From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Jan 3 12:46:56 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 9D79124ADEE 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 h03Fjr9f008596 for ; Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:54 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200301031746.h03Fjr9f008596@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:46:54 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0109D" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Content-Length: 112270 Lines: 2430 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:45:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Barnett Subject: Re: Bees & Duck Box In-Reply-To: <200109211154.f8LBskJ10941@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > From: Brad Henry > Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology > > Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 19:26:41 EDT > To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu > Subject: Bees & Duck Box > > Wood duck box over water with bees. I would like to transfer this hive into a standard > hive body that would end up being only about 200 feet away. 1. Water is probably quite shallow; block box opening(s) with screen wire 2. Pull its nails and take the box down, transport it 2 miles, then open, remove the comb, brood, and queen, place in frames with rubber bands, as planned. Set up and leave the colony right there for 2 weeks, (so the bees will stay put, losing their orientation to place), THEN move it where ever you want to keep it. 3. Clean the duck box with hive tool, torch the inside lightly, and paint it inside with latex paint (to kill the hive odor prevent another swarm from renting it again), and hang it back in the tree. Bob Barnett Birmingham, AL (S.E. USA) > Brad Henry > Little Rock, AR ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:48:53 -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: SMR / 4.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I have always dealt in fact and to that I have stood. I > will not put up with ramblings about either myself nor the > Tucson lab nor anyone else for that matter. To this end > even Bob H. on this list I would defend or even Allen D. if > need be from this sort of recent posting. Thanks for setting us straight Dee. I think the writer was trying to say nice things about you and your tireless work, but perhaps he misunderstood some details. I'm glad you clarified some of the points about yourself and your operation. As for the rant against the bee lab: I doubt a few sweeping statements from one BEE-L contributor will affect our opinions much, but perhaps they will make us consider what Tucson has done, is doing -- and can do. I think that most BEE-L readers have a lot of respect for the lab and have been concerned by their recent status. I think many of us suspect that Tucson's biggest problem has been lack of support -- or worse -- hindrance from the bee industry. As for Tucson being a 'rest home', that statement seems pretty general and not aimed at any one individual in the lab, so no one need take offence. I doubt any personal slight was intended. I wonder how many people actually know what the lab has done lately? I think the best way to lay such talk to rest would be to list Tucson's accomplishments over the past few years. Anyone? allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:56:54 +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: Re: Bees & Duck Box Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Brad Henry writes: > I have located a hive that is in a woodduck >box, about 15 feet up a tree, over water. I would like to transfer this hive >into a standard hive body that would end up being only about 200 feet away >from it's initial location. FWIW, Brad, here are my comments. I think the basic steps outlined of sealing the box and physically transferring comb is the sensible procedure. I agree this is a brutal exercise but have done this a number of times and find the bees settle down very quickly as long as the queen is not killed accidentally in the crush. Have a bucket of water handy to rinse off the sticky residue and do not bother keeping sealed honey. However I think you will have to move the duck box initially to a site at least 2 miles away, transfer the hive and allow them to orient on new location for, say, 4 weeks, before transferring back to proposed site as otherwise all field bees will return to tree and become agitated at loss of hive. Can you enclose duck box in large bag for duration of move? This will need to be done after all bees have settled for night. A less traumatic way to move the bees, though with loss of brood, is to place the duck box in a water proof container at the new site, such as an old bath or trough, place the new hive body on top with no barrier between, and gently flood the container. The bees will walk up, abandoning the brood, as the water rises. They are very placid because no enemy has been identified and you do not have the make-shift frames to cull at a later date. Good luck, Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island J.H. & E. McAdam Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dee Lusby wrote: > > This email is to all on BEE-L especiall Bill Truesdell I appreciate your response and, especially the moderate and kind way you wrote. I do hope you succeed in proving the merit of 4.9. Bob's prior posts say that you acknowledge 4.9 is only a part of a triad. That, for me, has given credibility to what you are doing. Personally (with nothing to back it up but we are allowed to hypothesize (guess) on this list) I think that the success of smaller cell size is in producing a healthier bee which can develop SMR tendencies because it has a longer window of accommodation with Varroa. So it is the cell size, to an extent, but it always gets down to the bee, the second part of the triad. The reason I tend to insist on having some science in the trials is that others, especially in conditions much different than yours, could as easily get failures using 4.9 which have nothing to do with the 4.9. They could also succeed, after adding Apistan/Cumophose strips as insurance (which has happened in other supposed trials). Without some discipline in the trials, the results are suspect. Again, thank you for your kind response. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 04:07:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 Hi Allen & all Is anyone in the US jurisdiction using Africanized honeybees (AHBs) in managed beehives? By that I mean, of course, AM scutellata, or scutellata hybridised with other races. I ask not to be mischievous, but to follow up on endless and somewhat frustrating research on how varroa are affecting MY scutellata here in South Africa. Here is the fact list (as it stands on my slate; please correct/comment where appropriate): 1. AHBs in South and Central America are said to be resistant to varroa. However, it is said that these jurisdictions carry the less virulent form of the mite. 2. Over the past year there has been zero difference in hives I have treated (Bayvarol) and not treated for varroa. Both treated and untreated colonies HAVE varroa mites, but there is no visible damage caused by the mites, whether in the bees or brood of any age. Evidently I must conclude that these scutellata do NOT need any treatment for varroa. And it is said that South Africa carries the more virulent form of varroa (since 1997). 3. All my colonies are started on strip foundation. I have just measured worker brood cells near the bottom of brood frames, that is, cells furthest from the foundation strip. These "natural" cells range between 4.878 and 4.762mm. One 20cm sample was taken from each of ten hives. All these cells have been drawn by "wild" scutellata; I have not included data from my pedigreed bees, some of which have been deliberately upsized. It just seems too convenient and easy to conclude that scutellata (in my very narrow case) are resistant to varroa. But it must mean something that the wild scutellata are building cells at 4.9mm or less. AND that my wild and pedigreed bees seem to not be bothered by varroa. Barry Sergeant Kyalami South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 08:29:05 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: BEE-L FAQ and Guidelines (Periodic Post) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BEE-L is a moderated discussion list with published standards & guidelines. Anyone and everyone with interest in bees is welcome to join. We do, however, have rules that everyone who wishes to post messages to the list must observe. Our FAQ is our archive of posts running back more than a decade. Every post that makes the list (and well over 90% do) goes into these archives and can be easily found by a search at any time now or in the future. We are very pleased at the high quality and wide variety of input from members all over the world. In a sense, we are writing a book together. The BEE-L archive search engine is much more powerful and flexible than most on the web. Please take time to read the help page and experiment a bit. You will be well rewarded for your time. We would like to point out to new members (and remind long-time members) that all our rules, including the sign-on messages and access to our FAQ can be found in one easy-to-use page at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L. The page also provides links to enable you to easily and quickly change, suspend, or cancel immediately your BEE-L membership. IMPORTANT: Please visit http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L periodically to review our guidelines and especially before posting to the list. Please also, before posting basic questions, do a quick search of the archives (at the same page) to see if there are answers there. If not, or you are not satisfied with the answers, then by all means post your question to the list. If you post an article to BEE-L and your article did not appear on the list within 24 hours, you will also find information there on what might have happened. There are more possibilities than simple rejection by moderators. allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:30:54 -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: Beekeepers Cookbook Comments: cc: "irishbeekeeping@yahoogroups.co.uk" , "electric_knife@HOTMAIL.COM" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kevin asked: ...if anyone has a book like this, please let me know how to get it... Well, you have to do a tiny bit of slogging, but the archives of the Bee-L list are searchable. While they will certainly reveal that the suggested recipes vary widely, the entire subject should be understood to not be an exact science. Here's the web page for searching the archives: http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S1=bee-l&D=0 A search for "grease patties" yielded 241 matches. What more could you want? jim farmageddon ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 11:27:20 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 In-Reply-To: <200109221334.f8MDYiJ03282@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Bill Truesdell wrote: Bob's prior posts say that you acknowledge 4.9 is only a part of a triad. That, for me, has given credibility to what you are doing. Reply: Yes, Bill, 4.9 top tolerance is about 1/3. But it is a key 1/3 in that size then regulates both diet and mating advantage the other 2/3 necessary to complete the equation. Personally (with nothing to back it up but we are allowed to hypothesize(guess) on this list) I think that the success of smaller cell size is in producing a healthier bee which can develop SMR tendencies because it has a longer window of accommodation with Varroa. So it is the cell size, to an extent, but it always gets down to the bee, the second part of the triad. Reply: All science builds on the writings of the past Bill and thus references at the end of published papers. We published the small cell theory with references to back it up in 1992 with Apiacta. Please see: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/apiacta1992.htm We were involved in verifying our bees in collabertation with USDA on selecting queens for shorter developement times to beat mites also, something every one seems to want long before AHBs got close to the USA with our bees. Please therefore see: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/abjnov1989.htm We were concerned with keeping our stocks also Bill, just as a precaution, so we further were concerned and wrote which was published in Apiacta 1995: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/apiacta1995.htm We put and allowed our bees for hard thorough USDA testing for what they were supposedly to establish criteria for testing for AHB, etc in this country which only seemed to bring frustation to us as others perceived the tests in the rumour mill as something different. This information I already posted back to Barry Sergeant here. The same information is posted on beesource.com and Biobee now. Since the posting with references and specifics beekeepers seem to want to want, we have pulled in and practiced what we preached to others.That is no chemicals/drugs, having weaned off of them the first regression, no acids, no essential oils, etc. All we do now is wait gathering the physical proof in VOLUME so many want to see, and learning what the path is all must follow to come through the problem in the realworld school of hard knocks. Testing with less then 10 colonies won't say anything works in mass until a mass of bees is worked up CLEAN for actual physical proof. I am patient Bill. It will come. I am from the old school of never say die. You are right though, scientific tests with even soft chemical usage are a no no and of no usage for true factual results for finding the bees we all need to live. Best regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:53:57 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 Comments: cc: Barry Sergeant In-Reply-To: <200109221417.f8MEHuJ03859@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Barry wrote to all: Is anyone in the US jurisdiction using Africanized honeybees (AHBs) in managed beehives? By that I mean, of course, AM scutellata, or scutellata hybridised with other races. I ask not to be mischievous, but to follow up on endless and somewhat frustrating research on how varroa are affecting MY scutellata here in South Africa. Reply: There is no one using scutellata that I am aware of and we are located in one of the most scrutenized areas of the USA. Further, for more information on our bees and their composition since they have been much talked about on BEE-L as to why we are succeeding against mites please see: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/beeanalysis.htm here you will find analysis done on our bees by the USDA, missing is still the DNA analysis done showing our bees as a caucasian type strain and published in ABJ. I will be sending that soon to Barry for posting at both www.beesource.com and Biobee for further discussion. As far as I know, no AHB (scutellata) have been found in hives in Arizona to change the schematics found since these analysis were accomplished under the direction of the USDA. I also believe that this fact has been posted on BEE-L from time to time that no AHB have been found in managed colonies. Further, take note of the pedigree signified by the wing veins in our bees. Since wing veins have been known to not change in history and morphometrics are much based on them and I do not believe that our wing vein diference is do to our breeding alone (sure wish it was though for we would really be good then),this then opens the door for building a case for NATIVE bees in the Americas. With places to look for more bees with same veination i.e. San Diego (hills for feral), Rocky Mountains, Applachian mts, Gulf Port States, N. mexico, Texas, etc. Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:26:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "From the Gussow's of Tucson,Arizona - Don't worry it's a dry heat!" Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 In-Reply-To: <200109212319.f8LNJGJ06620@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To all and Barry S. Barry asked : "Thank you for a wonderful and truly fascinating piece. It was truly lucid as well, but for one question I would like to pose to clarify some of your descriptions. Just what race of bee is it that is inhabiting the apiaries and hives that you so carefully describe?" If you are talking about my own bees then they appear to be Italians but not sure as they are urban feral bees. This was a big mistake on a part of an owner who wanted to own an observation hive in the early 70's sometime after 1972 and was reproducing swarms until this year when I had the foresight to acquire the only available swarm. The only other that was known in the condomium project was destroyed by the manager by the aerosol can method. Those were Starlines or a reasonable facsimile there of. Make your self the best authority on the bees you have. Observe them and read everything you can on breeding bees. In your case look for the hive that sticks around and other traits that a normal situation in your micro-climate would best accommodate in other areas of quality behavior traits. If you have a 1993 "Hive and the Honeybee" Pages 32 - 33 discusses "The Utilization of Natural Differences among Bees" would be a good start but I know that there is more than that to it. Respectfully Submitted Harvey Gussow ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 12:38:31 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: P-O Gustafsson Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barry Sergeant wrote: > 3. All my colonies are started on strip foundation. I have just measured > worker brood cells near the bottom of brood frames, that is, cells > furthest from the foundation strip. These "natural" cells range between > 4.878 and 4.762mm. > Hi Barry, I might be all wrong about this, when I have very limited experience of Scutellata bees. It's from a visit in the south of Africa (Mocambique) some years ago. I found the Scutellata bees to be smaller than the European bees. My estimation was around 10% difference in size. This also affected the behaviour of the bees; they were much quicker. One example of this was the absence of landing board on the hives. The bees were flying straight in and out of the entrance at a speed you hardly saw them. So from my point of view it seems logic that they make smaller cells to fit their body size. If I compare with the 5,3 mm we are using here, 10% less will be what you have. -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 10:33:47 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Brad Henry Subject: Re: Bees & Duck Box MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for the information. Brad ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 10:47:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry S. & all Sounds like you are asking questions in this post Barry. I will give my opinion for what it is worth. > Is anyone in the US jurisdiction using Africanized honeybees (AHBs) > in managed beehives? In Missouri we passed a state order preventing the keeping of A. scutellata and allowing our state inspector to destroy those hives. The order was passed by all members of the Missouri State Beekeepers assn. without one no vote. They simply possess too many bad traits for us. > 1. AHBs in South and Central America are said to be resistant to > varroa. We know quite a bit more now about varroa than we did when all known information was put in "The Varroa Handbook" in I believe 1989. It seems feral colonies of AHB are more tolerant of varroa than are our U.S. European bees. I believe part of the feral hives success lies in the swarming and abscounding traits of the scuts. If you take a heavily infested European hive and shake down the hive onto foundation you lose all the varroa in cells and greatly reduce mite load. The new swarm can then start the season with a mite load it can handle. Which is why" in my opinion" Barrys swarms survive until death at the hands of capensis. U.S. AHB trap lines show AHB swarms have a harder time with tracheal mites than varroa at first. I get the information off the net from a study of 244 AHB colonies trapped on the border and closely looked at. Abscounding and swarming does NOT reduce high levels of tracheal mites. However, it is said that these jurisdictions carry the less > virulent form of the mite. Easy to tell *round versus oval*. Why not check for V. destructor? > 2. Over the past year there has been zero difference in hives I have > treated (Bayvarol) and not treated for varroa. Both treated and > untreated colonies HAVE varroa mites, but there is no visible damage > caused by the mites, whether in the bees or brood of any age. No surprises here. In my opinion you are most likely wasting money on Bayvarol on new swarms as two years is the time period for varroa to cause damage in the situation you describe. MANY packages are sold in the U.S. every year with a high level of varroa. Most do OK and die only if untreated the next winter. > Evidently I must conclude that these scutellata do NOT need any > treatment for varroa. And it is said that South Africa carries the more > virulent form of varroa (since 1997). Varroa will build up to a threshold level but you have allready made a honey crop and capensis has taken over. I suspect if you were to check the varroa load on a hive with low productivity at around 8 months you would find a high varroa load. Those with high productivity a lower mite load. Bees raisng a huge amount of brood can stay ahead of varroa until the brood rearing slows . Then the colony crosses the mite threshold and total callapse is coming. Those on the Bee-L list saying they are not *seeing* varroa need to check their best hives FIRST as those are the hives you will most likely find varroa the easiest. > 3. All my colonies are started on strip foundation. I have just measured > worker brood cells near the bottom of brood frames, that is, cells > furthest from the foundation strip. These "natural" cells range between > 4.878 and 4.762mm. As I said in a previous post when you gave the above figures that these are smaller than 4.9mm and closer to cerana size than 49ers use. It is too bad you can not keep capensis out long enough to do proper testing with controls to see if scuts can survive varroa when kept as our European bees are. Many say the scuts constant swarming is a control in itself as part of the varroa mite load leaves with each swarm if they were kept in standard hives. We have got quite a bit of learning yet to do with scuts. Any American researchers want to study Scuts? None I am aware of!. I wonder why? > It just seems too convenient and easy to conclude that scutellata (in > my very narrow case) are resistant to varroa. But it must mean > something that the wild scutellata are building cells at 4.9mm or less. The small cell could be a factor as is that only scuts with the SMR gene have survived. I personally believe the reason is simply the swarming and absconding nature of the scut combined with the above. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. Bees in warm areas tend to keep a smaller brood nest than bees coming out of our Midwest winters. We trick our bees into raising huge brood nests in the Midwest so we can gather huge crops of honey on the one major honey flow. When I kept bees in Florida and bees raised brood most of the year the bees were hard to trick and simply kept brood nests at a certain size. Varroa is kept in check when a hive does not need to maintain say 10 frames of brood and only four or five. Hmmm. Long posts are necessary to explain complicated subjects. I used to think as a kid that all that was known about a subject was in the encyclopedia. Boy was I wrong! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:36:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 Hi P-O You mention Mozambique as to your experience with African honeybees; it is a very large country physically. My only direct experience with such bees is on the South African/Mozambique border. There, is is said, anecdotally, that you may find hybrids between scutellata and AM lutterea. That is, a hybrid between two bee races. But there is no scientific proof of such hybrid. I can certainly confirm that my pure scutellata field bees do not use the landing boards provided. But they also do not ignore them, being the bees that they are. The police bees find the landing board a good place to fight off drifting AM capensis workers, and also ants, beetles, and other scutellata vermin. Barry Sergeant Kyalami South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 17:32:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions Hi Bob & all Bob, thank you for yet another solid posting to the discussion group, although a solid posting from you is probably the standard with no exceptions allowed! With respect, I would just like to isolate one point right now, and get to the others later. The point is that, if I understand it correctly, AM scutellata aka AHB have been "outlawed" in the US jurisdiction for one reason, and one reason only - and that is, simply, potentially hugely defensive behaviour around and near their brood nests. I'd put it to you that natural gentle behaviour in scutellata is recessive. I'd put it to you, further, that this recessive gene can be fixed by selective (queen) breeding. If you can accept that "pedigreed" scutellata can be well behaved, if not gentle, would you not then accept that other negative traits of scutellata can be "neutralised?" If that is possible, would it be further be possible to articulate a case to "unban" scutellata in the continental US? As a personal example, my five breeder queens and their thriving colonies are kept within 10 to 20m (say, 30 to 60ft) of my front door (I regard them as extremely valuable). My family, friends, dogs, parrots, and other bee-strange things and entities have never been stung by these bees. Buzzed a few times, yes, but never stung. And that includes days when I disturb the bees to steal a frame or two for grafting larvae. Beekeepers who come around to inspect the breeder queens - and whatever - invariably comment that the bees are abnormally well behaved. Compared to wild scuts, they most certainly are. But that's how they've been bred - amongst other things, for more gentle behaviour. The beekeeper who wants to order queens, and who does, normally orders daughters from the "yellow" queen, because her colour is outstandingly different from wild scutellata. That her bees are the least "well behaved" (of the five breeder queens) does not enter the equation. I suspect the reason is simply that AM capensis is a dark, if not black bee, and that capensis is the 99% largest fear of any scutellata beekeeper. But I deviate - the fundamental question remains; viz., if beekeepers in the continental US could accept the idea - and perhaps the fact of - a gentle version of AM scutellata - would such a version of the alleged "killer bee" be acceptable? If indeed so, what kind of a pedigree would esteemed beekeepers such as yourself require? Barry Sergeant Kyalami South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 03:06:39 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ellen Anglin Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions Comments: cc: barry_sergeant@MYIAFRICA.COM In-Reply-To: <200109240239.f8O2dkJ13158@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Barry Sergeant wrote: If you can accept that "pedigreed" scutellata can be well behaved, if not gentle, would you not then accept that other negative traits of scutellata can be "neutralised?" If that is possible, would it be further be possible to articulate a case to "unban" scutellata in the continental US? But I deviate - the fundamental question remains; viz., if beekeepers in the continental US could accept the idea - and perhaps the fact of - a gentle version of AM scutellata - would such a version of the alleged "killer bee" be acceptable? If indeed so, what kind of a pedigree would esteemed beekeepers such as yourself require? I don't think this is likely to happen unless our legal system undergoes a radical change. Americans today are afraid of stinging insects. The average american doesn't know a wasp from a honeybee, and all insects with stingers are lumped together as "Bees". If anyone is stung, they are stung by a "Bee" regardless of what the insect actually was, and if there is a beekeeper nearby to blame, they immediately become the subject of criticism, if not blame. In the US it is very easy to file a lawsuit against soneone you are annoyed with. This can be suing for medical expenses, actual damages, or just to get them to stop what they are doing- calling at a nuisance. It can also be for nothing more than "emotional trauma" In these cases, it is very hard for the beekeeper to prove that what he is is doing is not wrong, or that his bees are not the insects at fault. With the encroachment of so called "Killer" bees, the fear has become even bigger. Logic and facts have little to do with it, and when Americans are scared they legislate against what they fear. So in many areas it is illegal to keep any type of bee at all- all because of fear. If a beekeeper was keeping bees that are percieved as "Killers" he or she would be opening themself up to ruinous lawsuits, weather or not anybody was ever stung. I'm no lawyer, so if anyone has better comments, or corrections, please do contribute! I'm just a bit tired of our litigous society. Ellen in Michigan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:34:51 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry & All, Although not in your league when talking scutellata I will try to make discussion. .> The point is that, if I understand it correctly, AM scutellata aka AHB have >been "outlawed" in the US jurisdiction for one reason, and one reason only >- and that is, simply, potentially hugely defensive behaviour around and near >their brood nests. I believe you might be able to keep AHB inside areas allready having AHB. Missouri law was patterned after another states law. Not sure which state. I had very little to do with the order. I was at the meeting in which the final vote was taken. I believe the defensive nature around the brood nest was of concern. A member of our assn had spent two weeks in Mexico working and filming AHB in the care of Dr. Orley Taylor. He said you could not walk outside the house without being stung. Orley kept all hives in nucs as full size hives were very defensive. Although pictures have been taken of beekeepers working scuts in shorts we ALL know things can get out of hand in a hurry with AHB. My close friend has been to South America 13 times to look at AHB. > I'd put it to you that natural gentle behaviour in scutellata is recessive. > I'd put it to you, further, that this recessive gene can be fixed by > selective (queen) breeding. Dr. Kerr proved your statement but why would you need to *tame a scut*? If you can accept that "pedigreed" > scutellata can be well behaved, if not gentle, would you not then > accept that other negative traits of scutellata can be "neutralised?" Sure! Dr. Kerr proved your point as far back as 1967. Abscounding, constant swarming and failure to secure enough honey to winter in Missouri are alone enough reason for me to work with a better strain without defensiveness. Many have got the wrong idea about Dr. Kerrs work. Many old beekeeping books are incorrect. Dr. Kerr took samples of many of Africas bees to South America to create a *Super Bee* . EVEN CAPENSIS! Not just the so named *Killer bee* scutellata. As I posted a couple years ago sadly Dr. Kerr will be remembered for the release of queens instead of his bee reasearch. >If that is possible, would it be further be possible to articulate a case to > "unban" scutellata in the continental US? Importation would fall on deaf ears as I have been a advocate of queen importation for years( NOT SCUTS!) for many reasons. Hines keeps AHB in Arizona (I believe) so maybe a strain of gentle AHB could be bred in Arizona. > As a personal example, my five breeder queens and their thriving > colonies are kept within 10 to 20m (say, 30 to 60ft) of my front door (I > regard them as extremely valuable). My family, friends, dogs, parrots, > and other bee-strange things and entities have never been stung by > these bees. Buzzed a few times, yes, but never stung. And that > includes days when I disturb the bees to steal a frame or two for > grafting larvae. Beekeepers who come around to inspect the breeder > queens - and whatever - invariably comment that the bees are > abnormally well behaved. I realize you have only got Scut and capnesis to work with and I commend you on your results! I on the other hand have a great many queens to choose from with the traits I am looking for allready in the U.S.. > Compared to wild scuts, they most certainly > are. But that's how they've >been bred - amongst other things, for more > gentle behaviour. How many generations did it take. Did you inbreed like Dr. Kerr did? What will the supercedure and open mated queens be like? The beekeeper who wants to order queens, and > who does, normally orders daughters from the "yellow" queen, > because her colour is outstandingly different from wild scutellata. Barry we have had this discussion before. Yellow IS the SCUT color. If your *wild scuts* are not yellow then they are mongrel or AHB. Quote pg. 39 of "Hive and Honey Bee (copy 1992)" Name Scutellata was given by Lepeletier(1836) because of the conspicous YELLOW scutellum. "A.m. scutellata is a small bee with scarace pilosity, variable pigmentation on the abdomen (one or more yellow bands) , mostly a BRIGHT YELLOW SCUTELLUM on the thorax and a charactoristic wing venation". As my friend Dee pointed out in a recent post the wing venation IS important to id AHB. On pg. 36 of the book is a picture ( figure 5) of AHB wing venation. >.According to That her bees are the least "well behaved" (of the five >breeder >queens) does not enter the equation. I suspect the reason is >simply that AM > capensis is a dark, if not black bee, and that capensis is the 99% > largest fear of any scutellata beekeeper. Couldn't you breed the bad genes from capensis? Dr. Kerr said it could be done! Maybe changing capensis would solve your bigger problem. > But I deviate - the fundamental question remains; viz., if beekeepers in > the continental US could accept the idea - and perhaps the fact of - a > gentle version of AM scutellata - would such a version of the alleged > "killer bee" be acceptable? Why would we want a gentle version? You say they do not produce a huge amount of honey. If indeed so, what kind of a pedigree would > esteemed beekeepers such as yourself require? In Texas they find AHB by kicking the box real hard. If the bees boil out they *most likely* are AHB. They never check for sure because if they boil out at a kick they still need requeening. What do your gentle version of scuts do when the hive is kicked real hard? Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 03:40:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 Hi again P-O I should perhaps mention that I have two breeder queens that are very different - cosmetically and in other ways - from wild scutellata. One is brown and the other yellow and both are very large. If a wild scutellata (or capensis) drifted into one of these breeders' hives, it would stick out like a very very sore thumb. These bees have been deliberately "coloured" to hopefully help beekeepers deal with capensis. They have been upsized in order to be more cold tolerant. Wild scutellata are always badly hurt by cold. Among the African races, the mountain races, e.g., monticola, are larger than the lowland honeybees. These two breeder queens of mine produce workers that draw "own" cells in the range of 5.1 - 5.3mm. I hesitate to give a definitive average, but it would be around 5.2mm. I treated only one of these two colonies for varroa, and not the other. Neither exhibit any hurt from varroa. A final comment would be that the worker bees appear to be as "quick" as the smaller wild bees. In other words, they are larger, but proportionately so. A final remark should be that it would not have been possible to produce these bigger scutellata without such-sized bees occurring naturally, albeit occasionally. The larger size is a recessive that can be fixed by selective II breeding. Barry in Kyalami ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:29:31 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions Hello Bob & all > why would you need to "tame a scut"? You need to tame a scut primarily to ensure successful migration of beehives, even over long distances. That means, first, bees that remain totally calm on comb when removed from the hive. Second, bees that remain calm when the hive is disturbed generally. That these calm bees are a pleasure to work with is a by-product of the main objective. > I realize you have only got scut and capensis to work with and I commend you on your results! I on the other hand have a great many queens to choose from with the traits I am looking for allready in the US. Bob, if I understand it from other discussions, you guys have problems with varroa, big time, and other pests/diseases such as SHB. I don't understand you classifying such bees as having the traits you are "looking for." I'm not saying scuts are immune to all pests and diseases, but they sure are tough bees. As you can see from my other postings, I remain mystified by how scuts seem to laugh varroa mites out of the hive. > How many generations did it take? Did you inbreed like Dr. Kerr did? What will the supersedure and open mated queens be like? More than 20 generations over seven years, following the (Page) closed population breeding model. I only see supersedure in about one of 50 of open mated queens. That, in turn, could be due to accidental damage to the queen by the beekeeper (or similar). In general, the open mated daughters are not quite as gentle as the mother queens. > Yellow IS the SCUT color. If your '"wild scuts" are not yellow then they are mongrel or AHB. The wild scuts are yellow all right. In this particular breeder queen, I am talking about an extreme yellow; not unlike the Cordovan in the US. But the extreme colour is accompanied by normal pigmentation (unlike the Cordovan); there are still thin dark bands on the abdomen. This queen's drones are also very yellow; wild scut drones are normally black, although in some areas they may have thin golden bands on the abdomen. > Couldn't you breed the bad genes from capensis? Dr. Kerr said it could be done! Maybe changing capensis would solve your bigger problem. This is not a bad idea, Bob. But this would mean that you would have to breed queens who produce workers who cannot clone themselves (i.e., capensis' bee-killer weapon). What we have tried to do is similar - produce scutellata queens which produce workers that DO NOT lay either drone or worker eggs in the first place. After weeks of enforced queenlessness, the "worst" expected would be workers laying drone eggs. > Why would we want a gentle version? You say they do not produce a huge amount of honey. The issue of gentle behaviour is covered above. The different pedigreed breeder queens each produce colonies that will at least match wild scutellata honey yields. Sisters of the yellow breeder queen mentioned this winter produced an average of 33% more honey than test wild colonies on the aloe davyana flow. > In Texas they find AHB by kicking the box real hard. If the bees boil out they "most likely" are AHB. They never check for sure because if they boil out at a kick they still need requeening. What do your gentle version of scuts do when the hive is kicked real hard? Bob, I've never tried kicking as you describe. But what I can say is that you can pick up one of these gentle scutellata hives day or night without smoking, and walk off with it. Best regards Barry in Kyalami ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 19:14:06 +1200 Reply-To: bobhog@pin.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pav Organization: BombusMaximus Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folk Was off bush for the weekend - apologies if my answers are stale... At 21/09/01, Bob wrote: >Although I believe the small cell theory needs >looked at further I do not believe it is fair to >say the theory has NOT been looked at... >Quote from Dadants ... "Mites of the Honey >Bee" page 200: >..."Just the opposite seems to be true. >Larger cells have fewer mites." How odd - did these researchers find less varroa in drone comb then? >..."There seems to ba a correlation between >the height of the cell and the number of mites >witin those cells; the cells with the greater >distance between the larva and the RIM >having fewer varroa mites." When did anyone make any claims about cell height (by which i assume you mean depth, rather than the diameter measured vertically)? The issue is clearly understood to be regarding cell width, as usually determined by foundation, and generally acknowledged to have been deliberately enlarged this century (how much enlarged is still arguable). Is this a smokescreen Bob? >...The source of the information is from a study >done in 1993 by Ramon and Van Laere named >"Size of comb cell and Reproduction of Varroa >Jacobsoni"... found the height of the cell produced >fewer varroa while the width did not( Ramon & >Van Laere 1993). I shouldn't even snap at red-herrings but my understanding was that this study compared 5.45 with 5.9 diameter cells, and had very few 'data-points'. I have also heard of studies which say the opposite - that protruding cells are preferentially parasitized - just like is generally accepted with regard to drone cells. Apples and oranges have little to do with 4.9. Can you point me to research into the effects of 4.9 cell-size on varroa reproduction? I would dearly love to read it. -Pav, keeping that mischievous Bob on topic. ________________________________________________ (\ Pav Bobhog@pin.co.nz {|||8- Ahaura, New Zealand (/ http://homepages.win.co.nz/bobhog/picpointer.html Visit my index of over 150 beekeeping pictures and movies. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:11:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, My friend Barry B. pointed out in a email this morning that the wing venation (figure 5) on pg. 36 of "The Hive and the Honey Bee (copy 1992)" only shows how to measure wing venation to determine race (Ratio a:b=cubital index) and not the actual AHB details. I am sure the Tucson bee lab could provide the cubital index for AHB and non AHB if asked.. There are two methods for classification of honey bees by forewings. 1. The non- Linnean classification of DuPraw (1965) which is based on 15 charactors of the fore wing. 2. The cubital index as measured in figure 5 of the book. Thanks Barry B. for the correction! I type these posts fast so I can keep up with daily business activities. Sorry for the mistake! Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:17:34 -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: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry & All, That means, first, bees that > remain totally calm on comb when removed from the hive. I forgot about the constant running on the comb. S econd, > bees that remain calm when the hive is disturbed generally. That > these calm bees are a pleasure to work with is a by-product of the > main objective. I move bees at times. I would use the Texas method before trying migratory beekeeping with scuts. Accidents moving bees are a way of life. Rare but do happen. When you can bang the side of the hive with your fist and only the gaurd bees take flight then you have got bees for migratory beekeeping. I am NOT having a problem with varroa but want to be able to drop chemicals. Chemicals will become ineffective against varroa in the comming decade in my opinion. The bees I keep are the best I have ever worked with. They will rob if given the chance and get cranky on a rainy day but a kick or dropped frame never upsets the bees on a normal day. I keep survivor mongrel carniolans at the house. Removed from buildings and abandon hives which are said to have survived varroa for over four years. I have had to step in and medicate OR give frames of honey to all to help them survive at times. Two have got a low mite load for this time of year so maybe they will survive into spring. Mite threshold is what I go by. I remain mystified by how scuts seem to laugh varroa mites > out of the hive. I am not mystified considering your circumstances. I do not believe the scut would survive varroa D. when the abscounding and swarming traits are removed. I would love to see the above tried with controls. > > How many generations did it take? Did you inbreed like Dr. Kerr did? > What will the supersedure and open mated queens be like? > In general, the open mated daughters are not quite as gentle as the > mother queens. Above is the ultimate problem with taming a scut. > > Yellow IS the SCUT color. If your '"wild scuts" are not yellow then they > are mongrel or AHB. > > The wild scuts are yellow all right. In this particular breeder queen, I > am talking about an extreme yellow; not unlike the Cordovan in the US. > But the extreme colour is accompanied by normal pigmentation > (unlike the Cordovan); there are still thin dark bands on the abdomen. > This queen's drones are also very yellow; wild scut drones are > normally black, although in some areas they may have thin golden > bands on the abdomen. My opinion is that you are working with a scut/capensis cross. When the hive comes to a certain stage (8-9 months) the workers start taking over the egg laying from the queen from within. Capensis is hard to tell from scuts by wing venation according to Ruttner(1975) . I base my opinion on true scut & capensis colors not running true in your swarms. Is this not possible? Research says they WILL cross. Couldn't many scut workers develop the ability to lay eggs if they were in fact a cross with capensis or is my thinking incorrect? > > Why would we want a gentle version? You say they do not produce a > huge amount of honey. > > > In Texas they find AHB by kicking the box real hard. If the bees boil > out they "most likely" are AHB. They never check for sure because if > they boil out at a kick they still need requeening. What do your gentle > version of scuts do when the hive is kicked real hard? > > Bob, I've never tried kicking as you describe. But what I can say is that > you can pick up one of these gentle scutellata hives day or night > without smoking, and walk off with it. My point valid. I will keep a defensive hive in a remote location but mark so I can requeen next time I am requeening. I live on a busy highway and would not want a hive as defensive as boiling out of the hive when kicked around people. What would one quick rap with a hammer or fist do to your gentle scut hive? We had a neighbor with a pit bull which he said wouldn't bite. Now a neighbor boy has bad scars and the owner is facing a law suit. Be honest. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:18:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Excessive Quoting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Just a reminder, excessive quoting clogs up BEE-L archives and negatively impacts archive searches. Whether an article is quoted in entirety after which a response follows, or if the response is interspersed in the quoted material, excessive quoting is excessive quoting! Referring to the guidelines for posting: Do not include excessive quotes of previous submissions. If you must quote previous postings, include only what is necessary to make your point. Submissions that include the entirety of previous posts will be rejected without comment or notice. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:33:53 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: huestis Subject: Re: SMR / 4.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob and all, > Although I believe the small cell theory needs looked at further I do not > believe it is fair to say the theory has NOT been looked at or are talked > about by researchers. You are very right here. > The above is the main reason why researchers around the world first looked > at small cell. Varroa DOES reproduce in AHB small cells and in amounts to > KILL brood nests but the constant swarming and abscounding limit varroa in > my opinion. This is opinion here. Partly true and partly wrong. Reproduction occurs in small cell brood nests, BUT mainly in drone brood. Why is it that when Dr. Erickson experimented with small cell foundation the bees were surviving. These same bees placed back upon enlarged foundation began to crash(this is in ABJ, not sure what issue but could look it up) . Why? Also in S. America 4.9mm foundation is used. As for absconding/ swarming with AHB in S. America. Hmmm. They import alot of honey to good old USA don't they? You and I know that bees that abscond and swarm don't make honey. How could they stay competetive with such bees? > "There seems to ba a correlation between the height of the cell and the > number of mites witin those cells; the cells with the greater distance > between the larva and the RIM having fewer varroa mites." This was a two year study on "8 colonies". Two years? It could take 5 for a crash! The Lusby's are now in there 6th year with 100's. Also the cells measured 5.4mm wide and 5.9mm wide. After 2 years only 50 cells were examined on each frame side looking for the presence of of female mites ONLY. This in my POV was a poor experiment. Also why isn't the industry increasing this distance in colonies? Did these colonies survive? What happened to them? This experiment is comparing cell height to cell width. This isn't comparing enlarged cells to small cell sizing. They are two different things. Maybe the Lusbys work has not been looked at > but small cell certainly has. We do not know why the Lusbys are being > successful and maybe researchers should take a look . Again what works for > her may not work for others. The reverse is also true. Maybe what works for the Lusby's may work for others. If 4.9mm was to be shown to be effective would you go this route Bob? regards, Clay ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:37:04 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Thanks Just a note of thanks to those who gave advise about my problem of particals in my honey. I got my extractor sandbasted and painted with the type of paint recommened by the board. I just finished bottling up from the honey extracted in the re-done extractor, and it is just beautiful. It looks like I'll never be able to sell the several hundred pounds originally extracted, but I'm slowly feeding it back to the bees, so I quess it wont be totally lost. Thanks much Tim ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:05:04 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: darrells Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions In-Reply-To: <200109240235.f8O2ZSJ13029@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Barry Sergeant said: > But I deviate - the fundamental question remains; viz., if beekeepers in > the continental US could accept the idea - and perhaps the fact of - a > gentle version of AM scutellata - would such a version of the alleged > "killer bee" be acceptable? If indeed so, what kind of a pedigree would > esteemed beekeepers such as yourself require? While we here in dark(getting darker in late September) and cold(getting colder) Canada are not too worried, yet, about AHB, I have been following the posts with interest. In 1994 I attended a short course on Queen Rearing at the University of Guelph. One of the presenters was Bob Page, who stated that in his experience, the defensive trait of AHB remains after several generations of breeding. Is this no longer the case? Bob Darrell Caledon, Ontario Canada 80W44N ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 00:20:55 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Neon Rosell Subject: Temp control for varroa? In-Reply-To: <200109250402.f8P42KJ06572@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hello all, Has anyone experimented on temperature control for varroa? The reason I ask is that my hives that are situated in a shady area are attacked by varroa much more than the ones that are exposed to the sun whole day. Would increasing the hive temperature a point or two would trigger a mite drop? And increasing it once every week for several hrs. would control the mite population. Just wondering. Neon Rosell II Philippines __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 07:04:21 -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: Temp control for varroa? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" neonrosell2@YAHOO.COM asks about the effect of increased temperature on Varroa. It has long been known that increased temperatures in a hive will kill varroa before it will kill the bees. This raised temperature can be an effective varroa control. The problem is that the lethal temperatures for mites and bees are very close (within a few degrees) and it is very hard to control the temperature to achieve effective mite control without killing the hive. It's usually a case of, "The treatment cured the malady, unfortunately it killed the patient!" Remember also that while the beekeeper is trying to raise the hive temperature to kill varroa the bees are trying to cool the hive because that's what bees do. Raising temperature is also not a practice that lends itself to a lot of hives. The practice was abandoned as effective but impractical early on in the varroa crusades. As far as sunny hives having low mite loads while shady hives do not, I doubt there's much to a temperature parameter in your observations. The mean hive temperature will be constant as the bees thernoregulate. The sunny bees will work to cool their hives, the shady bees will work to warm their hives. However, there can be large variations in mite loads across different micro-climates. If you've noticed a difference in your two locations, you might consider moving the hives with the heavy loads to the same location as those with lesser loads. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:18:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions Hi Bob My scutellata breeder queens derive from a seven year old closed breeding population. The model follows (Robert) Page (I'm sure it's the same Page you refer to). More than 20 generations (depending on the yardstick) are involved. The five breeder queens' bees exhibit, as you would expect, varying degrees of defensiveness. The most gentle bees are very gentle indeed - if you work them with care, you would not even need a smoker. The most defensive do not "attack" like wild bees, but they certainly try to intimidate you by buzzing around your head in large numbers. The latter bees have the irritating habit of having, literally, half a dozen extremely alert police bees that patrol the hive area. The breeder queen hives are kept deliberately in the medium population level, in order to not place the queens under undue pressure. My largest populations are contained in double brood chambers, used for building queen cells. These are headed by open-mated pedigree daughter queens, in the bottom brood chamber. To enhance the quality of queen cells, sealed brood from donor hives is added to the top brood chambers. These double story hives are very populous. I have a number of them about 100m from my front door, across a field. These bees get irritated, but not angry, when you work them. After I work these bees, I rarely have any follow me more than 50m. They settle down very quickly. I know from painful experience that if you disturbed a wild scutellata nest with that kind of population, the bees would be stinging, never mind following, for hundreds of metres in every direction. Also, the bees from the cell builders almost immediately "lose memory" that they have been disturbed. Wild scutellata often remain very aggressive ("crazy") for at least a day after a disturbance. I would conclude - based on experience rather than science - that the pedigreed scutellata are a lot more gentle than the wild ones. But I would suggest that no matter how gentle a scutellata may become, it would never equate the exact nature of gentleness you find, for example, in the Italians. Barry in Kyalami ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:15:54 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: "Killer Bees" in SC? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A local landowner was anxious for me to come and check out his "killer bees." You can see the results at: http://pollinator.com/gallery/paper_wasp_nest.htm Dave Green SC USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 07:22:51 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stephen Augustine Subject: Re: Temp control for varroa? In-Reply-To: <200109251052.f8PAqcJ14407@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello Neon, In response to your question about temperature control and varroa mites. I had a similar question in trying to account for the differences in mite load between my five hives (range of 17 to 115 mites in a 24 hour Apistan drop) and a friend's 10 hives in his apiary (2-4 mites in a 24 hour Apistan drop and confirmed with a 24 hour Coumaphos control). My hives are siting on a concrete deck and get all the sun that the Puget Sound area has to offer. My friend's hives (10 miles away) are partly shaded and are on wooden platforms in grass. We both treat and manage our hives (with queens from the same source) in almost identical fashion and hence I was trying to figure out why his mite load was so low. So my thoughts turned to temperature and humidity differences. Anyone with any other ideas - I'd be happy to hear of them. Anyway, in their paper "The Impact of Temperature Gradients in the Brood Nest of Honeybees on the Reproduction of Varroa jacobsoni" Bernhard Kraus and Hayo H.W. Velthuis demonstrate that Varroa jacobsoni (I guess this might not really apply to us in North America with Varroa destructor) has its reproductive optimum at 33 degrees C whereas the optimum temperature for brood rearing is 35 deg C. I have not read the full paper to know what happens to Varroa jacobsoni below 33 or above 35 deg C. Anyone else? Stephen Augustine Bees By The Bay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:08:55 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: darn@FREENET.EDMONTON.AB.CA Subject: Re: Temp control for varroa? In-Reply-To: <200109251429.f8PETjJ20236@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I attended a lecture on forensic entomology some weeks ago. One of the points that the speaker made was that the rate at which eggs hatch and larvae mature is dependent on temperature. If the brood is held at a slightly higher temperature (not high enough to be lethal to either bees or mites) the shortened time for the bee to mature and leave the cell might not be long enough for the mites to reproduce. Best regards Donald Aitken ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:59:17 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Milt Lathan Subject: A. scutellata Question As a hobbyist, I have watched these discussions with interest. It is my impression that the principals are speaking of the 'Africanized Honey Bee' as being the same bee that lives in Africa. Is that likely? And, has anyone proven this to be the case? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:16:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Varroa and temperature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Concerning use of temperature to control varroa, Aaron said "Raising temperature is also not a practice that lends itself to a lot of hives. The practice was abandoned as effective but impractical early on in the varroa crusades." One researcher, Zachary Huang, at Michigan State, has not given up and ha= s a paper published in the October, 2001 issue of the American bee Journa= l. He reports extremely good success by: 1. Using drone foundation to attract mites 2. Using a portable power unit to attach probes to the cross wires in th= e drone foundation and quickly (10 minutes) raise the temperature enough = to kill the mites. =20 You can judge for yourself, but I fail to share Zachary's enthusiasm and = think that freezing drone brood is more practical and just as effective. =20 Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner of Ross Rounds, Inc. Manufacturer of round comb honey equipment and Sundance pollen traps ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 22:12:41 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: seppo.korpela@MTT.FI Subject: Re: Temp control for varroa? In-Reply-To: <200109251052.f8PAqcJ14407@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 25 Sep 2001, at 0:20, Neon Rosell wrote: > Has anyone experimented on temperature control for varroa? > The reason I ask is that my hives that are situated in a > shady area are attacked by varroa much more than the ones > that are exposed to the sun whole day. See http://www.apis.admin.ch/english/host/pdf/alternativ/OstingyAVC.pdf for a study that seems to back up your conclusions. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:14:55 -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: Varroa and temperature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Lloyd Spear wrote: > One researcher, Zachary Huang, at Michigan State, has not > given up ... Good point Lloyd. I had forgotten Zach's work. He was at EAS at MMA showing his "Mite Zapper", which relies on wires through the drone brood which are electrified to heat (fry!) the varroa (and the drone brood) . The wires also melt the comb and it didn't look like a method that would lend itself to repeated use. However, Zachary was hitting the vendor tent seeking someone willing to incorporate his experiment in plastic, which would better withstand the heated wires. Certainly an interesting project and I wish him success. Regarding the original issue, the abandoned techniques involved heating the entire hive. I believe the work was being done in Germany, and I may be incorrect that it has been abandoned. Seems some "cobble" minded sort could work up some sort of solar arrangement to affect the heating. But there is still the problem of achieveing a temperature high enought to kill the varroa yet low enough not to kill the bees. I don't recall the exact temperatures, but they wer withing only a few degrees. Aaron Morris - thinking Man, it's hot in here! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 07:03:51 +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: Varroa and temperature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron wrote >I believe the work was being done in Germany, and I may be > incorrect that it has been abandoned. We had a visit several years ago from a young lady beekeeper from Germany. During our conversations, she told of research she had been involved with in Germany on this heat question. It seems that in the laboratory it was successful with the varroa being able to be killed but the brood left alive. However, the difference in temperature between killing the varroa and killing the brood was not very much so that when it came to a field situation, the field controls were not good enough to keep the correct critical temperature. It appears that a lot of brood was cooked in the field. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:50:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: A. scutellata Question Hi Milt At the last count, to the best of my recollection, the African continent had 13 native races of honeybee. These races vary from specialised bees that live in (relatively) small areas such as AM capensis, to mountain bees such as AM monticola, to the desert races, and to the races that occupy vast areas and many microclimates such as AM adansonii and AM scutellata. See: http://www.beesource.com/pov/osterlund/bucprinc.htm Almost half a century ago, an academic took a number of African honeybee races to an apiary near Sao Paulo in Brazil. While he certainly succeeded in boosting honey production, certain swarms went walkabout. Most of the feral swarms that survived have been traced directly to AM scutellata. These bees hybridised to an unknown degree with other races, and were dubbed "Africanized Honey Bees." This bee spread through south and central America and then into the continental US. It is probably no co-incidence that AM scutellata is Africa's most successful honeybee, in terms of habitable areas occupied. Cold weather stinks up the joint for scutellata, possibly explaining the AHB's reluctance to invade further north in the US. Barry Sergeant Kyalami South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 22:47:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Leland Hubbell Organization: Tekoa Subject: Re: A. scutellata Question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I, too, was curious about the African bees. I found several interesting sources, including the BEE-L archives. Also this one on the OH State Univ site: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2124.html May be dated; perhaps some will update us. Leland Hubbell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 17:10:58 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Morris Subject: Post office? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I just read a report in our local news letter concerning the fact that the Post office will no longer be shipping bees-queens or packages. Does anyone have any info on this? TIM MORRIS ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 02:40:48 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Neon Rosell Subject: Temp control for varroa? In-Reply-To: <200109260402.f8Q42iJ18517@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hello everybody, Thanks for your replies regarding temp and varroa control. I’m glad to hear about researches without using chemicals. What I wanted to say, was not temperature high enough to kill the varroa but the application of temperature enough to irritate the varroa to get them to drop. And by applying this on a regular basis could control the varrroa population in the hive to a low level for it not to be counterproductive. Neon Rosell II Philippines __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 08:20:57 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Post office? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Tim Morris writes: > Post office will no longer be shipping bees-queens or packages. Post office has farmed this out to UPS. Plenty in the archives at http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S1=bee-l This may or may not be an improvement depending on your location and the caliber of UPS service in your area. To me this was good news, others are not pleased. Costs will increase, and the really bad news is UPS will not guarantee live delivery. This was a front page article in the ABF newsletter which I received yesterday and have not yet read. Aaron Morris - thinking buy nucs locally! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:37:18 -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: Post office? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" This message was originally submitted by koland@STAFFINGTECH.COM to the BEE-L list at LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU. It was edited to remove quoting the entirety of previously posted material. ----------------- Original message (ID=A310ECFB) (61 lines) ------------------- From: "Karen Oland" To: "Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology" Subject: RE: Post office? Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:26:52 -0400 This is an old rumour. Answer from the USPS, directly: "At 07/26/2001 10:25 AM we wrote - Thank you for visiting our web site. We appreciate your concerns. However, the shipment of live animals and honeybees will be processed in the same manner in which we have always offered. The Postal Service has four major commercial airlines it may use for the shipment of live animals. With regards to honeybees, as stated in our Domestic Mail Manual, Section C022.37, Bees are acceptable in the continental surface mail when shipped under federal and state regulations to ensure that they are free of disease. Packages of honeybees must bear special handling postage, except those sent at a First-Class Mail rate. Only queen honeybees may be shipped via air transportation. Each queen honeybee shipped via air transportation may be accompanied by up to 8 attendant honeybees." Any and all guarantees are apparently still by the USPS and are those stated on their web pages (do a search on bees). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 12:07:15 -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: Temp control for varroa? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit seppo.korpela@MTT.FI wrote: > See http://www.apis.admin.ch/english/host/pdf/alternativ/OstingyAVC.pdf > for a study that seems to back up your conclusions. Seppo, It is great to see you are still monitoring the list. The article is informative and answers more questions than just temp control. One thing I have taken away from it is an appreciation of the role of moisture in the hive and mite health. Less is better, so good winter ventilation is a must. There are a lot of excellent articles at this site. Thanks, Seppo. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 12:17:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carolyn Ehle Subject: Re: Post office? The semi-official word. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I work for the USPS. Yesterday we received word there would be no live animal shipments including bees by air. Thinking this might be the usual confusion of packages vs. queens, I e-mailed our district HQ. They called back immediately. From the USPS, this is the story: Due to the 9/11 mess, airlines will not carry any live animals including queens until further notice. USPS will accept bees under usual rules (see previous post) for ground transportation only, up to zone 4 (the zone may vary by district). We (USPS) recently began to contract with FEDEX (not UPS) for air transport but they do not accept live critters. This situation may change (I hope, was planning to order SMR queens now that we had rain) -- it's up to the airlines, who have bigger problems right now. Support your local bee breeder! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:30:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Barry and Everyone, First yes there are a few reports of a few beekeepers in areas with africanized bees keeping them. Not sure how common it is but suspect it is not very common at this time as the bees are not that nice to work with compared to the bees we are using here in the USA. Second aficanized honey bees in the USA or at least in Texas are not resistant to varroa mites. In fact at least one researcher is keeping some AHB colonies in south Texas without any varroa treatment to see if varroa resistance will emerge over time in these bees. He suspects it will but it hasn't yet. The AHB are more resistant to varroa than the european bees in common use here in the USA but not fully resistant in the wild at least not yet. The Texas Apiary Inspection service has also confirmed American foulbrood disease in at least one feral colony of AHB so they are not fully resistant to AFB either. Still, everyone I have visited with who has worked with AHB says they are not always fun to work with. Many states here including Minnesota have banned the keeping of these bees mostly to assure the public that beekeepers are also concerned about the negative characters of these bees and don't want them. I really can't imagine that they would survive our winters at any rate. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:41:17 -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: A. scutellata Questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Barry and Everyone, Barry wrote in part: "But I deviate - the fundamental question remains; viz., if beekeepers in the continental US could accept the idea - and perhaps the fact of - a gentle version of AM scutellata - would such a version of the alleged "killer bee" be acceptable? If indeed so, what kind of a pedigree would esteemed beekeepers such as yourself require?" Well Barry, there is one little issue here. I do understand what you are saying and would agree that keeping such bees would not be a problem in most areas. Having said that the problem is that if you can't identify something with a high degree of confidence you can't regulate it. It is very difficult to regulate based on a behavioral test of any sort. That is why we here in MN chose to regulate AHB which can be identified rather than trying to regulate the behavior of bees. Just a practical consideration not that we are totally against AHB but we really felt a need to assure the public that we were not and will not be a source of these insects that many consider dangerous. Again I also repeat my view that they would not survive our winters - even what we consider mild winters. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:41:49 -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: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Blane White wrote: >Just a practical consideration not that we are totally against AHB but we really felt a >need to assure the public that we were not and will not be a source of these insects that >many consider dangerous. There are some who think that AHB could be over wintered even in Maine, if managed properly. But I hope we never put it to the test. The public relations disaster that would result could easily result in so many beekeeping ordinances that it would kill urban and suburban beekeeping. Does not matter how gentle "killer bees" are. They will always be "killer bees" to the public. Bill Truesdell Bath, Me ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:25:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Viktor Sten Subject: Re: Temp control for varroa? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Had a look at the Danish beekeeping society's website www.biavl.dk today, in the Danish language part, press sygdom and then varroa. Here is a short description of 2 heat treatment boxes and a couple of photos 1) is the Borgstädter- Thermo-Box in which capped frames are treated. The treatment duration is 4 hours at 44 degrees C. It is stated that only minor damage occurs to the brood and there may be some shortening of the bee lifespan. 100 % of the mites dies with this treatment. 2) is the Apitherm-skab (trademark) which is a box in which up to 18 frames can be treated at a time. It is stated that it is possible to keep the mites in check with this system only. Open brood cells will not survive the treatment for which reason treated frames should have mosly capped cells. A treatment takes 3 hours where the temperature is raised slowly to just under 44 degrees C. With this system there is no damage to the bees and a shortening of the lifespan does not occur. Most of the mites dies with this treatment and the survivors presumably becomes sterile. With both systems it is possible to treat even during a honey flow. It is also mentioned that some beekeepers have made the equipment themselves. What I would like to know is if anybody on the list know how the optimal rise of temperature is in system 2, does anybody have a graph showing the optimal or recommended temperature rise over time. Should be fairly simple to make a insulated box heated with a couple of lightbulbs, circulated air with a small fan and a baffle to keep direct heat from the frames. The article on the website was written by Camilla J. Brødsgaard & Henrik Hansen. Best regards Viktor in Ontario ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:02:35 -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: A. scutellata Questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Barry and Everyone, Barry wrote in part: "Bob, if I understand it from other discussions, you guys have problems with varroa, big time, and other pests/diseases such as SHB. I don't understand you classifying such bees as having the traits you are "looking for." I'm not saying scuts are immune to all pests and diseases, but they sure are tough bees. As you can see from my other postings, I remain mystified by how scuts seem to laugh varroa mites out of the hive." There is one very fundamental difference with keeping bees in SA and the USA. Here in the USA most of us are in a decidedly temperate climate not a tropical climate. Scuts are very well adapted to a tropical climate but not a temperate climate. You have said that the bees don't do well in cold. Well, here in MN ( southern MN is latitude 45 N ) I suspect our springs and falls and even part of our summers might be considered as "cold" by your standards and we are talking about the warmer part of the year! We need bees adapted to a temperate climate to survive here. It has been said that in MN you might not be managing your bees for winter during the month of June but are managing for winter most of the rest of the year! Now actually our management systems here really have to be designed to deal with winter in order to have colonies that are alive in the spring and ready to be split and managed for the honey flow in the summer. Yes we can produce good honey crops but if! you can't get the bees through winter in good shape you won't have much of a honey crop. In short we are dealing with a very different environment which requires a very different bee. Scuts do very well in the tropics our bees do better here in the northern temperate zone. Our bees don't do well in the tropics either it is a matter of the environment you are dealing with as well as the bees. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:51:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Waldemar Galka Subject: Beekeepers in Nassau County, Long Island. Hi, I am a beginning beekeeper on Long Island, with some experience from Europe. I have just mailed out a membership form to join the Long Island Beekeepers Club. In the meantime, I'd love to meet fellow beekeepers in my neighborhood: Nassau County, New York. Is anyone from Nassau, western Suffolk or eastern Queens on this list ? It'd be great to learn from your experience. Best regards, Waldemar ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 21:44:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Scuts Just so every knows Scuts do very well in temperate climates as well as climates that get downright cold in winter. I had 40 hives of some of the most pure Scuts you can find in Africa, at least according to a government scientist who took samples of all my hives (with me next to her) in the Namaqualand district of the Nothern Cape Provence in South Africa. As far as I know, they're still there at Klein Pella, just outside of Pofadder. It freezes in the winter there much worse that where I grew up on the coast of California. The cold is bitter, there's only 3 inches of rain a year and everything wants to eat them. We're talking 9 years of experience with scuts, and 8 with those things we have in Ca., some of which (neglected black Germans) were just as nasty. Like Barry mine all had mites, and I never did anything about them, and got great pollenation, and about 120 lbs of honey from the best hives. Even those two that I had 10 meters from my house (with 6 young children) were very mild mannered. Usally. Once some local kids threw rocks at them. I was at lunch, and my milk goat butted down my door. My wife grabbed the kids, locked them in a room, and I did what I could. The goat was black with bees, I took several hundred stings, and had to destroy the hives. The goat died. Let's keep them out of the U.S. Best regard to this great list. Tim, thinking (thanks for the idea of ending a post this way!) It could always get worse. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:15:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Milt Lathan Subject: A. scutellata Questions I think most folks on this list know the story of the introduction of these bees into the Americas. It is the number of generations since that release that lead me to doubt that these are the "same" as African bees. I don't see much on the list about what I HEAR is the most disturbing behavior of AHB and that is a strong tendency to swarm. Is 'The Learning Channel' wrong? Seems to me that this characteristic would make the bees less profitable due to extra swarm prevention labor/manipulations. And swarming could also prove to be a real danger to the public. For years I have explained to friends that a swarm is nothing to fear - I shudder to think of an unprotected person examining a wild hive thinking a normal swarm has moved into an out-building or piece of machinery. I assume Southern beekeepers are taking more care in capturing swarms nowadays - correct? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:44:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Howard Kogan Subject: Hive screened bottom boards I have used a screened bottom board on one of my hives this summer. Should it be replaced or covered before the winter? I live in upstate NY. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:26:40 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: dan hendricks Subject: Pedigreed scuts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Barry, do you contrive to keep your pedigreed scuts from absconding? How? Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:18:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeFarmer Subject: Re: Hive screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have several hive that this year in Ohio I am planning on going with and without a bottom probably about 50/50. One advandage I have heard which I don't take as gospel but will see for myself if possible, is that with the screen bottom board being open the bees will not have to leave the hive to relieve themselves. BeeFarmer Getting Kids involved in 4H Beekeeping http://www.homestead.com/BeeKeepers/Opening.html > I have used a screened bottom board on one of my hives this summer. Should > it be replaced or covered before the winter? I live in upstate NY. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:03:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Logan VanLeigh Subject: Re: Hive screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Howard Kogan wrote: > > I have used a screened bottom board on one of my hives this summer. Should > it be replaced or covered before the winter? I live in upstate NY. The archives contains a lively discussion on this from 1-2 years ago. You'll get several viewpoints. L ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 20:04:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: stimey Subject: Re: Hive screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: Howard Kogan To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 1:44 PM Subject: Hive screened bottom boards > I have used a screened bottom board on one of my hives this summer. Should > it be replaced or covered before the winter? I live in upstate NY. > I live central NY. Syr. area and find the sreened bottom boards to be a benefit. More ventilation equals less moisture laden air lingering in the hive, also the hives that didn't have screened bottoms were slower to buildup in spring. I might add I also provide a top entrance and I wrap my hives with tar paper and most are painted darker colors, we have far more cool weather than really hot so darker is better, remember wet kills bees not cold. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 22:13:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kent Stienburg Subject: Re: Hive screened bottom boards MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, I've used screen bottom boards now for the full year in south eastern Ontario. First, the bees do not defecate in the hive. They need good weather for cleansing flights. Assuming good health and all. My boards are not open to the earth but have a debris board under it. I find this useful to monitor hive activity through the seasons. I had an extremely heavy varroa infestation last summer prior to building the boards. After installing and putting in Apistan the mite drop in 24 and 48 hours was to heavy to count. Through out this year my mite fall has been 0 to 5 mites in 24 and 48 hours. I am removing the last suppers tomorrow so will install the Apistan. This is going to be interesting to see if the small mite drop through out the summer will correlate with the Apistan drop. Kent Stienburg ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:59:32 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rob Green Subject: Indiana State Beekeepers Assn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The Indiana State Beekeepers Assn has just released the October ISBA Journal. Although nothing in it would be necessarily new for the member of BEE-L, I thought I'd offer the link for those who'd like to take a gander at it. Download it from http://www.HoosierBuzz.com/document/i0110.pdf Rob Green editor@HoosierBuzz.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:29:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: Pedigreed scuts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Dan We try to select against the absconding tendency in producing pedigree scuts. If you take wild scuts as a baseline, they can also be managed to reduce or minimise absconding. Absconding is normally triggered by continual extreme cold or heat, an end to a flow (especially a mono-flow, for example, sunflowers), or a bad outbreak of some pest or disease, such as chalkbrood. In other words, you need to place hives to neutralise temperature extremes, and move hives at the right time. I've often heard it said that in beekeeping, timing is everything. Also, you need to use good solid wooden Langstroth hives, regulate the entrance width to the hive, and consciously leave a honey super with the bees when you sense conditions may toughen up. Most of this is standard beekeeping practice? It's interesting that when wild scuts abscond, they take the easiest route. This past winter I saw smaller colonies in an apiary simply join other, bigger colonies. These giant colonies would then have sufficient bees to generate lots of heat, and field plenty of foragers, when flying was possible. The absconding colonies left everything behind - brood, pollen and honey. And, of course, queens were sacrificed. I guess the outcome of this process would be that when conditions improved, such giant colonies could produce swarm after swarm, giving more overall bees than if the smaller colonies had not absconded in the first place. This is a kind of “sum of the parts” logic. Barry in Kyalami ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:35:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Sergeant Subject: Re: A. scutellata Questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Blane, Bill, Milt and all If you read the posting “Scuts” below, you would see a very fine articulation of how scuts can and do take fierce cold. My point is that they detest cold. Certainly, if you search the depth and breadth of South Africa in mid-winter, you will indeed find scuts in areas with absolutely bitter overnight temperatures. Scutellata in South Africa are found in the summer rainfall area, and normally, winter days are sunny and mild. It’s worth noting that scuts yield to AM capensis in the Western Cape; there’s a 99% chance that it’s because of the occasional horrific winter conditions in that area. Also, capensis are adapted to winter rainfall, found only in the Western Cape. Thousands of miles to the north, scuts yield to AM monticola in the East African mountains. My reading of scuts and cold is that the bees will abscond if they sense a move would somehow place them in a better position. Otherwise, they will stay put and try to live it out. It’s not too difficult to manage wild scuts to minimise absconding tendencies (please seen under “Pedigree Scutellata” posting below). By the same token, managing scuts against swarming follows normal beekeeping practices, viz., adding supers at the right time, de-choking honey from the brood nest area, and so on. Again, timing is everything, given the shorter development cycle of the scut. A hive with a "normal-sized" colony can explode within a few days. Best regards Barry in Kyalami