From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:04:50 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-83.4 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,AWL, FUZZY_CPILL,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SOME_BREAKTHROUGH,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 383934861F for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:37 -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 n1SG3Y6e017265 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:35 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0808A" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 215074 Lines: 4929 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:05:06 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Die off in italy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: > I was informed today ( by phone) that a die off is > happening in Italy in an area of tasseling corn. > Systemic pesticides suspected... In the USA, Iowa is in the heart of the corn belt and according to Iowa State University, http://www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews/2008/0703Robertson.htm this year the corn was expected to be tasseling by mid-July. A reasonable extrapolation is that at least half the nation's 87,300,000 acres of corn http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2008/06_30_2008.asp this year has been tasseling sometime within the past 4 weeks. Has anyone heard of any very recent die offs near tasseling corn? Paul Cherubini El Dorado, Calif. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:04:38 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Peter, If not...then simply use duct tape over it and it will disappear.So just wrap the tape around finger where wart is. D- p.s. remember beekeepers cannot work without duct tape. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 04:07:35 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 01/08/2008 02:21:46 GMT Standard Time, busybeeacres@HUGHES.NET writes: Since CCD several researchers which I could name but will not have *suggested* (hopefully the right word) that virus is part of our current bee die off ( CCD?). My money's on CPV. However, it has been around a long time so something must have changed to produce the dramatic effects that some have observed. One reads of pollen shortage in late summer as a possible answer. If there's no food to be had when the colony is attuned to expect some, the bees won't fly around aimlessly burning off calories; they'll sit in the hive rubbing shoulders until a scout reports a find. It is in these conditions that CPV is spread. So climate/weather change may be partly the cause. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:20:48 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robin Dean Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bill, I am formerly from South Africa, so understand some of the issues around creating base technology for use in developing countries. Have you thought of using the stainless steel drum from a scrap washing machine lined with a muslin bag as a centifuge? I presume you have access to a welding machine or can find a local handiman to help out. You could use an old bicycle to provide the motive power and high rotational speed for the centifuge. I will send some sketches later today if you would contact me direct off list. I will send them as PDF's to reduce the size as your connection is likely to be a little slow. Regards, Robin UK Beekeeper, formerly of South Africa. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:51:57 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris asked: > What type are your bees? Working towards A.m.m. Not easy in this part of the world as we have had so many different races brought into the area over the years - but we are winning! The A.m.m./Italian hybrid seems to give the worst temper. Some our best colonies are the purer A.m.m. - hardy, thrifty (very little winter feed needed), docile (some can be handled without smoke), happy with single brood box, good crops, low swarming, supersede (queens can live 3-4 years)... After last year's disastrous weather which wiped out our queen rearing programme, we are now back on track and hope to eliminate most of the 'foreign' genes this year. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:53:15 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Suggest you contact Bees Abroad. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 10:10:33 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote: > Maybe. Unfortunately, I work with other people's bees, not mine, as an > apiary inspector. A job that I considered when I retired - but then decided that I would rather build up my own colonies. That was a good decision! Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 04:26:12 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Video: Breakthrough to Combat Honey's Varroa Mite Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Video: Breakthrough to Combat Honey's Varroa Mite 3News (New Zealand), 8/1/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/video-breakthrough-to-combat-honeys.html The New Zealand honey industry is in for a boost after the discovery of breakthrough treatment to combat the varroa mite… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 08:00:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Inspecting, was Genetic musings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter Borst wrote: >> Maybe. Unfortunately, I work with other people's bees, not mine, as an apiary inspector. This, taken out of context as it is, sounds bad. I actually enjoy working with other people's bees. It's just a simple fact that if you have your own hives, you can tailor them to suit your style and expectations, whereas as an inspector you have to take it as it comes. That means sometimes working in bad weather, with poorly maintained hives, and cranky bees (polite terms, substitute your own). In a perfect world, days would be sunny and warm, it would rain only at night, the hives would be easy to open and the bees would be like kittens. By the way, I pride myself on leaving everything exactly the way I found it, aside from stomping down the weeds a bit. If they want the covers on upside down, it's none of my business. Hot tip of the day: you can make divides by placing deadouts upside down on top of good colonies. After they fill up with brood, take them off and set them aside. Add queens, if you have them. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 15:00:36 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: So-called feral bees In-Reply-To: <399916.59379.qm@web86205.mail.ird.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All Still catching up with Emails after the Gormanston conference Gavin Ramsay wrote on 22nd July... > Isolation can be subtle. Bees in trees may prefer to > colonise holes in trees and spaces in buildings rather > than hives on the ground. I had never considered preference for disposition of a cavity as a character that could be recorded and selected for, has any work actually been done on preference for cavity position? > They may be partial to local mating rather than at > distant drone congregation sites. Have the phenomenae of Apiary Vicinity mating and Bubble assemblies been studied in US ? I was of the opinion that such traits were closely related to A. m. mellifera, rather than any of the hybrid races that abound in US. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:27:04 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Dave_Fischer?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Comments: To: Bob Harrison Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello Bob & All, Bob's reply to my post raised one science issue that I didn't cover previously. >Can you assure beekeepers that Midwest farmers planting imidacloprid- treated seed year after year in the same field without rotation are not raising the risk levels as to the concentrations of the neonicotinoids in the plant? Very good question and one that has been extensively researched. It is discussed in the two review papers I cited in my last post: Schmuck et al. 2001 (Pest Manag Sci 57:225-238) and Maus et al. 2003 (Bulletin of Insectology 56:51-58). Some residues can remain in the soil beyond harvest and may be present when a succeeding crop is planted. But here's the key thing to keep in mind. Most of this residue is not bioavailable to plants because it becomes tightly bound to soil particles. A chemist in a laboratory can extract it from a soil sample using a hot methanol wash, but you can't get much of it out with water which is of course the solvent used by plants to "extract" nutrients from the soil. The bottom line is the residues in plants won't be appreciably greater after 7 or even 70 years of continuous use than they were the first year. I'm not going to engage in an iterative point-counterpoint debate of the non-science issues. My intent in posting here is to provide information that otherwise hasn't been brought out. BEE-L readers can read the referenced documents for themselves and make up their own minds. Best regards, Dave Fischer **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 15:56:20 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I run a top bar hive. The last time I took a crop I avoided the comb that had been bred in as much as possible. The honey had set (UK ivy honey) so I put it in a bucket and bashed it so the cells were disrupted and placed it in my warming cabinet set at just over blood heat until it was melted. This was then poured through a strainer and was fit for bottling. There was a lot of honey left in the wax so I put it into a strainer bag and thence into my Mother's (cleaned and sterilised!) spin drier, which got a lot more out. I would have used my fruit press but I had lent it to an apprentice and forgotten which one. There was still some honey left in the wax so I chucked it into a batch of home brew beer I was making, allowing the action of water and yeast to make best use of the remaining honey so that none went to waste (although the beer is going to waist!). I find that honey that has not been through a conventional extractor has much more flavour and can be sold for a better price. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 21:17:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: Bayer OpEd Piece Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-meyerhoff30-2008jul30,0,5799468.story excerpt from OpEd piece but picked up in other national newspapers "So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 grant an "emergency" exemption allowing increased use of Gaucho -- typically invoked during a major infestation -- when only a few beetles were found in blueberries? Why did the agency also grant a "conditional" registration for its close relative, Pancho, allowing the chemical on the market with only partial testing? And why is the agency, hiding behind a curtain of "trade secrets," still refusing to disclose whether the additional tests required of companies in such cases were conducted and, if so, with what results? " **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 22:44:08 -0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter L Borst wrote: Hot tip of the day: you can make divides by placing deadouts upside down.... Peter, Please, a little more explanation - especially to why the upside down part Peter PS: Take care not to increase using "contaminated frames"! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:20:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Roni Subject: # of brood chambers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit How many brood chambers do you use for your hives, and is that with deeps or mediums and eight or ten frame? I just added my third, eight frame, medium brood chamber to my two hives, and I waiting for them work the foundation into comb. Would you add a fourth brood chamber (with eight frame mediums), or place an excluder and let them store honey in the next box? Also, do most of you use excluders, and if you don't, how does the honey get separated from the brood? I was curious as to how you all do it and why? Roni **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:18:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Yoon_Sik_Kim?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >I'm not going to engage in an iterative point-counterpoint debate of the non-science issues. Agreed. >My intent in posting here is to provide information that otherwise hasn't been brought out. Me, too. >BEE-L readers can read the referenced documents for themselves and make up their own minds. So they can, indeed: No independent government testing is required before a pesticide is registered for use (in America). Large gaps in basic scientific knowledge about pesticides remain, including their environmental fate (where they end up) and their toxicity to humans and to wildlife. A problem pesticide may be removed from the market only after a long process and full trial -- something that should be done before . . . (from the link provided in another thread). Yoon **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 05:45:26 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Propolis Flavonoids =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=98Can_Improve_Growth_in_Youn_g_Calves=E2=80=99?= Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Propolis Flavonoids ‘Can Improve Growth in Young Calves’ Growth, Weaning Performance and Blood Indicators of Humoral Immunity in Holstein Calves Fed Supplemental Flavonoids Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, Volume 92 Issue 4, Pages 456 - 462 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/propolis-flavonoids-can-improve-growth.html ABSTRACT: The primary objective was to test the hypothesis that flavonoids mediate immune response and affect calf performance… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 08:33:58 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Help with Malawi Honey Extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There follows part of a mail sent to me by a friend who teaches beekeeping in Nigeria. She has also sent as a word document the instruction manual which I shall copy and paste into the next mail. Chris Hi Chris, I usually advise a similar method to the one you describe , called the 8 day float method. It requires only simple buckets and filters, little sweaty hard work (pressing etc), foreign equipment (extractors etc) and is used quite successfully on our rural Nigerian projects. But I am afraid the first lesson is that honey quality management starts right from the hive at comb harvest. Hive type really does not come into it. Before we harvest We harvest at night as well but we make sure we visit the hives sometime BEFORE we harvest, IN THE DAY and IDENTIFY & MARK the brood comb/brood area or honey combs AND very importantly note the COMB QUALITY (dark, medium, light). We mark the brood comb top bars (with chalk, charcol, stones, whatever). Some people prefer to mark the actual combs they will harvest instead of the brood area. We teach ONLY to take combs that are READY i.e 75% SEALED ON BOTH SIDES. No unsealed cells or brood, EVER. This is a hard and fast rule which is re inforced after harvest. We then go back at night to harvest the honey combs. At the hive, at comb harvest, at night 1. Take 75% sealed on both sides only 2. Sort / grade wax combs for quality (light medium dark) 3. As 75% sealed combs are removed / cut, they are placed the appropriate bucket (light, medicum, dark). BUCKETS must all have tight fitting lids for transport, processing. Another hard and fast harvest rule to protect against contamination in transport etc. 4. Cleanliness is paramout. All equipment must be cleaned before etc. etc. No debris from harvesting should be thrown about the hive. We advise to take an extra bucket or bag to collect debris from harvesting. On a practical note, successful harvesting is about practice. We find that if people are clear what they are doing and why after a couple of practice runs they are able to harvest quietly at night without a lot of smoke and banging about the hive and chucking debris everywhere about the hive. When the TBs are lifted the combs are usually covered with bees and this is where the panic ususally starts. It is very important to demonstrate and allow peopole to practice the correct techniques under live conditions. First some bees can be gently tapped or shaken off as the bar is lifted, then most bees can simply be brushed off with a brush of some sort and the remaining gently smoked off to reveal the honey comb underneath, which is cut from the top bar (1'' or so) and comb placed in the appropriate bucket with lid. A white cloth(s) can also be used to give additional control, by placing it over the TBs as soon as the roof is removed and rolling it back to gain access to each TB. Until they are experienced, we get them to harvest in twos only. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 09:27:31 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is the additional information provided by my friend Adebisi Adekunle. 1.1 Harvesting Rules - follow the rules below to harvest honey successfully. EQUIPMENT 1. Have all equipment ready! Harvest hive with top bars to replace bars removed for harvest, smoker, containers, knife etc. Containers: Use only aluminium, tin, galvanised iron or plastic Do not use: copper, iron, steel or zinc, they dissolve into the honey and may affect colour and flavour and might reach toxic levels. Use a damp cloth over the t bars/ frames to control the bees and smoke bees WHEN TO HARVEST 2. Harvest according to the conditions of the colony and the time of season. Weather - pick a cooler day when temp is between 15C and 25C. Temp of less than 25 C makes uncapping easier. Choose time of day to help preserve the comb - early morning or evening when weather hot (flowering season) Strong colonies, you can harvest earlier Harvesting can start 3 - 4 weeks after the start of a good honey flow. DO NOT Do not smoke too heavily as it will contaminate the honey. Do not burn anyhting chemically treated, as chemiclas will be included in the smoke. Do not harvest combs from brood area or combs containing brood Do not harvest uncapped honey called green or unripe honey. It will ferment. If honeycomb uncapped/wet, contains too much water. Must dry out or honey will ferment. Dry out by leaving honey supers/t bars in arm rooms at 30 - 35 C and circulating warm air theough them or dry out by placing in a Langstroth super and blowing air through the entrance. WHAT TO HARVEST 3 KTBH Grade the combs as you remove t bars from the hive. At the hive separate good combs to be further processed as first grade beeswax or Before extracting separate/grade combs > light (good) dark (old) Separate combs containing uncapped honey ie wet green or unprimed honey, empty t bars/ comb at the edges of the nest or on the ends of the hive. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:50:09 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > No independent government testing is required Yes, but as we are so well aware these days, "independent government" no longer exists > Investigators found that applicants for both career and political posts had to pass tests of loyalty to conservative politics. The most flagrant enforcers of an ideological litmus test have since left the department and are not subject to administrative discipline > In a textbook example of how politicizing the department can harm the nation, the report pointed to the case of an applicant who was a highly qualified career counter-terror prosecutor. The department rejected him because of his wife's Democratic politics and instead chose a much less experienced lawyer with Republican credentials. > The attorney general at the time, Alberto Gonzales, said he was not aware that his aides were using political criteria in hiring decisions. -- Boston Globe **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:44:38 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 01/08/2008 10:59:12 GMT Daylight Time, beekeepers@STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.FREESERVE.CO.UK writes: <> Have you done any morphometrics on your bees? A quick and dirty check on the discoidal shift is enough to get a general idea, so I'm guessing you probably have. Are they local? I've managed to maintain a near-AMM strain for several generations in central Birmingham, without any problems, and in the last couple of weeks I've added two swarms which are a bit too stripy for my liking, but superficially look close enough to AMM. Both were headed by virgins, so morphometrics will be pretty meaningless for the next six seeks or so. I may or may not requeen them next year, depending how they check out. There's a large-scale (for Britain) beekeeper the other side of the city who keeps some fairly nasty hybrids, and local people have told me before now that it's 'impossible' to keep AMM locally as a result. If the two of us can both do it in the West Mids, then it can't be that hard! Regards, Robert Brenchley Birmingham UK **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:16:29 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: More on introduction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all I am still catching up with my Email backlog... As someone who was involved in breeding and selection it was fairly common to have to introduce travelled queens of genetically different stock. http://web.mac.com/dannpurvis/iWeb/Purvis%20Brothers%20Bees.com/Reference.html Gives some good pointers to the problems and methods of overcoming them. A couple of other useful methods are... http://dave-cushman.net/bee/queenintro.html#ak_st_jd and http://dave-cushman.net/bee/wohlgemuth_kirch_frame.html The fist of these is actually foolproof, providing it is followed to the letter, the second is useful if you are using Kirchhain type nucleus hives (common in UK and Europe) the principles involved in the design of the unusual looking Wohlgemuth introduction frame are explained on the page. -- Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 11:20:26 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > Now that disappearing disease is becoming such a serious problem, the factor of longevity is vital. Disappearing disease I believe is a serious degeneration of breeding stock producing bees with a very short life span. Usually you will find such colonies contain mostly young bees. When these bees reach field bee stage, they just fly out and never return. They don't live long enough to make the return trip. Queens are much more than egg laying machines, they are the mothers of entire colonies. The queen must be capable of making not only more bees, but stronger, better bees with a longer life span. < -- "Honeybee Longevity" Charles Mraz. June 1977 American Bee Journal **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 11:31:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline USDA to Investigate Disappearing Disease The USDA is providing $34,097 for scientific sleuths to see if they solve the mystery of "disappearing disease" in honeybees. One problem is that disappearing disease is hard to identify -- if it exists at all -- because no dead bee bodies are left in the hives as evidence. Another that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to diagnose accurately the onset of disappearing disease in living bees. That may be because they have not disappeared. But bees do disappear, and the $34,097 will help scientists at the Ohio State University Research Foundation ... The researchers plan to compare bees from known healthy colonies with those from families that have had the disease in hope of finding a genetic clue, perhaps *a trait in some bees' ancestry* that makes them disappear. Representing USDA's agricultural research service, will be Dr. Thomas Rinderer, a geneticist with the Bee Breeding and Stock Center, Baton Rouge, LA -- IN: The American Bee Journal, September 1977 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 12:34:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Hot tip of the day: you can make divides by placing deadouts upside down.... >Please, a little more explanation - especially to why the upside down part I am sorry, but I slipped that in at the end to see if anyone was listening. Although, I have had in mind for quite a while writing an article on good and bad ways of making splits. I saw this back in the 1970s working for Jim Austin, and then again recently in a commercial beekeeper's yard. This method will no doubt be only of interest to those who have the bottom boards nailed on their hives. There comes the dilemma of how to restock the hive without removing any frames. Here you simply set the dead hive on top of a good one, upside down. The queen moves up and fills the hive with brood. After a month or so, you can set the hive back on the ground (right side up!) and re-queen the queenless portion. Another method used by Jim was to set the dead hives behind the good ones. The two story good hive was smoked heavily at the entrance to drive the queen and most of the bees up into the second box, which was then set over onto the single story "dead out". We made hundreds of splits per day using these and other methods. Few frames were removed, mostly just to be sure there was brood in both halves. Of course, given more time, there are much better ways to split hives. But that is another story pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 14:04:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Michael Palmer Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > >Here you simply set the dead hive on top of a good one, upside down. What does the upside down part have to do with it? Does it limit the amount of nectar they place in that brood chamber? Mike **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 15:11:46 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: So-called feral bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 01/08/2008 15:30:36 GMT Daylight Time, dave.cushman@LINEONE.NET writes: <> Dunno about studied, but the 1917 edition of the ABC & XYZ has a series of accounts of AVM in its article on 'drones', and one of them explicitly describes the bees concerned as 'Italians'. I wonder whether it's actually a case of the behaviour being associated with AMM simply because that's where it has been studied. Regards, Robert Brenchley Birmingham UK **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:52:49 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert wrote: > Have you done any morphometrics on your bees? Oh yes! You are clearly not a member of BIBBA. > Are they local? Some local, some from Galtee, some from E Midlands group and some from Professor Ratnieks. > If the two of us can > both do it in the West Mids, then it can't be that hard! I think our problems really started when the National Bee Unit was situated in Stratford. They had black bees until Vince Cook took over as Director; of course, he came from New Zealand and changed all the queens to NZ Italians. At that time they were running around 200 colonies and moving them around the district - at one time they put 80 colonies on the other side of the hedge from our association bees! Of course, they were not the only problem as some other beekeepers have imported queens from Greece and Hawaii to my knowledge. Now we seem to have agreement that the grass is not always greener so to speak, and we are steadily eliminating those foreign genes. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 22:28:20 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: More on introduction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Cushman wrote about methods on introduction. Last year I started using JzBz cages, but had a few problems with queens not released and dead in the cage. I saw an article in ABJ which reported similar problems so I emailed Jim Paysen (of JzBZ) to tell him that I had the same problem. He responded immediately - offering to replace my old cages with his new pattern of cage which has larger holes. The new cages duly arrived and I have been using them this year. I have started a spreadsheet to record details of each introduction, and so far the only failures have been rather predictable - for example, trying to introduce a two year old queen to a colony. (You might ask why I would try to do this! The reason is that we had bad winter losses last year and so are not destroying queens that are OK production wise, but do not fit with our breeding criteria; instead we are moving them away from our queen mating area and using them temporarily in splits, with the intention of replacing them as more desirable stock from our queen rearing operation becomes available). Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 22:41:02 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris forwarded advice from Bisi: > Containers: Use only aluminium, tin, galvanised iron or plastic > Do not use: copper, iron, steel or zinc, they dissolve into the honey and > may affect colour and flavour and might reach toxic levels. Aluminium??? Use galvanised iron, but not zinc??? Surely the message has to be plastic (food grade) or stainless steel. Many of the African countries are wanting to export honey; some are already! So why should they be able to sell us honey that has been stored in aluminium or galvanised containers, when this is not permitted here? Even India has banned the use of galvanised tanks. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:22:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lionel Evans Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi folks, Why would the queen lay eggs in comb with the cells looking slightly down? Has anyone ever seen this happen? Lionel **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:08:07 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: <62689D99743B4A5F90B3FE98D64B58B2@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >It is my opinion and from discussion with many commercial beekeepers that > spending a great deal of research funds chasing the * a virus is killing > our > bees* hypothesis is a waste of funds. One benefit, Bob, of such research is that if the problem is indeed found to be one or more viruses, whether or not exacerbated by parasites or nutrition, That we would finally have collared the suspect. At that point, we could stop wasting time asking others to investigate other suspects. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 16:08:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: neonicitinoids MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Hi All, I am merely posting this news story. The headline reads as though the defendant has been found guilty! Others may feel that this is a rush to judgement. Randy Oliver PESTICIDES: Sierra Club seeks to halt use of insecticide that harms honeybees (Thursday, July 31, 2008) Sara Goodman, *E&ENews PM* reporter U.S. EPA should halt the use of an insecticide that could pose a lethal threat to honeybees until more studies are done on potential effects, an environmental group said today. The Sierra Club urged the agency to issue a moratorium on nicotinyl insecticides, or neonicotinoids, saying there is growing evidence that the insecticide, common on genetically engineered corn, is killing off honeybees. "Neonicotinoids have been quantified in the nectar and the pollen of plants," said Neil Carman with the Sierra Club. "These pesticides can not only kill honeybees outright, but also the honeybees' ability to fight off infections may also be compromised." The group pointed to two major manufacturers, Bayer and Monsanto, that have recently agreed to manufacture neonicotinic-coated genetically engineered corn, saying this type of agreement is likely to worsen the bee problem. The U.S commercial honeybee industry has lost a record 36 percent of its colonies so far this year due to "colony collapse disorder," a mysterious illness that threatens the future of beekeeping and the health of a variety of important crops (*E&E Daily ,* June 27). Sierra Club wants more studies to determine whether neonicotinoids threaten bee populations. Bayer and Monsanto could not be reached for comment by press time. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:17:02 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Why would the queen lay eggs in comb with the cells looking slightly down? >Has anyone ever seen this happen? Why wouldn't she? She lays in cells pointing straight down. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 01:47:54 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- Peter L Borst wrote: >..."independent government" no longer exists ...yes, i keep this in mind when dealing with, or corresponding with government agents of all kinds. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:29:17 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10808021708s197b114cp867408a749d725a8@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Randy & All, Randy said: > One benefit, Bob, of such research is that if the problem is indeed found > to > be one or more viruses, I respect your opinion Randy so will answer the post. I have spent days living in my RV and spending up to 14 hours a day looking at the virus/bee issue with the beekeeper I consider to be (although a recluse) the largest beekeeper in the world before his retirement. Many others were brought in. From those discussions and contact with Ball & Carrick in the U.K. we came to many realities about bees and virus. 1. In *ALL* our samples tested the results *never* only found a single virus. 2. In *all* the CCD samples I have been told *never* was a single virus found. Virus is found in all hives bees & bees carry virus but when healthy virus is NOT an issue. Bailey proved this long ago! Bailey also proved that some virus he named only killed bees in a lab setting. So having researchers say they have found a virus which killed bees in a lab setting proves nothing. Carrick proved bees can handle *all* known virus when healthy and varroa are not present. Ball & Carrick proved that if you control varroa you control virus issues. In my opinion a couple years of CCD team looking into virus and CCD is not going to change decades or research and experiments by Bailey, Ball & Carrick. Simply put: We already through decades of research in the U.K. know the only ways to fight virus. After all we can't give each bee a vaccine . In fact we asked just that. Could some sort of medicine be developed and fed to bees to prevent say KBV. The answer was no! The answer was to control varroa mites and keep bees healthy with good nutrition. reduce bee stress. On a related subject: I think you know what I am about to say Randy: One commercial beekeeper dumped over 6000 pounds of one of our leading kinds of bee supply pollen sub in the dumpsters. Instead of making his hives grow as the full page adds say it made his bees dwindle. Most commercial beeks are *now* making their own pollen sub from recipes passed through the grapevine and off the net. Using real eggs etc. Say its not so Randy. It is my opinion that the widespread use of the neonicotinoids on yards, fruit trees , golf courses and in agriculture is weakening the immune systems of our bees. The neonicotinoids are all around us now. In all the stores. Used in most yards. Within the last 10 days research was presented to the EPA showing the neonicotinoids build up in the pollen and nectar of tree fruit in the second year. Stay tuned for future revelations. One of the largest chemical companies had the new neonicotinoids it tried to have put on the market last June refused without further testing. The EPA (under pressure from many areas) is finally starting to stop rubber stamping new products without the proper testing. All researchers are pushing for funding for their area of research. Having spent weeks looking into virus as the cause of bee crashing we came to a dead end. Instead of the CCD team rushing to look at dead hives they need to go and look at beeks which have got hives boiling with bees. Sitting their hives right next to beeks with hives crashing with CCD and not having problems. Sure many beeks are having problems but just as many are not! bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 22:11:00 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lionel Evans Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter, In my experience, most eggs laid in cells pointing down were for raising queens. I do not think a queen would lay in cells slightly pointing downward. Has anyone ever seen queens do this? Lionel **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 08:36:26 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote: > Why wouldn't she? She lays in cells pointing straight down. I have had hives knocked over and the queen has continued to lay in the cells which were rotated by 90 degrees. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:28:24 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: > It is my opinion that the widespread use of the > neonicotinoids on yards, fruit trees , golf courses > and in agriculture is weakening the immune > systems of our bees. What about other pollinators? Here's some evidence about butterfly pollinator abundance near upper Midwestern corn fields this summer: The corn in Iowa was tasseling and shedding pollen in mid -July this year. Then on July 26, the tenth annual Iowa City Butterfly Count was conducted in the city and around the corn, soybean and alfalfa hay fields surrounding the city. The count reportedly "smashed our old record with 2,711 butterflies". See post below: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [IA-BTRFLY] Iowa City Butterfly Count Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:04:09 -0500 From: "Chris Edwards" Reply-To: IA-BTRFLY@yahoogroups.com Yesterday was our tenth annual Iowa City Butterfly Count. It was a pretty amazing day. Species diversity was a little below average with 30, but in terms of individuals we smashed our old record with 2,711 butterflies. 'Summer' Spring Azures were numerous everywhere we went, and I think I was counting them in my sleep last night. Late in the afternoon we came across a huge alfalfa field that was covered with sulphurs and whites - I estimated 1200 butterflies there but I think that was pretty conservative. We also had a good count (83) of Monarchs throughout the day. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 07:42:42 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This message was originally submitted by saraounia1@TISCALI.CO.UK to = the BEE-L list at LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU. It was edited to remove quotes of = previously=20 posted material ________________________________ From: Adebisi Data Adekunle [mailto:saraounia1@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: Sun 2008.08.03 05:05 The idea is to support self sufficiency and sustainability from very = small beginings. We don't take any resources in to these projects, so have = make use of whatever is available to the community at least cost, on the = ground. Please note this is not generalised advice but specified for their = location / community / resources which in this case is very rural and extremely = poor. They are beekeeping to improve their underlying health and generate = small amounts of income, so none of it will be coming your way anytime soon! = They cannot afford food for themselves let alone plastic containers for the = bees. Otherwise, yes, plastic or stainless steel, as you describe. Cheers **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 09:52:38 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob writes: > In my opinion a couple years of CCD team looking into virus and CCD is not going to change decades or research and experiments by Bailey, Ball & Carrick. Dear Bob, Science never comes to a standstill, but new things constantly are being discovered. I am sure Drs. Ball and Carreck would agree that new revelations can easily overturn decades of study. Your recommendation to control varroa, while sound, is not the whole story. Viruses may have been associated with varroa initially, but they now may be a force on their own. Besides, who has ever controlled varroa? Knocked it back, perhaps, but it can hardly said to be "controlled". >From a 2007 article: > Viral infections are the least understood of honey bee diseases, due to the lack of information on the mechanisms underlying potential disease outbreaks. Few data are available on their different modes of spread, transmission and persistence. -- Ribire, et al (2007) "Spread of Chronic bee paralysis virus in bee faeces" Chen writes: > In the field, honey bee colonies can suffer from multiple virus infections without showing obvious pathological symptoms, thereby confounding diagnoses. A rapid and accurate diagnosis for virus infection, therefore, is a critical component of honey bee disease surveillance and control programs. > Our results demonstrated that mixed virus infections in honey bees are quite widespread in nature, as we detected mixed infections of BQCV, DWV, KBV, and SBV in adult worker bees and bee brood. Although virus coinfections have long been recognized in plants and other animals, information on mixed virus infections in honey bees has accumulated very slowly over the last decade. > Despite the fact that honey bees can harbor multiple virus infections simultaneously, gaps still exist in our current knowledge of the effects of such mixed infections on pathogenic processes in honey bees. > Moreover, it is not known whether mixed virus infections could lead to genetic recombination between coexisting viruses and whether such *recombination could result in the emergence of new viruses*. Chen, et al (2004) "Multiple virus infections in the honey bee and genome divergence of honey bee viruses" Finally, Brenda Ball stated in 2004: > After the turbulent years of dramatic colony losses that accompanied the arrival of varroa, have we now reached a relatively stable situation again where both mite and predominant virus can be managed, or could the decline in certain types of virus leave a niche open for opportunistic invaders? Only time will tell, but we should certainly be alert and prepared for more trouble with viruses. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 08:45:28 -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: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Comments: To: Dave Fischer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi David and All: >I'm not going to engage in an iterative point-counterpoint debate of the >non-science issues. My intent in posting here is to provide information >that otherwise hasn't been brought out. BEE-L readers can read the >referenced documents for themselves and make up their own minds. If you are intending to provide information not previously brought out, then perhaps you could tell us how we could access the study which was provided to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) of Canada regarding the half life of imidacloprid in Prince Edward Island soils. When I asked PMRA for the study, they refused to provide it. When I contacted the Canadian Access to Information commissioner he said that he could not force the PMRA to release the information, because although it was submitted to PMRA by Bayer to satisfy conditions relating to the initial emergency registration in PEI, it was still "owned" by Bayer, because they had funded the research. >From conversations with Velden Sorenson and Robert Steffens I have some information about that study, but would really like to see the results published, so we could discuss the "science", rather than opinion. Still look forward to some commitment from Bayer to finish analyzing the samples of Jim Kemp which would bear directly upon the matter you are addressing in this post, the amount of imidacloprid which remains active in the soil in succeeding years. Regards, Stan Sandler **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 07:59:31 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 03/08/2008 12:49:33 GMT Standard Time, AMorris@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU writes: They cannot afford food for themselves let alone plastic containers for the bees. Otherwise, yes, plastic or stainless steel, as you describe. Bisi, Has the ubiquitous plastic bag got to that part of Africa? Those that have contained food (ie somebody else has determined that they are 'food grade') might make suitable free liners for otherwise unsuitable containers. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 04:47:25 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Propolis Component May Help Treat Blood Poisoning Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Propolis Component May Help Treat Blood Poisoning Effects of Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester (CAPE) on Sepsis in Rats Inflammation, Volume 31, Number 4, August, 2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/propolis-component-may-help-treat-blood.html This study investigated the effects of caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) particularly on the inflammatory and related histopathological changes in the lung, liver and kidney in an experimental sepsis model... **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 10:39:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Norman Carreck wrote in December of 2007: > Although large numbers of mites are apparently required to produce an initial virus infection, once established it can apparently persist in the absence of the mite. This should not surprise us. After all, there must be a natural means of transmission from bee to bee, otherwise KBV would not be as common in Varroa-free Australia as it is. > It remains clear that our understanding of the world distribution and taxonomy of honey bee viruses, and the relation between recent information obtained from molecular techniques and earlier information using serological techniques is currently far too fragmentary to allow us to point a finger at the definitive cause of colony losses. -- BBKA News - December 2007 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 11:44:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Stan Sadler writes: When I contacted the Canadian Access to Information commissioner he said that he could not force the PMRA to release the information, because although it was submitted to PMRA by Bayer to satisfy conditions relating to the initial emergency registration in PEI, it was still "owned" by Bayer, because they had funded the research. I would think that if it was used by a public agency for determining if a chemical should be registered for any kind of use the contents of the study should be a matter of public record. Otherwise there is no accountability of the public agency to the public. It leaves open the possibility of corruption between the agency and the company. This is a situation where the government agency needs to be held accountable as much as Bayer. This is why people no longer have any faith in the concept of independent government. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:44:45 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: more trouble with viruses Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It has been noted that the reason for studying viruses in honey bees is to possibly eliminate them as the root cause of CCD or any other such devastating malady that might come along. This seems obvious to me. To suggest that studying viruses is somehow a waste of time would reveal a mind that is already made up or is otherwise non objective. Even if viruses were not suspected of playing any role in CCD it would be important to study them in depth because they are there. They are a part of the whole biological system that we call a honey bee. To say that studying viruses in honeybees is a waste of time is like saying that studying individual bees is a waste of time because it is the colony we should be focusing on. That said the reality is that there apparently isnt much we can do about viruses in honeybees. In humans our main line of defense is vaccination, but that is not going to work for insects. Isolation is another means of controlling at least the spread of viruses in humans, and it works to a limited degree. Its interesting that the same problem we have with humans in this regard we also have with honeybees. We want and need to be mobile and we want and need our bees to be mobile. There may be some people who think we can conquer viruses through breeding, but that would be delusional. Viruses are changing and adapting at a much faster rate than we could ever keep up with through breeding. Nope, the only defense honeybees have against viruses is also one of the best defenses we humans have and that is by staying healthy and strong. No matter how much we study and learn about viruses we will always come back to that reality. But thats not necessarily bad news. Theoretically, as beekeepers we should have some control over the general state of health of our bees. It is the one thing that keeps coming through for me in all this never ending discussion of CCD and other similar problems. Sound practices, things like keeping varroa counts low, insuring a good source of high quality (non lethal) pollen, simulating swarming by making regular splits of your stronger hives, avoiding exposure to extremes of temperature, using the least toxic approaches to treatments that are effective, etc, etc. Some would add not trucking your hives clear across the country on semis to that list, but if that is what you do for a living that advice doesnt do you much good. You just know you have to do what ever you can to compensate for any stress that might put on them. You never know whats going to hit you next as a beekeeper, but if its a virus, and your bees are healthy, you may have a chance. In fact it may be your only hope. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 12:23:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Genetic musings Comments: To: Bob Harrison Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob Harrison wrote: >It is my opinion that the widespread use of the neonicotinoids on yards, >fruit trees , golf courses and in agriculture is weakening the immune >systems of our bees. David Mendes, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, said that his own hives were found to contain higher-than-expected levels of the insecticides imidacloprid and aldicarb. "Beekeepers understand that something is making our bees sick, but in order to be taken seriously by regulatory officials who control the use of agricultural products, we need data to back up our opinions" he said. Though beekeepers are worried about pesticides, data collected so far by the USDA does not link these chemicals with colony collapse disorder, testified Edward Knipling, administrator of the USDA Agricultural Research Service. FROM: Capital Press http://capitalpress.com/ Capital Press is an independent farm and ranch newspaper **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 12:02:32 -0400 Reply-To: ik Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: ik Subject: Re: # of brood chambers? In-Reply-To: <001601c8f4a2$77ff2bb0$0100a8c0@YOUR75B8ED0EE6> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Roni, I use 2 deep with 10 frame. I want the standard set-up. This is where your brood is so why not have the maximum number of frames? Also, this maintains the correct spacing for the bees. I'm in Ontario so this also gives me the correct amount of honey for the winter. I mostly use excluders. On the hives I don't, I let them fill the box with honey before I place another one on top. The honey seems to keep the queen down. I still will get the occasion drone along the bottom. I cut them out and let the bees clean it up. Obviously, this won't do if you have any thing larger than 5 hives. Very time consuming. Kent **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 14:19:56 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 03/08/2008 19:05:16 GMT Standard Time, paramita@WHIDBEY.COM writes: To say that studying viruses in honeybees is a waste of time is like saying that studying individual bees is a waste of time because it is the colony we should be focusing on. The study could be extended to other arthropods as I understand that honeybee viruses in some cases have analogues in crustacea for example. This might share the cost or introduce new sources of research funding. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:47:59 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Varroa-free Australia Reply: I was not aware that Australia was mite free. Thought even islands off coast had mites. Or has a different name been given to them due to point of infestation, or different state of doing.. like simply not declared a problem type, but other type. D **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:56:59 -0700 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii David Mendes said: "that his own hives were found to contain > higher-than-expected levels of the > insecticides imidacloprid and aldicarb." Reply: Wow! Aldicarb? with higher-than-expected levels?.......Isn't Aldicarb another name for Temik???? a chemical that at 1/10ppb induces AIDS in people and isn't this country picking up over 40,000 or more such cases a year of AIDS???........Who would want their honeybees near aldicarb/temik and then have to touch the combs or bees then and wonder why then they start feeling sick over time? Another reason for zero treatments and to be around zero treatments. D **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 15:35:32 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction In-Reply-To: <8789225B941345DD910937848E7383F5@BillLordPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Bill, Swienty makes an extractor specifically for top bar frames (108600 WORLD EXTRACTOR). It is a rotating disc upon which the frames are laid on their sides--bottoms facing out. The honey is then spun out as it would be in a parallel radial extractor, except on a vertical axis, and with only three frames at a time. It is pricey, but something similar could be fabricated locally. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 14:48:43 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Hi Bob, I'm in general agreement with you on most of what you say about viruses and bees. However, a few points could stand a little clarification. > > >Carrick proved bees can handle *all* known virus when healthy and varroa > are not present. The above statement is a bit oversimplified. Bees also become susceptible to viruses if they are infected by nosema or tracheal mites. Bees also are susceptible to viruses such as sacbrood even in the absence of parastites--there have been epidemics of colonies dying from sacbrood in mite-free Australia. Bees also can be susceptible to a new mutation of a virus, or a virus that jumps from another species of bee or insect. > > >Ball & Carrick proved that if you control varroa you control virus issues. I've corresponded with Dr Carrick also. Viruses caused colony kills in England before varroa was present. Varroa simply made viruses more of a constant issue. > > >In my opinion a couple years of CCD team looking into virus and CCD is not > going to change decades or research and experiments by Bailey, Ball & > Carrick. No one doubts the conclusions of their research. > > > Could some sort of medicine be developed and fed to bees to prevent say > KBV. The answer was no! Unfortunately, you asked the question to the wrong researcher! There have been giant steps made recently toward developing an insect virus "vaccine." I will be explaining in an upcoming article. However, such a medicine will still only be a stopgap measure. Long term, bees need to incorporate immunity to each virus into their genome, as has been illustrated by recent research. This process of bee/virus coevolution has been going on for millions of years. The only bees and viruses that we see today are the offspring of the survivors. > > >The answer was to control varroa mites and keep bees healthy with good > nutrition. reduce bee stress. Still a good answer, but the genetic component shouldn't be overlooked. > > >Most commercial beeks are *now* making their own pollen sub from recipes > passed through the grapevine and off the net. Using real eggs etc. Of course they are, and still would even if the absolutely perfect feed were available over the counter! Some of the formulations developed by beekeepers may be wastes of money, and some may be excellent. Beekeepers can test for themselves. Problem is, most beekeeper "tests" neglect to minimize variables and to run a control group. In my area, we are reaching the end of any appreciable pollen flow for the season, so I am setting up a trial of various supplements--commercial and home made. We have just finished equalizing 60 singles to six frames of bees, and four frames of foundation, all in the same yard, all with fresh queens. We will be testing four supplement formulations against the control of brewers yeast and sucrose--a basic well-proven California/Hawaii protein supplement. I hope to determine whether I gain any advantage by feeding more expensive commercially formulated or fancy home recipe supplement in an area where a minimal natural input of pollen occurs. > > >Instead of the CCD team rushing to look at dead hives they need to go and > look at beeks which have got hives boiling with bees. Sitting their hives > right next to beeks with hives crashing with CCD and not having problems. That thought has occurred to the various CCD "teams," and they are doing just that. Looking for differences between healthy operations and colonies, and sick ones. > > >Sure many beeks are having problems but just as many are not! Those that are having problems have taken tremendous financial hits. They may be a bit more enthusiastic about finding out what caused their colonies to die, and hopefully how they can prevent it in the future. Many of them felt that they had healthy bees with mites under control, but their colonies still crashed. Bob, I don't expect any magic from the CCD research. Good research sometimes takes time--try not to get frustrated! I have seen that recent research has given us much greater understanding of the state of our bees, the levels of pesticide contamination and their effects (or lack thereof), the types of viruses and parasites present, and a better understanding of colony health and the bee immune system. I think that the research has been well worth the cost and effort, and I applaud those researchers who are diligently trying to answer our questions. As far as what a beekeeper can do today, you are absolutely right--good nutrition and minimize parasite levels. I'd also suggest maintaining some genetic diversity in your operation, so that if a "new" virus comes along, you will have less chance of losing all your colonies. Speaking of parasites, I'm hearing of some sky-high nosema counts (in the multiple tens of millions) from the Midwest--far higher than what I'm typically seeing. Bob, what kinds of numbers are you seeing or hearing of? Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 17:40:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: Re: neonicitinoids Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit As I have surmised in previous past posts, the real science behind the Bayer debate may mean nothing as public scorn towards Bayer,Monsanto and other big Agribusiness builds online and in the print media. Recall the Alar scare in the 1980's had nothing to do with real science. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20647 Could the widespread use of neonics unravel as various political and enviro-groups take on the beleaguered honeybee and go after Bayer? Might there be a massive PR campaign now underway by Bayer to respond to attacks from all sides? Like all of a sudden Bayer is posting here? Hmm More distractions while many beekeepers continue to stress their bees and self contaminate their brood comb while waiting for the Final Solution that neonics will be delisted. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 19:33:52 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 04/08/2008 00:10:40 GMT Standard Time, randy@RANDYOLIVER.COM writes: It is a rotating disc upon which the frames are laid on their sides--bottoms facing out. How strange! Why? Honeycomb cells are normally constructed at a dihedral angle and so this arrangement doesn't seem to be very efficient. A tangential extractor would get more honey out. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 19:26:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: <3dcef4a10808031448u6507c02qc7692dc67762c87@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Randy & All, Randy said: > Speaking of parasites, I'm hearing of some sky-high nosema counts (in the > multiple tens of millions) from the Midwest--far higher than what I'm > typically seeing. Bob, what kinds of numbers are you seeing or hearing > of? I have not heard any numbers nor checked my yards since I put the supers on. The two problem yards I drenched never have really bounced back. One I treated as per your recommendations and the other Eric Mussen. You method proved the best. However neither made much honey so maybe my method would have been best. Depopulated and use acetic acid on the boxes. All my other yards were boiling with bees before corn tasseled. I will not know how hard I have been hit in areas of corn until I get the supers off. We have doubled the size of the hot room hoping to strip supers faster. Still no signs of small hive beetle. The new room is setup to lower humidity enough SHB can not reproduce. Once supers are pulled I hope to move hives away from corn into the range country. My friends doing canola in Canada say once the neonicotinoids get in the pollen and nectar they see the hives start going downhill but if moved quick enough away they can rebound before winter. All of us are either just starting to pull supers or have been pulling for a week or so. One outfit has crashed. He is waiting for results. We suspect nosema ceranae but he does not tell us a lot. We are his competition in the area. His son told me today at the Midwestern meeting the outfit is in big trouble. South of me in ranch country I have not heard of any problems and they have been pulling supers for a few weeks. North of me in Nebraska I was told they plan to pull starting this month. Later in the Dakotas. None of us will get a clear picture till *all* supers are pulled. Now most are simply striping the first round. I pulled my comb honey supers three weeks ago. Beautiful this year. Added drawn comb and have not been back. Ask me again in a month. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 17:56:21 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Thanks, Chris! My typo. > > >It is a rotating disc upon which the frames are laid on their > sides--bottoms facing out. > The top bars, of course, face out. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:10:08 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Randy wrote >Bees also are susceptible to viruses such as sacbrood even in the absence >of > parastites--there have been epidemics of colonies dying from sacbrood in > mite-free Australia. I am not aware of this happening in Australia. Randy, can you provide some more information. Thanks. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 04:39:36 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Tanzanian Parents Use Honey to Treat Burns Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Tanzanian Parents Use Honey to Treat Burns Causes, Magnitude and Management of Burns in Under-Fives in District Hospitals in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania East African Journal of Public Health, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2008, pp. 38-42 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/tanzanian-parents-use-honey-to-treat.html …Honey has been used for wound treatment as long as 2000 years before bacteria were discovered to be the cause of infection. Recently honey has been reported to inhibit around 60 species of bacteria including aerobes and anaerobes, gram positive, gram negative and also antifungal action to Aspergillus spp and Penicillium spp (12)…. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 04:29:33 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Neonicotinoids May Be Responsible Bee Deaths Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Neonicotinoids May Be Responsible Bee Deaths Are Toxins Killing The Bees? Al Meyerhoff, Hartford Courant (USA), 8/4/2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/neonicotinoids-may-be-responsible-bee.html It's likely that most people have never heard of Gaucho. And no, it's not a South American cowboy. I'm talking about a pesticide. There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals — neonicotinoids — may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide. Some scientists believe that these pesticides, which are applied to seeds, travel systemically through the plant and leave residues that contaminate the pollen, resulting in bee death or paralysis… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 05:51:54 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Help needed with Malawi Honey Extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bisi (Adebisi Adekunle) writes: "Personally Chris, I am happier extracting without an extractor whenever possible, here or in Nigeria. With TBH we extract using the 8 day float method to extract honey and recover wax for creams, ointments, candles etc depending on what is appropriate for the area as secondary wax products do tend to be high price value added products. For the best price, secondary products go into the nearest urban conurbation." I am asking her for more information on the '8 day float method'. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 01:40:37 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob Harrison wrote: >It is my opinion that the widespread use of the >neonicotinoids on yards, fruit trees, golf courses >and in agriculture is weakening the immune >systems of our bees. Then what's happening to other social insects (ants, wasps, termites)? Are ants, wasps or termites in decline in home yard, fruit tree, golf course or agricultural settings? Are exterminating companies complaining that business if off due to mysteriously declining ant, wasp and termite populations? Are retailers like Home Depot and Ace Hardware complaining that yellow jacket trap sales are off? Are fruit tree growers now saying: "no need to buy and spread the ant bait granules anymore because my ant colonies collapsed after spraying the trees with a neonicotinoid"? Is it possible neonicotinoids could take out 36% of the nation's honeybees, yet not also noticably affect any other insect population? Paul Cherubini El Dorado, Calif. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 04:29:57 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 04/08/2008 02:13:48 GMT Standard Time, randy@RANDYOLIVER.COM writes: >It is a rotating disc upon which the frames are laid on their > sides- It seems a little illogical to use an extractor, which is an expensive and otherwise useless bit of kit. I don't think it is the practice to re-use combs from Top Bar Hives and the wax itself may be a more valuable harvest than the honey. Perhaps Bisi could advise here. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 00:53:10 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: # of brood chambers? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>How many brood chambers... I used to use 2 deeps with an excluder. My honey yield was typically 2 medium supers then. Per the advice from some here on Bee-L, I have been using 3 deeps for the nest & no excluder for a couple of seasons. This allows the colonies to form an 'ideal' football-shape brood volume across the three deeps. My surplus honey is 4-6 medium supers per hive. Swarming is reduced and delayed as well. If you time it right, the queen will not lay in the bottom super. >>do you use for your hives, and is that with deeps or mediums and eight or ten frame? I use 10-frame deeps. They are very heavy and I do abdominal and back excercises to prevent disc damage. >>Also, do most of you use excluders, and if you don't, how does the honey get separated from the brood? Do some side-by-side evaluations of your own. The only use I have nowadays for excluders is to separate multiple deeps with a queen in each deep in vertical stacks. This maximizes my apiary footprint and saves bottom boards... Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 23:44:54 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD and Bayer In-Reply-To: <4891DF5C.5050107@suscom-maine.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Re the response to Dr Fischer from Bayer, Bill Truesdell wrote: > And if I got the kind of response he got, I would make sure I told others > in the industry and research community to stay off this list. Thanks for that, Bill! I lament the fact that most researchers and commercial beekeepers stay off the list for the reasons that you stated. Dr. Fischer offered us an incredible opportunity--an open door to Bayer! The very door that others have been proclaiming is locked. You may wish to demonize a multinational corporate conglomerate, but Dr. Fischer is an actual human being who took the time to write a very polite and clear summary of the scientific information available regarding the neonics. I have subsequently spoken with him at length, and find him to be a pleasant, knowledgeable scientist who actually cares about the effects of pesticides upon bees. Clearly, bees are dying in sunflowers in France. However, when scientists look closely for the reason, it is not clear at all that neonics are the cause. If Dr Fischer has the patience, perhaps we could politely ask him very concise, specific questions that he might be in a position to answer, such as Stan's. We have everything to gain by engaging him in thoughtful dialog, and nothing to lose. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 22:51:45 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Genetic musings In-Reply-To: <006601c8f5d7$394c13c0$f472ba7c@new1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > >Randy, can you provide some more information. G'day Trevor, I can't find the ref that I was referring to. However, Farmnote 247 from Western Australia stated: The severity of [sacbrood] infection can vary in some hives from a few cells per frame to 90 per cent of the brood. The number of colonies infected in an apiary may range from 0 to 100 per cent. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 12:14:54 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill Lord Subject: Malawi beekeeping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Randy, et. al.; Many thanks for your advice on extractors, it has helped. Now, FYI, a = little background on beekeeping that I have seen in Malawi. Malawi is = one of the poorest countries in Africa, and the beekeepers I have met = and worked with are very poor. However, most of the beekeepers I am = working with are organized into clubs of 10-12 and they work together to = manage around 100 top bar hives. In this particular area I am in at = present, Mzuzu, a local coffee cooperative is providing top bar hives to = its member farmers in order to diversify farmer income and to use the = coffee processing buildings and equipment in the off season. Beekeepers = pay back the co-op over 2 years with honey or money. Both entities are = making money on honey, as this is an area of rich flora but with few = managed hives though plenty of wild bees. The problem is very crude = honey harvesting, extracting, and processing, which is why I am here. = On the most basic level, we are teaching beekeepers to separate brood = and pollen frames from honey, then light and dark frames of honey after = harvest, and to only extract ripe honey. I am also working with the = processors to clean up the honey and pack it for retail sale. The = packers have problems getting quality jars, no glass or PETE is = available here. Yesterday I was taken to Nyika National game park. The game park allows = the coffee co-op beekeepers from local villages to bring top bar hives = into the game park to take advantage of the flora. In exchange, the = beekeepers help with controlled burns and alert the park rangers to = poachers, a very serious problem in game parks. The chief game park = researcher told me the beekeepers had helped them catch and prosecute 5 = poachers with firearms this year alone, so this is a mutually beneficial = relationship. The project I am working for was created specifically for = this reason: to help poor villages develop sustainable enterprises that = encourage ownership and sustainable management of forests and wildlife, = and it is gratifying to see this project having success. The coffee = co-op is very pleased with progress so far. They distributed 1000 top = bar hives last year, will distribute 3000 this year and 3000 the year = after. Again, the biggest problem is getting the beekeepers to keep the = honey clean and separate. We are working with African bees. No drugs, = no miticides, no nothing but bees and nature. Interestingly one of the = big benefits of the top bar hive is the fact that it can be hung from = tree branches and is therefore out of range of honey badgers (which are = plentiful), ants, and termites. I didn't see any game yesterday but = there were plenty of elephant droppings around. The bees are hot but = the coffee co-op is providing pretty good protective equipment and = smokers, and plastic buckets in which to collect and store honey. I = have seen dark and lihgt honey, all of very good quality. When I get = able I can post some photos. many thanks for help and advice, Bee-L is great! Bill Lord Mzuzu Malawi (for now) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 16:15:48 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Adebisi Data Adekunle Subject: 8 day Float Method Comments: To: CSlade777@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Extract describing method. Please note that the ambient temperature in tropical countries is higher than in the UK, so need to compensate by placing the harvest for example, in a shady corner in a boiler room. Method One - 8 day floating Method Floating is the simplest method, but takes the longest There are disadvantages when harvesting in the rainy season when humidity is high (high water content in the air). Honey is hygroscopic and will absorb water from the air unless you work with closed containers Procedure for 8 day floating method 1. Remove the wax capping with sharp knife or uncapping fork >save cappings 2. Break harvested comb into small pieces 3. Place them in small container. Seal container to make it air tight. Leave in a warm shady corner to separate - no direct heat or sunlight 4. After 7 days wax floats to the top > Skim off wax > save in separate container 5. Strain / filter honey through a clean cloth, nylon stocking or special honey filter 6. Close and leave to process further for another day 7. Skim off any foam & wax particles which have floated to the top 8. Filter again 9. Honey now ready for bottling > put into honey jars 10. Wax saved after 7 days should be soaked in water (to dissolve honey) and can be used for a variety of purposes, to for example 1) Brew beer where the wax is not first grade (i.e. dark comb), 2) Obtain beeswax if the wax comb was first grade (i.e light or medium) Equipment Required - All must be clean and kept clean 2 containers with tight fitting lids Container for wax cappings A sharp knife or uncapping fork Filter / Strainer for honey > clean cloth, nylon stocking or special honey filter. The finest mesh size used commonly has holes of 0.1 - 0.2 mm diameter Skimmer > large spoon, leaf etc Honey jars -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Agromisa Foundation (Dutch non profit making foundation). Agrodok Series No. 32. Beekeeping in the Tropics ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pam Gregory" To: "Adebisi Data Adekunle" Cc: ; Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 3:29 PM Subject: Re: [BEE-L] I need help in Malawi with honey extraction > Hi Bisi > This is much the same as we do - but we never harvest at night if it can > be avoided. This was learned from those in Cameron who were trying to > discourage the practise. I try to encourage people to harvest at either > dawn or dusk - especially if here are only a few hives to harvest. Then > people can easily see what they are doing and don't have problems with > poor comb selection. > > I am becoming convinced that it is the temperature that is the key. It > needs to be lower than 25C. In some places this means you can have quite a > long harvesting (or working) period even in the day. Significantly, as > long as you only buy low water content, clean honey and explain how people > can achieve this, we have found that people manage to supply same very > effectively (as you say regardless of hive type). > > If Bill is in Malawi he should have a talk to Lenson Simumba of NHPC > (SBDARA) in Nkhata Bay (09 601 084) - who will be able to demonstrate the > methods used. The straining method where you cut up all the combs in a > bucket into a kind of soup and then strain it through a cloth is very easy > and effective. Cheers Pam > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Adebisi Data Adekunle" > To: > Cc: "Pam Gregory" > Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 1:10 PM > Subject: Re: [BEE-L] I need help in Malawi with honey extraction > > >> Hi Chris, >> I usually advise a similar method to the one you describe below, called >> the >> 8 day float method. It requires only simple buckets and filters, little >> sweaty hard work (pressing etc), foreign equipment (extractors etc) and >> is >> used quite successfully on our rural Nigerian projects. >> >> But I am afraid the first lesson is that honey quality management starts >> right from the hive at comb harvest. Hive type really does not come into >> it. >> >> Before we harvest >> We harvest at night as well but we make sure we visit the hives sometime >> BEFORE we harvest, IN THE DAY and IDENTIFY & MARK the brood comb/brood >> area >> or honey combs AND very importantly note the COMB QUALITY (dark, medium, >> light). We mark the brood comb top bars (with chalk, charcol, stones, >> whatever). Some people prefer to mark the actual combs they will harvest >> instead of the brood area. We teach ONLY to take combs that are READY i.e >> 75% SEALED ON BOTH SIDES. No unsealed cells or brood, EVER. This is a >> hard >> and fast rule which is re inforced after harvest. We then go back at >> night >> to harvest the honey combs. >> >> At the hive, at comb harvest, at night >> 1. Take 75% sealed on both sides only >> 2. Sort / grade wax combs for quality (light medium dark) >> 3. As 75% sealed combs are removed / cut, they are placed the appropriate >> bucket (light, medicum, dark). BUCKETS must all have tight fitting lids >> for >> transport, processing. Another hard and fast harvest rule to protect >> against >> contamination in transport etc. >> >> 4. Cleanliness is paramout. All equipment must be cleaned before etc. >> etc. >> No debris from harvesting should be thrown about the hive. We advise to >> take >> an extra bucket or bag to collect debris from harvesting. >> >> On a practical note, successful harvesting is about practice. We find >> that >> if people are clear what they are doing and why after a couple of >> practice >> runs they are able to harvest quietly at night without a lot of smoke and >> banging about the hive and chucking debris everywhere about the hive. >> When >> the TBs are lifted the combs are usually covered with bees and this is >> where >> the panic ususally starts. It is very important to demonstrate and allow >> peopole to practice the correct techniques under live conditions. >> >> First some bees can be gently tapped or shaken off as the bar is lifted, >> then most bees can simply be brushed off with a brush of some sort and >> the >> remaining gently smoked off to reveal the honey comb underneath, which is >> cut from the top bar (1'' or so) and comb placed in the appropriate >> bucket >> with lid. A white cloth(s) can also be used to give additional control, >> by >> placing it over the TBs as soon as the roof is removed and rolling it >> back >> to gain access to each TB. Until they are experienced, we get them to >> harvest in twos only. >> >> To extract honey >> - See 8 day float method attached. Section 1.2.1 on page 3. The notes are >> an >> extract notes from my tropical training manual. >> >> Regards >> Bisi >> >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: CSlade777@aol.com >> To: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu >> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 8:56 PM >> Subject: Re: [BEE-L] I need help in Malawi with honey extraction >> >> >> I run a top bar hive. The last time I took a crop I avoided the comb that >> had been bred in as much as possible. The honey had set (UK ivy honey) so >> I >> put it in a bucket and bashed it so the cells were disrupted and placed >> it >> in my warming cabinet set at just over blood heat until it was melted. >> This >> was then poured through a strainer and was fit for bottling. There was a >> lot of honey left in the wax so I put it into a strainer bag and thence >> into >> my Mother's (cleaned and sterilised!) spin drier, which got a lot more >> out. >> I would have used my fruit press but I had lent it to an apprentice and >> forgotten which one. >> >> There was still some honey left in the wax so I chucked it into a batch >> of >> home brew beer I was making, allowing the action of water and yeast to >> make >> best use of the remaining honey so that none went to waste (although the >> beer is going to waist!). >> >> I find that honey that has not been through a conventional extractor has >> much more flavour and can be sold for a better price. >> >> Chris >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Bill Lord" >> To: >> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 1:45 AM >> Subject: [BEE-L] I need help in Malawi with honey extraction >> >> >> Bee-Liners; >> >> I am working on a short term job in Malawi (East Africa) with a very >> beginning honey processing industry, The project here has sought to >> teach >> indigenous people to value forests and other natural resources by >> introducing beekeeping and other skills that enable local people to use >> the >> forests as sustainable resources. To make a long a story short, >> introduction of top bar beekeeping has worked, and they have in excess of >> 50 >> tons of forest honey on hand. The big problem here is poor honey quality >> coming from the beekeeper. The beekeepers harvest at night. Remember, >> African bees, poor protective equipment and smokers, as well as >> co-mingling >> brood and pollen with honey combs). Now they 'extract' the honey by >> pressing combs or by letting it drip through coarse cloth into a bucket, >> with poor efficiency and some really dirty honey.We are stuck with using >> top >> bar hives for the time being. Before I came out I built a 'bush' honey >> extractor - see >> www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2005/september/honeyextractor.htm >> out of a plastic 50 gallon food grade barrel, two bicycle wheels, a steel >> rod drive shaft and some other common parts. You set the wheels on a >> shaft >> and let the wheels act as the extractor reel. I drove it with a 1/2 >> inch >> drill and extracted 6 supers of honey last weekend. It worked like a >> charm >> until I wore out the cheap bearings, but I got 4 - 5 gallon buckets of >> very >> nice honey out of it. >> >> I am thinking what we might try here is a 'bush cappings spinner', to >> wit:, >> grind the honey combs from the top bar hives and spin the ground >> wax/honey >> mixture in a hand cranked cappings spinner. My thought is to enclose the >> extractor basket in heavy wire mesh and slowly feed in the crushed comb >> mixture to get even distribution. Can someone send me a photo of a >> cappings >> spinner so I can show these people? Any ideas on a simple grinder for >> honey >> combs? I thought of the old apple grinder and press I inherited from my >> grandfather, but would like to spin the gound up mixture rather than >> press >> it. >> >> Any, and I mean ANY help or ideas appreciated >> >> Bill Lord >> ususally of Louisburg, NC USA >> courrently, Blantyre Malawi >> >> **************************************************** >> * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * >> * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * >> **************************************************** >> > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG. > Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.5.9/1583 - Release Date: 31/07/2008 > 06:17 > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.526 / Virus Database: 270.5.12/1589 - Release > Date: 03/08/2008 13:00 > > **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 06:30:10 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: queenbee Subject: Re: Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I can't find the ref that I was referring to. However, Farmnote 247 from > Western Australia stated: > > The severity of [sacbrood] infection can vary in some hives from > > a few cells per frame to 90 per cent of the brood. The > > number of colonies infected in an apiary may range > > from 0 to 100 per cent. Thanks for the reply Randy. Seems excessive to me and I will follow it up and post back. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 23:46:57 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steve Noble wrote: > There may be some people who think we can conquer viruses through > breeding, but that > would be delusional. Viruses are changing and adapting at a much faster > rate than we could ever keep up with through breeding. Is this really so? I am no expert, so I seek an answer from those who are. We know that we can cure sacbrood in a colony by re-queening and I know that TSBV had been virtually eliminated from S India in just over 10 years by breeding from survivors after the disastrous outbreak in the early 1990s. We also know that some humans never seem to suffer from the common cold or influenza. Does this not show that breeding can be another useful tool for fighting viruses spread by varroa, or am I missing something? Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 20:11:34 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: 8 day Float Method MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bisi, Many thanks for that comprehensive information. Would it be a useful variation to the technique to add a large (clean) stone to the honey and wax in the straining material? I'm just wondering whether it would be more effective to keep the unmolten materials below rather than above the honey. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 20:24:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Walter Zimmermann Subject: more trouble with viruses Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Greetings: Both Steve Noble and Peter Edwards have points worth considering Some of us in Ontario had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Yanping (Judy) Chen as guest speaker to the OBA (Ontario Beekeepers Assoc) summer meeting this past month. Dr. Chen is a Research Entomologist at the USDA/ARS Research Centre in Belsville Maryland. Her topics were specifically on viruses in which she is an expert. Thus Steve is right and one day Peter may see eradication but according to Dr. Chen the manner in which viruses progress has to unlocked. I asked a specific question pertaining to the use of electron microscopy since I had done work in other another field with the instrument. Her reply was that a virus is so small that we cannot observe it with that instrument . She spoke about the spreading of the viruses as to the vectors involved and the varroa mite is precisely one of them. So it seems that the eradication of the mite may somehow be the only way out of this problem. Perhaps someone else on Bee-l can speak to the works of Dr.Judy Chen >From the guest outline of the above meeting: Dr. Chen conducts research on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of honey bee viruses, including establishing insect cell lines for propagation of viruses: characterization of genomic structure of viruses: developing molecular methods of detection of virus infection and characterization of virus seasonal activity; and studying the possible role of parasitic mites in the transmission of virus diseases. Walter Ontario ________________________________________________________________________ Looking for a good movie? Check out our 2008 Summer Movie Guide. http://entertainment.aol.ca/summer-movies/?icid=AOLENT00310000000005 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 20:16:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: <8CAC4A8B983E26F-1684-27E0@MBLK-M12.sysops.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Walter & All, > Some of us in Ontario had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Yanping (Judy) > Chen as guest speaker to the OBA (Ontario Beekeepers Assoc) summer meeting > this past month. Dr. Chen is a Research Entomologist at the USDA/ARS > Research Centre in Beltsville Maryland. Judy is about as good as it gets on virus in the U.S.. I have heard her speak on several occasions. Judy said at the meeting: > She spoke about the spreading of the viruses as to the vectors involved > and the varroa mite is precisely one of them. > So it seems that the eradication of the mite may somehow be the only way > out of this problem. I have read, spoke with and listened to the experts. I came away with the same conclusion Walter. The important point here is controlling varroa is what all beeks can do while waiting for a better solution which may or may not come. Before you can even begin to claim CCD you need to have varroa under control AND nosema ceranae. If you have the above under control you are well on the way to successful beekeeping today. My opinion for what its worth: To keep virus at bay you need to be able to control varroa in the 90% range. Less control if you run Russian, hygienic or varroa tolerant bees. Control of nosema ceranae is poor *if* your equipment is full of spores from earlier heavy nosema ceranae losses or if your bees are in last stages of nosema ceranae. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 12:36:53 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Geoff Manning Subject: Re: Inspecting, was Genetic musings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lionel Evans" > Hi Peter, > > In my experience, most eggs laid in cells pointing down were for raising > queens. > > I do not think a queen would lay in cells slightly pointing downward. Has > anyone ever seen queens do this? Yes. If a hive ends up on its side for whatever reason, the queen will keep laying on both sides of the combs. Geoff Manning **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:32:46 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Colony Collapse Disorder Debunked: Pesticides Cause Bee Deaths Tuesday, July 22, 2008 by: Heidi Stevenson Key concepts: pesticides, colony collapse disorder and Bayer The great mystery of bee deaths has been solved. Colony Collapse Disorder is poisoning with a known insect neurotoxin. Clothianidin, a pesticide manufactured by Bayer, has been clearly linked to die offs in Germany and France. The spokesperson for the Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, based in Germany, stated, "We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn't be on the market." Colony Collapse Disorder is a false name that serves to mislead the public into believing that there's a new, mystery disorder, probably something very complex, that needs tons of money to be thrown at it so that every possible angle can be studied. The reason is simple. By misdirecting the public, and apparently many professionals too, the real reason for bee die-offs is obscured. -- http://www.naturalnews.com/023679.html **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 23:04:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: I need help in Malawi with honey extraction In-Reply-To: <8789225B941345DD910937848E7383F5@BillLordPC> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 31-Jul-08, at 8:45 PM, Bill Lord wrote: > > Any, and I mean ANY help or ideas appreciated > > Hi Bill and all I love this topic because my family and I lived in northwest Nigeria for 2 years. African peoples are very resourceful and can do so much with so little. We didn't have any beekeepers near us but lots of honey bees. Normal honey collection was from wild hives and was very destructive to both the hive and the quality of the honey. The use of TBH would be an improvement. I have thought that a TBH would be a perfect match for comb honey production. The problem is that convincing customers to try comb honey is not easy. Western rural societies used comb honey almost exclusively in the early 20th century because extractors were not locally available or too expensive as in Africa today. Why not try encouraging local consumption of comb honey while working on cleaning up the extracted honey. In the end you will have two quality products in demand. My comb honey sales increase every year as people try it or find out that I have it available. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W formally New Bussa, Niger State, Nigeria, West Africa, 10N5E **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:37:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Larry Krengel Subject: mite treatment internet site MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have a group of first year beekeepers as proteges this year. We have been discussing fall mite treatment and I am looking for a website with a good summary of the expanding options available in the US... including the no treatiment option. I have not found one that seems to do the job well. I am sure it is out there. Can anyone point me to such a site? Thanks. Larry Krengel Marengo, IL **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 07:59:16 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Walter Zimmermann Subject: mite treatment internet site In-Reply-To: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Try this one http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/bees/apicultu.html We in Ontario are very fortunate to have a provincial apiarist within a gov't ministry that is very much in tune with beekeeping. the recommendations for treatment in /08 will be for the most part the same as what you will see One not listed but for this year is that due to the higher losses one should be making and overwintering extra nucs to replace any winter losses in the spring Walter Ontario ________________________________________________________________________ Looking for a good movie? Check out our 2008 Summer Movie Guide. http://entertainment.aol.ca/summer-movies/?icid=AOLENT00310000000005 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 09:23:24 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Peter & All, I believe we have discussed this site at length on BEE=L before. I will add a few comments. > Colony Collapse Disorder is a false name that serves to mislead the > public into believing that there's a new, mystery disorder, probably > something very complex, that needs tons of money to be thrown at it so > that every possible angle can be studied. Actually the above has happened. Which is not a bad thing as we need bee research. From the start researchers have always said the problem is not an old problem but something new and based their hypothesis mainly on the symptoms. fact: The hypothesis CCD is something new and not something old has been always put forth and was based mainly on symptoms. The discover of nosema ceranae may have not happened even now had it not been for the bee die off.(CCD) One has to wonder why it took years to discover nosema ceranae was here and common. After all Spain has been in the news for over six years in its battle with nosema ceranae. The reason is simple. By > misdirecting the public, and apparently many professionals too, the > real reason for bee die-offs is obscured. The above is incorrect in my opinion for several reasons. 1. no one cause will be found for the die off 2. Nosema ceranae is higher up the list of die off suspects in my opinion than the neonicotinoids. The Bayer protest group has an agenda. They see what they want to see. At first many of us bought into the idea CCD was some new plague. Then when we started looking closely when no *new* problem was discovered. Will looking at a higher number of samples produce a new sinister problem which has been missed? Sure I welcome bee research but in my opinion no new problem will be discovered. Research at a level a electron microscope will not see is hard to convert into the craft of beekeeping. So we looked at what had been found. Nosema ceranae, high levels of approved mitacides in brood comb even in comb with approved legal application, Only soft varroa treatments working therefore dropping varroa control to levels at which virus issues always happen and commercial beeks reporting losses in areas of pesticides, The main people having issues with the neonicotinoids are not the hobby beeks or those keeping bees in areas in which for now the neonicotinoids are not in heavy use. The beeks complaining are those which are doing pollination and moving into areas of heavy neonicotinoid use. In New York they used to say: "You will not get mugged if you don't go downtown" Some blame the commercial migratory beeks for doing the nations pollination. Stay home until the CCD team solves the yet unknown new problem. You are stressing the bees. You are spreading the yet unfound CCD problem. However they do not complain when munching on an apple or enjoying blueberries with their cereal! The Canada die off report for last year clearly sends a message to Canada beekeepers that the most losses occurred in areas of the highest use of the neonicotinoids. Their emails to me pointed out their hypothesis. In fact many are learning to keep bees around the neonicotinoids. Pull hives out at a certain stage , move away and provide good protein to build the immune system back up. What I have said comes from emails from those beeks. I have never kept bees in Canada. Please do not kill the messenger! coincidence? Large commercial beeks bringing bees out of heavy neonicotinod areas of pollination report hives in sad shape when placed on honey locations in the Dakotas. Unlike years gone past. Coincidence? off to work bees. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 13:03:22 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Steve_Noble?= Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter Edwards writes: I am no expert, so I seek an answer from those who are. I am certainly no expert on viruses either. In fact, although I do a lot of things I dont consider myself an expert at any of them. But for what its worth here is my thinking as it was when I wrote that last post in this thread. With respect to breeding, I was thinking that there are already too many things to target in a given breeding program to add targeting resistance to a specific virus to the list, especially considering how slippery the little buggers are, and considering how many of them there are. Folks on this list like Peter Borst, who have way better access to the literature than I do, have mentioned studies which have shown several viruses commonly present at the same time in the same bee. Some of these are obviously more virulent than others but any one of them could mutate into something deadly at just about any time. As you are breeding for resistance to one of them up pops another. The same thing could be said for trying to develop a vaccine for any specific virus. The process has got to be pretty expensive, and they cant even get it right for the flu epidemics that visit us humans every year. A virus has such an uncanny ability to persist and change. A lot of people who got flu vaccinations this year got sick anyway. But for bees my thinking is do we really want to go down that road anyway? Do we really want to become dependent on vaccines to keep our bees alive? I kind of dont think so, and heres why. As I mentioned it could be too expensive for beekeeping purposes, but also bees have been around for how long now? And viruses have been around for how long? They seem to work things out in their own way. It may not be convenient for beekeepers, to put it mildly, but the natural strength of bees to resist viruses has grown from their periodic exposure to waves of viruses of different degrees of virulence throughout the millennia. And so in a very real way the breeding program is more or less built in. In fact it has worked so well maybe we should just stay out of the way on this one. The ability to resist is dependent on healthy bees of course, and also on a robust genetic diversity, and I fear that narrowly focused breeding programs may tend to shrink that diversity somewhat. How much, I dont know. It has been talked about a lot on this list, but I dont get a sense that anybody really has a good handle on how big the problem is if there is a problem. But like I said in my previous post, studying things is good. You never know where the next big scientific breakthrough is going to come from. It could be that someday someone will discover a way to make viruses a moot issue for humans and bees. This will only come from knowing viruses to the nth deegree. If they could somehow be eliminated altogether as a threat then we wouldnt have to be concerned about maintaining natural resistance to them at all. We are not there yet though. As always these are just my thoughts on the matter and I welcome anyone elses constructive analysis (criticism) of what I have said. Steve Noble **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 12:33:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: more Bayer speculation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/honey-bee-pesticides- 55080101 Evidence That Pesticides Are Seriously Messing Up Our Honey Bees The Indictment Against Farm Insecticides Is Growing More Detailed August 1, 2008 at 8:19am by Kim Flottum | Back to the beginning.. A couple of years ago it was Dave Hackenburg who got the world to pay attention to what was happening to his bees and that it was unlike anything hed seen before. He woke up a few folks at Penn State, who woke up a few folk at the USDA Honey Bee Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, who woke up more folks out at Missoula, Montana (who coined the name Colony Collapse Disorder), who woke up ... well, you know the rest. Dave stayed in the thick of things for quite awhile, supplying a lot of samples for the researchers, helping them get oriented to what was going on in the world of commercial and migratory beekeeping, and giving interview after interview after interview to magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows, and blog pages like this one. But lately, as media attention has turned more to the actions of others ... researchers, bureaucrats, regulatory agencies and other beekeepers ... Daves been busy trying to keep his bees alive. Keeping bees alive is a seven day a week job now, he said this week when I called. Used to be, I had time for a bit of fishing and riding my motorcycle, but not anymore. The bees need attention. Building a Case Against Pesticides Lately he has been involved with some conversations with the EPA and the USDA folks, looking at problems with honey bees and insecticides. Theyve found some incredible numbers taken from samples taken last year - one bee, a single, solitary bee, had 25 different insecticides hidden within her tiny body. And she wasnt even dead. The cleanest bee they found had only five insecticides. Only. And these are all from the early samples take from just three outfits last fall. Other samples wait for examination, and they wait for money to pay for the exams. Who knows what theyll find, if they ever find the money? Dave said that beekeepers he knows are still experiencing colony losses, but with symptoms different than the classic symptoms he first reported ... but then, those were fall bees, not summer bees like now. Now, these bees, he said, were in Florida this winter on citrus, which have been treated to control the bug that transmits citrus greening. When they leave Florida they begin to show signs of something interestingly called snot brood, which looks like a whole class of other diseases, but isnt. Scientists dont know what it is, but theres a pattern. Heres the pattern ... bees come out of Florida after being on citrus (treated with a pesticide called Bravado), go to gallberry for more honey, and within a few weeks, once they finish blueberries in Maine and dont have fresh food, they break down. The queen quits laying or dies, brood goes to that snotty condition and about half the colonies die. However, if they get fed fresh food ... protein ... they dont. Its when they start to eat their stored food in the colony that came from the treated citrus trees ... that they die. Heres another pattern Dave and other beekeepers from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and other states have found. Theyve noticed that land that last season had sweet corn planted on it that was treated with Poncho insecticide, and this season is fallow and produces weeds ... specifically a certain kind of weed that usually follows sweet corn called mustard or yellow rocket ... the following year, has the best mustard theyve seen ... bigger, more blossoms, more plants, more attractive to bees. And bees love mustard. Its a great honey plant for early spring build up of overwintered colonies. What they guess, and it is a guess, is that the chemical that is still in the soil from last year is protecting the mustard plants this year because it lasts that long in the soil. And since these chemicals are systemic, thus protecting the mustard plants ... it is getting into the pollen and nectar produced by the fragrant and bountiful mustard blossoms that the bees are visiting on this now very attractive plant? Theres more anecdotal evidence to support this second season killer. When pumpkins are grown on land that the previous year had sweet corn treated with Poncho are seeing untreated pumpkin tissue with three to four times the amount of insecticide in pumpkin plant tissue than new pumpkins that were simply treated during the second year. There seems to be a buildup the second, and even third year of these chemicals in the soil, that the plants are picking up. Are these nicotine insecticides helping to release additional chemicals that were bound in the soil, plus building up in the soil after repeated applications? Wait, theres another story... An apple grower in New York used Assail on his apples three years ago ... Two years later he was told that the arsenic levels in his ground water were increasing ... Interesting, since no arsenic had been applied to that orchard in over 70 years. The third year after application? Yup ... arsenic levels too high to use for drinking water. Whats going on? How the Government Serves the Chemical Companies These chemicals Ive mentioned are all in the neonicotinoid family of insecticides. They came along after the government, several years ago, decided that the long lived pesticides had to go and better, shorter, less troublesome chemicals and integrated pest management programs had to replace them (this was called the FQPA ... food quality protection act ... you can sound out the letters any way you want). Well, those long lasting chemicals were the bread and butter of the agrochemical companies and the government essentially took them away. But the government wants cheap food and theres only one way to do that, and thats to have good management practices, including good insect control. Very good insect control. Long story short, budget cuts forced the EPA to cut corners and one of those corners was testing new products. Why not let the chemical companies test them, and well evaluate the results, went the EPA thinking. Better: why not let the fox in the chicken house, went the thinking, and well see if the chickens die. So now the only major chemicals used to control insects on crops are in the neonic family. They are all the same, and they are all over. And all the chemicals listed here are in that family. Do they accumulate from one year to the next in the soil, building to levels three to four times what they should be? When, after three or four years they are ingested by honey bees in nectar or pollen do they cause behavior or health problems? There seems to be evidence that they do, but its only anecdotal, and science doesnt deal with this sort of data, does it.... Dave Hackenburg has brought up a boatload of questions about pesticides. Whether they have anything to do with CCD or not is less important than if these chemicals, and their multi-season accumulations are causing significant risks for bees, or people, remains to be seen. And what about this agrochemical complex Dave describes? What do Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, and others have in store for us? Daves comment? We still dont know whats going on, or why. But bees are dying, and we better figure it out ... quick. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 14:39:14 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: more Bayer speculation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 In a message dated 05/08/2008 18:24:13 GMT Standard Time, =20 manwithbees@GMAIL.COM writes: and within a few weeks, once they finish blueberries in Maine and don=E2= =80=99t have=20 fresh food,=20 they break down. The queen quits laying or dies, brood goes to that snotty=20 condition and about=20 half the colonies die. However, if they get fed fresh food ... protein ...=20 they don=E2=80=99t. Isn't blueberry pollen a bit low on protein? =20 Chris =20 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 11:33:28 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Heating Honey Does Not Alter Aroma Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Heating Honey Does Not Alter Aroma Influence of Simulated Industrial Thermal Treatments on the Volatile Fractions of Different Varieties of Honey Food Chemistry, Volume 112, Issue 2, 15 January 2009, Pages 329-338 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/heating-honey-does-not-alter-aroma.html Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine if the volatile fraction of honey is affected by the application of standard industrial thermal treatment processes. Four types of Spanish honey were studied: three of floral origin (citrus, rosemary and polyfloral) and the fourth from honeydew… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 20:52:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob Harrison wrote: >The hypothesis CCD is something new and not something old has been always put forth and was based mainly on symptoms. Robyn Underwood and Dennis van Engelsdorp wrote: > The losses that have been occurring for over 100 years could be completely separate events OR part of a cycle of disappearance. > A recent survey of N. ceranae prevalence in the U.S. has found the parasite to be widespread and to be in samples collected as far back as 2000. Very recent work has concluded that N. ceranae is not likely the cause of CCD. "Colony Collapse Disorder: Have We Seen This Before?" **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 22:55:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Very recent work has concluded that N. ceranae is not likely the cause of CCD. To be real honest about the die off of 2006/2007 & 2007/2008 the only new issue has been the finding of nosema ceranae. Was found in all the CCD samples. Wondering out loud: I was involved in a big die off in Florida 2003/2004 & 2004/2006. Looking back I suspect nosema ceranae played a big part. Because the problems were in late summer and fall none of use suspected nosema. We did not know nosema ceranae was in the U.S. Our samples did show three virus. All the samples of CCD had virus & nosema ceranae. The Florida hives had been fed fumidil. Looking back CCD possibly started in Florida two years earlier as our samples showed virus and very possibly would have shown nosema ceranae.( if nosema ceranae had been in the U.S. since at least 2000) as these hives had been in contact with migratory operations which had been on both coasts. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:16:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Heating Honey Does Not Alter Aroma Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > there were practically no differences between the raw, liquefied, and pasteurized samples of each honey. These findings suggest that industrial processes conducted under controlled conditions should not significantly alter the intrinsic aroma of honey. This is a perfect example of where some scientific studies entirely miss the boat. Anyone who has a taste for honey, knows that there is a difference between fresh unheated honey, moderately heated honey, and the industrialized syrup fobbed off on people AS honey. No amount of scientific analysis will ever diminish the value of fresh, unprocessed food versus the homogenized pasteurized treacle some people have learned to tolerate. Get raw! pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 20:09:18 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Steve said: It may not be convenient for beekeepers, > to put it mildly, but the natural strength of bees to resist viruses has > grown from their periodic exposure to waves of viruses of different degrees > of virulence throughout the millennia. And so in a very real way the > breeding program is more or less built in. I'm in total agreement with you on this, Steve. I feel that any good breeding program should work in conjunction with the processes of natural selection that has created the constantly evolving honey bee genome(s). Resistance to each virus will evolve to some extent whether we promote it or not. Perhaps faster if we help to select. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 03:51:17 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Freezing is Best Way to Maintain Quality of Pollen Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Freezing is Best Way to Maintain Quality of Pollen Proteome Analysis of Tea Pollen (Camellia sinensis) Under Different Storage Conditions J. Agric. Food Chem, August 5, 2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/freezing-is-best-way-to-maintain.html Abstract: The protein complement of tea pollen collecting from tea tree (Camellia sinensis) was compared under different storage conditions… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 07:29:15 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit randy wrote: >> I feel that any good breeding program should work in conjunction with the processes of natural selection that has created the constantly evolving honey bee genome(s). A friend of mine just sent me this: > Finally found that June issue of ABJ and read your article. You said it would take 5 to 7 years to develop mite-resistant bees. It took me around ten years if you count the time that I was using apistan regularly and still having losses. I only ever used one strip per hive, 1/2 the recommended dosage. From '98 to 2003 I got more irregular with using apistan. By 2003 I realized that I didn't really need to use the stuff. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 02:05:37 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: more Bayer speculation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>...one bee, a single, solitary bee, had 25 different insecticides hidden within her tiny body. And she wasnt even dead. The cleanest bee they found had only five insecticides. Only. This is rather telling. Bees aside, I wonder if they checked the honey from these hives for insecticides... Anyone know? It's one thing if the bees are getting saturated with insecticides, it's another if the chemicals are ending up in the honey for human consumption. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:21:55 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: more Bayer speculation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 06/08/2008 14:09:55 GMT Standard Time, waldig@NETZERO.NET writes: It's one thing if the bees are getting saturated with insecticides, it's another if the chemicals are ending up in the honey for human consumption Not only honey: oranges, maize, cooking oils - you name it. Is anybody looking or are the authorities carefully not looking? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:33:01 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Diagnosis of KBV (Kashmir bee virus) and SBV (sacbrood virus) based on observed symptoms is NOT dependable, as honeybees infected with KBV and SBV have NO reliable symptoms. Bee viruses (KBV and SBV) can potentially be transmitted horizontally via worker secretions. Our study demonstrated that bee viruses (KBV and SBV) were detected in worker bees, brood food, honey, pollen and royal jelly. These bee viruses may be transmitted from worker bees to larvae or to other adult bees (queen, other workers or drones) via food resources in the colony. Also, dead or weakened colonies can be raided by worker bees from other colonies and honey and pollen taken back to their colonies. As pointed out by Bailey et al. (1964), adult bees detect and remove larvae with sacbrood within a day or two after the larvae die, while the virus is still infectious. Therefore, SBV is probably transmitted to the adults, as they can be infected by ingesting parts of dead larvae (especially ecdysial fluid). In turn, they resume feeding the larvae with secretions from their hypopharyngeal glands, thereby spreading the virus to other bees. from "Intricate transmission routes and interactions between picorna-like viruses (Kashmir bee virus and sacbrood virus) with the honeybee host and the parasitic varroa mite" -- Miaoqing Shen, Liwang Cui, Nancy Ostiguy and Diana Cox-Foster * * * Identification of neopterin which displayed some antiviral properties against Coxsackie B virus, a member of the Picornavirus, in royal jelly implies that colony food may have antiviral effects. The future identification and characterization of antiviral agents from bees and colony food will be a significant contribution to the management of virus diseases in honey bees. An integrated pest management program for bee diseases caused by viruses should include at least the following three components: (1) accurate diagnosis of diseases that allows rapid development and implementation of control strategies, (2) good beekeeping management practice that enhances honey bees' natural immunity to virus infections, and (3) selecting and breeding of disease-resistant strains of honey bees. from "Honey Bee Viruses" -- Yan Ping Chen, and Reinhold Siede **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:49:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > As pointed out by Bailey et al. (1964), adult bees detect and remove > larvae with sacbrood within a day or two after the larvae die, while > the virus is still infectious. At what levels is virus not considered *infectious*? should include at least the following three components: > (1) accurate diagnosis of diseases that allows rapid development and > implementation of control strategies, Hard to apply as I have been told and has been our experience that virus can be found in most bee samples. If so then what exactly are the implementation of control strategies for say KBV? > (2) good beekeeping management practice that enhances honey bees' > natural immunity to virus infections, and The above is one of the steps to successful beekeeping even if virus was not an issue. I would add a fourth virus point. 4. control mites. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 20:01:23 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "Peter L. Borst" Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Bob Harrison wrote: > what exactly are the implementation of control strategies for say KBV? > Good beekeeping management practice that enhances honey bees' natural immunity to virus infections ... is one of the steps to successful beekeeping even if virus was not an issue. Here you answer the question yourself. But as I have tried so often to pint out, viruses are always an issue. It has been shown that viruses are present in almost all apiaries, around the world. So what is needed, IMHO, is a comprehensive plan for raising healthy bees. If this can be fully understood, then we have a good starting point. But you see, the first thing in most people's mind is "How much money will I get?" Beekeepers often give lip service to the idea that you have to take care of the bees first, and expect to profit later. But then, they turn out to be their own worst enemies, propping the bees up with chemicals, trucking them thousands of miles. Now, I am not belittling the need to make a living, of course. Maybe this is not something a commercial beekeeper can afford to "fool around with". My proposal, again, is to set up bee yards for the express purpose of raising healthy bees. Somebody needs to figure out what is an ideal environment, nutritional requirements, colony size, strain of bee, etc. Bees have traditionally been raised in the south and forced to build up early to meet commitments for shipping orders or pollinating. The opposite approach would be to raise good strong colonies during the summer in order to have them ready the following spring. But few large scale beekeepers even consider keeping bees over winter in the north. Another problem is that locations are generally picked for honey yield rather than a good variety of nutritious pollen and nectar sources. Then, hives are placed too close together and possibly too many in one spot. Even just a small change, like having half as many hives at a site, could reduce disease in apiaries. I think it's high time that somebody looked into what a healthy hive is instead of focusing on remedies. Obviously, they can't thrive with a heavy mite load. Hell, looks like they don't thrive with mites, period. But if the conditions are better, the bees are less stressed, less monkeyed with, maybe then they would be able to thrive despite viruses, mites, etc. * * * To summarize: > Good bee management practice is fundamental for enhancing honey bees' natural immunity, which is the most useful tool in combating viral diseases. Stressful circumstances can favor outbreaks of viral diseases, thus any efforts that strengthen the colony health are expected to reduce the risk of virus infections. Since the varroa mite has been proven to be an effective vector in transmitting and activating viruses, timely and efficient control of the varroa mite population will reduce the incidence of viral diseases. > In addition to controlling the vector population, effective management of bee viral diseases can be achieved by maintaining good sanitation practices, feeding bees with the proper quantity and quality of food, and replacing combs and queens when the problem is serious. Selection and breeding of disease resistant bee strains are an effective way to defend against viral attacks in honey bees. > Several traits of honey bees, such as hygienic behavior and suppressed mite reproduction (SMR), are important behavioral mechanisms of disease resistance. The highly hygienic bees can efficiently suppress the virus infection and V. destructor infestation by quickly recognizing and removing the diseased brood and varroa mites from combs. from "Honey Bee Viruses" Yan Ping (Judy) Chen, and Reinhold Siede **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:01:11 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst quoted: > As pointed out by Bailey et al. (1964), adult bees detect and remove > larvae with sacbrood within a day or two after the larvae die, while > the virus is still infectious. Sometimes! I have had one colony this year which had the most severe sacbrood I have ever seen - virtually every cell. I left it to see what would happen. Eventually the queen disappeared and I expected it to die out. A couple of weeks later I found it down to 3-4 frames (it started the season as the strongest colony in the apiary), but the remaining workers had cleaned an polished all the cells - not a trace of disease. I have now added some brood and a queen to see what happens next. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 08:55:16 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote about raising healthy bees: > Then, hives are placed too close together and possibly too many in one > spot. Even just a small change, like having half as many hives at a > site, could reduce disease in apiaries. Open feeding would be very high on my list of bad practices. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 23:20:58 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Mindest of the commercial beek ( was more trouble with viruses 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 Peter & All, But > then, they turn out to be their own worst enemies, propping the bees > up with chemicals, trucking them thousands of miles. Bees have a very short life span for the most part. If the bees carry a high load of mites we knock the mites back. If the bees have got high amounts of nosema ceranae we knock the load back. Now this may seem unreasonable to some but makes perfect sense to me. I have been in the bee yards this week and have the best bees in years. of course did not happen by accident or "leave alone beekeeping" , small cell or using honey B healthy. trucking pays the bills. When the flow or pollination is over you move the bees. Moving bees onto better locations helps the bees and the bottom line. Fuel costs are still cheaper than feed bills. . My proposal, again, is to set up bee yards for the > express purpose of raising healthy bees. Last fall I headed north into the Dakotas and looked at three commercial operations. All had hives boiling with bees. Pictures & story in December ABJ (2007) article. I do not understand why you need to keep bees on a permanent location to raise healthy bees. Please explain. Somebody needs to figure out > what is an ideal environment, nutritional requirements, colony size, > strain of bee, etc. Many of us have figured out the above. The *ideal* environment changes with location. With the season. A few of the areas I have kept bees in. Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Texas & California. The strain of bee has been the same for me. Italian! nutritional requirements & colony size vary with location and time of year. Missouri & Kansas are similar but Florida, Texas & California are as different as day & night. Dropping bees into California around Halloween and coming back in February will not work. Same with some locations in Texas & Florida. Many beeks have learned the hard way about such things. You can search the internet and still come up on the short end unless you talk to a beek which has been doing what you plan to do. > > Bees have traditionally been raised in the south and forced to build > up early to meet commitments for shipping orders or pollinating. Agreed. However beeks go south for many reasons which are different for Texas than for Florida. Bees in the right area of California, Texas & Florida need little help to build up in spring. Hives are ready to split in these areas a full two months ahead of the upper Midwest. Big brood builders. Florida : Brazilian pepper & orange Texas: Tallow California: Almonds. The above rarely fail to produce strong colonies needing split. The > opposite approach would be to raise good strong colonies during the > summer in order to have them ready the following spring. Like in your article? I doubt you will get many large beeks to buy into the above. Nice idea for a small beek but in the south you have problems in spring finding equipment to put bees in. We have had to make splits and use tar paper for tops and bottoms to keep the bees out of the trees. The reason why I have said at times up to 50% winter losses can be a good thing if you do not want to get bigger. You keep the best and put the hive tool to the rest. But few large > scale beekeepers even consider keeping bees over winter in the north. Moving south is a sound business practice. Keeping thousands of hives in the north over winter is risky. If keeping bees in the north was a sound business method then commercial beeks would be staying north. Open the Canada border and watch the many Canadian beeks winter south! If you have access to the May 1993 issue of National Geographic on page 77 is a map of migration routes of commercial beeks ( or the beeks the USDA knows about, file out surveys and get permits to move bees) and the hive numbers. 300,000 migrate between the Dakotas and Texas 70,000 between Minnesota & Florida 60,000 between the northeast & Florida 300,000 between California & the Dakotas 180,000 between the northwest and southern California Of course things have changed due to the hike in Almond pollination fees. > Most of us choose locations wisely. I know of not many locations from the Canada line to Texas tallow which are not around nutritious pollen sources. Beeks have been using those locations for longer than I have been keeping bees. However its true that many pollination contracts are not good for bees. In fact in some you rotate the bees every so often to keep from killing the hive but a very different situation with honey production. When honey prices climb growers worry. Many times only the friendship between the beekeeper & the grower keep the grower in bees. Peter said: > To summarize: To summarize there is the world of internet beekeeping which really knows very little about the world of commercial beekeeping and then there is the real world of commercial beekeeping which is very secret and the secrets are told from beekeeper to beekeeper in restaurants in California, Texas and Florida areas beeks winter. In the halls of beekeeper meetings. I have shared quite a bit of information on BEE-L for future beeks to read about after i am pushing up daisies.( however not planning on cashing in my chips soon) Allen Dick left his commercial information in his beekeepers diary. Instead of a book I left mine on BEE-L. The information is free! I have been fortunate to be one of the few beeks which has worked bees in California, Texas and Florida. has another member of BEE-L experience keeping bees in those areas? Would be interesting to see. Sincerely, Bob Harrison **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 02:53:33 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Researchers Discover =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=98Novel=E2=80=99?= Bacterial Flor a in Honey Stomach of Honeybees Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Researchers Discover ‘Novel’ Bacterial Flora in Honey Stomach of Honeybees Detection and Identification of a Novel Lactic Acid Bacterial Flora Within the Honey Stomach of the Honeybee Apis mellifera Current Microbiology, Published online: 29 July 2008 http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/researchers-discover-novel-bacterial.html A novel bacterial flora composed of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) of the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which originated in the honey stomach of the honeybee, was discovered. It varied with the sources of nectar and the presence of other bacterial genera within the honeybee and ended up eventually in the honey. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:48:09 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Mindest of the commercial beek ( was more trouble with viruses Comments: To: Bob Harrison Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob wrote: >To summarize there is the world of internet beekeeping which really knows >very little about the world of commercial beekeeping and then there is the >real world of commercial beekeeping which is very secret and the secrets are >told from beekeeper to beekeeper in restaurants in California, Texas and >Florida areas beeks winter. In the halls of beekeeper meetings. Bob, You keep trying to set yourself apart from others. Perhaps I didn't mention that I have worked in commercial beekeeping starting at age 24, and I am still in constant contact with commercial beekeepers today, 35 years later. I go to beekeeper meetings, I sit and talk with "oldtimers", and "newbees" alike. If you want to characterize me, or anyone else in the "world of internet beekeeping" as out of touch with reality, that's fine. But you would be wrong. Since I make my entire living doing beekeeping, I consider myself to be a "commercial beekeeper". As far as your secret world is concerned, you can't have it both ways. If you and your beekeeping friends expect to get assistance on your problems from researchers, etc. you might consider being a little more forthcoming. Personally, I have nothing at stake here. I am merely trying to get people to "think outside the box". The future is where new things will be discovered, not the past. If you have new ideas to share, I would do it. A healthy bee industry is not one or two guys succeeding. Honey bees are needed in every corner of this nation. Every day people ask me what happened to the bees they used to see in their gardens and orchards. In my opinion, this is a time to be promoting awareness of the good things honey bees do and how they are just as important to the environment as anything else. I think we have an opportunity to generate a great deal of interest in beekeeping, what we do, who we are. It would be a shame to squander the opportunity. For example, a lot of people think that beekeepers are the source of the problem with their various practices. If that isn't true, best say it isn't so, instead of cloaking yourself in secrecy. People who keep secrets generally have something they are trying to hide. Peter Borst **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 10:10:43 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: South Africa: Apitherapy is the Cultivation of Health Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Apitherapy is the Cultivation of Health The Flower & The Bee (South Africa) In the beginning there was a flower and a bee. Dana Sumar reports. http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2008/08/apitherapy-is-cultivation-of-health.html …While herbalism seems to be comfortably well accepted by the West, apitherapy has been forgotten. A revival started only 20 to 30 years ago. As a philosophy, apitherapy is a form of harmony between the individual and the environment… As a medical principle apitherapy is primarily the cultivation of health and its re-establishment when sickness interferes. Prevention of disease is not only about avoidance of illness, it should be more about celebrating health and living in health. I see the products of the beehive celebrating life in a wonderfully active, productive and compelling manner… **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 19:08:46 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Mindset of the commercial beek ( was more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 07/08/2008 10:07:39 GMT Standard Time, busybeeacres@HUGHES.NET writes: I do not understand why you need to keep bees on a permanent location to raise healthy bees. Please explain. Amateur beekeepers move hives in small numbers short distances in the winter when they are lightest and the weather is cold. By happenstance these are the conditions under which least subsequent health problems will arise. Professional beekeepers will move hives in large numbers long distances from spring onwards when they are building (have built) up and the weather is warmer. By happenstance these are the conditions under which greatest subsequent health problems will arise. Consider a single bee in a colony which has somehow (drifted in maybe) got N. ceranae or N. apis. Left alone she will ease her bowels away from the hive and, when her time comes, leave it to die. If she is shut in with 30,000 sisters for a couple of days or more in transit she will shit in the hive. Her younger sisters will clean up the mess with their tongues. Their next job will be to feed the babies, using their, now contaminated, tongues. While shut up in the hive in transit the older bees are rubbing shoulders with the younger ones and any that happen to be carrying CPV will pass it on in this way. Arrived at their new site there will be lots of hives in close proximity (spreading them about adds to labour costs) and so disoriented bees (some unwell) will be more likely to drift into neighbouring colonies, spreading diseases. The bees will arrive at their destination and will probably do an excellent job of pollination and maybe get some nectar as well. But the rot will have set in. A few moves down the road the accumulated damage will be enough to come to the attention of the beekeeper. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:26:57 -0700 Reply-To: naturebee@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello, I’ve bee researching the famous verse written by Virgil. Most here are probably familiar with it, and the fascinating story behind the verse, perhaps best known as ‘Sic vos non vobis’ written by Virgil around 40 B.C.E. “Nocte pluit tota; redeunt spectacula mane: Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet. Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves : Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves : Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes : Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves :” I am particularly interested in the 5th line: “Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes” which translates to: ‘Thus do ye, not for yourselves, make honey, ye bees.’ The meaning of the verse, I understand well. But in the late 1600’s, the 5th line of the verse is used in the woodcut, pictured below: http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n237/FeralBeeProject/Feral20Colonies/newpic.jpg But when the mottos together with the images; which are symbolic in nature and meant to convey a particular meaning are considered, it appears a totally different meaning is scribed to the translation of the 5th line, IMO, MUCH opposite to what Virgil meant it to be. I am seeking opinions as to the meaning of ‘Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes’ on the woodcut, when the content of the woodcut images and other phrases are considered. I have a rough draft of the story of ‘Sic vos non vobis’, as well as translation and a short analysis of what the images are on the woodcut, and what they symbolize, I could send ‘off list’ to anyone having a basic knowledge of Latin and familiar with Virgil. I don’t care to have my story picked to pieces here on list, I’d prefer it be picked apart off list. Also, seeking information on why the variation in spelling of the verse appears in the ancient Europe version. >From this: Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes To this: Sic nos non nobis mellificamus apes This, or any other information about ‘Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes’ please reply to: naturebee@yahoo.com Best Wishes, Joe **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 18:16:37 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 07/08/2008 10:00:37 GMT Standard Time, beekeepers@STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.FREESERVE.CO.UK writes: Then, hives are placed too close together and possibly too many in one > spot. Even just a small change, like having half as many hives at a > site, could reduce disease in apiaries. Refer to Bailey's writings and lectures on the effects of having too many hives in one location. From my (fallible) memory the density and distribution that Tom Seeley reports in the Arnott Forest is fairly close to that which Bailey concludes (on a world wide average basis) is the maximum density of colonies without ill-effects. Perhaps this is coincidence. Perhaps Seeley's bees have read Bailey. Perhaps Bailey was right. Perhaps this is why the Arnott Forest bees survive. Dare I suggest it: perhaps somebody studying CCD ought to read Bailey and, in the light of what he has written, go through the results so far and see to what extent the 'Bailey factor' can be applied? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:42:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Mindest of the commercial beek ( was more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: <4F02EC0612B748B39B4ED8D7A67D46D1@bobPC> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Bob said: > The reason why I have said at > times up to 50% winter losses can be a good thing if you do not want to get > bigger. Bob, I'm always fascinated at the differences in beekeeping strategies from area to area! Commercial beeks in California may not even own a honey extractor. Our main income is from almond pollination, and we may sign contracts in November. Taking 50% winter losses after the contract is signed is troublesome. In California, it is a numbers game--how many strong colonies you have on Feb 15th. We do not have the luxury of making up winter losses before our main income source. The trick for the rest of the year (as you said) is to avoid getting poisoned during other pollinations, or finding adequate forage to maintain colony health through summer, or to move to better pasture, or perhaps a honey crop. >but in the south you have problems in spring finding equipment to put bees in. We have had to make splits and use tar paper for tops and bottoms to keep the bees out of the trees. I assumed that all beekeepers are forced to resort to makeshift tops in good springs! We do the same here, as the bees often come out of almonds bursting at the seams. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 17:27:19 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: randy oliver Subject: Re: Neonicotinoids, Science and CCD In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Bob said: > Looking back I suspect nosema ceranae played a big part. Because the > problems were in late summer and fall none of use suspected nosema. We did > not know nosema ceranae was in the U.S. Our samples did show three virus. Bob, I also keep N ceranae high on my suspect list, as a potential accessory to the crime. What is important to understand, is that neither varroa, tracheal mite, nor either species of nosema are likely to kill a healthy colony unaided. Rather, these parasites both stress the bees, and allow proliferation of various viruses, which then kill the colony. The effect is amplified in times of poor nutrition, or with bees especially lacking in certain genetic immune components specific for certain pathogens. Recent research in bee viruses is likely to discover viruses that we did not previously know existed in this country, which may well act synergistically with nosema, varroa, and/or other viruses within the bee. As you wisely stated recently, the immediate practical advice to beekeepers would be to control the parasites, which would then help to control viral replication. However, a better understanding of the viruses, and the bees' immune and/or genetic response to them may also be of great value to beekeepers. Randy Oliver **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:57:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Mindest of the commercial beek ( was more trouble with viruses In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Peter & All, I did not mean to say you knew little of commercial beekeeping but rather the general population and for the most part hobby beekeepers. After all the USDA-ARS recent information said there are less than 1000 commercial beeks in the U.S. with a population of 300 million people. Many of the 1000 are simply box movers for the bosses. > For example, a lot of people think that beekeepers are the source of the problem with their various practices. If that isn't true, best say it isn't so, instead of cloaking yourself in secrecy. I have said so many times but few listen. This list used to constantly bash commercial migratory beeks until I came on. I believe now many are beginning to at least understand those beekeepers position. In your last post I heard the same old tired arguments that everything we do is wrong and there is a better way. As I said in the last post. Raising queens in summer and over wintering as nucs and wintering in New York is fine for sideline and others but is not a sound business practice for the large beeks doing pollination or wanting to increase numbers by say four. Yes take a thousand hives and turn into 4000 in a months time. Raising your own queens. Done before the wraps are taken off in New York. By the time Kurt and others are taking the first looks at their hives many commercial migratory beeks have already done almonds, made splits and the bees are in other pollinations. I started working helping migratory beeks in Florida in the summer at age thirteen. The first ran around 500 hives and had a Payne loader ( pallets were not in use at the time ) . The next couple did all movement by hand. One sent around 8000 hives into Minnesota fireweed. Semis were loaded by hand. 90F. weather with unbearable humidity and all hives had open entrances. 25-50 stings a day was common. My mother made me several sweat bands as one was not enough. Most newbees quit at lunch break. However if you could take the rough part you enjoyed the making splits and other jobs which involved less stings. Although I am an avid reader of bee books etc. I have worked alongside some of the outstanding beeks of my lifetime. I have learned things about bees which is not in print. Some of those beeks if they are not working bees they are asleep and not wanting to be disturbed. We worked till the work was done without regard to the number of hours. Even if you might not get off from moving bees at night at 2 am you were expected to be ready to go at shift start the next morning. In Agriculture you do not have to pay overtime so if you want to make extra money you simply put in the hours. In the busy season many outfits work 7 days a week. These days I do not work Sundays unless the job is pumping honey for the girls to bottle next day or a little job. However I have worked 7 days for weeks at a time when behind on bee work. I do think of really retiring ( officially retired in 1998 or at least we had a cake and celebrated my retirement) but I go lay down on the couch for an hour and the mood passes. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 16:58:07 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: OHIO - Lithopolis Honeyfest . . . a Good Spot to "Bee!" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lithopolis Honeyfest . . . a Good Spot to "Bee!" Celebrate National Honey Month at the distinctive Lithopolis Honeyfest, the only Honeyfest in Ohio and one of three nationwide that showcase honey, honeybee preservation and apicultural history. http://consumer.discoverohio.com/searchdetails.aspx?detail=58959 Joe W Historical Honeybee Articles Archive: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 21:15:03 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Randy wrote: > Resistance to each virus will evolve to some extent whether we promote it > or > not. Perhaps faster if we help to select. Agree absolutely. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 21:12:47 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: more trouble with viruses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steve Noble wrote: > With respect to breeding, I was thinking that there are already too > many things to target in a given breeding program to add targeting > resistance to a specific virus to the list I was not thinking of a breeding programme specifically aimed at DWV, or any other virus for that matter. In assessing colonies I score them for a large number of things, e.g. sacbrood, chalkbrood, deformed wings, paralysis, tolerance of wax moth, as well as for temper and productivity. All of this is recorded in my Stud Book program and the data is used when I select breeder queens. Of course, it is rare to find a colony with a perfect score against all traits, so I then have to prioritise - and one of my top priorities is (and has been for a couple of years) a maximum score for no deformed wings. Currently I often see quite high varroa loads in drone cells - 50% infestation in May/June would not be unusual - but I rarely see any deformed wings. I would like to think that this is because I am selecting for bees that are resistant to DWV - but is this really so? This week I had the opportunity to put this to Diana Cox-Foster at the SIP conference in Warwick (UK); she told me that there are at least two researchers in the US working on breeding bees that are resistant to DWV. I would suggest that if we do not include resistance against DWV in our breeding criteria then we could, perhaps inadvertently, be selecting for it. Over the past century or so, bees have been bred for a number of characteristics and some of these now seem somewhat irrelevant, if not unwise, given the problems that we face, e.g. selecting for bees that do not use propolis. Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate what really matters? Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************