From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:01:05 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-86.8 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,ALL_NATURAL, AWL,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,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 389B3490A2 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:52:23 -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 n1SFkpJB016612 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:52:22 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:52:17 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0710B" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 249179 Lines: 5594 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 17:44:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Diesel fuel in the UK In-Reply-To: <005c01c808c9$72699570$75826a58@office> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter Edwards wrote: > We pay ALOT of tax per liter of fuel. Oh no you don't! Diesel in the UK would now cost you just over $2! Is that $2.00 U.S. per liter? Or $2.00 U.S. per gallon? --------------------------------- Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 08:11:48 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?Windows-1252?B?QXJpIFNlcHDkbOQ=?= Subject: Re: Nosema MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Chris, >>Can you suggest which particular genetically inheritable characteristics >>might make a strain of honeybee less susceptible to nosema? Joe > Simply by > selecting from the top 10 % overall performers, would have been > effectively selected for high varroa resistance. As a result, I am placing > much more weight on selection for over all > performance and much less weight on time consuming testing and counting > techniques. I can not confirm the mechanism how some bees tolerate nosema. But if someone wants to have such bees the best way is to breed from colonies selecten by low nosema counts. I know a beekeeper in Denmark who has had low nosema counts as one selection critearia for years, and he had lowered his nosema numbers a lot. Test all your breeder colonies and use the counts as selection criteria. Testing is easy (= low cost) for him as it is done in a school for kids with learning problems. The counting is a part of teaching and kids like it because it is more interesting than just theory of biology. Ari Seppälä Finland ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 12:20:55 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Diesel fuel in the UK MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike Stoops asked: > Is that $2.00 U.S. per liter? Or $2.00 U.S. per gallon? Litre! Peter ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 07:25:09 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Lackey, Raymond J (US SSA)" Subject: Irradiation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I ran an experiment of packaging bee equipment and having it irradiated with Cobalt radiation. As an engineer, I investigated it fairly fully before performing. My process came to about $10/deep box with frames. =20 A couple points that I think worth mentioning are that Cobalt radiation is absorbed by water as in the containment pool and for that reason it is not a good method for any equipment containing honey or even honey in a large block. The other point is that it is like taking a shotgun with very small BBs and shooting the equipment and contained bacterial/fungal spores. With sufficient dosage, density of BBs is such to destroy any spores above a certain size with a very high probability. Unfortunately, continual exposure of equipment also blasts small micro pores throughout and does weaken the equipment, not much one time through but does build up. I have often wondered what the effect is on plastics of plastic frames and foundation since some radiation and materials can interact and change the properties of the materials. =20 Raymond J. Lackey - Sweet Pines Apiary Master Beekeeper - Eastern Apiculture Society/OSU 1995 Phone:(631)567-1936 FAX:(631)262-8053 Cell: 631-707-1544 mail: 1260 Walnut Avenue, Bohemia, NY 11716-2176 web page: http://www.tianca.com/tianca2.html email home: lackeyray@tianca.com =20 email office: Raymond.lackey@baesystems.com =20 =20 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 12:07:44 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Invasion of Varroa mites into mite-free colonies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>Insofar as I can find a practical way to do it, should I try to isolate my colonies with heavy mite loads? You may be able to isolate your other hives from the heavy mite ones with distance but consider that there may be other beekeepers near where you decide to place your heavy mite hives... I am sure they are not keen to pick up anybody's mites... Why not treat with OA dribble when they go broodless? You'll get 90-98% kill if done correctly and it will take you 2 minutes per hive for the application. I have found it to be the only treatment I need to have a mite-worry-free year. Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 08:39:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: FW: [WL] [BEE-L] Fumidil B dusting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This message was originally submitted by melathopoulos@YAHOO.CA to the BEE-L list at LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU. It was edited to remove quotes of previously posted material. -----Original Message----- From: Adony Melathopoulos [mailto:melathopoulos@YAHOO.CA] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2007 12:46 AM To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Subject: Re: [WL] [BEE-L] Fumidil B dusting On Sat, 6 Oct 2007 19:54:35 -0400, Adony Melathopoulos wrote: >The colonies in Langley were either left untreated or treated with a >total of 300 mg fumagillin applied weekly over three weeks, beginning >on March 14th. The same dose of fumagillin was either applied in >powdered sugar or in syrup. The nosema levels among untreated colonies >shot up and by April 12th levels had reached 1.6 million spores per bee, a four-fold increase. >By contrast, both methods of administering fumagillin, either in syrup >or dust, resulted in nosema levels below 100,000 spores per bee. >Clearly, dust was as effective as syrup. I was talking with Medhat Nasr and pointed out a very important distinction between the two studies that I failed to mention in the post. While in the Beaverlodge study they applied their 58.8 mg fumagillin active in a small amount of icing sugar (one application of two teaspoons / colony and a second application in three teaspoons/colony), the Langley study employed a massive amount of sugar, three treatments of 300 mg fumagillin across 3 x 7lbs biweekly treatments in powdered sugar... this sugar, of course, was not sprinkled on the colony, but rather "was fed in top feeder trays and placed directly over the brood chamber". So, in addition to the studies being performed: 1) in different locations, 2) with different initial levels of infection, 3) using different doses, they also differ by 4) the way the powdered sugar was administered. While this makes comparison between the studies problematic, I still think the mediocre performance in Beaverlodge should not be written off until a dose closer to the label is tried out - slightly higher than label doses certainly seemed to work in Langley. The time has come to revisit this issue and hopefully in the coming years there will be new data to help support or reject the use of sugar dusting fumagillin. Finally, in the event that you did not realise it, dusting fumagillin is an off-label use of the product - it is clear why this is - while there is a stack of studies confirming the use of fumagillin in syrup feed, there is no clear verdict on how fumagillin works in a sugar dust (or syrup spray for that matter). This is how it often is with off-label uses - the data is skimpy. A phrase in one of Bob Harrison's posts is apt here: "A shelf full of products not applied correctly is a waste of time and money". Not only time and money, but incorrectly applied drugs can contaminate honey. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 12:31:05 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>Also what other treatments are there to protect woodenware The bees coat the inner surfaces of woodenware with propolis and wax. If you use a good primer and good exterior paint on the outside, you will find that you can keep the equipment for a long, long, long time. Why think of using something that may affect the bees or end up in your honey? Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 09:00:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit A recent Bee-L post: There is a simple technique anyone can employ. And that is *breed from your (overall) best stock*. Has proved to be a remarkably effective technique for thousands of years. * Breeding from the best is probably a good strategy if you are raising race horses or milk cows, but it may be a fatal mistake that the breeders of bees have been committing for decades. Of course, at one time, in the age of bee skeps and sulfur, the best hives were the first to go! The beekeepers would "heft" the skeps and the light ones were killed and harvested because they probably wouldn't survive, and the heavy ones were also killed, because they were too good to pass up. So, the average hives were the ones that were spared! * As beekeepers got smarter, they figured the ones they wanted to keep were the ones that did the best, but the question has always been: Why do some hives do better than others? Is it pedigree? Young queens? Luck of the draw? * But seriously, for the past *twenty years* evidence has been mounting that not only are the accepted methods of bee breeding not effective in producing the desired result, but they may be completely wrong in light of the mechanisms nature has to ensure the continued health and prosperity of honey bee colonies. Health and prosperity is what we all seek in the end, because without these, no enterprise can be called "sustainable". * I quoted this recently, but it serves as a good introduction to what follows: > Some researchers are wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based on too narrow a genetic base—and that this makes them vulnerable to diseases. To be effective, behavioral defences in particular require a high level of genetic variation within colonies. This allows colonies to respond resiliently to the variety of pathogenic and other challenges they face. If all workers are the same, they may solve one problem brilliantly but be more vulnerable to others. (from: "What's Killing American Honey Bees?" By Benjamin P. Oldroyd, in Public Library of Science, Biology, June 2007) * Twenty years ago, Tom Seeley and others were starting to form the idea that there must be a reason why honey bees mate with dozens of different drones, when even one could adequately do the job. > Here we introduce a new hypothesis, not explicitly considered previously: polyandry [multiple mating] increases genetic variation within colonies, thereby reducing the likelihood that parasites or pathogens will diminish the worker/defense force to the point of jeopardizing the colony's survival and reproduction. > The parasite/pathogen hypothesis assumes that the characteristics (e.g., virulence) of the parasites and pathogens afflicting colonies in successive generations are always unpredictable, because of parasite-host coevolution. This uncertainty forces queens to mate with several males, because they cannot reliably choose one male carrying resistance to the particular diseases that may afflict their workers as immatures, adults, or both. > Queens of A. mellifera and A. cerana mate with a larger number of males than any other known Hymenoptera (7-17 times or more and 14-30 times, respectively. These two honeybee species also harbor a broad array of viral, bacterial, fungal, and protozoan diseases, as well as parasitic mites and nematodes. > Given that diseases and parasites are ubiquitous and that their transmission is probably a universal hazard and cost of group living, thwarting such enemies may be an important force favoring multiple mating in social animals in general and in social insects in particular. (from: "Parasites, Pathogens, and Polyandry in Social Hymenoptera" by Paul W. Sherman; Thomas D. Seeley; Hudson K. Reeve, in The American Naturalist, Apr., 1988) * Dave Tarpy further explored this theory by comparing colonies with *one father* to ones with many different fathers: > I instrumentally inseminated honeybee queens with semen that was either genetically similar (from one male) or genetically diverse (from multiple males), and then inoculated their colonies with spores of Ascosphaera apis [chalkbrood], a fungal pathogen that kills developing brood. I show that genetically diverse colonies had a lower variance in disease prevalence than genetically similar colonies, which suggests that genetic diversity may benefit colonies by preventing severe infections. > Increased genetic diversity affects the division of labour within colonies by creating a worker force that is collectively more ‘average’. This effect on worker tasks is particularly pronounced for behaviours that are strongly influenced by genotype and have a significant impact on colony phenotype, such as hygienic behaviour. > It is unclear whether polyandry evolved in honeybees in response to parasites and pathogens, or if reducing the variance in disease prevalence is an inevitable consequence of multiple mating. It is clear, however, that increased genetic diversity within colonies provides them with several benefits, and thus should be viewed as a trait with pluralistic consequences. Future work should determine the impact of other parasites and pathogens and the relative fitness benefits of these multiple mechanisms. (from: "Genetic diversity within honeybee colonies prevents severe infections and promotes colony growth" by David R. Tarpy, in Proceedings, Royal Society. Biological Sciences. 2003 January 7) * Most recently, Heather Mattila showed that not only does multiple mating affect the colonies' health, but it also seems to lead to colonies that produce more bees, more honey, and ultimately allows them to survive where single father colonies do not: > Colony size is closely tied to fitness; larger colonies produce more drones, have higher winter survival, and issue more swarms. Intracolonial genetic diversity resulted in considerably more populous and resource-rich colonies, which in turn affected their fitness. Genetically diverse colonies reared significantly more drones than genetically uniform colonies before brood rearing declined in September. The larger, genetically diverse colonies also collected and stored more food than genetically uniform colonies and all survived a late-August cold period that starved and killed 50% of genetically uniform colonies. The remaining genetically uniform colonies exhausted their food reserve and died by mid-December, whereas 25% of genetically diverse colonies survived to May. (from: "Genetic Diversity in Honey Bee Colonies Enhances Productivity and Fitness" by Heather R. Mattila and Thomas D. Seeley, in Science July 19, 2007) * Just what this all means for the bee industry is not certain. However, I have talked to several beekeepers who do not purchase queens, but systematically divide the best hives in spring, thereby ensuring that their colonies have a great diversity of queen *and* drone lines. If I were a queen breeder (which I am currently not) I would be thinking about getting as many *different types* of bees as possible and seeing if a really diverse mixture of types in every colony would have a beneficial effect on honey bee health and prosperity. Peter Borst Danby, NY USA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 10:01:42 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Claude Hachey Subject: Fumidil B dusting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks Bob, Adony et al for the responses. I can feel much more confident in my decision to dust and the info provided is invaluable. It certainly has rewarded my patience with BeeL and confirmed it as an informed source. It does make me wonder though that with the proliferation of bee books out there, why no one has stepped up and written a book along the lines of "A Dummies Guide to Commercial Beekeeping". Or maybe I have just not come across it? Claude ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 10:07:32 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Waldemar: >Why think of using something that may affect the bees or end up in your honey? Nicely put, Waldemar. I was thinking the same thing. I know some people dip the wooden-ware in hot paraffin but the end result is so ugly I wouldn't do it for that reason. Ditto on Richard Taylor's idea of creosoting bee boxes. However, all paint jobs are not equal. Many people neglect to paint the edges of the boxes and this area of course is not reached by the bees either. I learned from a painter friend of mine that the edges of exterior doors are frequently left unpainted (who sees it?) which is pretty stupid mistake. The unpainted edge acts like a wick for moisture. The door sucks up dampness and quietly rots away. Same with bee boxes. Many times I have stuck my hive tool between two nicely painted supers, only to find the tool going into a rotten spot in the edge of the box. I would try to use a high primer. The finish coat is of less concern if the primer is good. Color is another story. Some prefer all white or silver. Some like the multi-colored look (see my photo on the October Bee Journal!). Pete ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 10:14:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sorry for the hasty mistake, that should have been: * I would try to use a high QUALITY primer,-- not "I would try to use a high primer". Paint is not a quality high, in any case. pb ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 07:28:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Carrington Subject: Beekeeping for Dummies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Claude Hachey wrote, "It does make me wonder though that with the proliferation of bee books out there, why no one has stepped up and written a book along the lines of "A Dummies Guide to Commercial Beekeeping"". It's not specifically written for Commercial beekeeping but you might check out "Beekeeping for Dummies" by Howland Blackistone. Google it... Mike Carrington Lacey, WA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 12:50:57 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Claude Hachey Subject: Beekeeping for Dummies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks Mike, but the point I was trying to make is that commercial beekeeping...managing anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand colonies or more is logistically different than managing a few colonies. Counting on your bees for your bread and butter versus doing it for a pleasant passionate pastime. Moving to pollination contracts, timing treatments and methods of application, harvest, controlling pests, shortcuts to effective management...the list goes on. The bottom line is that regardless of the love, passion and knowledge hobbyists and commercial beekeepers share about the bees, it all comes down to time management and the most effective way of dealing with the ticking clock of a short season - hence my appreciation for the comments on fumidil dusting and Bob's comments on after pollination stimulation feeding. So much more useful than endless debates and tangents that BeeL sometimes can go off on at the expense of knowlegeable beekeepers that have left the list or no longer contribute. Claude ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 18:05:03 +0100 Reply-To: rrudd@eircom.net Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruary Rudd Subject: Re: Beekeeping for Dummies In-Reply-To: <001201c809c3$04b320a0$6401a8c0@homeclaude> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And commercial beekeepers are apparently unconcernned about off label treatments (with all the consequences that entails such as resistant Varroa, resistant AFB etc etc) Ruary -----Original Message----- Claude Hachey Stated I can feel much more confident in my decision to dust and the info provided is invaluable. And the point I was trying to make is that commercial beekeeping...managing anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand colonies or more is logistically different than managing a few colonies. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 13:25:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Beekeeping for Dummies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit A good one on commercial beekeeping: "Some Beekeepers And Associates". Dedicated to beekeepers often unsung and unrewarded. 140 pages, by Joseph O. Moffett. 1979 I think it's still available from Walter T Kelley ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 11:57:31 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Medhat Nasr Subject: Re: Fumidil B dusting In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Thanks Adony for your post after our discussion on Sunday. I always had trouble comparing the results of these two papers. Time has come to revisit the fumagillin application methods for various management systems and climatic conditions. Harrison was wondering why dusting is good for tylosin and Oxy Tet application why not fumagillin. Available published data have not shown a better mean for applying dusting that will produce good efficacy. I might suggest that too many factors could be involved i.e. the type of pathogen, the mode of action of fumagillin, fumagillin half life, etc. And the most important factor is brood diseases vs adult diseases. The effects of these variables should be considered in any study. The most interesting studies about fumagillin are coming from the medical sciences. Recent studies showed that Fumagillin suppresses HIV-1 infection of macrophages through the inhibition of Vpr activity. Time has come to revisit this issue and I am sure that there are many studies are underway to address these issues. Medhat ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 14:36:17 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: FW: [WL] [BEE-L] Fumidil B dusting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/10/2007 13:43:13 GMT Standard Time, AMorris@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU writes: Not only time and money, but incorrectly applied drugs can contaminate honey. Are there maximum residue levels prescribed for fumidil in honey? Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 16:26:56 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Fumidil B dusting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Medhat wrote: >Harrison was wondering why dusting is good for tylosin and Oxy Tet >application why not fumagillin. I thought Randy made a good point when he wrote: > The general strategy for fumigillin is to have bees store it as "honey" above the contracting brood nest in fall, so that they will later eat their way up into it (fumigillin is very stable in solution), and thus dose themselves through the winter. If applied as a powder, it may be gone very quickly, hence wasted. I think the opposite problem occurs with tetracycline: it degrades in stored honey, thus the powder is the better vehicle. Naturally one would want an easy method of treating colonies. Nobody would want to give a tablespoon daily. But there has to be a balance point between what is easiest/cheapest and what works. Oxytetracycline Half Life In Honey and Syrup SEE: http://www.honeycouncil.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=4939 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 17:57:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter L. Borst wrote: > Breeding from the best is probably a good strategy if you are raising race >horses or milk cows, but it may be a fatal mistake that the breeders of bees >have been committing for decades * One size does not fit all here. I would tend to think this should be of less concern for most smaller non commercial operations breeding in small quantities, perhaps by swarm impulse or splitting. >> Some researchers are wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based on >too narrow a genetic base and that this makes them vulnerable to diseases. * Holding up an example of poor breeding practices as an argument against ‘breeding from your best stock’ is IMO misleading to the readers. Large commercial operations face obstacles that smaller operations need not worry about. That some comercial opperations have failed to adapt a breeding strategy to insure the genetic variation of their stock is a simply matter of poor management. They still need to breed from their best stock, but not with a reckless lack of consideration for genetic variance. Best Wishes, Joe ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 18:46:42 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Fumidil B dusting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/10/2007 22:31:13 GMT Standard Time, peterlborst@GMAIL.COM writes: The general strategy for fumigillin is to have bees store it as "honey" above the contracting brood nest in fall, so that they will later eat their way up into it (fumigillin is very stable in solution), and thus dose themselves through the winter. And if any is left over in spring and it is in the way of an expanding brood nest they may move it into the supers with incoming nectar for you to sell to your customers as a 'pure' product! Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 19:09:51 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: CCD Circus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 27 Sep 2007 Bill Truesdell wrote: > We now live in a world dominated by "news singularities". > One person who has a problem is put in front of a camera and the > singularity is elevated to the entire population. CCD is classic. A small, > in relative terms (it is never small when it happens to you), bee die-off > was elevated to 80% kill-off on the east coast of the US, and bees > disappearing nationwide, when none of this was true. Bill, it's not just the popular press - even some researchers in the academic community are claiming the kill-off due to CCD is ongoing and extensive. See report below: Ecology Letters - November 2007   Rachael Winfree, Neal M. Williams, Jonathan Dushoff, Claire Kremen (2007) Native bees provide insurance against ongoing honey bee losses Ecology Letters 10 (11), 1105­1113. LETTER Rachael Winfree-Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA Neal M. Williams-Department of Biology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA, Jonathan Dushoff-Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S-4K1, Canada Claire Kremen-Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA Abstract One of the values of biodiversity is that it may provide 'biological insurance' for services currently rendered by domesticated species or technology. We used crop pollination as a model system, and investigated whether the loss of a domesticated pollinator (the honey bee) could be compensated for by native, wild bee species. We measured pollination provided to watermelon crops at 23 farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, USA, and used a simulation model to separate the pollen provided by honey bees and native bees. Simulation results predict that native bees alone provide sufficient pollination at > 90% of the farms studied. Furthermore, empirical total pollen deposition at flowers was strongly, significantly correlated with native bee visitation but not with honey bee visitation. The honey bee is currently undergoing extensive die-offs because of Colony Collapse Disorder. We predict that in our region native bees will buffer potential declines in agricultural production because of honey bee losses. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 23:02:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: CCD Map Needs Updating Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Monday, October 08, 2007 — Time:9:47:29 PM CENTRAL Johnson: Honeybee disorder did not affect North Dakota bees http://www.minotdailynews.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=14972 "A mysterious disappearance of millions of honeybees in the United States has largely bypassed North Dakota, according to the state’s agriculture commissioner. Roger Johnson said field inspectors across the state this year have had only a few, unconfirmed reports of the colony collapse disorder that has caused so much trouble elsewhere in the country" AND Next Door Here In MN....... After the alarm, just a healthy buzz BY TOM WEBB Pioneer Press Article Launched: 10/03/2007 12:01:00 AM CDT http://www.twincities.com//ci_7065928 "When last we heard from honeybees, the buzz was bad. A new ailment had emerged over the winter, causing bee colonies to mysteriously flee, and fueling scary stories about the vanishing honeybee - and the threat to crops that depend on bees for pollination. But Minnesota's honeybees are still here. In fact, most honeybees thrived this summer, state beekeepers report. Minnesota's crops were richly pollinated. Apples, berries and pumpkins are abundant. There's even plenty of honey here in America's No. 5 honey-producing state. To be sure, Colony Collapse Disorder remains a real worry. But for now, state bee experts can't identify a confirmed case of it here this summer. "A lot of beekeepers lose colonies, but it could be a lot of things ... but the Colony Collapse specifically, I have not heard at all, no," said Katie Klett, a University of Minnesota bee specialist. "Drought was the biggest problem I heard about this year." Dan Pasche is the state apiary inspector for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. If the syndrome were spreading through Minnesota this summer, he'd probably have seen it. "I'm not aware of any this summer," he said. "There was at least one beekeeper who talked about some losses last year in his bees ... but they appear to have recovered pretty well over the summer." ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 23:18:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ian_Steppler?= Subject: GMO's causing bee disorientation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Could someone here link me to a studdy that have found GMO flowers to cause bees disorientation, I have read this twice now in both magazines. One in the Editorial, and the other in a submitted article. Neither site any studdy, nor do they elaberate on it too much, just enough to prove a point. I would sure like to see where they have gotten this idea from. I have been growing GMO canola for the last 10 years, as my neighbours, and I have not ever noticed my bee dissapear during the foraging season. Is this one of "those" studdies? Anyweight behind it at all? ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 23:29:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ian_Steppler?= Subject: Current Honey Prices Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit There seems to be a reported concensis of a smaller and darker than predicted Argentina crop. Infact the mag is commenting on how cash poor the beekeepers in regions of Argentina to the extent they cant feed their bees to keep them alive. Thinking is there isnt alot of honey hidden away in warehouses. I am hearing throughout the US will be much better than last year, average production, and about the same with Canada, ranging from below to average. Where about is the market at right now? How is it reacting to the reported Argentian crop? ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 00:21:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: Current Honey Prices In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ian, There are those who will have more direct contacts relating to honey prices. But you might find the reports interesting material: http://skamberg.com/honey.htm http://www.fdl.co.uk/main_content.asp?id_content=417&id_subitem=26&id_division=6 Have heard that several brokers are offering a very attractive 0.85 Canadian Dollar (85 cents) per pound of honey. Also that Chinese honey is entering Canada at some 450% increase over several months back. Explanations that the honey market is quiet is difficult to believe when there appears to be a drive to fill the coffers with super cheap material. Peter. PS: Last Purple gas purchased at Co-op two weeks ago cost me 98 cents/litre when obtained at 1000 litres bulk. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 00:52:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: GMO and honey bees In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Ian, References presumably used as supportive material in discussions coming from the Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2007-03-21.asp Peter Extracted from above referenced web material.......... References: 1. Alexei Barrioneuva, "Honeybees, Gone With the Wind, Leave Crops and Keepers in Peril," The New York Times, February 27, 2007: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B1FF8355A0C748EDDAB0894DF404482 2. Malone,L and Pham-Del�gue,M. "Effects of transgene products on honey bees (Apis mellifera) and bumblebees (Bombus sp.)" Apidologie 2001,32,287-304. 3. Obrycki,J, Losey, J, Taylor,O, Jesee,L. "Transgenic insecticidal corn: Beyond insecticidal toxicity to ecological complexity." Bioscience May 2001/Vol 51 No. 5 4. Pham-Del�gue, M.H., et. al. 2002. "Direct and Indirect Effects of Genetically Modified Plants on the Honey Bee," Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals, pp. 312-326. 5. Picard-Nioi, A.L,.et al. Pham-Delegue, M.H. "Impact of proteins used in plant genetic engineering: Toxicity and behavioral study in the honeybee." J. Econ. Entomol.997,90,1710-1716. 6. Ricarda A. Steinbrecher, "Risks associated with ingestion of Chardon LL maize, The reversal of N-acetyl-L- glufosinate to the active herbicide L-glufosinate in the gut of animals," Chardon LL Hearing, May 2002, London. 7. Mohr KI and Tebbe CC. "Field study results on the probability and risk of a horizontal gene transfer from transgenic herbicide-resistant oilseed rape pollen to gut bacteria of bees." Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2007 in press,DOI 10.1007/s00253, 007-0846-7. 8. Ramirez-Romero,R,Chaufaux,J and Pham-Del�gue,M. "Effects of Cry1Ab protoxin, deltamethrin and imidacloprid on the foraging activity and the learning performances of the honeybee Apis mellifera, a comparative approach" Apidologie 36 (2005) 601-11. 9. Hilbeck,A and Schmid,J. "Another view of Bt proteins-How specific are they and what else might they do" Biopestic. Int. 2006,2,1-50. 10. Morandin,L and Winston,M. "Wild bee abundance and seed production in conventional, organic and genetically modified canola" Ecological Applications 2004,15,871-81. 11. Commoner, B. "Unraveling the DNA Myth: The spurious foundation of genetic engineering." Harper's Magazine, February 2002, 39-47. 12. Schubert, D. "Regulatory regimes for transgenic crops." Nature Biotechnology 23,785 - 787 (2005). ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 09:06:01 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter B orst wrote: > I know some people dip > the wooden-ware in hot paraffin but the end result is so ugly If wooden boxes are properly dipped in hot wax then they come out looking like wood! How is that ugly? Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 09:18:00 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All Peter said... > Breeding from the best is probably a good strategy if you are raising > race horses or milk cows, but it may be a fatal mistake that the > breeders of bees have been committing for decades The trouble is that people select characters as being 'best' that are not linked to specific genes and so they do not get improvement, they merely propagate messy hybridisation, which may give the appearance of being 'good' due to likely more vigorous honey gathering, but gets nowhere in the end. I think it was Joe said... > too narrow a genetic base and that this makes them vulnerable > to diseases. The narrowness of the US genetic base of honey bees is a worry, but it is a problem of your own making. Reliance on too few actual breeding projects, each of which has generated large numbers of 'similar' offspring, couple this with a strong reliance on Italian derived bees that have an inherently low mating frequency. You can put all of this right... Many US beekeepers are adept at raising queens, add to that a little learning about what to select and why and within ten to fifteen years you could transform the situation to one of better stability, with less risk of disaster. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 08:13:05 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: GMO's causing bee disorientation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > Is this one of "those" studdies? Anyweight behind it at all?= Hi Ian=0A=0A> Is this one of "those" studdies? Anyweight behind it at all?= =0A=0AThese stories surface from time to time, and as far as I can make out= they are untrue. Back in 2000 there were posts on Bee-L that speculated t= hat AFB resistance to antibiotics might be due to GM crops, and that GM cro= ps can cause bee disorientation. One poster suggested that editors of bee = magazines should propagate the story (something that had happened previousl= y anyway) and that brought my head up above the parapet as you can see in t= he archives:=0A=0Ahttp://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0011A&= L=3Dbee-l&P=3DR1794=0A=0AIf you want the short version, French researchers = added anti-insect proteins to artificial bee diets (as their GM lines didn'= t make enough in pollen to give an effect) and these artificial diets did c= ause disorientation.=0A=0AAs far as I know, no GM crop has ever had this ef= fect. If anyone knows otherwise, I'd be glad to hear about it as I'm givin= g a talk to beekeepers on this topic in Glasgow tomorrow night!=0A=0Aall th= e best=0A=0AGavin ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 09:58:46 +0100 Reply-To: rrudd@eircom.net Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruary Rudd Subject: Re: FW: [WL] [BEE-L] Fumidil B dusting In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Chris, It might depend on where you are talking about, different countries have differing standards, but in the EU I would hazard a guess that the prescribed residue level for fumigillan is a maximum of zero. Ruary -----Original Message----- Are there maximum residue levels prescribed for fumidil in honey? Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:55:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >>> Some researchers are wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based on too narrow a genetic base and that this makes them vulnerable to diseases. > * Holding up an example of poor breeding practices as an argument against "breeding from your best stock" is IMO misleading to the readers. Well, that is not what I did. I stated that *conventional line breeding* which been used for thousands of years may work for most crops and animals, but it may produce exactly the opposite result in the honey bee colony. The above statement is taken from Dr. Ben Oldroyd, one of the world's leading bee researchers. He has traveled the world studying honey bees including completely wild ones in Borneo, etc. -- so when he talks, I listen. He writes: "Despite the wide variety of hangers-on, wild colonies of Asian honey bees rarely have serious infections that can potentially kill them, and most are pictures of robust health." A bee colony is simply different from a plant or animal; it is a society. One certainly would not think that having all the members of a city of 50,000 from the very same mother and father would be a good thing. There are many hundreds of roles to play in a group that size and a wide diversity of the population is of great benefit. Imagine a city where everyone wants to be a baker, an artist or a cop. Regarding the bee colony, I realize this is a very difficult concept to get a hold of and the implications are far-reaching. It has been twenty years already since it was first proposed by Tom Seeley and his collaborators. Maybe another twenty years are needed to see what it really means for the improvement of honey bees. Maybe what is needed is a truly wild type, not a line bred hybrid or even a "feral" which in most cases is simply an escaped domestic colony. > There is an accumulating body of evidence to support the assertion that genetic diversity from multiple mating has a functional role in division of labor and in improving colony homeostasis, and that the links between genetic diversity, GTS [genetic task specialization] and improved colony outcomes are becoming clearer. (from: "Genetic diversity promotes homeostasis in insect colonies" by Benjamin P. Oldroyd and Jennifer H. Fewell) -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 09:45:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It seems that this assumes racial diversity when you do not always get that in nature. You do get diversity in open mating but it is probably always within a specific race of bee. So what are we really looking at? AI may be a problem? But open mating also is a problem. The problem with a statement like Asian Bees being healthier leaves out the main reason bees in NA and Europe have problems. An introduced pest. If you can isolate a species it will eventually come to some sort of "balance" with the pest or die out. In either case, an observer coming into the game late will see a "healthy" population, even though it may have lost quite a few species from the pest. History is full of examples. However, if you come in, as in those countries with newly introduced Varroa, you will be in the struggle for existence and it certainly will not be healthy. Also, the tail is being pinned on "commercial" beekeeping, but the problem is across the board and affects all beekeeping where Varroa is a new introduction. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 14:53:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Charles Harper Subject: Re: FW: [WL] [BEE-L] Fumidil B dusting In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Even correctly applied drugs will contaminate honey. Harper's Honey Farm Charles Harper labeeman@russianbreeder.com (337) 298 6261 Chris Slade wrote: > > Not only time and money, but incorrectly applied drugs > can contaminate honey. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 09:59:29 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Russ Dean Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter B orst wrote: > I know some people dip > the wooden-ware in hot paraffin but the end result is so ugly The bees don't care what it looks like. But I can't see a super thin coat of protective was as ugly. Russ Dean _WV Beekeepers Home Page_ (http://www.wvbeekeepers.org/) ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 14:13:41 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>That some comercial opperations have failed to adapt a breeding strategy to insure the genetic variation of their stock is a simply matter of poor management. Just picture the great breeding potential with 1,000 - 10,000 colonies? :) Of course, the labor requirements would be prohibitive but the selection would be tremendous. Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 14:08:09 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Current Honey Prices Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>There seems to be a reported concensis of a smaller and darker than predicted Argentina crop. Mine, too. :) My fall goldenrod/asters crop will be very small due to a drought that we've had since mid-August. I checked the supers last Sunday and the honey is very dark brown. [I assume a greater contribution from fall asters or another source.] Just like 3 years ago. Love that rich, dark flavor. How was the goldenrod flow upstate NY this year?? Waldemar Long Island, NY ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 11:46:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: goldenrod flow upstate NY In-Reply-To: <200710091422.l99CuCW9018763@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > How was the goldenrod flow upstate NY this year?? Don't really know. I pulled supers early to dust, Mite Away II, and HFCS/Fumidil-B. I'm kitchen-sinking this year so I hopefully won't have excessive deadouts next spring. Overall harvest was only a third what I was hoping for. Very disappointing. Haven't heard much different from others, but haven't talked to many either. Fall meeting will be in November. http://eshpa.org/event_1.htm Cheers, Aaron ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 17:02:16 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <470B8613.8080704@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bill > So what are we really looking > at? AI may be a problem? But open mating also is a problem. II and open mating are two alternatives of one thing... Mating, neither is right or wrong, but some of the matings achieved by whatever method, may be inappropriate. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 12:18:16 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Russ Dean Subject: Re: goldenrod flow upstate NY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/9/2007 8:50:10 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, AMorris@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU writes: > How was the goldenrod flow upstate NY this year?? Don't really know. I would like to know that too. I'd also like some seed to put between the creek(now a ditch) and the road. Russ Dean _WV Beekeepers Home Page_ (http://www.wvbeekeepers.org/) ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 15:43:28 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill Truesdell wrote: >Also, the tail is being pinned on "commercial" beekeeping, but the >problem is across the board and affects all beekeeping where Varroa is a >new introduction. Well, Oldroyd points to commercial queen breeding ("Some researchers are wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based on too narrow a genetic base"). But, where else do most of the bees come from? Tens of thousands of queens are raised and sold in this country and they are distributed to every nook and cranny. Where do you think the bees of Arnot Forest came from? In my travels I do find pockets of bees that seem to be sufficiently isolated from commercial beekeeping that there is the potential that they may be some sort of regional type. But whenever I ask the beekeeper where he/she where the bees came from, there is almost always a commercial queen breeder at the source. Insofar as whether diversity means different races or just different lines of bees, I don't know. What has been studied so far is colonies formed from a single drone and queen pairing, and ones from queens mated to multiple "unrelated" drones. I don't think anybody has looked into whether it matters how unrelated they are. If anyone wants to give me $120,000 I will do a three year study on it. Pete ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 12:46:39 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Rossander Subject: Determining scientific "consensus" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Please excuse the digression from the immediate issues of beekeeping but participants on this list frequently get into questions about the determination of scientific consensus. The New York Times published an article today that is very worthwhile reading for all of us. The article describes the history of the decision that low-fat diets are intrinsically healthier than high-fat diets but also describes some studies on information bias. Significant observations for me were: 1) whichever position is expressed first is likely to determine the outcome 2) even if the majority of participants have data leading to the right answer (by a 60/40 ratio), there is a 1/3 chance that the group will still reach the wrong answer 3) social pressures on dissenters make if far harder to reach the right answer. The article can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=todayspaper Mike Rossander --------------------------------- Catch up on fall's hot new shows on Yahoo! TV. Watch previews, get listings, and more! ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 21:17:29 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Woodenware treatment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Russ Dean wrote: > But I can't see a super thin coat of > protective was as ugly. If dipped at the right temperature, the wax is drawn into the wood and there is no 'thin coat'; the wood will look just like - wood! Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 21:08:02 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Cover photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Has anyone else noted the great photos that "our own" Peter Borst has = been gracing the covers of ABJ with? (Feb and Oct 2007). Thanks, Pete! Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:32:30 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill posted > The problem with a statement like Asian Bees being healthier leaves out > the main reason bees in NA and Europe have problems. An introduced pest. Didn't the cerana in India and other south east Asian regions come down with Thai sacbrood a while back? As I recall, there were big losses Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:54:45 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter > Insofar as whether diversity means different races or just > different lines of bees, I do not know of a proper technical description to cover this, but the way I think of it is that diversity is expression of different alleles, but those alleles need to be from the subset of the race concerned. If you get alleles that are specific other races that is where the trouble starts. I see this as a flaw in 'total outbreeding' or saying 'anything goes' strategies. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:16:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Cushman wrote: >Hi Peter >If you get alleles that are specific other races that is where the >trouble starts. > >I see this as a flaw in 'total outbreeding' or saying 'anything goes' >strategies. Hi Dave, I don't suppose there are anything like pure races in the USA; it is doubtful whether they exist in the rest of the Americas and much of Europe either. I understand from a personal communication that in her experiment Heather Matilla used unrelated drones but they were all Carniolans, so that supports what you say. We are still learning about the effect of diverse drone genetics, but you must realize that the various bee types have been shipped all over this country willy nilly for a hundred years. For this reason alone, I am suspicious of the claim that the genetic pool in the USA is too narrow. Weavers down in Texas have been selling what they call "All-American Queens" for quite some time. Pete ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:19:17 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Honey, Royal Jelly - Simple and Effective Therapy for Infertility MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Honey, Royal Jelly - Simple and Effective Therapy for Infertility Combined Intravaginal Bee Honey and Royal Jelly Versus Intrauterine Insemination for Asthenozoospermia http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2007/10/honey-royal-jelly-simple-and-effective.html …CONCLUSION: Combined pericoital intravaginal use of bee honey and royal jelly is a more effective, simpler, and less expensive therapy for infertility due to asthenozoospermia than h-IUI. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:35:11 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter > I don't suppose there are anything like pure races in the USA; You won't really know until you test, the degree of hybridisation shows up fairly readily by simple procedures. Starting from scratch you might need a large sample size to make much sense of the results, but if you were to pull the right wings from a set of 90 bees from one single colony after killing them in the freezer, mount the wings on glass slides and scan them using a film scanner of higher than 2400 x 2400 optical resolution, the resulting images could be fed to an application... DrawWing is a good one and it is free... http://www.cyf-kr.edu.pl/~rotofils/drawwing.html Then the files that application produces can be fed into a spreadsheet like MorphPlot (generated by Peter Edwards, often on this list) also free and available from... http://www.dave-cushman.net/computing/downloads.html there are all sorts of other morphometric goodies on that download page as well. You will end up with a scattergram plot that will indicate how much hybridisation is in the sample and if the hybridisation itself is not too high it might also indicate the principle racial components. It needs care, but is not difficult and is certainly not beyond the realms of the ordinary beekeeper. > We are still learning about the effect of diverse drone genetics, but you > must realize that the various bee types have been shipped all over this > country willy nilly for a hundred years. For this reason alone, I am > suspicious of the claim that the genetic pool in the USA is too narrow. The widespread use of transport for queens in US means that naturalisation does not get a chance to occur and stability to develop, but stability requires selection to achieve it and little of this is done at local level in US. If you like the 'mixture' never gets a chance to settle into layers that can be identified. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:58:38 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Determining scientific "consensus" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > questions about the determination of scientific consensus... Is it accurate to take a situation that is unique to medicine/health and label it as a generalized "problem of scientific consensus" for science as a whole? Not at all. Of course the problem(s) with medical science (and the reporting of it to the public) are many and severe. As an example, think quick - is milk supposed to be "good" or "bad" for you this week? The basic difficulty with medical studies is that it would be very unethical to do the sort of "controlled studies" where the controls all die as a result of a lack of a specific treatment. Another big problem turns out to be that there are simply too many factors to account for, even when one attempts to do a clean single-variable study, as opposed to the much less credible "cohort studies". A broad overview of these issues can be found in the "Magazine" section of Sunday's NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16epidemiology-t.html?ref=mag azine The editorial mentioned in the article, "Epidemiology-is it time to call it a day?", published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Jan 2001) is here: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/1/1 Note that even the original case of Cholera, it is now generally thought that removing the pump handle from the communal pump had little or nothing to do with stopping the Cholera epidemic. The general case for medical science is that there are simply too many people, too many journals, not enough time. Here's an editorial from "Nature" in 2002: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v5/n12/full/nn1202-1249.html "Looking at the] Medline database from 1966 to 1997 revealed that of the nine million or so articles indexed during this period, only 235 were retracted - in other words, less than 0.01%. (As of this writing, the numbers have risen to over twelve million articles and 464 retractions.) Unfortunately, however, retraction alone does not appear sufficient as a way to clean up the scientific literature, because articles often continue to be cited after they have been retracted. For example, the 235 retracted papers in the survey above received more than 2000 citations, of which the great majority presented the conclusions as if they were still valid." So, everything you "know" is wrong, everything your teacher told you, other than math, was lies, and we had all better start every morning with "I think, therefore I am", and hope we can all work fast enough to individually reinvent Calculus by lunchtime, so we can get some actual work done in the afternoons. Or we can wake up, navigate the terrain as we see it, and simply remember that there may be land mines out there. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:34:08 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >I am suspicious of the claim that the genetic pool in the USA is too >narrow. The data of Steve Sheppard and Debby Delany certainly support the hypothesis that bee genetics are not uniform over the USA, and that we have lost genetics that we previously had. Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:04:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Cushman writes; “The widespread use of transport for queens in US means that naturalisation does not get a chance to occur and stability to develop, but stability requires selection to achieve it and little of this is done at local level in US.” Dave, I am having a hard time assimilating all this. Genetics was not my best subject. If you are saying that “naturalization” occurs when all non- natural movement of genetic material via transport of queens ceases, and some form of stability is achieved when selection is allowed to take place under presumably open mating conditions, it raises a couple of questions for me. Firstly, what form of selection are we talking about; natural or man made? If natural selection is allowed to take place then it seems to me that we would have to let go of our attachments we might have for certain characteristics like gentleness, swarming propensity, honey production, etc. If man made selection is applied then what’s to say we don’t run into the problem I think Peter was talking about where you select for your favorite characteristic(s) while being unaware of what’s happening with those characteristics which aren’t so obvious but are perhaps even more important to the overall viability of the population? Secondly, what makes you say that the kind of selection you are talking about does not occur in the U.S., and in what countries is such practice common place? Steve Noble ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:25:42 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Trevor asked (probably knowing the answer): > Didn't the cerana in India and other south east Asian regions come down > with Thai sacbrood a while back? As I recall, there were big losses Yes - early 1990s - Kerala lost 95% of its cerana; but by breeding from survivors they are now back to full strength. Lesson for us all there. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:34:17 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Determining scientific "consensus" Comments: To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>As an example, think quick - is milk supposed to be "good" or "bad" for you this week? This is a problem with the so-called scientific studies on milk. If a study is sponsored by the milk industry, I can design the study to unequivically show that pasturized, hormone- & antibiotic- laden, with poorly absorbed calcium milk is great for folks. Who cares if girls reach puberty at the age of 8... I am not saying that milk is the only factor but our entire processed food model is unhealthy. >>The basic difficulty with medical studies is that it would be very unethical to do the sort of "controlled studies" where the controls all die as a result of a lack of a specific treatment. What is really unethical is the lack of corporate and personal responsibility. When Vioox was being released, the company knew of its potentially deadly side effects. After the public discovery, the company was slapped with a fine (ie. a cost of doing business) and the executives got their bonuses. Is it only in America that you can kill 100,000 and profit from it? Bristol Meyers just got fined $510 million dollars for kickbacks to doctors to prescribe more of their drugs even for cases not approved by the FDA (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7019083.stm). That kind of money could be used for a lot of GOOD medical research! >>Another big problem turns out to be that there are simply too many factors to account for, even when one attempts to do a clean single-variable study, as opposed to the much less credible "cohort studies". Single variable studies should be conducted. When it comes to health - in honey bees or human - the interactions of different factors need to be evaluated, too, since many substances act synergistically. >>So, everything you "know" is wrong, everything your teacher told you, other than math, was lies, and we had all better start every morning with "I think, therefore I am"... You can certainly take what your doctor prescribes for you with a grain of salt and seek several 2nd opinions. It's interesting how patients are often advised to seek a second opinion and not a second set of scientific facts, isn't it? :) Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:04:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <027401c80b73$59c8de20$ed8f6a58@office> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Edwards wrote: > > >> sacbrood > > by breeding from survivors they are now back to full strength. > Lesson for us all there. Not really sure what the lesson is since scabrood does disappear with the season and re-queening. It could have been the specific conditions in the country at the time and little to do with the survivors. This is one of those things, not unlike CCD, where you can come to incorrect conclusions based on assumed cause and effect. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:15:35 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Steve > If you are saying that “naturalization” occurs when all non- > natural movement of genetic material via transport of queens ceases, and > some form of stability is achieved when selection is allowed to take place > under presumably open mating conditions, What I am saying is that constant introduction of new genetics or re-introduction of other genetics not naturally encountered in a area, stops the ability of the environmental factors pertaining to the location having a chance to act to bring about stability. The process is natural selection, which many consider is a very slow process. The natural selection process however also relies on the speed of change being very low in the first place, by creating massive changes (via transported genetics) the differences (selection pressures) are so great that natural selection can occur over a very small number of years. > If man made selection is applied then what’s to say we > don’t run into the problem I think Peter was talking about where you select > for your favorite characteristic(s) while being unaware of what’s happening > with those characteristics which aren’t so obvious but are perhaps even > more important to the overall viability of the population? It is encumbent on those doing the selection to avoid such problems by not making simplistic or 'favourite' choices and arming themselves with enough knowledge to make better choices, it also helps if mistakes are learned from rather than being made repeatedly. The viability of the population as a whole is very important to me, I believe it is desirable that bees could fend for themselves instead of being propped up by beekeeper's efforts. Far too many queen raising operations rely on producing queens from a relatively small number of 'special' or 'top scoring' examples which may give rise to genetic narrowness from the queen side, however with open mating the gene choice for each queen from the male side is an absolutely enormous figure (far higher than most think even if the drones come from the same colonies). The fault here is that the selection is too tight and the number of strands selected is not high enough. One of the problems in understanding this seems to stem from the fact that all the sperm of a drone are the same, this seems to be interpreted by many as 'all drones produced by a queen are identical in genetics'. > what makes you say that the kind of selection you are talking > about does not occur in the U.S., Selection by individual beekeepers when raising their own queens, simply because the majority of beekeepers purchase 'off the shelf' from large scale breeders that are not making selections that are relevant to the geographic area that the queens will actually be used in. > in what countries is such practice common place? UK, Europe, New Zealand and perhaps Australia, but Trevor could answer that better than I. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:45:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <470DE9B7.7010400@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Cushman wrote:It is incumbant on those doing the selection to avoid such problems by not making simplistic or 'favourite' choices and arming themselves with enough knowledge to make better choices, . What are the things we bee breeders, both hobbyests and commercial, need to keep in mind and select for in selecting our best queens as foundation stock for better bee genetics? I can list a few things. The rest of you add what things you would consider as important to "improve" the stock we work with. gentleness; good honey production; strong, early population buildup for the main honey flow; resistance to various diseases and pests; low swarming characteristics. What else? Take the list above and add to it. Repost so others can comment and add to it or detract. How does one go about selecting for "all" of these various characteristics without minimizing other characteristics? From what I can see, bee breeding ain't an easy task. Mike in LA --------------------------------- Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:11:36 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >>That some commercial operations have failed to adapt a breeding strategy to insure the genetic variation of their stock is a simply matter of poor management. This might be true, if we actually knew the extent of genetic variation that is required to maintain healthy bees. On one end of the scale you have strict line-breeding which leads to inbred bees and colony failure due to lack of brood viability. Somewhere in the middle, you have breeding from a large pool of regional bees, like one would normally find in nature in a *geographically isolated region*. At the other end, you would have bees that were taken from as many world locations as possible to produce a completely new and diversified type. In my opinion, the focus on geographically adapted bees misses entirely one key point: our bees are being challenged by a great deal more than localized weather and floral sources. Our bees are being challenged by new and different combinations of pests and pathogens from *all over the world*. What is needed is a better bee that can produce appropriate defenses against a constantly changing situation. It simply won't do to suppose that bees can adapt to one corner of the world and sit prettily. The beekeeping environment is global, like it or not, and we should think about a global bee: what would that bee be? In the latest Apidologie, Sue Cobey writes: > The ability to increase genetic diversity within a colony, beyond what is possible through natural mating, is an advantage of instrumental insemination. The impressive array of traits and flexibility in behavior patterns displayed by honey bees are due to their intra-colony genetic variability. > Genetic diversity enhances colony fitness, enabling honey bees to exploit and survive in wide ecological ranges, survive extreme climatic conditions and resist pests and diseases. Several studies have shown that adaptability, productivity and survivability tend to be greater in out-crossed stocks. from "Comparison studies of instrumentally inseminated and naturally mated honey bee queens and factors affecting their performance" by Susan W. Cobey in Apidologie Vol. 38 No. 4 (July-August 2007) Peter Borst Danby, NY USA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:39:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <470DE9B7.7010400@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To get the best bee for an area you need high numbers of colonies which nature may not provide. Places like Alaska come to mind. The study really only says that the more drones the better number of characteristics and distribution of traits. With large numbers of colonies you get a "buffer" against change. It is not that you get some sudden change in the character of the bee, but you get survivors from bees that are already there. The genetic makeup of a diverse population does that with about every species. Where I am, the population of bees is small because of Varroa. So bees in this area might be selected for specific conditions but then die out quickly with a change from those conditions. All because there are not enough of them to have the genetic diversity to survive. There is not usually a change in the DNA of a species that allows a species to survive, but the expression of genes within that species. Major genetic change usually leads to a new species that does not revert back. Mites are a case in point. If you leave Apistan resistant Varroa alone for a number of years they revert to the non-resistant mite. There is a stable (a bad word) mite that gains an advantage not being resistant unless that resistance is necessary. Same with bees. Change the pressure and they will revert to what worked best in the past. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:19:54 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Queen II and Queen Longevity In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Looking in the archives I have not found any discussion relating to using instrumental insemination of queens and their longevity in the hive. I have heard comments about II queens not being as long lived as free flight mated queens in the hives, and other comments dismissing this allegation. What has been the experience of those of you who have used II in your queen production? Is II a viable alternative to free flight mating in your estimation? The reason I'm asking this question is that it is predicted that the AHB will be in our area within the next five years or so and when that happens, strict control of our queens will be a requirement in order to maintain our hives. I'm contemplating taking Susan Cobey's II courses in an effort to provide my area's beekeepers with queens of know linage and known mating. If II queens are not a viable alternative to open mated queens then I don't want to spend the money, time, and effort to provide II services to my area. Mike in LA (Lower Alabama) --------------------------------- Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight? Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:22:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit What Peter said about pathogens not being local even if you are trying to keep your bees that way made a lot of sense to me. Adding to that, it seems to me that relying strictly on natural selection for overall fitness for a particular geographical area would depend on everyone in that area doing the same thing. If your neighbor is getting New World Carniolans and specially bred Russians every year or two, then you are breeding out whether you like it or not. Is that not so? If it is, then you would in essence be mixing natural and man made selection and not having much control over either. But since the only way to have complete control is through instrumental insemination, what is one to do.? In the natural selection scheme that Dave advocates, you are choosing which queen to make queens from, (the one from the colony that survives?) while in IM you choose both the queen and the drones. Either way you have to make choices as to which characteristics you like in a bee colony. It would seem to me that the best way to go about this would be to place the highest value on the most general characteristics which would be things like persistent survivability and overall vitality. After that more specific factors could be considered like hygienic behavior, gentleness, early and rapid build up, etc. The general tendency to be healthy and to survive as a colony from one year to the next would probably include many if not most of the more specific desirable characteristics but not necessarily. You might have to allow some of those to drift which ever way they want. Up until now I haven’t had enough hives to really do any breeding other than to make walk away splits from strong hives, so it’s an area I really don’t know anything about. I know there are beekeepers out there on this list who have a lot of experience in this area and who do think they know what they are doing. What I would like to know from them is how much can we really expect from any kind of bee breeding program? Is there a limit to what we can get out of the gene pool for our seemingly limitless demands? There does seem to be a significant difference between bee breeding and other kinds of domestic animal breeding, although I couldn’t explain it myself. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:27:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Guys, I'm enjoying this discussion... >What I am saying is that constant introduction of new genetics or re-introduction of other genetics not naturally encountered in a area, stops the ability of the environmental factors pertaining to the location having a chance to act to bring about stability. I've been faced with decisions about queen selection ever since 20 year's of my work was wiped out when varroa first decimated my operation.. I started over with standard production stock, which worked as long as Apistan worked, and there were no ferals. When Apistan later failed, I selected for survivors, ferals, and SMR--a waste of two years (unless you're a breeder selecting for survival genes, as John Harbo did). Finally, I restarted with a diverse mix of strong producing stocks with some degree of mite tolerance and hygienicity. It took two more years to flood the woods around my mating yards with good genetics. Now I'm following Dave's (and Joe's) approach and selecting from a large number of my most productive queens, who also demonstrate good mite tolerance. I bring in a small number of queens from other local beeks or other breeders each year to keep slow influx of diversity, at a relatively low level. All my stock is open mated. I am in no way saying that this is the best approach, just sharing what appears to be working well for me. Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:25:18 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <289492.30729.qm@web53408.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Mike You list some characters... > gentleness; good honey production; strong, early population buildup > for the main honey flow; resistance to various diseases and pests; > low swarming characteristics. I will come back to them at the end of this post, but before we even make any choices of characters, we need to have an in depth knowledge of what a stable population ensconced in the region that it is inhabiting, can actually provide. We need a benchmark to make a realistic target, it is too easy to say I want a very large honey crop and I don't want to spend much time and energy getting it. By selecting our assessment criteria wrongly we can end up casting about aimlessly trying to achieve ideals that are unattainable. So we first have to find out what the bees we have can do and what they can do easily. If our existing population is of no known type or totally hybridised, we have to set criteria which we know can be achieved within one type of bee, then we can set our goals to the characters of that type and by hard work we can work towards it. Yes, I said hard work, nobody said this process is easy and it seems that every short cut that people may think they have found comes back and bites them in the end. Various races of bee have evolved in different areas of the world. The races are reasonably well defined in terms of their geographic range, performance, behaviour, morphometry and DNA. So we can match the suitability of an existing type to whatever geography and weather conditions we may have. What is wrong with selecting the characters of that type and allowing them to shine through over a few generations ? The fact that this is not done is in some way due to seeking holy grails or the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. There is another aspect that I hear voiced on this list... The USA is very large in area and has many regions of different weather, topography, geology flora and fauna, what I say in countering this is that the largest range of a racial type is that of AMM found in Europe, this has just about as much diversity of habitat as USA apart from a lack of desert, yet AMM lives and thrives over the whole range of these conditions, because of it's highly developed adaptability. On the edges of the AMM range are small regions with racial types, Ligustica, Carnica, Caucasica that are less adaptable in general, but have evolved as specific types to suit the specific regions that they inhabit so why select them for use over a large area ? Having said it is hard work it is interesting and challenging work, bee breeding luckily pays some fairly big dividends in the first few years of selection. The increments drop a little of year by year, but they are still in the right direction. Returning to Mikes selection criteria... I have nothing against any of the criteria, but would like to make some qualifying comments. gentleness; Great choice for first priority, makes life easier and more pleasurable for both beekeepers and the non beekeeping public and is exhibited by stable populations of bees. There is a slight downside as that some colonies may exhibit gentleness or docility due to inbreeding, but we have tools to establish that as well as a finger and thumb to correct the problem. good honey production; While I agree that it is most peoples ultimate goal, it is not a character that is linked to a single or even low number of genes so it should not come high on our list during the early phases of selection, first we need our stability then we can make subsequent selections within our stable population for those colonies that yield more than others. This is the bit that everybody wants to short cut, but by using it as a selector early in you program you will lengthen the time it takes to gain stability and possibly lengthen it so far as you never actually achieve it. strong, early population build-up for the main honey flow; The only comment I would make here is that whatever the honey flow is and whenever it is, the bees should be well tuned to it and raise amounts of brood appropriate to the forage available. resistance to various diseases and pests; No quibbles here ! low swarming characteristics. I go along with this, but may have personally put it a little further down my priorities. My judgement on this is tinged by my own work with bees that have a high propensity to natural supersedure which also has low swarming as a by product. Just as an extra, I will throw in the selection criteria used by GBBG, but bear in mind this list was generated for AMM bees with characters important to that race. I also include items 1-5 which are management questions that you should ask yourself at each inspection, but are not rated for selection purposes. 1 Has the colony sufficient room? 2 Is the queen present and laying the expected quantity of eggs? 3 Is the colony developing as fast as others? Any queen cells? 4 Are there any signs of disease or abnormality? 5 Are there sufficient stores to last until next inspection? Selectors A-E A = Docility (non jumping, non-stinging, non-following). B = Steadiness on the comb (absence of running). C = Brood Pattern (compactness of brood, absence of empty cells). D = Pollen Storage (pollen packed over, around, and under the broodiest). E = Comb Building (speed in occupying supers, drawing foundation, honey storage, and quality of comb capping). Each of these characters A-E is given a rating 0-5 making a best possible score of 25 per colony. more on this is on... http://www.gbbg.net/mmcrecords.html Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:44:04 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>It is not that you get some sudden change in the character of the bee, but you get survivors from bees that are already there. Absolutely. And every year will test the population a little differently - the majority with one trait will disappear (hopefully, leaving behind enough reproductive individuals (or hybrids) to retain the trait's availability for the future) while a part of the population with the favored traits comes to stand out. Each year colonies with a different set of traits may come to survive predominantly. Matings with multiple drones increases the pool of diverse traits along patrilines. Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:45:12 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <140801c80c1b$37555a50$47ab5142@MyPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Randy > ever since 20 year's of my work was wiped out when varroa first > decimated my operation. I sympathise, I had a disaster myself, not to do with varroa or any disease, but due to lack of a selection pressure that had been commonplace... In UK we have a crop known as Oilseed Rape, although you have a crop called Canola it is not exactly the same in the two countries. When I first started beekeeping OSR was a new thing and after about three weeks of foraging on the crop a build up of toxins occurred that made the bees a bit touchy, it did not matter much as the crop only flowered for about four weeks so it was easy to leave the bees alone for the fourth week. Like all things this situation changed and multiple sowings of different varieties brought about an overlap of flowering, which extended the period that the bees were nasty, but this problem went away very quickly when newer varieties that were lower in toxins became available and widely planted as the could be consumed by humans. A few years ago we had a foot and mouth epidemic in UK and farming practices became disrupted. Some farmers planted the older varieties of Rape for use as bio diesel (I suspect the seed was cheaper). I had two lines of AMM bees that I was very proud of after twenty one years of development, one of these was docile in the extreme, you could take the lid off at any time without smoke and the bees would not even fly they just carried on as if nothing happened, but as soon as these gentle bees started foraging the bio diesel rape they became monsters. Because these bees had not been exposed to that crop before, there had been no de-selection going on for this bad behaviour during the development process. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:53:10 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >I know there are beekeepers out there on this list who have a lot of experience in this area and who do think they know what they are doing. What I would like to know from them is how much can we really expect from any kind of bee breeding program? I have lots of experience, but have no idea if I know what I am doing! : ) My advice--you can realistically select for only one or two traits at a time, or you wind up sacrificing too much genetics. I.e., years ago when I developed a line hygienic for frozen brood removal, I sacrificed some of my best producers, to my later regret. I avoid sacrificing the best now, unless they have some really unfavorable trait. Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:57:37 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >but as soon as these gentle bees started foraging the bio diesel rape they >became monsters. An important point for all--be careful if you switch fuels on your bees, they may run hotter on biodiesel! Randy Oliver : ) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:28:11 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Interesting NZ study re. honey & rats and even more interestin g commentary... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit According to this NZ study honey has some anti-aging properties. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/10/04/can-you-use-honey-to-stay-young.aspx What surprised me was Dr. Mercola's allegation that a good chunk of US honey is based on HFCS. Anybody have 3rd party references on this? Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:43:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Cushman wrote: >Hi Peter >I do not know of a proper technical description to cover this, but the >way I think of it is that diversity is expression of different alleles, >but those alleles need to be from the subset of the race concerned. > >If you get alleles that are specific other races that is where the >trouble starts. Dave, I am not sure what you are thinking of in this second statement. Maybe some examples would help to show us what you mean. So far as racial crosses go, Hepburn writes in his "Honeybees of Africa" that a certain El-Sarrag tested crosses with Apis mellifera jemenitica (which occurs naturally south of the Sahara but north of the range of scutellata and adansonsii). He crossed this bee with a Carniolan and: "the hybrids produced twice as much honey as the parental strains" In fact, the average for jemenitica was 1.6 kg, the average for carnica (in that area) was 7.5 kg but the hybrids averaged 13 kg, almost ten times as much honey as native jemenitica. However, El-Sarrag reported that the hybrids were "significantly more aggressive than any of the parental strains" The crossing of ligustica and scutellata produced what some might term as the most successful honey bee yet, in terms of its ability to colonize over an extremely wide area. And,-- it resists varroa, an introduced parasite for which it can hardly have *evolved* resistance per se. Peter Borst Danby, NY USA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:23:39 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In addition to the points that Dave makes, I would add: adapted to the beekeeper's management method (unless the beekeeper has to adapt his methods to his bees - amateurs only can do this I supect!). To amplify: the bees should fit the size of box commonly used without having to spread/split the brood nest over 2 or more boxes; the bees should be able to feed themselves for winter while allowing the beekeeper a reasonable proportion of the crop; they should be able to cope with the stresses of being kept close to many more other hives than they would choose if given free choice. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:35:18 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Queen II and Queen Longevity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike posted > I have heard comments about II queens not being as long lived as free > flight mated queens in the hives, and other comments dismissing this > allegation. Sue Cobey gave a good paper at Apimondia 2007 on this subject. Basically what Sue said was that there was no real difference. She quoted many studies on this subject. The cost of the II queen compared to a naturally mated queen is much higher but it depends what price you put on you ability to keep bees. Sue Cobey is certainly a very good teacher of II. On her DVD on II Sue talks about the papers on this subject. I am sure that if you were to buy a DVD you would get the information you are looking for plus a preview of what you will need to do for II. Good luck Mike. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:41:00 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Queen II and Queen Longevity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike posted > Looking in the archives I have not found any discussion relating to using > instrumental insemination of queens and their longevity in the hive. Oops. Should have read Peter Borst's recent post first before replying. Peter gives the reference in Apidologie to the information Sue Cobey was talking about. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:20:24 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >..a certain El-Sarrag tested crosses with Apis mellifera jemenitica (which occurs naturally south of the Sahara but north of the range of scutellata and adansonsii). I wonder what has prevented the scuts from taking over all the ranges south of the Sahara. The have certainly push out the EHBs in the Americas (except in the temperate zones). Waldemar ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:57:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I mistakenly wrote: "In the natural selection scheme that Dave advocates, you are choosing which queen to make queens from, (the one from the colony that survives?) while in IM you choose both the queen and the drones." Should be: "while in II (Instrumental Insemination) you chose..." Steve Noble ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:06:21 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Steve > Adding to that, it seems to me that relying strictly on natural > selection for overall fitness for a particular geographical area > would depend on everyone in that area doing the same thing. It is actually rather like IPM, you do not rely on any one strategy, you use what is appropriate at the time according to what you find. > If it is, then you would in essence be mixing natural and man made > selection and not having much control over either. You have to ensure that both nature and you are pulling in the same direction, by generating selection criteria that are known to be achievable against the background population (which you must record, investigate and measure), your selection criteria must take into account what can be done rather than reaching for the moon. You have to start with what you have already and can sensibly introduce. > But since the only way to have complete control is > through instrumental insemination, II has it's place, but II is no magic bullet... It has limitations as well as plus factors. When all said and done II is just an alternative mating technique that has a few useful 'spin offs' or technical tricks for both limiting genetic diversity and increasing it. But the II is not the important part of the technique, it is making the decisions about what is mated to what that really matters, II is merely the means by which it is achieved. > It would seem to me that the best way to go about this would be to > place the highest value on the most general characteristics which > would be things like persistent survivability and overall vitality. If, and only if, those characters are linked to single or small numbers of genes. > In the natural selection scheme that Dave advocates, you are choosing > which queen to make queens from, I was putting as much effort and possibly more into producing drones to known specifications that I was in generating queens. > while in II you choose both the queen and the drones. Either way you > have to make choices as to which characteristics you like in a bee colony. And after you have made your matings you have to follow up every colony assessing the recorded details of each behaviour that you chose, to establish what has actually happened in the crossings. Armed with this information you can ditch the ones that do not fit your criteria and do further work with those that do. One single cross is not likely to yield much information, you need to do this many times. > After that morespecific factors could be considered like hygienic > behavior, gentleness, early and rapid buildup, etc. You have to generate your stable population first, so that when you make small changes to things like hygienic behaviour, they do not disturb the overall 'trueness of breeding' of the population. > What I would like to know from them is how much can we really expect > from any kind of bee breeding program? It depends on how much you care to learn about the behaviour and characteristics of the bees. The more you know the further you will get in the breeding. There is an opposite side to this coin that says you will achieve very little if you do not learn enough to make choices that are actually possible. > Is there a limit to what we > can get out of the gene pool for our seemingly limitless demands? I used the phrase 'reaching for the moon' earlier in this post, I think some do expect too much too quickly, but what you can actually achieve goes hand in hand with how much you are prepared to learn about the biology and mechanisms of the breeding process and are also prepared investigate the genetic linkages to the behaviours encountered. Do not be put off by this appearing to be 'something that should be done in a lab' the knife and fork came before the microscope and it is amazing what can be achieved on the 'kitchen table' or in the 'garden shed'. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:22:22 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter >> If you get alleles that are specific other races that is where the >> trouble starts. > > Dave, > I am not sure what you are thinking of in this second statement. Maybe some > examples would help to show us what you mean. I apologise for a simplistic example, but it may help a few to understand what an allele actually is... Dna is strung together in sequences, there are locations along it's length that can accept different versions of relatively short coded groups that are known as alleles, in UK we pronounce this allylees, in US you say aleels. The different versions of these alleles that can occupy a single location (locus) will decode to some specific feature of the bee, we might have 15 versions (strings of code) that can occupy location XXg on a particular chromosome which is associated with the length of the femur, each of these different strings can fit and whichever one happens to be present will define the length of the femur in that individual bee. So in the bee's genome there are millions of locii that equate to things like femur length, colour of overhair on a tergite, length of overhair on a tergite, transparency of chitin, number of facets on a compound eye and so on. But not all features of a bee are governed by single alleles at one location, some feature may be the result of a number of different locii that act in concert. I can give another simplistic example, of our 15 alleles that are to do with femur length they will all be different so the length of the femur is defined by whichever version is present, BUT there may be another locus close by that applies a multiplier to the locus that holds femur length. The alleles that go in this locus may affect the result by a factor of 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.1122 or any other number, so now we have two variables that affect the length of the femur. we can also say that there is 'linkage' between the two locii. So a femur length of 2 mm may be the result of an allele of length that codes for 2 mm and another multiplier allele of zero, giving a 2 mm measurable feature OR we could have an allele that codes for 2.2 mm and a multiplier allele representing 0.9090909 giving the same physical measurement of 2 mm. Getting back to the specificity of certain alleles to individual races... If we look at particular locii in all races we find a collection of alleles that can fit, some alleles exist in some races and not others, while some may occur in all races and some may exist one specific race only. From this, if we are studying an AMM bee and we find an allele that can only exist in Ligustica, then we know that this specimen is definitely a hybrid. There is a write up of a study done at Copenhagen university on a specific test, but as I only have a paper copy and do not know where it is currently 'filed' it will take some time to find, when I do find it, I will post the locii concerned and allele identities on this list. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:33:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:22:10 -0400, Steve Noble wrote: > Is there a limit to what we can get out of the gene pool for our seemingly limitless demands? * Of course there is. It's like the quest for the blue rose. > Since roses lack a gene to produce delphinidin, the primary plant pigment that produces true blue flowers, blue roses were traditionally created by dyeing white roses. So-called "blue roses" have been bred by conventional hybridization methods, but the results, such as "Blue Moon" are more accurately described as lilac in color. However, after 13 years of joint research by an Australian company Florigene, and Japanese company Suntory, a blue rose was created in 2004 using genetic engineering. * The lesson here is that if you want something bad enough, maybe there is a way. But I think most people on this list cringe at the notion of a genetically engineered honey bee. However, my point in this whole discussion has been that there is growing concern that bee breeding as it has been practiced may be the problem rather than the solution regarding honey bee health and vigor. * At this point, I think the only important characteristic to worry about is the ability to fight off these parasites. You can't do much beekeeping with dead bees. Conversely, if there is a trade-off for increased viability, such as lower honey production or more aggressive bees, there are ways of dealing with this. You have to have more hives and suit up more often, but if keeping bees is the goals, we have to adapt too. * Fact is, based on Heather and Tom's work, it appears that increasing genetic diversity produces a wide variety of improvements: > Genetic diversity is critically important for the productivity and long-term survival of newly established honey bee colonies. The key to colony performance may lie in the mating habits of honey bee queens. There is building evidence that, within each colony, certain patrilines specialize in tasks, such as defending the colony, removing dead workers, or communicating. Ultimately, natural selection would favor any traits, *including patriline diversity* due to polyandry, which would improve colony productivity and reproduction. Excerpted from: "Genetic Diversity May Be the Key to New Honey Bee Colony Success" by Heather R. Mattila and Thomas D. Seeley pb ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:57:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <470F390D.30605@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman wrote: > > You have to ensure that both nature and you are pulling in the same > direction, by generating selection criteria that are known to be > achievable against the background population (which you must record, > investigate and measure), your selection criteria must take into > account what can be done rather than reaching for the moon. You have > to start with what you have already and can sensibly introduce. I had a wonderful survivor colony which I dubbed the "Colony that would not die". The only problem with it was it produced zero honey. I left it alone since it did provide a nice genetic base, but all it did was spread the low honey production, not survival. As Dave notes, we often select for the bee we want and not the bee that will do well in our area. If we want a bee that does not mesh with the area (something we really have trouble knowing), we have to shift from what George Imire called BEEHAVERS (he loved caps) to beekeepers. In essence, we are managers of the bee we want and not necessarily the bee that would do best as a feral. The only way to have a colony that does mesh with the area is to leave it alone. Generally, they die. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:15:30 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Honey Nebulization is Effective Treatment for Asthma Attacks in Infants, Children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Honey Nebulization is Effective Treatment for Asthma Attacks in Infants, Children Bee Honey Nebulization as a Non Traditional Treatment of Acute Bronchial Asthma in Infants and Children Mamdouh Abdul Maksoud Mohamed Abdul Rhman, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University Abbasia, Cairo, Egypt http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2007/10/honey-nebulization-is-effective.html BACKGROUND: Bee honey has been an outstanding household remedy used for the treatment of cough and wheezing associated with bronchitis. The therapeutic use of honey in the form of inhalation dates from very early days. This method is particularly effective in the treatment of diseases of the upper respiratory tract… CONCLUSION: BHN is an effective and safe treatment for mild and moderate acute attacks of asthma in infants and children. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:45:47 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) In-Reply-To: <470F58EE.4040409@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Cushman wrote:If we look at particular locii in all races we find a collection of alleles that can fit, some alleles exist in some races and not others, while some may occur in all races and some may exist one specific race only. From this, if we are studying an AMM bee and we find an allele that can only exist in Ligustica, then we know that this specimen is definitely a hybrid. . So, you are saying that if we had the equipment, we could identify each race or a hybrid thereof by identifying the presence or absence of certain alleles. Correct? Mike in LA --------------------------------- Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:53:07 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) In-Reply-To: <394989.50129.qm@web53406.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Mike > So, you are saying that if we had the equipment, we could identify > each race or a hybrid thereof by identifying the presence or absence > of certain alleles. Correct? You cannot put it in quite such simple terms, but you should not use this technique first. You can only use a test like this as the last resort, if you have a bee colony that looks like AMM, behaves like AMM and has been morphometricly verified as AMM with a high degree of purity over many years, then you can go the extra mile and weed out those few colonies that still might contain Ligustica genes (as yet we cannot eliminate any other race than Ligustica, but as we in UK see this as the most destructive interloper to our natural bees it is very helpful to us). Your first priority should be analysis of the population by means of detailed records of each colony in the population. Refine your population based on recognisable behaviours. When you have behaviour patterns that fit the race, you can use morphometry to establish the degree of hybridisation. Make further selections based on your findings. So now we have a population that has the behaviours that we desired and is getting close to being un-hybridised As we now have pretty good specimens (very high purity), the discrimination for further improvement has to be a bigger sledgehammer, enter DNA, now we can look in the nooks and crannies for alleles that should not be there. There is no point in doing this testing until a very high degree of purity is existent( 99%+ pure by other means ). Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:34:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brother Adams and others searched far and wide to identify several types of honeybees..many with distinctive and unique characteristics. He also observed that in the space of a few years, some of the strains (such as the Greek if I rermember correctly) were swamped out by people bringing in other stock. Does anybody know of an effort to seek and preserve what is left of the various strins of honeybees. I would cetainly not complain if I saw a portion of my tax money going to such an endeavor. John Horton N Alabama ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:15:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >> What I would like to know from them is how much can we really expect >> from any kind of bee breeding program? It depends upon the trait that you want to breed for. Many traits involve a suite of genes. The fewer the number of genes needed, the easier. Measure that trait in all your colonies to see if there is variation, e.g, test for mite level Aug 15. Breed from the "best" (this is where you can go wrong, since there may be unintended consequences) to see if the trait is heritable. If the trait involves one or a few genes, there is variation in the population, and the trait is heritable, you have a good chance of success. Dave's and Pete's points are well taken. When I brought in various purported mite-tolerant stocks for a few years, I had no idea how my bees would perform year to year, since there was no consistency. It was like the volunteer squashes that come up in the compost pile--you have no idea what they are going to look like! I found it difficult to manage my bees, since I no longer could predict when they would build up, how much they would swarm, how productive they would be, how hot or gentle they would be, or how they would winter. Now I'm in my second year of whittling out the ones I don't want, and breeding (both queens and drones) from the ones I do want. I go through 1 - 2 generations a year. My potential breeders for next season are looking very good so far. But for all I know, they could crash from CCD, or something else unforseen that I haven't selected for. Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:03:42 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >those few colonies that still might contain Ligustica genes (as yet we >cannot eliminate any other race than Ligustica, but as we in UK see this as >the most destructive interloper to our natural bees it is very helpful to >us). Dave, I'm curious. If ligustica is "destructive" in your area, why hasn't natural selection weeded it out? Randy ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:40:39 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) In-Reply-To: <15b401c80ce9$76afdfd0$47ab5142@MyPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Randy > Dave, I'm curious. If ligustica is "destructive" in your area, why > hasn't natural selection weeded it out? The destructive effect is the nastiness that occurs as soon as there is an incursion of Ligustica genes. It is selected out by conditions to some extent, but consider how persistently AHB genes hang on. The small physical size and small genitalia of ligustica endows a similar mating preference to AHB... http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/sizematingpreference.html Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:02:20 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: P-O Gustafsson Subject: Re: Queen II and Queen Longevity In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > What has been the experience of those > of you who have used II in your queen production? Is II a viable > alternative to free flight mating in your estimation? I find the greatest difficulty to be drone production. No problem to inseminate queens, it's a matter of few minutes per queen. But it's a different thing with the boys. They don't live long outside the hive, you got half an hour or so to collect the semen when taking them from the hives. If you want a wider selection of genetics, you need drones from many hives. Lets say you run 10 lines of drones that every queen should have a reasonable mix of semen from. That is probably on the low side for a sustainable long time program, 15 to 30 different lines would be better. Then you don't have the time to collect semen from them all before they are too exhausted. Then we have the trouble to raise all the drones lines and keep them in hives until they get mature. Lock them inside with excluders, let them out for a pee pee now and then in the evenings, one hive at the time so they don't mix. Believe me, insemination is a piece of cake compared to keeping all those boys alive and happy! And in the end, many of them are "dry" anyway and of no use. I still do a few inseminations every year, but rely on open mating for most of my "queen mothers". > I'm contemplating taking Susan > Cobey's II courses in an effort to provide my area's beekeepers > with queens of know linage and known mating. If II queens are not > a viable alternative to open mated queens then I don't want to > spend the money, time, and effort to provide II services to my > area. I bought her video, and learned from that. No need to go to school...her video (or DVD) is exelent and enough to learn II. Mike, I find II valuble in research, but not so much in real life unless you have large funds to spend. Much better stay with open mating, if you have the area with your own genetic material available for mating. II can quickly lead to too much inbreeding. It's very hard to keep all those lines of drones you need... -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden pogust@gmail.com http://beeman.se ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:08:38 -0400 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Interesting NZ study re. honey & rats and even more interestin g commentary... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > What surprised me was Dr. Mercola's allegation that a > good chunk of US honey is based on HFCS. Anybody have > 3rd party references on this? There aren't any. The claim is bogus, random, and specious. Mercola was quoting a mere comment posted on his message board about one of his other "articles". It was contributed by someone named "Russ Bianchi", who claims to be a biochemist, but is apparently much more interested in dissing everything that his product might replace: http://www.zijapower.com/zija-management-team.html http://www.zijapower.com/what-is-zija.html ...and seems to spend most of his time posting such comments on various "alternative health" message boards. (Based upon a quick Google.) The specific claims made by this Bianchi person are below, and are about what one would expect from a "comment" made on a public website where "health" and "alternative healing" is discussed. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/08/13/honey-as-m edicine-is-making-a-comeback.aspx "Of course all naturally derived Manuka Honey works for this application, just don't try this with domestic (USA) Grade A Honey which has an over 75% probability of being force fed and regurgitated (BEE BARF) High Fructose Corn Syrup, or Invert Sugar, flavored and colored "honey", that increases infection, based on pH and lack of any naturally occurring enzymatic or anti bacterial or anti microbial characteristics. The dirty BIG secret in the USA is the VAST majority of honey produced in late Summer, all of Fall, all of Winter, and early Spring, is NOT real honey from botanical sources (pollen, sap, nectar, etc.) converted by bees, but rather force fed man made refined and HARMFUL sugars, irrespective of USDA certification or organic certification!!! How can you tell the difference as a consumer? Invariably REAL HONEY cost two to three time more the supermarket or generic mass produced brands in the plastic honey bear packaging. Price is also a indicator of real maple syrup versus economically cut with other sweeteners or water or preservatives (many times not declared and way under policed)." Now this person clearly hasn't a single clue. He also does not write in the style of someone educated in the sciences. "Pop Tart" is simply too good for him - we'll have to call him a mere "Generic Toaster Pastry". If he was a "biochemist" he would know the ease with which HFCS contamination (or even deliberate adulteration) can be detected in honey, and the ubiquitous nature of such tests when honey changes hands in any quantity. Recall that Mercola himself is an "alternative medicine practitioner" who uses "lab tests" that may be unique to his "practice", and engages in "lifestyle medicine", which is a fancy way of charging suckers^h^h^h^h^h^h^h patients a fee for giving them a sales pitch on all sorts of dubious stuff. For example, he says in his FAQ: "You are welcome to bring a copy of your blood work results for us to review but we perform more comprehensive lab tests than the standard lab tests and we have a more precise interpretation of the lab tests we run. Therefore, it is required for each patient to run our specific battery of lab tests." If it quacks like a quack, and walks like a quack.... ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:06:55 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Beekeeping in La Gomera, Canary Isles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable We are considering a holiday in La Gomera, Canary Islands and would be = grateful for any beekeeping contacts there. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:45:01 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Horton wrote: > Brother Adams and others searched far and wide to identify several types > of honeybees..many with distinctive and unique characteristics. Brother Adam, like other proponents of hybridisation, sought out pure strains which he then used to to create hybrids. Is it not ironic that his actions then helped to dilute, if not destroy, some of the pure strains upon which his work depended? We have gene banks for seeds to ensure that original strains are not lost, yet most do little to ensure that pure strains of bees survive. > Does anybody know of an effort to seek and preserve what is left of the > various strins of honeybees. Yes - we have projects in Europe to preserve the North European Dark Bee. > I would cetainly not complain if I saw a portion of my tax money going to > such an endeavor. We will be delighted to put you money to good use - just as soon as you can persuade your government to send it here! Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:51:22 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/10/2007 17:06:24 GMT Standard Time, randyoliver@INFS.NET writes: Dave, I'm curious. If ligustica is "destructive" in your area, why hasn't natural selection weeded it out? It was fashionable about 30 years ago and promoted by the people who wrote the popular books that new beekeepers who don't know any better read now and so it is still imported. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:47:28 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/10/2007 15:38:45 GMT Standard Time, johnhort@BELLSOUTH.NET writes: Does anybody know of an effort to seek and preserve what is left of the various strins of honeybees. I would cetainly not complain if I saw a portion of my tax money going to such an endeavor. Perhaps you should subscribe to BIBBA which is concentrating on the preservation and improvement of Apis mellifera mellifera. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:14:48 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/10/2007 13:19:13 GMT Standard Time, bhfarms@SUSCOM-MAINE.NET writes: . In essence, we are managers of the bee we want and not necessarily the bee that would do best as a feral. The only way to have a colony that does mesh with the area is to leave it alone. Beekind and mankind have differing ambitions: theirs is to survive and reproduce; ours is maximisation of profits (greatest reduction of loss). It is where these different interests overlap rather than compete that the bee breeder should concentrate his efforts. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:48:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: how do they stay up so late and still make sense In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 12-Oct-07, at 7:14 PM, Chris Slade wrote: Hi Chris and all Here you are Chris at or after midnight reading and responding to Bee- L posts. I spend from 9-10PM on my computer, but can't go any later without my forehead hitting the keyboard. Enjoy your posts as always. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:54:34 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Queen II and Queen Longevity In-Reply-To: <470FB6AC.2050803@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi P-O > I find the greatest difficulty to be drone production. No problem to > inseminate queens, it's a matter of few minutes per queen. I agree wholeheartedly ! > But it's a different thing with the boys. They don't live long > outside the hive, We have recently found a way of improving this, if you make your drone flight cage over a five frame nuc that has a mesh screen between the nuc and flight area. Then we can lay our drone cages on the mesh and the workers in the nuc have contact with them and they do not die so readily. The cages are drone excluder sides and have the plugs removed, but the drones mainly stay near the workers and only a few fly into the collection cage at a time. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:45:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris Slade wrote: > Beekind and mankind have differing ambitions: theirs is to survive and > reproduce; ours is maximisation of profits (greatest reduction of loss). It is > where these different interests overlap rather than compete that the bee > breeder should concentrate his efforts. > > I am at a loss to see where the beekeeper's (mankind) "ambition" for the bee differers from the bee's "to survive and reproduce". It seems they mesh.Otherwise why all the talk on this list about combating Varroa and other diseases to help the bee to survive and reproduce. Also seems to fit with maximizing of profit by reducing loss. The discussion is about bee breeding and the intent of that breeding includes the survival of the bee as well as reproduction and a stable population as a consequence. A very harmonious relationship with no differing interests.. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 04:58:25 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 13/10/2007 03:06:42 GMT Standard Time, bobbee@INTERLOG.COM writes: Here you are Chris at or after midnight reading and responding to Bee- L posts. I spend from 9-10PM on my computer, but can't go any later without my forehead hitting the keyboard. Enjoy your posts as always. Bob Darrell Hi Bob, It was 1.06 am that I sent the last post to this list. Re-reading it suggests that it is easy to pontificate and theorise in the long watches of the night but I can't for the moment think of any practical applications of what I wrote. Perhaps you can. Did you go to Apimondia? I have yet to read a full report and Trevor is uncharacteristically reticent. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 04:15:22 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited (alleles) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 13/10/2007 00:57:23 GMT Standard Time, CSlade777@AOL.COM writes: <> Left to itself, it probably would. I've tried keeping it in the past, and I found that the queens mated poorly in bad summers, which would eliminate many of them over time. Another problem is uncertain temper. I bought two nucs off a local commercial beek this year, to boost stocks, and found that while one was OK, the other got decidedly nasty as the hive built up. The real problem, I think, is that the commercial people tend to go for either Italians or Carniolans. Regards, Robert Brenchley, Birmingham UK ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:43:52 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: (alleles)... a rider In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all Offlist I have been taken to task about some of the points I mentioned... I have no intention of misleading anyone, my post was a simplification and analogy that I know is not totally accurate, the post aimed at getting people to realise that genetics is not impossible to understand, but anyone that is stirred by what I said can easily follow up everything in more detail. There are two points that should be raised in correction, the first is my spelling of locii, this is an entrenched error in my own spelling, the correct version is loci. The second point is my reference to pronunciation of the word allele, it appears that the English pronunciation of the word is less common than I thought, and that I ought to 'bend with the wind' and go with the American pronunciation to avoid any confusion. My use of the word linkage in my post was not intended to equate to 'genetic linkage', but to illustrate that a factor can be derived by different routes. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:53:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: (alleles)... a rider In-Reply-To: <4710CB98.5010505@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman wrote: > > My use of the word linkage in my post was not intended to equate to > 'genetic linkage', but to illustrate that a factor can be derived by > different routes. The latest info on this makes much of what we thought was a simple exchange at specific sites to be not quite true, so linkage is an excellent word. It has gotten much more complicated with various sites being crucial for a trait as well as more things happening at a single site than what was thought to be true. Much more complicated than we thought with RNA and proteins all in the mix to a greater extent. I thought I understood genetics but it has gone way beyond my pay grade. Anyone using a textbook is out of date. Always appreciate your posts as informative and well thought out, even when we disagree :) Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:45:20 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Bill said: > The discussion is about bee breeding and the intent of that breeding > includes the survival of the bee as well as reproduction and a stable > population as a consequence. A very harmonious relationship with no > differing interests.. I agree wholeheartedly! I simply want a bee that is well adapted for my area, and that takes the least input from me, in general. That said, I'm willing to help those bees a bit, since my area is a virtual desert (as far as bees are concerned) from July 1 until after the winter solstice. So I move some to better pasture, or provide them with a bit of feed. If I were a stationary beekeeper, not gaining my main income from almond pollination, my selection criteria would be slightly different, and would include breeding for survival during the local dearth. The analogy might be with a cattle rancher, who chooses a well-adapted stock of cattle, yet feeds them during drought. Randy Oliver ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:04:06 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris posted > Did you go to Apimondia? I have yet to read a full report and Trevor is > uncharacteristically reticent. I thought you got the most important information i.e. the Honey Queen result. >From my point of view, and some may say it is biaised, it was great. Despite running around doing organising duties, I was able to catch up with many friends from around the world, caught a few presentations and was able to see all of the ApiExpo over time. The Technical Tour day was very interesting and no, they didn't get attacked by snakes, spiders or crocodiles. We had some from one of the tours visit us after Apimondia and there were a few of your fellow country men and women on that tour. They were quite pleasant and I managed to keep them away from the snakes, spiders and crocodiles when we went looking at bees. They might have got a bee sting but if they did, they did not complain. So all in all you missed a great time but hey you didn't get attacked by snakes, spiders or crocodiles and that is good. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA Thinking he now has to re-learn French for Apimondia 2009 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:12:11 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 13/10/2007 12:46:04 GMT Standard Time, bhfarms@SUSCOM-MAINE.NET writes: A very harmonious relationship with no differing interests.. The bee might prefer not to be too close to neighbours who will be constantly probing her hive's defences in the hope of a free meal: the beekeeper for economy, especially of travelling time, likes to keep lots of hives in one place. The bee might like to build up the colony with the season: the beekeeper likes artificially to build up the colony before the seasonal forage is available. The bee would prefer to have a mixture of forage within easy range without too much competition: the beekeeper keeps lots of hives together so they have to compete or to extend their foraging area. The bee likes to have some natural forage available at all times: the migratory beekeeper ensures they alternate between glut and desert. The bee prefers to have a population appropriate to her race, the latitude, altitude, average local forage, climate and season: the beekeeper seeks to maximise population so he can get his asking price for pollination fees or maximum honey from a flow. The bee insists on leaving the hive to ease her bowels: the beekeeper shuts up the hive and subjects it to a prolonged, stressful journey and then has to treat against nosema. The bee uses propolis which keeps many diseases at a low level: the beekeeper selects against propolis collection or keeps his bees where there is none to be had and then feeds antibiotics. The bee prefers to maintain or reproduce the colony by supersedure or swarming: the beekeeper frowns on both these activities and introduces a strange queen to take over the egg laying role. The bee prefers to winter on her own stores: the beekeeper, aware of the difference in price between honey and sugar takes the former and feeds the latter. The bee can cope with pests and diseases that have been her enemies from the time of her longfathers of yore: the beekeeper keeps challenging her with unfamiliar pests from abroad. The bee might keep ahead of the varroa mite by frequent swarming or absconding: the beekeeper tries diligently to thwart her. The bee prefers to rear her sisters in fresh comb: the beekeeper ensures that only heavily used comb is available for the queen to lay in. Need I go on? Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:58:15 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 13/10/2007 23:51:47 GMT Standard Time, queenbee@GIL.COM.AU writes: I was able to catch up with many friends from around the world, caught a few presentations and was able to see all of the ApiExpo over time. Is there available on line a list or synopsis of the presentations and of the firms in the ApiExpo and their wares and view of life the universe and beekeeping? Remind me again of the name of the World Honey Queen. I am told that in her acceptance speech she said her country would be bidding to be host in 2013. It is likely that they will be in competition with Great Britain for that honour. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 20:12:03 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > It was 1.06 am that I sent the last post to this list. Re-reading it > suggests that it is easy to pontificate and theorise in the long > watches of the > night but I can't for the moment think of any practical > applications of what I > wrote. Perhaps you can. > Knowing what a bee breeder is aiming to achieve would assist beekeepers in choosing stock that matches the needs of their operation. Unfortunately, many queen producers are dealing in quantity and likely don't know the characteristics of their stock. A well known member of this list , at a joint meeting in Niagara Falls, called north american queen production a "crap shoot" > Did you go to Apimondia? I have yet to read a full report and > Trevor is > uncharacteristically reticent. I did not attend Apimondia in Melbourne. September is a busy bee time here and Australia deserves more than a week or two. I am planning to attend the conference in France in 2009. South America is the only continent(ex Antarctica) that I haven't visited, so Argentina is inviting in 2011 Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:39:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <4710A1C1.2050404@suscom-maine.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 13-Oct-07, at 6:45 AM, Bill Truesdell wrote: > > The discussion is about bee breeding and the intent of that > breeding includes the survival of the bee as well as reproduction > and a stable population as a consequence. A very harmonious > relationship with no differing interests.. > Hi Bill and all I believe that Chris Slade, Dave Cushman and others on their side of the pond are trying to return to the pure black bee(AMM) without any influence from any other race. We on this side are continuing to mix in genetics from other races(Russians) to improve the genetics we have previously imported. While visiting family in Ireland this summer I dropped in on a beekeeper in the outskirts of Dublin. Over a cup of tea we discussed beekeeping in Canada and Ireland. He was obviously proud of the work he and others were doing to return to the "Irish bee". I believe that the Irish bee, the black bee and AMM are one and the same(please correct me if I am wrong). This Irish beekeeper was very aware of the level of yellow(Italian bee) in his hives by being able to use morphology. I had to look up the meaning of the word in the dictionary and have a vague idea of the process, but the term is not well known by beekeepers that I know here. Discussing bee breeding involves knowing what the other guy is doing. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:23:09 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 14/10/2007 03:48:59 GMT Standard Time, bobbee@INTERLOG.COM writes: I believe that the Irish bee, the black bee and AMM are one and the same(please correct me if I am wrong). You're right, Bob. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 17:55:23 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris posted > Is there available on line a list or synopsis of the presentations and of > the firms in the ApiExpo and their wares and view of life the universe and > beekeeping? I think there are some copies of the book of abstracts left. I will check and let you know how much they are and where you can get them. The website is still current (not sure for how long) and if you go to it www.apimondia2007.com then click on ApiExpo, then go down the page, you will see the list of exhibitors and if you click on each you will get a summary of what they are about. Not all submitted this resume. > Remind me again of the name of the World Honey Queen. I am told that in > her > acceptance speech she said her country would be bidding to be host in > 2013. It > is likely that they will be in competition with Great Britain for that > honour. The lady was Tatiana (if I have the spelling right). Not like you to forget something as important as the Honey Queen Chris. Yes the Ukraine did say they were going to bid for 2013. Not being up with Apimondia politics, I would imagine that Mexico might also bid again for 2013. I wouldn't see them putting all that effort into the bid at Melbourne just to walk away and not bid again. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:29:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob Darrell wrote: > > I believe that Chris Slade, Dave Cushman and others on their side of > the pond are trying to return to the pure black bee(AMM) without any > influence from any other race. We on this side are continuing to mix > in genetics from other races(Russians) to improve the genetics we have > previously imported. Excellent point. We are really talking apples and oranges because honeybees are not native to the US so there really is not settled bee for any region. What we try to do is take a bee, which was settled in an area in some other part of the world that is similar to our area, and try to make it work. In some cases it works and in others it does not. There was an interesting article in a recent Science News about California Salamanders. An import helped in the survival of a native species because of hybrid vigor. The problem is that there has not been enough time to tell if that vigor is lasting. We have the same problem with bees in the US. We may have a "hybrid" bee that seems good but, in time, can express many bad traits of its predecessors and not be that good a choice. Brother Adam's bees seem to have disappeared from most of the US, for example.They did exhibit exceptional characteristics when first introduced but, in time, became something else. So bees in the UK can be bred for the area because they were there "forever" while our bees are all newcomers and there is no distinct "American" ( including both continents) bee. And there never will be because of the tremendous diversity of climate and topography in the Americas. Eventually there would be regional bees just like the rest of the world. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:46:56 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris Slade wrote: > > Bill wrote- > > A very harmonious relationship with no differing interests.. The whole quote is: "The discussion is about bee breeding and the intent of that breeding includes the survival of the bee as well as reproduction and a stable population as a consequence. A very harmonious relationship with no differing interests." I added "stable population" as another thing desired by the breeder (as well as the bee) that you did not include in your original post..In view of the other post on black bees in the UK, I can see where you are coming from. You changed the native bee so you are fighting what was there before, but I still think your interest for the bee are the same as the bee's - survival and reproduction.. We have a blank pallet. We are truly breeding bees that will be stable in our areas Those bees would not survive unless we did breed for change or let nature do it in time, say a few thousand years minimum.Yours are native and stable. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:56:07 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Kevin Yager Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline I think the point of choosing from the best is to avoid the really bad genetics, and avoid colonies that may be missing important characteristics. It's not too hard to understand the value of genetic diversity. So, yes, breeding from the best and only the best queends/drones is probably not suc= h a good idea. And I understand a colony is like a city, we need differences in order to cover all of the needs of a colony, and possible disease that may occur. When I say choose the "best" I don't mean the best drones, I mean choose to rear queens from the best colonies, but let them open mate in order introduce diversity. Seems like in most cases, strictly limiting genetics in the "bad" ways tha= t are being alluded to in other posts would be very hard for most beekeepers to do. So really if we select a well performing colony as our for our quee= n rearing stock, we are selecting a mix of various genetics that seemed to d= o well together. We are not choosing a "narrow" range of genetics because that colony has a broad range of genetics already. I'll suggest that regardless of how wide or narrow the diversity is in commercially produced queens, the queen market, and the commercial breeder= s could very well be biasing the genetics away from healthy honey producing colonies. Here is why. If a breeder makes his money by selling queens, colonies that make it easy for him to rear and sell queens will get an advantage in his operation. Maybe not on purpose. But there will be a bias in favor of those colonies no matter what. And those traits may not be the same traits that would be best for honey producers, or healthy low maintenance colonies. And queen breeders may not have good mechanisms for removing poor performin= g genetics from their product.. If the health and productivity of my colonie= s is reduced by 30% next year how will I know if it was due to the queens I bought, or some other factors? And even if I proved that I had bought queens that mothered poor producing colonies, and even if I feed this news back to the queen breeder, how likely is it that he will in some way be abl= e to change his bloodlines and no longer propagate queens mothering this bad mix of genetics? If I'm raising my own queens, and I have a bad year, I'll probably get some die-outs. And those die-outs will remove colonies that lacked the ability to survive. So, with all of that said, I think breeding from the best "colonies" in a honey producer's bee yard is probably exactly what a honey producer should do. And since most of us non II breeders will not be controlling drones very closely we will continue to get diversity. This is how it seems to me. Kevin On 10/8/07, Peter L. Borst wrote: > > A recent Bee-L post: There is a simple technique anyone can employ. And > that is *breed from your (overall) best stock*. Has proved to be a > remarkably effective technique for thousands of years. > > > > * Breeding from the best is probably a good strategy if you are raising > race > horses or milk cows, but it may be a fatal mistake that the breeders of > bees > have been committing for decades. Of course, at one time, in the age of > bee > skeps and sulfur, the best hives were the first to go! The beekeepers > would > "heft" the skeps and the light ones were killed and harvested because the= y > probably wouldn't survive, and the heavy ones were also killed, because > they > were too good to pass up. So, the average hives were the ones that were > spared! > > * As beekeepers got smarter, they figured the ones they wanted to keep > were > the ones that did the best, but the question has always been: Why do some > hives do better than others? Is it pedigree? Young queens? Luck of the > draw? > > * But seriously, for the past *twenty years* evidence has been mounting > that > not only are the accepted methods of bee breeding not effective in > producing > the desired result, but they may be completely wrong in light of the > mechanisms nature has to ensure the continued health and prosperity of > honey > bee colonies. Health and prosperity is what we all seek in the end, > because > without these, no enterprise can be called "sustainable". > > * I quoted this recently, but it serves as a good introduction to what > follows: > > > Some researchers are wondering if commercial honey bee stocks are based > on > too narrow a genetic base=97and that this makes them vulnerable to diseas= es. > To be effective, behavioral defences in particular require a high level o= f > genetic variation within colonies. This allows colonies to respond > resiliently to the variety of pathogenic and other challenges they face. > If > all workers are the same, they may solve one problem brilliantly but be > more > vulnerable to others. (from: "What's Killing American Honey Bees?" By > Benjamin P. Oldroyd, in Public Library of Science, Biology, June 2007) > > > > * Twenty years ago, Tom Seeley and others were starting to form the idea > that there must be a reason why honey bees mate with dozens of different > drones, when even one could adequately do the job. > > > Here we introduce a new hypothesis, not explicitly considered > previously: > polyandry [multiple mating] increases genetic variation within colonies, > thereby reducing the likelihood that parasites or pathogens will diminish > the worker/defense force to the point of jeopardizing the colony's > survival > and reproduction. > > > The parasite/pathogen hypothesis assumes that the characteristics (e.g.= , > virulence) of the parasites and pathogens afflicting colonies in > successive > generations are always unpredictable, because of parasite-host > coevolution. > This uncertainty forces queens to mate with several males, because they > cannot reliably choose one male carrying resistance to the particular > diseases that may afflict their workers as immatures, adults, or both. > > > Queens of A. mellifera and A. cerana mate with a larger number of males > than any other known Hymenoptera (7-17 times or more and 14-30 times, > respectively. These two honeybee species also harbor a broad array of > viral, > bacterial, fungal, and protozoan diseases, as well as parasitic mites and > nematodes. > > > Given that diseases and parasites are ubiquitous and that their > transmission is probably a universal hazard and cost of group living, > thwarting such enemies may be an important force favoring multiple mating > in > social animals in general and in social insects in particular. (from: > "Parasites, Pathogens, and Polyandry in Social Hymenoptera" by Paul W. > Sherman; Thomas D. Seeley; Hudson K. Reeve, in The American Naturalist, > Apr., 1988) > > > > * Dave Tarpy further explored this theory by comparing colonies with *one > father* to ones with many different fathers: > > > I instrumentally inseminated honeybee queens with semen that was either > genetically similar (from one male) or genetically diverse (from multiple > males), and then inoculated their colonies with spores of Ascosphaera api= s > [chalkbrood], a fungal pathogen that kills developing brood. I show that > genetically diverse colonies had a lower variance in disease prevalence > than > genetically similar colonies, which suggests that genetic diversity may > benefit colonies by preventing severe infections. > > > Increased genetic diversity affects the division of labour within > colonies > by creating a worker force that is collectively more 'average'. This > effect > on worker tasks is particularly pronounced for behaviours that are > strongly > influenced by genotype and have a significant impact on colony phenotype, > such as hygienic behaviour. > > > It is unclear whether polyandry evolved in honeybees in response to > parasites and pathogens, or if reducing the variance in disease prevalenc= e > is an inevitable consequence of multiple mating. It is clear, however, > that > increased genetic diversity within colonies provides them with several > benefits, and thus should be viewed as a trait with pluralistic > consequences. Future work should determine the impact of other parasites > and > pathogens and the relative fitness benefits of these multiple mechanisms. > (from: "Genetic diversity within honeybee colonies prevents severe > infections and promotes colony growth" by David R. Tarpy, in Proceedings, > Royal Society. Biological Sciences. 2003 January 7) > > > > * Most recently, Heather Mattila showed that not only does multiple matin= g > affect the colonies' health, but it also seems to lead to colonies that > produce more bees, more honey, and ultimately allows them to survive wher= e > single father colonies do not: > > > Colony size is closely tied to fitness; larger colonies produce more > drones, have higher winter survival, and issue more swarms. Intracolonial > genetic diversity resulted in considerably more populous and resource-ric= h > colonies, which in turn affected their fitness. Genetically diverse > colonies > reared significantly more drones than genetically uniform colonies before > brood rearing declined in September. The larger, genetically diverse > colonies also collected and stored more food than genetically uniform > colonies and all survived a late-August cold period that starved and > killed > 50% of genetically uniform colonies. The remaining genetically uniform > colonies exhausted their food reserve and died by mid-December, whereas > 25% > of genetically diverse colonies survived to May. (from: "Genetic Diversit= y > in Honey Bee Colonies Enhances Productivity and Fitness" by Heather R. > Mattila and Thomas D. Seeley, in Science July 19, 2007) > > * Just what this all means for the bee industry is not certain. However, = I > have talked to several beekeepers who do not purchase queens, but > systematically divide the best hives in spring, thereby ensuring that > their > colonies have a great diversity of queen *and* drone lines. If I were a > queen breeder (which I am currently not) I would be thinking about gettin= g > as many *different types* of bees as possible and seeing if a really > diverse > mixture of types in every colony would have a beneficial effect on honey > bee > health and prosperity. > > Peter Borst > Danby, NY USA > > ****************************************************** > * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * > * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * > ****************************************************** > ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:26:31 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: how do they stay up so late and still make sense In-Reply-To: <001501c80e37$945f1ab0$b036643b@new1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Trevor > The website is still current (not sure for how long) and if you go to it > www.apimondia2007.com then click on ApiExpo Minor gripe, Apimondia websites ought to be properly archived, rather than just ditched for a blank sheet to start the next event . Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:12:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >I believe that the Irish bee, the black bee and AMM are one and the same(please correct me if I am wrong). The natural range of Apis mellifera mellifera is larger than any other European bee. It is native to the area which includes England, France, Germany, Holland, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia, etc. Some researchers include Spain as well. The area that Amm is adapted to is extremely varied, although we suppose that they evolved during a colder period than what we have now. These bees were *the bees* of the New World for a couple hundred years, until the attempt was made to get rid pf them in favor of Italian bees. The pioneers of American beekeeping (Miller, Dadant, Root, Langstroth) lived in a cold region ranging from Illinois to Massachusetts. They must have assured themselves that the Italian was capable of withstanding harsh winters before they undertook wholesale to replace the hardy black bee. -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:31:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L._Borst?=" Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Kevin Yager wrote: > the queen market, and the commercial breeders could very well be biasing the genetics away from healthy honey producing colonies. Right, that is what I have be saying all along. Now, the interesting thing is: we have seen some colonies surviving in situations of non-human care, such as neglected colonies or so-called feral hives. Some people have speculated (Tom Seeley and Joe Waggle, for example) that the colonies could have "evolved" a natural defense against mites, AFB, etc. This has always seemed *to me* to be highly unlikely as most of these colonies have neither the requisite time nor isolation to develop into a regional type. Maybe if the colonies were trapped on an island, like Santa Rosa and lived there for years. But even in that case, the island population was wiped out by varroa. It would appear that in that case, the pool did not contain the necessary traits for natural selection to "produce" a mite-resistant type. On the other hand, the effect may be due to just the opposite. Not natural selection of a particular type -- but -- perhaps these colonies revert to a more heterogeneous "wild type" that is in fact a composite of the many types that are present in the average location in the USA. States like NY and PA see a continual influx of bees from many states, so it would be more likely that the bees would become more diverse over time than they would become more regionalized over time. So again, it may be that by selecting bees for one thing or another we narrow the gene pool and even though they are not inbred per se (which causes the colonies to fail due to lack of brood viability) -- they may be narrowed sufficiently to lose the genetic diversity needed to be vigorous and healthy colonies. Time will tell what further studies from Tom's lab will reveal! -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:50:12 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob & Bill > I believe that Chris Slade, Dave Cushman and others on their side of the > pond are trying to return to the pure black bee(AMM) I would couch it in different terms, it is not that I am trying to return to AMM, but that I am trying to return to a stable state and AMM gives me the best chance of doing that. The natural range of AMM includes Great Britain and Ireland (and a large part of Europe) therefore it has evolved to suit the habitats that are within that geographic range, the habitats are wide ranging in terms of weather, flora and fauna. From this we can deduce that the AMM bee is at least adaptable enough to cope with all the varying conditions, but that does not mean that you can take a colony of AMM bees from Salzburg and plonk it in Dublin and expect it to perform the same. I use AMM bees because they are the choice made by nature, over millennia, for the region where I live, it is hard work to go against the grain. Bill says... > We are really talking apples and oranges because honeybees are not > native to the US so there really is not settled bee for any region. While we can't say there is a bee that is natural to the US, the size of the place and variance in habitats is not much different to the ranges inhabited by AMM in Europe, so the possibility should be there to establish a US bee population. I would have thought that AMM was a very good candidate for this purpose as it is very adaptable. However US beekeepers have progressively eliminated what AMM stock that was imported to US many years ago... http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/us_uk_dna.html I think the reasons were twofold, first when Italian genes are introduced into AMM populations, the normal docile behaviour deteriorates and the bees become aggressive, even nasty. The other reason is that Italian bees were chosen on the false premise that 'more bees make more honey' and Italian bees are noted for their inappropriate over production of brood. More bees make more honey is only true if comparing colonies of similar type, so if you were comparing Italian colonies, in general the ones with more bees would gather a bigger surplus. Providing you are comparing AMM to AMM the saying also holds true, but you can't compare AMM to Ligustica and say it because it is the total number of bee foraging journeys that gather the crop, the length of bee working hours and industry while working come into play so the comparison is bunk. Bob Harrison on this list has criticised AMM as 'welfare bees' because the colonies he kept did no good, I would ask what was the AMM contaminated with and what selection strategies were used in the development of the strain that he was complaining about. I think those that decided Italian bees were best for US made a wrong choice, the natural range of Ligustica is rather small and not very variable in conditions. I also think the idea that bigger colonies are better influenced the decision Another point is that US beeks seem to count their yield by the hive, I think a fairer measure of yield is to count the honey weight per brood box employed and the amount of beekeeper labour input. I know in my own system three hives each with a single brood box of AMM will outperform any bee I have ever seen that needs three brood chambers for a nest and it takes no more beekeeper work to run three single box hives compared to a single hive with three deeps. In those years when a single box hive produces six or 8 supers of honey, does a triple deep colony produce 18 to 24 supers ? Bob Darrell mentions... > able to use morphology. I have clipped this from my website, there is often confusion in the use of and meaning of the two words. "Morphometry Called Morphology in some parts of the world However, morphometry is the precise study of anatomical characters by measurement and morphology is merely the study of form and structure. Morphometry takes Morphology a stage further and applies physical measurements and numbers to the features noted by morphology. Bob also says... > but the term is not well known by beekeepers that I know here. I would not suggest it is top of the agenda for many UK beeks either, but we have an organisation in UK... BIBBA that has been promoting local breeding of bees for over forty years and that includes demonstrating to beekeepers and provision of workshop training sessions in all aspects of raising queens and selecting them fro improvement, so morphometry is better known in UK, but not by as many beekeepers as I would like to see take interest. We have Our National Honey Show in UK this week... http://www.honeyshow.co.uk/ Apart from the competitive showing of honey there will be a stream of erudite lectures and there is a trade hall as well, of the small number of stands (27), one will be put on by BIBBA and another put on on behalf of the Bee Instrumental Insemination Group, which reminds me I need to print up leaflets ready for the fray, I doubt if any US beekeepers will be visiting, but anyone that will be there is welcome to have a chat with me on the BIIG stand and whoever is manning the BIBBA stand would also be pleased to chat. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable) ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:07:44 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 14/10/2007 14:17:20 GMT Standard Time, jageryager@GMAIL.COM writes: I think the point of choosing from the best is to avoid the really bad genetics, and avoid colonies that may be missing important characteristics. The emphasis should be not on breeding from the best but culling the worst. This can be done partly by General Winter and partly by digital pressure on the queens of bad tempered colonies BEFORE they rear drones. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:02:05 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 14/10/2007 13:21:27 GMT Standard Time, bhfarms@SUSCOM-MAINE.NET writes: We are truly breeding bees that will be stable in our areas Those bees would not survive unless we did breed for change or let nature do it in time, say a few thousand years minimum.Yours are native and stable. We are aiming for native and stable, which is what we once had, but have been bedevilled by imports. I don't think you are likely to achieve a local version of native and stable unless you stop moving bees (especially queens) around as much as appears to happen in the USA. As most of the country seems to be uninhabitable for much of each year, the climate would exert strong selective pressure and I think the objectives could be achieved in decades rather then millennia. Chris ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:23:18 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Steve Rose Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited In-Reply-To: <47122CA4.3010707@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman wrote: > > The other reason is that Italian bees were chosen on the false premise > that 'more bees make more honey' and Italian bees are noted for their > inappropriate over production of brood. > > More bees make more honey is only true if comparing colonies of > similar type, so if you were comparing Italian colonies, in general > the ones with more bees would gather a bigger surplus. Although I do not have Dave's experience I would add what I believe to be another important point in support of the AMM. According to Beowulf Cooper and Wedmore (although I have not come across the point in the only Wedmore book I have) AMM adult workers typically live for 2 or 3 weeks longer than Italians. This, in effect, about doubles their foraging life. This results in colonies with foraging forces comparable to Italians but with significantly less brood and nurses to support. Added to this the small and relatively inactive winter clusters require much less winter stores. All this results in a greater proportion of the nectar collected being converted to surplus honey. Regards Steve Rose, Derbyshire UK ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:49:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Italianizing, Part I MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Dave writes: > However US beekeepers have progressively eliminated what AMM stock that was imported to US many years ago... I think the reasons were twofold, first when Italian genes are introduced into AMM populations, the normal docile behaviour deteriorates and the bees become aggressive, even nasty. The other reason is that Italian bees were chosen on the false premise that 'more bees make more honey' and Italian bees are noted for their inappropriate over production of brood. * Your first point is well taken. When Italians were brought in the hybrids were found to be vicious. These days the black bees take a bad rap for what was probably the behavior of hybrids. * The second point is not supported by the evidence, however. A. I . Root was one of the champions of the movement to replace ALL black bees with Italians. I doubt seriously that practical American beekeepers would have followed suit if the bees were not *actually* just as good as the claims that were made. And, even back in the 1800s they had already identified the problem of selecting for traits unrelated to vigor. Read this from my 1890 edition of the ABC XYZ of Bee Culture: > At present the Italians are by far the most profitable bees we have and even the hybrids have shown themselves so far ahead of the common bee that I think we may safely consider all discussions in the matter at an end. Many times we find colonies of hybrids that go ahead of the pure stock but as a general thing taking one season with another the pure Italians (where they have not been enfeebled by choosing the light colored bees to breed from) are ahead of any admixture. There has been a great tendency with bees as well as other stock to pay more attention to looks than to real intrinsic worth such as honey gathering prolificness of the queens hardiness, etc.; and I think this may have had much to do with the severe losses we have sustained in winters past. > Even if it were true that hybrids produce as much honey as pure Italians each beekeeper would want at least one queen of absolute and known purity for although a first cross might do very well, unless he had this one pure queen to furnish queen cells he would soon have bees of all possible grades from the faintest trace of Italian blood all the way up. The objection to this course is that these blacks with about one band to show trace of Italian blood are the wickedest bees to sting that can well be imagined, being very much more vindictive than either race in its purity they also have a very disagreeable way of tumbling off the combs in a perfectly demoralized state whenever the hive is opened except in the height of the honey season and of making a general uproar when they are compelled by smoke to be decent. > Our pure Italian stocks can be opened at any time and their queens removed scarcely disturbing the cluster and as a general thing without the use of any smoke at all by one who is fully conversant with the habits of bees. A good many hybrids will not repel the moth as do the half bloods and the pure Italians. For these reasons and several others I would rear all queens from one of known purity. If we do this we may have almost if not quite the full benefit of the Italians as *honey gatherers* even though there are black bees all about us. > If you are going to raise queens for the market, you should buy up or Italianize all the common bees within two or three miles of you , in every direction. -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:40:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: SFGate article on Traynor & Almonds Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/14/CM2SS2SNO.DTL&type=business ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:14:04 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Italianizing, Part I In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave writes: > first when Italian genes are introduced into AMM populations,the normal docile behaviour deteriorates and the bees become aggressive, even nasty. Peter writes: * When Italians were brought in the hybrids were found to be vicious. These days the black bees take a bad rap for what was probably the behavior of hybrids. Reply: With yellow bees, being yellow bees, and their known to be aggressive behaviour with italians even, this sure makes todays AHB hybridization something to think about for many beekeepers, if facts could be layed out for study in schools for what is actually being seen genetically, let alone size wise, and how the bees in question fit into the localized area, if they do at all, with so much movement around today migratory. sincerely, Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better Heartthrob. Get better relationship answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545433 ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:49:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Honey Bee Breeding, Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >However US beekeepers have progressively eliminated what AMM stock that was imported to US many years ago... Guilty as charged. Every year our president pardons a turkey. In the same manor I always kept at least one A.mm around for years but other than being nasty bees to work they were very susceptable to brood disease. Even shaking on foundation they needed constant watching for foulbrood. >I think the reasons were twofold, first when Italian genes are introduced into AMM populations, the normal docile behaviour deteriorates and the bees become aggressive, even nasty. In the fifties we had around forty colonies of A.m.m. and they were from an import and they had many qualities we did not care for. I really can remember little I cared for about the bees. In the seventies I got another batch to try. Same bad traits. Both batches were exactly like Brother Adam described in his writings. Perhaps those bees would be OK for hobby beekeepers but certainly were not an asset to the profit minded beekeeper. The Italians I work today and replaced the A.mm with I can work with open pants legs and only a smoker. Keeping a few hives of A.mm around for conversation pieces might be OK but not my idea of the best bee for the commercial U.S. beekeeper. The Italian bee is the prefered bee of commercial beekeeping the world over. At meetings today I get in trouble over my *opinion* that I buy carniolan only when I can not get Italians. This spring I got package bees with carniolan queens from a 900 package shipment. None produced any honey while the Italian stock off the same shipment made supers. They are strong hives NOW (and most could go into almonds) but the explosion Carniolan queen breeders talk about did not happen with those bees. Some of those packages ended up in the Dakota's and are strong *now* but produced no honey while the italians produced 2 to 4 deeps full of honey. All were three pound package bees. These bees cost us money. The cost of the package, meds and labor. Even if sold into almonds we will only break even. What happened? In my opinion the queen breeder which sent the breeder queen for the batch dropped the ball and selected for crap commercial beekeepers care little about such as: 1. queen color. 2. wing length and forgot about 1. prolific 2. honey production >The other reason is that Italian bees were chosen on the false premise that 'more bees make more honey' and Italian bees are noted for their inappropriate over production of brood. Italian bees side by side with all other races* I have used* will make at least a super of honey better in honey production. When I find a better bee ( I am always trying other lines ) I will switch! "fill a super with bees in a honey flow and the bees will fill the box with honey" I really like the Australian import Italians! These bees really produce. We have got a video taken in California( shown at the spring 2005 KHPA meeting) in almonds showing the Australian bees flying to almonds in RAIN (while several of our best Italian lines huddled at the entrance). Flew and hour earlier and an hour later than our U.S. italians. Also the queens from Browns bees Australia are crossed with lines from italy ( imported into Australia through the Australian import system) which have been exposed to varroa and bred for TM resistance and need no treatment for tracheal mites. >Bob Harrison on this list has criticised AMM as 'welfare bees' because the colonies he kept did no good, If its any comfort I have got some U.S. lines which I consider welfare bees also! Little has changed since the year I was on the Irish Beekeeping list I can see! I still hear the roar of the members when I voiced my opinion on A.mm and also my never ending support of the work of Brother Adam! I agree with his methods completely and used Buckfast bees for years till the quality of my Buckfast queens went south. >I think those that decided Italian bees were best for US made a wrong choice, I guess we will have to "agree to disagree" >Another point is that US beeks seem to count their yield by the hive, I think a fairer measure of yield is to count the honey weight per brood box employed and the amount of beekeeper labour input. What I am going to say some may say is impossible but I assure you its true and done on a regular basis. In certain areas of the U.S. Italian bees on huge areas of sweet clover will produce a 55 gallon barrel of honey for every pallet of four hives in a matter of a few weeks. in fact two deeps filled in a week is not uncommon and a top producer will fill 4 to 6 deeps on a strong flow. Some of those locations have got 72 to 100 hives of bees. While I was on the road last week looking at large commercial operations and talking to commercial beekeepers in several states I saw excellent bees. Australian import 2007 bees in South Dakota with fifteen frames of bees and ready for transport to California for almonds. Pictures in my December ABJ article. I am beginning to believe the die off last fall (by certain beekeepers which indeed did have huge losses) was mostly caused by weather (driest year since the 1936 dust bowl days in my area), nosema and poor varroa control. Weather is not bad but still dry in many areas, most beekeepers are treating for nosema and all I have spoke with have paid attention to varroa control and many have went back to testing and treating if needed twice a year. I have been very surprised that despite the CCD team saying not to reuse CCD deadouts that those which did and treated for nosema and controlled varroa are reporting the best bees in years! Even commercial beekeepers with bees on known contaminated comb seem to have good bees this year. Some of their bees look better than mine and I changed out all my comb which had chemical strips used. My bees look best in years but still some of these guys bees look as good or better. The winter is not over yet and almond pollination is yet to come but from what I see and hear CCD is going the route of the disappearing disease of old. Happened in 2006 but not repeated in 2007. >From what I see there will only be a shortage( if a shortage) in almonds because of new trees needing bees as many beekeepers say they are going this year which have not been since the drought hit. I have not talked to a commercial Midwest beekeeper with CCD problems or bees doing poorly. Of course many are worried as strong hives crashed in two weeks last fall but so far so good! Tomorrow I am calling out of state beekeepers for my article but last time we talked their bees were best in years! Sincerely, Bob Harrison -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:07:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Italianizing, Part II MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >From Cook's Manual of the Apiary, 1882: In 1843 Von Baldenstein procured a colony of these [Italian] bees which he had previously observed as peculiar while stationed as a military captain in Italy. He published his experience in 1848 which was read by Dzierzon who became interested and through him the Italian became generally introduced into Germany. In 1859 six years after Dzierzon's first importation the Italian variety was introduced into England by Neighbour. The same year Messrs Wagner and Colvin imported the Italians from Dzierzon's apiary into America and in 1860 Mr S.P. Parsons brought the first colonies that were direct from Italy. I have kept both blacks and Italians side by side and carefully observed and noted results during eight years of my experience. I have carefully collected data as to increase of brood rapidity, of storing, early and late habits in the day and season, kinds of flowers visited, amiability etc and I believe that to say that they are not superior to black bees is like saying that a Duchess among short horns is in no wise superior to the lean bony kine of Texas or that our Essex and Berkshire swine are no whit better than the cadaverous lank breeds with infinite noses that happily are now so rare among us. The Italians are far superior to the German bees in many respects and more though I am acquainted with all the works on apiculture printed in our language and have an extensive acquaintance with the leading apiarists of our country from Maine to California yet I know of scarcely a baker's dozen that have had opportunity to form a correct. The Italians certainly possess the following points of superiority First. They possess longer tongues and so can gather from flowers which are useless to the black bee. Second. They are more active and with the same opportunities will collect a good deal more honey. This is a matter of observation which I have tested over and over again. Yet I will give the figures of another. Mr Doolittle secured from two colonies 309 Ibs and 301 Ibs respectively of box honey during the past season. Third. They work earlier and later. This is not only true of the day but of the season. On cool days in spring I have seen the dandelions swarming with Italians while not a black bee was to be seen. On May 7th 1877 I walked less than one half a mile and counted sixty eight bees gathering from dandelions yet only two were black bees. Fourth. They are far better to protect their hives against robbers. Robbers that attempt to plunder Italians of their hard earned stores soon find that they have dared to beard the lion in his den. This is so patent that even the advocates of black bees are ready to concede it. Fifth. They are almost proof against the ravages of the bee moth's larvae. This is also universally conceded. Sixth. The queens are decidedly more prolific. especially when building up in the spring No one who will take the pains to note the increase of brood will long remain in doubt on this point. Seventh. They are less apt to breed in winter when it is desirable to have the bees very quiet. Eighth. The queen is more readily found which is a great advantage. In the various manipulations of the apiary it is frequently desirable to find the queen In full colonies I would rather find three Italian queens than one black one. Where time is money this becomes a matter of much importance. Ninth. The bees are more disposed to adhere to the comb while being handled which some might regard a doubtful compliment though I consider it a desirable quality. Tenth. They are in my judgment less liable to rob other bees. They will find honey when the blacks gather none and the time for robbing is when there is no gathering. Eleventh. And in my estimation a sufficient ground for preference did it stand alone the Italian bees are far more amiable. Years ago I got rid of my black bees because they were so cross. Two years ago I got two or three colonies that my students might see the difference but to my regret for as we removed the honey in the autumn they seemed perfectly furious like demons seeking whom they might devour and this too despite the smoker while the far more numerous Italians were safely handled even without smoke. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ****************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:22:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: SFGate article on Traynor & Almonds MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, Was an accurate article for the most part (all though I had minor problems with certain parts) except for one glaring mistake: " In the past six months ,researchers say, beekeepers in at least 24 states lost between 25 and 80 percent of their bees" PAST SIX MONTHS? This is totally wrong! Six months back from now would be middle April! The losses occured the six months prior from middle April 2007! And yes certain beekeepers had 25%-80% losses but the industry as a whole was healthy as seen by no shortage of bees in almonds or lack of packages for sale. bob -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ****************************************************** * Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm * ******************************************************