From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Jan 3 12:46:55 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 2349C24ADEE for ; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:55 -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 h03GhO3l010284 for ; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:54 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200301031746.h03GhO3l010284@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 LOG0108C" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Content-Length: 129405 Lines: 2713 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:53:52 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Sharon Labchuk Subject: honey testing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bill Lord wrote: "I am interested in information on honey testing for export markets - practical information - what is the minimum analysis required by importers, what are the differences between EU and US requirements, what are the costs, and who are the reputable labs. Any information will be appreciated." The link for the following article is no longer valid - they don't seem to archive stuff for any length of time. I haven't heard anything about this ban since the article was published. I assume US honey must be in the same boat. Sharon Labchuk CANADIAN HONEY BANNED IN EUROPE April 3, 2001 Ontario Farmer http://207.229.10.88/ontariofarmer/pages/Info_active/farm_ge neral/farm_gen.html#article2 Canadian beekeepers say they're powerless to do anything about new European regulations banning Canadian honey because it isn't certified GMO-free. CBC reports trace amounts of GMO canola have been found in Canadian honey shipments. That has led to a ban in Europe and could potentially cost beekeepers a substantial amount of income. The European move has already driven down honey prices. Canadian beekeepers say they have no control over the plants visited by their bees and there are plenty of canola and wheat fields in their foraging area. They also say they're helpless to do anything about the ban because it's expensive to test honey samples for GMO content. After filtration, honey is left with just 0.1 per cent pollen, the article says. A Canadian Honey Council spokesman said that's a very small percentage and, on that basis, the product should be declared GMO-free. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:33:55 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Allen and Everyone, Tibor Szabo is doing a similar selection for varroa resistance and reports incouraging results after 4 or 5 years of selection. He has published updates each of the last several summers from the pervious summer's data. They are continuing the selection but have clearly shown that you can select for varroa resistance while continuing to treat colonies for varroa as long as you continue to breed from the colonies with the lowest mite counts. Of course you also need to continue to select for other important characters as well like honey production, wintering, and gentleness, etc. You might want to first select your usual breeders and then use the mite count to pick the best of these for actual breeding. Of course one can also use some of these best colonies for drone source colonies making sure to avoid too rapid inbreeding. Clearly, Tibor has shown that such selection can and will work. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 19:27:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stephen Augustine Subject: Digging Behaviour In-Reply-To: <200108122014.f7CKEC828168@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All, Today (August 14th, high temperature of about 76 deg F, foggy in the morning brilliantly sunny by mid-day) I have been observing some rather strange behaviour on the front porches of a couple of our hives and was wondering if anyone had any insight on what it might mean. A small group of bees, about 10 or 12 in each group, are engaging in what appears to be the motions that a mining bee or other animal would use in digging a tunnel/burrow. They scrabble with their forelegs on the painted surface, antennae down, mandibles to the surface - back and forth, back and forth. The surface is clean of anything that I could see (no propolis, or wax, or dirt). They have been doing this since early afternoon and are still at it right now (7:15p.m.). The bees are the offspring of 2nd generation Carniolan queens. Just curious is all. Perhaps they're just doing it to confuse the observer :) Stephen Augustine Bees By The Bay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:34:01 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Doc Bullard Subject: Re: Digging Behaviour MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is called wash boarding as depicted at http://www.pollinator.com/washboarding.htm Bee Friendly, Doc ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 07:29:00 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: walter patton Subject: Re: honey testing In-Reply-To: <200108131820.f7DIKO812903@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I found this question interesting and saved it to watch the replies. Seeing no replies per se I am not surprised. I have been trying to learn how to market Hawaii honey to Europe and Asia for the last few years. In the process I have investigated somewhat the testing requirements and found it interesting that the requirements are so seemingly non-existent. Some companies have their internal testing requirements and not very much is required by governments that I could find. The Europeans are curious about HMF levels. Asia seems to be pretty open except what the buyer might ask for regarding testing. The really interesting thing I seemed to have found is that there is no US testing requirements on foreign honey coming to the US from overseas or locally. The packer I interviewed said he paid a lot for product liability insurance and did not test the huge volumes of honey that he brought into the US every year. He also said he was glad the foreign honey was so cheap. I could be all wrong and I don’t think so. I at first thought this might be a way to stem the flood of foreign honey from entering the US if US beekeepers could some how be motivated and become united with a powerful voice in demanding some US required testing of this foreign honey. I hope someone can prove me wrong as I have never liked the idea of not having any US required testing of honey for US consumers. Aloha from Hawaii, come visit Walter Patton- Beekeeper - Owner 100 % Hawaii Honey-Hawaiian Honey House Hawaii Beekeepers Bed & Breakfast Inn # 1 Mukai Place, P.O.Box 430 Papaikou, Hawaii 96781 Ph Fax 1-808-964-5401 www.HawaiiHoney.Com -----Original Message----- From: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology [mailto:BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu]On Behalf Of WILLIAM G LORD Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 7:59 AM To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Subject: honey testing Hello; I am interested in information on honey testing for export markets - practical information - what is the minimum analysis required by importers, what are the differences between EU and US requirements, what are the costs, and who are the reputable labs. Any information will be appreciated. Bill Lord -- North Carolina State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences North Carolina Cooperative Extension E-Mail : william_lord@ncsu.edu Phone : 919-496-3344 Fax : 919-496-0222 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:18:27 +1200 Reply-To: nickw@beekeeping.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Nick Wallingford Subject: Re: honey testing In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT My understanding of international trade requirements is that testing cannot be used as a trade barrier, as a means of impeding the import/export of honey. If there are legitimate sanitary/phytosanitary reasons, testing can of course be imposed. Even then, however, it has to be done in a 'fair' way - you can't ask for the foreign honey to be tested for some pest/disease that your country already has (unless there is a formal programme attempting to eliminate it, etc), and you can't ask for the imported honey to tested to a greater degree than you are required to test your local honey. That is, you couldn't test (and presumably reject) foreign honey for having, say, AFB spores if there is no programme to similarly test and restrict local honey. Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 17:22:03 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Craig M Spencer Subject: "The case of the trespassing bees." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Im looking for a copy of "The case of the trespassing bees." Bulletin of the ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 5(3): 93-97. Prof. Doutt Im having a problem with a couple of my neighbors.They have complained about yellow spots on a white houses and a white cars and trucks. They had asked me to remove my hives from my land. If I don't they are going to seek the advice of an attorney. My township is all zoned Ag/Res.and live in upstate New York State. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks Craig M Spencer cspencer@stny.rr.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:10:19 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Blane & All, > Clearly, Tibor (Steve Tabor) has shown that such selection can and will work. Actually (in my opinion) Steve nor any other of the researchers has proven that such selection alone can produce a truly varroa resistant bee. Tabor, Dr. Shiminuki and others have put forth the theory AND I can not say I disagree with the theory BUT the finnished product is not *on line* yet. Even Dee & Ed Lusby say selection and breeding is responsible for only a third of their success after ten plus years of selection. The *quick -and -dirty* selection method has not in my opinion produced the desired results yet. Harris & Harbo looked deeper at exactly why the sticky boards had less mites and took the * quick & dirty* test a step up. Selecting and breeding for the SMR trait is complicated. As I said in a earlier post I believe the search for SMR is above the abilities of all but a few beekeepers. I believe testing for SMR and breeding for SMR could be tought to queen breeders and beekeepers by Harbo but a considerable investment in instrumental insemination equipment and a excellent microscope would be neccessary. The folks at Ohio Queen Breeders could teach the process in my opinion (and maybe I should email Joe & Sue and suggest they consider offering classes). Hives carry different mite loads for many reasons. All bees with a low might load may not carry the SMR trait. A couple mistakes in the selection process and you end up with a bee with a certain amount of varroa resistance BUT not enough to survive without chemicals ( in my opinion). The goal of the above search has always been to find the bee which will exist with varroa, produce like the days before varroa (U.S.) AND not need ANY chemical treatment. All opinions welcomed. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. Sadly the Russian queen and SMR queen varroa resistance has yet to be proven in regards to open mated daughters in my opinion. I am only putting forth my opinion as did Allen & Blane. Putting forth a opinion different than two beekeepers which I admire and respect is not a position I enjoy being in but one I find myself in often! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:00:45 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: "The case of the trespassing bees." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit They would have to PROVE that the yellow spots came from YOUR BEES. Go to court if you are ordered to move your bees and make the plaintiffs PROVE that YOUR bees caused it. The important thing here is If a bee caused it, were the bees YOUR bees or someone else's or wild bees. They are assuming, and assumptions are NOT legal reasons. FIGHT FOR YOURSELF! DON'T "cow-tou" to the complainers. They are interlopers in a agricultural zoning. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 20:40:21 -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: "The case of the trespassing bees." In-Reply-To: <200108152208.f7FM8iQ14104@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Craig, Can you move the hives so that their flight path is different, not right over their driveway? -----Original Message----- From: Craig M Spencer Im having a problem with a couple of my neighbors.They have complained about yellow spots on a white houses and a white cars and trucks. They had asked me to remove my hives from my land. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 03:08:48 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: 10 and 9 frame spacing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > A good point and I doubt there are many whose livelihoods depend on > pollination contracts would run 9 in the brood chambers. But I think > the advantages of 9 frames for a hobbyist outweigh the disadvantages. I > would also question you assertion that a 10% reduction in comb area in > the brood nest equates to a 10% reduction in brood area. Sometimes > arithmetic is not so simple. Interesting discussion. I think you are right about the math not being simple. A hive of bees seems to me to be a self-optimizing system. We randomly run both 10 and 9 frame spacing in our brood chambers and have for many years. We inherited some nine frame spaced hives and never changed them over to ten. We have never been able to notice any difference in hive strength or wintering success between the two systems. Fundamentally, bees do not actually need our hives or care about our dimensions. I'm told they did just fine for millennia without them. These days people take the dimensions and restrictions of manufactured hives and foundation for granted -- almost like gospel, but standard spacing between frames was one of those things that was decided back when moveable frame hives came in to existence a century ago. At that time, people were not as unanimous about such things as they are today. There were many types of bees kept in different environments and methods, and the design decisions that were made by each manufacturer were based on his local observations, logic, public beliefs and desires of the time, and (often) a measure of speculation and marketing hype. Each manufacturer had to decide on the spacing between frames, the ideal size of cells in foundation, the designs, volumes and shapes of the boxes and frames -- and the dimensions necessary to achieve those volumes. Entrance size and orientation and excluder wire spacing were also things that had to be established. Selling equipment is a manufacturers goal. To the extent that the requirements behind this goal coincide with the needs of bees and beekeepers, the modern hive is a success for manufacturers, beekeepers, and bees. Nonetheless we must remember that a manufacturer does not wish to sell 10% fewer frames or 10% less foundation, so closer spacing and more frames is a good thing for him. For convenience and simplicity, a one-size-fits-all approach has been used in hives, mating nucs being an exception, but different manufacturers came to very different conclusions and designed very different hives. Over time there has been a convergence towards a standard, but there are still incompatibilities between suppliers. When we consider our hives, we must remember that some of the original assumptions may have been wrong, circumstances have changed, and that there is certainly nothing wrong with taking another look at every aspect of hive design and use in light of this knowledge and in consideration of what our own bees show us when we work with them. There is no reason to believe that our standard hive is anything other than a compromise -- and maybe a poor one in our personal situation. Keeping that in mind, another important thing to remember is that in a one- size-fits-all approach, the tendency is to be on the generous side with some dimensions and too small in others. Each choice depends on whether being too generous or too skimpy with that particular parameter would have the more undesirable effect. Since everything is a compromise, the concern is that the hive must work in all circumstances and that is more important to a manufacturer than it's being ideal in any particular application or circumstance. Examples: Excluders: Too wide a spacing and they won't exclude. Too narrow and bees cannot get through. Bees vary in size. Hmmmm. Entrances: Too small and the hive overheats. Too large has fewer obvious problems. Universally, entrances are made on the generous side. Foundation: Too small and many bees won't accept it. Bees that do will be smaller. Small cells pack more bees in less space. That can be a good or bad depending on circumstances and the beliefs of the people involved. Too large and the cluster density drops. Bees become marginally larger. Too large and worker comb becomes confused with drone comb. Etc. Frame spacing: Bees naturally vary comb spacing. In man-made hives, if the combs are too close, brood often cannot be raised in all cells and flatness of the central foundation becomes critical. Closer spacing sells more equipment more often. If the combs are spaced wider, then the flatness of the brood combs is less critical, bees have more room between combs, older, warped combs are not a problem, fewer frames are required, there is less handling, ventilation may be improved, but a given cluster can cover fewer combs. As I recall, Dadant chose a wider spacing than Root. Root's spacing is what most call ten frame spacing. Dadant was closer to what we call nine. As I recall, anyhow. I could go on, but I think this points out that modern manufactured hives are strictly an artificial construct for the convenience of humans. Left to their own, bees will often build hives with curved combs. Comb spacing will vary. Cells will also vary in size. And they will do just fine. Although the hives we use may actually be ideal for some bees under some circumstances, they are not necessarily what the bees would choose in all cases nor are they 'right' or 'wrong'. I don't think comb spacing -- within reasonable limits -- is very critical. allen allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:36:15 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Bob and Everyone, Bob, I was refering to the continuing work and yearly updates published in American Bee journal by Tibor Szabo not Steve Tabor. Tibor's selection program clearly shows in my opnion that one can use mite counts to select for increasing varroa resistance while continuing to treat colonies for varroa mites. Tibor's work seems to validate Allen's "quick and dirty" selection process. Of course breeding progress will be much faster with II and with more focused selection such as Harbo's work with SMR but the relatively easily done selection based only on mite count will also work. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 08:38:37 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: Re: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, > The goal of the above search has always been to find the bee which will > exist with varroa, produce like the days before varroa (U.S.) AND not need > ANY chemical treatment. > All opinions welcomed. Aren't the Lusby's already doing this? There bees exist with mites using no chemicals whatsoever. They have shown us how to do this. All one has to do is the work and they to will have this type of bees too! I agree with your Statements about SMR bees. This type of breeding can help but will only play a part. If you have come to the conclusion that breeding will only be part of saving your bees. What will you do for the other part? Clay ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 04:28:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: 10 and 9 frame spacing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Allen & All, I would like to add to Allen's post by saying many years ago I observed *bee space* was not observed by the bees in the brood area. In other words the brood comb could by spaced wider (when using drawn comb) without the bees making changes to the comb like they typically do when nine frames are used in a honey super. Because bees crawl over other bees when congested I believe using nine frames helps with congestion at times. With bees entering the entrance and heading up to the supers the extra spacing of another bee wide between all frames can help greatly with congestion. I have had beekeepers say the above is not so but do the math. I have pondered the question of simply removing a outside frame at the start of the honey flow and putting back after the honey flow for those using ten frames. The biggest draw back I see with using nine frames is the practice of adding foundation into the brood nest to prevent swarming. Often many of these frames are drawn incorrectly because of the nine frame spacing if the bees are bringing in nectar at the time. The problem has got worse with the use of plastic foundation. Bess not wanting to use the plastic simply start their own comb right between the plastic foundation and the drawn comb. Quite a waste of the bees time and resources. At times foundation is drawn in deeps with a inside feeder in place. The frame next to the feeder is always a problem to get drawn correctly when using nine frames and ten will not fit. I still use mostly nine frames and have came up with ways to deal with the above small problems. Using ten frames in late spring when checking brood nests on strong hives slows down the process in my opinion. You really need to start on the outside and remove a frame first to prevent smashing bees (maybe the queen). With nine *many times* a quick check of the brood can be done by simply pulling up the center comb enough to check the brood pattern. Time is the most precious asset you have got at the busy time of the year. Typically hobby beekeepers use ten and sideline/ commercial beekeepers use nine. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. Glen & Lloyd Stanley (Iowa) are strong advocates for using ten frames. They are retired now but still provoke lively debates in bee meetings when the *nine verses ten* discussion comes up. They ran thousands of hives always using ten frames and I have learned countless beekeeping tips from their talks and articles. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:32:38 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Housel Subject: Washing metal with honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Questioning any principles that are related to the washing of metal with honey for a better bond of paint. Bonding after honey washing is the best way for paint to be bonded to metal permentaly. Michael Housel Orlando/Fl ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:37:38 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: Washing metal with honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/16/01 9:14:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Orlandobee@AOL.COM writes: > washing of metal with > honey for a better bond of paint Honey is acid. Vinegar and other acids like phosphoric are used to etch the surface of metal to give the surface some "tooth". Aluminum and brand new galvanised come to mind. Flat stale coca cola will work also. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:32:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kyle Lewis Subject: Insulating Hives To Cold Climate Beekeepers, Question: Do any of you have experience with insulating hives? I have read Allen's excellent description, and I would like to hear from others who have real experience. In addition to insulating methods, please tell me what breed of bee you use, how much stores the bees need, and what your winter losses are. I live in southwest Wyoming, altitude 7000 ft, cold to -30 F. Winter starts in October and continues until the end of April. Bees here may not have flight opportunity for 6 months. Winter here is quite dry and windy, like Alberta. I have some 2" thick blue polystyrene foam that I can put to work as insulation. One more thing--I am a newbee and this will be my bee's first winter. And it is coming soon. Kyle ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 06:29:09 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Clay & All, > Aren't the Lusby's already doing this? There bees exist with mites using no > chemicals whatsoever. They have shown us how to do this. All one has to >do > is the work and they to will have this type of bees too! Excellent point! However when you look at the process involved in the Lusby's methods (let alone expense) it simply is not a reasonable option on a larger scale with most operations struggling to survive. I agree with your Statements about SMR bees. This type of breeding can help but will only play a part. If you have come to the conclusion that breeding will only be part of saving your bees. What will you do for the other part? I have always said and have posted in many posts that when a varroa resistant bee is found I will simply requeen with those queens. I would have used Russian queens if I felt those would have worked. I still might try some if they stand the test of time. I have said before I am only a beekeeper and not on the level of our USDA researchers. I believe they are doing excellent research and looking at solving our serious varroa problem. As I posted earlier I will not sing the praises of SMR until I have left hives untreated for two years. I plan to only use SMR queens and check mite loads. The first queens we have already installed were mated to either a Marla Spivak hygienic breeder queens drones or a survivor colonies drones. We hope to get the isolated mating yards in place after the honey crop is extracted. eggs from the yellow line and drones from the red line. Then the opposite for Texas queen raising. All the projects hives will not get SMR queens until late spring in Texas. Maybe not then because of the size of the project. Because we are raising our own queens the SMR project suits us. We believe we can control matings up to a point. We should be hearing the final word on if the Russian queens have been a success before the final word on SMR. Those using the Lusby's method need to keep quiet about results until those hives have been left untreated for at least two years. Shaking hives onto foundation is a form of varroa control and staring from a package from a treated hive will usually survive for a year untreated (usually). Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. In defense of U.S. queen breeders the queens I bought this year from my favorite queen breeder outperformed the queens we raised. Why do we always get the better product as we are walking out the door! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 11:14:54 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: Re: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob, > Excellent point! However when you look at the process involved in the > Lusby's methods (let alone expense) it simply is not a reasonable option on > a larger scale with most operations struggling to survive. You have wax. You could mill your own foundation and save $$$$ in the long run. Yes you will have to work a bit harder, BUT it is your own product and you can cull combs as needed saving much money. For what one pays out in queens in a season in a commercial operation should easily purchase a mill. By using no chemicals one save even more money. Do you truly believe breeding alone will save the industry? If 100% resistant queens can't be produced consistently year after year it won't happen. What happens when supercedure occurs and natural mating occur with local stock? Loss of resistance??? One can't fight nature! It has a mind of its own and will not cooperate. Man does not have the ability to keep that kind of control. You as the beekeeper can control cell size with in a reasonable degree. But mating of bees for this type of resistance to last forever is pretty much impossible. Knowing this it makes the Lusby's methods much more reasonable of an option.(it is working even before these specially breed queens) Nature has a way of working out problems. Clay- hoping you would reconsider using 4.9 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:43:15 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rick Green Subject: Re: Insulating Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For two winters I placed black felt paper around 50 hives and left 50 hives with plain white exteriors, results, it made no difference. Contact me at: Rick Green 8 Hickory Grove Lane Ballston Lake, NY 12019 (518) 384-2539 Gothoney@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:53:13 -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: Re: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance In-Reply-To: <200108161607.f7GG7sQ06944@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit huestis wrote: > Do you truly believe > breeding alone will save the industry? If 100% resistant queens can't be > produced consistently year after year it won't happen. What happens when > supercedure occurs and natural mating occur with local stock? Loss of > resistance??? One can't fight nature! It has a mind of its own > and will not cooperate. Operating against nature is very often a losing proposition, but I don't see that here. Nature is also selecting for mite resistance, no? 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: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 11:19:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: Missouri State Fair Hello All, I will be at the Missouri State Beekeepers booth at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Missouri from 9 am till 9 pm on August 17th. to *try* and answer beekeeping questions. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:20:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: EAS 2001 - SMR - Good queens don't just happen and EAS 2002! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I've been trying to find time to write a bit about EAS 2001. After a week away time is hard to find, especially when I'm heading for a week+ on PEI this Saturday. So I'll have to keep it short. First I must exclaim that the Eastern Apicultural Society on North America, Inc. conference 2001 was great! There were may concurrent sessions and threads. For every session one attended there were sessions one was forced to miss. I tried to bounce around between the Pollination and Queen Breeding sessions and wished I could have attended all of both! Again, trying to keep this short, I'm compelled to comment a bit on SMR queens and the general thread (of which I have not caught up on and frankly I doubt I'll ever read all of the posts to BEE-L while I was away) regarding Quick-n-dirty varroa resistence/SMR/4.9,etc.,etc. Bob Danka (Baton Rouge Bee Lab) was at EAS and spoke very carefully about the SMR project and what to expect and NOT expect from the SMR lines. I too am choosing my words very carefully, and nothing of what I write should be construed as coming directly from Bob or any of the other speakers at EAS. For the next few paragraphs I am staying away from saying anything in particular about SMR bees, I am writing more about bee breeding in general. And I have written to this effect before (search the archives for "Good queens don't just happen"). It seems more evident to me than ever before that one can select for just about any trait one desires in their bees. The problem is that once one pays PARTICULAR attention to a specific trait, be it color, or resistance to AFB or chalk or varroa, or honey production, or over wintering, (the list goes on and on), once one starts to FOCUS on a PARTICULAR trait, by necessity the other traits become blurry. If one focuses only on honey production, then the bees may lose some of their darkness or yellowness, and the breeder won't really care about the loss of color because they've been successful in their selection for honey production. If one selects for over wintering, they may not care that their bees produce less honey in view of the fact that their bees are alive the following spring. A lesser producing hive from last year that's alive in May is far better to a breeder targeting on over wintering than a buster last fall that's dead this spring. And what's good for a beekeeper in the north (over wintering for instance) may be of little to no concern to a beekeeper in the south. Alan writes there is no "one size fits (suits?) all" when it comes to bee equipment, the same is true when it comes to queens! Or as Brother Adam put it, "There is no perfect queen!". Addressing SMR specifically: be aware that breeders have been FOCUSING on Suppressive Mite Reproduction. They have not concerned themselves with honey production or temperament or over wintering of ANY of the myriad of traits that make up honey bees. They have been FOCUSING on SMR and have successfully isolated that trait, possible to the point of extreme inbreeding depression. Glenn Apiaries warn of this on their web page for those considering buying pure SMR II queens. They warn against using pure II SMR queens in production hives, recommending rather that the queens be used to bring the isolated SMR genes into your own gene pool and attempting to breed them into your bees. And as soon as the concentrated SMR genes are open mated in your yards, there will be a mixture of good results (open mated queens that retain the SMR trait) and poor results (open mated queens that do not retain SMR traits) and there will be middle results (open mated queens that retain a certain degree of SMR traits). It will be up to individual beekeepers to assess the degree of success in retaining SMR retention and it will be up to individual beekeepers to assess the combination of other traits (over wintering/honey production/color/etc.) that is mixed in with the open mated queens begat by the SMR breeders. I was left with a rather ironic appreciation that the SMR breeders are attempting to provide beekeepers with isolated SMR traits and most beekeepers are determined to watch that isolated trait disappear through haphazard beekeeping practices, supersedures, and lack of assessment of their own breeding efforts. One cannot expect to buy SMR queens and enjoy all the traits they've come to expect of good queens AND never have to treat for varroa again. It ain't a gonna happen! At best you can expect to bring in a concentration of SMR into your yards. If you aren't actively breeding, testing, assessing, culling the crap and keeping the good, then you're probably wasting your time and you're better off buying your queens from someone making the effort. SMR is not the silver bullet, it's a tool. The trait is out there, it can be selected, and it can be lost in an open gene pool far easier than it was isolated. The challenge is to keep SMR prominent with the other desirable traits for bees in you yards in your area! So I'm keeping this short, right? I doubt I'll have time to write more before my next trip and will be pressed to catch up upon my return. What I REALLY wanted to say was go to these meetings if you can. The resources and RAW TALENT available to Joe Beekeeper attending the conference boggles the mind! The appreciation for what good breeders are doing and what researchers are discovering and how to be a better beekeeper dwarfs by far the costs of attending. The company is superb and the experience is priceless! Aaron Morris - thinking Go New York (where EAS 2002 will be hosted at Cornell University from August 5-9)! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:20:43 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Clay & All, >From reading your post I believe you have already made up your mind. I wish you success! I have always had a open mind to Dee Lusby's methods. I will present the other side of the discussion for others reading Bee-L. I will be around the computer today as doing office work and filling honey drums. Then replies will come slower . > You have wax. You could mill your own foundation and save $$$$ in the >long run. Yes you will have to work a bit harder, BUT it is your own >product and you can cull combs as needed saving much money. I can only speak for my own operation. Others may be in a position to try Lusby's methods and I encourage others to at least try a form of IPM or non chemical methods. I have tried many methods (and lost many hives) seeing for myself. I have allready culled my old combs when I went to plastic. I prefer the plastic (when drawn out) to wax foundation. Also I fully expect to see the small hive beetle in our area one of these days and the plastic cuts the SHB loses. As for working *harder* I allready get up a 4 am and work till dark (9to 10 pm). >or what one pays out in queens in a season in a commercial operation >should easily purchase a mill. Without a doubt! Dee says her queens are only one third of her success with varroa. In my opinion you will always need queens even with small cell. Also Dee has built a building, tanks etc. to produce enough foundation for her outfit. Processing wax can be dangerous. I read about her fire in the bee magazines. I don't know the cause but I have seen wax burn. The fire wall I built was the only thing which kept my supers from going *up in smoke* when I had my fire in 1995. > By using no chemicals one save even more money. Very true but a bigger point is what will the industry do when varroa becomes resistant to all *legal* chemicals. $10,000 is the first time fine for illegal use. If illegal chemicals start turning up in honey the USDA WILL start looking. What if coumaphos was not given a section 18 next year? >Do you truly believe breeding alone will save the industry? If varroa can not reproduce (as advertised) on those SMR bees? yes! If 100% resistant queens can't be produced consistently year after year it won't happen. In my opinion formic acid gel has proven to be around 50% effective when used exactly right and the weather cooperates. If SMR has a control anywhere over 50% then you are saving the costs chemicals. As I said above buying queens is always going to be a cost factor in beekeeping regardless of the control. I believe most queen breeders will offer the SMR queens IF they prove effective. If they get the *bugs* worked out of the Russian queens they might be popular with queen breeders. I was told Danny Weaver is going to offer SMR *open Mated* queens next year. What happens when supercedure occurs and natural mating occur with local stock? Loss of resistance??? One can't fight nature! It has a mind of its own and will not cooperate. You should go to the Baton Rouge web site I posted the other day and read carefully about SMR. Harbo believes when the SMR trait is introduced through open mating the whole apiary will pick up the SMR gene. I personally am going to try and keep my lines pure SMR. At least until I am sure open mating will not dilute the SMR gene. By raising our own queens and using remote mating yards with SMR drones we believe the line can be kept reasonably pure. Our problem is we still always seem to have to buy some queens. I believe I will order from Danny Weaver as he sees the SMR benefit and was one of the first to get on board. < Man does not have the ability to keep that kind of control. You as the >beekeeper can control cell size with in a reasonable degree. But > mating of bees for this type of resistance to last forever is pretty much > impossible. Knowing this it makes the Lusby's methods much more >reasonable of an option.(it is working even before these specially breed >queens) SMR is not new. It was observed many years ago. Harbo was the first to look closely at SMR I am aware of. If not I stand to be corrected. > hoping you would reconsider using 4.9. I hope you are successful but I can not see myself switching. Keep the list posted on your success (or failure) and I WILL do the same with the SMR queens (success or failure). Enjoyed your post! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:30:00 -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: Insulating Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Rick & All, > For two winters I placed black felt paper around 50 hives and left 50 hives > with plain white exteriors, results, it made no difference. Perhaps not in your area. Most beekeepers do not wrap in our area. Those north of me which do swear by wrapping. Many do not realise hives are wrapped to prevent rapid changes in temperature inside the hive. When the temperature drops fast bees can get cought away from the cluster. In northern areas (Canada) temps can drop 20-30 degrees in short order. Also tests show that bees move around in wrapped hives at lower temperatures than unwrapped hives. They also use less stores in the articles I have read. I do not wrap hives in Missouri but wouldn't of mind having the hives wrapped last November and December. We had the second coldest Nov. & Dec. in weather recording history. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:39:48 -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: EAS 2001 - SMR - Good queens don't just happen and EAS 2002! In-Reply-To: <200108161731.f7GHVaQ09395@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > It seems more evident to me than ever before that one can select for just > about any trait one desires in their bees. The problem is that once one > pays PARTICULAR attention to a specific trait, be it color, or resistance to > AFB or chalk or varroa, or honey production, or over wintering, (the list > goes on and on), once one starts to FOCUS on a PARTICULAR trait, by > necessity the other traits become blurry. I do believe this has a much larger impact on the 'big picture' than most think. I hear the same desired traits mentioned over and over as if we all want the same traits but we ignore our own climate and local conditions. Show me a breeder that doesn't tout the color of their bees. Show me one that doesn't make mention how big their queens are. Same for high honey yields or a great over-wintering trait. Do we all experience the same winter climates? Who says a golden yellow bee is better in some way than a dark bee? High honey yields, what if I live in an area that just doesn't have the nectar source to produce a lot of honey? Would this trait be an asset or a hindrance? If the above that Aaron wrote is true, then most beekeepers continue to keep bees that are more than likely not well suited or equipped to live and flourish in the beekeepers hives. We buy queens from all over the world and expect them to thrive for us. I guess the belief is a bee is a bee is a bee. I think a bee in my neighborhood is not like the bee in your neighborhood if allowed to be. Regards, Barry ...... thinking not all breeding is a like. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:06:51 -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: Insulating Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob & Liz wrote: > Many do not realise hives are wrapped to prevent rapid changes in > temperature inside the hive. When the temperature drops fast bees can get > cought away from the cluster. In northern areas (Canada) temps can drop > 20-30 degrees in short order. Bob hit on the main reason for wrapping. Not so much for heat in the dead of winter but a uniform temperature in the hive on both ends of the season. >Also tests show that bees move around in > wrapped hives at lower temperatures than unwrapped hives. They also use less > stores in the articles I have read. Both because of uniform temperatures in the hive. I do not wrap, but if you do it does not take much, usually tarpaper is enough. Tests showed more substantial wrapping made little difference in winter survival or spring vigor (the Hive and the Honey Bee). I know two beekeepers in my area that wrap with tarpaper and one has excellent success overwintering, the other has more winter kills than those that do not wrap. The beekeeper's summer and fall practices make a bigger difference in overwintering and bee vigor than wrapping. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:35:30 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Timothy C. Eisele" Subject: Re: Insulating Hives In-Reply-To: <200108161344.f7GDiaQ02921@listserv.albany.edu>; from kytl@CHEVRON.COM on Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 09:32:39AM -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 09:32:39AM -0400, Kyle Lewis wrote: > To Cold Climate Beekeepers, > Question: Do any of you have experience with insulating hives? I have > read Allen's excellent description, and I would like to hear from others > who have real experience. In addition to insulating methods, please tell > me what breed of bee you use, how much stores the bees need, and what your > winter losses are. > (note: I only have 4 hives, and this coming winter is only my third with bees, so take my comments for what they are worth. I am in the northern peninsula of Michigan, next to Lake Superior, so it never gets really warm and winter lasts almost 6 months) I have been wrapping with a single layer of tarpaper, with two pieces of styrofoam on top of the inner cover (the first piece of styrofoam has a slot cut in it that runs to the hole in the inner cover, to provide an upper entrance and ventilation). I also put a slanting board over the lower entrance, so that the bees can still get in and out but the entrance is shielded from snow (I do this because we routinely get over 150 inches of snow every winter, and without the board over the entrance it gets clogged with ice). I have tried to make sure that they have the equivalent of 3 medium boxes of honey going into the winter, and they have always finished with honey to spare. I started with Italians, but have just finished switching over to New World Carniolans (queens from Heitkam's Honey Bees, in California). Last winter, I had two Italian hives and two NWC hives, and both of the Italians died while both of the NWCs came through in good shape. The two Italian hives last winter were my only winter losses so far. -- Tim Eisele tceisele@mtu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:11:50 -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: EAS 2001 - SMR - Good queens don't just happen and EAS 2002! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry & All, >Who says a golden yellow bee is better in some way than a dark > bee? I have always prefered the Italian bee for a number of reasons. My partner prefers the Carniolans. Our last grafting of SMR queens produced one * yellow* queen. I was thrilled but my partner said the bees must have moved a egg. Has any other beekeepers grafting SMR came up with a completely yellow SMR queen? So far we have only had the one yellow queen out of several hundred SMR grafts. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:05:20 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance In-Reply-To: <200108160717.f7G7HeQ25187@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Actually (in my opinion) Steve nor any other of the researchers has proven > that such selection alone can produce a truly varroa resistant bee... What I was writing about was reducing varroa susceptibility and varroa reservoirs in a bee stock and thus reducing the need for treatments, not eliminating them in any immediate time period. Resistance comes in various degrees and any degree of resistance is a good thing. Many beekeepers treat routinely all hives for varroa not because all the hives are severely infested, but because some are and the build-up of mites in those hives will spill over into other hives when those hives collapse. (FWIW, SMR will not protect a hive from being overwhelmed by an outside infestation). It is desirable to reduce the background level of mites in a neighbourhood, and simple selection can do that. > Hives carry different mite loads for many > reasons. All bees with a low might load may not carry the SMR trait. A > couple mistakes in the selection process and you end up with a bee with a > certain amount of varroa resistance BUT not enough to survive without > chemicals ( in my opinion). The method I was suggesting really has nothing to do with SMR, although SMR is likely a contributing cause of the lower mite levels in some cases. There are many reasons that hives have greater or smaller varroa loads compared to neighbouring hives. Other than phenomena like drifting, swarming, supercedure, etc., many of these factors may have to do with the genetics of the bees. This Quick-and-Dirty method will catch them. I think you are imagining breeding from only a very few breeder queens. I am suggesting that 10% of the population be involved in producing either queen stock or drone stock without too narrow a selection. I am also suggesting eliminating the worst 10% or more from the breeding pool. > The goal of the above search has always been to find the bee which will > exist with varroa, produce like the days before varroa (U.S.) AND not need > ANY chemical treatment. That is perfection and not likely to happen soon. In the meantime reducing the treatments by half or more by simply selecting stock by Quick-and-Dirty criteria is not an impossible goal. allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 16:28:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kyle Lewis Subject: Re: Insulating Hives Thanks to each who have responded. By insulating, (I should have made clear) I mean more than wrapping with roofing felt, which has much less than R-1 insulation value. I meant to ask, has anyone had experience wintering colonies in R-4 to R-16 insulation of some kind? Wood is R-1 per inch thickness. Polystyrene is about R-4 per inch. I am under the impression that bees don't get the shelter they deserve in cold climates. Cheers, Kyle ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:55:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carmenie Stemmler Subject: Wintering Singles in Ontario Hello there, I have a question for the list. I made some splits a couple months ago, I think, and they at this point have about 6 frames of brood, and the rest being honey. Winter is approaching, and the honey flow is almost over. I have 16 singles, and about 24 double brood chamber hives. The double brood chamber hives have done exceptionally well, producing over 200 lbs average... Now I am wondering what to do with the singles. Most are in great condition, a few need a bit of help in terms of brood and honey. What is the best way to winter these singles. I have looked at the archives on the list... Wintering over the doubles seems to be suggested as a good idea... But I was wondering if I could winter two singles beside each other, raised up on an empty brood chamber to keep them dry and insulated, wrap them well, and do it like that. What says the list? I appreciate any advice given. Please keep in mind that this needs to be done before the 26th, as I am leaving for California then to go to school this winter. Of course if it can not be done by then, my family can do something. Thanks for the help!! Cheers, Carmenie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 01:17:37 +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: Varroa now in Dublin, Ireland Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All What has been up to now a theoretical exercise has become a reality. Last Saturday 11th August I selected two hives in the apiary in Dublin 14 to check for varroa. I inserted two Bayvarol strips into each hive (neither hive had supers on at this stage), and inserted paper inserts - computer listing paper - into the varroa floor of each hive. Two days later I returned and examined the paper inserts both visually and with a magnifying glass, and I saw three mites on each insert. I got independent verification from a beekeeper friend to be sure that I was in fact seeing varroa. There are another 15 hives in this apiary. I must presume that varroa has struck every hive. I will check all of the hives as soon as the honey is taken off. But presumably the infestation in some hives will be greater than in others. And indeed some hives may show no varroa on the inserts - but does this mean that they do not have varroa or merely that no varroa were killed by the Bayvarol?. Should I treat only those hives with major infestations (and with a lot of brood), and not treat those with light infestations or no apparent infestations? And what constitutes a major infestation and what constitutes a light infestation? I would imagine that a three mite drop is a light infestation. So many questions arise when you are actually looking at the mite! Any comments appreciated. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 20:42:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: SMR A few days ago someone said their pure SMR queen was superceded only a short time after he received them. I got two a month ago, and I noticed today the one either left or was killed about 5 days ago, judging by the age of the brood. The other one is still laying, but there are huge numbers of queen cells being formed. The brood pattern for both hives was about as bad as can be imagened for a new queen (or even an old one) and I STILL wonder if it's just the brood viability that causes superceding, or is it something else in the queen make-up that is the problem. Because if it is, then likely the daughter will have it too whether or not her brood pattern is good. It seems many of you are doing well grafting from pure SMR bees, but for anyone who is planning on it, perhaps you should consider lots at one time, as you may only have your breeding stock for a short period of time. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 07:29:07 -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: Wintering Singles in Ontario MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > Wintering over the doubles seems to be suggested > as a good idea... That would be my suggestion (put the singles on a double screen to of the doubles), but I'm finding that more and more less desireable, as it makes it hard to do the early spring (late winter) examinations on the doubles. But such a configuration has a huge benefit for the nuc on top. There is an article in this month's (last month's) Bee Culture about over-wintering single nucs as you described (wrap the singles and over winter them on their own). Some beekeepers butt up to 4 hives together and wrap the whole unit. This leaves only 2 sides of each box exposed to the elements if you butt 4, 3 sides if you butt 2. The other sides are against the sides of other singles. Reportedly there is a "between hive" benefit to such a configuration. Your August 26 deadline may be a bit too early for these setups. I wouldn't make such preparations until mid-October in upstate NY. > Of course if it can not be done by then, my family can do something. Are they interested in adopting? Aaron Morris - thinking winter's coming, but fall's first! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 07:15:55 -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: Insulating Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > By insulating, (I should have made clear) I mean more than wrapping with > roofing felt, which has much less than R-1 insulation value. I meant to > ask, has anyone had experience wintering colonies in R-4 to R-16 insulation > of some kind? Beware of OVER-insulating! The results may be like keeping your bees in a cooler. There are occasional opportunities for cleansing flights that come in very short windows. A small window of a few hours of opportune cleansing filght could possible be missed if a hive is SO insulated that the bees inside are also shielded from the warmth of a later winter day. The benefit of tar paper is not its R-value, its benefits come from shielding from drafty windss and it's black color which warms quickly as the sun gets higher in the sky as winter wanes. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 08:28:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Wintering Singles in Ontario In-Reply-To: <200108170400.f7H401Q27367@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 12:00 -0400 8/17/01, Carmenie wrote: > Winter is approaching, and the honey flow is almost over. What a depressing thought! It's still the middle of August! I would definitely give them another super and winter in 2 stories, because they may pick up more honey in the next month. I don't know about your area but down here in New York the fall flow can be the main flow. Don't you have a goldenrod flow up your way or is it almost over? Personally, I believe that if a colony is below par going into winter, there is very little you can do. I have combined mediocre hives and had them fail anyway. I think it has to do with the percentage of young bees. A very strong hive will have a higher percentage of young bees which seems to ensure its successful wintering. Peter Borst Ithaca, NY plb6@cornell.edu http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/plb6 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 19:14:59 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Al Lipscomb Subject: Re: "The case of the trespassing bees." In-Reply-To: <200108152208.f7FM8iQ14104@listserv.albany.edu>; from cspencer@STNY.RR.COM on Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 05:22:03PM -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Im having a problem with a couple of my neighbors.They have complained > about yellow spots on a white houses and a white cars and trucks. > They had asked me to remove my hives from my land. If I don't they are > going to seek the advice of an attorney. > My township is all zoned Ag/Res.and live in upstate New York State. > Any advice would be helpful. > Thanks > Craig M Spencer > cspencer@stny.rr.com First off you need to find out if the problem is your bees. If it is your bees then I think you have serveral options. I do not know how big your land is or how near your hives are to the people complaining. My first thoughts are to get a trusted outside party involved. If you have a state inspector who will work to help mediate the situation the "voice of authority" of someone at "the state level" can help. I used this when I got some complaints about bees in my yard and the city was going to write me up. I explained that he bees were inspected by the state (we have a great bunch of inspectors here in Florida) and gave him their number. I am not sure what was said but the solution of getting the bees out of site became the acceptable answer and one hive was moved about 3 feet. If you can make adjustments that will alter the bees flight path, for example a few sections of privacy fence, then that could solve some of the issue. Try to be a good neighbor. If, for example, they go to a local church then find out if that churches youth group would like a few cases of honey to sell at their next fund raiser. If they have kids in school, then find out if the school would like someone to come in and talk about bees and other pollinators. That way you are not only helping to solve your current problem, but could be helping to prevent future issues. Now if being a good guy fails:: Some people are going to whine and complain no matter what you do. If it were not for the bees they would be complaining about where you store your trash cans. People can sue about anything. If its not the yellow spots due to your bee hives then it will be the brown spots due to your bird feeders. Find a good lawyer, you know these people are going to be trouble sooner or later no matter what you do with the bees. Be ready to call their bluff. If they want to pay a lawyer $100 to write you a scary letter be prepared to have one written back. Do not agree to anything you do not want to. The burden is on them to prove their case, make them work and pay their lawyer. If you have to go to court, move most of the bees a day or two before the court date. That way if things do not go your way you can at least tell the judge that you have been working to solve the problem. If things go well, then quietly return the hives at a later date. -- | There is no doubt we need government in our lives. There is also no doubt that we need salt in our diet. Watch out for too much of either one. AA4YU http://www.beekeeper.org http://www.q7.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 08:57:12 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dann Purvis Subject: Re: EAS 2001 - SMR - Good queens don't just happen and EAS 2002! In-Reply-To: <200108162045.f7GKjJQ14650@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hey Bob, > Has any other beekeepers grafting SMR came up with a completely > yellow SMR queen? I have grafted about 200. All have been very consistent in shape, color, and size. Dann Purvis Purvis Bros. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 08:48:07 -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: "The case of the trespassing bees." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" arl@Q7.NET wrote > ... Now if being a good guy fails:: > > Some people are going to whine and complain no matter what you do... > If its not the yellow spots due to your bee > hives then it will be the brown spots due to your bird feeders. This is too true for coincidence. The "gentleman" who lodged the complaint that started all the problems I wrote about (being harrassed by small village government) keeps a plastic hawk mounted on his roof to scare the birds away from his next-door neighbor's bird feeders. Indeed, he objected to bird poop. The woman who likes feeding the birds commented, "There's really got to be a problem with a guy who hates the birds and the bees!" Aaron Morris - lawyer bills mounting and fighting a losing battle. Next court date in September. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 13:15:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "C.R. Crowell" Subject: Re: "The case of the trespassing bees." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sounds like the makings of a new business: "Bee Air Traffic Services." Selling specially trained bees that perform a scientifically specified "waggle dance", one choreographed specifically to your area. These trained bees would be guarranteed to dance for a minimun of 4 weeks, so that all of your bees would fly only the proscribed route (Any bees not flying the prescribed route would obvioiusly belong to other hives). Send me a rough sketch of your area and indicate the areas where you want them to fly, and your location. I will show this material to the bees, do a little dance to indicate where you are (limited to continental North America, I'm afraid), and send them on their way (please no cameras while I perform). Figure a 12 mph flight arrival time, the bees should be there and working. If your neighbor is skeptical, allow him or her (or any court officer) to inspect the hive contents to see the "dance" for themselves. I would provide reams of documentation on the "waggle dance" concept (certain to cause their eyes to glaze over) and a computer rendition of their choreography. Likely to be cheaper than hiring an attorney to respond to a nasty letter, since there would be no charge. Respectfully, BATS ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 19:08:00 +0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Invitation to Adelaide Royal Show, South Australia Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I realise very few Bee-L subscribers will be in South Australia between the 31st August - 8th September but for those who are I invite you to visit the Kangaroo Island Region display in the Ridley Hall, which is part of the Centenary of Food & Fibre sponsored by the Primary Industry & Resources S.A. government department. Kangaroo Island is promoting their boutique food products and I will be on duty for 9 days (10 hours a day) encouraging visitors to try the 6 varieties of Kangaroo Island honey on offer and talking about bees and beekeeping. I expect to enjoy myself immensely. The Adelaide Royal Show is from the 31st August - 8th September this year. We have a display of historical beekeeping with relation to the Ligurian Bee Sanctuary, with a hive which has been in use for 100 years on the mainland and is similar to the hives that were originally used by August Fiebig in his apiary site at Penneshaw in the 1880s. If you are in the neighborhood, drop in and say hello. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island J.H. & E. McAdam Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Varroa now in Dublin, Ireland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom Barrett said: > There are another 15 hives in this apiary. I must presume that > varroa has struck every hive. > I will check all of the hives as soon as the honey is taken off. Yes, you should check. Sadly, you are doomed to check all your hives on a regular basis until further notice. You may check sooner than "when honey is taken off". You may want to try "sugar rolls" or "ether rolls" while the supers are on to see if any hives are infested badly enough to prompt immediate attention. Ignoring the mite problem "until the supers are off" is, in my view, the sole cause of hives that die out soon after supers are removed, an often-documented scenario. > But presumably the infestation in some hives will be greater than > in others. And indeed some hives may show no varroa on the inserts - > but does this mean that they do not have varroa or merely that no varroa > were killed by the Bayvarol?. It is hard to say. It may be better to view ALL hives as "infested with varroa" to one extent or another, and simply view the tests as indicators of when to treat any one hive. I do regular "sugar rolls" on my hives, as the impact on the bees is nil, and I also do regular "powdered sugar dusting" to keep varroa levels down when the supers are on (and the varroa population can get out of hand). But I DO NOT "sugar dust" any hives that test as "clean". (Of course, I have no hives that have tested as "clean" during July an August, so I do end up sugar-dusting 100% of my hives...) Why treat anything that does not exist? While one must admit that any/all tests may miss a low-level infestation, a low-level infestation is not "worth" treating. > Should I treat only those hives with major infestations (and with a lot of brood), > and not treat those with light infestations or no apparent infestations? Yes, but the decision of what level of mite drop implies the need for treatment is not "standardized" in any way. There are no absolutes in this little war we are fighting against the varroa. I would submit that the non-toxic approach of using "sugar dusting" to knock down the mite population during the critical summer months when supers are on allows one to establish a much lower tolerance in the decision-making about what level of infestation implies the need for treatment. When one has a low-cost non-toxic treatment that does not require one to remove supers, one can afford to treat at lower "mite-drop" levels. > And what constitutes a major infestation and what constitutes a light infestation? There are no standards in this area, because the tests vary so much (even if using Bayvarol or Apistan, there are simply too many variables from hive to hive, such as temperature, humidity level, amount of hive ventilation, and so on). > I would imagine that a three mite drop is a light infestation. Agreed. But how much longer until you pull supers? Let's assume that you got 100% of the emerged mites (those not in cells reproducing) in your test. If one had 3 mites "on the bees", it is reasonable to assume an equal number "in the cells". a) As bees emerge, so do the offspring of any mites that are in specific cells. In about a week, the offspring are ready to reproduce, and move into cells containing bee larvae. Female mites can live 2 - 3 months in summer, and 5 - 8 months in the fall/winter, and can reproduce many times, each time laying 4 - 6 eggs. b) So, if you detected 3 mites, and assume that this is 100% of "mites on bees", you may have 3 mites "in cells", and may soon have 10 to 15 mites (male mites die after mating, so you never would get a full 6 mite increase from every mating). From there, the numbers start to get scary, not matter what ratio of male to female mites you assume out of each "generation". Even a minimal "powers of 3" (where 3 reproducing offspring per female are created) rate leads to: 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561, 19683, 59049, 177147 Read up on the "screened bottom board" (sometimes called the "Beltsville board"), and consider adding them to every hive. Thorne even sells the 8-mesh screen one needs to build one. Since some number of mites fall off bees without any treatment at all, this is, in my view, the best method the detect infestation. One can count "mite drop per week", which is a much better "sample" than a 48-hour test, and can be done at any time, even when supers are on. One really need not "count" the mites, since a glance is all one needs to triage a hive into "OK", "Treatment Needed Soon", or "Critical Condition - Treat At Once" categories. I tend to view mites as "weeds in the garden", and apply the same rationale to both "weeding" and sugar-dusting. My gardens will never be 100% weed-free, and I don't expect my hives to be 100% mite-free. But ignoring either means that I will soon have a mess. The good news is that I have never needed to sugar dust more than once a month for any one hive. I wish I only needed to weed once per month. :) jim farmageddon ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 12:28:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: Small Hive Beetle Hello All, We were told at the Missouri State Fair booth this week that the Small Hive Beetle had been found in Missouri. The SHB was sent off and SHB was confirmed. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 22:13:51 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Doug Henry Subject: Re: Comb honey frames In-Reply-To: <200108130314.f7D3ES809861@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I saw something similar yesterday for sale in Mitchell SD. The plastic containers were about 5 inches square and 3/4 inches thick full of comb honey similar to Ross Round technique and were listed for sale at 10.99US$. I didn't note the name of the apairy who produced them but it was located in Oregon. Doug Henry Lockport Manitoba Andrew & Judy Weinert wrote: I have recently seen in Australia, comb honey presented in clear plastic square boxes. It appears as though the comb is drawn in the plastic box. Can anyone tell me who makes them and where they are available from in Australia. Thanks ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 21:01:21 -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: Quick-and-Dirty Varroa Resistance In-Reply-To: <200108161744.f7GHiRQ09691@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hello Bob - > Also I fully expect to see the > small hive beetle in our area one of these days and the plastic cuts the SHB > loses. >From what I'm reading in the September issue of ABJ, the SHB is, for all practical purposes, a non-threat. Plastic or wax, you play by the rules and you're only dealing with 5 percent of the problems produced by the SHB. There is no reason to think you should have to be thinking about damaged combs. >> or what one pays out in queens in a season in a commercial operation >> should easily purchase a mill. > > Without a doubt! Dee says her queens are only one third of her success with > varroa. In my opinion you will always need queens even with small cell. The big difference here being you are working with your own stock and raising your own queens verses purchasing from a vendor. > Also > Dee has built a building, tanks etc. to produce enough foundation for her > outfit. I can tell you it takes very little to accomplish this in terms of buildings and tanks, etc. > Very true but a bigger point is what will the industry do when varroa > becomes resistant to all *legal* chemicals. Exactly. And the answer is? >> Do you truly believe breeding alone will save the industry? > > If varroa can not reproduce (as advertised) on those SMR bees? yes! > If 100% resistant queens can't be produced consistently year after year it > won't happen. Then it ain't happening. Nowhere is it claimed that SMR bees will ever be 100% resistant. The best I can find promised is a lower number of mites. Low enough to stop the usage of chemicals? I quote from ABJ - Sept, 2001, "SMR - The Next Step Towards Surviving with Varroa Mites": "We have not allowed our honey bees to develop their own natural defenses to the Varroa Mite. Instead, beekeepers have provided protection from the mites in the form of chemical applications. In order for honey bees to develop resistance against the Varroa Mites, honey bees must have some exposure to the mites. However, with our current use of chemical applications, we as beekeepers have kept mite levels very low, too low, for bees to develop their own resistance mechanism against the mites. If the incorporation of the SMR trait is successful, it will keep Varroa infestation levels low enough to prevent economic damage, but high enough to allow a sustainable relationship to develop between honey bees and Varroa Mites." Question: On the SMR queens you are working with, do you plan to refrain from using all mite treatments on the bees to test the claims? > In my opinion formic acid gel has proven to be around 50% effective when > used exactly right and the weather cooperates. If SMR has a control anywhere > over 50% then you are saving the costs chemicals. Not exactly. You must also factor in continually buying new queens to keep the traits. Also as stated above, I don't see SMR working well with continued chemical usage. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 21:59:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: "The case of the trespassing bees." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron Morris said: > This is too true for coincidence. The "gentleman" who lodged the complaint > that started all the problems I wrote about (being harassed by small > village government) keeps a plastic hawk mounted on his roof to scare the > birds away from his next-door neighbor's bird feeders. Indeed, he objected > to bird poop. The woman who likes feeding the birds commented, "There's > really got to be a problem with a guy who hates the birds and the bees!" At risk of stating the obvious, you may want to check the public record to see just how many "formal complaints" and actual lawsuits this fellow has filed in the past. An effective technique would be to simply offer to the public enforcement officials a neatly typed list of his activities, in chronological order. The goal here would be to discredit his complaint as one of many complaints against a wide range of people on a wide range of issues. There ARE such things as full-time busybodies. Exposing them as such is all the "defense" one needs offer, and it can often be done in person and off-the-record with the same people who are dragging you through the court system. If the public servants seem unreceptive, then one's lawyer can question the busybody about each and every prior incident of complaint until the judge gets the message. Scenarios like poor Aaron's are why my policy remains firm - all I want is my land, and all the land that adjoins it. jim farmageddon ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 13:18:58 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Morton Organization: Central Science Laboratory Subject: Re: Varroa now in Dublin, Ireland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom Barrett wrote: > Should I treat only those hives with major > infestations (and with a lot of brood), and not treat those with light > infestations or no apparent infestations? And what constitutes a major > infestation and what constitutes a light infestation? I would imagine that a > three mite drop is a light infestation. > > So many questions arise when you are actually looking at the mite! > > Any comments appreciated. If you haven't seen it already, you may find our advisory leaflet 'Managing Varroa' (download from: http://www.csl.gov.uk/prodserv/cons/bee/factsheets/ ) a useful source of information. It gives practical advice on monitoring and controlling varroa, which although intended for beekeepers in England and Wales should still be relevant for Irish conditions. James -- ___________________________________________________________________________ James Morton South-Eastern Regional Bee Inspector Central Science Laboratory National Bee Unit Tel/fax: 020 8571 6450 Mobile: 07719 924 418 E-mail: j.morton@csl.gov.uk CSL website: http://www.csl.gov.uk National Bee Unit website: http://www.csl.gov.uk/prodserv/cons/bee/ ___________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 13:42:19 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andrew Dewey Subject: white larvae on top of bottom super Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Saturday I discovered white larvae of some sort sitting on top of the frames of my bottom deep super. I didn't recognize what they were. I scraped them out with my hive tool - they squished almost on touch. This hive was started this spring from a nuc and is doing well. The two deeps are filled (I strained to lift them) with brood, honey & pollen (very nice patterns). I have one shallow super on that has been pretty much drawn out and has some honey in it. The bees are taking roughly 5 qts of 1:1 sugar water every three days. The hive is located in Lamoine, Maine (near Ellsworth). It has been very dry here and the goldenrod bloom is starting to fade. I'd appreciate any info on how to identify the larvae; I didn't see any indication that the bees were trying to do anything about them. Thanks, Andrew Andrew Dewey Acadia Computer Corp. Bar Harbor, ME andrew@acadiacomp.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:01:12 -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: white larvae on top of bottom super In-Reply-To: <200108201832.f7KIWpQ28264@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just out of curiosity, why are you feeding a colony with two full deeps of stores (presumably from what you have been feeding)? Also, I would doubt you have "honey" in the super, since you are feeding them. -Karen -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Dewey The two deeps are filled (I strained to lift them) with brood, honey & pollen (very nice patterns). I have one shallow super on that has been pretty much drawn out and has some honey in it. The bees are taking roughly 5 qts of 1:1 sugar water every three days. The hive is located in Lamoine, Maine (near Ellsworth). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:48:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: WILLIAM G LORD Organization: N.C. Cooperative Extension Service Subject: bee clip art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bee liners; I am working up some labels and am looking for some good bee clip art or scannable material. Hexagonal backgrounds, stylized bees, etc. Any suggestions? Bill Lord -- William G Lord 103 South Bickett Blvd., Louisburg, NC 27549 E-Mail : william_lord@ncsu.edu Phone : 919-496-3344 Fax : 919-496-0222 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 19:45:28 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gordon Scott Subject: Bee droppings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi all, In an effort to rescue a situation before it turns naughty, can anyone offer advice on the following, please? TIA, regards, Gordon. > I have a neighbour who has 16 hives and as a result the surrounding area > is covered by spotting i.e. washing comes off the line with yellow spots > cars have it on and sometimes it can be felt landing on the skin. do > you know of any way that this problem can be solved without me moving > or the keeper having to remove the hives. > > Does your wife or perhaps even you have a secret formula for removing > the marks off clothes > > Any feedback would be welcomed. > > I suppose this sounds like an anti beemail, which it isn't, I just > need some ideas to help resolve the problem, without a falling out of > neighbours,which could so easily happen. -- Gordon Scott Gordon@gscott.co.uk (home) http://www.gscott.co.uk Gordon.Scott@multitone.com (work) http://www.multitone.com Linux ... Because I like to *get* there today. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:18:19 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "George J. Biles(SE PA, USA)" Subject: Re: Comb honey frames Sounds like the Hogg half-comb cassette, available from any of the larger beekeeping supply houses. Unlike the Ross or beeway sections, it has cells on one side only, so it is a half-comb. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 18:12:34 -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: white larvae on top of bottom super In-Reply-To: <200108201831.f7KIViQ28241@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 01:42 PM 8/20/01 -0400, you wrote: >Saturday I discovered white larvae of some sort sitting on top of the >frames of my bottom deep super. I didn't recognize what they were. It is possible that they were Wax Moth larvae. What do they look like? Here is a photo taken from a good resource to learn more about them. Keep in mind that paradichiorobenzene (PDCB) mothballs should not be used in active colonies. The treatment in active colonies is a strong colony (if only it were that easy :^) Hope this helps, and good look in your new adventure. Michael Churchill 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, 20 Aug 2001 18:55:38 -0700 Reply-To: beekeeper82@yahoo.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carm Subject: Re: white larvae on top of bottom super In-Reply-To: <200108201833.f7KIXlQ28275@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Are you sure they are not drone larvae? Is there burr comb inbetween the supers? Cheers, Carm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 10:42:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Karen Oland Subject: FYI Reuters: "US accused of attacking bees" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forwarded from the new zealand list. Apparently mites have hit Cuba. -----Original Message----- CUBA- Not content with conventional conflict tactics like sanctions and a 1961 CIA-backed invasion, the United States has resorted to attacking Cuba's bees, according to the ruling Communist party's weekly newspaper. The State-run newspaper Granma Internacional accused Washington of waging a "biological war" against Cuba that was probably to blame for a disease that has destroyed 16,000 beehives, causing $2 million in lost honey output since 1996. In the latest edition of the paper, writer Raisa Pages based the claim on the fact that the disease attacking the beehives, which Cuba calls "varroasis", first appeared in the west of the island. The honey accusation is the latest in a long line of "biological" attacks Havana has blamed on Washington. US officials have generally ridiculed the claims as fantasy and propaganda. - Reuters ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Aug 0101 16:02:20 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mike Tooley Subject: Re: FYI Reuters: US accused of attacking bees The > State-run newspaper Granma Internacional accused Washington of waging a > "biological war" against Cuba And all this time I suspected it was the communists who brought varroa to us.Just goes to show what a little paranoia will do. Mike --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using InterStar WebMail ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 08:31:49 +1200 Reply-To: paul@ww.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul D Brown Subject: No Floor, cluster depths & screen floors MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi All, I am trialling 2 hives here at home with no floor and have been dutifully measuring the depth of the cluster below the bottom frame rail. All is going more or less as I would have expected. I also keep a hive for a keen lady who wanted to trial the floorless hive concept. I had almost forgotten this but was quickly reminded of its floorless condition when I examined the bottom box frames. Many frames had bur drone comb attached to them, one had a 200 mm crescent of capped drone comb hanging from it's bottom frame rail. SO I have added another tool to my hive inspection box, a 550 mm handled 35mm thisel like tool. The idea is that I first put in my mite counting drawer, through the rear opening door, and then use the long handled chisel to cut off all the drone brood and remove it on the counting drawer and hopefully a lot of varroa mites contained therein. DETAILS The West and North hives are floorless'. (no screen, nothing) The sub-floor volume is enclosed on all sides by a 6mm tanalised plywood surround (an unpainted stand) 250 mm above the bare ground. The rear wall of this stand is hinged to open DOWNWARDs. The bees enter the hive in the 'normal' manner through a 20mm X 365mm opening at the front. In summer, rear flap (180 mm X 280 mm) will be left swung open for ALL to come and go and to increase the ventilation. A mite counting drawer can be laid on the ground via the rear opening flap, to catch all 'fall' material over, say, a 24 hour period, for general 'health' monitoring. I have measured the distance the 'bee cluster' extends below the bottom frame bar at dusk. (by opening the rear flap and inserting a scale on a stick) Date 8Apr 15Apr 22Apr 29Apr 12May 22May 29May 19Jun 14Jul 28Jul 22Aug North hive 40mm 55 68 40 37 20 15 18 22 34 28 West hive 30mm 55 50 55 45 30 35 38 38 45 42 Temperature/°C 11 8 11 10 13 Cheers Paul b. Auckland, New Zealand. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 02:54:50 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Solar Wax Melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am thinking of making a solar melter. I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but I wonder if there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- assuming it does not melt. allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:45:32 -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: Solar Wax Melter In-Reply-To: <200108212151.f7LLpnQ14135@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I would suggest using glass. It's cheap, it is easier to clean than plastic, much more resistant to abrasion, and is a measurably better substance than plastic for the purpose of trapping radiation inside the box. Depending on how much was you intend to process, you wish to consider insulating the box. On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Allen Dick wrote: > I am thinking of making a solar melter. I understand that the design is > nothing particularly difficult, but I wonder if there is any necessity > to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- assuming it does > not melt. --------------- 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: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:15:30 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Subject: Re: Solar Wax Melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a little info for you. Glass has some peculiar properties. When light passes through it, the wavelength is lengthened slightly to the infrared side of the spectrum - heat. The other, more important property, is it tends to block infrared wavelengths, thereby keeping heat in the melter box. I've heard that plastic used for cooking bags works for such things. At least it doesn't melt. Let us know if it works. :-) Mark If what you're doing seems too hard..., You're probably doing it wrong. :-) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:19:55 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Solar Wax Melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Allen & All, I am thinking of making a solar melter. > > I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but I wonder if > there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- > assuming it does not melt. I have seen both used but glass the most on solar wax melters. . The most clever solar wax melter I ever saw was a old refrigerator laid on its back and wheels put under it. The beekeeper turned the melter to the south east in the morning. At lunch he turned the melter to the south west. The beekeeper rendered all his comb from a 2000 hive operation in two of these. He even built a special cement pad to keep the melters on. Bob Ps. complete deep hive bodies would fit inside the refrigerator solar wax melter. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:55:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Midnitebee Subject: Re: Solar Wax Melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allen Dick" To: Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 4:54 AM Subject: Solar Wax Melter > there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- > assuming it does not melt. We use plastic and it works just fine.. Regards, Norma Bee Holly-B Apiary PO Box 26 Wells,Maine 04090-0026 "an educated consumer is YOUR best customer" The Beekeeper's Home on the Internet http://www.mainebee.com Stony Critters http://www.stonycritters.com Betty's Driftwood Santa Site http://pages.ivillage.com/santasite/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 10:16:34 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: Solar Wax Melter In-Reply-To: <200108212151.f7LLpnQ14135@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I am thinking of making a solar melter. > >I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but I >wonder if >there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- >assuming it does not melt. Several modern plastics, e.g. polycarbonate or modified acrylate with glass fibres cast in, will certainly take the heat fine - I have used them on solar water-heaters, which run somewhat hotter than a solar wax-melter, and they last many years developing only slight cloudiness. But scrap plastic of suitable area is generally harder to come by than scrap windows. And if it is non-flat - say, corrugated - you will have to fit it to a frame of some sort. I see no point. In many places, it will be easier to get a 'demolition' window, complete with hinges or at least still having an entire wooden frame onto which hinges can be screwed. Any wooden cross-members are a non-problem; the incoming solar radiation is hundreds of watts per square m, and even if the box under the glazing is just a big drawer or other simple wood container, with no special insulation, the wax will melt within a few hours. This is not a case of needing to maximize efficiency; considerable losses can be comfortably tolerated. Of all functions that can be subserved by solar energy, this would be one of the most clearly ahead of all rivals. Go solar! R ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:57:37 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Laura Lemay Subject: Re: Solar Wax Melter In-Reply-To: <200108212151.f7LLpnQ14135@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I use plexi on top of a homemade solar wax melter and it works just fine. Laura At 2:54 AM -0600 8/21/01, Allen Dick wrote: >I am thinking of making a solar melter. > >I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but >I wonder if >there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- >assuming it does not melt. >ing about music is like dancing about architecture. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:04:29 -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: Re: Small Hive Beetle In-Reply-To: <200108200356.f7K3uCQ26596@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hello All, I've just received a letter from our State Apiarist that also confirmed that the SHB had been found in South Central Virginia. We knew that it had been found in certain areas of North Carolina, but this bit of news makes it closer to home. I wonder about the hardiness of this beetle, and if it will be able to survive winters further north. I wonder if the adults would be able to insinuate themselves into the winter cluster of bees and remain warm enough to survive the winter, or if the bees would be able to move them from the cluster and let them freeze. I have found no evidence of SHB in my colony but I'm afraid it's just a matter of time for me, as well. At 12:28 PM 8/19/01 -0400, Bob Harrison wrote: >... the Small Hive Beetle had been found in Missouri. The SHB was sent off >and SHB was >confirmed. Joseph A. Clark, President Tidewater Beekeepers Association Portsmouth, VA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 08:09:33 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: Re: Solar wax melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen Dick wrote > I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but I wonder if > there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well -- > assuming it does not melt. Plastic does work but most plastics do not have UV inhibitors in them so they tend to break up into little pieces in a short time. When I tried a piece of plastic (many years ago) it worked just as well as glass but broke up. Allen in your part of the world, remember to tilt the melter towards the south (north in our part of the world) at the angle of your latitude, if that is possible. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:26:46 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: George Fielder Subject: Re: Insulating Hives Comments: To: kytl@chevron.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Kyle and all Enjoyed this recent discussion and think that most points have been covered but will add some small items. First, I have kept bees just east of Toronto, Ontario, Canada since 1981 (and still so much to learn I too am a newbie or is it new bee?). I have Italians but many are mongrel stock augmented by swarms. The most important insulation is in the roof of the hive. I use foam above the inner cover or 1 to 4 pieces of discarded floor carpet. Bees and ants destroy foam so it should be enclosed in wood. I use an upper as well as a lower entrance, both about 3/8 inches by 3.5 inches. Upper entrances were studied in Quebec and found to increase survival. I think perhaps the biggest reason is because it reduces the moisture condensation (no matter where the moisture comes from). It is best to have the upper and lower entrances on the same side of the hive to reduce the wind gales blowing right through the hive. I also find that a wind baffle in front of the entrances (3/8 to 1/2 inches away) works well too. I am struck with the comment of a slanted cover over the lower entrance. I had been using a horizontal strip above the entrance as a snow shield and a vertical underneath for the wind baffle. Yes I often read that feral colonies do not have upper entrances. Offsetting this, I think, is the observation that most ferals do not have flat ceilings so condensation drains down the walls rather than drip from the ceiling. I would assume that colonies in trees have a huge insulation factor in the roof, even more than 2 inches of Styrofoam. I have read repeatedly about the pros and cons of insulation around the walls of the hives. I would point out that one benefit of insulation that was not mentioned is that, with insulation, the hive chills of slower in the evenings after a warm sunny day in midwinter. This allows the bees to reform the cluster with fewer getting stranded. I have found wrapping most significant with weaker hives and/or deteriorating boxes with knot (or rot) holes through which the wind penetrates. In sound boxes, a strong colony that has had time to re-propolize the hive joints since the last intrusion simply does not need to be wrapped. Still I wrap most - *just in case*. I have used tarpaper wrap stuffed with leaves, Styrofoam and carpet and find no improvement over those simply wrapped or with nothing other than their sound boxes and perhaps roof insulation. I also use the western cardboard boxes that speed up the operation. Many of these are 12 years old now. For those who doubt the killing effect of condensation drips, I would mention that midwinter one year my landlord called to say that two of my hives had been knocker over. Since it was around minus 28 degrees F., I knew there was little hope but went right away to see what I could save. The bees were all dead. I just righted the hives to weather proof the wood until spring allowed me to get a vehicle in. In one hive in particular I noticed that clumps of bees were frozen in ice. The ice had stuck the frames together over the bee carcasses. It was a sorry site and I did not do much investigation but do remember the ice had horizontal streaks that would be vertical in the hives usual position. In places it resembled icicles though just a single drop wide. Obviously the ice had formed before the hives were knocked over. In following winters i sometimes checked under the upper cover and found water above the inner covers where the covers of the feeder holes did not fit well and I had not used much roof insulation. Kyle, Feed your bees well, ensure the hive seams are airtight and I would suggest you use a good roof insulation under the outer cover. And good luck with your new hobby. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:00:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Small Hive Beetle MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Joseph & All, I wonder about the hardiness of this beetle, and if it > will be able to survive winters further north. I wonder if the adults would > be able to insinuate themselves into the winter cluster of bees and remain > warm enough to survive the winter, or if the bees would be able to move > them from the cluster and let them freeze. I figure we will learn the answer to the above questions in the next couple of years. Information from my friends in Africa is of little help with the questions you ask about concerning cold. After close study of your questions and careful thought I am going to voice a opinion. I did quite a bit of information searching when the small hive beetle arrived and went to Florida to see first hand. I believe the SHB will winter in beetle holes in trees like all other similar 1/4 in. beetles do. The SHB is a opportunist like the wax moth. Weak hives they attack but although a few are found in about all hives in Florida now they seem to come out of nowhere to ravage a weak hive. My friends in Florida believe (as do I) that the SHB lives away from the hive most of the time. I believe they will survive anyplace other similar beetles survive. My American Bee Journal came today so I read Carl Wenning's SHB article Barry referred to . The article was well written but reflected the opinion most of Laurence Cutts which I am sure Carl consulted. Enough said. I hope the article is better accepted than Carl's last months article. Fred Fulton, Roy Hendrickson and Pierre Smith are ready to lynch mob poor Carl from the tone of their letters to the editor! Last months article was on hive depopulation in the fall. Quote from Pierre: "My suggestion is for Mr. Wenning to burn all his equipment or give it away since his cold,calculating system of destruction of bees is repugnant !" Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. many thousands of hives are depopulated every year by commercial beekeepers. I doubt the trend will change because of the opinion of hobby beekeepers. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 02:53:40 +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: No floor on hives Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Paul D Brown writes on this subject. If I understand correctly Paul has no floor or no open mesh floor. How can the bees defend such an opening especially against wasps in the autumn? Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 21:47:15 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rodney Farrar Subject: Re: Solar wax melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone have any plans they can share? I only have about 10 pounds of wax. Rodney in VA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:21:17 -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: Solar Wax Melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit First time I've had the chance to give you advice Allen, but I use a solar melter to sort out all my feral comb. They work great. I doubt you'd find plastic that would hold it's shape even on a mild day. For example, here, Duragilt frames are thrown into the melter (good or bad) knowing the bees will eventually chew them down to plastic. On a warm day those frames don't even last 3 minutes and melt down into something that resembles a stick of bacon. Pretty darn hot. Trouble spots for solar melters? With all the heat, wooden frames twist and contort so pay attention to gaps - they're bound to widen. Mating surfaces between the window pane and frame also twist so pay attention to the type of wood used. I used 3" Fir timbers torn out of an old house and they're faring well. Pine wouldn't have lasted even one summer here (Colorado). Attempt to seal the bottom. You're bound to have spills. High temp hot glue will bind to wood surfaces and makes a decent "caulk" when the melter is new. Design your melter so it's tiltable if possible - vs. fixed. Mine doesn't sport this feature and I've ended up wedging it against the house at the best angle. Filling it full of wax makes me uneasy while it melts knowing it might be a fire hazard. Anyone ever have one catch fire? Matthew Westall -- // Earthling Bees >8(())))- "Take me to your feeder" \\ Castle Rock, CO, USA Allen Dick wrote: > I am thinking of making a solar melter. > I understand that the design is nothing particularly difficult, but I wonder if > there is any necessity to use glass on top, or if plastic will work as well > assuming it does not melt.