From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:10:03 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 992E94908E for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:39 -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 n1SG3YWv017258 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 LOG0804A" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 189589 Lines: 4290 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:46:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Pesticide Use South of the Border Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit According to this NYT's Op-Ed piece, pesticide concentrations are many times higher in South America and Mexico and wildlife poisonings more frequent. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30stutchbury.html? _r=3&ref=opinion&oref=login&oref=slogin&oref=slogin imagine the impact on honeybees, although it seems nothing impacts the AHB negatively. So much for the idea that Ag Chems are killing off honeybees en masse. Where are the reports of bee losses then south of the border? or are they not being reported? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 00:07:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: urban CA bees Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://sfist.com/2008/03/31/bee_keeping_in.php hipster honeybees from san francisco what do you think? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:30:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Pesticide Use South of the Border In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > According to this NYT's Op-Ed piece, pesticide concentrations are many > times higher in South > America and Mexico Many of the banned in U.S. pesticides ( banned for valid reasons) are in use in Mexico. I fact many of those fruits and vegetables are headed for U.S. markets. Corruption is widespread in South America and there is little control (as compared to the U.S.) over pesticide use. >So much > for the idea that Ag Chems are killing off honeybees en masse. Ag chems (without proper controls and testing before release) are causing problems to more than honeybees. Where are the reports of bee losses > then south of the border? Losses similar to U.S. in areas of crops but information is scarce. South American beekeepers are being invited to the Reno convention next January ( in part so certain large commercial beekeepers can make contacts for when the border opens.) >or are they not being reported? In Mexico there is little governing of beekeepers like in the U.S. My California contacts which have interests in Mexican operations and a Midwest beekeeper which imports Mexican honey for sale to U.S. packers say the Mexican beekeepers are seeing large die offs but with cheap labor are staying ahead of the problems by constant splitting and being able to work bees most of the year. Dave Mendez (U.S. east coast migratory beekeeper) said at the ABF convention he is seeing around 50% losses through the year but able to stay ahead of the problem through splitting and working his bees. As long as you have got enough strong colonies to rebuild from then its a labor issue. When you lose most of your hives then its a money issue as you need help from outside your operation.(packages, nucs, brood and queens) Winter confinement has made whatever is causing the U.S. die off to be worse than in areas you can work bees most of the year (such as beekeepers based in Texas, Florida and California). Those beekeepers can monitor bees almost every day of the year. Question: Has the paint in honey drums from China ever been tested for being a lead based paint? bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:06:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Heindel Subject: CCD misdiagnosis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII I think misdiagnosis of CCD is a valid concern/question. I have a hive that went into the winter with plenty of stores and no known varroa infestation or other problems. I opened the hive a month ago and found they were dead even though there was still plenty of honey near the cluster and no damage from mice or other predators. I could say that it was CCD and add my name to the chorus, but was it really? A step in the right direction would be to clarify and repeat here and in other spaces what exactly the symptoms of CCD are as well as what other explanations might be for certain colony losses. I appreciate newspaper and magazine stories about the plight of the honeybees (and the beekeeper) but most contain more generalizations and assumptions than facts. Let's be careful not to add to the misinformation! Allen **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:13:09 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter de Bruyn Kops Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Allen Heindel wrote: > I could say that it was CCD and add my name to the chorus, but was it > really? CCD is defined as a list of symptoms, not a cause. The symptoms are specified in a way that require warm weather (absence of otherwise likely wax moth predation, robbing). Therefore, CCD can never occur up north in the winter. Of course, the causative agent of CCD may be the same causative agent of your hive's demise, but that is not knowable at this point because we do not have a proven causative agent for CCD. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:21:40 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gheez! CCD is defined by its symptoms. These change with the season. The classic symptoms were those seen by us and others in warm areas in winter/spring 2006-7. But, its a disorder - nothing says it can't happen in the winter - in fact, my loss of 90% of our research hives in MT happened in February. It gets harder to diagnose (distinguish for other pathologies) at some times of the year. Our CCD colonies still ended up with the majority of the bees fleeing the hives - whether outdoors or in the shed. Of course we had some dead bees in the bottom, but nothing close to the number that disappeared. In our shed, many ended up trapped, desperately looking for any exit. Any an amazing number found their way out of our simple shed. But,they didn't want to stay in their hives. If they can leave the hive, they will. What we DID see - no shortages of food (hives had plenty of honey and stored pollen), no bees head first and dead as would be expected if they starved, lots of brood for time of year, queen's were overdoing it. Brood was developing nicely, then the bees fled. Jerry **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:54:48 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?iso-8859-1?B?QXJpIFNlcHDkbOQ=?= Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Misdiagnosis of CCD is more than easy without microscopic study.. I had a beekeeper to call me an he stated that he had CCD. 80 % of his hives, about 45 in total had died during winter. Very few dead bees left. Clean frames, no visble sings of pest or desease. I sugested taking bee samples to a bee lab. The few remaining bees were heavily infested with acarapis mites. So that was the case. I would not recommend anyone stating CCD without looking the remaining bees with a microscope for heavy nosema or acarapis. Ari Seppälä Finland **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:51:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Maryam Henein Subject: los angeles beekeepers Comments: cc: Organicbeekeepers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi,=20 I am getting periodic calls about swarms in Los Angeles. Do you know who = I can call to save bees? The Beek I use has already captured all the = swarms he can handle... any leads much appreciated! -- (\ {:|}{|||}-- =20 (/=20 Maryam Henein Writer/Producer/All-around Raconteur www.vanishingbees.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DzXircJ_eJ1Y (maryam amid thousands and thousands of bees) Sacramento Highlights http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DPqotV9pOyBQ http://ossmedicinejewelry.etsy.com=20 (Animal Medicine Jewelry/place link in browser) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 14:12:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_de_Bruyn_Kops?= Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit CCD-like symptoms in winter in the north are fully explained by varroa predations in September. (Winter bees age early and leave hive to die.) There is no need to come up with a new explanation unless there are some symptoms that do not fit the varroa or older explanations for winter mortality. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:33:23 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Lightning Bees of California Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All, I am astonished that there are so many educated people that never knew that honey bees would mate with lightning bugs. But I tell you it was common practice among bees and lightening bugs in the forests of California where I once lived and worked as a prospector. Off in the region near a place called Vinegar Pond, where Pickled Cucumbers grew on vines and upon which we fatted and pickled pork on the hoof, and where the giant California trees grew, it was no uncommon thing for the us to discover in the hollow of some of these gigantic trees immense swarms of bees that worked a night force who were provided with illuminating wings. In fact, it was necessary for such an economy among bees in that region in order to fill the hollows of these gigantic trees. It was in this great forest, where I witnessed a remarkable conflict between California honeybees and yellow jackets. While prospecting, we happened upon a gigantic bee tree, the hollow of which was so large that you could easily have placed the Cortland Nominal school building within it, were it of a more oval shape. I tell you, it’s the solemn truth, if ever I spoke it in my life! This hollow was filled with thousands of tons of the most delicious honey you ever tasted. There was a large stream of honey that flowed from a crack in this tree to a depression in the ground about an eight of a mile distant, forming a lake of pure honey that was several yards across. This lake was surrounded by California bears that fattened on this honey. They would toil about ‘Honey Lake‘, as we called it, through the day, only leaving it long enough to visit ‘Vinegar Pond‘, a mile distant, to quench their inordinate thirst created by continually lapping honey from this lake. We were constantly supplied with the juiciest and most delicately flavored bear steaks from the bears we would shoot while on there way from Honey Lake to Vinegar Pond. These bears were very docile, as they were never hungry, and believe me when I tell you, it was a common thing for members of our prospecting party to mingle with the bears at the lake side. They never offered to resent any intrusion from us; they were in fact less savage than so many fattening hogs. This particular variety of California bee is much larger than our bees. They average about the size of sparrows. The queen is as large as a robin. Not far from this particular bee tree was located an immense nest of yellow jackets, about the size of humming birds. This nest was suspended between two of the largest of the giant trees and was three or four times the size of the dome of the Capital at Washington, D.C. It was these yellow jackets that had created the crack in the bee tree, through which the honey flowed that created Honey lake. The yellow jackets drilled the crack with their stingers and thieved upon the honey that ran out until one day, the bees organized a night attack on the yellow jackets nest. Aerial Attack by Night. While in camp one night telling stories over our supper of broiled bear steak and delicious honey, with natural grown pickled cucumbers and pickled pigs feet fresh from the pen, we were startled by a terrific roaring that resembled the sound of a distant waterfall. We strengthened the fastenings of our tent and got inside, expecting a terrible storm to burst upon momentarily. After several minutes of suspense we ventured outside, and beheld in the distance the strangest sight imaginable. The night force of bees were all out and flying in regular line of battle, some fifty lines deep, I should judge. The constant flashes from their illuminated wings lighted the surrounding country for a half mile. You could see to read as plainly as under an electric light. The roaring sound created by their wings was what we had believed to be the warning of a great storm. We followed the direction the bees were taking and some came near the immense nest of yellow jackets suspended between the trees. The bees surrounded the yellow jacket citadel by the million and soon covered the entire outside until the dome like shape of the yellow jacket nest glowed with the constant flashing of the wings of the bees, making it resemble an immense ball of fire. The yellow jackets inside the nest were at the mercy of the bees, who tore large holes in the nest and stung to death the yellow jackets as fast as they were reached, and who were evidently bewildered by the flashing lights from the illuminated wings of the bees. The roaring sound created by the bees was augmented by that of the doomed yellow jackets. The fight lasted approximately three hours and the next morning the ground was covered eight or ten feet deep with the dead bodies of the yellow jackets and bees for rods. The great dome like nest of the yellow jackets looked as though a cyclone had struck it. The bees had simply annihilated the yellow jackets, however, and had lost thousands of their own number as well. The second day after the battle the stench that arose from the scene of conflict was so great that we were obliged to move our camp two miles away. I have never cared for honey flavored bear steak, pickled cucumbers or pickled pigs feet since that time. I tell you, it’s the solemn truth, if ever I spoke it in my life! Best Wishes, Joe Waggle http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:44:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: 17th and 18 Century Bee Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All, I have a free trail on an online digital book site. I need to collect as many bee books as I can during that time. What would you recommend as a must have from the 17th and 18th century bee books? Either by book name or author? So I may better focus my efforts. Most are out of London, So who are the great bee writers from England, during the 17th and 18th Century? Thanks! Best Wishes, Joe Waggle **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 20:07:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: urban CA bees Video Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Brian Fredericksen wrote: >http://sfist.com/2008/03/31/bee_keeping_in.php > > hipster honeybees from san francisco what do you think? I have my doubts that the beekeeper is in San Francisco, because I didn’t see any flowers in his hair. In any event, he won’t be keeping bees in that neighborhood for long, if he proceeds with the method he currently employs to rid bees from the comb. Best Wishes, Joe **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 20:16:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: The New Organic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/16/the_new_organic/ any interesting discussion of how two seemingly divergent approaches to agriculture, organic and GMO technology could be a marriage made in heaven that would benefit our honeybees too. I believe its important to note the credentials of the author which are noted on the last page. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 20:19:15 -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: 17th and 18 Century Bee Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit "Cook's Manual of the Apiary" 1882 He lists some of the other books of the time. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:43:46 -0500 Reply-To: davehamilton@alltel.net Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: DaveHamilton Subject: Re: 17th and 18 Century Bee Books In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Finally, years of lurking, you guys get to my area. This is my collection *Butler 1704 Feminine Monarch Sharp Spirit of the Hive Adams In search of the Best Adams Beekeeping at Buckfast Abby Doolittle Queenrearing Fritch The Dancing Bees Fritch Bees and Their Vision King 1883 Beekeeping Textbook *Langstroth 1865 Hive and Honey Bee Cheshire 1886 Bees and Beekeeping Mosly 1889 Honeymakers Quimby Homeymakers Quimby Beekeeping *Materlink The Life of the Bee *Huber New Observations Crane Archeology of Beekeeping Pellet Practical Beekeeping Pellet Honey Blants *Stuart City of the Bees Taylor The Joys of Beekeeing Winston The biology of the Honeybee Laidlow Queenrearing Hubble A book of Bees and Beekeeping Crane Bees and Beekeeping Snelgrove Queenrearing Longgood The Queen must Die Werner Anatomy of a Controversy Winston The Wisdom of the Hive Adams Breeding the Honeybee *Widman Treatise on Bees Free Phermones of Socail Bees Jaycox Beekeeping in the Midwest Laidlaw Instrument Insemination Jackson Smoking Allowed Deplane Mites of the Honeybewe Hodges Pollen ID *Rev Cotton My Bee Book Frank Pellet History of American Beekeeping Gould Honeybees from Scientific American Carlisle Timely Chats Seeley Wisdom of the Hive *Fabre Bramble Bees Taylor Breeding Superbees *Known to be in Sherlock's Library My $0.02 Dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 21:07:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All, It is spring in the north east, and that means it is time once again for winter kills to be blamed on CCD. Here is one such list of symptoms recently posted on another list. And already believed to be CCD by the poster. I have kept anonymous, and listed my explanation for the symptoms. You may disagree, but that would be good, I want to hear your opinions concerning the symptoms. Symptoms 1* Thru 5* 1* Every CCD hive has no bees at all, not even dead ones. 2* Every CCD hive is full of honey, and honey is still capped. These symptoms were common well before CCD arrived. Can be dwindling due to parasites. That no dead bees are present indicates to me that death occurred last fall, or very early winter. 3* No robbing, even though there has been a few warm days lately. However, all hives that died from starvation have been robbed of the few stores remaining on the outside frames. I even found the cappings on the bottom boards. But no discarded cappings in the CCD hives. For the purpose of illustrating my answer: I’ll call the “CCD Colonies”, which I think are: ‘absconding / dwindling colonies’ I’ll call the “starvation colonies, which I think are: ‘cold starved colonies’ First, the ‘absconding / dwindling colonies’: Consider that when a colony dwindles or absconds in the late fall, They are not in a process of opening new stores, they are weak and incapable of this, they area in a contraction mode away from stores, and abandoning the colony. Therefore, you will tend to see in these ‘absconding / dwindling colonies’ with many frames of capped stores, and nearly no uncapped stores (the lack of un capped stores is a key point here) Second, the ‘cold starved colonies’ (as opposed to ‘isolation starved colonies‘): Consider that when a colony dies with cluster in place, this could perhaps indicate a cold starved condition, where although the cluster is in contact with open cells of stores, it is too small in numbers and unable to generate the heat needed to keep warm. Cold starved colonies are in contact with stores, and usually can be found with uncapped cells and exposed stores at the leading edges of the cluster. And often, isolation starved colonies can also be found with open cells of honey. (Open cells of capped stores a key point here) Answer to symptom #3*: It is perfectly logical that the robbers would choose the cold starved colonies to rob over the absconding colonies. This is where the smell, the attractant, the ’uncapped stores’ are located, and perhaps old queen odor. The scouts will ZERO in on this open stores smell and that’s where they will start robbing FIRST. You may have noticed this in observing early spring robbing, where several dozen bees will be in a frenzy to rob a 2 inch area of exposed cells when there are 10,000 square inches of capped cells all around them which they totally ignore, working out from the uncapped stores to rob the rest. 4* All hives that died of starvation and did not have a mouse guard, had a mouse or two in them. Even the two hives that I found alive in Location 4 had a mouse that I chased out. 5* All hives that died from CCD did not have a mouse, or any other living thing in them. I have to say this is a fascinating symptom, and again explainable. Mice are "omnivores." That means that like humans, they eat both meat and plants. Mice will naturally choose the hives having bees in them, for a proper diet. A mouse would not want to be without a fresh diet of bees. Best Wishes, Joe Waggle **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:23:27 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jerry writes: my loss of 90% of our research hives in MT happened in February. Our CCD colonies still ended up with the majority of the bees fleeing the hives ....... But,they didn't want to stay in their hives. If they can leave the hive, they will. What we DID see - no shortages of food (hives had plenty of honey and stored pollen), no bees head first and dead as would be expected if they starved,lots of brood for time of year, queen's were overdoing it. Brood was developing nicely, then the bees fled. Reply: I can easily go with what you say here, having been up front with losing 200 out of 300 or so hives in one general area this past Sep just prior to fall 2007.I can equate Feb with spring brooding up your area, like Sep is to fall down here.But being warmer down here and in middle of monsoon season and good bloom on in area where it happened, and not cooler like in Feb in your area, and showing bees only month earlier, to other beekeepers with brood and enough honey/pollen stores, sure made me wonder what had happened. For some of the strongest had had 6 frames of brood in at least two boxes when last seen; and even newly started caught swarms and splits had had 2-4 plus frames of brood, and stores enough, for me for getting ready for fall run. This was August, and I expected to come back middle/end of Sep, and have to start moving fast to stay ahead of things,as I was expecting expanding hives for our fall crops as normally come on. But opposite was what I found in this one general area (7 yards). (Did not see this in rest of yards 23 more) But no bees with heads in cells or basically on bottom boards. The bees had gone, but where? and pollen and honey that was stored with hives still left, was being thrown out the front of many hives with a good bloom on, and the bees acted like they wanted every thing out, and didn't care about foraging. No brood left, yet only month before plenty. LIke in the hives left, the queens shut down completely, the bees threw out all they could in way of stores that were there previous last looking, and were in process of shellacing hives inside from top to bottom where strongest populations had been, though smallest/average populations I found in loose clusters inside the hives not working. Something I had never seen before, loosely clustered bees in a hive not working with a good flow on in hot humid weather. But both didn't have piles of dead bees out front.The bees were simply gone. But stronger populations left seemed intent on cleaning the inside of the hives from top to bottom, those that were left, and were in a working mode inside, and not clustering like the weaker ones. Both seemed not caring about foraging which again I had never seen with bloom this time of year. Yet, this is time of year with bloom on from the monsoon taking hold for a month already in July, the bees normally run for brooding up for fall (Aug), and socking in honey/pollen stores for overwintering.Late start ups runing for brooding in Sep. But it wasn't there for 2/3 of hives with 200 of 300 approx lost. Brooding finally started around 1st week of Oct with strongest and foraging finally, and weaker came on later by end of month. But why 1-2 months late? and why did hives stop to shut queens down, and get rid of stores, and reclean whole hives inside, at least the stronger? Why summer clusters like swarms hanging inside a hive? Why no brooding up for fall until after 1st week of Oct, along with new fall stores going in? Also, where did the bees go, for if I saw swams it's not like I am not known to go get them and put them in box with queen includer on. Now, is this CCD related? Dunno. It's not my call. But I did pick up the phone and rant! Where would 200 of 300 hives go. By the way, last time I looked the end of Feb following our conference, the surviving colonies were still there hanging on, waiting for spring to startup more, following my bedding them down late last fall. Decided wouldn't look again until first main week of April. or one more week. D ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 22:56:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: <17433.29014.qm@web51603.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Dee & All, Thanks Dee for your honesty! Thanks Jerry for yours!What you are seeing Dee is getting to be common. Those which have not yet seen CCD symptoms in their bees still persist with different hypothesis. I see the same things as Jerry & Dee but on a very very small scale. My guess is most beekeepers are seeing some of the symptoms in a few hives. I have observed 80-90% losses with CCD symptoms in others bees. Lately I have not wasted my time talking to those which have not observed the current problems as they seem to think it is PPB and just because they have not yet seen the problem the problem can be explained away. I also say Canada is in denial and my sources report plenty of CCD symptoms. Sorry Joe W. but we are seeing things which we have never seen before. The number one symptom of CCD in my opinion is an empty hive. Bees gone! Unlike Bill Wilson's "disappearing disease" ( of which I was around from the start) it seems CCD is getting worse and spreading. Spreading *seems* to point to a yet unknown pathogen. Dee's bees have been in isolation. Never been to pollination. Clean comb. Hard to believe her problem could be a pesticide issue. However her symptoms are similar to what we are seeing in the boot heel neonicotinoid soy bean / alfalfa Ariel boll weevil spraying area. One commercial beekeeper lost every hive last fall. Not one survived. The current DIE OFF (CCD ? ) problem is serious in my opinion. Right now you can purchase packages, brood, nucs or queens to rebuild. When the industry gets hit hard enough those things are not available we will be in serious trouble. You can question what is CCD but all beekeepers need to move past the name CCD and realize their bees could well be the next to get problems. Another point to remember is despite the fact the bees coming out of almonds look great they did last year before the crash. The hard to understand thing about the current problem is that the bees look great and then when next checked they are starting to crash. The bees go down hill much faster than most of us have ever seen before. Sorry we do not see eye to eye on this problem Joe but you asked for an opinion. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 03:28:56 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: 17th and 18 Century Bee Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 02/04/2008 00:49:35 GMT Standard Time, naturebee@YAHOO.COM writes: What would you recommend as a must have from the 17th and 18th century bee books? Either by book name or author? Butler - The Historie of Bees 1623 and Wildman's Treatise on the Management of Bees 1770 would be a good start. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 22:12:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: the mystery continues In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline pete wrote: > Large scale beekeepers are mostly people who started out > small and succeeded for one reason or another. That's nothing to scoff > at. I agree. I've spoken to plenty of the big guys, and they didn't get big by being particularly stupid. Adee's losses, although huge in numbers, weren't that large percentage wise. Lots of guys lost that kind of percentage. The Adee's weren't doing anything all that different this year than last. So the question is, why did things go differently? Be assured that they are looking into it, and perhaps we can all learn something from their sad experience. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 06:05:05 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Grant Gillard Subject: Re: urban CA bees Video In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I think that's a lot of smoke on the comb. I wonder if his honey tastes like Bar-be-que? His methods of honey "packaging" (and I use that term loosely, about as loose as that string) leave me wondering what the inside of his car looks like. Oh well, to each their own! Grant Jackson, MO --------------------------------- You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 08:57:09 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: the mystery continues In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10804012212y28288413p65b01aec80a4b1a@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > The Adee's weren't doing anything all that different this year than last. > So the question is, why did things go differently? Being close to the Adee family through a member and the Brown's I have to say the Adee's have had problems ever since they increased hive numbers from the 40,000 range which they ran for decades and included California in their game plan. The Adee's have had problems for sure the last three years. My sources report bigger problems the first year of CCD than admitted. Although Richard did not give numbers when he testified at the senate hearing like the others did. Two problems the Adee's had during the time period (as told to me by family members and employees) were trying to go to a Russian hybrid (which to my knowledge they have dropped) and trying to use formic acid (which did not provide the long term control their method of beekeeping required) . Formic acid (as per my own testing) provides around 4 months of varroa control when used in a commercial setting. Exactly what the maker David V. has said at meetings. In my testing you can go to 5 months but many hives are close to threshold. I must make clear that we are not talking hobby hives but hives which are on almonds, then another strong flow such as apples, then say cranberries and then moved into a strong clover flow. Bees which are being fed when not on a flow. Raising brood constantly. In other words varroa is out breeding the formic acid varroa control. In areas like Texas formic might need used 3 times a year. David V. told me (personal conversation ABF Austin, Texas) that some beekeepers do use his pads three times a year. Which is why I went home and tested. The Adee operation is never very open about its methods but I do know that some changes have been made each year for the last several years. Weak and dwindling hives were the norm rather than dead hives it seems. I can not say if the early problems were from a CCD related cause. I can say that back when I did my article on California almond pollination that I spoke with a broker which was having a hard time getting two semi's of Brent Adee bees to grade . Of course means very little as the hives I was involved with were only around a thousand which is a very small percent of the operation. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 11:18:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Joe Waggle writes: "For the purpose of illustrating my answer: I’ll call the “CCD Colonies”, which I think are: ‘absconding / dwindling colonies’" Whether you are a believer in CCD or not, the scale of collapses that are being or have been reported have to be at least noteworthy if not alarming. If this were an ordinary thing that beekeepers should expect, I doubt there would be so many people trying against all odds to make a living at beekeeping. Calling it absconding or dwindling really doesn't address the issue, does it? Colonies abscond for a reason and they dwindle for a reason. If a small percentage of them abscond or dwindle you can brush it off as par for the course, but when you loose an unusually large percentage of your hives you tend to think that it is, well, unusual. You tend to want an explanation; a root cause. I think we can agree that every case of dwindling or absconding probably does not have the same root cause. And a careful observer, which experienced beekeepers tend to be, may note some slight or even significant differences in symptoms between one large scale die off and another. If a bunch of very experienced beekeepers suffer unusually large losses and agree that these losses show a common combination of symptoms that they believe they have not seen before, it is reasonable and useful for them to give the situation a special name; in this case CCD. Whether CCD is new or something that has happened before is really beside the point. It is new in the sense that it is here and now. The real point is that it is devastating and whether it has one cause or many we want to know what is causing these unusually large scale losses. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 08:55:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit While there is some disagreement on CCD in general the winter loss association to CCD in the North just doesn't fly with a lot of stationary beekeepers. I have wintered bees since 1994 and others around me for much longer then that and we all seem to agree that some years and some strains lose more bees over the winter then others. We have always associated the dead bees on the snow in front of the hives as cleansing flghts gone bad or winter bees damaged from mites dying off. If folks are calling that CCD then we've had it as far as any old timers can remember, we call it winterkill. Beekeepers who live in climes that don't have 3-4 months of winter commenting on winter CCDl does not add up to credible sources IMO Of 325 hives I wrapped my pure Russians had a markedly lower number of bees on the ground this spring as compared to Purvis or Italians. Winter losses last year (06-07) were very high over the north and I was one of them. Most of the dead though were on the bottom boards or stuck in the combs. Here's more speculation on winter CCD. http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder- 55040101 question for Jerry B did you have a baseline of wintering inside or outside to compare this past winter with? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 17:21:57 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Antioxidant content in bee pollen. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I have always wondered about how bees decide what source of pollen to work. [It is just the abundance and the protein content thereof?] At any one time, one can bees with pollen of different colors (sources) coming into the hive so they are certainly picking more than one source. This study on birds concluded that birds select the fruit that they eat based on, among other reasons, the antioxidant level of the fruit. The birds instinctively preferred the fruit with the higher antioxidants: www.biologie.uni-freiburg.de/data/bio1/schaefer/pdf/catoni-funct.pdf I wonder if the same is true of bees and the pollen they pick. Bee pollen is relatively high in antioxidants: http://sa.agr.hr/2008pdf/sa2008_0605.pdf Anybody know more on this? Waldemar (PS. Can't to correlations with humans since humans pick fast foods. We seem to have lost the trait for instinctively picking the healthiest food. ;-)) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 13:33:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis 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 Brian & All, Brian you are attempting to supply a simple answer for a complex problem. What you describe is NOT what we are seeing. Dee & Jerry were very honest about what they are seeing. What would you do if you went out next week and half your hives are empty. Simply void of bees. I have talked to many beekeepers for which this has been the case. Would you simply say it was winterkill? I have been keeping bees for 48 years. Around 45 years in cold climates but have wintered bees in California,Texas and Florida. What these beekeepers are reporting has not been seen before. What would be your first move if when you next checked your bees the bees were gone. Not on the bottom board and not with heads in cells? Also after years with Russian/Russian hives ( two yards at present and have had hundreds at one time but getting some Russian/Russian queens coming soon this spring ) you have a hard time telling spring dwindling as the Russians keep such small winter clusters. Takes awhile to see problems in Russians as they for the most part do not brood up until fresh pollen is available. Last year many reported problems happened after the bees were flying. Not taking syrup is common with CCD hives. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 20:06:07 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Many thanks for that description of what happened to some of yo= Hi Dee=0A=0AMany thanks for that description of what happened to some of yo= ur yards last year. Jerry too. It is a real eye-opener to hear these firs= t-hand reports of problems from quite a different corner of the globe. I h= ad a description from a beekeeper not very far away in the NE of Scotland o= f one (just one!) hive last November in an apiary of ten emptying of its be= es in a strange way, leaving behind brood and eggs. To see those problems = on the scale you experienced must be really worrying.=0A=0ACan I ask you mo= re about it? There are a few questions that might help us all learn.=0A=0A= 1) You said that you were showing beekeepers the hives just a month before.= Could they have brought in a pathogen? Did they handle combs? Were they= just in the yards affected?=0A=0A2) Are there migratory beekeepers with ya= rds anywhere near those that collapsed?=0A=0A3) What about pesticides? Cou= ld the bees in those yards have reached places where folk might be using pe= sticides such as crop growing or even golf courses or suburban trees or gar= dens?=0A=0AFrom what you've said so far, it looks like something sudden and= in a restricted area. A new disease would fit the bill, and the usual 'co= mbination of factors' which folk usually blame just seems unlikely to be so= restricted like this. Did anyone test the survivors for disease?=0A=0ASin= cerely hope that your other yards remain free.=0A=0Abest wishes=0A=0AGavin= =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 16:58:11 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: the mystery continues In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10804012212y28288413p65b01aec80a4b1a@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Some facts we know in Maine, during this mystery. 1. It has not occurred in Maine even though over 65,000 colonies came into Maine. 2. It has been reported by some of those operations well after leaving Maine. At least one of those operations had heavy Varroa loads and was told that they would lose their bees. They did. 3. 10% of the colonies were inspected at random or about 6,000 colonies. 4. Bees were sampled from 42 migratory beekeepers for Tracheal mites. 307 samples with 33 bees/sample were taken and 35% were positive for Tracheal. Eight operations had damaging levels of Tracheal mites in their samples. Infection levels were as high as 94%. 5. One operation that came to Maine was tested for nosema and high nosema loads were found. It is interesting that Ari said to someone who reported CCD losses: > I sugested taking bee samples to a bee lab. The few remaining bees were > heavily infested with acarapis mites. So that was the case. I would not > recommend anyone stating CCD without looking the remaining bees with a > microscope for heavy nosema or acarapis. > > Ari Seppälä > Finland For those who are not familiar with Tracheal or acarapis mites, they did a job on the US beekeeping industry back in the late 80s and early 90s. Reports of 80% losses were reported. Last year we had several overwintering operations in Maine report heavy CCD losses but it was Tracheal. I agree that CCD is a mystery, but the kind of Tracheal, Varroa mite, and nosema loads in the commercial operations coming into Maine indicate that they are being ignored by those same beekeepers as a cause of colony collapse since CCD can be blamed. That certainly was the case here until it was pointed out to the beekeeper just what the problem was. We did suffer large losses many years ago from the nosema and Tracheal dynamic duo. Add Varroa and it is no wonder we are losing bees. What will be interesting is if some do breed from survivors, which is exactly what was done with tracheal way back when. From the reports I have seen, CCD is not on the increase but has declined from last year. That tracks nicely with what we experienced with tracheal mites and promptly forgot them as a problem. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 18:56:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Steve Noble wrote: > Whether you are a believer in CCD or not, the scale > of collapses that are > being or have been reported have to be at least > noteworthy if not > alarming. Hello Steve, I would say up front that I agree there are alarming losses occurring. I just happen to disagree that every unexplained loss, and misdiagnosis is being called CCD. Concerning the ‘scale’, I hear of a winter loss in Canada, of I believe near 30%. Although on the high side, it is within range of average winter loss, and yet being reported as alarming, or unusual? The recent, if I recall correctly, 35% percent loss in California Almond pollination. Well, I want to know if this includes the colonies that succeed during shipment, queen failure, AFB, varroa etc. Where are these figures? Or are these all being categorized under the name CCD? Where are these other malady’s nowadays?, you don’t hear much of them? If they took the time to categories these deaths in California almonds as CCD, they ought to have figures for the other maladies that occurred, but I have yet to see it. If a > small percentage of them abscond or dwindle you can > brush it off as par for > the course, but when you loose an unusually large > percentage of your hives > you tend to think that it is, well, unusual. I agree, but a small opperation of perhaps less than 2 dozen hives, loosing a large percentage of their colonies is nothing unusual. The > real point is that it is devastating and whether it > has one cause or many > we want to know what is causing these unusually > large scale losses. Sure it is! But more devastating is repeating your mistakes due to a misdiagnosis. Beekeepers nowadays seem to be collecting symptoms like picking apples, when the basket is full you have CCD. Well, you need to sort through these apples to weed out the bad apples. Then maybe you will find that your bag is not full, and you don’t have CCD, and you can correct the problem through management changes. Best Wishes, Joe ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 19:19:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Brian Fredericksen wrote: > While there is some disagreement on CCD in general > the winter loss association to CCD in the > North just doesn't fly with a lot of stationary > beekeepers. Aside from the true cases of CCD, which I do believe are occurring, and are devastating some operations. I do believe that there is a sideline affect of many misdiagnoses, being reported as CCD. Diana Cox-Foster reported that there is a rise in CCD amongst inexperienced beekeepers. This IMO is more suggestive of a misdiagnosis (since experienced beekeepers are not experiencing a similar rise). Unless of course CCD has evolved the ability to distinguish between hives of experienced and inexperienced beekeepers. ;) As far as beekeepers further north than I am in Pennsylvania. I happen to believe that the reason why they are not reporting a high instance of CCD is perhaps because they tend to be more expert in analyzing symptoms of colony loss (or else succumb to mismanagement and fail as beekeepers). Proper diagnosing of symptoms is most critical for success in beekeeping in the northern regions. Best Wishes, Joe Pennsylvania ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:24:43 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >I want to hear your opinions concerning the symptoms. >>3* No robbing, even though there has been a few warm days lately. I inspected, and rearranged to a small extent, some of my hives a couple of weeks ago and ended up with a few extra frames that were partly filled with [capped and uncapped] honey. I put 5 of these frames in a nuc in a sunny location not far from the other hives hoping that they would rob the honey out. Our highs have been in the 50's at best and the bees have been flying and coming back with good pollen but only a few bees ventured into the nuc. My theory is that hives still well provisioned from last fall are less desparate to rob and they may want/need pollen more than honey. Also, despite the somewhat warm daytime weather, the beeless frames are cold from the cold nights and emit less smell than in the summer time. It takes time to warm up these heatsinks. I believe these frames will be robbed out within a day once we get a nice, sunny day and temps in the 60-70 F range. I did not lose colonies this winter again although a couple of old queens in spare nucs I was using for genetics diversity did not make it. The bee and brood numbers are very good for this time of the year but I do find a few live bees on the ground in the late, cold afternoons. I suspect tracheal mites - a friend with a microscope will try to open up some trachea and have a look. Any thoughts on this or how to better make a positive determination as to the cause? >>Mice will naturally choose the hives having bees in them, for a proper diet. A mouse would not want to be without a fresh diet of bees. Could the live hives also provide slightly more heat for the mice? Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 18:15:26 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>Another point to remember is despite the fact the bees coming out of almonds look great they did last year before the crash. What do you think about this: the bees that crashed subsequently were raised on pollen collected in the almonds or after the almonds. If that pollen was not healthful (ie. contaminated with agricultural chems), the post-almonds generations of bees had inferior health (immune response, neurological development for orientation, shorter life span or whatever) and easily succumbed to pathogens, for instance, that they normally have no problem coping with. I think as soon as the unhealthful pollen is consumed or removed by the bees, the colonies recover. It might be educational to rid CCD-collapsed colonies of the stored pollen and install new packages in the same equipment in areas away from agricultural fields and see how they fare. I am going to cite an experience from last season that may be related. Late in the summer another beekeeper and I move hives east for the goldenrod/aster flow. The bees come back to suburbia in late October to extract and overwinter for the spring/summer flows in suburbia. I've always associated the markedly more defensive behavior of my bees in the fall with the late season (bees have to defend more to ensure survival). My explanation for the mellower disposition returning in May was the new, strong nectar flows. Last year, however, I left some extra hives behind in the homeyard. They became my control. When the goldenrod hives came back I noticed how they were so much more defensive compared to the homeyard-bound hives. I'd say the difference was easily 50-75%. All of these hives had young queens from the same mother queen. The goldenrod fields we go to are surrounded by farms - vegetable, potato, sweet corn, sod etc. - and are within 1/4 mile of where the hives are put. I know sod farms especially apply frequent sprays for grubs and the other crops are sprayed as well. I think the pesticides are getting into my goldenrod hives with the autumn pollen - I don't know if the bees work the farm fields themselves or if the pesticide fumes carry to the goldenrod fields. This is the only possible explanation I can come up for my goldenrod hives having a very short fuse. Another local beekeeper who used to keep an apiary in the farms by our goldenrod fields for pollination contracts has for years complained that his hive over there overwinter poorly and never built up properly in the spring compared to his suburban locations. He has just moved his hives out of the farms and is not going back. Other beekeepers who do agricultural pollination around here say that when the hives come back home they find more cases of foulbrood. The thought has been that there are more AFB spores on the farms ['because bees have been placed in the same locations for years']. This has been a plausible explanation but now I wonder if those bees, because of the exposure, are just plain weaker and their larvae succumb easier to AFB spores or the nurse bees are less hygienic... I am not saying this is definitive by any measure but something definitively seems to 'stink' on commercial farms around here. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 04:00:13 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: <1A3B3F44038F48208C87AF579F957AE4@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Bob Harrison wrote: >Sorry Joe W. but we are seeing things which we have never seen before. The >number one symptom of CCD in my opinion is an empty hive. Bees gone! Once again, I believe we are seeing devastation from true CCD cases. I just do not believe that ‘The number one symptom; ‘bees gone’ should be credited solely to CCD, as it seems to be the case nowadays. There are a plethora of things that can cause ’bees gone’. I am in support of the CCD investigation, but the habit of grouping all unexplained losses under the category of CCD is IMO, counter productive, and will hamper honest efforts to find the real cause. > Sorry we do not see eye to eye on this problem Joe > but you asked for an > opinion. If you are for beekeepers reporting diagnosed cases of CCD, as CCD, and not reporting every unexplained loss as CCD, then we see eye to eye. If you want to collect as many losses as you can and categorize them all under CCD, then we do not see eye to eye. I’m still waiting for a breakdown of losses, how many are CCD, how many are queen failure, how many were AFB etc. A symptoms I wrote earlier: ‘no bees’ ‘mouse in hive’ ‘no robbing’ are simply not sufficient data to arrive at any proper diagnosis. The best that can be applied here is that the diagnosis is inconclusive. Best Wishes, Joe ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 08:00:17 -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: Bees not Taking Syrup in Spring. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Greetings: I too have been wondering about this seeming anomaly: why don’t bees take up syrup in spring as readily as they once did in fall? Is it really the esoteric ratio of the concoction? Is it because the syrup is going bad despite the beekeeper’s creative attempts to make it last fresh longer? Or is it the plum cold spring temperature? Or is it simply my wife's fault? My observation has been that it is the cold temperature. Plain and simple. Once the mercury shoots up near 70’s F and above, I could see my gallon jars placed atop fire off roaring bubbles of rockets; however, whenever the chill returns, just as it does now at the tail end of winter, there is little activity of feeding. Even the insulated hive-top feeders, sitting right above the warm brood chamber, fail to attract the bees; it appears that given the option between sucking syrup and parenting, the bees’ priority is always to maintain warmth in the brood rather than gathering syrup during this transitional period. Typically the bees would work the syrup in the late afternoon when the temperature reaches near or above 60’s. When the temperature lingers only around 55 F, they tend not to touch it. To say the obvious, then, open-feeding in spring, especially when fresh nectar starts to become available, is rarely successful: one can waste money not realizing this unless one does experiment on the behavior of inebriated bees, something I am planning on doing, due to the syrup now turned into alcohol. Thus in spring (and fall, too) feeding colonies individually, I find, is a better option—-whichever methods one employees: zip-lock bags, hive-top feeders, frame-feeders, gallon jugs inside the empty deep or atop outside, as I do, or feeder buckets turned upside down. Just make sure that the feeder is within immediate reach of the brood, not distanced by extra bodies of hives, a crucial mistake one of my apprentices have made recently. On average, early spring days are much colder as the earth comes out of the winter mode than late fall days when the season is coming out of hot summer, starting to cool off; plus in fall bees are eager to horde winter storage, probably influenced by the shortening daylight hours as well as the creepy chill in the air (and cranky drones around the house). Thus I prefer not to open-feed them in spring; rather, get at them individually, an excellent method particularly when the weather in transitional period is unstable. This is the crucial time for food as the bees explode in brood-building and the winter store is nearly gone in some colonies, especially the strong ones. It might rain outside but if they are given this insurance of liquid sugar, they will come out strong to meet the nectar flow head on. My own maxim is feed them between Bradford pear and black locust bloom. And no more. Be patient; when warmer days return, as they surely will, your bees will suck down the syrup. A good colony will wolf down a gallon in two to three days, sending rockets of bubbles, of hope, up through the jars. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 08:21:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_de_Bruyn_Kops?= Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >--- J. Waggle wrote: >I am in support of the CCD investigation, but the >habit of grouping all unexplained losses under the >category of CCD is IMO, counter productive, and will >hamper honest efforts to find the real cause. Joe's statement sums up my view and, I suspect, views of the other northerners arguing against automatic CCD diagnoses of winter deadouts with few remaining bees. During the past decade in New Hampshire, we've seen major winter losses (50-90%) on a 2-3 year cycle in operations that run 50-200 colonies. If weather permits some flight at time of death, then the hives are empty. Otherwise the corpses pile up on the bottom board. Mortality rates correlate with varroa levels in August and September, including varroa levels in neighboring operations. I explained the mechanism in a post last month. I remember a talk by Dewey Caron just before CCD broke where he described a 3-year cycle of major losses as being 'normal' in the Northeast. I believe he pinned the blame on varroa. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 09:47:47 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Timothy C. Eisele" Subject: 3-year cycle In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter de Bruyn Kops wrote: > During the past decade in New Hampshire, we've seen major > winter losses (50-90%) on a 2-3 year cycle in operations > that run 50-200 colonies. That has been exactly my problem. I am in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the cycle has been: First year: Start with 3 or 4 nucs or packages (I've been using Carniolans, because they are reputed to be reasonably well-suited to our cold, wet climate with long winters). They do well all summer, and all colonies overwinter successfully. Second year: Make splits from overwintered hives, install new queens. All hives do well, with the overwintered parent colonies becoming very strong. But, early in the winter the strong parent colonies die, leaving only the ones made from splits. Third year: The overwintered splits initially do well, and additional splits are made from them to make up for the dead colonies. But, then at the end of the summer, about half of them abruptly die over about a 2 week period in late September. The surviving colonies go into the winter OK at first, but then they dwindle down and die sometime in February and March. I've been through this cycle three times now. The first two times, I was treating for Varroa with Apistan, and this last cycle I was dusting them with powdered sugar every two weeks, and the treatment method didn't seem to make any difference. The mites were there, and the quantities were increasing the whole time, so this was probably caused by them, but I just can't seem to keep them down. I'm beginning to think that I'd go through exactly the same cycle if I didn't treat at all. It's very frustrating, I can't even breed from survivors because the third year, nothing survives. I suppose I can just resign myself to starting over every third year, but it rankles. Can anyone suggest how I can cure this problem? Please keep in mind the constraints of my climate: (1) It never gets hot in the summer, peak temperatures are only about 80F and that only lasts about a month (late July - early August), so mite treatments that require high summer temperatures are out. (2) The period of time when bees can make honey only runs from about June 1 to September 1, and their flight period only lasts from about mid-April to mid-October. So, my window of opportunity for making splits is very short, and any mite treatment that has to be applied during the summer and contaminates honey for a period will basically mean that I never have a "clean" time to make honey for human consumption at all. I realize that this has been gone over and over in the list for years, but the problem I have is that either (1) I can't sort out the successful people who have to meet the same climate constraints as I do, or (2) I can't tell whether someone who appears to be successful is actually just on the second year of their cycle, where it looks like everything is going just peachy.. The local beekeepers that I speak with all seem to have the same sort of problem. Thanks for any advice, I hope that somebody has found a reliable way to beat the 3-year cycle in cold climates. -- Tim Eisele tceisele@mtu.edu **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 07:53:10 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Erin Martin Subject: Bee tourism? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi all-- On a somewhat lighter note than much of recent discussion, I'm compiling a list of interesting bee-related travel destinations, roadside attractions, etc. This is mostly for my own personal use, but if I'll share with anyone else who's interested. Nothing is too trivial or too weird. Anything you know of, whether it's a famous beekeeper's home or interesting bee-related art, would be helpful to me. For starters: Honey of a Museum in Ashippun, WI-owned by Honey Acres Apiary. An amusingly tiny beekeeping museum with a good observation hive. Buckfast Abbey in Buckfastleigh, Devon: To see the bees, you have to flirt with busboys in the restaurant cafe, but it's worth it. Wewahitchka Tupelo Harvest Festival: The second Saturday in May, iirc. Statue of St. Gobnait in Ireland, surrounded by stone bees. Bernini fountain in Italy (Rome, I believe) which features stone bees that often have their heads stolen. ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 11:52:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Joe Waggle writes: “Once again, I believe we are seeing devastation from true CCD cases. I just do not believe that 'The number one symptom; 'bees gone' should be credited solely to CCD, as it seems to be the case nowadays.” That seems reasonable enough, Joe. And I can also agree with you that some unknown percentage of reported cases of CCD is otherwise explainable. But my understanding is that Jerry Bromenshenk and others are operating under an agreed upon set of symptoms that have been enumerated on this list several times, and that they use these criteria in their surveys to filter out as many non conforming reports as possible. It’s not any one of these symptoms that evaluate to CCD, but more precisely the exact combination of them all. Whether the information that comes to us on this list is coming from these sources is not always clear. I wish it were. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:08:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Heindel Subject: Re: Bee tourism? In-Reply-To: <661978.92489.qm@web54302.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Two locations to add to the list: OSU beekeeping museum at Wooster, OH Small beekeeping museum in Duisburg, Germany during 2006: http://www.bienenmuseumduisburg.de > Anything you know of, whether it's a famous beekeeper's > home or interesting bee-related art, would be helpful to me. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 13:29:20 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Bee tourism? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 03/04/2008 16:03:34 GMT Standard Time, froufroufoxes@YAHOO.COM writes: Anything you know of, whether it's a famous beekeeper's home or interesting bee-related art, would be helpful to me. Beside the new motorway running north from Dublin towards Belfast, approaching the Balbriggan turn (Ruary will correct me if I have got these directions wrong) are some handsome stone skeps. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 14:24:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Roger_Hoffman?= Subject: CCD idea Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It seems to me it would be of great value to know the where abouts of bees that have disappeared from hives determined to be victims of CCD. Did they just leave and relocate? Or did they leave and die? If they just relocated wouldn't that tell us something about the problem? If they died and we could find the bodies couldn't we test them to help determine what the cause was? To this end, surely there are micro-chips small enough to placed on honey bees for tracking purposes. Obviously, it would be impractical to place chips on thousands of bees in a hive but if these chips were placed on only the queens it seems to me that would do the trick. The queen could be relocated (dead or alive) and this would help diagnose what is going on. Since the California pecan pollination seems to be the hot spot for lost hives, perhaps one of the big pollinators would volunteer a hundred (hundreds needed?) hives and funding could be secured for the cost of chips and the equipment need to track down and locate the missing bees. Find the where abouts of the dead or relocated queens and I think you will be on your way to solving the CCD problem. Thoughts? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 16:44:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: <390650.80132.qm@web56404.mail.re3.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit J. Waggle wrote: > Once again, I believe we are seeing devastation from > true CCD cases. I just do not believe that ‘The > number one symptom; ‘bees gone’ should be credited > solely to CCD, as it seems to be the case nowadays. > There are a plethora of things that can cause ’bees > gone’. Agree with Joe. Jerry B. continually reminds us of that. If you go back in the archives, there are many posts about bees disappearing. Some interesting ones from about 1994 look just like CCD but were probably Varroa. There is a lot at work with this whole inquiry. Remember, CCD is a symptom not a disease. Many beekeepers tend to treat it as a disease. It is not. We still do not really know all the ways bees react to different kinds of organisms/pathogens. There may be one or a combination of things that cause the symptoms. They may be new or they might have been with us for years. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:40:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: goldenrod diagnosis-from misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Waldemar writes: “I think the pesticides are getting into my goldenrod hives with the autumn pollen - I don't know if the bees work the farm fields themselves or if the pesticide fumes carry to the goldenrod fields. This is the only possible explanation I can come up for my goldenrod hives having a very short fuse.” A reasonable hypotheses, Waldemar, but I’ll bet if you really thought hard about it you could come up with other possible explanations. What about the stress from being moved? Does the defensive behavior in these hives persist or does it go away after a while? I would think that if it were simply a matter of pesticides there would be other problems besides just being ornery. Have you considered getting the pollen and maybe the honey tested, perhaps even before during and after the goldenrod flow? Where are these bees getting their water? If it’s from local runoff you might get that tested too. You definitely want to know if pesticides are getting into your hives. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:52:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_de_Bruyn_Kops?= Subject: Re: 3-year cycle Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Timothy C. Eisele wrote: >Second year: Make splits from overwintered hives, install new queens. >All hives do well, with the overwintered parent colonies becoming very >strong. But, early in the winter the strong parent colonies die, >leaving only the ones made from splits. > The statement about the strong colonies is the tipoff that varroa control is the key to this situation. The strongest colonies typically raise the most drones and thereby grow the mite population most rapidly. You need a method for keeping the varroa population down during the whole summer and especially as you head into September. Bob Harrison just mentioned that migratory guys use formic 3 times per year. Alden Marshall pulls drone brood all season. I believe powdered sugar can work if applied often enough. Whatever method you use, you have to verify that you have the mite levels low enough. Any bees with deformed wings, for example, suggest that the mite level is getting too high. I live in New Hampshire. Given the bee-mite population dynamics, if a colony has a serious mite problem on August 20, it is very difficult to get ahead of the problem and have the colony survive the winter. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:53:21 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Pesticide Use South of the Border In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Brian Fredericksen wrote: According to this NYT's Op-Ed piece, pesticide concentrations are many times higher in ...... Mexico and wildlife poisonings more frequent. Where are the reports of bee losses then south of the border? or are they not being reported? Widespread communication is not nearly as good in all of Mexico as it is here. And the government probably does some suppression of negative aspects of life in Mexico. Just supposition on my part. Mike in LA --------------------------------- You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:48:31 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >Find the where abouts of the dead or relocated queens and I think you will be on your way to solving the CCD problem. The question is not what killed the bees, but why are honey bees still alive at all. What we call a normal healthy organism is actually a temporary survivor in a pitched battle. Health consists of effectively holding off a myriad of pests, parasites, and pathogens; ultimately failing in what we call death. For the past twenty years or so, varroa have been preying upon the bees in the US. During that time, beekeepers have had to run faster to stay in the same spot. We have to be smarter, quicker to respond, open to new ideas. Meanwhile, we have gotten better bees as well. The worst at coping already died out; new strains have been imported and developed. Problem is, all the while varroa have gotten better too. They no longer drop dead when exposed to the milder chemicals and even the hard ones don't work as well as they did. Given this race between beekeepers, bees, and varroa, it would be hard to know on which to bet. Looking for a "cause" for CCD is worthwhile I am sure, but we already know our bees are sick and they appear to have everything in the book. Which points to a compromised immune system. In immune compromised individuals, even somewhat benign pathogens can push the organism over the edge to the state of most matter in the system: dead. Back in 2005, Xiaolong Yang, and Diana L. Cox-Foster wrote: This work demonstrated that varroa infestation suppressed immunity in honey bees by reducing the transcription of genes encoding antimicrobial peptides and immunity-related enzymes. Not only the DW [deformed wing] bees but also the asymptomatic NW [normal wing] bees had impaired immunity due to the ectoparasitization. To our knowledge, this is the first example of an ectoparasite immunosuppressing its invertebrate host. Given that ticks immunosuppress their vertebrate hosts, ectoparasites not only immunosuppress their vertebrate hosts but also immunosuppress their invertebrate hosts. Thus, immunosuppression of the hosts may be a common phenomenon in the interaction and coevolution between ectoparasites and their vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. SEE http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/21/7470 -- 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: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 01:13:17 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Corruption/ Pesticide in Chile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Corruption is widespread in South America and there is little control (as compared to the U.S.) over pesticide use. I will love you Bob (and the rest who the cap fits) change your mind at least in the case of Chile, country that I know (and loves) lots. Most of our export production is certified under very tuff european standars (EUREGAP) and the local production is also controled by our SAG . Unfortunatelly I can`t deny that we still have nasty chemical allowed here that are not allowed there. But we are on the rigth truck. See more here http://www.sag.gob.cl/portal/page?_pageid=167,58399&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&op=d637&sop=abd637647 About transparency/corruption http://www2.sag.gob.cl/transparencia/index.html -- 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, 3 Apr 2008 22:45:58 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: <796803.69587.qm@web86205.mail.ird.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Gavin writes: 1)Could they have brought in a pathogen? ...Not this one,too experienced. Did they handle combs?...Only in selected hives for viewing and then by endbars,but mostly me doing. Were they just in the yards affected?... No. 2) Are there migratory beekeepers with yards anywhere near those that collapsed?...yes. 3) What about pesticides?....I don't treat. Could the bees in those yards have reached places where folk might be using pesticides such as crop growing or even golf courses or suburban trees or gardens?...no crops, no golf courses, no suburban trees or gardens...instead, wildlife refuge & inside inner circle of restricted mountain range. Did anyone test the survivors for disease?...Yes. Dr Bromenshenk is to be commended for that, for an official sampling. His call as to findings. Sincerely hope that your other yards remain free...So far not seen with exception two.Oddly, late spring due to training conference with cattle, I moved hives from one yard in center of problem to set into those two yards, so roping,branding, wagon driving,road grading, etc could be taught. Then reset up yard after conference with new splits/fresh caught bees like I have always done in starting new hives.But did this in other yards, in other countys where no problem seen. Last check end Feb of survivors going into winter with me bedding down, still there. Next check coming next week with help from 2 visitors from Mass flying in. What reason? Not my call,... but I don't treat, artificially feed, move hives out of gen local area S. Ariz, except when have to(conference), self contained for making bee numbers (don't buy). Also self-contained making own beeswax foundation. Because of this, it is Dr Bromenshenk's call...for solving ? what happened. He sent in samplers for analyzing...so can someone fund him to keep him helping others? I am proud of him for helping me try to figure out cause. Dee- ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 08:45:16 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robin Dean Subject: Death of John Atkinson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable It is with regret that I heard of the death of John Atkinson on the 28 = March 2008. To those of you over the pond, John was a leading light in = bee breeding in the UK and a protagonist for the use of tiny mating = nucs, as well as a writer, bee farmer, beekeeping adviser and queen = breeder.=20 John will be missed by friends and family, as well as those of us that = have had the benefit of his own brand of practical advice. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 05:27:56 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: 3-year cycle MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Can anyone suggest how I can cure this problem? Please keep in mind the > constraints of my climate: > Timothy, This is very simple idea, and I dont know how many colonies you have, but I would certainly try,say, 3 groups of queens from 3 different stocks. You could see if you saw any major differences in survivability. Keep all progeny in separate groups also. I highly recommend that one of the stocks be one touted to have shown resistance to both tracheal and varroa. John Horton **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 07:16:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Carroll Subject: Bee tourism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Here are some links to the fountain in Rome by Bernini (the Fontana delle Api). The stone bees do indeed get bee-headed from time to time. http://image57.webshots.com/57/5/29/14/431052914jkWRWM_fs.jpg http://msn-list.te.verweg.com/2005-July/003536.html Brian Carroll **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 08:57:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited 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 All, > >Find the where abouts of the dead or relocated queens and I think you > will be on your way to solving the CCD problem. I personally do not believe the bees are leaving as a swarm in the cases I have looked at. One of the most curious was in a remote area of Florida near the everglades national park. Most of the hives were empty of bees and the bees were found about 200 feet east of the hives in the water. Kind of like the bees followed the wrong path home. The bees are not found just outside the entrance nor within the normal 20 foot drop off range. The bees are flying out a greater distance to die in my opinion or maybe simply flying in the wrong direction back to the hive. Maybe Jerry B. will give his observations. On varroa. About five years ago in Florida ( I visit Florida often and monitor commercial interests and their problems as it seems most of our beekeeping problems came first out of Florida). 2004 Four years ago things changed (as I reported then on BEE-L) and the change involved parasitic mite syndrome (PMS). We started seeing hives crash in two weeks from PMS with rather low varroa loads. Last year Randy Oliver reported to me (private conversation) that he is seeing the same situation in some of his research. I think he has said so on BEE-L. What is curious is that Dr. Shiminuki ( retired head of Beltsville Bee lab) and the person which named PMS always had said PMS mainly occurs when varroa loads are over threshold and to be expected. One large commercial Florida beekeeper actually at the time decided to take an early retirement because of the observations. Seeing virus problems with low varroa loads gave us grave concerns for the future profitability of commercial beekeeping. Samples to the U.K. for testing confirmed suspicions. Before then we were told that if you can control varroa then PMS would not be an issue. 2008 The PMS problem was solved by using package bees to start the operation and all new equipment. The mistake the bee lab made in the Hackenberg experiment was not to place some of the package bees on new equipment. If they had I believe they would have seen the main problem was the old equipment. Without controls on new equipment the test provides little information of value in my opinion. All the hives did poorly from our observations. Why would you design a test to test the old comb and not set up a control on new equipment? We are not sure what solved the problem but now we are not seeing PMS with even fairly high varroa loads. The experiment is only now into its second year but seems to be a solution. We think similar results would have been seen in the USDA-ARS Hackenberg experiment *if* some of the package bees have been placed on new equipment. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 15:00:08 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: goldenrod diagnosis-from misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>What about the stress from being moved? Does the defensive behavior in these hives persist or does it go away after a while? The move is relatively short (<1 hr) and we don't bang the boxes. I'd think any stress and memory of move should dissipate within a week. The extra defensive behavior lasts into the following April.. >>I think that if it were simply a matter of pesticides there would be other problems besides just being ornery. Some colonies come through the winter with smaller clusters and have 1-2 frames of brood at this time. They do build up fast and I equalize by transposing strong and weak colonies. They all get pretty much ready for the start of the nectar flow (the queens seem unaffected). >>Have you considered getting the pollen and maybe the honey tested, perhaps even before during and after the goldenrod flow? Where are these bees getting their water? We put out a water tub with water hiacynth near the hives and at least some of the bees use it. Testing would certainly answer some of the questions. May do it this year if the cost is not prohibitive. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 11:20:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Bees not Taking Syrup in Spring. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Yoon I totally agree with you. I even use an insulated 1000 litres tank to give the syrup as warm as possible (+/- 40ŗC). I use for the bigger families a top feeder and for the medium to small ones a frame feeder "touching the brood". All my syrup is "powered" with Promotor-L (aminoacids-vitamins). 5 cc per litre. -- 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, 4 Apr 2008 08:13:17 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Buckwheat Honey Antioxidant Activity May Help Wound Healing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Buckwheat Honey Antioxidant Activity May Help Wound Healing An In Vitro Examination of the Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Properties of Buckwheat Honey Journal of Wound Care, Vol. 17, Iss. 4, 27 Mar 2008, pp 172 - 178 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/buckwheat-honey-antioxidant-activity.html Objective: Hydroxyl radical and hypochlorite anion formed at the wound site from superoxide anion produced by activated polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) are considered important factors in impaired wound healing. Superoxide anion may also react with nitric oxide produced by macrophages to form peroxynitrite, a third strong oxidant that damages surrounding tissue. In order to select honey for use in wound-healing products, different samples were compared for their capacity to reduce levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vitro... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:38:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited In-Reply-To: <91E7C89DB9B34F9C8532695CDB7D05FE@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: > The mistake the bee lab made in the Hackenberg > experiment was not to place some of the package bees on new equipment. > If they had I believe they would have seen the main problem was the old > equipment. If I recall, they did put some on old honey supers and there was no CCD problem. Which confirms your hypothesis. But memory may be off, so welcome correction. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 16:04:19 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John Edwards Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_4824_238629.1207343059480" ------=_Part_4824_238629.1207343059480 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, that sounds familiar. (May be old news to some of you) Steve Taber or somebody else at the Tucson BeeLab showed us once what happens when you put a mirror on the ground in the bees' flight path - the bees see it as a reflection of the sky and land upside down, then get up and fly away - They said this was the reason that flatboat mobile apiaries had been tried and then discounted as a usable idea. They just run out of bees. - John Edwards On Fri Apr 04 08:57:02 CDT 2008, Bob Harrison wrote: > I personally do not believe the bees are leaving as a swarm in > the cases I have looked at. One of the most curious was in a > remote area of Florida near the everglades national park. Most of > the hives were empty of bees and the bees were found about 200 > feet east of the hives in the water. Kind of like the bees > followed the wrong path home. > **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ------=_Part_4824_238629.1207343059480-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 23:22:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: Bee tourism? In-Reply-To: <661978.92489.qm@web54302.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 3-Apr-08, at 10:53 AM, Erin Martin wrote: > I'm compiling a list of interesting > bee-related travel destinations, roadside attractions, > etc. Hi Erin and all It has been 7 years since we visited this site. North of Wellington New Zealand is a honey bee tourist attraction with an observation hive that filled a small glass enclosed room. I have never seen a larger hive. I don't remember the name or exact location. I'm sure someone from NZ can fill in the details if the attraction still exists. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 20:56:48 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited In-Reply-To: <91E7C89DB9B34F9C8532695CDB7D05FE@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Bob said: the main problem was the old equipment. Bob, I very much appreciate your keen observations, and find them to be greatly useful! I noticed something last season when I performed "shake and bake" for AFB colonies. Sick colonies shaken two to one onto new foundation just took off like a fresh swarm and outproduced established colonies in the same yards, despite the established colonies having a full broodnest, and plenty of honey. The same phenomenon occurred in my HSC trial. All colonies started late in our season on foundation or HSC combs, yet built up great for winter. These observations are really making me look into the value of fresh combs (and my combs shouldn't have any pesticide nor miticide residues). Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 00:53:36 -0500 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Antibiotic-Eating Bacteria MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Worse than antibiotic-resistant bacteria, we now have bacteria that can live on antibiotics as their sole food source. http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n03434274-bacteria-antibiotics/ When we consider this news in light of the recent reports of antibiotics being carried in wastewater and being so ubiquitous, the implications are so wide-ranging, it is difficult to even think of beekeeping as one of the potential victims of this problem. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 08:52:24 +0100 Reply-To: ruaryrudd@iol.ie Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruary Rudd Subject: Dave Cushman is ill MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all, Excuse the cross posting from the Irish List but Dave is a contributer to this list. Hi All, My friend Dave Cushman is in Hospital! Ward 33 Windsor Block, Leicester Royal Infirmary, could some of you please send him a line or two to cheer him up, his wife Cath said that it is going to be a long job to get him back to normal. Brian Cramp. It is possible to send him an e-greeting from http://www.uhl-tr.nhs.uk/patients/e-greetings Ruary **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 01:10:32 -0500 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: CCD? Eat Rice and Corn Instead? Think Again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rice hits record high prices, some countries limit exports. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7328087.stm Corn hits $6 a bushel in the US http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html?.v=6 And with CCD threating the only practical pollinator of multiple food crops on the scale required to rise above subsistence farming, these are strange days for agriculture and food. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:20:50 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Barry Digman Subject: Re: Antibiotic-Eating Bacteria Comments: To: james.fischer@gmail.com In-Reply-To: <000101c896e1$64574cb0$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Has anyone else witnessed the practice of flushing drugs down the toilet when a person dies and the home health care nurse comes to "pronounce"? In the case I witnessed, the deceased received all of his meds from the Veterans Administration, and there were a lot of them. Apparently the VA rule is that the health care giver has to inventory all the meds, and then flush them. That certainly is a practice that needs changing to help keep drugs out of our water supply. barry **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 09:14:52 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_de_Bruyn_Kops?= Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Do you folks who have experience replacing all old combs with foundation have any rules of thumb on feeding to get new combs drawn? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 06:50:11 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Antioxidant Capacity of Bee Pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Antioxidant Capacity of Bee Pollen Associated with Type, Not Concentration of Polyphenols and Flavonoids A Comparison of Methods Used to Define the Antioxidant Capacity of Bee Pollen and Beebread from Romania 43rd Croatian & 3rd International Symposium on Agriculture, February 18 - 21, 2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/antioxidant-capacity-of-bee-pollen.html Abstract: The total content of phenolic compounds and flavonoids were measured in bee pollen and beebread extracts, as well as their antioxidant activity. The content of total polyphenols was quantified according to the Folin-Ciocalteau spectrophotometric method... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 16:22:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: 3-year cycle Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Peter de Bruyn Kops wrote: , we've seen > major > winter losses (50-90%) on a 2-3 year cycle in > operations > that run 50-200 colonies. Hello Timothy and Peter, I respond because I have experienced the exact type of losses every 2 to 3 years. I had a very long post written, but decided to spare the readers and cut it 90% back to a few key points. So I don’t have to keep writing it All I write below is “IMO” ;) The problem is basically, that an inability of the subpopulation to cope with your specific environmental factors exists. And the solution is creating a subpopulation of bees adapted to cope with the “environmental factors” of your particular area. Colonies should NOT be dying in mass! If they are, this suggests an inadequacy of traits exist in the subpopulation of bees, essential for survival. But, this does not point to anything wrong with an individual colony or two, or mismanagement. But instead points to a basic ‘failure of the sub population’ and subsequently, a threshold of some kind being reached in the sub population of bees to a overbearing degree which causes a correction. The traits in the sub population have a job to do, and any mass collapses suggests a ‘failure to do its job’ in supporting the population in a sustainable manner. Steps taken to repair the sub population back to fitness will solve the problem. The key point to ponder is in a book by Everett Phillips. In his most wonderful publication ‘Beekeeping; a discussion of the life of the honeybee and of the production of honey’ (1918) Pg 35 Phillips writes: “The environmental factor may be inside or outside the hive, or even inside or outside the individual bee. For example, pathogenic micro- organisms or irritating foods are inside but not part of the animal and are therefore environmental factors.” Perhaps, nowadays, we place such a great emphasis on performance at the colony level, we neglect, and GREATLY underestimate the impact from that of the environmental factor. We must therefore consider something that might not have been thought of as being an environmental factor, and that is the ‘traits possessed by the local sub population‘, which I believe are perhaps the ‘greatest environmental factor of all’ influencing beekeepers colonies, even above that of the most severe winters. To repair this environmental factor of traits lacking, (which I believe shows itself with mass die offs). I decided the best way to do this was to start up a feral recovery and integration program in my area, which seems to have succeeded with the infusion of essential traits of survival from surviving ferals from over a several county area into my sub population of bees. From this realization of how great an impact the feral recovery that I helped to achieve in my area was, I created the feralbeeproject.com to promote the practice of collecting ferals for the betterment of beekeeping. Best Wishes, Joe Waggle Pennsylvania **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 10:07:53 -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: CCD misdiagnosis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Guys, >There may be one or a combination of things that cause the symptoms. I am reminded of the bald headed brood seen when bees uncap varroa infected sealed brood. Small cell beekeepers discussed this behavior and found it associated with wax moth infestation. And others in NZ found the behavior and couldn't find any obvious pest. It appeared to be a common mechanism for handling a variety of pests. My experience with CCD indicated a complete breakdown of colony organization/function rather than a copping mechanism. It's completely opposite of a non-CCD hive's efforts to preserve colony function/survival at all cost. A very inexperienced beekeeper could misdiagnose CCD. But, I suspect that, even if many inexperienced falsely reported something else as CCD, their hive count would insignificantly impact the numbers generated by the massive commercial hive losses. Anyone running more than a few hives for a few years wouldn't miss the difference. And any commercial beekeeper would spot it instantly. It's that different. Regards Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 10:41:39 -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: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Guys, I've had the same experience with new small cell comb, natural comb, and clean large cell comb that Randy Oliver states. See: http://www.bwranger.com/bee/sunr.htm Regards Dennis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:17:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carl & Virginia Webb Subject: Re: Tolerance/Resistance to Pathogens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Bob Harrison wrote: "Also after years with Russian/Russian hives ( two yards at present and = have had hundreds at one time but getting some Russian/Russian queens coming soon this spring ) you have a hard time telling spring dwindling as the Russians keep such small winter clusters" Bob, In our area it is the Italian bees that winter with a small cluster (if = they winter at all). The climate where you are is probably similar to = our climate here in the mountains of NC and GA.. Where we have a good = fall pollen flow my Russian bees winter with clusters up to 10 plus = frames. In fact, while making splits last week, I found one colony with = 14 frames of brood. They may have had 2 queens but I did not find a = second one. You may have a fall nutrition problem for in areas where = there is adequate goldenrod and aster my winter clusters are larger than = where there is a scarcity of fall pollen. I believe that if you Russian = clusters are large in the fall then they will be large in the spring. I am now feverishly working between showers to make splits, prevent = swarming, raise queens and prepare the colonies for our first surplus = honey flow on May,1. I estimate that I am currently removing an average = of about 2 frames of brood from colonies in order to give room for the = queen to continue to lay between now and May 1 when the tulip poplars = bloom. Carl Webb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 16:49:49 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: beekeeper01 Subject: large cases of ccd MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Has anyone heard of a beekeeper losing a large number of bee hives. I = was told that someone lost about 10,000 or more hives. Has anyone heard = of this. What is the largest number that anyone has heard of. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 19:02:21 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 05/04/2008 23:11:09 GMT Standard Time, bee-l@DEBRUYNKOPS.COM writes: Do you folks who have experience replacing all old combs with foundation have any rules of thumb on feeding to get new combs drawn? 1. Do it when oilseed rape is just starting to flower nearby (now in UK) 2. Do Bailey change using 1 central full sheet of foundation to act as a bridge, but the remainder being starter strips. 3. Ensure hive is level. 4. When queen is laying in upper box insert QE between boxes. 5. Unless this is a breeder, remove lower box after 3 weeks, culling first Varroa infested drone brood. 6. Don't feed sugar syrup unless it contains blue dye (there aren't many blue foods!) 7. Super with drawn comb as soon as lower box (and QE) is removed so bees have somewhere to put the nectar whilst continuing to draw brood comb for laying. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 19:08:40 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: 3-year cycle MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 05/04/2008 23:18:08 GMT Standard Time, naturebee@YAHOO.COM writes: Colonies should NOT be dying in mass! If they are, this suggests an inadequacy of traits exist in the subpopulation of bees, essential for survival. Could one of the factors be local overpopulation of colonies that is being corrected by nature? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 20:50:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Bee industry pays court to breeders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline good article: Bee industry pays court to breeders http://tinyurl.com/3hfjvb -- 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, 5 Apr 2008 20:16:16 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Tolerance/Resistance to Pathogens In-Reply-To: <001601c89740$efed3320$6897fea9@webbhoney> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Carl & All, I agree about the Russian bees when given a strong fall flow will winter in larger clusters. I reported same years ago on BEE-L. The first year with my first 100 Russian/Russian queens the bees wintered on very small clusters. Way to small to send to almonds and make the grade. The next winter I had around 200 Russian/Russian and moved half into the Blackwater River bottoms on around a thousand acres of pink smartweed. Those hives winter strong. Those left on average fall forage had small clusters. I am looking forward to the Russian/Russian queens I am getting through the new Russian queen breeders program. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 18:49:40 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > >Do you folks who have experience replacing all old combs > with foundation have any rules of thumb on feeding > to get new combs drawn? No rule of thumb other than to get them on before a nectarflow. I generally feed a couple of gallons of light syrup--as light as 1:2. You don't need to store honey--just to stimulate wax production, and to encourage them to build new comb to store the light syrup for processing. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 21:16:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: large cases of ccd In-Reply-To: <001f01c8975e$9c6d2de0$0300a8c0@your27e1513d96> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Has anyone heard of a beekeeper losing a large number of bee hives. I was > told that someone lost about 10,000 or more hives. Has anyone heard of > this. What is the largest number that anyone has heard of. The Adee's might fall into this category but I have not heard exact figures. I received today my last order of CD'S on CCD from the National convention. I will have listened to all (except hobby/sideline) when done with these and certain CD's several times taking notes) Jeff Pettis explains that to rule a hive CCD they need to rule out first varroa and nosema as a possible cause of the hive crash. He explains they have in their opinion ruled out for the most part many of the things many beekeepers feel are at the root of CCD. Also Jeff said this year in California the rapid decline is a factor in their listing CCD as a cause. He says many of the CCD hives they looked at in almonds this January had the number of frames of bees written on the box ( 9-12 frames and the date) and then 2 weeks later the hives were down to 3 frames. he said in fifty percent of the hives they did not get a single varroa in a roll of 300 bees. 30% of the sample detected had nosema issues. He said hives tested which were not crashing many times had as high a nosema load. So far the best CD on the subject I have listened to so far. I also received the 3 nosema seminar CD's but have not listened to yet. The paperwork with the CD's says nothing about me talking about whets on the CD's. The CD can be ordered from Conference Recording service,inc. www.conferencerecording.com NBC98-399 1 of 1 "Coping with Colony Collapse Disorder" Dr. Jeff Pettis & Dennis vanEnglesdorp To date maybe the best CD to order. Attending is best but these CD's are close. The reason is you can pause and listen again till you understand exactly what is being said. In fact I believe I will order even when I attend. Then I could spend a larger amount of time in the hallways talking directly with other beekeepers and not miss a presentation. Sincerely, Bob Harrison Ps. please send Dave Cushman a card as Dave has done so much for internet beekeeping. His web site stands alone and he has spent countless hours on discussion lists. Dave has been on BEE-L longer than I have. Dave goes back to the start of BEE-L! I have sought out his advice on many issues over the years! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 21:30:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: New Apitherapy Ointment Helps Treat Diabetic Foot Infections MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII New Apitherapy Ointment Helps Treat Diabetic Foot Infections Safety and Efficacy of a New Honey Ointment on Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Prospective Pilot Study Journal of Wound Care, Vol. 17, Iss. 3, 28 Feb 2008, pp 108-110 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-apitherapy-ointment-helps-treat.html Objective: To study the effectiveness and safety of PEDYPHAR ointment (a new ointment prepared from natural royal jelly and panthenol in an ointment base) in the treatment of patients with limb-threatening diabetic foot infections... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 06:57:56 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: thoughts about CCD? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >From the Lompoc Record http://www.lompocrecord.com/ > Driving east out of town on Highway 246, en route to John French's Las Flores Apiary on Mail Road, I saw some white boxes scattered about in a field near Cebada Canyon Road. They were some of the 4,200 Las Flores hives in 50 locations from Creston to Buellton to Cuyama to the Santa Maria and Lompoc Valleys. > John and Greta French and their son James keep some serious bees. Parked in their ranch driveway were two huge flatbed trucks used to haul hives to distant locations. A very large shed nearby housed very large machines that uncap honeycomb cells and extract honey. In years when bee production is high, 15 people working 10 hours a day may process the product of 500 hives a day, rendering 26 to 30 barrels of premium honey per day. That happens when the rains come in March. > John's thoughts about CCD? He knows the prevailing theories, but he has no firm opinion as to the cause. He does know that the price of honey is increasing, that production is down 70 million pounds nationwide from last year, and that the decrease is attributed to CCD. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 05:00:17 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John Caldeira Subject: Re: Bee tourism? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Erin Martin wrote: > .... I'm compiling a list of interesting bee-related travel destinations, > roadside attractions, etc. ******************************* Two "must-see" destinations for Eastern Europe beekeeping tourism are: 1) The Prokopovych Beekeekeeping Musuem near Kyiv, Ukraine. One can easily spend hours here exploring historical and modern beekeeping tools. http://www.outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/Museum/Beekeeping_Museum.htm 2) The Beekeeping Research and Development Institute in Bucharest, Romania. Several buildings are even designed with bee themes. John Caldeira http://www.outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 13:35:06 -0400 Reply-To: "Keith B. Forsyth" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Keith B. Forsyth" Organization: Keith B. Forsyth Subject: Re: [WL] Re: [BEE-L] Bee tourism? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable If you are visiting Canada, you may find the following of interest? The first three are in Quebec in the Montreal Quebec City area. Ferme Lune De Miel http://www.easterntownships-travelguide.com/Val-Saint-Francois/Ferme-Lune= -Miel/ Musee de l'Abeille http://www.economusees.com/musee_abeille_en.cfm Intermiel Inc. http://www.intermiel.com/ World's Largest Bee Falher Alberta http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/bee.htm Burton Noble Gates Collection rare bee books University of Guelph Guelph = Ontario. http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 21:00:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: ALDEN MARSHALL Subject: Short Fuse! MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Waldemar writes: This is the only possible explanation I can come up = for my goldenrod hives=20 having a very short fuse.=E2=80=9D =20 Is the plant producing poorly and perhaps robber bees snooping around? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 06:47:19 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: Bee tourism? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > MUSEUM OF APICULTURE IN RADOVLJICA is placed in the baroque manor house in the old part of the town. It displays an essential part of Slovenian history and culture in general ā€“ the rich tradition of beekeeping. This was the most intense in the 18th and 19th and it represented a rather important rural branch. The most typical beehives are exhibited in the technical part of the museum. The life and the work of our indigenous honeybee called the Grey Bee of Carniola can be observed in the biological room. In summer the behaviour of the honeybee can be watched live, too. The artistic part houses the great chapter in the realm of Slovene folk culture ā€“ the illustrated beehive front boards. http://tinyurl.com/69b3pa "virtual tour": http://tinyurl.com/5avkr3 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 07:22:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Anyone running more than a few hives for a few years wouldn't miss the > difference. And any commercial beekeeper would spot it instantly. It's that > different. I wish that were true. Our experience in Maine says otherwise. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 11:23:18 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Short Fuse! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>Is the plant producing poorly and perhaps robber bees snooping around? Normally this would be an appropriate rationalization but the 'migratory bees' stay tenser than the homebound hives through the fall feeding and winter months. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 04:34:10 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Bacterium Isolated From Honey Shows High Antifungal Activity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Bacterium Isolated From Honey Shows High Antifungal Activity Purification and Structural Characterization of Bacillomycin F Produced by a Bacterial Honey Isolate Active Against Byssochlamys Fulva H25 Journal of Applied Microbiology, Online Early Articles http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/bacterium-isolated-from-honey-shows.html Aims: Isolate and characterize antifungal peptides exhibiting activity against Byssochlamys fulva H25, a spoilage mould associated with juices and beverages... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 04:34:53 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Seattle Apitherapy Conference Outlines Medicinal Uses of Bee Products MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Seattle Apitherapy Conference Outlines Medicinal Uses of Bee Products Proponents See a World of Healing in Bee Stings By Bob Condor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (USA), 4/6/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/04/seattle-apitherapy-conference-outlines.html No matter what you might first think about apitherapy, the use of honeybee products for medicinal products, there is one distinct "element of reality," said Dr. Theo Cherbuliez... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 09:20:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: thoughts about CCD? 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 All, Thoughts on CCD. All involved agree all losses are not CCD. A point always put forth by some beekeepers. I often wonder why its always still brought up. I think the point is understood by now. Also with our current survey system it is impossible to say exactly the numbers of CCD and normal losses. Sadly all losses can not be simply explained away from normal causes. Also the loss numbers are increasing which is different than in years past. Many of us believe the problem dates back further than when David Hackenberg asked for the USDA= A RS to look at the problem. Which would mean in my opinion we are in the 3rd if not forth year of the problem. If so we have passed the old "disappearing disease" (and other die offs in U.S. beekeeping history) time frames. U.S. beekeepers and the U.S. beekeeping industry has always been slow to react to new global bee problems. I have used to my advantage being able to be informed on new problems before they arrive. The old beekeepers and some researchers talk of breeding from survivors has sent many a beekeeping operations into bankruptcy. A excellent idea for a queen breeder but a poor idea for the large scale honey producer or pollinator. Once the queen breeder has produced the (as an example) foulbrood tolerant bee (Rothenbuler said was possible) then we can all raise queens from the line. Breeding from survivors without a plan in many cases (like varroa) ends up with hives headed by queens which keep small amounts of brood. Queens which shut down often creating a form of varroa control. When combined with hygienic behavior you can get a bee which needs less varroa control. However when I have taken such queens and used as we do in commercial beekeeping they ether crash from varroa due to being forced to raise higher amounts of brood are simply keep a small hive and cost me money to keep around. As far as I am concerned our U.S. researchers have dropped the ball on N.ceranae. I read about the problems in Spain. Still we were not told N. ceranae could be in the U.S.. I read of the vast difference between nosema apis and nosema ceranae found in Spain. With CCD our researchers decided to take a look. Guess what? Jeff Pettis says in almost all U.S. commercial operation N. ceranae has displaced n. apis. Judy Chen has traced the new nosema back as far as 95/96 ( and she is now looking at samples from 10 years earlier). Why is this so important? Because we had a huge die off in 95/96 and was simply blamed on mites. The nosema ceranae is different. Normal nosema apis symptoms are not always present and mid gut examinations can appear normal. Unilke nosema apis which has been a big winter issue the nosema ceranae is a problem in summer. It is my opinion and of many of my friends that the nosemae ceranae is responsible for a huge amount of the current die offs. Because you can not simply assume that a dead out which does not show dysentery is free of nosema ceranae spores I am starting a plan to treat all dead outs removed from the field with acetic acid before reuse. I agree nutrition is important for bees. Unlike many beeks I believe natural fresh pollen is best. However Dave Tarpy looked at the CCD dead outs bees for a nutrition problem and found no difference in protein levels of the the CCD bees and the control bees. Beekeeping is either getting more complicated or we are simply learning how complicated our bees really are. I think the later. With the nosema ceranae you will have a hard time seeing the problem without testing. I expect all beekeepers will get the new nosema within the next few years. Ignoring the problem has been shown to not work. The CCD team has turned up some new virus which have never been seen in bees. Now we have to try and see what role they play in bee health. Nosema ceranae is being compared to nosema apis when in reality it is closer to a wasp nosema. Yes bees have been on the planet for a very long time but the bees are being subjected to different things than ever before. History is full of different species which have disappeared from the earth. The current beekeeping research is long past due. Future beekeepers will look back and thank Dave Hackenberg for bringing attention to our problems ( CCD included ). "off to make splits as queens arriving this week from Australia" Dave Hackenberg and I are splitting an order. He is installing on his equipment and me on new equipment. The queens Dave is getting are from Terry Brown ( different Australian package producer than used last year and the producer I have followed from the first import). Terry brown has constantly been importing the best queens from around the world to improve his stock. Buckfast queens and varroa tolerant queens from Italy. Dann Purvis went to Australia to set up new instrumental insemination equipment and teach the employees II. He helped the team select breeder queens and inseminate breeders used last season. You can not paint all Australian queen producers with the same broad brush exactly like you can not paint all U.S. queen producers with the same broad brush. These queens are being provided free of charge to help Dave get back on his feet. Two years of losses are serious. The effects of the current die offs have been reduced thanks to the import. Commercial beeks need these bees. Australia package producers are running at capacity. In fact Brown's bees had to turn down orders for around 30 pallets due to lack of supply. A higher number than last year which indicates a increase in the die off. Because of the serious need for these bees by U.S. beekeepers APHIS has said to all opposed that if you can provide research showing a problem with these bees then we will look at taking action. Until then the import will continue. The same position will happen for say Mexico if the need for those hives happens. If research show those bees have got the same problems as ours then the border will open. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:37:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Short Fuse! In-Reply-To: <009c01c8984e$13248290$0201a8c0@BLINE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Waldemar writes: This is the only possible explanation I can come up for my goldenrod hives > having a very short fuse.ā€¯ Skunks can make normally docile colonies instantly mean. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 11:45:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lionel Evans Subject: Queen Rearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi all, What is a good book on Queen rearing? Lionel **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 11:48:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lionel Evans Subject: Queen Rearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable What is a good book to get on how to raise Queens? Lionel **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:15:14 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Re: CCD idea MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There are chips that can be used to track bees - but you'd be playing a gamble - gluing chips on individual bees, then hoping some of those would be CCD bees who left. Also, range is very short for bee-borne chips. By summer, we hope to have a laser system that could track bees as they fly, mapping every bee -without the need to use chips. We already have the lasers, some of which can reach a mile. But, we need to get one built that we can use for non-military purposes. So far, our technology is still in testing phase for DoD. Jerry **************Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:23:35 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Re: Bees not Taking Syrup in Spring. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bees not taking syrup and/or medication is one of the symptoms listed by the Spanish for N. ceranae. Its also a heads symptom up that I pay particular attention to with respect to CCD. If your bees go off feed, don't be surprised if you soon have problems. The Spanish report having trouble medicating bees, once this happens. I've heard of some beekeepers drenching bees (which I believe is off label). My question - if the bees are so far gone that they refuse feed, will drenching help? Or, is it too late? I don't know the answer to this one. I suspect that this is part of the explanation for why we so often see excess stores in CCD colonies. Whether N. ceranae is part of CCD is debatable, but we see a lot of it in CCD operations. Finally, whatever is going on, it seems like the bees respond the same way as you and I to stomach flu. Don't know about you, but I go off my feed when my stomach acts up. Jerry **************Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:32:20 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: CCD misdiagnosis In-Reply-To: <47FA03E8.8060408@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit For your all info also: Subj: CCD and looking 6 months later. Date: 04/07/2008 11:27:59 AM Mountain Daylight Time From: deealusby1 To: organicbeekeepers@yahoogroups.com Hi all: Reference the 200 or of 300 I wrote about losing last Aug/Sep that I had inspected for CCD with Dr Bromenshenk, and then I wrote here what going to do to go forward in the 6-7 yards to get over. Well: now seeing and filming with Dean and Ramona to document out here looking and helping me.: To end..................I AM GOOD!!! .....with the bees.......for what I seeing now. Made right moves. Dee ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:59:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: acetic acid fumigation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob Harrison wrote, "I am starting a plan to treat all dead outs removed from the field with acetic acid before reuse." I too have been considering such a strategy. I am wondering what effect the treatment will have on the stores in the fumigated combs. Comments Bob? Anyone? From: http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/05-055.pdf Fumigation: Fumigation with acetic acid is effective (control), especially when the bees are transferred as early as possible in the season from contaminated equipment to fumigated equipment. An efficient method is to intersperse absorbent materials between piles of hive bodies containing the combs. Pour 150 ml of acetic acid (80% strength) onto the material between each box. The stacks should be left outside in a warm corner and protected from direct winds for about one week. It is also recommended that the material be aired for one day prior to use (Bailey and Ball, 1991; Shimanuki et al, 1992). Fumigation with ethylene oxide (ETO) has also been demonstrated to kill spores on combs (100 mg ETO/l for 24 hours at 37.8oC). However, there are a number of safety issues associated with the use of ETO (Shimanuki et al. 1992). Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:11:17 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?iso-8859-1?B?QXJpIFNlcHDkbOQ=?= Subject: Re: acetic acid fumigation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Aaron > what effect the treatment will have on the stores in the fumigated combs. Fumigation with acetic acid used to be a standard procedure in Finnish beekeeping. In the fall frames were packed into plastic containers or large plastic bags. 80 % acetic acid in 100 ml / langstroth box. Our winter is so cold that acetic does not evaporate too well ( + 5 - - 30 Celsius) but it keeps the mice away. During spring and summer frames are aired and taken to the hives. Some beekeepers use heated isolated boxes. Box full of frames + 25 - + 30 Celsius for a week, and then a new batch. No one has reported me problems to bees. Many frames have some honey or pollen. During recent years beekeepers have been using less acetic, but we have had Nosema ceranae since 1998,and now many are talking of starting the use of acetic again. No signs of CCD this far. Ari Seppälä **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:09:57 -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: Short Fuse! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >> Waldemar writes: This is the only possible explanation I can come up for my goldenrod hives >> having a very short fuse.ā€¯ > i had a similar problem, someone on bee-l i think from australia posted about a plant ( i think it was privot or some thing like that) I did an archive search but cant find a reference to it. Any way the hives were fine until they started a flow from this plant, and were nasty until they used up all the honey in the hive. I googled privot and it doesn't give when it bloomes? but it was just before goldenrod in my area. mike bassett n.y. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:35:28 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Rip Bechmann Subject: Re: Red Queen Hypothesis revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit FYGI, saw a skunk out about a week ago, bees flew for the first time in god knows how long three days ago, at least one hive is (was) still alive. The day the bees first flew was the first time it felt like spring out, we have about a foot of ice, not snow, and it isn't going any where fast in the uplands of Warren County, NY. That's US of A as opposed to U of SA. Now on to the red queen thread; (1) Having been a bee inspector, for far too long, I always tried to get the "un-willing experts", who knew (sic) more than I did about the subject, to hive swarms on foundation primarily for AFB interdiction. If I had a dollar for every time I had to "sit" through the "big swarm that when to town" lecture I could afford to be living in "redwood country" instead of this "icebox". Whenever they "ran down" and you finally got to debrief them, invariably they had been "forced" to use foundation since they had run out of the drawn "dead-out frames" their grandfather had put in moth balls back before "the ___ war". (Please feel free to choose your own war) They also are often quick to add, "think what they would have done had I had drawn comb". These same "self-anointed experts" were quick to tell you that it was the "swarming impulse" that made the bees more productive, choosing to ignore or being ignorant of, the positive effects that accrue from escaping the "burden" of a! ssorted environmental toxins. Anyone who doesn't believe this, should talk to, or read up on the published papers of, Jerry B. A major portion of his career has utilized that fact. Twenty five+ years ago Bob Stevens was quoting a study in his Better Bee catalog, that compared brood comb to the hepatic caecum , i.e. "liver", in non-arthropod species. Sorry but I've lost track of the citation. Basically both serve as a "sink" for "harmful" items that can not be secreted. Also, only rarely, noted in this regard is the amount of un useable comb most established hives contain, un removable stale pollen, excessive propolis buildup and misplaced drone comb are just some of the factors in this category. If the comb is un-useable it still must be contained within the brood nest, kept warm, etc. while contributing nothing to the buildup. (2) Blue dye in syrup. Why must it be blue? In South Jersey The Wright Clan, Bob Harvey and any number of other beekeepers have all had episodes of strange honey flows. New Jersey has a large pharmaceutical industry, which produces, among other things, lots of cough syrup in several vivid colors. New Jersey also has a large pig industry that feeds in exposed toughs. when available, waste dyed sugar solutions to supplement the regular feed. The state has also had beekeepers extract bumper crops of "Honey" only to have it start running red, orange, blue, green or some combination of those colors. (3) It's a little off topic, but I have never understood why, particular stationary beekeepers, draw comb on a nectar flow. It is a rare stationary site that doesn't have long predicable gaps between flows. Sugar syrup can be had cheaper than honey any day, even if you factor in labor, why make wax out of it? Everyone makes a big issue of needing a "strong flow" to draw good comb. How much stronger than a pail over the inner cover does a "flow" get? Bottom line? This "discovery" has been around, under the radar, for a long time. To quote another "old gizzer"; "Thinking there isn't much new under the sun, and that includes re-discovering the wheel". **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:10:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Hamilton Subject: Re: Queen Rearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marla Spivak has a bound book that is pretty complete Dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 17:49:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: bees, bats, salmon and now deformed birds Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Possibly off topic but I'll take a chance Aaron will let it through. We have a bee & bat mystery as discussed here on the list, salmon on the west coast that are not returning http://www.latimes.com/classified/jobs/news/la-me-salmon15mar15,0,7649592.story and now this news on deformed bird beaks in the Pacific NW and Alaska in areas of less human activity. http://www.adn.com/wildlife/story/368008.html maybe no connections but still makes you wonder about the timing of these events. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:42:02 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: 3-year cycle In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Chris Slade wrote: > Could one of the factors be local overpopulation of > colonies that is being > corrected by nature? I decided to think about this for a day, to mull it over. For the record, again, all my reply is “IMO“,,, Lets look at other overpopulation for a moment, in the human arena. Overpopulation by itself is not ‘the’ problem in any part of the world today as far as humans go, and never will be. How can I make such a statement? Because, where the problem lies, is in the competition for available resources, and the transmitting of disease. You can have a billion people stuffed into a small country. As long as they have sufficient resources, and low instance of disease, there will perhaps be very few problems. You can have hundreds of colonies stuffed into a small area, as long as there are sufficient nutritional resources, and a strong immune system, including essential survival traits, there would perhaps be few problems. But if these hundreds of colonies are placed in an area lacking in nutritional resources, then by this deficit, you create stress and a weakened immune system, and an impossibility for the population as a whole to sustain itself, and correction needed. And in this case, overpopulation would ‘appear’ to be the problem. I have had many times, small isolated yards of 10 colonies collapse in an 'post feral die off environment' with bee populations lower than they have been in perhaps hundreds of years. This environment should have been beneficial by eliminating competition, but mass die offs still occurred, suggesting something else at play. Perhaps, the inability of the existing population to cope with the environmental factors was the cause. Disease in 'such populations' is allowed to reach harmful levels, that also contaminate nearby resistant colonies at levels higher than their resistant abilities are not adapted to, causing them to collapse also. A friend from Sweden, I believe calls it a ‘varroa bomb’ or ‘virus bomb’. Had this resistant colony have been grouped with other resistant colonies, then, perhaps the sub population of bees in keeping disease levels lower, drifting disease is withen coping abilities. I had once thought that overpopulation of honeybees concentrated in a small area would be a problem, but I am recently swaying to the belief that migratory and stationary commercial operations are not the cause of any of our problems. If you wanted to stick a pinin the problem it would be the apparent weakened immune system of our honeybees, caused by the ‘environmental factor’ , which can be any number of accumulated stresses, which perhaps number in the hundreds, with NO 2 instances of mass die offs having the exact same set of stresses and order of severity being the found to be the cause for the event. This is why you will never pin CCD down to any single cause or any set of causes, because of the many variables that exist. CCD should perhaps be ‘renamed’ to reflect this fact, as the name now implies a single disorder causing the event. Best Wishes, Joe Waggle “Thou nimble yellow bee, that bring’st the softly blooming spring, thee the love of primy flowers is ever maddening. Flutt’ring o’re sweetly breathing fields, increase thy honied store, until the wax-compacted cell at length can hold no more.” -Nicias http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:34:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: acetic acid fumigation In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am wondering what effect > the treatment will have on the stores in the fumigated combs. As long as the stores are for the bees I see no problem. I plan to stack the deeps five high an place 150 mm of glacial acetic acid 60-80% on top. When evaporated the treatment is done. You can do outside as also repels moths etc. Make the stack air tight. Kills all nosema spores. Our method works as well as shiminuki's method with less effort however you need to wait for all the acetic acid to evaporate rather than set a so many day time limit as in the Shiminuki method. In fall the acetic acid evaporates at different rates in cold climates which is true of all chemicals which kill by fumes. In warm temperatures our method might be faster than "Shims". 120 degree F. temp for 24 hours will kill the nosema spores also ( USDA-ARS). Some beeks with a honey house hot room which can hold a exact temp and use plastic foundation have found this method worth doing however with wired comb you can end up with a mess. One beekeeper reports a decent spore kill with a 8 hour treatment. He said he does not understand the reason behind needing 24 hours. He said once the comb has reached the 120 F. the spores are dead. What do the list say about his hypothesis? Sincerely, Bob Harrison **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:34:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: Queen Rearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lionel Wrote What is a good book on Queen rearing? Lionel, i have a book by a well respected man-Harry Laidlaw...you can borrow it if you want. Its called "Contemporary Queen Rearing" I also have one by Bro Adams "Beekeeping at Buckfast" that gets fairly indepth into queen rearing..A great book. Same deal as above John **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 12:07:41 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Short Fuse! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > i had a similar problem, someone on bee-l i think from australia posted > about a plant ( i think it was privot or some thing like that) I did an > archive search but cant find a reference to it. For me spotted gum (Corymbia citriodora subsp. variegata) used to be (Eucalyptus maculata) is one that the bees get a bit agro on. Others are tea tree (Melaleuca quinquinervia) and sometimes orange blossom. When working tea tree, you can pick the bees up and shift into another area and the bees are quiet the next day. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************