From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 09:35:52 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-90.2 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,AWL, SPF_HELO_PASS,USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=disabled version=3.1.8 X-Original-To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Delivered-To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Received: from listserv.albany.edu (unknown [169.226.1.24]) by metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF396482FA for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:35:36 -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 n1SEFvLE013111 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:35:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:35:35 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0501E" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 19500 Lines: 428 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 08:12:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Andrew Dewey Subject: North Carolina looking for hobbyists MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Interesting article on Yahoo! this morning that describes a program that will give two hives of Russian bees to interested hobbyists. See: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/20050 128/ap_on_sc/bee_shortage :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 13:15:21 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: Super Storage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As I said before, I am new to this forum so what i am saying may be old hat,but... a few years ago i was talking to a man with a large beekeeping operation and i told him how i stacked supers in stacks with no moth crystals. I alternate longways-shortways etc in the stack so as to allow air flow. In several diffent buildings, where I had a little light I have not lost a frame of drawn comb from wax moths-and I have bunches of dark comb in the several hundred shallow + medium supers i store. This beekeeper seemed to have never heard of this so I am sharing it now. The places I stored the supers in were in various building in Alabama, some were almost damp places. The idea has been around for awhile i am sure(I have talked to others who know about it) and was passed to me by Reverend Al Norton. Anyhow, if there is one person who is not aware if this, it is a real labor/cost saver God Bless John Horton :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:07:36 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Russ Dean Subject: North Carolina Wants More Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit North Carolina Wants More Bees Program Aims to Boost Population By STEVE HARTSOE, AP RALEIGH, N.C. (Jan. 28) - North Carolina is trying to boost the buzz surrounding the state's crops. As farmers leave tobacco and move into new crops like cucumbers, melons, and berries, the state is confronting a crisis: it simply doesn't have enough honeybees to pollinate all those flowering plants. ''I feel that if we don't do something now about (this) we may be heading toward an agriculture crisis in the state,'' said David Tarpy, the state's cooperative extension apiculturist and assistant professor at North Carolina State University. In the late 1980s, the state had some 180,000 managed bee colonies, each of which contained at least 30,000 bees. Now, there are about 100,000 such colonies, and the state's beekeepers last year had to turn down requests for some 10,000 new colonies. The bees are needed because without their flower-to-flower flights, farmers can't get the maximum yield from crops like cucumbers, apples, blueberries and melons, which now account for $100 million every year, according to state agriculture officials. As bees visit flowers to collect nectar and pollen, they transfer pollen grains from one flower to another, fertilizing them and boosting seed and fruit production. Wilson County farmer Bill Harrell is gradually moving out of tobacco, which doesn't need pollination to produce, and into cucumbers, melons and other crops. At one time, the farm that his grandfather bought during the Depression had roughly 85 acres of leaf under cultivation. Last year, Harrell grew just 38 acres of tobacco. And this year, he's planting 100 acres of cucumbers and some 60 acres of melons. Six years ago, he said, he could find plenty of bees to pollinate his flowering crops. These days, though, there's a bee shortage. ''Now there just ain't enough to go around,'' Harrell said. ''(Without) the bees to help us pollinate you're up against the wall.'' Twenty years ago the state had a healthy population of wild bees, but they have been ravaged by mites. Farmers now rely on a dozen or so commercial beekeepers to pollinate their crops. But most of those beekeepers are at least 60 years old and, like Chapel Hill's Jack Tapp, got into the business as a second career. Tapp, a retired sheriff's detective and Army veteran, has run Busy Bee Apiaries since 1998. That was 12 years after he started keeping bees for a hobby. Tapp warns that startup costs are high and the payoff delayed in the bee business. ''You'll spend $200,000 with no forecast of making any profit for the next two or three years, so you're not going to get many people jumping into it,'' he said. North Carolina State University hopes that a cost-share program it is starting will lure more people into the hobby, laying the groundwork for an eventual increase in commercial beekeeping. The school is providing 250 qualified applicants with two hives of Russian honey bees and bee hives. Participants will have to invest $50 to $150 for beekeeper protective clothing, smokers, and additional hive equipment. The program will help put the newcomer in touch with nearby mentors. The one-year program is being funded with a $164,000 grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation, which administers money received by North Carolina from its settlement with cigarette manufacturers. Tarpy said applicants from traditional tobacco-growing areas will get priority for funding. The application deadline isn't until Feb. 11, but Tarpy says he's already received about 600 applications. And organizers of annual introductory classes on beekeeping are reporting that their enrollment has doubled and tripled since the N.C. State program was announced. Tapp believes the money being spent to boost the hobby would be better spent funding newcomers who want to pursue commercial beekeeping from the start. As currently structured, Tapp said, the program ''will support more interest in beekeeping, getting bees out there for gardens and stuff. As for farmers switching to produce crops from the tobacco industry, it's not going to help them.'' Tarpy said Golden LEAF did not feel underwriting commercial operations fit its mission. Instead, the organization hopes to bring new people into the hobby and that they decide to master other aspects of bee cultivation, including breeding and production of honey, pollen and beeswax. All together, those activites generate $10 million annually for the state's economy. And it's possible that some hobbyists could decide to take the plunge and join the bee business full time. ''We hope that of these 250 new beekeepers, some will take it seriously and expand to the point where they may start doing it commercially,'' Tarpy said. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:49:36 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ron/Eefje van Mierlo Subject: Chances of wintercluster been broken up/results Comments: cc: Norlandbeekeepers@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello groups, This message was by exception sent to the Norlandbeekeeper and BEE-L groups to reach those of you that might winter hives in the colder climates. Yesterday my neigbour was busy cutting up and removing trees that had fallen during the recent storms here. His tractor was for over an hour idling and every now and then it was revved up to winch in a log. All that time the tractor stood in the snow, one meter away from the hive that a friend of mine was allowed to leave with me for the winter period (in autumn he didn't have enough space for the hive on his property). The temperature was around -4C. The hive was not opened by me afterwards to check, I didn't want to disturb these girls more still. Anyway, I wondered what the chances would be that the bees got disturbed so much by the vibrations and noise that they would break away from the cluster and what the results could be if this happened? Are there any experiences on this? I couldn't say much to my neighbour, since it was on the boarder of our properties, the trees obviously had to be taken care of and the only position from where he could pull the logs out of the forrest was just next to that hive. Ron van Mierlo Sweden :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:11:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: allen dick Subject: Re: Chances of wintercluster been broken up/results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > All that time the tractor stood in the snow, one meter away from > the hive ...The temperature was around -4C. > ...I wondered what the chances would be that the bees > got disturbed so much by the vibrations and noise that they would > break away from the cluster and what the results could be if this > happened? I would not expect any problem from this. Assuming the bees did not show up at the entrance, I would assume either that they were not disturbed much, or they were already dead or too weak to react. Even if they did break cluster and even come out the entrances a bit, I still would expect no ill effects. Bees typically do break cluster a number of times during winter and move around, then cluster again, so, even if they did so due to the tractor, I think they should be fine. We used to pick up and move hives between yards on our flat-deck trucks in late Fall, and at temperatures anywhere from minus 10 to plus 10, with no apparent ill effects. Sometimes they sat overnight on the truck and then rode around again, sometimes for several days, before we put them down somewhere. Occasional short-duration _external_ disturbances don't seem to have any lasting effect on wintering bees, in my experience, anyhow. allen A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 08:50:28 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Comments: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: Chances of wintercluster been broken up/results In-Reply-To: <005d01c506b1$1bdfd880$232465d5@roneefje> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- Ron/Eefje van Mierlo wrote: > This message was by exception sent to the > Norlandbeekeeper > and BEE-L groups to reach those of you that might > winter hives > in the colder climates.... .... I wondered what the chances would be that > the bees > got disturbed so much by the vibrations and noise > that they would > break away from the cluster and what the results > could be if this > happened? > Are there any experiences on this? Hi Ron, yes I have had similar experience. But instead of a tractor winching in a log disturbing the colony. It was a tractor of the living variety winching my colonies,,, a 300 pound black bear and cubs at one of my out-yards. The temp was about -3 C, Responding to a phone call I rushed to the out yard. The bear had flipped the lids off, and without tipping the colonies dug down thru 3 colonies breaking frames to get to the honey while the cubs busyed themselves ripping pieces of hivebody from the entrance way. The colonies had to be moved that day. In the rush I had forgotten all my bee equipment at home and had no help to lift the heavy double deeps into the truck. I improvised and slid all the hives off of the blocks and tipped them on edge, one by one to each side far enough to be able to slide a cement block under with each tip. Eventually I managed to get all three colonies to a level high enough to slide them onto the truck without having to lift the full weight of the colony. 2 colonies managed to survive the disturbance and one succumbed due to too much honey dripping on the cluster. IMO, this demonstrates that healthy wintering colonies are able to survive great disturbances during very cold periods. ===== Joe Waggle ~ Organic Beekeeper, Derry, PA 'Bees Gone Wild Apiaries' "Using humane and holistic beekeeping methods" ~ Small Cell Beekeeping ~ No treatments since 2001 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:29:07 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: allen dick Subject: Re: Chances of wintercluster been broken up/results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The temp was about -3 C...The bear...dug down thru 3 > colonies breaking frames to get to the honey... > The colonies had to be moved that day. > 2 colonies managed to survive the disturbance and one > succumbed due to too much honey dripping on the > cluster. Interesting story, Joe. Reminds me... One winter, we wrapped a yard of about 30 hives in a field location which had been a good summer location and decent for wintering over a number of years. During that winter, around Christmastime, the farmer sold the land, and a new owner moved in some cattle. >From what we could surmise later, it looked as if truckers had unloaded about three cattleliners of young feeders, at night, through a gate that was about 50 feet from our bees. Of course the animals were confused in the dark, and milled about, knocking the hives askew, and tearing the wraps off some. Luckily, someone passing by noticed the problem and mentioned it to us. We rushed out, and found that several days had passed since the damage, we figured, and the yard was a real mess. We straightened all the hives out, and moved them to a safer location. In the process, one pallet got dumped and the top broods tumbled onto the snow, bees and all. We set them all back up, scooped in the spilled bees, along with a little snow, and wrapped them again. We expected huge losses, but, from what I recall, our winter loss was no worse there than in yards where there was no disturbance. What that proves, I don't know, since wintering losses can vary from 0 to 100% from yard to yard and still average at our expected 12%. Anyhow, disturbance doesn't always kill, but less is always better. Don't try this at home, kids. allen A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 21:48:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chuck Norton Subject: Thinking About California Almond Pollination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Some thought for Food for Thought: I have heard some good news and some bad news regarding the 2005 California almond pollination. Some of the good news - from a very good source that is taking 500 hives from North Carolina to California this week -is that some growers are now paying $125 bucks per hive. Some of the bad news -and a lot of talk- is that nobody knows just what the result of millions of hives from all over the country placed into a 450 mile long 70 mile wide melting pot will turn out, once back "home". There has been a lot of talk about "Super Varroa" and resistant strains of American Foulbrood. Could it be that California's fertile valley, which supplies the world with almonds and America with fruit, berries, and produce become a Pandora's box to the beekeepers all across this country; time will tell. And, what will some of the same be like next year: pollination prices, hive losses, varroa, etc., etc.. Could we be accelerating the expansion and progression of a myriad of unwanted strains of pests to our own honeybees; that too, will tell in time. If you wish to keep up to date with the progress of this year’s almond crop the following link, http://bluediamond.com/growers/field/index.cfm, covers activity of all three almond producing regions. Regards, Chuck Norton Norton's Nut & Honey Farm-Chuck Norton 330 Irvin Street Reidsville, NC 27320-3648 Tel: 336 342 4490 Home of: www.sourwoodhoney.com :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::