From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 07:36:10 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Original-To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Delivered-To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Received: from listserv.albany.edu (unknown [169.226.1.24]) by metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id BAB0548846 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n1SCP3ru010167 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:37 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0202C" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Message-ID: Content-Length: 275743 Lines: 6250 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 17:35:11 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Edwards Subject: Re: Ancient Bear Dung MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tim Vaughan wrote: > I thought up a way to either prove or disprove Dee's interesting theory of > a native Apis spp. I was thinking about how in her neck of the woods > researches recently settled the case of the unusual dietary allegations > surounding the Anasazi Peoples by examining their coprolites. There must be > reams of papers about the make up of skunk, bear, etc.. feces past and > present, Actually there is - Dr. Tom Vandevender(?) of the Univ. of Arizona is probably the world's leading authority on fossilized packrat nests and the historical climatology that they show. He's in the phone book (sorry I've forgotten the exact spelling). His studies cover thousands of years. But what would be the point in bothering him if nobody would believe an opposing opinion?? Dozens of researchers have already written thousands of papers on this subject. Why doesn't somebody phone Steve Buchmann and ask him?? He is also in the Tucson phone book, and at steve@thebeeworks.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 07:22:11 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: michael palmer Subject: Re: niche market for honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Bill. How are the girls doing? They had a nice flight the other day, Jan. 28. If this weather keeps up, they aughta winter well. Even the 4-way mini-nucs have a little brood already. Boy, I'm getting excited. About "niche markets." Vermont honey would be one. "Organic" would be another. "How about "varietal" honeys. Then, too, there's "bakery grade." Couldn't tell you how much is sold in some special way. Would be difficult to find out, unless you did some kind of survey..... Mike Bill Mares wrote: > Can someone define the "niche market" for retail honey? People bandy this > term around and I don't know what it means. > Secondly, how much of the 400 milion+ pound U.S. honey market is that niche? > Thanks, ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 17:25:08 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Coleene Davidson Subject: Re: Gas Branding Iron - Where? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, I have not had time to read everything from the list since this was posted. I knew I had seen a gas Branding Iron in one of the catalogs I receive on a regular basis so I starte searching. Dadant carrys-or at least did in 2001-a gas Branding Iron. Coleene ----- Original Message ----- From: Milt Lathan To: Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 4:42 PM Subject: Gas Branding Iron - Where? > Howdy, > Can anyone tell me where I can find the 1-piece branders I've seen only > in beekeeping videos? > Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 18:01:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Al Lipscomb Subject: Re: Closing of bee labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > -----Original Message----- > From: Lloyd Spear [mailto:LloydSpear@EMAIL.MSN.COM] > Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 9:55 AM > To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu > Subject: Closing of bee labs > > [CUT] > > I am appalled that agricultural programs and subsidies are #2 > in federal spending, behind only defense spending. (Or so I > have recently heard.) And this is after the proposal to cut > spending by closing the four labs, not that they make much of > a difference. > > Personally, Jim's perspectives have led me to believe that > the federal government should significantly reduce spending > on agricultural programs and subsidies, but not reduce the > amounts spent on honeybee research. > I would think that research money should come from the beekeepers themselves. While it has become rather automatic to want others to pay for our problems, we all need to understand that money is going to follow the votes and the lobbing efforts. Beekeeping is not the big money crops that attract the federal dollars. To me it is very much like buying queens, I pay for something I need. I would think it silly to expect the government to open queen breeding facilities. I would rather pay a little more for queens so the breeders can pay for R&D on their products. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 09:42:34 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Donald Franson Subject: Re: Gas Branding Iron - Where? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed If you have a Woodcraft store close by you can get a variety of branding irons through them and at a good price. Donald _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:11:10 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: niche market for honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill, There are all kinds of niches. Gift packaging, varietal honeys, honey types like extracted, comb, creamed, and demonstrations of live bees. Frankly, I do ALL of them at one given event, and it attracts buyers who pay high prices per pound. At my 9 day county FAIR, I have a 8' x12' screened wire cage housing 4 colonies of bees. Four demonstrations per day where I go in, find the queen, take her out, show her to the crowd, constantly TALKING about the value of honey bees to the public due to the pollination they provide, and I do all of this dressed only in shoes, shorts, Tee-shirt and NO VEIL. Have not been stung in several years. This is done to convince people that Hollywood has exploited the story of "killer bees". Next door to the cage is George's Honey House where my family sells all kinds of varietal honeys like eucalyptus, sourwood, buckwheat, tupelo, gallberry, and MARYLAND honeys: locust, tulip poplar, alfalfa, clover, basswood. we sell all kinds of gift packs, sampler packs, comb honey, creamed honey, honey sticks, recipe books, and jars of different sizes; and my nine day gross sales run $10,000-$15,000. My family keeps all the money for their work, and I get all the THANK YOU's. YOU DON'T SELL HONEY - YOU SELL YOURSELF AND YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF BEES. That is what the public is willing to pay for. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:40:27 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: niche market for honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Mares asked: > Can someone define the "niche market" for retail honey? Given that the overwhelming bulk of honey sold at retail is extracted, micro-filtered, and heated to within a inch of its life, anything else would be a "niche market". > Secondly, how much of the 400 milion+ pound U.S. > honey market is that niche? No idea. "Niche" implies "small". I doubt that anyone bothers to count the output of the smaller producers. I know that no one has ever asked us, and we are clearly a "boutique producer" of honey. Why do we use the term "boutique" around here? For no other reason than to create the perception of a "niche product". The competition sells a "Wall-Mart" product. A "sweetener" that has about as much in common with real Honey as a Budwiser has in common with a 1992 Philippe Rothschild. When the competition is a bottom-feeder, the only place to go is up. Way up. Sure we are more expensive, just like a dress from Ungaro (a dress designer in Miami) is more expensive than something found on the rack in the women's department of K-Mart. But our honey is worth it. Why? Because we say so! That's "niche marketing". Comb honey is an obvious niche-market product. So is honey that has not been excessively filtered or heated, but only if these points are made clear to the buyer. Varietal honeys are also (however, one finds mass-market honey described as "clover honey" so often as to render the term "clover" meaningless.) The most common example of a niche-market product is honey that stresses its local origin. How "local" must one be? There is a Confederate cemetery in Lynchburg, VA that has a very large collection of old-fashioned roses and other flowering plants. There are few hives on the grounds. They do a brisk business in their own brand of honey, and use the profits to help maintain the place. "Local" to them means "right here among the gravestones". But if you want a real education in marketing and product positioning, look no further than olive oil. Go look at the "wall of olive oil" in a big Italian market. Realize that these are the products of producers no bigger than you, mostly tiny family outfits on the other side of the planet. Realize also that 99% of the population cannot not tell the difference between one and another in a "taste test". Regardless, these same people demonstrate "brand loyalty" to one or more of these obscure brands. Then why are there 200 different brands on the shelf? Is the grocer insane? No, he is very, very smart. All of it sells, and the wide variety alone draws customers. Why do all the bottles and labels look so different? Each company has an ad budget of about $1.98, so they put their effort into making a package that is distinct enough to be seen and selected from the visual riot of the 200 brands of olive oil found in a typical Italian market or larger deli. Be humbled at the beauty of their packaging, their planet-wide distribution network, and the clear implication that these people never give a thought to selling their products at wholesale in bulk to a "packer". They are making a profit shipping cases of glass bottles from Sicily, through customs, through several layers of food brokers, and a retailer. These are all "niche" products because they all have learned "positioning". Most of them aim for the high end of the market, and make no attempt to compete on price. Does it work? Most decent cooks have multiple bottles of olive oil, all different brands. (I just went and counted - my wife has 18 different brands in the pantry right now, but she may be an extreme case, being of Italian descent, a person who reads cookbooks as if they were mystery novels, and the unquestioned benign dictator of a kitchen that takes up half the ground floor of our house.) The output of these small producers is tiny. Some brands are only available at certain times of year. This only adds to the aura of exclusivity and perception of desirability. (Betcha some of them do that on purpose!) What's the real difference between all these olive oils? An "educated" pallet can taste differences, just as one can taste differences with honey, but most of the difference is nothing more than perception. This means paying lots of attention to bottles, labels, and presentation. The "niche" concept is more complex than something like simply promoting "Florida Orange Juice", since a "niche" implies that you are filling a specific need or serving a specific set of customers. "Florida Orange Juice" is not a niche product, since they say nothing about why their juice is different than other orange juice. Honey with a label printed in Arabic or Farsi is clearly a niche product. One is targeting an ethnic group with the same honey, but merely a different label. If you have "ethnic populations" where you are, try it. So go look at the mass-market low-end sweeteners, and do something different. You can't be bigger than the mass-market folks, but you can be "smarter". If you can't be smarter, you can at least be "different". "Different" sells. Death to the Queenline bottle and the generic label! Overthrow the evil reign of the squeeze bear! jim ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 09:26:25 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Closing of the bee labs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ouch, when the ship is sinking, they cut the money needed to save it. The decline of beekeeping reflects the alleged decline of other pollinators. If this continues, it will certainly become evident by the costs and country of origin of produce in the grocery stores. The labs need to be saved, but they also are badly in need of reorganization and some re-direction. The federal labs serve to provide some continuity to long-term issues - bee diseases, bee genetics, africanized bees. The current system is top heavy in infra-structure (buildings, lights, land, administration, salaries). The pittance that each research scientist gets to support her or his research is so small as to be almost worthless - I've heard that some are lucky to get $10k/yr - not a lot when you need replicated experiments, special equipment, etc. For example, to examine pesticide residues, the lab needs about $250-$500,000 in instrumentation alone, then a trained technician, etc. Its no wonder that private analytical labs charge $400-1000 per sample. In my opinion, moving the bee labs to southern climates was a mistake. Remember, Weslaco used to be a Wyoming lab, Tucson a Madison lab. Bees, management, mites, treatments for pests and diseases all work differently in northern states than in southern, and most of the migratory beekeepers spend several months in the northern tier states. There are options that could save USDA money, yet not close down the research: 1. Assign the remaining personnel to a near-by academically-based unit -- that's done for many agricultural and forest service labs. We have some housed on our campus. AND, these don't have to be land grant colleges. Our own land grant college gave up beekeeping years ago, but we continue to practice it at a liberal arts college that also has a USDA forestry lab and a USFWS Cooperative Research Unit. 2. Use modern information technology to network the various groups, rather than redistribute scientists into other areas of USDA. 3. Open up the lines of communication with the industry - why, for example, is John Edwards, the only USDA employee to regularly participate on Bee-L? Are these scientists instructed not to participate in public forums, or do they have a mandate as those of us at University's do to provide Public Service? In my mind, that doesn't mean ignoring bee discussion groups, reading but not responding. They are the experts, let's see some of that expertise shared in forums other than meetings and articles, or static web pages. 4. Do these labs have an advisory board composed of various stakeholders? Beekeepers (commericial and hobbiest, packers, food products, regulatory folks, etc?) If not, maybe they should. 5. I don't mean this as sour grapes, but the existence of the bee labs is used against those of us outside USDA when we apply for grants. If we go to USDA, as an academic, I have to request salary. As I understand, for some of these grants programs, USDA scientists can also apply, but since they work for USDA, they don't charge salaries. That gives them an edge - and maybe that's ok. But, the more serious problem is when agency's like the National Science Foundation reject a bee study because there are Federal labs whose mandate is to study bees - AND they argue that the honey bee is an introduced bee (NSF likes basic science and endemic species). In the old days, one could get bee research grants from the USDA labs - that's more or less gone. Don't get me wrong, the labs serve a vital purpose and need to be preserved and strengthened for continuity of long term research. But they could also use an overhaul. Failing that, close all of the bee labs, even Weslaco, sell or rent all of the facilities, and put the recovered funds and the operating budget $$ into a competitive bee research grants program, open to beekeepers, private groups, and universities. Cheers Jerry ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:13:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adony Melathopoulos Subject: varroa thresholds Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit There is a free PDF of a new Washington state study on varroa thresholds: Optimum Timing of Miticide Applications for Control of Varroa destructor (Acari: Varroidae) in Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Washington State, USA. James P. Strange and Walter S. Sheppard http://esa.edoc.com/economic/v94n6/v94n6p1324.pdf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:58:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Bees of Spain Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi There was a great article in the February American Bee Journal, about ancient apiaries in Portugal, color pictures and all! In it, he says: "were these desert bees imported by the Moors, along with woven hives, in the days of the Arab rule? This seems a possible hypothesis. We will examine this question in a future article" The plot thickens! Allen wrote: >A beekeeper sees something he likes and takes a queen home. This will never change and, right or wrong, no law -- short of making transporting queens a capital offence -- can ever stop it. Right -- since the 1800s honeybee queens have been taken to every corner of the globe. However, we know the Moors (and Romans) didn't carry queens around -- because they thought the leader of the hive was a King! It wasn't until the mid 1500s that a beekeeper in Spain discovered that the King was a Queen and *she* laid all the eggs in the hive, not the workers.* I don't know who discovered the feasibility of requeening. * Discovery of the Fundamental Facts about Bees. The first description of the queen bee as a female, which laid eggs, was published in Spain in 1586, by Luis Mendez de Torres. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 08:56:26 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adrian Wenner Subject: Bees mentioned in the Koran Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A short while ago, someone asked whether any advice existed in the Koran about eating honey. In section #16 (out of 114 sections), entitled "The Bee," in my copy of the Koran, I found only two applicable paragraphs (verses?), as follows: *********** Your Lord inspired the bee, saying: "Make your homes in the mountains, in the trees, and in the hives which men shall build for you. Feed on every kind of fruit, and follow the trodden paths of your Lord." From its belly comes forth a syrup of different hues, a cure for men. Surely in this there is a sign for those who would take thought. *********** Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 [http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm] ***************************************************** * * "We not only believe what we see: * to some extent we see what we believe." * * Richard Gregory (1970) * ***************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 13:38:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Rock Art Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi I got a copy of Eva Crane's recent book: The Rock Art of Honey Hunters, 2001. In it she has a table of Rock Art by Continent. (I hope the table looks OK in email format) Africa Asia Europe America Oceania Bee related: # of countries 12 3 1 0 1 # of sites 111 19 6 0 5 General rock art: # of countries 23 14 7 14 9 major areas 31 38 29 34 12 You can see that the Americas have just as much rock art as other continents but no one has ever found depictions of honey bees or humans engaged in honey hunting. I mentioned in an earlier post that there were 911 rock art sited identified in the US alone by 1979. pb -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:54:56 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Mrs. J.A. Gussow & Mr. H.E. Gussow - Tucson, Arizona" Subject: Re: Gas Branding Iron - Where? In-Reply-To: <200202151512.g1FFCaA25595@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Friday, February 15, 2002 11:44:55 AM Hello to All on the List: I response to the request on Branding Irons there is an excellent source @ www.brandnew.net I have been there and they have more than branding Irons but that's up to you. There Telephone number is 1-800-964-8251. They have a service for customizing just what you want. There are both Gas and Electric and just plain ones too. There aid in on Bee Culture, February 2002, page 13. but you must to the site to see what they have. If support the people who want to deal with beekeeping then you must look at there site. Woodcraft is fine if you want to wait in line but doing it in the Internet or giving them a call after you have made your discussion its up to YOU. But keep in mind that I saw it in print at Bee Culture too. Respectfully submitted Harvey Tucson, Arizona ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 14:33:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CAIR Subject: Re: Bees mentioned in the Koran In-Reply-To: <200202151703.g1FH3fA00369@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 08:56 AM 2/15/02 -0800, you wrote: > A short while ago, someone asked whether any advice existed in the Koran >about eating honey. > > In section #16 (out of 114 sections), entitled "The Bee," in my copy of >the Koran, I found only two applicable paragraphs (verses?), as follows: > >*********** > > Your Lord inspired the bee, saying: "Make your homes in the mountains, >in the trees, and in the hives which men shall build for you. Feed on >every kind of fruit, and follow the trodden paths of your Lord." > > From its belly comes forth a syrup of different hues, a cure for men. >Surely in this there is a sign for those who would take thought. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Make use of the two remedies: honey and the Qur'an." Al-Tirmidhi Hadith, Hadith 1196 The Holy Quran, Chapter 47, Verse 15 "(Here is) a Parable of the Garden (of Paradise) which the righteous are promised: in it are rivers of water incorruptible: rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of (non-intoxicating) wine a joy to those who drink; and rivers of honey pure and clear." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 12:17:38 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: No Way Backwards - The Pesticide Treadmill In-Reply-To: <200202151703.g1FH3NA00336@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all on BEE-L Reading the Mailbox in Bee Culture Feb 2002 issue pages 6-7. A ltr written by Jeff Pettis has caught my eye on Coumaphos Resistance where Dr Pettis states: *The addition of two or four new CheckMite+ strips did not result in increased mite drop over 24 hours (approximately 400 mties/colony) when compared to mite drop from colonies with "used strips" (approximately 350 mites/colony). In contrast, the addition of two Apistan strips resulted in a 10-fold increase (approximately 3,800 mites/colony/24 hours) in mite numbers when compared to the "used strips" mite drop.* I find this frightening to read, for it says to me there is no alternating of treatments between apistan and coumaphos in reverse of harsher to milder, so you can only go forward harder and harsher. This would be in line with the normal route of the pesticide treadmill (for more information please see) The Chemical Treadmill explained http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/chemdata.htm So are beekeepers kidding themselves they can back off and not crash with colonies? Just where are the clean combs and bees going to come from to retool so many, if they themselves are not restarting clean seperate colonies on the side, to work up, to replace coming crashing colonies in the future? Is any one planning for their escape? Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Got something to say? Say it better with Yahoo! Video Mail http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 12:21:29 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Keith Malone Subject: Re :-) [BEE-L] No Way Backwards - The Pesticide Treadmill MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dee & All, > Is any one planning for their escape? Yes Mam, I signed up this winter. I joined the ranks. The battle begins. Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA starrier@yahoo.com http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 21:22:09 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: niche market for honey Comments: To: "Mrs. J.A. Gussow & Mr. H.E. Gussow - Tucson, Arizona" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Harvey Gussow said: > The other side of the coin is interesting too. Super Market chains demand > the product that would last into the next century on the shelf... Then why would you want YOUR honey on that shelf? I certainly would not want our honey on that shelf. It would do nothing but tarnish the image of our honey. > We should know that the demand for honey by the same "Supermarket Chains" > have nothing to do with quality of the product but the lovengevity of the > product on the shelf. Then go elsewhere, don't pay the slotting fees, and find smaller retailers that LIKE the idea of carrying a "local" or "gourmet" product. > Can the producers of honey products turn down the best possible > exposure to the public. This answer is no. But is a supermarket the BEST exposure? I'd say no, since it does nothing but position your product as "more expensive" than both the well-known national brands and the store brand. Your product becomes the "straw man" in a game of "low price". The only way to win is to not play the game. Perhaps supermarkets are a good outlet for the low-end, mass-produced, generic honey, since they can hope for no more than "mass appeal". Good. Let them have that market. If you can't beat 'em, seek greener pastures. > While most of us are in the business to work with honeybees the > bottlers are in it for survival of there business. Bottlers? BOTTLERS?!!!??? To misquote the Bogart movie "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre": "We don't need no stinking bottlers!" If you feel that you are too large to do you own bottling, but not large enough to invest in a "bottling line" of your own, then you need to contract out the bottling, where, for a fee, the bottler handles your honey as YOU see fit, applies your label, and delivers cases of bottles to your warehouse. Yep, you pay him. You take the risks. But you also take the profits. I dunno how the concept of "contract bottling", common in all other businesses, somehow got twisted around into a deal where the "bottler" buys the beekeeper's crop as "raw materials", and sells "finished goods". Even if one goes through every step in the "bottler's" process, one sees nothing overly complicated. You need clean, you need stainless steel, you need some square footage. It is clearly not rocket science. If you want to invest in some capital equipment, there are many small-scale (and very high-tech) bottling lines available. A team of 2 or 3 local dairy farmers just bought one, and started marketing their own brand of milk. They are selling milk for MUCH higher prices than the grocery stores, and they are selling only through convenience stores and smaller neighborhood stores. They went "retro", right down to the glass bottles and the bottle deposit. They even reconditioned an old 1950s milk truck to do the deliveries. People loved the idea. A mere six months later, they offer cream, half-and-half, butter, and ice cream. All of it is expensive. All of it is good. Better ice cream than Ben and Jerry's? Maybe not, but people sure seen to THINK it is. So, fire your "packer" and employ a "bottler" who actually bottles, rather than trying to play middleman. > I have yet to see any "section honey" of any worth on the shelves. Exactly. Mine never sits on a shelf. I start getting phone calls in early June. I tell them to check the local newspaper for my announcement in the classifieds. I print the world's shortest ad - "Comb Honey!" and my phone number. People take this as their cue, and start arriving. The smart ones bring coolers with ice. We load them up straight from the freezer, they pay, and the comb honey is soon "gone", except for my private stash. Like we say on the label: "We eat all we can, and sell the rest". > Those "customers" are now "consumers" or "End Users" they have > turned into "Cattle" being lead by there herds men... You clearly have never visited a trendy bakery. Sure, those folks could buy bread at the supermarket, but they pay more than double for good bread. They also make a special trip to get it. (Gee, I wonder who's honey is for sale at the trendy bakeries near you?) Look at Starbucks! Starbucks appears to be a long-term psychology research program designed to find out just how high a price an otherwise rational person will pay for a simple cup of coffee. But I will say this for all the coffee shops - they consistently have honey to put in the coffee, right next to the cream. I wonder who's honey your local coffee shops use and sell? > Advertising is a rough road for small producers and small retailers... "We don't need no stinking advertising", either!! You want to sell LOTS of honey in an afternoon? Sleep late, avoid the farmer's market, and follow the example of the roadside fruit & veggie peddlers, who put up a few signs, and sell out of the back of their trucks. They sell ABOVE retail, and most do not grow what they sell. They simply buy it at the farmer's market! For best effect, make handpainted signs, and make them look as amateurish as possible. I'd suggest "Hunny - 1/4 Mile Ahead". Dress the part. Faded clothes are good. Extra points for a straw hat. Double bonus points for a 1930s, 40s, or 50s pickup truck that is NOT restored to showroom condition. Leave the wristwatch, Walkman, laptop, and the Palm Pilot at home. Make change with a wad of $1 bills pulled from a bib pocket, (of COURSE you will wear bib coveralls, suitably dirty) keeping the larger bills in another pocket, never to be shown > Surplus honey isn't a good thing for anyone I'm sorry, I don't understand the term. Please explain what "surplus honey" is. How can one have a "surplus" when one sells out every year? Did you run out of bottles? If you did not buy enough bottles, you can make mead, and sell honey at a 4000% markup. Find your local chapter of the "Society For Creative Anachronism" (the folks that put on jousting tournaments and such) and offer them a deal where they pay laughably outrageous prices for honey, and get a bottle of mead with every jar of honey as your "Christmas present". Write down names and addresses, so you can "prove" that you gave away all your mead to "friends" if you are ever visited by those polite, clean-cut, and heavily armed young men of the US Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? Sounds like a good plan for the weekend to me! (You know why this is such a great county when you realize that they even put the booze, smokes, and guns together in ONE department!) If you don't like "drinking", you can make baklava, which is nothing more than philo dough (which you can buy, pre-made, for pennies) honey, and nuts. Greek restaurants will buy all you can make, and scream into the phone at you for more. If you have read this far, you have now earned 3 credit hours towards an MBA, and should now go buy a blue pinstripe suit. jim ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 21:10:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Pollen Question for the list. I've searched the archives, and didn't see a specific answer to my question. If I take the pollen I'm collecting and put it into jars without processing it, how long should it last if refregerated? I know there must be several variables, but I need a ball park number to answer cutomers quesions. Thanks Tim Vaughan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 23:10:57 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Donald Franson Subject: Re: Pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Pollen should be frozen not refrigerated. Freezing kills both the mites and the moth eggs that fall into the pollen, you can not see these with the naked eye but they are in there. If you freeze it in an open container for a few days it will "freeze dry" the pollen for a better product then put a lid on it and it will last forever frozen. I dry mine then clean it and some of it I put into capsules which sell better and for a lot more money. (I grind it up before putting into capsules.) Hope this helps. Don _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 07:54:29 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Subject: Re: Pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Don wrote: > I dry mine then clean it and some of it I put into capsules which sell > better and for a lot more money. (I grind it up before putting into > capsules.) Reply: Capsules? That's a good idea. Is there a special machine to do that and where can capsules be purchased? Mark ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 08:26:16 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: michael palmer Subject: Re: niche market for honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Mares wrote: > > Secondly, how much of the 400 milion+ pound U.S. honey market is that niche? Bill, This morning, on the way out to the honey house to turn on the sumps, I had a thought (rare I know). Perhaps you should ask the question another way. How much honey is not sold in niche markets. Is not all honey sold in a niche market? If I sell my honey (which I do) to a food manufacturer, is that not a niche. Is honey used in cereals not niche? Does niche relate to size? Does a market have to be small, or out of the ordinary, to be a niche? If I sell my honey, in drums, to a major honey packer, is that not a niche? Just a thought from a sleepy head who stayed in bed too long this morning. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 08:12:31 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: michael palmer Subject: Re: Pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tim Vaughan wrote: > If I take the pollen I'm collecting and put > it into jars without processing it, how long should it last if > refregerated? I know of a queen rearer who last season used only pollen collected the summer before. After a winter in the freezer, it was fine for cell building. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 22:19:26 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: Pollen In-Reply-To: <200202160339.g1G3dfA19781@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >If I take the pollen I'm collecting and put >it into jars without processing it, how long should it last if >refregerated? I know there must be several variables, but I need a ball >park number to answer cutomers quesions. I'm sure much bigger-time beekeepers will chime in with this advice, and in jocular trendy terms. It falls to me to insist in a thoroughly non-jocular fashion that pollen must not be put into storage until properly dry. Most are already downright Informed on the need for ensuring that pollen is dry before going into storage; this note is intended for neophytes. Much as pollen is indeed a relatively complete food for mammals, so too it can support the growth of a wide range of fungi & other microbes. Fungi cannot grow below a threshold of water activity (now there's an arcane scientific term). Keep the RH of the air in equilibrium with stored pollen (many other organic materials) below 45% and you prevent growth of fungi. If they grow, they can in some conditions respire enough to make the air much wetter and a disastrous positive-feedback develops, sometimes ending with proliferation of very 'wet' bacteria etc. Rendering food obviously unfit for eating is not my main worry. Some fungi make spectacularly poisonous chemicals but aren't apparent to any ordinary inspection. Nuts are the most notorious medium for such _Aspergillus_ spp_ but it would be imprudent to assume that the fungi which can contaminate moist pollen are 'self-flagging' and won't hurt you. Novel pathogens are more likely today than in the history of science; that they may emanate from commercial gene-jiggering is for some obscure reason an offensive warning in the minds of some investors, but I will continue to sound this warning. To rely on refrigeration having omitted the stage of drying between hive trap and refrigerated jar is dangerous. I would strongly discourage such a procedure. As for the time-temp-RH formulae that should be given to customers, forget it. You who collect the pollen have the duty to dry it properly, and all you should say to any casual Konsumer is that your drying process is adequate and monitored. Now let's hear from those who can propose formulae. They won't be a "ball park number", I'm sorry. R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 02:16:44 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Nathan W. Lawrence" Subject: Hive Primer-Sealer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I am very new to beekeeping-- I have some unpainted hives, but I won't get my first bees for a couple more months. Before I paint my hives, I wanted to put a good primer-sealer on them to get them to last longer. It was recommended that I use B-I-N Primer-Sealer (made by "Zinsser"). My question: as long as I keep my priming, sealing, and painting to the outside of the hive, does it matter what I use? I'm asking this in regards to the bees... is there anything I need to avoid using because it could be harmful to the bees? Thank you. --Nathan Lawrence audioart@mac.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 08:34:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: smitch Subject: Re: Pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi Don and All B-liseter.....Don how you get by the = Pharmaceuticals?.....Inspections by those boys Jim was just describing = ATF? Scott better and for a lot more money. (I grind it up before putting into capsules.) Hope this helps. Don _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 11:25:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Natural comb cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Greetings There have been many discussions in this forum on the worker cell size of naturally built comb. Despite the fact that many researchers have concurred that European bees make comb with worker cells that average around 53 mm (Taber & Owens, Michener), some people contend that this size reflects an artificial enlargement *caused* by the use of foundation based on larger than natural dimensions. This idea itself is based on a faulty understanding of biology (externally induced characteristics are not passed on to offspring). Nevertheless, I have some information that I think can clarify the discussion. ----------------- Beekeeping with European hives has been carried out in Central America since at least 1830. Early beekeepers used logs and simple box hives. As late as 1979, this type of hive was still the main type in use in most of Central America. Movable frame hives were present in the following numbers in these countries: El Salvador 44% Costa Rica 15% Guatemala 3-25% Belize a few Panama none (from Crane, 1990, 1999) ------------------- Marla Spivak spent much time in Costa Rica observing the onset of Africanization. She measured the cell size of the European bees before, during and after the arrival. She refers data collected by researchers as early as 1973 indicating European bees in the tropics built cells ranging from 5.0 to 5.4 mm. These bees, being kept in box hives for centuries, can hardly said to be affected by manufactured comb foundation. Africanized bee cells were found to be in the range of 4.6 to 5.0 mm, throughout South America. (In Africa, scutellata ranges from 4.7 to 4.9.) According to Spivak, European bees in Costa Rica in 1984 built comb with cells measuring 5.3 mm. When African bees entered the area the numbers immediately fell to 5.0 mm. Later, the range for African bees was shown to be 4.7 to 5.1. She emphasizes that while cell size is a clear indication of Africanization, these bees do not necessarily exhibit the fierce behavior normally associated with this bee type. Even bees with cells as small as 4.7 mm were not always extremely defensive. (Spivak, 1991) -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 10:29:38 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Hive Primer-Sealer In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >I'm asking this in regards to the bees... is there anything I need >to avoid using because it could be harmful to the bees? I don't think you can hurt bees by your choice of *exterior* coating. Some have even used creosote. I always used a high quality exterior paint. I suppose oil-based paints are better preservatives, -- but the ease of use and the elimination of the problem of disposal of waste paint thinner from clean-up makes latex seem like a better choice. Really, the only reason I am writing about this is to remind you to paint the edges of the hives. Most beekeepers like to stack the boxes up and either roll or spray the paint on. This is a great time saver, but they miss the edges. I would definitely prime the edges with a brush and let them dry before stacking them up. The edges are very susceptible to moisture and rot. Paint also helps prevent the wood from splintering on these vulnerable surfaces. Another nice touch is to paint down around the frame rest. It makes this area easier to clean and may inhibit the bees depositing an excess of propolis here. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 11:48:50 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > There have been many discussions in this forum on the worker cell > size of naturally built comb. I very much appreciate the information you are providing on this and other current topics. I realise it takes a lot of work to keep supplying quotes and references. Thank you. Such contributions elevate the level of discussion considerably. It is nice to have some fact injected into our continuing and wide-ranging speculations. Please forgive me if I take what a trained bee scientist would consider to be the Devil's Advocate position here and again wander off the beaten track. >... many researchers > have concurred that European bees make comb with worker cells that > average around 53 mm (Taber & Owens, Michener), My own somewhat limited investigations reached that same conclusion. See http://www.internode.net/honeybee/Misc/CellCount.htm , nonetheless, I am always reluctant to dismiss utterly the anecdotal reports and continuing discussion from those that take exception to these apparent facts. I assume that when otherwise intelligent people disagree strongly on some obvious point, that there is often something that is being assumed by one group that is not understood or accepted by the other. In this case, I think that Adrian's current favourite quote from Dick Gregory gives us some guidance in understanding why there is disagreement: "We not only believe what we see: to some extent we see what we believe." -- Richard Gregory (1970) Those who have grown up in a century where combs built on wax foundation are considered normal and those combs built by unrestrained bees as abnormal (which includes pretty well all of us) make assumptions we do not even realise we are making. One concerns the uniformity of cell size on our idealized comb and our assumption that only one or two sizes of cell are necessary in a hive. Another is that we can ignore the variability of the bees we manage, and talk about averages. Consider this analogy: If we said that the average shoe size in Europeanized men (not even one remote African ancestor) is a ten and thereafter talk about ten as being the Europeanized men's shoe size, and ignore all variations (and the fact that some people need to buy two shoes of different sizes -- one for each foot) would that be reasonable? If we ordered only size ten shoes and issued then to all Europeanized men and insisted that they wear them, would that be reasonable? Obviously not, but that is about where we have gotten in our beekeeping. We just assume we can issue one arbitrary size of foundation -- whatever it might be -- and make the bees use it. We have gotten away with it thus far, but the whole idea does bear some scrutiny. > some people contend > that this size reflects an artificial enlargement *caused* by the use > of foundation based on larger than natural dimensions. This idea > itself is based on a faulty understanding of biology (externally > induced characteristics are not passed on to offspring). Yes, and no. The arguments are more subtle than simple Lamarckism. If they were simply Lamarckian , http://www.top-biography.com/9100-Lamarck/ they would be easier to dismiss (although I must interject here that Lamarck, although somewhat disgraced and discounted, has never been absolutely disproven -- nor can he be -- by any logical proof). The arguments we hear are more along the line of a concept that is best understood by the oft-touted example of Asian humans growing to larger sizes when exposed as children to a Western diet. There is no genetic change here, yet there are physical changes that will affect how the larger phenotypes will structure their immediate personal environment. Is it unreasonable to assume that taller people will build taller clothes and houses with taller doors, and pass that tendency on? Should the nutritional advantages disappear, would it be unreasonable to assume the clothing size, then the home size would diminish agan. No Lamarckian magic here. Another example: reportedly, in mediaeval Europe, units of measure were established by using a body part of royalty as a standard. How do bees decide what size to build cells? Do they use their own bodies as callipers? Unfortunately, a lot of spurious arguments have gotten in the way of understanding the several interesting viewpoints that are central to the controversy. I must admit that I have spent more time than I should trying to follow arcane arguments about what writers in the past saw, recorded or really meant when they observed natural comb and tried to calculate cells per area, etc from the measurements. I eventually concluded that anyone can make mistakes, including A.I Root, and that trying to second guess what some of the rather mathematically-challenged bee writers thought they saw is a waste of time. What I have thus far gotten out of this whole cell size thing is this: * Lusbys have bees that are doing okay without any treatment and those bees are on 4.9 comb, although the reasons they advance for their success still need careful and open-minded examination * The Russian bees may be able to do so also without a cell size change, although this latter point has not been examined and may bear scrutiny * Bees of any ancestry build comb with cells in a range of sizes, often with a range on any given comb * 4.9 mm cells may well be in the range of cell sizes that (some selected) European bees can use for brood * We need to revisit the whole question of mandating moveable comb for all purposes including pollination as the value of honey and hive products drops relative to expense * We need to re-examine the idea of using comb foundation and what sizes are optimal * We cannot just say 'bees' and be understood * We really don't know as much about bees as we think we do * Some of our conventional wisdom is based on assumptions that may be false * The whole Killer Bee and Africanized question is tainted and needs to be re-examined from start to finish * People will argue endlessly over speculation, but Peter will (eventually) get to the bottom of everything. Thanks Peter. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 13:21:19 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Zachary Huang Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter, £Ôrue that acquired characters cannot be inherited. however I can see that it is possible that if previous generations of bees were reared in larger cells (with larger celled foundation), these individuals can be larger, and therefore might make larger cells even if not given foundation. not really through genetics but maybe larger bees make larger cells? Of course the point is moot is Marla has shown that bees prior to foundation use had cell size similar to now. Zachary Huang http://www.cyberbee.net On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 11:25:42 -0500, Peter Borst wrote: >Greetings > >There have been many discussions in this forum on the worker cell >size of naturally built comb. Despite the fact that many researchers >have concurred that European bees make comb with worker cells that >average around 53 mm (Taber & Owens, Michener), some people contend >that this size reflects an artificial enlargement *caused* by the use >of foundation based on larger than natural dimensions. This idea >itself is based on a faulty understanding of biology (externally >induced characteristics are not passed on to offspring). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 15:27:21 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: michael palmer Subject: Re: Hive Primer-Sealer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Nathan W. Lawrence" wrote: > I wanted to put a good primer-sealer on them to get them to > last longer. It was recommended that I use B-I-N Primer-Sealer > (made by "Zinsser"). I've used BIN before. Seemed kind of thin. Why not just use a good acrylic primer. Spend your money on the primer, get your paint for free. Use mistints from Sherwin Williams or some other large paint store. I just bought 6 gallons for $18. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 21:08:18 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Otts Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Peter is making use of his access to reference material, however I differ with him in his conclusions. Regardless of my own thoughts on the small cell debate, some things are not as they appear and need closer attention for fuller understanding. >Despite the fact that many researchers >have concurred that European bees make comb with worker cells that >average around 53 mm (Taber & Owens, Michener), this in and of itself proves nothing. European bees can have cell sizes anywhere from 4.7 to 5.8 mm. How did they arrive at this? Any bees used would have some bias to previous cell size. The only way I see toget some certainty on a particular bunch of bees is to go up and down in size and then let them build ther own for several generations to see what they settle on. Everything I've ever heard others say is that they will always go smaller, not bigger than what they were on before. I don't know if this has ever been tested at the smaller size range or not, but at least bees from the middle to large sizes go smaller when they are left to their own comb building. It has a similiar ring to the discussion on ahb. Just because something is written in some article doesn't make it gospel. we should dig deeper and ask more questions of what's on the surface. >some people contend >that this size reflects an artificial enlargement *caused* by the use >of foundation based on larger than natural dimensions. This idea >itself is based on a faulty understanding of biology (externally >induced characteristics are not passed on to offspring). theres no need for it to be "passed on." The foundation is always there to keep things where they are. until extensive testing is done on bees without the use of foundation, we won't really know. and don't use the argument of feral bees being used as feral bees come from managed hives and managed hives use foundation. >researchers as early as 1973 indicating European bees in the tropics >built cells ranging from 5.0 to 5.4 mm. I said before bees will build a much wider range than this. it seems the key is to ask where in the hive are these cells being measured from and what difference does it make if we end up finding that bees on the 4.9 or whatever size can deal with the mite on their own compared to bees on a different size? we know 5.4 doesn't work. so what are you suggesting? mark _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 17:03:13 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Donald Franson Subject: Re: Pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Scott: I did not see the listing you discribed however I can sumize what you are asking. A while back I decided to get my food handlers permit because I figured that hive products were food and I wanted to be safe if anyone asked for my permit which is required in my state, anyhow I learned in the classes that honey is not considered a potential risk food, neither are the other hive products when treated properly. Furthermore my county requires that to sell honey or hive products through retail sources that they must be processed through a county licensed (and taxed) commerical kitchen, however there is a loophole in the law. If you are not selling to or through a retail store you can process your products anyway you want. PS regarding the drying of pollen. Yes I make sure the pollen is dry and I test by trying to smash the pellets, if they smash down between your fingers with light pressure they are not dry enough. Don _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 16:43:38 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Donald Franson Subject: Re: Pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I got my capsules and filler at Akins health food store, The brand name of the filler is Cam-M-Quick and it fills size "0" capsules I also purchashed the "tamper" for an extra $3 and it allows you to pack the capsules rather tight. I find that it takes about 10 teaspoons of pollen granules to fill 50 Capsules. Don _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 17:08:28 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: TNT Apiaries Subject: Re: Hive Primer-Sealer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I've used BIN before. Seemed kind of thin. I am not familiar with BIN, but you've hit on a common mistake of inexperienced painters. Good primers "should be thin." This allows them to soak into the wood grain and "seal & bond" more effectively. Many hardware primers need to be thinned down a bit. The primary purpose of a primer is not to cover over things (ie. blemishes, etc.) as commonly thought, that is supposed to be a secondary function. FYI David Tharle Ardmore, AB Canada ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 19:15:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >The only way I see toget some certainty on a particular bunch of >bees is to go up and down in size and then let them build ther own >for several generations to see what they settle on. With all due respect, I suggest you reread my submission. Marla Spivak went to Costa Rica and spent years studying comb size before, during and after Africanization. As I said, in Costa Rica the majority of hives DO NOT contain foundation, and never have. She refers to one apiary that she studied in the mountains. There were 9 hives, which the owners filled with swarms. These hives were plain boxes filled with natural comb. The AVERAGE cell size in each and every hive was 5.3 mm. The first arriving hybrid African swarms built comb around 5.0 mm and subsequent swarms (less hybridized) ranged from 4.7 to 5.0. This phenomenon was observed throughout South and Central American and is fully documented in the book she edited. >what difference does it make if we end up finding that bees on the >4.9 or whatever size can deal with the mite on their own compared to >bees on a different size? we know 5.4 doesn't work. so what are you >suggesting? If a technique works, then I would adopt it regardless of the validity of the underlying theory. However, the only people reporting success with curbing mites by this method are working in an area that is known to be Africanized and besides, it is an arid sub-tropical zone. There is good evidence that the buildup of mites is dependent on climate and weather, being more severe in temperate and humid areas. What I am suggesting that the conventional understanding that European bee cells have always averaged 5.3 mm (range 5.0 to 5.7) has never been disproved and has been independently verified by dozens of researchers. Hey, I don't have anything against speculation. I loved The Matrix, Dark City, and The Fifth Element. In fact, I am dying to see the new version of the Time Machine. But if you are going to speculate about bees, you better have some facts to back you up. I have backed up everything I have said. I could do even better but I don't want to appear to be some sort of an encyclopedia. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 22:25:35 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > ... There is good evidence that the buildup of mites is dependent > on climate and weather, being more severe in temperate and humid > areas. PMFJI. Although this is not in regard the main thrust of your comments here, Peter, I should interject that Tucson is not as sub-tropical as we might think. It was about freezing at night and cool well into the mornings when I was there in Jan, and it snowed after I left. Also it is worth mentioning that Lusbys *twice* lost 90% of their hives (due to mites they say) on the way to their success, so I think we can rule out the effects of climate in suppressing both mites -- at least for the most part. I'm quoting Dee from a statement in an unrelated communication (about the costs of doing what they have done): " ...We figure in all honesty that we had a 90% loss of our stock, TWICE to get where we are, and we were self-contained without having to purchase outside stock..." I should add that a neighbouring beekeeper from New Mexico tells the same story, and is currently achieving the same success -- apparently -- using Lusby's stock and methods. FWIW allen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 07:21:52 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable -Hello Allen and All, Peter wrote: > ... There is good evidence that the buildup of mites is dependent > on climate and weather, being more severe in temperate and humid * areas. There is good evidence climate effects varroa. Especially heat. Tests = have shown that varroa will move away from areas with a temperature of = 100.5F. or 38 C. and above . I took those temperatures from "The Varroa = Handbook".=20 >From all the research I have done on Varroa starting before varroa even = was found in the U.S. I found that the one factor which caused the = demise of a hive the quickest was increased brood rearing. Your best = hives always were the first to cross threshold. I also found that bees in tropic areas or places where the temperatures = are warm in the day most of the year tend to maintain small brood nests = compared to bees northern areas in spring. . When I kept bees in Florida = we had to trick the bees with feed to get the bees to expand the brood = nest. Otherwise the bees were content to keep a brood nest of 4 or 5 = frames of brood most of the year.=20 . Although this is not in regard the main thrust of your comments here, = Peter, I should interject that Tucson is not as sub-tropical as we might = think. It was about freezing at night and cool well into the mornings = when I was there in Jan, and it snowed after I left. Sounds like Florida this year! I believe that the Lusby's do not feed = the syrup most beekeepers do from looking at their articles. I pump = syrup to my bees to increase brood rearing and I am not talking a = gallon with meds. =20 I have said in posts about the above done a couple years ago that if a = hive of Lusbys bees were put under northern conditions and treated as = we treat our bees for pollination and honey production I do not believe = they would show the same results as the Lusbys are seeing in Arizona.=20 Dee wrote: and we were self-contained without having to purchase outside stock..." I admire the Lusby's for what they have done but outside stock is the = life blood of my operation. Hygienic stock from Marla Spivak and SMR = queens from Dr. Harbo and Dr. Harris. Many beekeepers credit their = success in beekeeping to queens from Sue Colby and Ohio Queen Breeders. Allen wrote: I should add that a neighbouring beekeeper from New Mexico tells the = same story, and is currently achieving the same success-apparently-using = Lusby's stock and methods. I like Peter am only trying to point out logical reasons why the Lusby's = are having success. New Mexico is very similar to Arizona.=20 Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. Today is the day I give the program on varroa for the Midwestern = Beekeepers assn.. I have emailed directions to several from Bee-L which = are planning to attend. Email for directions. If you live within driving = distance. We welcome visiting beekeepers. Attendance is free and = refreshments will be served. Beekeepers which fall asleep during my = program will not be woke up unless snoring. The president of the = Missouri State Beekeepers is driving in to hear the talk . Learn the = methods my partner and I use to handle varroa. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 11:24:54 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all No disrespect to Taber, Owens, Michener or anybody else that has looked at the cellsize of naturally built comb, BUT, and I think it is a very big BUT... none of the studies took any notice of the cellsize that the particular bees were already aclimatised to. And many other features of comb building were either ignored or just not noticed. Bees will adapt both upwards and downwards in size. Just because bees can be shaken into a foundation free cavity and they will build comb in that cavity does not automatically mean that the size that was built is "natural". There has been a great deal of sniping on this subject, to the point where some of us will no longer stick our heads above the parapet. Allen Dick said > The arguments are more subtle than simple Lamarckism. They certainly are! And it takes much enthusiasm and energy to overcome the barrage of information from those "that know" or cite previous referances. The further I dig into this topic, the less that I can say with certainty that I understand. All I can really say is that nobody yet "knows" because nobody has ever done any testing that is not based on false premises and assumptions. Allen also said... > * We need to re-examine the idea of using comb foundation > and what sizes are optimal. As another "devil's advocate" I say that we have been too simplistic in our useage of foundation, simply because "we knew" what we thought we saw. I think it is time that some of the academics got involved in helping to unravel the mess. So far all that is happening is that a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs (myself included) are spending time, effort and money in trying to understand a subject that the establishment will not even admit they have an incomplete grasp of. I stick my head above the parapet, in the hope that greater skills than mine can be recruited and bought to bear, to enable a greater understanding of a subject that is far more complex than most assume. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 10:39:02 +0100 Reply-To: Ahlert Schmidt Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ahlert Schmidt Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202170533.g1H5XVA04850@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Allen, Sunday, February 17, 2002, 6:25:35 AM, you wrote: Hi Allen! I would like to comment on bee cell size again. In Germany there has been beekeping on natural combs for over fivehundred years using skeps and there are still some apiaries using that technique. So there are bees that never have seen foundations for hundreds of generations. The cell size of combs constructed by these bees is still between 5.3 and 5.4 mm (805 cells per square decimeter) comming close to 5.37 mm which is the average of cell size for normal combs in germany. See for instance F. Gerstung: Der Bien und seine Zucht. 7. Auflage 1924; or: Zander and Weiss: Handbuch der Bienenkunde Volulme 4; Verlag Eugen Ulmer 1964 (first Edition 1921). I hope this clears some of the comments that no data are available for bees wich built natural combs. Best regards, Ahlert mailto:Ahlert.Schmidt@t-online.de ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 08:30:04 -0700 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 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BEE-L is a moderated discussion list with published standards & guidelines. Discussion covers a wide range of bee-related subjects. Anyone with an interest in bees is welcome to join. GUIDELINES: BEE-L has rules that everyone who wishes to post messages to the list must observe. Please see http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L for details. In particular, DO NOT INCLUDE QUOTES OF PREVIOUS ARTICLES WHEN REPLYING. Contributions including quotes that are not absolutely necessary to understanding will usually be rejected WITHOUT NOTICE. FAQ: 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. Please see http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L to access the archives. In a sense, we are writing a book together. The BEE-L archive search engine is much more powerful and flexible than many on the web. Please take time to read the help page and experiment a bit. You will be well rewarded for your time. BEE-L WEB PAGE: Links to our rules, 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. BEFORE YOU POST OR REPLY TO BEE-L: 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. REJECTED AND LOST POSTS: 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. CANCELLING AND CHANGING YOUR BEE-L SUBSCRIPTION: Easy-to-use forms to easily and quickly change, suspend, or cancel your BEE-L membership are available at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L VIRUSES AND WORMS: BEE-L is moderated and is also text-only. Binaries and attachments are rejected. The moderators also reject any SPAM that is sent to BEE-L. Members therefore should never receive viruses or worms from BEE-L. Nonetheless anyone who sends and receives email on the Internet is vulnerable to receiving malicious programs in email from known and unknown persons. Therefore members are STRONGLY ADVISED to get and use two programs: a firewall and a virus checker. CURRENTLY RECOMMENDED SOFTWARE: Zone Alarm is available as a free download at http://www.zonelabs.com/ for personal use. It is simply the best available, and simple to use. Don't trust the firewall built into Windows XP. It, and many others out there simply won't do the trick. A personal version of AVG anti virus is available as a free download from http://www.grisoft.com/ and it can be set to update automatically or updated manually (for free) over the net whenever you like. Please be sure to update your anti-virus daily so that your computer does not get infected with new worms that come along daily, and thus become a nuisance to the rest of us. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 08:34:43 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Fw: Creamed Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Peter Edwards" Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 8:04 AM Subject: Re: Creamed Honey "don" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All. Is there any record of why the early foundation manufacturers chose the worker cell sizes they did? As far as I can tell from the incessant 'five cells to the inch' of old British bee books, the first foundation used here was probably about 5.1mm. Dee says that that first used in the States was a bit smaller - I seem to remember it was 4.83mm. Obviously there is no such thing as a single 'natural comb size'; rather there is a natural range. If I understand some recent posters correctly, they are saying that the 'natural' average is about 5.3mm. If that's correct, why did early foundation makers choose a size significantly smaller than average? Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com Birmingham, UK. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 17:39:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Green Subject: Re: Hive Primer-Sealer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Nathan W. Lawrence" > as long as I keep my priming, > sealing, and painting to the outside of the hive, One of the tired mythologies that gets passed along from beekeeper to beekeeper is to not paint the insides of the hives. Yet some of the best beekeepers I know dip the entire box in paint to achieve thorough coverage inside and out. As long as the paint is dry when used, the bees don't care a bit. And you will not have frames dropping thru the hives, because the boards cupped over time. The paint on each side of the wood equalized the passage of moisture on both sides of the board, and hives that were dipped will remain straight as can be for many years. Note also that paint does very little to protect the wood from rotting. This is another common misconception. It is important that the wood be kept as dry as possible to forestall rotting. Rot will occur whenever wood is wet for long periods, whether it is painted or not. Dave Green SC USA The Pollination Home Page (Now searchable): http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 16:49:14 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 2/16/02 9:24:08 PM GMT Standard Time, markotts@HOTMAIL.COM writes: > Everything I've ever heard others say is that they will always go > smaller, not bigger than what they were on before Absolutey not so! Last season we had a swarm issue from a 5.2mm colony, which had a queen raised on that size and went into an inaccessible spot. It drew wild combs later found to be 5.35mm. European carnica was the race. calluna4u ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:35:50 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: How the USDA De-funded The Bee Labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Many readers of this mailing list still have two unanswered questions: 1) How did the USDA de-fund the bee labs? 2) Why? How did a respected and productive group of scientists doing work that is mission- critical to the very survival of bees and beekeeping suddenly find themselves faced with unemployment? The cause was a few simple words that were misunderstood. What words? "Review", "Consolidate", "Consistent", and "All". WHO MISUNDERSTOOD WHO? 1) A USDA task force misunderstood Congress. 2) The task force misunderstood the Secretary of Agriculture. 3) The USDA misunderstood the task force's report. The surprising end result of these misunderstandings was summed up in memo dated Feb 7, 2002 from Edward B. Knipling, Acting Administrator of the USDA ARS to all employees of the ARS, which says: "...There are also other reductions in ongoing base programs, which amount to $15,000,000 and result from location and laboratory closures and consolidations as recommended by the "Strategic Planning Task Force on USDA Research Facilities..." "Consistent with specific recommendations made in this report, the ARS budget includes a number of location and laboratory closures and consolidations as follows:... closure of the honey bee research laboratories located at Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Beltsville, Maryland; and Tucson, Arizona. A portion of these honey bee programs will be consolidated with the honey bee laboratory at Weslaco, Texas." But how did this task force come to such recommendations? They didn't. What the task force recommended was that: "...all honey bee research be consolidated at Weslaco, Texas" The USDA somehow did not understand the word "all". The USDA de-funded all honey bee research, except for one token project from each lab closed. The task force never suggested anything so drastic as what the USDA now proposes. The USDA proposal is not "consistent with specific recommendations", but is instead, clearly inconsistent with the recommendations. But even the consolidation itself was not supported by any justification. Consolidation was recommended without any facts or rationale to support it. Due to a lack of subject-matter knowledge, the location suggested for consolidation simply cannot support any of the bee research projects to be consolidated. The term "consolidation" gives the impression that money will be saved on "bricks and mortar", and the same valuable science can be done without the "waste" of having separate facilities. In fact, no money is saved by closing facilities. The changes proposed only "save" money by firing people and by withholding research funding. Even the token projects still funded will likely go unstaffed and undone, simply because bee research cannot be done in an area infested with Africanized Bees. The money will likely be spent on other things. The budget cut (roughly $3 to $4 million), is a mere 0.004% of the USDA total budget, but is nearly 25% of the USDA's $15 million reduction in "base programs". In short, the USDA proposes to end bee research at a time when new and serious pests and diseases threaten the survival of bees and crop pollination in the US, including, just to name the most well-known: Tracheal Mites (1984) Varroa Mites (1987) Africanized Bees (1990) Resistant Foulbrood (1997) Parasitic Mite Syndrome (1994?) Hive Beetles (1998) The amazing thing is that the USDA intends to continue to fund research projects on the crops that bees must pollinate if one wants a decent crop, or any crop at all. Here's the details, blow by blow: ============================================== CONGRESS ORDERS A PLAN In 1996, Congress approved the drafting of a 10-year strategic plan for federal research facilities as part of the "Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996", or "FAIR" (Citation: Public Law 104-127 Subtitle D, Section 884, Section 4). The Congressional goals for the task force were rational. They wanted to focus Federal money on USDA ARS facilities where the work done was both "Uniquely Federal" and "Appropriately Federal", meaning that duplicate efforts were not being undertaken by states or private industry, and the subject matter of the work was a valid concern of the federal government. These were reasonable goals. A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE The Secretary of Agriculture's influence on the task force apparently had the effect of slanting their views about a subset of ARS efforts, including the bee labs. If one reads the report of this group, the full title and citation being: Report of the Strategic Planning Task Force USDA Research Facilities Call number A 1.2:ST 8/2 [[0010 (MF)]] (Available from any US Depository Library, a list of which can be found at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/findlibs ) One finds that: a) The bee labs were "reviewed" only because the Secretary of Agriculture specifically requested that the task force review them (pages 32 - 34). b) If not for the specific request, the "bee labs" would have been rated among the best investments of ARS funds. The task force's report ranks the bee labs much higher than a large number of other labs not being threatened with closure or project cancellation, and the total amount required to fund the bee labs is very small. Good bang, small bucks. What more could one want? (Pages 96, 99, 100, and 103) c) The request for a "review" of a lab by the Secretary of Agriculture was a death sentence for the lab. Most of those mentioned are slated for closure or "consolidation" in the task force report. (Pages 32 - 34) d) As for the bee labs, the task force report illustrates that no attempt was made to gather facts, and consolidation was suggested without any valid reason or even an attempt to create an plausible excuse. The process was flawed, and had the net effect of ignoring the clear orders of Congress. d) Even more compelling, the task force did not even bother to look at any of the bee lab facilities or meet with any bee lab staff. One reads in the report (page 27) that while they visited Beltsville, and toured multiple labs at Beltsville, they could not bother to walk over to the bee lab, a facility that the Secretary of Agriculture specifically requested that they "review". e) Clearly, the task force over-reacted to the Secretary's concerns, or their interpretation of the Secretary's concerns, and took "review" to mean "unconditionally close". A FAILURE TO OBEY THE LAW? It is unclear if any of these actions are a violation of the authorizing legislation of Congress, but the result was to undermine the authority of Congress, and subvert the intent of Congress. A LACK OF COMPREHENSION OF SCIENCE The task force document evinces a complete lack of any attempt to understand any of the bee research projects, and describes them with one word - "similar". Here is the sum total of comments about the bee labs, found in the report on page 32: "Laboratories Specifically Reviewed at the Request of the Office of the Secretary..." "APIARY RESEARCH LABS Hayden Bee Research Center, Tuscon, Arizona Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Research, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Bee Research Lab, Beltsville, Maryland Honey Bee Research Lab, Weslaco Texas Pollinating Insect-Biology, Management Systematics Research, Logan, Utah The first 4 of the laboratories listed above do very similar work related to honey bees. The Logan Utah station does non-honey bee research related to pollination. The Task Force recommends that the agency consider co-locating the first 4 laboratories into either one or 2 units. Given the condition of facilities, the Task Force recommends that all honey bee research be consolidated at Weslaco, Texas." While the language sounds reasonable, the statement is not only false, but can be refuted with ease. Let's break it down: "SIMILAR WORK" Anyone even bothering to look at the websites of these labs can see at a glance that the project goals and aims of these labs are very different. The projects being funded at each lab have no overlap, even if one does nothing more than list the "titles" of the projects at each lab. "CO-LOCATING" While this seems a reasonable suggestion, does "co-locating" save any money? Not a dime. The only savings are those from the firing of scientists and the defunding of research projects. Congress would have to changes laws to allow any ARS buildings or land to be sold. The report says on pages 22 and 23, using the large multi-lab Beltsville, MD facility as an example: "...the research agency could, if permitted, dispose of ...high-value property, reinvest the funds in a new state-of-the-art facility, and still have funds left over to invest in improved research... providing incentives to tackle this challenges requires a change in federal law." "The research facility located in Beltsville, MD is the flagship facility in the ARS... When constructed... ...was in rural Maryland... now... part of the urban corridor... between Washington and Baltimore..." In other words, the ARS owns 7,000 acres of prime real estate in the middle of a highly desirable area. But they can't sell any of it and move to a lower cost area more appropriate to agricultural research. The buildings will still have to be "maintained", even if they are empty, since even tearing them down would cost more money than simple maintenance. The same is true for Tucson and Baton Rouge. "GIVEN THE CONDITION OF THE FACILITIES" The task force clearly had no knowledge of and made no attempt to rate the "condition" of any of the bee lab facilities. In fact, the bee labs scored very well using the task force's own criteria, as listed in the report's appendixes (Pages 96 - 104). -------- Criteria --------- Bee Lab [1] [2] [3] [4] ------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- Logan 156 156 Tuscon 157 139 142 Beltsville 151 151 Baton Rouge 123 130 Weslaco 125 121 Highest Rating for any lab 160 157 156 Where "Criteria [1]" is the rating for "Uniquely Federal" work, [2] is the rating for the "appropriate" nature of the lab's programs, and [3] is the rating for the appropriateness of the location where the work is done. What is interesting to note is that no assessment was done of any bee lab in the area of "Criteria [4] Facilities". The task force had NO information on the "condition of the facilities", and made no attempt to find out what the conditions were. When one ranks the bee labs in comparison with other USDA ARS labs, one finds that the bee labs rate very well, and certainly were not in the "lowest 10%" cited in the report as grounds for concern. Only Weslaco rated near the bottom of the heap in both categories, forcing one to ask "why consolidate at Weslaco"? By the task force's "Criteria 1", we have: Ranking Within 194 Labs Bee Lab --------- -------- 19th Tucson 29th Logan 62nd Beltsville 175th Weslaco 178th Baton Rouge So, while the bee breeding work done at Baton Rouge gets lower scores for "uniqueness", this only demonstrates the Task Force's lack of understanding of the success of Baton Rouge's efforts when compared to other similar efforts by states and private parties. Ranking by "Criteria 2", we have: Ranking Within 194 Labs Bee Lab --------- -------- 5th Logan 13th Beltsville 134th Baton Rouge 148th Tucson 155th Weslaco Again, the lower scores assigned to Baton Rouge and Tucson indicate nothing more than a lack of understanding of the research being done, and how "appropriate" it is for the federal government do be doing this research. "ALL HONEY BEE RESEARCH BE CONSOLIDATED AT WESLACO TEXAS" Note that the task force suggested "consolidation", of "all research", and did not suggest canceling any projects. The USDA somehow chose to go further, and cancel projects, for reasons unknown. But Weslaco? Why Weslaco? This is the interesting part. Yes, they did a few small pollination studies, but most of the bee industry had never heard of Weslaco until recently, let alone viewed it as a "bee lab". The answer appears to be that Weslaco has a new 24,000 square foot building, and needs scientists to fill it. They have excess space. It would be embarrassing to have it go unused. Citrus and sugar researchers alone will not be enough. (Does anyone smell pork? Why do we smell pork, when no swine research is done at Weslaco? Could it be that the building itself is pork?) But regardless of pork-barrel politics, can ANY bee research be done in Weslaco Texas? In a word, no. The task force demonstrated a lack of a basic grasp of the problems being addressed by current ARS bee research programs. They simply found a new building with excess space, and assumed that bee research could be done there. It can't. WHY NOT WESLACO? The are a number of valid practical reasons why Weslaco is as inappropriate for bee research as Antarctica would be for corn research. 1) Weslaco is about 5 miles from the Mexican border, near Brownsville, TX. It is in the "Africanized Bee (AHB) Quarantine Area" imposed by the USDA itself. One can see the quarantined area here: http://agnews.tamu.edu/bees/quaran.htm So there would be no moving of bees allowed from the lab to other places. Even if they bred a "super bee", they would not be able to distribute it bee breeders or beekeepers. Even getting hives "on loan" from beekeepers would be impossible, since while bees can be moved in, they cannot be moved out. 2) The overwhelming prevalence of AHB in the quarantine area, and the inability to keep any hive of bees "pure", even with constant re-queening, would imply that bees at Weslaco would soon become africanized, rendering most of the needed research useless. We clearly do not need research done on a type of bee that cannot survive even a mild winter, except for research aimed at trying to "domesticate" the AHB. 3) Weslaco is named the "Kika de la Garza Subtropical Agricultural Research Center" (page 32). Only a tiny bit of the US is "subtropical", and certainly very few US bees are kept in climates that could be called "subtropical", so one is forced to wonder why the USDA would think that such a location would be appropriate for any US bee research. Weslaco TX is at 26 degrees North latitude, and Miami FL is at 25.92 degrees North, so the only part of the US "South" of Weslaco is the Florida Keys. Weslaco is so unlike the bulk of the US that they even grow sugar cane there. See: http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/CROP/sugarcane/ 4) Open positions have remained unfilled at Weslaco for extended periods, with no applicants. Scientists seem to not want to live there. Even recent graduates do not apply for these open positions. (Nothing against Weslaco as a place to live, put people tend to vote on such issues with their feet.) 5) Local ordinances prohibit the keeping of bees anywhere near Weslaco. Again, concern over the AHB has resulted in a law the prevents all beekeeping in the area, and it is unknown how many hour's drive would be required to commute between Weslaco and a location where beehives were legal. So, we are left with nothing more than a few simple words that were not understood clearly. A translation chart is provided below: English Task-Force USDA Word Definition Definition ------------ -------------- ------------- Review Close Close Consolidate Consolidate Eliminate All All Very few Consistent (No such concept) Contradictory Hey folks, your Congressperson will likely be "home" the entire week of Feb 18th-22nd, since the House is not in session. This would be a good week to make an appointment for a face-to-face meeting. ji ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 11:33:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <00b201c1b7e9$8f3a2520$9f98403e@cushman> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Dave Cushman writes: >All I can really say is that nobody yet "knows" because nobody has >ever done any testing that is not based on false premises and >assumptions. Response: What false premises and assumptions did Marla Spivak take to Costa Rica? She went there with the idea that African bees were going to move in (which they did) and to observe the state of honey bees before, during and after their arrival. You read this passage and then tell me what the premises and assumptions were: >Before the arrival of Africanized bees, local families routinely >captured a few European swarms and hived them in rustic boxes. They >occasionally cut combs of honey out of the colonies, but basically >the few colonies they kept were unmanaged. The lack of sophisticated >beekeeping allowed me to observe a feral population closely. I >inspected the apiary every three months from July 1984 to July 1986 >to determine if and when Africanized bees would move into the area, >and what impact [they] might have... > >From July 1984 to May 1985 all nine colonies (hived from swarms) had >cell sizes (built on naturally drawn comb) which measured 5.3, a >cell size suggestive of European bees. In May 1985, combs from two >newly captured swarms had mean cells of 5.05 and 5.10. From the >irritable nature of these swarms, I suspected them to be slightly >Africanized. In November 1985 the first strongly Africanized swarm >entered an abandoned box. The cells of this swarm measured 4.9. > >From January to July of 1986 four swarms entered ... cells sizes >were 4.8 to 5.1 ... The family who owned the colonies killed one of >the more defensive colonies because it was stinging their livestock. >[They] abandoned their practice of gathering swarms. By July 1986, >the only colony alive was the one which had cell sizes of 4.8. See "The 'African' Honey Bee, edited by Marla Spivak, 1991 -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:45:29 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Otts Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >refers to one apiary that she studied in the mountains. There were 9 >hives, which the owners filled with swarms. These hives were plain Peter, whats to say that these swarms didn't come out of managed hives? I believe a high percent of what we call feral bees are ones that started from managed hives where a cell size has been predetermined. >The AVERAGE cell size in each and >every hive was 5.3 mm. what does this mean? how is the average figured? by taking the smallest and largest size cell found and finding the middle? average in percent of total cells? where were they measured from on the comb, in the hive? >However, the only people reporting >success with curbing mites by this method are working in an area that >is known to be Africanized and besides, it is an arid sub-tropical >zone. so if we here of someone with success in a different zone, what will that tell us? I thought there was someone on this list that said they were in new york using the small cell. any success there? >But if you are going to speculate about >bees, you better have some facts to back you up. I have backed up >everything I have said. Wait a minute, I'd still like to see the facts that back up your assertion that European bees make comb with worker cells that average around 53 mm (Taber & Owens, Michener). then we can maybe get a better understanding whether or not there is any bias on this size. >I could do even better but I don't want to >appear to be some sort of an encyclopedia. too late for that. will you be coming out in cd format soon? mark _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 20:26:37 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Robert and All, . Robert wrote: Obviously there is no such thing as a single 'natural comb size'; rather = there is a natural range. Dr. Elbert Jaycox spent quite a bit of time looking at cell size and = wrote that the normal hive had many different sizes of cells and not = only one uniform size throughout the hive. In other words to say a frame = is all a certain size is hard to do. Dr. Jaycox said from his studies = that bees will make cells up to 17% smaller or up to 17% larger. Dr. = Jaycox also said bees 17% smaller and 17% larger will emerge from the = smaller/ larger cells. I do not know what cell size Dr. Jaycox = considered the middle figure as he does not say. . If I understand some recent posters correctly, they are saying that the = 'natural' average is about 5.3mm.=20 If 5.3mm is the natural average then A.I.Root and others sold = foundation which was a smaller unnatural size. The term "Five cells to = the inch" ( used in all old bee books) could never be interpreted as = 5.3mm. When I talked to Dadant in 1985 about cell size . They still = had the molds for the old *900* foundation. They figured the cell size = at around 5.0mm to possibly 5.1mm.=20 If that's correct, why did early foundation makers choose a size = significantly smaller than average? Good question Robert. A.I. Root looked closely at cell size as did C.P. = Dadant. . I really do not know why the smaller size. I believe the = smaller cell size was the industry standard till talk of a bigger bee = by increasing cell size came along in the early part of the last = century. Many beekeepers in the Midwest thought a larger bee would = have a longer tongue and could gather nectar from flowers not normally = visited by honey bees . Dr. Jaycox found that be size could be = increased or decreased by a factor of 17%. Tongue size could be = increased also by the 17% factor. Most of Dr. Jaycox findings on cell size can be found in his book = "Beekeeping in the Midwest" (copy 1976). Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 10:46:55 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter and all I have not talked personally to Marla about her particular study, however the points that I make below apply in equal measure to all the published work that I have so far read. The cell size within a comb varies considerably more than a cursory glance will indicate. (easily demonstrated... take any comb, natural or foundation based and measure it.) An average tells you just that... an average. Who has decided that this average measurement has any significance? How were the conclusions drawn? This "average" is stated without range, standard deviation or the variance between colonies being noted or reported. Yes, there is an average, but the illustration using shoe size in one of Allen Dick's recent posts shows how simplistic and stupid it would be to enforce it. The numbers themselves are not particularly significant as geographic difference (with it's thermal and forage variables), altitude, season of the year and race all have a bearing on the size displayed by any individual colony. In feral colonies and swarms the cellsize that is propagated can vary in three ways... 1, It can get larger. 2, It can get smaller. 3, It can stay the same. In the absence of any pressure for change the bees are most likely to follow option 3. What does this mean? In a situation where change can occur, yet does not occur. We can infer that the size is suitable for the bees in question, in the circumstances that they find themselves in OR that any change that the bees wish to make is not worth their while to make OR that the bees are "soldiering on" at that cellsize, because it was the one that they ended up with the last time that they were influenced to make a change. IT DOES NOT MEAN... That the cellsize is a fundemental quantity that conclusions can be drawn from. Foundation has become a way of life for beekeepers, and in many ways it's function has been taken for granted. My bees do not object to using foundation, but the fact that they adopt it does not mean that it is "right" for them. I know some find it contentious, but I have seen enough to convince me that there has been a gradual increase in the cellsize of manufactured foundation. over the last 100 to 150 years. and that there has been an increase in intercomb spacing on the same timescale. (except New Zealand and one or two other places that still use a 32 mm or 33 mm intercomb spacing.) My vociferous comments are due to a desire to find out more, so that we may all employ foundation in a more effective and efficient way in the future. There are those that consider there is a benefit in the control of disease and parasitation. If that is proved to be the case, then it will be an additional benefit. For the time being I will be happy merely to return to the status quo of pre foundation sizings. I have made no mention of numbers... The numbers themselves are not that important, it is the underlying principles that we need to sort out. I have also made no citations of previous work or studies, but hopefully my logic is sound. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 23:04:44 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Al Lipscomb Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > Peter, whats to say that these swarms didn't come out of > managed hives? I believe a high percent of what we call feral > bees are ones that started from managed hives where a cell > size has been predetermined. > What we call feral and what were feral in the study may be different. >From what I have read there were many generations of bees all in hives lacking foundation. The idea was that foundation was not in use in the area so even "managed" hives would not have it. > >The AVERAGE cell size in each and > >every hive was 5.3 mm. > > what does this mean? how is the average figured? by taking > the smallest and largest size cell found and finding the > middle? average in percent of total cells? where were they > measured from on the comb, in the hive? > The text (later posting) indicates "mean" as opposed to "median". You can see http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/dictionary/m.html#mean for a better description. Mean indicates that all values were added and then divided by the sample size. Without the sample size and standard deviation I can make no real comment on the statistical significance of the test. I think that, given the overall information presented, the theory that honeybees of European decent will tend to make worker cells consistently smaller than 5.3mm has problems. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 08:15:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit An interesting study, for any one who wants to do it, would be to: 1) measure the cell size of a bee hive 2) shake those bees into a framed super without foundation and measure the cell size after one new batch of brood are made 3) shake the new bees into a super of larger foundation, let sit until a new batch of brood are made 4) repeat 2) 5) shake the new bees into a super of smaller foundation, let sit until a new batch of brood are made 6) repeat 2) 7) repeat next year and replicate over many hives to get statistical confidence (reverse treatments, too - put in smaller comb first, then larger) . That way we can learn whether cell size they are raised on influences cell size they make. Comparisons of average cell size of European bees, or quotations of cell sizes of mountain Costa Rican bees are really pointless. We know that cell and bee size within races is influenced by altitude and latitude, general climate etc. All data for such a study has to be collected from the same location, using the same race (and if possible the same hives). Maybe such a study has been done and I am reinventing the wheel. Wouldn't be the first time... Martin Damus ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 09:52:15 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: Closing of the bee labs In-Reply-To: <200202151654.g1FGsUA29922@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Any analysis from the thoughtful Jerry Bromenshenk will be worth studying, and his note on the threatened budget cuts to the US govt bee labs is no exception. However, I can pass along some results of my country's pioneering experiments with the final option he mentions: > close all of the bee labs, even Weslaco, sell or rent all of >the facilities, and put the recovered funds and the operating budget $$ >into a competitive bee research grants program, open to beekeepers, private >groups, and universities. New Zealand public-service science was sabotaged on a very wide and rather thorough scale during the staggering treachery of the 1991-92 wreckage wrought by former Rhodes Scholar Hon. Simon Upton, a 'new right' fanatic. About 10 govt-owned "crown research institutes" were created from the shards of the old & respected DSIR, Ministry of Ag research labs, Forest Dept research centres, etc. These CRIs had conferred on them by the fanatical Noo Right Upton *commercial* criteria. They regularly allege to Parliament that they have made profits - which may be more or less true as the govt still gives them hundreds of millions annually and they are free to tout for money from foreign purchasers. They are among the most dishonest propagandists for gene-tampering. They lied on a grand scale to the recent Royal Commission on GM. They react to discovery of a newly-imported pest e.g. varroa by sucking money out of the public purse for private corporations set up by recently-departed buddies, and nothing much gets actually done. In the course of all this sabotage, many senior scientists in their prime were forced into premature retirement. The remaining bosses are mainly accountants, 'managers', and PR agents. Pursuing knowledge is relegated to a very minor status in these commercial outfits. Thus the country which the John Birch Society had coloured intense red - 70% communist - in the 1960s now has less democratic control over science than the supposed stronghold of capitalism. My impassioned advice to youse Yanks is to defend your public-service bee labs. They may well need some discipline - I have no idea except what Jerry says - but they should not be shut down or crippled. Indeed, the sensible action would be to improve them AND add more funding for other types of bee research such as Jerry sketches. In Jerry's 'final option' quoted above lurk many fishhooks, including "peer" review, by some unfit for this function, of hundreds of grant applications. But it is not a matter of either/or, govt or other. The colossal economic value of beekeeping deserves both. R ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 11:16:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Rock Art Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" In the book "A Survey of North American Indian Rock Art" (Wellman, K. 1979) is an interesting comment. Referring to the interpretation of rock art, he writes: >Here amateur speculation retained its hold, and zealous in its last >stand, even today stoutly resists the threats of science. All of >these interpretations are similar in that, reluctant to entertain >commonplace and common-sense explanations, they first concoct a >story of mystery and glamor and subsequently seek facts to support >it. > >Meanwhile, the professionals, surveying the scene, felt even less >desire to have anything to do with a subject characterized by a >veritable orgy of mad speculation and an a priori, deductive >thinking at its worst, lest their names be tainted by association. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 09:14:52 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Perhaps Marla could answer questions about her work, has anyone contacted her and asked for a response to Bee-L? Cheers Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:39:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <005f01c1b8ae$e46180a0$1f1ee150@cushman> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 10:46 -0800 2/18/02, Dave Cushman wrote: >The cell size within a comb varies considerably more than a cursory >glance will indicate. An average tells you just that... an average. >Who has decided that this average measurement has any significance? >How were the conclusions drawn? Quoting Marla Spivak: >Measurements of the diameter of worker cells may be the most >accurate and easiest way to distinguish between Africanized and >European colonies in the field. The size of a bee is highly >correlated with the size cell from which it emerges. Because >Africanized bees are slightly smaller and construct slightly smaller >cells than European bees, changes in cell size over time help >monitor the arrival of Africanized bees. She cites work by Roy Grout (1937), Cosenza and Batista (1973), Charles Michener (1975), Tom Rinderer (1986). Her 1988 1PhD dissertation was titled "Discrimination of Africanized honey bees using behavior, cell size, morphometrics, and a newly discovered isozyme polymorphism," so it seems to be her conclusion that the average cell size has *some significance*. These researchers worked independently over decades and found the same thing. What good reason do we have to doubt the validity of these findings? In order to overthrow such a substantial body of work, somebody is going to have to produce a significant amount of data showing other conclusions. So far, I have not seen such data or even any references. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:19:44 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Pollinator Declines MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In looking for information about the ARS Bee Labs, we stumbled across this little gem. http://www.nbii.gov/issues/pollinators/ The "National Biological Information Infrastructure" tracks invasive species, like all the pests and diseases that kill off our bee colonies. When one looks at the page, one sees a "placeholder" web page that has no content yet, but the wording seems to elegantly describe the end result of not caring enough to make more than a "placeholder web page". The page says: "Pollinator Declines Coming Soon!" How true. First you laugh, then you cry. Or is it the other way 'round? jim ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:39:39 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Thomas Culliney Subject: Re: How the USDA De-funded The Bee Labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit James Fischer stated: "Weslaco TX is at 26 degrees North latitude, and Miami FL is at 25.92 degrees North, so the only part of the US 'South' of Weslaco is the Florida Keys. Weslaco is so unlike the bulk of the US that they even grow sugar cane there." Just to remind folks who may have forgotten, Hawaii (19-22 degrees N) has been "part of the US" since 1959, and is considerably farther south than the Florida Keys. Tom Culliney, Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry, 1428 South King St., Honolulu, HI 96814 U.S.A. E-mail: culliney@elele.peacesat.hawaii.edu Telephone: 808-973-9528 Fax: 808-973-9533 "To a rough approximation and setting aside vertebrate chauvinism, it can be said that essentially all organisms are insects."--R.M. May (1988) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:52:54 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Edwards Subject: Re: How the USDA De-funded The Bee Labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thomas Culliney wrote: > Just to remind folks who may have forgotten, Hawaii (19-22 degrees N) has > been "part of the US" since 1959, and is considerably farther south than the > Florida Keys. > > Tom Culliney, Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture, Point taken - and, if you set up a USDA (or HI) bee lab there, you might be astonished how many applications you would have. People would even be coming out of retirement ;-) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:43:21 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Edwards Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Otts wrote: > > and don't use the argument of > feral bees being used as feral bees come from managed hives and managed > hives use foundation. IMHO, your statement is not logical. Feral bees are not just escapees from domestic situations, and also vary greatly in their distance (in time) from civilization. As a parallel, wild horses and dogs do exist, and vary greatly from domesticated ones. - John Edwards ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:30:05 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Edwards Subject: Re: Closing of the bee labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jerry - several good points - my meanderings below.... Jerry J Bromenshenk wrote: > The labs need to be > saved, but they also are badly in need of reorganization and some > re-direction. Amen, Brother. > The federal labs serve to provide some continuity to long-term issues - bee > diseases, bee genetics, africanized bees. The current system is top heavy > in infra-structure (buildings, lights, land, administration, salaries). > > 1. Assign the remaining personnel to a near-by academically-based unit -- > that's done for many agricultural and forest service labs. That is a good description of the startup of the Tucson beelab in the late-1940s - in UofA buildings, on the farm, with 3 scientists, one ag. engineer (Chuck Owens), and 1 1/2 secretaries. > 2. Use modern information technology to network the various groups, rather > than redistribute scientists into other areas of USDA. I have been disappointed for years at the decline in communication between bee labs, starting with the loss of the Bee Research Division, which oversaw all USDA bee labs. We in Tucson never even saw lists of publications from other bee labs, and also I don't believe any lists were sent out from Tucson, except to promotion panels. Also, the loss of the "Quarterly Reports" was a blow to communication, caused by non-USDA workers poisoning the well by pirating ideas before publication. > 3. Open up the lines of communication with the industry - why, for > example, is John Edwards, the only [ex-]USDA employee to regularly participate > on Bee-L? That is still a mystery to me, but my conversations have revealled fears about you guys being mean to them. Go figure. The scientists are still graded mainly on numbers of publications, period. They get very few points for being online. > 4. Do these labs have an advisory board composed of various stakeholders? > Beekeepers (commericial and hobbyist, packers, food products, regulatory > folks, etc?) If not, maybe they should. Yes, at least Tucson does - set up by Eric Erickson about ten years ago. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 21:48:13 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: How the USDA De-funded The Bee Labs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom Culliney said: > Just to remind folks who may have forgotten, Hawaii (19-22 degrees N) > has been "part of the US" since 1959, and is considerably farther south > than the Florida Keys. Hawaii is a STATE? Wow, do I need a new Atlas! I need to stop buying all my books at used book stores! :) jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:06:02 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter and all I have no problems with Marla Spivak's work... If I did, I would take it up with her rather than this discussion forum. In any case the work, of hers, that you cite is a good example of the proper use of the techniques. As it is based on "relative" values and not on "absolute" ones. > In order to overthrow such a substantial body of > work, somebody is going to have to produce a significant > amount of data showing other conclusions. I am not trying to "overthrow" anything... I am trying to add additional features to the existing body of work. Or at least to arouse others, who the establishment may take note of, to do some more refined research. However by bringing in Marla's work you have sidestepped the questions that I posed. Would you care to peruse my previous post and give opinions on the points it makes? Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:20:30 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Hall Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Robert Brenchley wrote: > Is there any record of why the early foundation manufacturers chose the > worker cell sizes they did? I have a wonderful book, known I am sure to most on this list: "The ABC of Bee Culture" by A.I. Root. Mine is the 1891 edition. In the section on honeycomb, it gives a good idea of the accepted cell spacing at that time in the US: "The worker-comb measures very nearly five cells to the inch, on an average. Some specimens average a little larger, and some a little smaller; but when the comb is at all irregular, it is quite apt to be a little larger. The best specimens of true worker-comb generally contain 5 cells within the space of an inch, and therefore this measure has been adopted for the comb foundation. We tried to so improve the bee as to make them take cells 4 1/2 to the inch, but we had to give it up, and believe God knew best when he taught them that five is right." The second paragraph is a footnote written by Gilbert Doolittle and added in 1880. I love the idea of God measuring things in inches. So the "five-to-the-inch" norm dates back at least to 1880, and I feel sure to the first edition of the book in 1877. I have a second book, "A Treatise on the Management of Bees" by Thomas Wildman, published in London in 1770 (mine is a 1970 facsimile). This is described in the preface as an abstract of papers written by Meraldi and de Reamur for presentation to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. Page 22: "We have found in divers combs, that were a foot long, between fixty and fixty-fix ranges of cells" So it seems that a measurement made at least 232 years ago (and probably longer) gives a range of 4.6mm - 5.1mm for natural comb. Beware, though, of problems with converting from French units of measure: Wildman says that this translates to "a little less than two lines". At 12 to the inch, two lines translates to 4.23mm; "a little less" might be 4.1mm. Hope this helps. Martin Hall ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 08:56:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Comments: cc: Dave Cushman In-Reply-To: <005f01c1b8ae$e46180a0$1f1ee150@cushman> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Dave writes: >Would you care to peruse my previous post and give opinions on the >points it makes? OK, Dave. I am not sure anyone but you and I are still interested, but since you seem earnestly interested in this topic I will tell you what I think, and not what I have read. Anyone else who is sick of this, write to me personally and I will apologize for the length of this post. >The cell size within a comb varies considerably more than a cursory >glance will indicate. No argument there. Everything in nature varies. Does it vary a lot? That would be a purely subjective matter, right? To some people redwood trees are all the same. I do know that bees are strict in what they will and will not accept in terms of foundation, although this also depends on conditions. If there is a heavy honey flow on, bees will draw out very poor quality foundation. If not, they may even destroy it. I have given hundreds of sheets of drone foundation. Occasionally they will attempt to reconstruct it, leaving a bizarre maze of triangles and other odd shapes. As for the small cell foundation, they will draw it but they often attempt to enlarge the cells. This seems to indicate that they find them *too small*. >Yes, there is an average, but the illustration using shoe size in one of >Allen Dick's recent posts shows how simplistic and stupid it would be to >enforce it. Well, I guess it's unnatural to use foundation and frames at all. But since we do, we make them the way that suits us. Making the cells a little large makes foundation easier to manufacture, for one thing. I made foundation for 5 years at the Knorr factory in San Diego. It is a very tedious job and anything that would make it easier would be welcome. Also, it tends to stretch a little in the process, which could account for the "larger than normal" cells. >IT DOES NOT MEAN... That the cellsize is a fundemental quantity that >conclusions can be drawn >from. I don't see how you got here. It is well know that the size of the cell is correlated to the size of the bee. Apis cerana is a small honey bee and makes small cells (range=3.6 to 4.9, Crane 1990). They require smaller cell foundation than European Apis mellifera (range=5.1 to 5.5, Crane 1990). And if someone wanted to make foundation for Apis florea, the cells would have to be very small (2.9, Crane 1990). >Foundation has become a way of life for beekeepers, and in many ways it's >function has been taken for granted. My bees do not object to using >foundation, but the fact that they adopt it does not mean that it is "right" >for them. Like I said, it has to be close. They won't accept stuff that is not a very reasonable facsimile of the original. I have seen some handmade sheets that they wouldn't touch. I have seem them reject plastic foundation without wax coating -- it didn't *smell right*. I have seen one hive reject foundation when its neighbors were chugging away on it. I have had honey flows so strong that you could get a box with ten new plastic frames filled with honey in a week. >I know some find it contentious, but I have seen enough to convince me that >there has been a gradual increase in the cellsize of manufactured >foundation. I have never contradicted this. My main point is that European bees have not been altered by this. While it is true that bees can be made slightly larger and considerably smaller by being raised in different sized cells, I do not believe that this trait is acquired by this process. The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their children, as they have none. The queen acquires no traits from the workers as they are not her parents. There would have to be a selection process going on which would prefer larger bees, and as far as I know, there is no such thing. All American bees were put on the so-called larger foundation and propagated. Their progeny was selected for various things, such as color, temper, productivity, but not size. Size was not an issue for any but a few and they thought they had this fixed by using bigger cells, right? Not by breeding at all. Now, maybe we could breed for a bigger bee. There are bigger bees than the European mellifera. But not many people suppose that the size of the bee, give or take a millimeter, is all that important. >There are those that consider there is a benefit in the control of disease >and parasitation. If that is proved to be the case, then it will be an >additional benefit. I have *never* quarreled with this. If small cell foundation could rid my hives of mites, I would consider replacing it. I wouldn't even CARE about the theory, if it worked. I am not sure what I would do with the 10,000 frames I already have... I guess I could use them as supers! I already use queen excluders anyway. And by the way, we are probably the only ones in America who actually run 10 frames in ALL the boxes. I just don't think it'll work, that's all. This problem is not going to yield to a simple solution. A simple solution is one like Apistan. That worked for a while, right? Now on to something else. By the way, despite what James Fischer says, beekeeping is not plagued by more problems than other agriculture. I just took a short course on pesticide application and ALL agriculture is dependent on multiple applications of pesticides (except organic and third world subsistence farming). Beyond that, I think the credibility of the theory is totally undermined by wild conjecturing that bees were somehow altered by the use of foundation. For God's sake, we have only used it in this country for what, a little over a hundred years? Bees have been on earth for millions, and if you ask me, they are kind of set in their ways. Beekeeping works mainly because we have *learned their ways*, not because they have learned ours. Credibility is an important thing to me. I am not going down any dark tunnel on faith, unless my guide has a very good track record. If he has misrepresented the facts to me -- even once, I am very suspicious. >For the time being I will be happy merely to return to the status >quo of pre foundation sizings. Sure, why not? I encourage everybody to experiment. But don't forget, if you don't have control hives your results will not mean squat. You have to have something to compare with. If you convert all your hives over to small cells, or black bees, or tin supers, how will you know that is what *causes* the results you get -- unless you have a control group that is managed the normal way!! And don't forget, the little mites are evolving faster than the bees, and I wouldn't be surprised if the use of small cells selects for mites that *like small cells*. I had an apiary that we did not treat for mites, because we needed mites for studies. And this bunch would not break down. We finally had to inoculate them. Oh, some people are probably thinking: why didn't you breed from those? Because, they were the same bees we had in all our apiaries! There was nothing different about these bees! They were not getting mites for other reasons: environmental reasons, ebb and flow of mite population, who know? You can't breed a trait that bees don't have. You can't breed bees as big as hummingbirds, no matter what you think. Of course there is variation, but within extremely well defined limits. The size of the cells bees want is dictated by the size of the bee. And European bees are bigger than most African and Asian bees. They evolved over the course of millions of years and can't change overnight. Human beings, not being dependent on instinct, can change rapidly -- if they want. Stay flexible, I always say. But don't be deluded. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 13:50:54 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Otts Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >IMHO, your statement is not logical. Feral bees are not just escapees from >domestic situations, and also vary greatly in their distance (in time) from >civilization. As a parallel, wild horses and dogs do exist, and vary >greatly >from domesticated ones. I thought it was logical, maybe not 100% on the mark though. what other livestock is kept that has total freedom to come and go at will and also mate, divide and increase at will? sure there was a time when feral and domesticed had equal numbers and a time when feral were all the bees, but times have changed and neither one of us can prove just what the breakdown is between the two. I was meerly going on the account by many others that little to no feral hives are found anymore, and with the mites and diseases, few would survive. there are pockets where more feral bees would be found like your tucson area, but that is not the norm. as long as there are managed hives around there will always be escapes' to the 'wild' and then we must ask what is feral. wild horses and dogs have a physical appearance and nature about them that make it easy to distinguish them from domesticated ones. what percent of horses today are wild compared to domesticated ones? 5% even? I'll bet if our domesticated horses where allowed to run free, they would not hesitated to mate with wild horses if given the chance. bees do it all the time without us even knowing about it. I didn't know one could tell the difference between 'wild' and domesticated honeybees. how is this done? mark _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 07:30:37 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202191405.g1JE5XA22815@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Peter Borst wrote: If there is a heavy honey flow on, bees will draw out very poor quality foundation. If not, they may even destroy it. I have given hundreds of sheets of drone foundation. Occasionally they will attempt to reconstruct it,leaving a bizarre maze of triangles and other odd shapes. As for the small cell foundation, they will draw it but they often attempt to enlarge the cells. This seems to indicate that they find them *too small*. Reply: As there are two very distinct comb crawing phases within each colony, one for drawing out workerbrood/pollen combs and one for drawing out dronebrood/honey combs, how are you attempting to drawout the combs you talk about? Also, I would like to point out that I try to make foundation for 4.9mm size without the corraling effects of the side walls. Do you believe in side walls on foundation for corraling the bees and size? Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 07:40:55 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202191405.g1JE5XA22815@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Peter Borst wrote: >Yes, there is an average, but the illustration using shoe size in one of Allen Dick's recent posts shows how simplistic and stupid it would be to enforce it. Reply: I myself do not relate to shoe size here. But I do relate to chickens and use them to explain certain things to other beekeepers concerning cell size and going back to ground zero and coming forward again in size to eliminate problems of parasitic mites and secondary diseases. What do you think about the parallels in the lives of bees and chickens concerning their life cycles and sizing? Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:29:42 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Cal French Subject: coumaphos in honey In-Reply-To: <200202190500.g1J50JA11370@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed What US lab (preferably in California) that will test for the presence of coumaphos in honey? What is the cost of a test and the procedures for sending a sample? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 13:36:04 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: No Way Backwards - The Pesticide Treadmill MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dee Lusby said: > ...it says to me there is no alternating of treatments between > apistan and coumaphos... you can only go... harder and harsher. Is it any surprise that the products sold by large chemical companies create the same dependence created by addictive drugs, prompting one to buy more? Is this "better living through chemistry"? So, what to do? Until a better practical solution comes along, one must use whatever is lying about as best one can. One needs: The Dr. Strangelove / Jackie Chan Tag-Team Approach! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alternate using miticides from Dr. Strangelove with non-toxic, lower tech, "Jackie Chan judo" that exploit basic mite physiology, rather than trying to poison their metabolisms. (FGMO fogging and powdered sugar dusting being two good examples) Realize that mites surviving a chemical attack will reproduce, and can breed mites "resistant" to that chemical. If the chemical is nasty enough, the only survivors are the "Arnold Schwarzeneggers" of mites, perhaps resistant to multiple forms of chemical attack, simply because they are metabolically "tougher". Realize that mites that survive a purely physiological attack will not parent future generations that are in any way resistant to the same physiological attack. Realize that mite physiology will remain essentially unchanged no matter what we might do, and even the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" mites still have the same basic physiology as all others. What physiological weaknesses to varroa have? a) They hang onto bees with tarsal pads that can be clogged with 10-15 micron particles (FGMO and/or Sugar-dusting). Clog them, and you have a fallen mite. Add a screened bottom, and fallen mites are dead mites. Photomicrographic proof of this is available in ABJ Summer 2000. b) They have much smaller trachea than bees, and it is claimed that FGMO fogging can clog mite trachea without harming bees in the least. (I have seen no photos to prove this, and am not even sure how such a photo would be created, but the premise sounds reasonable.) c) They are claimed to be dislodged when bees "groom" themselves, but varroa seem to instinctively "know" where to position themselves where grooming is difficult. (Has anyone ever photographed or witnessed a bee who dislodged a varroa mite in this manner?) The situation is similar to trying to eradicate cats while leaving humans unscathed. Two similar creatures, living in close proximity, both with very similar metabolisms. Is it any wonder that a high dose of (metabolic) miticide can kill bees? Being selective is difficult, but it should be clear that a physiological approach is less difficult to "target" than a metabolic approach, and creates less chance of breeding "resistant offspring". jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 12:12:04 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202191405.g1JE5XA22815@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Dave wrote: >IT DOES NOT MEAN... That the cellsize is a fundemental quantity that >conclusions can be drawn >from. Peter Borst Replied: I don't see how you got here. It is well know that the size of the cell is correlated to the size of the bee. Apis cerana is a small honey bee and makes small cells (range=3.6 to 4.9, Crane 1990). They require smaller cell foundation than European Apis mellifera (range=5.1 to 5.5, Crane 1990). Reply: I would like to add a little here. F. Ruttner in his paper "Characteristics and variability of Apis Cerana" pointed out that "Contrary to the customary assumption, A. cerana is not generally a small bee when compared with A. mellifera. This frequently held opinion holds true only when A. cerana is compared with European A. mellifera." Now this is a comparison of a feral sized naturally occuring type of honeybee (A. cerana) to an artificialized oversized domesticated genericaly run together name representing all races/strains of European honeybees in my POV. This POV of mine is taken from T.W. Cowans's 1904 "The Honey Bee: Its Natural History, Anatomy, and Physiology" Chapter XXIV, in which it is written that Cowan measured the natural combs of honeybees in England, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and the United States showing a range that does indeed very well encompass A. cerana measurements. Also for more measurements along the same vein of thought Cowan suggests readers to read: Bevan, Dr E. "The Honey Bee, 1838, and F. Huber, Nouvelles observations sur les Abeilles, 1814 (and other editions). Maybe this will help you see better Daves remarks, which I myself have found quite "good". Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:04:25 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Keith Malone Subject: Natural comb cell size, who will try it? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter & All, > OK, Dave. I am not sure anyone but you and I are still interested, > but since you seem earnestly interested in this topic I will tell you > what I think, and not what I have read. Anyone else who is sick of > this, write to me personally and I will apologize for the length of > this post. Thanks for thinking for me Peter. > I have *never* quarreled with this. If small cell foundation could > rid my hives of mites, I would consider replacing it. I don't think it is claimed that small cell foundation could *rid your hives of mites*, but reduce the mite population to a manageable level for the bees. > I wouldn't even > CARE about the theory, if it worked. Theories have to be tried to be proved. > I am not sure what I would do > with the 10,000 frames I already have... I guess I could use them as > supers! If they prove to be obsolete what is the difference, besides they may be contaminated any way. > I already use queen excluders anyway. And by the way, we are > probably the only ones in America who actually run 10 frames in ALL > the boxes. > That's a narrow view, I for one know that this is not true. > I just don't think it'll work, that's all. This problem is not going > to yield to a simple solution. No one has claimed that converting to 4.9 small cell was simple. This I am proving to myself as I build new frames with small cell foundation installed. Beekeeping is not and never will be simple or easy. > A simple solution is one like Apistan. > That worked for a while, right? Now on to something else. Good point, now on to something else, like giving 4.9 small cell foundation a good try. By the way when are you going to give small cells a try so you can have an educated opinion on it. Also Apistan never worked for me because I refuse to put such a poison in my hives. > By the way, > despite what James Fischer says, beekeeping is not plagued by more > problems than other agriculture. I just took a short course on > pesticide application and ALL agriculture is dependent on multiple > applications of pesticides (except organic and third world > subsistence farming). Which is a really big problem. The health of the Planet and it's population is suffering because of this practice. I practice organic methods with little problems growing vegetables. Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA starrier@yahoo.com http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 22:06:59 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst dragged my sleeping body into the "cell-size" discussion as a straw man thusly: > despite what James Fischer says, beekeeping is not > plagued by more problems than other agriculture. I said nothing so silly. What I said was limited to ANIMALS. What I said was: "Quick - name an animal in US agriculture with more problems than bees. If cattle farmers were losing up to half their herds every year, they would call out the national guard!" > I just took a short course on pesticide application and ALL > agriculture is dependent on multiple applications of pesticides That may be what the pesticide vendors may want you to think, but in fact, the "monoculture" approach to agriculture and the use of "bought" seed, rather than the more variation-prone "saved" seed is what created situations where pests could run rampant in the first place. There is strength in diversity. When you do not have diversity, you are forced to use things like pesticides. Then you need to take a "pesticide application course", a "Haz-Mat course", and a "First Aid/First Responders" course. While you are in school, your crop withers in the field because your $30,000 automated roving sprinkler got a wheel stuck in a groundhog hole. So, then you take a course on how to poison all the animals that might wander onto your land, and so on. Once started, where do you stop? The whole concept of monocultures, larger industrialized farms, and regular application of toxic chemicals to food is a very recent and highly speculative idea, one that has yet to show any solid evidence that it is responsible, sustainable, profitable without large government subsidies, or even ethical. Pesticides made monocultures (appear to) work, which certainly increased yields, at the price of higher capital equipment cost (machines), and in the process, making diesel fuel and other petro-chemical by products "required" parts of farming. Sadly, this nearly eliminated the "smaller farm" where other approaches might be possible. Beekeepers are not being honest (or are simply not thinking clearly) when they rant and rave about "pesticide kills". The monoculture approach is a major factor in the creation of the need for truckloads of bees to be shipped in. Only monoculture approaches require large numbers of bee colonies to be rented by one customer at one time, which is the entire economic basis of pollination. Pesticide kills "come with the territory", no matter how hard one tries to eliminate human error. One need look no further than organic farmers to see that a decision to accept lower yields can result in a more profitable farm and a lower "sunk capital" investment not only "up front", but also every season. It also assures a sell-out every year where the farmer can sell "at retail", with nothing more than a handmade sign saying "Pesticide Free". Manufactures of ANY product who are willing to pollute and poison can always make a better short-term profit than those who do not, since the key to their equation is the replacement of skilled labor with machinery and chemicals. But even they can't make a profit and satisfy their investors unless they constantly increase production, increase yields, and make ever more complex spot deals with "the devil", ignoring both their own long-term profitability, and their need for land that is capable of supporting life. Please note that I made no comment on "cell size". If I wanted to be dealt in on that hand, I would have sat down at the table, and offered an ante. jim farmageddon ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 16:47:17 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <20020219154055.78916.qmail@web12403.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > >Yes, there is an average, but the illustration using shoe >size in one of Allen Dick's recent posts shows how >simplistic and stupid it would be to enforce it. I did not say that, Dave did. >What do you think about the parallels in the lives of bees >and chickens concerning their life cycles and sizing? No idea -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 00:08:17 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dick Allen Subject: Re: Hive Primer-Sealer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Yet some of the best beekeepers I know dip the entire box in paint to achieve thorough coverage inside and out. Including Keith Delaplane in his video: “Honey Bees and Beekeeping” if I may add. Also for those morbidly concerned with contamination, Mann Lake offers copper quinolate for sale on page 18 of their current catalog. The product is said to be suitable for wood that is in contact with food. Unfortunately for the beekeeper with only a few hives it is sold in the five gallon size for $236 U.S. As for me, I just paint the outside and let the bees paint the inside. Regards, Dick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 21:17:17 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Yarnell Organization: Oregon VOS Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202200341.g1K3fQA24146@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII At the risk of being outed as a neophyte who shares the having chores with the main keeper: What happens if, instead of putting plastic or wax foundation stamped with a pre-set cell pattern of size x, one installs blank sheets of foundation? Seems to me, at the very least, one would have a control cell dimension. I'll admit, the cell size debate taxes my level of interest, but it seems so obvious. And with this net gadget, folks from all over the map could do the same experiment, note their location, the race of bees they work, and mite drop at various times of the year (coordinated). Maybe the bees have something to tell us. --------------- Richard Yarnell, SHAMBLES WORKSHOPS | No gimmick we try, no "scientific" Beavercreek, OR. Makers of fine | fix we attempt, will save our planet Wooden Canoes, The Stack(R) urban | until we reduce the population. Let's composter, Raw Honey | leave our kids a decent place to live. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 21:42:40 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202191405.g1JE5XA22815@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Peter Borst wrote: I have never contradicted this. My main point is that European bees have not been altered by this. Reply: Unfortunately they have very much so. Cell size influences the size of the thorax of the honeybee, which influences the size of the other body part in proportion. This then influences the foraging for honeybees by fitting them to the plants they work, which influences their diet and therefore their health. The cell size also then influences the flight of the honeybee and its speed, through changes in aerodynamics relative to the density of the bees body and veining of their wings for flight with added suttle changes of width and length, which can have direct bearing on mating. Peter wrote: While it is true that bees can be made slightly larger and considerably smaller by being raised in different sized cells, I do not believe that this trait is acquired by this process. Reply: This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter relative to complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of artificially enlarged combs which add steps of regression for downsizing into the scenario and retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding mixtures. Peter wrote: The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their children, as they have none. The queen acquires no traits from the workers as they are not her parents. Reply: In a way they do. Workers pass on characteristics by way of laying workers that produce both drones or workers, of which if workers are produced they certainly can become queens. The queen acquires exact traits from the workers as she is an exact copy, as no queen can be raised except she be born a worker first and then choosen by same to be changed into a queen as they (the workers) construct queen cells. Peter wrote: There would have to be a selection process going on which would prefer larger bees, and as far as I know, there is no such thing..... .... but not size. Size was not an issue for any but a few and they thought they had this fixed by using bigger cells, right? Not by breeding at all. Reply: Actually in ABC & XYZ 1891, 1908, 1913, 1920 it was written "Several times it has been suggested that we enlarge the race of honey-bees by giving them larger cells; and some circumstances seem to indicate that something may be done in this direction, although I have little hope of any permanent enlargement in size, unless we combine with it the idea of selecting the largest bees to propagate from..." Haven't we done this for years all through the 1900s by telling our beekeepers that you don't want those squinchy little queens, they are inferior, what you want instead is this nice BIG beautiful ones (drones included) etc... Peter wrote: If small cell foundation could rid my hives of mites, I would consider replacing it. reply: Small cell foundation will never rid your hives of mites. Even we cannot accomplish that. But we have accomplished maintaining happy, health bees without the usage of essential oils, FGMO, acids, drugs, and chemicals for parasitic mite control and secondary diseases. Peter wrote: I just don't think it'll work, that's all. This problem is not going to yield to a simple solution. A simple solution is one like Apistan.That worked for a while, right? Now on to something else. reply: Apistan is not a simple solution. It is just a start on the road to hell for honeybees and the pesticide treadmill. But Peter to be honest with you, 4.9mm foundation is not a simple solution either. It takes a lot of hard work to use it properly. Peter wrote: Beyond that, I think the credibility of the theory is totall undermined by wild conjecturing that bees were somehow altered by the use of foundation. For God's sake, we have only used it in this country for what, a little over a hundred years? Bees have been on earth for millions, Reply: Yep, kind of hard to believe that we as an industry could do all that damage in about 100 years, all for the want of a bigger better bee with a longer tongue. Around about 1933/34 the question was asked "Was the world ready for a bigger bee". Well, I think we now have our answer. NO!!! Now can we get back to what we had before the idea bigger was better started, and try to straighten out the problems we have created. That is the big question and challenge for the future and this century. Peter wrote: Credibility is an important thing to me. I am not going down any dark tunnel on faith, unless my guide has a very good track record. If he has misrepresented the facts to me -- even once, I am very suspicious. Reply: That is why we tell beekeepers to come and see and evaluate for themselves our bees in the field and make up their own minds if this is what it takes. Peter wrote: I encourage everybody to experiment. But don't forget, if you don't have control hives your results will not mean squat. You have to have something to compare with. If you convert all your hives over to small cells, or black bees, or tin supers, how will you know that is what *causes* the results you get -- unless you have a control group that is managed the normal way!! Reply: All around the country I see the normal way!! The only thing we changed and we did it in mass...was the cell size, so there would be no mistake what we changed!!!!Everything else we do we have always done. Best regards to you Peter, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:03:04 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: No Way Backwards - The Pesticide Treadmill Comments: cc: "jfischer@supercollider.com" In-Reply-To: <01C1B94A.613953F0.jfischer@supercollider.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Me: despite what James Fischer says, beekeeping is not plagued by >more problems than other agriculture. >James: I said nothing so silly. What I said was limited to ANIMALS. I am sorry if I misquoted you James. What I meant and said poorly is that beekeeping is no worse off than other sectors of agriculture, including animals. I took a short course on pesticide application, required by the state because I occasionally use pesticides on my job. I don't know enough about the different animals to really say which has more or less, but evidently they all have parasites and some are real ugly. It *seemed to me* that we are all in the same boat vis a vis pesticide application. Everyone is doing it. The course gave very strong emphasis to IPM : using economical mechanical controls like cleanliness. Chemicals are only to be used when all else fails. And they must be carefully targeted for the pest and to avoid contamination of the environment and the commodities. Nothing controversial there, I warrant. We all look back wistfully at a time when chemicals were not needed in beekeeping, although -- if you look at the literature, people have been trying different chemicals on bees and hives since the early days of the movable comb. They even tried phenol and salicylic acid on bees to treat AFB. Root says "During the summer of 1887 we used carbolic acid as an antiseptic. This we sprayed upon the bees after they had been shaken into clean hives, with what is called a spray-diffuser." -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:29:40 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: No Way Backwards - The Pesticide Treadmill Comments: To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All, Dee Lusby said: > ...it says to me there is no alternating of treatments between * apistan and coumaphos... you can only go... harder and harsher. * Actually the position of the USDA has been to move away from chemicals and has been so for quite awhile. Coumaphos was only a quick fix as far as varroa control (as I said many times on Bee-L) while other ways of controlling varroa could be found. Not one new chemical has been added to the list published in *The Varroa Handbook* (1989). For various reasons I do not see any other of the 100 chemicals tested for varroa use registered and none off the list are in the process of being registered that I know about. When in a battle like the beekeeping industry is with varroa you have to make hard choices . The Usda helped guide us through a tough time. Without Checkmite the beekeeping industry would have lost half its hives again for the third time. First being when tracheal mites arrived. Second being when varroa arrived. The third would have been when Fluvalinate resistant mites took their toll. Thanks to the reigstration of checkmite most of us did not have to go through the third round of heavy losses. Jeff Pettis of the Beltsville Bee Lab at the ABF convention in Savannah explained about the Coumaphos resistant mites found in the bees in Maine and in Florida. Jeff said the coumaphos resistant mites were found in a large commercial operation which had been monitered by the USDA . He asured us at the Apiary inspectors meeting that the operation had not been using any illegal methods . The outfit had been using Apistan according to label prior to finding fluvalinate resistant mites three years ago. The outfit had used Checkmite three years according to label. From my notes Jeff said after 25 days of checkmite treatment the hives were still infested with varroa. All hives were eyther rolled and the average amount of varroa found in the jar was 145 mites. Apistan was tried on the hives to clear the varroa but only a small amount of varroa fell from the Apistan and those varroa WERE NOT DEAD. The varroa were still resistant to fluvalinate after three years. Most of the beekeepers hives were so far over threshold they later died. New none chemical solutions: At the American Beekeeping Federation meeting Dr. Patti Elzen told me she is working on formic acid gell at the Westlaco lab. Still hoping to solve packaging problems and work out the proper dose for the formic acid gell. Good news for the organic beekeepers. Beekeepers will be able to order Api Life Var from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm according to page 36 of their 2002 catalog in July 2002. Api Life Var is composed of Thymol, Eucalyptol, Camphor and menthol. The ad says ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS. Add a few IPM measures Dr. Shiminki gave us and treat at the proper time as both of the above are temperature sensitive. Requeen with either the SMR or Russian queens given to us by the USDA bee labs and I believe we might be able to get off the chemical treadmill. One of the first things I ever came to realize keeping bees is that there are many ways to keep bees. Success can be had using many methods. I wish the Lusbys success with their methods. I believe those following the USDAs current plan will also get off the chemical treadmill. I keep hearing there are areas of the U.S. Apistan is still working which I find hard to believe if Apistan has not been alternated with another chemical but those claims were made at the ABF convention by some beekeepers. I know there are areas in the U.S.in which Checkmite is still working but believe its effectiveness is soon to be over. Research has shown that mites resistant to Fluvalinate are resistant to Amatraz . I would never have guessed Coumaphos resistance would be had at such a level after only three years of use. I am done with both Apistan and Checkmite. and am stepping away from chemicals and plan to use the alternate items I outlined above. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. It is sad to lose the bee labs and researchers which (in my opinion) showed us the way off the chemical treadmill. The makers of Apistan and checkmite will continue to sell and push both for the next decade. I thank the makers of both Apistan and checkmite for their registration of both which helped me through a difficult time but time for me to step away from chemicals. I advise careful monitering of hives before, during and after treatment if you are going to play the chemical treatment game. by alternating Apistan and Checkmite. Alternating might have worked if done at the start but alternating now is a risky game in my opinion. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 11:27:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <20020220054240.480.qmail@web12408.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I wrote: >While it is true that bees can be made slightly larger and >considerably smaller by being raised in different sized cells, I do >not believe that this trait is acquired by this process. Dee Lusby's reply: >This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter relative to >complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of artificially enlarged >combs which add steps of regression for downsizing into the scenario >and retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding >mixtures. Questions: 1. What is "complex mongrel breeding"? 2. What is a "piled on breeding mixture"? (these are not conventional terms) 3. Do you have a "true" type of honey bee? 4. Where did it come from? ----------------------------------------- I wrote: >The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their children, as >they have none [no children]. The queen acquires no traits from the >workers as they are not her parents. Reply: >In a way they do. Workers pass on characteristics by way of laying >workers that produce both drones or workers, of which if workers are >produced they certainly can become queens. In normal beekeeping practice, and in nature, a hive with laying workers is rare. Many beekeepers kill the colony by dumping it out in the bushes. I have seen the little drones produced by laying workers and I doubt if they could ever mate with a queen. As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting Cape Bees, of course). To invoke laying workers as a *significant pathway* of heredity is incorrect. You are resorting to a very complicated explanation to back up your theory. -- Peter Borst "All of these interpretations are similar in that, reluctant to entertain commonplace and common-sense explanations, they first concoct a story of mystery and glamor and subsequently seek facts to support it." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:24:22 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rick Green Subject: Insurance for bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone offer the names of insurance companies that provide bee insurance? Farm Family refused to quote and the popular mid-west company keeps raising their prices much too much. Contact me at: Rick Green 8 Hickory Grove Lane Ballston Lake, NY 12019 (518) 384-2539 Gothoney@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:16:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Insurance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rick Green asked for sources for liability insurance for beekeepers. He mentioned dissatisfaction with "the popular Midwest company", and I could not agree more. Last summer they strung me on for months, and finally did not quote...and they never gave a reason or asked any questions that one would expect from someone who wanted the business! Unlike Rick, I had no difficulty with Farm Family, but they did want the homeowners. I thought that was reasonable and their rates for homeowners were competitive. I will be interested in any replies as it is never good to have a single source supplier. Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:27:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Insurance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" $2,000,000 coverage for $500 annually from The Hartford Group. Don't have contact information readily available. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:10:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare > that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting > Cape Bees, of course). Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, unless I am mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work with Dee on this some time back? allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:54:29 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst writes: <> This isn't quite correct; thelytoky in honey bees was first reported by John Hewitt in 1892, and a queen raised from a laying worker's egg, presumably one of Hewitt's, was presented to the British Museum in that year. TH Morgan has also described it. The phenomenon undoubtedly occurs at a low level in European bees, and is doubtless discouraged by normal beekeeper practices. It has been shown by Mackensen to occur in Italian bees, however, and if it occurred in a hive, would the beekeeper work out what had happened - or would they assume that another explanation had to be the true one? I'm not suggesting that it happens more than very occasionally, but I think the reality is that we just don't know. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com Birmingham, UK. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:59:24 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Moira Law Subject: Contaminants in Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all, An item on this morning's CBC radio news quoted a study that claimed, "50% of the honey imported into Canada from the U.S contains phenol" (quoted from sleep-fogged memory and not certain to be accurate). It referred listeners to a site: www.foodwatch.ca . I could not find this particular statistic on this site, but by clicking "Get to Know Your Food" and then "Toxic Tracker" and then "Other" I finally found a reference to honey. The data apparently come from the "Canadian Food Inspection Agency's (CFIA) CA-0014: Residues in Agri-foods Monitoring Program" database. They list the following contaminants in honey: PHENOL, SULFAMETHAZINE, SULFAMETHOXAZOLE, SULFAMONOMETHOXINE, SULFATHIAZOLE, TETRACYCLINE, CAPTAN, and OXYTETRACYCLINE. Some of these contaminants seem to have been found in quantities exceeding the "maximum residue limit" on some of the tests. I didn't find a reference to the origin of the honey tested. I don't know what these substances are, or whether they are dangerous. Would someone who does care to comment? Moira ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 22:22:29 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Barrett Subject: IPM and SHB Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All I was wondering are American beekeepers who have to contend with the Small Hive Beetle, stuck with Coumaphos treatments, or is there an IPM approach available for this pest? We do not have the SHB in Ireland yet (to my knowledge), but I wish to learn something about it, as I daresay we are on its list of countries for visiting. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 16:20:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <002301c1ba42$402ec7a0$f27dfea9@allen> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare >> that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting >> Cape Bees, of course). > >Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, unless I am >mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work with Dee on this some time back? It would still be extremely rare and can not be invoked as the mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over the past 100 years. Not even among the Cape Bees does this manner of reproduction occur except under the unusual circumstance of a hive losing its queen and then losing the emergency queen. In a study of about 100 Cape Colonies that were made queenless, 60% raised new queens the normal way. Only 20% successfully requeened from laying worker brood. Mackensen's work, which hasn't been replicated (that I know of), showed what would happen if a hive was forced to raise a queen from unfertilized queen eggs, a circumstance which almost never occurs. Of these, only a small percentage succeeded. (Hepburn, 1998) -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:11:01 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Natural Comb Cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 20/02/02 05:01:30 GMT Standard Time, Peter Borst writes: << And don't forget, the little mites are evolving faster than the bees, >> Peter, why do you say this? Are there figures or references to which you can direct us? Chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:56:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Thelytoky in Honey Bees, How Universal is it? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare > >> that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting > >> Cape Bees, of course). > > > >Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, unless I am > >mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work with Dee on this some time back? > > It would still be extremely rare Apparently it is not at all rare in the bees in the Tucson area. In fact, I have heard from several sources, that it can be demonstrated at will. > and can not be invoked as the > mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over > the past 100 years. I think that was meant to be a separate and unrelated topic. > In a study of about 100 Cape Colonies that were made queenless, 60% > raised new queens the normal way. Only 20% successfully requeened > from laying worker brood. Not sure what the ratio is in Tucson, but it is significant. Maybe Dee, Erikson or degrandi-Hofman will offer answers, since I am not comfortable speaking for any of them. They all have hands-on experience with this over some considerable timeframe and could comment better on the frequency of success. > Mackensen's work, which hasn't been replicated (that I know of), > showed what would happen if a hive was forced to raise a queen from > unfertilized queen eggs, a circumstance which almost never occurs. Of > these, only a small percentage succeeded. (Hepburn, 1998) Here again, we are trying to extrapolate with what is observed one group of bees with another different and perhaps not closely related group. It is becoming very apparent that one group of honey bees cannot safely be assumed to be just like another. It is also possible that environment and season may figure into the results one sees. allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 22:02:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Thelytoky in Honey Bees, How Universal is it? In-Reply-To: <008f01c1ba73$04c66200$b6e5a1c6@allen> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >It would still be extremely rare > >Apparently it is not at all rare in the bees in the Tucson area. In fact, I >have heard from several sources, that it can be demonstrated at will. > >and can not be invoked as the >mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over >the past 100 years. > >I think that was meant to be a separate and unrelated topic. I was referring to the connection that Dee Lusby herself made in the exchange which follows. I have made the assertion that bees have not been enlarged by foundation, that they can not be genetically altered by enlarged foundation. She contends that thelytoky is the mechanism by which the enlarged workers pass on this acquired trait to their offspring (parthenogenetic queens). I find this explanation far-fetched and contrary to everything I have read and learned about bees in almost 30 years. I have presented my case in a clear and sustained manner, but I do not claim to be able to prove or disprove anything. Everyone is free to believe what they wish, of course. >Peter wrote: > While it is true that bees can be made slightly larger and >considerably smaller by being raised in different sized >cells, I do not believe that this trait is acquired by this >process. > >Reply: >This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter >relative to complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of >artificially enlarged combs which add steps of regression >for downsizing into the scenario and retrogression for >reversing the layers of piled on breeding mixtures. > >Peter wrote: > The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their >children, as they have none[no children]. The queen acquires no traits >from the workers as they are not her parents. > >Reply: >In a way they do. Workers pass on characteristics by way of >laying workers that produce both drones or workers, of >which if workers are produced they certainly can become >queens. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:29:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dick Allen Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >The cell size also then influences the flight of the honeybee and its speed, through changes in aerodynamics relative to the density of the bees body and veining of their wings for flight with added suttle changes of width and length I’ve been partially following some of the discussion, but I’m afraid I don’t quite know what this means. A smaller bee would have a smaller body and smaller wings. A larger bee would have a larger body with larger wings. Wouldn’t the wing load per unit area be the same? Does changing the size of a bee somehow change it’s relative density? Is a large cow somehow more dense than a small cow? Or am I being too simple-minded in looking at it this way? Regards, Dick ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:06:42 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Hall Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Simple-minded? No, but I think you're missing a crucial factor. > A larger bee would have a larger body with larger wings. > Wouldn't the wing load per unit area be the same? Halve the dimensions of a bee and its weight (assuming constant density) reduces by a factor of eight, while the wing area is a quarter what it was; therefore the wing loading per unit area is halved. It's known as the 'square-cube law'. Martin Hall London UK ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 04:08:17 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Thelytoky in Honey Bees, Important in Up-sizing? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies to all for the quotes below. I have concluded that they are necessary to understand the interchange in question. The need for lengthy quotes partially explains why this topic seldom gets fully discussed: too many little details get into the discussion. Then the discussion branches and branches until it boggles the mind and one or both parties give up from being unable to organize -- or respond to -- all the points and the whole subject gets bogged down in minutiae. I applaud those who can follow all the little twists and turns and I believe that following this all the way through to a conclusion will be rewarding. --- > > >and can not be invoked as the > > >mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over > > >the past 100 years. > > > >I think that was meant to be a separate and unrelated topic. > > I was referring to the connection that Dee Lusby herself made in the > exchange which follows. > >Peter wrote: > > The workers do not pass on any characteristics to their > >children, as they have none[no children]. The queen acquires no traits > >from the workers as they are not her parents. > >Dee's Reply: > >In a way they do. Workers pass on characteristics by way of > >laying workers that produce both drones or workers, of > >which if workers are produced they certainly can become > >queens. You are right. It appears that Dee is involving thelytoky in the upsizing (and downsizing?) question. Whether or not we end up agreeing with her, she certainly can put us through some heavy lifting mentally, and I am learning a lot from this. Maybe what I am learning is not exactly what any involved parties would want me to learn -- and I am not certain how much I am retaining -- but this whole discussion is tearing up a lot of turf. I'm again going to try to clarify what she is suggesting, and hope to be corrected if I miss. It seems to me that the mention of thelytoky here is not intended to be a major point, but merely a reminder that where thelytoky occurs, queenless colonies can participate in future generations and are not an evolutionary dead-end as we normally think. This seems to me to be a bit of a red herring, having been thrown in as an aside, and being non-essential to the main argument. I have found that such red herrings and side-discussions made it very difficult initially for me to follow and assess the central arguments of the 4.9 crowd. Such diversions have made it very hard to follow the central thread, since they seem a constant feature of any 4.9 discussion. In order to discuss any theory, it must first be clearly stated so that it can be proved or disproved. That clear statement, perhaps has been missing in this discussion. Having managed, I think, to follow that thread for the most part, I'm trying to find a way to keep from being distracted by irrelevant minutiae. Maybe we need a re-statement of the central points (a manifesto?), and I'll (bravely) try to do so here, not being a believer -- or a disbeliever. * Over the past century, domestic bees in North America and Europe, and parts of the world that follow their lead have been selected for increased size * Selection took place by 'eyeball' evaluation of queens and by deliberate propagation of bees that did well on man-made foundation. * Foundation sizes increased over that period, and the bees that did best on the larger cells naturally continued to dominate both through survival and deliberate human selection. * Some of this selected gene pool could function well on both the larger cells and on smaller cells -- even down to the bottom of the range that was reported before foundation was introduced. Some could not. * Around the time that foundation started to be popular, a number of people surveyed natural comb sizes in various places in the world. * Whenever a survey of comb sizes was undertaken, apparently a range of worker cell sizes has been observed in any population of bees. Bees didn't seem to all that fussy about what size they made most of the time and different sizes were often found in the same hive. * The EHB natural range reportedly went as low as 4.9 mm, although 4.9 was at the extreme low end of the range observed. The median was somewhere in the region of 5.1 to 5.2 mm, as I recall, and ranged from about 4.9 to 5.4. (The exact numbers are not all that important here, so please bear with me) * When mites became a big problem, a theory was developed that by limiting the size of the cell, less room would be available for varroa, and by breeding smaller bees, tracheal might diminish, whether from not being able to get into spiracles, or due to some other scale factor. * Initial attempts using 5.05 mm were not sufficiently successful. * Further attempts using 4.9 and slightly smaller have achieved success at reducing both mites to very low levels in the field. Having stated that bare-bones manifesto, I must hasten to add that the question of Africanization has arisen and muddied the water during the period that this downsizing process has been underway at Lusbys. During the period during which this experiment has been underway, the Tucson area has been declared Africanised. Since AHB naturally uses cells in the 4.9 range, the suggestion has been made that the success of the experiment has been at least in part due to the new stock, and that a downsizing of EHB has not occurred. What is really happening is hard to say. Africanization is a very imprecise term. If proven, could it account for all the success? Or is it another red herring? Others, elsewhere in North America and Europe are attempting to replicate the work with standard off-the-shelf EHB, with varying success. Much of the evidence is anecdotal, and analysing what is really going on in a more intensive and scientific way could be very costly. Some attempts are underway, and hopefully as time passes, things will become more clear. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 04:13:40 +0100 Reply-To: olda.vancata@quicknet.se Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Olda Vancata Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202201222.g1KCMNA06890@listserv.albany.edu> Dee Lusby wrote: > The cell size also then influences the flight of the > honeybee and its speed, through changes in aerodynamics > relative to the density of the bees body and veining of > their wings for flight with added suttle changes of width > and length, which can have direct bearing on mating. Who mesured the speed of the flight? Can you present ANY numbers? Who did the "aerodynamic" study? Can you provide some density numbers? Or - are all those arguments used just to impress with tecnical/scientific terms without any evidence att all (as I suspect)? \vov ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 22:17:14 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: Thelytoky in Honey Bees, How Universal is it? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Allen and All, Allen wrote: Apparently it is not at all rare in the bees in the Tucson area. In = fact, I have heard from several sources, that it can be demonstrated at = will. If you look at the facts: Dr. Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, Tucson Bee lab, USDA-ars, Tucson, Ariz. = Told us in her talk at the ABF convention that ALL of Arizona bees = could be considered Africanized. That's her words from my notes.=20 Blane White and Dave Hamilton from the Bee-L list were also attending = the lecture.=20 Blane and Dave correct me if I am wrong about what she said. Dee quickly responded to my original post and said no study of all = Arizona bees had been run to support Dr. Hoffmans conclusions. My response is: NO SURVEY HAS BEEN RUN TO DISCOUNT THE HEAD OF THE TUCSON BEE LABS = CONCLUSIONS EITHER! Well maybe there is not enough study been done to convince Dee but there = has been to convince me . Trap lines have been maintained for years and = thousands of bees from feral swarms have been tested confirming = Africanization. THELYTOKY IS THE CALLING CARD OF THE ARICANIZED BEE AND SPECIFICALLY THE = CAPE BEE. I was surprised only by the degree of cape bee = characteristics Dr. Hoffman was seeing in Arizona bees but not at all = surprised to see Thelytoky being found in a KNOWN area of AHB.=20 Theltoky is clearly rare in other areas of the U.S. in my opinion. Will = even one U.S. beekeeper on the list from an area not known to be = Africanized step forward to report thelytoky in his/her bees? In my opinion (which I am never shy about giving unlike our timid = researchers it seems) Dees bees are showing the Theltoky = characteristic simply because of a degree of africanization. I see no = other conclusion. Some of those swarms Dee is catching ,hiving and = adding to your bees have got to be AHB.=20 Until I see proof by testing to show otherwise I simply see any other = conclusion.=20 Sincerely, Bob Harrison Ps. I am finally saying what I believe many on the list have wanted to = say for quite awhile!=20 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 08:24:19 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Up-sizing? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >* Over the past century, domestic bees in North America and Europe, > and parts of the world that follow their lead have been selected for > increased size >* Selection took place by 'eyeball' evaluation of queens and by deliberate > propagation of bees that did well on man-made foundation. >* Foundation sizes increased over that period, and the bees that did best > on the larger cells naturally continued to dominate both through survival > and deliberate human selection. >* Some of this selected gene pool could function well on both the larger > cells and on smaller cells -- even down to the bottom of the range that > was reported before foundation was introduced. Some could not. The size of queen bees has never been correlated to the size of the worker. The size of the workers was never evaluated by breeders and it has never been shown that *any* bees did poorly on this foundation and were therefore weeded out. That is pure conjecture. The ratio of "selected" bees to non-selected has always been small. The majority of queen bees are freely mated with drones from hundreds of unknown sources. Any real genetic change in the characteristics of honey bees requires natural or artificial isolation. >* The EHB natural range reportedly went as low as 4.9 mm, although 4.9 > was at the extreme low end of the range observed. The median was > somewhere in the region of 5.1 to 5.2 mm, as I recall, and ranged > from about 4.9 to 5.4. (The exact numbers are not all that important > here, so please bear with me) I think they are important. Crane gives the range of European honey bees as 5.1 to 5.5 and the median at 5.3. Our friend from Europe reports that bees raised in skeps average 5.3. Marla Spivak reports that bees raised in box hives in Costa Rica average 5.3. Crane gives the range of scutellata at 4.7 to 4.9 and the Africanized bees at 4.5 to 5.0. With these figures there is no overlap. >Others, elsewhere in North America and Europe are attempting to replicate >the work with standard off-the-shelf EHB, with varying success. Who? I have not seen anybody submit any results of any study where there is a side by side comparison of bees on large cells and small cells. Most of the people that are using small cell foundation, at least the ones who have talked about it on this forum, are trying to convert all the hives, on the assumption that it will work. Furthermore, it is the Lusby's contention that the bees have to be "retrogressed" to a small size. I don't see how the idea that European bees were somehow smaller than they are now can ever be proved. One would have to do careful measurements on specimens collected a hundred years ago. Perhaps there are such specimens, but I am afraid that the people capable of doing such work do not see any real justification for it. There are a least two reasons why this theory could not be receiving attention of mainstream scientists. 1) They are prejudiced against non-traditional approaches. 2) They believe is lacking in merit. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:01:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: thelytoky, revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Thelytoky occurs in several species of insects, but it is considered to be the exception to the rule. Schilder makes the case that it is an example of an evolutionary trend *back* to a more primitive form of insect: From 'Safer Without Sex" by Klaus Schilder: "Good examples of the initial step in reverse social evolution, facultive thelytoky in the absence of the queen, include the Cape honeybee. Unlike workers in other honey bee races, here workers possess several queen-like pre-adaptations that may have facilitated the evolution of thelytoky: Workers have an increased reproductive rate compared to the closely related A. m. scutellata, due to a higher number of ovarioles. Functional monogyny [one queen] is a reproductive strategy very sensitive to the loss of the sole reproductive. Thelytokous parthenogenesis is a possible adaptation to the threat of orphanage allowing worker groups to sustain a colony and possibly rear replacement queens. In capensis, risk of queen loss during mating flights may be particularly high due to strong and changing winds in the Cape region. Upon queen loss, orphaned colonies may requeen from the brood of the previous queen, an egg-laying worker, or remain a laying worker colony." [PB: it is important to add that no study (that I know of) has been done on the viability of queens reared by laying workers. It is plausible that most of these queens would be rapidly superseded by a normally raised queen, minimizing their contribution to the make-up of the colony, or the overall gene pool. It is known that colonies headed by laying workers tend to dwindle, even in the Cape Bee.] -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 08:22:58 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: IPM and SHB MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Tom and All Tom wrote: I was wondering are American beekeepers who have to contend with the = Small Hive Beetle, stuck with Coumaphos treatments, or is there an IPM = approach available for this pest? Coumaphos has helped but not the solution. =20 Posted on the Florida Beekeepers list are many IPM methods beekeepers = are trying.=20 One IPM method talked about which seems to help the most is to close = the lower entrance and use a entrance made from a piece of PVC pipe of = around one to one and a half inches.=20 It seems the small hive beetle is reluctant to enter such a small = opening guarded by guard bees. Most beekeepers I talked to in the = south open the entrance back up when the honey flow starts and reduce = when the flow is over.=20 Small hive beetle has been documented in 25 U.S. states now by the USDA = and is suspected in many others. Michael Brown our state bee inspector has just sent of another sample = of beetles found in another part of Missouri for testing. All Missouri = small hive beetle findings have been on the East Side of the state.. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Odessa, Missouri Ps. I miss my friends on your Irish beekeeping list Tom! Sadly I am = working long days getting ready for the coming year and Apple = pollination in a few weeks. Bee-L has been the only list I have had = time to do. I still read the Florida list in digest form but do not = respond although Doc posts my posts at times like he does your posts = Tom. =20 FloridaBeekeepers@yahoogroups.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:00:27 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Areas known to be unAfricanised Now that's an interesting thought. The media tells me AHB are still 2 counties to the south of my hives. A good percentage of those 400,000 hives brought to California are/have been parked around here to be built up by the eucalyptus. Fortunately, none of the drones from these hives entered mine :-( ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:38:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Arheit Subject: Re: Natural Comb Cell size In-Reply-To: <200202210150.g1L1mLlk004793@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 08:11 PM 2/20/02 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 20/02/02 05:01:30 GMT Standard Time, Peter Borst writes: > ><< And don't forget, the little mites are evolving faster than the bees, >> >Peter, why do you say this? Are there figures or references to which you can >direct us? Simply compare the length of a generation of each species and the existing number of variations in the current gene pool of each species. In a given hive bees have 1 to a dozen or so different sets of genes (depending on how many males the queen mated from) and the length of the generation before a new set of genes is created is 1 to 2 years. With mites you can easily have several hundred different sets and the generation is 1-2 months. This does not necessarily mean they are evolving faster (the process could stagnate due to lack of an outside influence, weather, food, chemicals etc.), but does mean they have more chances to evolve in the same amount of time. Greater diversity in the gene pool, and short generation times are key to faster changes/evolution. This is the reason bacteria can be so quick to evolve and adapt to condition with generations that can be short as minutes and huge numbers of individuals. -Tim ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 04:27:02 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dee said: >The cell size also then influences the flight of the honeybee and its speed, through changes in aerodynamics relative to the density of the bees body... Dee is very right. Although the bee changes scale, the air does not change density. Dick said: > ... A smaller bee would have a smaller body > and smaller wings. A larger bee would have a larger body with larger wings. > Wouldn’t the wing load per unit area be the same? No. The assumption is often made that where cell space or nutrition is greater or less that the resulting bees simply scale up or down in size and that the ratio of all linear dimensions between a big unrestrained bee and a smaller less well-fed or space-restricted bee would be the same for all body parts. It does not take much thought to see that this assumption is very suspect. Why would everything be exactly the same only bigger or smaller? Even if that were true, consider this area increases as the *square* of linear change. Volume and mass change as the *cube*. Thus body mass increases much faster than the wing area with size increase. What this means interms of lift, I have just enough engineering background to realize that I don't have a clue, and that I must wonder hard about anyone who claims to know, since the movements of bees wings are complex and there are enough vague factors that interract to make the problem almost unsolveable and definitely unguessable. Moreover, we have no way of guessing whether nature has compensating mechanisms in how the various body parts scale up and down in response to nutrition and pupal constriction.. > Does changing the size of a bee somehow change it’s relative density? Apaprently, according to an Egyptian study that Dee showed me, in which bees were raised in different sizes of cells. > Is a large cow somehow more dense than a small cow? Good question. If it is important to know, maybe ask on COW-L. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 07:42:56 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202210007.g1KCurgW007652@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Peter Borst wrote: >Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, unless I am mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work with Dee on this some time back? Reply: Actually both Gloria Degrandi-Hoffman and Dr Eric H. Erickson Jr did work with me and Ed. Please see: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/bsmay1991.htm Peter then wrote: It would still be extremely rare and can not be invoked as the mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for larger bees over the past 100 years. Not even among the Cape Bees does this manner of reproduction occur except under the unusual circumstance of a hive losing its queen and then losing the emergency queen. Reply: Quite true. It is only a backup system. Unfortunately, it is also a backup system that beekeepers have not been properly told how to address in field management. Peter also wrote: Mackensen's work, which hasn't been replicated (that I know of),showed what would happen if a hive was forced to raise a queen from unfertilized queen eggs, a circumstance which almost never occurs. Of these, only a small percentage succeeded. (Hepburn, 1998) Reply: The key to failure being forced to raise, which at improper timing during the active season would not work. Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:40:38 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob & Liz Subject: Re: Areas known to be unAfricanised MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello Tim and All, Tim wrote: Now that's an interesting thought. The media tells me AHB are still 2 counties to the south of my hives. The way the process works is similar to the small hive beetle = documentation going on with the USDA at present . Unless the USDA has a reason to look in your area or you send a = sample your area remains free of the problem until documented. Does not = however mean AHB or SHB are not IN your area. =20 With 25 states having documented cases of SHb to date guesses by apiary = inspectores range as high as half the remaining states have already got = the small hive beetle. Tim wrote: A good percentage of those 400,000 hives brought to California are/have been parked around here to be built up by the eucalyptus. A percentage of those hives Tim have got small hive beetle. Tim wrote: Fortunately, none of the drones from these hives entered mine :-( Surely you jest! California hives have got drones this time of year. We are waiting for = hives from Almonds to start early queen rearing as reports are they = have got mature drones. We will not get mature drones until around the = third week of March to April 1st. IF we are lucky with Missouri wintered = hives. Mature drones are the missing igrediant to raising early queens = in Missouri. Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:51:13 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Vanessa de Behr Subject: Re: Contaminants in Honey Comments: cc: Moira Law Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Moira wonders wether the following contaminants in unidentified honey are dangerous: PHENOL, SULFAMETHAZINE, SULFAMETHOXAZOLE, SULFAMONOMETHOXINE, SULFATHIAZOLE, TETRACYCLINE, CAPTAN, and OXYTETRACYCLINE. Well, it depends what you call 'dangerous'... and to whom! Even our beloved honey can be deadly when not used properly. A crash with a truck loaded with any of those products will surely harm you. ;-) A small internet search brings out loads of information: TETRACYCLINE and OXYTETRACYCLINE are antibiotics (kills bacteria) and thus are able to cure mammals, birds, reptiles and fishes from bacterial infections. Ingestion of antibiotics disrupt the mammals' gut flora, a small concern when one suffers from pneumonia... but very interesting for meat and fish production. SULFAMETHAZINE, SULFAMETHOXAZOLE, SULFAMONOMETHOXINE and SULFATHIAZOLE are antibacterials (kills bacteria) acting very similar to antibiotics. Some cure malaria. They have also a carcinogenic reputation. PHENOL is an effective antiseptic (kills germs) and anesthesic, but is a skin irritant with a carcinogenic reputation. CAPTAN is a fungicide (kills rot) used on fruit crops, and is added to gas to give it an odor. It also have a carcinogenic reputation, and is very irritant by inhalation and for the eyes. Vanessa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:26:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Genetic Diversity in a Varroa Population MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Simply compare the length of a generation of each species and the existing > number of variations in the current gene pool of each species. In a given > hive bees have 1 to a dozen or so different sets of genes... With mites > you can easily have several hundred different sets... I don't see why the mites, most females of which will breed with a brother, would have that many more *different* sets of genes than honey bees, queens of which may breed with distant hives, except where mites from several diverse sources heavily infest a colony. I assume that this latter case is not all that common except in a migratory situation where hives are moved to a common location, since mites are not able to fly except on a bee. What am I missing? allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 11:31:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Martin Damus Subject: Re: Natural Comb Cell size Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >In a given hive bees have 1 to a dozen or so different sets of genes >(depending on how many males the queen mated from) and the length of > the generation before a new set of genes is created is 1 to 2 years. With >mites you can easily have several hundred different sets and the >generation is 1-2 months. Oh, why not...let's wade in. This is in general true, but we must remember that neither North American honey bees nor North American mites have had the luxury of large founding populations. Both have undergone what in genetics is termed a genetic bottleneck (the amount of genetic variation in the founding population is less than what was in the parental population, due to imports either intentional or unintentional, of a very limited amount of their native gene pool). Therefore you can have 3 billion mites or bees that are genetically nearly the same due to sahred ancestry, and their effective population size is much smaller than their census population size. Absolute numbers mean little unless the genetic variability of the organism is considered (which is why we have inbreeding problems in zoos for instance). Because more bees have probably been imported than mites, bees may actually have a larger gene pool than the mites do. (I am only speculating, I don't *know* wh! ether or not the mites came from multiple introductions.) Now, it *is* true that the mite undergoes many more individual generations than do bees, but what is more important is that both the bees and beekeepers are imposing very strong selective forces on the mites, and whichever set of genes survives our selection pressure is passed on to succeeding mite generations. Basically speaking, by coddling our bees or any other monocultured 'crop' and trying to stave off their pests for them, we are reducing the selection pressure on the crop and increasing it on its pest. In the end, if the pest is not eradicated, those genes in its gene pool that confer an advantage against our selection pressure will spread to all pest populations (of the same species) very quickly, while the genes that may be present in our crop that protect against the pest never have a chance to really become dominant, because the benefit of their presence is not allowed to be fully expressed. So, the mites have the ability to evolve more rapidly, by nature of th! eir short generation time and our selection pressures on them, but their currently probably very limited gene pool will retard that evolution until genes or gene complexes that confer an advantage are created through mutation, recombination or other genetic phenomena. If those genes are already present, though, they will spread rapidly. This is on purpose very simplistic, and anybody wanting to pick a fight over it, or wanting elaboration, please email me directly. Martin Damus ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:38:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: What is "complex mongrel breeding"? Comments: cc: Dee Lusby Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Dee Lusby writes: >This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter relative to >complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of artificially enlarged >combs which add steps of regression for downsizing into the scenario >and retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding >mixtures. Unanswered questions: 1. What is "complex mongrel breeding"? 2. What is a "piled on breeding mixture"? * (these are not conventional terms) 3. Do you have a "true" type of honey bee? 4. Where did it come from? I wrote: >It would still be extremely rare and can not be invoked as >the mechanism in any sort of unintentional selection for >larger bees over the past 100 years. Reply: >Quite true. It is only a backup system. Unfortunately, it >is also a backup system that beekeepers have not been >properly told how to address in field management. So then you do *not* claim this as the route by which bees "acquired" the larger size? By the way, we do advise beekeepers on how to deal with laying workers: kill them. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:35:57 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Cal French Subject: Testing for Checkmite+ In-Reply-To: <200202210502.g1L4Zho2009758@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed No one, as far as I could tell, has responded to my request for information about a lab that will test honey to see if it contains any coumaphos. Are there none available to a private person? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:12:17 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: stimey Subject: miticide rotation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable After 2 yrs. of checkmite I would like to rotate treatment to apistan. = Checkmite has given excellant results, but I believe switching treatment = will prolong its effectiveness. Will apistan be effective ? If the mites = were tolerant to apistan after 2 yrs. with checkmite those mites would = have been targeted and their offspring more suseptable due to lack of = exsposure. Does anybody have any experiance with this practice . I treat = once a year in early fall. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 09:55:41 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Up-sizing? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The size of queen bees has never been correlated to the size of the > worker. The size of the workers was never evaluated by breeders... Does this mean there is no correlation, or that it has never been studied? Common sense would lead one to suspect that there is a relationship. If genetically larger stock tends to larger queens, then selecting large queens -- a universal practice -- would select for larger stock. N'est-ce pas? > and it has never been shown that *any* bees did poorly on this foundation > and were therefore weeded out. That is pure conjecture. Has this matter been examined? If not disproven, then it is possible. Actually, however the reverse is what is suggested: that the ones which did best on the larger foundation were encouraged. > The ratio of "selected" bees to non-selected has always been small. > The majority of queen bees are freely mated with drones from hundreds > of unknown sources. Any real genetic change in the characteristics of > honey bees requires natural or artificial isolation. This is true in some areas and not in others. There is evidence that local populations select themselves in areas where feral bees are common and that these feral populations tend to somewhat stubbornly retain their characteristics -- if I understand what T.M. sent us each recently. This correlates with what Dee and others claim. Feral populations are hard to change. Actually, I think you just said that too -- sorta. > >* The EHB natural range reportedly went as low as 4.9 mm, although 4.9 > > was at the extreme low end of the range observed... > I think they are important. Crane gives the range of European honey > bees as 5.1 to 5.5 and the median at 5.3... I went through a lot of stuff on BioBee ( BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com ) and came away less convinced of the range given above and more willing to give some credence to the numbers I gave. I may have gotten overcome by all the material and confused, since there are many red herrings and much misinformation in the discussions there, but I seem to recall a number of credible sources being quoted to move the lower end of the range down to include 4.9mm. Maybe someone else with more time will assemble all that info and present it concisely here? > >Others, elsewhere in North America and Europe are attempting to replicate > >the work with standard off-the-shelf EHB, with varying success. > > Who? I have not seen anybody submit any results of any study where > there is a side by side comparison of bees on large cells and small > cells. Most of the people that are using small cell foundation, at > least the ones who have talked about it on this forum, are trying to > convert all the hives, on the assumption that it will work. That is the problem, and moreover not all thsoe trying small cell are telling the whole truth about what they are doing. > Furthermore, it is the Lusby's contention that the bees have to be > "retrogressed" to a small size. I don't see how the idea that > European bees were somehow smaller than they are now can ever be > proved. One would have to do careful measurements on specimens > collected a hundred years ago. Perhaps there are such specimens, but > I am afraid that the people capable of doing such work do not see any > real justification for it. True, but there is considerable writing from that time and much of it is quoted on BioBee. I see the historical aspect to be a bit of a red herring though -- a distraction from the real issues. > There are a least two reasons why this theory could not be receiving > attention of mainstream scientists. 1) They are prejudiced against > non-traditional approaches. 2) They believe is lacking in merit. Exactly. I think, however it is, but no one wants to get involved with such a tar-baby. Both the above are valid reasons, but there are other possible reasons too. 3). The problem is complex and perhaps indeterminate. It will not stay still to be studied, and the waters are already muddied. 4). The question might turn out to be moot. 6). Some of the people involved get hot fast and the matter gets political 7). Studying this might involve contradicting and disproving a favourite colleague or mentor and reversing the current trends in bee thought -- a perilous course for anyone wanting a good job in this rather small industry again. (Right, Adrian?) 6). There is easier and less controversial work to do, and if the whole thing proves to have merit, then the mainstream people can comfortably work on it. Anyhow, you are wrestling with this now, and I hope you don't get too muddy. Thanks for keeping an open mind and pursuing the truth in this. The truth is out there. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:10:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kyle Lewis Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size On Tue, 19 Feb 2002, Richard Yarnell wrote: >What happens if, instead of putting plastic or wax foundation stamped with >a pre-set cell pattern of size x, one installs blank sheets of foundation? GO FOR IT! The bees know what cell size suits them. Some cell size data: I installed two packages of bees last spring. They were Italians from a supplier in Texas. I put them on frames with just a top strip of beeswax. They drew comb with cells measuring 5.1 to 5.2 mm IN THE WORKER BROOD AREA. When you measure cell size, be sure to measure in the worker brood area, the center of the comb. Measurements outside of this area add confusion to the cell size data collection. Cheers, Kyle ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:29:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <20020221154256.16497.qmail@web12402.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Peter Borst wrote: >>Gloria Degrandi-Hofman has reported observing just that, >unless I am mistaken, and did not Erickson do some work >with Dee on this some time back? I did not write this. Allen did. Please pay closer attention to who is writing. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 13:17:40 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Up-sizing? In-Reply-To: <002901c1baf8$9903bfa0$b7e5a1c6@allen> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Allen writes >Anyhow, you are wrestling with this now, and I hope you don't get too muddy. > >Thanks for keeping an open mind and pursuing the truth in this. Why, thanks. I do try to stay open, but there are facts to be dealt with. If one no longer believes in verifiable facts, one is lost. me: >it has never been shown that *any* bees did poorly on this foundation >and were therefore weeded out. That is pure conjecture. Allen: >Has this matter been examined? If not disproven, then it is possible. >Actually, however the reverse is what is suggested: that the ones which did >best on the larger foundation were encouraged. Sure it has. Just like everyone is saying, bees were given larger cells than normal. I don't dispute this! They didn't mind and the bees *were* a little bigger. But this characteristic did not become incorporated into their genes, is what I am saying. me: > The ratio of "selected" bees to non-selected has always been small. > The majority of queen bees are freely mated with drones from hundreds > of unknown sources. Any real genetic change in the characteristics of > honey bees requires natural or artificial isolation. Allen: >This is true in some areas and not in others. There is evidence that local >populations select themselves in areas where feral bees are common and that >these feral populations tend to somewhat stubbornly retain their >characteristics I am not simply talking about feral populations. Even though many beekeepers buy queens, not all do. Many never requeen, some use bought queens only for increase, some raise their own, some requeen every hive every year (and a lot of these get superseded). If there are 200 million hives in this country, how many are headed by bought queens? Anybody want to guess? (I don't know, but I would bet much more than 50% are headed by queens raised by the bees themselves and mated to the local population.) -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 08:44:56 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robt Mann Subject: Captan =?iso-8859-1?Q?=82?= mercaptan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >CAPTAN is a fungicide (kills rot) used on fruit crops, and is added to gas >to give it an odor. This is a confusion of a common or commercial name Captan for a particular synthetic compound with the word MERCAPTAN (= thiol = sulfhydryl) for a class of compounds containing the -SH pair of atoms. It is small molecules of this latter class that are added to natural gas and LPG to assist leak detection by scent. The proprietary fungicide Captan® is not added to gas. R ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:42:42 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size In-Reply-To: <200202201725.g1KHO6lo016368@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L I wrote: >This depends upon how you look on the situation Peter relative to complex mongrel breeding coupled with usage of artificially enlarged combs which add steps of regression for downsizing into the scenario and retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding mixtures. Peter now has written: Questions: 1. What is "complex mongrel breeding"? 2. What is a "piled on breeding mixture"? (these are not conventional terms) 3. Do you have a "true" type of honey bee? 4. Where did it come from? Reply: Well, in apiculture, complex mongrels may be obtained by the participation of three or more races/strains of honeybees or as some might say inter-race/strain hybrids. This is normally done for better queen proliferation and/or colony productivity. My reference to using retrogression for reversing the layers of piled on breeding mixtures is basicly the reversal of either natural or artificial hybirdized combinations of large or small caste races/strains of hot or col-weather bees, resulting in the production of uniform progeny within the framework of a full naturalized breeding program, which will then result in each separation achieved, breeding true to their own hor or cold-weather characteristics and large or small caste delineations. Now Peter, results can only be achieved by the use of stress-breeding at either the beginning or the end of the selected race/strain breeding cycles where no overlap occurs, one projecter breeder-cycle to the other(s). Artificial races/strains can then be created by mimicing the natural races/strains where complex mongrelization has taken place, to gain uniformity of characteristics then necessary for the advancement of desirable traits i.e. gentleness and production. Peter, what exactly do you mean by "true" type of honey bee in your mind? I know what it means to me. ----------------------------------------- Peter wrote: In normal beekeeping practice, and in nature, a hive with laying workers is rare. Many beekeepers kill the colony by dumping it out in the bushes. Reply: I can see why it would be rare if beekeepers are taught to destroy what they do not know,and it is actually a very good trait and a safety net for the colony for survival. Sad just so sad, this practice. Peter wrote: I have seen the little drones produced by laying workers and I doubt if they could ever mate with a queen. Reply: Even F. Ruttner wrote that it is of no sifnificance whether drones come from queens or worker bees. The lattter can be used for rearing drones in experiments and selection programmes. Before him Shaskolsky in 1935 wrote the same thing. Sorry you have not tried to work with them. It is a good way of getting drones out of season for early startup or late queening programs. As far as queens appearing in laying worker hives, this is so rare that no one has ever seen it except you and Otto Mackensen (excepting Cape Bees, of course). To invoke laying workers as a *significant pathway* of heredity is incorrect. You are resorting to a very complicated explanation to back up your theory. Reply: Like I said up above, shaking bees into bushes does not exactly help the situation, by being afraid of it and therefore wanting to get rid of it, rather then working with it. Yes it is a significant pathway of much importance, more so then many realize. But, it is not major over normal breeding routes of natural progression and/or retrogressive breeding. Bee breeding should be a whole-bee concept and worked that way. One does not throw away parts of it naturally found in nature and then expect to have successful breeding programs that are long-term. Current inbreeding programs with their mounting problems should be testiment to this!! Again best regards to you: Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:31:24 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Hubbard Subject: do I HAVE to paint treated hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I've just treated a new hive with copper naphthenate. It looks quite nice. Do I have to paint it or would it be OK as is? Not a wood expert! Thanks for your help! Mark hubbard@cofo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 16:46:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Arheit Subject: Re: Genetic Diversity in a Varroa Population In-Reply-To: <200202211703.g1LCNX5s017686@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 09:26 AM 2/21/02 -0700, you wrote: >I don't see why the mites, most females of which will breed with a brother, >would have that many more *different* sets of genes than honey bees, queens >of which may breed with distant hives, except where mites from several >diverse sources heavily infest a colony. I assume that this latter case is >not all that common except in a migratory situation where hives are moved to >a common location, since mites are not able to fly except on a bee. What am >I missing? The different sets may not vary by much. In most sexual production the process of production of the gametes ensures that most offspring are unique, and even though brothers and sisters are very similar they vary to a small degree. Each individual and each generation represents a chance of that small difference being something significant (like resistance to camphorus). This chance is significantly reduced in the honey bee (as compared to the mites) because the male is half diploid and contributes identical sperm (as apposed to normal cell division that results in non identical sperm), and the number of new reproducing individuals created over a period of time is small, only a few new queens every year. Selective breeding does speed up the process by breeding many queens and eliminating all but the best, rather than natures few queens and eliminating only the few weak. Of course human intervention has had a significant impact on the natural process. The introduction of chemicals to control mites has forced selective breeding on the mites as well as allowing weak queens (hives) to survive mite infestation keeping weak mite susceptible genes available. Breeding programs, SMR, natural treatments, etc. will or have a further effect on the gene pool, both for the bees and the mites. I believe, in general, that only using chemical and IPM methods without a breeding program will eventually leave bees at a disadvantage simply because the mites have more generations and reproductive members vs. bees. And anyone who does any sort of IPM or mite treatment is selectively breeding mites (until someone finds a treatment that kills all mites), yet relatively few actively selectively breed bees (simply raising bees from known stock doesn't count). -Tim ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:13:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Races or types Comments: cc: Dee Lusby In-Reply-To: <20020221204242.1202.qmail@web12403.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Dee Lusby writes: >Peter, what exactly do you mean by "true" type of honey bee in your >mind? I know what it means to me. In conventional beekeeping these are referred to as races or sub-species, such as the Italian, Carniolan, etc. From what you have said, you seem to be saying that "mongrels" are a bad thing, when compared to their opposite -- an unmixed type. Do you have such a type, or race, and where did it come from? -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:57:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Closing of bee labs (more disappearance of beekeepers than the labs) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob & Liz wrote (or maybe Jim did): > The problems are known by all large beekeepers when they sit around a meeting or > restaurant table. The solutions all have come up with will still not make the U.S. > beekeeper able to compete in a world market place. Labor costs , fuel costs and the > amount of expensive trucking involved are three big problems beside the low price for > honey. One problem we see in Maine is the undercutting of other pollinators by just one or two who have no idea what they are doing or are just trying to stay afloat. Their price is used by th growers to drive the price for pollinating down for everyone else. Capitalism does work. There are several options, the worst is to let nature take its course and let the little guy go under until only a few large pollinating companies remain. But why not create pollinating cooperatives just like other co-ops in agriculture, like Ocean Spray, Sunkist, etc.. Then you are negotiating from strength and not as a bunch of struggling companies. Most growers know the value of pollination, especially the blueberry growers. They also are shrewd businessmen who know how to divide and conquer. Price the product, pollination, fairly so the pollination business will survive without honey as the break even (or any) factor. Especially since there are some years when there is no honey from pollinating blueberry fields and, most of the time, none from cranberries. One common bargining tactic is the grower includes the beekeepers honey in pricing. (We have had many people ask for free pollination because "After all, you get to keep the honey.") Been away visiting relatives for two weeks and happy to see all continued normally on the list with opinion is still displacing facts about two to one. (Even FGMO came back... but mercifully disappeared.) The cell size discussion has been excellent. Both reasoned and calm. Now that I am back I will try to get the ratio of opinion to fact up to a more natural 3:1. Bill Truesdell Bath, Me ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:26:48 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Milt Lathan Subject: How to encourage Comb Building? Hello Folks, I am looking for tips on how to get my over-wintered colonies (and 3 new packages) to produce as many built-out combs from foundation as possible this year. I'm hoping to hear that there is something Other than "feed them a lot" that one can do. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:55:28 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lionel Evans Subject: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MOST and I mean MOST do not agree with me, but I prime and paint inside and outside with the best that I can get and they last longer by far. I have tried only painting the outside and have tried priming and painting only the outside. No question for me. The moisture cannot penetrate from the inside as easily and will last far longer. I live in North Alabama. Lionel ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:01:45 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Nick Wallingford Subject: Dissertation relating to BEE-L... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" For the last two years I've returned to tertiary study to get a qualification (Master of Computing) from UNITEC in Auckland, New Zealand. Almost every paper I took I managed to work beekeeping into somehow or other! For my dissertation, the equivalent of 6 months of study, I wrote "An Analysis of Posting Frequency, Size and Source for an Electronic Mail Distribution List". I took 12 years of postings to BEE-L - 35,852 messages - and analysed them in a number of ways - almost all of them quantitatively, rather than for content... You can find the dissertation on line at: http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/dissertation Here is the abstract: Internet electronic mail lists provide a means for groups of individuals to communicate effectively, as well as providing an archive of messages for future analysis. This dissertation examines one such electronic mail distribution list to identify the range of information that is contained in the metadata of the historical archive of the list. The dissertation quantitatively analyses the list archives to extract information to identify trends and to quantify the changes that have occurred during the list's existence. List activity, as expressed in terms of number of messages in a given time period, is shown to vary dramatically. Other measures of activity, including size of messages over time are examined and discussed. The origins of the messages - by person, country, domain and nature of domain - are examined to extract the full range of details contained within the information stored with each message in the list archives. Measures of individual activity are provided for the individuals who were the most active participants on the distribution list, as well as those members who only ever contributed one single message. Information from the message headers and subject lines are examined and compared over the period of the list history. Other activity measures relating to the date and time of postings are examined to identify seasonal, weekly and daily trends in activity on the list. The domain of origin, and where able to be obtained, the country of origin, are determined and analysed to promote a further understanding of the changing nature of the list's contributors. The impact of moderation, the rejection and editing of some messages submitted, is analysed in terms of number, size and similar features. Changes over time in the nature of the participants contributing to the list are quantified, supporting statements that over the twelve years of the list the proportion of scientists, educators and regulators on the list has reduced as the number of hobbyist and commercial beekeepers has increased. Changes in international participation on the list are also examined, with the conclusion that there has probably been a narrowing of participation after a peak in the late 1990's. Nick Wallingford in Tauranga, New Zealand nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:09:24 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: Races or types In-Reply-To: <200202212354.g1LND4ns009562@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >In conventional beekeeping these are referred to as races or >sub-species, such as the Italian, Carniolan, etc. From what you have >said, you seem to be saying that "mongrels" are a bad thing, when >compared to their opposite -- an unmixed type. > >Do you have such a type, or race, and where did it come from? This may be a suitable stage in the discussion to point out that, in the very best studied species (_Homo sapiens_), the attempt to define races *in detail* turns out to be a failure. The most educated, cultured nation gave this issue very high priority 1923-45 but could not construct coherent intelligible definitions & rational implementation protocols for breeding the master race and suppressing e.g. the 'sub-human Slavs'. For what may well be the 2nd-best-studied sp, _A. mell._, I believe we are seeing the corresponding attempt bogging down in quicksands which are only in part caused by lack of scientific method in some participants. I suspect they are real quicksands of logic. It looks to me as if the bee races are no clearer than, say, Polynesian; and having lived in the biggest Polynesian city for 3 decades and grappled with racism which is being fomented on a large scale by the government, I am surer than ever that human races, while not meaningless, are pretty vague. Are the bee races or subspp any clearer? I do suggest that the phenomenon of *hybrid vigour* is real; i.e. inbreeding shouldn't be overdone. But what is pure and what is mongrel is a question the Germans couldn't cope with, and neither can I, so let's not try to make too much of it. In the spirit of conciliation R ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 17:58:46 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Natural comb cell size Comments: To: olda.vancata@QUICKNET.SE In-Reply-To: <200202211244.g1LCNXmC017686@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi to all on BEE-L Olda wrote: Who mesured the speed of the flight? Can you present ANY numbers? Who did the "aerodynamic" study? Can you provide some density numbers? Or - are all those arguments used just to impress with tecnical/scientific terms without any evidence att all (as I suspect)? Reply: This arguments are basic knowledge written since the 1920 & 1930s that anyone interested in beekeeping can easily find in published articles in "Bee World". Speed of bees and flight and density of body is nothing new, or at least I thought it wasn't. Are you new to beekeeping? Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 20:42:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Re: Areas known to be unAfricanised Yes, Bob, I was being ironic. But now you've given me another worry!! Why did you have to remind me of the Small Hive Beetle!! And me with a dentist appoitment!! Oh, well, at least I treated with Checkmite. Of course, it was about 2 months before all those out of State hives came in..... :-( Regards from the formerly safe side of our land mass. Tim Vaughan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 20:35:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Re: coumaphos in honey Cal, contact Sue Bee honey in their Southern California office. They will tell you how to contact the lab they use to test for coumaphos and other chemicals. Regards Tim Vaughan