========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 23:33:43 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: John M Thorp Subject: Re: A. Nachbaur's challenge for top 10 bee tools/mgmt et 1 Hive tool 2 Fluorescent paint for above 3 Back support belt I used to buy my hive tools 10 or 12 at a time considering them an expendable item. Also we would put them in the smoker or sterilize them on a regular basis,esp. if the hives are questionable and you don't want to spread anything. Take Care and GBY-John in Homestead- -also at Jesus Christ Is The Only Answer,Joshua24:15 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 08:37:29 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: BKPR333 Subject: apistan and organic gardening Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I have a question for the list that doesn't seem to have any reference in the bee-l archives . We, my wife and I, have been asked to place two or three hives at a organic garden location, the organic garden people are very strict on the non-use of any chemicals. We believe the bees probably won't survive without apistan. Is there any threat that the apistan and the organic garden principle conflict with each other? In other words, would the apistan cause a problem by rubbing off on the plants and leaving a chemical residue or is that amount too insignificant to even measure or jeopardize the organic concept? thank you in advance bkpr333@aol.com 8 hives and growing? north central ohio ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 08:26:06 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Making splits Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am getting ready to make some splits. Most of my hives have been wintered as double brood chambers. Had five Kona queens ready to make some splits but could not find one queen in some of my hives. They were all hiding. :) I thought about just putting a queen excluder or double screen board between the hives and seeing which part has no eggs or starts emergency queen cells. But this takes about 2--3 days and I don't think the waiting queens can last longer. IS there a faster method of splitting hives? Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Cyberchiro/High School Teacher and Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 10:48:54 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Donald Aitken Subject: Re: Making splits In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Paul Cronshaw, D.C. wrote: ... could not find one queen...IS there a faster method of splitting hives? You can split a hive in the following way, almost instantaneously, even if you can't find the queen. Lift off the top super and brush the bees from each frame into the bottom super. Make sure there are at least 3 frames with open brood in the top box which is now empty of bees. Put a queen excluder on the bottom box and replace the top box. Bees will move up through the excluder to take care of the brood, leaving the queen in the bottom box under the excluder. Give them a few hours to move before you make your split. Donald Aitken 11710-129 Street Edmonton Alberta Canada T5M 0Y7 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 10:27:34 -0800 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: Apistan and organic gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The question to ask is whether you will have colonies for pollination without the use of miticides. The current absense of feral colonies will provide one answer to the question. The second is the promising management being developed by Dee and Ed Lusby and others in Arizona. They have let all their mite susceptible colonies die over the last few years, and begun breeding from the survivors. They are also converting their combs over to a small size cell which has been proven to negatively influence the survival of mite population in their hives. If you can't do this, your bees will die from mites. There are other potential management techniques for maintaining very low levels of mites but they still require the use of miticides until our bees have been bred to have a tolerance mechanism for mites. I doubt if anyone has tested the presense and levels of miticides on flowers, or bees for that matter. It would be nice to know what levels of miticides occur on house bees, or bees in the brood nest, and the levels of miticides transferred to brood comb per year. I don't believe any organic gardner, at least in Washington, can find untreated bees to use for pollination. And if I can venture a personal opinion, I think it borders on preposterous to think that so-called organic management principles can be used on bee colonies, that is unless you use the Lusby method. I have reviewed the 14 page Oregon organic standards for managing bees and written a 14 page analysis of them for people in our department. The standards have serious flaws having been designed around flawed reasoning about bee behavior and bee management systems, and an assumption that organic gardening principles can be converted into bee gardening principles. James C. Bach WSDA State Apiarist jbach@agr.wa.gov jcbach@yvn.com 509 576 3041 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 11:07:17 -0800 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: Honey Board Legislation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have resisted replying to the National Honey Board (NHB) issue till now. What has changed my mind? The presense of many relatively new beekeepers on this list most of whom do not have commercial operations, and who have no way of ascertaining the merits of the questions being asked. I would suggest that neither Troy Fore, Bob Smith nor anyone else at the NHB, could answer the types of questions being asked of them on this list. It would be like asking a contractor who builds skyscrapers to tell us how he plans and then builds the structure of the building. It just couldn't be done. To get the answers to your questions of Troy, it would be necessary for him to describe all the dynamics involved in international supply and demand, the principles of national and international marketing, and the vagaries of consumer buying. It would also be incumbent on him to study the histories of other industries who have similar issues in their production sector to see how they have developed their marketing strategies. Then he would have to write a comprehensive paper to cover all the implications and nuances of the questions being asked. Having done all this he would still not be able to answer the comments and questions being asked by these beekeepers because they would merely change the questions. The NHB has done all this work by hiring companies who have the expertise in marketing and international market development, and relying on the numerous studies performed by national and international marketing companies and universities, upon which to build their marketing goals. I have always wanted to ask the question whether one penny or two will actually break your bee operation company? If so, I suggest that it is not currently on a sound financial basis, and is not likely ever to be so. Like the beekeeper here who called me being all upset because the industry was talking about having a $.50 per hive pollination service fee to help fund their apiary program. He has 50 hives and was planning to increase to 100 with a goal of becoming a commercial beekeeper. His fee if he rented hives, was going to be $50.00. When he told me what his current income from his bees is, and we discussed the needed investment to increase to 100 hives it became very plain to him that he wasn't making any money on his hives and was not likely to do so. He had never taken the time to determine if he should invest in increasing his number of hives. It is too bad that few beekeepers have any education in business management, cost accounting, conducting time and cost studies, and determining profit or loss. These same issues come up again in thinking about operating two queen colonies. James C. Bach Yakima WA jcbach@yvn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 11:59:54 -0800 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: Two queen colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I recently made come comments about the increased production of two queen vs single queen colonies. Someone replied that my two queen colonies made 85 lbs. while two single-queen colonies make 60x2=120 lbs. Apparently it never entered his mind to think about the cost of operating a hive. This is typical of most beekeepers, and is one of the reasons why the industry is in its current economic straits. Over the years I've talked with many beekeepers who wanted to give up jobs paying 40K or more per year to go into commercial beekeeping. They had been developing their plans for two years but had never analyzed what it costs in cash and time to operate a commercial operation. Neither had they consulted commercal beekeepers about their costs. They had talked about the income side, but not about the time costs. Here in the west I estimate that it costs $110.00 approximately to operate a hive per year in a commercial operation which moves bees to CA, then to WA for pollination and then produces a honey crop either in WA or in the Dakotas. That amount is only the cash out of pocket for expenses including temporary help. It does not include owner/manager costs or salary. From my observations and discussions with numerous small businesses it appears that a 1,000 hive operation should pay its owner/manager $40,000 per year. That is $40 per colony, making the total income necessary to operate a 1,000 hive operation about $150,000 per year. Estimates suggest that current income is: $35 for CA pollination, $35 for WA pollination, a five year honey production of 60 lbs. at $.80 = $48 for a total income of $118.00 per hive. This would make an ower/manager salary of $8,000, unless they can reduce costs without reducing production or income, or increase their number of colonies, if they could increase their income to cost ratio at the same time. Beekeepers here are currently reporting 20 to 50 percent losses of colonies from October to February. The management and replacement costs of these losses must be borne by those colonies which produced income last year, or the last few years, if you are working with averages. One beekeeper recently told me, his operation costs were $113 per hive. Let us suppose this was on 2,000 hives, then his costs were $226,000. Twenty five percent losses means that next year 1500 hives must pay for their own costs, plus those of operating the 500 colonies being replaced. That means that 1500 hives must now pay the approximate $226,000 operation costs (now $150 per hive) plus owner/manager salary. With 25 percent losses, operation costs have now gone up about 33 percent on surviving colonies. Will income go up to cover these costs? Not likely. So if a single queen colony produces an income of $118, and a single double-queen colony produces 85 lbs. of honey, then the latter creates an income of $138 per hive. This is $20 per hive (not $8) or $20,000 in owner/manager salary (not $8,000, or a 250% increase) less the slight increased work of operating the two queen colony). So the cost/income ratio of single queen colonies is $110/$118 vs a two queen colony of $110+/$138. Two single queen colonies would have a cost income ratio of $220/$236. Obviously, the variables in commercial beekeepers management, colony response, queen loss, mites, nutrition, honey crop, and the age of bees in the fall will all influence the numbers suggested. It appears to me that operating two queen colonies, all other things being equal, significantly increases beekeeper income while increasing operational costs only slightly. James C. Bach Yakima WA jcbach@yvn.com 509 573 4245 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 15:47:06 +0100 Reply-To: Barry@Birkey.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Organization: BIRKEY.COM Subject: Re: Two queen colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit James C Bach wrote: > > I recently made come comments about the increased production of two queen > vs single queen colonies. Someone replied that my two queen colonies made > 85 lbs. while two single-queen colonies make 60x2=120 lbs. Apparently it > never entered his mind to think about the cost of operating a hive. This > is typical of most beekeepers, and is one of the reasons why the industry > is in its current economic straits. > > Over the years I've talked with many beekeepers who wanted to give up jobs > paying 40K or more per year to go into commercial beekeeping. They had > been developing their plans for two years but had never analyzed what it > costs in cash and time to operate a commercial operation. Neither had they > consulted commercal beekeepers about their costs. They had talked about > the income side, but not about the time costs. How refreshing it is to hear your comments on this topic. I am self-employed but not as a beekeeper. Anyone who runs a business knows that there are many aspects that affect the bottom line and to concentrate on one and neglect the others is poor business. I tend to be a perfectionist. This can have positive effects on a business if used the right way but it can be a real burden too if not properly kept in balance. I've learned the hard/slow way about this lesson. Look at the areas in your business that aren't your strengths and ask yourself if there is something you can do to improve it. If your not open to taking an honest look at your business in all areas then you are likely to get stuck in a rut and not make the kind of changes necessary to make the money you could be making. If you are only looking at the income side and not accounting for the time side, you will be the loser. They do go hand in hand. Sure enjoyed your input on this. You obviously speak from experience. Regards -Barry -- Barry Birkey West Chicago, Illinois USA Barry@Birkey.com http://www.birkey.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 18:58:34 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: Re: Making splits MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Paul Cronshaw wants to know how to make splits quickly. I usually remove my split from the top box. I use 1 comb of honey, a comb of pollen, a larvae comb, and two combs of sealed brood, followed by another comb of honey. Shake all the bees off these combs when removing them from the hive. Place them in an empty hive body, and fill with four empty combs. Replace those taken from the parent colony with empties. Place an excluder on top of the parent colony, and your beeless split on top of the excluder. Replace the covers. The next morning, remove the split and place it on a new stand. Give it a caged queen. Total time is about 15 minutes. Larvae frame lures lots of young bees up to the split. Old bees fly home. Queens get accepted well. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 18:17:39 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Making splits In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > ... could not find one queen...IS there a faster method of splitting > hives? This subject has been covered EXHAUSTIVELY in the past and also is covered in detail on http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Spring/mgmt.htm Search for 'splits' and/or 'splitting' --- You can search the BEE-L archives by sending email to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU saying SEARCH BEE-L "key phrase" Substitute several words for "key phrase" above. and use the double quotes to exclude hits on the individual words in the phrase. Single words do not need quotes. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 19:00:29 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Two queen colonies In-Reply-To: <34F974E2.7CB6@Birkey.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > > I recently made come comments about the increased production of two queen > > vs single queen colonies. Someone replied that my two queen colonies made > > 85 lbs. while two single-queen colonies make 60x2=120 lbs... Another huge factor is the winter survival and general vigour of two queen colonies. I figure that at any given time 10% of my hives are either queenless or will be soon. Of course I don't know which ones in advance. With two queens, if 10% of the total queens in an operation are about to fail in the next few months (them above assumption restated), then in a two queen colony there is only a 1% mathematical chance that both queens will be bad (10% of 10%). Since the majority of winter loss many years is due to queen failure-- and even if a queenless colony is saved, it is poor -- there is a huge saving (9% of total colony count) right here. Moreover two queen colonies have more young bees going into winter and these bees are also likely better fed. This ensures more and stronger colonies get through to spring and they then give more splits and in the meantime need less wrapping. Add to that the extra honey and subtract the cost of the extra queen and the management and you *may* be ahead. Me? No, I don't keep two queen colonies these days. Maybe I should? Allen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 21:35:11 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Re: Searching BEE-L Reminders On Sun, 1 Mar 1998 18:17:39 -0600 Allen Dick writes: >> ... could not find one queen...IS there a faster method of splitting >> hives? > >This subject has been covered EXHAUSTIVELY in the past and also is >covered in detail on http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Spring/mgmt.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gee Allen, not to really take offense at the constant reminders to Search BEE-L, which as I earlier vouched is well worth the while and does cut down on Bandwidth...but... In defense of those asking questions who may not have been on the List for a long time....it does not somehow seem fair to keep hitting every subject over the head with a reminder to Search BEE-L. The thought comes to mind, that if this is to be the case then perhaps a List should be published that designates all the specific subjects that have been discussed since the List began. If that were to take place, then we would all belong to a List that would have no messages for days on end. It would need to be renamed from BEE-L to QUIET-L :-) I think that your real point here is that many of the subjects raised are probably techniques that are 'basic' to general beekeeping..and that when one wants to raise a question on a 'basic' subject, that it would be best to run a Search BEE-L to see if the matter in question has been covered in the past to the satisfaction of the question being considered. If it has not, then the question should be posted to the List. Another point to be considered....when someone relatively new to the List sees themselves or others being hit over the head about Searching/Bandwith etc., they can't help but notice that our dear West Coast Old Drone, who you must admit is a bit of a rambler, albeit a thoroughly enjoyable rambler from my point of view...it must make them wonder what is going on here....as no one, to my knowledge has ever chastised the Old Drone for his frequent lengthy Bandwidth posts which can now and then get off tangent here and there. I emphasize again that personally the Old Drone could talk on about Banana Splits and I would thoroughly enjoy and digest his comments with a smile. So...maybe some pauses on chastisements are due for a little spell :-) Y'all too Aaron :-) Just my $3.00 bill's worth of wasting Bandwidth. Al, ................................................................... <"Mailto: awneedham@juno.com" > Scituate,Massachusetts,USA The Beehive-Educational Honey Bee Site Visit Ye Olde Honey Bee Book Shoppe http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 21:39:26 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: WillSimm42 Subject: Re: Searching BEE-L Reminders Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Stop sending me mail ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 23:03:01 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ian Watson Subject: Re: Searching BEE-L Reminders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Stop sending me mail No one is sending you mail...you requested to be subscribed to BEE-L and had you saved the welcome message which told you how to unsubscribe, search, and not to post list-serve commands like this one to the list, you would know how to get off this list. You just told 642 people to stop doing something they aren't doing. No offence intended but these type of posts are getting tedius...;) Ian Watson realtor@niagara.com real estate agent gardener baritone beekeeper---> 6 colonies and counting ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 21:07:48 -0700 Reply-To: darn@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Donald Aitken Subject: Re: Searching BEE-L Reminders In-Reply-To: <19980301.213516.3638.1.awneedham@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A set of instructions for interaction with the Listserver is available from LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by sending it the message: GET LISTSERV REFCARD Be warned, however, this may tell you more about the listserver than you really wanted to know!! Donald Aitken 11710-129 Street Edmonton Alberta Canada T5M 0Y7 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 20:11:59 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Banging the Pans to attract swarm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Today was a sunny, warm day in Santa Barbara. The bees were out in force after being stuck in their hives due to El Nino rains. Naturally today was a day for swarms to appear. I saw two today. One travelled by my apiary and kept on going. The other was an interesting story. As if nature has the perfect clock, at 11:15 AM my neighbor called me to let me know that one of my hives was swarming. Now I know we have all heard about banging the pans to bring a swarm down to earth. I mentioned this to here and before I could explain anything else she had hung up on me. I drove over to my apairy and lo and behold the swarm had settled in a tree 10 feet from her balcony. She was amazed how easy it was to bring the bees to this point. Prior to settling in the final spot, she had walked to the opposite end of the balacony, hitting the pan and the bees followed. Is this a wives tale?? Has anyone had other experiences with setting up vibrations in the air from hitting pans?? Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Cyberchiro/High School Teacher and Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 06:23:15 +1300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Nick Wallingford Organization: Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Subject: Re: Banging the Pans to attract swarm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Is this a wives tale?? Has anyone had other experiences with setting up > vibrations in the air from hitting pans?? "The tanging of the swarm..." From my reading of things, it related more to the legal ownership of the swarm than the ability to make it come to earth. In England, the owner of a skep maintained ownership of a swarm so long as he/she had it in sight, and let other people know it was being chased. So the banging of the pans was to alert the populace... (\ Nick Wallingford {|||8- home nickw@beekeeping.co.nz (/ work nw1@boppoly.ac.nz NZ Beekeeping http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 00:01:55 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Empty Comb Stimulus Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 On Fri, 20 Feb 1998 07:40:07 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: Allen Dick >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > >> Another interesting thing is that it has been scientifically proven that >> the foraging urge of bees is in direct relation to the amount of >empty comb available to the bees. (within reason) > >I've read some on this -- and yet I find this to be a generality that I >have trouble understanding. I don't doubt its truth, I just wonder >about its universality. > >I used to produce a lot of comb honey. Books always say the honey crop >will be reduced on comb production, yet we did not find this effect to be >as obvious as expected, and often felt we got comparable poundage >yields between extracted hives and comb hives. The comb hives were >crowded and on foundation, the extracted hives were on ample drawn >comb >-- usually 6 standard boxes or more. > Is the claim for the reduced crop credited to the increased wax production, assuming that extracting supers have drawn foundation? I suppose if one had two identical (clone :-) colonies the arguments for nectar consumption for wax conversion would be believable. However there are usually other factors not as easily explained such as stimulus for different conditions which do occur when drawing or not drawing comb. Perhaps bees have more incentive to horde if they have to draw comb? I think these kind of experiments take more time and effort than most researchers are willing to expend for the knowledge gained. >The time the above quoted principle seems to apply best is in late spring >and early summer. Not only does the extra comb prevent swarming to some >extent and allow room for sudden flows that are unexpected by a beekeeper, >but there does actually seem to be a stimulant effect on bee buildup. > >We seem to get more honey late in the season if we reduce the number of >supers a bit. There is an offsetting effect that becomes more noticeable >in the late summer in temperate regions: if the amount of space >above the brood nest is excessive, the bees withdraw to the brood section >-- especially if excluders are used, and are unable to occupy the >entire hive. Since I've changed my management practices with the onset of the mites i have been able to keep tabs on the open brood chamber concept. I use queen excluders as long as honey supers are on. While monitoring drone brood (one full frame per colony) for mites.and applying oil on a nearly 20 day basis the top brood combs filled, or nearly so with honey get stuffed to the bottom and the youngest brood below gets brought up. The youngest brood also gets put to the outside, you know, where the bees normally start stuffing honey, this maneuver slows down that process. If only empty frames available they get staggered in amongst the top brood frames. As you know honey stuffed below brood gets cleaned out in pretty short order and put up above the excluder for no better place to put it. My practice, brood against the excluder and honey down. If the queen can't keep the top super full of brood during the honey season she is candidate for replacement. I use 3 mediums now for brood, this allows me even more flexibility than was available with 2 deeps. > >If bees are unable to continuously occupy an area of a hive they seem >reluctant to fill it permanently with honey. This is one reason >why controlled crowding is important to getting comb honey built. This is >also why top ventilation can result in reduced crops if not applied >wisely at the correct time in the year, if at all. > I used to use a lot of top ventilation but over the years I have convinced myself that the bees draw and store better with less. Very rarely do we see bees clustered outside because of heat buildup. I used to rush around and prop up covers when a heat wave came on but it wasn't worth it, they only lasted 3 or 4 days and then it was better to have them down. >This above also explains why it is wise to remove the crop at least once >during the season, so that the total volume of the hive can be less than >if full supers are left on while still having empty comb near the brood >area to stimulate activity. > >After August 8 here in Southern Alberta, we usually restrict all but the >largest hives to 4 standard boxes, including broods. Of course that means >visits must be made regularly to forestall plugging in exceptional hives. > >Comments? > >Allen >-- >Buy, sell, trade, get a job, hire help, announce a >meeting, advertise a business or publication... >For free *beekeeping related* classified ads, >visit http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BeeAds/ > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 23:38:43 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: Banging the Pans to attract swarm In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:11 PM 3/1/98 -0800, you wrote: >I drove over to my apairy and lo and behold the swarm had settled in a tree >10 feet from her balcony. She was amazed how easy it was to bring the bees >to this point. Prior to settling in the final spot, she had walked to the >opposite end of the balacony, hitting the pan and the bees followed. >Is this a wives tale?? Has anyone had other experiences with setting up >vibrations in the air from hitting pans?? Good to read its good for the bees in SB, sorry to read your bees are swarming out on you. Must be your bees cause all the wild ones died long ago according to some, and all the rest are in the valley doing almond pollination according to others. Yep, well if it works, this OLd Drone once fell victim to one of those OLd wives tales about using a shot gun to bring down swarms too high to get any other way. I carried a shot gun for weeks before I at last found a swarm high enough to try out my new knowledge. Loaded up the old double's chambers with double OO shot and blasted away..after using up a box of shells I guessed I missed some part of the old wives story because the only bees that came down were in bits and pieces. Maybe I would have had better results just firing into the air or something. Well as soon as I get my tape recording of banging pots and pans, and shot gun blasts I will try playing it as soon as we get a good day for swarms and see if I can attract some bees. ttul, the OLd Drone ... The Spider and the Bee. Fable x. (c)Permission is given to copy this document in any form, or to print for any use. (w)OPINIONS are not necessarily facts. USE AT OWN RISK! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 03:48:34 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Shutting Down Queens In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19980228111459.3287ed6a@selway.umt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Some of our beekeepers shut down their queens (but usually a month or two > later than the folks on the coasts). I wonder if you can expand on this. I'd be curious how they deliberately shut them down. I would assume that this would by letting the brood area get plugged? How do they manage in order to ensure young populations in fall, or does the migratory aspect make this less critical? > Like Jim, we estimate a queen loss of 30-50% as not being uncommon in > these commercial operations. That exactly corresponds to our figures over the year and we aren't migratory at present. 30% is *minimum* replacement in our outfit. 40% is our target. We accomplish replacement mostly by splitting, not hunting for queens. > However, in eastern Maryland (or eastern Washington) you don't need (and > may not want) large populations of bees mid-summer or during the winter. Fall populations can be reduced by reducing the hive volume. At least it seems that way. When we've reduced large hives in the fall -- I'm thinking of when we ran two queen hives in 8 standards right through to September 1st -- to two standard brood chambers, we found that the bees would not all fit and they hung out all over the place. A few days later, the clusters fit nicely into the hives; the clusters were big, but not as amazingly so as one would expect. And no, skunks didn't eat the extra ones AFAIK :) Now, I am *assuming* that the bees diminished in numbers, rather than just crowding together, but others have said the same: extra bees just seem to mysteriously go away (and most assume it is the older ones) when the volume is reduced in the fall. David Eyre said something about a bee cluster being like a tropical fish (it is well known that the ultimate size to which a fish kept in a tank will grow is related to the tank size. Move a fish to a bigger tank and it will often grow, even after having seemed to be full grown). I like that analogy, although it can get you into trouble if used to excess or at the wrong time of year. > Here, we still argue whether a large population is more likely to > survive a Montana winter (and as such justify the extra honey needed). > Again, I like strong colonies. Our records show a much more > consistent and predicatable performance record from strong, > over-wintering colonies (but that probably reflects the vagaries of > keeping bees in this geographical area). With the advent of the mites, > this may be even more important - since most losses occur during the > fall, winter, and early spring. That is well worth repeating. The other factor besides sheer numbers of bees -- and one which is often neglected since we cannot easily 'eyeball' individual bees in the field -- is the age and nutritional level of the members of that population, regardless of size. If we were looking at cows or horses, we could *easily* tell if a herd was likely to survive winter in good shape: if the herd members were young and well fed we could see that; if they were old and mangey with bones showing in fall, we could see that too. With bees being as small as they are, we mostly just notice if they are numerous or not. Nonetheless, the experienced eye can in fact tell a lot about the quality of individual bees and whether they are 'fat' or 'skinny', young or old. This is much more important than sheer numbers, assuming that the numbers are adequate for survival. Hoping to hear more about shutting queens down. Allen --- FAQs? There is no BEE-L FAQ - as such - but you can search for answers to most common questions by visiting http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/beel.htm or send email to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU and say Search BEE-L KEYWORD(S) ('KEYWORD(S)' means a word or words unique to your question) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 18:05:40 +0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=E4=D5=D1_=DF=E3=C7=E1_=C8=D3=ED=E6=E4=EC?= Subject: nosema MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fumidil is not avilbol in my place is ther any other antibiotic i can use for treatment of nosema in my bee thank you for help and i am sory my inglish not good in thes message ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:15:00 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Krell, Rainer (REUS)" Subject: Re: Apistan and organic gardening MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I do feel compelled to answer to this inquiry simply because it needs to be said that there are methods to control Varroa without chemicals. That they are not very practical for a large commercial beekeeper does not mean there aren't any. The Dutch research Institute Ambrosiushoeve for example refined a very effective management procedure. There are others, but here is their Internet address of the article that describes in detail the procedures: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/dronemethod.html With best regards Rainer Krell ---------- >From: null >To: Bestofbee >Subject: Apistan and organic gardening >Date: Monday, March 02, 1998 4:09AM > >Return-Path: >Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 04:09:05 -0600 >From: Excerpts from BEE-L >Subject: Apistan and organic gardening >To: Bestofbee@systronix.net >Reply-to: BEE-L >MIME-version: 1.0 >Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >Priority: normal >X-ListMember: rainer.krell@fao.org [Bestofbee@systronix.net] >----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- --- >From: James C Bach >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > >The question to ask is whether you will have colonies for pollination without >the use of miticides. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 15:54:21 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Chang-geun, Kim" Subject: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit SEARCH BEE-L beeswax ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 11:55:11 -0800 Reply-To: mister-t@clinic.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: apistan and organic gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am sure you are not using Apistan during a honey flow, so the issue is- will any residual Apistan in the hive be transferred to the flowers. If there is any at all it would take lab equipment measuring parts per million to detect it. And it is unlikely to be on the foraging bees if you applied the apistan according to directions. Also, if your orgainc gardeners have any non-organic nectar sources within two or so miles, the bees -or any pollinators- are not going to be "organic" based on the proposed bee organic standards. They will be carrying more interesting things than a non-detectable trace of Apistan. So the question should be moot. Also, if they are using "organic" pesticides, like rotanone, most are orders of magnitude more toxic than the miniscule dose of Apistan you are applying. Just compare the lables. I also believe several "organic" pesticides are either the same as (but stronger) or from the same family as Apistan. All that said, when you enter the "organic" world, none of what I just said may be acceptable to those who want your bees. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME BKPR333 wrote: > I have a question for the list that doesn't seem to have any reference in > the bee-l archives . We, my wife and I, have been asked to place two or > three hives at a organic garden location, the organic garden people are very > strict on the non-use of any chemicals. We believe the bees probably won't > survive without apistan. Is there any threat that the apistan and the organic > garden principle conflict with each other? In other words, would the apistan > cause a problem by rubbing off on the plants and leaving a chemical residue or > is that amount too insignificant to even measure or jeopardize the organic > concept? > > thank you in advance > bkpr333@aol.com > 8 hives and growing? > north central ohio ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 10:48:59 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Re: nosema If you decide to use Fumidil-B I will be glad to send you a bottle. The container is very small, so the postage cost should be low. If you want some, please tell me how many hives you want to treat and I will tell you the price. Lloyd Spear lloydspear@msn.com -----Original Message----- From: dUQ _cGa HSmfdl To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Date: Monday, March 02, 1998 7:40 AM Subject: nosema >fumidil is not avilbol in my place is ther any other antibiotic i can use for treatment of nosema in my bee > thank you for help and i am sory my inglish not good in thes message ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 11:44:24 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: LISTSERV REFCARD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Donald Aitken wrote: > A set of instructions for interaction with the Listserver is > available from LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by sending it the > message: > > GET LISTSERV REFCARD > > Be warned, however, this may tell you more about the listserver than > you really wanted to know!! However LISTSERV REFCARD will: 1) tell you everything you need to know about the tool that supports BEE-L. 2) teach you how to maintain your own subscription options so you don't have to rely on list owners 3) teach you how to maintain your own subscription options so you don't have to impose on list owners 3) help you use the tool that maintains literally tens of thousands list in a manner that BEST SUITS YOUR NEEDS! LISTSERV REFCARD should be required reading for all LISTSERV users, followed by a test which must be passed before subscribing to lists. Hey, you've gotta pass a road test before you can drive, the information superhighway should be no different! I know Al, I should just shut up! Sincerely, Aaron Morris - thinking I'm gonna here it about this one! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 19:09:47 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: A. Nachbaur's challenge for top 10 bee tools/mgmt et Hi All 1) Hive tool retriever - a little bent wire device for fishing a hive tool out when you clumisly drop it into the gap from the one frame you just removed and all the other frames are propolised in situ. 2) Brown plastic packaging tape - who needs wood and nails if you can repair with this and putty?? (adv - don't have to dismantle hive) 3) Screwdriver in cars tool kit - makes good substitute hive tool. (When car breaks down you will have a hive tool and no screwdriver - a hive tool makes a bad substitute screwdriver - see point 4) 4) Leatherman - replaces car screwdriver and is way too expensive to lose. 5) A gas lighter with the valve modfied to send out a five centimeter (three inch) flame - useful for relighting a smoker through the air inlet point. 6) Epiphen kit - useful for repairing landowners animals when your bees 'bother' them. 7) A roll of toilet paper - useful for clogging those little holes that nobody else thought were important when moving a hive. 8) Basins, buckets, drums etc. 9) A 5 liter (gallon) platic bottle of soapy water in your vehicle so that after loading supers one can wash ones hands and not get stuck to the stearing wheels/gear shift. 10) smoker Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 09:45:17 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Andy Nachbaur (by way of Andy Nachbaur )" Subject: $500,000 Offer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Beekeepers and Friends, Some posts on the subject "Andy Nachbaur's Offer" have missed the points in the original post repeated below for those who would like to or think they know of 10 such beekeeping tools that were a direct result of the expenditure of USA $$ public funds. Expanding on individual beekeeper ideas does not count, or does working with chemical companies to register their products, or hyping any commercial product to the benefit of the manufacture at the expense of the beekeeping industry through inflated retail prices. Original text below: "That is nice (Beekeeping research funds from NHB tax increase) and I can guarantee that all well be spent, and all will be back for more, as beekeeping research funding is the original black hole. If anyone can name 10 useful beekeeping tools, management schemes, PC software, or any other useful beekeeping advancement recognized and used by a bare majority of US beekeepers as being the product of so called "public funded" beekeeping" research in the last 20 or even 30 years I will do my best to match the $500,000. myself. I am sure all of this pie in the sky "beekeeping" research money will end up replacing tax payer funded programs and I am for that but not if I have to replace it with my own limited funds after writing that big $500,000 check I am a little short." ttul, the OLd Drone "Bannwabe"..Natural Verroa Mite Control (c)Permission is given to copy this document in any form, or to print for any use. (w)OPINIONS are not necessarily facts. USE AT OWN RISK! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:09:32 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: Making splits Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I am Chairman of the Dorchester & Weymouth Beekeepers' Association (U.K.) so I can't offer to help you directly. We offer a "Bee Buddy" system which means that if you are not confident of carrying out a beekeeping operation unaided you can always call on someone to lend a hand. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:09:29 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: AFB Spores Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A well known English beekeeper allegedly (and illegally) melted the wax from a colony with AFB, made foundation from it and set up a new colony on the foundation. They did not get AFB. It was speculated that the wax coated the spores and prevented them being activated by whatever the stimulus is that does so. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 19:13:48 +0200 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home Subject: Re: apistan and organic gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SmFtZXMgQyBCYWNoIHdyb3RlOg0KPiANCj4gICBUaGVyZSBhcmUgb3RoZXIgcG90ZW50aWFs IG1hbmFnZW1lbnQgdGVjaG5pcXVlcw0KPiBmb3IgbWFpbnRhaW5pbmcgdmVyeSBsb3cgbGV2 ZWxzIG9mIG1pdGVzIGJ1dCB0aGV5IHN0aWxsIHJlcXVpcmUgdGhlIHVzZSBvZg0KPiBtaXRp Y2lkZXMgdW50aWwgb3VyIGJlZXMgaGF2ZSBiZWVuIGJyZWQgdG8gaGF2ZSBhIHRvbGVyYW5j ZSBtZWNoYW5pc20gZm9yDQo+IG1pdGVzLg0KDQphbmQgd2hhdCBhYm91dCB0aGUgZHJvbmUg bWV0aG9kID8/Pz8NCmEgdmVyeSBnb29kIG1ldGhvZCBmb3IgYWxsIHNtYWxsIGJlZWtlZXBl cnMNCmFuZCB0YWxraW5nIGFib3V0IG9yZ2FuaWMsIHdoYXQgYWJvdXQ6DQoiT3VyIGJlZXMg YXJlIHRyZWF0ZWQgYWdhaW5zdCBhbGwgZGlzZWFzZXMgYW5kIHBlc3RzIHVzaW5nIGEgYmlv LXRlY2huaWMNCm1ldGhvZC4NCk5vIGluc2VjdGljaWRlLCBoZXJiaWNpZGUgb3IgYW55IG90 aGVyIGRldmljZSBoYXMgYmVlbiB1c2VkLiINCg0KZ3JlZXRpbmcsIGphbg0KDQpidHcgZHJv bmUgbWV0aG9kIGlzIG9uDQpodHRwOi8vd3d3LnhzNGFsbC5ubC9+anRlbXAvZHJvbmVtZXRo b2QuaHRtbA0KsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwDQpKYW4gVGVtcGVsbWFuIC8gSW5la2UgRHJhYmJlICAgICB8ICAgICBt YWlsdG86anRlbXBAeHM0YWxsLm5sDQpTdGVycmVtb3MgMTYgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAzMDY5 IEFTIFJvdHRlcmRhbSwgVGhlIE5ldGhlcmxhbmRzDQpUZWwvRmF4IChTT01FVElNRVMpIFhY IDMxICgwKTEwLTQ1Njk0MTINCmh0dHA6Ly93d3cueHM0YWxsLm5sL35qdGVtcC9pbmRleDMu aHRtbA0KsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwDQoNCg== ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 19:29:45 +0200 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home Subject: Drory hive MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SW4gRGV1dHNjaGVzIEJpZW5lbiBKb3VybmFsIGZyb20gamFudWFyeSAxOTk4DQphIGludGVy ZXN0aW5nIGFydGlrZWwgZnJvbSBEci4gSXJtZ2FyZCBKdW5nLUhvZmZtYW5uIGFib3V0DQpF RFdBUkQgRFJPUlkgKDE4NDQtMTkwNCkNCkhlIGRlc2lnbmVkIChpbiAxODc0KSBhIGhpdmUg d2l0aCBzaWRlIG9wZW5pbmcgYW5kIGZyYW1lcw0KT24gdGhlIGFydGlrZWwgdGhlcmUgYXJl IG9ubHkgYSBmZXcgZHJhd2luZ3MsIG5vIGV4cGxhbmF0aW9ucw0KRG9lcyBhbnlib2R5IGtu b3cgbW9yZSBhYm91dCB0aGF0IGhpdmU/Pw0KDQphbnkgQmVyaW4gYmVla2VlcGVyLCB3aG8g d2FudCB0byBnbyB0byB0aGUgc3BlY2lhbCBsaWJyYXJ5IA0KaW4gTmF0dXJrdW5kZSBNdXNl dW0gaW4gQmVybGluPz8/DQoNCmdyZWV0aW5nLCBqYW4NCmdydXNzZSwgamFuDQqwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLANCkph biBUZW1wZWxtYW4gLyBJbmVrZSBEcmFiYmUgICAgIHwgICAgIG1haWx0bzpqdGVtcEB4czRh bGwubmwNClN0ZXJyZW1vcyAxNiAgICAgICAgICAgICAgIDMwNjkgQVMgUm90dGVyZGFtLCBU aGUgTmV0aGVybGFuZHMNClRlbC9GYXggKFNPTUVUSU1FUykgWFggMzEgKDApMTAtNDU2OTQx Mg0KaHR0cDovL3d3dy54czRhbGwubmwvfmp0ZW1wL2luZGV4My5odG1sDQqwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLANCg0K ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 11:33:10 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: AFB Spores In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > A well known English beekeeper allegedly (and illegally) melted the wax > from a colony with AFB, made foundation from it and set up a new colony > on the foundation. They did not get AFB. It was speculated that the wax > coated the spores and prevented them being activated by whatever the > stimulus is that does so. This is well known and has been discussed at length in the logs. I would recommend that those interested search and thus avoid the wasted efford of re-hashing the question. AFB has spawned a religion and most of us know there is no sense in arguing with zealots of any faith. It has been pointed out previously that beeswax traded internationally *must* be full of AFB spores as must commercial wax foundation, since Canadian and US practice is to melt AFB combs for the wax. It would be interesting to take samples of wax foundation from the market and to check for spores. At any rate the whole question is one of whether there are sufficient viable spores introduced to a hive to initiate an AFB breakdown. There seems to be a "zero is barely few enough and I don't care whether they are dead or alive" crowd arguing for *total freedom from spores*. IMHO, this is unnecessary and a huge waste of effort. Most of us who deal with the question practically don't care about spores as long as the risk of breakdown is not significant. Allen --- Newsflash! Visit http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/beel.htm to search BEE-L archives the easy, easy way or to update or change your subscription options. --- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 14:17:10 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "" Subject: New Book Releases! Comments: To: AAPA-L@unlvm.unl.edu Dear BeeBookies: Wicwas Press is pleased to announce that the following titles are in stock and available for immediate shipment: 1. Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding, 1997 (published February 1998). Written by Harry Laidlaw and Rob Page. "Written for beekeepers who know little about genetics and geneticists who know little about beekeeping." 224 pages, softcover 118 photos and illustrations. 8.5 inch wide x 9.25 in high. Price $25.00. Postage $2.50 bookrate anywhere. For airmail call for quotation. 2. Honey Bee Pests, Predators, & Diseases, Third Edition, 1997 (published March 1998). Edited by Roger A. Morse and Kim Flottum (with 32 authors) "This book is a valuable scientific reference, and a practical guide for beekeepers worldwide. The causes, and the cures of a thousand problems lie inside." 718 pages, hardcover, well illustrated. 9 inches high x 6 inches wide. Price $40.00. Postage $3.50 bookrate anywhere. For airmail call for quotation. 3. Honey Shows: Guidelines for Exhibitors, Superintendents, and Judges. 1996 (published August 1997). By Roger and Mary Lou Morse. 36 pages, softcover, 29 Figures. 7.5 inches wide x 9.25 inch high. Price $10.00. Postage included for bookrate anywhere. For airmail call for quotation. SAVE ON SHIPPING IF you order BOTH the Laidlaw/Page (No. 1) and the Morse/Flottum ( No. 2) from Wicwas Press, AND send prepayment (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, check or money order drawn on U.S. Bank), Wicwas Press will ship both book postpaid (bookrate standard mail or surface bookpost)! Offer expires March 31, 1998. The total amount due for the two books is $65.00. Larry Connor Ph.D. Wicwas Press, LLC Email: ljconnor@aol.com (to place order) Phone: 203-250-7575 (call in credit card data) Fax: 203-250-7575 (fax in credit card data) Address: PO Box 817, Cheshire CT 06410 USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 12:25:34 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Whitney S. Cranshaw" Subject: willows and bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am forwarding the following beekeeping-related question to the group in hopes that someone may be able to assist Mr. Martens. Please post answers directly to him, at: adriaan.martens.securex.be >Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998 13:30:29 -0700 >From: "Adriaan Martens" >Hello, > >While searfing on the internet, I passed your interesting site. > >As beekeepers here in Belgium where looking for interesting plants which >produce pollen early in spring. As you now the willow tree is an >interesting plant. > >At the moment we are looking for someone in US to exchange ideas about >this subject. Are you familiar to this subject are do you know someone >who knows a lot of the Salix tree? > >Please, give us some help. > >Thanks in advance > >Adriaan Martens >Berlaar, Belgium > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 19:49:16 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: John Goodman Subject: ANTI-INFLAMATORY DRUGS & BEE STINGS Comments: To: APINET-L Comments: cc: ibra@cardiff.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have recently been prescribed a nonsteroidal anti-inflamatory drug and remembered about their possible side effects on beekeepers with respect to bee sting 'immunity'. Since the references are rather old and only a few cases were cited, I wondered if anyone had any more up to date information. The references which I have are: Understanding Prescription Drugs (Dorothy Smith) pp 270-271 British Medical Journal 292: 378, 1986 Many thanks, JOHN GOODMAN Regional Bee Inspector, NE England CSL National Bee Unit, UK # http://www.csl.gov.uk/navf.htm) # Tel/Message:+44 (0)1833 690561 Fax(at York):+44 (0)1904 462240 j.m.goodman@csl.gov.uk International Coordinator for the "Apinet" APINET BEE (Bee Educ & Ext) NEWS # ( http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/beenet/ ) # ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 12:59:16 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: 2 queen colonies In-Reply-To: <01393598412880@yvn.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > I have managed my hives with two queens for 20 years. I use all western > supers so that they are easier to lift. With a good queen in the bottom > hive it may be 10 or 11 westerns high. I use an excluder over the bottom > brood nest, then the supers, with the top queen over a ventilated > (screened) bottom board device. This sounds like a variation that I have not before seen: apparently the bees in the upper unit do not have have access to the lower supers without exiting the hive and re-entering below. I'm curious how many boxes are used for the lower brood chamber and also how many for the top unit. Moreover, I gather your neighbour to whom you refer further down does not have any communication within the hive due to the plwood bottom piece. I am not clear how this is then a two queen hive rather than one hive sitting on top of another hive. I know of Charles Mraz's methods and have practised them, but thinkI must be missing something here in reading your description. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 16:08:49 -0500 Reply-To: beeworks@muskoka.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: David Eyre Organization: The Bee Works Subject: Re: ventilation. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 28 Feb 98 at 18:51, Gordon Scott wrote: > bees prefer a cavity around 20 litres. By both artificially > increasing its volume (supering) and increasing the ventilation, we > go a long way towards creating the illusion that they still need > more stores and are not yet ready to swarm. -- Gordon Scott At last someone who agrees with my thinking!! I have been an advocate of increasing ventilation from spring to fall, it does reduce swarming tendencies and leads to larger crops. It doesn't need a University study (some have suggested it) just good old fashioned horse sense!! ******************************************* The Bee Works, 9 Progress Dr, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, L3V 6H1 Phone/fax 705-326-7171 David Eyre, Owner. http://www.muskoka.net/~beeworks e-mail ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 07:20:06 +0000 Reply-To: aweinert@tpgi.com.au Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: aweinert Subject: queens from brood cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I read some days ago about raising queens from brood but failed to keep the post. It was along the lines of place a frame of eggs in the nuc. go back 4 days later and knock off the sealed queen cells The remaining queen cells would be the best as they would be the best fed. Question is the 4 day period the correct time or is my memory poor. Sorry for the inconvenience but I couldn't find it in the search function thanks Andrew Weinert When standing at the edge of a cliff a step back can be said to be a step in the right direction ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 17:46:31 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: Banging the Pans to attract swarm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In 1993 (I think) I had a call from the head gardener of a big house near me. He had seen a swarm issuing from a chimney and told me " I banged on a piece of galvanised iron (wriggly tin) and managed to get them to come down in the second courtyard." They were still there when I collected them an hour later. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 17:50:24 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bee1Bob1 Subject: Apis laboriosa Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Does anybody have any information on A. laboriosa or a link to a good site on Apis species. All my books only list 4 species of Apis mainly: A. mellifera A. cerana. A. florea A. dorsata Thank Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 18:16:02 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Liz & Paul Deveau Subject: Re: ANTI-INFLAMATORY DRUGS & BEE STINGS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Goodman wrote: > > I have recently been prescribed a nonsteroidal anti-inflamatory drug and > remembered about their possible side effects on beekeepers with respect to > bee sting 'immunity'. Since the references are rather old and only a few > cases were cited, I wondered if anyone had any more up to date information. John In the fals of 1996, I had back surgery for a herniated disc. To alleviate the extreme pain prior to the operation, I was given anti-inflamatory drugs. Last spring, when I first started working with my bees again, I was extrememly sensitive to bee stings. The first half dozen or so stings swelled up quite badly and took about two weeks each to subside. After that, I seemed to be less sensitive and by mid summer, things were back to normal. Paul ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 16:44:07 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Shutting Down Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > > I think this should have gone to the list. What with you and Jim > > writing these days, the quality of the list has gone up in a big way. > > Thanks. I had hoped you'd tackle my 'Do Bees heat their Home' post. I > > don't know what your position is on this, but I'm sure it would be > > interesting. > Allen, feel free to pop my response to the list. I will get around to > your heat the home post... I will post some interesting heat, cold, > etc. data in a few weeks. Jerry --- Here are the details --- >> Some of our beekeepers shut down their queens (but usually a month or >> two later than the folks on the coasts). > I wonder if you can expand >> on this. I'd be curious how they deliberately shut them down. I would >> assume that this would by letting the brood area get plugged? How do >> they manage in order to ensure young populations in fall, or does the >> migratory aspect make this less critical? > > >Allen, sorry that I was not clear. Most of these beekeepers drop a queen >excluder on top of the first brood box. Those in a hurry just throw it on, >check later to see if she is above or below, then rotate her down. Either >way, she gets plugged out, especially during heavy nectar flows when the >forager bees fill the brood cells in the box below the excluder with nectar >during the day, move it up at night. > >In most cases, as soon as the excluder is put in place, we see strong >evidence that the queen's egg-laying is disrupted. Seems she has a hard >time adjusting. We get brood breaks and lots of supercedures. By the time >she gets going again, the brood nest is often plugged out. > >Jerry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 02:35:25 +1300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Nick Wallingford Organization: Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Subject: Creamed honey, AFB... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Summary: Two articles on creaming available on WWW. Two text files of information about American foulbrood available by email ------------------------------------------------------------------ There was a recent thread about making your own creamed honey. I did a quick search through my NZ Beekeeper magazines and scanned in two articles. One, written by Toge Johansen, describes the *legal* history of the Dyce method patent. Not many people know that the patent was revoked, since the same basic methods of creaming honey had been used in NZ since about 1914! The second article is from a beginners series I wrote some years back and describes making creamed honey on a small scale. You can get to both of these articles from: http://www.beekeeping.co.nz (Sorry about the scanning job - I'm *slowly* learning how to get (1) good copy and (2) small graphics files... I will get better... And for AFB. If you send an email message to AFBPMS@BEEKEEPING.CO.NZ you will receive a text file that is part of the NZ beekeepers' Pest Management Strategy. This section was written by Dr Mark Goodwin and gives a good overview of the AFB organism and its effect. It makes reference to a number of scientific papers on the subject. And if you send an email message to AFB@BEEKEEPING.CO.NZ you can get the bibliography of articles about American foulbrood. (\ Nick Wallingford {|||8- home nickw@beekeeping.co.nz (/ work nw1@boppoly.ac.nz NZ Beekeeping http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 20:23:06 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: BeemanNick Subject: Re: Apis laboriosa Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-03-02 18:22:48 EST, you write: << Apis species. All my books only list 4 species of Apis mainly: A. mellifera A. cerana. A. florea A. dorsata Thank Bob >> Did you try the Hive & the HOneybee? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 21:23:47 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Augustus C.Skamarycz" Subject: Re: ANTI-INFLAMATORY DRUGS & BEE STINGS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:16 PM 3/2/98 -0500, you wrote: >John Goodman wrote: >> >> I have recently been prescribed a nonsteroidal anti-inflamatory drug and >> remembered about their possible side effects on beekeepers with respect to >> bee sting 'immunity'. Since the references are rather old and only a few >> cases were cited, I wondered if anyone had any more up to date information. > >John > >In the fals of 1996, I had back surgery for a herniated disc. To >alleviate the extreme pain prior to the operation, I was given >anti-inflamatory drugs. > >Last spring, when I first started working with my bees again, I was >extrememly sensitive to bee stings. The first half dozen or so stings >swelled up quite badly and took about two weeks each to subside. After >that, I seemed to be less sensitive and by mid summer, things were back >to normal. > >Paul > >The October 1993 issue of the SPEEDY BEE had an article on page 11. ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUGS MAY END BEEKEEPERS IMMUNITY TO BEE STING. (NOTE: The information was taken from the book, UNDERSTANDING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS, by Dorothy L. Smith, Pharm D, pp270-271, Reference: British Medical Journal 292:378, 1986) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 01:32:48 +0300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Carlos Aparicio Subject: Re: Apis laboriosa Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I may recomend: An introduction to understanding honeybees, their origins, evolution and diversity by Ashleigh Milner for the British Isles Bee Breeder magazine published late 1996. I have the original (about 20 pages) and I will send on request by private channel. Carlos Aparicio At 08:23 PM 02/03/1998 EST, BeemanNick wrote: >In a message dated 98-03-02 18:22:48 EST, you write: > ><< Apis species. All my books only list 4 species of Apis mainly: > A. mellifera > A. cerana. > A. florea > A. dorsata > > Thank > > Bob > >> >Did you try the Hive & the HOneybee? > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 19:52:08 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Robert A. Roach" Subject: Re: Banging of Pans MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Paul, The story I have heard is that the banging of pans to settle a swarm = goes back to Olde England. There were many more beekeepers among the = populace in those days and a swarm was a valuable piece of property. = When a beekeeper noticed a swarm issuing forth from a hive he would bang = on a pan to announce his claim to it as he followed it until it = eventually settled. From this practice came the notion that the noise = induced the swarm to alight. Maybe there is even some truth to this old = wives tale, I really have never tried it. Bob Roach ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 09:06:51 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: Empty Comb Stimulus Hi All Alden wrote: Is the claim for the reduced crop credited to the increased wax production, assuming that extracting supers have drawn foundation? I I have noticed out of interest a comparison between a beehive with ample comb space available, and another with just foundation during a heavy flow that the foundation hive has no little white wax scales lying on the bottom board. The one with ample comb space will however usually have a little heap of wax scales lying in front of the hive entrance - ie even if they don't need wax they are producing the stuff. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 09:30:43 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Big boys/girls and little bug bites Hi All Something that has always intrigued me is how really big, fearce (sp??) humans will cringe in terror when a bee enters the room. An example that comes to mind is a policeman I know who regularily goes into places where people fire live rounds at him, weild 'traditional' weapons at him and many other things. He was more scared of a bee sting. U.S. Army soldiers' perceptions of arthropod pests and their effects on military missions. Letterman Army Institute of Research, Presidio of San Francisco, CA 94129-6800, USA. A survey was conducted to determine the effects of biting and stinging arthropods on military personnel, operations, and training. Nearly 70% of respondents reported experiencing problems attributable to arthropods. Arthropods obstructed movement and field position, prevented concealment and cover, disrupted maneuvers, and caused panic. Twenty percent of respondents reported attendance at sick call for treatment of bites or stings, and 4% were hospitalized or assigned to quarters. Median lost time was 2 days. Bee, wasp, and ant stings and spider and chigger bites were the most frequent causes of lost time. Additional training on biting and stinging arthropods, use of repellents and other personal protective measures, first aid for bites and stings, and conditions requiring medical attention is needed in field units to enhance mission performance and reduce time lost because of arthropods. Materials for treatment of bites and stings should be included in first-aid kits issued for field use. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 10:09:06 +0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jean-Marie Van Dyck Subject: Re: AFB Spores and beeswax In-Reply-To: <07264200333911@systronix.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >It has been pointed out previously that beeswax traded internationally >*must* be full of AFB spores as must commercial wax foundation, since >Canadian and US practice is to melt AFB combs for the wax. It would be >interesting to take samples of wax foundation from the market and to check >for spores. In his book on beekeeping (1949) the french well known beekeeper Perret-Maisonneuve said he tried to get AFB with contaminated wax foundation : more than 15 times : without succes. Perhaps you could find the reason of this in the works of Feldlaufer et al (1993) from the Shimanuki group : Apidologie 24 (1993) pp 89-99 They showed that some fatty acids and specially "lauric acid" CH3-(CH2)10-COOH inhibit the development of AFB spores. Now : "lauric acid" is about 6 % of the acids content of the beeswax. Seems it's easy to conclude ! Jean-Marie Van Dyck ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 10:56:41 +0200 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home Subject: Re: Apis laboriosa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 aGF0IGFib3V0Og0KaHR0cDovL3d3dy54czRhbGwubmwvfmp0ZW1wL3NvbF9iZWVfbGlmZS5o dG1sDQpsb29rIGF0IHRoZSBlbmQgb2YgdGhlIGZpbGUNCg0KaG9wZSBpdCBoZWxwcywgamFu Lg0KDQpCZWUxQm9iMSB3cm90ZToNCg0KPiBBLiBtZWxsaWZlcmEgLyBBLiBjZXJhbmEuIC8g PiBBLiBmbG9yZWEgLyA+IEEuIGRvcnNhdGENCg0KsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwDQpKYW4gVGVtcGVsbWFuIC8gSW5l a2UgRHJhYmJlICAgICB8ICAgICBtYWlsdG86anRlbXBAeHM0YWxsLm5sDQpTdGVycmVtb3Mg MTYgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAzMDY5IEFTIFJvdHRlcmRhbSwgVGhlIE5ldGhlcmxhbmRzDQpU ZWwvRmF4IChTT01FVElNRVMpIFhYIDMxICgwKTEwLTQ1Njk0MTINCmh0dHA6Ly93d3cueHM0 YWxsLm5sL35qdGVtcC9pbmRleDMuaHRtbA0KsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwDQoNCg== ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 08:27:24 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Re: Big boys/girls and little bug bites On Tue, 3 Mar 1998 09:30:43 GMT+0200 Garth writes: >Hi All > >Something that has always intrigued me is how really big, fearce >(sp??) humans will cringe in terror when a bee enters the room. Perhaps the UN is missing the boat here. They should load up their war heads on missiles with swarms and threaten our friend in the Middle East with compliance or else. Anyone know if bees were ever used as a weapon of war ? Al.................................................................. <"Mailto: awneedham@juno.com" > Scituate,Massachusetts,USA The Beehive-Educational Honey Bee Site Visit Ye Olde Honey Bee Book Shoppe http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 12:48:52 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ian Watson Subject: Re: ANTI-INFLAMATORY DRUGS & BEE STINGS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I believe the specific drug involved is "Ibuprofen" and the archives have several articles about this from the last few years. To get the list, send the following message to: LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU GETPOST BEE-L 1394 1408 1415 1424 2115 2126 5735 5744 5755 10882 10884 10886 GETPOST BEE-L 10889 10896 10903 10909-10910 10913-10914 10924 11002 11013 GETPOST BEE-L 11015 11126 11650 11652 11681 11822 11830 11876 13979 13982 GETPOST BEE-L 14005 17045 17644 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 12:10:04 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Beemaid Subject: Re: Cheaper WAX -- [ From: Beemaid * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- Garth: We would be interested in obtaining the contact information. Sincerely, Roy Sterling General Manager ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 13:24:37 -0600 Reply-To: cmichel@pbmo.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "M. C. Michel" Organization: Snap Shot Subject: Re: Honey Butter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone have a good formula for Honey Butter??? I have five boys who love it but is seems I am missing something when I try to mix it...it doesn't mix... What do I do? Chris Michel ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 20:08:33 +0000 Reply-To: luichart.woollens@virgin.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Harry Goudie Organization: Luichart Woollens Subject: Apistan and Organic Gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't see why there is any doubt in this situation. IF IT IS AN ORGANIC GARDEN THEN YOU CAN NOT USE APISTAN. I would suggest either drone trapping or better still heat treatment of the hives. Where Organic farming/gardening etc is concerned the emphasis is not on the result but on how the game is played. It is a purist concept like dry fly fishing. -- Harry Scotland Knitwear Web pages: http://freespace.virgin.net/luichart.woollens/ Beekeeping Page: http://freespace.virgin.net/luichart.woollens/page8.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 15:51:33 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Sid Pullinger Subject: Copy of: Bees and Noise MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- From: Sid Pullinger, Sidpul@Compuserve.com TO: Bee-l, INTERNET:Bee-l@cnsibm.albany.edu DATE: 10/05/97 10:24 RE: : Bees and Noise : = This thread, about bees responding to clanging a metal object, came on th= e net several months ago. In response to a query I offered the following letter. At the risk of boring those who have read it before I offer it t= o the newcomers as the best I can do to help settle the question. It is strange how these stories persist. What he saw was pure coincidenc= e. 99% of swarms settle near from where they came prior to = going off to their chosen home. I think that human noise, shouting and banging of pans, has no effect on bees at all. However, it = appears that many in the past thought so and the idea has persisted down the centuries. Village beekeeping was popular in the old = days in England and, as he states later, banging on a pan could be a signal to other beekeepers, "This is my swarm." Hives were = small and swarming and casting took place every year. I decided to see what references I could find to "tanging", as it is called, in a few old books. = Quoting from a book by T B Miner, an American beekeeper, published in 184= 6, we find "The custom of jingling of bells and rattling of tin = pans originated from the cottagers of Europe, residing in communities making a practice of ringing bells or thumping on tin pans when = a swarm issued so as to know who the owner was: since swarms issuing from= the premises of one cottager would frequently cluster = on the grounds of another." And from a book by A Neighbour, well known English beekeeper and applianc= e maker, writing in 1866, "In many country districts it is a = time-honoured custom for the good folks of the village to commence on suc= h occasions a terrible noise of tanging and ringing with = frying pan and key. This is done with the absurd notion that the bees ar= e charmed with the clangorous din and by it may be induced to = settle as near as possible to the source of such sweet sounds. This is, however, quite a mistake. The practice of ringing was originally = adopted for a different and far more sensible object ---- viz., for the= purpose of giving notice that a swarm had issued forth, and that the = owner was anxious to claim the right of following, even though it should alight on a neighbour's premises. It would be curious to trace = how this ancient ceremony has thus got corrupted from the original design= =2E" And an explanation from Root's A B C of Bee Culture, 1905. "In the old fashioned boxhive days, the ringing of bells and the tanging of tin = pans was considered very essential in causing a swarm to alight. These old-timers probably did not know that the bees would cluster = before going off, noise or no noise.. Because they settled on some tree after each tanging, such tanging was supposed to be essential. = At one time this old custom was supposed to be a relic of an old superstition: but it is now known that one of the old kings of England = once issued an edict that , whenever a swarm came forth, the owner of it was to ring bells or drum on tin pans to give notice that his = bees were out, thus preventing anyone else from claiming them. What was done in an obedience to an old law, for an entirely different = purpose, has crept down through the generations until the old significanc= e is lost." = So much for recent history. Going further back in time I found in Dr. Crane's book The Archaeloogy of= Beekeeping an illustration of an etching on a silver goblet now = in London and made in 1683. It clearly depicts a beekeeper tanging as th= e swarm issues from the hive, suggesting that the noise is for = the bees and not neighbours. Finally, in H M Fraser's book Beekeeping in= Antiquity, I found more references from the first centuries BC = and AD which indicated that the belief existed that tanging brought the bees down. No doubt there are many more references, some even earlier, if one has th= e time and books to search. Clearly the origin of tanging lies = in the dim and distant past. Sid P. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 21:36:56 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: apistan and organic gardening In-Reply-To: <2b9544af.34f9649b@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <2b9544af.34f9649b@aol.com>, BKPR333 writes > I have a question for the list that doesn't seem to have any reference in >the bee-l archives . We, my wife and I, have been asked to place two or >three hives at a organic garden location, the organic garden people are very >strict on the non-use of any chemicals. We believe the bees probably won't >survive without apistan. Is there any threat that the apistan and the organic >garden principle conflict with each other? In other words, would the apistan >cause a problem by rubbing off on the plants and leaving a chemical residue or >is that amount too insignificant to even measure or jeopardize the organic >concept? > > thank you in advance >bkpr333@aol.com > 8 hives and growing? > north central ohio I cannot see how, unless this garden is miles from anyone with bees, such as on an isolated island, that anyone can control the comings and goings of bees from several miles around. If you are in a varroa infested area there will be many, if not most, of the bees active in the area originating from Apistan treated hives. Your 3 will make little or no difference to this. So if you feel that by having bees from treated hives working the garden will render it non-organic (which in my opinion is a highly extreme point of view which would have serious consequences for organic producers of bee pollinated crops everywhere) then you should not worry too much. By those kind of standards it is ALREADY non-organic because of the active foraging bees in the locality. I'm sure that they would take the point of view that the pollination is of value to their crops, whose organic status is not even remotely likely to be upset by this. It's just your honey that would be non- organic. Murray -- Murray McGregor ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 17:30:03 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: ANTI-INFLAMATORY DRUGS & BEE STINGS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit John, Harry Riches FRCP has investigated this thoroughly and written articles in Bee Craft. The editor, Claire Waring at claire@backlane.demon.co.uk will probably be able to tell you more. My memory say the message is "don't worry". Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 17:15:22 CST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Phil Wood Subject: Re: apistan and organic gardening In-Reply-To: <$XfKzDA4fH$0EwGm@denrosa.demon.co.uk>; from "Murray McGregor" at Mar 3, 98 9:36 pm A somewhat tongue in cheek response to the thought that organic honey means no contact with apistan/mineral oil and so forth might be as follows: Consider that commercial airlines have chemical toilets. Sometimes "blue ice" chunks fall off of planes and land (with amusing results if the landing place is someone's home). What would happen to "organic farming" if we could not certify any farm as organic unless it could prove that no airplanes ever flew overhead? It would seem that we should note: 1) Organic with nothing used to treat varroa and from a pure forage location. Evidently this honey could also be marketed as "African honey" because it can't be done in the continental US or Europe. 2) organic (with no treatments added- presumably honey from a dying hive if located in the US or other varroa-infested country). 3) "organic" but using mineral oil or some other food-grade product 4) "unheated and unfiltered honey" (for those who want to use the stuff for their allergies) 5) "unheated but filtered" 6) regular heated filtered honey. It's assumed that 4, 5, and 6 may have apistan on when there is no honey flow. what do you think? Is this a reasonable division of consumer preferences? Phil wood@psysparc.psyc.missouri.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 18:33:59 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: jon mac cann Subject: Re: Cheaper WAX In-Reply-To: <199803031752.KAA00560@gate.cyberealm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <199803031752.KAA00560@gate.cyberealm.com>, Beemaid writes >-- [ From: Beemaid * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- > >Garth: > > >We would be interested in obtaining the contact information. > >Sincerely, > >Roy Sterling >General Manager -I do not understand this mesage- John McCann ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:14:27 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Organic Gardening/Beekeeping The real "bottom line" on this whole bit about organic is that it is a "crock". A first class laboratory examination would prove that. What should be established is that the term "organic" will allow a certain percentage of this and that and no more, just like the FDA (USA) allows a certain percentage of insect parts and pieces to be in our food. The 'blue ice chunks" falling out of aircraft is enough by itself to show that "organic anything" is just not possible. For that matter, when I flew in Jet Interceptor Aircraft, there was always a little funnel attached to a tube that led to the outside of the aircraft. Guess what went in the funnel and exited the aircraft to disperse itself over your organic gardens ? So..there you go, so much for organic honey, etc. ! Al................................................................ <"Mailto: awneedham@juno.com" > Scituate,Massachusetts,USA The Beehive-Educational Honey Bee Site Visit Ye Olde Honey Bee Book Shoppe http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:35:58 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Greg Zujus Subject: Bats I am preparing to erect some "Bat houses" and I was wondering if anyone has ever had any problems with Bats dwindling their hive population ? ____________________________________________ GJZ@MSN.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 05:31:34 -0800 Reply-To: richard@centex.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Richard Harkey Organization: Harkey's Honey Subject: Tanging, Banging, or communicate with a swarm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HOWDY, I have read, where I don't remember, about this, which also included spraying water into a swarm - which might indicate to the swarm an impending rain storm so should light till weather improved. No water close to swarm throw sand or dust into the midst to fool them of a dust storm. Or use a mirror to reflect the sun from a low angle - fool the swarm of the sun going down, cluster till morning. Communicate??? I don't chase swarms, if one is close enough to the ground, where I am I will try to put it into a box. We have close to 1500 colonies and devides are too easy, also it is an effective remedy to swarming. Splits plus some other timely manipulations will greatly reduce swarming. I said "reduce", not eliminate. Richard - - - Deep in the heart of TEXAS. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 06:32:08 -0800 Reply-To: richard@centex.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Richard Harkey Organization: Harkey's Honey Subject: Re: Guess what MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Guess what went in the funnel and exited the aircraft to disperse itself over your organic gardens? So that's how some got aids, stay out of your organic gardens. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 20:34:04 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Beekeeperc Subject: Re: Bats Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I have a bat house about 25 feet from three of my hives and have never had a problem. Norm beekeeperc@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 14:29:45 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Two queen colonies Good comments from George Imirie, I'm sure I haven't spent as much time with this configuration as he but I came to the same conclusion with less convincing. It has been tried by enough serious honey producers by noew and if it was worth the effort it would certinaly woul have become a standard practice . Well said George. Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 16:30:54 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Creamed Honey >better. I >had a refrigerator repairman change my thermostat and freon amount >until my >"creamed honey refrigerator" cycles between 55 and 59. I sell it for >$4.50 >per pound. > >George Imirie That $4.50 is eye catching I have seen it priced higher than this at 'Tourist Traps' but to my knowledge the beekeeper only gets 50%. I guess this creamed is going for about $9.00 / lb.? quite respectable. I wish I could find a market where I could get more than $2.50 for the few hundred pounds I sell. Anybody out there want to buy it for $2.00 / # ? You can double your money by just being a handler. We cant advertise on this net so forget it. Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764> _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 14:56:22 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: 2 queen colonies Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 On Sat, 28 Feb 1998 03:23:09 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: James C Bach >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU >inner covers. Beats me. Is it vibration as a means of communication? >f.) With noisy bottom hive because of a poor queen down below, the >bees >will often move up to the more attractive queen in the top nuc, often >filling two westerns and hanging out of the top entrance like a swarm. My guess there is alot of worker drift in the double colony therefor pheromone mix. Perhaps the easiest way to determine this would be to use 1 queen with dark progeny and one with light ? >But, the more mature I get, I may go back to single queens just for >practical reasons. > I have [matured] enough to be happy with single queen systems. >Regards all > >James C. Bach >WSDA State Apiarist >Yakima WA >jbach@agr.wa.gov >jcbach@yvn.com >509 576 3041 > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 15:11:50 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: ventilation. On Sat, 28 Feb 1998 14:14:13 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >Reply-to: Discussion of Bee Biology >From: Gordon Scott > >> I think we need to remember that bees in the wild don't normally >make as >> much honey as properly managed hives. At least that's what I've >been told. > >Here's something to think about. > >The primary aims of all creatures are survival and reproduction, in >bees -- >swarming. Once a colony has sufficient honey for survival, it sets out >on its >other primary aim. If we want to produce honey and avoid swarming, >it's in >*our* best interests to try and fool the bees into thinking that they >haven't >yet reached that second phase. > >IMHO, they do much of their estimating on whether thar are ready to >swarm >from the congestion levels in their 'chosen' nest -- IIRC, bees prefer >a >cavity around 20 litres. By both artificially increasing its volume >(supering) and increasing the ventilation, we go a long way towards >creating >the illusion that they still need more stores and are not yet ready to >swarm. > Perhapsthe removal of surplus in advance would be a considerat part of this equation? Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 16:13:14 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Do Bees heat their Home? On Sat, 28 Feb 1998 14:09:53 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: Allen Dick >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > > >When time for the active season arrives, the observant beekeeper will >try >to match the hive size and ventillation to the bees needs and the >season. >She will be rewarded by healthier, more productive bees. > >I hope this helps explain this concept better. It is one can make the >difference between success and failure. > >Allen > This is a very good explanations as to the control of the hive environment. It seems to me that bees do the best job in controlling the interior climate if the beekeeper is not to generous with ventilation, confinement and space. Often thought about some sort of baffle arrangement to place on top of hive where a lot of air could be passed through by bees but appear as nearly as possible to a passive blockage. What would be the response if there were a spring loaded flap under a raised outer cover? which way should it be vented, in or out? Perhaps the easiest solution is a larger entrance with a couple or more levels of staggered slats? Like the second thought better. Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764--- >You can search the BEE-L archives by sending email to >LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU saying >SEARCH BEE-L "key phrase" >Substitute a key phrase for "key phrase" above. >and remember to use the double quotes to exclude >hits on the individual words in the phrase >--- > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 15:21:19 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Apistan and organic gardening On Sun, 1 Mar 1998 07:53:39 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >Reply-to: Discussion of Bee Biology >From: BKPR333 > > I have a question for the list that doesn't seem to have any >reference in >the bee-l archives . We, my wife and I, have been asked to place two >or >three hives at a organic garden location, the organic garden people >are very >strict on the non-use of any chemicals. We believe the bees probably >won't >survive without apistan. Is there any threat that the apistan and the >organic >garden principle conflict with each other? In other words, would the >apistan >cause a problem by rubbing off on the plants and leaving a chemical >residue or >is that amount too insignificant to even measure or jeopardize the >organic >concept? > > thank you in >advance >bkpr333@aol.com > 8 hives and >growing? > north central >ohio FWIW, I fthis is really a concer, consider placing the strips in the hives after all plants have bloomed, no foraging. I know that mites can be controlled on an annual basis with late application. You should be able to keep the mite population well under control without infested bees close by, if this is indeed the case. This may mean removing strips in snow cover conditions. If your quick, little harm, if any will come to the bees. Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 >NB:1.Send replies to the author or BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU - not this >list > 2.To unsubscribe, email HoneyBee@systronix.net saying "leave >BestOfBee" > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 20:00:59 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Swarm Control, Will it Work? Hi Devoted and Abbused Readers, I am looking for criticism on this matter and my philosophy for an attempt to inhibit or greatly reduce the effects of swarming. I have tried a few methods of swarm control such as cutting cells [not worth the effort IMHO] and providing extra space which works sometime, and removing the queen which works about equally as well. After much reading and thought, or as much as I can give it, I wonder what is of oversight in the following proceedure? Given: Colony has queen cells which appear to be in preperation for swarming, doesn't always happen, only most of the time. 1.Remove all brood chambers from bottom board. 2. Place new brood box on bottom board w/ foundation or drawn comb. 3. Find the queen however it has to be done. 4. Place Queen in new brood super, mabe w/ 1 frameof eggs and unsealed brood? 5. Place 'Q'excluder on super 6. Add empty honey super, w/ foundation or frames? 7. Place a double screen frame or some type of devider board with an entranc access on top of these two. 8. Reassemble queenless colony. 9. When new queen is established recombine the two units and may the best queen win. With only field bees in with the queen there is nothing to swarm here and this colony will be on the decline until new bees start to come along. In the meantime there will be little brood to feed so most nectar will be stored. Will wax be drawn with field bees, sure it may not be as robust as young bees do but swarming bees (mostly foragers) do a pretty good job. When new queen(s) above hatch out there will only be a small force of field bees to swarm if they should so choose. Any swarm will certainly be smaller than with the combined forargers. Manipulations to divert swarming tendancies are certianly time consuming and IMO are for not in how many instances? Do we know that the manipulations were the preventive or that swarming was not going to occur anyway? Waiting with bated breath. Alden Marshalldivert B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 17:29:44 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Entrances On Sun, 22 Feb 1998 13:47:38 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: Allen Dick >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > >> I have always been of the opinion that you give the bees a nice >landing >> board. Given the oportunity to choose, the bees choose the little >hole. > >Astute observation. > >Why do we people always try to make bees do things our way? > >Check out http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Spring/mgmt.htm >and http://www.internode.net/Honeybee/Spring.htm for pictures of my >answers to the question. After years of trying to follow the books, >I'm >now trying to work with my bees not against them. I do what they ask >when >I can. > >We don't scrape ladder comb any more and now regard bee space as more >of a >general principle than a *law* of bee behavior. Ladder comb, that's a good subject, bees don't put it there to make the keepers miserable. If our lousy equipment was not so sloppily made or built to one standard some of that problem would go away. Bees apparently prefer to climb than jump. So do I. I only remove burr (ladder) comb when I suspect there are a bunch of bees on the bottom of the frames that are going to squeezed down on the separated comb. I will go the effort to prevent squashing a bunch of bees, as most would I believe. If we remove it we'r just contributing to their and our work load, the just rebuild it. This brings me to another somewhat related topic, Queen Excluders. Seems as though the old wooden rimmed ones were designed to be a separator in the bee space instead of a transparent device. This doubles the bee space which is objectionable.Those of us who have had the opportunity to use metal rimmed ones have discovered that by basically keeping the space between bottom and top bar nearly correct burr comb problems are greatly reduced. Perhaps the wood rimmed ones would work better if the top bas of brood chamber were flush with super rim, thus by placing on an excluder one would be providing a previously non existent bee space? Comments anyone? > >Bees know how to be bees without our assistance. We just facilitate >and >help deal with the things that are beyond their reach -- if we are >smart >-- and profit to the extent that we help more than hinder. > >FWIW > >Allen > Alden Marshall B-Line Apiaries Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:53:17 -0800 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: 2-queen colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen, and all: The queen introduction boards (QIB) I use are of three designs. a) a single piece of 1/8 hardware cloth on one side of the 4x9 hole cut in the center of the plywood or, b) a piece of 1/4 in. plywood with 1/8 in. wide saw kerfs or, c) a piece of peg board with 1/4 in. holes. This ventilation is suspected to allow the movement of heat up to the small nuc allowing for a faster build up. I am of the current opinion that not only does heat pass up to the small nuc on top, but I think that even if the bees cannot communicate directly (I'm not sure how much communication goes on through the 1/4 peg board or the saw kerfs), the bee behavior changes resulting in a higher production. I am at a loss to explain the reason why a nuc on top of a piece of 1/4 solid plywood (without any hole) results in the same honey storing behavior as those with a screened hole. In fact I have even removed the QIB and find that the bees continue to store honey in the same manner i.e., more evenly throughout the supers, vertically between the two queens. I operate with three or four westerns as the bottom brood nest, and two or three containing the top queen, depending on how good the top queen is, with three to five westerns as supers between the two queens. A good queen needs three to avoid crowding before the July 5 date when I like to combine the top colony down. If the lower queen fails I move the top colony down to replace her. My goal with the 2-queen colony is to produce two or three more westerns of bees to bring in the end of the honey flow after I combine the two colonies. Another observation I and others have repeatedly made is that if the lower queen appears to be failing i.e. poor brood pattern, when you set up the top nuc the bottom queen (or the bees) changes her behavior drastically and quickly. A poor brood pattern changes to a dense brood pattern within one brood cycle. I can't identify the cause of this. Often the lower queen disappears within 3-4 weeks after the top queen is put on. I know this occurs because I use marked queens and track their longevity. This increased brood production must account for some of the increased production of the hive. I theorize (emphasis here), that queen pheromone constituents are not all tactle in nature, but indeed judging by observed bee behavior, some constituents must be olefactory. Further, If a second queen is added, some elements of queen pheromone must impact bee behavior, maybe even urging the nurse bees in the lower brood nest to better feed (?) their mother, which may result in more egg production, or better feeding activity, which results in increased survivability of the brood. To reply to your query about the solid QIB resulting in one hive set on top of another, I agree. BUT, I have visited an apiary where 40 three frame nucs (singles) were set up in early May. I visited in early August as I recall. Opening a lot of the nucs I noted that most were less than three combs of bees at the time of my visit. Adequate food stores were in each hive. I observed 40 percent queenless colonies, most not having made any attempt to supercede. I also observed many other aberrant behaviors of the bees. In the center back of the apiary were two hives which were two stories high. Opening the hives I observed them to be crammed full of bees, quiet in behavior, queen retinues, and all the other normal and desirable behaviors. Based on these behaviors I strongly suspect that bees from the other single story nucs in the apiary had migrated to these two attractive queens. I and others have seen these behaviors repeatedly over the years. It is my opinion based upon a multitude of observations, that attractive queens result in a more productive colony, and two queen systems create this environment by increasing queen pheromone levels at both ends of the storage chamber, and also an result in an increase in brood production. James C. Bach Yakima WA 98902-6108 jbach@agr.wa.gov jcbach@yvn.com 509 576 3041 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 23:43:45 -0500 Reply-To: dverville@worldnet.att.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Verville Subject: Re: Bats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Don't bats fly at night when all the bees are home? ---------- : From: Beekeeperc : To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU : Subject: Re: Bats : Date: Tuesday, March 03, 1998 08:34 PM : : I have a bat house about 25 feet from three of my hives and have never had a : problem. : : Norm : beekeeperc@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 01:26:48 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Teresa Garcma Subject: Re: soyflour MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Stan, > on how to grind it? I have a friend who has a stone mill but he was af= raid > of gumming up his stones. I think that since the oil is out it wouldn'= t be > too bad, but I guess the mechanical process does leave about 8% oil. =20 I once tried to grind soyflour in a fine mill and it didn=B4t work ok: it= =20 was really slow, and had to keep cleaning the machine. But I got a=20 little amount of very fine soyflour powder. I think that bees eat the=20 soyflour even if it=B4s not as fine as powder, because it has to be wet i= n=20 the pattie.=20 Comments, anyone? Tere ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 06:32:10 -0500 Reply-To: sun_rise@sympatico.ca Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Steve Organization: Sun Rise Systems, Computers & Honey Subject: Re: Bats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bats fly at night time and so do wax moths. Bats my be helpful here. Steve sun_rise@sympatico.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 07:12:10 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: WesVoigtJr Subject: Re: Big boys/girls and little bug bites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-03-03 08:55:46 EST, you write: << Anyone know if bees were ever used as a weapon of war ? >> Somewhere I read that hives with toxic (because of the foral source) honey were left in villages so that the invading solders would find them, eat the honey, and while they were incapactated, the villagers would return and kill them. I'm sorry I do not remember the source. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 22:33:31 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Frederick L. Hollen" Subject: Re: Bees as weapons Comments: cc: "Frederick L. Hollen" In-Reply-To: <19980303.085257.3374.0.awneedham@juno.com>; from "Al Needham" at Mar 3, 98 8:27 am According to Al Needham: > > Anyone know if bees were ever used as a weapon of war ? The Romans used to load hives of bees on their catapults and throw them at their enemies. This was so effective that they depleted central Italy of bee colonies for their ammunition. Considering the leather skirts, tunics, etc. worn by ancient soldiers, a hive crashing down in the middle of a cohort of advancing soldiers, or over the wall of a fortress, would likely have been quite effective. . . In the Middle Ages, defenders of castles would sometimes drop hives over the walls into the beseiging armies. This info culled from various magazine articles I've read over the past few years. FWIW Regards, Fred ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 20:45:34 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Greg Magruder Subject: Re: Bats I have two bat boxes and couldn't attribute any bee losses to the bats. My feeling is that bats and bees are quite compatable since bees return to the hive for the evenings when the bats begin to fly. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:50:09 +0100 Reply-To: drs@kulmbach.baynet.de Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Dr. Reimund Schuberth" Subject: Re: Making splits MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Mr. Slade, with a lot of interest I read your email about the "Bee Buddy" system in U.K. (or only your district?). Please be so kind to describe it more detailled. Is this system new or does it exist for a long time. How is it organized? I'm also chairman of a local beekeeper association here in Germany. And I wonder if we can build up such a helping neighbourhood system too. Sincerely Reimund _______________________________ Beekeeper from Germany (Bavaria) Queen Rearing of Carniolan Bees Insemination Station _______________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 15:54:21 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Chang-geun, Kim" Subject: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit SEARCH BEE-L beeswax ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 10:46:30 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: FIrst entry in BEE-L FAQ arrives!!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Well, I've gone and done it. With a little assistance from Benjamin Chi (LISTSERV guru at the University at Albany) I/we have set up the mechanism for LISTSERV to serve up answers to BEE-L FAQs! This has been on my to-do list since, well, forever! The repeat of the "Two Queen Hive Management" question last week prompted me to finally get off my eh, chair, and JUST DO IT! As we all well know by now, BEE-L archives are serachable by sending a single line of mail to: LISTSERV@cnsibm.albany.edu that reads: SEARCH BEE-L topic There are flaws in the search mechanism. If the search item is enclosed in quotes, the search is literally for whatever is enclosed in quotes. SEARCH BEE-L "two queen management" gave two hits - woefully inadequate when there are around 20 posts of interest. If the search item is not enclosed in quotes the search is more free form and returns any posts containing the words two or queen or management, and it also returns every post that contains a quote of the original post containing the words two or queen or management. IMHO, this is the main reason to keep reqoutes to a minimum, requotes pollute the archives. SEARCH BEE-L two queen management returned over 100 hits, way too much for anyone to plow through. But I did not come here to beat that horse, I came to announce the first entry in the BEE-L FAQ! I submitted a free form: SEARCH BEE-L TWO QUEEN and submitted the required: GETPOST BEE-L nnn ... zzz to retrieve all the two queen posts. I then identified those posts which were pertinent to two queen hive management (there were 19, going back to June '94), edited them down to a single file, removed as much of the extraneous reposting of what was previously posted as I could and ended up with a file less than 1000 lines long which will be the first in what I hope will be a series of FAQs that can be served to any subscribed BEE-L member by sending a single line of mail to the server: LISTSERV@cnsibm.albany.edu that reads: GET B-L-FAQ 2QUEENS This request should return the above mentioned summary of two queen management posts made to BEE-L! Hope you like it, more to follow! Aaron Morris - thinking a BEE-L FAQ service will be great! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 15:52:47 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: JOHN TAYLOR Subject: Re: SEARCH BEE-L beeswax In-Reply-To: <34F9061D.492D@users.unitel.co.kr> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, 1 Mar 1998 15:54:21 +0900, you wrote: >SEARCH BEE-L beeswax Hi Kim, In case no one has written you yet, you need to send your request to the SERVER instead of the LIST. To do that, send a message as follows: TO: LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: (may be left blank) TEXT: SEARCH BEE-L beeswax -- John Taylor -- (Remove NOSPAM for e-mail) Wild Rose Creek Apiary Southeast Missouri When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 11:09:09 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Al Needham Subject: Re: FIrst entry in BEE-L FAQ arrives!!! Thanks for your work Aaron. I am sure that it will be most appreciated by most members !! Al, <"Mailto: awneedham@juno.com" > Scituate,Massachusetts,USA The Beehive-Educational Honey Bee Site Visit Ye Olde Honey Bee Book Shoppe http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 16:24:09 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: JOHN TAYLOR Subject: Hive in wall In-Reply-To: <980304.104642.EST.SYSAM@cnsibm.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I've had a request to remove bees from the wall of a house. After searching the Hive and The Honey Bee and submitting searches to LISTSERV@cnsibm.albany.edu on three sets of keywords: bee wall , bee house, bee removal house, I think I'm ready to remove the bees. There were a few things I don't quite have all the answers for . . . The bees are in the lath and plaster wall of an old farm parlor. Fire damage was concentrated at one spot in the wall. Lath and plaster were removed to the ceiling at that area. About 5 feet to the right of the main damage, they were removing lightly damaged lath/plaster when they encountered honeycomb and bees at about four feet above the floor. They stopped removing wall material. With nine foot ceilings, the comb may be anything up to five feet long. It runs parallel to the studs, in seven strips, where I can see it. The room is unheated. There is an outside entrance located about 20 feet above ground level outside. =20 My plan at this point, since the lath and plaster will be removed anyway, is to expose the entire hive, cut the comb into pieces to fit on a frame and wire or rubber band them in place. I can see where there might easily be enough to fill two full hive bodies. Plan from there would be to leave the hive in the room, hopefully with the window open, and get them used to the hive body then block the door with screen and move them out in the night. Questions/Problems: Should I wait for a warm day so I can open room windows while working and maybe let some of the bees get out of the room during this process? I can see where they might not be too happy about this forced move. Or can I heat the room with a space heater and hope for the best that way? I know that bees DON'T like to be messed with when it is cool. The owners father was a beekeeper and left somewhere between 50 and a 100 hive bodies, bases, lids, tops, frames for same in an old honey house and garage. He really wants to save the bees AND would like to have them on his property. He also says his father _thinks_ he may have had problems with AFB. The equipment has been sitting since sometime around 1930, or earlier. =20 Since Hive & Honeybee says the spores may "live indefinetly" I see a problem with using the standing equipment. Could scorch and wash the insides of boxes, tops, bottoms and some empty frames and put bees in that . . . There is also an ethylene oxide sterilization place locally . . . however I see dollar signs mounting and him not wanting to go to that length. He also has no area that is over three miles away - I've read you can move bees less than three feet or greater than three miles. What is the likelihood that the bees will stay put anywhere near his farm once the hive is relocated? Thanks to any for help. This will be a first time for recovering bees for me. I feel somewhat comfortable with the idea after reading BEE-L for the last year and a half. -- John Taylor -- (Remove NOSPAM for e-mail) Wild Rose Creek Apiary Southeast Missouri When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:47:40 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Marc Sevigny Subject: wax moths and super storage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have a question about the life cycle of the wax moth. I live in Massachusetts (below freezing winters (typically)). I understand that wax moth eggs cannot survive below freezing temperatures. How do new moths emerge in the spring? (I assume larvae can tolerate the cold?, if so, how does freezing the supoer help?). I removed a super recently that wasn't needed on a wintering hive. I plan to feed it to a new hive that I'll start in April. Since the super was outside in below freezing temps, I simply wrapped the super to keep out wax moths. Is this sufficient? What is the typical way to store full or empty supers with wax and or honey? Marc ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:54:42 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Joel Govostes Subject: Re: Swarm Control, Will it Work? Comments: To: busybee9@juno.com In-Reply-To: <19980303.220154.4990.13.busybee9@juno.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In response to your swarm-control description, It sounds like a good plan. One thing to add is -- by the time they are getting ready to swarm (you find queen cells under development) you would normally have at least a couple of honey supers on already. These will have had some progress made in them already, from the early nectar sources. You want to put the queen and a comb of brood in the center of your new hive, on the orig. stand, then the excluder, and then whatever honey supers there were, with whatever bees are in them. Then you can put the screen/divider on, and the original brood chamber(s) above that. You can set the divider so that the upper colony's entrance faces front or to one side, and then later when you re-unite them, the field bees will find their way in OK. This is pretty much the "classic" artificial swarming maneuver, except you are putting the main hive on top instead of to-one-side. The upper colony is not likely to swarm at all, since they lose all their field force to the hive below. It would probably be easiest to put the comb where you find the queen at the center of the new hive, and then add a comb of sealed brood on either side. This will prevent you from having to pick up the queen (squish!), and it will provide some soon-emerging bees to the lower unit without inviting swarming. In about a month the upper colony should be getting strong and the new queen should be laying well. Then you can unite them as you like. A potential hitch here is that the foundation in the bottom (new) brood-chamber might not get drawn very well, being so low in the hive. You could always go in there after they are all united, and move it up to the 3rd position for finishing. You can let them fill that third brood-box with honey and harvest it, leaving a 2-brood chamber colony for winter. Or, winter them in all three (not a bad idea in NH) and next spring remove the bottom one - by then empty - when you clean off the floor. Next time you do your artificial swarming, you will have a brood chamber of empty drawn combs all ready to go... (BTW I had bees in Alton, Meredith, and Dublin for a few years) Good luck, Alden. JG ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:22:12 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: paul s leroy Subject: Re: beekeeping in dominica,w.i. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:17 AM 2/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >From: tomas mozer > >going to dominica next week to participate in a youth beekeeping >training...any apicultural information/contacts would bee appreciated, >thanks! > >tomasmozer@juno.com >I was in Dominica during this period but didnt know anything about your trip until I returned home 1st of March. I met and worked with one of the largest beekeepers in the north of Dominica at Plymouth . It was very discouraging as he has let his apiary run down because the price he can get for honey will not pay for the supplies he needs to keep apiary in good condition. He is very knowledgeable and has many years experience . They do not have mites in Dominica but his biggest problem is with termites eating up bottom boards, brood boxes and frames etc to the point of collapse and turn over of hives. It would appear that a fiberglass bottom board with a cap such as the principle of caps on house foundations used here in the States would solve that problem but have been unable to find any one with knowledge or experience in using such a device since returning home. Am inexperienced in use of Internet and especially this bee network so if you know how to get a message widely disseminated please help. Im sure some of the more experienced suppliers or beekeepers have heard of this problem before and could offer some help. The beekeepers address is...Randolph Lawrence ... The Grange, Portsmouth, Commonwealth of Dominica --West Indes I have his telephone # and will relay any information to him . Thanks Paul LeRoy. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:58:46 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom Sanford Subject: Re: enquiry about short courses in beekeeping. Comments: To: AAPA-L@UNLVM.UNL.EDU, polpal-l@listserv.uoguelph.ca, entomo-l@listserv.uoguelph.ca Comments: cc: PRASHANT NIKAM MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am sending your message to a couple of lists for possible information. I don't know of any opportunities in Florida at the present time. Tom Sanford At 04:25 PM 3/3/98 -0800, you wrote: >Dear Dr Sanford, > I am faculty at the R.Y.K Science college,affiliated to >University of Pune,India.I am a Ph.D in Entomology and have a teaching >experience over 25 years. For the past two decades I am involved in >Beekeeping activity.My area of interest is bee pollination and >agriculture. > I would be greatly obliged if I could get some information >about some short term courses in Beekeeping.I was also interested in >some kind of Post doctoral research opportunity in this field. > Thanking you in anticipation. > >Sincerely yours, >T.B.Nikam >Department of Zoology, >H.P.T/R.Y.K Science College, >Nashik 42005(Maharashtra) >India > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 16:09:02 +0100 Reply-To: drs@kulmbach.baynet.de Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Dr. Reimund Schuberth" Subject: Re: Big boys/girls and little bug bites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Al, indeed bees were used as a weapon. I know, that straw hives were thrown down to the enemies by defending people of castles and medieval cities here in Europe. > Anyone know if bees were ever used as a weapon of war ? Besides hot water, pitch and tar it probably was very effective. Yours sincerely Reimund _______________________________ Beekeeper from Germany (Bavaria) Queen Rearing of Carniolan Bees Insemination Station _______________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 15:20:49 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jerry'S Bees Subject: Re: wax moths and super storage On Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:47:40 -0500 Marc Sevigny writes: >I have a question about the life cycle of the wax moth. I >live in Massachusetts (below freezing winters (typically)). >I understand that wax moth eggs cannot survive below freezing >temperatures. How do new moths emerge in the spring? (I >assume larvae can tolerate the cold?, if so, how does freezing >the supoer help?). Eggs and Larvae are killed by freezing, but may be well insulated by other larvae or by the webbing they have spun, especially if there is a large mass of larvae (they generate heat). Actually, the moths are not a problem in the spring here in Pennsylvania. The generally don't appear in unprotected supers until late July or August, so your wrapped super should be fine even if it were unwrapped. Even after the warmer weather arrives, the supers can be protected by leaving them where light and air can get to the frames. >What is the typical way to store full or empty supers with wax and or honey? >Marc Empty supers can be stacked in airtight units of about five mediums with Paradichlorobenzeze crystals in each unit. Full or partial supers of honey are best left with the bees or kept in a freezer. "The ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping" has a good section on moths and worms. Jerry _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 15:32:53 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Wax moths and super storage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT From _Honey_Bee_Pests,_Predators_and_Diseases_ (Morse and Nowogrodzki): "If artificial cold is used, the following minimum treatments are required to kill all stages of the greater wax moth: -7dC (20 dF) for 4.5 hours, -12 dC (10 dF) for 3 hours or -15 dC (5 dF) for 2 hours..." Temperature less severe in natural environs allow wax moths to survive over the winter. I believe it is the pupal atge that is most hardy, but this is my recollection which has been noted to be flawed. Aaron Morris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 22:11:48 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Swarm Control - will it work? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Alden Marshalldivert wrote on the above subject. This seems like a version of the Artificial Swarm (Pagden) system. The Pagden system is well documented and has been used for many years. I believe that it is worth trying - I am going to use it this year. If Alden has difficulty getting information on it, I will send documentation if he contacts me directly. Many beekeepers do not agree with the concept of the queens fighting it out when colonies are united - the more desirable queen may not necessarily win. There is also the possibility of no survivor, or the survivor being seriously impaired by the fight. This could result in either an emergency queen being brought forward (with all of the negatives that this may cause), or the injured queen being superseded. Removing the unwanted queen before uniting is seen as a more positive approach to this situation. All of the above INMHO of course, as this is only my second year in beekeeping and as yet most of my knowledge (such as it is) is theoretical! Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland e mail cssl@iol.ie Tel + 353 1 289 5269 Fax + 353 1 289 9940 Latitude 53 Deg 16' 12.8" North Longitude 06 Deg 9' 44.9" West 3 miles - 5 km from the Irish Sea Mild winters - cool to moderately warm summers. Being Ireland, it rains a lot! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 18:29:55 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank Humphrey Subject: Re: Bees as weapons Comments: To: "Frederick L. Hollen" In-Reply-To: <199803040333.WAA27989@pen2.pen.k12.va.us> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > > Anyone know if bees were ever used as a weapon of war ? > I know a beekeeper who was having trouble with people breaking into his basement. He made up a split and placed it by the basement door. he then hung a sign on the Hive that read: "Guard Bees". End of problem. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@bellsouth.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 17:55:01 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Queens Fighting? In-Reply-To: <199803042211.WAA22956@mail.iol.ie> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Many beekeepers do not agree with the concept of the queens fighting it > out when colonies are united - the more desirable queen may not > necessarily win. There is also the possibility of no survivor, or the > survivor being seriously impaired by the fight. This could result in > either an emergency queen being brought forward (with all of the > negatives that this may cause), or the injured queen being superseded. Personally, I don't think the laying queens fight it out when the excluder is pulled. That scenario just doesn't seem very realistic to me. Too Hollywood, I guess. I have seen more than one queen in a hive fairly often. And it looks as if they have both been there for a while. Sometimes they walk over one another while you watch. I think what actually happens at the end of the season is similar to what happens in queen banks: the bees neglect one and she eventually just dies. Or else, when things get scarce and robbers are at the door, the bees get defensive and one queen gets hassled. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 21:44:09 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: DHardw9178 Subject: Re: Bats Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I think bats basically hunt at night. Only problem I've had is attracting bats to my bat boxes! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 19:31:59 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Re: Hive in wall In-Reply-To: <352679fe.857044008@mail.ldd.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi John, I did a similar bee project to what you are doing last year. In one project, I found out that it was easier to use a bait hive/wire cone method on the outside of the wall and draw the bees out over several week period. I leaned a 20' extension ladder set against the building and put a 3 frame nuc bait hive on a platform. The bait hive helped dwindle the bee population to zero inside the wall and made it much easier to deal with removal of the remaining comb/honey from the inside exposed area. Without the bees, cutting the combs went very easy despite the cramped and hot temperatures of the attic. :) However, if the hive is too high up the side of the building and since you have exposed it from the inside then there is the second approach - direct removal from the inside. In another project, it took me three days to get the hive out of an abandoned guest house. I ripped off the drywall to expose the upper corner of a room. The colony filled a space between 3 studs and extended 5 feet from the ceiling. I filled one large brood chamber with bees and could not find the queen. I left the hive balanced on a ladder, entrance towards the colony which had settled in the soffit. I came back the next day and with a little smoke and tearing out some more materia, I chased the bees outside onto the roof. I relocated the hive to the the roof and had to tear a few shingles off before I found the last cluster and the queen, she marched into the hive. The queen sure likes to hide and will move to a different part of the wall or into hidden pockets of the wall.Make sure you have exposed ALL of the hive and enough of the surrounding wall to make sure she does not move into a hidden part. Since you are inside a building, don't use too much smoke. You might get asphyxiated and it will drive the queen outside waiting for you to use the ladder. :) All in all it is a messy job no matter wich way you do it. Lots of dead bees and dripping honey. Would be nice to have a bee removal vacuum to get the bees of the combs before you cut them out. I recommend rubber bands to hold the combs in place. Keep the lights off at nite or you will have a lot buzzing around and end up dead on the floor in the morning. Don't worry about the temperature unless you are in snow conditions. The bees can keep the colony very warm even if exposed. Work on a warm day and keep the windows open. You should locate a temporary location to move the bees 2 miles away. Leave there for 2-3 weeks and then bring back to the farm. As a rule I stay away from used equipment and buy new. Whay take the risk of diseases?? Good luck. Paul Cronshaw DC Hobby Beekeeper in Santa Barbara CA USA >I've had a request to remove bees from the wall of a house. After >searching the Hive and The Honey Bee and submitting searches to >LISTSERV@cnsibm.albany.edu on three sets of keywords: bee wall , bee >house, bee removal house, I think I'm ready to remove the bees. >There were a few things I don't quite have all the answers for . . . > >The bees are in the lath and plaster wall of an old farm parlor. Fire >damage was concentrated at one spot in the wall. Lath and plaster >were removed to the ceiling at that area. About 5 feet to the right >of the main damage, they were removing lightly damaged lath/plaster >when they encountered honeycomb and bees at about four feet above the >floor. They stopped removing wall material. With nine foot ceilings, >the comb may be anything up to five feet long. It runs parallel to >the studs, in seven strips, where I can see it. The room is unheated. >There is an outside entrance located about 20 feet above ground level >outside. > >My plan at this point, since the lath and plaster will be removed >anyway, is to expose the entire hive, cut the comb into pieces to fit >on a frame and wire or rubber band them in place. I can see where >there might easily be enough to fill two full hive bodies. Plan from >there would be to leave the hive in the room, hopefully with the >window open, and get them used to the hive body then block the door >with screen and move them out in the night. > >Questions/Problems: > >Should I wait for a warm day so I can open room windows while working >and maybe let some of the bees get out of the room during this >process? I can see where they might not be too happy about this >forced move. Or can I heat the room with a space heater and hope for >the best that way? I know that bees DON'T like to be messed with when >it is cool. > >The owners father was a beekeeper and left somewhere between 50 and a >100 hive bodies, bases, lids, tops, frames for same in an old honey >house and garage. He really wants to save the bees AND would like to >have them on his property. He also says his father _thinks_ he may >have had problems with AFB. The equipment has been sitting since >sometime around 1930, or earlier. > >Since Hive & Honeybee says the spores may "live indefinetly" I see a >problem with using the standing equipment. Could scorch and wash the >insides of boxes, tops, bottoms and some empty frames and put bees in >that . . . There is also an ethylene oxide sterilization place >locally . . . however I see dollar signs mounting and him not wanting >to go to that length. > >He also has no area that is over three miles away - I've read you can >move bees less than three feet or greater than three miles. What is >the likelihood that the bees will stay put anywhere near his farm once >the hive is relocated? > >Thanks to any for help. This will be a first time for recovering bees >for me. I feel somewhat comfortable with the idea after reading BEE-L >for the last year and a half. > > >-- John Taylor -- >(Remove NOSPAM for e-mail) >Wild Rose Creek Apiary >Southeast Missouri > >When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 00:39:05 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Collector Colonies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" James C. Bach wrote: It is my opinion based upon a multitude of observations, that attractive queens result in a more productive colony, and two queen systems create this environment by increasing queen pheromone levels at both ends of the storage chamber, and also an result in an increase in brood production. Our bi-directional bee counters indicate that some colonies consistently lose a percent or two more bees than do their neighbors, and some colonies tend to gain about the same each day. Ever wonder why the strong colonies seem to remain strong, even when you pull brood, and the weak and slow ones never seem to get going, even when you add brood? Our electronic systems suggest the the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker, with the weak drifting to the strong. Interestingly, this scenario is colony specific, but not place specific. In other words, we are not simply looking at classical drift where bees tend to drift with the wind or to the ends of a row of hives. For want of a better term, I'm calling this strong hives the "collectors" Cheers Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 10:45:32 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Robert E Butcher Subject: Hive in wall Hi John, I found it much easier to use a five gallon bucket to suck the bees into . In Dec. 97,I extracted a colony of bees from under a house, I had about two feet of head room, maybe two and a half. I mounted some pvc pipe fittings to the lid, one for intake, the other for exhaust with a screen tube on the inside of lid. I've used it several times and Ithink it works better than a wooden box for vacuuming bees. Here in Tucson I put my name in at the fire stations, they refer the people to me. My last swarm come off of a Carl's Jr. sign a little bigger than a softball. The lady that called was very excited, she said "there are some KILLER BEES on the sign at Carl's Jr. It was strange the "KILLER BEES " must of left before I got there, because all I got was some mello bees. It was worth going to get them. Good luck to you. May the LORD Bless you and keep you all the days of your life. Robert Butcher bobbees@juno.com _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:45:00 -0800 Reply-To: gpape@sonneheerdt.nl Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: gpape Organization: Sonneheerdt-Ermelo Subject: Re: Swarm Control, Will it Work? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Alden/list, The system described looks a lot like the system that is widely used in Germany. I tried the method first last spring. Yes it works, at least with my hive under test. Doesn't every brutal disturbance reduce swarming? The method I used differs a little; 1 Remove all boxes from bottomboard. 2 Place broodbox with open brood, food and foundation. 3 Place an open separator-device (Snelgrove) with flight-entrance open. 4 Dont look for the Queen. Let her lay eggs. 5/6/7 Place all the original hive bodies on top of the separator. 8 After 9 days; bottom box has Q-cells and honey top boxes dont like swarming, no flight-bees. 9 Both sections have still the same smell in there little noses! Rearrange all boxes in original order. The temporarily bottom box can be used as honey super. 10 Feel free to replace the Queen or not. Alden P. Marshall wrote: > > Hi Devoted and Abbused Readers, > > I am looking for criticism on this matter and my philosophy for an > attempt to inhibit or greatly reduce the effects of swarming. > I have tried a few methods of swarm control such as cutting cells > [not worth the effort IMHO] and providing extra space which works > sometime, and removing the queen which works about equally as well. > After much reading and thought, or as much as I can give it, I > wonder what is of oversight in the following proceedure? > > Given: Colony has queen cells which appear to be in preperation for > swarming, doesn't always happen, only most of the time. > 1.Remove all brood chambers from bottom board. > > 2. Place new brood box on bottom board w/ foundation or drawn > comb. > > 3. Find the queen however it has to be done. > > 4. Place Queen in new brood super, mabe w/ 1 frameof eggs and > unsealed brood? > > 5. Place 'Q'excluder on super > > 6. Add empty honey super, w/ foundation or frames? > > 7. Place a double screen frame or some type of devider board with > an entranc access on top of these two. > > 8. Reassemble queenless colony. > > 9. When new queen is established recombine the two units and may > the best queen win. > > With only field bees in with the queen there is nothing to swarm > here and this colony will be on the decline until new bees start > to come along. In the meantime there will be little brood to feed so most > nectar will be stored. Will wax be drawn with field bees, sure it > may not be as robust as young bees do but swarming bees (mostly > foragers) do a pretty good job. > > When new queen(s) above hatch out there will only be a small > force of field bees to swarm if they should so choose. Any swarm > will certainly be smaller than with the combined forargers. > Manipulations to divert swarming tendancies are certianly > time consuming and IMO are for not in how many instances? Do we > know that the manipulations were the preventive or that swarming > was not going to occur anyway? > > Waiting with bated breath. > > Alden Marshalldivert > B-Line Apiaries > Hudson, NH 03051 > Busybee9@Juno.com > tel. 603-883-6764 Gerhard Pape Ermelo Netherlands ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 08:45:53 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: Bees in wall Hi John You have a nice bee removal lined up. Some comments : - when removing combs and tying them into frames it usually results in a mess no matter how tightly one fastens the combs. My advice is to simply take all the brood and put it in an insulated box, then put it in an empty brood box above an excluder in a strong hive. Those bees will hatch the young bees and use them. Take a few frames of brood from these bees for your moved hive. (The moved hive will be in chaos for a few hours, in which time at your time of year most of the brood will be chilled, and the bees will just waste time and energy raising useless bees. What you want is/are the pollen reserves. I have found for some reason bees will fix pollen combs neatly into a frame, but always seem to bend brood combs. I think this is because brood combs are maintained at a higher temperature. Then one ends up with a wavy comb, or at worst, two frames stuck together. This is not good. For living space for the bees - give them foundation and lots of honey or sugar water. They will draw fresh combs very fast and will be far healthier. A swarm hived straight onto foundation with pollen reserves seems to draw faster than one without - don't ask me why, but it is a definitely noticeably thing. As regards the moving of the bees - the trick here is to find the queen. Take her away and hold her for about ten minutes. Bring her back and the bees become very excited and make a sort of hissing huming sound and all move towards her. They will follow your hand with the queen in it to the new box, walking along the ground. Usually they will reorientate the next morning as this 'scenting' to show the queen seems to have the effect of making them believe they have swarmed. (Note - this getting the bees to move only works once all brood is removed - before this point they will rather sit and stay with the brood) Hope this helps Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 03:02:17 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Collector Colonies In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.16.19980304223416.351f0da2@selway.umt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Time to ramble again (2:26 AM)... > Ever wonder why the strong colonies seem to remain strong, even when > you pull brood, and the weak and slow ones never seem to get going, even > when you add brood? Our electronic systems suggest the the strong get > stronger and the weak get weaker, with the weak drifting to the strong. > Interestingly, this scenario is colony specific, but not place > specific. This is the bane of the commercial beekeeper with 20 to 40 hives per yard. Over the years we have tried numerous ideas to reduce the uneveness that results from selective drifting: Ever notice that you combine two weak colonies and you get one weak colony? :( It often doesn't pay to combine weak with weak. May this explains it in part? We've noticed that using auger holes in the front of brood boxes seems to reduce -- or at least even out -- drifting as much as anything especially in spring, when some hives tend to have more entrance activity than others, and thus attract more returning bees. Having auger holes close to the brood area allows weaker colonies to have sufficient entrance activity to have a fair chance to attract their share of returning bees and reduces the advantage that strong colonies have on marginal flying days. The auger holes do not have to be large and can be partially restricted with wax or a plug but it does help if they all appear similar to returning bees. Any variation in placement or appearance of the auger holes from hive to hive may cause bees to hover to consider -- and perhaps go elsewhere. The appearance characteristics of the hole itself seem more important than the actual colour of the box in which it is drilled from a drifting point of view. I know this seems to run counter to the idea of painting different colours around entrances, but in my experience, there is something about a round hole with bee tracking around it that is magic to bees. Newly drilled holes do not have the same charm. In newly installed package bees, we've noticed that where one hive has a small gap or opening in the hive mat (burlap sack, etc.) due to poor folding or careless placement under the telescoping lid, bees seem to leave that hive in favour of others. Why? Beats me. We've also noticed that if a hive is tipped back and water collects on the floor sufficiently that unattractive fermentation occurs and smells in the butyric spectrum are created, that bees will drift seriously to other hives. Plastic frame feeders sometimes take on water and stink (wood& masonite ones don't). This repellant effect occurs also with other smells, including AFB, which bees find unattractive. Placing moldy or smelly combs into package brood chambers at time of brood chamber makup before installing new bees can result in bees drifting badly immediately after installing if weather is conducive to flight in the following day or so. FWIW, years ago, we tried a pollen replacement that an inventor developed using fish meal and which from nutritional analysis appeared to be the perfect balanced ration for honeybees. One problem: when we placed it in every other hive in a yard to test against other products, the bees were driven from these hives to neighbouring hives sufficiently to cause dwindling in the hives receiving the miracle feed. So much for that idea. This universal tendency for hives to become uneven is one reason that a hobbyist with a few hives can often outperform commercial neighbours. In commercial practice, often with 40 or so hives per yard, it is almost impossible not to have a noticable number of hives that are n'er-do-wells. A few hives producing nothing can drastically reduce a yard average. The colour of the brood box itself may also be a factor. Even in the case where all boxes appear to be white, the appearance to bees may be quite different, with some tints being more attractive. It would be interesting to change the boxes on these 'collector hives' and see if that changes their luck. I've often noticed that bees will be attracted to a hive in an old weathered box in preference to a shiny new one. Perhaps temperature may be a factor and bees may prefer to light on a box that is darker and thus warmer? Or maybe they have a different set of esthetic values? Is it the queen and the release of more or less queen substance? I wondered about that and even looked up Bee Boost(r) (with QMP) the other day in response to Jim's post to see if it might have a beneficial effect. What I read in its promotional literature is that, and I quote: > Bee Boost stimulates hives newly established from package bees or > nuclei. during the first two weeks, pollen collection has been shown > to increase by 80% and brood production by 18%. Bee Boost applied to > large hives at other times has not been beneficial I wonder what exactly "not been beneficial" means: deleterious, or just "not beneficial"? Hmmm... ...Anyhow, this does not disprove the queen attractiveness theory, but does reduce its appeal a bit. Maybe the blend of pheremones in Bee Boost does not include the exact 'secret ingredient' that the theoretical 'super attractive' queen uses to spirit away the neighbouring bees? Dunno. While on the subject of Bee Boost(r), I wonder why we are not getting more chatter about this seemingly significant and fairly new product on BEE-L. Are some of you holding out on us? Are you receiving benefits from these products and not telling? Or are they an non-event? I'd like to hear from some users about their experiences. FYI: AFAIK, Bee Boost is produced by Phero Tech Inc. Email: pherotech@mindlink.bc.ca Doug McCutcheon at 250-546-9870 is listed as the person to contact for Bee Boost and other bee pheremone products. Sorry, I can't find an email for him. Perhaps someone will supply one. Doug also has a line of bee books, study prints and videos in British Columbia, Canada. (BTW, Andy, these pheremones were the result of -- AFAIK -- government funded research at Simon Fraser University. But it was Canadian $, so I guess it won't count in the ten we need to empty your pockets. ) These lures cost in the neighbourhood of $2 each and might even prove to be worth the money. With packages at ~$70 CAD ($49 US$), imagine an 18% boost in package bee brood for $2. A quick calculation would put the same result at $12.60 CAD if we were to achieve it with more package bees and hives -- and in that case more labour and equipment would be required. I wonder if the bees can keep it up for long? Or do they burn out and crater later -- sorta like steroids for bees?" Wonder how good the trials were... Hmmm... Allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 03:17:52 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Swarm Control, Will it Work? In-Reply-To: <34FDBD4C.5026@sonneheerdt.nl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Yes it works, at least with my hive under test. Doesn't every brutal > disturbance reduce swarming? My thoughts exactly. There are lots of ways to reduce swarming. Soapy water would do it. But do we want to make some honey? Or are we just looking for work? The way the pros do it-- for the most part -- is simple: Don't get swarming started: * Give the bees adequate room and sufficient air in advance of need. * Keep young queens in the hives * Give lots of supers (including some foundation) well before the flow * Remove honey before the hives get plugged If swarming appears to be started: * Split the hive in half and super each half (make sure there are good cells in each half) * Padgen the hive (Ie. switch it with a weaker one that looks about the same and/or face it backwards if it is in a line of hives. BTW, padgening will not work if the bees are not flying freely and they may not be if they are swarmy. That's about it. Remember that bees will swarm no matter what you do, other than weaken them beyond usefulness. All we can do is reduce swarming, not eliminate it. It is completely natural. An occasional swarm is not the sign of poor beekeeping. No swarming is. Allen --- Newsflash! Visit http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/beel.htm to search BEE-L archives the easy, easy way or to update or change your subscription options. --- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:41:42 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Peter Hutton Organization: Amigabee computer networking for beekeepers Subject: apistan and organic gardening CHRS: IBMPC 2 CODEPAGE: 437 MSGID: 240:244/116 2d8c097b REPLY: 240:44/0 182daca8 PID: FDAPX/w 1.12a UnReg(227) I concur with Murray Mcgregor and go further, Dr Juliet Osborne's radar tracking of bees clearly shows that the bees from the researchers hives do not pollinate the plants on adjacent testplots but fly farther afield beyond the one kilometer recorded by the radar scanner. Because of the bee's very nature, their foraging distance,the necessity to control varroa with hard or soft chemicals acids whatever, I doubt that anything we now do can be described as "Organic". Here in England, the "Soil Association" (regulator for organics) describe beewax foundation as UN- organic for a start. greetings from the Garden of England peter.hutton@btinternet.com --- * Origin: Kent Beekeeper Beenet Point (240:244/116) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 13:59:32 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Peter Hutton Organization: Amigabee computer networking for beekeepers Subject: Bats CHRS: IBMPC 2 CODEPAGE: 437 MSGID: 240:244/116 2d8c4c4d REPLY: 240:44/0 2bcc8b0f PID: FDAPX/w 1.12a UnReg(227) Bats fly late evening, early morning no later than dawn. Bees fly early morning through to mid evening. Bees generally also fly lower than Bats so there should be no conflict, I have never seen bats catch any of my bees but that proves NOTHING. I will talk to my friend the Batman, we can checck the droppings no doubt. I can tell you about flycatchers, I had ten hives alongside oil seed rape (Brassica napus) Canola) I observed a flycatcher pop out the hedge and pick off a bee, it picked twenty more until it either missed one or built up too much alarm pheromene, 21,2 & 3 had a go at a very surprised flycatcher, it ducked and dived and soared as it flew away, as it became smaller in the distance the air became blacker with bees chasing it, I have never seen this before or since. Another thing I notice, about ten to twenty yards out from some hives I threw a football up in the air for the dog to catch, at eight to ten foot in the air it was divebombed by bees, likewise with a tennis ball, was this reaction the smell of the dog's saliva on the ball or the bees thinking they were being attacked. Greetings from the garden of England peter.hutton@btinternet.com --- * Origin: Kent Beekeeper Beenet Point (240:244/116) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 07:58:15 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: More on Wax Moths MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Pretty basic stuff this wax moth discussion. From _The_Hive_and_the_Honey_Bee_ (Dadant & Sons, 1992 edition): pp 1127 "In the horthern United States, comb losses generally develop from cocooned stages of GWM (greater wax moth) that overwinter without freezing and infested colonies transported from the south by migratory beekeepers." pp 1128: "In cold climates, the cocooned stage (prepupa or pupae) may last for four months or more if it does not freeze." Perhaps northern beekeepers can expect a worse than avarage season of wax moths this year, courtesy of El Nino? Aaron Morris - thinking El Nino is the root of all evil! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 10:07:23 +0300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Carlos Aparicio Subject: Re: Bats Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:44 PM 04/03/1998 EST, DHardw9178 wrote: >I think bats basically hunt at night. Only problem I've had is attracting bats >to my bat boxes! > May I have an explanation why you have bat boxes and atracted bats to them? Carlos Aparicio > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 09:37:13 -0500 Reply-To: lacelle@sympatico.ca Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Paul Lacelle Subject: Queen's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Info needed.Can I introduce a different species of Queen when splitting? Will the bees regonize it as a different kind of bee?A friend of mine raises Queens and has offered me a few to start new hives.I'm not sure what kind they are but there alot smaller and darker looing than mine. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 07:58:32 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Queen's Comments: cc: LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: <34FEB899.2A5C@sympatico.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Info needed.Can I introduce a different species of Queen when splitting? > Will the bees regonize it as a different kind of bee?A friend of mine > raises Queens and has offered me a few to start new hives.I'm not sure > what kind they are but there alot smaller and darker looing than mine. Now here's a good topic. In short, I don't know, but I'll tell you what I know. Maybe more than I know :) Generally the closer the queen is in genetics to the bees in the split, the easier introduction is. That does not mean though that queens of very different strains cannot be introduced, after all beekeepers do it every day. It is just a little more difficult. FWIW, buckfasts have had the reputation for being a bit hard to introduce, but I've done it and so have many others -- without problems. The thing to remember is to get everything working for you rather than against you. Intros go best when * There are no old bees in the split. Make it in the home yard later on during a nice day and move it a few feet from the parent hive to let the flying bees go home * The split is small (not tiny, but around 2 or three frames) more bees can be added later * There is no danger of robbing (reduce entrances or use a distant site from your strong hives) * The bees are well fed * The split has been queenless for at least 24 hours, but not to the point where they are building queen cells * Any queen cells are removed in the former case (we don't bother though) * A good intro cage is used There may be more, but that's it in a nutshell. Follow most of these rules (we often break them and get away with it) and you should get over 90% acceptance. For more info send email to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU saying SEARCH BEE-L "introduction" Allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 15:27:11 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Leo Walford Subject: Organic farming Fellow beekeepers I know there has been some discussion over the last few days about what constitutes organic honey production and whether it's really possible. I don't know whether this has been prompted by the impending USDA legislation (?) changing the definition of "organic" to mean pretty much what non-organic is now. I only heard of this legislation this morning, but I wanted to raise it, as I think it has profound implications for everyone, not least small farmers (and I think beekeepers would often view themselves as small farmers, with a greater than average commitment to not using chemicals). I do not know the details of the legislation, but it appears that it will not only allow farmers from describing what are currently distinctly non-organic practices (such as use of antibiotics and growth promoters) as organic, it will ultimately go further by denying other farmers the right to produce foods in any way different. Effectively, it could lead to the end of the production of organic food. I realise that this may appear to be a largely US issue (and as a Limey, you are probably wondering what it has to do with me), but the fact is that US food standards end up being the de facto world standards, through the operation of GATT and the World Trade Organization. Effectively, this legislation could lead to the banning of organic food production worldwide. Regardless of whether you farm organically, or eat organic food, it is surely not a good thing that people choosing to farm in a way which is clearly not harmful* (even if it is equally not any more beneficial) should be prevented from doing so. * except to those people who would wish to sell chemicals to the farmers and who see organic food production and consumption growing rapidly As small (or large) farmers of bees (and maybe other things) I urge you to protest to the USDA about this potential curtailment of your (and your neighbours, near or far) rights to choose to farm in a certain way. If you think this posting is wholly inappropriate, or you want to flame me for bad grammar, or whatever, please do it to me, not the list. Also, if you've got any suggestions about how I can lobby the USDA further, please let me know. Leo Walford London, UK one hive ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 10:31:39 -0600 Reply-To: landrith@telepath.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Kel Subject: Re: Organic farming MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Regarding Mr. Walford's post on the proposed USDA rule change: The USDA website for the proposed rule change is: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/rule.htm IMHO, it is a matter that should concern all beekeepers and has a direct impact on the biology of bees kept in the US and potentially abroad. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 06:58:49 -1000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Walter Patton Subject: NHB QUESTION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Regarding the effect of the NHB. What were the imports last year? Surly one of our readers could give us a five year review. If memory serves me correctly last year I read that in 1996 that imports of foreign honey increased 66% in one year for a total of 144,000 TONS of foreign honey. Packers don't care what kind of honey that they are marketing just MAKE PROFIT. I think that the record will show a staggering amount of imports. At a time when America is losing jobs to GATT and NAFTA is putting US farmers out of business why should the Americn honey producer/beekeeper sit back and be taxed to support marketing programs that only increase demand for foreign honey. What if honey prices were just $.10 cents per pound more? How many more people might be employed by the bee industry. Look around in your area do you have lots of new young people eager to get into beekeeping? I think not and we must have beekeepers to keep lots of healthy US bee hives not for honey so much as for pollination of 1/3 of all the food we US Americans eat every day. Take action today and write to stop the proposed NHB changes before they are put to a vote. The voting scam rules favor the packers and it will be too late if it comes to a vote. Also write USDA about the bad ideas expressed in their propose d rule making. PUSH United States Honey Walter in Hawaii ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 13:10:33 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Elroy Rogers Subject: Re: Honey Board Legislation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Walter Patton wrote: > This legislation has been developed by the packers and the producers > who are known to bee grass roots and unorganized are about to let this > become the law of the land. The one penny which is paid now by the > " First Handler" is in fact paid by the producer in lowered offering > prices. > You know $.63 per lb. instead of $.64 per lb.The proposed increase of > one penny per lb. will for sure be an additional tax on the producer PLUS > a huge intervention by GIANT uncle government into the business of > honey production. Why in the world would honey producers want another > one penny tax. Question Where is the money on this issue??? > Honey packers and government.Honey packers because they will get > the lion's share of any benefit of the National Honey Board just like they > do today.And government wanting to get into everybodys business. > > in favor of packers at the expense of producers. What happens to producer/packers they pay .02 out of their own pocket. I know of a beekeeper that packs his own and sells his honey in local grocey store, this year was a very poor year for him. Due to cold spring last year his 1400 colony operation only produced 18 lbs ber colony. Now take 2 cents fom every lbs produced and packed by him it could be bankruptcy time for him. I do know his bees will not be coming back here this coming year, he leased them out to another beekeeper in another state. To give some idea of his shortage he had to buy 50,000 lbs else where. To add to his good fortune the price of his honey sells for $1.67 for 12oz compared to $2.19 last year on the store shelf. I would only agree to give the honey board more money if they would stop importation of cheap honey which drops the price of domestic honey. To be really fair to all of this, the fruit industry that gains big time for pollination should have to pay their fair share. If their were no bees for pollination the price for premium produce would sky rocket, but the gutless wonders in DC wouldn't dare ask a penny for the much larger industry. It is much easier to pick the little guys pocket because no matter how loud he hollers it won't even come close to the big fish that are parked in their office. Does any one have the name of the bill that is to be voted on this month as I would like to give my congressman and senator an ear full? If everyone complains at the same time it really does have an effect on them in DC, maybe all beekeepers that are appossed to this should get together to stop this stuff. Any agency that can send the Federal Marshalls to my door to arrest me and put me in jail, or to an extreme kill me if I really resist, for non compliance has way too much power. Lets have less taxes and a smaller government to pick our pockets. Elroy > > If you want to help stop this packer oriented legislation write your > representative > in WAshington this week and don't delay. Remember the packers know their > way around D C and will be sure to let their feelings known.The American > Honey Producers could have a louder > voice IF they come to ACTION. > NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION. > > Also write Robert Smith, Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture,1301 > Longworth HOB, Washington, D.C. 20515-6001 ; Thad Cochran, Chairperson > of the Agriculture and Ruarl Development Committee,SD-136, Washington,DC > 20510 and also Secretary Dan Glickman, Department of Agriculture,14th. > and Independence Ave.S.W.,Washington, D C 20250. > > - Walter > Lord, make my words be as sweet as Honey, for Tomorrow I may have to eat > Them > > Walter & Elisabeth Patton 808-964-5401 Hawaii Time ? > > Hale Lamalani B & B Hawaiian Honey House > House of Heavenly Light Beekeepers & Honeypackers > > Bed & Breakfast and Honey Bee Dude Ranch > > www.hawaiihoney.com hihoney@hawaiihoney.com > 27-703 A. Ka`ie`ie Rd., Papa`ikou, Hawaii 96781 > > " The Beehive, the Fountain of Youth and Health " ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 07:41:14 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: lewis Subject: egg laying after swarming MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I recently removed two swarms from within the walls of two houses. In both cases there were only 6 or 7 freshly made comb containing nectar, a very little pollen but no egg or larva. How long after a swarm takes up residence will it be before the queen starts laying? John Fiji ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 07:41:21 -0800 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: lewis Subject: venom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I need the contacts of some people who are currently selling bee venom and those who manufacture venom collecting devices. Thank you. John Fiji ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 23:47:26 +0300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Naser Ali Altayeb Subject: bee's species MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit search bee-l honey bee species ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 15:50:49 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: jim jensen Subject: Re: Do Bees heat their Home? In-Reply-To: <12185144700635@systronix.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:17 AM 3/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >Often thought about some sort of baffle arrangement to place on top of hive >where a lot of air could be passed through by bees but appear as nearly as >possible to a passive blockage. What would be the response if there were a >spring loaded flap under a raised outer cover? Which way should it be vented, >in or out? Perhaps the easiest solution is a larger entrance with a couple or >more levels of staggered slats? Like the second thought better. > >Alden Marshall >B-Line Apiaries >Hudson, NH 03051 > Isn't the slatted idea the same as the "slatted rack" I got from Brushy Mtn? I have one and very much like the ventilation. Now if I can just figure out how to have good ventilation in a Top Bar Hive! It gets pretty hot here in Georgia. Jim Jensen Atlanta, GA bdnut@mindspring.com The BioDynamic Honeybee Symposium A Quarterly forum for discussion of important topics. From beekeepers to beekeepers. Contact me for copies. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 11:28:08 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: NHB QUESTION In-Reply-To: <199803051700.HAA01530@lehua.ilhawaii.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > At a time when America is losing jobs to GATT and NAFTA is putting US > farmers out of business why should the Americn honey producer/beekeeper > sit back and be taxed to support marketing programs that only increase > demand for foreign honey. Imported honey pays too, and should do so. After all any program that sells honey increases the price of all honey in that market. Protectionism is out of the question these days. Some say it is what caused the Great Depression. So we have to live with what we've got and try to co-operate. > PUSH United States Honey A good idea. But it does not mean that everyone will buy it if it costs more than other honey. The answer is to create demand for all honey and thus increase the price for all honey. Allen --- Newsflash! Visit http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/beel.htm to search BEE-L archives the easy, easy way or to update or change your subscription options. --- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 17:16:33 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Beekeeperc Subject: KERKHOF HIVES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I hope everyone that I mailed information to about the Kerkhof Hive has received it. Please let me know one way or the other. Norm beekeeperc@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 19:36:42 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ben M Poehlman Subject: 3-5-98 This is something sent to me from another list. You may be interested. Thanks, Ben Poehlman STPCLUB@JUNO.COM P.S.-- I own a free environmental mailing list. If you are interested in joining (currently 60 members), e-mail me. --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: ozone87@juno.com (Ben M Poehlman) To: STPCLUB@juno.com Subject: Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 17:35:17 EST Message-ID: <19980304.163532.4927.0.OZone87@juno.com> --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- From: Janet Sawin To: CERES-L@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU Subject: Threat to organic foods standards Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 11:16:16 -0500 Message-ID: I thought this topic might be of interest to people on this list. Following is a letter that people might want to print and send to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Also, please post this on other lists where there might be an interest. Thanks! First some background info: The Organic Food Production Act of the 1990 Farm Bill called for the formation of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to advise and make recommendations for the USDA on the formulation and implementation of the National Organic Program. The law stipulated that the NOSB's recommendations were to be the primary source of guidance to the USDA when the agency wrote regulations on organic standards. The NOSB worked for years to formulate regulations that represented a broad consensus of both organic producers and consumers. The USDA is now ignoring many of the critical recommendations made by the NOSB. The USDA did NOT incorporate the following NOSB recommendations into their regulations: 1) Categorically exclude genetically engineered organisms, agricultural inputs and processing agents from organic agriculture and production. AND YET, genetically engineered foods are not natural. The long-term effects on consumers, our global food supply and the environment are unknown; 2) Exclude all uses of irradiation in the preparation of organic foods. AND YET, the long-term health effects of food irradiation are unknown. The use of irradiation may actually reduce the incentive to develop systems to effectively prevent contamination in food production; 3) Bar the use of sewage sludge in organic farming. AND YET, municipal sewage sludge may contain heavy metals, chemicals and other toxins. The use of sludge is counter to the basic tenets of organic farming and the health effects are unknown; 4) Support the small farmers, certifiers, and processors as the backbone of organic farmer. AND YET, the lowest certification fees are set so high that small farmers, certifiers and processors, the historic pioneers of the organic movement, will have difficulty participating in the National Organic Program. *********************************************************************** (I did not write this letter, but picked it up in a natural foods market. Feel free to make your own changes, additions, etc.) *********************************************************************** TMD-94-00-2 Eileen S. Stommes, Deputy Administrator USDA-AMS-TM-NOP, AG Stop 0275, Room 4007-So. P.O. Box 96456 Washington, D.C. 20090-6456 (Fax: 202-690-4632) Dear Ms. Stommes: I am writing in response to the proposed National Organic Standards to let you know that I do not want genetically engineered organisms, processing agents or agricultural inputs to be allowed in organic farming and handling under any circumstances - even in a case by case basis. I also ask that you prohibit the use of irradiation and sewage sludge in organic farming and handling. And, I ask that the standard for the treatment of livestock and the feed structure for certification be consistent with the recommendations of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). The NOSB represents a broad consensus of organic farmers, manufacturers and consumers regarding the principles of organic agriculture and food production. To formulate regulations that do not reflect their recommendations on genetic engineering, irradiation, sewage sludge, the needs of the small farmer and the treatment of animals will gravely weaken consumer confidence in the organic label and threaten the viability of this industry. Thank you for including my input in your final decision. Sincerely, Date: Name: Address: --------- End forwarded message ---------- _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] --------- End forwarded message ---------- _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 21:43:01 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: Re: venom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Mraz sells bee venom. He lives in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. His phone is 802-388-7571. lewis wrote: > I need the contacts of some people who are currently selling bee venom > and those who manufacture venom collecting devices. > > Thank you. > > John > Fiji ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 23:45:27 -0500 Reply-To: Dave from Scranton Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Dave from Scranton Subject: Re: Banging the Pans to attract swarm Comments: To: paulc@silcom.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 1 Mar 1998, Paul Cronshaw, D.C. wrote: > > I drove over to my apairy and lo and behold the swarm had settled in a tree > 10 feet from her balcony. She was amazed how easy it was to bring the bees > to this point. Prior to settling in the final spot, she had walked to the > opposite end of the balacony, hitting the pan and the bees followed. > > Is this a wives tale?? Has anyone had other experiences with setting up > vibrations in the air from hitting pans?? The bees need to hear the queen, if they don't they will drop and wait untli they hear her come flying around again. Then they'll get back up and fly with her. Banging the pots will bring the swarm down and the queen will generally stick with them. I've never used pots, I've used an old wheel rotor and a tire iron, man did my arms hurt from the vibrations! ****************************************************************************** Dave D. Cawley | Where a social revolution is pending and, The Internet Cafe | for whatever reason, is not accomplished, Web Development Group | reaction is the alternative. Scranton, Pennsylvania | (717) 344-1969 | -Daniel De Leon dave@www.scranton.com | ****************************************************************************** URL => http://www.scranton.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 22:35:10 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: LISTSERV REFCARD GET LISTSERV REFCARD _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 21:53:58 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Shutting Down Queens Alden Marshall On Mon, 2 Mar 1998 04:09:05 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: Allen Dick >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > > >Fall populations can be reduced by reducing the hive volume. At least >it >seems that way. When we've reduced large hives in the fall -- I'm >thinking of when we ran two queen hives in 8 standards right through >to >September 1st -- to two standard brood chambers, we found that the >bees >would not all fit and they hung out all over the place. A few days >later, >the clusters fit nicely into the hives; the clusters were big, but not >as >amazingly so as one would expect. And no, skunks didn't eat the extra >ones AFAIK :) > >Now, I am *assuming* that the bees diminished in numbers, rather than >just >crowding together, but others have said the same: extra bees just seem >to >mysteriously go away (and most assume it is the older ones) when the >volume is reduced in the fall. David Eyre said something about a bee >cluster being like a tropical fish (it is well known that the ultimate >size to which a fish kept in a tank will grow is related to the tank >size. > Move a fish to a bigger tank and it will often grow, even after >having >seemed to be full grown). I like that analogy, although it can get >you >into trouble if used to excess or at the wrong time of year. > >> Here, we still argue whether a large population is more likely to >> survive a Montana winter (and as such justify the extra honey >needed). >> Again, I like strong colonies. Our records show a much more >> consistent and predictable performance record from strong, >> over-wintering colonies (but that probably reflects the vagaries of >> keeping bees in this geographical area). With the advent of the >mites, >> this may be even more important - since most losses occur during >the >> fall, winter, and early spring. > >That is well worth repeating. The other factor besides sheer numbers >of bees -- and one which is often neglected since we cannot easily >'eyeball' individual bees in the field -- is the age and nutritional >level >of the members of that population, regardless of size. If we were >looking >at cows or horses, we could *easily* tell if a herd was likely to >survive >winter in good shape: if the herd members were young and well fed we >could >see that; if they were old and mangey with bones showing in fall, we >could >see that too. With bees being as small as they are, we mostly just >notice >if they are numerous or not. Nonetheless, the experienced eye can in >fact >tell a lot about the quality of individual bees and whether they are >'fat' >or 'skinny', young or old. This is much more important than sheer >numbers, assuming that the numbers are adequate for survival. > >Hoping to hear more about shutting queens down. > >Allen >--- We (New Englanders) also as a rule find spring buildup more robust with larger over wintered clusters, especially those of us in the pollination service. Of course the potential for swarming has to be accounted for. Often some of the problem is solved in equalizing or by bleeding off frames of brood to make starters. It has rather recently occurred to me that one may be able to rid the colony of the older bees at the ed of the honey flow. If this were done nectar being bought into the hive would essentially cease and in most cases influence the house bees to shut down the queen. What If ____ To get rid of the foragers a super, full or partially full of empty frames were placed on the bottom board with a double screen board on top and the colony stacked on top of this with a top or lower entrance faced to the rear. The old bees would of course not have access to the stores and could not be fed from above. What provisions the lower super would bring in would be limited and probably be consumed rather quickly. There are (at least) a couple of concerns one would have with this concept as I perceive it 1. Would so many bees leave that a lot of this desirable late brood would chill? 2. Would there be enough pheromone leakage to make the isolated bees think they still had some resemblance of a queen so they wouldn't start looking for another entrance (in the rear)? 3. What percentage of these isolated bees would be considered young desirables? In our neck of the woods diversion super probably would not be removed until next spring. I would use a honey super for this purpose and just store it on the inner cover until time for the honey flow. Unless someone on this net has tried it and advises I guess it will have to be another experiment to put on my list. Alden Marshall Hudson, NH 03051 Busybee9@Juno.com tel. 603-883-6764 _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 00:57:57 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Teresa Garcma Subject: Re: Queen's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Paul Lacelle wrote: >=20 > Info needed.Can I introduce a different species of Queen when splitting= ? You wrote: A DIFFERENT SPECIES, not a different breed, so it depends on=20 the species. You, most probably won=B4t be able to combine Apis dorsata o= r=20 Apis florea with Apis mellifera, because they are SO different. I read somewhere that it is possible to combine Apis cerana and Apis=20 mellifera, and that it was done to help control varroasis in an=20 "ecological way", but remember that if a queen of one of these species=20 mates with drones from the other (which, supposedly is possible due to a=20 similarity in pherhomones and drone congregation areas) it would be an=20 infertile mating, just like in horses with burros (donkeys?). Also,=20 do you think these darker and smaller bees are more productive than=20 the ones you have? or you want to do it for a scientific interest?=20 If you have any other question related to this, please ask to BEE-L. Tere ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:02:34 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: reducing swarming Hi All As many may have heard, swarming is a big problem in africa as it happens all year round, but more in autumn and spring. What do we do? Requeen as much as possible. Some beekeepers using A.m.scutellata requeen every four to six months. With capensis it is less strict but at least one a year is good. Now, previous posts on this list have pointed out that a queen that swarms takes with her bees that are the most genetically similar to herself. (mentioned DNA fingerprinting technique used to prove) From this we can draw a few conclusions: If one requeens with a queen from a different apiary and genetic stock, should she produce swarm cells, for at least 5 weeks one will not get a very big swarm produced, and afterswarms will be even smaller. (3 wks for brood and two to learn to fly etc) So to requeen with queens rered in different places may be good? (Well thats good because that has been my philosophy anyhow) Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:09:53 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re Bats and birds Hi Peter and All As regards your mentioning about the fly catchers getting nailed by bees, this is very interesting. Last year I mentioned on the list about how our bees here in SA hate feathered objects, everyone else told me that Eurobees dont mind them. Another funny thing to watch for is if a dove flies through a swarm of young orientating bees. I always go down to watch some of my bees orientating, (you get to know what time they will), and whenever a dove flies nearby it gets pursued for many many meters by usually about fifty or so bees. Tell me what happens if you use an ostricth feather as a bee brush?? We have birds here called 'Fork Tailed Drongas' , these also occur in europe and india. There is also a Beecatcher that migrates from europe to SA every year. Both, when present near the hive have the effect of shutting down foraging activity, or stopping bees foraging on certain trees. (If bees are harrassed on a certain tree, withing half an hour the hives from which they come will no longer visit that tree) Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:19:22 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: egg laying after swarming Hi John My personal observation is that it takes a queen about four hours to being, if the swarm is healthy (when I catch swarms I place them in my cellar till nightfall, and usually after five or so hours they have built a little comb the size of a childs palm. In the middle one will see eggs. But: when such a swarm is hived on drawn comb one will see that for about a week the queens laying ability is pathetic. If however you give them one frame with pollen reserves (hold them up to the light and check for a thin film of moisture on the tops of the pollen with sort of chewing marks in them) the swarm will take of amazingly well, and she will have layed many many frames by weeks end. Another thing I have noticed occasionally is that a swarm often has laying worker activity as well, and that this declines with time. (probably an old queen) Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey Standard Disclaimer applies to this post. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 11:38:47 PST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: froukje van der zaag MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII could I have a list of all your members froukje van der zaag ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 05:42:28 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Matt Allan Subject: Re: venom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In response to query about venom and venom devices - contact Michael Simics Apitronic Services 4640 Pendlebury Road Richmond BC Canada e-mail msimics@direct.ca Regards Matthew j Allan Editor Bee Biz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 12:19:00 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: John Goodman Subject: APINET (Beekeeping Educ & Extension) UPDATE Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable LOST MEMBERS! Before it was possible to subscribe on line via the Apinet website (http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/beenet/apinet.htm), several email addresses were corrupted and hence some 'would be' members were never properley subscribed. If you were inadvertently excluded earlier on - please try again! For those of you who do not know about the work of the Apinet - he= re is an update. Please bear in mind that Apinet is primarily for Beekeeping Education & Extrension workers, though others may subscribe to a 'read only' facility. =93API-NET=94 INTERNATIONAL EXTENSION NETWORK Welcome to the Apinet! This dedicated international network has been created to encourage productive and healthy beekeeping by facilitating links between extension workers and others who are interested in advising= , educating or training present and future beekeepers. We hope to enable multi-lingual communication on the Apinet - you may use your own language whenever you wish! WHY DO WE NEED APINET? Honey bees are an essential component of the agricultural and wider environment. As beneficial insects, they are vital for the pollination of many crops, as well as producing honey and other bee products for human use. Apinet aims to reduce threats to beekeeping caused by the spread of Varroa and other pathogens. Where significant losses of bees have occurre= d, many experienced beekeepers have stopped keeping bees. Not enough new beekeepers, especially young people, are being recruited and trained to help or replace those beekeepers who find themselves unable to adapt or cope with new management techniques. FREE APINET SERVICES! Apinet provides services for both Advisers and other Readers who are interested in keeping up to date. Full details of the services offered an= d how to subscribe free of charge can be found on the Apinet website (http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/beenet/apinet.htm). As well as details of members interests and other useful information, there are also links to other beekeeping sites on the internet. All members automatically receive information by email. Reader members may also ask questions via an Advise= r. Members who are Advisers are encouraged to participate in any discussion and to answer questions on beekeeping topics either directly or in collaboration with colleagues. These services provided to Apinet members free of charge at present. The system is operated by volunteers supported by sponsors with beekeeping and extension interests. HOW DID APINET ARISE? Apinet was initiated to satisfy beekeeper education and training needs identified by the CSL and EUROPEA. It is continuing to develop with the help of other like minded organisations and individuals throughout Europe and beyond. With your help, it will evolve into a world wide network with the potential, via the internet, to benefit extension workers and the beekeepers they serve in countries all over the world. If you are interested in Beekeeper Education and Extension, why not use the API-NET = to network with colleagues in other countries and organisations, making new contacts, exchanging information and finding out how they are helping beekeepers, farmers and others who depend upon the work of honey bees, to face new challenges. WHO SPONSORS APINET? The CSL National Bee Unit is part of a UK research agency, the Central Science Laboratory, which works in the area of bee disease control and research and provides an extension service for beekeepers. EUROPEA is the European Agricultural Education Association, an EU based organisation serving the agricultural education and training sector. It enables teachers, students, extension workers and others to collaborate nationall= y and internationally both in Europe and beyond. DOES APINET INTEREST YOU?=20 Although there are Europea Associates in all EU member states, we still d= o not have beekeeping extension contacts in some countries. We are also looking for more links outside of Europe. If you are interested in joinin= g the net or helping to establish a network in your Country, why not subscribe now. If you know of others who may be interested in the API-NET= , especially in other countries ... please send them this information. Tha= nk you for your help! Best Wishes, JOHN GOODMAN Regional Bee Inspector, NE England CSL National Bee Unit, UK # http://www.csl.gov.uk/navf.htm) # Tel/Message:+44 (0)1833 690561 Fax(at York):+44 (0)1904 462240 j.m.goodman@csl.gov.uk International Coordinator for the "Apinet" APINET BEE (Bee Educ & Ext) NEWS # ( http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/beenet/ ) # ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 13:56:50 +0200 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home Subject: Re: bee's species MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 ZG9uJ3Qgc2VhcmNoIGFueSBmdXRoZXIsIDstKQ0KbG9vayBhdA0KaHR0cDovL3d3dy54czRh bGwubmwvfmp0ZW1wL3NvbF9iZWVfbGlmZS5odG1sDQoNCmFuZCBsb29rIGF0DQpodHRwOi8v d3d3LnhzNGFsbC5ubC9+anRlbXAvbGlua3MuaHRtbA0KDQoNCk5hc2VyIEFsaSBBbHRheWVi IHdyb3RlOg0KPiANCj4gc2VhcmNoIGJlZS1sIGhvbmV5IGJlZSBzcGVjaWVzDQoNCi0tIA0K sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw sLCwDQpKYW4gVGVtcGVsbWFuIC8gSW5la2UgRHJhYmJlICAgICB8ICAgICBtYWlsdG86anRl bXBAeHM0YWxsLm5sDQpTdGVycmVtb3MgMTYgICAgICAgICAgICAgICAzMDY5IEFTIFJvdHRl cmRhbSwgVGhlIE5ldGhlcmxhbmRzDQpUZWwvRmF4IChTT01FVElNRVMpIFhYIDMxICgwKTEw LTQ1Njk0MTINCmh0dHA6Ly93d3cueHM0YWxsLm5sL35qdGVtcC9pbmRleDMuaHRtbA0KsLCw sLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCwsLCw DQoNCg== ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 08:12:42 -0500 Reply-To: lacelle@sympatico.ca Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Paul Lacelle Subject: Re: Queen's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Teresa Garcma wrote: >=20 > Paul Lacelle wrote: > > > > Info needed.Can I introduce a different species of Queen when splitti= ng? >=20 > You wrote: A DIFFERENT SPECIES, not a different breed, so it depends on > the species. You, most probably won=B4t be able to combine Apis dorsata= or > Apis florea with Apis mellifera, because they are SO different. >=20 > I read somewhere that it is possible to combine Apis cerana and Apis > mellifera, and that it was done to help control varroasis in an > "ecological way", but remember that if a queen of one of these species > mates with drones from the other (which, supposedly is possible due to = a > similarity in pherhomones and drone congregation areas) it would be an > infertile mating, just like in horses with burros (donkeys?). Also, > do you think these darker and smaller bees are more productive than > the ones you have? or you want to do it for a scientific interest? > If you have any other question related to this, please ask to BEE-L. >=20 > Tere Thanks for you help Tere. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 10:27:47 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Re: egg laying after swarming In-Reply-To: <115FAB3154C@warthog.ru.ac.za> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:19 AM 3/6/98 GMT+0200, you wrote: This may no be a laying worker. Contrary to popular notion, we find that queens in small colonies often lay 2 or more eggs in a cell. Not quite as scattered as a laying worker, but otherwise much the same. After the new brood emerges, this stops. I base this observation on several hundred units closely monitored for our research over a 20 year period. Question: Does the queen finally figure it out? or Does the queen continue to put too many eggs in some of the cells, and the workers remove the extras? As the colony grows in size, it has more workers, and more "hands" to do miscellaneous chores. Jerry Another case of my favorite notion: The bees didn't read the books. >Another thing I have noticed occasionally is that a swarm often has >laying worker activity as well, and that this declines with time. >(probably an old queen) > >Keep well > >Garth >> Jerry J. Bromenshenk, Ph.D. Director, DOE/EPSCoR & Montana Organization for Research in Energy The University of Montana-Missoula Missoula, MT 59812-1002 E-Mail: jjbmail@selway.umt.edu Tel: 406-243-5648 Fax: 406-243-4184 http://www.umt.edu/biology/more http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 19:15:20 +0000 Reply-To: luichart.woollens@virgin.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Harry Goudie Organization: Luichart Woollens Subject: Apistan and Organic Gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This question of the "Organic Garden" is quite interesting. It is not clear from the original question whether the gardener requested the bees to be put in his garden or whether the bees are just near the garden. If the gardener has requested the bees then, I think, if Apistan is used it makes a mockery of his "Organic" status. If on the other hand the bees are just in his area, even just outside wall, then unless he is a complete purist, his "Organic" status should remain intack. I know this sound very illogical but we have to trust the organic gardener and this trust would be compromised if he was responsible for using a pesticide in his garden even although the resultant contimination was negligable. On the other hand I don't think he should be held responsible for the action of others outside his own patch which, unfortunately seems to be the policy of the Organic Label Brigade. This attitude leads to many people giving up the idea saying, "What's the point of me being organic when all about me is polluted!" I think there is a point. -- Harry Scotland Knitwear Web pages: http://freespace.virgin.net/luichart.woollens/ Beekeeping Page: http://freespace.virgin.net/luichart.woollens/page8.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 17:00:51 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: Big boys/girls and little bug bites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit xenophon, ancient greek war correspondent reported troops laid low by toxic honey during the persian wars. Probable source rhododendron ponticum. Pontus is an ancient kingdom now part of Turkey. Chris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 18:24:11 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Constill Subject: List subscribing humor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part0_889226651_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_889226651_boundary Content-ID: <0_889226651@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Hi fellow Bee-L subscribers, I hope you enjoy the following humor regarding list subscribers. It certainly fits us to a tee. --part0_889226651_boundary Content-ID: <0_889226651@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from relay10.mail.aol.com (relay10.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.10]) by air09.mail.aol.com (v40.2) with SMTP; Thu, 05 Mar 1998 05:20:08 -0500 Received: from www.lyris.net (www.lyris.net [207.90.155.32]) by relay10.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with SMTP id FAA23937 for ; Thu, 5 Mar 1998 05:20:07 -0500 (EST) Received: from 38.234.171.2 by www.lyris.net (Lyris SMTP service) 04 Mar 98 20:09:20 PST8 from: to: Received: from [144.118.249.52] (newtower2-711.resnet.drexel.edu [144.118.249.52]) by ns.corpsite.com (8.8.8/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA05344 for ; Wed, 4 Mar 1998 23:19:33 -0500 (EST) X-Sender: oracle@pop.synapse.net Message-Id: <413944-29418@lyris.net> Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 23:20:15 -0500 To: "Oracle Service Humor Mailing List" From: "Oracle Service Humor Mailing List" Subject: HUM: List Humor (**1/2) X-Message-Id: List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: "Oracle Service Humor Mailing List" Sender: oracle-humor-admin@lyris.net Precedence: bulk X-Lyris-To: [Constill@aol.com] X-Lyris-MemberID: 29418 X-Lyris-MessageID: 413944 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit This is a message from the Oracle Service Humor Mailing List. And now, a word from today's sponsor... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLAN YOUR SUMMER FISHING TRIP NOW! If you love to fish discover the "World of Fishing": * WORLDWIDE listings (including all US states) * World-Class Halibut Fishing * World Record Brown Trout * Fish for five species of salmon * Wilderness lodges * Fly fishing * Deep Sea Charters * Much much more. If you are planning that once in a lifetime fishing adventure you need to visit http://www.fish-world.com or email us at adventures@fish-world.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE FROM ORACLE: Just to avoid confusion here, "I" doesn't refer to me, it refers to the submittor... I have a mailing list @ my local ISP. They have been having problems with the server, so the admin made a mailing list of the mailing list owners, something like 'maillistowners' He has made a few announcements lately telling us what is going on, and so forth. They finally seem to have gotten it working, and he sent a piece of humor "How many mailing list members does it take to change a light bulb" which discussed the various and sundry stupid things people will do: Q: How many list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb? A: 1,331: 1 to change the light bulb and to post to the 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. 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. 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list. 33 to summarize 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 controversy. 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 alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it here. 143 votes for alt.lite.bulb. I, who should have know better, posted a followup of a few bits I thought were missing from the list You forgot a few: 27 to post in HTML because they are using the IE or Netscape that had it turned on by default and are too clueless to look 48 to complain about the HTML posts 27 to post 'sorry I didn't realize it was on' -- in HTML 96 to complain about more HTML and post detailed instructions on how to change the setting 58 to mumble something about using a web browser to read mail 12 MIME posts with useless colors and bolds saying thanks for the help with the HTML mail 1 to post a GIF/JPG of the lightbulb hanging too close to their digital camera. 1 complaint from the guy using /usr/ucb/Mail who wants to know what the *@&(%$!@ has been going on 58 to complain about the binary post 74 to say they liked the binary and didn't mind it 1 post about how you can MAKE MONEY FAST!!!!! by selling lightbulbs and this report available for only $5. 1328 to reply to the list with the full spam attached and then put 'remove' at the end 3 to flame the other morons for replying to the spammer and CCing the list 1 from the list admin notifying that the list is looking for a bigger server to handle the load There have now been several followups: "How did I get on this list?" "How do I get off this list?" "REMOVE" "REMOVE UNSUB SIGNOFF REMOVE TAKE ME OFF THIS LIST" "unsubribe" [sic] "Morons, you have to send it to the majordomo address" "How am I supposed to know that?" If it wasn't so pitiful, it would be funny. Submitted by: Timothy J. Luoma @ peak.org \\|// (o o) ORACLE SERVICE HUMOR MAILING LIST ------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo----------------------------------------------- HOW DO I SUBSCRIBE? It's free! Just send a message to oracle-humor-subscribe@lyris.oraclehumor.com WHERE DO I SEND JOKES? WHERE'S THE WEBSITE? jokes@oraclehumor.com http://www.oraclehumor.com LEGAL STUFF: Wallaby Solutions runs this piece as submitted and does not claim to own any copyright privileges to it. The work was submitted to us as an item for the mailing list, and it was posted solely on the basis of its quality. If this is an administrative posting, then follow any copyright guidelines noted on the posting. ADVERTISERS: Reach over 69,000 people. Write to ad-info@lyris.oraclehumor.com for automated information or check out http://oraclehumor.com/Wallaby/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message came to you via Lyris list server software. http://lyris.com To unsubscribe, forward this message to oracle-humor- unsubscribe@lyris.oraclehumor.com You are subscribed at [Constill@aol.com]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --part0_889226651_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 23:43:14 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Joel Govostes Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments In-Reply-To: <10191821903541@internode.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Allen wrote: >... >Don't get swarming started: here are some more ideas about this, from a hobbiest perspective: Supering early helps. If you super over an excluder, though, sometimes the colony won't readily use the added space, and they will keep getting more congested below. Supposedly, if you reverse the brood-boxes and add the excluder/supers at the same time, this tends to put brood right under the excluder, so the bees "have" to go thru and start using the space above. It doesn't always work out so well, though. Sometimes you go back in a couple of weeks and they have stored their nectar in the brood chamber, with little or no progress in the honey supers, and there are scads of queen cells already! Omitting the excluder will usually prevent this lag, if you can tolerate a bit of brood in the first honey-super, initially anyway. >* Keep young queens in the hives Interesting to me that Walter Kelley, in his bee books, didn't have much to say about swarm control methods. His recommendations were more towards just having queens less than a year old in the colonies, relying on this re-queening as a swarm-control measure. (But then too, he was selling queens ;-)) >* Give lots of supers (including some foundation) well before the flow IME, a super of foundation above a double-brood chamber and excluder is usually ignored for too long, which can be frustrating. You give them a nice new super like that and next thing you know they are taking off! It often helps to super first with drawn comb, and then set subsequent supers w/ foundation underneath it. Someone once told me, "Keep a super ahead of the bees" and this seems to be a good rule of thumb at least up into the middle of the main flow (mid-late summer here). >* Remove honey before the hives get plugged Once you know when to expect the main nectar flows, you can keep an eye on the super space, and pull honey or add supers as necessary, to maintain a margin of extra storage room. Many beekeepers will keep this up until a late-summer or autumn flow, and then let the bees "plug" a good portion of the brood chamber(s) with that honey for winter. Problem is, it can end up reducing the queen's laying space at a time when you want the max. eggs being laid to supply the winter bees. Some places (like here in NY) you can have colonies happily swarming in Aug. or Sept. if they congest the brood nest like that. Each year is different, so it's hard to predict whether they will get too plugged, and how early. I wonder about the artificial swarming methods, in that the original colony SANS queen would take several weeks to build back up once their new queen starts laying. The artificial swarm (on the old stand, with old queen) has very little brood initially, and so its population drops off pretty fast once the field bees start dwindling. Yes, swarming is thwarted, but it results in two weaker colonies going into the summer flows. (If the two units are re-united soon after the artificial swarming, maybe this would result in a strong colony again, going into the main part of the season. Anyone comment(?)) When artificial swarming is followed as a routine, there is also the possibility or risk of "swarming" a colony that would never has swarmed if left alone anyway. They end up all discombobulated, then, when they could have gone on producing without interruption. I s'pose manipulations like artificial swarming are at least better than, say, tearing thru the colony every 10 days to destroy queen cells. Now that's a major intrusion -- can't believe I used to do it! I certainly got some big swarms regardless. cheers, JG > >If swarming appears to be started: > >* Split the hive in half and super each half (make sure there are > good cells in each half) >* Padgen the hive (Ie. switch it with a weaker one that looks > about the same and/or face it backwards if it is in a line of hives. > BTW, padgening will not work if the bees are not flying freely and > they may not be if they are swarmy. > >That's about it. > >Remember that bees will swarm no matter what you do, other than weaken >them beyond usefulness. All we can do is reduce swarming, not eliminate >it. It is completely natural. > >An occasional swarm is not the sign of poor beekeeping. No swarming is. > >Allen >--- >Newsflash! Visit http://www.beekeeping.co.nz/beel.htm >to search BEE-L archives the easy, easy way or to >update or change your subscription options. >--- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 08:48:10 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: swarming/spring management MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bees swarm, period. Do what you will, they can't all be stopped. Come up with a plan of attack for your area, and follow it. Trying to stop those colonies that are bound and determined to swarm is usually wasteful of time needed elsewhere in the apiary. My plan is fairly simple. It usually works. In northern Vermont, our first major flow is from Dandelion. It can be an intense flow, often plugging the brood nest, and causing swarming. Colonies get too strong before the main flow. Instead of building up on the Dandelion flow, and peaking at the main flow a month later, they're already strong and swarm on Dandelion. At the beginning of the Dandelion bloom, I reverse each colony, and count the number of combs of brood. In my area, five or six is about perfect. With a good queen, and normal weather, they'll be at full strength by the main flow. This is your goal. If they have much more brood than this, like 8 or 10 or 12 combs, they need to be weakened. Remove combs of brood, giving them to colonies who have less than 5. Mark the colonies that are still too strong for dividing when the Dandelion flow starts in ernest. Splitting at this time gives the nuc lots on incomming nectar and pollen. It also ensures the parent colony builds up on the Dandelion flow instead of before it. Get a super on at this time. This takes care of most swarming, most years. Some colonies will swarm anyway. I think it's their way of requeening themselves. I usually let these colonies do their thing. I used to cut cells and fuss, and fuss. The rest of my bee work gets behind, and the bees get ahead of me. When you have lots of colonies, you have to play the averages. Spending all your time on a few colonies just doesn't work. Better to spend your time on supering and requeening. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 08:56:10 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: petty Subject: Re: Apistan and Organic Gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have not yet heard anyone mention that the Apistan strips should be removed BEFORE the time that a typical vegetable garden is in bloom. if you leave Apistan in all year YOU will be partially responsible for helping to develope RESISTANT mites!! the whole point is that the Apistan knock the mite level down to a level below the damage threshold. removal of the pesticide is crucial to prevent the genetic selection of resistant mites. there has been a lot of good research on this latey. unfortunately most of the findings are published in journals that are not popular amongst most beekeepers. leaving Apistan in all year is lazy and irresponsible! anyone remember Integrated Pest Management??? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 08:06:12 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > >* Give lots of supers (including some foundation) well before the flow > IME, a super of foundation above a double-brood chamber and excluder is > usually ignored for too long, which can be frustrating. You give them a > nice new super like that and next thing you know they are taking off! It > often helps to super first with drawn comb, and then set subsequent > supers w/ foundation underneath it. That is very correct. I guess it never occured to me that anyone who has read our discussions would think I meant to put on whole supers of foundation. But I think you are right: there are still those who think that it is a good idea so I guesss we have to give the warning. All I can say is that if one insists on using whole supers of new foundationt, one is asking for trouble if an excluder is used, unless some brood is raised, and ventillation minimized too for that matter. Not to say that whole supers of foundation cannot be drawn, but rather that the results are unpredictable, especially if it is attempted by beginners (and beginners are usually the only ones who attempt it other than comb producers). Drawing whole supers of foundation reliably takes some skill -- and luck. What I was encouraging in my previous post, and what we practice, is using a frame or two of foundation in each super. With the new plastic foundation that never goes stale, we just put a comb or two in each super as we are handling the supers at extracting time the previous year. > Someone once told me, "Keep a super ahead of the bees" and this seems to > be a good rule of thumb at least up to the middle of the main flow > (mid-late summer here). Essential advice. Once the bees are capping the top super, it takes a strong flow to get the bees to go into any super placed on top rather than just finishing the ones they have started and quitting work. If the top super is being capped, then any additional supers must go under the occupied supers. And, if that is the case, one might just as well extract as put all those heavy boxes back up unless moisture is a problem. Tip: don't pull honey at the end of a day of heavy nectar gathering; pull the honey early in the day to keep the moisture levels in the resulting extracted honey lower. > I wonder about the artificial swarming methods, in that the original > colony SANS queen would take several weeks to build back up once their > new queen starts laying. The artificial swarm (on the old stand, with > old queen) has very little brood initially, and so its population drops > off pretty fast once the field bees start dwindling. Yes, swarming is > thwarted, but it results in two weaker colonies going into the summer > flows. (If the two units are re-united soon after the artificial > swarming, maybe this would result in a strong colony again, going into > the main part of the season. We just separate the brood chambers and place each on a floor in the same yard if we see that we are going about to lose a swarm. Then we spread brood a bit sometimes if they are plugged, and make sure they have lots of room and that each half has a good cell. One half needs it and the other might have a queen that needs replacing. After all they may have been superceding, not swarming. The two activities look similar at swarming season. Most of us have often seen colonies make twenty cells, then not swarm. That usually stops them. This procedure is quick, simple and reliable and gives us two colonies both of which usually make honey, although maybe not as much as we would have gotten off the monster hive, but more than we would have gotten if they had swarmed. Besides, an extra colony of bees is worth about 60 pounds of honey to us. When we split such swarming hives, we don't worry about losing some bees to other colonies; in fact we encourage it a bit by how we place the splits, since those emigrant bees will boost honey production in those other hives and the migration will decrease the likelihood of losing a swarm from one of the splits. For those who don't want increase and are after honey production alone, the splits can be stacked back into one hive in a week or two if desired, once the swarming impulse has passed. If that is planned, rather than adding a second brood chamber to each half at time of splitting, the splits should remain as singles and have their supers added over an excluder on top of the one brood chamber. I'm assuming that everyone knows that supers full of bees removed from any hive can be moved around between hives at honey flow time without any danger of fighting as long as excluders are used to ensure that the queens are not noved accidentally with the supers. (Not to say that that would be too serious at flow time, since the bees will replace her and the break in brood rearing could be beneficial). We were talking about plugging the other day. One thing I forgot to mention is that young queens are harder to plug out than older ones. Young ones somehow manage to maintain a brood area under nectar pressure, however any queen can be plugged out, especially in nucs. That is one reason why many conclude that nucs cannot be wintered successfully; if they have been plugged for any length of time, they may not have the necessary young bees in fall. As far as manual artificial swarming is concerned (shaking out the bees, not splitting), it can work but is labour intensive right when we are very busy -- and hard on the bees. Maybe try *natural* swarming and place a few bait hives around the neighbourhood. Just remember to put them out early -- weeks ahead of SWARMING SEASON. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 11:55:56 -0800 Reply-To: mister-t@clinic.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Apistan and Organic Gardening MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Was mentioned and the issue is: if Apistan is used, no matter when, does it negate the organic of the organic garden. Most think so as long as the hive is on the property. Next door and you can have the "bees from Ortho" and everyhing will be fine. Makes sense to me, as do all things organic. Gives me a warm, holist feeling. Bill Truesdell Bath,ME petty wrote: > I have not yet heard anyone mention that the Apistan strips should be > removed BEFORE the time that a typical vegetable garden is in bloom. > if you leave Apistan in all year YOU will be partially responsible for > helping to develope RESISTANT mites!! the whole point is that the Apistan > knock the mite level down to a level below the damage threshold. removal > of the pesticide is crucial to prevent the genetic selection of resistant > mites. there has been a lot of good research on this latey. unfortunately > most of the findings are published in journals that are not popular amongst > most beekeepers. > leaving Apistan in all year is lazy and irresponsible! > anyone remember Integrated Pest Management??? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 11:36:10 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ian Watson Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments Comments: To: Ian Watson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >All I can say is that if one insists on using whole supers of new >foundationt, one is asking for trouble if an excluder is used, unless some >brood is raised, and ventillation minimized too for that matter. Not to >say that whole supers of foundation cannot be drawn, but rather that the >results are unpredictable, especially if it is attempted by beginners (and >beginners are usually the only ones who attempt it other than comb >producers). Drawing whole supers of foundation reliably takes some skill >-- and luck. I am assuming you mean drawing whole supers of foundation DURING SPRING is difficult. Just to clarify, we put whole supers of foundation, Plasticell, no less (to those who think the bees "just won't touch it"...;) over an EXCLUDER during a good honey flow, and the bees drew and filled them. But the colony I specifically remember doing this was a Buckfast overflowing with bees, so that may be a part of it. So many variables to consider... We normally use excluders because we don't want brood in the honey supers. We have found that the wax moths tend to prefer comb that has had brood in it. I think it may be safe to NOT use an excluder if there is a wide enough band of honey at the top of the brood chamber, since it is said the queen won't cross the honey to lay. Anyone have some comments about that? Just my 2 cents....;) Ian Watson realtor@niagara.com real estate agent gardener baritone beekeeper---> 6 colonies and counting ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 09:37:58 -1000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Walter Patton Subject: Fw:NHB and imported honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit LOok at the facts. I believe that in 1996 there was a 66% increase in one year . If this is correct the 1996 imported honey was 353,978,400 lbs.and at only $.60 per lb means that $212,387,040 was paid to foreign honey producers. With that tonnage the importer/packers could pay $.01 per pound and fund their own packer honey board with $3,539,784.00 per year. just with the assesment on imported honey. Why can't we try and keep more of this honey/money at home in the US. ---------- > From: Mann Library Reference > To: hihoney@ilhawaii.net > Subject: Re: Reference Question from hihoney@ilhawaii.net > Date: Saturday, March 07, 1998 8:07 AM > > >Hello Walter Patton: > > The USDA Agricultural Statistics 1997 provides those totals only until > 1995. And they are (in 1,000 gallons): > > 1995 17,770 x1,000 =17,770,000 gallons = 213,240,000 lbs. > 1994 18,342 > 1993 19,481 > 1992 18,632 > 1991 18,514 > > You may want to access the USDA home page at http://www.usda.gov/ > > and look for more recent statistics. > > Hope this helps. > > > Kornelia Tancheva > > > ================================================= > > > >Name: walter patton > >E-mail: hihoney@ilhawaii.net > >Question: imported honey totals for last five years. > >==================End of Question================= > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Please refer to my name if you have follow-up questions > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Mann Library Reference Services > Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-4301 > 607-255-5406 > mann_ref@cornell.edu > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 15:10:33 EST Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: CSlade777 Subject: Re: egg laying after swarming Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Only a few hours. I have collected a swarm in an empty straw skep and placed it overnight where I was going to place a hive for them. The following day they had drawn honeycomb the size of my hand and every cell had an egg. Chris Slade. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 16:27:15 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Joel Govostes Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments In-Reply-To: <01bd49e7$22fb27c0$163a05d1@k6200.niagara.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yeah, when all a novice has available is foundation, and an excluder is to be used, supering to stave off swarming can be tricky. Same goes for supers set up for cut-comb. Once there are some drawn super-combs available they can be mixed in with the foundation to lure the bees up. The odd stubborn colony in two brood-boxes will still balk at the excluder, tho'. In those cases it seems helpful to take a few combs -- or an entire super -- from another hive, in which the bees are already working well through the excluder, and switch them, bees and all (no newspaper required). Dat'll do da trick. Strong single-brood-box colonies don't seem to present the same problem, for some reason. >... >We normally use excluders because we don't want brood in the honey supers. We >have found that the wax moths tend to prefer comb that has had brood in it. yes sir >I think it may be safe to NOT use an excluder if there is a wide enough >band of honey >at the top of the brood chamber, since it is said the >queen won't cross the >honey to lay. Anyone have some comments about >that? This is often effective, but some plucky queens go running all over and will ignore the barrier, so it is not 100% reliable. With double brood chambers I have found that a honey-layer does not appear in the upper brood box early enough to be useful (at least in most years, and in this region). You can put the first honey-super on without the excluder, and once the bees are working well up there put the excluder beneath, but by then there is probably brood in the super, you'd have to hunt down the queen to make sure she wasn't up there, etc. = a pain. Running three deeps for brood, however, a reliable honey-barrier usually *does develop at the upper portion of the 3rd brood-box, by the time the first honey-supers are required, and this obviates the need for an excluder. I have tried to get the honey-barrier to materialize while using just the 2 deep brood-chambers but haven't had good luck. Maybe there is a twist to it? >Just my 2 cents....;) > >Ian Watson realtor@niagara.com >real estate agent gardener baritone >beekeeper---> 6 colonies and counting ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 16:53:24 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garry Libby Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments Hello All, Wax coated Plastic frames and foundation have usually been sitting around in a warehouse for some time.So,to really get the bees up into the super, try brushing on some melted beeswax(just a little helps at top of foundation).That should get them up there very quickly(sometimes more quickly than wax foundation).Also,if using all foundation,don't put the excluder on for a few days,that should get them started quickly. Good Luck, Garry Libby Boston,USA LibBEE@email.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 19:37:45 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank Humphrey Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments Comments: To: Garry Libby In-Reply-To: <0102a1953210738UPIMSSMTPUSR03@email.msn.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have often found myself with nothing but foundation to put on hives. If you put the excluder on right away, the bees are reluctant to go through it. If you leave it out they will usually move up and start drawing the foundation. once they have started drawing, then the excluder can be added and the bees will continue to draw the comb. However when using only one brood chamber, the excluder must be added as soon as the bees have started shaping cells. If they get them to half depth, the queen sometimes moves up to lay in them. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@bellsouth.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 22:56:55 +0300 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Carlos Aparicio Subject: Re: Swarm Control comments Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Use 8 combs for a Langstroth box, in the supers. 10 in the brood chamber. CARLOS APARICIO At 11:36 AM 07/03/1998 -0500, Ian Watson wrote: .... >We normally use excluders because we don't want brood in the honey supers. We >have found that the wax moths tend to prefer comb that has had brood in it. I think >it may be safe to NOT use an excluder if there is a wide enough band of honey at >the top of the brood chamber, since it is said the queen won't cross the honey to >lay. Anyone have some comments about that? > >Just my 2 cents....;) > >Ian Watson realtor@niagara.com >real estate agent gardener baritone >beekeeper---> 6 colonies and counting > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 08:18:42 -0800 Reply-To: richard@centex.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Richard Harkey Organization: Harkey's Honey Subject: Re: Supering over excluder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Me thinks baiting with comb of open broob over excluder will hasten work over excluder. Richard, Deep in the heart of Texas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 21:55:54 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Jim G. Shoemaker" Subject: Re: Supering over excluder Comments: To: Richard Harkey In-Reply-To: <35017362.4ADE@centex.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I produce comb honey almost exclusively and always use Walter Kelley's 7/11 foundation. Very seldom have any problem with bees moving up or the queen laying in the supers. Jim Skhoemaker Brookline, MO (near Springfield and Bas Pro Shop) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 20:54:00 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Homemade Science MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT We've been talking about nosema here on this list, and I promised to get out and do some measurement. Well, I did. The results, and an opportunity to comment, are available on http://allen/honeybee/BeeScience/Nosema.htm Drop by and see what you think. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 18:51:41 -1000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Walter Patton Subject: Eucalyptus Information MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Given the large number of eucalyptus varieties, can any one point me towards information regarding the nectar quality of the different kinds of Eucalyptus Thanks in advance Walter