From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:11:04 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-87.0 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,AWL, MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SPF_HELO_PASS,USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=disabled version=3.1.8 X-Original-To: adamf@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 1DAC449085 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:40 -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 n1SG3YX1017258 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:35 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0803B" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 251222 Lines: 5477 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 00:45:02 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Plenty of eggs but no larvae in ob hive. Great overwintering otherwise. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I stopped by the nature center that has an ob hive I have been helping out with. The colony was dwindling a few weeks ago so, per many Bee-L suggestions, I added a frame of bees and taped on a surface heater. A week later there were nice larvae in the cells; I thought the colony recovery was well under way... Today, there were multiple eggs attached to the bottom of each cell - clearly the queen is busy - but only a couple of young larvae. Frankly, I'd expected a batch of sealed brood by now. There is plenty of stored pollen and honey in the frames. There is a water bottle on the hive as well. The workforce is not great - enough to cover one side of a deep frame but they are nicely spread out thanks to the heater. 65% of the cells contain multiple eggs. I'd welcome suggestions/ideas on how to proceed from people who successfully overwinter ob hives. The only cause for the lack of larvae I can think of is low humidity in which case it'd be best to add more bees... Is there something else? I also inspected my own hives today. All of the hives with last year's queens have overwintered well and the bees are very alert/vibrant. The queens are nicely plump. The nucs have 1 frame plus of eggs/brood and the regular hives have 2-4 frames of eggs/brood. Will need to manage them carefully to make sure they don't go into the trees in a few weeks... Hazelnuts, crocuses, snowdrops, and some red maples are blooming in southeastern NY state. Temps get up into low 50's if it's sunny. Bees have been returning with some pollen. Saw about half-a-frame-worth of fresh nectar in the strongest hive... A nice start to a new season so far. :) Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:15:03 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Change direction In-Reply-To: <005701c8808b$2366d390$0301a8c0@BLINE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ALDEN MARSHALL wrote: >The post was intended as more of perhaps a > wake up call to change direction! > This subject can easily go where we have often gone before and end up with a commercial/organic/sustainable/pesticide/holistic/pragmatic/yougettheidea thread and would accomplish little other than increase the entropy of the universe as well as killing off countless electrons as they die under Aaron's delete button. But it is intriguing. What is the future of beekeeping? Where are we going as a semi-collective group? Is there one direction for commercial operations and another for hobbyists and side-liners? I look at CCD as just another problem that beekeepers have encountered for thousands of years and usually the bee helps us out by not following our script. It is not a canary in the mine. Varroa is more a problem than CCD and is probably linked with it, in spite of "low Varroa loads" found in CCD colonies. What I see in the future of most animal husbandry is what is happening in human husbandry, also known as the human health industry. If you follow scientific studies published daily in the US and GB, most of them deal with the HHI which includes nutrition, genetics, disease, and the like, all things we look at in beekeeping. One of the most important scientific projects in the last several years was the mapping of the human genome. (Note 1) That has led to advances in medicine and actual changes to living being's DNA sequence to combat disease. The honeybee's genetic sequence has also been mapped. I do not see a giant leap to change its DNA sequence to combat disease when we are doing it to ourselves. It is difficult to ride the anti-GMO wagon when we ourselves are becoming GMO. In essence, our DNA is being changed to rid ourselves of problems and become "normal". Truth is, when we step outside the door and get hit by cosmic rays, our DNA can take a hit. And we have found that bacteria present at conception can also cause significant DNA changes. We have always been GMO as has all of nature. Otherwise Darwin would have been wrong. Now we are more selective and have control over what is changed. There is another route, and people like Joe W. are following it, which is to let the bees take care of the problem. But how do you do that on a national scale as well as keeping it economically viable? The answers are usually draconian and involve the government. Plus, with human nature being what it is, there will always be shop towels and those who hide under the pretense of complying. So these are two future routes for beekeeping. Are there others? How do we implement any of them so that all beekeepers benefit? One caveat on this subject- anyone who says small cell, organic, pesticides and the like will hear a knock on their door and meet, in a close and extremely prejudicial manner, some of my close friends from East Boston. Bill Truesdell (Note 1.The human gnome has been already mapped and is found mostly in UK front yards.) Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:55:36 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: Change direction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill said: > Note 1. The human gnome has been already mapped and is found mostly in UK front yards. If anyone from here ever knocks at my front door, the gnome was the kids idea of a *joke*, right?! Today I was out meeting the local castle owner (really!) to discuss a new site for my bees. Maybe the gnome would like to keep them company - if so, I'll be able to re-map the bee gnome. all the best Gavin **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 10:58:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brian Fredericksen wrote: > http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3081789258595842918&pr=goog-sl Another great find. The most interesting point I came away with is that the small cell beekeeper she worked with who has few problems with his bees is a Joe W. type of beekeeper and captures feral colonies. So we are back to breeding bees for the area, a fundamental practice that many of us who are hobby beekeepers have practiced for quite a long time. The conclusion I came to from the presentation is that small cell has little to do with Varroa management. The feral colonies he got had cell sizes all over the map. Those were the survivors. So cell size had nothing to do with survival. He also had colony losses so even selected among the survivors. Also, hygienic selection results in bees that handle Varroa. Regression failure has little to do with cell size and more to do with the bees. Their failure would have happened even if the cell size was not changed. What is happening is Varroa resistance is being selected for. Based on what I have seen on this list, Nature can arrive a that point in less than seven years if you start form scratch. I have kept bees for about 18 years and have never lost all my colonies over that time. I usually have I have had them on mostly 5.3. I started a small cell experiment and lost one colony last year and the rest this year, so my small cell experiment resulted in the first time loss of all my colonies. I must note that when my cancer was detected some four years ago, my beekeeping dropped to zero and my bees suffered. But two survived even with neglect. After my surgery and recovery, I started paying more attention to them and bought some 4.9 and 5.1 foundation. I started with colonies that were productive on large cell and, before I started the "regression", had survived many winters in Maine with vigor. Needless to say, I am going back to my old, tried and true method of keeping bees, which is to manage for survival and production. Split the good ones and forget the bad. It is obvious that the bees did much better on a larger cell size which matches with what is found naturally in my area. It is not cell size. It is the bee. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:22:06 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: Sunken Galleon Holds Treasure of Beeswax Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Here’s one of several newspaper articles I have collected about the Beeswax wreck * Remember it is an article of 1891, so it will reflect what was known at that time. * The date of the wreck by today’s experts estimated to be from the 1693 wreck of a Spanish ship * Not known at the time of the article was that a tsunami that hit the Oregon coast Jan. 26, 1700 which may have affected the dispersing of the wreck and the beeswax cargo. * Note some were presenting faulty facts based assumptions, and perhaps used their position of authority to further the falsities. * Archeologists today have stated that an exact position of the wreck was never made, however, this article appears to give such a location. Galveston Daily News Sunday, December 27, 1891 Galveston, Texas =====article start===== FROM A SPANISH SHIP. Hunting For Beeswax Buried in the Sands By the Waves of a Century - A Legend Well Authenticated - Covered With Letters. Sunday Oregonian. "Mining for beeswax, sounds rather odd, does it not?" said a Nehalem rancher, who for a quarter of a century has dwelt in that rich but inaccessible quarter of the world. "But it is a fact, nevertheless; and when I strike the 'signs' I am following now I am just as sure of unearthing a chunk of beeswax, large or small, as the other kind of miners are of finding ore when they discover the float or surface outcroppings, which invariably lead up to a body of ore." The above remarks were addressed to the writer a few weeks ago as he was "mining for clams" at the mouth of the Nehalem river, and they recalled an ancient tale that has oft been told and the truth of which has oft been questioned. >From the time when Washington Irving threw a halo of romance around this Oregon of ours in his Bonneville tales, this charming land of the west has been the field of many a legend, tradition and romance, largely founded on facts, and the wreck of the beeswax ship is one of these facts. Periodically some scientific sharp who draws a salary from the government with the understanding that he is expected to know something about geology, appears in print with an article heavily ballasted with high-sounding terms, and explaining that the beeswax ship of Nehalem is a myth, and that the article which the Nehalemites mine is mineral wax. The Scientific American in a recent issue says: "The wax is probably of a mineral nature. The fact that it is found in the soil at a distance from the beach, and elevated above the sea level, entirely discredits the Indian legend to the effect that it came from a vessel that was wrecked on the coast. The occurrence in quantity indicates the possibility of a cretaceous or tottiary lignite bed in the neighborhood. The wax belongs to the hydrocarbon series allied to the retinites and ambers -the fossil remains from the resinous trees of the tertiary age." This reads well, and has a scientific jingle to it that might carry conviction to some who are unfamiliar with the situations surrounding the beeswax mine. According to the legends of the Indians, whose ANCESTORS WERE HERE, and the observations of the white men who came afterward, the beeswax came from a Spanish vessel that was wrecked at the mouth of the Nehalem river about 120 years ago. Adam, the venerable Clatsop Indian, who died in Tillamook last year at the advanced age of 105 years, often stated that the vessel was wrecked when his father was a young man, and the testimony of other Indians, who received the story from their ancestors, all place the date about 1770. The theory most commonly advanced is that the vessel was a Spanish brig trading between China and some of the Mexicans or South American cities, and that by some accident, mutiny, or, other trouble, she was driven far out of her course and during thick weather went ashore on Nehalem split. This statement is verified by the finding of several dishes made of red clay such as was not used for that purpose in this country at that time. These dishes and jars were frequently found on the beach when John Hobson of this city came here with several other white men, forty-nine years ago, and some of them are still in possession of Indians at Tillamook. At that time all traces of the wreck had not disappeared and pieces of her timbers were occasionally found. Mr. Hobson secured a piece of a timber to which two spikes were still clinging. The specimen was teak wood. The spikes were of copper, excellently finished and the timbers had been strapped with the same metal. The exact location of the wreck from the most reliable reports obtainable from the Indians was a few hundred feet north of the present mouth of the Nehalem river on a sand split which at that time stretched away in a southerly direction on the north side of the river. When the vessel broke up her cargo was strewn along the beach for a long distance, and while the storms and shifting sands covered and uncovered it, and generations of aborigines came and went, yet it withstood the ravages of time, and when the pale-faced Nehalemite began mining for it a century after it had been deposited there, he found that it would melt and mould as clear and bright as though it were fresh from the hive of the industrious bees who had made use of it in their oriental homes ages before. To return to the opening remark of this story. The men who at present and for years past have been collecting this beeswax have made almost a science of discovering where it lies, and they trail it down with as much nicety and skill as the gold hunter displays in following up a lead. Every year the Nehalem river rises rapidly and rushes down to the sea WITH TERRIFIC FORCE, carrying with it great quantities of alluvial matter which is deposited on the wide spit at the month of the river. Beside this rich soil, trees, stumps and logs in great numbers are strewn along the beach at the mouth of this mad little river, and as the large but buoyant chunks of beeswax were knocked about by the waves, they naturally lodged in behind many of the huge logs that in time became covered with other alluvial deposits which continued to come down year after year until eventually the logs were hidden from view, and when the north wind blew, a layer of white sand was spread over the rich black soil. which had wandered far from where it would be valuable in producing a crop of fruit or vegetables. Years after the logs and the beeswax had been hidden by the sand, the white settlers came into this region, but at that time they had no particular use for beeswax, and merely picked up what was lying on the beach, where it had been washed by severe storms, not troubling themselves about that which the Indians told them was lying beneath the sand. Now matters are different; the beeswax miner starts forth after a high tide and storm and begins his search. Here and eddying current has cut away a little gully on the beach or split, and the walls of that gully, although it be but a few inches in depth, show a strata of rich black soil in strange contrast to the white sand. This black soil must have been caused by a decaying log, against which similar soil had lodged generations before. The removal of a few shovelsful of sand gives the beeswax miner an idea of the position in which the tree was lying before it rolled away. Then it is an easy matter to follow it up and unearth the pieces of beeswax which may have lodged there and are still intact, although years have elapsed since the tree or log crumbled to dust. Of course the beeswax miner does not find a chunk of beeswax at every speck of black soil scattered among the sands, but for along time there have been several hundred pounds unearthed and marketed every year. A grocery firm in this city handles the most of the product, and last week received a shipment of 1700 pounds from one man who makes a business of collecting it, he receiving for the lot 20 cents per pound. Many of the pieces which are brought to light are covered with letters, signs and indecipherable hieroglyphics. These are readily sought for by lovers of the curious and BRING GOOD ??????. In this city there are almost a dozen such pieces, ranging in weight from eight to twenty- five pounds, and if the meaning of all the strange marks on the larger pieces could be determined would no doubt add a chapter to the early history of the Pacific coast that would prove interesting in the extreme. Mr. Hobson, in his researches, succeeded in finding a piece of a large candle made from the wax. It had apparently melted so as to seal up airtight a small piece of woolen wick, which was revealed on cutting one end of the candle. This effectually disproves the theory that the substance is natural mineral wax from a Nehalem ledge, even should the hieroglyphics and the stories of the early settlers fail in doing so, and while the theory of the Scientific American has caused several prospectors to look for the "mineral wax ledge," yet it will not prove so valuable a resource to be advertised as the Nehalem coal ledges. The reason for the public disbelieving the story of the beeswax ship is no doubt because it has been so frequently confused with the Nehalem treasure ship, an unfortunate craft that, according to the copper-colored historieua of a century ago, discharged a large quantity of Spanish doubloons near Kearney mountain, about six miles north of the spot where the beeswax ship left her bones. This treasure has caused almost as much excitement and comment on the Pacific coast as that of Captain Kidd caused on the Atlantic coast. Every year parties from the east come out and spend considerable time and money endeavoring to locate the wealth. One of these treasure-seekers, who has been hunting the phantom for years, showed me some interesting documents calculated to prove the existence of the treasure, and in a future letter I may give the story of the "treasure ship," the existence of which, while not so well established as that of the beeswax ship, is still a part of the early history or traditions of Oregon. =====End===== Category Folder - Archeology of Beekeeping Topic - The Beeswax Wreck Articles on file related to this topic: 1890 - A mine of Beeswax 1891 - From a Spanish Ship Best Wishes, Joe http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 13:24:10 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: Change direction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill Truesdell wrote: >There is another route, and people like Joe W. are following it, which is to let the bees take care of the >problem. But how do you do that on a national scale as well as keeping it economically viable? Hello Bill, I will say that even for a small operation such as mine, I did feel a monetary hardship while more than 10 or so years of live and let die program caused great stress for me in my little operation. I got real good at the dying and losing money part of beekeeping, but the letting live and making money part is much more difficult. I can afford to goof off with ferals and make stupid mistakes, I can write a book on stupid beekeeping mistakes. But how we can expect those making a living on bees to do the same and providing the needed productivity would be a great challenge. But now the struggle has lessened for me a bit, years of catching ferals to try and keep alive while purposely letting them swarm to the woodlands, has now appeared to make turnabout. I am seeing payoffs coming back to my bees in the form of much better breeding. Breeding that I was quite embarrassed about is now in the past 2 or so years, greatly improved. I loved what Randy mentioned,,, what did he call it?,,, a “natural selection yard” I think? That IMO, is something every beekeeper can afforded to do. It should be promoted in beekeeping, a small yard, perhaps only a few dozen colonies, besides being a great learning tool, it has a potential of promoting bee improvement that is of great importance to the welfare of the bees. Best Wishes, Joe **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 13:48:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Bill Wrote >The conclusion I came to from the presentation is that small cell has = little to do with Varroa management. The=20 feral colonies he got had cell sizes all over the map. Those were the = survivors. So cell size had nothing to do=20 with survival. He also had colony losses so even selected among the = survivors. What Jennifer failed to mention is that Bill's bees were of Russian = stock. It is also likely that the "survivor bees" also are Russian. For = some reason beyond my comprehension University researchers are unwilling = to give credit where it is due. Without the influence of the Russian = stock you could wait a long time and loose more than you could afford = or all of your bees before achieving varroa and disease resistance. This = is especially true if you are going it alone. Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:04:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill Truesdell wrote: >Another great find. Yes, I loved the presentation! Great work by Jennifer! I agree with the results, I’ve seen tremendous increase in mite populations in the ‘early stages’ of small cell use, and can explain my theories here, and first hand experiences with this “phenomenon of small cell” some other time. I was disappointed in a single factor of the presentation that there was not an expression of curiosity concerning why the mite populations were so high in the small cell colonies, questions unanswered should cause a great curiosity. The most interesting point I came away with is that the small cell beekeeper she worked with >who has few problems with his bees is a Joe W. type of beekeeper and captures feral colonies. Yes, Bill Owens collecting of feral bees is perhaps a major key to his success. My biggest competitor as of this date, seems to be the resurging ferals in my area, which perhaps have adopted a few traits of extreme competitiveness in robbing behavior. I have been rather unaffected due to my colonies being well enough to defend properly, but I do see a continuance of testing, as well as weak and smaller colonies being obliterated very quickly by feral robbing,,, things are rapidly changing on this aspect. OR, perhaps it has been so long since we had abundant feral population here in my area, I’ve forgotten what its like. Perhaps you right, the long lost art of good breeding deserves to be revived. Best Wishes, Joe **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:09:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline I communicated with Dr. Erickson almost ten years ago on this topic. He said We conducted our first trial with cell size and Varroa in 1993-1996. The results must be considered preliminary, but showed pronounced trends favoring smaller cell size. This study demonstrated to us that there appeared to be greater differences due to genetics than cell size so our work turned to looking at Varroa-tolerance. This we have done and published. Which see: Erickson, E.H., Atmowidjojo, A.H. and Hines, L. Can we produce Varroa-tolerant honey bees in the United States? Amer. Bee Jour. 828-832. 1998 see also "Small cell size and varroa -- A summary" 1 Sep 2000 in Bee-L -- Peter L. Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 http://picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:09:43 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: Change direction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I have seen a proliferation of small queen breeders and more beekeepers producing their own queens in the last 2-3 years. Some of these new breeders/producers have a superior product as compared to the conveyor belt queen producers or queens produced from "commercial non- resistant stock" Between russian, VSH and survivor stock there is a small but growing pool of genetics that can offer an important tool for dealing with varroa which allows for the elimination of hard chems and even soft treatments. I believe this will create positive change on the sideliner/hobbyist side of the industry and slowly trickle over to the big boys. On the commercial side my sense is some significant percentage who do not adapt will be gone within a decade. Just like the non-resistant stock maybe it will be for the best although there is no glory in someone losing their income and livelihood. As other areas of agriculture and commerce have gone through radical changes I expect this is occurring now in our industry and the future looks brighter to me then the past decade. IMO the doom and gloom squad is resistant to change, and some of them will go down the swrily with the ship rather then change. When something is not working you can either keep hitting it harder with the same hammer or look for new and different ways to make things work. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 20:14:20 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Re: Change direction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Brian Fredericksen wrote: >IMO the doom and gloom squad is resistant to change, and some of them will go down the swrily with the ship rather then change. I don't know what a "swrily" is but I don't agree that the bulk of beekeepers are resistant to change. In more than thirty years of beekeeping, I have found them to be very interested in trying new things, innovating, experimenting, and eagerly seeking out the experiences of others. Many -- not all -- are resistant to spending a lot of money on things that don't hold much promise. We have seen a lot of goofy innovations over the years. Remember the No-Swarm cluster frames? Ultra-sound bee pacifiers? Hive heaters? The list goes on. In fact, I would keep going but I would surely mention somebody's pet invention or method. Hey, if it works for you, that's what counts anyway. Trying out new things has always been fun; having your bees croak is not. Here's to the next big thing (I hope I come up with it). pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 00:03:17 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: and keeps on rising Comments: To: honey_australia@yahoogroups.com Comments: cc: Rodolfo Klaassen , =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Francisco_Javier_Rey_Mart=EDnez?= , "SOC. DE INVERS. CARMENCITA LTDA." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline http://www.skamberg.com/honey.htm -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 22:40:52 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: This weeks news. In-Reply-To: <47D29F67.8050204@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, On the Friday CBS evening news with Katie Cupric this week was a segment with Brent Adie and Jeff Pettis. Seems the USDA-ARES is in the almonds looking at the crashing hives of the Adie's and others. Researchers still baffled. I heard today dead hives are stacked high in many areas of California. I heard from across the pond tonight hives are crashing in Italy & France. I will give a better report when I get more information. France blames neonicotinoids mixed with a fungicide. Confider was the brand spoke of. They said some restrictions were lifted for gaucho and the change was when losses started. Will keep the list posted. Because my bees and those beekeepers around me have got the best bees in years I thought our bee problems might have subsided but it seems die offs and dwindling bees are happening as we speak. I called an ABF board member and he said he was getting reports of serious problems in almonds I asked what the USDA-ARES is calling the problem. He said COD. My source from across the pond said they are calling the problem COD. Whatever the cause I think I can safely say hives are crashing *right now* in many areas. All I know for now! Will post further as information comes in. bob -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 00:21:09 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: Plastic chemicals Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Waldemar writes: “Why make the distinction between the brood nest and the honey supers?” It’s not simply a distinction between plastic foundation in brood nest and honey supers. It has come to the point of using plastic COMB in the brood nest. The point is when does common sense tell us enough is enough? And it is not only about fumes. For all I know there may not be any harmful fumes. It’s more about all the subtle reasons bees do what they do in nature and the potentially positive effects of being able to do what they do. It is reasonable to assume that bees do not, as a species, work to their own disadvantage when they are allowed to do what they are most suited for. It is foolish for us to think that we can know all the benefits they get from doing things the way they have evolved to do them over the millennia. And yet we can imagine that there are a lot of very minor, even barely observable factors, along with major ones, that are interrelated in a fine matrix. It makes sense to me that, given at least half an opportunity, bees would usually be able to maintain the delicate balance within this matrix more or less optimally for themselves. What can we expect if we systematically take more and more of their ability to work with the fundamental elements of their environment away from them? I can certainly see how it could get to the point where a modern beekeeper might get way out of touch with what a bee hive is able to do when it is allowed to make a greater proportion of its own adjustments within the somewhat artificial limits of a Langstroth set up. As Peter Borst said in another thread, beekeepers love to try stuff, and that is great, but there should always be a point of reference to look back to, or fall back on, to keep things in perspective. What I have been trying to communicate is that that point of reference should be what bees do naturally without the extremes of our complicated strategies for getting them to yield more profit for us. Everything should be looked at in terms of how far away from that natural state it gets. Then, when you get way out there with things like plastic comb and humongous holding yards, and things go wrong, you may be able to say, “Oops! Guess I need to get back a little closer to bee basics.”, and still have some idea of what that means. Randy Oliver and others do fun experiments, and it’s all for the good as long as he and we keep in mind that the parameters those experiments are working with represent a very small segment of a much larger picture. What we may rightly conclude are positive results in terms of these limited parameters may be misleading when we try to extrapolate from them to the larger context. What I get from all this is that if you are unable to gain a clear sense of how the effects of a given strategy or gimmick extend into and throughout the grand Apis scheme of things you should treat it with a healthy degree of skepticism if not down right suspicion. That probably applies to a lot of what is practiced in beekeeping these days. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 02:01:08 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Is Honey a Cureall or Is It Hype? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Is Honey a Cureall or Is It Hype? Peta Bee, The Sunday Times, 3/9/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-honey-cureall-or-is-it-hype.html A t £42 for a 120g jar, the world's most expensive honey recently went on sale in Harrods. Life Mel has a list of purported health benefits as long as your arm - the scientists who created it claim the usual nutritional advantages associated with honey are maximised because the bees that produce it gather pollen from herbs such as Siberian ginseng, echinacea and Uncaria tomentosa that boost the immune system. They say that 2 tsp of Life Mel honey a day, on an empty stomach, sucked slowly, will supply a shot of antioxidants that leave you better able to fight illness and disease... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 09:56:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter L. Borst wrote: > I communicated with Dr. Erickson almost ten years ago on this topic. He said > We conducted our first trial with cell size and Varroa in 1993-1996. Not sure if you watched the presentation but she brought up older studies including, from my recollection, this one. The older trails were with AHB and they did show decreased mite loads with small cell size. What Berry wanted was a trial of EHB and small cell. The presentation is well worth watching since it does include a lot more than just small cell trials. That does not show up until the 20 minute point of a one hour lecture. As I noted on a prior post, what really comes across is hygienic behavior is the real key to mite control. We are back to fundamental beekeeping with a trait that has been sought for many bee problems. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 11:30:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Todays die off email MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello All, Below is a typical email sent to me. If you are having sililar issues email= me but PLEASE no emails with questions which others on bee lists can answe= r. My time is limited.=20 bob -Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 11:25 AM Subject: Re: CCD Hi -----, I have not heard from you in awhile. I wondered how you and the bees were= getting along. Answers below questions.=20 Your problems mirror California. Sincerely, Bob Harrison =20=20=20=20=20 Bob, >I am having problems with my bees right now.=20 * as are many others. However the problems fit few patterns. 100 miles = from me a commercial beekeeper which sent his bees to California last year = lost all his hives. My bees and the bees of Bell Hill look great.=20=20 >I started feeding "Mega Bee" in Jan and the bees responded well. A cou= ple weeks ago I had bees strong enough to shake for cell builders and queen= nucs. "Mega Bee" could not be the problem. Also the main thing both researche= rs and beekeepers are seeing is a rapid decline of colonies which were doin= g fine a couple weeks before.=20 >Yesterday I worked bees and it is a different story. Some have dwindl= ed to 3-4 frames of bees and others no bees at all.=20 The dwindling hives were shown in the Adee/Pettis segment on CBS on Mar= ch 7th. . The *no bees at al*l I have been seeing in all locations I have l= ooked at . Also in tiny numbers in my bees and the bees of Bell Hill Honey = Farm. In fall we see completely vacant hives and we always thought the reas= on was the hive went queen less and the bees drifted to other hives. However in our cold weather this is impossible and the only logical an= swer is the bees are flying out into the cold to die. In your warm weather = case johnny flying out to die.=20 Never before heard of hypothesis which we have been pondering in our ci= rcles: The bees have got a problem transferring the honey ( using terms beeks = will understand but the problem is complicated in researcher terms) from t= he honey stomach to the flight muscles. We know many bees die all the time = because they have wondered too far from the hive and without finding nectar= do not have enough honey to fuel the flight muscles so they drop in the gr= ass to die on the return trip. Similar to a car running out of gas. Nature = has provided the bee with the means to pull the carbs from the blood to gai= n distance but still once the fuel is gone the bee can not fly. Whatever mi= ght be causing the problem might be so acute on a warm day when the bees fl= y even 20 feet might be far enough the bees can not return. A hive could em= pty in a hurry if my hypothesis was the problem. I am not a researcher but = a keen observer of bee behavior and I find my hypothesis possible but needi= ng research. >I brought a one ton load of equipment in yesterday and many of them we= re full of honey. Our hypothesis is the bees quit feeding ( similar to the bats?) In Cali= fornia dead outs are stacked high. >Our weather here in East Texas has been crazy (snowed Friday) but yest= erday was beautiful. The bees should have been robbing the truck but were n= ot.=20 ------- you have been in the commercial bee business a long time and wh= atever is keeping the bees from robbing has to be chemical. We believe the = odor is only detectable to bees, moths and SHB. Once the chemical dissipate= s robbing will happen or has been my observation.=20 >They also are not taking syrup as well as they should. Sure sign of a problem. Why are you still feeding HFCS? I am only guess= ing as this email is our first email on the subject but it there seems to b= e a pattern forming. Those feeding HFCS are the beeks having the most probl= ems. Are you feeding HFCS or sucrose? Did you see any signs of dysentery in the deadouts? Did you use fumidil= B. last fall? Checked samples for nosema spores? >Last year I moved to the tallow and then into cotton. Cotton pollination has been a killer of bees since the government boll = weevil spraying began. The program has hurt many outfits bad. The USDA-ARS = has contacted me twice about if the should pay the claims for dead hives ( = with documentation of daytime spraying with bees working the blooms) I said= yes both times so they quit calling. > There was also acres of corn in the area. Could the pesticide in the = cotton/corn be causing problems now? Only my hypothesis on corn. If a systemic pesticide has been used then = only a problem when the bees can not find a better source for pollen. Perio= ds of drought are the most problematic. Cotton to my knowledge is only aerial sprayed and not yet using imid t= reated seed. If cotton problems happened I believe boll weevil spraying is = your problem but seems unlikely this long after the bees were exposed. I am busy right now Johnny but will answer back as time permits. Sorry = for you problems! I will send your email to BEE-L with your name withheld t= o see what the list thinks. Sincerely, Bob Harrison=20 --=20 This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 10:52:48 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Change direction In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Hi All, I'm fresh from returning from speaking at an ecological beekeeping conference, where I was one of the "scientific," rather than "idealistic" speakers. I went to lengths to explain that commercial beekeepers were not monsters who enslaved their bees in sweatshops. I dealt with comments such as that instrumental insemination was "rape" of a queen. Clearly, there is a wide range of perspectives on beekeeping! I agree with Brian as to progress being made on the small breeding front. Progress is also slowly being made toward sustainability in agriculture in general. I also agree that the hitting with the same old hammer isn't working. I speak to many commercial beekeepers. I agree with Pete that they are generally experimental, and open to change if it is cost effective. Our current collapses will likely shake out some operators. But there are others who are thriving. It is easy to recognize them at conferences--they are the ones paying attention! The good thing about tough times, is that enough pain eventually gives one the motivation to evaluate the way they do things. The industry is in a lot of pain. It appears that we are not yet out of the woods with CCD or whatever is causing collapses. I am seeing beekeepers rise to the occasion, and I think that we will eventually come out better for the experience. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 14:13:12 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Bill Truesdell wrote:=20 >As I noted on a prior post, what really comes across is hygienic = behavior is the real key to mite control. I believe that Jennifer may have overstated the importance of hygienic = behavior in varroa control. Sure it is important but there is much more = involved in the development of a mite resistant bee. Interestingly in an = experiment here in Georgia a few years ago we found many of the = commercially available queens from south Georgia to exhibit strong = hygienic behavior( in this case about 1/2 of the queens purchased). If = we are talking about "varroa specific hygienic behavior" then the mite = resistance is much greater. I do not believe that VSHB bees are = commercially available and being so used. Hygienic bees are also more = resistant to disease but in our area I do not believe that a hygienic = bee of Italian strain, now commercially available would last more than 6 = months longer than a non hygienic bee if no mite control was practiced. I really believe that the hygienic trait is just another IPM tool to add = to such measures as screened bottom boards.=20 Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 15:23:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?David_Fourer?= Subject: Re: Plenty of eggs but no larvae in ob hive. Great overwintering otherwise. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I would have thought Chicago and SE New York would have similar weather. Almanac says Chicago should have spring weather now. Average high for March 9th is 43 deg f. The reality is that the ground is still well frozen and the temps haven't topped 30 deg. more than a few days in the last month. No buds swelling, no early bulbs pushing up. Ice. I suspect that we manage spring differently here because the temps vary more (than New York). After several weeks of warmth and hives raising brood, we get a whole week of freezing afternoons and snow flurries. The bees and the native plants do OK. One day last week it was 35 deg and sunny. I watched one bee at a time come out, sit in the sun, then fly off. Didn't see any come back. Do they know what they are doing? Another oddity--Chicago had two 60+ degree sunny days around January 4-5. There was a noisy swarm of bees flying around the hive on my garage roof. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 15:29:14 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bee Quick Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At the Southern New England Beekeeping Association (SNEBA) meeting for Nov 2007, Jennifer gave a talk that included her full set of results, and thereby, allowed her to present "final" rather than the "preliminary" findings presented at HAS 2007. Audio (sorry, no video) of the talk is here: http://www.bee-quick.com/presentations/jen/SNEBA_jen_small_cell.mp3 Long story short, the number of mites per 100 cells was found to be higher in "small cell" colonies than in controls. The results were statistically significant, and are "in press" for journal publication. Mites per 100 cells is a very good way to measure the mite/bee ratio independent of the specific population of each hive. So as to avoid inciting a riot, it is important to note that that these findings merely invalidate the EXPLANATION of the mechanism claimed to limit varroa populations in small-cell colonies. The findings make no broad statements about the viability of any specific beekeeping practices. At the same meeting, Larry Connor gave his by now famous talk on "Fat Bees/Skinny Bees", leaving me very confused as to how I was going to get those desirable "fat bees" if I was using "small cells". **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 16:28:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Carl mentions VSH and I'm not sure if you can obtain any this spring but the excerpt below from Glenn Apiaries has a link worth pursing (from the Glenn Apiary website). http://members.aol.com/queenb95/smr.html I am intruiged by the concept that the offspring from the PURE breeder queens are too hygienic to maintain colony health and that these breeders developed by Harbo and Harris are intended to be open mated with any mutt drone in order to get the right level of hygienic behaior. IMO another great tool for those who want to experiment with producing their own mite resistant queens. i have one on order for this spring to join the ranks of Purvis and pure russian strains I'm evaluating for my own uses as we seek to gut our operation of run of the mill queens that need a crutch to survive. For now I favor the pure Russian strain for my location and style of keeping bees but have not spent enough time with all of these bees to determine what's best for me. . Excerpt from Glenn Apiaries Who should buy pure VSH/SMR breeder queens? " Pure VSH/SMR breeder queens should be used for queen rearing purposes. The best way to get the maximum amount of the trait into a line of bees is to begin with a pure VSH/SMR breeder queen so her daughters mate with your local drones. Workers from pure VSH/SMR queens have a hyper-hygienic behavior where their workers remove more brood than is necessary or desirable. This will show up as a deterioration of the breeder's brood pattern after about six weeks. The regular addition of frames of sealed brood from other colonies will keep the colony strong. Daughters queens of pure VSH/SMR breeders who are out crossed by natural mating have good brood production and an acceptable level of mite resistance. The naturally mated daughters of these breeder queens should be used for production hives. Naturally mated queens containing 50% of the VSH/SMR trait can be purchased from various queen producers" link follows on website. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 13:28:31 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: <001401c88219$9eeaa430$6897fea9@webbhoney> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Carl wrote> If we are talking about "varroa specific hygienic behavior" then the mite resistance is much greater. I have found this to be true. VSH appears to be much more important to mite control than liquid-nitrogen tested "hygienic behavior." In virtually every study I've read, VSH appears to be the main mechanism. Another factor appears to be post capping time, which would be a plausible explanation for the purported benefit of small cell. Anecdotal reports suggest that there is a substantial difference, but I'm looking for hard data. I'm looking for published or unpublished data to confirm/dispute any difference in postcapping duration due to cell suze--if anyone has any, would you please post or send off list? I discussed our differing results between HSC frames, and her wax small cell foundation with Jennifer prior to posting my findings on my website. Clearly makes me curious as to the mechanisms that would result in such difference, as I state in the discussion. I'm also curious as to what mechanisms would *increase* varroa in her small cell trial. In any case, I'm heartened to finally see controlled trials being conducted in this area after so much hooting and hollering. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 17:41:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Change direction In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803091052l3a521a5cwda7278a4439cbec4@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Randy & All, I dealt with comments such as that instrumental insemination was "rape" > of a queen. *comments* or simply ignorance of the procedure? I would have pointed out that with instrumental insemination the queen is given a gas to keep her quiet and as comfortable as possible. Very gently handled. I would also have asked if being gang raped by a dozen drones might be a bigger trauma. No wonder the queen seldom leaves the hive. sincerely, Bob Harrison -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:04:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: host-parasite adaptations in honey bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Ingemar Fries writes: We investigated Varroa destructor mite population growth in a line of honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies that have survived mite infestation for seven years without treatment, and in a line of colonies that had been treated to control the mites. The control of mites by beekeepers removes the selective pressure on both the host and the parasite (and viruses) that could produce host-parasite co-evolution with long term survival of both. We now have independent studies suggesting that adaptations that lead to host-parasite co-existence can occur both in the bee and probably also in the mite populations. This scenario may evolve provided the beekeepers do not interfere in the host-parasite coevolution by controlling the mites. However, it should be emphasised relying on a natural selection strategy to overcome problems with V. destructor mites is likely to cause massive bee losses and to be totally unacceptable to apiculture, agriculture and horticulture, not to mention the ecological consequences with reduced pollination. -- source Possible host-parasite adaptations in honey bees infested by Varroa destructor mites* Ingemar Fries, Riccardo Bommarco Apidologie 38 (2007) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:25:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803091328l6db1d487x31429d3ff879b95a@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline In course I attendent with Marla Spivak she was very clear that higienic behavior was not for varroa rather for chalkbrood and/or American Foulbrood disease. -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 18:24:58 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Comments: To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com In-Reply-To: <000001c88224$3e27ac00$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jim: Long story short, the number of mites per 100 cells was found to be higher in "small cell" colonies than in controls. The results were statistically significant, and are "in press" for journal publication. Mites per 100 cells is a very good way to measurethe mite/bee ratio independent of the specific population of each hive. Reply: At broodnest turnover this is the way it is supposed to be, especially the first year or so, for broodnest cleansing to get hive back into balance, for the smaller the cell, the faster the turnaround has been seen for varroa control. This has been discussed in depth many times over on the OrganicBeekeepers list fwiw, so nothing new here so far. Also, it should still be in the archives of the old biobee list also, and in original postings at the forum on beesource.com, besides here in archives on BEE-L from past discussions for needing to see this action the first year, especially going into first winter. So good this is being seen for shortness of testing done so far. continuing: So as to avoid inciting a riot, it is important to note that that these findings merely invalidate the EXPLANATION of the mechanism claimed to limit varroa populations in small-cell colonies. Reply: Not really, it's just one person's opinion of the situation being seen, without further followup to see where things progress in the future over 2-3 year or more. When all factors in a wholebee scenario are looked at together, as a whole picture as to what is happening, rather then sound bites, rational then changes as experience is gained in working, especially with new ways of doing, of which SC definitely is compared to LC, for the parameters of relationship with Nature change dramatically. Will be interesting to see whether this invalidation of explanation is still believed in 2-3-4 years down the road as more experience is gained. Also will be interesting to see how many beekeepers are left also, waiting for the results! Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 23:18:03 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Plenty of eggs but no larvae in ob hive. Great overwinteri ng otherwise. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>I would have thought Chicago and SE New York would have similar weather. I am on Long Island, the SE-most part of NY state. The Atlantic Ocean is a huge temperature moderator here. If you go into Westchester County, just north of NYC, or Connecticut north of here and you'll experience temps ~10 deg. lower an average. Currently, we are experiencing a very mild winter. Most days last week were in the low 50's and most of the coming week is forecast to be in the low 40's at or below freezing at night. >>...Chicago should have spring weather now. Average high for March 9th is 43 deg f. The reality is that the ground is still well frozen and the temps haven't topped 30 deg... I heard about the snow storm in Canada and the Midwest. I guess the warm fronts from the south push up along the eastern seaboard and keep the very cold weather from the north and west away from Long Island. I have been in Chicago in the winter. The Windy City name is well justified! >>I suspect that we manage spring differently here because the temps vary more (than New York). We had a rather cold April last year and the unprepared lost a lot of colonies around here. A lot of ferals starved to death then, too. Last season was the slowest as far as removals for me. Swarming was delayed too - I had a call in the middle of July! >>I watched one bee at a time come out, sit in the sun, then fly off. Didn't see any come back. Do they know what they are doing? This sort of behavior used to concern me. Now I understand this a natural loss of bees that sense their end although this can bring some colonies below the critical mass size. I observed less cold weather flying when I provided water in the hives in March. I'd assumed at least some of the cold weather flyers were going for water to dilute honey to feed to the increasing brood. I wish you good, strong colonies this spring! Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:19:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Ted_Hancock?= Subject: Re: Change direction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 17:41:02 -0500, Bob Harrison wrote: > >I would also have asked if being gang raped by a dozen drones might be a >bigger trauma. No wonder the queen seldom leaves the hive. Forget the queen, how about those dozen drones having their penises (penii?) ripped out at the root? And they get no CO2 for the event, only oxygen, effort, sunshine and death. Thinking, queens have it made. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 21:26:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Ted_Hancock?= Subject: Re: Todays die off email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 11:30:58 -0500, Bob Harrison wrote: Never before heard of hypothesis which we have been pondering in our circles: > > The bees have got a problem transferring the honey ( using terms beeks will understand but the problem is complicated in researcher terms) from the honey stomach to the flight muscles. Hi Bob, I appreciate you throwing out various theories on the cause of bee losses. The great thing about the internet is that it allows many people to compare observations and ideas. But it only works to our advantage if people think out loud as you do. A few weeks ago I believe you suggested that diesel exhaust might be affecting bees when truckloads park overnight at truck stops. I was hoping that would lead to some discussion about diesel additives and what effect they have had on diesel exhaust - but no such luck. Since sulfur was removed from diesel fuel, everyone and his brother has learned to include an additive to every tankfull to replace the missing lubricant (sulfur) in diesel fuel. Any reputable diesel mechanic will recommend this. However there is no easy way to estimate the amount of additive you should put in, so all the truckers I know use the " a couple of glugs" method. Or maybe your wife filled up the truck last time and you`re not sure she remembered to put in the additive so you, 'glug, glug, glug, glug', (maybe one more) 'glug, glug' (oops, that was two). I have owned two diesel pickups and written General Motors suggesting they install a system to automatically add the correct amount of additive. But they are in a state of denial and say additive is not needed in their engines. In fact they say using it will void their warrenty. But GM mechanics say that if you don`t use additive you will ruin the engine`s injector pump. So I just throw this out as a variable that has changed in the past ten to fifteen years. People who drive diesel trucks are adding unrecorded, unmeasured, unnecessary yet indespensable amounts of diesel additives to every tank. Maybe it helps the environment. But if so, why do vehicle manufacturers recommend against it? Who knows, maybe bees just need an additive to help transfer honey to their flight muscles ( what, they`re still dying, give them another glug). Ted **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:06:45 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Plastic chemicals In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Steve said: Everything should be looked at in terms > of how far away from that natural state it gets. Steve, I totally agree with you, and always use that as my frame of reference. I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about this very issue--looking at various other hive configurations rather than U.S. dimensions, how to super, where to draw comb, etc. If I were a hobbyist, I would definitely be experimenting with other methods. Unfortunately, since much of my business is in selling nucs, and being graded in almonds, I need to use standard frames. On one hand, I can remember when bees thrived on the Permadent wax-coated plastic foundation that I used to always use (only changed when Mann Lake and Dadant started selling preassembled frames). Since bees thrived then, I strongly question whether such foundation has much to do with our current problems. However, that is not to say that bees do better on them than on natural combs--I do not know. Beekeepers that I respect such as Dennis Murrel, Joe Waggle, and Michael Bush have made enough observations about naturally-produced combs with the assortment of cell sizes that I am intrigued. Years ago, Steve Taber used such combs in his queenrearing operation. I plan to try some myself this season. I used the plastic HSC combs to test to see if varroa levels could be affected by cell size, since the HSC cells couldn't be modified by the bees, and since they didn't require "regression." The trial clearly demonstrated that varroa was affected by HSC combs, but does not definitively make the case for small cell, due the the other variables of plastic vs. beeswax, cell wall thickness, etc. In light of Jennifer Berry's and my trials, it appears that varroa reproduction is indeed affected by cell size--in one case it was enhanced, in the other depressed. How very curious! Science aside, there is also an aesthetic involved in combs. I had a hard time going to plastic foundation, and I doubt that you will ever see me use a plastic frame (other than in a trial). I grew up with wiring and embedding wax foundation in wooden frames. I loved the combs, but disliked the work. If I find that natural combs in wooden frames work for me as well as they do for Dennis and Michael, I'd love it! For one, it would save me time and money (financial), for two it may have an effect upon the mite (scientific), for three it is closer to the "natural" state of the bee (biological default), and for four, it would be aesthetically pleasing to me. But it wouldn't be because some "holier than thou" New Age beekeeping guru told me that that's what I "should" do! (Guess I'm still irked from the conference yesterday). Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 22:25:26 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: [Off List] Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Comments: To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com In-Reply-To: <000201c88262$b04c3790$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jim: But whatever happened to the "mite leveling" claims? :) I really wanted to hear how a few mites on drifting bees could result in mite populations that were even close to the mite populations in the hives from which the mites "drifted in". Reply: We have gone over this and over this over on the orgnicbeekeepers list in discussion. It is nothing new and all beekeepers should already be aware of it,....that is the SC hives taking more of the heat, due to drift, to bring down the population of mites in the LC hives. Bees are social animals and therefore SC hives helping the LC ones survive for lack of other words. If the controls were good here in this experiment, then plans should have been in place to avoid drifting, like has been talked about being done over in the Nordic States so as not to skew results as to what is actually happening. But again this is nothing new and has been talked about before, even here I think on BEE-L, about seeing whole sheets of brood uncapped, with mites first season at broodnest turn over time in fall, with other beekeepers beeyards all around us on the Santa Cruz crashing. And this could therefore mean even higher mite counts then what you are thinking about in this experiment. Nothing new really! Dee ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 22:35:14 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob: The bees have got a problem transferring the honey ( using terms beeks will understand but the problem is complicated in researcher terms)from the honey stomach to the flight muscles. Reply Having read last respond on fuel Bob, have you considered neuro toxic effects like organo phophates, and/or the sublethal dosages of fluvalinate as a classII pyrethroid to the negative, that was written about early on by Chaney if I am remembering right for inhibiting honeybees and flying, clustering, thermoregulating? Dee ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:28:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Honey Has Antimicrobial Activity Against New Type of MRSA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Honey Has Antimicrobial Activity Against New Type of MRSA Antibacterial Activity of Honey Against Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (CA-MRSA) Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 4 March 2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/honey-has-antimicrobial-activity.html Summary: Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) has now been described globally, as a clinically significant pathogen, particularly associated with skin and soft tissue infections, including abscesses, cellulitis and furunculosis...Although previous studies have examined the antimicrobial activity of honey against HA-MRSA, such data are limited regarding the activity of honey against this emerging type of MRSA... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:23:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Plastic chemicals MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Randy wrote ; I strongly question whether such foundation has much to do with our current problems I use mostly Pierce plastic in wooden frames but some wired wax in wood = frames. Bees clearly prefer the wired wax but plastic is easier for me = and makes a beautiful frame when fully drawn out. I try to think of my = bees preference and at least go to the trouble to cut out communication = openings by snipping off the lower corners of the plastic foundation.=20 My bees are pure Russian so I am not sure that what I am about to say = applies to all bees. That is, that my bees seem to cluster in winter = (especially smaller clusters) at the bottom of the frames when they are = on plastic, I have often wondered if there is adequate heat transfer = through the plastic during winter and have thought this may be why. My = concerns about plastic foundation has always been two fold; 1. getting = frames fully drawn and 2.heat transfer through the plastic. In my operation, winter survival is not a problem else I would take = these concerns more serious. Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:37:25 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Neonicotinics and French Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apparently, what's has/is happening in France depends on the information source. Best that we can determine, banning the neonicotinics did not help the French beekeepers. We've met with beekeepers and growers from France - they've gone back to the basics, trying to figure out what's going on. The French representatives that we met have provided us with a 2006 book detailing the issues, both scientific and political. Abeilles, L'Imposture Ecologique: L'Affaire Des Insecticides <> Gil Riviere-Wekstein Interesting story how emotion and politics get mixed up with the science. Jerry **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:35:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinics and French Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Abeilles, l'imposture écologique , Gil RIVIERE-WEKSTEIN Bees, ecological sham The case of the cursed insecticides Gil Rivière-Wekstein from a review, approximately translated by Google 1995, panic in the apiaries ! Some beekeepers in several regions of France deplored unusual mortalities of bees. Soon, some of them pointed to two insecticides as solely responsible for these massacres. Thus began the affair Gaucho and Regent, "cursed" insecticides. After numerous experts, counter-expertise and legal procedures, this small group of beekeepers got the suspension in 2004 of the two insecticides. Case closed? Not quite. After two years of investigations, the journalist Gil River Wekstein reveals the underside of this story, and shows how ecology has served as a pretext ... It also allows us to understand how these "cursed" insecticides have become the scapegoats to hide the growing difficulties of beekeeping and to challenge a model based on modern agricultural technological progress. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:42:12 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Ted & All, > I appreciate you throwing out various theories on the cause of bee losses. I have been involved from the start on the CCD thing. My advice was sought and here we are a couple years later and no clear cause of the die off. Sure we have learned many things. Some which have been an embarrassment to both the USDA-ARS and our researchers. Two glaring embarrassments were exactly how long IAPV has been in the U.S. (now we know there are three strains and none exactly like the Israel strain). Also IAPV dates back many years. My last bit of information said at least 1999. What about nosema ceranae? How long has it been here. Some say a decade. The reason many seek me out is because lab work is only a part of an investigation. Taking samples is only a part. If you watch a TV CSI program you will see a lot of brain storming goes on. You leave no stone unturned as even the smallest clue may be what you are looking for. Of course only TV but still the way the die off is approached by myself and my circle of beekeepers. > A few weeks ago I believe you suggested that diesel exhaust might be > affecting bees when truckloads park overnight at truck stops. Myself and Tim Tucker (ABF board member) are still trying to get information on EXACTLY what is different today than say a few years ago but the oil companies will not release the information. At night in truck stops the air is full of diesel fumes. The bees have no air to breathe but the diesel fume contaminated air. Many times the bees are exposed for up to 36 hours each way to California. Exposed each time they are moved. I can say that I do not believe in past years diesel fumes was a problem. I have been exposed to diesel fumes most of my life and have had no ill effects but I wonder if the next generation of drivers will be able to say the same thing. In the old days you would see a truck at idle filling the air with black smoke. Always happened when they were at idle for a very long time. Sincerely, Bob Harrison -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:16:46 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: Neonicotinics and French Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jerrry can you expand on what kinds of problems are still being experienced France? Do they see CCD like collapses or are you referring to just hard times in general keeping bees alive? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:56:05 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Propolis Component Helps Prevent Brain Injury MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Propolis Component Helps Prevent Brain Injury Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester Protects Rabbit Brains Against Permanent Focal Ischemia by Antioxidant Action: A Biochemical and Planimetric Study Brain Research, Article in Press http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/propolis-component-helps-prevent-brain.html Abstract: The present study was conducted to investigate whether caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), an active component of propolis extract, has a protective effect on brain injury after focal permanent cerebral ischemia, and to determine the possible antioxidant mechanisms... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:28:47 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Mike_Bassett?= Subject: Re: Todays die off email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:42:12 -0500, Bob Harrison wrote: At night in truck stops the air >is full of diesel fumes. The bees have no air to breathe but the diesel fume >contaminated air. Many times the bees are exposed for up to 36 hours each >way to California. Exposed each time they are moved. seems to me bob may be on to something. if it only takes 1/2 hr to affect people, just think what it can do to bees with a much smaller brain. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/brain_diesel_dc mike basset new york **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:16:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Plaisted Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable "At night in truck stops the air> >is full of diesel fumes. The bees have n= o air to breathe but the diesel > fume> >contaminated air. Many times the b= ees are exposed for up to 36 hours each> >way to California. Exposed each t= ime they are moved." =20 This could be a problem, assuming all the hives were coming from the east c= oast. What about those hives that are brought in from much closer? Where = were Adee's bees staged before being moved into CA? =20 Jim =20 =20 http://www.northernqueens.com/ _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!=A0Play the word scramble challenge with sta= r power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=3Dstarshuffle_wlmailtextlink_ja= n= **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:24:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jeffery Swan Subject: Honey Left on over winter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Last year I became sick and was unable to remove about 12 supers of honey from my bees. This honey was then left on over the winter (here in Michigan) and I wanted to know if it was salvageable. My concern is that it may have crystalized in the comb (is that possible?) and will not be able to be extracted. I would really hate to loose all that honey, but I can always use it to feed new hives if necessary. This is the first time this has ever happened (in my over 30 years of beekeeping) and I would just like to get some opinions. Thank you. Jeff --=20 Want an e-mail address like mine? Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:12:36 -0500 Reply-To: Tim Tucker Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Tucker Subject: Re: Todays die off email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit To all: While attempting to discover why my bees apparently collapsed after arriving in California in 2006 I began wondering about the possibility that the drive from mid-central Kansas was what caused bees to go down hill so fast. Inspecting them the morning they were unloaded they were up to snuff accdording to the beekeeper placing my bees. Many looked "great" was the normal response with 1/3 being average and 1/3 fair. There was also exceptions of about 6 -10 hives that were taken out of the wrong line of bees at 2:00 a.m. and mistakenly put on the truck but that's life. I was amazed a week later when they were getting ready to place them I received a call saying that only a third would make it and that was if we combined 3 into one. What happened during the course of that week while in the holding yard with five other loads of bees that I and my brother worked for five days helping to reduce them as well into 1/3 of the original number of units. Two truckloads of equip! ment went back to the Dakotas and most of us did not pay expenses. It was my last trip to Almonds. Whether it was the holding yard enviornment, the weather, the trip who knows but I can tell you that I looked at a dozen truckloads of bees that were all doing the same thing. There were hives that had a good nuc laying outside of the entrance for 10 feet after being unloaded directly into almonds however and they had not been placed in a holding yard. I just asked Bob recently if anyone had ever investigated this connection and he was not aware of any studies into the matter and I now know why. After spending a couple dozen hours investigating it and several phone calls there is little information available on the new low sulfur fuels that have been required to be in place by the end of 2007. What I do know is: 1. Formulations have changed in the last three to five years. To boost engine performance, cetane enhancers are being added to the fuel to enable the new formulations to provide the power to run these new mixes which no one will tell you what they consist of as it is all proprietary information. 2. Winter mixes are different than summer diesel fuel formulations due to the temperature factor in the combustion of diesel fuels. Winter formulations allow for more sulfur content or they would not start the engine up without extensive warming. 3. As Ted said in an earlier post, all kinds of additives are being added to make the new fuels more powerful to head down the road at optimum speeds and torque. It is a brew that only God knows what will be in the actual emissions of Diesel Exhaust or DE. 4. We know that there are from individual reports 40 to 200 chemical compounds in DE, one of which is Naphthelene and of course many forms of Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Monoxide. 5. Many of these DE compounds are known carcinogenic and mutogenic in mice and we believe humans as well. 6. When diesels sit idling at low speed and low temps reburning their own exhaust, concentrations of chemical compounds and particles increase exponentially. 7. There are no new studies available on any of the new reformulated fuels being used today and changed due to the new laws put into place in the last few years. 8. The variables involved make an actual study difficult if not impossible to make any direct links 9. Conclusions are difficult to arrive at and the information to make them will be difficult to find or obtain. 10. If I rode the back of a semi from Kansas to California I would be one sick puppy. Bees detect things in parts per billion that would never affect our sense of smell or stomach. 11. When I asked Diana Cox-Foster about this at the Conference she said there were too many non-migratory beekeepers experiencing the same CCD symptoms that would not give her an inclination that this was the cause, at least directly and as a sole cause. This is a valid point. 12. I know that the vast majority of those with valid CCD symptoms are migratory beeks. 13. The beekeeper that has had the most problems moves his bees 16 times per year is what I was told. He is however very convinced of the Neoticinoid connection which is also highly debatable and the conclusive information and studies will be lengthly to say the lest. 14. We may never have an exact cause as it is most likely a combination of contributing factors all of which when put together become synergistic in their total effect and the bees have had too much. Anyone wishing to make investigations or attempting to research the topic further can contact me and I will be happy to provide you with the numerous weblinks and tons of pdf's and information available which is mostly at least 5 to 10 years old but does shed some light on the subject. I don't know if I have any time to really investigate this any further or if it would do any good. Tim Tucker -----Original Message----- >From: Mike Bassett >Sent: Mar 11, 2008 7:28 AM >To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu >Subject: Re: [BEE-L] Todays die off email > >On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:42:12 -0500, Bob Harrison >wrote: > > At night in truck stops the air >>is full of diesel fumes. The bees have no air to breathe but the diesel >fume >>contaminated air. Many times the bees are exposed for up to 36 hours each >>way to California. Exposed each time they are moved. > >seems to me bob may be on to something. if it only takes 1/2 hr to affect >people, just think what it can do to bees with a much smaller brain. > >http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/brain_diesel_dc > >mike basset new york > >**************************************************** >* General Information About BEE-L is available at: * >* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * >**************************************************** **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:14:56 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Jim & All, As I said earlier Tim Tucker and myself are looking into a possible problem (brought on by the well documented changes in diesel fuel additives ) and maybe even from over the counter additives as Ted suggested. I plan to stop by our local Pilot & TA truck stops and check the labels and also ask the clerk which are sold the most to the over the road boys. > This could be a problem, assuming all the hives were coming from the east > coast. East coast are usually (not always) sent straight through if the route is interstate 10 from Georgia or Florida. However the two loads sent which I documented in my "Small hive beetle border article" were driven by a regular Adee bee hauler and he stopped each night. Bee from the far east coast north are often sent to almonds using a single driver and could spend 6-7 nights in truck stops enroute. In cold weather most drivers are in no hurry. Also delays in Wyoming are common in winter due to rod conditions. I my self have been stopped for those. When the big gates swing across the road you simply wait. Some Florida commercial beeks prefer to pay the extra miles and send the loads to almonds up I 65 to Nashville and then west across either I 70 or I 80 to California because of the cooler temps. I will explain further in an article I am close to done with on trucking bees in hot weather. >What about those hives that are brought in from much closer? Less exposed but how much is too much? >Where were Adee's bees staged before being moved into CA? I think the Adee operation does as the Brown's do ( of which I do business with ) and bring the outyards into places like Bruce, South Dakota (Adees) on 10 wheelers or Hadamm ,Kansas (Browns) and then load for California. When I did my first article on almond problems I noticed a pattern. The bees trucked the furthers were crashing or showing up with bees on a couple frames. The hives had been strong in the Dakota's. The pattern has not for the most part changed. Especially with the Adee operation but It seems those beekeepers which drive straight through have less problems than those stopping each night. Of course my limited research is based only on a small number of drivers which haul bees. I spoke with three drivers which haul bees for the Adee's and all drove by their selves and all stopped each night. Sincerely, Bob Harrison -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:12:28 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Arheit Subject: Re: Honey Left on over winter In-Reply-To: <20080311152412.EFBAC1F50B2@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:24 AM 3/11/2008, Jeffery Swan wrote: >This honey was then left on over the winter (here in >Michigan) and I wanted to know if it was salvageable. My concern is that >it may have crystalized in the comb (is that possible?) and will not be >able to be extracted. It certainly can crystallize in the comb. If you have a warmer in which you can maintain a temperature of around 100 degrees for a period of several days, you can mostly liquify the honey in the comb without melting the wax. You should then be able to extract most of the honey. Be sure to let it cool and handle it very gently when taking it out of the warmer because it will be very fragile. An old chest freezer with a heater, fan to evenly distribute the heat and a thermostat works well. Some have used lights in a freezer to liquify honey without a thermostat, but I'd worry in your case about it potentially getting too warm and the comb may sag or melt. -Tim **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:52:39 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Molokai Meli LLC Subject: Re: Honey Left on over winter In-Reply-To: <20080311152412.EFBAC1F50B2@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v618) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Mar 11, 2008, at 5:24 AM, Jeffery Swan wrote: > My concern is that > it may have crystalized in the comb (is that possible?) and will not be > able to be extracted. I would really hate to loose all that honey, but > I > can always use it to feed new hives if necessary. > Aloha Jeff, This happens to us often since our variety crystalizes within 3 weeks of being capped. Even when crystalized, it tastes good. We use a comb cutter and a large spatula to scrape it off the foundation, then put two layers in a nice clear plastic comb container, put a label on it, and our customers love it. Pure and natural honey candy. Howard has another way of liquifying that he's had success with. It has to do with putting the supers in a sealed place with a light bulb to make the honey soft again. Perhaps you can share with the group Howard. The only caution I might have is if you used any chemicals in your hives while the supers were on. Molokai Meli **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:08:04 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Ted_Hancock?= Subject: Re: Todays die off email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Like Tim I have read a bit about Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) on the internet. Below is a web site address. It includes an article written in Aug 2007 that gives a good overview of what ULSD is and why the use of additives are advisable. The site includes the results of tests done to determine the effectiveness of additives. They not only tested legally registered additives but two stroke oil and used engine oil as well. Now why the heck would they be testing them? (BTW, two stroke engine oil scored better than the additive I buy from GM. That's another weird thing, GM dealers sell diesel additive, they just won't officially recommend you use it in their vehicles). http://inchoate.harm.org/~halbritt/dodge/Diesel%20Fuel%20Additive%20V3.pdf Ted **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:48:06 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: Todays die off email MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Bob, Tim and All > Bee from the far east coast north are often sent to > almonds using a single driver and could spend 6-7 > nights in truck stops enroute. That comment made me really pay attention. I'm not saying that your diesel additive and diesel fumes ideas are wrong, they might be right. But combining the stress of moving with the confinement, sometime very long confinement, might point to a disease already known to be encouraged by both stress and confinement - Nosema. Has anyone ever monitored Nosema levels before and a few days following long hauls - does it change? best wishes Gavin **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:21:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted Hancock wrote: >They not only tested legally registered additives but two > stroke oil and used engine oil as well. Now why the heck would they be > testing them? (BTW, two stroke engine oil scored better than the additive > I buy from GM. Ashless outboard engine oil has been a classic additive to diesel fuel for more than 20 years. It lubricates the injectors. Motor oil is sometimes recycled by some idiots by adding it to the fuel. Good way to eventually ruin the car. There have been recent studies on diesel exhaust. One I read recently is - http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/bc-dei030708.php another about kids on school buses- http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/acs-cos041805.php heart disease http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uoe-dem091007.php asthma http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/icl-def120407.php I have owned VW diesels since 1976. Great cars. Most health issues are related to soot. I do doubt that the exhaust is as much a problem as it is being elevated to on the list. Most diesel engines are run overnight because of the cold. If the nights are warm, there really is not a good reason to run them and plenty of economical reasons not to. So if it is that cold, I would guess more bee losses are from cold than exhaust. The cluster is not there after that much pounding. And, as noted many times, we have not seen CCD here in Maine after the trucks have come all the way up from Florida, even with the new and old fuel additives. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:48:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <47D29F67.8050204@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Since, for the first time since I have kept bees, I am beeless, I figured to make good use of the time between being beeless and bee arrival (two nucs) in mid-May. I would love to play Joe Waggle and capture any, if there are any, feral bees in the area during this time. I have my doubts, but it would be interesting if there are any out there. There are probably no managed hives within two (or even more) miles. Varroa thinned the other beekeepers out long ago. I am in the country with lots of woods and open fields. My question to this august and learned group is how would you go about it in that about one month time frame? Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:17:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Breeding better bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Breeding better bees By Christine Souza California Farm Bureau Federation News http://tinyurl.com/29nucb excerpts Researchers from the University of Minnesota visited several Northern California bee breeders in late February to gather data and test hive health. "We weren't specifically looking for causes of CCD; that wasn't our goal. Our goal was to work with the bee breeders to help them breed healthy bees. It was a real positive mission," said Marla Spivak, University of Minnesota professor of entomology who specializes in apiculture and social insects. "The bee breeders are selling queen bees all over the United States and in a sense they are controlling genetics of our bees for much of the U.S." "I was extremely impressed with the quality of all of the operations we visited. I had a lot of misconceptions and biases when we started and I was completely blown away in a positive way," Spivak said. "I was very impressed with what the bee breeders are doing and the care that they are taking." This year, Spivak will continue to gather data and educate herself about bee breeders' operations. During the second year of Spivak's two-year grant, she intends to work with Dave Tarpy, assistant professor of entomology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., to focus on specifics such as using genetic techniques to determine how many times queens have mated. Queen bees mate with 10-20 males, Spivak said, and that genetic diversity is a good component of colony health. "Anything we can do to keep bees healthier so they don't collapse is a good thing," Spivak said. For the future, Spivak expressed interest in the possibility of developing a technical transfer team that is modeled after a program run by the Ontario Bee Breeders' Association. It is a permanent team that visits bee breeders to look for pests and diseases in bees and to assist in stock selection. http://tinyurl.com/29nucb Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:43:14 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Todays die off email In-Reply-To: <322453.52548.qm@web86204.mail.ird.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >Has anyone ever monitored Nosema levels before and a few days following > long hauls - does it change? Several things happen in a colony when confined on a truck for several days. If they have brood, they can quickly run short on protein stores, and the immune system is suppressed. The jostling can break off hairs (setae), temporarily exposing the hemolymph to transmission of viruses. Defecation within the hives, plus chilling can cause nosema to explode, and thus further propogate viral transmission. All these things may go unnoticed if bees start with high protein titers, and don't have substantial nosema or virus levels to begin with. However, if colonies start out on the edge, the above factors may be enough to kick them over. Diesel fumes, etc may well add to the stressors. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:46:44 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: re (Bee-L)Todays bee die off email MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Today's email on East Texas problems: Posting my friends problems (name withheld) to show others the way I work= through a problem. You eliminate the most likely and keep eliminating unti= l you end up with the likely cause. -------, I suspect your problems are from the cotton pollination (spraying?) . Ask= the grower if he is part of the government spray program. If so ask for th= e crop duster. Contact the crop duster and ask when he last sprayed AND MOR= E IMPORTANTLY THE TIME OF DAY. If his records show ( he is required to prod= uce records if he is spraying for the government) he sprayed while your bee= s were on the cotton bloom email and I will help you contact the program fo= r compensation.=20 Outlaw crop dusters ( are around) will not cooperate. I have talked one i= n our area to cooperate when I told him I would not ask for damages and onl= y wanted to know for my own information. He had sprayed my bees while in bl= oom. He said he was sorry and did not see the hives in the trees.(which I do = not believe) but said he would be more careful and he has! I am not familiar with cotton pollination like I am crops I have done but= if you have observed the bees prefer corn pollen then I suspect the new ne= onicotinoids as a possible source of your problems instead of the cotton bo= ll weevil spraying. The boll weevil spraying should have produced a next day kill. The neonic= otinoids from our observations kill slowly with contaminated pollen. Also y= our problem may be from another cause such as the new nosema. Feeding fumid= il at least once a year has been found to slow nosema but twice a year is w= hat most commercial beeks are doing. Testing yards is best but few beeks ow= n the equipment. The old field test (pulling out the mid gut) has worked fo= r me to get a *general* idea but when nosema loads are high enough for the = field test you are usually already seeing the effects of nosema loss. Have you ever fed fumidil or had your bees checked for nosema? Bob Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:11 PM =20=20=20=20=20 Bob, One thing I have noticed the last few days is the bees that did not go = to the cotton are doing quite well. Only the bees sent to cotton are showin= g the problems I described.=20 In my experience bees do not really care for cotton pollen so is it pos= sible they may have worked the corn for pollen even though the cotton was i= n full bloom? I have not been able to contact the farmer who has leased the land to a= sk what type of chemicals he used but I think he probably used "Malathion" = on the cotton. Does not sound like a Malathion kill. Thanks, ------- --=20 This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:07:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bill and all, A friend of mine who loves bees but has difficulties keeping his hives going, always seems to have an old empty hive sitting out during swarm season. Several times he has gone out to see a swarm has taken over one of these old empty hives. In fact it’s the only reason he has any bees right now. You’ve probably read in books like “The Hive and the Honey Bee” about how to set up a swarm trap. They like old brood comb is what I’ve read and they like it to be a few feet up from the ground. You could maybe have one of these sitting out at the appropriate time in your yard. You could also sprinkle a few out in the woods where you think it’s safe and wait and see what the generosity of nature brings you. If you need the exercise, though, bee lining sounds like the way to go. A lot of work though. Finding a hive sounds hard enough, but then you have to retrieve it. Good luck. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:57:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?D._Murrell?=" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Guys, I too am interesting in J Berry's experiment. From my personal experience, it's right on track with what should be expected. The first season on small cell without treatments, brings an increase in brood and in mites as the bee mite relationship develops. And significant colony loses are experienced between the first and second season. Her experience is right on track and to be expected. The bees gain control over the mite situation, during the second season. And easily they tolerate mites from the third season on. The time frame and losses along the way are one common element to those who have succeeded using small cell regardless of their assessment as to the why's. For me, it's alot like taking off a new airplane. You try it with those who have done it. If they say it takes 3000' to get the plane off the deck, with the first 1000' a ground roll, the next 1000' a transition with some flight control and the third 1000' a transition into flight. It's probably a pretty good guide. You may wig and wag this or tap this and that. Your roll may be a little longer or shorter. But mostly the take off experience is the same. But if one chops the throttle and hit the brakes at 900 feet, don't be surprised by the response. Those that have flown it, will know why. And those that can't fly, will rest assured on the ground, that it never will. Regards Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:46:17 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: California Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit While there have been some reports of hives collapsing and spot shortages of bees in CA, here is what Blue Diamond and Eric Mussen have to say about the situation in CA. http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_8531076 San Joaquin County almonds off to good season Industry is taking advantage of warm weather, healthy honeybee supply despite late start to bloom As well as good weather, farmers are being aided by sufficient supplies of honeybees to pollinate orchards throughout the state, Blue Diamond's Baker said. "We don't have any complaints from growers this year about, 'We haven't been able to get bees or get enough bees,'" he said. Still, bee rental rates remain at historical highs -- about $140 to $150 a hive -- and some beekeepers continue to report problems with so-called colony collapse disorder, in which hives seem suddenly to empty or vanish with no apparent cause, a UC Davis bee expert said Thursday. "It's not quite as bad as last year, but there were still individuals who still had problems," said Eric Mussen of UC Cooperative Extension. "It's definitely still out there; it still needs to be worked on to see what's going on," he said of the mysterious disorder. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:16:40 +0100 Reply-To: hugo.thone@edpnet.be Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Hugo_Thon=E9?= Subject: coumaphos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I would like to know if Perizin and Check-Mite are still being produced by Bayer. If so, can someone point out where in Europe or the US, I can order these products. cheers, Hugo **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:42:20 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>I am in the country with lots of woods and open fields. My question to this august and learned group is how would you go about it in that about one month time frame? Set out scented (mint, lavendar) sugar water in small jars and patiently wait for scouts. When scouts set up a bee line and bring recruits, start gradually moving the jars in the direction of the departing bees. Keep a sharp eye out and you'll find the colony. And don't neglect putting out hive bodies with old frames. You may catch some nice swarms. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:24:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline D. Murrell wrote: > The first season on small >cell without treatments, brings an increase in brood and in mites as the bee >mite relationship develops. And significant colony loses are experienced >between the first and second season. Her experience is right on track and to >be expected. But what is the effect of varroa invasion on hives that have been using small cells all along, as in South Africa? In South Africa they have always had small bees and use special small cell foundation. The bees will not accept US sized foundation and their natural cell size has a mean of 4.81 mm with a range of 4.37 to 5.59 for worker cells. When varroa first arrived, they thrived in the colonies with small cells, reaching levels of 50% or 30,000 mites in a large colony. Hundreds of thousands of colonies died. I have obtained a copy of "Beekeeping in South Africa" edited by M. F. Johannsmeier (2001). In it he writes that it was hoped that "the short post-capping period of African worker brood [would] disrupt the reproductive biology of varroa mites" but " varroa mites are quite capable of reproducing and increasing on worker brood of African honeybees, the short post-capping period notwithstanding". He says quite plainly: "The smaller worker cells appear NOT to inhibit the mating of mites during the post-capping period." He recommended AGAINST the use of varroacides, however, because they will "artificially sustain the susceptible honeybee population and prevent the development and spread of naturally selected varroa-resistant population". He recommended pesticide free areas where varroa resistant bees could develop naturally, and "queens reared from these resistant colonies can be used to re-stock other regions of the country". * * * According to Mike Allsop, this is exactly what happened in the following years. He writes: > In periods of initial exposure to the mite, the "front" of the spread of varroa, mite populations built up extremely rapidly in the honeybee colonies of South Africa, even dramatically. As many as 50 000 mites were found in commercial colonies, and average mite numbers of more than 10 000 per colony were found. This initial surge in mite population growth was accompanied by all the classic symptoms of varroa mite damage (scattered brood pattern; bees with vestigial wings; large amounts of chalkbrood; "disappearing" colonies), and it appeared that the pattern being followed was similar to that witnessed elsewhere. During this initial stage, colony decline and mortality was not unusual, and entire apiaries were lost to what was demonstrably varroa damage, to the extent that many commercial beekeepers quickly turned to varroacide treatments to protect their colonies. > Data, from a wild Apis mellifera capensis population, illustrate the rapid development of mite tolerance, with mite numbers reduced to practically zero after not much more than three years of exposure. > Notwithstanding the characteristics of African honeybee races that pre-adapt them to varroa tolerance, the lack of breeding and artificial selection in African honeybees is certain to be a critical factor in varroa mites not becoming a major problem in South Africa as it has almost throughout the world. Varroa tolerance requires constant selection pressure to maintain the tolerance, the selection pressure provided by free-mating and unmanaged colony survival. In contrast, a very large proportion of the commercial beekeeping industry in the USA depends on the purchase of commercially-produced queens with limited genetic variability, which are often poorly mated and infected with various pests and diseases (Camazine et al 1998). > A similar situation exists in commercial beekeeping operations around the world. To compound it, beekeepers are forever introducing bees from across the globe in an effort to deal with local pests and diseases. All in all, the commercial bee population is generally not genetically diverse and not locally adapted. This is in complete contrast to the African honeybee population which is almost totally unselected, and probably as genetically diverse now as it was a thousand years ago. Bailey (1999) and Allsopp (1999) have argued that selective breeding for "quality" by and for beekeepers has decreased the resistance in honeybee populations to a wide range of pathogens. Highly intensive selection has decreased genetic variability and selected against critical "bee tolerance" factors such as swarming and defensiveness (Bailey 1999). > A more sensible approach would be to: (a) Manage naturally occurring regional strains of honeybee, rather than importing strains from elsewhere. This is particularly important in Europe and Africa where Apis mellifera is indigenous and less so where it is an exotic species. (b) Practise "primitive" beekeeping as is the case in Africa by allowing natural selection processes to determine which are the most significant characteristics for selection and not the beekeepers or bee scientists, at least to some extent. It is also best to use an un-manipulated wild population, and for this population to be as large as possible. * * * If you got this far, the bottom line is: * it has nothing to do with cell size and everything to do with not treating for mites. By not treating for mites you get bees that don't die from mites and/or mites that don't kill off colonies. IMHO this is the most plausible explanation for the falling off of varroa pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:40:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: Bee lines and feral bees+finding bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Waldemar wrote: > > Set out scented (mint, lavendar) sugar water in small jars and patiently > > wait for scouts. When scouts set up a bee line and bring recruits, > > start gradually moving the jars in the direction of the departing bees. > > Keep a sharp eye out and you'll find the colony. I will add: People used to put a dusting of powder-I think flour on bees and then ,measure the return time -they would then would also have the distance. You would have to calibrate as I dont know round trip time...maybe somebody would....This from an ol timer at a beek meeting. Since I am here I will add the following I heard from a guy who went to Rhodes College in Memphis. In college they would watch the bee doing the waggle dance in an observation hive ,measure certain parameters,mark it, and then go to the place the bee dance was indicating . he said most of the time they could find that bee on a flower with the dance info alone. John Horton **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:17:39 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Propolis Component May Help Treat Bronchial Asthma MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Propolis Component May Help Treat Bronchial Asthma Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester Attenuates Allergic Airway Inflammation and Hyperresponsiveness in Murine Model of Ovalbumin-Induced Asthma Life Sciences , Volume 82, Issues 13-14, 26 March 2008, Pages 797-805 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/propolis-component-may-help-treat.html Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) is a biologically active ingredient of propolis...The objective of this study was to determine whether treatment with CAPE results in significant inhibition of asthmatic reactions in a mouse model... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:19:30 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: UK Beekeeper Uses Honey to Heal Wounds of Rwandan Genocide MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII UK Beekeeper Uses Honey to Heal Wounds of Rwandan Genocide Honey to Heal Wound Western Daily Mail (UK), 3/11/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/uk-beekeeper-uses-honey-to-heal-wounds.html Beekeeper Mark White is flying to Rwanda to help survivors of genocide rebuild their lives - with honey.Mr White, of Gillingham, will help a group of widows running a honey production project to increase their technical knowledge, and so generate £20,000 over the next two years... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:49:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?D._Murrell?=" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi PB and Everyone, >it has nothing to do with cell size and everything to do with not treating for mites.... Sure could be. It was over a decade ago that I starting looking for a way to run bees without the pesticides. At that time almost all the research, with two exceptions, was focused on finding more powerful mite pesticides. And the constant cry from the government, universities, etc. was treat...treat....treat. Anyone not treating was perceived as a public nuisance or worse by the beekeeping community. Today, those same people are promoting a non-treatment approach. There's only one little problem. There are few to none who have successfully done it on large cell. So far, they bounced a few times. Pulled the throttle, hit the brakes and are still on the ground. Their bees required treatment to survive. They IPMed them. And I sure don't see any stampede to be the first test pilot. I don't think most beekeepers think it will fly. Treating no longer assures a beekeeper productive, healthy hives, if it ever did. Treated hives still die off by the tens of thousands from PMS. They overwinter poorly and require constant requeening. The only non-treatment alternative back then, was small cell. Those of us, with few exceptions, who tried it, found that we could run productive, healthy hives without treating for mites. Along the way, certain behaviors. like the bees ability to detect and remove mite infected pupa when on small cell, were hashed out. That was years before it was officially discovered and called VHS. Makes me wonder what else is going to be discovered :>))) And once we were past the take off, flying was easy. It gave us lots of time to speculate as to the whys and even tweak some of the hows. Regardless of the reasons why, it looks like it still requires 3000' to get off the ground, even in SA. And if you chop the throttle at 900', you've learned something about the ground roll, you've made some noise and traveled aways. But you're along ways from experiencing flight, let alone understanding it. So, I ask the question, Do you need to treat your hives? How is it working for you? If you're happy with it, don't waste a second looking for any other alternatives. Not everyone would enjoy the flight. Some are scared to death of it. And that's OK. Regards Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:59:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Varroa D., AHB and hybrid survival In-Reply-To: <001701c88435$dd047890$5ce84cd8@HortonFamily> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.apimondia.org/apiacta/articles/2007/varroa_reproduction.pdf Good artice on Costa Rica and Varroa. The last comment is: Quote:The low mite reproductive ability found in worker brood cells of AHB and HF1 colonies, seems insufficient to explain the colony losses and reduced production of honey due to V. destructor reported by beekeepers in Costa Rica. However, infestation rates of 10.0% found in adult bees during a 170-day research study (unpublished data), indicates that infestation with varroa mites could increase through the year (although apparently not as high as in temperate climates). Because of mite infestation increase, most of the beekeepers in Costa Rica have been applying the acaricides Apistan® (Fluvalinate) and Bayvarol® (Flumethrin) yearly for the treatment of infested colonies. We hypothesized that, due to the preference of mites to infest drone brood to reproduce, a high proportion of the mite reproduction should occur in drone cells of AHB colonies. Further studies are needed concerning the reproductive capacity of V. destructor in drone brood of AHB colonies, in order to get knowledge with respect to the mite population dynamic under the tropical conditions of Costa Rica. Unquote Varroa dynamics are a bit beyond where we think we are. You can get different loads in different climates, so it may not be one-size-fits-all. I hear what Dennis says but there are too many variables in this equation. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:42:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: California In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Re almond pollination I spent the day with Dr Mussen last week, and we share what we hear and see. The supply appears to have been a similar situation as last year--a shuffling of colonies at the last minute to fill in collapses. Lots of boxes with only a few frames of bees. Lots of deadouts. Lots of loads rejected, then placed somewhere else! Many beekeepers had much better colonies than last year--they got onto feeding and parasite control. But unacceptable fall and winter losses are taking a big bite out of their profits. Some who actually tried to increase their numbers went down in flames. I drove around some orchards where bees were carefully graded. Beekeepers appear to be generally struggling to produce strong colonies. Growers benefited by exceptional weather--there was no problem setting a crop. Half the number of colonies would have sufficed. If there were a glut of bees, the price would drop back to $50 in a flash. The reality is that there is no need to count colonies--the offered price will tell you how robust the supply of decent colonies was. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:49:42 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: re (Bee-L)Todays bee die off email In-Reply-To: <8CCF67A515DB4453BBE841D37179A29E@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Hi Bob, >The old field test (pulling out the mid gut) has worked for me to get a *general* idea N ceranae infection does not appear to produce the swollen gut, as far as I can tell. Randy **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:46:51 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter: "the short post-capping period of African worker brood [would] disrupt the reproductive biology of varroa mites" but " varroa mites are quite capable of reproducing and increasing on worker brood of African honeybees, the short post-capping period notwithstanding". Reply: Technically, I can agree with this, though all parameters are not layed out. But as written above can agree. He says quite plainly: "The smaller worker cells appear NOT to inhibit the mating of mites during the post-capping period." Reply: Again, technically as written can agree with what is written here, though all parameters are not layed out again. But as written above can agree. YOu see with both, it's the technicalities as written and you need to read close and then not read things into it more so then what is written........ Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:44:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dennis wrote, >So, I ask the question, Do you need to treat your hives?=20 I do not know where you are but in my area beekeepers with pure Russian = bees on standard cell size are not needing to treat for mites or disease = with excellent results. Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:30:03 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dennis: The first season on small cell without treatments, brings an increase in brood and in mites as the bee mite relationship develops. And significant colony loses are experienced between the first and second season. Her experience is right on track and to be expected. Reply: Yes, increase in brood, and increased mites from equalization, in that there is no longer drone cells artificially spreading things out, so when broodnest turnover time comes first fall, the varroa transfer from drone to workercell is real for the first time, for 1st year cycle on SC for the bees to then deal with, which can result with whole sheets of brood uncapped by the bees then working on the varroa. This transfer of mites also, comes from three sources then, the first inside the colony and the second from within the same apiary, and the third from nearby apiaries within flight radius. Also, significant colony loses are to be experienced, as when even we/I did it originally, we were told up front by scientists, to expect 90% losses due to today's artificially hybridized bees not being able to readapt to natural conditions again, for fitting back into a real world due to todays' artificial systems they are raised upon (IA and closed population), so you learn to let the unadaptable die, period, that man has created, instead of what will work in Nature. Not to say all will die, but a large majority many times will. But in saying this above, this is with normally no shifting of queens and going thru the process of drawing out foundation for the whole first year which extends the time frame. Now, with HSC new fully drawnout, things have changed a little for instant regression down for starting nucs,(which I recommend for starting nucs only and not whole hives unlike the waxed base SC foundation). This gives faster turn around time for starting hives if used from early spring forward, to filter the mites out from fist cycle of brood for the whole active first year, rather then slowly growing into it throughout the first year as you fight to get combs drawn right with a 4.9mm top tolerance and culling of combs with positioning. You also then need to shift queen for local mating which can be done sooner also, so you have more naturally climatically adapted bees for your area for first winter carry over also. This should be done not later then beginning first main flow IMPOV, so drones then produced are mated smaller, and more naturally in size to smaller queens,so then mated more in tune with Natural sizing parameters of which there is a specturm by latitude and altitude. So, so far with experiment being done by Berry, it is like said above, seeing what has been seen in past by many others already going that fork, but now needs to be continued for another 3-5 years to see it thru, like has already been done in Sweden and Norway and many parts of EU mainland, besides beekeepers here in various parts of USA. Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:37:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:49:34 -0400, D. Murrell wrote: >Treating no longer assures a beekeeper productive, healthy hives, if it ever did. I wonder, how many commercial beekeepers who treat for varroa do you actually know? Do you go to any beekeeping meetings which are attended by commercial beekeepers? pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:10:21 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 In-Reply-To: <001001c88471$1ebe7bb0$6897fea9@webbhoney> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi, Carl, if I may ask, what is the cell size your worker brood id on, or what is the make of foundation you are using in your hives? God Bless, Keith Malone **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:17:30 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <47D6FE1C.9070200@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >My question to this august and learned group is how > would you go about it in that about one month time frame? Simple, Bill! 1. Make several simple swarm boxes out of apple boxes or old hives. 2. Book a two-week vacation to Florida, Texas, or Tucson, and take the boxes along. 3. Set the boxes in trees while you enjoy your vacation. 4..By the time your vacation is over, the boxes should contain fresh feral swarms. Take them home--they should be gentle and productive for a few months before the fireworks start. Glad to be of help, Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:09:05 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Bee Talk at Martha"s Vinyard MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Since I haven't seen Dean post this yet, figured I would for him to get the word out for what was just posted over on Organicbeekeepers list by him: Dean (Deknow) writing: on this note, if there is anyone on Martha's Vinyard who is on this list, but not connected with the local beekeepers, Ramona and I have been invited to give a talk on chemical free beekeeping by the local bee club on March 22 at 1pm. this is early enough to get started this year with only clean wax and to regress your bees to small cell. it's much easier to do this off the bat, rather than trying to switch over later. if you'd like to come, but don't have the info, feel free to shoot me an email. deknow __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:21:20 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi, > I wonder, how many commercial beekeepers who treat for varroa do you > actually know? For me the answer several to many. > Do you go to any beekeeping meetings which are attended by > commercial beekeepers? For me the answer is I used to but not presently, I lost interest in meeting to hear about treating hives and not learning better practices of not using foreign substances in bee hives. It is a polarized subject that just leads to many misunderstandings. I was heckled out of the last meeting I attended locally because people misunderstand subject matters. God Bless, Keith Malone **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:31:06 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803121417s3dd1e850s2ce470668f8da6f9@mail.gmail.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi, > they should be gentle and productive for a few > months before the fireworks start. Maybe or maybe not, maybe if given more time without the eradication policies genetics could be sorted out. Here is an example of genetics sorting out on their own. I think that Apicide should cease. http://esa.confex.com/esa/2005/techprogram/paper_22428.htm God Bless, Keith Malone **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:11:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Keith Malone asked the make of the worker brood that I use. I use a combination of Pierco and Dadant wired wax in the brood chamber. = When Pierco is fully drawn it is beautiful but in early spring before a = major nectar flow I much prefer the wired wax. I am not a purest and have in the past used mite treatments but have not = gone through the teramysene treatment for several years. When I did = treat it was only in the fall as I was buying breeder queens and = building the purity of my Russian bees. I did last fall, use one scoop = of apiguard on a couple of my yards but I can, this spring tell no = difference in those that got a scoop of apiguard and those that did not. = Differences in cluster size this spring depends more on location than = anything else. Where there was a good fall pollen flow last fall the = clusters are much larger.=20 My winter loss this spring is about 2%. My neighbor beekeepers have lost = more than half of their bees. They are good beekeepers who treat their = bees as recommended. The only difference between my bees and theirs is = that mine are Russian and not treated. There must be something out there = that kills their bees and not mine. I am convinced that the only reason = for one with Russian bees to ever use any treatment is because they are = near other bees. I have a big advantage in that I have been using a pure Russian breeder = queen for the past 9 years, raise my own queens and sell 100+ splits to = other beekeepers each spring. These cultural activies also reduce mite = levels. Members of the new Russian Breeders Association are pledged to use no = medication or treatments in their breeding program. Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:24:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?D._Murrell?=" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi PB and Everyone, Since moving to Florida, I've only met a few and really don't know them. I been told that they the standard practice here is two treat two to three times per year. I attended one local bee club meeting and there were no commercial beekeepers there. They were simply to busy to play bee club. In Wyoming it was a different situation. There were only a few hobby beekeepers. The rest were all commercial beekeepers and they all treated and lost significant numbers of hives to mites while treating. The commercial beekeepers I know, in California, are treating 4 to 6 times per year. Now back to my question. Do you need to treat your hives for mites? If so, what do you use and how often? I really don't expect an answer, as I've never gotten one from any of the critics of small cell. They will spend hours on the computer criticizing what others have done. But they have nothing to offer in its place. They don't even have a plan let alone a plane. The best they can do is stand on the end of the runway, stomp their feet, wave their arms, and make lots of noise with their lips. And hope nobody finds out just how they're using those strips or what else they're putting in their hives. PB, Forget the commercial guys, how many beekeepers do you know who have mite tolerant bees on large cell? I don't know of a single commercial beek and only two hobby beeks that have done it. If one wants to fly, the means and methods are out there. If one doesn't, well then buzz those lips and flaps those arms. It might convince those who don't know any better. :>))) I'm outa here Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:30:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lesli Sagan Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <47D6FE1C.9070200@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline The voice of inexperience here: get a copy of John Vivian's _Keeping Bees_. He has a section on bee lining and making bee lining boxes. I've wanted to try it for the longest time, but... On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:48 PM, Bill Truesdell wrote: > My question to this august and learned group is how > would you go about it in that about one month time frame? > > -- ***************************** Lesli Sagan lesli.sagan@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:57:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit D. Murrell wrote: >I really don't expect an answer, as I've never gotten one from any of the >critics of small cell. They will spend hours on the computer criticizing >what others have done. But they have nothing to offer in its place. > >They don't even have a plan See my article last year in American Bee Journal titled "Keeping Bees Without Chemicals". The plan is to get and keep varroa resistant stock, mimic natural swarming by dividing colonies, let susceptible bees die, avoid areas where there are large numbers of commercial beekeepers who are treating for varroa, etc. Currently I do not own bees as I am forbidden to do so as a NY State bee inspector. However, I have spent hundreds of hours on the problem of varroa resistant bees, how to get them, and how to keep them. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:52:02 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Keith Malone Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 In-Reply-To: <000f01c884a7$3bb12890$6897fea9@webbhoney> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi, > Members of the new Russian Breeders Association are pledged to use > no medication or treatments in their breeding program. What about the scope of apiguard used in a portion of your colonies, was this just an experiment that was for some reason allowed outside the pledge. I am currently breeding a strain of bee in Alaska where I used a Russian base stock. I chose the Russian bee after looking at and trying many other strains and found them have the best basic traits for surviving my location. another prominent beekeeper up here in Alaska has tried Russians and claim they are worthless as a useful strain but I believe that the fault of Russian bees is probably a management issue and not a fault of the strain. Some traits that are claimed to be negative are positive in my view point. Some people can not see the forest for the trees, and some people can not see the benefit of Russian bees for what is perceived as negative traits. Same thing goes for African bees. Many beekeepers are looking for a super nice bee instead of a bee that can survive. > I use a combination of Pierco and Dadant wired wax in the brood chamber. > Well the pierco may not be small cell on an average but it is smaller than abnormal. So how long have you been 100% not treating your Russian Bees? God Bless, Keith Malone **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:34:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter, Dennis, Bob and others here: When varroa first arrived, they thrived in the colonies with small cells, reaching levels of 50% or 30,000 mites in a large colony.Hundreds of thousands of colonies died. Reply: I want to clarify here so when you read posts I have done or am doing you will understand where I am going! Think back to when Small Cell was first on the market and then I blew my top! also I think if one goes back to archives on list here and also BioBee and Beesource.com,you will find same top blowing! Here in USA and with USDA I was handmaking the foundation by hand for first years until it came on market and our bees were living with varroa but secondaries were eating our bees alive. Small cell foundation was new on the market, but I and Ed (husband now deceased) were picky and looked at things close. One of the things was the fudging with the stretching of the foundations and the fact that the small cell being sold did not match what I was personally making by hand for use in the field, and so I/we got into a measurement thingie as to how things were done. I/we ended up going smaller to 4.9mm and out front we stated and wrote about which was printed how what we were looking for and doing wasn't being made at all, to rhomboid old style measurements but to a more modern measurement that was actually larger then that quoted by square decimeter. So small cell was actually bigger then the feral in usage and what we wanted to do in usage and we/I split the sheet and went smaller...... This would have bearing on the results quoted here for the S. African experiments done with Small Cell bought originally made and IMPOV would account for the bigger mite load seen, that nowadays most tend to forget and/or put aside as water under the bridge.......I think Dennis will remember here, and Bob having been in tete with me, and a few others early on. Articles can still be pulled up in ABJ and perhaps Bee Culture also on the sizing disparity. So I can see the above paragraph I replying to being accurate, but not for SC as seen and bought today which is now 4.9mm sizing and not the original small cell first put on the market. That said, with recent posts I stand..now having clarified perhaps something many have forgotten but still in archives. will now stop rambling,, Dee A. Lusby ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:47:52 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Video:Maryann Frazier on CCD March 8, Worcester County Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit terrible videography, but important new data on chemical contamination of comb, foundation, bee bread, and pollen. i turned the camera away from the screen on purpose several times, as maryann requested that i not post film of the data slides. once it's compressed, you cant read the slides anyway. these google videos are easy to scroll through (you don't have to wait for the entire download)...so someone can post the times of some of the important points. link is on our homepage: http://www.BeeUntoOthers.com/ deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:10:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Apitherapy Conferences to be Held in U.S., Italy, Germany MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Apitherapy Conferences to be Held in U.S., Italy, Germany Events promote health and medicinal uses of bee hive products http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/apitherapy-conferences-to-be-held-in-us.html (March 13, 2008) ­ Upcoming conferences in the United States, Italy and Germany will focus on "Apitherapy," the medicinal use of bee hive products such as honey, propolis, royal jelly, bee-collected pollen, beeswax, and bee venom... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:17:18 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: re (Bee-L)Todays bee die off email In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803120849w2409c97fq28ddca34cb8ff4a9@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Randy said: "N ceranae infection does not appear to produce the swollen gut, as far as = I can tell." I agree with Randy=B4s observation about NosemaC. You do not see diarrea no= r swollen guts. --=20 Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:32:43 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Royal Jelly Kick-Starts DNA Methylation in Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Royal Jelly Kick-Starts DNA Methylation in Bees Biotech News, 3/13/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/royal-jelly-kick-starts-dna-methylation.html New Australian National University research may explain why eating royal jelly destines honeybee larvae to become queens instead of workers. Scientists from the Research School of Biological Sciences at ANU have discovered that a copious diet of royal jelly flicks a genetic switch in young bees that determines whether they'll become a queen, or live a life of drudgery. Their findings are published in the latest edition of Science... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:05:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Comments: To: Dee Lusby Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dee Lusby wrote: >So small cell was actually >bigger then the feral in usage and what we wanted to do in >usage and we/I split the sheet and went smaller...... > >This would have bearing on the results quoted here for the >S. African experiments done with Small Cell bought >originally made and IMPOV would account for the bigger mite >load seen According to my information, South African foundation is based on a cell size of 4.7 mm which is smaller than what you advocate > The Hortresearch trial used five different types of wax foundation with cell imprints 4.7mm, 4.8mm, 5.0mm, 5.1mm and 5.4mm (standard size) in diameter. The South Canterbury branch supplied the 5.1mm and 5.4mm foundation, the 4.7mm foundation was obtained from South Africa and the 4.8mm and 5.0mm foundations from the United States. http://www.beesource.com/bee-l/biobeefiles/pav/scstudy.htm **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:31:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Keith Malone wrote: >What about the scope of apiguard used in a portion of your colonies, =20 was this just an experiment that was for some reason allowed outside =20 the pledge. Keith, the Russian Bee Breeders Association has just been formed. All = rules are in effect beginning this year. In the past I have been on my = own.=20 Russian bees would undoubtedly be the best bee for wintering in Alaska. = The only precaution I would give is that they have a good fall pollen = source. You might even try some of the new pollen substitutes if you do = not have good fall pollen. A good fall pollen source results in bigger = winter clusters which I prefer for quicker spring build up. The bees = came from Siberia originally so I am sure they would winter well. My = bees winter in clusters from 2 frames up to 10 frames, even in areas = where there was good fall pollen. I assume that the difference is = genetic and one could select for the desired spring cluster size.=20 Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:51:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803121417s3dd1e850s2ce470668f8da6f9@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit randy oliver wrote: > 2. Book a two-week vacation to Florida, Texas, or Tucson, and take the > boxes along. Does Hawaii count? I actually have tried, over many years, the empty box with old comb technique and have struck out every year. I have a bad feeling that I am the only beekeeper in the area and may find there are no bees around. I have been on the call list for swarms and only have had one call and that was 10 years ago and might have been my bees, since they were close. My first swarm call resulted in a device to get bees off the trunk of a tree and won first prize at the 2003 EAS meeting. So what I am doing is to try to see if there are feral bees and then track them down. The technique I intended to use was the bee line with sugar syrup at different places to see if first there are bees around. One thing that I have not seen is if the saucer has better drawing if colored and/or odored and if so, what? It would seem that a colored saucer, flower print or bullseye would be a better draw, but, again, I await your wisdom. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:52:23 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit i have a book called "hunting wild bees". my recolection is that they advise using honey (and maybe some wax) and heating it on a piece of foil to attract the bees. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:16:34 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bee Quick Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I may be one of the last surviving regularly-practicing recreational bee-liners. My Dad still makes the high-tech 3-chamber boxes, if anyone needs one. http://www.bee-quick.com/bee-line/bee_line_box.jpg To "survey" an area for bees, one is well-advised to use the pheromone lures during swarming season. They have been shown to be better than "old comb" in swarm traps. Actual swarm traps are optional if one wants to merely detect bees, I've seen bees go for them year-round, as they can even attract a crowd of foragers, or gather up stragglers when one is doing a removal. Before blooms are out as I assume is now the case in Maine, checking the water sources on 50 degree and above days is a good approach. Water is easy to find on topo maps, and a hive will always have a few water foragers working. The best thing about finding bees at a water source is that this tends to make for a shorter distance to the hive than starting with bees doing nectar and pollen foraging. If you want to establish a "trap line", you could buy a quantity of pheromone lures, glue them to the lids of prescription pill bottles with a larger-than-bee sized hole drilled into the side, and partly filled with soapy water. This would kill a few bees, but it would indicate that bees had found the trap. Most drug stores will give you a dozen bottles for free if you ask. As far as finding the hives, I like the capture, feed, and release from different points triangulation approach, but this requires that one buy or kludge up some sort of bee-lining box. Others claim that the feeding dish approach is the best, but I haven't got the time to use that method. There are at least 3 hives, maybe 5 in Central Park in New York City, so I don't know why you wouldn't have any near you. If you want to lure bees with honey, sugar water, melted beeswax, or any of the other commonly-fabled substances, I'll submit this photo as proof that one can never tell what might attract bees during a dearth. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tropanic/2298102075/ Yes, that's an "Apis sortastupid" on the right, a bee somehow attracted to DIET Pepsi, which has no sugar content at all. Go figure. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:10:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?D._Murrell?=" Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi PB and Everyone, I too, am hiveless right now. I moved to south Florida last June and bees are an anathema in this hoa, condo culture. I've seen my first hive beetles in another migratory beekeepers hives down here. Man, they can scurry fast. I would like to try a few tests of my own in this more tropical environment. But will have to find a suitable location. And that's not an easy task. I confess that I missed your article. It sounds somewhat like the plan Ericson and Hines worked with in the SW. I tend to skip most mite related stuff. It's no an act of arrogance. Just a lack of need. I will lookup your article. I know that some beekeepers have found ways to run bees without treating at all. Most found success by followed the Lusbys small cell approach. Fewer have succeeded with large cell. Some have worked with bee genetics. And one has found a kinder, gentler mite. Could all these approaches provide a basis for a way to keep bees without treating? For sure. And some other ways will probably come along as more people work their bees rather than work to exterminate the mites. Good luck on your plan. Any efforts to remove or reduce pesticide use beekeeping is burdened with is a step in the right direction. Who knows, it may fly better than anything before. Regards Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:18:54 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <47D9316C.1090503@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >I actually have tried, over many years, the empty box with old comb > technique and have struck out every year. OK Bill, if this is true confessions, I have also had terrible luck, even using swarm lures. And there are adequate bees around, since sometime my colonies swarm like mad, but ignore the bait hives (deep supers, ply top and bottom, 1" hole, hung in trees, swarm lure). Randy **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:21:45 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Royal Jelly Kick-Starts DNA Methylation in Bees In-Reply-To: <20080313043243.84d281a5f2f7df0ef38485a84124037d.a685dd472b.wbe@email.secureserver.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >New Australian National University research may explain why eating royal > jelly destines honeybee larvae to become queens instead of workers. The alternate view is that queens are the default, and lack of jelly, and a horizontal cell cause them to become workers. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:55:44 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>I actually have tried, over many years, the empty box with old comb technique and have struck out every year. Baiting and trapping is not easy if you are not in a bee-rich area. >>I have been on the call list for swarms and only have had one call... I have not had a good experience with swarm lists. Whenever I heard about something, it'd have been a week later and the swarm would have already departed for parts unknown... You'd be better off visiting several exterminating companies in your area and offer your bee removal services to the responsible few who will contact you right away if they come across a swarm or a colony. >>My first swarm call resulted in a device to get bees off the trunk of a tree and won first prize at the 2003 EAS meeting. Please do tell more! >>One thing that I have not seen is if the saucer has better drawing if colored and/or odored and if so, what? A light color dish will nicely stand out against grass. A little natural scenting will bring the bees in even quicker. They have done studies that showed bees picked up on good contrast very well. I'd go to an area with a somewhat decent nectar bloom to quickly verify bee presence and then set up my dish. A thicker sugar water would attract lots of bees. Waldemar Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:13:36 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bee Quick Subject: Bear Found Guilty in Macedonian Hive Raids MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080313/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_macedonian_bear SKOPJE (Reuters) A Macedonian court convicted a bear of theft and damage for stealing honey from a beekeeper who fought off the attacks with thumping "turbo-folk" music. "I tried to distract the bear with lights and music because I heard bears are afraid of that," Zoran Kiseloski told top-selling daily Dnevnik after the year-long case of the bear vs. the beekeeper ended in the beekeeper's favour. "So I bought a generator, lit up the area and put on songs of (Serbian 'turbo-folk' star) Ceca." The bear stayed away for a few weeks, but came back when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, Kiseloski said, adding, "it attacked the beehives again." A court in the city of Bitola found the bear guilty, and since it had no owner and belonged to a protected species, ordered the state to pay the 140,000 denars (1,726 pounds) damage it caused to the hives. There was no information on the whereabouts of the bear. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:28:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Comments: cc: bee-quick@bee-quick.com In-Reply-To: <000001c88525$9c035f50$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to all, including He Who Should not be Named, for your ideas. I agree with the simple fact that, if there are no bees, I will certainly be wasting my time sitting by a honey covered dish in the middle of a field. Although I could assume the Lotus position and chant Tibetan Top Ten Tunes. Perfectly normal in Maine. Since, if I ever could get my legs crossed I might never get them uncrossed and would become a living monument in the field ($1 admission), that is out. Here is my plan. Set out many dishes in different locations with a little tanglefoot smeared on some of it to capture any bees, mainly to see if there are any in the area. I have 3 acres and there are another eight open field acres adjoining my lot. If there are, I will use that location for feeding and place a "feeding box' there, open at first while I observe the flight of the bees, and then close the entrance with a panel which has several tube entrances. The bees can get in to the box but the tubes will extend several inches into the box so they will probably not be able to get out. The boxes sides will have several screened openings to draw the captured bees to the light, so they will not try to get out using the tubes. Then I will use those bees to triangulate the location of the colony. Any comments? Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:39:46 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Ted_Hancock?= Subject: Genes, consciousness and selfish social insects Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit If you have no time to read this, at least go to this link and read the article :http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7292334.stm I was labelling honey late last night (labelling has become a very time consuming business as I now have to put on four labels: the main label, the nutrition label, the certified tracking number lid sealing label and the Certified 100% British Columbia Honey label. If anyone knows where I can buy an inexpensive labelling machine please let me know) while listening to Ideas on CBC radio. The program was discussing how biologists decided back around 1900 that the human body must be similar to a machine. They just had to discover the parts to the machine to describe how it worked. So the idea of a part named a gene that held a blueprint of the body came along before genes were discovered. Then genes were discovered and everyone said 'fine, fine, good, good, just as we predicted'. I'm just a wee bit over my head in discussing this and maybe someone like Peter Borst can step in and wipe the floor with me but this was the general gist of the program. But now, as they learn more and more about the human genome and genes themselves, they are discovering that genes are not near as cut and dried as they thought. In fact it is getting increasingly difficult to define just what a gene is. And if you can't define something, maybe just maybe it doesn't actually exist. Some are suggesting biology is entering a period similar to that of physics when Einstein came along and upset all the established theories of how things work. I couldn't help apply all this to how science views honeybees. We have always thought of them as robots reacting to various stimuli. Can anyone think of any observation or experiments in beekeeping that cannot be explained by the robot model? A few years ago I read a long chewy article in the New Yorker. If I remember right it was written by a women who had become a beekeeper after having a career as a librarian. Maybe someone more familiar with the article can confirm this but I think I remember reading that she once had a bunch of bees clustered against a window screen in her honey house. And some bees came along and landed on the outside of the screen and after a little 'conflab', the bees inside crawled across the ceiling of the honey house to a crack somewhere off in the dark and escaped to the outside. I have never seen anything like that but if I did I would have a hard time explaining it with the robot model. The only other 'maybe' I can come up with is an experiment I was told of in which a researcher shook bees onto drone foundation; the queen had nothing but drone cells to lay eggs in. After a period of laying drones the queen started laying fertilized eggs in the drone cells. Either this was a conscious decision by the queen or evolution had somehow programmed her for just such a situation. I am currently reading a book titled "Theater of the Mind, Raising the Curtain on Consciousness" by Jay Ingram. It is interesting how complicated and difficult it is to describe exactly what consciousness is. Some say an animal has it if it can demonstrate an awareness of self. Jay gives the example of the scrub jay which hides it's food (insects) in sand for future use. Experiments have shown that if a jay knows it has been observed doing this by a neighbouring bird it will go back later after the neighbour has flown off and re-hide the insects. So is it putting itself in it's neighbours shoes so to speak? In talking to bird researchers I have learned of experiments done on birds in which a male is caged and allowed to watch as his social mate is visited by other males (seriously, people have done this),or if the female is just removed for an hour or so (indicating, I guess,that she's been off fooling around), the resident male will reduce the amount he invests in feeding the chicks later (since he figures they're less likely to be his I'm assuming). All robotic and unconscious? I had been thinking about all this when someone sent me the link to the article on ants above. So it makes me wonder if any of you have ever observed behavior in bees that is difficult to explain with the robot model? And can you think of any experiment that would prove or disprove consciousness in bees? Ted Thinking: I might not be conscious after all. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:34:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: Video:Maryann Frazier on CCD March 8, Worcester County Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit nice post Deknow i found this data to be at least one nail in the coffin for the idea that self contamination of hives is a core factor in CCD. for those interested mainly in the CCD/pesticide data start around 37 minutes (previous is background and overview) and run to 1 hour anyhow She presented data that showed brood from CCD hives contained levels of fluvalinate that were near the LD50 levels. a weak correlation existed between high fluvalinate and comouphos levels in bee bread and colony strength the really interesting data to me is that fluvalinate chemistry has changed since its introduction as Apistan, to be now almost twice as toxic as the original material. this new version can be toxic at levels as low as .2 mg/bee according to EPA data. this gets even more interesting is a chemical that's commonly mixed and sold as a premix with fluvalinate for labeled Ag uses lowers the LD50 to .0094 mg/bee and is very very toxic to bees. the implication was that off label use (blue shop rags) could have unintended results. oops! how many collapsed loads in CA had their annual fall blue shop rag treatment a few weeks earlier before being shipped west? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:26:56 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Video:Maryann Frazier on CCD March 8, Worcester County Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit also, i think it points out that foundation comes from beekeepers wax. all 5 samples (small sample...but all 5 is hard to explain away) of foundation had fluvalinate and cumaphos in "significant levels". this study is yet to be published, so it shall be interesting (although not a "happy interesting") to see the numbers. also, i believe (and correct me if i'm wrong) that the levels in brood was near the ld50 for adult bees :( it sounded like the ccd hives were just weaker in every way, but nothing stark between the 2 groups. unfortunately, i don't think they are following individual hives through time. deknow -- Brian Fredericksen wrote: anyhow She presented data that showed brood from CCD hives contained levels of fluvalinate that were near the LD50 levels. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:13:05 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Jennifer Berry on Small Cell - HAS 2007 - Video Comments: To: Bob Harrison In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob: Hello Dee & All, The things Dee said are in the archives here and are as she just posted and small cell has been discussed repeatedly. Which is for my area of the Midwest and also Allen Dicks area of Canada (latitude & longitude) 4.9mm is too small and not the *natural* size and according to those early discussions our cell size would be more like 5.1mm instead. Reply: Not really Bob! for Nature is not that cut and dry.....All animals of which honeybees are, break out into small, medium, and large range. For the medium going into the large size I can see what you say. But for the medium going into the small size I cannot, especially with small cell sizes noted in old archives in Bee World and early ABJ, and ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture. This also then when looked at by longgitude and latitude breaks out this way in same old archives over in the Nordic States and the EU mainland. But can agree majority was bigger, and bigger was probably used by beekeepers. But Still the bottom rung is there and looks like to me wanting now, for in smaler comes variability for change when severe stress problems arise which include most all pests/predators/and secondary diseases. While in our southern states the core of broodnests might be majority SC below the 4.9mm medium center range with succeedingly larger as one goes to the side, even in the area you are, there would still be medium range though larger cells found. With 4.9mm in the medium range then where it would be larger down south more, then in your area, it would be right there on, for starting with instead of smaller 4.7mm to 4.8mm, and yet in Nebr and elsewhere you have many beekeepers saying today and posting on other sites, they are seeing smaller being produced in their feral. So the bees must be wanting and needing it, or would not be wanting to do it to a point in the general mid-west area. Now this is not Allen Dick's area above the 50th parallel and there I can see the larger size mode you quote as majority and yet there will be some 4.9mm as smallest in the smallest sizes for full variability for breeding needs by the bees, and this is seen in old archives of the nordic States, as told to me by Erik Osterlund, and is probably noted in old archives here on BEE-L too in prior discussions. But remember SC 4.9mm has been stated to be used for "starting out and regressing to stabilize" and then you follow the bees for what the bees want.... So if they go larger be happy for you then get what you want if they can continue to take care of problems and remain healthy;... but if they go smaller, follow them and work accordingly. Also, take all culled comb drawn wrong, and put into honey supers, for even if drawnout wrong it will still be smaller for the most part then the bigger LC stuff on todays market. Then you can always melt and redo as volume permits. But you are right Bob for bigger out weights the SC in volume above the 40th parallel, but don't believe as much as you think.....and until you travel the path following the bees needs, you will not know in a way, be it SC foundation or HSC or foundationless even, though I cannot see foundationless for commercial production needs and migratory.... though I can see the other!... Regards, Dee ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:03:32 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Ted_Hancock?= Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:28:42 -0400, Bill Truesdell wrote: > >Since, if I ever could get my legs crossed I might never get them uncrossed and would become a living monument >in the field ($1 admission), My comment is that I would pay the dollar. Somewhere in the dim dark past I heard/read/dreamed that some culture somewhere on this planet found beehive nests by catching a bee on a flower and glueing a small feather to it's thorax. The bee could still fly but not too fast because of the added weight. So the fellow who glued on the feather ( that would be Bill) could jog along behind the bee, leaping over fences and dashing up and down slopes while following the bee back to it's nest. Ted Thinking: I would pay $10.00 to watch Bill do this. Make that $20.00. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:45:32 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Manuka Honey Association Seeks to Protect Medicinal Brand MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Manuka Honey Association Seeks to Protect Medicinal Brand Comvita Assures Customers of UMF® Quality Scoop Independent News, 3/14/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/manuka-honey-association-seeks-to.html Comvita strongly supports recent action taken by the Active Manuka Honey Association (AMHA) to protect the UMF® (Unique Manuka Factor) brand and customers around the globe who use UMF® honey products. This follows the announcement that a search warrant has been executed by police as part of an investigation into the alleged fraudulent activity by a senior employee of a honey company licensed to sell UMF® (Unique Manuka Factor') honey and honey products... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:01:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803130818g5b61e93cl1e881fb4e741331f@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Bill Truesdell wrote: > I actually have tried, over many years, the empty > box with old comb technique and have struck out > every year. Hello Bill, Lures are IMO a must when using bait boxes. > I have been on the call list for swarms and only > have had one call and that was 10 years ago and > might have been > my bees, since they were close. My friends at a local pest control company are perhaps the most pro bee people I have ever met! They WILL NOT harm bees under any circumstance, except in an extreme danger to health or safety, which turns out rarely is the case. Bee Calls tend to go to the pest companies, and that’s where to leave your name. Last two seasons, I am having a hard time keeping up with the swarm calls, almost like the good old days again. how > would you go about it in that about one month time > frame? I may be one of the last surviving regularly-practicing traditional ‘bee hunters‘. ;) Some old bee hunters over the ridge from my place, (contrary to popular belief, bee hunters are not all dead yet) still enjoy an occasional bee hunt. They course bees in the woodlands as I do, well off the beaten path, far from city parks, smog and cigarette butts. The woodlands of western PA, has been held a long tradition of bee hunting, and for many years, according to historians, feral bees were said to “…thrive and multiply exceedingly“ and “…get great store of them in the woods where they are free for any Body…”. BTW, The term ‘bee lining’ is a relatively obscure, more recent term, and not commonly used amongst traditional bee hunters. ‘Bee hunting’ ‘honey hunting’ or ’coursing bees’ were the terms used through generations, and where the tradition is handed down, so is the lingo, and are still the terms used by those practicing this tradition. The use of these terms are reveling in that those claiming to have gleaned the art of bee hunting from a ‘hand me down tradition‘ or from the elders, would use the old traditional terms to describe the art, and not the obscure or book read ‘bee lining‘ term. The old-timer from over the ridge from me in the woodlands near an old mining town taught me many of the old techniques of bee hunting, he’s an old timer but not to be fooled, he’s tough as nails. The bee hunting old timers I know, never have used the term bee lining. They, as well as I do, prefer to be called ‘bee hunters’ and with respect to tradition and the old bee hunters that helped me learn the art, I will use that term. My bee hunting nowadays is for identifying locations of feral nests, and gathering swarms from them by placing a catch device about 20 feet from the feral bee tree, a device that occasionally surprises me and works as intended. Is not a trap, but an auto-catch device to obtain a swarm as it alights in bivouac from the colony, thereby causing no harm to the mother feral colony or bee traffic to and fro. With permission from the landowner, a feral colony will be removed ONLY if the tree is rotted to a great degree, exposed to the elements, fallen to the ground or in some pending danger. At this time of year, I might take about a dozen forager bees from a distant yard to an open spot in the area I wish to bee hunt. There I allow the bees I brought to get their fill of the reward. Near this place, a small smudge pot of beeswax and honey is heated over a small flame, the odor from the smudge pot goes down wind to attract scouts. The foragers brought with me are released, and it appears they go off mostly in an upwind direction or toward tree lines, seeking a new colony that will adopt them. These released bees perhaps find the nearest colony, and once there, will dance the location of the reward. I prefer to see returning scouts fly off in the direction of up wind, this tends to suggest, I am in for a short walk, but it is not always the case. >From the strange but true files. Rock & Rye whiskey attracts scouts very well in the spring, or anise and syrup. Often, scouts may ignore your bait, having other sources more profitable, so I adopted strategies accordingly. Except for spring bee hunting, I now prefer save the Rock & Rye for some better use, and instead pull a frame of unripe nectar directly from a colony to use as the reward. By using unripe honey, I am assured that this nectar is what the bees are actively foraging, so is being what they are foraging, locate it very quickly, and it competes with other sources out there. And by using the current nectar source, bee hunting can be accomplished throughout the foraging season, even during a flow, and your bait will be competitive. Best Wishes, Joe Feralbeeproject.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:16:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Genes, consciousness and selfish social insects MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Hi Ted I have studied consciousness off and on for decades. I decided that it's pretty much futile to discuss consciousness in animals when we don't even know what consciousness is in people or ourselves. But, for example, if an animal performs an intelligent action like stashing food for later, that is not evidence that it is "conscious' of doing it. For example, we drive automobiles, which is a highly sophisticated activity, yet often our "consciousness" is elsewhere (on the phone?) But, consciousness includes what we are conscious of, what we are doing "unconsciously" like driving, or typing (which is also part of our consciousness). That leaves the real unconscious processes like breathing, heartbeating, etc. But, I believe that most of our thought processes are actually *unconsciously performed* and that what we call thinking is only the top layer of it, the part that we are conscious of. So an animal could be conscious in ways similar to us, but not be conscious of its "self" or even have a self concept at all. The concept of "self" seems to be reserved for primates and dolphins, but even here -- a lot depends on the ability to structure the experiment in such a way that one takes into consideration the mental process of the subject, and b) one doesn't load the experiment in ways that cause it to succeed or fail and mask the actual effect. Quote: Donald Griffin (1915-2003) made his name by discovering echolocation in bats and writing a widely accessible book Listening in the dark. In the early 1970's, Griffin decided to devote himself to the cause of animals' consciousness. >From then until his death in November 2003, at the age of 88, Griffin used every possible means available to him to promote the study of animal minds. He wrote and lectured extensively, reinterpreted many old observations, challenged people studying diverse groups of animals to devise ways of obtaining a glimpse into the minds of animals and wrote three books. The burden of Griffin's message was that, viewing animals as being in a state comparable to human sleepwalkers, will never let us find out if animals have conscious experiences. See D R Griffin, The question of animal awareness: evolutionary continuity of mental experience, Rockefeller University Press, New York, 1976. D R Griffin, Animal thinking, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1984. D R Griffin, Animal minds: beyond cognition to consciousness, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:25:03 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Video: Demonstration of Bee Venom Therapy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Video: Demonstration of Bee Venom Therapy http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/03/video-demonstration-of-bee-venom.html Watch Leah and Alan Lorenzo, traveling bee venom therapist (www.BeeWellTherapy.com) and you'll discover how the beneficial sting of a honeybee, and her hive products, can relieve and even heal various spinal, neural or muscular-skeletal ailments. Honeybee venom has provided natural healing to mankind for over 2000 years in ways that traditional medicine cannot. Watch Leah actually sting Alan with a live honeybee for tendinitis in his elbow, and see how easy bee venom therapy can be for affordable healthcare at home. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:51:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?D._Murrell?=" Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Guys, I'm in south Florida, Boynton Beach, and beeless as well. I suspected feral bees would be available, that with the year long flowers, mild climate and long bee history in the area. But it's not so. I've seen less than a dozen honeybees in 9 months. I've observed few to none native bees and just a few wasps. I've captured a few of those bees and tried to convert them to a feeding station. No success. I sprayed a palm bloom with scented syrup hoping to convert a few to a station underneath. I tried trapping with beeswax and lemon oil. No success. I had thought about going through the rigors and setting up a bee removal service. It would surely be a "bee" removal service. And I would just need a pair of tweezers. :>))) All my best methods to hunt and trap bees down here have failed, even during the height of the dry season. I suspect that pesticide use and government spraying might have major effects. Regards Dennis Thinking the unthinkable for a Wyoming guy, maybe I'll have to buy bees in Florida! And find a more bee friendly place to set them up. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:36:22 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: <798391.95752.qm@web56411.mail.re3.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe W., Lots of good info, but my problem is I have no bees to start the process. Do your friends also have bees or do they have a "beeless" technique? Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:57:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: My great and wonderful invention for which I won the First Prize at EAS In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10803121417s3dd1e850s2ce470668f8da6f9@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The swarm was against a tree trunk. I went home and got two broom/mop poles and a 30 gal garbage bag with some string. I laid the poles parallel to each other and attached the bag with the string so the top of the bag formed a square opening, opposite sides against each pole and one end of the square at the end of the poles. Think an "H" closed at the top. The top square is the bag. It was easy to place the end of the square against the tree below the swarm, holding the other ends of the poles. I pushed the poles until the bag end form-fitted the trunk, then worked it up, slicing the swarm from the tree as I went up. When all the bees were in the bag, I joined the poles together, sealing the bees inside the bag. What I should have done then is shake them into an empty hive body and sealed it up. Instead I drove them home, about five minutes away, then shook them into a hive body. They seemed no worse for the trip. I refined it later by using a clear bag which had closing loops which made it easier to attach to the poles and I could see the bees. But never had another reason to use it. It could be used for any low hanging swarm or even one higher up, since it is easy to close around the swarm and shake the bees into it. Which is why I shifted to clear plastic, so I could see what was going on in the bag if I ever used it again. It won the first prize in the large gadgets category at the 1993 EAS meeting at Orono, Maine. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:11:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Genes, consciousness and selfish social insects In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter L. Borst wrote: > I have studied consciousness off and on for decades. I decided that > it's pretty much futile to discuss consciousness in animals when we > don't even know what consciousness is in people or ourselves. Agree for the same reasons. One area that is interesting is the parts of the brain. More and more is being discovered as to what actually happens in different parts as they relate to consciousness. It may be egocentric to think we are the only ones who have consciousness, but more and more basic brain science seems to be moving in that direction. But, we shall see, since tremendous biases exist in this arena and you can extrapolate data to fit your construct. It, like genetic science, is not necessarily in a state that is in chaos but is moving from the simple to the complex. What we thought is not quite what is going on. It just looked that way. That has been the normal scientific progression since the dawn of time. The more we know, the more complex the universe becomes. Truth is, if what we know so far about "all that there is" was a jigsaw puzzle, we are only working on the edges. That, by the way, is a great gift. Bill Truesdell, President, Maine chapter of the Flat Earth Society Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:04:23 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Yoon_Sik_Kim?= Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Interesting Exchange on Swarm-Capture here. Many on this list already know my beekeeping modus operandi: that I have been keeping bees on large cells without treatment by singularly exploring feral survivor stocks locally available, that I never buy queens from elsewhere even though, at times, I do entertain the thought of infusing different genes into my current stock, and finally, that I have quit purchasing packages even from within the United States about fifteen years ago, realizing I was on yo-yo beekeeping. This practice of using feral stocks only, for me, has been possible for two reasons. One, I have been a sideliner, not relying my livelihood entirely on my operation although I am now building up gradually. Had I been a commercial beekeeper, I probably have starved yellow by now. Two, for better or worse, I live in an area that has been affected by AHB invasion although the AHB’s in our area have not yet caused any massive stinging incident, another topic for another time. Possibly Three, just as the recent South African paper has suggested, I could not care less if my bees die due to mites or nosema or other pathogens. Let them bee or let then DEAL with it, for I know I will be busy collecting swarms again come next year; in fact, like many on the list, I much prefer fall loss. My overwintering success rate this year has been around 80%, possibly one of the worst in recent years, the key being heavy fall-feeding; I have already preached elsewhere that starvation kills more bees than anything else. When the bees come out strong in spring, I split to prevent swarming and to increase their numbers or make up winter loss; in fact, I have already done it for this year during the first week of March, a crucial window of opportunity in my area; the bees had already started making drone cells in mid-February so that by the time new queens come out, the drones are available. It took years of careful observation to figure this date out and luckily the availability pollen coincides with my split, and I would like stay a hair ahead of the first pollen. Now how do I go about capturing swarms? I have never been successful in capturing swarms using traps, either, and wasted quite a lot of money and time and dreams; the only time I got one was a swarm that simply moved into stacks of boxes I have stored in the open. I find the following methods more reliable, which I do about this time of the year. That means right now. 1. I contact all the local fire/police departments and give them my number. Typically it has been 911 dispatchers who would contact me if someone calls. 2. Contact and leave your number to the County Extension Office (all the land-grant institutions should have one nearby); many people will contact this Ag-office. 3. I advertise in all possible venues, especially the free ones, such as in the local electric Coop flyer. In fact, for the first time this year, I will pay to advertise my service in the local paper, for the number of swarms you will catch will pay in the long run for the rather expensive advertisement. 4. When removing bees, I contact the local press so that the sensationalism-starved media will be more than happy to indulge me and advertise my service in the process, free, typically a front-page stunt for this run-of-the-mill town out of nowhere. Currently I am thinking about contacting one of the local TV Channels that featured me about five years ago to come and tape me while I remove one walled-colony in the city. 5. I give bee-talks to any civic and other organizations, such as garden clubs, schools, and even retirement homes, to expose my business, a PowerPoint presentation that includes many pictures of jaw-dropping walled- colonies I have removed. Now, regarding the retirement home visit, no one appreciates cut-comb honey more than these folks: they remember how to enjoy comb honey better than today’s kids because they had actually tasted it when growing up, something kids nowadays do not know. Convert them into your cut-comb honey clients. 6. Even when I teach, I talk about my bees and swarm removal, and sometimes show my students my PowerPoint so that their word of mouth will help my feral bee rescue operation. Others have already mentioned about contacting local exterminators, which I have done to only a few and found not as successful. (I suspect they’d rather make money by spraying than letting me remove swarms and walled bees) All these activities will expose how passionate you are about saving honey bees now that everybody knows about a thing or two regarding CCD, a DDT in bee industry; eventually, people will know you are the bee-man who would rather sleep with your bees than with your wife. How about an ad like this in personal column? : “Woman Beekeeper Wanted for a Serious Companionship: The broken teeth of the hive-tool doesn’t matter. The shape and age of the frame doesn’t matter. The wear and tear of the extractor doesn’t matter. Just send me the picture of your bees!” Yoon **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:19:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Liquid Sugar Storage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Hi everyone on this Flat Universe I am ready to purchase Liquid Sugar at 67=B0 brix. I do not have a formal tank to storage it. I am thinking on keeping it in honey drums (55 gals). Apart from Randy's treaks (bleach) in Fat Bees 4 Anyone have experience storaging liquid sugar in honey drums? How long does it last? --=20 Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:38:25 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bee Quick Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > BTW, The term 'bee lining' is a relatively obscure, more recent > term, and not commonly used amongst traditional bee hunters. > 'Bee hunting' 'honey hunting' or 'coursing bees' were the terms > used through generations, and where the tradition is handed down, > so is the lingo, and are still the terms used by those practicing > this tradition. The use of terminology different from what Joe would prefer is deliberate - it is to differentiate modern techniques and gear that yield tangible results from old techniques that have been overwhelmingly discredited as complete and utter fictions when subjected to actual field conditions. Most accounts of 'Bee hunting' 'honey hunting' or 'coursing bees' one can find are complete fictions. The problem here is that the authors of these historical accounts got their information second-hand, third-hand, or worse. None of it mattered in pre-1985 conditions when the woods were full of swarms. One could simply throw a rock in a random direction and following the rock's trajectory, find a hive along that vector without too much trouble. After the exotic invasive mites came to the western hemisphere, the number of swarms went down, and the more comical techniques for "finding bees" were quickly exposed as fraudulent. About the only book I think is worth reading on the subject is "Bee Hunter" by Edgell, 1949. He at least clearly tested his techniques, and his observations are consistent with what one finds in the woods. But post-mite bee-lining (or whatever you want to call it) is as different from the pre-1985 "traditional practices" as modern beekeeping is from pre-1985 beekeeping. For example, setting out a "dish" with feed, even heavily scented feed may be an exercise in frustration during any bloom period. During a dearth, it works more often, but it is still more efficient to seek out water sources than it is to attempt to "attract" bees with anything less than queen pheromone or a Pherotech swarm lure. At EAS 2004 at Seven Springs PA, we set out a dozen different substances only 50 yards away from the apiary hives, and got no takers for the honey, scented sugar water, honey-b-healthy, and so on. We moved the "baits" closer over the week, and ended up 20 feet away. Now, these bees had been relocated only recently, but they clearly were foraging. Baits are not a consistently successful approach. The best triangulation tool one can have is a GPS with a "project waypoint" function. One releases bees, and gets a compass vector on their last-seen position as they fly off (after the circling they do upon takeoff to literal "get their bearings"), and one can use the "project waypoint" function for bees released from as few as 2 widely different points to locate the hive with surprising precision. Many times, I could not find the hive at the intersection of the flight vectors, but could detect the bees with a parabolic mike and a pair of headphones. Joe's approach of using foragers from other hives, and releasing them to hope that they find a hive, dance about a food source, and thereby cause more foragers to visit is interesting. Please drop me a e-mail the next time you want to stomp around, and I'll drive out your way. How far away from their "home" hives are you taking these bees to release them? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:56:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Video:Maryann Frazier on CCD March 8, Worcester County In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brian Fredericksen wrote: > this gets even more interesting is a chemical that's commonly mixed and sold as a premix with > fluvalinate for labeled Ag uses lowers the LD50 to .0094 mg/bee and is very very toxic to bees. > the implication was that off label use (blue shop rags) could have unintended results. oops! Even though there may not be a one-to-one correlation between CCD and the unauthorized use of fluvalinate , it certainly does account for at least some of the CCD reports and does answer the observation that bees on the same foundation exhibit CCD symptoms but the same bees on new foundation are fine. Also that bees are also fine on honey supers from the same hive that suffered from CCD, since honey supers are not on when the colony is "treated". The news that all fluvalinate is not alike (there are several isomers) and the new form is found in wax, means that any data concerning fluvalinate concentrations needs to discern just which one we are talking about, since the original isomer formulation is the weak cousin of the variant now also found in wax. If beekeepers are applying their off label treatments as if it was the old formulation, you will get bees in very bad shape and very susceptible. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:13:10 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Molokai Meli LLC Subject: Re: Bee lines and feral bees In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v618) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree with Yoon. All of the activities he stated have worked for us to recover around 200 feral hives in the past 3 years. In a small community like ours, now everyone knows who to call, and they do call us--even the exterminator. For those in larger communities or those who are not well known in your area, a SAVE THE BEES article in a local newspaper as well as notices put up in public places would give you exposure. I believe there are feral bees out there, and I also believe there are people who already know where they are. It would save a lot of time and effort if you could just get them to call you. We have even had hunters call us to tell us where an existing colony made its hive in a tree miles into the mountains. Capturing feral bees sure makes life interesting! Happy hunting, Molokai Meli, Hawaii **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:32:23 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: Video:Maryann Frazier on CCD March 8, Worcester County Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit As if the off label implication was not headline news already. I was blown away by the revelation that Apistan had become significantly more concentrated. This must have affected many, many beekeepers over the last decade. I'm shocked that the manufacturer or someone else had not disclosed this for so long as it apparently was in the EPA archives. I sent an email to Dadant today with the video link and suggested they might consider dropping Apistan and Checkmite. We need some leadership in the industry on this self contamination issue. Where is ABF on this I wonder? oh yeah maybe they're still drinking the Imid kool- aide while Rome burns....... Its not going to be long and the data is going to get published. We have a window of opportunity to get ahead of this issue now. How foolish will all beekeepers as a collective look when the public hears that via labeled or off labeled use we have succeed in contaminating the brood nest? The facts are here - what will we do about it? Do we need to start a petition to pull Checkmite and Apistan from the market? count me in.... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:53:37 -0500 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Bees In Walls, Honey Dripping Into House, But Homeowner Does NOT Want Hive Removed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "It's something the family is unprepared to do just yet..." http://www.sgvtribune.com/rds_search/ci_8540663 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************