From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Jan 3 12:46:54 2003 Return-Path: <> Delivered-To: adamf@ibiblio.org Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by mail.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8506924ADEE for ; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:54 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id h03Fjr9X008596 for ; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:53 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200301031746.h03Fjr9X008596@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:53 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0107C" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Content-Length: 251832 Lines: 5069 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 12:48:02 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all Peter Dillon gives us some figures for cell wall thickness. The situation is a little more complex than numbers can describe. Humans are large relative to bees and the small variations in comb give it a "regular" appearance, but if we take a mean value and then plot values as deviations from the mean we will arrive at a distribution. How far should we take this process? should we measure a whole comb? a patch of it or a horizontal strip of it? If we adopt any of these strategies we get a different final result... Which is the "correct" one? The same situation applies to wall thickness... Different strains of bee will produce a range of initial thicknesses of rib and wall thickness, different strains will have a variable tolerance to the number of cocoons that are allowed to build up before the cell is torn down and rebuilt affresh. I personally take a compromise and whenever I make calculations involving wall thickness I use 0.1 mm (0.004") which is a generallised average. This is just my own standardisation, in the same way as I always use 13 as a number when calculations include the number of drones mated to a queen. The numbers may not be "right", but they are consistant across a range of calculations, removing some of the obstacles, allowing comparisons. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 12:01:06 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All We may not be aware of the precise mathematical relationship between cellsize and bee size, (I doubt that it is purely linear), but hopefully some work has been conducted on this? Certainly some work has been done on mass of bee/cellsize, but I feel this could also be confusing, as... whatever the physical size or volume of a bee it has the same number of tissue cells in the same positions and doing the same job. I have read somewhere that these cells may be of different density from different body sizes, if that is the case then does an enlarged bee have a less dense set of flight muscles? The 5.7 mm extreme sizings seem to have come about for a variety of reasons, one of which was a drive in the 1960s & 70s (also into the 1980s) to deliberately enlarge the AMM bee. The culmination of these attempts saw a 5.9 mm foundation in use among a particular group of experimenters. When this was first introduced it was treated as "drone foundation" by the bees and intermediate stages had to be introduced by stretching 5.7 mm foundation (similar to the stages in regression but in reverse). My slant on the cellsize work has always been one of discrimination of bee races to help seperate hybridised bees into their original strains, but if there are benefits to be had in the way of varroa control I will gladly take hold of that aspect as well. Allen's point about bees being different today compared with a century or so ago is not under dispute... I am not trying to shrink bees into a smaller cell, but to find bees that are comfortable in the smaller cell and conform to other morphometric measurements that establish racial type. The stock we have today needs artificial support to survive varroa, pull out the chemical plug and the bee industry goes down the drain. Hygenic, Russian and SMR bees will play their part, but none in themselves is an answer. There is another aspect of this, that some people are frightened of, and that is... By selecting bees that are "happy" in 4.9 mm cells we are inadvertantly selecting for "africanised" characteristics. The comment I would make here is the the gene pool of honey bees is vast and that any race or strain only represents those genes that are in the forefront of the "pool" at that time, and that characters that are considered "africanised" are no problem providing the the other elements in the selection process are gentleness and other handleability traits, once such good natured and stable characteristics have been fixed then further selection can be made for honey yield. One of the largest problems that I see in bee breeding over the last century has been putting honey gathering too high up the list of the initial priorities. I am not saying select for an unproductive bee, but I do say get the bee right first and then select for the higher productivity over subsequent generations. Transition cells in comb produced on full sheets of 4.9 foundation, indicates a high variability in size genes. Regular comb at 4.9 from starter strips indicates a low variability of these genes. There is a situation in the middle of these conditions whereby bees will draw regular comb on full sheets, but transition comb on starters. If your objective is to produce 4.9 mm combs this does not matter, but you should not consider the bees regressed until they will draw 4.9 from starters or plain wax beads. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 12:13:04 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all Barry Sergeant says > I was thinking of posting some photographs > on the Internet, but bee pictures just never seem to work. You'll just > have to visit. Much as I would like to visit Africa it is beyond my resources... There are websites that may be able to find room to display your pictures. > In 1983, said authors stated 18-20 days for > a scut worker and 19-20 for capensis, vs. 20-21 for "European." Were any temperatures attributed to the different development times? Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 05:22:39 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 13 Jul 2001 to 14 Jul 2001 (#2001-191) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman writes: << As we only see bees larger than 5.1 cellsize in the "developed world" where foundation has been used for a century or so, is it not possible that the whole population of bees, that the morphometric studies were conducted on, were larger because all managed bees on foundation exibit an enlargement? There are some that do not accept that foundation sizes have increased over the last century. Fine I have no "time machine" to go back and collect the evidence but... If this enlargement has not occured why then have queen excluder grid spacings increased from 4.2 mm up to 4.9 mm over that period? and why has the bee space dimension gradually increased from 6 mm to 9 mm? (part of the answer to the last question lies in timber seasoning but there has been an increase in bee space allowance over the last 150 years.)>> What we've had is a century or so of selection pressure in the direction of genetically larger bees which will cope more easily with the enlarged foundation. The genes for smaller bees may have virtually disappeared in Europe during this process, which would explain the situation. About the only thing we can say for certain is that the 'original' cell size must have been around 5mm, give or take a bit. If it had been much smaller, someone would have reported 'six to the inch'. Much larger and it would have been 'four to the inch'. Not very satisfactory, but the best that can be done at present. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 23:35:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107150007.f6F077803191@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi Peter - > It again seems to me that it is a reflection of the status of the > industry today (and maybe previous) that we appear to be left adrift to > sort out very pressing questions without the support afforded to other > branches of the agricultural sector. Very incisive comments! I should remind you and others that the Tucson Bee Lab is currently in the cross hairs of the chopping block. There are those pushing Congress to provide more funding for it and to keep it open, and there are those that feel it should be closed from lack of support to beekeepers where they feel it's needed. (http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/abjdec1997.htm) In September, 1997, the Tucson Bee lab took bee samples from some of the Lusby's hives. We see from the data that their hives were averaging 4 to 5 varroa mites per 100 and extremely low percentages of Tracheal Mites. Talk about some data that should turn heads with researchers! Why 4 years now and nothing more has been done? The Lusby's have asked for their honey to be tested. To date, no one has tested it. With the USDA spending millions each year on mite control, approving stronger and stronger chemicals, what will it take for someone within this taxpayer supported system to take a little time and do some testing on what the Lusby's are doing? The Lab sits 15 minutes away from the Lusby's. Instead, it's the small scale beekeeper doing the work and testing the best they can. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 00:11:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Williamson Subject: Re: Red-eyed drones I've seen red, blue, and green/yellow eyed drones. The hives always seem to be fine. I would assume just random mutations. Red however is extremly rare. I have found only one hive with those. I brought them home to photograph, but they died before I made it back. It's interesting that after they die the color fades to black, so I was unable to get their picture. Does anyone know why the color would disappear within an hour of death? Robert Williamson www.texasdrone.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 14:17:52 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dr pedro p rodriguez Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi everyone. Like every thing else, empirical thinking tends to get involved, and all kinds of thoughts emerge with great potential. Regarding bee size and climate, work experience in different climatic conditions may throw some light on this subject. I have worked with both large size and small size bees in tropical and temperate climates, as I am sure many others have. In both environments, I have observed equal diligence and work behavior of honey bees. To me, honey bees have developed special "abilities" to cope with their sorroundings during millions (?) of years of existence, (among which cell size may be one of them) Thanks to that, they have survived, regardless of climate and predation. While I write this, I am recalling a paper that I read quite a few years ago about how honey bees utilized the excrements held in their intestines for warmth in temperate climates. I wish that I could recall the author to cite, but I am sure it is there in the archives somewhere. One of the many wonders of honey bees!I think that there is much to be learned yet about our honey bees and that we should tread carefully onto their abode. Best regards. Dr. Rodriguez ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 08:12:23 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107142121.f6ELLt800268@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The big difference here is that no one is suggesting 'chopping off the legs' > of the bee if it doesn't fit the cell. If a bee doesn't like the fit, it > won't build the cell. What then? How do the bees function without comb? > How is using 4.9 size foundation any different than > you or anyone else using their size? Any beekeeper who uses foundation is > discriminating then. If you are using 5.2mm foundation in your hives, aren't > you as equally concerned about the deleterious effects this may be having on > those bees that fall out of your selected size? Actually, I am. I came into the world, and beekeeping, in a time when foundation was taken for granted and thus I thought -- or rather accepted as a unexamined default position -- that foundation was a natural part of beekeeping. I have since reconsidered and am now inclined to think that traditional skep keeping has its merits and may even be the best system to accomplish pollination -- which is Job One according to our industry political propaganda machine. When I came into beekeeping, thirty years back, the thinking of the beekeeping industry was dominated by a group of people who thought in terms of forcing bees to do this and forcing bees to do that. This is all very perverted to my current way of thinking. Naturally, I began with what I was taught, but over the years, I have evolved more to thinking in terms of 'how can I help my bees to do this' and 'how can I help my bees to do that'? Happily, times have changed too since those grim postwar years. Whereas conflict and coercion was the accepted way in the 20th century, current thinking trends more to open-mindedness, acceptance and co-operation. One very significant factor that is overlooked in examining beekeeping history in the 20th century is that, over that period the beekeeping media were dominated by 'house' magazines belonging to the dominant bee equipment manufacturers and queen breeders and/or publications supported primarily by advertising dollars. As a result, the entire focus of beekeeping thought for 100 years has been product-oriented. It is not difficult to see why. Products generate cash and advertising and 'sizzle'. Free techniques that require no products do not have the same flash or hype. In the flood of information that came with inexpensive and widely distributed magazines, products were glorified and became 'necessities'. It is always interesting to walk through a museum of recent history and look at the many 'necessities' of yesteryear and imagine how people pined and saved to get those symbols of fulfillment and success. From our perspective, it is hard to imagine how a woman could have sacrificed her health to achieve a 'wasp waist' and/or a flat chest, yet many/most were convinced that this was the ideal. Moveable frame hives are a product, and therefore able to generate income and ad revenues to support propaganda against natural comb hives such as skeps and gums which do not. The flood of promotion in almost all the available reading material naturally affected people entering public service and thus government policy. When AFB became a huge problem, the solution chosen was naturally a product-oriented one, not a stock selection one. Skeps and gums were banned and all beekeepers became consumers. (At this point I think of pate de foie gras. http://home.intekom.com/animals/info/gallery/abuse/slide5.html ) With the coming of the Internet and free publishing and distribution, information has been liberated from these constraints and the idea that beekeeping need not revolve around products and branding is beginning to blossom again. I predict that, one day before long, skeps will again come into fashion. However, I live in the real world and virtually all my income comes from my management of bees, which places me in a different position from those who have a few hives and can afford to make drastic changes and work with unproven ideas. I choose to compromise on some things and use what is at hand -- and to wait to see what develops. I like to think I am sometimes a catalyst in change for the better, but have no illusions that I am leading a charge or responsible to change the world. I leave that for others who believe they have a calling or who are hired for the job. If 4.9 proves out and is not out-competed by a cheaper, simpler solution, it will be a huge bonanza for the bee equipment manufacturers. If it becomes a full blown fad, I can see lots of comb being melted, serviceable frames and plastic foundation thrown away and new material purchased on a mass scale, reminding me of the periodic change in fashion that causes perfectly good clothing or furniture to be junked regularly to keep the consumption machine in high gear. I know the suppliers will complain about having to junk their rollers and molds an having to retool, but they will revel and profit mightily in the orgy of buying that follows acceptance of the concept. Expect to see advertising soon. However, I doubt (and hope) that 4.9 will never hit the mainstream, since there are other ways to control varroa without destroying all the equipment now in use, and without intensively manipulating bees to use new foundation. It is also a continuation of the old way of forcing the bees to do this and forcing the bees to do that, As such, I expect that it will be largely popular only with Protestants. As far as I know there are other examples of projects with bees surviving very nicely with no varroa treatment, or minimal treatment, that do not involve forcing bees onto 4.9 foundation. Dee herself, says, I am told, that her system is 1/3 nutrition, 1/3 bee stock, and 1/3 cell size. I think that the first two items are indisputable and apply to all beekeeping. The third factor -- 4.9 -- may be useful, but perhaps is excessively difficult and unnecessarily costly. in terms of dollars, time, and genetic diversity. I am sure there are other less costly and destructive ways of doing the job and hope that they will over time dominate, and that this idea will fade. We are in a world of competing ideas, and 4.9 is only one of many mechanisms being examined. Inasmuch as it is a very expensive and difficult solution and simpler, easier methods are also in development , I believe that 4.9 will ultimately be seen as an Edsel; it runs, but it won't sell because it is clunky, and the alternatives are more attractive. > If so, why haven't you > stopped using the single cell size foundation and gone to letting the bees > draw their own comb, that would include all the sizes? Do you know what I really hate? Rhetorical questions. (see Note 1 at end) You know the answer to that, I should hope. But I will dutifully give a few reasons. I may someday do just what you suggest, but at this point, I am told it is illegal in most developed jurisdictions to have bees on fixed comb. Having bees draw in frames without foundation is a bit difficult, especially on the scale and in the climate where I operate. Moreover, I am currently committed to the using what I have. It works and have no intention of junking it to pursue an ideal. It makes me a good living... and as previously announced, I am actually reducing my operation with an eye to retirement. > > AFAIK, this remains to be proven, as does the question of what, if any, > > undesirable effects may accompany this management. > > Poor wording on my part. I meant to say "and to be able to do it..." It does > need to be proven, it is in the process of having some things proven, and so > far the biggest undesirable effect is that it requires a lot of work. That is a BIG undesirable effect. allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ Note 1: (For the humour impaired) This is a JOKE. Laugh -- please. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 09:21:38 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry & All, < With the USDA spending millions each year on mite control, approving >stronger and stronger chemicals, what will it take for someone within this the Lusby's are doing? I would recommend all which are interested in the above subject to read * the Varroa Handbook* or Mites of the Honey Bee* by Dadant. NO NEW CHEMICALS are being tested for varroa control. The list of over 100 is the same now as it looked in the 1980's with the use of fluvalinate & amatraz crossed off the list. There are those which believe we can go back to fluvalinate in a couple years but I have my doubts about its effectiveness. Researchers saw the above coming 20 years ago. Dr. Siminuki started talking IPM long before he retired. Researchers at the USDA bee labs are working on bees which will coexist with varroa. I was told the time frame could be up to 20 years BUT they would in time create such a bee. Granted the results have been slow in coming but each journey begins with the FIRST STEP. In my opinion and being able to honestly say I have looked at the varroa problem as much as about any beekeeper in the U.S. that the U.S.D.A. is spending our money wisely and in the right place. It is true as Barry says they have to provide testing at times for chemicals off the list to be registered such as coumaphos. Coumaphos is simply a chemical to span time until the proper solution can be found. I was hoping I wouldn't have to say what I am about to but will. The small cell issue is mostly theory. We really do not know why Dee's bees are doing as well as she claims. It would take at least two years to duplicate her results in a bee lab and in my opinion longer. Dr. Harbo is seeing success with the SMR. Less work when the project is finished and a quicker solution to our problems as a industry. Breeding a bee to tolerate varroa is a project a banker would loan money on. We know it can be done. We know we are making progress. If Dr. Harbo was not seeing success then maybe small cell would stand a chance. I agree with Barry that Dee & Ed Lusby's project of the last ten years needs to be documented for all to see. Has Dee kept records of the whole project? I for one would love to look at her methods. I believe one of the bee mags (possibly Bee Culture) would run a series of articles about the things she did and the results she got over the last ten years. *If* the articles made *no claims* and stated the things the Lusbys did and the results they saw then they *might* get by without censorship. The bee magazines always check theories expressed as fact with researchers before publishing. Hence the scientists names beside the Lusbys on their already Bee Culture published articles. In the last two years the scientific community has been shocked at the recent findings of Anderson (varroa destructor) and Harbo (SMR bees). With the recent discoveries of the above I see small cell as outdated and not cost effective. If the efforts of the Baton Rouge Bee lab fail then IPM such as small cell size, open mesh floors, drone removal combined with breeding may be the best solution for non chemical control. All involve time and labor expense in a large operation when the cost of production is now over the wholesale price of honey (Texas A& M study). Bob ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 17:13:10 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all A clip from Bill's post > Might the difference in cell size (and bee) be due to the climate each > inhabits? Survival would seem to dictate a smaller bee in hotter > climates and a larger one in cold or temperate climates I was thinking that the high altitude Montecola would represent the largest possibiliy in body size, as it lives at the highest altitude and in a climate that drops below freezing almost, if not, every night. As Montecola inhabits a 5.0 cell at low level and 5.1 cells at high altitude, without any influence from foundation, my thoughts were that temperate bees would range from 4.83 ish - 5.08 ish and Barry's scuts being the hottest conditions would occupy 4.3 up to 4.8 ish. The numbers may not be very precise but they follow a trend. As bodysize increases the surface are to volume ratio of the individual bee decreases causing less heat loss, but the other side of this is that smaller cells allow a closer packing density allowing a higher number of bodies generating heat, by metabolism, in a given volume. There should be an equilibrium between these two sets of circumstances , but I do not know where it lies. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 14:14:57 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: A visiting beekeeper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi Folks, An Internet friend of mine from England will be arriving in California to address the California Beekeepers Association next week, after which he will be making his way towards the Eastern Apicultural Society conference (Bees by the Sea) at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Cape Cod (Go Mass!). This friend's name is Ken Hoare. Ken will have a car and time free on the west coast from July 26 through August 2. He will be starting in LA, traveling towards San Franscisco, is traveling solo and has no real itinerary for that period. If there are any beekeepers in that general vicinity willing to show Ken their operation, perhaps some of the local scenery and possibly extend an overnight hospitality, please drop Ken some email at: kenlia@btinternet.com If inclined, please reply quickly as his flight from London leaves 7/20. It would be great for BEE-L members to help make a visitor's vacation state-side more enjoyable! Aaron Morris - thinking stranger in a strange land! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 21:14:42 EDT 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: BEE-L Digest - 5 Jul 2001 to 6 Jul 2001 (#2001-183) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marc, Of course, Imirie Shims are a total violation of Bee Space, and THAT is the exact reason that they should ONLY BE USED DURING A NECTAR FLOW AND WITH DRAWN FRAMES - never with foundation! Many beekeepers UNDER super resulting in the bees building BURR comb or swarming for lack of storage space for thin waterery nectar. Most bee researchers and almost all professional honey producers install their supers of DRAWN COMB all at one time rather than one now, another in a couple of weeks, followed by a third, etc. If an Imirie Shim gets BURR comb in it, you are either using foundation or there are not enough supers in place. I started using shims over 40 years ago, and rarely have any burr comb built in them. You say that you use shims for "other" purposes. WHAT? You say you use upper entrances during a nectar flow. An upper entrance is FAR MORE important in the winter than in the summer. You want to get rid of that DAMP air from exhaled bee breath during the winter. Cold does NOT kill bees, but DAMPNESS does. I don't like auger holes in my supers for two reasons: They making robbing too easy; and I always accidentally put my hand or wrist right over the auger hole and get stung. On April 15th, I install 5 medium depth supers of drawn comb on each colony arranged in the following way: queen excluder, Super #1, Imirie shim, Supers #2 & #3, Imirie shim, Supers #4 & #5, Upper Entrance cut in front edge of Inner Cover (that is open 365 days of the year). Indiana should have weather very similar to Maryland, except you have a lot more farming than I do. My TOTAL nectar flow is OVER by June 15th, and ALL of my honey is made quickly, from April 15th to May 31st (sometimes extending to June 15th). I hope that I have helped. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 20:03:59 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107150007.f6F077803191@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Peter Dillon wrote: > But then I ask myself - why all the comment? > If it is related to V.j. control, if so and then presuming that it is > possible to regress the corporal size of the A.m.m. over a few > generations - why stop at cell size 4.7mm? > Why not continue below, gradually reducing the cell size, 4.6, 4.5mm and > observe the effects on V.j. reproduction. Peter - The first size tested in the field was 5.0 - 5.1mm cell size with near 900 colonies. Hives lived with varroa, but production dropped to practically zero on all hive products. In 1997, the remaining hives (400) were all put on 4.9mm foundation. Initially the hive count dropped to 250 and then later to 104 in 1998. The Lusby's now have 700+ colonies and have just extracted their 35th barrel with all expectations to get at least another 35 by fall. I would assume if the bees can deal with the varroa mite by themselves being on 4.9, then the question is why go even smaller? If you go too small you will start having trouble extracting the honey from the cells. I should point out that these are (will be) 70 barrels of honey from hives that have seen no chemicals or drugs of any kind in them. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:31:10 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bob H wrote (inter alia): >I agree with Barry that Dee & Ed Lusby's project of the last ten years needs >to be documented for all to see. Has Dee kept records of the whole project? >I for one would love to look at her methods. I believe one of the bee mags >(possibly Bee Culture) would run a series of articles about the things she >did and the results she got over the last ten years. *If* the articles made >*no claims* and stated the things the Lusbys did and the results they saw >then they *might* get by without censorship. The bee magazines always check >theories expressed as fact with researchers before publishing. As a scientist I naturally endorse the desirability of scientific varroa research. I am distressed at the lack of it, in most if not all parts of the overdeveloped world where it could be easily afforded. But at the same time, I am also sure that practical research not meeting the full requirements of academic journals can be very useful. It would hardly be surprising if a beekeeper not trained in any discipline of science had nevertheless some success in exploring varroa control methods. I tentatively think this is what has happened with the '4.9 cell' hypothesis. May I remind Yanks that their mighty plant-breeder Luther Burbank was widely mocked & ignored because he didn't work to exact standards of record-keeping; but many of his achievements are still with us, and most welcome. I find it almost embarrassing to spell out the following vague sketch, because it is so obvious. Unfortunately the idiotic 'market forces' chants of the past 15y tend to prevent the needed official planning and actions. Planning within democracy has become disreputable, as if corporate profits will be sufficient motive to bring about the needed public-service science and wider encouragement of experimentation & reporting. What is needed is BOTH reinforced public-service science - not only Save The Tucson Lab but also strengthen it, and found new labs elsewhere - AND a new order of communication & cooperation between the scientists and the less formal workers such as Lusbys, AND more 'extension' workers employed to facilitate that cooperation and the conveying of its results between beekeepers and others affected. To fail to invest sufficient public resources in these activities is wilfully short-sighted - not just pathetic but criminal. As a scientific sidelight, I wonder whether anyone has examined the 'smaller brood cells' theory with respect to the issue of Darwinism v. Lamarckism as a theory of evolution. Lamarck was not entirely wrong; I cannot understand those who take the fashionable extreme position that his model of evolution isn't part of the picture. R ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 17:01:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman wrote: > As bodysize increases the surface are(a) to volume ratio of the individual bee > decreases causing less heat loss, but the other side of this is that smaller > cells allow a closer packing density allowing a higher number of bodies > generating heat, by metabolism, in a given volume. There should be an > equilibrium between these two sets of circumstances , but I do not know > where it lies. Thanks, Dave. I think you will get a larger cluster with the larger bee and larger clusters are one of the factors in successful over wintering. So for the same number of bees, the larger bee would be more successful both from body size and cluster size along with more body mass to metabolize into heat. Beekeeping, like politics, is local. What works fine in one area may not in another because of local conditions. We keep talking 4.9, but it seems that size is more associated with the tropics and warmer climates than the 5.0+ of temperate and cold climate bees. And in each case, the size is not in concrete, but is a range of sizes. Why, I do not know, but my guess is local conditions. The question boils down to the number 4.9. Does it have the qualities ascribed to it in controlling varroa? My guess is that it does not but small cell size, anywhere from 4.9 to 5.1, depending on where you are, might make for a healthier bee. It seemed to with my bees. Those computer studies keep coming back to me. How the randomness of the bee's behavior lead to the optimum brood pattern. If left to themselves, eventually the bees will hit on the right cell size to give them the best survival opportunities in their area. If 4.9 is not magical, then we may be artificially swinging the pendulum a bit too far in the opposite direction, passing the optimum size for our location and creating over wintering and possibly other problems. As an aside, this has been one of the most civilized discussions of a volatile topic that I have seen on the BeeL. A pleasure to follow. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:50:21 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bill > I think you will get a larger cluster with the larger bee and larger > clusters are one of the factors in successful over wintering. What you say is perfectly true for a given size of bee. We are however comparing bees of different size and comb with a different cellsize. For a given diameter of cluster there are more of the smaller cells in that volume and thus more wintering bees. The larger number of small bees has an easier time regulating temperature as there are more of them compared to the cluster surface area than with the larger bee. The denser packing of the smaller bee conserves heat better as well. The individual small bee thus has it's metabolic "engine" running at a more comfortable pace than that of the big bee with consequently longer individual life and lower consumption of winter stores. The variability in cellsize and beesize within a particular ethnic group is no more than natural variation, My Dad is 10 stone and dapper, I am 16 stone and fat, the norm for human males is somewhere between those figures, plot enough individuals and you will get a bell shaped distribution curve that will nail all the figures down. The figure 4.9 is not in any way magical or indeed fundemental. It is merely a convenient value in the "small" range. I did some purely abstract mathematical calculations and arrived at a figure of 4.86. I did some other calculations based on figures from books and I came up with 4.947 (for my bees and my area) so 4.9 is near enough for me. > If left to themselves, > eventually the bees will hit on the right cell size to give them the > best survival opportunities in their area. Managed hives are always interferred with in some way, by the management and a beehive is not a good environment for an unmanaged colony so I doubt that they would get the chance. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 09:35:13 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mike Allsopp Organization: ARC PLANT PROTECTION Subject: South Africa issues MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear All What with all the messages about South African bees and pests, I thought I had best comment, and in some cases set the record straight. I am not, in this message, supporting the conclusions with published references or data, but they available (in most cases): (1) The development time for both Cape bees (capensis) and African bees (scutellata) is just about 19 days. I guess it is not known as to why this is shorter than in European bees, but it probably relates to differences in larval feeding. The critical component is that the post-capping period in these bees (when varroa can reproduce) is much shorter than in European bees, about 10.5 days. (2) Researchers in Europe have been looking at the short post- capping period of capensis as a possible means for varroa tolerance for almost two decades (and are still working on it). It certainly reduces the capacity of varroa to reproduce in worker brood, but does not eliminate it. (3) The varroa mite is clearly causing real problems to both capensis and scutellata in South Africa. How severe these are is hard to say, but severe enough for many beekeepers to use varroacides on all their colonies (the wallet test). As varroa has only been in SA since about 1995/6, it is only now reaching some parts of the country. Hence, in many areas the wild population remains varroa-free and, if varroa is present, it is too soon for it to be causing a problem. In areas of the country (both capensis and scutellata) where varroa has been with us for 4-5 years, we are seeing varroa causing colony mortality. (4) One of the projects of our Varroa Research Programme has been to continually remove drone brood from colonies, and to monitor mite reproduction in these drone-brood-free colonies. The mite population continued to increase, albeit slowly, and the colonies collapsed. Conclusion: varroa reproduces okay in Cape worker brood. (5) There is lots of data to show that the natural cell size in "fresh" capensis and scutellata colonies (wild colonies) is pretty constant around 4.85-4.90 mm. Cell size and the bees get smaller in older combs. (6) The Large Hive Beetle is a very minor problem in SA. Occasionally, however, they are very destructive, and you can find 20-100 of them in a colony. The bees have no defence against large numbers of beetles, and the beetles destroy the colonies. The bees defence seems to be primarily behavioural: they limit beetle accessw to the colony by building very think propolis shields, with holes big enough for bees but not beetles. It should be noted that these beetles are incidental pests of bee hives, and not obligate pests like small hive beetles. I guess that, as in the case of small hive beetles, it would be wise not to get large hive beetles to the USA. (7) At present (in Cape bees) we are not finding any good evidence of (traditional) "hygienic" behaviour having any influence on tolerance to the varroa mite. I hope that clarifies certain issues. best regards Mike Allsopp Stellenbosch ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 09:19:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Barry and Everyone, Considerable debate on the cell size issue again. Interesting discussion but we must not forget that the real issue is what Barry wrote: "Now the more important issue is getting on with finding out why bees of this size are able to coexist with varroa and do it all over the country." We have stocks in the USA that have been documented to be resistant ( at least partly ) to varroa. Both the Russian stocks and now the Harbo SMR stock. The Russian stock was released and is being bred for increased varroa resistance without understanding the mechanism involved in varroa resistance but both the researchers and beekeepers who have tested the stock report much increased varroa resistance in these bees. The Harbo stock has also been released to the beekeeping industry and has well documented varroa resistance. In this case the mechanism of resistance is very well documented and we are even given detailed information on how to look for this trait in our own honey bees. Both these stocks have varroa resistance on normal sized combs built from commercial foundation. Other breeders also report increased varroa resistance after as few as four or five years of selection. The most recent one documented in ABJ is the Szabo article in the June 2001 issue regarding their selection program showing evidence of possible ( they don't at this point claim varroa resistance ) varroa resistance last summer after four years of selection. Again, they don't know the mechanism involved in this resistance but do document that it is there. They are using normal commercial foundation as far as I can tell from the article. If we have both the stocks available commercially that researchers have shown to be resistant to varroa and the reports from several other selection programs that report bees that are resistant to varroa on normal sized commercial foundation why are we getting hung up on cell size? It appears that we have stocks available and methods of selection that have been shown to result in varroa resistant honey bees when used for four or five years without going to the time and expense to change over the combs we are using. Apis cerana is considerable smaller than Apis mellifera and varroa continues to infest cerana and is able to reproduce in cerana combs so why do we think it will not be able to reproduce in combs with cells that are still somewhat larger than cerana cells? I also find it a considerable stretch to assume that all feral bees have been changed by beekeepers use of commercial foundation. The number of feral colonies in Europe and in North America far exceeds the number of kept colonies even now after varroa. With the considerable numbers advantage the wild colonies should be exerting more influence on our kept colonies that the kept colonies are on the feral ones. Just a matter of dilution. All the reports indicate that there is not really a major shortage of feral colonies anymore. The return of the feral colonies in fact gives hope that varroa resistance is close at hand and increasing in the drone pool near all of us. Lets get on to the real work as Barry points out of selecting bees that are resistant to varroa so we all get on with beekeeping instead of varroa population management. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:13:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Blane & All, > Apis cerana is considerable smaller than Apis mellifera and varroa continues >to infest cerana and is able to reproduce in cerana combs so why do we >think it will not be able to reproduce in combs with cells that are still >somewhat larger than cerana cells? The parasite / host relationship between cerana and mellifera is not the same. Varroa has NEVER been found to reproduce in cerana worker cells anyplace in the world. At least that was true when the Varroa Handbook was written. Varroa is at a big disadvantage with cerana and natural mite reduction takes place when periods without drone raising takes place. Because cerana and mellifera are very similar bees but are different enough they can not cross why does not varroa reproduce in the small cerana cells. Is small cell the answer or other unknown factors. When I first read the above I wondered to myself if small cell size *might* be a IPM control method. Researchers suspect something different in the Juvenile growth hormone of cerana BUT the question remains unanswered. I still believe if research funds are available small cell size should be looked at along with finding out exactly why varroa can not reproduce in the small cell size of cerana. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. Open mating could reduce the effectiveness of both the Russian and the SMR lines. Glenn Apiaries is at least reporting varroa resistance in the first round of open mated stock. It will take several years to get the true picture. Although I am experimenting with the SMR stock I will have to wait a couple years to say "we have got the answer to our varroa problems!" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 11:00:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation -cerana and varroa Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --snip-- Beekeeping books list cerana drone cell size at 4.7mm and worker cells at 4.3mm. According to "The Varroa Handbook" varroa has never been able to reproduce in cerana worker brood. Thats' really the key to why cerana and varroa coexist. If you are seeing varroa reproduce in Scut worker cells of 4.3 mm then cell size is NOT the answer with cerana and the reason varroa doesn't reproduce in cerana worker cells is another reason besides simply cell size. --snip-- In Apis cerana varroa is found nearly only on drone brood (here too varroa likes our drones more than our workers). The cerana workers pierce the drone brood caps with a small hole, and I believe that I have understood correctly that they use this hole to detect severe varroa infestation (including perhaps other problems) and clear the drone and varroa out when the varroa levels get too high. The question is why is varroa only on the drone brood? Because their cells are larger? Probably not only, but because they have a longer development period. So cell size may be incidental to varroa levels. Has anyone noted a correlation between cell size and worker development time? Do small cells not only make smaller workers, but make them faster - too fast for varroa buildup? Maybe that's what leads to the reports of reduction in varroa in colonies with small cell sizes. I'm sure someone with more experience than I can answer that question. The other Asian cavity-nesting bee that I know of that has coevolved with varroa is Apis nigrocincta - it too pierces holes in its drone caps. Whether it evolved that trait in parallel to cerana or that one species has evolved from the other and inherited the trait I do not know. Martin wannabe (soontobe?) beekeeper ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 09:49:45 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Feral Colonies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Blaine stated: "The number of feral colonies in Europe and in North America far exceeds the number of kept colonies even now after varroa". I'd like to see the citation for this statement. I might agree with it in some of the desert areas of Arizona where beekeepers don't keep many colonies. And maybe it holds for hardwood forested areas. But overall, there are a lot of managed colonies in the U.S. In Montana, we occassionally see feral colonies in trees along rivers and streams, in buildings, etc. But we don't have lots of houses and we don't have lots of trees, other than the pine/fir/spruce forest areas where we don't have many honey bees (managed or feral). But out on the prairies and in our agricultural areas, you will find a yard of 50-100 colonies every 2-3 miles. There aren't many places for feral colonies in much of the state. We may be an exception - but my quess is that the managed bee colonies in many of the western states far outnumber the feral ones (e.g. eastern Washington, Idaho, MT, Wyoming, the Dakotas. Maybe Dewey or someone from Maryland or other eastern states could comment. Having spent considerable time in the last 6 years in MD, there are lots of hobbiest beekeepers with bees in just about every setting that you can imagine. I've also gone through the woods, etc. Again, I see occassional feral colonies, and the beekeepers find them. But I don't think I remember anyone saying that there were more feral colonies in any area than managed. However, I didn't do a survey, and there are lots of woods in MD, so maybe a colony here and there does outnumber the managed colonies. Bottom line, can anyone point to studies that address this comment? Cheers Jerry Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 12:21:52 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, Is russian and harbo stock able to survive mite infestation without any chemical treatment whatsoever? Add to that what happens when these stocks outcross and the gene pool dilutes? Clay- Will these bees hold up to their claims??? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 12:45:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --snip-- Beekeeping, like politics, is local. What works fine in one area may not in another because of local conditions. We keep talking 4.9, but it seems that size is more associated with the tropics and warmer climates than the 5.0+ of temperate and cold climate bees. And in each case, the size is not in concrete, but is a range of sizes. Why, I do not know, but my guess is local conditions. --snip For my MSc research I looked at size and shape variation among many colonies of honey bees across south-east Asia. Size was more variable within species and within races than between species and was strongly correlated with altitude. The general biological rule is that (warm-blooded) organisms in cooler areas are stouter, in warmer areas lankier (basically less surface area to mass vs. more surface area to mass). To make a bee stout you have to make it bigger. Since the effect of altitude and latitude on climate are similar, you will find a range of bee sizes wherever you find a change of climate, no matter what race of bee, no matter whether in tropics or temperate zone. The interesting part is that a bee, a cold-blooded creature, follows a rule derived and applicable really only to warm-blooded organisms. I guess it is because they regulate their hive temperature for some of the same reasons warm-blooded animals regulate their body temperatures. From this I would im! agine that to change the size of a bee's body by manipulating its cell size would have rather profound effects on its behaviour. Too large bees would need fewer to keep the hive warm, and too small would need more. I would think that very small bees (such as those forced onto 4.9 comb size or smaller) would have difficulty for this reason in colder climates. How quickly do bees, once they are allowed to freely build comb the size "they want", go to a size that is optimal given their climate? The genetic differentiation among races suggests that they have not mixed much during their evolution and have evolved to suit their local climactic conditions. If that is the case, their response to climate may not be as complete as it should be: if you take an Italian bee from the sunny Mediterranean and stick it into central Manitoba, without manipulating its cell size by giving it pre-formed foundation, will it ever make comb the size it should given its current climate rather than the one it evolved to live in? It depends on how much genetic product is open to modification by environmental pressure. Has anyone done a study that looks at the same race of bee, kept in many different climates and not forced to build a certain size comb? It would be interesting to know if they make a range of comb sizes that matches that of native bees! covering the same climactic latitude, or if they are constrained given their evolutionary history to making comb only in a limited range of sizes. In that case maybe to survive in non-native climates they need to be forced onto large combs, or small combs, whatever the case may be. If they have the capacity to completely respond to climate by choosing the right cell size then maybe we ought to just leave them alone - they will make the cell they need. Of corse then someone imported varroa and made the whole thing more difficult... Anyways, I am not yet a practicing beekeeper so maybe I am saying things everyone already knows...I did a quick web search and didn't find what I thought I had seen somewhere before - a map of "ideal" cell cizes for Canadian climate regions. Does anyone know of this? Martin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 11:54:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107161428.f6GESo815210@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Lets get on to the real work as Barry points out of selecting bees that are > resistant to varroa so we all get on with beekeeping instead of varroa > population management. Hello Blaine - This isn't exactly what I said or meant. What I said was, "Now the more important issue is getting on with finding out why bees of this size are able to coexist with varroa...." I'm not talking about breeding here, although breeding is one element of the whole. Personally, I don't believe breeding alone will ever fix the problem or be a long term solution. Allen voiced his concern over our use of products, "Products generate cash and advertising and 'sizzle'. Free techniques that require no products do not have the same flash or hype." I would suggest the same is true when it comes to bees and breeding. The 'crutch' that is now being suggested as the 'answer' is GM bees. "Buy this breed of bee and your varroa problems end." How is this any different than a product? It's still something that will generate a lot of cash for someone, and you will most definitely see advertising and sizzle. You won't see any of this surrounding the idea of working with local stock and letting the bees figure out what works best for them. This is what the Lusby's advocate, along with cell size and diet. > If we have both the stocks available commercially that researchers have shown > to be resistant to varroa and the reports from several other selection > programs that report bees that are resistant to varroa on normal sized > commercial foundation why are we getting hung up on cell size? What exactly does resistant mean? The key question is, is it resistant enough that no treatments of any kind are needed to keep the bees alive? > Apis cerana is considerable smaller than Apis mellifera and varroa continues > to infest cerana and is able to reproduce in cerana combs so why do we think > it will not be able to reproduce in combs with cells that are still somewhat > larger than cerana cells? Good question. Research is needed. All we can say is that there are 'bees' using 4.9 cell size that are co-existing with the mite. > The number of feral > colonies in Europe and in North America far exceeds the number of kept > colonies even now after varroa. Where is this documented? > With the considerable numbers advantage the > wild colonies should be exerting more influence on our kept colonies that the > kept colonies are on the feral ones. Just a matter of dilution. One would think so if this is really the case. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 12:18:25 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107161652.f6GGqU824593@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Martin said: For my MSc research I looked at size and shape variation among many colonies of honey bees across south-east Asia. Size was more variable within species and within races than between species and was strongly correlated with altitude. And: How quickly do bees, once they are allowed to freely build comb the size "they want", go to a size that is optimal given their climate? Has anyone done a study that looks at the same race of bee, kept in many different climates In the early 80s, we found that bees kept by beekeepers throughout the Puget Sound area of Washington differed widely in size among colonies. How much of that size variation was because of the comb used, natural variation, altitude or climate, etc. is unknown. But, we did see marked differences AND at that time, the bees should have all been European in origin - no AHB. Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 13:17:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, >Personally, I don't believe breeding alone will ever fix the problem or be a >long term solution. Most researchers I have talked to believe this feat can be accomplished. Their best quess to me was 20 years. So we still have got at least 10 more years of work left. > What exactly does resistant mean? The key question is, is it resistant > enough that no treatments of any kind are needed to keep the bees alive? Bees simply *alive* is not good enough. 35 barrels of honey from 700 hives is only about 31 pounds per hive (or about one plugged shallow super). > > The number of feral colonies in Europe and in North America far exceeds the number of kept colonies even now after varroa. This simply is not correct for north America. Our researchers say 85 to 90% of feral colonies are gone in the U.S. from mites and other beekeeping problems. Certainly the feral colonies do not * FAR EXCEED*. kept colonies! Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 20:17:11 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all I'm losing track of who said what but I think Blane first said:- > > Lets get on to the real work as Barry points out of selecting bees that are > > resistant to varroa so we all get on with beekeeping instead of varroa > > population management. I think that part of beekeeping, for the rest of it's existance, will be maintaining a balance between the honey bee and the varroa mite. Varroa will never be eradicated but we should find an equilibrium whereby varroa and the bees coexist without damaging each other and without chemical intervention. It is also the mite's best long term survival strategy. Barry is concerned that breeders may "engineer" a breed of bee to tolerate varroa I sympathise with his views... It is not a recipe where we take a bit of that and add some of this, then sprinkle something else in. (that "synthesis" may indeed work but it is only an extension of chemical treatment and would be short term). The (to my simple mind) way to achieve a long term solution, is to get the bees to do it for themselves, with the breeders providing the starting point strains so that the "right" or "useful" genes are fed into the melting pot. The melting pot needs to be big to get sufficient diffusion of genes for selection to take place. There is a school of thought that says withdraw all treatments, allow the bees to die that cannot survive and re-build from the survivors. The Lusbys are working this way and they are now pulling out of the downward spiral and reversing the trend. They use a particular strain of bee that seems unique to their geographic region. I have looked at the bee population of the UK, which is dramatically hybridised, and I think there would be so few survivors, if we adopted that strategy, that it would take about a century to re-build UK beekeeping back to it's current level. That is why I say that breeders have got to produce many strains that all "look promising" so that the selection process can go on in parallel with a drug assisted honey industry that relies less on drugs year by year as more of the selected strains become "operational" from the "melting pot". Some might criticise this by saying "if you withdraw all treatments" you will end up with the largest melting pot that is possible. However for a "melting pot" to work all the survivor strains need to be in breeding contact. In the UK you would have minor groupings in different and disparate locations and micro climates, that would never be close enough to to do the intimate mixing that would be required. > > The number of feral > > colonies in Europe and in North America far exceeds the number of kept > > colonies even now after varroa. This is incorrect for my area of the UK, I have not seen a feral colony for about 5 years and I have been deliberately looking. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 15:29:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Barry, Now it is me that is not being clear. Researchers and some beekeepers have given us a method to use to select for varroa resistance. The publications by Erickson is one source as is the report on the ongoing effort by Szabo. Both describe a method to select bees from any population that are resistant to varroa without losing other valuable traits in the process. What the Lusby's have done in fact looks very much to me like a variation of this method but results in massive colony losses before the stock is actually resistant enough. They have give us hope that varroa resistance can be selected in a very short time frame. Other breeders have also claimed improvements in their varroa resistance efforts in similar time frames. My point here is that we have been given a method of selection that anyone can use to select for the traits whatever they are that allow bees to deal effectively with varroa. Not just a "produce" or queen that we all will have to buy but a method t! hat anyone can use. John Harbo's efforts have given us a line of bees that is resistant to varroa and has been shown (see the documentation on the Baton Rouge Bee lab website) to produce useful resistance in open mated daughter queens. Look at the reports the number of varroa mites actually decrease in the test colonies. This line is specifically being released as a way to bring this trait into other bee stocks by crossbreeding. John has also given us methods for selecting for this trait in any honey bee stock we choose. Again a method that can be used by anyone who wants to. In this case we know what the trait is (SMR) so we can base selection on presence of the trait instead of breeding from the colonies with the lowest mite counts. My opnion is that the cell size thing is a red herring the real work of Dee and Ed was selecting and breeding from survivor colonies until they got the traits for varroa resistance reasonably fixed in their bees. The evidence from the published research studies is that they would have gotten the same results without the smaller cell size since others have. Now the related issue of feral honey bee population. I did suspect that there would be comments on that issue too. First feral honey bee populations have not been studied very much either before nor after varroa so we really don't have good data to go on. Having said that there were published studies from north America in either AJB or BeeCulture before mites that there were at least 3 to 4 times as many feral colonies as there were managed colonies in the US. Don't have the reference here. Now what has happened since mites? First after a lag while the mites spread many colonies died. But many reports ( not usually actual research ) indicate a rebound in feral colonies. The reports to this list of the increase in swarms in Santa Barbara area, the reports from others of seeing honey bees again in areas without any kept bees, and in Europe the articles from Italy in AJB a few years back about the collection of swarms by a researcher that documented a steep decline of f! eral colonies but then a rebound of feral colonies seen in the form of increased honey bee swarms. There are also the reports of individuals that do honey bee removals from buildings that indicate that they continue to get enough feral colonies to support the removal business. All these together indicate that there in fact many feral colonies of honey bees in the wild and these colonies appear to be recovering from varroa mites. Again this gives us hope that selection for varroa resistance can be successful sooner rather than later. Now we are all working on this together and will continue to do so. Many are trying the cell size thing which is fine and others are trying other methods which is also fine. We share the goal of selecting honey bees that are resistant to varroa mites and other diseases and pests and will produce useful crops of honey and effectively pollinate our crops. Right now many of us small beekeepers can use IPM methods and keep colonies alive but with resistant stock added to the mix we stand ready to move beyond managing varroa back to managing honey bees. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 20:32:51 EDT 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: Feral Colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jerry, As you know, I have been keeping bees in Maryland for 69 years. Before mites, we used to have numerous feral colonies, but I have not seen more than 2-3 surviving feral colonies since the mites arrived a decade ago. Show me some, and I'll go get them! George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:14:12 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: [IBNewList] More forage because of varroa Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@egroups.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Hello Tom & All > > Would I be right in saying that with the advent of varroa, thereby causing > the destruction of the feral colonies and colonies in the hives of non > compliant beekeepers, that there should be an increase in the forage > available to the compliant beekeepers? > Has that been the experience in the UK and the USA? I have not seen bigger honey crops because of the lack of feral colonies. I was sure I would but really hasn't been the case in the Midwest (in my opinion). The size of our Midwest honey crops is directly connected to rain, temperature, sub soil moisture and at times humidity ( and of course the condition of the bees). We get a low production year, a couple of average years and then a bumper crop once about every four years (if we are lucky). The good beekeeper can always gage the crop by weather conditions in the Midwest. I am putting the last cleaning on the honey house today and hopefully will start bringing honey in tomorrow. Looks like a average to above average year for me but hard to tell until all nectar has been reduced to honey. Some of the yards are still bringing in nectar and for other yards our main flow is basically over. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:15:35 EDT 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: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Sewell repeats and coments on Dee Lusby's methods and there is one aspect which I would lie to pick up. Dee has reduced varroa and other pests/diseases in her bees so that they can be managed without chemicals. She puts this down to a third each of diet, breeding and cell size. However there is an important part of her method which might in itself be a powerful aid to separating bees from their problems. This is her repeated shake down method which (as I understand it) takes all the old brood comb and developing brood from the colony and forces the bees to start afresh.. Done at the right time this will leave the vast majority of mites behind and also the fungal spores and bacteria which can have such a debilitating effect on the well being of a colony of bees. No wonder her bees apparently bounce with health. I wonder whether somebody as a control could shake down equal colonies onto 4.9 foundation and onto standard size and compare how they do over a season or two. In the UK where we have weather rather than a climate the shake down method is probably not a suitable method but the US where I gather you have a better idea than we have what the weather will be doing from one day to the next would be a good place to do the test. Chris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:45:10 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Royal Jelly Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@egroups.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Can anybody recommend a book or other treatise on how to produce Royal Jelly efficiently? Sincerely Tom Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:37:21 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: More forage because of varroa Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@egroups.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Would I be right in saying that with the advent of varroa, thereby causing the destruction of the feral colonies and colonies in the hives of non compliant beekeepers, that there should be an increase in the forage available to the compliant beekeepers? Has that been the experience in the UK and the USA? Sincerely Tom Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 23:54:36 +0100 Reply-To: pdillon@club-internet.fr Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Dillon Organization: La Marne Subject: Attempt to focus on the main pressures in Beekeeping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This mail my be a complete loser; but it may be worth seeing what level of response is generated! Looking at all the mail this and other groups has generated over time - it's staggering. But are the comments the result of individuals raising their "pet" subjects and then creating more comment, or, due to a desire to express frustration or exultation with the direction the industry/ hobby is progressing? Maybe they are just brought into existence from the sheer pleasure of being able to communicate with others at whatever level and whenever! Whatever - it seems a possibility that from within the group's experience a set of topics could be formally identified as those which are the essence of 20th/21st. century beekeeping. What are they and why? Some would appear to be easy to identify, others may be lurking in the background, unspoken due to un-focused thought. If it was possible for the group (active and lurkers) to state what really concerned them and why, it may result in a better understanding of the community and enable more representative lobbying to be applied (% indications for each area of concern may be calculated for example). My reasoning behind all of this is that I feel that we are far too disparate and the so called representative associations do loose direction at times - with the inevitable response being a lessening in ability to guide and apply pressure when needed. I know what it is like to be in a position of responsibility, having held a position on the National Committee of the French Professional Beekeepers Union - a very strange thing for an "Anglais". There, on many occasions, it was a matter of reacting to circumstances and not creating the agenda. A great shame and a factor limiting potential development. (Please, don't get me wrong, my time with the "Admin." was a great experience and was only halted on my choice!). So, let your list come forth and show what are the different concerns for us as a group of so called representatives of the beekeeping "world". Regards Peter. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:30:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Blane & All, > John Harbo's efforts have given us a line of bees that is resistant to varroa >and has been shown (see the documentation on the Baton Rouge Bee lab >website) to produce useful resistance in open mated daughter queens. Look >at the reports the number of varroa mites actually decrease in the test >colonies. This line is specifically being released as a way to bring this trait >into other bee stocks by crossbreeding. I am not ready to celebrate yet. Dr. Kerr proved years ago any bees traits could be enhanced by breeding ( not open breeding). Basically Harbo has found bees with SMr and enhanced the SMR trait. Nothing new or earth shaking here. I can only see having to keep buying SMR breeder queens to keep the SMR trait in the bees. At least for quite a few years. Please enlighten me as to why this is not the case with the SMR *smart* queens ? Convince me and I will quit using a remote mating yard to keep the SMR line pure. >John has also given us methods for selecting for this trait in any honey bee >stock we choose. Again a method that can be used by anyone who wants >to. In this case we know what the trait is (SMR) so we can base selection >on presence of the trait instead of breeding from the colonies with the lowest >mite counts. How many of us are able to tell the difference between SMR and simply a hive with a low mite count such as you suggest Dee's are? Counting the number of varroa which reproduce and don't reproduce in a cell is a lot more complicated than just running rolls or sticky board tests. > My opnion is that the cell size thing is a red herring the real work of Dee >and Ed was selecting and breeding from survivor colonies until they got the >traits for varroa resistance reasonably fixed in their bees. The evidence from >the published research studies is that they would have gotten the same results >without the smaller cell size since others have. > I for one will still say cell size needs looked at. When the questions I put forth in the first debate and again in the second are answered by researchers then I will give up on small cells as a possible IPM for varroa. I have seen anything put forth in this second debate to change my mind. I have enjoyed the debate like Bill and am sure the subject will come up again. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:06:13 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mike Churchill Subject: Re: Show on honey In-Reply-To: <200107120238.f6C2ck810184@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 07:08 PM 7/11/01 -0700, you wrote: >For those who can access cable TV the Food Network has a program called >"Good Eats" this week that features Honey and is one of the best I have >seen on the subject. For those interested (like I am) this episode will again be broadcast on Saturday, 21 July 2001 at 9pm EDT. Look here for the details: http://foodtv.com/tvshows/tv-c3/0,2181,6243,00.html The recipes are interesting because they recommend specific varieties of honey (sourwood, orange blossom, et al) in the ingredient listings. Mike C Mike Churchill, Beginning Beekeeper | What's the buzz all about? mike.churchill@netmechanic.com http://www.netmechanic.com - Power Tools for Your Web Site Link and HTML testing, Server Reliability Testing, Website Promotion Tools ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:38:28 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <> Do you get AHB that far north? What's the climate like? From a safe distance (like several thousand miles) I'd imagined it would be too cold. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 10:53:47 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lucinda Sewell Subject: 4.9 yield MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Bees simply *alive* is not good enough. 35 barrels of honey from 700 hives >is only about 31 pounds per hive (or about one plugged shallow super). Bob Harrison Position? What would your hives pull in the desert? Or Dee and Eds on the clover? NOT CONTRADICTING, querying yields in very different places. John Sewell " In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities" Suzuki. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 10:48:38 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lucinda Sewell Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation/selective breeding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, The VERY GOOD departed beekeepers who very deliberately increased the cellsize surely used that as a breeding tool? Wasn't it a selection technique? No-one was concerned about 'bloated weak slow' bees a few years ago...honey yields were better. Couldn't the smaller cell be 'selecting' for those same traits others are breeding intensively for? And of course the million dollar question will be yield again. I will be very quiet and listen carefully if more learned posters discuss Lamark, my grapplings with Mendel have been postponed for awhile. Is it correct that genes, and hence traits are not destroyed...but merely in the background awaiting the correct pressures (cellsize???) to resurface? Surely then the environment can be a pressure, particularly the 'womb'size ? Barry Sergeant asked about my interest in breeding a gentle scut. In fact my opinion is the opposite, that in general the colonies I deal with in England seem pretty similar once enraged to the colonies I robbed in Zululand as a child and observed closely on the Highveld not far from Kyalami as a wannakeepbees adult. Some days are better than others, and if you're going to open the box, best dress protectively. John Sewell " In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities" Suzuki. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 01:03:06 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ellen Anglin Subject: Screened Bottom Boards for Top Bar hives? In-Reply-To: <200107170425.f6H4PV822830@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii All the discussion and positive feedback about screen bottom and open bottom hives has me wondering- Has anyone tried out a long bodied hive or Top bar hive with a screened bottom. I have on TBH that is as long as three Langstroth deep hive bodies placed side by side. Four one inch holes are placed at floor leven on each short end for enterances and ventilation. I jokingly call it my "Coffin Hive" I have kept it for about three or four years, and wintering has been OK, but always a struggle. Moisture inevitably collects on the floor, even if I tilt the hive so that it will run out the holes more quickly. I also have had to feed dry sugar on top of the bars (Around notches cut to allow acess.) When the bees reach the tops of the bars in January or February. (They don't move laterally when clustered in a TBH any better than than they do in a regular hive- in fact it may be even harder because the cluster cannot move over the tops of the combs, only around the sides and bottom of the combs. All this said, do you think they would winter better if I opened the bottom of the hive up, and put 8 mesh screen over it? These bees would be exposed to a lot more ventilation and cross drafts, because the hive is long, not tall, and the combs are just over the floor. What if I only cut out the floor under the part of the hive where the brood nest tends to be? I would still lose most of the Varroa that drop, assuming that the varroa are concentrated in the brood area, but the hive wouldn't be quite so drafty. My conditions: I live in Michigan, and the Top Bar hive is in Oakland County, near Pontiac. The field it is in is VERY windy, and gets bitterly cold in the wintertime. Most snow blows clear from around the hives in the winter, tho the top bar hive, being on a lower stand than my Langstroths, is often completely surrounded by snow right up to the enterances. (Last bar in the back is left off in the winter, providing a one wide ventilation slot under the lids overhang.) I have switched this year from Italians to New World Carniolans in the hopes that they will winter better. The Top Bar hive currently has my best Italian Queen that survived the winter from last year, but I placed a Carniolan Queen cell in the back, in the hopes of a quiet supercedure. I have had no luck in finding the queen on may last few visits, but there are fresh eggs, and the hive is working happily, although the brood nest is still smaller than I like. (That is why I gave them the queen cell in the first place- d! windling brood nest size, even when provided with empty comb in the brood area, they just filled it in with honey.) I suspect I have a young carniolan queen in there somewhere- but She hasn't been easy to spot! She will likely have mated with mostly Italian Drones, since they dominate in my area. It is too soon to tell if emerging brood is light or dark. Please let me know what you think! (On or off list!) Ellen Anglin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 00:26:54 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107170420.f6H4KL822620@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > However there is an important part of her method > which might in itself be a powerful aid to separating bees from their > problems. This is her repeated shake down method which (as I understand it) > takes all the old brood comb and developing brood from the colony and forces > the bees to start afresh.. Done at the right time this will leave the vast > majority of mites behind and also the fungal spores and bacteria which can > have such a debilitating effect on the well being of a colony of bees. No > wonder her bees apparently bounce with health. Hi Chris - Indeed, shakedowns do create a break in cycles and could be seen as a form of control. However, it seems a long shot to attribute this to the Lusby's continued success. After all, it's not a practice that is performed on any kind of regularity. Those hives that were shaken down on to 4.9 foundation are now 4 to 5 years old. AFAIK, these hives have never gone through this process since. Doing shakedowns are very handy when you are going through the regression process. When I went through this last year, the mite level kicked in early and I was afraid it would be too much for the bees as they were working hard pulling comb and raising brood. I made the decision to shake them down again which broke the varroa cycle and allowed them to 'work in peace' for the remainder of the season. Very useful procedure. Nothing I'd want to do on any regular basis though. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 08:49:15 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Joseph A. Clark" Subject: Entrance Width Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hello All, I recently put my colony on top of a screen bottom board, using 1/8" hardware cloth. I've also elevated the hive about 18" off the ground, using a stand based on a plan I received via direct e-mail from Jim Grefig in NY state. I've noticed that the cluster of bees fanning at the entrance is smaller than when I had the solid bottom board, so I would think it's due to better ventilation from below. I have the telescoping top cover propped open about 1/2" at the front, so that most of any rainwater drips down the back of the hive and not onto the landing board. Before replacing the bottom board, I had evidence of yellow jackets robbing the hive. The bees had just superceded the queen and I saw no evidence of new brood yet. I received a suggestion from our club's master beekeeper to reduce the hive entrance, so I cut a piece of quarter-round molding (used on baseboards to hide the junction of wall and floor) long enough to give the bees about a 3-1/2" opening. Since high temperatures during the day have been alternatively in the low 80's up to the mid- 90's here in the Tidewater region of Virginia (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Suffolk), would it be best for the bees to remove that quarter-round and give them a full width opening? The colony is quite strong, and I have had that corroborated by our local agricultural inspector from the state - she focuses on beehives, since she works directly for the state apiarist. Long winded account for a simple question, I realize. I felt some background information would help you formulate your answers. Thank you all, Joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:17:13 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 yield MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all There was a commercial beekeeper that lived in my area... He kept a lifetime of accurate records. From memory his yield figures were always between 40 lb and 45 lb per colony per year. But his figures were drived from total annual yield divided by the number of colonies entering the previous winter and that included all queen rearing and drone rearing colonies, of which there were 220-260 with an overall total number of colonies at about 1760. (which to my mind is the only honest way to do it) That may show you how difficult our conditions are. Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 09:19:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: > Bees simply *alive* is not good enough. 35 barrels of honey from 700 hives > is only about 31 pounds per hive (or about one plugged shallow super). To me, 35 barrels going for 60-70 barrels is amazingly good. Especially when you factor in the fact they started out this year with 300 - 400 hives, have drawn out 1000 deep supers of foundation, are only halfway through the season, all this in a desert terrain, chemical and drug free produced which is selling for 3 times the market price, conservatively. According to my math, they have nothing more to prove. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 11:39:03 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Shallow brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107171449.f6HEnU808505@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I started beekeeping this year in Eastern Ontario. I have three hives this year, and intend to keep ten next year. I'd like to grow the operation larger than that, but I feel I have a lot to learn first so I am taking it slowly, reading everything I can get my hands on, and making my mistakes with a small rather than a large number of colonies. :) On to my questions: The standard practice in this area, I believe, is to use two deep brood chambers. When packed full of honey in the fall this is thought to be almost certainly enough to get the colony through until spring. I have two questions about this for the list: I have back problems, and use shallow honey supers accommodate that. I can lift a shallow super full of honey without too much trouble, but a deep super gives me trouble. Right now the top brood chamber of my hives is primarily honey, and lifting it off to inspect the lower one is a real chore. I have been thinking about using three shallow suppers as brood chambers rather than two deeps. It would be easier on me, but I wonder if it would interfere with the brood pattern. Has anybody tried this? Related to that... That top brood chamber is exclusively honey in at least one of my hives. An old timer around here pointed out to me the other day that this honey is worth a lot more than the syrup it would take to replace it. If I were to extract it at the end of August, and then feed syrup via a top feeder to allow them to restock it, how long is it likely to take a strong colony to refill a deep super with honey in this way? Would the honey they pack away like this be in any way inferior for getting them through the winter? Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 10:18:51 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Maurice Cobo Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? Comments: cc: Frank@DWYERHILL.COM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Frank: I would NOT use 3 shallow supers, it would not be enough space, I use 3 medium supers for brood and it works just fine, it does not seem to make any difference to the queen. I have 32 hives this way. If you measure 2 deep supers, it's about the same as 3 medium supers. Enjoy, Maurice ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 13:38:10 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: Re: 4.9 yield MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, > Position? What would your hives pull in the desert? Or Dee and Eds on the > clover? NOT CONTRADICTING, querying yields in very different places. To add to that the Lusby's are using foundation at this time NOT drawn combs in supers. You have to figure in the exchange of honey for wax to draw out these supers. Clay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:33:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Debra Sharpe Subject: Help! Newbee In-Reply-To: <200107150400.f6F402808982@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have wanted to keep bees for many years and this spring installed my first package. After they had drawn comb on all 10 frames I put a full-sized hive body on top and moved one frame up leaving nine in the bottom hive body and nine on the top. I think I waited too long since they were very crowded and not real happy. I've read many books and found in the Hive and the Honey Bee recommendations about this - indicating you can move the fames around easier and not crush as many bees with less than 10 fames. I have also read burr comb and excess propolis may result if you don't keep bee space. I really like having the additional space since I feel like I crush bees trying to dislodge the tight frames. I realize where honey is being stored I can do this since these cells can be slightly longer than brood comb. What is current opinion on this? I also would like to know when I am checking my bees should I use the bee brush to move them from areas I want to look at, or when I replace supers so I do not crush them? They seem to get madder when I brush them than if I were to crush a few. About the new super, I have not placed drone comb in it because I expected they needed the additional super for brood and since I will not be taking any honey this year I figured it would not matter. Next year I guess I'll put shallow supers on as they need them with drone comb and a queen excluder so I can harvest some. I live in SE Alabama so I figure they will need a lot of honey to get through those warm winter days we sometimes have. I will also continue to feed as long as they take it. Is this a good approach? I've read so many books but I'm still confused on a lot of these issues. I have talked to local bee keepers but many are more into production than I am so they have different concerns. Help!!! Newbee in Alabama ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 07:40:41 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: 4.9 foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello John & All, > I have no idea of any history that may be behind this...I have read this list >for about a year only, and kept bees for only slightly longer, but it seems >really weird that so few actually try and see. People with similar interests have a way of meeting. The world of beekeeping is very small compared to many other subjects. My first interest in cell size came in the early 1980's. In researching old beekeeping books I discovered that the *natural cell size* of honey bees had been enlarged to try and create a larger bee. One of my favorite books of the period was "Beekeeping in the Midwest" by Dr. Elbert Jaycox. Jaycox spent quite a bit of time researching cell size and found that *old dark combs* did in FACT create smaller bees. Old dark combs in those days were valued by beekeepers because it was said bees did better. Dee used old dark combs to size down at first with success. Proving old dark combs DO produce smaller bees. Many *old timers* think our researchers wanting us to recycle comb every five years to be a waste of time and money and the bees simply to better on old comb. I am only saying what their opinion was (and in many cases still is). One day in the early 1980's I came to the conclusion the worlds foundation was the wrong size (5.4mm). It was not a popular view. My friends at Dadant were very patient with me when I approached Dadant in 1985 with my theory. They still had the old *900* molds but needed quite a volume order to fire up the molds. They did in fact fire up the molds several years later. By then I was going in a different direction so have never tried the *900* foundation I am sorry to say. Not being able to justify the volume on a guess I dropped the idea. Years later after reading Dee& Ed Lusby's articles in Bee Culture we made contact by direct email (with help from Barry Birkey). I quickly found Dee to know more about cell size than any person I had ever met. I was amazed at the amount of work her and Ed had done to reduce cell size in their operation. I was also amazed at the claims she made about her bees. She had just dropped to the 4.9mm cell size . > I'm not saying convert 2000 colonies as a > 'beleiver' (I'm the original doubting Thomas) but get the 'trained > professionals' down to Arizona to see...do a mite test, measure the nest > temperature, put down a commercial migratory pallet in the desert and > compare...or is repeating forage distance experiments with sonar and pcs > instead of numbered discs and column graphs REALLY more worthy? Research funds are in short supply in the U.S.. The large beekeeping assn. influence the direction the funds are spent. None are pushing for a check of the Lusby hives at this time. In Arizona the bee lab already had a commercial beekeeper it was working with on a project similar to the Lusby's (without cell size reduction). In my opinion the researchers which have looked at the Lusby's ideas have wrote the ideas off as too labor consuming to be of value to commercial beekeeping and have looked for answers elsewhere. Dee told me when she went to get her article printed in Bee Culture the mag had to let several noted researchers look the article over and edit the article. Dee was not pleased with the end result and wanted the article left as she had written it but went along. Dee & researchers do not agree exactly on her conclusions I have been told. I am only a beekeeper like Dee and we look at things from a beekeepers point of view. Researchers seem to disagree with much of cell size conclusions and seem unwilling to prove one way or the other. Cell size is hard to study and as many have said "size varies all through worker cells many times when talking about 1mm plus or minus. Hope I have put forth the Lusby's position correctly. If not please correct Barry. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Ps. Ed & Dee Lusby have said I could go to Arizona and look at their bees. I believe Barry Birkey has. Healthy bees without use of chemicals should be of interest to all beekeepers. Maybe I will find the time to go one of these days. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 11:30:10 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: My Retirement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BTW, for those who wonder about my retirement, we did cut down to 2,000 hives, a level I find to be a nice hobby operation, quit pollinating, and sold off some equipment. We'll sell a few more things, but I expect we may well stay this size for a few more years. allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ --- Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. -- Michel de Montaigne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:45:06 -0600 Reply-To: Dennis Murrell Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dennis Murrell Subject: Varroa blasting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Everyone, Tim Rich asked "I wonder what kind of hives that you use/have devised" My hives are standard deep supers with 10 langstroth frames in each. The = standard bottom board is screened with debris falling on the ground = below the hives which are setting on pallets. I run a variety of bees = with some on 4.9mm comb including Russian and Harbo breeders. Another observation might prove useful to those testing this method. It = appears the initial effectiveness of this treatment is enhanced if the = bees are treated early in the morning before much flight activity = occurs. Do more bees get the treatment? Maybe the varroa is more active = or the bees less active? I don't know. A good smoking of each box causing the bees to run after being dusting = may also have a positive initial effect.=20 A change in my work schedule resulted in working the bees earlier and = with alot of smoke. Initial mite fall was greatly increased over working = the bees in late afternoon with only an puff of smoke or two at the hive = entrance. Best Wishes Dennis Murrell ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 12:37:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Coleene E. Davidson" Subject: Re: Red-eyed drones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all, There was an article in the American Bee Journal a couple of years ago about red-eyed drones. In fact there was a picture of one on the cover. I'll try to find it and forward the date. It is a recessive gene that crops up now and then and not a problem. It is sort of like the fruit fly stuff done in college genetics. If I remember the article, there are manifestations other than red that crop up as well. Coleene ----- Original Message ----- From: grumpy7 To: Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 7:29 PM Subject: Red-eyed drones > Saw a couple of large red-eyed drones today in an Italian hive. They seemed > larger than normal drones, and besides the red eyes they had some > reddishness on their thoraces. Random mutations, or a sign of trouble? > > Walter Weller > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 11:07:27 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Shallow brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107161428.f6GESo815210@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I started beekeeping this year in Eastern Ontario. I have three hives this year, and intend to keep ten next year. I'd like to grow the operation larger than that, but I feel I have a lot to learn first so I am taking it slowly, reading everything I can get my hands on, and making my mistakes with a small rather than a large number of colonies. :) On to my questions: The standard practice in this area, I believe, is to use two deep brood chambers. When packed full of honey in the fall this is thought to be almost certainly enough to get the colony through until spring. I have two questions about this for the list: I have back problems, and use shallow honey supers accommodate that. I can lift a shallow super full of honey without too much trouble, but a deep super gives me trouble. Right now the top brood chamber of my hives is primarily honey, and lifting it off to inspect the lower one is a real chore. I have been thinking about using three shallow suppers as brood chambers rather than two deeps. It would be easier on me, but I wonder if it would interfere with the brood pattern. Has anybody tried this? Related to that... That top brood chamber is exclusively honey in at least one of my hives. An old timer around here pointed out to me the other day that this honey is worth a lot more than the syrup it would take to replace it. If I were to extract it at the end of August, and then feed syrup via a top feeder to allow them to restock it, how long is it likely to take a strong colony to refill a deep super with honey in this way? Would the honey they pack away like this be in any way inferior for getting them through the winter? Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 18:15:07 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: needs in beekeeping Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Our Fronglais thinker has challenged us. I reckon the responses will soon become a complex tangle so I'm getting in early. I predict there will be far more omissions than errors of commission in myy jottings on neglected needs in beekeeping. Please augment - after inserting > by CtrlR - this could be a useful framework for a while:- BEE PRODUCTS Marketing of propolis Marketing of pollen Royal jelly production Marketing of liquid honey as a wound dressing Further characterisation of different honeys as wound dressings Research with a view to expanding use of bee-stings against arthritis Raising prices paid to beekeepers (producers' coops, etc) ECOLOGY Monitoring of toxic loads in bees Abating of toxic fluxes to bees Coordination of research on pathogens Monitoring of bee DNA correlated with phenotypes Testing of various volatile organic chemicals for varroa control Continuing tests on efficacy & possible side-effects of chronic dosing with e.g. fluvalinate, coumaphos Integration, with global confabs, of breeding expertise incl. several spp. More interest in bumble bees EDUCATION & RESEARCH Teaching children about bees Beekeeping in schools Research-based 'extension' services expanded Research centres strengthened & multiplied, attached to tertiary institutions Better involvement of commercial & amateur beekeepers in research More TV programmes showing importance of bees More efficient use of infobahn for promulgating beeinfo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 09:16:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107161823.f6GINl828703@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: > Bees simply *alive* is not good enough. 35 barrels of honey from 700 hives > is only about 31 pounds per hive (or about one plugged shallow super). To me, 35 barrels going for 60-70 barrels is amazingly good. Especially when you factor in the fact they started out this year with 300 - 400 hives, have drawn out 1000 deep supers of foundation, are only halfway through the season, all this in a dessert terrain, chemical and drug free produced which is selling for 3 times the market price, conservatively. According to my math, they have nothing more to prove. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 09:57:52 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Who Reads BEE-L? (Periodic Post) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Last count 735 subscribers -- summer is our low season. For the sake of privacy and to prevent SPAMming of members, the list of BEE-L subscribers is kept confidential. Nonetheless, we know that for every person who posts to BEE-L, there are ten or more lurkers who maintain BEE-L subscriptions, and I assume, read at least some of the daily messages. Who subscribes to BEE-L? We are a ever-changing international group representing -- to some extent -- all the continents except Antarctica. Our number consistently includes well-known writers and authors, editors, scientists, extension people, educators, regulators, commercial beekeepers, and hobbyists -- as well as wanna-bees. Although most BEE-L posts are routine, the daily flow of messages on BEE-L is a strong indicator of current areas of interest and concern in the beekeeping fraternity and quickly reflects changes in industry thought and opinion. From time to time, BEE-L posts have had a large influence on opinion in the beekeeping world or been picked up by the press. The subjects under discussion vary widely and touch every aspect of beekeeping from the personal to the technical. Some topics only come up once and others are perennial. A quick glance at the time stamps on any sample of articles reveals a number of members with consistently nocturnal habits. Because beekeeping is as much art as science, and because there are few simple or universally accepted facts in beekeeping, our archive is our FAQ. The entire compendium of BEE-L posts for the past decade and more is readily accessible and easily searchable at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L/, and access there is simplified by a powerful search engine. Searching on any keyword will usually reveal a range of opinion from diverse regions and backgrounds that is far more useful and educational than a simple statement reflecting one person's idea of truth. However, for those who enjoy any one particular contributor's style, the archive search engine will return a listing of all the BEE-L posts by any member and then deliver any or all of the articles on demand. BEE-L is a completely free service in the original spirit and tradition of the internet. Everyone is welcome to post to BEE-L. Detailed information the culture of BEE-L and the rules of conduct are posted at the above-mentioned site and should be read by contributors before posting. Both regulars and newbees are invited to visit the web page and to spend some time there getting familiar with the search engine, browsing topics of interest and perhaps reviving an old thread via the web interface. The above web page is intended as a complete BEE-L toolkit, and therefore provides a link that permits members and prospective members to change their BEE-L subscription options. Subscriptions can be started, ended, suspended, or altered simply by filling in a form. There are a variety of possible ways to get delivery of BEE-L messages, ranging from real-time single message delivery to a daily HTML index to activity. Experimentation is recommended. allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:15:50 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Karen Oland Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107171550.f6HFoI810613@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Frank, If you have had any medications on your hives, you should not extract and use the honey from the boxes that have been medicated. For some medications, this is illegal -- for none is it advisable. This is especially true if you have used any of the organophosphates, such as coumophos. There will be residue in the wax of the brood chambers, which leaches out into the honey over time. And the cappings you obtained from the brood chamber would also be contaminated. -K -----Original Message----- From: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology [mailto:BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu]On Behalf Of Frank I. Reiter Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 11:39 AM To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Subject: Shallow brood chambers? ... That top brood chamber is exclusively honey in at least one of my hives. An old timer around here pointed out to me the other day that this honey is worth a lot more than the syrup it would take to replace it. If I were to extract it at the end of August, and then feed syrup via a top feeder to allow them to restock it, how long is it likely to take a strong colony to refill a deep super with honey in this way? Would the honey they pack away like this be in any way inferior for getting them through the winter? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 10:37:01 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Re: 4.9 foundation In-Reply-To: <200107170425.f6H4Pm822862@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:38 PM 7/16/2001 EDT, you wrote: I said, as regards Seattle area bees in the early 80s: we did see marked differences AND at that time, the bees should have all been European in origin - no AHB. Robert asks: Do you get AHB that far north? What's the climate like? >From a safe distance (like several thousand miles) I'd imagined it would be too cold. Response: There were no known AHB in the U.S. in the early 80s. So far, AHB has only been seen in southern CA on the West Coast. It is cool in Seattle, but the area does not have severe winters. Although there are many guesses, no one knows how far north AHB will push in the U.S. If we are lucky, it won't survive our northern climates - but AHB has been known to survive some cold areas (altitudinal) in South America. Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:12:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: No excessive quotes, please! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I received quite a bit of personal abuse via private email last week from a contributor who was miffed that his submission was rejected without comment due to excessive quotes of previously posted material. Please be reminded that BEE-L submissions containing excessive quotes of previously posted material are routinely discarded without comment. Excessive quotes of previously posted material clogs the archives and degrades archive searches. Aaron Morris - thinking BEE-L submissions containing excessive quotes of previously posted material are routinely discarded without comment. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 14:10:48 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: grumpy7 Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Frank Reiter asks: I have been thinking about > using three shallow suppers as brood chambers rather than two deeps. It > would be easier on me, but I wonder if it would interfere with the brood > pattern. Has anybody tried this? Yes, many people have been doing that for years very successfully. Here in Louisiana, I use only two mediums for the brood hive (don't need so much room for stores). Walter Weller ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:23:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: More forage because of varroa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Tom Barrett asks if, " ... there should be an increase in the forage available to the compliant beekeepers?" Not more forage, but definitely less competition for what's out there! It seems so to me based on recent harvests. I was talking to a long time beekeeper who estimates with the demise of feral colonies, an avergae yard in our area (upstate New York) can contain 30 hives, whereas he would only have put 20 colonies in the same yard BV (before varroa). Aaron Morris - thinking more is more! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 16:03:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Arheit Subject: Re: More forage because of varroa In-Reply-To: <200107170424.f6H4O2822774@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 11:37 PM 7/16/01 +0100, you wrote: >Hello All > >Would I be right in saying that with the advent of varroa, thereby causing >the destruction of the feral colonies and colonies in the hives of non >compliant beekeepers, that there should be an increase in the forage >available to the compliant beekeepers? > >Has that been the experience in the UK and the USA? > >Sincerely > >Tom Barrett In many places there is less forage due to development. I live near a relatively small town (30,000 pop) in Ohio and even here the amount of farmland lost in the last 10 years is noticeable, Go back 20 years and the difference is dramatic. Near larger cities in Ohio (Columbus, Cincinnati) the difference can be staggering, hundreds of acres being snatched up at a time for subdivisions and shopping centers. You still see the odd old farm house on the main roads between many of the developments. Even living several miles away from the town in a rural area, my forage will not remain untouched. The existing city reservoir is a mile away, and because of area growth they plan on adding a second one between it and my house (right across the street), potentially loosing 400 acres of farmland (soybeans) and wooded areas. Only upside is that it will likely increase the amount of clover available. Not a great amount, but they don't mow the reservoir too often. While there may be more forage due to loss of feral bees, It's hard to judge because too many other factors have changed i think. -Tim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 22:11:42 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Kilty Subject: Re: egg movement In-Reply-To: <200107081138.f68Bck806344@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <200107081138.f68Bck806344@listserv.albany.edu>, Luke Stuart writes > the only explanation I can think = >of >is the bees moved the egg over !!!!!!!!? Has anyone come across this = >before. Yes. The clearest was a split put over the hive and supers and over a horizontal division board. I found a cell built on the dummy board at the edge of the split (not enough frames to fill the box). This was obviously done after I made the split and was rather like a typical supersedure cell. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:11:19 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Viktor Sten Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Frank With a bad back you are not likely to want to aquire a lot of hives, so if I were you I would experiment with removing 3 or 4 frames before lifting the filled broodbox. This would not be a lot of extra work in a small operation. Viktor in the eastern tip of Ontario ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 16:53:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lance Gillette Subject: Re: Dragonflies A few days ago a dragonfly landed on a tree near me. It was so intent upon devouring one of my bees that it had just caught that it paid absolutely no attention to me. I was able to grab the bee by the wings but the dragonfly refused to let go. I picked it up and tugged on the bee but he still refused to give it up. Eventually I just let the dragonfly go as the bee was too far gone to rescue. Lance Gillette Fairbanks, Alaska ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:23:11 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dr pedro p rodriguez Subject: Re: More forage because of varroa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, theoretically, that should be the case. However, mites do influnce production rates. It will be interesting to compare production rates with impoved mite management techniques as I am sure to be developed within the very near future. Best regards. Dr. Rodriguez ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 16:31:23 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: More forage because of varroa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tim Arheit wrote: > While there may be more forage due to loss of feral bees, It's hard to > judge because too many other factors have changed i think. One other thing that has been noticed here in Maine is an increase in local pollinators, such as bumblebees and solitary bees. So nature is filling the vacuum. But commercial growers of apples and squash were looking for pollination services the past two years, when they never had before. So here it looks like the impact is on "mono-cultures", where the bloom overwhelms the available pollinators and not small gardens. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:05:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stephen Augustine Subject: Re: egg movement In-Reply-To: <200107172136.f6HLaN824576@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>is the bees moved the egg over !!!!!!!!? Has anyone come across this = >>before. Two days ago a fellow beekeeper found a capped queen cell in a super that was above a queen excluder and two full supers of honey (i.e., it was the 3rd super). There were no other eggs or larvae anywhere in that super or the two supers below it. The queen was still in the bottom deep. The hive was preparing to swarm but all the other queen cells were in the bottom two deeps. One is led to believe that a worker moved a single egg all the way up there unless a worker herself laid the egg. Stephen Augustine Bees By The Bay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:58:52 EDT 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: Shallow brood chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Frank, This is my 69th year of successful beekeeping, but I still have a strong back. I am a retired scientist, and I kept bees as a scientific study rather than for money in honey production. Twenty years ago, I became violently FRUSTRATED by having 4 different size hive bodies and 4 different size FRAMES in my apiary of 60 colonies, and I asked myself WHY? I was using deeps for brood chambers, and mediums (6 5/8") supers, shallows (5 11/16") supers, and comb section supers. I converted EVERYTHING to just one size body, the medium (6 5/8") so that I only have ONE SIZE FRAME and ONE SIZE FOUNDATION for everything (nothing to do with a bad back). I use 3 mediums (30 frames) for my brood chambers, and those 30 frames equal 101% of the area of 2 deep bodies with 20 frames. TOTALLY FORGETTING the weight difference of 90 pounds compared to 60 pounds, using 3 bodies for brood chambers instead of 2 deep bodies has many advantages particularly in REVERSING to help control swarming. Many of my "students" have adopted my thoughts and use ALL mediums, and are VERY HAPPY. I would not use all shallows, as some companies now consider shallows to be obsolete, and don't make them or foundation any more. I hope I have helped. George Imirie Certified Master Beekeeper Author of the monthly George's PINK PAGES about how to be a successful beekeeper. It can be found on the Internet under: www.cybertours.com/~midnitebee/ or www.beekeeper.org/george_imirie/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 14:56:14 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stephen Augustine Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107171909.f6HJ9k817448@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Frank, Here in the Puget Sound area of Washington state of the United States many of the folks in our association run three Westerns (medium supers not shallow supers) for their brood chamber. They have no problems with this approach and in fact all of them claim that it helps both their backs, ease of colony inspection, and with the standardisation of equipment. I would however concur with Karen Oland to exercise caution to not use any supers that were/are used for brood and which were medicated as honey supers. Stephen Augustine Bees By The Bay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 00:54:48 +0200 Reply-To: Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: SV: Entrance Width In-Reply-To: <200107171252.f6HCqj803260@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- > Fra: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology > [mailto:BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu]På vegne af Joseph A. Clark > Sendt: 17. juli 2001 14:49 > Til: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu > Emne: Entrance Width > > > Hello All, > > I recently put my colony on top of a screen bottom board, using 1/8" > hardware cloth. > I've also elevated the hive about 18" off the ground, using a stand based > on a plan I > received via direct e-mail from Jim Grefig in NY state. My hives is build of full Langstroth supers, both for brood chambers and for honey. It is ten frames Langstroth size. I have a mesh board on all year open to the ground. No hard board. My opening is full on the short side, (cold build) it is 8mm high and I sometimes use a 10mm * 10mm foam rubber to limit the entrance with or to close total up with when I am moving the bees. The hive is on top covered with a clear plastic sheet in summer. this sheet is in winter cut with slices so that damp can go through. If I cut slices in the summer they will be closed by propolis. This makes it obvious to me that the bees don't want this airflow in summer. They have plenty of circulation by the open mesh board. and the plastic sheet delays the bees in just going in the air so that I can slip some smoke gently into the family, by gently lifting the sheet of and follow up with smoke. It is always wise to limit the entrance if the family is week so as a nuck or a little swarm, and also when the last honey is removed, because it will limit robbery. With an open mesh board you can even close the hive total up without catastrophic result. when the family is strong then just give them full opening. Best regards Jorn Johanesson Multilingual software for beekeeping since 1997 hive note- queen breeding and handheld computer beekeeping software Updated 11-07-2001 Added grouping and colouring of hives + a lot more. all you need and a little more. being a little beekeeper or a big queen breeder free of charge up to 10 hives. Language added : Dutch, Pourtuguise, French with Ducth and Frensh help home page = HTTP://apimo.dk e-mail Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 20:25:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Sterrett Subject: Re: Newbee - Moving Bees on a Frame MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Debra Sharpe in Alabama wrote: >I also would like to know when I am checking my >bees should I use the bee brush to move them from areas I want to look at, >or when I replace supers so I do not crush them? They seem to get madder >when I brush them than if I were to crush a few. ****************** You are wearing a headnet, right? Try holding the frame in front of your face and blowing a stream of air at the area you want the bees to move from. Bees seem not to agitated by a breeze. Brushing bees must be an art because, although bee books mention it, my experience with a bee brush has been the same as yours. I do not use a bee brush. Try putting the last frame back into the hive body slowly to avoid crushing bees and try setting a super onto the hive slightly catty-corner and then slowly moving it, not sliding it, to its proper position, squared on the hive. Tim -- Tim Sterrett sterrett@fast.net (southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 13:00:15 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107172246.f6HMko827009@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Geo Imirie wrote: >I converted EVERYTHING to just one size body, the medium (6 5/8") so that I >only have ONE SIZE FRAME and ONE SIZE FOUNDATION for everything This was also the conclusion almost a decade ago of our leading beemasters, most respected in the Auckland club and authors of the best books I've seen on beekeeping. > (nothing to >do with a bad back). In general, though, it must be admitted that less lifting strain is an advantage of the "3/4" box. I believe "all 3/4" hives are now accepted around here as better than most and inferior to none. R ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 21:57:04 -0400 Reply-To: Peter John Keating Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter John Keating Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > I have back problems, and use shallow honey supers accommodate that. I can > lift a shallow super full of honey without too much trouble, but a deep > super gives me trouble. When Frank mentioned shallow supers, I immediately thought of the 2/3 box and not the 1/2 box as did Maurice. If you have back problems now, they will only get worse in beekeeping. The 2/3 or medium is okay for using as broods as well as honey supers. The disadvantages for commercial beekeepers are that the 2/3 costs almost the same price as a deep and that extraction takes a lot longer. I have a lot of 2/3 and they sure are easy to throw up on to the truck and no one complains about the weight. I also have some 1/2 supers for varietal honey, but they are a real pain for extracting, there's hardly any honey in them! Peter (Quebec) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 21:56:29 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Tiny Flies and Swarm Cluster MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was catching a swarm yesterday at mid-day while perched on a forklift, and, as I was about to shake and brush the tree limb to drop the bees into the boxes, I noticed some tiny insects -- that looked to me like whiteflies -- flying near, and it almost seemed into, the cluster of bees. I went and got my camera, but the tiny bugs do not show up in the picture. Does anyone know what I saw? allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary with pictures of the swarm catching --- If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer? -- Steven Wright ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 01:10:53 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Matthew W." Subject: Re: bees in wall - BeeVac link MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all! It's been awhile since I've had the chance to add to Bee-L. Plans somewhere on the net? Barry & I took alot of time to place the info on his website - so PLEASE visit it if you're looking for BeeVac info: (http://www.beesource.com/plans/beevac/index.htm). Douglas, you're "going the long way around the barn". Just rip open the hive(s) and brush/shake all the bees into your hive - comb by comb. Watch carefully for the queen before brushing. Of course a beevac keeps the bees from flying back but the idea is to get the queen and you can find her without a Beevac. Once you've removed the brood and the queen, cage the queen and leave it outside between frames of your new hive placed near the old entrance. End of old hive. Take the new one home(3+ miles away) as soon as the workers find their queen and finish robbing out the mess. Can't find the queen? Overnight the bees will likely cover the queen as if in a swarm since they can't tend to the comb you just removed. Return at dawn and shake/brush the 'swarm' into your box. Be warned the queen will easily scare into the farthest darkest place adjacent to where you were working once the comb is gone. Without a Beevac, 'most' bees torn into in this manner will sting everything in sight - just so you know. Your smoker will be your friend until you get the queen. For those that are complaining of varroasis and lack of spending cash, take a closer look at removing feral hives. An average hive nets me $200-$300 (+honey+wax+SAVE genetic favor with bees) and usually takes 1-3 hours. Think there aren't any in your area? Try calling a local exterminator. Feral bees ARE surviving mites (at least long enough to swarm) but how would you know unless you asked people that run into those ~rare calls? You'll need to build a Beevac but the plans are free and the design idea easily modified to suit your budget/opinion. E-mail me for other help with feral hives. I'll help if I have the time. Matthew Westall // Earthling Bees >8(())))- "Take me to your feeder" \\ Castle Rock, CO, USA > queenless. I rigged up a shop vacum and fed it into a box > for the bees.(there are directions for it on the net somewhere) Anyway it > worked reallyslick and we ended up with several good hives, lots of honey and > wax. We > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Douglas Gibbs > Subject: bees in wall > > A local farmer asked me to help him remove the bees between the inner and > outer walls of his barn. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:54:36 +0100 Reply-To: Dave Cushman Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: needs in beekeeping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Robert & all > Abating of toxic fluxes to bees I need an explanation here!... What is a toxic flux? (when I find that out it may tell me why abatement is approriate) Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 08:24:57 EDT 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: Newbee - Moving Bees on a Frame MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/17/01 8:28:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time, sterrett@FAST.NET writes: > Brushing bees must be an art because, although bee books mention it, my > experience with a bee brush has been the same as yours. I do not use a bee > brush. I brush bees off the frames to harvest as I never quite mastered the blower and can't stand the repellants. When you are doing this it is more to flick them off after an initial sharp shake. (bees don't like being rolled and tumbled) When I need to move bees out of the way with a brush it is more to crowd them out of the way slowly with the bristles because it is something that won't crush them ( like when the bees are just piled up on the edges of the super and you need to move them over) A puff of smoke sends then scurrying also. Here and there on a frame you are inspecting you can just blow on them and they move away. This enrages some of the meaner bees you were going to requeen anyway so don't be surprised if one hive becomes a dit defensive now and again. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:51:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Judy Bagnall Subject: Re: Bees in Wall MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: dan hendricks To: Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 1:10 PM Subject: Bees in Wall > Re: Swarm suction device using a shop vac: See > , "PSBA Forum". Dan > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail > http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 09:12:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: Tiny Flies and Swarm Cluster Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Allen wrote: snip --- I noticed some tiny insects -- that looked to me like whiteflies -- flying near, and it almost seemed into, the cluster of bees. I went and got my camera, but the tiny bugs do not show up in the picture. Does anyone know what I saw? snip --- Did you catch any? I always carry a small vial in my pocket to shove anything that looks out of the ordinary for later leisurely identification. The only thing that I can think of that would have an interest in your bees and look like a tiny whitefly is a Strepsipteran - a twisted-wing insect (not the best common name, to be sure). They are parasitic on bees (though usually on Andrenid, Halictid and other bees, not honeybees). If a bee is infected with this the abdomen looks distorted and you may see the butt end of a strepsipteran female sticking out between the abdominal plates. Only the males fly, and if what you saw was a cloud of males they were interested in those ends sticking out of your bees. There are also some tiny wasps that parasitize bees, but again only native bees and normally only the egg and larval stages. I doubt you would mistake them for whiteflies since they are usually a dark colour. Of course it could have just been a bunch of whiteflies or a swarm of midges that was disturbed by the honeybees. If you do find these strepsipterans on your bees it would be a record worth noting in the entomological literature. I only have the following references for anything to do with strepsipterans and bees: Bolchi, G., Locatelli, D.P., Colombo, M. & Spreafico, M. (1996): Presence of Strepsiptera larvae in Pollen collected by Apis mellifera L. (Strepsiptera - Hymenoptera: Apoidea). - In: XX International congress of Entomology, August 25-31: 57; Firenze, Italy. Bolchi, S.G., Locatelli, D.P., Colombo, M. & Spreafico, M. (1996): Strepsiptera larvae in pollen collected by Apis mellifera L. - Bollettino di Zoologia Agraria e di Bachicoltura 28 (2): 209-215. If it turns out your bees have strepsipterans there is in my mind absolutely no need for alarm. Both bees and many species of strepsipteran are native in Europe and if they have coexisted at all in any kind of relationship they have done so for a very long time. It is not like varroa moving to mellifera or any other non-native or non-coevolved parasite suddenly appearing. In fact, if they are that, it is a sign that it doesn't matter, and the bees are not negatively affected or else it would have been noted *much* sooner. That said, I still have to express doubt that they are strepsipterans, and if they are, that they are showing anything but misguided interest in your bees. Again if you could collect some of these whiteflies you may wish to have your local entomologist i.d. them. I work in conjunction with professional entomologists at the central experimental farm in Ottawa and could bring the samples to them if you have no one in your area. Collect them into 95% ethanol (not isopropanol) if you can get your hands on some ethanol of that strength. If not put them into isopropanol, and the strongest you can find. Look too at your bees. If their abdomens are not bulging then they are not parasitized. If they are bulging is there a smooth soft bug butt sticking out from between the plates? Collect them! and send them off for verification. All of this having been said I want to stress I DO NOT *KNOW* WHAT THESE THINGS ARE. I am making my best guess, going under the assumption that the whiteflies were actually *interested* in the bees. That is most likely not the case. The last thing I want to do is suggest that we might have a "new" bee pest....the co-occurrence of Allen's whiteflies and bees are in all probability a coincidence. Martin Damus ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 08:33:15 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Matthew W." Subject: Re: egg movement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Evidence of workers moving eggs? While raising queens last month I concluded workers moved several dozen eggs into nearby cells. I had been experimenting with MannLake's (BZ's) queen kit (similar to the old Jenter kit using plastic cell cups where the queen is kept hostage for laying in a plastic box). The next day I returned too late and found the queen had layed multiple eggs in most of the cells. To my surprise eggs were ALSO in newly drawn worker foundation just to the outside of the kit. If the queen was able to sqeeze outside of the plastic cassette, she certainly would not have sqeezed back into it; she definately didn't like being there to begin with. There was no second queen since I thoroughly inspected before the queen was caged - and more importantly - that same hive was used to finish raising a few cells ----successfully ---- after I had removed the 'lone' caged queen. What conclusion would you draw? Where did the -worker- eggs come from? Matthew Westall // Earthling Bees >8(())))- "Take me to your feeder" \\ Castle Rock, CO, USA Stephen Augustine wrote: > >>is the bees moved the egg over !!!!!!!!? Has anyone come across this = > >>before. > deeps. One is led to believe that a worker moved a single egg all the way > up there unless a worker herself laid the egg. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:32:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: Tiny Flies and Swarm Cluster Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Just to clarify - I was wrong. It is not the butt end of the strepsipteran female that you would see between the tergites, it is the head end. I don't think that you could distinguish the two anyways since it is still ensconced in its pupal case. Martin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:44:19 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Brad Young Subject: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? Hi all, I just read the thread on the shallow brood chambers and I know that many are now using the three medium (Illinios) brood chambers, but I saw the other day a rather peculiar site and wanted to see what the list's opinion is. I visited another bee yard and saw a 3 deep hive bodies for brood chambers. The peculiar part was they only had two medium supers on them, which were quite full and capped. I would assume that the top brood chamber was nearly completely full of honey also, although we didn't look. Has anyone else used three deep hive bodies for brood? Does it have any merit? Can a queen fill all three deep hive bodies before she would have had room back in the one that she started in? Assuming, probably wrongly, that she could and the hive would thus be that much bigger and, presumably, collect more nectar, I would hate to think of how tall the hive could grow with the needed supers on it. I guess you would have to extract in stages, but I am now a believer in George Imirie's advice about adding all supers at once. Any opinions or experience with this method of brood chambers? Thanks, Brad ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:39:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Thanks re Shallow brood chambers, and question re rotation In-Reply-To: <200107180258.f6I2w2804673@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to all who wrote me privately or publicly about the use of shallow brood chambers. Had I done the math I'd have realized myself that it would take 3 mediums, not three shallows to equal the space available in 2 deeps. Thanks also to the person who pointed out that honey produced while the hive was medicated is not good for human consumption. I knew that, but had not considered it in this context and might have made a mistake there. I will move away from the dual deep brood chamber configuration this coming spring. I am still thinking about a configuration net yet mentioned here: A deep and two shallows. This would suit my purposes just fine as I never lift the bottom chamber anyhow. Then I remembered reading about people rotating the brood chambers in the spring. Obviously if I have to rotate them then having a deep in the mix does achieve my goal of lightening the lifting. I couldn't remember why the rotation was done, so I looked up it up and found the following explanation in one of my books. It said that the queen likes to move up as she lays rather than down. By spring, the book says, the brood nest will be in the upper chamber, and reversing them allows further movement in an upwards direction, discouraging swarming. I'm not convinced that this is so, but it seems, from my perspective of little knowledge and less experience, to conflict with two other things I have learned. One is that I started these colonies from nucs, in single brood boxes. When I added the second they could have moved the nest up into it, but they stayed down below, and filled the top brood chamber with honey. Secondly, I have read that left to their own devices (IE in the wild) the bees will move the nest downwards starting at the top and filling in with honey behind the nest. My question for the list then is whether people do tend to rotate their brood boxes and why. Is brood box rotation practiced by some, many, or most beekeepers? (I've learned enough from this list to know that "None" and "All" are almost certainly not valid answers to the question!) Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 09:49:52 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Matthew W." Subject: Re: Help! Newbee - frame manipulation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Run your hives 10 deep on brood chambers. More brood = more bees = more honey. As you progress to a 'beekeeper' over a 'beehaver' your primary goal will be to 'encourage' bees to do what you want rather what bees do naturally (i.e. to give YOU honey over what bees store for themselves, and many things along the way). Bees sometime prefer to 'chimney' a hive where they lay only in a few frames up & down all the way up the hive. Exchanging/manipulation of frames will encourage your bees to fill out nearly every frame in a broodnest. The 'trick' to doing this is where you learn to be a good beekeeper or not - what to do, when to do it & what to give the bees (sugar syrup, pollen, drawn frames, brood frames, etc) to get the hive stimulated in YOUR direction. An analogy of brood-frame-exchanging practice might be how we give children a slightly bigger shoe than they actually fit. Too big and it falls off. Too small and it won't fit. Same with bees. Too much foundation at the wrong time and the bees do nothing, die off or abscond. Too little laying area and the hive stays small. The important (!!) 'guiding' frames are the location of the frames of honey & pollen (usually frames 1&2 on either side of a broodnest, respectfully). Bees always like to have those frames to the outside of the broodnest for quick access to feed their young. Whenever you open your hives for inspection, simply remove a frame from either end of the hive FIRST. This gives you room to spread apart the remaining nine frames and shouldn't roll bees upon their inspection. When you're through, squeeze back together the 9 frames and re-insert the missing frame. As for congestion, you should experiment with moving drawn foundation into frame-spot #3 & #8 (on a full broodnest). Draw your foundation out above the broodnest and move it down below as soon as it's drawn or 1/4 full (or less) of honey. The queen will go right to work laying the entire frame if there's still nectar coming in (natural or feed). If the hive is congested, move capped brood up into the next broodnest or even above the queen excluder - but central to the hive to keep larvae from becoming chilled. I realize this is more info than you asked but the info should help you become a good beekeeper - giving your bees what they need on a 10(!)-frame broodnest. Also - a GREAT book to buy is "The Beekeeper's Handbook" by Diane Summataro. It's full of explanations and drawings. Very easy to get the hang of beekeeping with her book. Regards, Matthew Westall // Earthling Bees >8(())))- "Take me to your feeder" \\ Castle Rock, CO, USA Debra Sharpe wrote: > I have wanted to keep bees for many years and this spring installed my first > package. After they had drawn comb on all 10 frames I put a full-sized hive > body on top and moved one frame up leaving nine in the bottom hive body and > nine on the top. I think I waited too long since they were very crowded > recommendations about this - indicating you can move the fames around easier > and not crush as many bees with less than 10 fames. I've read so many books > but I'm still confused on a lot of these issues. I have talked to local bee > keepers but many are more into production than I am so they have different > concerns. > Help!!! > Newbee in Alabama -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 12:48:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Karen Oland Subject: Re: Thanks re Shallow brood chambers, and question re rotation In-Reply-To: <200107181634.f6IGYv828731@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The bees move the brood nest down in the boxes through the summer, which is what you saw the first year. They fill the top with honey/pollen, then move gradually up during the late winter, very early spring. When they get crowded in the top box, they will tend more toward swarming, despite having room below. Also, they can starve in a long, cold winter, such as we just had in the states, when they reach the top, can't move sideways due to cold and can't reach additional stores. Rotating allows you to move the stores from sides of bottom to middle (or over brood nest) at the top when you rotate, without disturbing cluster at all (just move that box to the bottom). If you don't think the queen moves upward in spring, just put your honey supers on without a queen excluder. -Karen Oland -----Original Message----- From: Frank I. Reiter I couldn't remember why the rotation was done, so I looked up it up and found the following explanation in one of my books. It said that the queen likes to move up as she lays rather than down. By spring, the book says, the brood nest will be in the upper chamber, and reversing them allows further movement in an upwards direction, discouraging swarming. I'm not convinced that this is so, but it seems, from my perspective of little knowledge and less experience, to conflict with two other things I have learned. One is that I started these colonies from nucs, in single brood boxes. When I added the second they could have moved the nest up into it, but they stayed down below, and filled the top brood chamber with honey. Secondly, I have read that left to their own devices (IE in the wild) the bees will move the nest downwards starting at the top and filling in with honey behind the nest. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 09:57:22 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ellen Anglin Subject: Re: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107181633.f6IGXJ828694@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I am trying out three brood chambers this year for several reasons; 1. I have had too many queens who wnt to move up into the honey supers- brood in the honey area is a pain, and I havent been altogether happy with queen excluders either. 2. For the last three winters, I have ended up feeding sugar or fondant to the bees in february or march, no matter how full I try to get the bodies with honey and syrup in September and October. 3. More space, so less chance of crowding and swarming. 4. I have reduced the number of hives I am managing, and had the equipment handy to give each hive another "story" so the experament isn't costing me anything extra in equipment. Maybe with the extra body, the queen won't move up during the summer, and perhaps I won't have to haul sugar across the snow in February. Maybe. I hope! Ellen in Michigan Brad Young wrote: Has anyone else used three deep hive bodies for brood? Does it have any merit? Can a queen fill all three deep hive bodies before she would have had room back in the one that she started in ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 10:00:37 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: needs in beekeeping In-Reply-To: <200107181226.f6ICQW817842@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Abating of toxic fluxes to bees > >I need an explanation here!... What is a toxic flux? The inquiry implies I may have assumed too much about how widely the term 'flux', as used by physicists, is understood. It is a flow per unit area. I was using the term loosely. I meant a flow of toxic substance impinging on bees. 'Toxic dosing' would have done. R ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 17:09:50 EDT 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: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My experience so far with 3 deeps is that you need to pull one of them in early spring because it tends to slow them down. I think the cause is the fact that an extra body is just more thermal mass and it stores a lot of cold. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 00:22:28 +0100 Reply-To: pdillon@club-internet.fr Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Dillon Organization: La Marne Subject: Re: needs in beekeeping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave, > > Abating of toxic fluxes to bees > > I need an explanation here!... What is a toxic flux? > > (when I find that out it may tell me why abatement is appropriate) > I didn't write the words, so my understanding of the above may be wide of the mark. I take the phrase to mean that there is "a need" to reduce or halt materials that are detrimental to bees when in contact with individuals or colonies . These materials come into contact with bees via. direct or indirect routes present in the environment. Fluxes are often indistinct, difficult to define (spatial) bodies, often moving in apparently random directions - at least their dispersion patterns are hard to predict as there are often too many factors involved - a little like trying to predict where a particular cloud is going to go next and in what shape. This type of problem occurs when: 1.Scientific knowledge relevant to the specific material is unknown or limited due to lack in research. This maybe a result of investigation being specifically limited in direction or scope. 2.Scientific knowledge is adequate but overriding circumstances (higher/ greater priorities) result in a material being employed - but causing damage in non targeted species /areas. 3.Lack in scientific knowledge in how a specific material passes through the environment, coupled with what and how it reacts over an extended period - the magical cocktail phenomenon! Referring to the origin of this topic: My view point is that beekeeping is undertaken for many personal reasons - but the underlying factor is that it is productive. It is considered beneficial by the public. But we are being hindered from fulfilling what is possible due to not being able to apply adequate pressure. This is a result of not being taken seriously when priorities are being fixed - with predictable consequences. My major concern for the future is that as an agricultural sector we will be cut to a point of having little effective input, and then for what ever reason the public moving against our products, due to circumstances beyond our control. Therefore, instead of only reacting, we must direct foreseeable events as much as possible. Examples: 1.The public do not appear to be alarmed as yet about alien additions into hives - but a least in Europe, I wonder how long this situation is going to last; Antibiotics, Anti V.j. treatments, Insecticidal, fungicidal, herbicidal residues etc. 2. G.M.O. products - farmers may not wish to have bees marauding freely and therefore messing up required crosses with wild pollen (+ unauthorized movement of copy righted genes!/ production of seeded fruit when non is required). 3. G.M.O. products in our final products - maybe less of a problem in the Americas than in Europe. 4. Attracting individuals who are capable of continuing the industry. If it becomes a generalized opinion that we a disparate group of purveyors of tainted goods, messing up the environment and are semi senile at the same time - without much much clout in the world of research or in other places of strategic decision making - what is the future? It is considered here in France by some that beekeepers are individuals who a trying to hold back advances in agricultural science and are luddites due to the intense questioning that we as a group have posed regarding the effects of certain substances. It need not degenerate much to loose the good will of the public. Therefore the reasoning for my original question - what are our needs and how can we deal with them. Peter P.S. Hope my comments on Flux Abatement are correct! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 16:52:56 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Eugene Makovec Subject: Re: Red-eyed drones In-Reply-To: <200107171903.f6HJ35817248@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- "Coleene E. Davidson" wrote: It is a recessive > gene that crops up now > and then and not a problem. It is sort of like the > fruit fly stuff done in > college genetics. Someone in the St. Louis area brought a few to one of our meetings. He said essentially the same thing as Coleene. The eyes either start out white and turn red, or vice versa. He also said they were blind, and thus cannot find a queen and reproduce. Eugene Makovec Kirkwood, MO __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 21:15:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave and Judy Subject: Swarm call MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello bee friends! We answered a swarm call last Saturday evening. How very strange it was. The bees were located in a maple tree. The maple tree was about 12' in height (newly planted) with a trunk of about 5 inches in diameter. The bees were located at about 6 1/2 feet height. The bees landed on the tree on Monday. The homeowners reported a 'larger than a football' cluster during the morning and evening with smaller numbers during the day. (There was a huge windstorm the previous Sunday. 70 mph wind gusts. Trees downed and roofs blown off.) Our local association website has 3 pictures of what was left in the tree. http://home.fuse.net/backyardbees/swarm.html When we arrived there were only about 50 or so bees on the tree. They appeared to be chewing the wax. There was consistent coming and going of the bees. The combs that had been constructed were haphazard. Few of the cells were of uniform size. The pictures show the differences in size. In the same pictures (all the same view, sorry) the comb just at the front of the picture was actually attached to a leaf, the leaf stem was fluttering in the wind along with the comb. None of the comb appeared to be attached to other pieces of comb. If you look at the leaves you can see how there was evidence of comb on the leaves and spots of wax on the trunk. These spots went a good foot to a foot and a half above the cluster. The bulk of the bees were on the comb attached to the trunk. The bees were not loud nor did they appear jittery. How very sad looking the comb was. Not the usual perfectly formed cells to which we have grown accustomed. We surmised that the bees landed in the tree, started to set up housekeeping, then found someplace better. Perhaps their old home was damaged in the storm? We'll never know for sure, but the homeowner promised to alert the neighbors to keep any eye out for bee activity. (There had been a beekeeper about 1/2 mile from the location, but he had lost all his bees about 3 years ago and sold all of his equipment and no longer had bees. Perhaps a survivor hive or swarm from his stock?) We took 4 of our 4h beekeepers with us. It was a great learning experience (now if we just knew what we had learned!). Judy in Kentucky, USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 01:44:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? (The Beekeeper Phony Express) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kim Flottum, the editor of Bee Culture, sent this to subscribers to his "catch the buzz" e-mail mailing list today. I have no verification of any of this, but I assume that Kim has checked facts. The full message can be read at: http://bee.airoot.com/beeculture/buzz/index.html "This message came to us from Tom and Suki Glenn, of Glenn Apiaries, from Fallbrook, CA. As of August 27, 2001, the Post Office is going to use FedEX to be the carrier of all air mail. This means no live insects, birds, or reptiles can be shipped with the post office. It affects First class, Priority, and Express mail... The Post Office does not have an alternate carrier lined up. After a hundred years of the bee industry depending on the post office, it seems unfair to drop us like this without warning..." I doubt that the USPS will reverse itself. It makes sense for them to outsource their air transport. I doubt that even a formal protest from every beekeeper in the US would make much difference. If you did not know, Fed-X, UPS, and Airborne all refuse to carry bees. This limits the bee breeders' choices to Roadway and other trucking companies, or a smaller (unknown to me) air-cargo delivery service. For years, some groups of US beekeepers have combined their orders for packages and queens, and financed the travels of an adventuresome road warrior, who would pick up the orders and deliver them to a common pick-up site. The approach works well, in that bees spent less time in transit, and are transported by people who know how to care for bees. So, it looks like we need to cobble together a bee delivery system to meet the bee breeders at least half way. We have 8 months to form buying groups, work out logistics and deal with administrivia issues. Not a lot of time for such a complex project. Here's a basic outline of the "Phony Express". It likely needs all sorts of critique and improvement, but someone has to put the ball into play. (I've worked the day shift here at the idea factory for decades, so I am used to having my lousy ideas improved by rough-and-tumble consensus.) 1) Each bee breeder clearly ships enough bees to send "a truckload" in each compass direction. The problem is that a full truckload would likely be more than one group's orders. (Same goes for "D-Containers" which is the technical term for the large airfreight containers that are shaped to fit the fuselage of an airplane.) 2) Under the law, truckers can only drive for so many hours before they must stop and take a break. 3) If these breaks can be scheduled to allow the offloading of packages onto smaller beekeeper-owned vehicles, the drive has been shortened for the motley collection of pickup trucks, vans, and (my personal favorite), Volvo wagons that would be used for the "short haul" portion of the delivery. (Has anyone done the obvious, and bought a Hum-Vee yet, or am I the only one who has noticed the highly beekeeping-appropriate "Hummer" logo on the radiator grille of those beasties?) 4) A crucial element to the success of such an effort would be places near major highways where small trucks could await the arrival of large trucks, and offloading of large trucks could take place. While one might utilize a rest stop or a truck stop for this purpose, I doubt that one would get away with this more than once. One must also be considerate of the trucker, who will need to be able to rest and eat a decent meal while someone who is authorized by the shipper can oversee the offloading, check off orders filled, and "guard" the truck. Regardless of the details, I think we can assume that door-to-door shipments are going to become more expensive than the bees themselves. We better work out a "Plan B". "Plan A" appears to be toast. jim farmageddon (an hour away from the Troutville weigh station on Interstate 81 in Virginia) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 07:13:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Post Office Quits Bees? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: kim@airoot.com [mailto:kim@airoot.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 5:12 PM To: undisclosed-recipients Subject: Catch The Buzz Article This message came to us from Tom and Suki Glenn, of Glenn Apiaires, from Fallbrook, CA. They have been in the queen production business long enough to have earned their stripes. They are the sole producers of the USDA SMT queens as breeder stock. If you rely on queens and packages arriving by any of these methods from the post office, you need to react to this announcement. Thanks to Glenn Apiaries for sending this along. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Post Office Quits Bees? Here's another blow to agriculture. As of August 27, 2001, the Post Office is going to use FedEX to be the carrier of all air mail. This means no live insects, birds, or reptiles can be shipped with the post office. It affects First class, Priority, and Express mail. The Post Office does not have an alternate carrier lined up. After a hundred years of the bee industry depending on the post office, it seems unfair to drop us like this without warning. If we make a big enough protest we may be able to make a change in this policy. We should at least let our concerns be known. It's time to write those letters to our representatives and contact everyone you know who will be affected to do the same. You can make a direct complaint to the Post Office at www.usps.com and send an email through "contact us" on their website. Glenn Apiaries ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 07:30:51 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? (The Beekeeper Phony Exp ress) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" James Fischer wrote: > If you did not know, Fed-X, UPS, and Airborne all refuse to carry bees. Not so. UPS carries bees and in fact I much prefer their service to US Postal Service. Whenever I can I'm glad to pay the little extra for UPS overnight. Aaron Morris - thinking I'm missing something if USPS outsourcing is a bad thing. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 06:54:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: michael Bassett Subject: Re: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:44:19 -0400, Brad Young wrote: >Has anyone else used three deep hive bodies for brood? Does it have any >merit? Can a queen fill all three deep hive bodies before she would have >had room back in the one that she started in? Assuming, probably wrongly, >that she could and the hive would thus be that much bigger and, presumably, >collect more nectar, I would hate to think of how tall the hive could grow >with the needed supers on it. I guess you would have to extract in stages, >but I am now a believer in George Imirie's advice about adding all supers >at once. Any opinions or experience with this method of brood chambers? All my hives have three deep hive bodies, I started doing this when I had to start medicating for Varoa in August, our largest flowes are usually the golden rod flow and since I had the bees and the equipment, why not. The hives do get quite high, yesterday I was using a step ladder to add a fourth deep to my permanent pollenation hives to give them enough room to keep the farmers happy. I will admit that the extra deeps have some good and bad points. The first is that the bees will fill the entire bottom deep with pollen and sometimes parts of the second. they also will fill the sides of all the deeps with honey so that the queen is working the middle three or four frames all the way up and still into the honey supers. I have never had to add pollen substitue in the spring as they always have far more than they can use. Since going to the three deep, assuming young queens and the extra pollen and in normal years the extra honey etc, I have found that they build up extremely fast, some times to fast in the spring. I am also able to pull of the extra deep (4th) from my pollenation hives and give to my 5 frame nucs to overwinter. In the spring you can pull off the extra deep from the bottom, check frames,paint etc and the hive still has plenty of room to grow, do have the extra work of moving some of the pollen up into the brood chambers above to avoid an imbalance. I also found using this system that they overwinter more droans, but I still haven't started my queens earlier yet. In normal years (the last two have not been normal) I have never had to feed and had excess honey still on the hives in the spring. The negatives that a I have found are when they a swarm they are extremely large, and you must requeen once a year as the queens do seem to burn out faster, I have also seen my swarming go down using this method. Its also a lot more work trying to find the queen in the fall to requeen. I'm going to try the Imire(? sp) shims next year as I have found that on isolated hives if I leave the honey supers offset so the bees can enter they seem to prefer the upper entrance and I get less brood in the honey supers. Hope this helps mike bassett central mass + conn ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 07:38:03 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Marc Studebaker Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 5 Jul 2001 to 6 Jul 2001 (#2001-183) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George thanks for responding to my question on shims. I always enjoy your posts. I am however confused by some of your comments. >You say you use upper entrances during a nectar flow. An upper entrance is >FAR MORE important in the winter than in the summer. You want to get rid of >that DAMP >air from exhaled bee breath during the winter. > If you are not using your shim for and entrance or ventilation what is its purpose? >Most bee researchers and almost all professional honey producers install >their supers of DRAWN COMB all at one time rather than one now, another in a >couple of weeks, followed by a third, etc. I agree, I usually install at least 6 supers ( mediums) on prior to our first honey flow. Since I have a miss match of equipment that I have collected over the years not all my supers mate up to provide proper bee space. In these areas bees routinely fill this with burr comb. I assumed they would do the same with a shim, since I have never tried shims between supers, I will give it a go next year out of interest. >I don't like auger holes in my supers for two reasons: They making robbing >too easy; and I always accidentally put my hand or wrist right over the auger >hole and get stung. The shims I have seen have an entrance cut into one end, wouldn't they have the same problem with robbing? I place my auger holes below my handholds to prevent grabbing bees. It seems that auger holes are easier since they don't require another piece of equipment. Do any commercial beekeepers use shims between supers? >Indiana should have weather very similar to Maryland, except you have a lot >more farming than I do. My TOTAL nectar flow is OVER by June 15th, and ALL >of my honey is made quickly, from April 15th to May 31st (sometimes extending >to June 15th). We have a smaller flow in May but our major flow is from June 15 to August 1 Marc Studebaker Geneva, IN. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 06:38:51 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mary Ann James Subject: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For Ellen in Michigan, I have 17 hives and 16 of them have 3 deeps on them plus about 3 shallow supers right now. I had 10 surviving overwintered hives this spring, put in new queens in all but one, and also hived six 9-pound packages. I fed all hives continual syrup until the end of May and gave them lots of pollen substitute patties until early June as well as doing the usual medications as early as possible. By early May, I had put a 3rd deep filled mostly with drawn comb onto 16 of the hives. The 17th hive is a 4-pound Yugoslavian Carniolan hive that seems exceptionally slow in growth. Each of the 3 deeps has a 1-inch auger hole in the top right of the front face and bottom left of the back face--for ventilation ostensibly but also for entry. The hives are all very strong and are able to guard all the extra entrances quite effectively, as far as I can tell. I found that most of the queens are laying well in all three deep brood chambers, 6-7 frames of brood in each; the side frames in the deeps were filled quickly with pollen and nectar. One hive, however, has filled the entire 3rd deep with nectar which is now capped and ready for extraction while the queen seems content with 2 deeps. I had to put a queen excluder on one very strong hive last week as the queen laid in the first super above the 3rd deep, but she is the only one to stray upward so far. Most of the other hives now have a strong honey bridge across the top--which I have to move when I rotate the boxes. Best of all, even though 16 of these hives are very strong, I have had no swarms. I did a number of box rotations during May and June, keeping track of congestion. The bees seem to really like the easy access through the uppermost deep's auger holes to the top supers. Last year, with 12 hives, all in 2 deeps, I had 3 swarms. I don't know if it is the 3 deep setup or the auger holes for quick entry/exit or just pure luck--but this is the best year I have ever had. Biggest disadvantage of 3 deeps--heavy, heavy, heavy right now. Rotation of the brood boxes is very difficult from mid-July onward. And the height of the 3 deeps plus 3-4 supers is daunting to deal with as well as heavy lifting. This is north of Seattle, on Puget Sound. The wild blackberry honey flow is the main source of nectar, from early June through early August. I will start extracting at the very end of July. So, next year, I will again use 3 deeps as brood chambers as it has worked so well this year. Mary Ann in western Washington ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 10:16:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? (The Beekeeper Phony Express) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron Morris said: >> If you did not know, Fed-X, UPS, and Airborne all refuse to carry bees. > Not so. UPS carries bees and in fact I much prefer their service > to US Postal Service. Whenever I can I'm glad to pay the little > extra for UPS overnight. That's a relief to hear. When I first ordered a package, I was told by an employee of the Weaver's of Texas that US Mail was the only choice for shipping live bees. I never questioned this answer. I agree that UPS does a better job than the US Mail, and is worth the small difference in cost. Strange that so many bee breeders stayed with the US Mail... jim farmageddon ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 08:20:31 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stephen Augustine Subject: Re: Help! Newbee - frame manipulation In-Reply-To: <200107181636.f6IGaR828778@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:49 AM 7/18/2001 -0600, Matthew Westall wrote: >As you progress to a 'beekeeper' over a 'beehaver' your primary goal >will >be to 'encourage' bees to do what you want rather what bees do naturally >(i.e. >to give YOU honey over what bees store for themselves, and many things >along the way). > > This is a matter of opinion and is not the goal of all beekeepers, nor should it be. As far as possible I prefer to work with the bees rather than against them. Beekeeping can be an amazing window into the Universe and if all one wanted was to get honey then I would be inclined to call you a 'honey producer' and not a 'beekeeper'. I would encourage new beekeepers to enter the craft with at least the notion that there are no absolutes in how one should keep and perceive bees. Stephen Augustine Bees By The Bay ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 11:47:47 EDT 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: Help! Newbee - frame manipulation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/19/01 11:22:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time, saugusti@KRL.ORG writes: > As you progress to a 'beekeeper' over a 'beehaver' your primary goal > >will > >be to 'encourage' bees to do what you want rather what bees do naturally As a beekeeper progresses he learns to give the bees what they need and get out of their way. Beekeeping like anything else is a series of compromises. Take your time, be gentle and the bees will reward you. Not all rewards fit into a bottle. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 11:57:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jim Stein Subject: Plastic Foundation Does anyone know if there is a significant difference between the Rite-Cell foundation that Mann Lake sells and the Plasticell foundation that Dadant sells? I am curious because the shipping weight of 100 sheets of un-waxed 8 1/2" Rite-Cell is 50 Lbs. The shipping weight of 100 sheets of un-waxed 8 3/8" Plasticell is 38 Lbs. From this it appears that the thickness and/or cell depth of the Rite-Cell is greater (in addition to the 1/8" difference it height. Jim Stein -- ----------------------------------------------------------- jstein@worldnet.att.net ----------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 10:30:32 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Plastic Foundation In-Reply-To: <200107191610.f6JGAR809584@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Does anyone know if there is a significant difference between the > Rite-Cell foundation that Mann Lake sells and the Plasticell foundation > that Dadant sells? There are some differences between the various plastic foundations, but AFAIk, there is nothing to say one is any better than another. They all work really well. One thing I did notice though is that the Pierco one piece frames use a 5.25 mm cell size and the others I have measured are a trifle larger, making Pierco my first choice. Pierco foundation seems to have deeper cell bases. but I have not measured the cell size. Just my 2 cents. allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 11:37:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Karen Oland Subject: Re: needs in beekeeping In-Reply-To: <200107190418.f6J4IR823403@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So, is the "flux" -- agricultural pesticide use? or toxic nectar? or pesticides used by beekeepers? or perhaps, the ancient meaning of general sickness unknown? One of the first seems likely from your reply (although I will admit, I assumed the latter upon reading your post), but I am still unclear as to what should be abated. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Mann The inquiry implies I may have assumed too much about how widely the term 'flux', as used by physicists, is understood. It is a flow per unit area. I was using the term loosely. I meant a flow of toxic substance impinging on bees. 'Toxic dosing' would have done. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 12:43:56 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Subject: Re: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? I have always used some 3 deep brood chamber hives, especially for 2-queen colonies, but also for normal colonies. With good queens they often build up tremendous populations, and as others have written here, swarm much less frequently than 2 deep chamber hives. This year I have put 7 supers on two of them, and they would probably fill an eighth super as well. However, my scaffold will only reach 7 supers high on top of 3 deep chambers. That is a lot of honey! I agree with other list posters that the lowest chamber is filled with pollen in fall and winter, and that it is a good resource for starting new splits and nucs the next spring. The bees usually start out in the middle chamber and move to the top during the winter. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 13:13:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: grumpy7 Subject: Re: Help! Newbee - frame manipulation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree that benign neglect is probably the optimum way to tend bees, unless you happen to be an energetic person who likes to take charge and try to run everything. It's a lot easier on you and on the bees, and seems to work at least as well. Walter Weller Thinking that trying to get bees to do what you want is like teaching a pig to sing -- all that happens is that you waste your time and annoy the pig. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 17:08:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Coleene E. Davidson" Subject: Re: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? (The Beekeeper Phony Exp ress) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This may have been the case in the past, but this spring I ordered a queen from Texas and asked that she be shipped UPS next day to insure the shortest possible travel time. UPS would not carry her. USPS Express brought her in. Perhaps and hopefully they have changed their policy on this since I ordered. As a group, we may want to contact UPS to see if, as a company, they may be willing to pick up this business. With the number of packages and queens shipped every spring, I can't help but think it would be a lucrative addition to their business. Coleene > > Not so. UPS carries bees and in fact I much prefer their service > to US Postal Service. Whenever I can I'm glad to pay the little > extra for UPS overnight. > > Aaron Morris - thinking I'm missing something if USPS outsourcing > is a bad thing. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 16:58:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Ralston Subject: Re: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? In-Reply-To: <200107191144.f6JBiN829796@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Aaron Morris wrote: > Not so. UPS carries bees and in fact I much prefer their service to > US Postal Service. Whenever I can I'm glad to pay the little extra > for UPS overnight. As a point of contrast... I live in Pittsburgh. I and many of my friends avoid having anything shipped via UPS whenever possible, because UPS packages routinely arrive torn, dented, abraded, covered with inks or dyes, and occasionally even crushed. And although I haven't yet had to do it, several of my friends have had to return items because UPS damaged them in transit. In contrast, in my experience and my friends' experience, in this geographic area, neither the USPS nor Fedex routinely damages packages in this manner. My experiences with UPS would make me extremely reluctant to have bees shipped to me via UPS. Ok, perhaps having a package that buzzes angrily and/or stings if mishandled might cause some UPS workers to use gentler handling techniques. But if they can't even get regular packages to me without trying to destroy them along the way, why would I expect (or even hope) that they'd make any effort to care for the bees (e.g., not let them bake in the truck on hot days) in transit? Plus, if UPS becomes the only easily-accessible shipping company willing to ship live cargo, they will (naturally) take advantage of that monopoly by charging more. I don't think the USPS outsourcing its air mail deliveries is bad. I do think, however, that reducing the options for shipping live cargo is bad. If Fedex wants the USPS' air mail business, then they should have to carry all of the same types of cargo as the USPS. -- James Ralston Pittsburgh, PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 10:13:08 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Has anyone else used three deep hive bodies for brood? Does it have any >merit? At the risk of raising the obvious, isn't this approx. equivalent to asking whether queen excluders are good? I have seen friends running - partly for glee - hives of 7 or 8 full-depth boxes on a big flow of manuka nectar, with no queen excluder (I don't mean to restart that discussion, but some beekeepers dislike them). All those boxes are, in a pedantic sense, brood boxes - the queen(s) *can* get into all of them; but in practice brood doesn't appear above the bottom 2 or 3 which are left year-round in our temperate climate. R ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 00:59:37 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lucinda Sewell Subject: Re: English Yields MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all >From memory his yield figures were always between 40 lb >and 45 lb per colony per year. >But his figures were drived from total annual yield divided by the number of >colonies entering the previous winter and that included all queen rearing >and drone rearing colonies From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: 4.9 yield I copied the below from a Central Science Laboratory report authored by James Morton on yield in the SE England region in 2000: "Honey Yield 26 replies ranging from 15lbs to 125lbs 2000 average = 52lbs (1999 = 51lbs)" I doubt the colony no. used was the same as Dave suggested as the honest way to do it, which would pull the figures further into line. Nice to agree with something for a change! pg221 of Bees, Hives and Honey, published by the Federation of Irish Beekeepers has a table of yields in Ireland over 7 years. The table was checking yield of split vs unsplit colonies. The control (unsplit colonies) mean was 23.9kg. The combined splits mean was 40.7kg (!) Old queen averaging 21.9kg and new queen averaging 18.8kg. A 34 year period resulted in an average mean yield of 23kg "assuming efficient management". My yield is better if I take 2nd year production colonies, worse if I divide by all colonies. Is splitting as used in USA primarily swarm control, or is it used as to increase honey yield too? Book can be ordered from FIBKA website, or UK beebooksellers. John Sewell " In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities" Suzuki. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 22:12:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Karen Oland Subject: Re: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? (The Beekeeper Phony Express) In-Reply-To: <200107191420.f6JEKm804855@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the US mail has been cheaper - hence the staying with. UPS is more expensive, but does a better job -- except for large heavy things. There is a major hub here and I know many that work there (from an archery club). They have many times talked about just kicking things from top level to the bottom floor if something is too heavy to lift to the conveyor belt. Of course, I'd think they'd only try that once or twice w\ith a package marked Live Bees. From personal experience, my mother received a pair of heavy speakers UPS - they had driven a forklift into them and bashed the outsides, putting a fork completely through one of the speakers (box and all, and out the other side. The delivery person then attempted to tell her she had to take delivery and work out any claims with the original sender (not true by the way, luckily she refused the delivery). The damaged delivery rate is part of their evaluation as drivers, so they don't want to let you inspect damaged goods in some areas, hoping you want something bad enough to sign even though the package is obviously damaged or opened, or will be bullied into thinking you have to get with original sender on the problem. Of course, as a sender, once the package is signed for, you lose the insurance paid for on the package, as it is now out of UPS's hands. One sporting goods store has to have everything sent in unmarked boxes, as he has had several items lifted over the years (mostly archery equipment, but it is worth thousands all together). Lest you think I am down on UPS -- we receive items from them several times a week and have seldom had a problem, even with large amounts of clearly marked computer equipment. And our driver always lets us inspect if there appears to be damage on the outside (most stuff is so well padded, we haven't had any problems with internal damage). Fedex and Airborne also make many stops at the office, ditto on their records here. Although I prefer Fedex for anything of value, they seem to take a little better care of the boxes, plus don't insist on re-opening and inspecting everything you take down to the delivery point. Why do they think I spent the time to properly package and seal it up in the first place? One other reason some places like to use the US Mail -- you can send just about anything, of any size, from a "rural" office. Those PO's in cities have many rules - no live stuff, nothing over a certain size, etc... Those rules do not exist at the PO's designated as rural. I would think that so long as you don't mind taking your chances, you will still be able to ship bees and chickens by the US Mail -- just not overnight airborne. Just FYI, the announcement of the Fedex deal is at http://www.usps.gov/news/2001/press/pr01_059.htm. You will note they are announcing that Fedex will have drop boxes in SOME PO's. And they will use shared transport in some areas (to cut down on freight costs). There is no actual mention that types of delivery items will be cut. There is also no mention of that in the various publications concerning shipping bees. I have sent a request to the USPS for clarification, but so far there doesn't seem to be any cause for concern. Two others on another list have called local postmasters and been told there are no changes in bee shipping requirements. -Karen Oland -----Original Message----- From: James Fischer I agree that UPS does a better job than the US Mail, and is worth the small difference in cost. Strange that so many bee breeders stayed with the US Mail... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 22:44:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Subject: Post office stopping delivery of bees Greetings all, After I read the posts to the list, I went down to my local post office, and had a chat with the postmaster. He told me that they have reached an arrangement whereby Fed Ex will put one of their boxes on the post office property. In exchange, he told me, Fed Ex will carry SOME of the mail for the post office. He seemed to think that it would not be all of the mail though. I expressed concern to him about our dilemna, and he understood. He was not sure if Fed Ex may relax their regulations on carrying live animals. Maybe our best course of action would be to contact the USPS, and see exactly what they are planning on doing, and if our industy will be affected. Then, if Fed Ex is going to be the main carrier, we could appeal to them, and explain our situation, and ask that they reconsider their policy. I dont think we will be able to get the USPS to change it's plans though. It is my understanding from my postmaster, that the commercial airlines are forcing the post office to take advantage of this opportunity because of the problems the commercial airlines have with getting mail where it is supposed to be. We need to pull together though to try to get some arrangement though, or we will all suffer. Scott Moser ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 20:14:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Yarnell Organization: Oregon VOS Subject: Re: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? In-Reply-To: <200107192153.f6JLrZ825788@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII May I suggest that the last paragraph be sent by several on the list to the Postmaster General. USPS does have a web site and means to contact the administration. Whatever company(ies) which pickup mail contracts should be required by the PO to continue at least the services already in place. Keep in mind that USPS already ships mail on all kinds of commercial shipping lines including passenger air and truck. [I haven't done it yet because I have to fire up my graphics browser to do it, but has anyone else check with the USPS to see whether this is more than rumor?] We don't ship bees, but our experience has been just the opposite. UPS is good here (Portland, OR) while Fed Ex damages their share. Airborne is the worst. I suspect it's a matter of supervision in various regions. On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, James Ralston wrote: ... > I don't think the USPS outsourcing its air mail deliveries is bad. I > do think, however, that reducing the options for shipping live cargo > is bad. If Fedex wants the USPS' air mail business, then they should > have to carry all of the same types of cargo as the USPS. --------------- Richard Yarnell, SHAMBLES WORKSHOPS | No gimmick we try, no "scientific" Beavercreek, OR. Makers of fine | fix we attempt, will save our planet Wooden Canoes, The Stack(R) urban | until we reduce the population. Let's composter, Raw Honey | leave our kids a decent place to live. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 00:31:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: grumpy7 Subject: Re: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit James Ralston wrote: > I live in Pittsburgh. I and many of my friends avoid having anything > shipped via UPS whenever possible, because UPS packages routinely > arrive torn, dented, abraded, covered with inks or dyes, and > occasionally even crushed. And although I haven't yet had to do it, > several of my friends have had to return items because UPS damaged > them in transit. James, I have to suspect that your local Pittsburgh UPS people are the problem. I have never had any problems at all with UPS deliveries here, regardless of the shipping location, and I do a lot of UPS with shippers all over the US. Heavy crates of equipment are routinely delivered inside my honey-house whether or not I am there, without my having asked for such service, and never a broken box. I have no complaints with local USPS service either, except that it is slower than UPS by a couple of days.. Walter Weller Wakefield, Louisiana ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:03:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Leigh Subject: US Post Office To Stop Delivering Bees? In-Reply-To: <200107201035.f6KAZb815209@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Having to receive bees UPS would be a disaster for us. UPS deliveries here are always problematic. The drivers are under such pressure to speed it up that they almost alway refuse to come back the long drive to our farm. We discover packages in the bushes half a mile from the farm days after they have been thrown there. Packages that are marked, 'call customer' often languish in a warehouse for a week without a call and are occasionally sent back to sender. We get the feeling from UPS that they would much rather concentrate on the highly profitable urban deliveries than to worry about our expensive rural business. The local postmistress, on the other hand, calls us as soon as the bees arrive so we can work out the pick up. She couldn't be more helpful (when I tell her I'm expecting bees she has been known to come in before work hours to meet the delivery truck and to give us a call if the bees have arrived). And the post office is only 5 miles away as opposed to the 30 plus miles to the UPS warehouse. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:33:07 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Keim Subject: Checks with apiary graphics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" My wife would like to buy checks with honey bees and or other apiary stuff on them. Does anyone have a source? Keim Apiaries Fairview, KS ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:25:05 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: 3 Deep Brood Chambers? In-Reply-To: <200107191341.f6JDff802931@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > ...and also hived six 9-pound packages. Never heard of a nine pound package. Is this a common size where you live? I recall when I sent several hundred 2lb packages to Arizona from here one October, our hives yielded eight pounds of bees on average and the customer, who had shaken bees from a neighbour of ours first, thought that our hives were much stronger than his. Hmmm. I'd almost forgotten about that experience. It was a bit over ten years ago. Come to think of it, I wonder... maybe that's the origin of those strange bees in Arizona... allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/dIARY/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 09:15:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Arheit Subject: Re: English Yields In-Reply-To: <200107192358.f6JNwS828949@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:59 AM 7/20/01 +0100, you wrote: >management". My yield is better if I take 2nd year production colonies, >worse if I divide by all colonies. Is splitting as used in USA primarily >swarm control, or is it used as to increase honey yield too? Book can be >ordered from FIBKA website, or UK beebooksellers. Both in my area of the US (NW Ohio). But it depends greatly on when your honey flow is. Areas that have a early honey flow don't have time to build up after splitting, but here the honey flow just started a few weeks ago and should continue for several weeks or longer (and probably later than usual due to late planting of crops). So here there is plenty of time to build up splits, In fact the hive that looks like it will be my best producer was started from a split in May. I've also got two swarms from late May/early June that look like they will produce at least one super (after pulling two deeps from foundation). -Tim ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 09:48:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Alan Pagliere Subject: Re: Post Office Quits Bees? Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The conventional wisdom that UPS will not ship bees is not true. I just, this past April, ordered bees from Koehnen in California. UPS Second Day Air. They arrived just fine. In fact with far, far, far fewer of the usual dead bees at the bottom of the box. I did get a hold of the local UPS outlet to find out when the UPS man would arrive at my house so I could bring the bees in right away. Getting the phone number there was next to impossible. I believe the proper thing to do is to get the UPS tracking number for your package, then call the main UPS 800 number. They will not give you the number of your local UPS folks for love or money. However, I believe they will give your number to your local folks who will then call you to arrange things. I found the main UPS people to be the polar opposite of forthcoming and helpful. I had to do all the work in the conversation (I hate that in a service representative!), asking for information and volunteering answers myself. No one volunteered any help or information. I had to guess about how they do things, how they run their business day to day, how to find out anything. Asking specific questions until they answered yes or no. Twenty questions. However, once I got a hold of the people in the next town at the local UPS delivery center, it was another story. Extremely helpful, nice folks. They called me back to let me know that the delivery truck was on its way. I got home, waited about 5 minutes and my bees pulled up in a van. So, anyway, I apologize for having made a long story even longer, I will just say that UPS does in fact ship bees. They do. Koehnen uses them exclusively as far as I know and I have personally had bees shipped to me that way and so have others I know. Alan Pagliere Ann Arbor, Michigan 42 17' N; 83 44' W pagliere@umich.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:23:11 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mary Ann James Subject: a nine-pound package? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply to Allen: I don't think it is a common practice. Other beekeepers seem to order 3- or 4-pound packages for the spring. Several years ago, our local bee equipment supplier mentioned to me that she hived 9-pound packages and had great luck with rapid buildup and a quick start on the early big leaf maple honeyflow (one of two main honeyflows in this area. So I decided to give it a try and have been happy with the results. The nine pounds is comprised of two 3-pound packages without queens and one 3-pound package with a queen. So my six 9-pound new hives meant that I picked up eighteen 3-pound packages in mid-April, six of which had queens. I then hived one queen with her 3-pound box+ two more 3-pound boxes of queenless bees in two deeps of drawn comb and let the bees release the queen from her cage in the 2nd deep in the usual manner. Lots of sugar syrup and pollen-substitute patties made with honey until no longer needed. These nine-pound startups have been successful for me in the past two years--a very rapid drawing out of undrawn comb, very rapid release of the queen, big brood patterns, a jumpstart on an early honeyflow that I missed before, and, most importantly, significantly fewer problems than I had with smaller packages, splits, or nukes. Ironically, everyone warns me about the inevitability of swarms with these large startup hives; but I had a lot of swarms with 3-pound packages and have had none so far in two years with these 9-pounders. Why, I don't know. But, as Winnie the Pooh said so aptly: "You can never tell about bees . . . " maj ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 17:25:23 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: egg movement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii James, I once had two queen cells built in a super of foundation (without a single drawn cell) above a queen excluder. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 08:37:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Converting from deep to medium brood chambers In-Reply-To: <200107210329.f6L3Td815544@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Based on my less than perfect back and the experience people have shared here, it is my intention to convert my hives to medium brood chambers next year. I will have both my three existing hives (if the gods are favouring me and they all make it through the winter) and a few new nucs (which of course always come on deep frames) (don't they?) to convert. I've been pondering the best way to accomplish this with minimum impact on the bees. Clearly part of the answer will be to install nucs and put overwintered colonies into single deep boxes, and add mediums full of foundation (above or below?) I've also considered making some plywood "Plugs" shaped like deep frames to put into the deep boxes in place of any empty deep frames, just to take up space so the bees expand into the mediums rather than building in the deep. At some point I will have to remove the last of the deep frames and I'm not sure how best to accomplish that. They won't be empty. For sure I don't want them to be containing brood. Perhaps I should at some point move the deep box with (probably) brood and "Plugs" above a queen excluder. I imagine that as the brood emerges the bees will fill their cells with honey. I could perhaps extract that and feed it back to them. This doesn't seem terribly straight forward. Can anybody suggest a simpler method? Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 12:00:47 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Sterrett Subject: Re: Converting from deep to medium brood chambers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Frank wrote: > Based on my less than perfect back and the experience people have shared > here, it is my intention to convert my hives to medium brood chambers next > year. ************* I ended up leaving a deep hive body at the bottom of my medium brood chamber colonies. (I think someone on this list suggested doing that.) This meant that the switch to (almost) all mediums was a lot easier. A deep at the bottom won't fill with honey. Two mediums above can be reversed during brood build-up. ********** > and add mediums full of foundation (above or below?) ********** I would put the mediums with their foundation above (not below) when you want the bees to draw comb. Tim -- Tim Sterrett sterrett@fast.net (southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 09:29:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: Converting from deep to medium brood chambers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Frank & All, > Can anybody suggest a simpler method? Remove queen excluder and leave a couple mediums full of honey on top over the winter Or add your medium boxes with foundation and feed in the fall till full and drawn out. You will find the bees have moved into the mediums by spring. Get out early and remove your deep boxes from below before the bees start using them. Strong hives will have moved the honey and pollen up also most of the time. To get medium supers which the queens have laid eggs in back I do the opposite. I place the mediums below and remove those in the spring. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 17:13:42 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lionel Evans Subject: Magnettic North MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is my first time to use this service, so here goes..... What direction does a swarm of bees, in an empty box, build the comb? North, East, West, or South? Lionel Evans Athens, Alabama ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 14:10:11 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: 3 deep brood chambers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii BeeCrofter: I winter my hive in 3 deeps, concentrating the honey toward the center, in the belief that the natural movement of clusters is up rather than sideways. In the spring, I rearrange into 2 deeps, removing the frames emptied during the winter. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 14:05:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: Shallow brood chambers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Frank, there is one small advantage for using deeps for brood chambers. The honey arch bees normally locate in frames are about the same size whether the frame is a shallow or a deep. This means that a larger proportion of the frame is available for brood in a deep than in a shallow. It is easy to work deeps without doing heavy lifting. Place an empty deep off to the side of the hive. Remove half, or more, of the hive frames into that empty as you inspect them. Then move the hive body with the remaining frames onto the top of the empty. Inspect the lower hive body. Reverse the process to reassemble the hive. The same can be done with the extracting supers if they are too heavy. Only you can decide if the extra time is worth it but you can avoid compromising beekeeping practices to suit your comfortable lifting limit. Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 23:27:57 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Sandy Kear Subject: Congratulations! In-Reply-To: <200107212233.f6LMX8814347@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Just wanted to pass along some info on a fellow list member: Congratulations are due Aaron Morris for winning blue ribbons in both the cut comb (Ross Rounds) and bottled honey (amber colored) categories at the Saratoga County Fair! Congrats! :-) Sandy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 21:42:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: Shallow brood chambers In-Reply-To: <200107212234.f6LMYx814408@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Frank, there is one small advantage for using deeps for brood > chambers. The honey arch bees normally locate in frames are about > the same size whether the frame is a shallow or a deep. This means > that a larger proportion of the frame is available for brood in a > deep than in a shallow. This statement needs a qualifier. This depends on the strain of bee used, evidently. I have seen bees that fill deep frames of comb entirely with brood, no honey stores at all. I, myself, have converted this year to all medium supers. A lot of the brood frames have little to no honey cells. Some are mixed, but most frames in the core of the brood area are solid brood. If you would like, I can post photos of this. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 21:18:07 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Housel Subject: Re: Magnettic North MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Natural open air wild hives on the outside of limbs will normally will build north and south with the comb. If they build east to west the trend to make bural comb. The hives seem to be building shade from light (the virbaration or heat) and nothing to do with the magnetic flux. The secruity for the brood is number one with protection by the honey comb around it. Hive frames can build bural if they can be moved, to much light comming in enterance, and/or the lid does not block out light. Michael Housel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 01:39:43 +0100 Reply-To: pdillon@club-internet.fr Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Dillon Organization: La Marne Subject: Re: Magnetic North MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lionel, Having gone though references at my disposal, it seems that bees have a tendency to build natural comb at an angle of 50° from magnetic north - i.e. in a N.E. - S.W. direction Apparently the angle varies according to the species of bee. I have never measured this activity myself, - but will throw in that for my bees, the direction that a swarm leaves the hive and clusters is more often than not in the western sector - helping to find those that are hanging in dense bushes/ woodland adjacent to the apiaries. Any thoughts to why this might be so? The final direction taken obviously depends on what the scouts have determined as a suitable home. Peter P.S. Answer to the inevitable question - why were the swarms left to fly off? - I do not climb up oak/ pine or any other tree higher than 4 meters! Vertigo!!!!