========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 20:40:29 PST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: T & M WEATHERHEAD Subject: Re: Using bees to spread beneficial viruses on plants MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Garth wrote a week or so ago about using bees to spread beneficial viruses. About 12 year ago, there was work being carried out in Queensland on using honey bees to spread Baccillus thuringiensis onto to a sorghum crop. This was to control heliothis (spelt something like that) on the sorghum crop. As I recall, it ran out of money so was not continued. I believe that our Research Committee has funded a similar type project this year so you can see Garth they must have heard you thinking. There is no reason why it should not work. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 08:44:59 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Subject: deadly gas warning MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Forwarded From: bmclaugh@pmrma-emh1.army.mil My name is Bill McLaughlin. I am a hobby bee keeper and a professional fireman at Rocky Mountain Arsenal Fire Department with 18 years service. As a fireman I specialize in emergency hazardous material response. On 9/10/97 I read a message on Bee-L about two members who were talking about how Hydrogen Sulfide quiets the bees. > > Not wanting to use pesticide to kill them, I tried using a Hydrogen > >sulphide (H2S) supposedly highly toxic. Hydrogen Sulfide is an excellent > >way of chasing a swarm out of a tight corner. (dangerous though) It also > >seems to calm the bees. > In a really peculiar coincidence, on Tuesday I was taking the last > supers from a yard of bees that is about 100 yards (meters?) from a gas > well that was being serviced. This field is a sour gas field, and there > was a mild smell of H2S carried to us on the wind which was blowing > directly from the rig toward me. I remarked on how peaceful my bees > were when I got home but I did not make the connection with the H2S. > The concentration was extremely low, so the effect must be quite > powerful. Hydrogen Sulfide IS I repeat IS HIGHLY toxic. Not supposed!!!!! The following is from a Chemical Database called CAMEO. CAMEO is used by my fire department for chemical accidents. I have retyped the information as found. Consider this GOSPEL!! RISKS [note a 4 is as high as it goes BillMc] Health 3 - Extremely hazardous - use full protection Fire 4 - Extremely flammable General Description: Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless gas having the odor of rotten eggs. It is shipped as a liquefied gas under its own pressure. One's sense of smell becomes rapidly fatigued [which means you can't smell it anymore after a while even though it is still there BillMc] in atmospheres containing hydrogen sulfide and hence cannot be counted on to warn of the continued presence of the gas. Contact with the liquid can cause frostbite. The gas is heavier than air and a flame can flash back to the source of leak very easily. Under fire conditions cylinders and tank cars may violently rupture and rocket. It is soluble in water. It weighs 8.3 lbs/gallon. Long term exposure to low concentrations or short term exposure to high concentrations may result in adverse health effects from inhalation. Fire Hazard: Compound is heavier than air and may travel a considerable distance to source of ignition and flash back. It forms explosive mixtures with air over a wide rang [4.3 - 45% BillMc].... When heated to decomposition, it emits highly toxic fumes of oxides of sulfur. Incompatible with many materials including strong oxidizers, metals, .... Avoid physical damage to containers; sources of ignition; storage near nitric acid, strong oxidizing materials, and corrosive liquids or gases. Health Hazard: Exposure to very high concentrations causes immediate death. Also death of permanent injury may occur after very short exposure to small quantities. It acts directly upon the nervous system resulting in paralysis of respiratory centers. [no wonder the bees are quiet ehh?? BillMc] Protective Clothing: For emergency situations, wear a positive pressure, pressure-demand, full facepiece self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) or pressure-demand supplied air respirator with escape SCBA and fully-encapsulating, chemical resistant suit. First Aide: Warning: Caution is advised. Vital signs should be monitored closely. Signs and symptoms of Acute Hydrogen Sulfide Exposure: Signs and symptoms of acute exposure to hydrogen sulfide may include tachycardia (rapid heart rate) or bradycardia (slow heart rate), hypotension (low blood pressure), cyanosis (blue tint to skin and mucous membrane), cardiac palpitations, and cardiac arrhythmia's. Dyspnea (shortness of breath), tachypnea (rapid respiratory rate), bronchitis, pulmonary edema, respiratory depression, and respiratory paralysis may occur. Neurological effects include giddiness, irritability, drowsiness, weakness, confusion, delirium amnesia, cough, convulsions, and coma may be noted. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea are commonly seen. Exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas may result in skin irritation, lacrimation (tearing), inability to detect odors, photophobia (heightened sensitivity to light), and blurred vision. This is only a portion of the file I have on hand. But I guess you get the idea. This chemical is some bad ju ju. I suspect you are not quieting your bees, you are poisoning them and yourself. BillMc Deer Trail CO ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 09:19:36 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Subject: Humour Again: (Uh oh!) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Here we go again. I know we had something much like this once before, but thought many would enjoy itand since the logs are full of binaries, huge signatures, mee toos, long quotes, and a few flames, what the hay! Here's another comment on mailing lists: http://www.catalog.com/vivian/life-cycle.html (I gotta say at this point that BEE-L is a great list and, although it has gone through all the inevitable phases, civility rules). Allen --- Forwarded From: Bruce Hamilton I was going to post this to bee line, but thought that it would not make it through the moderator. Hope you enjoy it. Sound like any lists anyone here knows???? Q: How many internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb? A: 1,392: 1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed... 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently, 4 to complain that they were happy with the old one, 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs, 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs, 53 to flame the spell checkers, 156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list, 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames, 109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb, 203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped, 111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list, 306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty, 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs, 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs, 12 to flame the AOL users for violating netiqutte and blame them for starting this whole thing, 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that "are relevant to this list, which makes light bulbs relevant to this list," 45 posts about weather or not AOL should even be allowed to exist, 33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too," 12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversey, 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three," 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ, 1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup, 47 to say this is just what (BEE-L) was meant for, leave it here, and 143 votes for alt.lite.bulb. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 13:25:21 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Martin Braunstein Subject: Re: First Beekeeping Mailing List in Spanish MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear fellow beekeeper: Since so many subscribers to Bee-L have Spanish as their native language, we considered a mailing list in our idiom was necessary. If you wish to join us please read the message below and get in touch soon. If you are n= ot a Spanish speaking beekeeper I am sorry for cluttering your mailbox. Estimados apicultoras y apicultores: Teniendo en cuenta la necesidad de contar con una lista de correo electronico que permita debatir sobre apicultura en Castellano, es que Cabania Apicola Malka ha tomado la iniciativa de crear un foro de discusi= on en nuestro propio idioma. Existen en la actualidad al menos dos de estos grupos, conocidos en ingles como Mailing Lists. Una de estas listas tiene su base en EE.UU. y se llama Bee-L (con mas de 600 participantes de todo = el mundo), la otra tiene su sede en Europa y se la conoce como Apinet-L. Nuestra lista se llama: apicultura@coollist.com Estan todos invitados a suscribirse y a compartir nuestras experiencias sobre manejo, sanidad, nutricion, seleccion, comercializacion, etc, etc. = A fin de preservar la intimidad de cada uno de Uds.hemos preferido evitar l= a suscripcion automatica a la lista. Esperaremos vuestro consentimiento ant= es de incluirlos en la nomina de destinatarios, por lo cual aguardaremos su confirmacion. Deseo aclarar que dentro de los destinatarios de este primer mensaje se encuentran: -Un apicultor colombiano. -Un apicultor uruguayo. -Tres apicultores chilenos. -Un apicultor espaniol. -Un apicultor de habla hispana radicado en EE.UU. -Varios apicultores argentinos. Estoy convencido que todos aprenderemos muchisimo. En especial en lo que concierne al manejo eficiente del acaro varroa, dado el inestimable aport= e de apicultores de latitudes tan distintas y distantes. Para aquellos que por primera vez hayan escuchado el concepto de Lista de Correos o Mailing List, quiero aclarar que es y como funciona. Cada vez q= ue Uds. envien un mensaje por correo electronico a "apicultura@coollist.com"= , el mismo sera distribuido a todos los integrantes de la lista. A su vez cuando alguien miembro de la lista responda a la inquietud o pedido de es= a persona, la respuesta tambien nos llegara a todos. De mas esta decir, que este servicio es totalmente gratuito, no le cuesta ni un centavo a Uds. n= i a Cabania Malka. Despues de realizar algunas pruebas preliminares, hemos notado que una vez que se envia el mensaje a la lista puede llegar a transcurrir hasta 48 horas antes de que el mensaje llegue efectivamente a los destinatarios. Tenemos entendido que la gente de Coollist, esta trabajando para reducir estos tiempos y conseguir mayor rapidez. Como el servidor se encuentra en EE.UU., y le falta algunas adaptaciones que permitan un uso fluido del Castellano, notaran que si utilizan los acentos o la e=F1e estos no saldran en los mensajes. En su lugar aparecer= an otros signos o letras que nos harian pensar en un error ortografico. Un saludo para todos. Martin Braunstein Malka Cabania Apicola e-mail: malka@webnet.com.ar ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 12:59:25 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Re: deadly gas warning Thanks for passing on the Deadly Gas Warning ! It should stand to remind all of us that before we mess about with 'any chemical', that it is in our own best interest to check it out FIRST ! We owe it to ourselves/ family/fellow human beings/ and our hobby/commercial interest in Honey Bees! Al ----------------------------------------------------------- awneedham@juno.com - Scituate,MA,USA The Beehive- Educational Honey Bee Site http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 22:57:55 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Funny reaction to dog bone Hi All In a recent post Sid Pullinger mentioned that he once bought an old button to replace a lost buttong on his apiary jacket. (Wow a button up jacket - here we have to use velcro and even then more than a hundred crawlers have managed to get me at times) Well a few days I was playing chace the dog bone with my young and exuberant ridgeback. I jockingly put the bone on the entrance of one of my hives because I know he is terrified of bees and would not go near. The bees went balistic and covered the bone, stinging it (bones can be stung!!) and then covering the whole front of the hive in a mass of bees. I thought that was interesting. But now that makes me think - Sid mentioned that certain individuals get stung more often than others and that it may be body chemistry reflected in breath. Previously I have mentioned that there is in africa also a question of race with how bees react. My deep down feeling is it has something to do with fat metabolism. Note the bone was covered in dog spit. The dog had been running around - some fat break down products will be acetates that will come out on the breath and may tirgger the bees. Just my theory. Keep well Garth PS - For what its worth discovered that it is possible to be stung over 150 times in half an hour and still have a full days beekeeping ended with an hour of e-mail! --- Garth Cambray Kamdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology Rhodes University Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 23:26:02 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Could The Cape Bee Probelm Happen In the Northern Hemisphere Hi All A while back I read a disturbing reference to the fact that a well known european beekeeping centre had for at least one year kept a colony of cape bees. Now for those who do not know how cape bees work (or don't work) here is a brief summary: The Cape bee unlike any other race of Apis melifera is able to develop workers with ovaries able to lay a diploid (worker) egg. Other bees of the world just lay drones. A cape bee also has a very strong queen like scent and should she end up in a non cape bee hive will end up laying eggs there as she can develop ovaries even if a queen is present there. Only another cape queen can stop her developing ovaries. Now if such bees have been kept on mainland europe some will have been adopted into hives. This may have happened near winter. The hive would overwinter with a cape laying worker and a normal queen and in summer would become a cape colony when the bees raise a new queen from the cape workers eggs. Then the colony would be a normal cape bee hive and would die in the winter if it gets too cold. Cape bees are not as aggressive as their cousins the AHB so many would not notice the difference, resulting in a slow and quiet infection of the european and american populations with these bees. The only symptom would be an increase in winter deaths and theoretically if the cape bee is more varroa tolerent some hives that seem to be resistant to varroa?? Just a thought. Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray Kamdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology Rhodes University Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 19:08:05 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Martin Braunstein Subject: Re: Could The Cape Bee Probelm Happen In the Northern Hemisphere (I HOPE NOT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Garth, Could you please let me know if you are certain who in Europe is keeping Cape bees? This bees shouldn't be kept for research purposes outside of their native environment at all!!! If they spread outside South Africa I guess their effect on commercial beekeeping as we know it would be devastating. If you can confirm this we must move real fast to convince the people that keeps them to KILL THEM AT ONCE. We already have many problems with Varroa and Africanized bees to add one more unpredictable disaster. During 1993 I met 3 Southafrican beekeepers in the USA, when they made a visit to the queen operation I was working for in Georgia, I recall their names were Dirk De Klerk, Falconer Brett and Theunis Engelbrecht. They admitted they were in the verge of collapse because of this bees. They had come to see whether by means of commercial queen rearing they could stop these bees. Regards. Martin Braunstein Malka Cabania Apicola e-mail: malka@webnet.com.ar ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 21:37:15 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: ARTICLE: What's The Buzz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Here is an interesting article on Bees from the LA Times Nov 23. Adrian Wenner, one of out Bee list participants is quoted in this article. Enjoy reading. BTW Please excuse the format, I copied and pasted from the WEB site. Paul Cronshaw DC Hobby Beekeeper in Santa Barbara, ****** What's the Buzz? Honeybees, Vital Pollinators of Gardens and Crops, Are Disappearing By ROBERT SMAUS, Times Garden Editor Big changes are awing in the world of bees. A backyard gardener calls from Burbank to ask a county agricultural official where all the bees have gone. Another wants to know why he no longer gets many squash or peppers in summer and why there are so few apples on his tree. Did you see many bees this summer? One-third of the food on our table comes to us thanks to the pollinating efforts of the common, everyday honeybee, according to Michael Pearson, Los Angeles County's apiary inspector. But honeybees are in trouble. "It's a disaster, actually," said bee scientist Adrian Wenner, a professor emeritus at UC Santa Barbara. The honeybee has been hit hard by two predatory mites introduced by accident in the late 1980s. The mites have decimated feral hives. Efforts to protect managed hives, coinciding with changes in tax laws, have made it difficult to commercially keep bees in those little white boxes that used to dot the landscape. The result is drastically fewer bees. Stephen Buchmann, researcher with the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign, an Arizona group that is promoting the unsung native bees, says the nationwide population of ordinary honeybees has shrunk from about 5.9 million colonies in 1945 to 1.9 million today. He and others hope that native bees will replace honeybees as pollinators, and there's a good chance they might, but native bees are also in a fix: They are finding homes hard to come by in Southern California's dense neighborhoods. More likely, Africanized bees--the so-called killer bees--will take the place of honeybees because they are more resistant to the mites. The Africanized bees are in the southeast corner of the state, having started their northward trek after imported African bees escaped from a Brazilian laboratory in 1957. Honeybees become Africanized when the queens mate with descendants of these escapees. From then on, the progeny are called Africanized. Honeybee colonies are not booted out by new bees, they are simply absorbed and converted by a new hybrid queen. Although they look very similar to regular honeybees (they are slightly smaller), they are much more aggressive, not liking anyone--people, animals, even leaf blowers--in their neighborhood. The Advent of Africanized Bees Although avid gardeners are quite concerned about the disappearance of the honeybee, the arrival of Africanized bees is perhaps of more concern to the average homeowner, especially to those who already fear bees or have allergies. Calling them killer bees--an unfair moniker given the facts--hasn't helped. It was predicted that they would be in metropolitan Southern California in 1994, but, according to Pearson, who is also the county's Africanized bee expert, they're temporarily stalled in about 10,000 square miles of desert in Imperial County and eastern San Diego and Riverside counties. Extremely precise maps are being used to track their progress, said Bob Donley with the agricultural commissioner's office, the county agency keeping track of Africanized bees, and it is expected they'll get here, sooner or later. They have already overrun Tucson, where 15% of the wild bee population was Africanized in 1994. The total reached 56% the next year and 90% by 1996. Today, virtually all the honeybees in Tucson are Africanized, except those managed in hives by beekeepers, who routinely check to make sure the queen is not Africanized. Although swarms of bees have been known to sting a person as many as 1,000 times, it is rare, according to Steven Thoenes, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture bee scientist and owner of BeeMaster Systems, a bee management company in Tucson. Since the Africanized bees came to town, he said, "people's lifestyles really haven't changed that much." Although the bees must be respected, they should not be feared. When individuals are out foraging for pollen or water, they are like any other honeybee, docile unless pinched, swatted or stepped on. Like ordinary honeybees, each can only sting once, and the sting is no more potent than the sting of an ordinary bee, but when the colony becomes large, there are plenty of angry bees to contend with if they become riled. Established colonies can kill, although incidents are extremely rare. In this country, five deaths are attributed to Africanized bee stings since their arrival in October 1990, two in Texas and three in Arizona. There have been two incidents in California, both involving tree-trimmers in the Coachella area who ran from the bees; one was stung 25 times before he made his escape. Africanized bees move, or swarm, more often than ordinary honeybees and people in Tucson are noticing more swarms in their yards. There are about 5,000 swarms each year, according to Thoenes. His company trapped and destroyed more than 500 last April alone. If promptly removed by professionals, the bees are not a threat. When they are swarming, they are not particularly aggressive, but once they start building a new hive, they become fiercely protective. Even the vibrations and smells from leaf blowers and power mowers (they cannot hear) set them off. Africanized bees can live in cavities of just about any size, be they curbside meter boxes, attics, even in empty flowerpots, but they need to nest in the protection of a cavity. When they arrive in the Southland, Pearson suggests, the way to keep them away from your home is to eliminate cavities of all kinds--"to really clean up the yard"--and to cover openings in buildings with 1/8-inch or finer wire mesh. Government agencies already have plans to deal with them. County vector control agencies will handle calls about swarms, and emergency personal are being trained to deal with stinging incidents. Private pest control companies will do the actual removing of swarms. The key, Pearson said, will be to report--and stay away from--any "concentrated bee activity" that might suggest a nearby hive. "Run the other way," he suggested, and get inside a building or vehicle. People can get away from Africanized bees, which fly about 11-12 miles an hour but only defend an area the size of a football field, and then call pest control companies to remove nests. The Plight of the Honeybee It is guessed that Africanized bees will replace all of the feral honeybees in time. These are the honeybees that live in the wild, in trees or in walls of buildings and probably visit your garden. Although they might seem like natives, honeybees were taken from Asia to Europe ages ago, and then to the Americas in the mid 17th century. The mostly mild-mannered feral honeybees have pollinated many home fruits and vegetables through the years, all of the stone fruits, apples and kiwi fruit, for example, and such vegetables as eggplant, peppers and squash. They are also important pollinators of commercial crops. Wenner, the retired professor, said they are the "ultimate generalists" and pollinate all sorts of blossoms, from alfalfa to zucchini. Even if these feral bees aren't converted by Africanized bees, the wild colonies have been decimated by mites in recent years and could even become extinct (though there have been some recent signs of recovery). Two types of mites, one called the vampire or varroa mite, introduced by accident in 1988, and one called the tracheal, introduced in 1984, are killing feral bees by the bucketful. The mites are also having an effect on honeybees kept in commercial hives. The destructive mites can be controlled with special pest strips mounted between frames, but that makes beekeeping more costly. In addition, a subsidy given to bee keepers was recently canceled, increasing costs and reducing incentives. Many of the bees formerly observed in home gardens probably came from commercial hives. Honeybees can travel several miles and actively forage up to two miles from the hive. Pearson thinks that beekeeping should be encouraged in towns where it is now discouraged, to increase pollination. "Bees and people can coexist," he said. What About Native Bees? There are many kinds of native bees; about 500 species and sub-species live in Southern California. Entomologist Robbin Thorp, professor emeritus at UC Davis, said at least 100 of these are common in and around gardens in Southern California. Shiny, solid black carpenter bees and yellow-stripped bumblebees are the biggest and best known of the native bees, but there are many others. Most, including sweat bees and alkali bees, are solitary bees that do not make colonies; they live in ground burrows. Some live in deep, narrow cavities, like those left by burrowing beetles, including the leaf-cutter bees that make those fascinating circular holes in rose leaves (used to cap either end of their nests). Casually observed, many look like flies and most are somewhere between the size of a house fly and a honeybee. Often they are dull brown or gray in color. A few have bright metallic, fly-like colors. Most of the females can sting if provoked, though they rarely do. Some can be very helpful in the garden, pollinating all sorts of fruiting crops. Buchmann, the Arizona researcher, says that native bees are better than honeybees at pollinating some crops, including eggplant and tomatoes. Bumblebees are so good at pollinating tomatoes, by a method known as "buzz pollination," that they are being raised to pollinate greenhouse tomatoes. When you hear a high-pitched buzzing, they are shaking pollen out of flowers with their wing muscles. Bumblebees live in small colonies in the ground. The big, black, carpenter bees are also good pollinators. Occasionally, a lucky gardener will see one of the males, which are dramatically covered with golden hairs. They get their name by burrowing into soft wood to make their nests. The half-inch-wide holes look like they were drilled with a precision power tool. Squash, zucchini and pumpkins can be pollinated by squash and gourd bees that came north thousands of years ago along with these crops from Mexico and Central America. These ground-dwelling bees rise very early, often before daybreak, well before the flowers close at mid-morning. Many native bees are early risers, starting earlier in the season or on cloudy days when no self-respecting honeybee ventures out, one reason they make good pollinators. Will native bees take the place of the dwindling honeybee? "They probably will," said Robbin Thorp. "I certainly hope so.' First they need places to live. In the manicured city or suburban garden, this can be hard to find. Places Where Bees Can Make Homes Thorp suggests leaving a little soil uncultivated and bare--some moist, some dry--where native bees can make homes. Retired professor Wenner has left bare dirt between the flagstones in his garden so he can watch their burrowing activities; the bare patches encourage the bees to stay in the garden. "Most native bees like the kind of place people are always trying to get rid of," he said--bare ground, dead accumulated brush and the like. Thorp recommends keeping plenty of flowers in bloom so they have a constant pollen source and limiting the use of pesticide sprays. "People need to realize that every time they get rid of some pest with sprays, they also get rid of bees," he said. Bees are very susceptible to many garden sprays. It takes much longer, several years even, for native bees to rebuild their populations. Native bees reproduce slowly, often producing young only once a year, and the adults die before the young hatch. With some kinds of leaf-cutting and mason bees, you can try building bee homes or shells that they can then build inside. It's very simple: Take a chunk of 2x4 or 4x4 and drill holes, with the grain, four to six inches deep. Several diameters of holes work for different bees, according to Thorp. The holes can be spaced rather closely. Put the block of wood on the north side of the house or under eaves, where it is at least partly shaded. Various native bees will line the drilled holes with leaves or mud and move right in. You can buy this kind of bee house, and even bees to go in it. Entomo-Logic (9807 N.E. 140th St., Bothell, WA 98011-5132, [425] 820-8037) is one of several small suppliers of bee homes and native bees. The homes are pre-drilled blocks of wood that you can hang in the garden. Each has 20 holes, and the holes are lined with little cardboard tubes that can be removed for cleaning. Cost is about $20. You can also buy the tubes for $1 each, filled with live mason bee larvae. They are shipped in fall and winter and five to seven bees come inside each tube, ready to hatch. According to co-owner Kristina Williams, mason bees are gentle, do not swarm and sting only when swatted. Mason bees are acknowledged orchard pollinators, even doing their work when ordinary honeybees are fast asleep on cloudy days, one reason they've become popular in the apple orchards of Washington state. They also pollinate apples and stone fruits (apricots, peaches and the like) in California, even during wintry weather, which is when blossoms often open. Better crops on fruit trees this past summer probably had something to do with the sunny spring weather that encouraged early bee activity. * * * Bees You Might See Domesticated honeybees: They seem like natives but were introduced from Europe in the 17th century; they are kept in hives by beekeepers. Feral honeybees: Escaped from hives, they live in the wild. Africanized bees: They look like honeybees but have mated with descendants of escaped African bees. Native bees: These have been here all along and may be big, like a bumblebee, or small, like a sweat bee. 1.) AFRICANIZED HONEYBEE The buzz: No more harmful than the common honeybee, their aggressiveness is legendary. They are easily infuriated, and a swarm will mass on a perceived danger, delivering hundreds of stings. They are, however, good pollinators. The look: To the untrained eye, Africanized honeybees look exactly like their European cousins. The sting: The same as a European's as long as you are stung only once. DISTANCE BEES WILL CHASE European bees: Defend a distance of 350 to 450 yards. Africanized bees: Defend up to half a mile. TIME BEES TAKE TO ANGER European bees: 19 seconds Africanized bees: 3 seconds OTHER COMMON BEES 2.) European Honeybee The buzz: There are several strains of this bee, all valued for their honey and wax production and most of all for their prodigious pollinating. Bees have been domesti-cated since the dawn of agriculture but also exist in the wild. A "true bee" of the Apidae family. The look: The familiar worker bee has a fuzzy, deep gold striped abdomen. The sting: Painful but harmless except to sensitive people. 3.) Carpenter Bee The buzz: This is a big bee of the Anthophoridae family. Its name comes from the tunnels it creates when building a nest, and it's not picky about the kind of wood it uses; even a telephone pole will do. Carpenter bees are good pollinators, especially of tomatoes. The look: Up to an inch long, shiny dark blue or black, and sometimes mistaken for the more colorful bumblebee. The sting: Female delivers a mild sting and is slow to anger. 4.) Leaf-Cutter Bee The buzz: Tiny member of the Megachilidae family nests mostly in cavities. It trims neat, circular holes in leaves and carries the pulp back to line its nest. Leaf-cutter bees are good general pollinators. The look: Only a quarter- to-half-inch long and quite hairy. The sting: Won't attack, but females can sting; their sting is less painful than a honeybee's. 5.) Metallic Sweat Bee The buzz: In the Halictidae family, the house fly-sized bee nests in the ground. Sweat bees are good general pollina-tors, especially of melons. The look: Just under a half- inch long, with bright green, shiny bodies. Males have striped abdomens. The sting: If pinched or swatted, females can sting, but the sting is less painful than a honeybee's. 6.) Bumblebee The buzz: Another "true bee," the well-known giant of the garden nests in the ground and feeds its young on pollen and honey. Feared for its size and loud buzz. Excellent pollinator of vegetables, especially tomatoes. The look: The four local species all have variations on furry yellow and black stripes and are up to an inch long. The sting: Severe sting, but not easily provoked. BEE KILLERS Varroa Mites Female Actual size: 1.5 mm Male Actual size: 1.3 mm Where Mites Are Found Varroa mites are found in or near bee nests or eggs. Mites eat or infect bee eggs. Varroa mites are also found between the ventral abdomi-nal segments of the bee or on their backs. Tracheal Mites Tracheal mites are found in the airways of the infected bees, causing the bees to suffocate and die. Honeybee actual sizes: Worker bee Drone Queen bee BEE BASICS Compound eye Simple eye Head Middle leg Hind wing Fore wing Antenna Pollen basket Hind leg Claw Thorax Abdomen Stinger Sources: California Department of Food and Agriculture in San Diego, Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights and Measures; U.S. Department of Agriculture; "Insects of the Los Angeles Basin," by Charles Leonard Hogue; "A Field Guide to the Insects," by Donald J. Borror and Richard E. White, bumble bee photo; Tony Rivetti, golden rod image; Wide World photos, main bee; Pedro Iniguez, Web sites ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 11:32:49 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: Could The Cape Bee Probelm Happen In the Northern Hemisphere (I HOPE NOT) In-Reply-To: <199711291632.TAA00516@ns1.sminter.com.ar> MIME-Version: 1.0 Re. Cape bees in Europe. I have just read the two items which have appeared regarding Cape bees in Europe, and feel moved to respond to them, as I feel the tone perhaps to be a little over-alarmist. I can well understand people feeling threatened by this in the light of the South African experience, but drawing precise conclusions from that for other areas may be invalid. I do agree that, because of the well publicised problems it causes in South Africa, it should definitely not be taken out of its environment and experimented with, particularly in areas to which it might be climatically suited. However, the bee may have some genetic factor which is of use in the varroa resistance field which does merit further research, although it should probably be done within the bees native range. However, in the early years of this century, when bee people were unaware of these kind of problems, almost any kind of bee you can think of that was known at the time was experimented with in Europe. I have read (I cannot recall where) that this bee was tried in Britain during the inter-war years (20's I think) and found to be unsuccessful. No residual problem of Cape bees is known to be found here and, because of climate, any true Cape colony would die first winter. I cannot imagine that, with the possible exception of the Mediterranean/Iberian areas with very mild winters, the climate has changed so much that the bee could now establish itself widely in Europe. (The importation of exotic races of bees to Europe and the UK for breeding and research has continued until relatively recently. Brother Adam's work with bees from Crete and East Africa in the 1980's is well documented, but I am sure he would not have been alone) In the first of the two articles it appears to assume that because of the presence of a laying Cape worker in a European colony that any queen raised the following year WILL be pure Cape. I don't know enough about the South African situation to know if this is the case, and would appreciate clarification as to whether that is definitely so, but it seems to me that the percentage risk of the new queen being Cape would only be broadly in proportion to the number of eggs the queen and laying worker were producing, and even then only in an emergency cell situation (which includes deliberate grafting), although, in the presence of a laying worker it would be difficult to get these cells drawn. I don't know if the laying worker ever deliberately lays in swarm cells or not. If only a small proportion of these colonies went on to produce Cape queens AND remain genetically pure (incidentally, what will they mate with?), then the total impact here would quickly stabilise with slightly increased winter losses. If ALL do then we definitely will have a problem. However, a diploid egg from a worker must surely be effectively a clone of that worker, and thus be the product of both the original Cape queen and whatever drone was responsible for fertilising the egg which went on to produce the laying worker, and thus, if matings are with European drones, the bees will become genetically more and more dilute with each passing generation. The absence of difficulties with Cape bees in the UK today tends to make me believe that natural selection would eliminate the problem. Obviously the first article is from a source which knows a great deal more about the Cape bee than I ever will and is talking from a position both of knowledge and experience, but I feel that calm reflection on a percieved problem is probably more appropriate than starting a scare which may be the unintentional result of posting the item. I would suggest seeking further in formation from some of the members of Apinet who may know about this experiment and whether it exists or is merely an apocryphal tale. Please do not interpret this as any kind of criticism. It is not. It is just my point of view on this item and, I hope, a reasoned contribution. Murray McGregor -- Murray McGregor, Denrosa Ltd. Coupar Angus, Scotland e.mail:- murray@denrosa.demon.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 08:08:55 -0600 Reply-To: cspacekAflash.net@flash.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: curtis spacek Subject: Re: More money for the honey board Comments: To: vcoppola@epix.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't know about the rest of you,but I have yet to see a comercial,a bill-board,or even a sign along the side of the road promoting honey. Imho this seems like taxation without any representation what so ever. It seems to me this amounts to nothing more than a tax to feather the nests of a select group of politicians paying for them to play golf and travel the world at our expense.It could be my opinion is somewhat jaded and may be due to a bad experience as a child or possibly from watching too much television but a tax is a tax and I personally feel I pay enough taxes to run all phases of government and support half the other countries of the planet whether I like it or not. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 00:36:55 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Re: More money for the honey board On Sat, 29 Nov 1997 08:08:55 -0600 curtis spacek writes: >I don't know about the rest of you,but I have yet to see a commercial,a >bill-board,or even a sign along the side of the road promoting honey. Perhaps, this is a constructive public relations/advertising idea for the commercial honey interests to seriously consider, i.e, National Honey Board, outfits that sell honey like Golden Blossom ( A Commercial US Honey Brand), etc., (referring particularly to highly visible bill-boards). It could tie in with the news articles that have been appearing with some frequency this past year in the US (most recent being the LA newspaper article sent in to the List). Aside from what is offered on their web-site and materials that the National Honey Board will provide to Bee Clubs ( or anyone else), if the Club will supply their name and address to the NHB, and a periodic Honey Recipe Pamphlet that is available from Golden Blossom, I do not know what else is available out there. This thought inspires me to suggest that perhaps those of us who have web-sites related to Honey Bees could make available some of this info on our sites. Perhaps some sites already do. For those who are interested: National Honey Board 390 Lashley Street Longmont, CO 80501-6045 USA Golden Blossom 73 East State Street Doylestown, PA 18901 USA Anyone else on the List have some names/addresses of stuff like this available upon request ? (Assuming that some List Members are interested) I would appreciate the info anyway, as perhaps I could put up a page on my site about this for the general public that visits the place. Al, ----------------------------------------------------------- awneedham@juno.com - Scituate,MA,USA The Beehive- Educational Honey Bee Site http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 13:13:28 -0500 Reply-To: dronebee@norfolk.infi.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "\\Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez" Organization: Independent non-profit research Subject: Re: Applying mineral oil MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Ian. I am not sure if I have replied to this message, Did I? I answer so many that sometimes I lose track of some of them. Please let me know. Sincerely Dr. Rodriguez Ian Watson wrote: > Hi all I am ready to treat my colonies with FGMO and I just want to > make certain of a few things. I picked up some "light mineral oil". > Is this the correct type? It seems to me that this thinner type would > be effective against the mites, but less likely to clog the bees > spiracles than thicker oil. (my reasoning is this: that the mites > spiracles are smaller than the bees, and thus, more easily clogged by > the thinner oil. at the same time, the larger spiracles of the bees > wouldn't be as likely to be clogged)The second point concerns the > application method. I went to the local pharmacy and bought a couple > syringes WITHOUT the needles. The opening is about 1 2/3 mm . Would > this produce the required SMALL bead of oil required? Thanks, Ian > Watson realtor@niagara.com > real estate agent gardener baritone > beekeeper---> 11 colonies and counting ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 02:50:54 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Edward A Craft Jr Subject: Re: More money for the honey board Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On Sat, 29 Nov 1997 08:08:55 -0600 curtis spacek >writes: >>I don't know about the rest of you,but I have yet to see a commercial,a >>bill-board,or even a sign along the side of the road promoting honey. > I've seen TV commercials from SUE BEE Ed Craft 14887 Oldham Dr Orlando, FL 32826 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 22:55:46 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Microwave/extractor Hi All Extracted ten supers today annd was thinking about ways of making the proccess more efficient. Honey is very dense and absorbs microwaves rapidly. Warm honey is more fluid than cold. Warm wax blows out more easily. If one had the frames passing throuugh a microwave beem, then the microwaves would heat the honey faster than the wax and it would fling out almost instantly reducing the weight of the frame and therefore any increased heat of the wax thereafter would be less of a problem. A sensor on the side of the drum could detect the heat of honey coming out and then switch the beem on and of. (beem or beam??) I just thought this of this today and figured it sounded too bizarre to actually try myself as would cook some part of myself, but maybe somewhere somebody knows how to work with such things and could give it a try? Just a thought Garth PS it would also help with filtering as the honey would be prewarmed. --- Garth Cambray Kamdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology Rhodes University Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 22:40:13 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: cape bees all over thread Hi Martin and All Martin wrote: > Could you please let me know if you are certain who in Europe is > keeping Cape bees? This bees shouldn't be kept for research purposes > outside of their native environment at all!!! If they spread outside > South Africa I guess their effect on commercial beekeeping as we > know it would be devastating. If you can confirm this we must move I believe the hives have been killed a few years back. I think the figures were 6 hives in one of the bigger continental research facilities. I believe they may have been kept in flight rooms, but we know how bees are. > real fast to convince the people that keeps them to KILL THEM AT > ONCE. We already have many problems with Varroa and Africanized bees I think there is a commo link here. The varroa problem occurred because people moved bees to asia and from asia to europe without apppreciating thhe results. Now as a result two species of bees have been nudged to the brink of extinction. (Apis cerana is in manny cases out competed by A.m and V.jacobsonii from A.cerana kills A.m so both species zap each other. Likewise before the truue magitude of the cape bee problem was realised a few colonies may have been kept in central europe and in the interests of the bee species it is probably worthwile for people to look for signs of the cape bee, as it will muultiply slowly in the popuulationn as a sort of parasite. I remember a while back that some people mentioned they had colonies that were hopelessly queenless annd came back and the colonies were roaring ahead. This is a phenomenon I have seen hapen twelve times this year with my bees alone. A handful of cape bees will lay a few eggs for about three weeks and then raise a new queen who is extremely vigorous and somehow they manage to raise a whole stack of brood without foraging too much. My only reason for mentioning this is that I am a strong conservationist and believe that it is of importance for people to beware of the dangers of moving species into new environnments where they could not naturally have migrated. (EG the South African barbel Clarius garipinus that was introduced into the amazon river and will wipe out more than 200 species of fish in the next 10 years) Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray Kamdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology Rhodes University Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 15:21:04 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rick Adcock Subject: Re: Contract MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rick Adcock 3632 cr 316c Cleburne, Tx. 76031 Thanks -----Original Message----- From: Kim Flottum To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Date: Tuesday, November 25, 1997 10:23 AM Subject: Re: Contract >Ken >We do have a sample contract. If you will send your snail mail address we >will be happy to send you one. > >Bee culture magazine >bculture@aol.com > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 01:50:57 +0200 Reply-To: pimapis@rls.roknet.ro Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Marian Pintilie Organization: - Subject: Re: Shelf life of Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi everybody, thank you for feeding my curiosity about acacia tree origin and non christalyzing types of honey. It was very instructive. For those who ask me about acacia crop in Romania I had to give some suplementary information.(not officially,only from my personal experience). On previous years when all seasons come and go on time we could harvest acacia 3 times (from mid april up to end of may)(we had a mobile apiary) due to different time of blooming from Danube up to subcarpatic regions. This was meaning 25-35 kg/hive/year on to a very good year. Now it seems that the spring is disappearing.In 96 winter end on mid april and after some days summer come , acacia bloomed everywhere and was burned by excessive heat.Crop=1kg/hive.This year almost same problem,but after winter started a rainy period . Crop=2kg/hive. That was happened in my region.In others maybe it was better. Costel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 19:20:58 -0600 Reply-To: gmc@vci.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: jonathan Subject: mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, i was wondering what everyone was treating the mites with?? here in Kentucky(USA) we are using strips and the essential oils, i'm having better luck with the essential oils than anything! please email me and let me know what other people are using to stopped thid dreaded pest my address is---gmc@vci.net THANK YOU!!!!! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 20:46:56 -0600 Reply-To: gmc@vci.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: jonathan Subject: mites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, i was wondering what everyone was treating the mites with?? here in Kentucky(USA) we are using strips and the essential oils, i'm having better luck with the essential oils than anything! please email me and let me know what other people are using to stopped this dreaded pest, i have an address for the essential oils, please contact me and tell me your "cures" and how many hives you have, where you are from, age/sex, how long you have been keeping bees!! my address is---gmc@vci.net THANK YOU!!!!!