs. Follow Mr Goldberg. What alternatively may be really bothering Allen is my religious opinions. I had wondered whether this topic was OK for this list, but some cheeky person tossed off a rude line spelling God with a small g, and in response some of us have tried to explain why beekeeping puts us closer to God. Langstroth was something like a saint, as far as I can gather, and I think his being a Christian minister was no coincidence. If any atheist thinks he has been making a mistake and feels dislodged toward religion, that need be no cause for discomfort. The modern science which this list so generally respects was almost entirely created in Christian societies, and that is anything but a coincidence. As for length, I for one will make my religious statements, if any, much briefer. If the moderators ban religion, I will think that very regrettable. So - less wordy, less religious, and I rest my case on GM (until someone says something wrong on it, when I'll try to correct simply, and will not suggest that he who erred must be generally unreliable). I suppose it must be slighly unsettling as Dubbyuh at al manoeuvre. Al Cooke reckons it was similar in a presidential election around 1876 (I think he said). cheers folks R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 20:31:30 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Brian Bauer Subject: Mangrove Trees In-Reply-To: <200012050216.VAA00043@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I live next to a grove of Mangrove trees, I read in a book that they are a good source for Honey. I do not believe that I have seen any flowers on the trees, exactly where are they a source for honey, I mean where do the bees collect the nectar from the tree. As to the post about Black Mangrove trees I collect fairly light colored honey, I have no Idea what species of mangrove trees I have. The trees Are 50 feet from my hives. Brian Bauer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 00:37:22 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Hancock Subject: labels Hello, Mark Coldiron asked about getting labels designed and printed. For what it's worth I'll give you the highlights of our label experience. One of the speakers at Apimondia 1999 advised getting a member of the female (gender? sex? caste?)to arrange honey display tables, as females tend to have a better aptitude and taste in such matters. I think the same rule applies to making honey labels. You should also try to conform to any government regulations in your part of the world. In Canada there are regulations on size of print, what words can be used, and what size of container can be used (Ottawa has an official list of weights honey can be packed in. If you ask why this list is necessary they tell you it protects consumers from getting confused. For some reason consumers of margarine, peanut butter, jam, etc. don't need confusion protection. Those products are sold in any old size). Hopefully there is a marketing expert around who can tell you the importance/unimportance of using words like natural, gourmet, or unpasteurized. In Canada consumers figure honey is better if its unpasteurized so everyone sticks that on their labels. I've even seen creamed honey marked unpasteurized. One of my customers bought some honey with 'gourmet' on the label, and asked me why I didn't produce any gourmet honey ( bees make honey, gourmets write books). And natural? Is there any honey that isn't?(natural honey analogue?). When we got our labels made we enlisted an artistic female professional and sent her photos of our area. She used them to develop several label designs for us to choose from. When we first got our label printed I was told you could not get four colours on pressure-sensitive stock (self-adhesive paper), so we had our labels printed on non-adhesive stock and applied glue with a machine. I found a used machine for $50; a new one cost $900 CDN at that time (1985). We shopped around for the best price on printing. The company we used promptly went broke. Fortunately we got back all our printing plates and artwork. I now ask our printer for a letter stating that the printing plates belong to us. Apparently printing plates have to be stored in a controlled environment. We recently had to get new printing plates made up that include a bar code (UPC). Many of our outlets are now selling groceries over the Internet and products without bar codes are not included in their on-line store. Here in the land of the beaver UPC's are sold by an organization set up by the Federal government. They call themselves a non-profit government organization ( a tautology fairly common in these parts) but to sign up they demand $850 CDN then $588CDN/year to maintain the code. We have now found a company that can print four colours on pressure sensitive stock. They also apply a UV coating that stops the ink from rubbing off when trucking jars over rough roads. The colours on pressure sensitive stock appear to have a harsher, more acid tone, but its not overwhelming. Marketing gurus say that consumers want more information about products on labels; specifically they want to know the nectar source of honey. Turns out there is a regulation here that says you can't specify nectar source unless you translate your entire informative blurb into French. Given the limited room on a label I got around this by sticking on a picture of an alfalfa blossom. Another surreal discussion I had with the federal civil service concerned the wording on how to reliquify honey. I thought the consumer should be instructed to place a jar of granulated honey in a container of hot water. However the regulator said that if the consumer ate the jar of honey slowly and had to reliquify it several times using hot water, eventually the consumer would have a jar of amber honey in their cupboard while the label still said white honey, and somehow this would put the universe out of kilter. So I bent to their will and suggest warm water on the label. I could go on but I hope I have given you an idea of some things to consider. Best regards, Ted ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 14:57:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Opinions on GM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Blane White > MN Dept of Agriculture wrote: > Just a comment: The reason DDT is no longer used for vector > control is that is no longer works - resistance has developed. In the Science News article http://www.sciencenews.org/20000701/bob2.asp it was stated that: "In many regions the insecticide [DDT] has performed dependably, with no sign of mosquitoes developing resistance, observes Donald R. Roberts of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md." "although DDT can kill mosquitoes, the new study suggests that it primarily protects by repelling them. Comparing DDT's killing action with that of other pesticides used for malaria control‹the standard practice for 55 years‹may be the wrong measure of its value" "John P. Grieco, who is also at the Uniformed Services University, finds that deltamethrin‹the insecticide usually held up as the leading alternative‹doesn't come close to matching DDT's performance." "In and around a trio of dirt-floor, thatched huts in southern Belize, Grieco monitored the behavior of the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles vestitipennis. Mosquitoes entered an untreated hut at dusk and left at sunrise. After the interior walls of a second hut were sprayed with deltamethrin, the mosquitoes entered at dusk but left by midnight. As expected, Roberts notes, "the whole time they were inside, the mosquitoes were biting [us]." "However, DDT sprayed inside the third hut repelled the flying bloodhounds. Only 3 percent as many mosquitoes entered the DDT-sprayed hut as the other two. Of those few mosquitoes that did venture in, most exited without biting." Paul Cherubini ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:09:18 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: Mangrove Trees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brian Bauer wrote: I live next to a grove of Mangrove trees, I read in a book that they are a good source for Honey. I do not believe that I have seen any flowers on the trees, exactly where are they a source for honey, I mean where do the bees collect the nectar from the tree. Hello Brian and All, Because the Mangrove is a evergreen tree the blooms can be hard to detect. Let the bee lead you to the bloom. You will see the bees flying a *bee-line* back and forth when the tree is in bloom. July is the main flow but the flow can be as early as middle June or late as end of July. Mangrove honey is light in color when extracted and mild in flavor. In dry weather in Florida the black mangrove accumulates a coating of salt from the fogs which discourages the bees and causes them to stop visiting the flowers. The bees will return after rain washes away the salt. When the weather is unsuitable the crop may be almost an entire failure. Now you know the source of your honey. Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:34:58 -0500 Reply-To: peter.bussell@sympatico.ca Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Bussell Subject: forget white MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Thank you for the response to "white is best". I cannot find any really substantial reason to label colour. From my experience the public doesn't know taste. The customers who comes to the farm gate wants ' that good honey I got last year from you'. I understand the moisture grading but that too seem moot because most beekeepers do not do any quantitative testing to determine moisture content other than sealed vs non. The whole issue seems subjective. Why don't we label for 'heated vs non ' or 'processed vs non' or why not identify the region or locality the honey came from the way wine is or major plant groups in the area which may have contributed? Price based on scarsity of a colour of honey doesn't make much sense. I try to educate my customers as to the range of plants my bees work but every year depending on conditions the flavours are different.Obviously there are quite identifiable flavours like buckwheat that could be put on a label. Also flavour changes overall with the food it is combined with. Honey is unique. Please lets "forget white". Peter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:56:01 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: APIS Newsletter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a reminder that APIS is about as good a source of up-to-date reliable information on North American Beekeeping as there is, and APIS is free. It comes once a month via email. To electronically subscribe, send the following to listserv@lists.ufl.edu: subscribe Apis-L your first name last name In the latest beta issue, there is some succinct info relevant to the OTC discussion we've been having. Back issues of APIS are available on the web at http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis.htm The editor, Tom Sanford also writes a column at http://bee.airoot.com/beeculture/digital/ allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ Too hot! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 11:02:27 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Keim Subject: Honey Replacers?? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Hello all. I am a sideliner who works in town while I grow my numbers toward a full time apiary. My job in the engineering department of a food equipment manufacturer allows all sorts of publications relevant to our customers to flow across my desk, one of which is "Food Engineering." Annually, Food Engineering distributes a $150.00 buyer's guide called "Food Master" followed with the byline "Where buying decisions are made." As the name implies, it is a volume produced for manufactures of equipment, contractors, ingredient vendors, etc. that Process folks, Buyers and the like use to service and stock food grade facilities. In reviewing the 2001 edition's index of vendor's I noticed a category that was quite alarming to me as a honey producer entitled "Honey Replacers" (!) I can divulge the manufactures under this disturbing little heading if the moderators wish, or you may visit the catalog online by going to www.foodmaster.com> Ingredients> Product Category Directory> Honey/Ingredients> Honey Replacers, and view the list for yourselves. I will say one of the first ones on the list is an anagram beginning with "A", and is a well-known producer of corn syrup. As I said before, I am at this time, "po-dunk" in size, and buy fructose in the thousands of pounds, rather than the tens of thousand, but rest assured, if I ever do reach that point, I will not be buying from this entity, and would advocate any honey producer wishing to discourage this kind of stuff to abstain from buying from them as well. Maybe we should introduce a category called "Fructose Replacers." Also to blame, I feel, is "Food Engineering" for entertaining such a category. The NHB is listed as a source for liquid honey in the same publication. I feel they should work very diligently to discourage this. My family was a medium-sized beef producer for three generations, and that has gone by the wayside for a variety of reasons, in favor of big corporate feed lots. I can tell you we need to rally against this mentality, or we could all be in for some big changes. John Keim Keim Apiaries Fairview, Kansas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:41:10 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stan Sandler Subject: Re: forget white Comments: To: peter.bussell@sympatico.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Peter and All: >I understand the moisture >grading but that too seem moot because most beekeepers do not do any >quantitative testing to determine moisture content other than sealed vs >non. I see from your email address that you are in Canada. You cannot have a federally approved honey house and produce graded honey without owning a refractometer to test moisture. And a colour meter to classify colour. But, you only need these things if you are shipping out of province. It is not a requirement to have a federally approved honey house if you do not ship out of province. And so you can avoid all the b.s. that Ted so nicely described!!!!! Yes, we pay the ECCC almost $600 a year for renting 6 barcode numbers. And in the US they just pay a one time fee to purchase them (the same as we do, but then we have the additional annual fee). Level playing field???? What is the situation in other countries (each country sets its own fees). One of our most popular containers is a two litre plastic ice cream dish (holds almost six pounds and is as Ted said a totally illegal size). But for in province sales no one ever said anything about it, or the mason jars that we used to use. I am quite frankly totally disgusted by having to pay MORE for a non reusable 500 gram honey jar than I can buy reusable mason jars. Many of our customers had commented that they liked the mason jar packaging. But a mason jar with 500 grams of honey is far from full and the next legal size is 750 grams. Now why is 750 legal and not 650? Neither is a whole number. .75 = three quarters. .75 is metric but three quarters is fractional Well .65 is just as metric as .75 Anyway, as you have said and I agree, colour is somewhat of a red herring (although it gives some indication of floral source). But the real problem is that the foreign matter guidelines for Canada No. 1 are so tight that you cannot produce that honey without heating substantially unless you have absolutely no granulation when you are extracting. None of my debris is foreign. Not even out of province. Regards, Stan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:44:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Genetically-Modified material MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We should probably drop this subject soon, but this is relative to beekeepers as our bees do need, collect, and consume pollen. Further, some of us sell pollen, presumably for consumption by other animals, including humans. Inevitably, some of that pollen will come from GM plants. There has all ready been negative publicity concerning the appropriateness of honey consumption when produced in areas where GM plants are raised. On this list, members have pointed out publicity and discussions in the UK and in Canada. Recently I expressed the view that decisions concerning the use of GM plants and their products should not become a political issue. In partial reply Robert Mann wrote: "I cannot see that it could or should be anything else! Elected governments must be the deciders on such matters." Well...there is a difference of opinion. Some of us feel that it is unlikely that there is any institution or group less qualified than governments as far as such decisions are concerned. In fact, our recent presidential election was much about whether we should have more or less government affecting our lives and, as the world knows, Americans are about equally split on the subject. IMHO, governments have little to no role in matters such as this. Let the markets decide; I am not worried that humankind or our environment will be poisoned in the meantime. Today in the New York Times, a left-leaning newspaper if ever there were one, there is an article titled Gene Altered Foods: A Case Against Panic. The opening paragraph reads: "Ask American consumers whether they support the use of biotechnology in food and agriculture and nearly 70 percent say they do. But ask the question another way, 'Do you approve of genetically engineered (or genetically modified) foods?' and two thirds say they do not. Yet there is no difference between them. The techniques involved and the products that result are identical." The article goes on the point out that "people have been genetically modifying foods and crops for tens of thousands of years" and points out that the current "panic" has been caused by deliberate misinformation and misunderstandings. As an example of the misunderstandings, they point out that when strawberry plants were made more cold-tolerant by introduction of a gene from an Arctic flounder that survives in sub-freezing water, some people feared that the strawberries would taste fishy. Of course, they do not, because the gene that was transferred was for cold-tolerance, not one for "fishy-taste"! The author states that "Genes should be characterized by function, not origin". Such functions include "the ability to resist the attack of insects, withstand herbicide treatments or produce foods with higher levels of essential nutrients." I read the author as being opposed to possible government regulation or registration of new GM plants, or labeling of foods as containing GM elements or "GM-free". She points out that in today's environment "If the most common sources of food allergens-peanuts, shellfish, celery, nuts, mild or eggs-had to pass through an approval process..., they would never make it to market." Beekeepers need to be able to have some familiarity with the GM controversy as they will inevitably have to face questions, just as they do with the use of insecticides. Those interested in reading the full article in The New York Times will find it on page F8 of today's Science section, or at www.NYTimes.com. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 12:05:33 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@DISCOVERYNET.COM Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob and Elizabeth Harrison Subject: Re: AFB question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Al wrote: This might be of interest: http://www.nba.org.nz/pms/manual/man08.htm Hello All, After taking a look at this NZ site AFB section I think all interested in controling AFB without chemicals should take a look. I will make a few comments: 8.7 Sterilising beehive equipment: Talks about the use off paraffin wax which has been discussed on bee-l before. A important point was brought up and because many beekeepers now are using paraffin wax to coat the inside of hivetop feeders should be posted. Although paraffin wax is safe to use under normal conditions. Water should NEVER be used on a paraffin wax fire ,since it WILL cause a explosion. I have ten vats and make cut & curl candles and have never had a fire but left unattended if a heat limit control should fail letting the temperature rise to the flash point then? I keep a sign posted saying do not use water in case of fire and keep a ABC grade fire extinguisher handy. 8.7.2 Sodium Hypochlorite(active ingredient in household bleach) quote: Research conducted at Kaukura has shown that 5% concentration of bleach will kill all AFB spores in 20 minutes. comments: I find it refreshing to see this finnally put before beekeepers as i said years ago back when P.F. Thurber and many others were working on the the Ethylene Oxide Fumigation angle that i couldn't believe bleach would not kill the spores. The only problem with the bleach solution is the solution has to contact the spores. To simple they told me. A huge machine has to be built and hauled by truck to the apiaries and each piece of equipment is put in the machine for a certain amount of time. I might add that the late P.F.(Roy) Thurber still remains one of the best and knowledgeable beekeepers of this century. His only book(now only in hands of collectors) is refered to by me every once in a while. If you ever see a paperback book (brown in color) named *Bee Chats,Tips and Gadgets* by P.F.(Roy) Thurber buy the book! I was lucky enough to get one of the last remaining copies after his death. The book is a collection of all the articles he had ever seen on beekeeping he thought was important and the results of his experiments on different ways to keep bees. The book includes many inventions of his to make beekeeping easier. Also the largest section on ETO fumigation (his pet project)I have ever seen. Although i never met Roy I allways enjoyed reading his articles in the American Bee Journal. Sincerely, Bob Harrison P.S. I will not ever sell my copy but leave with my collection to the Midwestern Beekeepers Assn. after my death. If there are copies out there of this rare publication and for sale I feel sure the moderators might post for those interested. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 21:25:06 +0100 Reply-To: Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: AFB the Danish way MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have started to translate the way AFB is handled in Denmark and more European countries. We are not using TM but are using a pure beekeeping technical way of handling AFB. You will find the translation on my Url. Best regards Jorn Johanesson Multilingual software for beekeeping since 1997 hive note- queen breeding and handheld computer beekeeping software full revised and bug tested 20-09-2000 home page = HTTP://apimo.dk e-mail Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 17:39:04 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Rev. Mike Martin" Organization: Crescent Moon Computers Subject: Re: Honey Replacers?? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Keim wrote: > > Hello all. > > In reviewing the 2001 edition's index of vendor's I noticed a category that > was quite alarming to me as a honey producer entitled "Honey Replacers" (!) As a diabetic I can see the need for fake "honey" for those people who can't have sugar. I just saw some of this stuff in the grocery store today... it took me by surprise. :) I haven't tasted any but I'll promise it's not as good as the real stuff, however, if you can't have the real stuff at least you can have the fake stuff safely. Mike -- Lord Hrothgar the Smith Rev. Mike Martin Visne crisere? Iam non aeger sum http://members.home.net/mmartin139 http://setiathome.ssl.berkely.edu/ [95WU/2203hrs] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 18:02:40 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Eugene Makovec Subject: Re: labels MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- Ted Hancock wrote: When > we first got our label > printed I was told you could not get four colours on > pressure-sensitive > stock (self-adhesive paper), so we had our labels > printed on non-adhesive > stock and applied glue with a machine. Speaking from years of experience in the label industry, I can tell you that there is nothing magical about pressure sensitive labels as opposed to non-adhesive stock. The person who told Ted Hancock he couldn't get 4-color process on pressure-sensitive apparently went out of business for good reason. (I suspect he was printing offset on sheets and didn't want to mess with crack'n'peel type material. I work for a flexographic printer; we routinely print 4-color process, including full-color photos, on high gloss and semigloss stocks with a variety of adhesives, depending on the application. We have now > found a company that > can print four colours on pressure sensitive stock. > They also apply a UV > coating that stops the ink from rubbing off when > trucking jars over rough > roads. The colours on pressure sensitive stock > appear to have a harsher, > more acid tone, but its not overwhelming. UV varnishes provide both scuff resistance and added gloss. There should really be nothing more harsh about pressure-sensitive, though. You can email my work address with any specific questions. (emakovec@diagraph.com) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 23:38:13 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jim Stein Subject: Re: Honey Replacers?? In-Reply-To: <200012051729.MAA20515@listserv.albany.edu> In <200012051729.MAA20515@listserv.albany.edu>, on 12/05/00 at 11:38 PM, John Keim said: >In reviewing the 2001 edition's index of vendor's I noticed a category >that was quite alarming to me as a honey producer entitled "Honey >Replacers" (!) I can divulge the manufactures under this disturbing >little heading if the moderators wish, or you may visit the catalog >online by going to www.foodmaster.com> Ingredients> Product Category >Directory> Honey/Ingredients> Honey Replacers, and view the list for >yourselves. I will say one of the first ones on the list is an anagram >beginning with "A", and is a well-known producer of corn syrup. Before you condemn a listed manufacturer, maybe you should consider that the listing of a manufacturer is not controlled by the manufacturer but by Food Master based on the fact that the manufacturer produces the ingredient that Food Master considers a honey substitute. Jim -- ----------------------------------------------------------- jstein@worldnet.att.net ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 22:51:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adalbert Goertz Subject: Book review MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Book reviews by Adalbert Goertz: (4293 Deerfield Hills Road, Colorado Springs CO 80916-3505) Heiko Bellmann: Der neue Kosmos-Insektenfuehrer, Frankh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany, 1999, ISBN 3-440-07682-2, 446 pp., price EUR 20.35 = DM 39.80 Frankk-Kosmos has a long tradition of publications on natural history. I used to subscribe to their Kosmos monthly magazine from 1946 on (which is still on my bookshelf). This pocket-size insect field guide tops them all by its quality color pictures (more than 1400 of them) covering many insect and a few arachnoid species of central Europe. After a brief introduction on body structure, metamorphosis, references, amd a glossary the author describes each species with Kennzeichen (special marks), Vorkommen (habitat), and Wissenswertes (things worth knowing like foods) The pages on the orders have various colored page margins for easier finding. The German species index includes scientific names. The foreign reader will get a good sampling of insects groups which he will recognize from observations in his backyard. I have not seen anything like it on the American market. --------- Heiko Bellmann: Bienen, Wespen, Ameisen, Hautfluegler Mitteleuropas, Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany, 1995, ISBN 3-440-06932-X, over 400 colorphotos, 336 pp., price EUR 29.65 = DM 58 This pocket size book is another field guide in the Kosmos-Naturfuehrer series which covers bees, wasps, and ants - Hymenoptera of Central Europe and mostly Aculeata. Whereas a previous guide by J.Zahradnik in the same series uses color hand drawings to illustrate, Bellmann uses color photos of the specimens in their natural habitat, nest or inside larval domicile. Each species is described as to Kennzeichen (markings), Flugzeit (when on the wing), Lebensraum (habitat), Verbreitung (geographic distribution), Lebensweise (way of life), Aehnliche Arten (similar species), Gefaerdung (endangered species status). The North American reader has yet to see a field guide of hymenoptera which would give him a quick idea of what he sees in the field. This guide is the next best book to have for North America. Whenever I want to identify an Aculeatum in Colorado, this is the field guide I use first before consulting other books to make my choices. The book ends with references and a German/scientific species index. -- ** Adalbert & Barbel Goertz ** ph 719-390-1088 ** -- retired in Colorado Springs, (Colorado is a state of mind) --- Mennonite genealogy of East and West Prussia prior to 1945. Deutsche Web-Betreuung http://www.cyberspace.org/~goertz Holocaust is big business now ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 21:27:26 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Robert Mann Subject: a draught of good sense Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: CONS-SPST-BIOTECH-FORUM@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Dec 6 2000 There's a piece in my paper today, copied from the Orlando Sentinel, but the headline is probably the work of the San Francisco Chronicle: "Gene-Altered Food Safe to Eat, Needs No Label, AMA Panel Says." I'd like to make 2 points about this. First the easy target: "Altman [leader of the panel] said people's concerns may be assuaged with more information, if they can get past their initial reactions," the article says, and then quotes the good doctor, "There's this feeling that it's not such a good idea to mess with genes." Well, savvy about genes and about ethics are two different things entirely, and using the medical podium to say that those who have a little more information no longer need to have that feeling that it's not such a good idea to mess with genes comes across as very arrogant. (Arrogant doesn't necessarily mean wrong, but it's not a good place to start a discussion involving ethics and the future.) Second target: making this issue one of whether present GE'd foods are safe to eat is too limiting. For instance, we in the Sierra Club are opposed to putting these altered genes up into the wind as pollen, putting them into your next lawn or your next pet, putting them into fish and trees. We're worried about the consequences of allowing companies to hack the genome for private profit. We certainly hope the American Medical Association can also take a longer term view. It should review the health consequences of antibiotic and herbicidal markers, of putting new promoter genes into new places with no assurance that they won't switch on the wrong metabolic pathways in some future generation, perhaps when meeting up with yet other engineered genes. It should consider the risks of horizontal gene transfer and the ethical implications of contaminating life, which is the very stuff of all wealth and meaning, with manufactured, unrecallable genes. It may be safe to eat that potato chip, but it isn't safe or ethical to have such a limited perspective. Jim Diamond MD - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 16:15:59 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Dr. Malcolm (Tom) Sanford" Subject: Discovery of DDT and the Nobel Prize Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Wording is so important in these discussions: > > I certainly think the person who discovered DDT deserved a Nobel Prize. > Lloyd may think it was deserved, but it did not happen. > The convenient Britannica listing of Nobel prizes will > prove that for you. Where did the falsehood arise? > Could the person who posted it tell us please? Lloyd in fact did not say it happened, only that he "thought" it should happen. The "falsehood" was never posted. >FWIW, my Britannica clearly shows the listing to which Lloyd refers under Lloyd did not "refer" to any "listing" in his original post that I am aware of. >I quote: "1948 PAUL HERMANN >MÜLLER for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison > against several arthropods". Yes, Dr. Muller got the Prize, but not for discovery of DDT, only for recognition that it was effective in military and public health matters. The material was actually discovered (synthesized) in 1874. http://www.bio2.edu/education/student/endo/ddt.htm DDT, known as Chlorophenothane, was first synthesized in 1874. One of its first uses was in the military; soldiers often were advised to shampoo with DDT to control infestation. In 1948 Paul Muller, a Swiss chemist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for his recognition of DDT as an effective insecticide with the ability to be used to improve public health as well as military hygiene. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 09:48:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Medicinal Honey- last update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My six weeks visit to the Doctor and to my Occupational Therapist turns out to be my last. For those who may not know, I had an operation on my hand and got permission to treat the wounds with honey five days after the operation and before the stitches were removed. On the visit to get my stitches out, two weeks after the operation, the healing was so pronounced that the Doctor allowed me to continue honey treatment. The Occupational Therapist noted that I had much more range of movement in my hand at this stage than normal, so she allowed me to continue therapy on my own. At the six week visit, the Doctor was impressed with both my range of movement and the healing of the wound. He estimated I was a minimum of three to four weeks ahead of schedule in the healing process. In addition, he felt the scars and asked If I had been massaging them I had not. He commented that the scar tissue was soft and not hard as is normal. I had discontinued honey treatment on one finger as a control. I did not tell him this and he noted the scar tissue on that finger was thicker than the finger on which I never stopped treatment. Five weeks after the operation I had stopped treatment completely. The wounds on my fingers and part of the hand were completely healed. The deepest cut was near closed so I thought I would allow it to finish on its own, but it seemed to stop and would not close. At the six week visit I learned that the fissure, in many cases, will remain open as a ridge and never close, so I restarted treatment. It has started closing again. The Doctor has asked for a source of raw honey so they can start a series of controlled tests using honey to treat wounds. Two Occupational Therapists looked at the healing and range of movement. One had never seen such rapid progress. The other had one patient who was about as far along in movement but not wound healing. He was a mechanic and could not stop using his hand. He also had a great deal of swelling at the six week point. I have limited swelling on one knuckle. The consensus was that because honey allows the wounds to heal from the bottom up with a minimum of scar tissue and heals much quicker than "normal" healing, it allows quicker and easier freedom of movement. Had I not treated, I should have experienced increased immobility with increasing scar tissue through the third to sixth week. Instead the amount of scar tissue remained the same or decreased. They discharged me at the six week point, however they want me to come back on their nickel to see how I am at the twelve week point. I was a bit concerned using honey as a treatment for such a fairly major operation, but I had used it before for minor cuts and it did work well. I can see several drawbacks to its use and they all reside in the patient and their willingness to put up with applying it and that it can get messy. But it really does work and work exceptionally well. I told the Doctor I only wish I had been allowed to put it on right after the operation and not five days later. Sorry for the length of the post. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 11:41:38 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: Medicinal Honey- last update In-Reply-To: <200012061449.JAA15936@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am sure we all rejoice with & for our good comrade Bill in his triumphant use of honey as a wound dressing. The very impressive results, especially the minimising of scar formation, are in conformity with a huge body of prior evidence. Any liquid honey will serve well. (The even better efficacy of manuka honey is real, and this stuff should be spread thru the world of medicine; but any liquid honey is fine.) Why then has this knowledge not been smoothly incorporated into routine medicine? My inference is (1) Modern medicine is largely oriented to synthetic pharmaceuticals. 'Folk remedies' are greatly handicapped in achievement of 'cred' in this context. (2) The search for 'active ingredients' in honey, which could then be synthesised, patented, etc, has found very little success. R >My six weeks visit to the Doctor and to my Occupational Therapist turns out >to be my last. For those who may not know, I had an operation on my hand >and got permission to treat the wounds with honey five days after the >operation and before the stitches were removed. - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 22:31:12 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: peter dillon Subject: Re: Forget white MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Having spent much time(several years) investigating and debating the pros. and cons. that were to make up the recent "European Union Directive on Honey", it became apparent that even the definition of honey was difficult enough to get agreement on! Labeling was a nightmare, esp. once the argument over honey filtration and to what degree the filter size could possibly be (Once pollen has been removed is it still possible to define the product as honey, state its floral origin, state its geographical origin etc.) Taking the above as a selected example - One then enters into debate who wants what and for why - Producers against Conditioners. Have a read at the Directive and see what you think - there are some good points and bad ones as far as giving the customer the truth about what is in the final pot. Please note that the cited examples are only the tip of the iceberg when dealing with "heated vs non" etc. A basic lobby became apparent in the recent negotiations of CODEX A. regulations when dealing with Ultra Filtration of Honeys - the conditioning Countries such as Germany, U.S. and U.K to name a few pushed for it to be included whereas the producer countries were very much against its inclusion. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:45:40 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: Medicinal properties of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable For those interested in finding out more, go to www.capilano.com.au and = click onto medihoney. Briefly medihoney is a product registered in Australian that has = antibacterial properties. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 08:33:00 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Musashi Subject: Re: Medicinal Honey These posts regarding raw honey used for wound healing make me want to use it the next time I have a need for myself or someone I care about. I've forwarded most of these posts to my son who's in medical school so that he can at least be aware of it, even if they don't teach it to him in school. One of my friends who I forwarded one of these posts to responded with an interesting story about Alexander the Great that I had not heard before and I thought was worth sending out: "This reminds me of the story of Alexander the Great. He died about 332BC in the Mesopotamian region of Babylon. However one of his generals wanted him buried in Alexandria Egypt. They shipped his body in honey and it arrived months later in nice shape. Sweet little story. I don't know how verifiable this story is, but it's another piece of interesting information on the subject of possible uses of honey. Layne Westover College Station, Texas, U.S.A. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 08:48:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jim Stein Subject: Re: labels In-Reply-To: <200012060548.AAA09558@listserv.albany.edu> For beekeepers that do not sell a lot of honey, they might want to consider making their own labels. I learned how to do this years ago based on a letter to the editor in the ABJ. I print out labels on 8 1/2 x 11 letter paper. I get 9 front labels/sheet and 15 back labels/sheet. I use a paper cutter to cut the labels out. Regular water soluble white school glue can be used to attach the label to a glass jar. This is nice because you can easily remove the labels if the jar is returned. To attach the label, place some glue on a smooth dark surface ( I use a piece of plexiglass, the dark surface enables you to see the glue better). Add a little water as needed to get a workable consistency. Spread the glue out with your finger , place the label over the spread out glue and use a pin to help release the label. You can be as creative as you want in designing the label. Use a standard word processor and set the page up in columns ( I use 3 columns, 0.417" side margins and 0.5 inch top and btm margins). You can use colored paper if you want. So far I've been using white. I've been playing around with adding a color picture in the background. So far I've had to print the pictures first (I "washed out the color" so that the printing could be read) and then print the text. School glue will not stick to the plastic jars but I just discovered that the Walter T . Kelly Co. sells a water soluble paste that works on plastic or glass. I make my own wine and this method adds a nice touch to the wine bottle. Jim -- ----------------------------------------------------------- jstein@worldnet.att.net ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:07:24 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Healing properties of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In discussing the healing properties of honey, Robert Mann said: "Why then has this knowledge not been smoothly incorporated into routine medicine? My inference is (1) Modern medicine is largely oriented to synthetic pharmaceuticals. 'Folk remedies' are greatly handicapped in achievement of 'cred' in this context. (2) The search for 'active ingredients' in honey, which could then be synthesized, patented, etc, has found very little success." I know a physician/scientist doing studies on the healing properties of honey at a medical university, and he offers a different view: 1. "Honey", like all or most natural matters, does not offer static, fixed properties that easily lend themselves to definition and study. Even a given "variety" such as manuka honey will vary greatly on a component level. Scientists have demonstrated that fructose, sucrose, glucose, etc. when applied to wounds does not have the same beneficial effect as "honey". Therefore, it is not the "pure" sugars, but other ingredients, perhaps acting together with the sugars, or with each other, or both, that produce the effects. Physician/scientists are wary of "prescribing" treatment when they do not know "why" it may or may not work. Thus, the search for "how" and "why" the effects. 2. The advantage of synthetics is that, by definition, they are always exactly identical so therefore how they react to their environment can always be exactly predicted. By example, in most circumstances synthetic fibers have replaced natural fibers because synthetics can be made exactly the same as one another so they will react exactly the same to yarn making, weaving, finishing, dyeing, etc. Natural fibers, even when extensively blended to avoid unique characteristics arising from the source of seed or breed of sheep, forage available, drought, irrigation, storage facility, etc. will often react in different manners to yarn making, weaving, etc. (Thus the old adage concerning buying from the same "dye lot" when one wishes exactly the same fabric.) The only reason for preference for synthetics is that their behavior (in fibers, medicine, "rubber", etc) can be exactly predicated and controlled. 3. In today's environment, scientists investigate "where the money is". This is not for nefarious reasons, but only because investigation requires money. If "I" ran a pharmeticual house, I would want my money spent on investigating synthetics to produce a given result. If a physician/scientist wants to investigate the healing properties of honey, he or she has to come up with the money, either out of one's own pocket or someone else's. Thankfully, in the US (at least) there are third parties, such as governments and private foundations that can be turned to. However, even they have some limitations on funding so want to be assured they are financing in areas where they are likely "to get the most bang for the buck". They want to see humankind receive the maximum benefit from any given treatment for any given circumstance. Guess what can best predict and control such benefits...synthetics. Thus, I think there is good reason why folk medicine does not receive the attention (and money) it deserves. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:53:58 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Keith Parker Subject: Re: medicinal honey last update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Following Bill and Robert Propolis is another product from the 'honey factory' that seems to be = used here in France as a healing material/antiseptic, albeit not too widely I do not know whether it is because it has the same or complimentary properties to that of honey Is that used elsewhere ? Robert what is manuka honey? Regards Keith ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:08:40 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Propolis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Keith asked about the medicinal properties of propolis. The best discussion I have ever seen is located at http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~mts/apishtm/apis_2000/pdf/BeeSciRev.pdf Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 10:44:52 -0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: Healing properties of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to Lloyd's friend, > 2. The advantage of synthetics is that, by definition, they are always > exactly identical so therefore how they react to their environment can > always be exactly predicted. (snip) > The only reason for preference for synthetics is that their behavior (in > fibers, medicine, "rubber", etc) can be exactly predicated and controlled. There is one more variable that has been left out of this list which to some degree invalidates the overall statement. Each individual person responds a little differently to these synthetic medications. What may be a boon to one individual may have overwhelming side effects to another. Thus the beauty of the synthetic is great in the lab, but disappears (to a great degree) when brought out into the real variable world. I realize that there may be some exceptions, but isolated natural insulin versus synthesized (via GM bacterial) human insulin which was discussed on another thread is a great example of this variability. The different reactions of individuals to cholesterol controlling (reducing?) drugs is another example. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@gci.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 14:49:44 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Hancock Subject: Re: labels I have been printing my own comb honey labels on a DeskJet printer but have been unable to find any transparent stock to print them on. I know such stock exists because I've seen it on other product labels. I think it would bee sharp to look through the label at comb honey. I can buy label paper marked "clear" which is made by Avery but the product is actually opaque. Does anyone know where I can get transparent paper I can print on? On the subject of honey in history... I have heard that Genghis Khan liked to see the heads of his opposing generals. So G.K.'s generals would lop off a conquered generals head and transport it back to headquarters in a sack filled with honey. I wonder if the honey was reused. Maybe they made mead with it. ( ... bit of 'hair of the dog taste' but its got a kick.) Or they could have used it in Christmas cake, its inedible anyways. Ted ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:25:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Difficulties in working with natural substances MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a private message, Pat pointed out another situation where scientists and beekeepers are having difficulty working with natural substances and I thought it worthwhile to share this with others. With permission: "Many of the ideas/arguments you mentioned are also applicable to the synthetic vs. "homemade" (e.g. essential oils, FGMO) miticide debate which sometimes rears its head on the list." Regards, Pat Parkman University of Tennessee Knoxville Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 09:27:55 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: medicinal honey last update In-Reply-To: <200012071803.NAA23550@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Keith Parker wrote: >Robert what is manuka honey? sorry - I assumed it was better known, if only because I have been plugging it on this list repeatedly - honey from a shrub of the myrtle family, _Leptospermum scoparium_ (Maori name: manuka) has been shown to be an even more antiseptic wound dressing than other honeys. The leading researcher is Peter Molan PhD, U of Waikato: http://honey.bio.waikato.ac.nz R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:37:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lipscomb, Al" Subject: Re: Healing properties of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > > 2. The advantage of synthetics is that, by definition, they > are always > > exactly identical so therefore how they react to their > environment can > > always be exactly predicted. (snip) > > The only reason for preference for synthetics is that their > behavior (in > > fibers, medicine, "rubber", etc) can be exactly predicated > and controlled. > > There is one more variable that has been left out of this > list which to some > degree invalidates the overall statement. Each individual > person responds a > little differently to these synthetic medications. And they respond a little differently to the "naturals" as well. That puts two sets of variables into the equation for the good doctor to worry about. As "folk" remedies have become more popular the cases of drug interaction and allergic reactions are showing up in the "home brew" crowd as well. So the advantage is to the synthetic in this case. Naturals have many advantages, this is just not one of them. One of the biggest advantages of naturals is the availability of some wonderfully complex chemicals at a very low price. For example at least one type of Arthritis is believed to be caused by defective "B" cells. A proposed remedy is to kill off the bodies existing B cells and stop the damage (The body will produce more B cells that do not carry the defect). What if it turns out the bee venom does just this? Would we need to spend the money to create a synthetic? What about people who need the treatment but cannot tollerate bee venom? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 23:54:28 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: peter dillon Subject: Re: a draught of good sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Mann points out one of the techniques often used to try and sway a skeptic audience - supply a little well chosen information, direct it well and hey presto "you" are considered as a kind inoffensive organization on really there to help, like the kind old uncle. When that doesn't work, well watch how quickly the technique changes to deriding and character (not necessarily individual) destruction - the don't trust them, they don't understand what its all about etc. Fighting against "Gaucho" - we have had many techniques directed against our work - but the truth is coming out, slowly but surely. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 18:17:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Healing properties of honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lloyd made some good points on why honey is not used. I did notice some variability between different honeys that I used, so went with the one that seemed to be most active. And all were unheated. So, as is being shown with manakua honey, nectar source is important, otherwise you get variability. Acceptance by the patient is another reason. In our society, if offered a choice between antibiotics and honey for wound treatment, guess which wins? It is messy. Acceptance by the doctor is another. Had I not had an advanced degree- so I had some authenticity, but not much- and spent time with the Dr before the operation, including loading him down with papers on honey in medicine, I doubt if he would have allowed me to treat myself. Now he is a convert, but can he convert another Dr.? It is hard, as can be seen on this list when new things are discussed. I am one of those on the list who always demands proof. So far my experience is anecdotal, not scientific so I would probably be demanding more than an email message saying it was so :) Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2000 15:35:58 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "M.E.A. McNeil" Subject: Re: Medicinal Honey In-Reply-To: <200012071749.MAA23128@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"This reminds me of the story of >Alexander the Great. He died about >332BC in the Mesopotamian region of >Babylon. However one of his generals >wanted him buried in Alexandria Egypt. >They shipped his body in honey and it >arrived months later in nice shape. >Sweet little story. > >I don't know how verifiable this story is Hilda Ransome, in The Sacred Bee, repeats an account of Alexander's body "placed in white honey which had not been melted." She adds that "no confirmation of this custom, however, has been found recorded on any inscription." So white honey may reach out from the tomb. Ransome also describes the use of honey by the Egyptians for preserving the dead. M. McNeil MEA McNeil