From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 07:42:11 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-83.2 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,ADVANCE_FEE_2, AWL,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SPF_HELO_PASS,USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=disabled version=3.1.8 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 065E849083 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:41 -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 n1SCP3sS010167 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:38 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0207C" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Message-ID: Content-Length: 247894 Lines: 5752 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 16:19:01 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: fire ants and wax worms In-Reply-To: <3D31E812.50704@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> I forgot to mention -- fire-ants sometimes do a pretty good job of cleaning >> out wax-moth larvae from dead-out boxes. Just set the box on an ant-hill. What a handy method of biological control! Unfortunately :-], according to a poster claim by a commercial Crown Research Institute within the current NZ National Beekeepers' Assn annual confab, NZ is the *only* country in which the fire-ant has been exterminated. No need to reassure me we didn't make a mistake by exterminating them. I congratulate those who did it, and only wish similar effort had been made on a couple more recent introduced pests. R ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 08:00:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Greetings I cannot believe we are going back over this topic. I do not see anything new being added. Anyone who has not read Martin's paper, I can send it. "Although reproduction of Varroa is affected by the space between the developing bee and cell wall, reducing cell sizes as a mite control method will probably fail to be effective since the bees are likely to respond by rearing correspondingly smaller bees" (from "Reproduction of Varroa destructor in South African honey bees: does cell space influence Varroa male survivorship?" by Stephen J. MARTIN, Per KRYGER) -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 08:21:23 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: huestis' Subject: Re: A grand experiment Comments: To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, James wrote: > No, in fact, the opposite is true. The early equipment must have > been designed for the bees of the day. All I can tell you is that 4.9 bees do respect the space of 10 frame langstroth equipment (I'm talking frame spacing of the Hoffman type and vertical spacing). Some US equi[ment my now have poor spacing I haven't measured all the various manufacturers. Yet in my 4.9 colonies the bees even with a bit smaller body sizing still obey the spacing. But 11 frame COULD be used. James also wrote: > It has to do with the claimed mechanism for mite suppression, > which, to paraphrase, has been said to be reduction of "excess > room" in the cells, leaving a space that allows mite entry, but not > reproduction. James in my post I was taking about the distance of midrib to midrib of combs NOT cells. I was asking what the spacing of the above would have to do with natural mite suppression (I should clarify the point)? > a) Are people seeing the impact of cell size on > mites, or are they seeing nothing more than > the effect of "taking one's losses", to end up > with a "mite-resistant survivor bee" in the process > of "regressing" their bees, and giving credit to > the foundation? This is my early conclusions: About 80% is due to cell size and about 20% to resistance. I should explain this a bit more however. The losses seem to be due to a lack of good 4.9 brood combs the first season. Giving a high over all loss which one could mistake as the loss of nonresistant stock. When in actuality one doesn't have comb #'s of 4.9 to control varroa well enough. To test this, one could give 4.9mm bees and 5.4mm > bees no foundation at all (or plain wax starter strips) > for several generations, and watch what happens, but > this would take years. Yes James. We don't have years. Which is the reason for the high initial loss of bees when coverting to 4.9 due to lack of combs as one does have to start with nothing the first season. The bees don't draw 4.9 brood combs all season! Only till the honey flow then you get 4.9 honey combs of which there is a difference. > How could the two sizes of bees: > > 1) Use the same "yardstick" for dealing > with openings and deciding to propolize, > leave alone, or fill with comb They don't use one. > 2) Yet somehow use different "yardsticks" > when making cells? Easy. Bees use two separate sizes in a colony. I believe over the years the beekeeper seems to think that due to movable combs they can just put any frame where they like. There is a honey comb and a brood comb and really shouldn't be interchanged. I believe Phillips talks about this in his book. and others. > with "bee space" and see (more) propolis around frame lugs > makes me wonder what is going on here. I don't see this. It remains the same. Many using 4.9 are using caucasian bees which just use more it has more to due with race than anything else. > These are very small differences, and if one could test 4.9mm > against 5.0mm to narrow down the reason why 5.0mm fails > where 4.9mm works, one would go a long way towards > proving that "size does matter". 5.0 doesn't really fail it still does the job but honey production wasn't what it should be. Clay ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 07:33:17 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I cannot believe we are going back over this topic. I do not see anything new being added. We regularly revisit topics, especially after time passes. Our policy is to keep an open mind and keep up with the latest happenings. At this point, some of the material is repetetive, since list members change, and of those that remain, not all can recall all the details. Nonetheless, we assume that -- if discussion is allowed to run its course -- we will find out if anything new has been learned. I see some new material coming from this: a number of people have tried the idea and have comments to make. Lusbys are another year down the road and Dee is agreeing to something like the test you were demanding. > Anyone who has not read Martin's paper, I can send it. I hope you are not suggesting that because someone wrote a paper that the matter is setled forever? I hope not. Whether the topic itself is sound and has merit, we have derived a great deal of benefit from the issues it has raised. Hopefully the topic will continue here, but not dominate all discussion -- or be a source of intolerance. I'd like to have a report from Dee on how many hives they have now and how the honey production is working out. I'd also like to see other old topics come back from time to time, like FGMO, for example. I understand that it is working in a niche application, and am curious if it will ever hit the mainstream. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 08:41:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: Bees attacking wristwatches Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dave and Everyone, Dave wrote in part about the tendency of his bees to attack his watch: "With hindsight and not originally paying that much attention, I guess around the edges of the watch, but not the glass itself. A greater density of activity on the strap than the watch, but I would not guess any numbers." Yes my bees also sting round my wristwatch so I usually remove it before or after they remind me. I always figured that it was the contrast between the watchband and my skin that they were homing in on. The same would also explain their tendency to go for the eyes - there is usually a strong visual contrast between the eyes and the surrounding area either skin in the case of humans or fur in the case of animals. Experiments have shown that bees and other insects as well see such contrasting areas very well and tend to key on them. If it is the contrast, any band with or without a watch should get a similar response. And yes bees and other insects also respond very strongly to smell so that could also be part of the picture. My bees tend to sting me right next to the watchband. It is a sweaty, black nylon band so there is sharp visual contrast as well as strong scent but removal of the watch even after being stung usually results in no further stinging in the area. Interesting that eye glasses ( yes I use them ) also present a sharp visual change for the bees to home in on. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:48:30 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rodney asks if I put on three RR supers at one time, or put them on one at a time. All three are put on at one time. When I time this right, which I was lucky enough to do this year, in a week the super next to the brood nest will be about 75% complete and the next two up will be 40%-60% complete. To travel stain down, the super next to the brood nest then needs to be rotated to the top of the stack, and the one on the top but next to the brood nest. It is now 2.5 weeks since I put the supers on, and I am down to 2 supers per hive; the others having been filled and completed. 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: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:04:15 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Everyone, Some interesting comments on the effects of cell size on varroa resistance in honeybees. How important is cell size to varroa resistance? Some examples and references have been discussed but there is another ongoing study that may give more information. Tibor Szabo and Daniel Szabo report on their ongoing breeding effort in Ontario Canada in the June 2002 issue of the Amreican Bee Journal. For five years they have been raising queens from the colonies in their test that have low varroa numbers, show hygenic behavior, and are good honey producers as well as overwinter. Their data show that the first three years didn't seem to make much difference on varroa numbers but the last two years have resulted in low stable varroa mite numbers. They treat their colonies with apistan but breed from those with the lowest varroa mite populations in the fall. It appears they are moving toward a much more varroa tolerant/resistant bee population with thier selection program. Their results are not due to cell size as they have not resized their combs but varroa tolerance is increasing due to the selection of breeder colonies with lower varroa mite population buildup during the year. Their results are very much along the lines of the results reported by Erickson et all in their work in Arizona USA. Selection for slower varroa population buildup seems to work independent of cell size. Of course the SMR and Russian stocks show the same thing. One can get varroa tolerance/resistance by selecting for it regardless of cell size. Interesting discussion guess we all should be selecting for reduced varroa reproduction in our bees if we are raising queens. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 09:49:14 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Peter Borst posted: "Although reproduction of Varroa is affected by the space between the developing bee and cell wall, reducing cell sizes as a mite control method will probably fail to be effective since the bees are likely to respond by rearing correspondingly smaller bees" (from "Reproduction of Varroa destructor in South African honey bees: does cell space influence Varroa male survivorship?" by Stephen J. MARTIN, Per KRYGER) Reply: While reproduction of varroa is probably effected by the space to a lesser degree, the rest of the above statement is supposition. Further to give sound bites instead of trying to use a wholebee concept for looking at the whole picture for what is happening is in my mind wrong. Other things to be taken into consideration for control are: 1.Size of cell 2.Length of time of emergence (overall) 3.Size of pond of royal jelly 4.Amount of JGH available for first blood meal (trigger for varroa reproduction) 5.the quality of propolis shellacing the inside of the broodcell (and elsewhere in the colony). 6.Time of year and where in picture to a flow 7.Overall strength of the colony concerning division of labor. Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 14:00:26 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Blane White wrote: They treat their colonies with apistan but breed from those with the lowest varroa mite populations in the fall. It appears they are moving toward a much more varroa tolerant/resistant bee population with thier selection program. Reply: This is interesting fact to know! Blane further wrote: Their results are very much along the lines of the results reported by Erickson et all in their work in Arizona USA. Reply: This I can very much relate to if results are very much along the same lines! Blane further wrote: Of course the SMR and Russian stocks show the same thing. One can get varroa tolerance/resistance by selecting for it regardless of cell size. Reply: So are they basically doing the same thing then? Are any drugs additionally used also? Blane ended writing: Interesting discussion guess we all should be selecting for reduced varroa reproduction in our bees if we are raising queens. Reply: Yes, very interesting discussion, and yes we all should be selecting for bees that can handle varroa. One question though! Does adding the apistan to the methodology mean the bees will always have to be doped with it or something else stronger down the road? Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 15:13:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Wayne F. Young" Subject: Drawn Comb Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hi Everyone, Can anyone give me the name and address of any place that I can buy drawn out combs in frames instead of just foundation? My bees have been doing fine in the brood chambers which were pretty much drawn out to start with.For some reason they are not yet drawing out the foundations in the 6&1/4" frames.To save time,and maybe avoid any swarming problems I would like to get the drawn combs if possible. Thank You in advance Wayne Young ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 02:21:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Peter Borst posted: "Although reproduction of Varroa is affected by the space between the developing bee and cell wall, reducing cell sizes as a mite control method will probably fail to be effective since the bees are likely to respond by rearing correspondingly smaller bees" (from "Reproduction of Varroa destructor in South African honey bees: does cell space influence Varroa male survivorship?" by Stephen J. MARTIN, Per KRYGER) Dee Lusby: While reproduction of varroa is probably effected by the space to a lesser degree, the rest of the above statement is supposition. Further to give sound bites instead of trying to use a wholebee concept for looking at the whole picture for what is happening is in my mind wrong. Reply: I have tried looking at "the whole picture". You say that your bees have low mite counts. (What are the counts?) You say that it is due to 1) small cells, 2) nutrition, 3) breeding. You don't explain what nutritional factors are involved. Some special pollen source? You refuse to allow that the bees you are breeding from may be heavily Africanized, which renders almost all your conclusions irrelevant, since most of the rest of us are not interested in owning African bees. Read the whole paper. He documents the fact that *small bees* on *small comb* still have PLENTY of mites. "Mite populations in AHB fluctuate during the year but their numbers rarely exceed several thousand (Medina and Martin, 1999; Vandame et al., 1999) while mite populations in both A. m. scutellata and A. m. capensis colonies have been reported to regularly exceed 10 000 (Allsopp, 1998; Allsopp et al., 1999; Allsopp, 2000)." (from "Reproduction of Varroa destructor in South African honey bees: does cell space influence Varroa male survivorship?" by Stephen J. MARTIN, Per KRYGER) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 20:27:26 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Drawn Comb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Wayne, Bees will NOT draw foundation without a nectar flow being present. You can use 1:1 sugar syrup as a "substitute" for a nectar flow; and this works well in the spring, but not too well in hot weather of summer. Hoping not to offend you, but perhaps you should read some VERY FINE BOOK like the 1998 3rd Edition of Dr. Diana Sammataro's THE BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK, or the 1992 Extensively Revised Edition of the HIVE AND HONEY BEE. I hope I have helped. George Imirie Certified EAS Master Beekeeper Beginning my 70th year of beekeeping in Maryland Past President of Maryland State Beekeepers Author of monthly George's PINK PAGES found on the Internet at www.beekeeper.org/george_imirie/index.html www.cybertours.com/~midnitebee/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:08:31 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "g.bongard" Subject: Pollen Substitutes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi Listers Has anyone been delving into substitutes recently. I am in the process = of developing a mixture for this coming season. Have been ready = several books and looking through the Web. Ingredients I will be using are Soya, Brewers yeast, Milk powder, sugar. Have read that the addition of egg yolk enhances the product, and the = Aussies seem to be adding Pollard as well. All suggestions will be consumed with delight! I have areas of no natural pollen for the first month or two at the = beginning of brood rearing. Hence the need for supplements. Regards Geoff Bongard New Zealand ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 23:44:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Allen Subject: Re: Bees attacking wristwatches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Beekeepers: My wristwatch has never, ever been attacked by honeybees. Today while examining a hive a bee stung me on my left wrist where a watch would normally be worn by a right-handed person. I was wearing my watch on my right wrist as many left-handed people do, and the bees completely ignored it. Could it be that bees simply home in on the left wrist of beekeepers??? Could it be, too, that all the people who’ve had their watches attacked were wearing them on their left wrist??? Dick ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 20:39:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A Gramd Experiment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020716021254.009e9720@postoffice4.mail.cornell.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Peter Borst wrote: I have tried looking at "the whole picture". You say that your bees have low mite counts. (What are the counts?) Reply: Not enough to be worth the time for the USDA to officially do another official mite count test since 1997. Peter also wrote: You say that it is due to 1) small cells, 2) nutrition, 3) breeding. You don't explain what nutritional factors are involved. Some special pollen source? Reply: Real honey and pollen from various plants in the field the bees forage upon. Per then wrote: You refuse to allow that the bees you are breeding from may be heavily Africanized, which renders almost all your conclusions irrelevant, since most of the rest of us are not interested in owning African bees. Reply: How true! After reading the information you gave about them I am certainly glad no DNA has ever showed our bees to be that way. I am also glad to know you say MAY BE and are doubtful also! Peter then wrote: Read the whole paper. He documents the fact that *small bees* on *small comb* still have PLENTY of mites. Reply: Sure am glad we don't have bees DNA documented to be like that! Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 03:20:03 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Allen Subject: Re: Pollen Substitutes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Geoff: There is some mention in The Hive and the Honey Bee on powdered milk and soy flour for use as a pollen substitute in the chapter on Honey Bee Nutrition. I found the remarks confusing. See these two posts on Bee-L. http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0204D&L=bee-l&P=R978 http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0204D&L=bee-l&D=0&P=2983 Good luck on the pollen substitute. I've had problems getting bees to eat the stuff. I bought some of Dadants product called ‘Brood Builder’ last spring. The package came with this warning: “Discontinue using this product if it results in too many honeybees.” Well, there was no need for concern as I discovered. Regards, Dick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 09:08:33 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter & all First I wish to state that I am not convinced that cellsize is the magic bullet that some suggest it is. However I do not believe that Steve Martin's paper goes into the detail far enough. > reducing cell sizes as a mite control > method will probably fail to be effective since the bees are likely > to respond by rearing correspondingly smaller bees Yes, the bees rear smaller workers in the smaller cells, but the relation between worker thorax size and cell size is not linear... Please do not take the following list of sizings as perfect, but I have clipped them from some personal mail. Clip> There is a mathematical relationship between cellsize and the dorsal-ventral depth of a bee's thorax (exactly what the formula of this relationship is... Is contentious and not properly understood yet as it varies a bit from race to race). A bee produced in a 5.45 mm cell has a thorax of 4.3 mm depth. A bee produced in a 5.1 mm cell has a thorax of 4.18 mm depth A bee produced in a 5.00 mm cell has a thorax of 4.15 mm depth A bee produced in a 4.83 mm cell has a thorax in the region of 4.1 mm depth Clip> The above seems to indicate a very rapid reduction in the space available within a cell as cell size diminishes. I consider this needs further study and should not be written off so lightly as Peter suggests. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 09:18:08 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Bees attacking wristwatches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Blane & all Blane said... > I always figured that it was the contrast > between the watchband and my skin that they were homing in on. I had not considered this, but a thought springs to mind... On Sherriff suits there is a region around the hood where black tape reinforces the junction of the face mesh with the rest of the suit. Mostly these suits are white, but I do not see any interest exhibited by bees at this black/white demarcation where the contrast is at it's most marked. I am not saying you are wrong, but that visual contrast is not all of the answer. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:08:59 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Kilty Subject: Re: Laying workers In-Reply-To: <20020709220558.15014.qmail@web14202.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <20020709220558.15014.qmail@web14202.mail.yahoo.com>, dan hendricks writes >Chris said:< . . . a sealed queen cell several inches above a good >queen excluder with no other brood above the QE. The queen was in >full lay below the QE.> > >I had this happen once on undrawn foundation above a QE. I am >persuaded it was a case of workers moving eggs. Roy Thurber "Bee >Chats, Tips and Gaadgets" spoke of seeing it happen. I had one on a dummy board in a split. Obviously this was close to available eggs. But the cell was perfect. I made no notes on whether it hatched in my early days of queen rearing. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:05:42 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Kilty Subject: Re: Laying Workers In-Reply-To: <3c.20d4eeed.2a5b6679@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <3c.20d4eeed.2a5b6679@aol.com>, CSlade777@AOL.COM writes >So in a typical queenright colony at this time of year there may be as many >as half a dozen laying workers. I think it was Aebi who wrote (although I >don't know his source) that maybe 1% of laying workers can lay female eggs. I have seen quite a few queen shaped workers, with somewhat longer bodies than usual. I didn't check timing, but we such a poor summer that colonies reduced laying rates drastically. Under these circumstances I wonder if large feeds do this. Like when a new queen starts laying, copious feeding takes place, flooding the larvae. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:01:14 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Kilty Subject: Re: Laying Workers In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 In message , James Kilty writes >In message , Murray McGregor > writes about drone-laying queens >>The tricky ones are the little >>intercastes from poor and late emergency cells, which do not mate and >>lay a sporadic and sparse pattern. >I must admit to having problems finding most drone-layers and this would >explain the problem. Though often they just lay in the drone cells with >a normal pattern but very low rate. Following Murray's tip as usual I managed to find a worker sized bee with upper abdomen smooth, rather like a queen, behaving like a queen: walking over the cells, testing worker cells, moving back to the drone cells; stopping to be fed. She had come from a cell cut out and moved from the source colony. If it was her, she had started laying much too soon (before the usual 12 days) and much sooner than any laying worker I have ever come across. After giving her the chop, the colony received a gift of a freshly hatched virgin from a hygienic mother colony. All was well. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 06:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Sniffer bees Did everyone see this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2002/07/07/nbees07.xml There is a serious effort to use honey bees to test the ripeness of supermarket produce. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 07:51:00 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dee and Everyone, Dee asked regarding varroa tolerance/resistance programs that use treatments to maintain the stock while selecting the colonies with the lowest varroa population increase for further breeding: "One question though! Does adding the apistan to the methodology mean the bees will always have to be doped with it or something else stronger down the road?" No. It allows one to keep enough colonies alive to continue selection until the treatment is no longer needed. In other words it allows one to breed for resistance and get there without loosing most of the colonies along the way. Every year all the colonies are requeened with the queens reared from the most resistant colonies and the selection begans again on the next generation. It might take longer to get to resistant stock but it will work and you have enough colonies to continue the selection along the way. It appears from their article that Szabo and Szabo are selecting from 30 - 40 colonies per year and their results are looking pretty impressive after 5 years of selection. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 07:39:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Keith B. Forsyth" Organization: Keith B. Forsyth Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stephen Martin's paper can be found at: http://www.edpsciences-usa.org/articles/inra-apido/pdf/2002/01/Martin.pdf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:06:27 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: FGMO Summary Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All I show below a summary of the latest methods of using FGMO for varroa and Tracheal Mite control. I trust that it is of interest. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Summary of FGMO This summary is written as a service to beekeepers and is derived from information, supplied by Dr Pedro Rodriguez who has spent many years perfecting the FGMO treatment herein described. The efforts of Dr Rodriguez are now being supplemented by an increasing number of beekeepers using FGMO, as the world slowly but inexorably turns against the use of synthetic chemicals. These beekeepers are feeding their results back to Dr Rodriguez using the FGMO Beekeeping Discussion List. Dr Rodgiguez can be contacted at dronebeer@netscape.net NB: Do not be tempted to alter the method of treatment stated here. In particular, use the cords, not what might appear to be a cheaper and easier commodity to obtain like paper napkins. The cords to the specification shown are the best method of delivering fatal doses of FGMO to the mites. On-going research and development is being carried out by Dr Rodriguez team in Spain and further improvements can be confidently expected. Meantime as already stated, beekeepers throughout the world are using this system with good results. Introduction: The purpose of this study was to examine the acaricide effect of food grade mineral oil, 0.86 density, in the form of emulsion and 15 microns vapour. The research was performed in an apiary of the beekeeping school of the municipal government of Azuqueca de Henares, (Guadalajara, Spain) from 13 March to 16 July 2001. The test was performed with 10 colonies hived in Langstroth type hives equipped with 4mm hardware cloth bottom screens. Test results demonstrate that food grade mineral oil is an efficient, economic and non-contaminating acaricide, especially when integrated with other control methods. High resolution liquid chromatography laboratory analysis (HCPL) showed that food grade mineral oil does not alter the quality of the honey. DNA tests of mites collected during the study identified Varroa destructor as the primary parasitic mite in the apiary. Similarly, DNA tests of the honey bees determined that three of the colonies belonged to African lineage while the rest belonged to Western European lineage Full details of this study and the results can be obtained by visiting www.beesource.com Before we look at the present FGMO treatment method, it may be useful to look back a little in history to see the development of this treatment. History of FGMO. Dr Pedro Rodriguez became convinced of the possible efficacy of FGMO treatment around 5 years ago. He started off by drizzling FGMO on the top bars of the brood chamber, the object being to asphyxiate the mites and not harm the bees. In this he was only moderately successful, because although he had correctly identified the method of killing the mites, the delivery method of the FGMO was the 'Achilles Heel' of the treatment. Too deep an oil pool and the bees died, too shallow an oil pool and the mites lived. In other words the delivery system had too many variables in it to permit continuous repetition of the correct depth of liquid. And if we think about it, the Delivery System is crucial to all treatments for varroa. It normally requires considerable laboratory conditions experimentation, and many many field tests before the delivery system is perfected and FGMO proved to be similar. Thus it is often much easier to develop the acaricide than it is to develop the delivery system for it. What is FGMO? Food grade mineral oil, also called Liquid Paraffin has a density of 0.86, is a petroleum derivative that is odourless, colourless, and does not contaminate, and is especially utilised for operations requiring a mineral oil exempt from toxicity. It is widely used by industrial nations in the food industry and medicine, as a vehicle and as a lubricant. Utilisation of food grade mineral oil as an acaricide is considered highly beneficial. Because of its efficacy, and lack of effect on the honey, it can be utilised at times when there are large numbers of mites and when synthetic acaricides can not be used. This point is covered in detail later. FGMO treatment today. The fundamental concept of the original FGMO treatment was proved to be sound. However what was required was a system of delivery with few or no variables and this is where the Fogger and the 'cords' came into play. The effect of the Fogger and the cords can best be described as follows: The body of the Varroa mite is flat offering a large surface/volume relationship that makes it vulnerable to treatment with oils (factor also utilised by Italian investigators (Bee-L archives; Rodriguez, 2001). Varroa mites as well as the honey bees breathe through spiracles through which gaseous exchange occurs by means of adjustments of their respiratory system (Pugh et al, 1992). Mineral oil emitted by the Fogger and tracked around the hive by the bees from the 'cords', blocks the spiracles of the mites causing their death by asphyxiation. Whilst honey bees also breathe the oil, the size of their spiracles is much larger than those of the mites, thus it is possible to utilise mineral oil as an acaricide without harming the honey bees. Also the body of the mites is covered by pores which the mites utilise to take in moisture for their hydration. These pores are also blocked by mineral oil thus interfering with another biologic process of the mites. Varroa mites cling to the body of the bees while being carried about. During the application of mineral oil, in vapour or emulsion form, a fine film of oil is deposited on the bodies of the bees which interferes with the ability of the mites to cling to the bees (Lujan, 2000; Kamran, 2001), causing them to fall off. The sanitary behaviour of the honey bees causes them to remove the emulsion coated cords promptly and in the process, their legs become coated with mineral oil that is later transferred to their bodies when they comb themselves. Thus the Fogger - a Burgess Insect propane Fogger - gives a short burst of intensive treatment, every 15 days or so, whilst the 'cords' act on a slower but continuous basis conveying the treatment throughout the hive slowly but surely. It is suggested that fogging be carried out at the time when foragers are out because the bulk of the Varroa will be on the nurse bees, hence the nurse bees would be more exposed to the oil than when all the bees are in. Utilisation of screened bottom boards (OMFs). Screened bottom boards prevent mites that have fallen off, from re-attaching themselves to the bees due to the effect of the mineral oil. These boards are modified with a tray beneath the screen in which FGMO-coated papers are placed for collection and counting fallen mites. This is another weapon which should be used. By having the facility to insert the sheet of paper, valuable data on mite numbers can be obtained on an ongoing basis. But do have the OMF without a paper insert at all other times to prevent re-attachment of fallen mites, mites which have not been killed by the FGMO but which have merely lost their hold on the bees. Re-infestation. During the initial varroa infestation, re-infestation can occur from: a. from feral colonies b. from weak and dieing colonies being robbed out. It is thus important to maintain continuous monitoring of the hives to ensure that the mite is not getting the upper hand. It may also be advisable at this time, to employ an additional treatment such as Drone Brood Trapping. If you visit http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/dronemethod.html you can download an excellent account of how Dutch researchers use Drone Brood Trapping very effectively. There are of course much simpler and effective methods of implementing Drone Brood Trapping. Benefits of using FGMO during the honey season. Laboratory test results for residues in honey (just performed) reveal zero residues. It will thus be readily appreciated that FGMO can be applied continuously during the honey season. It is this continuous and relentless pressure on the mites without any let up during the honey season which makes FGMO so effective. And it is during the honey season which normally coincides with the biggest brood build up in the hives which causes the greatest number of varroa to be produced. No chemical such as fluvalinate, flumethrin, coumaphos, formic acid, oxalic acid or lactic acid can be applied to the hives during the honey season, giving the mites a valuable respite from treatment. And it is also during these times that reinfestation from feral colonies can further reinforce the mite population with no possible response from the beekeeper until the honey is removed. Indeed, since Bayvarol users rarely monitor, relying on the speed at which Bayvarol knocks down the mites, the beekeeper will not normally be aware of such reinfestation until the decks are literally awash with varroa, when it is probably too late to do anything about it. The problem is damaged bees going into winter. If there is no treatment at all from May to July it can be assumed that Varroa numbers will escalate into the thousands by July. This will cause extreme damage to any bee in the hive. Adding Bayvarol will drop a very high percentage of mites off the bees, but will do nothing to help the damaged and weakened bees going into winter. These damaged bees are the main cause of winter losses from varroa, and the bees that survive are so badly damaged that they are unable to bear the demands of brood feeding in the Spring causing Spring losses.. The alternative is to use a non invasive treatment which can be used all summer keeping numbers of Varroa down, leading to less bee damage going into winter. In other words use a lower level but continuous treatment. Effect of FGMO on Tracheal Mites (Acarine). FGMO in the fog form is very effective for treatment of Tracheal mites (acarapis woodi). The mechanism is very simple because the bees breathe the oil and take it right to where the mites are lodged doing the damage, the trachea. The mites die on contact with the oil and keep new generations from migrating to their next host. There are no deleterious effects noticed on the bees when T mites die right in the airways of the bees. Preparation of the emulsion and the 'cords' The ingredients for the emulsion are as follows: 500 mls food grade mineral oil 225 grams bees wax 300 grams honey sixty 500 mm long by 8mm diameter cotton cords. (Some beekeepers have used the strands of cotton used in making mops.) The procedure for making the emulsion is: heat the food grade mineral oil in a metal container, melt bees wax and add to the heated mineral oil. Remove the container from the heat source and add the honey and cords. Stir with a wooden spoon to allow the cords to soak well. Allow the emulsion to cool. Treatment with the emulsion.. For each brood chamber, insert two pieces of the emulsion soaked cords, each a half a meter long (20 inches approx.), on top of the brood frames under the Queen Excluder (if one is used). Also place two cords on each honey super if the colony is strong. The reason for placing cords on the honey supers is that the mites do fall off and climb back on the foraging bees and they are then liable to be carried up into the supers..The cords are replaced when they are removed by the bees. Thus the cords are a means of continuously dispersing the FGMO throughout the hive. Treatment with the Fogger. It is essential that only FGMO is put into the Fogger. Do not under any circumstances put the emulsion into the Fogger. If you do you will do serious damage to the Fogger. The emulsion is used ONLY for the cords. A stream of vapour (about four seconds per hive) is blown through the hive entrance every 15 days. The vapour can be blown through the OMF (open mesh Floor) if desired. Thus the vapour acts as a high pressure treatment forcing FGMO on to the bees. Mite falls can be expected for several days after using the Fogger. The Fogger causes no discernible distress to the bees.( See the notes on the use of the Fogger under Safety Considerations.) Chemical analysis of the honey. During the initial experiments carried out Dr. Pedro Rodriguez, samples were collected at the end of the experiment and sent for analysis. Tests revealed that the use of food grade mineral oil does not alter the quality of honey. Safety Considerations. FGMO in its natural liquid form is obviously non toxic. But when it is converted into a fog at 15 microns, it is only prudent not to inhale it, any more than you would inhale exhaust fumes from the back of a lorry. It would thus be advisable to wear a respirator just as you would do if you were spray painting. I use a respirator which filters down to .5 micron (which cost me 60 Euros - about the same in US$), so that I do not envisage any problem from this viewpoint. I also wear goggles - perhaps super careful - but that is the way I think! Any other beekeeper in the apiary will also need to observe the Safety Considerations. Care must be used when operating the Fogger. Having lit the Fogger, it should burn for two minutes before any attempt is made to use it. This will get the coil up to the necessary operating temperature. For best results and to prevent flaming, use it horizontally or pointing slightly upwards (e.g. if you wish to fog through an OMF.) Never use the Fogger pointing down to the ground as this can cause too much FGMO to be released. Like all such pieces of equipment adhere to the instructions which come with the product and you should not have any difficulties. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:14:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all I wrote:"One question though! Does adding the apistan to the methodology mean the bees will always have to be doped with it or something else stronger down the road?" Blane White replied: No. It allows one to keep enough colonies alive to continue selection until the treatment is no longer needed. In other words it allows one to breed for resistance and get there without loosing most of the colonies along the way. I now ask: So how does one then successfully stop the treatments and get the residues out of the colonies? Since it probably cannot be done overnight, can you explain the steps for successfully accomplishing this? I don't want to seem picky, but clean pure honey, what with the china scare staying in my mind, and I am sure others's also. Also is there a way for backing off of coumaphos successfully too? Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:24:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dee and Everyone, In regard with the discussion on selecting honeybees that are resistant to varroa by selecting those colonies with the slowest varroa population increase and continuing to treat with acaricide so as to prevent loosing colonies to varroa so the selection can be continued Dee asked the following: "I now ask: So how does one then successfully stop the treatments and get the residues out of the colonies? Since it probably cannot be done overnight, can you explain the steps for successfully accomplishing this? I don't want to seem picky, but clean pure honey, what with the china scare staying in my mind, and I am sure others's also. Also is there a way for backing off of coumaphos successfully too?" When varroa mite levels are continually low enough in the colonies one can discontinue treatment ( once mite populations remain below the economic threshold ). Once treatments are stopped no additional residues are being added to the combs but of course you still have the issue of any residue already in the wax. This will decrease with time but if you want to be sure you have no residue you would have to replace the combs that were exposed to treatment. The foundation you use either will have to contain no beeswax or contain beeswax from a source that does not have acaricide residues. So there, you eventually do have to replace the combs if you want to be 100% sure there are no acaricide residues in the combs. Most beekeepers would be very pleased to be able to simply stop treatments and be confident that no additional residues were being added and therefore any residues present would decrease somewhat over time. How fast to they decrease? That depends on the chemical. For most of us just getting off the chemical treatment treadmill is accomplishment enough I guess. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:38:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <20020716171427.43373.qmail@web12407.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dee Lusby wrote: > I now ask: > So how does one then successfully stop the treatments and > get the residues out of the colonies? If each generation of new queens exhibits increased ability to resist the mites, then there should come a point when the bees will simply not need the chemical support that they need today. > Since it probably cannot be done overnight, can you explain the steps for > successfully accomplishing this? I imagine that the next significant step might be treating only when the bees need it, rather than according to the calendar. One could then breed from those colonies that need it least often, and after a time, one hopes, there will be colonies that are simply not getting treated because they have not hit the mite threshold at which treatment is applied. > I don't want to seem > picky, but clean pure honey, what with the china scare > staying in my mind, and I am sure others's also. I think most of us want this same thing Dee - I know that I do. When I look around at all the different projects aimed at dealing with the mite problem, it is the various breeding projects (SMR, Russians, others) that give me the most hope. The requisite traits already exist in various honeybee populations, and various projects seem to show clearly that it *is* possible to select for this behaviour using methods we already have. > Also is there a way for backing off of coumaphos > successfully too? I don't see this approach as being specifically related to any particular chemical. The point is to breed a bee that does not require chemical assistance, no? Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen http://WWW.BlessedBee.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:01:29 -0400 Reply-To: kgbenson@mindspring.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Keith G. Benson" Subject: Re: A grand experiment On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:24:14 -0500 Blane White wrote: following: >When varroa mite levels are continually low >enough in the colonies one >can discontinue treatment (once mite populations >remain below the >economic threshold ). The fastest way to select for these queens is to not treat. The selective pressures for self sufficiency are reduced with chemical support. Of course this also necessitates using a large number of founder colonies as most will certainly perish, but you will likely acheive your goal that much faster. And it will cost a fortune whether you do is slowly or rapidly. In essence this is what Dee did. Her colony count shrank dramatically and she re-built from the survivors (at least that is my understanding). Did small cell save her bees? Maybe, but I really think that the intense selective pressures played the key role. Keith "then again, what do I know" benson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:04:53 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 16/07/02 05:06:47 GMT Daylight Time, LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU writes: Lloyd, Do the bees tend to place pollen in the super immediately above the brood box? Chris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 21:06:56 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Rodney Farrar Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Has anyone ever tried this with regular medium supers, comments? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 23:15:54 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >When varroa mite levels are continually low enough in the colonies one > >can discontinue treatment (once mite populations remain below the > >economic threshold ). > > The fastest way to select for these queens is to not treat... >...you will likely acheive your goal that much faster. Maybe, but not necessarily. The problem I see with that approach is that, if one of the mechanisms being sought is resistance to varroa developing in the brood, and it should be, the colonies exhibiting that trait could easily be swamped by incoming mites from colonies that did not exhibit the trait -- unless mite reproduction in all colonies is restrained somehow and by more or less the same amount in all colonies under test. Moderate use of a miticide can keep levels to the point where they won't kill the hives or cause a collapse that would distribute mites to colonies that would otherwise have low levels. Dee has some interesting ideas on selecting the hives that are most resistant. She says that it is not necessarily the hives with the lowest natural mite drops that are the most resistant and explains why. This has to do with the resistant hives doing housecleaning on the mites every so often. At those times, they will have higher drops, in spite of actually having fewer mites. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 07:49:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Producing comb honey sections MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter and Rodney, respectively, have asked, (1) is it advisable to use a queen excluder when adding comb honey supers after the bees h been shaken down to one deep (or two medium) brood boxes (2) can comb honey be successfully produced over two medium brood boxes? I never use a commercial queen excluder when producing comb honey. Last year I produced over 3,000 Ross Round sections and found no brood in any. So far this year I have taken off 30 supers and have not found a single cell of brood. I believe that queens do not like the limited cell space and copious amount of plastic in a Ross Round super, so rarely choose to deposit eggs. However, when producing for cut comb or chunk honey some type of queen excluder is always necessary. Rather than a commercial excluder I set up my hives so that at least 2" of capped honey is immediately below the comb honey super. The queen will rarely cross this to get into the super. For a variety of reasons, I often shake bees down to 2 mediums instead of a single deep. Two mediums work just as well as a single deep, and a deep plus a medium works almost as well. However, two deeps or three mediums are "too much", and using either is likely to result in no comb honey supers being drawn. Hope I have helped, Lloyd Lloyd@RossRounds.com Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at www.RossRounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 07:55:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: huestis' Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Chris, I'm a little farther north than Lloyd, I see no pollen in the section super above the broodnest. I manipulate a little different than Lloyd. As I add two supers at once . When the first is 3/4 full I reverse spreading the draw sections to the outside and the foundation to the center at the same time. At the same time of the reversal I add either one or two more sections on top. I also rotate from head to toe later on when the bees start capping. The section producing season usually averages 3 or four supers. Then the daughter colony is added back to the parent with the young queen surviving to ready for winter in three deep setup. Lloyd how do you setup colonies for winter? Clay ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 08:01:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Jeffrey R. Hills" Subject: Bees and Time MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Could it be that bees hate knowing what time it is? The church bells ring in our town every day at 5:00 PM sharp. I was working my most tranquil hive one recent evening when the bells rang. I must say I have never been attacked by so many bees. As soon as the bells stopped ringing (the tune was "A Mighty Fortress is Our God") the bees were totally calm once again. Jeff Hills Dorset, Vermont ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 09:14:21 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Michael Housel Subject: Re: Bees attacking wristwatches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/16/02 6:51:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time, dave.cushman@LINEONE.NET writes: > Blane said... > > > I always figured that it was the contrast > > between the watchband and my skin that they were homing in on. > A new veil screen is always black. I spray paint it white from the outside spraying in only. Leaving the inside black so I don't have the glare. It does keep the bees from the veil. Neck screening important to cover white also. Michael Housel Orlandobee ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 08:38:01 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Everyone, > >When varroa mite levels are continually low enough in the colonies one > >can discontinue treatment (once mite populations remain below the > >economic threshold ). > > The fastest way to select for these queens is to not treat... >...you will likely acheive your goal that much faster. In addition to Allen's good reply I would only like to point out that if Szabo had just stopped treatment, from their own data on mite populations the first three years of selection none of their colonies would have been likely to survive. Without surviving colonies you have nothing to continue the selection from. This is the problem with selecting for varroa mite resistance to keep enough colonies alive to continue the selection process through the first several years of the breeding program. The use of miticide also gives a very good indication of the total population of varroa in each hive if monitoring is done with sticky boards and this is the information you need to make the selection of those colonies with the lowest mite population. Dee's observation that natural mite drop is not always the best indicator of total mite population is relevent here. If you don't have a good comparison of total actual mite population how can you select the best or most resistant queens from the next generation? Again the use of miticide can give this important imformation and lead to resistant stock in a shorter time than just letting varroa kill the suspectable colonies. It often takes varroa over a year to kill a colony as resistance of the stock is increased how can you select surviving one year queens that are most resistant without somehow measuring the total mite population in the colonies? FWIW Lets use whatever works to reach our common goal. blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 10:42:48 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Bees and Time MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jeff Hills noted: > ...I was working my most tranquil hive one recent evening when the bells rang. > I must say I have never been attacked by so many bees. As soon as the bells > stopped ringing (the tune was "A Mighty Fortress is Our God") the bees were > totally calm once again. I think the question should be posed as "bees and sound" rather than "bees and time", but perhaps we could narrow it down further to "bees as music critics". :) How loud are the bells as heard in your apiary? If the bells were loud enough, the sound could be resonating on the surfaces of the supers and hive bodies, making small, but certainly detectable by the bees, vibrations. The vibrations are apparently being interpreted by the bees as a predator (a skunk scratching at the landing board?), and they are putting up the usual sorties of kamikaze defenders. In an extreme case, you might be able to place a hand on the side of a super, and feel the vibrations yourself. More sensitive equipment such as an SPL meter (a microphone with a "loudness" meter) or even accelerometers (solid state devices that detect movement) might do a better job of quantifying the loudness. I'd guess that the sound itself is not being directly detected by the bees inside the hive, for the same reason that a lawnmower is not as noisy to a person inside a house. There are a couple of papers on the subject of bees "hearing" by detecting vibrations. Here's a few that I hunted down via inter-library loan: Kirchner, W. 1993: Acoustical communication in honeybees. Apidologie 24, 297-307. Sandeman, D. C., Tautz, J. & Lindauer, M. 1996: Transmission of vibration across honeycombs and its detection by bee leg receptors. Journal of Experimental Biology 199(12), 2585-2594. Rohrseitz, K. & Kilpinen, O. 1997: Vibration transmission characteristics of the legs of freely standing honeybees. Zoology-Analysis of Complex Systems 100(1-2), 80-84. There is a slight chance that the bees were inspired by the music to defend THEIR fortress. The song was "A Mighty Fortress", after all. One way to confirm this would be to observe bees that are "hanging out" on the front of the hive, and watch what they are doing. If they are reading the book of the Bible named "The Beeatitudes", then you may have fundamentalist bees. :) jim ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 11:35:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Howard Kogan Subject: Long or Wide Hive Because of some back difficulties have have decided to experiment with using either long or wide hives. If there was no room to store honey in an upper super would bees more naturally store it in frames that were behind the brood super or to one side? I was thinking of attaching a second super either behind the first or to the side with holes drilled between the two super bodies to allow bees access. Could it work? Any thoughts appreciated. Howard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:58:39 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All > This has to do with the resistant hives doing housecleaning on the mites > every so often. At those times, they will have higher drops, in spite of > actually having fewer mites. Whilst I consider 'housecleaning' and 'mite damaging' to be separate characteristics of bees. The principle holds good and we must be certain in our own minds that the mite drop we see is related to the infestation level or the rate of mite damaging. Another complication is that a high total number of mites in a colony can indicate good tolerance by the bees or that the mites are out of hand. Only by repeated drop monitoring can we establish which is likely in each case, and when we are wrong the colony ends up dead. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 12:07:23 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rodney, If you mean putting 3 supers on a colony ALL AT ONE TIME, and moving the bottom super to the top when it is 70% full, yes, I have done that for years to make comb honey on STRONG NECTAR FLOW which is a MUST. It will not work on a light or medium nectar flow. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 12:21:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Pollen in comb honey and overwintering comb honey hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Clay commented on pollen in comb honey, and asked about overwintering hives used for comb honey. I used to worry about pollen in comb honey, and would hold every frame or section up to the light so I could see any filled cells. If I found them I cut them out (cut comb) or melted them down. Then someone asked...why, they add to the authenticity and don't taste bad? Surprise, they actually don't taste bad at all. Not bitter, as I had been told. So now I don't bother examining for cells filled with pollen. I'm certain I have a few from time to time, but in perhaps 4 years of not checking I have yet to get a complaint. As to overwintering...when I can I like to overwinter in 3 deeps or the equivilent in mediums. I don't need that for the winter, but it sure helps with swarm control in the spring. The hives I run for extracted honey I can do that with, and perhaps 50% of the hives I use for comb honey. In the latter case I get the extra deeps from the hives I use for extracting. I pretty much require that each hive run for extraction also produce one full deep of new drawn comb from foundation, and I move those boxes to the comb honey hives. But I never seem to have enough boxes with newly-drawn comb to give my comb honey hives two. Some only get one, so they overwinter with two deeps, and some get none (so they overwinter in a single deep). The latter overwinter just fine as we can count on a late flow from knotweed, loosetrife, aster and goldenrod. But in the spring I have to move fast or all those overwintered in singles will swarm! The reason I am so short of deeps with drawn comb is that when I shake my comb honey hives down to one box I use the extra comb to make up 4 and 5 frame nucs that I overwinter. I use these to replace the inevitable winter losses (although this year I didn't have a single winter loss), for expansion, and to sell. These overwintered nucs, 100% with purchased queens, will build faster in the spring than most overwintered full hives. I don't know why. Perhaps because the quality of the average queen is better? Right now I have 83 such nucs set up. Lloyd Lloyd@RossRounds.com Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 10:20:26 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi All Blane White wrote: When varroa mite levels are continually low enough in the colonies one can discontinue treatment ( once mite populations remain below the economic threshold ). Once treatments are stopped no additional residues are being added to the combs but of course you still have the issue of any residue already in the wax. Reply: This is good to know one can stop treatments when populatons remain below the economic threshold for a period of time. Do you know of anyone that has been able to accomplish this? I know of NO ONE here is Arizona, though plenty have gone out of business. Blane also wrote: This will decrease with time but if you want to be sure you have no residue you would have to replace the combs that were exposed to treatment. Reply: This is understandable replacing the combs. A few have tried melting down their combs and phasing in new, but they are having trouble selling their wax now. Where would you suggest they sell it? Blane further wrote: The foundation you use either will have to contain no beeswax or contain beeswax from a source that does not have acaricide residues. So there, you eventually do have to replace the combs if you want to be 100% sure there are no acaricide residues in the combs. Reply: This sure is a true statement. For to contain no beeswax the foundation would have to be PLASTIC and UNCOATED and a high food grade plastic that doesn't deterioate easily IMPOV. To have clean beeswax without residues, well this is almost impossible to find without paying a high price for the wax anymore. Blane continued: Most beekeepers would be very pleased to be able to simply stop treatments and be confident that no additional residues were being added and therefore any residues present would decrease somewhat over time. How fast to they decrease? That depends on the chemical. For most of us just getting off the chemical treatment treadmill is accomplishment enough I guess. Reply: Yes, Blane, this is going to be the problem. Decreasing the residues. I know you cannot photodegradate apistan residues in a solarwax melter, and few have Kelly wax rendering setups for underwater. I also know in the warm, damp environment of a beehive too, that residue breakdown for a lot of substances is not very fast, and in fact slower then in soil and sunlight! Just how is the industry going to deal with this problem? What do you envision? I myself know of NO ONE being able to do it, without complete changeout of combs being used, and shakingdown their bees and starting over. Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 13:29:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dee and Everyone, Dee wrote in part : "Yes, Blane, this is going to be the problem. Decreasing the residues. I know you cannot photodegradate apistan residues in a solarwax melter, and few have Kelly wax rendering setups for underwater. I also know in the warm, damp environment of a beehive too, that residue breakdown for a lot of substances is not very fast, and in fact slower then in soil and sunlight! Just how is the industry going to deal with this problem? What do you envision?" There has been some residue testing done on foundation that I have heard about. This is from memory and I am sure Medhat Nasr can and hopefully will correct me if I am wrong but here goes. Fluvalinate ( apistan) residues seem to be considerably reduced to the point of being undetectable by processing the wax into foundation but coumaphos is not. Dee is right these things last a very long time in the wax combs in the hive as the ultraviolet light in sunlight is what usually degrades these materials in the field ( this is usually true for most pesticides ). I suspect that most beekeepers will simply stop using miticides when they have bees that tolerate the mites and remain productive without such treatments. They will not replace all their combs but just do the normal replacement culling of combs over time. Residues will continue in perviously exposed combs but the amount will slowly decrease over time and be diluted by new combs as the old are slowly replaced. Of course the melting and reusing combs with coumaphos residue will greatly prolong the time that coumaphos residues can be detected in the combs but this should decrease over time by dilution. Residues in honey should decrease fairly quickly once treatments are discontinued. It would be nice to get back to totally residue free wax but I am not sure it is worth the time, effort, and cost for most beekeepers to try to do so. At what point is such residue of no importance? When honey produced in the colonies contains no detectable residues or when there are no detectable residues in broodcombs? The sooner we have bees that don't need treatment the sooner we can actually argue the fine points of residue in the combs I guess. When does it matter? Dee also asked about selling wax that may have residues. Not sure here but I also have heard that wax buyers don't want any broodcomb wax due to residue concerns. Is there enough wax in old broodcombs to be worth trying to save given the residue concerns? What can or should it be used for? Probably not foundation or cosmetics and confectionaries. Candles? Some other use? First we need to selectively breed honeybee stocks that are resistant/tolerant to varroa and do so as quickly as we can. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:40:57 +0100 Reply-To: Phil Moore Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Phil Moore Organization: Hopesay Glebe Farm Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Then the daughter colony is added back to the parent with the young queen > surviving to ready for winter in three deep setup. > Clay Clay, how and when do you form the daughter colony, do you raise new queens or requeen from bought in stock? Regards Phil Moore ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:14:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment Comments: To: Dee Lusby Peter Borst wrote: I have tried looking at "the whole picture". You say that your bees have low mite counts. (What are the counts?) Reply: Not enough to be worth the time for the USDA to officially do another official mite count test since 1997. I don't get it. No one has checked your numbers for 5 years? You are not doing any mite counts yourself? I thought most beekeepers were checking their hives for mites. It isn't very hard to do. If you are "studying" a method of controlling mites (biological or otherwise) you must have some evidence of mite levels you can give, otherwise all you are saying is "we don't have many mites" and it means very little. pb ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 20:10:42 +0100 Reply-To: Phil Moore Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Phil Moore Organization: Hopesay Glebe Farm Subject: Re: Bees attacking wristwatches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > A new veil screen is always black. I spray paint it white from the outside > spraying in only. Leaving the inside black so I don't have the glare. It Interesting idea Michael, what do you use as a spray? Regards Phil Moore ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:14:20 -0400 Reply-To: Buckner Lewis Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Buckner Lewis Subject: Bee Feed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My neighbor and beekeeper has a large quantity of Polycose..the composition is water and glucose polymers derived from controlled hydrolysis of cornstarch..the nutrients (per 100 ml) is as follows: calories 200; carbohydrate,50 g; water, 70g; minerals, calcium 20mg; sodium, 70 mg; potassium, 6mg; chloride 140mg; and phosphorus 3 mg. He would like to know if he could feed this safely to his bees? The product is still in date until November 2002 and was used to supplement the diet of children in need of additional calories..but has been discontinued by the hospital when they went to another type suppliment...He says it is cornsyurp. I do not know..thanks.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 17:07:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Blane White wrote: > There has been some residue testing done on foundation that I have heard > about. This is from memory and I am sure Medhat Nasr can and hopefully > will correct me if I am wrong but here goes. Fluvalinate ( apistan) > residues seem to be considerably reduced to the point of being > undetectable by processing the wax into foundation but coumaphos is not. > Dee is right these things last a very long time in the wax combs in the > hive as the ultraviolet light in sunlight is what usually degrades these > materials in the field ( this is usually true for most pesticides ). There are some interesting papers on Cumophose persistance, mostly dealing with groundwater and soil contamination, but the worst case has about a 200 day half-life when it is not subjected to any light but buried in soil. And even then the half-life can be shorter. In water it can be as little as seven days. So it will be in wax for a while taking the worst conditions and allowing for longest persistance. But then so will a lot of other contaminants brought in by the bees. Just ask Jerry B for a shopping list that they bring in. I do not like cumophose and will not use it in my hives. It is a dangerous chemical but so are a lot of chemicals we use in our home with little problems since we are careful (and sometimes not) in their use. Plus, the method of application (a strip) and the dose are not in the category of another cumophose use, cattle dip for killing ticks where you have gallons of it in large tanks. To make a major issue of the use of pesticides in an attempt to create bees able to co-exist with varroa and that there will be pesticide in the wax is a non-issue. There will not be much left over after a few years and it should have little impact on the bees even until then. It is only a method, an a commonsense one at that. Bill Truesdell Bath, Me ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:55:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Glenn West Subject: Survival of paper in a beehive I had a telephone conversation with a lady this morning asking the following question: Would it be possible to hide a piece of paper in a beehive for over 30 years w/o it being destroyed? I don't know how/if it was protected. This supposedly happened in Lithuania, some time after WWII. The paper was supposedly discovered in 1998 and the address on the paper was readable. Did not learn if it was from a "working" hive. What do you folks think would be mitigating factors that would allow such a thing to happen? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:55:48 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Rodney Farrar Subject: Re: Section comb supering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for your reply, my question was has anyone ever put two-three supers on a single deep box after shaking the bees from the top deep to the bottom deep box? This was suggested when using Ross Rounds. PS George are you going to be at the fair in MD this year, if so when? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:23:01 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment Comments: To: Peter Borst Comments: cc: Peter Borst In-Reply-To: <200207171916.g6HIn45h006762@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all I wrote: Not enough to be worth the time for the USDA to officially do another official mite count test since 1997. Peter Borst responded: I don't get it. No one has checked your numbers for 5 years? You are not doing any mite counts yourself? I thought most beekeepers were checkingtheir hives for mites. It isn't very hard to do. Nope, no tests in over 5 years. Yet, when tested just after 4 months of starting to shake daown onto 4.9mm from 5.0-5.1mm sizing, our mite counts were the same Dr Erickson showed after several years working with Hines. But a friend on 4.9mm and selling packages/queens (Bill Gafford) had his hives checked by the Baton Rouge lab a while back, and only 0-1 mite was found per 10 ounce sample of workerbees, and they washed the samples more then once to make sure. But even with Bill, the results weren't officially put out to industry, but I don't know why! No we don't do mite counts ourselves, as we are not having problems with mites. OUr bees lived on 5.0-5.1 and they live well on 4.9mm. But we got our SECONDARIES UNDER CONTROL now, and that means a lot with the 4.9mm. I'm glad it isn't very hard to do. But we are commercial beekeepers and redoing equipment is more valuable then mite counts when mites are NOT A PROBLEM. Peter also wrote: If you are "studying" a method of controlling mites (biological orotherwise) you must have some evidence of mite levels you can give, otherwise all you are saying is "we don't have many mites" and it means very little. Reply: Well, we can see maybe one or two in a days time if we are lucky sometimes, but just like Bill's testing wasn't officially reported by the Baton Rouge lab and the Tucson lab hasn't retested since 1997, does seeing 1-2 mites in a day or two mean much to anyone? Evidently not I guess, for they make money on grants that look for problems, not NON-PROBLEMS. You care to come on out and test for us Peter? You are welcome to come and see the bees you know. This fall after all the rains, and mite turnover time in Sep/Oct, you can come and see the crash or what mites there MIGHT be on our bees if you want to! Door is always open i.e. New Zealand even..... Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:51:50 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I don't get it. No one has checked your numbers for 5 > years? You are not doing any mite counts yourself? I > thought most beekeepers were checkingtheir hives for mites. > It isn't very hard to do. Sure, but I looked pretty carefully at their bees and couldn't see any evidence of troublesome numbers of varroa or the well-known symptoms of varroa damage. I did not do any alcohol washes, and there was no drone brood at that time, but we did uncap some worker brood. The only mites we could find were in a very few cells and only on occasional frames of otherwise beautiful worker brood. In every case, the bees had already uncapped the cell in question, and even then there was only one mite that we could find in that cell. Granted this is a pretty informal examination, but if you believe that these bees have not been treated for a long time, if ever (and I do), I would have expected to see mites all over the place in at least a few of the 100 or so hives we looked at. Dee doesn't claim to be a researcher. She doesn't have a mite problem although mites have been around her district for many years and she should know what varroa damage looks like since she and Ed suffered varroa collapse some years ago. Why, then should she be doing mite counts? I wouldn't waste my time with that either. Should she stop telling people what works for her? I wouldn't. She isn't selling anything, she is giving what she has freely to those who care to know. Is it for everyone? I doubt it. But it's nice to know that it works for them and a growing circle of friends. allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 00:09:24 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Survival of paper in a beehive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Glenn West asked: > Would it be possible to hide a piece of paper in a beehive > for over 30 years w/o it being destroyed? Sure. In general, one must protect the paper from moisture, since bees like things just a tad more humid that archival standards would dictate. 1) Too Easy - Hide the paper between the metal top and the luan of the outer cover, sealed in a zip-lock or other air-tight wrapping. 2) Better - Roll up the paper in waxed paper, twist the ends, drill a hole horizontally in a frame top-bar or vertically through the body of a super, and insert paper. Seal the hole with a wooden plug, then with plastic wood caulk, whatever. 3) Just For Fun - Lay the paper against the inner wall of a super prior to putting it on a hive and decoupage it with several layers of the shellac used for the purpose. Wallpaper for bees! 4) Extra, Extra Sneaky - Take two sheets of foundation, and create a sandwich with the (air and water-tight) package containing the paper in the middle. Then insert the foundation into a frame, and allow the bees to drawn out the comb. 5) Easy Retrieval - Seal paper in a metal tube, and attach a wire. Place on bottom board, run wire out entrance, and bury the wire in a shallow trench running away from hives. Non-beekeepers can then collect items from the beehive "dead drop" by finding the "end" marker, and pulling briskly on the wire. I could go on, but you get the idea. Despite the Patrick McGoohan-esque charm of hiding something very valuable or important in a beehive, I would not try it. jim ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:07:39 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Survival of paper in a beehive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Would it be possible to hide a piece of paper in a beehive > for over 30 years w/o it being destroyed? Recently, due to rough handling , one of our older hive lids fell apart; we found that the beekeeper who originally made it had apparently used an 1928 newspaper for insulation inside the lid, under the metal cover. Lids sometimes wind up in storage at times and I doubt that the lid was in use on beehives for the entire time since the late twenties, but we had bought the lid along as part of some used hives, and were using the lid until it fell met its demise. The newspaper was in quite good condition. FWIW, I've found also newspaper used for insulation in old buildings over the years, and they have generally been in good enough shape to read. allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:22:36 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <002501c22d51$07396cc0$5bae73d1@allen> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Keith Benson wrote: > The fastest way to select for these queens is to not treat......you will likely acheive your goal that much faster. Allen Dick replied: Maybe, but not necessarily. The problem I see with that approach is that, if one of the mechanisms being sought is resistance to varroa developing in the brood, and it should be, the colonies exhibiting that trait could easily be swamped by incoming mites from colonies that did not exhibit the trait -- unless mite reproduction in all colonies is restrained somehow and by more or less the same amount in all colonies under test. Reply: In the real world this is exactly what happens. . .If you then setup an artificial environment, restraining mite reproduction, all you do is extend the problem and never solve it! At least within the time frame necessary to keep a worldwide industry from collasping i.e. especially here in the USA as chemicals are quickly topping out and few replacements, that will last for how long?? and at what cost to beekeepers? Nature plays no second best in real life. To have survivor stock, shouldn't science parallel the real world and not an artificial one? After all, sooner or later a beekeeper will want to move the colonies out of the artificial bubble and face the real world envoronment? Is not this the final test to see if solution really works? Allen Dick then wrote: Moderate use of a miticide can keep levels to the point where they won't kill the hives or cause a collapse that would distribute mites to colonies that would otherwise have low levels. Reply: But this is not proper, for all it does is put evolution in a state of "permanent holding pattern" with no forward motion, and no way to right the situation. Can beekeepers live in a holding pattern with their bees the rest of their lives confronting mites and secondary diseases, plus what ever additional scavengers crop up, for indeed they will, with the state of economic requirements for various treatments never ending? in fact only increasing in intensity? I myself don't think so! Allen Dick then wrote: Dee has some interesting ideas on selecting the hives that are most resistant. She says that it is not necessarily the hives with the lowest natural mite drops that are the most resistant and explains why. Reply: This is true, I have said this. It is the hives with the highest mite drops that are the most resistant, with highest drops of mites on the downswings of honey cycles, throughout the active beekeeping year. Perpetuating colonies with the lowest mite drops, without taking other factors into consideration is certainly not a good way to find high survivorship traits. Allen then stated: This has to do with the resistant hives doing housecleaning on the mites every so often. At those times, they will have higher drops, in spite of actually having fewer mites. Reply: This is so true, and when the waves of mites go through the area on the downswings, this is when it is really seen in the fall and early spring. This needs to be talked about more by industry and shown to others. How to show the mites taking care of the problem naturally. What to look for. This is what I tried to show Allen and his friend Joe when they were here. Unfortunately, there was no flow on, it was January. I could only show them sporatic mites being chewed out! No mite waves passing thru, no drone brood being cared for and cleaned. Chow: Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 01:31:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mark Hoguet Subject: Survival of paper in a beehive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 16:55:53 -0400 Glenn West writes: "This supposedly happened in Lithuania, some time after WWII." I've heard of this happening during WWII. Freya von Moltke, wife of Count Helmuth James von Moltke, one of the very few high ranking Germans to help German Jews and to publicly oppose Hitler, hid all her husbands letters to her in her beehives. The book in which I found the following passage doesn't say how she did it though. "A year later, when Freya von Moltke left Kreisau in Silesia--now Krzyzowa, and Polish--in the autumn of 1945 with her two little boys, she was not able to take much with her, but took what she later called her "greatest treasure," her husband's letters. He had been sentenced to death and executed in January. There were about sixteen hundred letters, covering the years 1929-45. They were a surprisingly manageable package. The handwriting of this very tall man was tiny. She had kept them hidden in her beehives in case the house was searched." from von Moltke, Helmuth James. "Letters to Freya 1939-1945": The compelling letters to his wife from the young German aristocrat who was a quiet hero of the resistance to Hitler. New York: Knopf, 1990. page 4 of the introduction. A very moving book. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:58:42 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Blane, & All, > First we need to selectively breed honeybee stocks that are > resistant/tolerant to varroa and do so as quickly as we can. > Dee and Ed Lusby may have already done this, and now, all we have to do is hope that they will share their stock so we can utilize it. Keeping bees is a responsibility, happy Beekeeping, d:~)> . .. c(((([ Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA kdmalone@ideafamilies.org http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norlandbeekeepers/ Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:40:34 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Survival of paper in a beehive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Glenn & all > Would it be possible to hide a piece of paper in a beehive > for over 30 years w/o it being destroyed? If I wanted to do this I would nail a piece of thin plywood over it. The only paper I have seen that was not chewed to pieces was a piece of a colour illustration in a newspaper (a crimson coloured ladies dress) that was nibbled right up to the edges of the patch of colour. Size was about 60 mm x 60 mm, but they dragged it about 600 mm in front of the hive. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:01:01 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter & All, Peter wrote; > If you are "studying" a method of controlling mites (biological or > otherwise) you must have some evidence of mite levels you can give, > otherwise all you are saying is "we don't have many mites" and it means very > little. > You got it right Peter, "very little" mites that is. This is probably a really correct statement, For the Lusby's do state that they have "very little" mite numbers in their colonies. So few that their bees manage the level low enough for survivability and sustainability. Not only do they survive and sustain but as Dee has stated, either here on BEE-L or other email list, that their bees are also bringing in surplus honey. This even in a 100 year cycle drought and other beekeepers not doing so in their area. In my opinion, they are responsible keeping bees as beekeepers in other locations would love to do themselves. Not only do Dee and Ed Actually keep their bees alive and well on 4.9mm comb but so do others. for instance, a Gentleman in Alabama, Bill does so and in spite of his neighbors losing bees from some mysterious unknown virus (that was probably vectored by mites), Bill only lost a handful, Like four colonies last winter out of around 500 colonies. This to me is impressive and note worthy to say the least. Bill tells me he will never go back to larger cells and bigger bees. This commercial beekeeper made the leap to smaller cells and bees and is grateful he did, I am sure his bees are too. Can't say the mites feel the same as Dee, Ed, Bill and others. Dee wrote; > Not enough to be worth the time for the USDA to officially > do another official mite count test since 1997. > Peter replied, > I don't get it. No one has checked your numbers for 5 years? You are not > doing any mite counts yourself? I thought most beekeepers were checking > their hives for mites. It isn't very hard to do. > I get it. Even the USDA feels it is worthless to spend time or bother to count a "very little" amount of mites. They probably have better things to do, like try to figure what strain of bee would be mite resistant enough to survive, sustain and make surplus honey and all the while be gentle. Dee and Ed, I am sure, have lots to do making a living producing honey and bees and feel no need to count mites to fill the spare time. One thing they do feel is worthy of their spare time is to share the methods they use in keeping bees healthy. Dee, maybe you should sit down and count your mites for Peter's sake. Is there really a biological way to accuratly count mites with out a pesticide? Keeping bees is a responsibility, happy Beekeeping, d:~)> . .. c(((([ Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA kdmalone@ideafamilies.org http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norlandbeekeepers/ Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:27:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Jeffrey R. Hills" Subject: Bees and Time; Bees and Sound MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit With regard to my bees and their reaction to the 5:00 PM church bells, Michael Housel observed: The vibrations are apparently being interpreted by the bees as a predator (a skunk scratching at the landing board?), and they are putting up the usual sorties of kamikaze defenders. Yesterday evening the bells played "Nearer, My God, to thee." The bees remained perfectly calm. Jeff Hills Dorset, Vermont ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:45:58 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: huestis' Subject: Re: Section comb supering Comments: To: Phil Moore MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, I winter in three deep. About a week before the honey flow hits I shake most of the bees out of the top two boxes (already been reversed) after locating the queen. The daughter is set behind the parent on its own stand. I do one of three things. I don't buy queens. 1. Give the old queen to the daughter. A crowded section colony is ideal for cell building usually. I cut all but one cell. 2.I winter nucs which I just drop the whole thing into the daughter and let them rip.(or just take the queen and add new cells). 3.graft cells and requeen via cell, or similar methods demaree queens for example. Basically I use the Killions methods as these make some of the best sections. Clay ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 06:53:48 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Unfortunately, there was no flow on, it was January. I > could only show them sporatic mites being chewed out! No > mite waves passing thru, no drone brood being cared for and > cleaned. This something I've been wondering about. How much mite reproduction do you get in the drone brood. The mites did not seem to be doing very well in the worker brood. As far as I could tell they did not seem to be reproducing in worker cells, although we found the occasional mite in a worker cell. How many are raised in drone cells? When you speak of mites waves passing through, are you implying the mite waves are from outside the hives, or that they have waves of success in your hives when drones are being raised? How was the honey flow? Did you manage to extract a surplus? allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:04:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Keith and All, Keith wrote: > Dee and Ed Lusby may have already done this, and now, all we have to do is hope that they will share their stock so we can utilize it. I have been waiting for this post to interject. I knew the post was coming. The Africanized bee was brought into Brazil to create a *super bee*. Why not after all the world record for honey production from a single hive was from an apiary from which Warwick Kerr got part of his queens. Africanized *genes* are serious business! Removing queens and bees from a area of documented AHb is illegal for a reason. To prevent the spread of AHB. I can provide pages of USDA documentation to the fact Arizona's bees are to be considered Africanized. The Lusbys say their bees are not ahb but have no proof and the USDA says all of Arizona is AHB from their research. I would need some official inspection that the stock was not AHb before I would order queens from an area which according to the *2001* USDA AHB spread map is the highest concentration of AHB in the U.S. for a single state. The USDA source map can be found on page 22 of Dr. Dewey Caron's new book published by A.I.Root (2001)"Africanized Honey Bees In The Americas". The United States Department of Agriculture is not perfect but I have found the information I have received from the dept. very accurate through the years. I say *If* Dee wants to sell her queens then she gets the inspection department running again and gets USDA inspection before illegally shipping any more queens. I suggest beekeepers even considering buying queens illegally out of a documented AHB area to buy and read the new Dewey Caron book first. Even though the Arizona inspection department was dropped (while Dee was president of the state associasion) it is still illegal to ship queens out of a documented AHB area as Blane pointed out. I do this post in the interest of U.S. beekeeping . Rules are made for a reason. In this case to prevent the spread Africanized genes. Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:25:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Keith and Everyone, Keith wrote in part: "I get it. Even the USDA feels it is worthless to spend time or bother to count a "very little" amount of mites. They probably have better things to do, like try to figure what strain of bee would be mite resistant enough to survive, sustain and make surplus honey and all the while be gentle. Dee and Ed, I am sure, have lots to do making a living producing honey and bees and feel no need to count mites to fill the spare time. One thing they do feel is worthy of their spare time is to share the methods they use in keeping bees healthy." Hold on there Keith. USDA researchers have developed the SMR line of honeybees that are resistant to varroa and released them to beekeepers while continuing to select them for varroa resistance and other important traits. They have taken the time with these bees to carefully count how many mites are in the colonies and the colonies of hybrids ( open mated daughter queens ). Likewise with the Russian stock they have imported and continue to select for varroa resistance and other important traits. They continue to work and select both these stocks and publish the numbers of mites they are finding in the colonies and other traits important to beekeepers. Both these varroa resistant/tolerant stocks have been released to beekeepers for their use. They don't claim complete varroa resistance but continue to work for increasing resistance and this does not require melting down all your combs and shaking down the bees etc. Simply requeening with these documented more resistant stocks by beekeepers. Not all beekeepers who are trying these bees are treating with acaricides either and some have gone a number of years without such treatments. Honeybee researchers have given us beekeepers some varroa resistant stocks and also methods we can all use to select more varroa resistant bees on our own. They have also been on the front lines finding treatments to keep the bees alive until the stocks are fully resistant to the mites. We need both. The lack of actual counts by the Lusbys is a concern for me since I have seen colonies survive without treatment for more than two years and these colonies were not resistant eventually being killed by the mites. Long term survival is impressive but I would be more comfortable being able to actually see some data to study and decide if it is showing what is being claimed. Sometimes I suspect that the published data doesn't match with the claims in research reports but the only way I can come to that conclusion reasonably is by being able to look at the data. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:22:48 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Keith and All, Keith wrote: > Dee, maybe you should sit down and count your mites for Peter's sake. Is there really a biological way to accuratly count mites with out a pesticide? Many bee books , bee magazines ,the USDA and this list have written about testing for varroa by 24 hour natural mite fall. What more biological way to test? Even Peta members would approve. Although some researchers do not consider natural mite fall the best method of testing it sure beats the eyes in my opinion when dealing with large numbers of hives . Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 09:43:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <000a01c22e5b$cfab3200$1eac58d8@BusyBeeAcres> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit From: Bob Harrison > Removing queens and bees from a area of documented AHb is illegal for a > reason. To prevent the spread of AHB. I can provide pages of USDA > documentation to the fact Arizona's bees are to be considered Africanized. Hi Bob - When it comes down to it, isn't this really a sort of idealism that works on paper, but not in real life? Beekeepers move their bees into the "Africanized zone" all the time, including yourself as you have said on this list before, and then move them out. Why is it okay for some but not for others? Why is it okay for some bee breeders that sit in an area surrounded by AHB to raise and sell their stock, but not the Lusby's? > The Lusbys say their bees are not ahb but have no proof and the USDA says > all of Arizona is AHB from their research. You would first have to prove that the Lusby's bees are in fact Africanized. To date, no one has been able to do that. The last testing done on their bees has been posted on the web now for some time. It's my understanding that their bees have been available for testing, but there have been no takers. If you're that concerned about their bees getting moved around, I'm sure Dee would supply the bees if you were willing to incur the costs and do the leg work involved to have their bees tested in a responsible way. I, too, would sure love to know exactly what type of bees the Lusby's have, but until it can be proven, it's just speculation. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:50:40 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Dee, maybe you should sit down and count your mites for Peter's sake. Is > there really a biological way to accuratly count mites with out a pesticide? Actually, I think Dee did indicate that they do monitor the mites when she mentioned the 'waves' of mites. I gather that this is an informal count, but maybe she could share what she has observed? allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 10:25:22 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: A grand experiment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Everyone, Barry wrote in part: "When it comes down to it, isn't this really a sort of idealism that works on paper, but not in real life? Beekeepers move their bees into the "Africanized zone" all the time, including yourself as you have said on this list before, and then move them out. Why is it okay for some but not for others? Why is it okay for some bee breeders that sit in an area surrounded by AHB to raise and sell their stock, but not the Lusby's?" Yes beekeepers move bees out of the AHB area in TX but every outfit is sampled and verified as European by the TX Apiary Inspection Service before they can legally move. The outfits you describe in TX have their stock inspected, bees sampled and European stock certified before they can sell their queens. If Dee wants to submit to that she can - but first she would need to get apiary inspection services reinstated in AZ. In fact right now it is illegal to move bees from AZ to most other states in the US due to the lack of an inspection service there. Nearly all states require that bees coming into the state be inspected and certified to be free of diseases and pests as well as unwanted strains of honeybees. I have been in meetings where commercial beekeepers from AZ have very respectfully asked how they could legally move bees out of AZ. Without an authorized entity to inspect and certify it just can't be done. Yes beekeepers do move bees out of AZ but they do so illegally and with on assurance that they are not shipping serious disease problems or unwanted strains of honeybees to other states where these things do not occur. Again I ask why would anyone want to illegally import queens from an Africanized area when stocks with documented resistant to varroa mites are available legally from other sources which are willing to have their outfits inspected and sampled to verify that they are not shipping something the rest of us don't want. I have no problems with anyone trying small cell or any other methods of trying to avoid the need for chemical treatment of varroa as long as it doesn't involve illegally moving bees. Illegal movement of honeybees has gotten us both tracheal and varroa mites. There are other problems that could be easily moved that most of us don't want. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 08:01:45 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob & All, Bob wrote; > Many bee books , bee magazines ,the USDA and this list have written about > testing for varroa by 24 hour natural mite fall. What more biological way to > test? Even Peta members would approve. > > Although some researchers do not consider natural mite fall the best method > of testing it sure beats the eyes in my opinion when dealing with large > numbers of hives . > So what would a high mite drop in 24 hours mean, a lot of mites were in your hives or a lot of mites were just discarded from the hive and now there are fewer in it? A 24 hour mite drop, to me, does not tell how many mites are inside the hive, It only tells me how many mites are no longer in the hive. This is my opinion, but what do I know? Keeping bees is a responsibility, happy Beekeeping, d:~)> . .. c(((([ Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA kdmalone@ideafamilies.org http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 07:47:44 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Blane & All, Blane writes > Hold on there Keith. You hold on if you want to Blane,I don't have to hold on, I choose to march forward. d:~)> I wrote; > "I get it. Even the USDA feels it is worthless to spend time or bother > to > count a "very little" amount of mites. They probably have better things > to > do, like try to figure what strain of bee would be mite resistant enough > to > survive, sustain and make surplus honey and all the while be gentle. And Blane wrote in part; > USDA researchers have developed the SMR line of > honeybees that are resistant to varroa and released them to beekeepers > while continuing to select them for varroa resistance and other > important traits. They have taken the time with these bees to carefully > count how many mites are in the colonies and the colonies of hybrids ( > open mated daughter queens ). Likewise with the Russian stock they have > imported and continue to select for varroa resistance and other > important traits. > Reply; In other words similar to what I stated above. Blane here again; > They don't claim complete varroa resistance but continue to work > for increasing resistance and this does not require melting down all > your combs and shaking down the bees etc. My reply; This is good. Shaking down bees is just a tool that some beekeepers may choose to use in helping their bees. It is for more than helping to hold down varroa that I and other beekeepers make the choice to down size the worker bee. Again Blane; > Simply requeening with these > documented more resistant stocks by beekeepers. Not all beekeepers who > are trying these bees are treating with acaricides either and some have > gone a number of years without such treatments. > Me writing; can these documents be viewed and how can I define "a number of years"? Blane expresses his opinion; > Honeybee researchers have given us beekeepers some varroa resistant > stocks and also methods we can all use to select more varroa resistant > bees on our own. They have also been on the front lines finding > treatments to keep the bees alive until the stocks are fully resistant > to the mites. We need both. My opinionated reply; I appreciate what researchers have done with stocks and some methods. When you write "treatments", I assume you mean chemical treatments. If so I do not agree "We need both". There are other treatments that have not been looked at close enough by the researchers, such as worker cell size. For some reason this simple treatment is being avoided like it is a scourge or a plague. Blane; > The lack of actual counts by the Lusbys is > a concern for me since I have seen colonies survive without treatment > for more than two years and these colonies were not resistant eventually > being killed by the mites. > Me; Yet this has not happened to the Lusby's. If it is truly a concern for you why not go and count them and report back. Others may believe your observations or not. I, for one, would appreciate your findings. Blane, How would a beekeeper count mites in an apiary that is managed biologically without the use of a miticide to induce a mite crash, maybe heat, a sound frequency, or?? Blane; > Sometimes I suspect that > the published data doesn't match with the claims in research reports but > the only way I can come to that conclusion reasonably is by being able > to look at the data. > Me finally concluding; This is true, but the data has to be believed. The best I can do is test, trial and try and come to conclusions for myself. With all the pros and cons with data it can make heads spin looking for a direction to turn. I simply choose the method I feel comfortable with and march forward. Keeping bees is a responsibility, happy Beekeeping, d:~)> . .. c(((([ Keith Malone Chugiak, Alaska USA kdmalone@ideafamilies.org http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney Check out current weather in my area and 5 day forecast; http://www.wx.com/myweather.cfm?ZIP=99654 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 12:34:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Janet Montgomery Subject: Re: Survival of paper in a beehive MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I have a neighbor friend that was redoing some equipment and found a 1923 newspaper between the cover and its metal cover. It is still readable and in better preservation, I think, than if it was stored some other way. It is really fun to read the ads and text in light of today's perspective. The prices for items were approximately 10 times less than today. So It is possible for paper to survive, at least in the protection of a cover Dan Veilleux North Carolina ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:59:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit From: Blane White > Yes beekeepers do move bees out of AZ but they do so illegally > and with on assurance that they are not shipping serious disease > problems or unwanted strains of honeybees to other states where these > things do not occur. Hi Blaine - I was not aware that there were states that had no bee diseases. I thought by now all diseases have been in all states. No? Those that would be interested in bee stock from the Lusby's are in fact interested in just the opposite, their bees, that are able to handle mites and diseases. The proof is there. You just have to go see for yourself. In this age of travel, I hear about all the different gatherings and meetings that beekeepers go to across this country every year, yet I know of just a handful of beekeepers that have taken a couple of days and actually gone to the Lusby's to see firsthand what is being talked about. I have shared what I have seen there, Allen, too, has shared, why not Blaine now? You also wrote in another post: > Sometimes I suspect that > the published data doesn't match with the claims in research reports but > the only way I can come to that conclusion reasonably is by being able > to look at the data. I submit that the data is alive and well and living around the Tucson area. Please, take a 3 day trip and go see. Back to this post: > Again I ask why would anyone want to illegally import queens from an > Africanized area when stocks with documented resistant to varroa mites > are available legally from other sources I would submit that it's called the right to make a living. Until their bees can be proven to be AHB's, they have every right to go about their business. > Illegal movement of honeybees has gotten us both tracheal > and varroa mites. There are other problems that could be easily moved > that most of us don't want. What we don't want is to use the standard/recommended practice (chemicals/drugs) that has been handed to us for how many years now. We have hive numbers dropping like the stock market due to mites, and you point to problems that COULD happen should these honeybees get moved as a reason not to do it? Wow, this seems way out of balance to me. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 16:09:50 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barry Birkey wrote: > I was not aware that there were states that had no bee diseases. I thought > by now all diseases have been in all states. No? Those that would be > interested in bee stock from the Lusby's are in fact interested in just the > opposite, their bees, that are able to handle mites and diseases. The proof > is there. You just have to go see for yourself. We have over 60,000 hives enter Maine every year. They are inspected before they leave their home States and when they come to Maine. Not all, but a fair sampling. They are inspected for mites and every disease. With American foulbrood, hives are destroyed. I am very happy that someone is watching out for Maine Beekeepers. We do not send our inspector to the sending State because the inspectors in that State inspect some of the colonies before they go and they are inspected by our inspector when they arrive and during their stay. It would be criminal (both legally and morally) to ship bees out of a State that has been quarantined and which has no inspection program. Also, why ship any bees from Arizona anyway, since it is the 4.9 cell size which works for all bees everywhere.... right? Bill Truesdell Bath, Me ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:41:40 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Bees and Time; Bees and Sound MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jeff Hills said: > Yesterday evening the bells played "Nearer, My God, to thee." > The bees remained perfectly calm OK, assuming the bells were played at the same time, we have eliminated "time" from the equation. On to sound... Can you get them to play "A Mighty Fortress" again when you can be around to "test" the reaction of your bees? It seems that either: a) The bells had nothing to do with your bees' sudden mood swings, and it was something else that you simply did not notice. b) Only certain bells (I'd guess big fat bells that play low notes) cause the vibrations I spoke of eairlier, and those bells are used in the one hymn, but not the other. c) The bees ARE music critics after all, and don't like the one hymn, or the way it was played. jim ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:22:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <3D37208E.B1D18E53@suscom-maine.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit From: Bill Truesdell > It would be criminal (both legally and morally) to ship bees out of a > State that has been quarantined and which has no inspection program. I won't get into a moral debate with you. If there are laws regarding AHB in Arizona, then one must first determine that the Lusby's bees are AHB and fall under those laws. Short of that, your arguing with a straw man. In fact, what tests that have been done on their bees would not support conjecturing that they are AHB. If other breeders can manage to keep stock that is not Africanized while being surrounded by Africanized quarantined zones, then there is no reason to believe that the Lusby's couldn't do the same. The only thing I'm arguing is the attempt by some to jump the gun and assume in their writing that they (Lusby's) would be shipping AHB's around the country. I say let the testing begin! I know it already has, but that shouldn't stop others from testing the bees if they want to. > Also, why ship any bees from Arizona anyway, since it is the 4.9 cell > size which works for all bees everywhere.... right? The same reason someone would want to buy/ship bees from Bolling Bee, myself, and a whole assortment of others who now have bees raised on 4.9 cell size; they are already regressed and ready to roll in a 4.9 hive. One can bypass all the hard work of regression by simply buying the bees. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 16:37:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry and All, Glad to hear from you Barry. We have missed your excellent posts! Dee pushed and changed the inspection law in Arizona. Why? All Arizona beekeepers did not want the inspections dropped. Blane works for the USDA and was involved. The USDA does not have the people to enforce many of the beekeeping laws on the books but when busted the fines can be expensive. I agree with everything Blane has posted and makes perfect sense to me. I told Dee two years ago in a post that most of us are content to wait for the USDA to breed a varroa tolerant bee. We now have SMR and Russian queens. Give the varroa tolerant breeder queens from the USDA to the queen breeders. Then the hobby beekeeper simply buys a couple SMR or Russian queens from his queen breeder and installs and the varroa problem is over. What could be simpler. Almost all the members of the Midwestern Beekeepers Assn. have converted this year to varroa tolerant queens. All the major queen breeders are buying varroa tolerant breeder queens (SMR and Russian)to incorporate into their stock. Years of research can be looked at at the Baton Rouge USDA bee lab web site. The whole process is documented. Barry wrote: > When it comes down to it, isn't this really a sort of idealism that works on paper, but not in real life? Beekeepers move their bees into the > "Africanized zone" all the time, including yourself as you have said on this list before, and then move them out. I have never moved bees in or out of Arizona. Beekeepers which I work with have moved plenty of bees through Arizona on the interstate. I have never moved bees in or out of a AHB quarentine area of Texas. I did post a scenaro once (not long ago) that beekeepers not wanting to mess with regulation *could* move in and out of Arizona without permits and use illegal methods while in Arizona without fear of being caught. The problem would be entering your home state without a inspection permit from Arizona. Arizona could become your permanent home if caught. In all fairness to Barry there are plenty of bees moved without permits. I suspect even in and out of Arizona. Not a big deal to those beekeepers UNTIL they get busted! Does anyone on the list know if the commercial migratory beekeeper which slipped into the Rio Grand AHb quarentine area of Texas with 3,000 hives and the inspection service would never give him a clean certificate to leave ever got out. He spoke about the injustice of the USDA and the Texas inspection service at the ABF convention in Austin, Texas. All Blane and I have done is tell the list what the LAW is. I can not stop people from breaking the law. Are you advocating bee movement breaking laws? Barry wrote: Why is it okay for some bee breeders that sit in an area surrounded > by AHB to raise and sell their stock, but not the Lusby's? I do not have any pity on the Lusby's on this point. Arizona had a inspection service which would have been able to do exactly as Blane said. Dee could get her bees certified AHB free and then ship. Dee was at the front of the push to get rid of the Arizona inspection . Why? I think we all know the answer. The Lusby's should have thought what getting the inspection service removed would mean to their future queen business. > You would first have to prove that the Lusby's bees are in fact Africanized. To date, no one has been able to do that. Sorry Barry but the burden of proof is on the Lusby's. No clean AHB certificate no ship legally out of Arizona. Like it or not the law is in place for a reason which Blane correctly pointed out . Dee wanted the law changed and used her position as president of the Arizona beekeepers to push *deregulation* through as she calls it. The whole story is posted on Bee-L. Why? Blane correctly stated the law from my understanding of the bee laws. Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:39:01 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Long or Wide Hive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Get your local library to obtain a copy of Robin Dartington's "Equipment for New Beekeeping " ISBN 0905652 51 7 Chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:09:45 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Keith, All of what I going to post for you is in the archives but will briefly explain natural mite drop. > So what would a high mite drop in 24 hours mean, a lot of mites were >in your hives or a lot of mites were just discarded from the hive and >now there are fewer in it? I use the same method my friend Allen Dick uses at times. We slip a white board in the entrance and come back in 24 hours and count the varroa. Dr. Marion Ellis, Dr. Delaplane and others have written the figure each feels is threshold. Many do not agree on threshold. Threshold is simply the mite load going into winter at which a hive will not survive till spring without treating or a mite load so high treatment is a waste of money. I have treated whole yards with strips which tested over threshold only to watch all die over the winter. I have been researching varroa long before varroa was ever found in the U.S. I have seen every varroa problem researchers talk about first hand except coumaphos resistance yet. I tested for varroa by natural mite fall this spring and did not use one strip this spring. I will do the same in August and if levels are low enough I won't treat again this fall. keith wrote: A 24 hour mite drop, to me, does not tell how many mites are > inside the hive, It only tells me how many mites are no longer in the hive. This is my opinion, but what do I know? Dr. Marion Ellis prefers the rolls. I prefer the natural mite drop as less labor is involved in my opinion. Sorry to bring my friend Dr. Ellis into the issue but he is a respected varroa researcher and I have sit through three of his talks in the last 6 months (Savannah "January", Keokuk "March" and K.C "May"). Both tests work if done correctly in my opinion. Many beekeepers do not do the rolls correctly by taking bees from the entrance (Marion tests correctly). The bees need to come from a brood comb to be accurate which means opening each hive and pulling a frame. Beekeepers doing rolls get the results right away. I get my results the next day and invest a second trip to the hives. I test every hive in the yard and not on a sample few. Why? To find chemical resistant varroa. Using my method in spring is hard as mite levels are low then and testing has do be done at exactly the right time to be accurate with natural mite fall. Sincerely, Bob Harrison . Dr. Marion Ellis is holding the Master Beekeeping workshops in Nebraska next week. I will send contact information if you email me directly. I was told last night there still are a few openings. The three day course is not easy but you can obtain a master beekeeper certification if you complete all the requirements. Some do and some don't. Every beekeeper will learn a few things about beekeeping he/she did not already know I assure you. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:12:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <000a01c22e5b$cfab3200$1eac58d8@BusyBeeAcres> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Bob Harrison wrote: The Lusbys say their bees are not ahb but have no proof and the USDA says all of Arizona is AHB from their research. Reply: Bob, the proof that our bees are not AHB is the fact that neither the USDA nor other excellent labs and scientists in Europe have identified our bees as africanized of any sort, with the exception, in the beginning, when we helped with samples of our bees in defining the accuracy/ parameters of FABIS, which flunked and said our small black bees were africanized, while the german scientists (Koeniger was one) and others in USA (Houck was one, Roy-Keith Smith another) said our bees were caucasian or similar to caucasian. There has been no DNA done to pinpoint what our bees are, except with DNA done on our bees and the small black ones in the hills of San Diego by the USDA, when Charlie Morris was inspector of San Diego County way back, when all this stuff was starting on how to ID bees, and FABIS was being written, and carried a disclaimer in its paper(that if the bees in other areas were different then the bees in the FABIS survey or another area, then different standards were to be developed and used), that others never followed with the exception of Arizona. Arizona did set up another model for FABIS. Either one can identify or one cannot. This is the oddity! Just what are our bees???? I myself think NATIVE and I am standing until the DNA says otherwise. . . .It certainly has never said Africanized. In fact no managed colonies in the whole state of Arizona have ever been surveyed to find out by either FABIS or DNA what the bees actually are. If identifying is going to be done, it is going to be done right! Bob Harrison also wrote: I would need some official inspection that the stock was not AHb before I would order queens from an area which according to the *2001* USDA AHB spread map is the highest concentration of AHB in the U.S. for a single state. Reply: No official statewide surverys were ever done in Arizona for AHBs either before, or after de-statuatorizing the books by either the USDA or the state of Arizona. Even now Dr Rinderer says in ABJ, July 02 issue page 480, only 9 of the 15 counties in Arizona were AHB according to him. The USDA never declared Arizona 100% africanized on paper, as one can see by this in the current ABJ. AHB classification for a hive means only one mating of a queen of several in a hive to be africanized. For a county to be africanized, only one hive has to be found by the standard used to declare africanization, and yet FABIS was flawed early on, and was not corrected to much later. Only corrected after it's so-called trek up S. America thru Mexico and into the USA including early parts of Texas and Arizona. The declaration of 100% africanized in Arizona,was done by Mr Kelly, Director of the Arizona Dept of Agric, following de-statutatory regulation of the books, as a parting gift to our industry. It does not match Dr Rinderer assessment of partial africanization. So which is correct? You choose. As for a map showing the highest concentration of AHB in the country. Well, IT SHOULD!! For the FIGURES ARE FLAWED. Why??? Because throughout the 1980s and 1990s our area in Arizona has had the most beekeepers trying to regress bees back smaller. First to 900 size, i.e. Dr Erickson and Hines even tried it. We worked with Dr Erickson and Dr Hoffman with smaller cell size of 5.0 - 5.1 for many years, and now we are even smaller. All the while many locally, followed us trying. On one side the bee lab was into studies with regressing of honeybees to see how it effected mites(we had a signed contract with Western REgion with Dr Erickson and Dr Hoffman doing the work on a technical exchange of information), and on the other side the lab was into africanization with Dr Loper and his group. It was conflicting at times between the two groups. But the fact the so much comb was being made locally, and put into beehives, was never reflected into the data bases as domestic bees absconded to the feral! Why???? To help the labs better to get AHB going for money grants? Probably? But then, maybe they never thought about it as a problem? After all who would it hurt in the long run? If the maps did not show us as most africanized I whould be even more surprised! Also, did you know that the first 2-3 years, all ahb finds were near or next to beeyards setup on smaller combs. Yet, why no comparison of this or noting in surveys of official record??? Sizing down in the area had already been going on for 10 years or more at the time of official africanization with bees coming into Arizona by local area beekeepers. The lab itself had already been working with small cell projects for more then 7-8 years also. Ahbs in Arizona. I really don't think so, not like you do! for I know the political history of the state for this subject, and I will only believe when I see the DNA of our yards showing it, which I do not think can be done. All they were looking for was something different. This was said many times. Different by sizing! Different by colour! but they forgot DNA was still developing and now we will wait until we officially find out! Then we will know for sure. Regards Dee __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:07:35 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robt Mann Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Barry wrote: >what tests that have been done on their bees would not support >conjecturing that they are AHB. If other breeders can manage to keep stock >that is not Africanized while being surrounded by Africanized quarantined >zones, then there is no reason to believe that the Lusby's couldn't do the >same. Modern methods of analysing DNA fragments could by now have settled into a reliable, sensitive test for whatever had been deemed 'Afro' gene(s). It is a dismal perversion of such technology that instead it's largely deployed into attempts at commercialising dubious, ill-tested crops, and then disputing whether a crop for human consumption contains 0.14% (as in the StarLink® case) or 0.04% (as in the Novartis NZ stunt) of transgenic DNA. The economics can be arranged so that assay fees are in the range $6 - $30. In such a context it is very wrong for the Dubyuh regime to cut budgets for the federal bee labs. They should be enormously expanded (as should my own govt's efforts on varroa & other bee research themes). Neglect of bees is a most ominous sign of decadence in the overdeveloped world. A kind friend brought me in 1987 the new English translation (by a Russian woman and then one Cynthia Martin) of V V Rodionov & I A Shabarshov 1983 'The Fascinating World of Bees' (MOCKBA: Mir). Methods, and chemicals (e.g wormwood), were apparently useful that we'd never heard of thru the iron curtain. It would appear that more than just international trade in Russian queens but also many other cross-pollinations could occur. Why don't we celebrate the end of the cold war by getting NATO to sponsor a major confab on bees? As it is, discussion can be censored or closed off by one e-adept person - a major drawback of this list. But modern confab admin can arrange a lot of translators, and I can't think of a more urgent need for agriculture than a well conducted confab, leading to a book which resolves, to some large extent, recent long-drawn-out controversies. As Hayley Mills urged ca1963, Let's Get Together. Such issues as were not resolved by this confab might at least be organised for international cooperative research. I have no doubt that non-scientists would play a considerable part at every stage. The reasons for the scientific method (as ably expounded by Farmageddon re bells & bees) are its proven efficiency & reliability; but it is not the sole way of knowledge. R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 20:26:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <001901c22ea3$72ebd400$23ac58d8@BusyBeeAcres> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit From: Bob Harrison > Glad to hear from you Barry. Hi Bob - Decided to get off my hands and enter into the discussion on this one. > Dee pushed and changed the inspection law in Arizona. Why? I know she has told me the background on this but she will have to explain so it gets told correctly. > All Arizona beekeepers did not want the inspections dropped. Blane works for > the USDA and was involved. Then perhaps Blaine could share what he knows about it so we get a broader understanding. > I told Dee two years ago in a post that most of us are content to wait for > the USDA to breed a varroa tolerant bee. We now have SMR and Russian queens. > Give the varroa tolerant breeder queens from the USDA to the queen > breeders. Then the hobby beekeeper simply buys a couple SMR or Russian > queens from his queen breeder and installs and the varroa problem is over. > What could be simpler. I don't believe simplicity has anything to do with this discussion. I'm not here to bang the 4.9 drum or to put down other approaches to the varroa fix. Yes, SMR is another alternative, but has yet to be tested in the fire of life like the Lusby's have done with 4.9, IMO. > I have never moved bees in or out of Arizona. I was referring to the movement of your bees to Texas where ahb is all around also. > I have never > moved bees in or out of a AHB quarentine area of Texas. No, but next to them. And we all know bees do not respect lines that are drawn on a map. > In all fairness > to Barry there are plenty of bees moved without permits. I suspect even in > and out of Arizona. Well, this is the reality of life I'm trying to make a point about. People talk of major problems happening should bees from one area get out and into other areas. THEY ALREADY DO! Where are the problems that are so fearfully talked about? Let's be realistic here. In my line of work, the governing agencies expect you to have/get a permit to do a very wide range of work so they can "protect" the consumer against bad workmanship. Yea right! Don't get me going on this one. I've got 23 years of firsthand experience seeing what permits and inspections do to protect the consumer. The result keeps me well employed. Tell me what is going to happen should the Lusby's ship bees to another state and that states inspector can't tell whether or not they are ahb's? By what guide will he make his determination whether they are or not? If he simply says they are because they came from Arizona, this has proved nothing. Too many holes in the system to be much good in my opinion. > All Blane and I have done is tell the list what the LAW is. I can not stop > people from breaking the law. Are you advocating bee movement breaking laws? I think I addressed this in my reply to Bill. I'm advocating that this issue needs to be looked at deeper and not simply write it off as a given or hype it up. There may be laws in place, but it is the interpretation of those laws where it gets a lot more cloudy. Regards, Barry, getting ready to sit on my hands again. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 19:55:26 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A grand experiment In-Reply-To: <003d01c22e5a$29c054c0$54ae73d1@allen> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Allen Dick wrote: How much mite reproduction do you get in the drone brood. Reply: Not very much. Don't even see varroa on exposed drone brood on bracecomb, from opened cells exposing pupae, when opening up hives any more, when splitting supers apart from the third top broodbox. They are clean now. Even when Kim was at the bees for article for Bee Culture, we didn't see much reproducing in the drone brood. We uncapped drone brood with him watching and camera ready. With Erik and others too later on. Maybe one or two. Allen Dick also wrote: When you speak of mites waves passing through, are you implying the mite waves are from outside the hives, or that they have waves of success in your hives when drones are being raised? Reply: There seems to be three interacting circles raising varroa that is going on. Well, maybe four if you think about it! There's the drones also the workers also phoretic mites mites from outside sources It depends up the time of the year what you see and each has a rhymthic pattern with up and down swings, coming and going, from minor honey flows and blooming to major ones. Allen also asked: How was the honey flow? Did you manage to extract a surplus? Reply: So far so, so, considering the year being a proclaimed 100 year drought and fires all around. Many were feeding their bees up into May this year because of it. Had over 110 days of 105F heat plus and drought only broke 9 Jul this past week. In many spots 50-70% of the trees never leafed out along with bushes. But all in all we have extracted, while many in the area did not, but refused to touch the third deeps just in case the rains didn't come. Everyone expects the bloom to be on by the end of July now with August thru Thanksgiving for a decent average crop year yet. The fourth deep super you saw when here, we were setting up for crop, now have 5-6 drawn combs on most all hives. Should be ready for El Nino on time as it comes in. Regards, Dee A, Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 06:53:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A grand experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dee wrote: the proof that our bees are not AHB is the fact that > neither the USDA nor other excellent labs and scientists in > Europe have identified our bees as africanized of any sort, > with the exception, in the beginning, when we helped with > samples of our bees in defining the accuracy/ parameters of > FABIS, which flunked and said our small black bees were > africanized, Although Tom Rinderer used fabis early on the fabis system has been crtiscised by several researchers. Guzman-Novoa a Mexican bee scientist is one of the biggest critics of using morphometric measurements. On the other hand Professor Kerr was the first to use morphometric measurements ( which Daly refined)and considered the system accurate. Dewey Caron in his book says " Validation of the accuracy of using morphometric measurements to ID bees has been confirmed experimentally." > There has been no DNA done to pinpoint what our bees are, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) really makes all other forms of ID (FABIS) antique in my opinion and the method I would use on your bees. The same method used to convict criminals AND also free inocent people convicted of crimes they did not do. Dee wrote: > No official statewide surverys were ever done in Arizona > for AHBs either before, or after de-statuatorizing the > books by either the USDA or the state of Arizona. No statewide surveys have been done in any state to my knowledge. The USDA AHB map is simply updated and each county blacked out when a documented AHB find has been made. Many counties were pronounced AHB by the FABIS method (probabbly most). > Even now Dr Rinderer says in ABJ, July 02 issue page 480, > only 9 of the 15 counties in Arizona were AHB according to > him. As you say they are not looking. Dr. Hoffman said all counties in Arizona should be considered AHB which means in my opinion if a survey was done of the *feral* bees in all counties Dr. Hoffman believes she would find a documented AHB case in each county. I suspect many more counties in west texas would be blacked out on the USDA map if the USDA was looking. > The USDA never declared Arizona 100% africanized on paper, > as one can see by this in the current ABJ. The Arizona state Africanized Honey Bee Advisory Board decided that the africanized honey bee was not quarantinable early on and elected to pursue an educational campaign instead . > The declaration of 100% africanized in Arizona,was done by > Mr Kelly, Director of the Arizona Dept of Agric, following > de-statutatory regulation of the books, as a parting gift > to our industry. I thought you said Arizona had never been declared 100% Africanized on paper? > As for a map showing the highest concentration of AHB in > the country. Well, IT SHOULD!! For the FIGURES ARE FLAWED. > Why??? This is a discussion list and I truly wish I was not discussing with a friend. The facts are not in my opinion flawed. Your bees may not be AHB but with the amount of hives you run I can't believe (in my opinion) that many do not contain bees with AHB mt DNA. Indeed your bees do not sound like AHb from your talking about your bees and from Allen Dick writing about his observations. Although your bees may not be aggressive they *may* carry the genetic material (AHB genes) to be aggressive in another setting or handled by beekeepers of less experience than you or Ed (only my opinion). > Also, did you know that the first 2-3 years, all ahb finds > were near or next to beeyards setup on smaller combs. Yet, > why no comparison of this or noting in surveys of official > record??? Dee is pointing out here (for those not understanding on the list) that AHb is universially considered to be 10% **smaller** than European bees. Dee is implying that possibly mistakes were made because her bees and AHB are exactly the same size. She raises a valid argument. In Texas at the Austin, Texas ABF convention we were given a measurement on back of Paul Jacksons business card. Mr. Jackson is the Texas state bee inspector for those on the list not familier with the name. The card showed 4.9mm cells per inch and was to be used to measure comb to tell if a feral swarm comb was AHb or if a hive which had been taken over by AHB was AHB by the size comb which was being drawn. 4.9mm IS the excepted cell size of AHB and the size starter foundation used by those keeping bees in Africa. > Ahbs in Arizona. I really don't think so, not like you do! The first two human stinging deaths were in 1995 and the bees were documented by dna AHB. > for I know the political history of the state for this > subject, and I will only believe when I see the DNA of our > yards showing it, which I do not think can be done. All > they were looking for was something different. This was > said many times. Different by sizing! Different by colour! Sizing and color are excepted methods of bee ID around the world. As I posted above morphological analysis accuracy has been confirmed to a high degree by laboratory DNA analysis. Although FABIS is only as good as the persons opinion doing the analysis the FABIS system can only be said to be less accurate than DNA but not totally inaccurate. DuPraw (1965) according to Ruttner (1975) ,was unable to delimit scutellata from capensis by wing venation (Hive and Honey Bee 1992 pg. 36) Both DePraw and Ruttner had no problem with ID between all other races and AHB using wing venation. > but they forgot DNA was still developing and now we will > wait until we officially find out! Then we will know for > sure. I agree and hope the tests of your bees are negative. I like discussing the issue but want to remain friends and only point out the other side of the issue for BEE-L. AHB will not stop me from keeping bees as far as aggression goes. I will simply kill all aggressive queens like I currently do. I check mark a few hives every year to requeen the next spring because of aggressiveness. They are not a big problem for me to work but they do upset the other hives when working the apiary. I always work those hives last in the yard . capensis traits could end my beekeeping. I currently see no answer for bees with capensis traits. Although we have yet to establish the magnitude of the capensis trait problem in Arizona like Mike A. posted all it takes is one worker with capensis traits to get the cape bee problem started in the U.S. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 07:11:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: preacher MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello beekeepers, Not to change the subject, but How are your smr lines doing as far as brood and honey surplus this year? So far as what I have found, unless I have a bad bunch. My own lines of mixed italians, at least kept down mites, and gave surplus. My smr line barely got strong enough to make enough honey for themselves. spotting brood and lazy. If you have found a line of smr that is doing well. Please let me know preacher central missouri ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 08:09:44 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Dennis and All, Dennis wrote How are your smr lines doing as far as brood and honey surplus this year? Not as good as the Italians but thats nothing new. Sorry Sue Colby and George I. Carniolans just do not produce for me in Missouri like the Italians do. > My smr line barely got strong enough to make enough honey for themselves. spotting brood and lazy. My partner has reported the same thing in a small percentage of smr daughter hives. My opinion is the quality of the drones they mate with maters a bunch. My partner (I call him partner because we partner in queen rearing and other things) is in Hawaii this week visiting with Gus R. of kona queen to see if we can hone our queen rearing. He will return around the 27th of July. I expect a postcard any time saying "having a great time wish you were here!" I could not have went anyway because of projects i am working on but am a bit jealous. I expect we will start a few hundred smr queens from my *red* line breeder queen when Glenn returns. He will be all wound up about queen rearing when he returns. His honey crop will be waiting for him so he can dream about raising queens while hefting supers and extracting honey. Email me around then Dennis if you want some to try. We use most of the queens we raise but have sold small numbers to our club members to get their opinions on our smr queens. Most of the problems we have had with spotty brood pattern has come from the yellow line breeder queen. Glenn and I are content with the low varroa levels in our smr hives. Now we need to try and get brood production and honey production up through our breeding program. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 09:01:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: smr & 4.9 In-Reply-To: <000701c22f25$8d914b00$65ac58d8@BusyBeeAcres> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit From: Bob Harrison > Glenn and I are content with the low varroa levels in our smr hives. Hello Bob - I think I may have asked you this before. Your smr hives have not been treated with any chemicals? This is encouraging if so. Does this make a full 2 years yet that you have had these bees? You so aptly pointed out, in your reply to Dee, how [some] officials (Jackson) are relying on comb size to determine whether a hive is Africanized or not. By this standard, we must all assume then that anyone buying 4.9 foundation and putting it into their hives will then be keeping AHB's. There needs to be thinking outside the box. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 10:17:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: smr & 4.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Barry, Your smr hives have not been > treated with any chemicals? This is encouraging if so. Does this make a full 2 years yet that you have had these bees? No. We got our breeder queens from Glenn Apiaires early July last year. grafted and installed about 125 SMR queens in hives. I have got 25 and my partner started at least a 100 last fall. He has started others this spring but I do not know for sure how many. Mine have never been treated but not sure about his. We work together till pollination is done and then run our seperate outfits. >, how [some] officials (Jackson) are relying on comb size to determine whether a hive is Africanized or not. Paul Jackson is an excellent bee inspector and was using the methods taught to him. I have heard Paul talk many times. Paul was trying to give the Texas beekeepers a simple method they could use in the field to check for AHB. I see nothing wrong with the method but wrong conclusions could occur if the swarm was from a area close to a apiary of bees on 4.9mm foundation. Dees bees are 10% smaller and are drawing 4.9mm foundation and could be seen as AHB using Paul's method. However the Fabis method used by the USDA to document counties as AHB is based on wing venation and is accurate in a range of 60% (low estimate by Mexican researcher) to a high of 95% ( by USDA.researchers). DNA testing is always accurate and not subject to human error like the FABIS test. DNA testing was used but not sure the exact number times. I was told once that if a swarm testing positive for AHb then the sample was sent on many times for DNA confirmation but can not remember which researcher told me so right now. All talk of AHb in Arizona can not be dismissed as USDA FABIS testing errors. Many DNA tests have been run in Arizona. Always when a stinging incident happens I have been told. I personally care little about scutellata gene ahb. My concerns are with capensis genes getting into the gene pool. bob ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 09:31:47 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: A Grey Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been enjoying this thread. Several things have stuck me about the discussion: 1. Although, as some point out, there are laws about AHB and they thus see matters as black and white, it is apparent to most of us that -- when we examine the issues, the science involved, and the sampling -- we are finding ourselves in a grey area. 2. The second is that, with few exceptions, the posts on the topic have been respectful of those on opposite sides and writers have stuck to the arguments without trolling, posturing or name-calling. 3. Those who are participating are providing facts as well as opinion. 4. Opinion is a very large factor in the AHB debate, and it looks to me, when we examine what the scientists and the lay people say, that there is more opinion than science. Although there has been some very good work done, the science and the sampling are both spotty and inconclusive. What exactly can be called 'african' genes or non-african genes is not absolutely clear. What is clear is that defining areas as 'africanized' and non-africanized is a very arbitrary designation which does not take into consideration the degree or nature of the AHB presence or even the nature of the particular 'AHB' strain. AHB is apparently a designation that covers a wide range of bee stock with varying characteristics. There are a lot of assumptions underlying the wole structure of beliefs about AHB, and many of them are beginning to appear quite questionable in light of new knowledge about bees. Although there are laws and regulations, I am seeing more clearly every day that in many cases the science and methodology are simply not available to back up the laws to a level where they can be upheld if anyone challenges them. Although it is easy to legislate against movement or harbouring of AHB, the most fundamental enforcement tools -- definition and identification are lacking or seriously flawed. Under 'reasonable doubt', a basic principle of Western criminal law, the rules -- no matter how good intentioned -- become basically unenforceable without clear means of identification. Although high-principled statements can be made, attempts at application and enforcement can only be arbitrary and thus subject to question even -- and especially -- by law-respecting citizens. Junius wrote a long time ago, "The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will not submit to arbitrary measures". Civil disobedience is considered by many respectable philosophies to be a *duty*, rather than a right, when confronting an unjust law. In science, the burden of proof is on anyone wishing to put forward a new theory, not on the scientific establishment to defend the current structure. In Western law the onus is normally on the government to prove its definitions and methods in restricting freedom, not on the citizen going about his business. In politics no proof is needed; any statement that is repeated often and appeals to the masses might as well be true, since -- true or not -- people believe and act on it. Inasmuch as this AHB question is a matter of all of these: law, science, and politics, we have conflicting paradigms. In legal matters, such as definition and detection of AHB, the law must prove its case without reasonable doubt. With the current state of science this is difficult. If we wonder why many scientists are very careful what they say, this conflict between law and science may be at the root. When we add in politics as a third component, things get even more difficult. In the AHB question, we have law, politics and science all in play. No wonder there is no win/win solution apparent and those who could speak the truth better than most remain silent. What will be the ultimate outcome? I expect that since all the most effective players are neutralized that the question will be settled by semi-trailers and pickup trucks and billfolds. I predict the three establishments will remain statemated, and that the people will decide the way they always have: by doing what they please, with or without official sanction. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:48:59 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gerald Herrin Subject: Robbing Behaviour of Bees In-Reply-To: <000701c22f25$8d914b00$65ac58d8@BusyBeeAcres> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v482) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This morning at approximately 9.30am I noted a large number of bees congregated on the front of the hive many on the ground in front of the hive. At first, I assumed (yes...I know the first three letters having worn an Army uniform) that this was preliminary to a swarm. After a time, I noted a number of dead bees in front of the hive (perhaps 100-200) and looking carefully I thought I could see some bees struggling to pull live bees from the entrance. This is a hive of three deeps with one shallow partially drawn and one shallow with foundation being fed in order to draw comb. Locally (southern Missouri), there is sumac and chicory blooming along with a few other plants. I thought that this could be a pesticide kill but that did not seem likely (although that's a guess on my part) or, more likely, I was seeing robbing behaviour. I sprayed the from of the hive down with water and drastically reduced the entrance. Does this seem like a possible explanation? Is there something else I might be overlooking? Is robbing behaviour common enough that I would see it this way? I had not opened the hive that morning. The bees were being fed with Miller type feeder, nothing exposed. Three days ago when I looked into the hive, the three deeps had 27 frames well covered with bees, some brood and larvae. Any suggestions would appreciated. Thanks, Your Novice Beekeeper, Gerald Herrin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:17:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Yoon Sik Kim, Ph.D." Subject: Re: A Grey Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Neighbors and Friends in the Global villiage: Interesting this thread is, we tend to ignore one of the key players in the game: the microbes and pathogens themselves—-the little buggers we must deal with. In the discussion, we assume that the strength of mites, for example, remains or will remain as a constant, a factor never evolving in the struggle for existence while we are fuming with new-fangled treatments. Hence, the naïve view that once we slaughter this particular beast of mites, we do not have to worry about that sucker forever and ever. Certain types of antibiotics for ear-infection, this is not even news anymore, are now ineffective thanks to loving, caring parents. Sure, the trick remains we always stay one step ahead, but in the process, we have helped and will further help to create, however inadvertently, small-cell ineffective mites [regressed mites], FGMO-resistant mites, tobacco-smoking mites, garlic-tolerant mites, Apistant-consuming mites, peppermint-chewing mites, mites that will eat up hobbyists like breakfast, and other mighty mites, whose hatching period is much shorter, like that of AHB—-because, it appears, in the grand scheme of things, our existence is caught between the stings. Humdinger, Another Insect-Brain ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:40:54 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dennis Murrell Subject: A Grand Experiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Everyone, I visited the Lusbys in March of this year. Although I didn't get into as many hives as Allen Dick did I did check for varroa when their were lots of drones and drone brood in the hives. I did not see a single varroa on any adult bee or any typical symptoms of high infestation such as those due to deformed or milky wing virus, not a spot of varroa feces on the cell walls, no crawlers, etc. In a few of the hives a couple of frames would have a few cells of uncapped brood at the purple eye stage which indicated to me that the bees were removing what few varroa they had discovered. I noted less than a dozen of these cells in all. I had gone to Arizona thinking that even with the amazing results posted here on Bee-L concerning the mite cleansing I had seen on my small cell hives that it might be too little or to late for my type of bee. They were highly mite infested and the cluster size was small. The Lusbys indicated that what I had seen was typical and indicated that the survivors would have low mite levels, be healthy and expand rapidly. Such has been the case with my mongrels, SMRs, and Carniolans as I have posted also. Not the special bees that I thought I would need to complete the other third of the Lusbys method, just my survivors. I am still counting mites, but doing it at 2 to 4 week intervals rather than daily to weekly as before. I will continue to count mites throughout this fall and next spring. Will report my results here but am thinking about other things now like how to get bees to draw out more small cell foundation and yes, how do the smaller bees react to the different size comb. Best Wishes Dennis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 18:34:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: preacher Subject: Honey flavorings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello , Can anyone tell me where to look for Honey flavoring for honey spreads. I am looking for peaches and cream and french vanilla. Just expermenting. preacher ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 16:41:25 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A Grey Area In-Reply-To: <200207192117.g6JLHg4X007513@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Yoon Sik Kim PhD wrote: In the discussion, we assume that the strength of mites, for example, remains or will remain as a constant, a factor never evolving in the struggle for existence while we are fuming with new-fangled treatments. Reply: Yes, this is true, many never take evolution into consideration. Yoon Sik Kim PhD also wrote: Hence, the naïve view that once we slaughter this particular beast of mites, we do not have to worry about that sucker forever and ever. Reply: This is why various treatments of never ending dopes of chemicals, drugs, acids, essential oils, FGMO will never work over the long haul, for Nature compensates. There is no way for man to slaughter this particular beast of mites, the bees have to take care of the problem for the most part. Man must stop all encompassing macro management and learn to micro manage. Yoon Sik Kim PhD also wrote: the trick remains we always stay one step ahead, but in the process, we have helped and will further help to create, however inadvertently, small-cell ineffective mites [regressed mites], Reply: Exactly, and ineffective mites or mites reduced or regressed back to a symbiotic relationship of peacefull coexistance is all we can ever hope for. We can never get rid of them, but if they do the bees no harm, then just let them be! Be Happy and go on enjoying beekeeping again. Regards, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 21:32:08 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Eunice Wonnacott Subject: Re: Honey flavorings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I suggest that you might contact an ice cream manufacturer, since they seem to come up with quite a variety of good flavor (ing)s EDW ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 06:58:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: shauna Subject: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack Hi all -- I've just had my second and third bear attacks of the season over the course of 6 hours or so. The hives were orginally located too close to the woods on my property, and after the first attack, I knew they had to be relocated. I'm a hobbyist and not interested in maintaining remote-site beefields, and as the majority of my land is wooded, figured the safest place for the hives would be a clear area nearer the house, a couple hundred feet from their original site. I read that bees can only take moves of either a few feet or, conversely, several miles, so I've been moving them in small increments towards that more secure site. I've also been blasting a radio and pointing a blinding halogen lamp into the woods every night. This worked for about a month and a half, until last night. So it seems the bear has stopped being fooled by my audio-visual ruse, and it's obvious these hives should be progressing toward their new site asap. However, I'm afraid that small moves like those I've been making will no longer fool the bear, who will certainly be able to nose out the hives' new location only a few feet from the old. Plus, I'm worried that these small steps closer and closer to the house will actually gradually lead the bear, having had the taste of brood, straight out of the woods and into the backyard. Upshot is, I need a one shot move of about 70 feet. Is this possible or will this hopelessly confuse the poor ladies? Advice? Pointers? Alternatives? I'm desperate. And unfortunately, I can't move them a few miles away for a week and then back without endless complication. But perhaps this is what I will need to resort to ...? Please say it ain't so. thanks for your help! shauna ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 07:47:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mark Coldiron Organization: The Little/Coldiron Farm Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Shauna wrote: > Upshot is, I need a one shot move of about 70 feet. Is this possible or > will this hopelessly confuse the poor ladies? Advice? Pointers? > Alternatives? I'm desperate. And unfortunately, I can't move them a > few miles away for a week and then back without endless > complication. Reply: I'm sure others on the list are more qualified than I am, but I think I can answer this one for you. Because you are a hobby beekeeper, you didn't actually say how many hive you have, you can move the bees the short distance you want. You will loose most of your field bees, and the colonies will be weakened, but if the hives are reasonably strong to start with, they'll recover. I'd suggest you feed them for two or three weeks after the move so the remaining young bees will have a chance to mature and become field bees. Hope this helps. Mark in West Texas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 08:48:11 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Denise Hubler Subject: Moving bees a short distance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Shauna, I read this in a letter in the Bee Culture magazine. A beekeeper loaded his hives up in the truck in the evening (dark) when most of the bees were back from foraging. Then he drove around the countryside for a while,came back and put the bees in their new location. He claimed it worked like a charm. He figured the bees got disoriented with all the twists and turns and movement of the truck. I'm a risk taker and like to try unconventional ideas. I would personally try this if I had no alternative. The only thing I would add to it-be sure to move landmarks with the hive and place them in the new location: rocks, sticks,etc. Good luck, Denise ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 09:40:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: A Grey Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen Dick wrote: > What will be the ultimate outcome? I expect that since all the most > effective players are neutralized that the question will be settled by > semi-trailers and pickup trucks and billfolds. I predict the three > establishments will remain statemated, and that the people will decide the > way they always have: by doing what they please, with or without official > sanction. That may be the case in other areas or countries, but not here in Maine. We do have a State inspection system and it is for the benefit of the growers (who foot some of the bill for the Inspector's assistant!). They want healthy, vigorous colonies since that is what they are paying for. If AHB are detected, and it does not matter how thorough the test or how good the science, the Blueberry growers will send that pollinator packing. The pollinators are totally at the mercy of the growers and the State Inspector, not the other way around. And there is no way any grower will harbor AHB if told a pollinator has them, since one call to a local newspaper will have the area in panic over killer bees and the whole program of bringing bees into the State will become a political football. Not to mention the liability involved with one stinging incident. All that it has taken in the past is a whisper in a pollinator's ear to get them to change their practices. In Maine pollinators or growers do not "decide the way they always have: by doing what they please, with or without official sanction". The truth is, they listen and do what the Inspector tells them. With a few exceptions, they are a lawful, respectful bunch. I would guess that this is not the exception but the rule. Why place their business at risk? But, maybe those States and countries that do not have an inspection program have more morally challenged pollinators. I would hope not, and doubt if that is true. Again, why place your business at risk? Bill Truesdell Bath, Me ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 09:11:51 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack Greetings We have bears in this area now, and believe me, they are not shy about going right up on people's porches. Instead of the radio and lamp routine, why not try an electric fence? (Much cheaper than running a halogen lamp all night). I currently have about twelve yards in known bear areas, and so far, no bear damage. I use solar chargers and heavy aluminum wire. The posts are about ten feet apart, made of eucalyptus. Pretty easy to set up and maintain. Some folks recommend a piece of bacon on the wire. I imagine if brother bear bites that, he will get a jolt he will remember for a long time! PS Moving bees short distances is a bad idea. pb ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 09:09:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lloyd Spear Subject: moving hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Shana asks about moving hives in an emergency situation. Shana, I am not clear how many hives you are talking about but since you are a hobbyist and not interested in maximum honey (particularly under the circumstances) I suggest that you first move all the hives but one. Move them the entire 70 feet. If you possibly can, do it at night. Full dark. Under these circumstances, all the field bees will be in the hive. Then put up a barrier just outside the hive entrances. Say a stack of boxes, high brush, anything. This will cause a percentage of the field bees to reorient themselves the next morning...and return to the hive instead of their old location. BTW, move the hives without closing the entrance. The bees won't come boiling out, and will be much happier than otherwise. When you close the entrance it really makes them mad...and then there is trouble when you reopen the entrance. If you can't do it at night...move during the day. The field bees will go back to where they came from and will eventually find the hive you left. In a week or so move that hive. Again, preferably at night and with a flight barrier just several inches in front of the hive. Remove the flight barrier gradually over a couple of weeks. Good luck, Lloyd Mailto:Lloyd@rossrounds.com. Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. Visit our web site at http://www.rossrounds.com. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 07:51:20 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Shauna What you need is an electric fence with a battery powered charger. Another alternative not as good (if you live in an area of many bears) is to trap and remove the bear. Call your conservation people for advice. Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 09:42:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Jeffrey A. Holbrook" Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack In-Reply-To: <200207201058.g6KAwK4X000645@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Shauna, I've moved hives more than a few feet. Here is how to do it. At night, stuff grass in the slot between the bottom board and the bottom super. There should be no entrance reducers, just the normal gap. Stuff it in there pretty good so that it will take some effort by the bees to remove it but not so much that they can't get out. Seal off any other openings/enrances. Do not forget the top cover. If you use a telescoping lid that is easy to seal up. Once this is done, secure the hive to itself so that it won't break open as you move it. You can buy special nails, or you can use boards and drywall screws as I did. I liked this method as I did not have to beat on the nails to secure the supers together, so I didn't agitate the bees more than I had too. Use your ingenuity to figure out what best works for you. Now comes the tough part, actually moving the hive. I don't know what state your's are in after a few bear attacks but this time of year, my hives are usually pretty heavy. Anyway, get them into some sort of vehicle, secure it well and take it to your new yard. Place the hive there, uncleat it or unsecure it so you can work the hive at a later date. Remember, you are doing this at night. Leave the openings closed up. Leave the grass in place. Let the bees remove the grass themselves the next day. This way, they will know something has changed and will re-orient when leaving the hive for the first time after the grass is removed. After the grass is removed, you may unseal any other entrances but there is no real hurry to do that. I've done this several times and have had no problems and minimal bee loss. Others may have better ways to move your bees but this is what has worked for me. Good Luck. You may also want to set up a bear proof electric fence. There are videos to show you how to do that. Draper's Super Bee Apiary has a copy of the Bear Fence Video that you can buy or rent. Check it out at http://www.draperbee.com/. There may be other sources too but this is one I can think of right off. We have lots of bears around here and you don't set up an Apiary without bear protection or you will loose your hives. I hope this helps. TTFN, Jeff Holbrook Kingbird Region 3 East Corning, NY ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:48:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: waldig Subject: Re: Plastic 4.9mm Foundation - Trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have one question: has Dee or anyone else observed a swarm from a 4.9 mm colony escape into the wild and start a feral colony whose average wild cell turned out to be 4.9 mm ? My interest is in knowing if the 4.9 mm size becomes permanent with bees once they have been downsized or do bees upsize to some size slightly above 5.0 mm despite having been downsized previously. The answer to this question might shed some light on the allegedly natural nature of the 4.9 mm size. Waldemar Long Island, NY >>I do wish all the 49ers success and hope you will keep us posted on > progress. > > I wonder if going even lower to say 4.8mm might be even better? Maybe > 4.7mm would be better as closer to cerana cell size. Just thinking out loud ------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance Unlimited Long Distance only $29.95/ month! Sign Up Today! www.netzerolongdistance.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 08:33:47 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Upshot is, I need a one shot move of about 70 feet. Is this possible or > will this hopelessly confuse the poor ladies? Advice? Pointers? There are some good articles in the archives at http://www.internode.net/honeybee/BEE-L/, and a flood of advice coming in as I write this. For moving, the most important thing to know is this: Is there a honey flow on? Are the bees flying much during the day, or has it been cool or rainy with little bee flight? This will determine whether the bees will return to the original stand or not. If there is a heavy flow on, and bees are coming and going in large numbers, any move of much more than a few yards will result in huge numbers of lost bees returning to the original location. If the bees have been confined or flying very little for a few days, as in a period of steady rain, very few will return. In conditions somewhere in the middle, something in between will happen. If you think the bees haven't been flying much and you can make the big move, to test, just move a hive twenty feet during the day and see what happens. If the bees stay in or follow it, then you can move as far as you like. Otherwise, just move it back and reconsider. If you do the big move, leave a small hive, or just a super, at the original spot to catch any returning bees. If any return and stay in the box at night, simply put it in a dark place (see below) and recombine them into a hive after they have lost their homing memory in three days. If there is a flow on and you *must* move a fair distance like seventy feet, you can move the hives into an *entirely* dark place -- not even a crack of light or the bees will crawl -- like a basement or garage for three days, then take them out to wherever you like. You can also move them at night to where you want them and cover them with a tarp. It must be the kind that blocks all light, but you also have to let the bees have some air and be sure that they will not overheat under there. After several days the tarp can come off. For the bear, as others have said, an electric fence is the answer, but once a bear has had a snack of bees and brood, a fence may not work, even with careful training using bacon or sardines attached to a hot wire. Relocation may be necessary. You can hope that the bear is just passing through. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 08:46:12 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit PS: In addition to what I said about making sure there is no light and sufficient air, if you decide to confine the bees in a room or under a tarp, also consider if they will need water. If they are raising brood, they will likely need a water supply, or brood will be lost. A saturated sponge or towel on the doorstep or some such arrangement should suffice. People often don't bother and the bees do survive, but I suspect that brood is sacrificed. Does anyone know about the water requirements of a full-sized hive of confined bees? allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 08:29:29 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Plastic 4.9mm Foundation - Trials In-Reply-To: <000001c22ff6$779d6820$2641f6d1@ws04> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Waldemar wrote: Ihave one question: has Dee or anyone else observed a swarm from a 4.9 mm colony escape into the wild and start a feral colony whose average wild cell turned out to be 4.9 mm ? My interest is in knowing if the 4.9 mm size becomes permanent with bees once they have been downsized or do bees upsize to some size slightly above 5.0 mm despite having been downsized previously. Reply: Yes, I have seen this and it is permanently smaller and in fact the bees will then even go into the 4.8 range. But 4.9 controls the mite and secondary disese problem in commercial hives and still allows for easy extraction with modern conviences. The answer to this question might shed some light on the allegedly natural nature of the 4.9 mm size. Reply: This is true! Also you can read of others seeing this in the "Making Cell Calls" of the bulletin board forum of the www.beesouce.com site by Mr Barry Birkey. Chow: Dee A. Lusby Waldemar __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 12:21:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Moving bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Lloyd writes: move the hives without closing the entrance. The bees won't come boiling out, and will be much happier than otherwise. When you close the entrance it really makes them mad...and then there is trouble when you reopen the entrance. Hi I always used to move bees this way, in California. Everybody did. But, let me tell you -- they DO come boiling out, especially in summer. Sometimes the whole hive would be covered with bees, and if it's dark, they are crawling everywhere. And if there is one tiny hole in your bee suit, they'll get inside your clothes. Nope, any more I staple hardware cloth over the entrance and duct tape the cracks. Yes, they get mad, but they are INSIDE. When you set them down, you can smoke the entrance real good, pull the screen, and run. If it's dark, they won't follow you. (Wear gloves for this part.) In fact, if you use screens and everything goes well, you hardly even need a veil until the end. However, it's best to suit up anyway, in case there's an accident. Too much confidence can be a bad thing; precaution is better. Good luck. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 11:42:14 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Roy Nettlebeck Subject: Re: A Grey Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dee Lusby wrote: > Hi all > > > This is why various treatments of never ending dopes of > chemicals, drugs, acids, essential oils, FGMO will never > work over the long haul, for Nature compensates. There is > no way for man to slaughter this particular beast of mites, > the bees have to take care of the problem for the most > part. > Man must stop all encompassing macro management and learn > to micro manage. > Hi Dee and Yoon; This is a wonderful mind set.. Macro Management will not work. There are too many variables to deal with if we are just trying to kill the mite.That was our first mistake, pour in the chemicals and all is well. Now we have more tools and knowledge about how the bee and mite work in a natural setting. Some bees clean the mites out and thats a fact. They may even do it in different ways. So lets go to micro management and pay attention to what is going on in each hive. It takes time and beekeeping of the past is gone. We have to shift with the times and not stay in the past. This list provides a lot of ideas. Some will work and some will not. Its not a one answer problem. It is more of a shift to doing things that we did not do in the past. Smaller cells may be part of it , but not the complete answer. We need Honeybee genetics to be using the tools of 2002. That will help us move forward a lot faster. We will not come up with one bee for all areas and seasons. Each beekeeper will have to keep a close eye on what is going on in behavior of his or her bees. That takes time and dedication. We will need feedback to keep the progress going. We can debate many things on the list. Its good for ideas. We need people like Dee and Ed , doing the job. We need people like Allen to get the story in Bee Culture. There are many on this list from around the world, that are doing great things to help us move foreword. Everyone keep up the good work. Our job is to understand nature and not try to beat it. We need the researchers to keep going for a higher level of understanding. Beekeepers need to take the time to observe the finer points of what is going on in a beehive. It all takes time and live with that fact. Don't push for a quick fix , that will never happen. Nature is too complex for our minds to comprehend the complete picture. We are working in a gray area and it will always be gray. Very Best Regards To All Roy Nettlebeck Enjoy and Learn each day for you do not get a second chance at that day. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 14:28:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Allen Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Shauna: Last summer right here in midtown Anchorage a brown bear attacked one of our hives which was located on property along the "green belt" park of Campbell Creek. (The attack made the local 6:00 p.m. news.) The hives were situated on the ground. Directly behind the hives was an 8 foot high platform attached between 3 spruce trees which was formerly used as a tree house by the property owner’s now grown children. We simply had to move the other hives up onto the platform. We relocated all four hives to the platform including the remains of the attacked hive that miraculously still had the queen and a tiny cluster of bees. A hive body with empty frames was set in place at the original location. The day after the move, the hive body on the ground probably had a good 3 pounds of field bees from the relocated hives. We combined these returning bees into the remains of the attacked hive and set the empty box back in place at the original location. After a couple more times of gathering and recombining, the bees stayed in their new location. Perhaps that may be an option. Move the bees, set out an empty box with comb and recombine a time or two. No spare hive body? A cardboard box would probably work as well. Regards, Dick ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 20:55:53 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter dillon Subject: Re: Moving bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Regarding whether bees come out of hives or not during a move: >From my experience; When moving hives, bees remain inside if the conditions are cool and the hives well ventilated - usually early in the season with developing colony sizes. But later on, when the colony is getting to maximum size, in warm, hot conditions esp. in thundery periods - the bees hang out in varying degrees - from small patches to extensive coverage of the hive box. This being more likely if the hive is well stocked with honey /nectar. Therefore when moving, the choice is: a. Leave open, and accept what happens (wandering bees and possible loss and stings) - but little risk of over heating the colony, or b. Closing up the entrance with foam, grill or other device (screen) - ensuring ease in hive movement. This requires that proper ventilation is provided or allowed for - limited bee wandering problems. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:39:07 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: preacher Subject: processing question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello beekeeps, I am wondering if any of you, can answer this question. I am wanting to make up some honey barbque sauce. I would like to know, if a warm water bath will seal the jars, where they won't spoil. Or do you have any suggestions as to how to keep it from spoiling. preacher ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 18:02:29 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: grumpy7 Subject: Re: Moving bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >> Upshot is, I need a one shot move of about 70 feet. =20 What you need is a one-shot move from a 30-'06. Walter Weller ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 21:32:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: shauna Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack Thanks everyone for your quick advice. I'm heading out right now to move the bees and take further protective measures, and yes, I'm planning to put baited electric fencing around the new site very soon. I'll let you know what happens. thanks again! s ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 22:39:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Coleene Davidson Subject: Re: processing question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Depending on how much you intend to make, you may consider freezing as an alternative to canning. You will need more than warm water to successfully seal canned product. Coleene ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 08:17:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Re: Moving hives a short distance in wake of bear attack In-Reply-To: <200207201058.g6KAwK4X000645@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Upshot is, I need a one shot move of about 70 feet. Is this possible or > will this hopelessly confuse the poor ladies? A better question is whether a 70 ft. move is going to help at all with your bear problem. Unless you are moving into a barricade, I doubt it. If you have a flow on the bear can smell your hives from a lot farther away than that. It'll be back. The only viable solution I am aware of is an electric fence. It worked like a charm for me. Frank. ----- The very act of seeking sets something in motion to meet us; something in the universe, or in the unconscious responds as if to an invitation. - Jean Shinoda Bolen http://WWW.BlessedBee.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 05:55:06 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: EHB and Varroa in Brazil's Tropical Region MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At the Virginia state beekeeper's meeting this past weekend, Dr. David De Jong, currently professor of genetics at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, made a several presentations, one of them titled "Beekeeping Without Chemicals". The equator runs through Brazil, and it's Southern edge is about 33 degrees away from the Equator, which is as far away from the Equator as central South Carolina in the USA. They have AHB (africanized honeybees) as far away as 30 degrees from the Equator. One thing that they quickly noticed in learning how to manage africanized honeybees into decent honey producers was that varroa mites, while detectable, were not a killer of their AHB colonies. To date, neither chemical nor physiological treatments have been required to "fight" varroa. As a test, European honeybees were imported from both California and Georgia in the USA, and colonies were set up on an island in the clearly tropical zone. These colonies, no different from the ones kept in the USA and Europe, were ALSO able to survive varroa without chemicals, simply due to the climate, which allows bees to avoid "overwintering" and "clustering", and may prompt/force other changes to their habits. These colonies survive to the present. Miticides simply do not sell in Brazil, despite attempts to market them by various trans-nationals. Varroa exist, and low-level infestations are common, but colonies do not die out as a result. I will send him an e-mail, and ask him for a citation for any papers that they may have written on this subject. (I did not ask him at the meeting, as he was very busy answering questions from other beekeepers during every break.) As they studied the varroa problem, expecting colony deaths to result, they found that counts of varroa per 100 bees sampled on AHB colonies went downward as years went on. He has several observations about how AHB colonies deal with mites, and a mix of ideas about how colonies have quickly adapted to varroa. Given the somewhat hostile reception given on this list to prior postings that reported on what was said by a researcher at a meeting, I will say no more except to post whatever citations I get from Dr. De Jong. jim ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 02:14:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Richard Yarnell Organization: Oregon VOS Subject: Re: processing question In-Reply-To: <000501c2304f$0e0d56a0$a023dad0@34un9> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Contact your local extension service office. They should have a food preservation specialist. Make sure you can give them the complete recipe for your sauce. Although you might be able to take processed tomato instructions as a place to start, the addition of other ingredients and the possibility of using low acid fruit can make for a dangerous brew. On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, preacher wrote: > I am wondering if any of you, can answer this question. I am wanting to make > up some honey barbque sauce. --------------- 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: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 22:41:04 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A Grey Area In-Reply-To: <3D39AF06.229999FD@sinclair.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi all Roy Nettlebeck wrote: So lets go to micro management and pay attention to what is going on in each hive. It takes time and beekeeping of the past is gone. We have to shift with the times and not stay in the past. This list provides a lot of ideas. Some will work and some will not. Its not a one answer problem. It is more of a shift to doing things that we did not do in the past. Smaller cells may be part of it , but not the complete answer. Reply: Yes, micro management is needed with close attention to what is going on in each hive. It does take time, but not that much more. Beekeeping of the past is a frame of mind. Yes, I would say the era of using various doping treatments is quickly closing, for it is a dead end street for our bees. So is constant inbreeding and closed populations that place bees into a holding pattern and narrow the genetics.This we have done heavily in past decades, and maybe in the future such heavy reliance upon inbreeding and closed populations should be changed, with more emphasis again put on good outbreeding practices. I consider this narrowing of genetics the past few decades a very fast way to stop honeybee evolution, when coupled with todays enlarged and artificialized system that is also dependent upon feeding bees an artificial diet. Yes, we need a shift from the past, but I would say the immediate past of just the past 100 years or so! Much further back can still be salvaged, though I'd sure hate to give up much modern technology in the way of equipment! Roy Nettlebeck also wrote: We need Honeybee genetics to be using the tools of 2002. That will help us move forward a lot faster. We will not come up with one bee for all areas and seasons. Each beekeeper will have to keep a close eye on what is going on in behavior of his or her bees. That takes time and dedication. We will need feedback to keep the progress going. Reply: You are so right we will not need to come up with one bee for all areas and seasons; and honeybee genetics/ methodology definitely needs to be changed to keep up with changing times in our new 2000 century now unfolding. We must all play a part if our industry is to survive worldwide. We need diversity of bees again, acclimitized to individual regions, and not just 2-3 main races to cover our planet. We need beekeepers to have bees that will fit the needs of localized areas, that roll with the seasons and not by the calendar. Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 10:14:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Gormanston bee conference I'm off! Hope to see some of you there. I'm 6 foot, 220 lbs 42 years old with red hair and a short greying beard, and none of the grey come from those cute little critters. Tim Vaughan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 10:55:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: A Grey Area Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dee Lusby wrote, in part: >constant inbreeding and closed populations that place bees into a >holding pattern and narrow the genetics.This we have done heavily in >past decades, and maybe in the future such heavy reliance upon >inbreeding and closed populations should be changed, with more >emphasis again put on good outbreeding practices. I consider this >narrowing of genetics the past few decades a very fast way to stop >honeybee evolution, when coupled with todays enlarged and >artiÞcialized system that is also dependent upon feeding bees an >artiÞcial diet. The importation of honey bees into the US was introduced to prevent the importation of diseases. Prior to that time, bees were imported from almost all areas where honey bees are known: Italy, Egypt, Georgia, Slovenia, etc. Since that time, the bees were homogenized to a certain degree, but there has been a steady desire among many researchers to import fresh stock. This was done several times: Buckfast, Yugoslavian, and Russian stock has been imported. The idea that the genetic base of the honey bee in the US overall is too narrow, is unsubstantiated. Some individual breeders may have deliberately or inadvertently inbred their stock. The use of the term Evolution in connection with Breeding is a grave error. Evolution, as properly understood, has no purpose and is a mechanism that results in the weeding out of individuals unfit for a particular niche. Breeding is purposeful human activity with little or no parallel in nature. Feeding bees is not widely practiced as it is not cost effective. Beekeepers generally opt for moving bees to areas where ample nectar and pollen exist. There is nothing like the feed lot methods of the cattle and poultry industry. When bees are fed, pure sugar is normally used, which has never been shown to have any ill effect, when supplemented by natural pollen. Roy Nettlebeck also wrote: >We need Honeybee genetics to be using the tools of 2002. That will >help us move forward a lot faster. We will not come up with one bee >for all areas and seasons. Each beekeeper will have to keep a close >eye on what is going on in behavior of his or her bees. That takes >time and dedication. We will need feedback to keep the progress >going. Dee's reply: >You are so right we will not need to come up with one bee for all >areas and seasons; and honeybee genetics/ methodology deÞnitely >needs to be changed to keep up with changing times in our new 2000 >century now unfolding. We must all play a part if our industry is to >survive worldwide. We need diversity of bees again, acclimitized to >individual regions, and not just 2-3 main races to cover our planet. >We need beekeepers to have bees that will Þt the needs of localized >areas, that roll with the seasons and not by the calendar. Roy seems to be pointing to Genetic Engineering when he says "the tools of 2002". I doubt that the bee keeping public wants genetically modified honey bees. I certainly know of no one who is working on such a thing, although there are a lot of researchers engaged in mapping the honey bee genes. I am not sure what Dee is referring to at all. Does she agree with the idea that bees have to be gathered from many sources and tested in a variety of field conditions? I was under the impression that she was trying to develop a very specific type of bee, one that makes small cells and is adapted to the harsh climate of the Sonoran Desert. Her methods seem like a recipe for inbreeding. I have never heard her mention importing any bees from outside Arizona, but she often mentions gathering "wild bees" from the hills. This is not significantly broadening the genetic base. In the North, we need a bee that builds fast in the spring before nectar and pollen are available, not too prone to swarming, and capable of surviving an off season which can go from October to nearly May. To which we need to add some form of mite resistance or tolerance. It is possible to find honey bee varieties in various parts of the world that have specific characteristics, but probably the genetic material we require is already present in the US. Excellent sources of Russian, Carniolan, and Italian types are available. When Dee refers disparagingly to the "2 or 3 main races", what other races would she have us use? "Scutellata"? "Capensis"? Most of the other races are not suitable for modern beekeeping and cannot be imported, in any case. Mite resistant and hygienic stock is available. No bee exists at this time which can rid itself of mites, once infested. No chemical or compound exists that can completely rid the bees of mites, either. We are in this for the long haul, there is no panacea, lets get back to work. pb -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 09:27:08 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dennis Murrell Subject: A Grey Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Everyone, Most interesting discussion. Remember how you reacted when you saw your first varroa mite on your bees? Well, my first reaction was to nuc em all and solve the problem. I spent alot of time and energy along those lines during the next decade attempting to accomplish just that. Should have learned more from my sister who grew fruit in Michigan. They had to spray insecticides with increasing frequency and intensity until even with the best precautions it affected the health of her family. They have stopped spraying and growing fruit. Hope that doesn't happen to anyone in beekeeping. Best Wishes Dennis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 08:52:40 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Plastic 4.9mm Foundation - Trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I get notes from list members. and recently I received this from a friend I respect: > You certainly have succeeded in turning the bee list into a > Dee Lusby Booster Club. I understand taking the side of > the underdog, but I thought the list was supposed to be > Informed. Anyone who cannot get it into their head that there > were NO native honey bees in America, has got a credibility > problem, in my opinion... Well, turning the bee list into a Dee Lusby Booster Club is not the intent, nor are we not going to turn the list into BioBee or any such thing. BEE-L is not a one-topic list and we solicit posts that cover a wide range of topics and opinion. I suspect this topic will fade a bit, but not go completely away. I notice Jim has just submitted a very good article on varroa in Brazil. Keep 'em coming, folks! Anyone can vote for new topics by picking one and by writing and submitting a good article on that topic that either asks an intelligent and novel question, asks an old question a new way. Or anyone can submit an information or opinion piece. Humour too (about bees or beekeepers) is acceptable, but I have learned that not everyone has a sense of humour, especially a sense of dry humour, so if you try humour, shields up! For the record, we *are* going to accept *any* posts that conform to our guidelines as long as things don't get too repetitive or wildly and tediously imaginative, and we will accept truth or reasonable and useful speculation from *anyone* who submits it. We'll even accept posts on the rampant evils of GMOs and the cabals that promote them, if the posts are predominantly about bees and reasonably civil. We *will* reject -- or post strong caveats -- about any topics that are politically contentious and hot -- or potentially libellous. I repeat the ad hominem part above quote, because I think it is important to point out that any person can be very right about one thing and very wrong about another. Besides, we can never be entirely sure which is which. I imagine it must have been a huge shock for many to learn that the world is not, in fact flat, but rather that it is pretzel shaped. (Please pardon my little joke). FWIW, The native bee idea seems to have no legs in the history as we are able to understand it, but in the last decade a lot of what we thought we knew absolutely has been proven incomplete or wrong. I expect this trend to continue. The idea is interesting, harmless, fun, and not politically hot -- AFAIK -- and led to some interesting discussion from which everyone learned something. Leaving aside the question of native bees, you may recall that I have been a sceptic on 4.9 and remain so. Consult the longest running thread on BEE-L only a year back if you doubt that. Nonetheless, I maintain and open mind, and when Joe and I went south this winter, I posted that we were passing thru AZ and CA and that anyone who would like us to come by for a visit should drop us a line. Dee was the only person to respond, in spite of our rather cool relationship to that point. When Joe and I went to visit we expected just to say hello and keep going, but they put us up and fed us and showed us anything we wanted to see. I happened to take a lot of pictures, intended for my diary at http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/, but wound up writing a Bee Culture article that turned into two. I might mention here that Kim is no fool and he features Dee and Ed on the cover this month. He has also visited them and has written about their ideas himself in the past. Whatever the historical truth is -- and I have real problems following or confirming any of the arguments -- I am writing today to say that Joe did in fact finally shake some bees onto 4.9 wax foundation and some of the (unwaxed and unwashed) plastic prototype 4.9 a few days ago. He used a big nucs and put them in the dark for three days. He called yesterday to say that the nucs had each drawn several sheets of the 4.9 wax quite well and that the queens were laying in it nicely. Where the wax was embedded (a bad job) the cells are not perfect, but otherwise they were fine. So far the bees have not touched the unwaxed plastic foundation, but he did not expect them to chose it first, given a choice. The bees he chose for this informal test were picked at random from one of his commercial yards. they were just normal Hawaiian or Buckfast that were living on normal commercial combs until the moment he shook them. Back to the question of 'Informed Discussion': A number of people seem to have problems understanding why we tolerate some seemingly crazy ideas here. I think this demonstrates why. A year ago or two ago most of us thought the idea of bees happily drawing out 4.9 foundation was cuckoo. Thanks to someone who thinks there were native honey bees in North America, we now are finding that bees *can* draw 4.9. I wonder what else we may learn if we keep our minds open? allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 14:28:09 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: A Grey Area Dennis wrote: They have stopped spraying and growing fruit. Hope that doesn't happen to anyone in beekeeping. Hi I quit bees in 1990, partly because I foresaw a time when we would have to use a variety of chemicals to keep the critters alive. People are hard at work on alternative methos -- especially in the research community. However, you CAN keep bees without chems if you accept that you may have to restock your hives with packages every year or two. These bees may be raised with the aid of chems, but they will unlikely bring anything but a trace. So, this type of beekeeping is possible, and should be certifiable as "Organic". However, the organic farming community reasons that since bees potentially fly to sprayed areas, honey cannot be certified "Organic". pb ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:02:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Africanized bee ID by color alone MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, At the following USDA-ARS web site I saw a method of Africanized bee detection being used I would consider primitive and not very scientific. The method is widely used in South Africa by several beekeepers on our list. What else can you do miles from a computer and projector? I would think the USDA would use FABIS at the very least but maybe they do check every so often with FABIS to verify the labs conclusion. The purpose of this post is not to crticise but to learn. Is color a valid method of AHB ID? http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/rf/pilot/index.html quote from above USDA/ARS website "All samples were frozen ,and the bees were later identified as having either European or Africanized patrilines depending on the *color* of their *cuticle* ." Sincerely, Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 00:19:40 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: Gormanston Beekeeping Conference Comments: cc: FGMOBeekeeping@yahoogroups.co.uk, Norlandbeekeepers@yahoogroups.com, irishbeekeeping@yahoogroups.co.uk, nzbkprs@yahoogroups.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All On behalf of Irish Beekeepers I would like to extend a 'cead mile failte' that is Irish for 'one hundred thousand welcomes' to all of our visitors to Gormanston Beekeeping Conference in Ireland. It promises to be the best ever with over 60 visitors from outside our shores. And with about 200 visitors from Ireland we will have a whale of a time in the next week. I look forward to meeting new visitors and renewing old acquaintances at Gormanston in the coming week. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 16:14:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Margie Rossander Subject: wire knives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A few weeks ago, someone posted about using wire as a draw knife to loosen supers or frames. I've had a lot of trouble with burr comb so I gave it a try this weekend with mixed results. Used a 2 foot piece of single-strand picture hanging wire between two 1/2 inch dowels. Standing behind the hive, I drew the wire between the supers from front to back. The supers are polystyrene with Pierco plastic frames. 1) The wire kept breaking. I don't know the material. I'd estimate the guage at no. 4. I picked single strand because it seemed like it would be easier to keep clean and easier to work with than multi-strand wire of the same thickness. Obviously it wasn't good enough. Suggestions for wire that works? 2) When I did separate the supers and the frames, it was much easier than it's ever been before. For the first time, I could lift a super without half the frames from the next super trying to come along. On the other hand, it looked like I killed a lot of bees. Lots of half bodies lying on top of the frames. Is that normal or is there something in my technique that could have reduced the losses? (Regardless, I'm pretty sure I killed less than last year when the stuck frames made me lose my balance and drop a super.) 3) If this was covered in the archives, what were some of the keywords in the discussion? I'm afraid I couldn't find anything. Thanks for any suggestions. Mike Rossander ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 20:59:31 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Leif Woodman Subject: Re: wire knives In-Reply-To: <001201c230f3$3ad7c2c0$5817ee41@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The way I did it was to get a 17 gauge guitar string (local guitar center sells strings individually). I took two one inch dia. Six inch long dowels and drilled a hole in the center and put a slip around it. Wrapped the string through the hole and around in the slit then through the hole and twisted it together. I go through the hive slowly so I don't slice to many bees, but I definitely will slice through the brood in the comb that is cut.