From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:07:44 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-87.1 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 787E149076 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:38 -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 n1SG3YWh017258 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:35 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0806B" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 187069 Lines: 3954 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 07:46:20 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Chinese beekeeping description MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline I think of bee-hives as the Lonely Planet development model. I wonder if it can ever meet farmers' dreams. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/richardspencer/july2007/sichuanbees.htm -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 00:43:04 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Honey Bee Researcher Sought in Saudi Arabia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Honey Bee Researcher Sought in Saudi Arabia http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/06/honey-bee-researcher-sought-in-saudi.html The Bee Research Unit at King Saud University College of Food and Agricultural Sciences in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is seeking a Researcher with a PhD degree in Entomology or Biology to study honey bee biology and beekeeping... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 09:33:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Agricultural Research Magazine May/June 2008 - Vol. 56, No. 5 http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may08/ EXCERPTS "What I believe is that CCD is likely a combination of factors, as opposed to a single, discrete cause," Jeff Pettis says. Four broad classes of potential causes are being studied by ARS scientists and many others around the country and the world: pathogens; parasites; environmental stresses, which include pesticides; and management stresses, including nutrition problems, mainly from nectar or pollen dearth. Entomologists Yanping (Judy) Chen and Jay Evans, both with the ARS Bee Research Laboratory, conducted a detailed genetic screening of several hundred honey bees that had been collected between 2002 and 2007 from colonies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, and Israel. "Our study shows that, without question, IAPV has been in this country since at least 2002," said Chen. "This work makes it clear that IAPV is NOT a recent introduction from Australia." But it also neither rules out nor reinforces the association between IAPV and CCD; it just settles the question of whether the recently imported Australian bees were the original source Pettis and his colleagues are testing samples of bees, honey, wax, pollen, and nectar from CCD-afflicted and non afflicted colonies for a wide variety of pesticides to see whether there are any patterns of pesticide residues that could contribute to CCD. "So far, we've found higher-than expected levels of miticides that beekeepers use in the wax plus traces of a wide variety of agricultural chemicals in the pollen and wax, though there was no consistent pattern in either the levels or the types of chemicals identified," Pettis says. "No significant levels of agricultural chemicals were found in any honey" -- 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: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 09:56:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Kirk_Jones?= Subject: long and short term gains Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi all, I would like to comment on some very interesting posts in re: to sustainability, long and short term gains,etc. Mr Yoon writes: <> Mr. Yoon also goes on to comment on future vision and has made some great points on the auto industry, ie., American auto industry. I couldn't agree more on the short sightedness on US industry. We just had fuel that was too cheap and we had no reason to get more fuel efficent. But I think the metaphor doesn't translate fully to commercial beeks. As a commercial beek, we do send bees to Florida from Michigan to make up increase, make our own cells (bee breeeding here), send bees to Cal. for almonds(amen..need the income), and make some nice honey up here in northern Michigan. You can bet your butt that we are picking out queen stock that does what we want. Our crew made up 100 singles from just one queen supplier last June so I could pick out 4 or 5 to breed from. Also getting some breeders from Glenn's with some degree of mite resistance to get some of that stock into our general production hives. Like Bob H. says, the Italians can lay up some brood. Well...that's number one for us. We need bees and brood. Can't make increase with stingy tentative queens that are reluctant to lay up the nest until a big flow. Again, the farmer need lots of bees in the hive to pollinate their crops and that takes queens that will lay down some eggs. Italians will winter with larger clusters, again good as we ship ours bees to Cal. in deep winter in Jan. Dang cold. Have to keep 'em plowed out. But then again, we also want bees that have other characteristics, like MITE resistance. (Sure miss the good ol days). So...some of us commercial beeks are trying like hell to be progressive(is taking an active role in breeding progressive?) and take a multi pronged approach to beekeeping. Pragmatism. We are doing the best we can we the tools we have. We still have to keep mite loads down. We have bills to pay. Believe me, I am proud that our operation has succeeded(so far) where others have fallen. It's not a perfect world where we can risk everything, ie., just letting the chips fall in regards to letting the strong survive for the long term good of bee genetics. Remember, the bees do us great service to bring some food to the table. So don't beat us commercial beeks up for "shortsightedness" with mite treatment, transporting bees across the country, and of course, making money to pay bills. I think all beekeepers, big and small have something to bring to the table. Kirk **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 10:49:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: FYI MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline A small collection of some of the best free publications (PDFs) http://groups.google.com/group/upstate-new-york-beekeeping http://tinyurl.com/2asjf7 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 15:44:08 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >"So far, we've found higher-than expected levels of miticides that beekeepers use in the wax plus traces of a wide variety of agricultural chemicals in the pollen and wax...""No significant levels of agricultural chemicals were found in any honey" is it me, or is am i reading that they are testing honey for "agricultural chemicals", but avoiding the issue of miticides (or other beekeeper applied treatments) in honey? deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:05:34 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > "... without question, IAPV has been in this > country since at least 2002." But CCD? It did not appear until years later, no matter which report one calls the "first sighting". > "But it also neither rules out nor reinforces the > association between IAPV and CCD.." Sez which data? The Evans/Chen findings still cannot be explained any differently than how I explained them back when the Evans/Chen paper was buried in ABJ (rather than doing the honorable thing, and putting a letter in "Science" to retract/correct the "Science" paper of Sept 2007). The Evans/Chen data does not merely refute the Sept 07 "Science" paper, it utterly devastates any proximate causal relationship between IAPV and CCD. http://bee-quick.com/reprints/claims_collapse.pdf We've had since December 07 for someone to concisely explain the September "Science" claims in light of the Evans/Chen paper. This seems to be the best that can be done. (Misinterpret clear data, refuse to acknowledge what even mere beekeepers can see clearly, and continue to exclaim how the emperor is so well-dressed.) Its gotten so bad, at this point we need to change the name of the virus. Rather than Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, "IAPV", we can call it: "Ian Lipkin's Pet Virus", "ILPV" And where did Ian go, anyway? He certainly found the exit quickly once the Evans/Chen data hit the fan. So, there's still no correlation between ILPV and CCD. So what HAVE we got? > "Four broad classes of potential causes are being > studied... pathogens; parasites; environmental > stresses, which include pesticides; and management > stresses, including nutrition problems..." If it walks between hives like a pathogen, and quacks like a pathogen, and we've even found multiple "new" pathogens in the hives that tightly correlate to incidence of desease, then why isn't there an admission that the problem is a mix of exotic invasive pathogens? Why are they still lingering at square one? Its been YEARS. > "So far, we've found higher-than expected levels > of miticides that beekeepers use in the wax..." But we know that even massive miticide overdoses have been common since the mid-1908s, so we can safely rule out miticides. > "...plus traces of a wide variety of agricultural > chemicals in the pollen and wax, though there > was no consistent pattern in either the levels > or the types of chemicals identified..." So, we can also rule of the pesticides, as there is also no correlation between and specific pesticide or class of pesticides and CCD, just as there is no correlation between miticides and CCD, or between ILPV and CCD. Why is everyone so reluctant to simply narrow down the suspect list by eliminating suspects that have solid alibis? We are drowning out here, and they seem to want to analyze the water quality. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 15:49:15 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: long and short term gains 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 Kirk & All, Thanks for the post Kirk. I believe many commercial beeks have been saved by industry changes which came too late for four large operations in my area. The first spike in honey prices to the buck fifty range saved many an outfit which were sitting on 4-5 years of unsold honey. Then almond pollination prices went through the roof giving needed funds to almost bankrupt outfits. Right now honey is again close to record highs and beeks are getting a boost. **If** (stay with me for a minute) Almond pollination fees had progressed at the rate they had for the decade before the increase and now would be in the say 60-65 dollar range and honey would have stayed in the sixty cent range ( as was the case at the time of the last farm bill) then in my opinion there would be only a very few commercial beeks left . Remember the above does not even consider what a big die ( happened last two years) off might do! So far not one commercial beek which has had up to 90-100% losses has received monetary help however Alaskan salmon fishermen are getting 160 million to replace their lost wages (or the amount of income of the best year of salmon fishing over the last five years!) In the 70's beeks at least received the cost of a package when hives were killed by pesticides to get back on their feet. When I am gone you are wasting your time if you think my kids, neighbors or members of the bee club I belong to will take over my job. They all know the work involved. The sweat involved. The long hours and days away from family. The joke in beekeeping circles is we will most likely all end up taking jobs after commercial beekeeping as "Wal-Mart greeters". These are the points many legislators never consider. The large operations in my area simply closed. In Nebraska in the area a close friend runs a commercial operation there used to be half a dozen commercial operations. Only one left. Pollination of our crops takes a hell of a lot more than just the honeybee. Without the beekeepers no serious migratory pollination. Seriously folks keeping thousands of hives year around in many crops will not work. The field hands would quit. Sprays would kill hives. the hives need moved in at the right time and moved out at the correct time which takes migratory beeks. Most of us care less about the samples in freezers from 2006/2007 or even maybe 2007/2008. Researchers need to be in the yards having trouble at the time the yards are crashing right now. Rush samples to labs before crashing. Plan a course of action. Better varroa control and nosema control has eliminated many of the first die off problems. >Kirk said: > (Sure miss the good ol days). I do too! Beekeeping was easy back then. Really only Australia left varroa free for the most part now. Sixty minutes (Australia) did a program a few weeks ago about the changes varroa would bring to Australian beekeeping. Terry Brown and Denise Anderson took part in the presentation. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 16:54:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: A Working Business Model - The Key to Breeding a Better Bee Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 21:21:44 -0400, Peter Borst wrote: >You get tough mites, weakened bees, and a whole slew of opportunistic >infections, like nosema, mutated viruses, possibly *combined* viruses. I agree with most of what Peter says - with the exception of weakened bees. My now one year and counting of experience with pure Russian bees has given me new hope. We wintered over Pure Russian, Purvis, Old Sol, Olivarez and NWC genetics. Winter lasted into May with some of the worst spring build up weather I have ever seen. The Russian hives look better then anything hands down. I'm pulling more brood out this weekend for mating nucs to make up more nucs for over wintering. They seem resistant to nosema, and have documented resistance to tracheal and varroa. Plus you don't need to feed them to get through winter. For my stationary operation in the north I feel like they are the perfect bee and see no need to breed a better bee.. They are the one strain of Apis Meliifera that has co-existed with the plague of varroa for 160 years so I don't see them as weakened by that experience. I keep wondering why the Russians were not also exposed to Nosema Ceranae if overlapping with Apis Ceranae territory. p.s. surprisingly my over winter experience results showed Olivarez to be the runner up and Purvis to be the worst performing. We kept all of these different strains isolated from each other. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 18:19:21 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/06/2008 14:49:10 GMT Standard Time, peterlborst@GMAIL.COM writes: No significant levels of agricultural chemicals were found in any honey" What does 'significant' mean in this context? Significant for the bees or for the customer? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 12:14:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Glenn_Hile?= Subject: Down Tree Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Park Ranger in Wabash State Park in Bluffton, IN called and a storm toppled a large oak tree with an intact hive. Said the hive has been active for at least 3-4 years. It is near a rental unit and must be dealt with so leaving alone is not an option. First is there anyone on list near that area that is interested in trying to save this feral hive? Second, what are the chances of saving it? How much work is involved? Something a hobbyist could / should tackle? Third, if it comes down to exterminating the hive, what is the best recommended procedure? Glenn **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 19:37:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: A Working Business Model - The Key to Breeding a Better Bee In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Brian Fredericksen wrote: >I agree with most of what Peter says - with the exception of weakened bees. Well, you forgot the context. What I said was: > You take an invasive pest, which vectors viral disease and knock it down about 90% over and over -- what do you get? You get tough mites, weakened bees, and a whole slew of opportunistic infections, like nosema, mutated viruses, possibly *combined* viruses. This repeated application of treatments which are not completely effective creates an endless cycle in which the bees are propped up but never really cured. Meanwhile, in their weakened state, changes occur that encourage opportunistic infections and mutations. The whole point is to add better bees into the equation. (see my article in June ABJ). If you stop treating you get better bees -- if they survive. If you continue to treat, you need to bring better bees in, because the fact that you are treating shows that your bees still need help big time. The crux of the matter is the 90% (or less) knockdown. Anyone who has taken a course of antibiotics knows you aren't supposed to stop until the infection is cured. If you just knock down the pathogen for a while, the remaining strains are liable to be the ones that the treatment left alive, hence you are breeding for resistance in your own disease! Obviously, survival of the fittest is the best plan to get better bees. But they have to survive. And if challenged by a syndrome that is 90% lethal, you not only end up with not enough bees, you are also probably going to try to split what you have left and restock contaminated equipment, etc. never really getting out of the hole. -- 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: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 21:39:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Wallace Subject: Re: Chinese beekeeping description In-Reply-To: <7eb65cc10806072246ud0102d1s12fc3f3eb8221567@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I asked my daugher if she has seen any honey bees in Sichuan yet.? She has?seen honey for sale in the markets, but no honey bees or hives on trip to mountains where plenty of flowers in bloom.? Maybe the reason they are able to export lots of honey is their practice of getting 3 queens to co-exist in one hive.? http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001412#pone-0001412-g001 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2008 21:07:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: A Working Business Model - The Key to Breeding a Better Bee 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, The > Russian hives look better then anything hands down. I'm pulling more brood > out this weekend for > mating nucs to make up more nucs for over wintering. My Italians have been supered for a month. One of my favorite O.B. Wiser columns was about O.B. and the beekeeper down the road. O.B. was installing supers and the other beekeeper was just starting to do his spring work. > They seem resistant to nosema, I hope they are but the researchers I have spoken with say all races are susceptible to nosema ceranae. I fought nosema ceranae in most yards including my Russians. >and have documented resistance to tracheal and varroa. My observations: Once a few years ago I sampled fifty Russian hives for TM and the lab turned up a single TM. The lab called to see what was different as they always turn up TM in my Italian samples. My research showed me that the Russian bee could handle a fairly high varroa load but I was more impressed with the way the Russian bee had almost no virus and almost always raised a queen when they swarm. I found when the Russian/Russian genetics fade the varroa and virus tolerance fades. I also found the Russian/Russian does best in a yard by itself. Some lines keep too small a cluster to winter in Missouri unless the bees are put on a strong fall flow (what I do). Some Russian bees are slow to take pollen patties (but not all lines). My current use for the Russians is too not treat in fall and produce a fall wildflower crop in the blackwater river bottoms. Blackwater river bottoms flooding tonight. By fall if dry will be solid wildflowers for a 1000 acres at my apairy locations. My Italians and carniolans are going to need treatment this fall so can not use those bees. I will let the Russian bees go as long as I can before treating. Maybe the Russians will be able to go untreated . time will tell the story. In any case the new Russian bees will be able to fill a need my other bees can't. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 19:43:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Su et al. managed to establish a viable mixed honeybee colony, with workers of a strain of the European *A. mellifera*, and workers of a strain of *A. cerana* from the Far-East, and an *A. cerana* queen. Workers of the two species dance with very different waggle-dance durations, for o the same site. Therefore, from the point of view of "dance language" supporters, they use different "dialects". Sue et al. reported in a recent publication in *PLoS One* 3(6) that recruits of the one species reacted to dancers of the other species, just as they do to dancers of their own species.The authors, who are faithful believers in the existence of the honeybee DL, then concluded that if recruits were not "misled" by the dances of the foragers that use a different "dialect", those recruits must have, somehow, learned to correctly understand that different "dialect". This is utterly preposterous, because it is impossible! Scientists can extract DL information from honeybee-dances, but they can do so only by using a very large body of information obtained through preliminary scientific research. And that research must be separately done for each honeybee species and strain. Honeybees obviously do not engage in scientific research. So how can honeybees extract the information? DL supporters see no problem here. They assume that honeybees have an "instinctive", genetically predetermined ability, to correctly interpret DL information relayed in the "dialect" of their own species. (This is naturally unacceptable to scientists who do not accept the existence of "instincts", which they view as non-definable, and hence, non-existent entities.) However, assuming, for the sake of the discussion, that honeybees do have an "instinctive" ability to correctly interpret information relayed in their own "dialect", in no way could they ever have an "instinctive" ability to correctly interpret information relayed in a different "dialect". The only way honeybees could correctly interpret such information, is by doing the scientific research scientists must do for that purpose. There is, of course, a very simple explanation for the results obtained by Su et al. Recruits reacted to dancers of the other species, just as they would to dancers of their own species, simply because they do not use any DL information in the first place!. Hopefully this latest charade, played by DL supporters, would finally topple the huge and ever-expanding "castle in the air", which DL supporters have constructed on the foundations of v. Frisch's sensational, but unfortunately, stillborn, DL hypothesis! - Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:23:28 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Down Tree Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>Second, what are the chances of saving it? I'd say, pretty good. If the tree had a fairly soft landing, the queen may be alive. Some combs could have lost their anchorage, some bees may have been crushed, and some honey may have spilled. The bees have started any repairs as soon as the tree was down. >>How much work is involved? Something a hobbyist could / should tackle? Yes to 'could' and up to the person if 'should.' A hobbyist can get great satisfaction from this sort of accomplishment. I would do it for a fee. I'd puff some smoke into the nest. I'd use a chain saw or a reciprocating saw (sawzall) to open up the nest starting at the entrance call. I'd use a bee vac to right away collect any alarmed bees at the entrance. The noise and vibration of the saw will make some bees defensive but not nearly to the extent you'd expect. I'd then proceed to vacuum up the bees as I'd carefully cut out the combs and placed them in box lined with plastic. This could take a while. You can tie the combs in wooden frames for the bees to use. I don't unless I am absolutely sure the colony had not been sprayed with insecticide. I place the brood combs over a queen excluder on top of developing nucs. When the brood has emerged, I remove the combs, and melt them down. The collected bees can be dropped into a new hive. After a couple of days you should be able to tell whether or not you got the queen. >>Third, if it comes down to exterminating the hive, what is the best recommended procedure? I have never exterminated a hive. Soap water has been mentioned. Waldemar PS. If you don't have a bee vac. You can still cut out the combs with the bees on them. I don't but you might wear gloves. I use my bare fingers to gently push the bees out of the way to grab hold of comb. You'd be surprised how bees will move out of the way for you but, if a bee is down a cell I will occasionally get stung. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 19:56:21 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <7dd5575e0806091643tad4bcbbhb2f5623c12439ec8@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Ruth: You write: managed to establish a viable mixed honeybee > colony, with workers of a strain of the European *A. mellifera*, and workers of a strain of *A. cerana* from the Far-East, and an *A. cerana* queen. Workers of the two species dance with very different waggle-dance durations, Question: I have seen old research papers of cerana and millifera in same hive being watched, But you seem to reference more here then the dancing/foraging side of things. But since I have read old research paper of both races in same hive I cannot doubt you saying this about the dancing and explaining what you are seeing. Now what I am questioning here is the fact taht you say "managed to establish a viable mixed honeybee colony". How is the word viable used here? meaning viable because both are being maintained in same colony and working together in co-habitat? or......viable in the context that the colony of mixed races is joined mating wise, though you mention "a mixed honeybee colony" which to me is one colony and how is mixed successful with one, as one can be non-evolutionary and thus not successful for viability for continuance. Can you please explain more the viability part of what you mean and reference here? Now I also say this because I know the mideast area is supposedly written about where east meets west and in Asia Minor were bee races came together this way early on, which would parallel. But that is old writing, and this is new and actually seeing. Sincerely, Dee A. Lusby Small Cell Commercial Beekeeper **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:45:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Ruth Rosin has written for many years about the so called bee language. In a nutshell, she states that while the dances may or may not contain some information, -- bees cannot understand it. Therefore, ultimately NO information is communicated and thus it is not a language at all. Also, a simpler explanation exists: bees sniff out flowers. By this logic we can scrutinize Ruth's explanation. Her theory may or may not contain validity but as no one has accepted it over all these years, ultimately NO information is communicated and thus it is not a viable theory. While she claims that millions of people cling to a mistaken belief that bees communicate by dancing, a simpler explanation exists. There are many examples where the simple explanation of phenomena just won't do. Like, the earth is apparently flat and the sun and moon apparently move across the sky. Perhaps for some, the notion that the earth is a huge sphere spinning at a thousand miles per hour is a complicated explanation for a simple observation. A simpler explanation can be found: earth flat, sun moves. So,-- often a complicated explanation is needed and the simple one is plain wrong. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:12:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jeffrey Hamelman Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > This is utterly preposterous, because it is impossible! Perhaps it is only preposterous from the perspective of overly-cerebral-laden Homo sapiens. We are unable to cross the line from our cognitive abilities to know what goes on internally in the broader world of nature. The fact that everything for scientists is filtered through the scientific method is quite a weak link. > > (This is > naturally unacceptable to scientists who do not accept the existence of > "instincts", which they view as non-definable, and hence, non-existent > entities.) This ties in with the above comment. > > However, assuming, for the sake of the discussion, that honeybees do have > an > "instinctive" ability to correctly interpret information relayed in their > own "dialect", in no way could they ever have an "instinctive" ability to > correctly interpret information relayed in a different "dialect". The only > way honeybees could correctly interpret such information, is by doing the > scientific research scientists must do for that purpose. Why? Do baby birds do scientific research so they can figure out how to sing? And don't most non-human species instinctively know that it's probably a good idea to avoid getting too close to humans? It sure seems that way. Or maybe their moms just told them to avoid us? Wouldn't it be great if scientists finally acknowledged that the world of nature is so very much more complex than our feeble understanding can ever know? Jeffrey Hamelman Vermont **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:14:12 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Stan_Sandler?= Subject: Re: BREAKDOWN OF WORKER BEE DUTIES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Fri, 6 Jun 2008 13:44:38 -0700, Mike Stoops wrote: >I was talking with another bee person yesterday and we got to wondering, what percentage of the bee population are foragers, what percentage guard bees, nurse bees, etc. No doubt Jerry is correct that it varies with hive size and season, but I have read the estimate that about one third of the bees are field bees (in summer I assume). That would appear reasonable to me judging from the apparent decrease in colony size that results from the position switch of a strong and very weak colony (in the strong colony). That leads to an interesting calculation: At a pollination rental price of say $125 per hive and a hive of 30,000 bees, (10,000 foragers), which is about the blueberry standard, each forager is rented for one and a quarter cents. If a bumblebee hive has 160 bees and say 140 are foragers (they definitely have less house bees) and sells for $70, then each bee bumblebee forager is costing fifty cents. Bumblebees are definitely far better blueberry pollinators than honeybees, but are they forty times better? Stan **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:23:50 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: BREAKDOWN OF WORKER BEE DUTIES In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline " Bumblebees are definitely far better blueberry pollinators than honeybees, but are they forty times better?" Stan, I think they are 15 times better only and that you miss the point. Bumbles and Bees should be look as a pollination couple, despite the numerical number of worker in each colony or the specific efectivity of each insect in pollinating blueberries. At what time of the day are the flower receptive to pollination? Are there going to be good weather for flying or too cold for bees or too hot for bumbles?. Is the variety selfcompatible or not? Are we going to have to much competing flora around this year and which insect will react more? I see pollination service as the art of insect exceed the flower offer for a given and specific area, as a saturation act for an instant each year. The total volume will be made by the couple, bees putting the base while bumbles putting the size. If the sping is good, you end up with lots of good quality frut, if the weather is bad then you get some fruit of a regular quality with some premiums. But always get a base. We use 6 beehive plus 3 bumble hive per hectarea for blueberries in southern chile. The blueberry grower takes in great consideration to preserve the local environment because he has seen the naturalization of bumble population after years if using b-boxes. -- 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: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:25:01 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Peter: Okay Peter now plug in humans dancing and so called human language of dancing and communicating,,, how does this relate? Are we communicating or is it just so much nothing for us too? Dee A. Lusby **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:54:50 -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: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. Comments: To: Dee Lusby Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dee Lusby wrote: >Okay Peter now plug in humans dancing and so called human language of dancing and communicating,,, how does this relate? Are we communicating or is it just so much nothing for us too? I am not at all sure what the question is here, but in the interest of free exchange of ideas I will attempt an answer. First, I do not think that bees' communication is "so much nothing". That is Ruth's position, not mine. Not only do I believe that von Frisch richly deserved the Nobel Prize for his discoveries, but I think Tom Seeley has done just as much to advance our understanding of invertebrate intelligence. His work on "Quorum Sensing" is utterly astonishing. (A complete fantasy, according to Ruth.) However, I will be the first to point out that honey bee intelligence and communication has almost no relationship to human intelligence and communication. Therefore, the use of the term "dance language" is probably misleading. It is not obvious (perhaps impossible to know) if bees are remotely aware of what they are doing. A bee's response to another bee's dancing may be entirely reflexive. In other words, one bee may dance out the location to a nectar source and another bee simply reverses the information since it has the capacity to dance out that location itself. None of this belittles the amazing systems that honey bees have, however. In fact, as we gain more understanding of the evolutionary underpinnings of our own intelligence, we realize that much of it is also automatic and reflexive. Our much beloved consciousness may be a functional illusion that gives us the sense of knowing and being "in charge" when really, we know very little about ourselves and control even less. Lastly, regarding people communicating, we do try! pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:37:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: honey prices In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, A packer friend sent an email saying U.S. large packers are contracting 2008 honey crops in the 1.70 + range. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:06:11 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I have been reading a review copy of a book recently translated into English named "The Buzz About Bees" by Jurgen Tautz of the University of Würzburg, Germany. It comes close to Tom Seeley's "The Wisdom Of The Hive" in terms of overall quality, but it lacks the meticulous citations Tom put in his book, so one is left to bang away on citation databases in hope of finding primary sources. Annoying. Anyway, the book addresses the "dialects" issue very succinctly, so I will quote from the uncorrected proof of the book: ======================================================= "The duration of the waggle phase exhibits only minimal differences when the dances of different bee races are compared for one and the same flight path. A comparison of the dances of bees of the same race for the same distance, but over different terrain, reveals the landscape-dependent differences to be significantly greater than the race-dependent variation." ======================================================= Below is a longer set of snippets, which lead up to and explain the quote above. ======================================================= "Some unambiguous correlations can be noted: with basically the same frequency of waggle movement, the longer the waggle phase of the dance lasts, the further the bee has to fly to the source. However, the duration of the waggle phase increases proportionally to the distance only over the first few hundred meters; thereafter, it increases more gradually, and the distance information to remote goals is consequently less precise. An additional difficulty arises from the bees’ use of a visual odometer to determine the light distance that is communicated in the dance. he data delivered by this odometer are relative to the structural nature of the surroundings through which the bee lies. When lying through a structured environment, the images of objects move across the facets on the surface of the compound eye of the bee. his result in an 'optical flow' in the visual field of the bee, which helps the bee determine her flight speed. Honeybees that fly to the feeding site through a narrow tunnel with patterned walls experience an artificially increased optical low along a short distance of the path they have to fly (Fig. 4.22). These bees have been deceived, and translate the increased optical flow into a longer distance, resulting in a correspondingly long waggle phase. This simple deception in terms of estimated distance opens a window into the subjective experience of bees, in which measurements of the length of the waggle phase are an indication of how far the bees believe they have flown. The application of the 'deception tunnel' confirmed some old ideas, disproved others, clarified disputed points, and provided the following new insights: 1) Refuted the opinion that bees use energy consumption as a measure of flight distance. 2) Confirmed the use of the visual odometer. 3) Confirmed the old suspicion that distance measurements are made on the outward, not on the return Flight. 4) Explained and settled the decade-long controversy about the waggle dance, in which it was disputed whether or not the recruited bees followed the information coded in the waggle dance. The tunnel enabled one to produce bees that made errors, visiting feeding sites 6 m from the hive, but in their dance signaling a distance 30 times longer. Searching recruits were not found lying around the indicated food source, but in an area much further away where there was nothing of interest. Information from the dance is used. 5) Led to the realization (with the help of colored patterns in the tunnel) that, of the three color-sensitive visual receptor cells in the complex eye of the bee—which individually react best to either ultraviolet, blue, or green—only the green receptor is used in measuring distance. The simple manipulation of the bee dance by means of tunnel flights demonstrated that the distances that the visual odometer was indicating to the bees were influenced by the structure of the landscape along the light path. In a test of this idea, a light path that passed through a landscape of even appearance was found to result in a dance with a short waggle phase, whereas a light path of the same length through a complex, structured landscape led to a long waggle phase. Should bees fly to feeding sites that are the same distance from the hive but lie in different directions, the waggle phases of their dances, and so the indication of the distance, can differ by a factor of two. A waggle phase of 500 ms (millisecond) could, in the case of a light to the south, mean a distance of 250 m, and for a light to the west from the same hive, 500 m (Fig. 4.23). >From this, we can draw two conclusions: 1) The odometer of bees does not deliver absolute distance information, and is useful only when the followers leave the hive in exactly the same direction (and altitude) as the dancer. 2) There needs to be a reevaluation of the idea that in the translation of light paths of the same length, bees of different races differ in the duration of the waggle phase, because their dance languages have different 'dialects'. The duration of the waggle phase exhibits only minimal diferences when the dances of different bee races are compared for one and the same flight path. A comparison of the dances of bees of the same race for the same distance, but over different terrain, reveals the landscape-dependent differences to be significantly greater than the race-dependent variation. In assessing the coding of the light path length in the bee dance of different races in different areas, one is therefore comparing the visual properties of the landscape, rather than the properties of bee races." ======================================================= **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:53:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline To Peter Borst: By hypothesizing about how the honeybee "dance language" (DL) might work, you are "putting the cart before the horses", because there has never been any convincing experimental evidence for the existence of such a DL. Instead, there has only been devastating arguments against the DL hypothesis, coming from many different directions. If, in spite of all that, you still refuse to part with your beloved fantasy of a honeybee DL, you might have long ago "reached beyond the point of no return". But, just in case there is still some hope for you, give me any piece of evidence that suffices to convince you that honeybee recruits use DL information, and I will debunk it for you. As for your conviction that v. Frisch fully deserved the 1973 Nobel Prize he was awarded "for the discovery & deciphering of the honeybee DL", aren't you at all disturbed by the study published more than 30 years later by Riley et al. (2005), in the journal *Nature*, where the authors express the hope that their experimental results would be accepted as a vindication of vv. Frisch's DL hypothesis? If the DL hypothesis still required an experimental validation in 2005, obviously it had not been experimentally validated in 1973! Has the it been finally experimentally validated by Riley et al. (2005)? Not at all! I shall deal with that study only very briefly here. The DL hypothesis was intended to explain how recruits find their foragers' food-source on their own. Of the 36 bees for which radar-tracks are provided by Riley et al, only 2 bees are reported to "have found and landed on" the foragers'-feeder. When I e-mailed the authors, requesting more details, I was informed by one of them (U. Greggers), It is, in principle, impossible to address the problem of how recruits find their foragers food-source on their own, by studying only bees that never found it! The conclusion that Riley et al. (2005) did not obtain experimental evidence that suffices to validate the DL hypothesis, need not surprise anyone. The hypothesis was first published by v. Frisch in a scientific journal in 1946 (as presumably already experimentally confirmed), had already been "dead as a doornail", as a result of v. Frisch's first study on honeybee-recruitment, published in an extensive summary in 1923. He fully justifiably and correctly concluded, then, that recruits use only odor, and *no *information about the location of any food. Your adulation of Tom Seeley may be somewhat misplaced. Seeley is the honeybee-researcher who "discovered" that nest-scouts determine the size of the area of the base of a cavity, by measuring the length of the base's margins while crawling along the margins. This is an achievement that no one can accomplish, because the size of an area is independ of the length of the margins! You are free to believe in anything you wish, but I've had it! -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:45:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Todd Warner Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <7dd5575e0806091643tad4bcbbhb2f5623c12439ec8@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Ruth Rosin wrote: > information relayed in the "dialect" of their own species. (This is > naturally unacceptable to scientists who do not accept the existence of > "instincts", which they view as non-definable, and hence, non-existent > entities.) Can you cite where science (meaning scientific consensus) denies the existence of "instinct"? I ask because I contend you are utterly wrong on this point. That being said, you can probably find a "scientist" that adheres to or denies all kinds of ideas. For example, you can find a very few scientists who still contend that evolution doesn't occur, regardless of the mountain of obvious evidence in front of them and the years and years of research that supports the theory. Scientific consensus is more of a reliable indicator of what "scientists think". I assume that is what you are referring to when you say "scientists". If so, your statement is not correct, unless I am mistaking your meaning. -todd **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:13:28 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry, made a typo that may confuse many: I should have typed "FLIGHT path" not "LIGHT path" in the point from my prior post: 2) There needs to be a reevaluation of the idea that in the translation of FLIGHT paths of the same length, bees of different races differ in the duration of the waggle phase, because their dance languages have different 'dialects'. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:17:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: DAVID ADAMS Subject: Re: honey prices In-Reply-To: <36FB0908460443CA91E07FDB51FC9C94@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Bob, thanks for the honey price info, i haven't checked lately and was wondering where it's at. Maybe we can conspire like the oil traders and run honey prices up, since the "government" don't care about what they do. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:07:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <7dd5575e0806110753i29ce845bmbcb4e7b588fcdcae@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ruth Rosin wrote: > Your adulation of Tom Seeley may be somewhat misplaced. For those new to the list, the threads on dance language are always fun as long as you are an observer, since the flames can get quite hot. Like watching a tennis match in hell. Post at your own risk. However, I do get a bit upset when a person who practices excellent science is scoffed at and belittled. I had the pleasure of listening to Tom Seeley at the Maine State beekeepers meeting this past April when he discussed his experiments with swarms and how they locate their next home. It was an exceptional experiment and his finding were the same. I can understand those who wish to discredit him since he showed the dance language is the basis for sending other bees to different possible homes. But how it is all done is what is important. The dance language is a fundamental part, but it is the whole of the experiment and his findings which are truly amazing. He is owed an apology- but when it comes to arguments on dance language, I will not hold my breath waiting to see one. For all, I suggest you pop a few Prozac and sit back and watch the fur fly. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:53:36 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <50480f2d0806110845q26d0006x21535c3b5f8395e4@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Schneirla's School in Behavior, which has been around since at least the 30's of last century, represents a general approach to the study of behavior that discredits the existence of "instincts". You can find information about this school, among others, in *Principles of Animal Psychology* (1935), by Maier & Schneirla. McGraw-Hill; *Principles of Animal Psychology *(1964), by Maier & Schneirla, Dover; and *"Principles of Animal Behavior"* (1969), by Tavolga. Harper & Row. See also the article by Beach, Frank: "The descent of instinct". *The Psychological Review* 62(6): 401-410 (1955), where the author traces the origin of the concept of "instinct" to myth, religion, and wishful thinking, instead of proper science. Other than that science does not mean scientific consensus! The consensus at one time was for a flat earth, (in the center of the universe), with the sun, moon, and all the other polanets revolving around it, and all living creatures on it created in 6 days, about 6,000 years ago. In his popular book *The Double Helix* James Watson, (of DNA fame), gave Rosalind Franklin, (whose research he exploited to crack the structure of DNA), a shabby, undeserved treatment, that outraged her scientist-friends who knew her well. Nonetheless, whenever I am advised that most scientists today believe that honeybees have a "dance language", I have to give Watson credit for having had the courage to state in that same book that: "Contrary to the belief of journalists and the mothers of scientists most scientists are not very bright". Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:02:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <000201c8cbdd$11effa90$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline The claim that honeybees have an "odometer" based on "optic flow", is just one of very many silly, groundless, conclusions that owe their origin to v. Frisch's stillborn, never experimentally confirmed, "dance language" hypothesis. Very, very briefly, when the foragers fly to food & back through a very long, narrow tunnel, with a complex bacground pattern, they indicate in their dances a far greater distance than actually flown. This, however, has nothing to do with any "odometer". When they fly through such a tunnel, the bees are obliged to fly much more slowly than normal, to avoid crashing into the walls. This has a double effect on energy-expenditure: It requires the bees to spend more energy per unit time, to merely stay aloft, and also lengthens the duration of the trip. The authors never considered such an a possibility, and, therefore, did not bother to measure flight-speeds, which could have been done very easily. (The bees were allowed to see the sky through an insect-net that covered the top of the tunnel; which meant that the scientists could see the bees flying inside the tunnel.) The lead author, (Srinivasan), however verified for me, (in an e-mail years ago), that the bees indeed flew visibly much more slowly inside the tunnel with the complex bacground pattern, than with the simple pattern. -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:08:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 18:19:21 EDT, Chris Slade wrote: >What does 'significant' mean in this context? Significant for the bees or >for the customer? The cat is out of the bag with published data on the severity of the self contamination problem in brood comb in the USA. My take on this statement about honey is, it could be a smoke screen and PR attempt to start fending off the coming storm. Not if but when the public discovers the widespread use of insecticides in beehives across our country, the backlash will be severe IMO. So far our leading beekeeper organizations like ABF are more part of the problem then the solution. They are in complete denial and don't seem to see the fragility of public sentiment when its comes to chemicals and food production. The actual risk to humans will be a moot point. For example how would you like to be selling tomatoes this week in the USA (massive sallomenlla scare)? I'm waiting to see some leadership in our industry and someone step up to the plate and ask for delisting of Apistan and Checkmite and condeming the widespread use of shop rags. But alas its easier to point to Bayer or the mysterious CCD then deal with the facts at hand and they are not pretty. Further collateral damage may await the cosmetic industry also as beeswax produced in this country may be suspect. Beeswax enjoys a very "green" image right now as a raw ingredient in a variety of personal care products. Companies like Burts Bees and Aveda might be running for cover when the media picks up on the self contamination issue. Frankly I don't see how they can bury this. Some final reports on CCD will be out soon I suspect, and its likely that the data on self contamination could make it into a NY Times article or similar major media. Imagine if the findings also implicate the self contaminates as a contributing cause of CCD? Wow beekeepers helped cause CCD, a newsworthy story as sensational as CCD itself. The facts too assuredly will be misquoted and of course replicated within minutes by 1000's of zombie cut and paste journalists on web pages and blogs around the world. The public is very tuned into the concept of chems or meds in meat, poultry, dairy and fruit and veggies. The next level is when they figure out that a good share of honey and beeswax produced in the country is from industrial like operations with frequent inputs of insecticides and Tylan etc. Yum how about some trace comaphous in Lil Johnny's peanut butter and honey sandwich ? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:32:36 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: <48503E7A.2040600@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline I owe no one an apology! Honeybees do not become users of any :dance language" (DL), just because you, or Seelley, or anyone else, says so. DL supporters have time and again, and again, and again, claimed for over 60 years to have obtained new experimental evidence for the existence of the honeybee DL. But, the evidence invariably vanishes into thin air under the cold, careful, rigorous examination by DL opponents. No matter how hard DL supporters have tried, honeybees themselves have always persistently resisted any attempt to impose a DL upon them. I shall unsubscribe soon, because I've had enough trying to knock sense into 'brick walls". Why, on earth, should I apologize for that? Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:39:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: More on the latest great "discovery" about honeybees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline The article by Su et al. in PLoS One 3(6), 2008, claims that, in a mixed colony, with workers of 2 different honeybee species, using different "dialects", recruits of the one species were able to correctly interpret the information relayed in the dances of foragers of the other species, that use a different"dialect". My initial intuitive response was a violent rejection! Only later, upon a careful examination, did I realize that there was a very good reason for my intuitive reaction: Staunch "dance language" (DL) supporters are convinced that honeybee dances, (that are not learned behavior), are "instinctive", (i.e. genetically predetermined); that honeybees have a DL which utilizes the spatial information contained in foragers'-dances; that different species and strains of the genus *Apis*, use different "dialects' of this DL; and that honeybees have an "instinctive" ability to correctly interpret Dl information that is relayed in the "dialect" of their own species. I accept none of this, but I will not explain why, because this is not the point I wish to expose here. The point I want to expose is this: Theoretically speaking, the results obtained by Sue et al. could be due to recruits having somehow acquired the ability to correctly interpret information relayed in a different "dialect", or, (as DL opponents claim), recruits simply do not use the information, so the "dialect" in which the information is relayed, makes no difference. To a DL opponent the second explanation is the only one acceptable. It is also the more parsimonious of the two possible explanations. There is, however, a far more basic reason to opt for the second explanation. The reason is that the first explanation requires honeybees to achieve the impossible! In order to correctly interpret information relayed in a foreign "dialects", honeybees must know that dialect. Assuming that they can "instinctively" know the "dialect" of their own species, they still can, in no way, "instinctively" know a foreign "dialect". The only way they can know this is by carrying out the kind of scientific research that enabled Su et al. to learn that; or else by reading the article that Sue et al. published about that research. No one is prepared to even remotely consider the possibility that honeybees can conduct scientific research, or learn by reading the publication of other scientists. This leaves us with the only possible solution, i.e. the conclusion that honeybees do not use any DL information! -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:45:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: FW: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth wrote, "I shall unsubscribe soon, because I've had enough trying to knock sense into 'brick walls'." Then why Ruth, WHY do you KEEP coming back to spew your prickly pear venom? Pardon my analogy, but it's like you keep coming to my party, shitting in my living room, and then you're shocked that I would object to the steaming pile of dung on my rug. Why Ruth, why? Please, sooner than later. Sincerely, Aaron Morris, BEE-L Owner/Editor/Moderator/Janitor and lately, zoo keeper. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:53:05 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > I don't see how they can bury this. Some final reports on CCD > will be out soon I suspect, and its likely that the data on > self contamination could make it into a NY Times article or > similar major media. Well, gee, thanks so much for making the accusation without any supporting data at all on a listserv with a web-based archive that is publicly accessible and indexed by all the search engines! I'm certain that your posting alone will prompt some number of people who lack basic understanding to misinterpret the data to the point that brood chamber comb levels will be misreported as "honey contamination levels". Again, thanks sooo much. :) Not to worry though, your concerns are groundless in terms of facts, educated interpretation, and expert data analysis. The samples have all been from brood chambers, so of course the numbers will be much higher than in honey supers, and not at all relevant to the issue of honey super combs or honey. Regardless, how much of the honey consumed in the US was produced in the US? Five percent? Ten? Check the USDA import numbers versus the USDA US production numbers, and note that a significant chunk of US-produced honey is exported to other countries where the quality is valued. Any "scare story" will always be about what the US public eats, which is mostly a blend of honey from any one of or all of China, Argentina, and Canada. The basic problem has always been that the US public is willing to pay a premium to "buy local", but has not yet extended this habit to their honey purchasing. > Imagine if the findings also implicate the self contaminates > as a contributing cause of CCD? But that's been known to be completely wrong for more than a year - early on it was wondered if off-label mite treatments were a contributing cause or the proximate cause of CCD, and it was quickly found that there was no correlation at all to any specific miticide, class of miticide, or other treatment or management methodology. > Wow beekeepers helped cause CCD, a newsworthy story as > sensational as CCD itself. Nope, "the beekeeper" was "accused and tried" early on, and found to be not just innocent, but not even indictable. But that does not and will not stop the loonies. Every crackpot on the planet wants to blame their pet peeve as the cause of CCD. There is a group of people who call themselves "biodynamic beekeepers" (they follow practices suggested by a self-proclaimed clairvoyant from the late 1800s named Rudolf Steiner who never gardened or kept bees) who are openly blaming CCD on things like use of foundation, feeding bees, AI queens, and Langstroth hives. Apparently these willfully ignorant people think that bees kept in skeps by beekeepers who "honor the true nature of their bees" would somehow be immune to the exotic invasive pathogens that are clearly the actual cause of this disease with clear symptoms of being a disease. (One can almost have one's stomach once again turned by the cloying smell of the scent of patchouli oil worn to cover up the scent of fear and naiveté.) I wrote over a year ago in "Bee Culture": "...special-interest groups trying to leverage CCD as 'proof' that their pre-existing pet peeve is worthy of attention and your donations. 'See, the bees are dying, we were right all along!' say the anti-this and anti-that groups. The 'Cause of CCD' has become a virus itself, affecting beekeepers, whose minds risk being hijacked by fringe thinking. Victims are infected via e-mail forwarding." Nothing much has changed in the year that has transpired, I'm sorry to say. Time was wasted chasing a "new virus" that turned out to have been here for nearly a decade without causing any tangible problems or symptoms at all. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:28:10 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Very, very briefly, when the foragers fly to food & > back through a very long, narrow tunnel, with a > complex background pattern, they indicate in their > dances a far greater distance than actually flown. This is an accurate statement. It is also a first for Ruth - she freely admits that the dances INDICATE something. To agree that they indicate distance is a major change from prior positions taken by Ruth, and to admit that bees can be "fooled" to indicate in their dance a greater distance than flown is just jaw-dropingly amazing. Therefore, Ruth has earned as many drinks as she wishes to have! What say you Ruth? Elaine's on 2nd Ave and 89th? The 212 Bar on 65th St? The bar at the Carlyle Hotel? My treat, I insist. > It requires the bees to spend more energy per > unit time, to merely stay aloft, This is a common misconception, but is easy to correct when one realizes that bees can hover in calm air as long as they like, but refuse to fly in a strong headwind. What's happening here? At the scale of a bee (and most of the flying insects) air is much like water is to us. Bees don't have to work hard to take off, they are simply "pushing off" to become airborne. Bees SWIM through the air, and need very little energy to fly in still air or hover. But a headwind can frustrate them just as a strong current can frustrate anyone paddling canoe. So, flying slower would not cause bees to expend more energy per unit time unless the slower speed was due to a headwind or crosswind. But wait - that's not all - there's more! > When they fly through such a tunnel, the > bees are obliged to fly much more slowly > than normal, to avoid crashing into the > walls. > the bees indeed flew visibly much more slowly > inside the tunnel with the complex background > pattern, than [in the other tunnel] with the > simple pattern. Ruth contradicted herself above, saying first that the slower speed was to avoid crashing into the walls, which would be the case regardless of the pattern painted on the tunnel, but then claiming that the bees flew even more slowly in the tunnel with the more complex pattern. The more simple Occam's-razor-compliant explanation would be that the bee slowed down to allow itself the time to PROCESS ALL THE VISUAL INFORMATION in both the "simple" and the "complex" tunnels, as both were certainly more visually complex than normal terrain would be at typical bee-flight heights. This matches the slow (and yet slower still, for the complex tunnel) speeds of the bees in each type of tunnel, so it is the more reasonable explanation, one that also matches the gestalt findings of the studies that used such tunnels. > The bees were allowed to see the sky through an > insect-net that covered the top of the tunnel... It would appear that more recent work has eliminated the "insect net tunnel top". Here is an illustration snagged from the PDF file of the proof of the book I quoted from ("The Buzz About Bees"). Note the solid tubular tunnel, with patterns all around. http://www.bee-quick.com/bee-line/bee_tunnel.jpg Hope I have cleared up a few minor points, but let me stress that any time you can get a bee to unwittingly LIE to its sisters, you know that you have come up with a very compelling test of bee behavior, moreso when the lie prompts action that would otherwise not be undertaken, such as flying much further than the feeding station to a point where there's no feeding station, no flowers, no nothin'. And it goes without saying that to "mislead", the bees must first be communicating. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:11:04 -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: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The CCD working group has not ruled out beekeeper pesticides as a contributing factor, nor has it implicated it other than to say that changing and/or lowering pesticides put into the hive is one of the things a beekeeper can do to improve the overall health of the colonies. There is growing evidence that a number of factors, including IAPV, pesticides, varroa mites and other stress factors such as poor nutrition are most likely involved in the overall declining health of honey bee colonies in the US. However at this time, members of the CCD working team agree that there are steps that can be taken to help minimize stress on honey bee colonies and to improve their chances for survival. 1. Monitor and control varroa mite populations using “soft†chemicals. These soft chemicals include formic acid (Mite- Away II®), Apiguard®, and Apilife var®. 2. Reduce pathogen and pesticide build-up in combs by regularly culling old comb, recycling comb and/or irradiation of old comb. This is particularly recommended for dead-out colonies. 3. Fluvalinate should only be used as a material of last resort. Use of off-label products should NOT be considered. 4. If coumaphos must be used, only the registered product, CheckMite+® should be considered. 5. Communicate with growers where bees are used for pollination to minimize colony exposure to agricultural-use pesticides. Some pesticide labels permit application during blooming periods, but this is definitely not the best procedure for honey bee safety, so work with your grower. 6. Monitor and control Nosema disease using fumagillin. American Bee Journal June 2008 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:07:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Many years have passed since Dr. Wenner first proposed that honey bees do not use the "dance language" to find nectar sources, but rather, they follow odor cues. Since that time, biologists have acknowledged that scent is an integral part of the dance and at times, the information in the dance is ignored altogether. This is similar to the fact that one can easily converse on the phone without seeing the other person, which means that humans can communicate by auditory signals alone. It does not, however, prove that visual cues are never needed. Often we say, "I would prefer to discuss that in person". Why? Because the visual cues we pick up and send are crucial to in-depth communication. Communication in humans is multi-faceted, and so it is in animals, being comprised of a complex mix of odors, visual and auditory signals, and physical touching. Underlying the effort to dismiss animal intelligence is a deep seated bias in favor of human superiority. Moving past that issue, one may marvel at the complexity of insect communication and learn how it has evolved over millions of years: Madeleine Beekman (whom I had the pleasure to meet when she was working at Tom Seeley's lab) recently wrote: > All honeybee species make use of the waggle dance to communicate the direction and distance to both food sources and potential new nest sites. When foraging, all species face an identical problem: conveying information about profitable floral patches. However, profound differences in nesting biology (some nest in cavities while others nest in the open, often on a branch or a cliff face) may mean that species have different requirements when dancing to advertise new nest sites. > In cavity nesting species, nest sites are a precise location in the landscape: usually a small opening leading to a cavity in a hollow tree. Dances for cavities therefore need to be as precise as possible. In contrast, when the potential nest site comprises a tree or perhaps seven a patch of trees, precision is less necessary. Similarly, when a food patch is advertised, dances need not be very precise, as floral patches are often large, unless they are so far away that recruits need more precise information to be able to locate them. In this paper, we study the dance precision of the open-nesting red dwarf bee Apis florea. > By comparing the precision of dances for food sources and nest sites, we show that A. florea workers dance with the same imprecision irrespective of context. This is in sharp contrast with the cavity-nesting Apis mellifera that increases the precision of its dance when advertising a potential new home. We suggest that our results are in accordance with the hypothesis that the honeybees' dance communication initially evolved to convey information about new nest sites and was only later adapted for the context of foraging. "Dance precision of Apis florea -- clues to the evolution of the honeybee dance language?" Madeleine Beekman (2008) Behav Ecol Sociobiol DOI 10.1007/s00265-008-0554-z **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:26:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline One of the most interesting discoveries made in recent time was made right here in Ithaca, by my friend Kathryn Gardner. I had the distinct pleasure to be there at the time when she determined (following some well-informed hunches) that the round dance and the waggle dance are not in fact two distinct dances. She has recently published the results of her efforts in the journal "Animal Behaviour": > The honeybee, Apis mellifera, dance language, used to communicate the location of profitable food resources, is one of the most versatile forms of nonprimate communication. Karl von Frisch described this communication system in terms of two distinct dances: (1) the round dance, which indicates the presence of a desirable food source close to the hive but does not provide information about its direction and (2) the waggle dance, which indicates the presence of a desirable food source more than 100 m from the hive and its provides information about both its distance and its direction. > The view that honeybees have two discrete recruitment dances has been widely accepted since its inception in the 1920s. However, there are few detailed examinations of the behavioural parameters of dances over the range of food-source distances represented by round dances and waggle dances. Here, we show that both the round dance and the waggle dance convey information about distance and direction and that there is no clear switch between the two. We conclude that it is most meaningful to view the round and waggle dances as the ends of a continuum and that honeybees have just one adjustable recruitment signal: the waggle dance. > This is the first report of the linear relationship between waggle-phase duration and food-source distance for round dances. We also report that there is no discontinuity in the waggle-phase duration data between dances for nearby and distant food sources, which indicates that distance information is encoded in the same manner for food sources less than 100 m from the hive and for ones greater than 100 m from the hive. "Do honeybees have two discrete dances to advertise food sources?" KATHRYN E. GARDNER, et al (2008) Animal Behaviour, Volume 75, Issue 4 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:22:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline V. Frisch had already experimentally confirmed, in his first study on honeybee-recruitment, (published in an extensive summary in 1923), that recruits use odor! No one ever did, or could experimentally confirm that they use any spatial information about the location iof any food. (See my latest response to Fischer.) All statements, (including Beekman's), that are based on the utterly groundless assumption that honeybee-recruits use spatial information, (which scientists alone can extract from honeybee-dances), are, therefore, pure, unadulterated, nonsense! As for human intelligence, you bet we are far more intelligent than any other living organisms! This conclusion is anything, but biased. Can you imagine any other living organism having the discussion we are having here now? Or, maybe you expect honeybees to one day construct an air-ship that will land on the moon? The problem is that humans are also capable of being stupid, and when they are being stupid their stupidity far surpasses that of any other living organism! -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:51:51 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Gardner has discovered nothing new. It is well known that all forms of honeybee-dances, starting with round dances, (and even round dances with 2, or more circles, before the dancer reverses direction), through sickle waggle-dances, through figure-eight waggle-dances, to figure-S dances, are all variations on one and the same theme. The dances gradually change from one form to another, as the distance of the foragers'-feeder, (and consequently also dance-speed), changes. Contrary to Gardner, (as I had realized years ago), round dances, even without a trace of a waggle, *do* contain *both* distance information, and direction information, just like all other dances. V. Frisch never suspected that, because for sickle-dances, and figure-eight dances, he always drew 2 consecutive dance-circuits, but for round dances, he drew only slightly more than a single dance-circuit.waggle-dances. I won't tell you how to extract both distance & direction information from round dances, because I have never even published that. But it is pretty easy to figure out how to do it, if you draw 2 consecutive circuits for such dances too. Not surprisingly, I usually find that what staunch DL supporters publish, makes pretty boring reading! -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:05:06 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- James Fischer wrote: >Not to worry though, your concerns are groundless in terms of facts, educated interpretation, and expert data analysis. The samples have all been from brood chambers, so of course the numbers will be much higher than in honey supers, and not at all relevant to the issue of honey super combs or honey. jim, i'm curious what you think about the presence of coumaphos and fluvalinte in trapped pollen (found by the penn state team). this pollen was never in the brood chamber, and only has contact with field bees, and with nectar/honey used to pack the pollen into the pollen baskets. it seems to me that if the bees themselves are the source of contamination, it would be hard to imagine that honey, even in honey supers, would be free of such contamination. if the source is the nectar/honey used to pack the pollen, then the honey isn't clean. it's also worth noting that despite testing bees, comb, foundation, bee bread, trapped pollen (and all being contaminated by beekeeper applied chemicals), that the honey is not tested in these assays. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:39:14 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > jim, i'm curious what you think about the presence of coumaphos > and fluvalinte in trapped pollen (found by the penn state team). Where was this said? I know that pollen samples were removed from brood chambers as a part of the sample-collection protocol, but this is the first I've heard of pollen traps being installed on colonies as a part of the effort. > this pollen was never in the brood chamber, and only has contact > with field bees, and with nectar/honey used to pack the pollen > into the pollen baskets. I think that something was garbled by the writer to give you the impression that "trapped pollen" was contaminated. If trapped pollen had even trace readings of miticides, something would be very wrong with either the bees or the blooms being foraged. Either scenario is hard to even grasp, let alone accept. Peter said: > The CCD working group has not ruled out beekeeper pesticides > as a contributing factor, Let's resist attempts by small groups of researchers to continue to imply a consensus that never existed, and claim more credibility than their data deserves. There really never was any "CCD Working Group". It quickly became little more than "CCD Tag Team Wrestling". The Penn State/USDA team stole all the samples last April, and excluded all others from participation for all of last summer in their rush to what they thought would be fame and fortune, but turned out to be embarrassment equal to that of Fleischmann and Pons, who claimed that they had discovered "cold fusion" in the 1980s. Right now, we have multiple teams, none which can claim to represent any broader consensus. And the fact that a group of researchers is STILL unwilling to evaluate the data in front of them and take the bold step of daring to at least "triage", and eliminate one or more factors is a sign of either weak intellect or character. Its been over a year. We can eliminate miticides by now, given the lack of data that might "convict" them. Anyone who can't admit this is gutless or goldbricking. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:57:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Dr. M.T. Sanford" Subject: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed A recent PBS special on great apes hypothesized that one reason these creatures never became more "human-like" is because they couldn't learn to control their "emotions," something humans have become fairly good at. Some things, however, really push buttons that bring to the fore those emotions, and they can lead to some heated discussions and actions. What about the bees themselves? Besides dancing, do they have emotions? http://www.squidoo.com/bee_emotions. They certainly did in Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie http://www.beemovie.com/, but of course that was mostly about humans rather than bees. Malcolm T. Sanford Blog http://abeekeepersblog.blogspot.com Professor Emeritus, University of Florida http://beeactor.vze.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:22:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: The latest amazing "discovery" about honeybees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter L. Borst wrote: > Many years have passed since Dr. Wenner first proposed that honey bees > do not use the "dance language" to find nectar sources, but rather, > they follow odor cues. One thing that Dr. Wenner brings to the table is civility and rational discussion. He has been a valued contributor to this forum for years. Even though I an on the dance side of the issue, he has been supportive of many different issues and helpful to many of us here on the BeeList. His contributions are based on studies and an appreciation that different studies can arrive at different conclusions and it is up to the parties to carry on a discussion to arrive at the truth, or at least what is then assumed to be true. That seems to be currently lacking and I think that hurts his side of the argument. But then, I knew it was going to happen since sharks cannot resist rising to the bait. Just instinct. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:38:09 -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: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >> jim, i'm curious what you think about the presence of coumaphos >> and fluvalinte in trapped pollen (found by the penn state team). James Fischer wrote: >Where was this said? American Bee Journal, June 2008: > In 2007 we analyzed pollen (bee bread and trapped pollen) and wax for pesticide residues. A significant number of samples analyzed were from operations impacted by CCD and control operations (not impacted by CCD) that were collected by members of the CCD working group as a part of a larger CCD study (the results of which will be published at a later date). > We are becoming increasingly concerned that pesticides may affect bees at sublethal levels, not killing them outright, but rather impairing their behaviors or their ability to fight off infections. For example, pesticides at sublethal levels have been shown to impair the learning abilities of honey bees or to suppress their immune systems. For these reasons we believe that pesticide exposure may be one of the factors contributing to pollinator decline and CCD. > With or without the addition of PBO or other adjuvants, fluvalinate is now considered to be a highly toxic material to honey bees. Based on its prevalence in wax, wide-spread resistance in varroa and its toxicity to honey bees, fluvalinate appears to have outlived is usefulness. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:54:28 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- James Fischer wrote: >Where was this said? maryann frazier, march 8, worcester county beeclub in massachusetts. a video is available at our website: http://www.BeeUntoOthers.com/ >...this is the first I've heard of pollen traps being installed on colonies as a part of the effort. the video has been available since march 10. >I think that something was garbled by the writer to give you the impression that "trapped pollen" was contaminated. this was not written information, it was part of a presentation. i found the claim so shocking, that i did raise my hand and clarify what the speaker was saying. fwiw, it's all available on the video..the first 30min is mostly about the makeup of the ccd effort. >If trapped pollen had even trace readings of miticides, something would be very wrong with either the bees or the blooms being foraged. Either scenario is hard to even grasp, let alone accept. well, i encourage you to watch the video and decide for yourself what was claimed. i agree that miticides in trapped pollen indicate something very wrong. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:25:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Bees use directional information MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Ruth states: > No one ever did, or could experimentally confirm that they use any spatial information about the location iof any food. As I mentioned earlier, the source of the discrepancy between Dr. Wenner's results and those of von Frisch appears to have to do with environmental conditions. Honey bees do not *always* use the information encoded in the dance; they particularly don't use it if and when they don't need it. Again, I would compare this to our general inclination to ignore advertising, except when are interested in a specific product. Gavin Sherman & P. Kirk Visscher wrote: To test the effect of the dance language, we established a diffuse-light treatment in which bees performed completely disoriented dances, and an oriented-light treatment in which bees performed well-oriented dances. We compared foraging success at natural food sources by measuring the mass of colonies while each foraged under alternating diffuse- and oriented-light treatments. One pair of colonies had diffuse-light and one pair had oriented-light treatments, and we exchanged treatments approximately every 11 days for 8 months. Overall, during periods in which they had oriented dances, these small colonies averaged greater food collection than when their dances were disoriented, but this effect varied significantly in different seasons. During summer, colonies gained similar mass under either treatment. During autumn, they similarly lost mass regardless of treatment; but during winter, colonies gained mass while under the oriented-light treatment and lost mass while under the diffuse-light treatment. These results demonstrate that under natural foraging conditions the communication of distance and direction in the dance language can increase the food collection of honeybee colonies. They also robustly confirm that bees use this directional information in locating the food sources advertised in the dance. However, the study also demonstrates that this advantage does not always hold. -- Honeybee colonies achieve fitness through dancing Gavin Sherman & P. Kirk Visscher NATURE | VOL 419 | 31 OCTOBER 2002 www.nature.com/nature **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:07:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I know Jim can speak for himself, but what was stated was that beekeeper introduced pesticides can be found in trapped pollen and so far, all that has been shown is that agricultural pesticides can be found in trapped pollen, and beekeeper and agricultural pesticides in pollen in the hive. So, from what has been presented so far, the question remains, what studies have shown that Apistan, cumophose and the like are in trapped pollen that come from outside the colony. It is a given that you will find it in treated colonies inside the hive as well as finding agricultural pesticides outside and inside the colony. Even then, how do you discern pesticide origins, even in trapped pollen, since several miticides are used in agriculture? And, if we get back to what started it all, the post stated that beekeeper introduced pesticides are in honey supers. Since supers are supposed to be off during and after treatment, there should not be much of anything. So far, that seems to be generally true. If not, then it is certainly under the radar. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:07:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Re: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:54:28 GMT, deknow@netzero.net wrote: " i agree that miticides in trapped pollen indicate something very wrong." in the region I live the use of shop rags is the defacto standard for large operations. the proof is in the Mn and NoDak Dept of Ag enforcement files if some wishes to look. there is an annual sweep that snags a couple of beekeepers each season that has gone on for many years now. James is writing from NYC so I don't see how he would be qualified to comment on what's going on out in the Heartland of American beekeeping. when bees come back here from almonds to a massive spring pollen flow you get an impressive buildup. the mite loads can be quite high for April or May. the large operations need to treat and using shop rags is a big time and money saver. no need to go back and remove a strip and buying by the jug is much cheaper then using labeled products. so i'm not surprised at all that at least in spring that there is enough miticide residue in a brood nest to impact incoming nectar or pollen. in some enforcement sweeps, shop rags have been found with honey supers on. on occasion the hives were quarrantined and samples taken and compared to EPA limits for a particular chem. often the limits are below the EPA amount and the quarrantine is lifted and the honey eventually enters the food stream. in the ten step Alcohol Anonyomous program, overcoming denial of the problem is one of the first steps. too bad the US beekeeping industry is for the most part in massive, massive denial. how can we implement positive change in an industry that is in denial? we have along road to recovery IMO. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:39:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Top bar and new colony - a mystery In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is one of those many posts on the BeeL that screams for more information but I have to go on what I have been able to get from the participants, so you will be as informed as I, and able to guess with the same lack of clarity. I know little about top bar hives, so it really put me at a disadvantage when I tried to answer the question of two new beekeepers in my area who lost their bees by absconding from top bar hives. Here are the specifics. One got three packages of bees (from Texas that arrived in NY after 6 days and had to be moved to Maine) for both and built the hives for both. One was at one location and two at another located miles away. In both cases, a day after introduction, the bees departed from all three, leaving nothing behind. In all TBHs, there was no foundation of any kind, only wax across the bottom of the bar. However, in a fourth TBHs, a swarm was introduced and set up shop with no problems. I know, in the location with two hives, the queens were released from the queen cage at introduction, and probably was in the second. In all cases, nothing was done to confine the bees to the TBH, including the swarm. I have a couple of guesses, but would appreciate yours. The common features are - the same bees, same TBH (fairly new and treated with linseed oil), bees departed about the same time after introduction, and same practices by novice beekeepers but they introduced them separate from each other. The only interesting thing is the swarm was introduced with no problems and is doing well, which seems to bring it back to the bees. If it was not a TBH I would be on more solid ground and have a reasonable idea what might be the cause, but have no idea what dynamics take place with introduced packages in a TBH. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:56:39 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- Bill Truesdell wrote: >... what was stated was that beekeeper introduced pesticides can be found in trapped pollen and so far, all that has been shown is that agricultural pesticides can be found in trapped pollen, and beekeeper and agricultural pesticides in pollen in the hive. bill, you are incorrect. maryann frazier stated this clearly in the video hosted on our site...there isn't any ambiguity wrt this. >So, from what has been presented so far, the question remains, what studies have shown that Apistan, cumophose and the like are in trapped pollen that come from outside the colony. the penn state study. >Even then, how do you discern pesticide origins, even in trapped pollen, since several miticides are used in agriculture? wrt fluvalinate and coumaphos, i can't think of a pathway that would get them from other ag applications into trapped pollen. maryann frazier surmised that the bees were so contaminated, they were contaminating the pollen before it entered the hive. i suppose one would need to look at untreated hives in comparison (ones out of flight range of treated hives). >And, if we get back to what started it all, the post stated that beekeeper introduced pesticides are in honey supers. Since supers are supposed to be off during and after treatment, there should not be much of anything. i can't imagine that the penn state team would test for chemicals in the hive during a time when they were being applied. if we assume that they did not do this, then the data wrt trapped pollen would suggest that either the bees or the honey/nectar they are using to mat down the pollen for transport are contaminated durring non-treatment periods. how would this not be in the honey supers? >So far, that seems to be generally true. If not, then it is certainly under the radar. the problem with "the radar" is that it all depends on who is manning it, and what they are looking for. the nhb largely funded the work at penn state. the vast, vast majority of the beekeepers represented by the nhb use treatments. the funding included testing of comb, foundation, beebread, trapped pollen, bees, brood...but not honey. can you imagine why, given positive results for beekeeper introduced chems in all of the tests, why one would not test the honey? deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:51:23 -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: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit deknow wrote: >>I think that something was garbled by the writer to give you >the impression that "trapped pollen" was contaminated. > >this was not written information, it was part of a presentation. i found the claim so shocking, that i did raise my hand and clarify what the speaker was saying. excerpt: There's pesticides in the pollen. Pesticides in the wax. Q: Maryann, that's trapped pollen? No, in this case its just bee bread. What we haven't seen, particularly in wax, is a correlation between sick colonies and high levels of pesticide, particularly beekeeper used pesticides. The highest level of fluvalinate was in a non-CCD hive (200 ppm. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:47:30 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Top bar and new colony - a mystery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/06/2008 21:12:27 GMT Standard Time, bhfarms@SUSCOM-MAINE.NET writes: I have a couple of guesses, but would appreciate yours. The common features are - the same bees, same TBH (fairly new and treated with linseed oil), bees departed about the same time after introduction My guess is that the linseed oil is the problem. I once had a swarm that steadfastly refused to stay in the hive I put them in until I changed the floorboard which I had creosoted some months earlier. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:50:35 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit peter, with all due respect, you are looking at a 20sec snapshot of 1.5 hour+ talk. of course she discussed beebread, but she also talked about trapped pollen. at almost the 90min mark: me: "were you testing trapped pollen, or just the beebread?" maryann: "....particularly because we thought we would pick up the neonicinatoids, we had trapped pollen, and we did not find neonianatioids except in the apple orchard colonies and the citrus greening situation, that was the only place we found neonicinatoids...and we did find coumaphos and fluvalinate in trapped pollen." me: "that's shocking" maryann: "well, what does that mean, well. if we found it in the brood (which we did), the bees themselves are likely contaminated with the product. so when they are out there collecting and they are combing it off their bodies and putting the pollen into the...and we know they add enzymes and a little bit of nectar to pack the pollen. chances are they are contaminated and they are introducing the coumaphos and fluvalinate even at that point." there may well be a few slight errors in my transcription, but that's pretty much it there. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:11:29 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >> Where was this said? > American Bee Journal, June 2008: > "In 2007 we analyzed pollen (bee bread and > trapped pollen) and wax for pesticide residues." OK, but this is VERY different from what was claimed in Deknow's post. Deknow was interpreting the article to say that miticides were being found in trapped pollen. I asked about that specific issue. Not having seen the article, and lacking any more specific quote about the specific results from the trapped pollen, I'm going to conclude that the article was misinterpreted on that point. > With or without the addition of PBO or other adjuvants, > fluvalinate is now considered to be a highly toxic > material to honey bees. Based on its prevalence in wax, > wide-spread resistance in varroa and its toxicity to > honey bees, fluvalinate appears to have outlived is > usefulness. Was the above quoted for the article, or Peter's opinion? Either way, beg to differ. Funny, down in VA, Apistan strips still work fine on varroa. Strange, out on Long Island, they also work great there. If those varroa are resistant, they are apparently running away in fear that the Apistan strips might be Check-Mite. :) Maybe the difference is that these are two areas that are both "off the beaten path" in terms of migratory bees, and are areas where beekeepers tend to be able to read and willing to follow the instructions to the letter, including the unwritten rule about checking mite drops both before and AFTER treatment to verify that treatments are working. And the trick with "prevalence in wax" is that one needs to recycle frames on a regular schedule to prevent such build-ups. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:25:06 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Truesdell: >>... what was stated was that beekeeper introduced pesticides can be found in >> trapped pollen and so far, all that has been shown is that agricultural >> pesticides can be found in trapped pollen, and beekeeper and agricultural >> pesticides in pollen in the hive. Dekonw: > bill, you are incorrect. maryann frazier stated this clearly in > the video hosted on our site...there isn't any ambiguity wrt this. What site? Please point to the video with a link, as this sounds pretty far-fetched for any but the most overdosed bees being treated to overdose levels while the pollen was tapped and collected. Let's walk through this: 1) Beekeeper has shop-towel in brood chamber soaked with the miticide cocktail du jour. 2) Bees pick up miticide on their bodies, go out to gather pollen, get in on/in the pollen. 3) Pollen is trapped upon return, massive overdose of miticide shows up in analysis. This, I'd buy. So, the simplest answer, assuming Mary Ann said what Deknow says she said, is that the Penn State researchers failed to inspect the hives from which they trapped pollen, and were unaware of the ad-hoc treatment being administered. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:48:27 -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: A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >> With or without the addition of PBO or other adjuvants, >> fluvalinate is now considered to be a highly toxic >> material to honey bees. Based on its prevalence in wax, >> wide-spread resistance in varroa and its toxicity to >> honey bees, fluvalinate appears to have outlived is >> usefulness. > >Was the above quoted for the article, or Peter's opinion? >Either way, beg to differ. >From the ABJ article, not my opinion at all. Read the whole thing at http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/index.html New! "What Have Pesticides Got To Do With It?" American Bee Journal - 6/2008 FWIW, I think Dean read a great deal into the presentation; it's not at all clear if chemicals were found in trapped pollen alone. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:15:55 -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: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit deknow wrote: >peter, with all due respect, you are looking at a 20sec snapshot of 1.5 hour+ talk. of course she discussed beebread, but she also talked about trapped pollen. >at almost the 90min mark Thanks for pointing to the spot where the ref is, it makes it much easier knowing where to listen. I do want to hear that part, I am just too busy right now to listen to the whole thing. Still, one cannot help but wonder why they didn't see fit to even mention that in the ABJ article. Perhaps they concluded it was an isolated instance? But you have to keep in mind, we are used to chemicals in our food. Some people find parts per billion a little difficult to get alarmed about. I am not saying its nothing, but it is unfathomably small. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:18:36 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: honey prices In-Reply-To: <1220365359.11861421213215454692.JavaMail.root@md15.embarq.synacor.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saanichnews/news/19324814.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, 12 Jun 2008 18:26:31 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: <20080612155756.SOYR26184.eastrmmtao102.cox.net@eastrmimpo03.cox.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 'Much," indeed, "depends on the definition of an 'emotion'," as Dr. Sanford states at the referenced URL. Without a clear working definition we will see much heat, but little (if any) light. > What about the bees themselves? Besides dancing, do they have emotions? Tom Elliott Chugiak, AK **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:14:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: Top bar and new colony - a mystery In-Reply-To: <48517B71.4050209@suscom-maine.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 12-Jun-08, at 3:39 PM, Bill Truesdell wrote: The only interesting thing is the swarm was introduced with no problems and is doing well, which seems to bring it back to the bees. Hi Bill Chris and all You don't mention the package bees being given syrup to use to build comb. The swarm came with their own! Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W > > **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:20:08 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz Comments: To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com In-Reply-To: <000001c8cc3f$d29894c0$0201000a@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Jim: The samples have all been from brood chambers, so of course the numbers will be much higher than in honey supers, and not at all relevant to the issue of honey super combs or honey. Reply: Right, so with the numbers much higher in the brood chambers, they will be more relevant to the issue of CCD for causing breach of co-existance of micro-organisms were it will hurt the most, namely in/adjacent/and around the brood needed for continued existance, if it can live at all once levels get high enough (brood and micro-organisms both here), let alone the workers performing there that then suffer problems that shorten their lives substantially. And we aren't even talking about movement of stores and wax and propolis to other parts of hive for usage/re-storage, which of course like said above will/should not be as high in hone supers.......but how much is enough to hurt? Dee A. Lusby **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:22:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: DAVID ADAMS Subject: Re: trapped pollen wasRe: [BEE-L] A Complex Buzz In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit OMG, after reading all the posts about this "trapped pollen" I have a massive headache, can find nothing different from the first to the last post,and not one shred of it will help me when I wake up in the morning keep bees alive and any better. I'm starting to think this a debate team board. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:18:40 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit it seems to me that you simply don't like/believe the data. first, you assumed that i must have misinterpreted something i read. i'm not above making mistakes, but i'm also a pretty careful that what i post is what i mean to post. when that didn't pan out (direct quotes supporting what i was saying), the assumption changed to this could only happen with "the most overdosed bees being treated to overdose levels while the pollen was tapped and collected." i'm all for picking apart studies and methods (it's rare i read a study and don't see something that could be improved), but generaly it's because i don't like the methods or procedure. here, you appear to assume that if they got the results they got, then they must have overlooked the obvious (shop towel treatments in the hive while pollen is being trapped) without you knowing the details (in fact, you didn't seem to even be aware of the data here until yesterday). if, in fact, pollen was trapped while treatments were in use, then i would agree that this was poorly done, and that the results mean little/nothing. correct me if i am wrong, you are simply discounting the data here because you don't like it, not because you actually know anything about the procedures or how this was done. i've done enough experements in my life to know that they don't always come out as one might expect at the outset (otherwise, there would be no point in doing experements....we could just think about them). surprising data does not mean the experiment was done wrong. i remember going sailing with my family as a child. one time, my father looked from the binoculars to the chart...back and forth. finally, what came out of his mouth was "that's funny, they put the wrong number on that buoy." his conclusion based on his observation would have been correct if he was at a different location....but he was simply looking at the wrong location on the chart. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:39:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen In-Reply-To: <20080613.091840.402.0@webmail12.dca.untd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just curious, since this whole issue does not make sense, but were these the Hackenburg hives? It seems that the Penn people like them as the testbed for all things CCD? What is really puzzling is the apparent lack of any tests of both the inside pollen, wax and honey compared to what was collected from traps in the same colony. Seems to be a lack of control of the experiment. If you do not know the state of the bee going out how can you measure what is coming back in? Is it from outside pesticides or was it on the bee all along? What has been coming out of the penn group leaves a lot to be desired. As I noted several times, the work of the western CCD groups has been much better than anything out of the east. The eastern group seems to be fixated on the Hackenberg hives at the exclusion of most all else. A single data point does not a study make. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:40:58 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Dr. M.T. Sanford" Subject: More on Bee Losses In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed http://www.api-connaissance-sanitaire.fr/mortalites%20colonies.htm Malcolm T. Sanford Blog http://abeekeepersblog.blogspot.com Professor Emeritus, University of Florida http://beeactor.vze.com 352-336-9744 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:58:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: CNN label story In-Reply-To: <113999958.12099741213330944417.JavaMail.root@md15.embarq.synacor.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, On CNN today is a label story out of Iowa. The story should be of great interest to the local seller and also the environmentalist. The proposed label change for Iowa (Label shown on CNN) shows a color method to show the distance the product has traveled from harvest to consumer. The first color is for a product produced within 60 miles. The most distant I believe is thousands of miles. Of course big ag will fight this kind of label change which of course is simply small ag looking for a label change which will point out the advantages of a local product. Also a label which will verify a local product. Although the pushers of the new label are mainly local growers ( as shown in the CNN piece) the local growers hope to get environmentalists ( deep pockets) on board as the label is a carbon footprint of the costs involved with bringing in a food long distance. Many on the list know I am always looking at the bottom line. Several years ago in advance of higher fuel costs I began trading bee locations with Bell Hill Honey. it simply did not make sense for us to cross paths with each operation going deep into the others area to work yards. Through trading yards both operations save many many miles per season. (let alone travel time). I eliminated yards down many miles of gravel and all yards are close to blacktop roads and set in a T pattern from the main base. Took a few years and knocking on a few doors with cases of honey but will be completed when I move from the holding yard the three new yards. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:50:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Fredericksen Subject: Almond Pollination Unsustainable Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I've taken some flack on my views that almonds are ruining beekeeping as we new it in the USA. I don't feel the practice is sustainable. Turns out I'm not the only one who believes this. Again, we have the answers to straighten out the honeybee loss problem - just not the answers some folks want to hear. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/animalwelfare.environment from the Guardian in the UK titled: Last flight of the honeybee? Jeff Pettis is not sure where he comes on the pole. The senior manager at the federal bee laboratory in Maryland, he's the man responsible for coordinating the US government's response to CCD. Pettis advises some beekeepers may do well to forgo the almond pollination and rest their bees. "You are getting them ready for February when the sunlight hours and the temperature are telling them it's too early in the year to be foraging at full strength," he says. Deceiving bees is an essential part of the business. Beekeepers dupe them into thinking it's already summer by moving them to warm locations in winter and feeding them an array of protein and energy supplements. The more food that comes into the hive, the more eggs the queen lays, to create more of the worker bees to go out and pollinate. The bee broker Joe Traynor says the deception goes much further than trucking bees south. "We're interfering with their natural cycle because we want strong colonies for almond pollination. We're stimulating hives in August, September and October, and making the queens do a lot more laying. As a result the queens are suffering burnout. It used to be that a beekeeper could pretty much leave his bees alone during winter. That's no longer the case." Moreover, scientists funded by the Almond Board of California are now experimenting with artificial pheromones that trick bees into thinking there are more larvae in the hive that need feeding, so they forage more, and in the process pollinate more almond blossom. This is the Almond Board's profit-driven response to a potential shortfall of honeybees: to work even harder those that remain. Bees are being treated as a machine with no consideration for their life cycle and downtimes. And any machine pushed to its limits and not well maintained will break. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:22:13 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: A Complex Buzz - pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- Bill Truesdell wrote: >...were these the Hackenburg hives? it was my understanding that some of the hives were...but not all. you might note that i've posted the entire video so you can do your own research into the details. >What is really puzzling is the apparent lack of any tests of both the inside pollen, wax and honey compared to what was collected from traps in the same colony. well, from what maryann said, it did not seem that they were expecting to find fluvalinate and coumaphos in the trapped pollen. they tested trapped pollen becuse they thought they would find neonics (which they did, but only in very specific orchard and orange grove situations). these findings of fluvalniate and coumaphos appear to have surprised the researchers. >Seems to be a lack of control of the experiment. there was no "experement" per se. they were assaying (taking samples) from bee colonies. >If you do not know the state of the bee going out how can you measure what is coming back in? Is it from outside pesticides or was it on the bee all along? well, ultimately, it would be hard to imagine how fluvalinate and coumaphos got into the hive if by some other route than put in there by the beekeeper. it is also pretty reasonable to assume that something in the hive that wasn't put there came in from the environment. >The eastern group seems to be fixated on the Hackenberg hives at the exclusion of most all else. A single data point does not a study make. my recollection (unconfirmed) is that there were on the order of about 50 operations being looked at. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:18:55 -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: Top bar and new colony - a mystery Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I don’t understand what the mystery is? A swarm or package are known to leave a box they are placed, if they are not ‘forced’ to stay. In my observations, there seems to be a window of about 3 days in which a swarm may decide for any reason to leave a void is has just entered. Many of my swarm calls this season have been to swarms that have just entered a structure. If I can figure a way to cause them abscond during this critical window of 3 days or so, this can be greatly beneficial to the bee removal business. Joe Feralbeeproject.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:03:44 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Ruth Rosin Subject: Re: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: <20080612155756.SOYR26184.eastrmmtao102.cox.net@eastrmimpo03.cox.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Ask the bees if they have emotions. If they say they do, they have them. If they do not answer, you will never know. But what we can never know is not a subject for science to explore! -- Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear") **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:52:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: hive mind MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > The marvel of "hive mind" is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from very dumb members. The marvel is that more is different. To generate a colony organism from a bug organism requires only that the bugs be multiplied so that there are many, many more of them, and that they communicate with each other. At some stage the level of complexity reaches a point where new categories like "colony" can emerge from simple categories of "bug." Colony is inherent in bugness, implies this marvel. Thus, there is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find the hive. > This is a universal law of vivisystems: higher-level complexities cannot be inferred by lower-level existences. Nothing -- no computer or mind, no means of mathematics, physics, or philosophy -- can unravel the emergent pattern dissolved in the parts without actually playing it out. Only playing out a hive will tell you if a colony is immixed in a bee. The theorists put it this way: running a system is the quickest, shortest, and only sure method to discern emergent structures latent in it. There are no shortcuts to actually "expressing" a convoluted, nonlinear equation to discover what it does. Too much of its behavior is packed away. That leads us to wonder what else is packed into the bee that we haven't seen yet? -- from Out of Control by Kevin Kelly **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:38:51 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: <4851DAD7.6050605@gci.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Tom Elliott: Well, bees are animals and do have brains, and photographs do depict same in "A scanning electron Microscope Atlas of the Honey Bee" published by Iowa State Univ Press, Ames, Iowa. So if humans do and other animals kept as livestock do, then honeybees need to be looked at in this light for research needing to be done! Might change perspective on how things are rationalized pertaining to honeybees. Dee A. Lusby **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 23:14:35 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: <4851DAD7.6050605@gci.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Tom Elliott: Now I have referenced where you can see the head like other animals have, where their brains are as most would assume, and once one can see pictures of all the exterior parts of our honeybees like other animals have, I must say it might be messy taking pictures of same........interior wise, yet it is done with other animals and shown and talked about in depth. So in doing emotions for bees, then comparing to other animals with pictures internally would make a great book that even I would want, if you could do it. Few are available internally (books with pictures, like drawn, but no actual photos and one like that would be great, and only one I can think of that is actually drawings was done by Snodgrass. Think Keith Delaplane early on did video on trachael mites internally and externally and I really liked it. But don't know if ever made avail to public beekeepers. But our industry really needs to go deeper with actual photos on brain, and data correlated to it from various sources, also pictures of thorax internally, and abdomen and full layouts of each with detailed explainations, etc. Just like with other animals and humans for then doing/seeing internally. Then with this done, let's get deep into emotions and other for understanding our honeybees more. So again, door is open, and could a book be done? I don't ask for much? Dee A. Lusby **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:40:04 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Emotions run high -- even in Bees? In-Reply-To: <7dd5575e0806130903o1e71411axb8af9a8d416df66b@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ruth Rosin wrote: >But what we can never know is not a > subject for science to explore! What you have succinctly defined is scientific theory. Something we may never know for sure but worth exploring to prove one way or another. Also, you have indirectly brought up "settled science", a term that is a bit frightening. Who defines what science is beyond all questioning or what "we can never know" and sets that as unworthy of further exploration? It really does not take much thought to know who those are, since they have been with us since someone formed an opinion. There is no settled science. All science is worthy of exploration and rational debate no matter how certain it might seem to be. Take, for example, the bee dance. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:11:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: hive mind In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >> The marvel of "hive mind" is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that >> emerges from very dumb members. ..... >> The theorists put it this way: running a system is the quickest, >> shortest, and only sure method to discern emergent structures latent in it. All a bit new agey and mystical but peeling it away does reveal a truth. Some collective bee "behavior" is nothing more than mathematics (usually statistics) at work. The brood pattern was shown to happen because of the ratio of brood to pollen to honey on a frame. It had nothing to do with a plan to make it so, it just emerges from randomness. The same could be said about Tom Seeley's work on how swarms find future homes. It is randomness that is refined with time to deliver a result. The bee, however, cannot be dismissed as part of the collective. It is what individual bees do that determines what the collective end up doing. That is exactly how the computer simulations for determining how the brood pattern emerges, not from the collective but from the behavior of the individual bee. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:15:07 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Yoon Sik Kim Subject: Re: hive mind Comments: To: Peter Borst Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter, what you have quoted above—-simple things generating a complex outcome that could not be understood by studying the part-—is called Chaos Theory (the Science of Complexity, loosely speaking): “Science generally uses a system called reductionism to investigate our world. This means breaking down anything being examined into the parts that make it up. Reductionism proposes that if we understand the parts, we will understand how the whole system works. If you take a mechanical clock to pieces, you can see what each part does you can find out how it works. Some things, however, can't be investigated in this way. There is much to be learned by dissecting a rat, for example, but in dissecting it, we kill it and cannot learn what gives it life.” http://complexity.orconhosting.net.nz/index.html Hawkins talks about how the next frontier in science will be the Science of Complexity, which defies the linear, Euclidean analysis of things we examine. For instance, CCD may not be understood by simply focusing on isolated issues affecting bees, such as nosema, pesticide, dwindling forage areas, doping, or pimping across the country, alone. One must look at the whole picture. A butterfly flapping in Brazil (Varroa vector), for instance, can create a tornado in Texas (CCD) through multiplication of its force in nonlinear interactions within a living environment whose result no one can predict. Yoon **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:19:00 -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: Understanding the part is not the whole picture Comments: To: Peter Borst Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter, what you have quoted above—simple parts generating a complex outcome that could not be understood by studying the part-—smacks at Chaos Theory (the Science of Complexity, loosely speaking): “Science generally uses a system called reductionism to investigate our world. This means breaking down anything being examined into the parts that make it up. Reductionism proposes that if we understand the parts, we will understand how the whole system works. If you take a mechanical clock to pieces, you can see what each part does you can find out how it works. Some things, however, can't be investigated in this way. There is much to be learned by dissecting a rat, for example, but in dissecting it, we kill it and cannot learn what gives it life.” http://complexity.orconhosting.net.nz/index.html Hawkins talks about how the next frontier in science will be the Science of Complexity, which defies the linear, Euclidean analysis of things we examine. For instance, CCD may not be understood by simply focusing on isolated issues affecting bees, such as nosema, pesticide, dwindling forage areas, doping, or pimping across the country, alone. One must look at the whole picture. A butterfly flapping in Brazil (Varroa vector), for instance, can create a tornado in Texas (CCD) through multiplication of its force in nonlinear interactions within a *living* environment whose result no one can predict. Just a thought. Yoon **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:48:10 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Zen Mind Hive Mind Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter Borst quotes Kevin Kelly: “That leads us to wonder what else is packed into the bee that we haven't seen yet?” There is seeing and then there is the complex intellectual process of describing what you see. I believe, Peter, that when it comes to bees you may well have “seen it all” as have many wise old beekeepers on this list. All the discussion, all the theorizing, all the arguing revolves around describing what we think we have seen. This is a purely intellectual process and it can never be complete. It is a process of breaking things down to whatever level our woefully inadequate intellects can grasp. It is also a process that involves filtering everything we see through our own preferences and aversions so by the time it gets processed by the intellect it can be more a matter of what we want or don’t want to see than what is actually there. Science, logic and math are the tools we supposedly use to take this filter away and get at what are sometimes pretty complex sets of facts, at least by human intellectual standards. The difficulty comes when we fail to see how far away from a complete picture we are with even the highest level of intellectual understanding. Fortunately we are not limited by our intellects and we have the possibility to “grok” things as Heinlein would say. It is what allows beekeeping and living to have the potential to become art. It happens when you have really seen what you are looking at. You may have looked at tens of thousands of beehives but one day you have an epiphany and suddenly you realize something you didn’t before. The ultimate possibility is that in that moment you “know” a colony of bees for the first time. I can’t say it’s happened to me, but I hope we all have that experience at some point in our lives. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:08:37 -0400 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: hive mind MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > To generate a colony organism from a bug organism requires > only that the bugs be multiplied so that there are many, > many more of them, and that they communicate with each other. No, there really isn't even a need for communication with each other. The bugs need only share a goal, and have a metric for measuring progress. So, the odor/pheromone given off by empty comb prompts more foraging sorties, as the larder is not yet full. In the early 1980s, I did something that I should repeat at an EAS, ABF, or AHPA meeting sometime - a turned a room of 500 of my reporting first and second-level managers AT&T Bell Labs into a "bee colony" for a few minutes. I said nothing about bees at the time, as I was merely trying to make the point that everyone had to agree on the specifics of a consensus we were trying to reach. (I wanted even the die-hard "opposition" to work with the consensus, not against, and I wanted the endless meetings to end, so work could go faster). Each person was given a remote control salvaged from when cable TV systems upgraded to new set-top boxes. They were told ONLY to use the volume "Up" and "Down" buttons, and that they were "the blue player". Then, the lights came down, and on the projection screen appeared the Game "Pong" (the ping-pong game that has been copied over and over). And, 500 people played me at Pong. The remotes were read by a computer, which added up the "up" and "down" presses on each of the 500 controllers, and moved their ping-pong paddle appropriately. Within 3 or 4 practice balls, they were returning serves, and playing well. So, we then played a game, and they won. You'd think that 500 players "voting" would slow down the response, and make them miss balls, but that did not happen. No one needed to speak, and no "leader" was needed. All that they needed was a simple set of rules to play by, a shared goal, and an agreed-upon metric for success. Bees are just like that, and now you know how to prove it. And I think this is generally called "The Wisdom Of Crowds" these days. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:51:30 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: hive mind In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Yoon Sik Kim: This is good to read what you wrote, for it means that small cell usage with a wholeBee system might/could be looked at finally, for how by changing the size of the cell the bees are born in, you change the parameters encompassing environment/diet/breeding for fuller understanding. Dee A. Lusby **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:07:10 -0400 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Almond Pollination Unsustainable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I don't feel the practice is sustainable. I'll agree wholehearted with Jeff Pettis on the specific point made by Jeff in the article, which seems to imply that cross-continent trips from Florida to the Almond groves of CA are a bit much when combined with a typical east-cost pollinating run from South to North as spring springs. But neither Jeff nor myself would ever agree with the generalized indictment of migratory beekeeping that has been a consistent theme in Brian's postings from his completely comfy non-migratory operation. I wrote something that has been picked up and reprinted in multiple languages in far-flung places, and it starts out like this: "So, you wanna know about beekeeping? These days, its really all about almonds. They make us do insane things. No, that's not right, the money makes us do insane things. But the almonds are where the money is. Almonds have done to beekeeping what cocaine did to Miami." http://bee-quick.com/reprints/udunno.pdf But the massively misinformed idea that "migratory beekeeping" in general is anything new, or puts some new "stress" on the bees is laughable in the extreme, given that migratory beekeeping has been around since at least 3,000 BC or so. Back then, they were moving hives around on donkeys. Anyone who has ever tried to ride a donkey can confirm that this would be several orders of magnitude more "stress" than the modern approach of lifting pallets smoothly with Swinger Forklifts onto flatbed trucks with air-ride shock absorbers, riding on smooth interstates fast enough to provide a cool breeze to the hives. Anything that's been going on since 3,000 BC has clearly earned the designation "Sustainable". I can't think of many other businesses that have lasted for 5,000 years. :) The only reason researchers have been saying that beekeepers should "reduce stress", was that they still don't have any better advice, and are fumbling for something, anything to say in response to the question "what can beekeepers do about CCD?". They certainly did not want to admit the unvarnished truth, which is that "All we can do here is watch hives die". ("Saving Private Ryan", 1998) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:03:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_Borst?= Subject: What we can never know. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Ruth Rosin wrote: >> But what we can never know is not a subject for science to explore! My wife likes to say if it was up to her initiative, we would still be living in caves. I saw a cartoon captioned "mankind's first words". It showed a man and a woman sitting in a cave. Her: "We need to talk." Him: Uh-oh." To which I might add: Him: "I wonder where that gazelle that wandered by the camp came from." Her: "What we can never know, it's best not to think about." Him: "Fine for you, but I'm going hunting!" pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:06:25 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: CNN label story In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >I eliminated yards down many miles of gravel and all yards are close to > blacktop roads and set in a T pattern from the main base. Ditto here. I have become very selective as to location of yards, and now have three main arms on which I set up yards about 2 miles apart. We no longer can afford the luxury of inefficient trips, and take more time going over the yard log, and packing the trucks with what we will need. The price of fuel has become a major issue to us. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:02:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Almond Pollination Unsustainable In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Brian said >I've taken some flack on my views that almonds are ruining beekeeping as we new it in the USA. Idon't feel the practice is sustainable. Hi Brian, I speak from the perspective of a California native who has been pollinating almonds for over 25 years. I have no intention of giving you any flack. The question of sustainability will be determined by the market. The cost of fuel, the supply of healthy colonies in the West, and the market prices for honey and almonds will be the main determinants. Without the shot in the arm from almond pollination income, many large beekeepers would no longer be in business (as Bob has explained). However, with fuel costs up, and honey prices up, many midwesterners will find it more cost effective, and possibly less of a gamble, to simply stay home and make honey. As a California beekeeper, I'd love to see them stay home, since that would decrease the supply of bees available for pollination, and help my bottom line. But the market will then adjust the offered price for bees until it is worthwhile for (either or both) we Westerners to increase the supply, or to lure Midwesterners to haul their bees across the country. The simple facts are that almonds can be successfully grown in only a few places on the planet, that the current market varieties require bees for pollination, and that there currently aren't enough colonies managed by California beekeepers to do the job. Since no one is going to tell the almond growers that they can only rent in-state bees, we California beekeepers accept the fact that loads of bees carrying every conceivable disease will be trucked into our state each year. >Pettis advises some beekeepers may do well to forgo the almond pollination and rest their > bees. "You are getting them ready for February when the sunlight hours and > the temperature are telling them it's too early in the year to be foraging > at full strength," This is simply not true for colonies living in California (or for those brought here in the fall). February is springtime here, and the forage season is over by July 1. If colonies don't build up naturally in February, they won't make it through the next winter. > > >The bee broker Joe Traynor says the deception goes much further than > trucking bees south. "We're interfering with their natural cycle because we > want strong colonies for almond pollination. We're stimulating hives in > August, September and October, and making the queens do a lot more laying. I have a hard time with this statement (Joe is a friend of mine). The "deceptive" feeding from Aug through October simply mimics the natural nectar and pollen flows that occur during those months east of the Rockies. California is a lousy place to keep bees during those months (which is why I move most of my colonies to better pasture). Am I "deceiving" my bees by putting them on good summer/fall pasture that provides plenty of natural pollen and nectar? That said, queens do reach the end of their optimal productive life sooner if their season is extended. Kleinschmidt found that a queen is good for about two major buildups, and seldom lasts through the third. So yes, queens may supersede, or need to be replaced more often, just as a truck that is driven twice as many miles a year will need to be replaced sooner. > >Moreover, scientists funded by the Almond Board of California are now > experimenting with > artificial pheromones that trick bees into thinking there are more larvae > in the hive that need > feeding, so they forage more, and in the process pollinate more almond > blossom. This pheromone is being looked at warily by beekeepers. I was at a recent funding meeting. I proposed that a trial already being funded add additional data collection to determine if the use of the pheromone was detrimental to colonies after they left almond pollination. The researcher was invited to quickly submit a revised proposal, which was accepted. > > > >This is the Almond Board's profit-driven response to a potential shortfall > of honeybees: to work even harder those that remain. It is not the Almond Board's concern to micromanage how we keep our bees--that is up to beekeepers. Conversely, it is not my concern as to how they prune or water their trees. If a beekeeper, in the quest for short-term profit, causes harm to his colony, it will show up in his profits the following season. Again, the market will answer the question. I do ask the rhetorical question, Can bees be overworked? It is not like we are confining them like laying hens in wire cages, nor whipping them forward like draft horses. Bees work. Colonies build up when there is forage. Is our moving them from pasture to pasture, or supplementing their diet when natural forage is scarce some form of animal abuse? Moving bees to almond pollination can be of great benefit to colonies. We used to do it for free in California, since the bees came out in such great shape. Almond pollination is certainly not without its problems, but I do not feel that it deserves any sort of blanket condemnation. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************