From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 07:42:47 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-86.4 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,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 3E6DB4906D for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:42 -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 n1SCP3sU010167 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 LOG0207E" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Message-ID: Content-Length: 105290 Lines: 2388 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 10:12:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit HOW THE PRESENCE OF SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES MAY IMPACT EFFORTS TO DEVELOP AND/OR MAINTAIN VARROA-TOLERANT HONEY BEES In November of 2000 the Varroa infestation levels in managed colonies selected for Varroa-tolerance in Southern Arizona were compared with the infestation levels in the feral population. Feral colony infestation levels, averaged over Žve years, were 1.8 (range = 1.2 to 3.0) times higher than those in the selected stock. These results suggest that selected Varroa-tolerant stock anywhere can be compromised by feral colonies living within mating žight range. These Žndings emphasize the need for better mating control for Varroa-tolerant stock using isolation to prevent program queens from mating with drones from either un-selected or feral colonies. medley@tucson.ars.ag.gov ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:20:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Now only an estimated 2% of the feral honey bee population remains, and even this derives annually from honey bee swarms from beekeeping operations. Practically speaking, the wild honey bees have become extinct in the United States due to infestation of the Varroa mite. Infested colonies will die within 1 to 2 years if the beekeeper does not take necessary actions against Varroa mites. ... Delaying treatment can be accomplished if you monitor the level of Varroa infestation in your colonies. Treatment is justified only when the economic threshold is achieved. Economic thresholds are defined as the pest level that justifies treatment in order to prevent the pest from reaching damaging levels. For the southeast Piedmont regionb, the economic threshold has been determined to be: mite populations: 3172-4261 ether roll levels: 15-38 overnight sticky sheets: 59-187 http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/Disorders/Varroa_mites.htm -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 11:33:56 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Julian O'Dea asked for comments about his draft paper > The "dance" of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is one > of the most famous of all animal behaviours... > An alternative hypothesis is that locality odour alone, not > dance movements, is the basis of the communication of > the whereabouts of resources. While odor and taste certainly are possible components of overall bee forager-to-recruit communication, how can a bee on the dance floor discriminate the locality odor from a specific returning forager, given that there are: a) many other returning foragers present, each which, under the theory put forth, has their own unique locality odor? b) many house bees that offload returning foragers present, each presumed to be smelling of whatever they last handled? c) some of each type of bee is often closer to the recruited bee than the forager/dancer? d) What about the often powerful scent of evaporating nectar flooding the hive as a whole? How does a recruit bee "ignore" this odor, but detect the relatively faint locality odor from a single returning forager? What if the two are very similar odors? As an analogy, (a) through (c) above reminds me of a crowded cocktail party, with dozens of women, each wearing a different perfume. To make matters more complex, in (d) the host is burning incense, creating a strong "perfume" that permeates the room. I can attest to the fact that my nose gets quickly overloaded in such surroundings. Wouldn't a far more sensitive sense of smell, like that of a bee, simply be overwhelmed more quickly in such a setting? What explanation could be offered as to how bees could follow "odor plumes" when flying >>with<< the wind from hive to foraging locations? Even when flying into the wind, how can a bee detect the odor of a single feeding station at the distances that "dance" has been tested with feeding stations? Doesn't "locality odor" seems to require: a) That a unique odor or blend of odors exists for specific sites, and that such odors are unique enough to allow one to distinguish between one site and another from afar? b) A very large set of unique odors to identify? Given that bees have been found to forage as far as 10 to 15 miles from their hives (this may be an extreme, and the "world record" distance), how many unique odors must exist to describe an area as large as 138 square miles at a resolution that is useful to bees? c) That such mixes of odors are somehow able to travel on the breezes, and arrive intact at points distant from the source? d) Given (c) how would odors, made up of volatile chemicals, not evaporate away to "nothing" long before traveling very far? e) Given (c) and (d), how might such odors travel upwind? Here's a real-world application of (a) through (e) above: 1) I have many wild rose bushes growing along fencelines that surround a 6-acre, a 15-acre, and a 500 acre field, all heavily seeded with a mix of two types of clover. The bees clearly work the clovers at one time of day, and the wild roses at another. What would be the difference in locality odors between the three adjacent fields? 2) How would the odors be different, given that the 3 fields contain exactly the same plants? (All three are cut for hay, and are managed identically.) 3) The local terrain is such that the sun hits the 500-acre field first, the 6 acres 2nd, and the 15 acres 3rd, and in the afternoon, the 15 acre field is shadowed long before the others. Given that nectar availability varies between fields with time, doesn't this imply that bees must communicate which area is good forage >>>now<<< ? How might they do this with odors from identical mixes of plants? 4) More to the point, given that the roses do not provide nectar at the same temperatures/time of day as the clover, what would be the locality odor that would differentiate between the different >>>perimeter<<< areas, where the roses are, as opposed to the interior areas, where the clover is? If "locality odour alone, not dance movements, is the basis of the communication", then why is dance: a) So consistently complex? b) So consistently done by bees upon return from good forage? c) So easily translated into distance and direction vectors by observers? d) So highly correlated to where marked recruited bees go, when they can be proven to have never been to that forage area before? > Esch et al. (4) concluded that bees actually measure distance > from the amount of "optic flow" on their trip, that is "the total > amount of image motion en route to the food source". Since bees fly both with and against the wind, they must use "dead reckoning" to estimate distance and navigate. Anyone who sails knows the massive limitations of dead reckoning, but a true sailor needs no compass. He needs only the sun and the stars. Should bees need more? > But, at the same time, it implies that honeybees must be poor > at measuring distance in an absolute sense. Isn't everyone is "poor" at measuring distance in ANY sense? Isn't "optic flow" a very tidy explanation for how "distance" is measured so that it may be communicated to bees that may fly at different speeds, and/or during "gusty" wind conditions? > If Esch et al. (4) are correct, their findings raise problems for > the "dance language" hypothesis. As they note themselves, > the apparent lack of absolute accuracy in the information about > distance - supposedly conveyed in the dance - is a problem for > the proposed communicative mechanism. How do inexact measurement of distances raise problems for "dance"? How does less than perfect accuracy undermine the high degree of correlation between dance, the human interpretation of the dance, and the verifiable actions of recruited bees after the dance? > The inaccuracy in the supposed means of communication makes > it less likely that the dance movements of honeybees have anything > to do with communication of the whereabouts of resources. The > alternative, locality odour hypothesis (1, 6) therefore gains in credibility. Isn't the phase "lack of absolute accuracy" a tacit admission that the distance information is at least "useful", if not perfect? How does any distance inaccuracy in "dance" add any credibility to the "locality odor" theory? Mustn't each theory stand on its own merits and be evaluated independently? Even if "dance" were somehow proven completely wrong, how would "odor" gain any credibility as a result? Wouldn't the inaccuracy have to be enough to reduce the correlation between "dances" and recruited bee actions to "no better than chance" in order to cause a reasonable person to question the validity of "dance" as a coherent, consistent, and testable explanation of recruitment? What is the testable connection between "odor" and "location" that would reveal a location from odor alone? Wouldn't the first step towards proving that "locality odor" exists require multiple air samples from both the hive area and forage areas, a high performance liquid chromatograph, and the patience to sort through "parts-per-billion", if not "parts-per-trillion" analysis of both the air samples and samples collected from returning foragers? > Dancing movements and sounds emitted by bees returning from > foraging trips may only serve to attract the attention of hivemates > so that they can be made aware of the odours associated with > desirable food sites Why then is dancing alone enough to consistently direct humans to the forage site, and allow them to verify that marked bees, seen to "witness" the dance, are foraging in that area? I'd submit that most of the "inaccuracy" is introduced by the lack of state-of-the art hardware available to researchers who work with bees. Below are my suggestions for anyone who might want to gather dance data that would be more accurate, and less prone to inaccuracy: 1) Lasers and Electric Guitar Pickups If someone wants to eliminate the subjective component of "measuring" dance, they should get a laser, attach a reflector to the comb on which the dances are done, and record the vibrational component of the dance as propagated on the comb. This would result in cleaner, more accurate data, and data that is both easier to gather and easier to analyze, and eliminates the possible accusations of "subjective interpretation". The vibrational component of bee dances is clearly important for reasons that should be clear to any beekeeper. The combs that act as "dance floors" are nearly always chewed away from the bottom bar of the frame, starting at the edges of the frame, and working towards the center. The result of this isolation of the comb from the frame reduces the "damping" effect of the frame on vibrations, and results in better propagation of vibrations across the comb. This is easy to test at home - if you can't afford a laser, get a magnet and an electric guitar pickup, and measure for yourself. (Imbed the magnet in the comb, and use the pickup to measure magnetic field strength, and hence, vibrational motion. Use an LM386 amplifier chip running on a 9-volt battery from Radio Shack to amplify the signal, and plug it into a PC's sound card microphone jack. Use the free "demo" version of CoolEdit 2000 to gather the data and look at the signals in terms of frequency and amplitude.) For those who do not read research papers in bed at night as if they were mystery novels, a fellow named Sandeman tore the legs off some bees in 1996, thereby grossing out nearly everyone, and somehow attached them to tiny electrical wires to measure exactly what ranges of vibrations they could detect. Bee legs are not good at detecting higher-frequency vibrations, but are very good at picking up low frequency vibrations that just happen to be the same range of frequencies are produced by dances. While he did pull off bee legs, he was not pulling our legs. The data he generated is very complete, and very consistent. 2) Infra-Red Cameras The "direction" vector is best recorded on video, but this is old hat. High-speed video does a better job, but this is also old hat. Infra-red cameras are now cheap, so there is no need to disturb the bees with lights. 3) Waveform Analysis The audible sounds created during dance have been often analyzed with klunky old "sonographs". The problem with sonographs is that they introduce artifacts, in the form of apparently skewed amplitudes for harmonics of the fundamental frequency. Junk the sonograph gear, and start using Fast Fourier Transforms and spectrum analyzers. One can buy low-cost off-the-shelf software that runs on any PC to do both. While you are at it, forget the silly harmonics, and pay attention to the fundamental frequencies. When the harmonics are between 8 dB and 30 dB lower than the fundamental, one should recall that for every 3 dB down, the loudness (power) is halved. One must also recall that bees have never even been seen to react consistently to airborne sound frequencies above about 700 Hz (see Kirchner, et al in J Comp Physiol A, 1991 168:85-89), so the harmonics are apparently not even noticed by the bees. Again, for those who don't read papers, it should be stressed that, rumors to the contrary, bees CAN hear airborne sounds, and that their "ears" have been located. In 1993, two fellows named Kirchner and Dreller published a paper in "J Comp Physiol A" that likely even grossed out Mr. Sandeman. They cut off antenna from live bees, and they even shaved the hairs off bees (presumably with tiny little razors) to determine how bees detect airborne sound. They found that an organ at the base of the antenna called the "Johnston's Organ" is what detects the very tiny vibrations caused by airborne sound waves as picked up by the antenna. jim ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 12:24:32 -0400 Reply-To: OhioBeeFarmer Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: OhioBeeFarmer Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter provided the below link to some interesting information. One thing that got my attention was this: "Bottom screens are also an effective control method. They are basically a wood-bound screen that is placed underneath the brood chamber. The mites fall through the screen onto the bottom board or ground." What got my attention was that not so long ago there was some interesting comments that the Bottom Screen wasn't effective enough to make a difference in mite control. Now here is an article that shows it as an effective control. Peter was it you that did some study or reported some study that mentioned that this type of control was basically didn't show enough control to be useful? OhioBeeFarmer Getting youth involved in Beekeeping http://www.homestead.com/BeeKeepers/BeesRUs.html http://www.homestead.com/BeeKeepers/Opening.html -------Original Message------- http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/Disorders/Varroa_mites.htm -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 18:05:16 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Shade vs. Sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter & all Over my beekeeping career I have used several methods of positioning of hives within apiaries. I started out with hives in long rows with the entrances facing the sun. The rows were not straight and regular in an attempt to reduce drifting. The bee stocks concerned were Italianised mongrels. The same mixed gene stocks have also been used two to a pallet and four to a pallet. In the latter case each hive faced a different point of the compass. The twin hive pallets were some facing east/west, some were north/south, some had both facing south and yet others were SW/SE. More recently and with stock that is largly AMM, I face the hives outwards from my working position without any regard for compass direction. I had a friend (now deceased), that had more than 40 apiaries, his method was to place 40 hives in a circle, with entrances facing outwards, and about one hive width between them. His stocks were locally naturalised AMM. Neither he nor I ever noticed any difference in the activity or honey gathering power of any colony that could correlate with direction... Yes there were variations in crop, but the south facing ones were no better than the rest. It should be said that in the area concerned, cloudless skys are rare with most of the annual sunlight diffused by cloud. The only difference in foraging timing was along racial lines, with the Italianised stocks scoring the shortest foraging day, regardless of sun strength and sometimes not foraging at all in dull weather. I know this appears contrary to some of Blane's research, but I put that down to race and cloud cover. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 16:12:09 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Africanized bee ID by color alone MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob & All I am not sure whether this will help or merely muddy the waters, but I have seen black colonies that morphed as Italians and yellow colonies that were a high percentage AMM. I also seem to remember Barry Sargeant saying that scuts exhibited wide differences in colouration. I would not use colour alone as an identifier for any bee species. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 19:07:45 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Harry Goudie Subject: Re: Shade vs. Sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't know whether this sun v shade topic is a continuation of the varroa in hot climates discussion but the reason I mentioned the positioning of the hives was that I suspected that the temperature of the hives was being controlled by placing them in the shade. There was some discussion a while ago about varroa being temperature sensitive and I wondered if, by exposing the hives to full sunlight in hot climates (possibly for only a short time each day) there would be any effect on the varroa infestation. Harry (Not much point in me trying this experiment as I don't think I have seen the sun this year!!) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 10:27:20 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Morton Organization: Central Science Laboratory Subject: Re: Maggots MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I have no idea if this is correct, but is it possible that they are > parasitic wasp larvae? Or how about infestation with parasitic fly larvae ('apimiasis')? This is known to occur with a variety of fly species (most notably Senotania tricuspis). I haven't any first hand experience of this here in the UK, but I believe that it is comparatively common in some warmer parts of the world. James -- ___________________________________________________________________________ James Morton South-Eastern Regional Bee Inspector CSL National Bee Unit Tel/fax: 020 8571 6450 Mobile: 07719 924 418 E-mail: j.morton@csl.gov.uk CSL website: http://www.csl.gov.uk National Bee Unit website: http://www.nationalbeeunit.com ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 15:51:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Medhat Nasr Subject: Re: NJ Beekeeping association Centenial Anniversary Oct4-5, 2002 Comments: cc: Kurela , David Wasitowski , Landi Simone MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Beekeepers, NJ Beekeeping Association is celebrating the 100's anniversary Oct 4-5. Two day educational, Cranberry Harvest Tour, and Celebration events will be held at Ramada Inn, Hightstown and Chatsworth, NJ, October 4th & 5th, 2002. For more Information, Please contact Bob Hughes Tel: (609) 585-4359 or Dan Kurela Tel: (908) 673-6644; "Kurela" or Dave Wasitowski (908) 806-7611 e-mail: David Wasitowski Guest speakers - Dr. Dewey Caron (Delaware University) - Dr. John Skinner (Tennessee University) - Dr. Mark Feldlaufer (USDA-Bee Laboratory - Dr. Sridhar Polavarapu (Rutgers University MD) - Ms. Susan Cobey, (Ohio State University) - Mr. Tony Jadczak, Maine State Apiarist, Maine Dept. of Ag - Dr. Medhat Nasr (Rutgers University) - Mr. Bob Hughes (NJ Beekeeper) Saturday - "Travel with us to Chatsworth" for tours and workshops: - Tours of Haines Cranberry Farm and watch harvesting cranberries - Ocean Spray Plant - Workshops at Rutgers Blueberry & Cranberry Research Center Saturday Evening - At the Ramada Inn, Hightstown, NJ Cocktail Hour & Dinner/Dance PROGRAM Friday October 4th, 2002: 9:30-9:45 Registration and Coffee 9:45:10:00 Introduction President of NJBA 10:00:11:30 Honey Bee Queens' workshop (Biology, Health, Quality, and Resistance, etc.) (Sue Cobey and Medhat Nasr) 11:30- 12:15 Bee Nutrition and Practices for Successful Wintering Bees (Tony Jadczak) 12:15-1:15 Lunch 1:15- 2:00 Bee Brood Diseases: Diagnosis and Control (John Skinner) 2:00-2:45 Bee Adult Diseases: Diagnosis and Control (Dewey Caron) 2:45:3:15 In and Out of the Bee Yard in 30 min (Bob Hughes) 3:15-3:30 Coffee 3:30-4:00 Handling, Use and Abuse of Pesticides (Sridhar Polavarapu) 4:00-4:30 Alternative Methods for Management of Bee Diseases and Pests (Medhat Nasr) 4:30-5:15 Questions Period Friday Evening: 7:00 PM NJBA Business Meeting 8:00- 10:00 PM Social Hour PROGRAM Saturday October 5th, 2002: 8:00AM Travel to Chatsworth 9:00 AM Tour Cranberry Haines & Haines 10:30 AM Tour Ocean Spray Processing Plant Farm 12:00-1:00 Lunch at Rutgers Blueberry-Cranberry Research and Extension Center 1:00-1:30 Research Activities at Rutgers Blueberry-Cranberry Research and Extension Center (Nick Vorsa) 1:30-2:00 Honey Bees and Blueberry Pollination in Maine (Tony Jadczak) 2:00-2:30 Management of Bees for Pollination (John Skinner) 2:30-3:00 Breeding New World Carniolian Bees (Sue Cobey) 3:00-3:30 Report Honey Bee Research at USDA- Bee Labortory (Mark Feldlaufer) 3:30-4:00 Report on Honey Bee Research Activities at Rutgers (Medhat Nasr) 4:00 Leaving to go back to Hotel 6:00- 11:00PM Dinner and Celebration Activities 6:00 Cocktail Hour 6:30 Introduction of Past Presidents and VIP 7:00 Dinner 8:00 Activities and Dance 11:00 Adjournment ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ Registration Form Name:....................................................................... .................................................................. Address: ................................. ............................................................................ ........................ City:....................................State: ..................................Zip code:........................................... Branch :...................................Organization: .................................. Phone: (........)............-....................Fax (........)............-.................... E-Mail:................................. ............................................................................ ........................ Pay by Aug. 15th. After Aug.15th. Friday October 4th.: $65.00/person $70.00/person Saturday Oct. 5th. $75.00/person $80.00/person Two days $ 140/person $150/person Total Enclosed Make Check Payable to: NJBA Mail check to: Dan Kurela, 43 Quenby Mountain Road, Great Meadows, NJ 07838 Medhat Nasr, Ph. D. Blueberry and Cranberry Research Center Rutgers University, Chatsworth, New Jersey 08019, USA Ph. 609-726-1590 Ex 25 Fax. 609-726-1593 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 02:36:15 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter dillon Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim , Your mail dips well into the subject of bee communication! Having just read without trying to take in the consequences of your comments - its late. "The combs that act as "dance floors" are nearly always chewed away from the bottom bar of the frame,....... reduces the damping" effect of the frame on vibrations, and results in better propagation of vibrations across the comb." How would frames that have plastic sheets acting as foundation react in damping or not of vibrations generated by bees? Also, relating to "seismic" wave propagation - vibrations will react (pass or be inhibited) depending on the physical state of the materials held by the frame - nectar, liquid honey, crystallised honey etc. How would a bee facilitate it's analysis of what the "dancing bee" is trying to communicate on a variable sound board Bees follow a dancer on the comb - why? Can bees be supplied with an odourous sugar solution - which they will then leave the hive to try and find. - allowing specific nectars to be collected/ plants to be pollinated? It would seem logical that there is a mechanism that is dominated by direction and distance used by bees, followed by use of another sense on arrival in the desired locality. Dance for the former, odour once in the locality! Back in the hive, distance and direction communicated by dance, and that information backed up by odour. Hope that you do not mind the questions and suggestive comments! Peter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 14:21:48 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Julian O'Dea Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments Comments: To: jfischer@SUPERCOLLIDER.COM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Thanks to Mr Fischer for his comments. Here is my original paper at Internet naturalSCIENCE that may flesh out my thinking: http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-13/ns_jdo.html Here is what I think happened in an evolutionary sense: 1) Bees originally foraged independently. 2) When a bee found a good food source, she performed a dance to aid in memorising the location of the resource, so that she could fly directly to the spot and avoid having to use odour alone to relocate the resource. I think this behaviour evolved as a kind of "idiothetic" behaviour. There are precedents for similar movements (see my paper above). 3) Over time, other bees evolved an attraction to the dancing bee, and were able to obtain information about a resource and the associated odour by attending on the dancing bee. 4) The dances became longer and the amount of attention they received increased, as it became an advantage to forage communally and to share odour information. Odour became the basis for communicating the whereabouts of resources. 5) Humans came along and noticed that the honeybee dance contained what looked like symbolic information and assumed that it was communicated from one bee to another. This was a case of jumping to conclusions. The problem with the new Esch et al. theory is that if it is true that optic flow is the basis for distance estimation, this demands great accuracy as regards direction. Esch et al. note this themselves. However, this accuracy is not available, as the following paper relates: Vadas, R.L. 1994. The anatomy of an ecological controversy: honey-bee searching behaviour. Oikos 69: 158-166 and at: http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/oikos94.htm Julian O'Dea ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 23:39:18 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Varroa in tropical climates MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to those who speculated that the "varroa" mentioned by Prof. De Jong of U. Sao Palo, Brazil were Varroa jacobsoni ("VJ") rather than Varroa destructor ("VD"), Prof De Jong verified in a recent e-mail that the mites in question were analyzed and found to be Varroa destructor. Since Prof De Jong works in the Department of Genetics at U. Sao Paulo, I think we can take it as given that they have the facilities and skill to tell the one mite from another. He also sent 3 citations, and a link to an online copy of a paper about these findings. Please note that at the time these papers were written, no one had identified Varroa destructor as unique from Varroa jacobsoni, so ALL Varroa were incorrectly called "Varroa jacobsoni". De Jong, D., Soares, A.E.E.1997. An isolated population of Italian bees that has resisted Varroa jacobsoni infestation without treatment for over 12 years. American Bee Journal 137:742-745. Moretto, G., Goncalves, L.S. De Jong, D., Bichuette, M.Z. 1991. The effects of climate and bee race on Varroa jacobsoni Oud. infestations in Brazil. Apidologie 22:197-203. De Jong, D., Goncalves, L.S. and R.A. Morse l984. Dependence on climate of the virulence of Varroa jacobsoni. Bee World 65:117-121. http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2002/vol2-1/gmr0040_abstract.htm Scroll down to the bottom of the "Abstract", and click on one of the "full text" links to read the entire paper on the website above. So, as I said in my prior posting, "EHB and Varroa in Brazil's Tropical Region" http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0207c&L=bee-l&P=11740 we have an interesting situation here, where the lack of a "shutdown" of the colony for winter seems to help keep the mite levels tolerable. Read the papers, draw your own conclusions. I'm still thinking about it. My off-the-cuff question is how everyone missed the hint for so many years after publication of these papers. There is something very significant going on down there, with potential advantage for the entire industry. On the other hand, I got a full-color brochure promoting "Checkmite+" in my mailbox today (buy 10 strips of deadly organophosphate from one of Bayer's dealers, and get a free hive tool, or some such nonsense), so maybe I should understand why no one has followed up on Prof. De Jong's findings. :) jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:44:49 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: FGMO and honey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All I got a request for details on FGMO residues in honey on the Irish Beekeeping Discussion List recently. I knew that Dr Pedro Rodriguez was awaiting laboratory results on tests on honey, so I sent a copy of the request to Dr Rodriguez and received the following reply this morning. >Hi Tom. > We just received our honey residue test results back from the >laboratory. The test result was negative, zero, nada, zilch. The honey tested came from colonies that have been treated with FGMO for the third year. I do not doubt that eventually FGMO may find its way into the honey but it just does not like it will be any time soon. >Have a wonderful day. >Pedro Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 07:53:34 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: A New Trend - Beekeeping "Spam" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We are what most would call "sideline" beekeepers. Our serious pocket change comes from high-tech work, like managing networks and services for Internet Service Providers and large companies. As a result, we collect unusual or funny spam messages the way some people collect stamps or baseball cards. Within the past 24 hours, our anti-spam filters have trapped: a) At least 15 copies of an unsolicited message promoting a website that is nearly 100% content-free, except for the cryptic comment that the website is "about" "Golden Bee Products and Kimbolton Castle Queens". The website itself is hosted in the UK, but the registrant is apparently a fellow in Israel, one "Gal Moran", apparently of the firm "Karban-Moran Eng Ltd" of Tel Aviv, Israel. b) A smaller number of copies of a message from a dealer in Denmark for an Oxalic Acid vaporizer made by a Canadian firm named "Heilyser Technology Ltd." The dealer's name given in the spam was "Joachim Schuler" The website itself is a free "GeoCities" website. I assume that Heilyser had no idea that this fellow was going to be so aggressive in his attempts to sell their product. This is the first time I have seen spam that was attempting to promote beekeeping-related items. When beekeepers spam other beekeepers, can the horsemen of the apocalypse be far behind? :) jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 13:12:49 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Maggots ?? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dee & all Apymyiasis I did not know this myself until a couple of months ago... The info below is clipped from a private post. << A "myiasis" is the term used for parasitic larvae infesting animals or people. When these fly larvae affect bees, it is termed "apimyiasis". There are a variety of flies that could infest bees: What you describe could be from the family Sarcophagidae (flesh flies). These are similar to blowflies but are grey with black thoracic stripes. These flies parasitise bees on flowers or may swoop down on bees at the hive entrance (as you mentioned), depositing newly hatched larvae in a bee's back every 6 to 10 seconds. The larva enters the bee via the spiracles, where it lives in the thorax until it is about 2 mm in length. The bee then dies and the larva moves to the abdomen (possibly the swollen white abdomens you observed on your bees). The larva then grows to approx. 8 mm long then leaves to pupate in the ground (often in front of the hive), emerging as an adult in 6 to 8 weeks. The book "Honey bee pests, predators and diseases" by Roger Morse and Kim Flottum is a fantastic resource with regard to bee disease etc. In case you are interested, this is the book I got all this info from :)>> Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 15:37:47 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Roger White Subject: Varroa in tropical climates MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-7" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jim, Why should winter shut-down benefit Varroa? It would have to stop = breeding as well. We don't have a shut-down period in the winter, but = still have problems with varroa, the problem becomes acute at the end of = summer when brood production is at its lowest and Varroa piles into = every available cell, if we don't treat at this time of the year we = would probably loose the colonies, because they just simply run out of = bees. Roger White Superbee Cyprus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 08:39:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >ISBA JOURNAL >www.hoosierbuzz.com >January - February 2001 > >Also tested an IPM program of Screened bottoms, formic acid, both, >and no treatment. > >Results were as follow for Russian stock - 1% to 8% using all four. >Using both formic acid and screen did have lowest mite population, >"no treatment" had highest mites but still low. > >Domestic stock results were, 9% for both, 21% with formic acid, 69% >with screen, and 70% with no treatment. It was also found that the >Russians are more hygienic then domestic stock. As you can see, using screens alone was virtually identical to NO screens. "69% with screen, and 70% with no treatment". Using a screen with formic acid resulted in half as many mites. However, we found that we could get the same results as this using a larger dose of formic acid, with no screen. I currently have an apiary of 24 hives started from packages in 2002. Half are on screens, half are not. The only reason I mention this is to show that I am continuing to experiment with them, even though I have never seen that they *do* anything at all. That is, I will try different approaches regardless of my personal bias. But this is the fourth year of testing them, and I have never seen any effect: not on brood rearing, not on honey production, not on mite levels. -- Peter Borst ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 09:30:18 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Dillon said: >> "The combs that act as "dance floors" are nearly always chewed away >> from the bottom bar of the frame,....... reduces the damping" effect of >> the frame on vibrations, and results in better propagation of vibrations >> across the comb." > How would frames that have plastic sheets acting as foundation react in > damping or not of vibrations generated by bees? I dunno, as I do not use plastic foundation in brood combs, but I do use it for supers. Call me old-fashioned, but I use the old wired wax approach for brood comb, if for no other reason than to avoid offending the ghosts of the old-timers that taught me the craft. :) I do have data to back up my pig-headedness, since anyone can mix plastic foundation and wax foundation in the same super or brood chamber, and see which is drawn out first. Around here, wax wins every time on speed, but plastic foundation survives the extractor and rough handling better. I'd suspect that wax (and/or propolis) removal along the bottom of a comb drawn from plastic foundation would also result in "better" vibrations, since the plastic is never "tight" in the slot of the bottom bar, and the vibrations we are talking about are tiny. Not much physical motion happens. Why not look at all the frames in a of you own few brood chambers, and tell us what you see? > Also, relating to "seismic" wave propagation - vibrations will react (pass or be > inhibited) depending on the physical state of the materials held by the frame - > nectar, liquid honey, crystallized honey etc. In my experience, dancing is most often done on comb that is NOT filled with honey, when the bees have a choice in the matter. Others who have looked at such things for longer than I would be better able to answer how often bees might dance on "filled" comb, be it honey, brood, or whatever. > How would a bee facilitate it's analysis of what the "dancing bee" is trying to > communicate on a variable sound board? I'm not sure what you mean by "variable sound board". The sound board can be assumed to be non-variable, at least for the duration of any one dance. > Bees follow a dancer on the comb - why? To learn the dance steps? :) One clue might be that vibrations do not travel very far on comb. In fact, most "dance" vibrations do not even resonate across the entire comb. From what I've measured, I'd guess that one would need a guitar pickup and a magnet about every 3 inches along the length of a comb to get decent-quality waveforms on ALL dances done on a comb, regardless of where they are done. I simply ignore dances that are too far away from the magnet/pickup to generate a "clean signal", as I cannot expect a beekeeper to bother to buy or wire up a multichannel amplifier and mixer, or a recording scheme that would gather data from multiple sensors. I can't even be bothered myself, and I know that we have a 16-channel Teac audio mixer around here somewhere, and that audio gear is fine for the frequencies at issue. > Can bees be supplied with an odourous sugar solution - which they will then > leave the hive to try and find. - allowing specific nectars to be collected/ plants > to be pollinated? Well, I "flavor" my sugar syrup with a little anise, and I have yet to ever see a crowd at my wife's anise plants in the herb garden... :) While it would be nice to feed one's bees a desirable nectar, and have them focus on that plant as a result, the problem is that foragers act as "food critics", and only make enthusiastic "nectar dances" about gathered nectar that both has a high sugar content and is readily available from the plants NOW. Any attempt to "advertise" a food source that is not really all that good at the moment is doomed to failure, since it is multiple dances by multiple returning foragers that recruit enough bees to gather some serious poundage. In short, bees dance based upon what they find in the field, and if you put a feeder on, the feeder becomes a unique food source in its own right, rather than a way to "fool" the bees. This approach would be a good test to disprove or prove the "odor" theory, since it could be done only when the target plants are known to be at maximum nectar production, but no one is terribly interested in disproving the "flat earth" theory either. One's paper gets rejected as "obvious". > It would seem logical that there is a mechanism that is dominated by direction > and distance used by bees, followed by use of another sense on arrival in the > desired locality. > Dance for the former, odour once in the locality! > Back in the hive, distance and direction communicated by dance, and that > information backed up by odour. Your speculation is very plausible, but that is not what was proposed by the pre-print posted. The pre-print paper claimed that "dance" was nothing but an "attention-getter", and not "communication" at all, a claim that I feel lacks credible supporting data. Your speculation is a better perspective on the situation, in that it gives reasonable weights to the influence of both components ("dance" and "odor"), and proposes a plausible mechanism that "makes sense" on a functional level. It also proposes a mixed truth, which is how "The Truth" seems to work most often. jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:00:57 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Michael Housel Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have been monitoring an open air hive. The owners of the tree that the hive is in confirms that it is 40 + years old. It is in the middle of the beetles, mites, city spraying for bugs, ect. The beetles have slowed it down 3 years ago. It is still producing swarms. When these bees are put it a commercial hive they die just like the rest of the bees. It is 25 feet up on the outside of a limb. No treatment with chemicals just and open air hive. Michael Housel Orlandobee ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:27:28 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Mesh Floor Trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All Peter Borst said (in a seperate thread) > I currently have an apiary of 24 hives started from packages in 2002. > Half are on screens, half are not. The only reason I mention this is > to show that I am continuing to experiment with them, even though I > have never seen that they *do* anything at all. > > That is, I will try different approaches regardless of my personal > bias. But this is the fourth year of testing them, and I have never > seen any effect: not on brood rearing, not on honey production, not > on mite levels. This is not a criticism, but I ask if you have tried using the screens on their own (no solid board underneath) and with stands of 400 mm height (16") that allow plenty of air to flow through underneath the colony. This is how we use them in UK and we notice that initial brood rearing is delayed slightly, but the brood production accellerates and surpasses solid bottomed colonies. I have no data that indicates better or worse honey production. Mite levels are affected simply due to any live ones falling through the mesh being out of the equation. This might not be a large effect, but surely it is in the right direction. Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website... http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 21:39:17 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter dillon Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim, Brood frame as found in the majority of my hives are as you suggest - not completely fixed onto the bottom bar. But as for leaving a continuous lax of wax - they tend to be fixed in the central areas and "unfixed" near the lateral area. I have thought that this was due to the need for passage of bees from comb to comb. Also, the period in which the comb was placed into the brood area appeared to have influence on how the comb was drawn out. When the brrod area was in a period of full expansion and with a reasonable nectar flow - then the wax seemed to be well attached. Other times when the lower parts of the frame were under less pressure to be put into service - chewing and removal of wax occured. How would a bee facilitate it's analysis of what the "dancing bee" is trying to > communicate on a variable sound board? I'm not sure what you mean by "variable sound board". The sound board can be assumed to be non-variable, at least for the duration of any one dance. By this, I was refering to the fact that due to the presence of materials being in different physical states, the propagation of vibration throught the area being vibrated would change (speed and intensity). Would a bee pick up the same "message" from the area of comb filled with liquid honey compared to the same message generated on an empty area? Would any difference result in a different response in the "receiving bee"? You state from your experience that dances tend to occur on areas devoid if honey - maybe there is a reason for this. -so much to investigate and so little cash!!! Deveating from the topic in hand , would it not be worth the biscuit for established centres to research to create a network of investigators. These delving into areas that accredited centres are unable to due to lack of time, resources and cash. Subjects that may by themselves be relatively unimportant when taken in isolation - but when linked to other gathered knowledge might give the edge on the acceptance or rejection of a theory? Anyway, Refering to bees trained on odour containing sugar solutions - pages 309/310 of "Bees" authored by I.Khalifman state that "as far back as 1939, foremost beekeepers reported at the All Union Agricultural exhibiton in Moscow that with the help of trained bees ....... 2 to 3 fold increase in precious clover seed." This text continues that so called trained bees were used on various other plant crops. If this is true, then the idea that there is no transfer from artificial feeder to field supplies is not so. I have no evidence myself supporting or rejecting this. The above mentioned book makes interesting reading - if only for the manner in which it is written! Peter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 21:38:37 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: FGMO and Tracheal Mites Comments: To: irishbeekeeping@yahoogroups.co.uk Comments: cc: Norlandbeekeepers@yahoogroups.com, NZBkprs@yahoogroups.com, BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All In our discussions on FGMO and varroa, it may not have been emphasised that FGMO is also excellent for the control of Tracheal Mites (Acarine, Acarapis Woodi). So you get varroa control, tracheal mite control and you can treat during the honey season. Can't be bad! Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 17:20:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Coleene Davidson Subject: EXTRACTING MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HI ALL, Just thought I would pass on an idea that may or may not work-I haven't extracted yet. I bought a tray to set my washing machine in that stops flooding in case of leak. It comes without the hole for the drain open, left for the purchaser to complete the assembly. Looking at it I was thinking what a good place to put supers awaiting extraction. It is made of heavy plastic and, although I haven't measured, I think it will hold 3 or 4 stacks of supers. Wet supers, after extracting, can be placed back on the tray until moved back to the hive for clean-up as well as the bucket under the extractor that has on occasion gotten too full. It would also fit in the back of a pick-up for removing supers from hives. All of the honey will drip into the tray and none on the floor or truck bed. Since I extract in the house, this is a good thing. They are relatively inexpensive-$18.99 at Home-Depot. They appear to be durable and would last for several seasons if taken care of. Just hose it off and stash for next year! Just a thought. I am going to buy another one to use while extracting. I will pass on the results. Coleene Michigan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 16:42:49 -0700 Reply-To: beekeeper82@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carm Subject: Re: EXTRACTING, tips and troubles In-Reply-To: <001e01c2380e$f2c835a0$79bc41d8@cedavidson> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sounds like a great idea Coleene. Next time I am in town I will have to look your washer machine tray up. My mother and sister would agree very much that we need it, we have overflowed the honey buckets about 4 times now, wasting about 40 pounds of honey all together. Great fun cleaning it up!! I found out that using your hands to scoop the honey up is the fastest way. On the subject of extracting, all of us know that honey has a tendency to get everywhere. We have been having lots of fun doing it, our most favorite moments being when the pails overflowed. Of course they always did it when we were in a hurry. THe other thing was when the frames blew apart in the extracter. A note here for those who are not sure whether to use 2 or 4 wires in there frames, use 4! A lesson learned the hard way for me. 2 works if your honey is very warm and you run the extracter slow for a bit, but it is much nicer having 4 wires and peace of mind. Mind you, if you have a extracter where the frames are parallel to the sides of the extracter, I don't think it really matters. I guess the radial extracters put more stress on the frames. Anyhow, that is all I have to say about extracting honey. I wish I could train the bees to put it in the jars themselves. Anyone else have extracting gone wrong, lessons learned experiances? Just thought would be interesting. By the way, how are honey flows going in areas represented by those on this list? Take care, Carmenie Ontario, Canada __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:57:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Mesh Floor Trials quote This is not a criticism, but I ask if you have tried using the screens on their own (no solid board underneath) and with stands of 400 mm height (16") that allow plenty of air to flow through underneath the colony. The screens we use are open to the air and the clearance from the ground is about 12 pb ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:14:01 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: EXTRACTING, tips and troubles Comments: To: beekeeper82@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Carmenie and All, Carmenie wrote: I found out that using your hands to scoop the honey up is the > fastest way By a dust pan at the *dollar store* and use instead of hands. Use a plastic flat piece sold to apply automotive body putty by Walmart to push the honey in the dust pan. They are also great for getting the last of the honey out of a pail. Carmenie wrote: our most favorite moments being when the pails overflowed. I hate to see a drop of honey hit the floor. I wish I could train the bees to put it in the > jars themselves. They will if a strong flow is on . Take a inner cover and cut holes so a pint mason jar fit the hole. Use about 6 jars per inner cover. Some beekeepers put a piece of foundation across the jar but I do not. We have produced a case or two of these for the state fair to show people when they say "Would be nice if you could get the bees to put the honey in the jar for you". Anyone else have extracting gone wrong, lessons learned experiances? Stop and clean a spill right away. > By the way, how are honey flows going in areas > represented by those on this list? Main honey flow over and honey plants burning up because of the heat. Temperature at night around 90f. and around 100f and up in the day with heat index around 110F. Removing honey crop is going slow. Beekeepers not able to hire help and only pulling honey in the morning. Many report honey house temperatures running in the 110 to 115f. while extracting ( heat from uncappers and sumps). Bees pulling honey out of supers into brood nest. Typical Missouri year! Bob Missouri ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:27:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: FGMO and Tracheal Mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Tom and All, > (FGMO) Can't be bad! FGMO has it's good points but the best cure for varroa and tracheal mites is breeding a varroa and TM tolerant bee. No mineral oil to apply and feral colonies will start to come back. Ever thought of importing one of the USDA strains which are showing tolerance in the U.S.? Sincerely, Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 21:34:45 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Draft paper on dance language for comments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Dillion said: > Brood frame as found in the majority of my hives are as you suggest - > not completely fixed onto the bottom bar. But as for leaving a continuous > lax of wax - they tend to be fixed in the central areas and "unfixed" > near the lateral area. This is EXACTLY what everyone should see. The bees appear to "cut a slot" about 1/3rd the way from each end toward the center, leaving something slightly less than 1/3rd of the total length of the frame "intact" at the center. The amazing thing is that this makes the comb resonate better at dance frequencies. One can take drawn empty comb and cut it yourself, measuring resonance as one cuts each millimeter away, and one will find that the bees do it exactly right, likely by "trial and error", since there are differences between how much is chewed away from apparently "identical" frames of comb in different hives. > I have thought that this was due to the need for passage of bees from comb to comb. Nope - I pre-cut holes in the far outer corners of each brood frame for queen passage, and the bees will STILL chew away a straight line, roughly one cell thick, as you described. (I CAN'T be the first to notice this!!!) > Would a bee pick up the same "message" from the area of comb filled with liquid > honey compared to the same message generated on an empty area? > Would any difference result in a different response in the "receiving bee"? The vibrational frequencies would be the same, but they simply would not travel as far from the dancing bee as they might on empty comb. The filled comb would tend to "damp" the vibration, nothing more. > You state from your experience that dances tend to occur on areas > devoid of honey - maybe there is a reason for this. Sure there is - the bees chew away at the bottom of the comb to create a good "dance floor", do you think that they would mess up all that work by then filling it with heavy honey? Check that chewed frame every week from now until you put the colony to bed for winter, and I will bet you $20 that you will never find ANY significant honey stores in that frame, as long as foraging is going on. > -so much to investigate and so little cash!!! I have the exact opposite view. :) Cash is easy - good practical ideas are the rare commodity. > Deveating from the topic in hand , would it not be worth the biscuit for > established centres to research to create a network of investigators. > These delving into areas that accredited centres are unable to due to > lack of time, resources and cash. Subjects that may by themselves > be relatively unimportant when taken in isolation - but when linked to > other gathered knowledge might give the edge on the acceptance or > rejection of a theory? Not my place to say. I'm a physicist who left the calling for the "glamorous" world of networks, routers, servers, SONET rings, fiber cross-connects, and all the other toys that go bump in the night and make the internet work, but never get any attention. Plumbing for electrons. Who am I to suggest things to people who continue to tolerate no funding, antique equipment, grad students with agendas, administrators who need a cranial-rectal extraction, and worst of all, BEEKEEPERS bugging them with questions all the time? :) > ...pages 309/310 of "Bees" authored by I. Khalifman... > This text continues that so called trained bees were used on various other > plant crops. If this is true, then the idea that there is no transfer from artificial > feeder to field supplies is not so. I have no evidence myself supporting or rejecting this. If it worked as described, the pollination business would be much less complex than it is, and it would be easy for everyone to produce perfect crops of varietal honey. I'm not holding my breath on that report. It goes well past "anecdotal", and is well into "apochryphal" territory. Maybe the "training" was nothing more than smoke and mirrors covering the fact that more hives than usual were being deployed. (Due to budget cutbacks, we who work the day shift here at the Idea Factory have been forced to eliminate the use of mirrors, and do everything with nothing but smoke.) You can try to "fake out" your bees, but I am certain that their own system of checks and balances and hedging their bets will focus their foraging efforts on whatever is the best source of nectar or pollen NOW, and refocus on another source when the first "dries up" with the speed and handling of a sports car. Do you randomly change the settings on your carburetors and expect your car to run smoother? I thought not. :) A bee colony is a nice machine. The bees are the parts. Most "maintence" on the machine breaks more than it fixes. jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:54:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Tooley Subject: Re: EXTRACTING, tips and troubles In-Reply-To: <20020730234249.69611.qmail@web40307.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A few years ago, on a cold November day,I was trying to fill a 5 gal.pail from a 40 gallon bottling tank.The honey was coming out in a trickle,it was so thick and cold.I figured I could go do something else and check back in a bit. Several weeks later,around midnight,I bolted upright in bed,grabbed a flashlight and went out and looked in the honey room.Yep,around 30 gallons on the floor.Closed the door and went back to bed.By spring it was granulated and easier to clean up. -Mike ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 23:19:12 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: FGMO and Tracheal Mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I usually stay out of these types of discussions, because they become very much like religious discussions or political discussions where no one convinces the other side and most participants go away mad. So I will say my "piece" and quit. I have never met or talked to Dr. Pedro Rodrigeous, but I have been told that he is a dentist, and not a scientist. If FGMO worked on either varroa mites or tracheal mites, much less both of them, pray tell why was it not endorsed by Beltsville Bee Lab, ARS, AAPA, or any of those Extension Service scientists or university bee researchers? Without giving any names, I know of scientists at both Beltsville and ARS who used FGMO and concluded that it did not work reliably or at all in some cases, and they discontinued their salaried research on it. I know local beekeepers that became all enamored with using FGMO because it eliminated the use of "chemicals", and I laughed because, isn't FGMO a chemical or combination of many chemicals? These local beekeepers expounded the success of FGMO at the end of one year of use, some spoke highly of its use at the end of the second year, and nothing was heard later; because all their bees died mostly during the second year and none made it through the third year. Some of these beekeepers bought new packages of bees, but some gave up beekeeping. I think if FGMO worked well on the control of varroa mites, 90% of American beekeepers would say THANK GOD, and gladly use it; and the founder of this procedure would surely get some massive award and honor from every known bee association. He would be as famous as Langstroth. I am an OLD, retired research scientist, and have talked with bee researchers of every area, federal government scientists, state government scientists, university bee scientists, and professional apiculturists and not one of those that I have talked with had anything favorable to say about FGMO, and simply dismissed it as a usable agent for the control of varroa mites. My only reason for writing at all is that I hate to see the spread of the use of FGMO by NON-scientists arousing much favorable attention to the new beeHAVERS of today and having their bees die of varroa infestation, and then they give up beekeeping in favor of catching butterflies or raising pigeons or something that can fly. This is my 70th year of beekeeping in Maryland and having 60-135 colonies for most of those years, but now only 20 because I am stroke disabled and have to work my colonies off the back of a golf cart since I have difficulty walking. However, starting back in 1985, I treat all colonies with menthol on August 15th when it hot but I don't treat for Varroa until October 1st when I add Apistan strips to the brood area of my colonies and POSITIVELY REMOVE THOSE STRIPS before December 1st to prevent resistance development. I make no other treatments, and sticky board tests on April 1st and July 1st always indicate a low margin of varroa mites. I know of no colony in these past 18 years that I have lost to mites; and, as a scientist, I am sure that my DATES of INSTALLATION of both the menthol and the fresh Apistan strips are the key to success. I have observed people delaying the installation of menthol until mid September or October because they were trying to get a crop of late summer honey like goldenrod, but their bees died in January of TRACHEAL MITE infestation; and then, these beekeepers told the whole world that menthol did not work. Of course it didn't work when installed in mid September or early October because it was not hot enough for the menthol to sublime at 84° day after day into a gas for the bees to breathe and kill the tracheal mites in the trachea of the bees. The solution to that problem is: SAVE YOUR BEES rather than being greedy and trying to get a bigger crop of honey. The great majority of beekeepers seem to fail to understand the fact that the varroa mite egg is ONLY laid in a cell with a honey bee LARVA just before that cell is capped and the mite eggs hatch and feed off of that honey bee larva until the damaged honey bee emerges as an adult along with 2-3 new varroa mites. In failing to understand this fact, they seem to treat with Apistan or CheckMite at any time convenient to THEM or even 2-3 times during a year rather than treating when you will get the highest percentage kill of varroa mites! That time is when there is very little honey bee LARVA or NO larva present in the hive. In Maryland, queens have greatly reduced their laying by October 1st and essentially stopped laying by November 15th. Hence, I install my Apistan strips on October 1st and POSITIVELY REMOVE them between November 15th and December 1st. There are always 2-3 afternoons near the end of November that the temperature goes above 50° that it is easy to pop a hive open and remove the strips. Surely, I am not going to leave the strips in the hive until spring, and make the mites RESISTANT to Apistan, which is a thing that too many people do because it is INCONVENIENT for them to take an afternoon off from work in November and remove the strips, but they can take the whole day off to eat Thanksgiving turkey. I didn't plan on saying as much as I have, so I will quit; but I don't believe that FGMO is an effective agent for control of varroa or tracheal mites. George Imirie Certified EAS Master Beekeeper Author of George's PINK PAGES ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 22:37:09 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: FGMO and Tracheal Mites In-Reply-To: <83.1e57fcf1.2a78b130@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > If FGMO worked on either varroa mites or tracheal mites, much less both of > them, > pray tell why was it not endorsed by Beltsville Bee Lab, ARS, AAPA, or any of > those > Extension Service scientists or university bee researchers? Found at: http://www.expert-forum.com/carlhayden_25/_frontend/search.asp?language=1&ca tegory=0&topic=0&order=0&total=312&records=10&page=2 ----- Date: 07/17/2002 Question: I was recently on a website (www.beesource.com) and found a lot of information on using food grade mineral oil for the control of Varroa mites. Have you any opinions about this? Reply: Dr. Eric H. Erickson: It has long been known that many oils are good insecticides and miticides. In the early 1980s, it was discovered that cooking oil was effective against tracheal mites. It is believed that the oils compromise the mite's (and insect's) ability to breathe. We are aware that some beekeepers are using various oils to control varroa and feel that they are having success. The problem lies in achieving mite control with out harming/killing bees. We know of no controlled scientific studies that provide meaningful information on rate and method of application and, more specifically, how these issues relate to effective mite control and bee safety. We do know that the specialized respiratory system of varroa allows them to float unharmed on their back for long periods of time. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 23:48:27 -0400 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: EXTRACTING, tips and troubles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Carmenie said: > we have overflowed the honey buckets about 4 > times now, wasting about 40 pounds of honey all > together. >Anyone else have extracting gone wrong, lessons > learned experiances? Spilling honey when going from extractor to bucket, or from settling tank to bucket is not hard to eliminate. I assume that you have a gravity-driven honey flow process, rather than one driven by a pump. Find a Shop-Vac, and remove the top. Look at the ball. Note that if the Shop-Vac falls on its side, or fills up with water, the ball will come out of it's seat, and allow the fan to blow out the bypass vent. This is the concept for what you want to build to avoid spilling honey. There are many ways to make one, but the common thread is a float in a container that rises up and plugs the tube, or closes a valve, stopping the flow. Don't have any tubing? You can buy some at most of the large "homeowner's warehouse" stores in the plumbing section. It is sold by the foot. Dadant (and many others, I am sure) includes a plastic barbed fitting with every honey gate for the attachment of tubing. Don't have a float? Buy a (brand new) plastic ball, and build a cage for it, or buy a (brand new) small stainless steel vegetable colander to use as a cage. When the bucket fills up, the ball rises, and plugs the tube. Lack of airflow back up the tube stops the flow, and the honey does not push the ball away. Don't want tubes? Look at the gate valve on your extractor. Most have a cheap plastic gate valve, some are better. Buy a gate valve or ball valve with a lever handle (metal, expensive) or buy a PVC gate valve with a bright red handle (cheaper, but still very sturdy) and connect the float to the handle. Put the valve on upside down, so that "lever up" closes the valve. Keep the pivot point well lubricated (honey is a decent lubricant) and test your contraption with a hose and water before trying it with honey. Note that you may have to counter weight or spring-load the handle to overcome friction. A large rat-trap may also provide enough force to throw the lever, and also makes a nice loud sound. (Ball rises up, attached fishing line allows weight to drop, which pulls on bait area of trap...) Just need an alarm? Float closes switch, just like on a sump-pump, and switch turns on a very loud buzzer. Better yet, and far simpler, never let honey flow without keeping an eye on it, regardless of how many fail-safe systems you have in place. If you leave the room, close the valves, and shut off the equipment. If you are "all done" extracting, get a cool drink, a good book, and baby-sit the flowing honey. A comfy chair and a decent stereo are important parts of a well-designed honey house. I use a "directors chair" of the type often seen when movie sets are portrayed on TV. It folds up and stows flat when I don't want to sit. When in the process of extracting, recall how many average frames fill a 5-gallon bucket, and keep count. I know that two "loads" of 9 frames will nicely fill a 5-gallon bucket, so guess how often I change buckets, given that I have a 9-frame extractor? jim (perhaps a very remote descendent of Rube Goldberg) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:04:46 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: FGMO and Tracheal Mites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Bob Harrison wrote: >Ever thought of importing one of the USDA strains which are showing >tolerance in the U.S.? Bob, I truly envy American beekeepers the choices you have available. Reading the ABJ each month for me, is like having my face pressed against the window of a tuck shop without being able to go inside. Sadly, the Irish Government prohibits the importation of bees. But I am ever hopeful that someday this will change, as change it surely must. Bob, you are absolutely right in what you say, but meantime I must soldier on with FGMO without the benefits of American beekeeping technology. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 07:19:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Frank I. Reiter" Subject: Re: More on Cell Size In-Reply-To: <002e01c23659$8e20d1e0$59ae73d1@allen> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I just got a call from Theo Fredericks. Theo keeps bees on Vancouver > Island, but worked as a boy in an all-skep operation in Germany and > maintains his contacts there. Allen, I'd like to be sure that I understand the situation there. Are these bees that have *always* been on natural comb, or are they bees that might have been on foundation many years ago? > Also, as a follow-up on Joe and Oene's 4.9 experiment, Joe now reports that > the bees have made a mess of the 4.9 foundation and, although they built > some 4.9 cells, they then proceeded to build 'normal' sized cells on the > rest of it. I hope to have some pictures soon. As I understand it, this is what the 4.9ers would predict. I believe the theory to be that the bees want to build cells of the same size that they hatched from, but will build somewhat smaller if given smaller foundation. I believe that downsizing the 4.9 involves several intermediate sizes. (Have I got that right?) 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: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 06:47:20 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: More on Cell Size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Allen, I'd like to be sure that I understand the situation there. Are these > bees that have *always* been on natural comb, or are they bees that might > have been on foundation many years ago? I don't know. > > Also, as a follow-up on Joe and Oene's 4.9 experiment, Joe now reports > > that the bees have made a mess of the 4.9 foundation... > As I understand it, this is what the 4.9ers would predict.. > (Have I got that right?) Yes. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 07:46:52 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: FGMO and Tracheal Mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I have never met or talked to Dr. Pedro Rodrigeous, but I have been told that > he is a dentist, and not a scientist. In his post to BEE-L at http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9701D&L=bee-l&P=R4648 , he says he is/was a veterinarian. "Then I remembered that as a veterinarian I used to treat ear mites in cats and rabbits with nothing but mineral oil and the same thing for scale mites on the legs of birds...". > I know of scientists at both Beltsville and ARS who used FGMO and > concluded that it did not work reliably or at all in some cases, and > they discontinued their salaried research on it. The same happened at a Canadian research facility. > I don't believe that FGMO is an effective agent for control of > varroa or tracheal mites. I think that there is evidence that it works. Many, many things work. The problem is that FGMO, as it is currently applied, has not proved to be as consistent as alternate treatments and, in the experiments done in Spain it appears that FGMO requires many applications using two different methods. For many beekeepers, this is not practical. Fogging with oils was one of the first approaches tried by California beekeepers when mites first appeared on the scene many years ago. I heard about it via the grapevine at that time and mentioned this application method to Dr. Pedro years later when the original method of applying FGMO he advocated -- strips of wax paper with FGMO on them -- turned out to be cumbersome and have other drawbacks. He has developed this method and done some tests to try to prove its effectiveness. His work has been better accepted in some non-English speaking countries than in the US. FGMO apparently works, but is in the same category in which we are now finding formic acid for varroa treatment -- it's a substance that works, but with unpredictable results. The unpredictablity may be due to the variability in hive configurations, application techniques -- and the unpredicability of the weather and other factors. For those who have the patience and time to work with it -- and monitor results -- FGMO does appear to work well enough to be the sole method required in some, if not many situations.. FWIW, allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:00:12 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Barrett Subject: FGMO today Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Thanks to George Imirie for his posting. I believe that many of the objections raised at this time against FGMO have their roots in the performance or more specifically in the lack of performance of the treatment in the past when it was under development. In the last two years or so, the method of delivery of FGMO has been improved out of all proportion to what it was in the past, namely the use of the fogger and the cords. It is a pity that beekeepers in the past had problems with FGMO, but is this not often the case when something is under development? Of course it could be suggested that the original delivery system should not have been promoted until more extensive tests were carried out, but that is speaking with the benefit of hindsight. And unlike the multi billion dollar chemical companies, Dr Rodriguez did not have access to vast numbers of dollars, so things took longer. But that is in the past, and we are now dealing with a far more sophisticated method of delivering FGMO, which is now showing good results around the world. I suppose that there is still truth in the old adage 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Sincerely Tom Barrett Dublin Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 08:53:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: FGMO and Tracheal Mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Tom, Tom wrote: Sadly, the Irish Government prohibits the importation of bees. But I am ever hopeful that someday this will change, as change it surely must. Tom we have got the same situation in the U.S.. You need to start convincing your officials that a importation from the U.S. agriculture department to the Irish agriculture department would be far different than general importation. Show the officials the article in ABJ (Aug. 2002 pg. 591) about the quarantine procedure the U.S. uses. Settle for your agriculture department simply requesting information from the U.S.D.A. at the start. Explain that if the two lines being given the U.S. beekeepers prove successful then illegal importations to Ireland of queens will surely take place. Far better for the Irish government to provide the Irish beekeepers with the tools they need to fight varroa instead of risking illegal importations. Usually Takes several years to change minds. Once you get over half those in power on board things will happen fast. Good luck! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:09:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Vaughan Subject: Re: FGMO and Tracheal Mites >Tom we have got the same situation in the U.S.. You need to start convincing >your officials that a importation from the U.S. agriculture department to >the Irish agriculture department would be far different than general >importation. > >Show the officials the article in ABJ (Aug. 2002 pg. 591) about the >quarantine procedure the U.S. uses. > Hi Bob The Irish have quite an advantage over us here in the US when it comes to things pertaining to beekeeping. At Gormanston, the Secretary of Agriculture opened the conference, complete with bagpipes. He delivered a great speech which showed an increadible understanding of beekeeping. True, he must have gotten help with the speech, but he clearly understood the basics of beekeeping inside and out. Also, as I found in South Africa, countries with small populations (Ireland about 4 million) have polititians which are more accessible than what we have here. I think perhaps a greater challenge to the Irish being able to import outside genetic material is a pervasive believe in Irish bees having everything genetically necessary to top beekeeping in Ireland. There is also a strong believe that keeping the Irish bee genetically pure is important. I doubt that there will be a strong push for liberalizing importation rules. Regards Tim Vaughan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:42:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: was: [BEE-L] FGMO and Tracheal Mites - Now varroa resistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Tom and Everyone, Tom wrote: "Bob, I truly envy American beekeepers the choices you have available. Reading the ABJ each month for me, is like having my face pressed against the window of a tuck shop without being able to go inside. Sadly, the Irish Government prohibits the importation of bees. But I am ever hopeful that someday this will change, as change it surely must. Bob, you are absolutely right in what you say, but meantime I must soldier on with FGMO without the benefits of American beekeeping technology." While you may not be able to import stock from the USA certainly you can use the published methods of selecting for varroa resistance within your own stocks to select an Irish bee that is resistant to varroa mites. There are at least two methods that are published that you can follow. Dr John Harbo's method to produce the SMR line and the method published in a couple of papers by Erickson et all and also used by Tzabo et all in Canada and reported in the American Bee Journal. One observation though is that using FGMO as I understand it precludes using the method of Erickson which is the simplest for a beekeeper to do since you are keeping the varroa population low through repeated treatments. For selecting colonies that are more resistant to the mites you need to let the mites have some time to build up populations in the test colonies so those with the lowest mite populations can be found by some method of testing the mite population. As Bob also already pointed out getting your Agriculture folks to import selected stocks themselves is more likely to occur then for them to allow beekeepers to import stocks ( just a matter of much lower risk of importing something unwanted if the import is done in a carefully controlled way). I would encourage Irish beekeepers to get one or several selection programs going to select for varroa resistance amoung your own honeybee stocks. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 12:52:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ted Hancock Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES On Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:00:57 EDT, Michael Housel wrote: It is 25 feet up on >the outside of a limb. No treatment with chemicals just and open air hive. > Michael Housel Orlandobee Sounds like a case where the bark is worse than the mite. Or better. Honey crop here is poor (central British Columbia 52N). Combination of drought, cold weather in July and mites. On the good years I have to keep cutting the grass under my bear fences. Only had to do it once this year, then all the grass died. Size of the honey crop also seems to increase with the number of nights it is so hot and humid that you have trouble sleeping. I have had trouble sleeping but only because the price of honey is so high and the amount I have to sell is so low. Had some hot weather in the last half of July that produced a record crop of grasshoppers and several local ranchers have been spraying for them. The bees would be pulling honey down out of the honey supers if there was any there to pull. I wish I was in Missouri. My worst honey spill occured when I was working for a beekeeper in Australia. To fill the barrels/drums I had to lay the barrel on it's side and fill it through a 2 inch bung hole. I was keeping an eye on it as I continued to extract but eventually started daydreaming about the theory of relativity, how the universe was formed and how to meet the girl next door etc. when suddenly the boss burst through the door and walked into a 2 inch deep lake of honey. Could have been worse. Could have been Canadian honey. ( just kidding, Australian honey is good, just like vegemite) Ted ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:01:10 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: was: [BEE-L] FGMO and Tracheal Mites - Now varroa resistance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >... One observation > though is that using FGMO as I understand it precludes using the method > of Erickson which is the simplest for a beekeeper to do since you are > keeping the varroa population low through repeated treatments. For > selecting colonies that are more resistant to the mites you need to let > the mites have some time to build up populations in the test colonies so > those with the lowest mite populations can be found by some method of > testing the mite population. Good point. Another is that some of the mechanisms for mite control by bees seem to require a certain base level of mites to express themselves. Very low levels do not seemingly trigger the activity. As I recall, the Russian bees seemed to stabilize at about 6% varroa. That seems high to me, and I may be wrong, but that is what I remember from Manley Bigalk's talk in Saskatoon last winter.. allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:07:16 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jim Glackin Subject: Observation Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello All, I wonder if anyone has had experience with having an observation hive at = a county fair where the bees have the ability to leave and return to the = hive. I'm thinking of setting up a hive that would have a tube that = would allow them to enter and exit through the roof of the building. Is = this a crazy idea? I think if would be great to allow people to see = foragers returning with pollen and nectar but I'm worried about bee = stings, etc. Any insight or advice would be appreciated. Jim Glackin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 12:29:51 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Observation Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>> I wonder if anyone has had experience with having an observation hive at a county fair where the bees have the ability to leave and return to the hive. I'm thinking of setting up a hive that would have a tube that would allow them to enter and exit through the roof of the building. Is this a crazy idea? <<< This is a great opportunity to visit our archives and look for the replies to similar queries. Visit http://www.internode.net/honeybee/BEE-L/ and choose "Can I Search the BEE-L Archives for keywords of Interest?". I got 409 hits for "observation hive". Here are the results. http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S2=bee-l&q=observation+hive&s=&f =&a=&b= Not all will be useful, but some are treasures. allen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:22:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: waldig Subject: Re: Small Cell Update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>I decided to dust the hives with powdered sugar and count the resulting > mite fall as I had done at this time last year. The average mite drop > after dusting was 1.6 mites/hive! The maximum was 6 mites from my Harbo > hive. The minimum was zero mites from the same hive that had zero natural > mite fall. This hive is my most populous hive with 4 deep boxes of bees > and brood. The rest of the hives have about 3 deeps with bees and brood. It looks like your hives have very few mites, indeed. Question: why keep bees in 4 deeps ? Are two used for extracted honey ? Waldemar Long Island, NY ------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance Unlimited Long Distance only $29.95/ month! Sign Up Today! www.netzerolongdistance.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:44:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: waldig Subject: Re: SURVIVING FERAL HONEY BEE COLONIES MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>Practically speaking, the wild > honey bees have become extinct in the United States due to > infestation of the Varroa mite. Dee, this is the case in most of the US but do you see feral colonies in Arizona surviving on 'natural cell size' and increasing in number ? I am sure your colonies issue swarms occasionally, so, by extrapolation, there should be a growing number of feral colonies that are 49-ers. And, if they can handle a wide climatic range, they should eventually spread throughout the US. Waldemar Long Island, NY ------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance Unlimited Long Distance only $29.95/ month! Sign Up Today! www.netzerolongdistance.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 20:04:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: waldig Subject: Re: Shade vs. Sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>In areas where the temps regularly exceed 100F and reach 120F, shades are an absolute must. In the Imperial Valley they use "ramadas" which are usually frame structures with roofs made from palm branches. In the Sacramento Valley it is typical to move the bees into the mountains in summer to avoid the heat. At the higher temperatures the combs will melt down and the wax and honey will pour out the front. When the temperatures are in the 80F to 100F range, and there is nectar coming in, bees seem very content. In fact, I often stop using the veil when these conditions are present. So, I would say, unless you are in a hot desert, full sun is better.<< I have 3 hives in the 5'-8" attic of my garage. They have screen bottoms and there are two windows - one in the attic wall opposite the hive wall and another directly below the hives - providing ventilation whenever there is a breeze. Since bad weather is not an issue in the attic, during the hot spell, I place full screen tops on the top supers. I have thought about putting in a roof vent but I have not noticed bees suffering. I keep a thermometer on top of the tallest super. The temperature in the attic tends to be about 10 deg. F higher than the ambient. So far this season, there were only two times when the attic temperatures went up to 110 - 115 F during the day and I saw a dozen bees ventilating at the entrances protruding throught the garage wall. I did not see any bees ventilating inside the hive (when I looked up through the screened bottoms or down through the screened tops) and there were no changes in the bee water uptake from the pond. When the attic temperatures were < 105 F, I did not see any bees ventilating. Can someone tell what temperature level varroa find uncomforatable/unbearable ? (Is 120 F the threshold temperature for bees ?) I recall a thread claiming that elevated temperatures had a control effect of the parasite. This would run contrary to the Cypriote beekeeper's experience. I would like to think that the attic's higher temperatures decrease the varroa in my hives. Am I under an illusion ? As a dedicated hobbyist, I plan not to control varroa with chemicals and may suffer every once in a while. I hope I will be able to replenish any losses with splits. One hive has an Italian queen, the other two are New World Carnolian from Strachan selected for SMR. I would welcome comments from anyone who kept bees under similar conditions. BTW, I have placed my bees in the attic because I live in a somewhat densely populated suburb. The hive entrances are 10 feet above the ground and face a row of 30-ft plus tall, thick evegreen shrubs on the property line. The bees are flying overhead and neighbors are unaware of the bees. It's my first season and we extracted our first own honey on the 4th of July ! It was very joyful for the entire family. Waldemar Long Island, NY ------------------------------------------- Introducing NetZero Long Distance Unlimited Long Distance only $29.95/ month! Sign Up Today! www.netzerolongdistance.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:55:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: huestis' Subject: Re: More on Cell Size MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Allen, > > > Also, as a follow-up on Joe and Oene's 4.9 experiment, Joe now reports > > > that the bees have made a mess of the 4.9 foundation... Did the bees draw the foundation on a major flow? There is a window for getting good drawn 4.9. In my experience (2 yrs now) bees will not draw 4.9 well on a flow. Seems they produce a honey storage type cell that looks similar to drone comb but rather inbetween size.Where the bees shaken down on to foundation or given frames progressively? Strong colony or small colonies? What cell size did the bees draw? Was it a transition type cell? Clay