========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 17:58:22 +-1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Cliff Van Eaton Subject: World Propolis/Bee Pollen Production and Consumption MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Can anyone on the list point me in the direction of up-to-date, = published figures on world production (for human consumption) of = propolis and bee pollen? The operative word here is "published". = There's lots of speculation about production of these two products, but = what I need are some recognised figures.=20 I've had a bit of a look in the literature, but the latest info I can = find on propolis is in Eva Crane's book Bees and Beekeeping (1990). She = quotes Kjaersgaard (1985), who produced 1984 export figures for China = (55t), Argentina (7-8t), Chile+Uruguay (7-8t) and Canada (3-4t). = However, no specific figure is given for Brazil, which some sources say = is the world's largest producer. For bee pollen, the best reference I've found so far is Schmidt and = Buchmann's chapter in The Hive and The Honey Bee (1992). They quote = Wang (1989), who produced figures for China, and then state that major = producers include USA, China, USSR, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and = Australia. However, no specific figures are given. Thanks in advance for your help. Cliff Van Eaton Tauranga NEW ZEALAND Cliff Van Eaton =20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 11:33:32 +0300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Vladimir V. Obolonkin" Subject: A lot of eggs in one cell Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi All, Yesterday I met a phenomenon I have never seen before. One queen in strong colony lays 2-5 eggs into one cell. Eggs are very small. I need to say that due to strong flow from forest raspberry a nest (20 frames 45x30 cm) has became overfull with fresh honey and queen has no much place to lay. At that very time they ignore super placed on a top of hive. Q-s: 1. Why the queen lays few eggs into one cell? Is it endurable? 2. How to make bees to go to super and keep enough place for brood in a nest? 3. What to do if I don't have more drawn combs but filled frames aren't caped yet and not ready to extract? Thanks for advice Vladimir from Belarus -------------------------------------------------- Dr.Obolonkin Minsk, Belarus e-mail ooo@gray.isir.minsk.by ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:57:43 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: Glued super Hi All Greg mentioned the problem with a glued super. I recently got given about 15 hives that had not been tended in 15 years. These were in the karroo - our semi desert and bees in this area make lots of propolis. I could not do very much with them, so eventually decided to get the bees to move the propolis around the hive. I removed all entrance propolis (wearing a rather thick beesuit for a change) and then prized the back of the hives apart at the join between the super and placed a little pebble in there. Within a week I came back and they had moved a huge amount of propolis from 'store;' areas - ie between frames and the side of the brood box. I was able to them manipulate the frames at midday and removed them and gave them a good scrape. I now practise a policy of removing a small amount of entrance propolis every time I open the brood nest when there is a flow. In this way the frames don't get too gummed as the bees are always moving propolis down from between them to the 'more important' entrance. It may be unwise to do this if there is no flow. An alternative that I cannot vouch for as I have not yet tried it, would be to tape the zone of connection between two hives with black duct tape and then seperate the hives when the sun shines on it - the increased warmth might help. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 18:42:41 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Moriarty Subject: Re: Kelthane spray Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I would be careful to identify the "mite" that the spray is intended to kill and then look at the family etc. Quite often the label "mite" is fairly inaccurate, scientifically, as any small pest may be a "mite." Sprays kill insects in various ways. It is wise to understand how Kelthane works... does it depend on the offending mite ingesting sprayed plant material? Would honey bees act like sprayed plant material and yield poison in the right doses to biting varroa? Or is the spray topical and dependent upon mites walking on it? Would you have to spray allinfected bees? It is wise to look at what families the insects are from, their feeding habits and morphology etc., and how the spray works (skin entry, ingestion etc.) before even guessing at whether it might be of any help. As I recall(Ag degree circa 1979), Kelthane has a three day waiting period before entering the field after spraying... bad stuff. aloha, mike moriarty ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:42:29 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Norman CotÊ" Subject: Re: A lot of eggs in one cell Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit It isn't your quuen that is laying extra eggs in the cells. YOU HAVE A LAYING WORKER. What you have to do now is take your hive at least 30 feet away and shake all the bees out of the hive. After you have done that return the hive to its original location. The laying worker has never been out of the hive and will not be able to find her way back. The foraging bees will return. Either you can wait three days and introduce a new caged queen (make sure you don't have queen cells of eggs) or destroy all the eggs with a toothpick and add a new queen right away. Norm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:47:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Keeler, Lisa" Subject: Re: lost queen? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dr Schuberth wrote >If you want to test whether a hive has its queen and there are no eggs or >larvas, you can make a so called (in Germany) "queen-test". Take a frame >with eggs or young larvas in its combs out of a hive that's o.k. and put this >frame into the hive you want to test. If there is no queen the bees of the >hive will try to produce their own queen and make queen cells. If you are doing the queen-test, how long you have to wait before checking back on the hive? Also, if they have NOT created any queen-cells, should you leave this frame in the hive or return it to its old hive? Will the bees in the recieving hive accept and care for the larvae or will they kill them since they aren't from their queen? I'm trying this test on a hive that I suspect has a virgin queen. I have empty queen cells but no eggs yet. Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 08:44:33 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Barnes Subject: kelthane follow-up Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Thanks to Michael, James, John, Allen, David and company for the replies on Kelthane. The label lists some mites and also says it is a chemical specific to mites. Not all mites are listed on the label that the chemical will kill. The main reason for my original post was to get people to thinking about other treatments. The mites will continually evolve and we must keep trying to find new methods to protect our bees. I use apistan, wintergreen oil, drone brood trapping and will use formic acid when approved. I don't treat when a honey flow is on or when supers are on the hives. Does anyone know how kelthane works? Our local pet store is using a chemical on fleas that inhibits specific hormones in the fleas reproductive system. I don't know if the beekeeping market is big enough for this kind of research funding. I live in south central Oklahoma, USA. At present I have 14 hives and my sons have 12. We raise mostly Italians and have 3-4 hives of a dark feral bee that is common to the area. Richard Barnes richard.barnes1@halliburton.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 09:20:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Keeler, Lisa" Subject: Re: Genetically modified organisms/bogeyreproters Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To comment on Garth's position on the transgenic plants. I'm not an expert on the subject but I do work with people trying to create these modified plants. I'm also a person with alergies so the subject is a matter of survival. ><GMO's. Basically if a thing contains protein it is perfectly >possible to be allergic to it. It is also perfectly possible to become desensitized to that allergy.>> Yes, but only if you come in contact with small quantities in frequent >doses. This is not necessarily the scenario in transformed plants. > ><bit of DNA from some funny south american tree and slaps it into a >tomato to confer resistance to a fungus, there is no reason why this >will damage a person. We eat hundreds of similar substances and have >bacteria and yeasts producing similar things in out stomach in kilogram quantities over our lives.>> The problem with transgenic plants is that the process does not just slap any DNA into the transformed plant. To be successful, the transformed plant must produce the foreign protien so that the resistance will be transfered. If a person consummed the protien from the tree and experienced an allergic reaction I believe there is a high probability that the person would experience an allergic reaction when they consummed the transformed tomato. On the positive side though, although not possible now, it seems very likely, someday, that the tranformation could be limited to vulnerable parts of the plant and turned off in the parts we consume. > ><contains DNA from another source other than it's own kind and >parents) plant and comes back to the hive and digests it, that >transgenic DNA will be digested just like any other chunk of DNA and >used to make new bees. IT is a bit like stealing the plans for a >bomb, printing it out and cutting out all the letters. If you then >use those letters to write a love letter one is no longer transmitting the knowledge about how to build the same type of bomb.>> As I pointed out above, I would still have questions about how safe pollen is when collected from transformed plants. It would depend on how the resistance is conferred. On the other hand, I'd feel perfectly safe eating honey from transformed plants since it is just a mix of >sugars and water collected from the plants > <> Lisa Keeler > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:22:56 +0100 Reply-To: gsm.wardell@virgin.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "GSM.WARDELL" Subject: Re: A lot of eggs in one cell MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Norman CotJ wrote: > > It isn't your quuen that is laying extra eggs in the cells. YOU HAVE A LAYING > WORKER. > What you have to do now is take your hive at least 30 feet away and shake all > the bees out of the hive. After you have done that return the hive to its > original location. The laying worker has never been out of the hive and will > not be able to find her way back. The foraging bees will return. Either you > can wait three days and introduce a new caged queen (make sure you don't have > queen cells of eggs) or destroy all the eggs with a toothpick and add a new > queen right away. > > Norm This is only one possible explanation. I have seen this happen when newly mated young queens start to lay eggs. They soon settle down to behave normally but must have room to do so. It is possible that your hive has swarmed or superceded and having been without a queen for some time has insufficient bees of waxmaking age (see below) to too draw out foundation in the supers. If so, try putting drawn comb (newly extracted) in the supers. Assuming that a laying queen exists the bees will transfer honey from the brood nest to make room for the queen to lay. I suggest that you try to find a queen before adopting Norm's suggestion (confimation of his diagnosis would be drone brood in worker cells)and if confirmed, procede as I suggest. It is not sufficiently well understood by many beekeepers that in general, bees perform the various hive activities according to age. It is thus useless for example, to put undrawn foundation in the super above an over wintered hive and expect it to be drawn out and filled on the first nectar flow. I hope I am not trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. With regards, Geoff Wardell, Scotland, UK. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 10:07:26 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Video Cams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ok, more clarifications concerning our video cam. If you run Internet Explorer, you can only access the Bee Snapshots which are updated every 15 seconds. You will not be able to access the 1 picture per second "Video". For that reason, we post both the 15 second snapshots and the "video" images. You should be able to get at least one of the two formats. Explorer does not support server push technologies; so it doesn't stream the video images. Complain to Microsoft. If you run Netscape, you can see the pictures change every second. Lots of fun in the afternoon when the bees are really flying. Some of you still have our old bookmarks in your browsers. If you don't clear them, you will get the following message: "File Not found The requested URL /cgi-bin/cam.cgi was not found on this server." The reason it says this is that not only the file but also the server is no longer in existence. We have an auto re-direct, but it doesn't always work. Hope this helps. Jerry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:59:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Upper Entrance There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding this subject and it has caused me to do some thinking (dangerous). It seems to me and I only have one instance to support my suspicion at this time. My understanding is that two different ideal environmental conditions are required for honey curing and brood rearing. If this is so it seems that this is very hard to achieve with an entrance at the bottom of the stack? It intuitively seems to me if the entrance were at the juncture of both different requirements they could be both met much more easily. I have a colony setup to extract bees for therapy purposes. an extended rim queen excluder with an entrance notch. As you might imagine this entrance is preferred by 90% of the bees. Also use slatted racks which only have 3 or 4 3/8" slots instead of the usual many. Also have the little notch in the inner cover that very few bees use. This particular colony outdoes it's neighbor in bees and honey production on a year to year basis. When I go to one of my yards tomorrow I'm going to stagger every other colonies queen excluder for ann entrance space and try to get some kind of a trend for the rest of the season. perhaps there some others out there that would like to try this little experiment? 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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:14:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Alden P. Marshall" Subject: Re: Aggressiveness On Mon, 25 May 1998 06:51:27 -0600 "Excerpts from BEE-L" writes: >From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > >It would appear, that the aggressiveness displayed by a colony is >significantly determined by the number of guard bees deployed (all >other >things being equal). If stratagems can be used to reduce the number of >guard >bees, then it would seem that the aggressiveness displayed by the >colony can >be reduced. One method I have heard of is to reduce the size of the >hive >entrance. Are there other 'modifications' that can be made to the hive >structure to achieve this end?. I seem to remember something about >increasing the distance between the bottom ends of the combs and the >floorboard. > We move a couple hundred or so hives to and from orchards each year. We Have found that the slatted rack does wonders to the temperment of a hive. Perhaps they post fewer guards. We find that both the screening and un screening process is much more pleasant with the slatted rack. In most cases one can put a hand right in front of the bottom board entrance with little attention paid. There may also be another factor involved here as well. Most all colonies, when they are on their home stand have a 1/2" hardware cloth varmint guard inserted. This also greatly reduces the threat of robbing, when the dearths occur and keeps out our little four footed pests. IMHO thesedevices are well the extra weight the may add to the weight of a hive. It is not uncommon to hear the grunts (me included) say during the lifting and moving, uh oh here is one without a slatted rack. The other advantages have been discussed on this list previously. 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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:34:15 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garrett Dodds Subject: Re: Bee Strains In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" New World Carniolans is just a name given to a strain of carniolans that was started some 15 to 20 years ago. That population has been bred in California and Ohio since it started. It is a closed population, which means that no other strains of bees has been introduced. New World Carniolans are not hybrids, more like a breed. Garrett Dodds Royal Gold Farms Custom Inseminations 305 E. Hale St. P.O. Box 63 Ridgeway, OH 43345 (937) 363-3119 dodds.12@osu.edu gdodds@bright.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 16:54:31 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: More Fixes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If you have had trouble reaching our bee video cam, we just found and fixed an old URL Link on the page that describes the Observation Hives (one level down from our Main Page). That has been fixed thanks to the comments of Andy, Ian, and Jim Birkey. However, if you use Explorer, you still can't reach the 1 second picture updates. The Montana hive is flying well at this time of the day. Lots of action on the flight activity JAVA graphs and under the cams. Jerry 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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 22:14:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Glen B. Glater" Subject: how do I get bees out of a house wall? Someone has called me about bees that have taken up residence in the wall of the house. I looked and they are honeybees, entering and leaving from behind an outside light that is hanging loosly from its wires. Please email me a recipe for getting this going! Thanks. --glen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:26:20 +0300 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: Home Subject: laying workers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: "Norman Cot=E9" =20 >>>>> The laying worker has never been out of the hive and will not be able to find her way back. The foraging bees will return. <<<<<<<= < can someone of the researcher confirm this: ONLY "housbees" will be laying workers foraging bees will not become laying workers????? Greeting, jan --=20 ------------------------------------------------- home of the drone frame method. de darreraat methode ------------------------------------------------- http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/index3.html Jan Tempelman / Ineke Drabbe | mailto:jtemp@xs4all.nl Sterremos 16 3069 AS Rotterdam, The Netherlands Tel/Fax (SOMETIMES) XX 31 (0)10-4569412 ------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 04:24:57 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Alan Sharratt Subject: Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Can anybody help I have recently bought 2 National hives and equipment, tried to learn as much as I can from books and think that I may be ready to keep Bees. I live in North Cheshire UK and need to aquire some bees either by a swarm or nucleus If anybody may be able to help I should be most gratefull Regards. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:35:20 +0200 Reply-To: drs@kulmbach.baynet.de Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Dr. Reimund Schuberth" Subject: Re: lost queen? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Lisa, > If you are doing the queen-test, how long you have to wait before > checking back on the hive? If you take a frame with some larvas (not only eggs) you should wait 3 days before checking back. > Also, if they have NOT created any > queen-cells, should you leave this frame in the hive or return it to its > old hive? Will the bees in the recieving hive accept and care for the larvae or > will they kill them since they aren't from their queen? You can leave the frame in the new hive or not. The hives will accept them in any way. > I'm trying this test on a hive that I suspect has a virgin queen. I > have empty queen cells but no eggs yet. Sometimes a virgin queen gets lost during the mating flights. The time between hatching of the queen and laying eggs lasts about 2 weeks (about 5 days getting on heat + several flights and mating up to 30 drones + time till laying the first eggs). If the weather isn't fine it may last even longer. Good luck! Any way tell me your experiences with this testing method! Reimund ________________________________ Beekeeper in Germany (Bavaria) Queen Rearing of Carniolan Bees Insemination Station ________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 22:13:34 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Fairing Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? On Mon, 8 Jun 1998 22:14:13 -0400 "Glen B. Glater" writes: >Someone has called me about bees that have taken up residence in the >wall of the house. If time is not a factor, This will usually work. Cover the hole with screen and a bee escape. Place a hive with drawn comb if you have it, if not foundation will do as close to the bee escape as you can. a ladder will work sometimes. The workers, not able to return to the hive in the wall will take up residence in the new hive. Requeen as soon as strength starts to build in the new hive or you can add a few frames of brood if you have them and let the workers make one for you. I like to spend the few $'s to get one I am pretty sure I will like. After 3 to 4 weeks, the longer the better, you can pull off the screen and bee escape. Your bees will go into the old hive and kill the old queen and rob all the honey stored in the walls. This will keep the honey from running through the walls when the bees are gone and the weather warms up saving the homeowner a lot of work and mess. In HIS Service Robert (Scott) Fairing _____________________________________________________________________ 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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:34:05 -0400 Reply-To: rossybee@mail.entelchile.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rossy Castillo Subject: russian beekeeper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi: I have a friend , beekeeper too, who has asked me to help him; he says: " My name is Victor Yerkin, I live in Chile, my father was born in KRASNODAR, prov. of KUBAN, RUSSIA. I would like to contact some beekeepers of that area. Please do it to this e-mail or to P:O:B 76 - OLMUE - CHILE. fax- 56-33-441009" rossybee@entelchile.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 07:28:33 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? In-Reply-To: <19980608.221337.3846.2.fairing@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > After 3 to 4 weeks, the longer the better, you can pull off the screen > and bee escape. Your bees will go into the old hive and kill the old > queen and rob all the honey stored in the walls I know that this is what all the books say, and it may be true if there is a dearth on when you remove the screen and the outside hives are really strong and nasty -- and of a breed that tends to rob. But I say YMMV. If there is a decent flow on when you remove the screen after a few weeks, the bees in the outside hive may very well ignore the hive in the wall and it may build back up very nicely. The you get to repeat the procedure. Think about it: In three weeks, all the brood laid the day you put the screen on will have just barely have hatched out. Of course the queen and remaining (young) bees will have continued to raise brood for weeks after you started removing bees, so there will still be new bees hatching for four or five weeks after screening, and likely longer. It doesn't take much to guard a hive against robbers under normal conditions. If the entrance hole is small, it only takes a few bees to guard the entrance. We often keep small nucs in the same yard as strong colonies. Most queen breeders of repute keep strong drone colonies near their baby nucs to supply drones. Robbing of the nucs is seldom a problem until the end of the season , if at all. FWIW, I've never seen it and we had hundreds of nucs containing only a cup or so of bees. I think we are dealing here with another case of books uncritically repeating the same questionable story without thinking. 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/ often. These ads work fast! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:36:43 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Trying to see eggs. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi All Thanks for all of the help in the past. Here is a request for more assistance. This is my second year in beekeeping and I am having severe problems in seeing eggs. O how I envy beekeepers who pick up a frame and say where the eggs are and how old they are, or say that there are definitely no eggs on it. Sometimes I think I can see the eggs, but I am not sure. I yet know little about beekeeping, but I do know that if you cannot see eggs you have not got off first base with the craft. I have tried a magnifying glass but I do not believe that it has helped me. Someone said to me that the magnifying glass is self defeating as it blocks the light shining on the frame. What I was wondering about is, if there is any contrivance (maybe a combination of a light source and magnification) which will assist someone like myself to see these elusive eggs. Thanks for any help 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 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:03:55 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Subject: Seeing Eggs In-Reply-To: <14402622002527@internode.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > This is my second year in beekeeping and I am having severe problems in > seeing eggs. The trick is the same as seeing AFB scale: You must stand with a strong light behind you and shining over your shoulder so it illuminates the cell interior. The sun is the best source of light for this. If you get the angle right, the whole interior will be full of light and everything will be obvious.. At that point, of course having a dark comb makes seeing the white egg easier, but the eggs are pretty obvious if you have good light and decent natural vision -- or glasses that focus at an appropriate distance. If your vision is poor, go to the drugstore and get a $10 pair of reading glasses, (preferably the little ones that sit on the end of your nose and over which you can peer at people and other more distant objects). ...And, if the weather is hot, don't forget to tie a rolled up bandana around your forehead to keep the sweat out of your glasses. Bonne chance. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:12:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Dr. Gerald L Barbor" Subject: Re: Trying to see eggs. On 6/9 Tom Barrett wrote asking for aids in seeing eggs. As a retired dentist I might offer the suggestion that you try a pair of binocular loupes - the funny looking glasses with approximately 2X3 Cm. lenses that stick out from ones nose or from a head ring. They are available in many powers of magnification and are small enough not to block the light. Of course these might be a bit difficult to use while wearing a veil but you could always shake the bees off and walk a few paces away to look. Jerry in PA _____________________________________________________________________ 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, 9 Jun 1998 11:43:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Musashi Subject: Re: Trying to see eggs. In trying to see eggs (I don't know your age or how good your eyesight is), even though I wear "bifocals" and my eyes are not as good as they used to be, I find that if I hold the frame at the correct angle in the sunlight that it really helps me to see down into the cells and see the eggs. You have to know what you are looking for in order to be able to recognize them if they are there, but seeing them is not that big a problem unless the light is bad or the frame is completely covered with bees and they are in the way so you can't see anything at all but moving bees. Sometimes I have to be patient and look a couple of times (I don't see them the first time), but if you can find larvae or various ages, work out from the older to the younger, and then outside of those if you have "empty" cells, that is often where you will see the eggs. My queens also like to lay in "newly built comb" more than they do in old dark brood comb. So find out where the action is going on (new brood and new comb) and take it slow and easy and get the light at the right angle and your eyes the right distance from the comb and if they are there, they should be illuminated so they are obvious. Sometimes my calmness and frame of mind are just as important as my eyesight when looking for eggs. Your mind can have a lot to do with whether you see eggs or not. They might be right in front of you and yet you not see them if you are nervous or worried or fearful of being stung, etc. Good luck. I hope this helps a bit. I think that holding them at the right angle to the light and taking my time is the trick for me. Layne Westover College Station, Texas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:52:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rod Billett Subject: Re: Trying to see eggs. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Tom, I'm new to this hobby as well, and hope my input helps you out. Since your hives are new, you probably have light colored comb, and spotting the white eggs against this background is tricky. Things that helped me out. Keep the sun to your back, and try to have it shining into the cells at almost a right angle. To help spott the first egg, I tilt the frame a little so about 1/3 of the cell bottom is in shadow, other 2/3 illuminated. Then look into the cell at about the same angle. Since the queen lays the egg in the center bottom of the cell, and it is standing on end, this helps to make the egg 'appear' larger since your not looking at it 'on end'. It also helps if you can keep as many bees on the opposite side of the frame as possible to provide a darker background. With the dark background, they stand out really well. Try and find Larvae, Keep looking outward as the larvae get smaller (Or until you see cells with a small amount of liquid in the bottom - the really young larvae swim in their food). The empty or dry cells near the very young larvae should have the eggs in them. I have read in the books that the larvae can dry out fairly rapidly, so expose the frames to direct sun during hot weather for too long... Can any of you 'experienced' folks out there lend a hand as to how long is too long to expose a frame? Rod Billett Lexington, SC USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:38:12 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Is there a connection between brown comb and aggression Hi All I have recently noticed that my older hives with a higher percentage of darker combs are more aggressive than younger and stronger hives on less brown comb. These bees are all of roughly the same queen lineage as I have been replacing them. I have noticed a similar thing with wild colonies, where hives with a majortiy of combs that are still capable of passing light bing much gentler than others with really dark and grotty combs. Has anybody else noticed the same effects? Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:40:56 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: Trying to see eggs. In-Reply-To: <980609114335.203706d1@ACS.TAMU.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:43 AM 6/9/98 -0500, you wrote: >In trying to see eggs (I don't know your age or how good your eyesight is), >even though I wear "bifocals" and my eyes are not as good as they used to be, Its always amazed me that in the bee breeders grafting room the person who is always the best grafter usually has the poorest eye site. Many do use special glasses, you name it and you will find it. But in watching these experienced men and women graft I believe most could do it with their eyes closed. Anyway years ago to prove that point one of the bee breeders had a machine made to do the work using medical engineering and it worked and not only grafted but returned a surplus of royal jelly that could be collected for sale. Even then at its best it was not as efficient as a experienced grafter and have not heard if anyone is using automated grafting but am sure that the collection of royal jelly continues using some of the same technology. ttul, the OLd Drone http://beenet.com a fun and informative source of beekeeping news & information (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: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:34:28 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: removing bees: beware hive beetles Comments: To: glen@MIDNIGHT.COM Hi Glen and All In my part of the world we have many bees and a little hive beetle that is a bee pest. If one removes a colony there are two strategies, one, you can aim to get the bees only, or two you can take the bees and their combs. In the light of the apparent arival of the small hive beetle in the US and the possibility that European honey bees are not able to defend themselves well against these bugs, it is in my opinion best to take as much of the comb as possible out so that these little critters don't use any of the pollen and such left behind to multiply. Basically, smoke the bees to a mild buzzing roar, then use an electric drill to drill around a few brick - if the drill bit coms out wet the hive or a water pipe are behind that spot. If no water runs out the hole then the hive is there and one can drill the rest of the brick out. One then needs to remove the brick below as well and then can usually manouver things from there. Remove combs and do whatever with them. If you have another hive from which to donate brood to this hive it is better to do that and feed the wild brood to chickens. Not only does placing wild combs in frames usually result in sloppy combs, it also could transfer bugs you don't want into your hive. Next, take a break after taping a cardboard slat over the hole in the wall. Come back later on or even better the next day at about 12.00 Scoop as many bees as possible and dump them in a box. let them recluster and scoop again. Then pump lots of smoke in to make the rest fly out and they will often join the ones in the box on the ground if you were lucky enough to get the queen into the box. If you are good at finding queen, find her to see if she is in the box. Otherwise just take the bees and dump them into another brood box and amalgamate them with another colony by the newspaper method (put a sheet of newspaper over an established hives broodnest then place these characters on top and put lid on - they chew through and meet new workforce). It is not often worth being sentimental about a wild queen as she is often not worth the time it takes for her to burn out and swarm on you. Hope that helps Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 22:16:19 BST Reply-To: dgraham@clara.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: DGraham Organization: Royal Society of Wheeltappers, Shunters, Ballarenas and Software Writers Subject: Summer Treatment for Varroasis Widely Used in Europe: Comments, Suggestions, Alternatives Invited. This paper was circulated in one of our national beekeeper journals for June this year. I have taken the liberty of posting it because of the interest and discussion which this subject generates and also in the hope that you may find it useful. I also hope that it may generate further positive comment and helpful discussion. All observations on this procedure/method will be much appreciated. Other methods of control ?prevention are very welcome. +++++++++++++++++++++++ Start ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Summer Treatment for Varroasis Widely Used in Europe. This method has already been demonstrated on a video produced by Bayer, the manufacturer of Bayvarol. Formic Acid Treatment is the only treatment to date (apart from heat treatment) which kills the Varroa mite in the Brood cells. Heavy infestations on Varroasis found in German colonies during the summer are treated by a procedure which gives the beekeeper the opportunity to treat his/her bees immediately without contamination of honey harvest and hopefully save the bees by timely intervention. Using formic acid the treatment procedure is extremely simple but requires to be carried out methodically. Equipment required:- 1. A measure of 60% concentrated Formic acid (1 Litre) 2. Acid proof gloves. 3. Safety spectacles or goggles. 4. Suitable particle filter face mask. 5. Suitable piece of absorbent material (a square kitchen sponge will suffice) 6. Large bucket (2 gallon size) full of fresh water. 7. Brood box with floorboard sealed (foam rubber strip will suffice) and a 8. crownboard. 9. Spare brood box and a full complement of drawn brood combs. 10. Coloured drawing pins. Procedure 1. When Varroasis has been diagnosed in a colony nothing is done until early evening at which time the bees are subdued. 2. if the colony is not strong: Supers are removed and the bees are shaken from the frames in these supers in front of the hive. The bees will return to the brood box. 3. If the colony is very strong: All of the supers are removed and the bees shaken from the supers in front of the hive as in para 13. Another brood box filled out with drawn deep frames is placed on top of the original brood box with a queen excluder between the two brood chambers. 4. The honey supers are removed to a bee proof location. 5. The following day or as soon as possible after the above operations have been carried out a spare empty brood box is prepared by placing it on a floorboard with the entrance sealed and air tight (a strip of foam rubber or even a strip of rag will suffice!). 6. A crownboard is prepared such that it can be placed on top of this spare brood box to form a closed lid. This lid is sealed later using masking tape or some other similar adhesive strip. 7. The infected colony is subdued. 8. All of the brood combs in the brood nests are examined. 9. All combs in which most or all of the brood is sealed are identified. Coloured drawing pins are used to mark these combs. 10. All combs which contain mostly unsealed brood are also identified. 11. A suitable absorbent material is placed on the floorboard of the previously prepared empty spare brood box. 12. (a square domestic kitchen sponge is suitable). The following necessary precautions are taken:- A suitable mask, acid proof gloves and safety glasses are worn, and a bucket with fresh water is provided. (If at any time formic acid comes in contact with skin, wash copiously and immediately with fresh water.) When removing gloves after procedures involving formic acid, wash gloved hands completely in fresh water to remove all traces of formic acid from gloves before attempting to remove them.) 1. The absorbent material is soaked with 40ml of 60% (percent) formic acid, using a veterinarians syringe. 2. The crownboard is placed on spare brood box temporarily. 3. All the bees are shaken from the previously identified frames containing primarily sealed brood back into the parent hive. 4. Each frame of sealed brood without bees is placed into the spare brood box containing the formic acid pad. 5. When the brood box is full or all of the selected sealed brood frames are inserted, the crownboard is put in place and taped closed. Making the box airtight. 6. The box is left sitting in sunlight for 90 minutes, the ambient temperature being at least 15c on the day selected for the above procedures. The weather forecast is checked prior to the fumigation being done, forward planning makes it more possible to achieve the desired conditions. 1. After the fumigation exercise is completed the brood combs are replaced in any colony if more than one colony was treated. Gloves and other protection are still worn during this operation. Never be tempted to work with formic acid without suitable protection. 2. The procedure is repeated the following week, fumigating the combs in the infested hives which were identified as having primarily open brood at the previous inspection. The residual formic acid on the returned combs is said to be lethal to the adult mites in the infested colony and appears to go a long way to reducing the adult mite population sufficiently to give the colony the chance to prosper. The adult mite fall in the colonies is checked either weekly or daily as a matter of routine from then on, to plot the progress of any residual infestation. If after around 14 days from the final fumigation the mite fall is more than 5 mites per day the above described procedures are repeated. The supers are returned to the hives around two days after the fumigation is done in each case. Formic acid exists in honey naturally and is no longer viewed as a contaminant by the veterinary authorities in Europe. The dosage of formic acid has to be varied depending on ambient conditions and beekeeper experience. Read all you can about the mite and get to know it well. Only in this way will you be able to keep on top of the infestations which will be a continuous presence in your colonies from the initial find. +++++++++++++++++++ End +++++++++++++++++++ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 07:03:48 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Fairing Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? Comments: To: allend@internode.net On Tue, 9 Jun 1998 07:28:33 -0600 Allen Dick writes: >If there is a decent flow on when you remove the screen after a few >weeks, the bees in the outside hive may very well ignore the hive in >the wall and it may build back up very nicely. The you get to repeat the >procedure. >Allen I agree, you are 100% correct. That is why the longer you have to wait, the better you are. In my part of the world, the nectar flow is over by 1 July. If I were to wait 4 weeks from today there would be almost no nectar and the odd of this working would be reasonably good. As I stated, the longer the better. Unfortunately many home owners want the bees "Killed" no later than 3 days before they called you and a wait of 4 weeks is out of the question. If there is a faster way of hiving these bees without tearing into the wall and the associated expense, I would like to know. I certainly am not to old to learn and am always looking for new tricks to try. :~) In HIS Service Robert (Scott) Fairing _____________________________________________________________________ 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, 9 Jun 1998 16:05:18 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rett Thorpe Subject: Re: Trying to see eggs. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I find two things helpful if I'm am having a hard time seeing eggs. First, as the others have mentioned have the sun shine over your shoulder into the cells, if you are using new yellow comb place one hand behind the frame so that the light does not pass through the comb. And second take off your veil. Some times I see nothing at all in the cells until I take off my veil and then like magic I can see the little comma shaped eggs down in the cells. Good luck Rett Thorpe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 19:16:40 -0700 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: hive beetles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Garth Cambray: Can you tell us what you know or have experienced with these hive beetles? Can you give us a couple of references that we may be able to access via the internet to learn more about these pests? James C. Bach Yakima WA jbach@agr.wa.gov jcbach@yvn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 21:10:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Walter T. Weller" Subject: Re: Bee Predators Has anybody had coon problems? I had a hive (four mediums, two of them only foundation) tipped over last night and scattered around. Not enough damage to have been a bear (as far as I know there aren't any around here anyway), and coyotes and mountain lions (which ARE around) seem unlikely suspects. The nature of the post-capsizing damage (4 frames of brood destroyed, but not the gross equipment-damage that bears reportedly inflict) seems to indicate non-human activity. (This was a recently-hived wild swarm, with no surplus honey yet). The only other thing I can think of is a big coon The biggest coon I ever saw weighed 40 pounds, and it's hard for me to believe that even that monster could have upended that hive. I expect the varmint may have climbed onto the slanted front board on the hive stand and over-balanced the stack onto himself (it was sitting on concrete blocks). Pity it didn't kill him. Walter Weller Post Office Box 270 Wakefield, Louisiana 70784 _____________________________________________________________________ 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, 9 Jun 1998 21:26:01 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: beeman Subject: humidty MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit can anyone tell me if humidty affects bees like humans, also my hard drive recently crashed and i lost all information on the fgmo treatments, i ask that everyone using the fgmo method gor treating mites please resend all info on how thay was applying it and how offten...also please keep my informed on how fgmo is working so far this year, you may send this info privitely since the last discussion brought many flames and repeats.... THANK YOU ALL for sending the FGMO info... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 21:14:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Richards Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A member of our association literally traps bees from walls. He will attach a screen cage to outside wall and carry it home each day for a few days. Once he collected 21 pounds of bees in one day in this manner. Of course, doesn't work very well if you need to reduce the colony to the point where they can be robbed by other bees. Be sure to tell the frantic homeowner the importance of removing the comb and honey from the wall. Even if the hole is plugged up other bees will likely find another route to the cavity. Worse, melting wax and honey could cause expensive damage. Those I've talked with who let bees rob the honey from the cavity tell me they bring a completely different hive to avoid the chance of the bees returning to the cavity. Barry Richards Nashville Area Beekeepers Association http://personal.bellsouth.net/~beerich -----Original Message----- From: Scott Fairing >I agree, you are 100% correct. That is why the longer you have to wait, >the better you are. In my part of the world, the nectar flow is over by 1 >July. If I were to wait 4 weeks from today there would be almost no >nectar and the odd of this working would be reasonably good. As I stated, >the longer the better. Unfortunately many home owners want the bees >"Killed" no later than 3 days before they called you and a wait of 4 >weeks is out of the question. If there is a faster way of hiving these >bees without tearing into the wall and the associated expense, I would >like to know. I certainly am not to old to learn and am always looking >for new tricks to try. :~) > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 22:59:46 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "John R. Valentine" Subject: BEE PROGRAMS, Discovery Channel Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hello Bee Friends, If everyone e-mails The Discovery Channel and requested shows on beekeeping, maybe we could get some on the schedule. John CT ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:03:47 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Drew LeWay Subject: Queen Excluder Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm a rookie beekeeper and I was told that the queen usally travels upward in the center between the hives and supers, it was also suggested to me that I use queen excluders although they may reduce my honey output in the supers. If this is the case, what if I cut a 2in by 2in hole on each of the corners of the excluder. Would this help the workers to travel more freely or would this just destroy a good excluder? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:14:06 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: Laying workers Hi All and Jan As regards your question as to whether it is only house bees that become laying workers I think I can answer that. The laying worker trait exists for two reasons - one it allows a colony that has lost it's queen to spread it's genes, and two it allows the bees to 'accidentally' join other colonies and sneak a few drone eggs through. Recent research has I believe shown that a large percentage of the drones hatching in a hive are not actually the offspring of the queen, but rather offspring of errant workers who lay a few eggs on the side. In the cape honey bee, a common survival strategy is believed to be that the workers will drift from one hive to another and lay a few eggs. This is fine in capensis country, but in any other races territory it leads to laying worker colonies due to the cape bees taking over. So yes, for most bees a worker that is foraging can most probably become a laying worker, or alternatively a new forager that gets lost coming back may stand a higher chance. I can also say that when I have lost the queen in a swarm a few times it has become laying worker. All these bees could fly. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:36:20 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: Queen Excluder In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980610110401.523fb522@naccess.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:03 AM 6/10/98 -0400, you wrote: >I'm a beekeeper and I was told that the queen usally travels upward >in the center between the hives and supers, it was also suggested to me that >I use queen excluders although they may reduce my honey output in the >supers. If this is the case, what if I cut a 2in by 2in hole on each of the >corners of the excluder. Would this help the workers to travel more freely >or would this just destroy a good excluder? Hi Drew and Bee Friends Very Good Questions. 1st Yes, there is no doubt that excluders can be a "honey" excluder and reduce the total honey crop and increase swarming under many if not most conditions. It depends on the type of nectar flows you have in your area. If they are long and wet, low sugar, then excluders may make the difference between a crop and NO crop as without them the bees in time will turn all the surplus nectar into brood. If your nectar flow is high in sugar and short and fast then all the excluder does is to cause the brood area to become choked with honey and the queen to run out of egg laying room and this is sure to guarantee the production of queen cells and swarming will result. In some areas the beekeepers have both type of flows and some beekeepers may go as far to take the excluders on and off depending on the type of flow and time of year. I personally ran with excluders for years because it make it easier for unexperienced help to take off honey without having to separate brood until I decided to take them off. Before I made that decision I took off half the excluders in a few test yards and after that season never used them again on any hives not only saving the cost of the excluders but increasing the production of honey by 100% in some flows and because I had more bees earlier it become easier to identify failing queens and make up increase. Some strains of bees never do well under excluders as they tend to keep not only pollen in the brood area but also honey in the brood nest and adding an excluder so restricts the brood area and they have real problems building up the necessary populations to make a productive hive. These are mostly the darker bees, sold as other then Yellow or Golden Banded Italian Bees in the US. DO NOT cut any holes in your excluders as this is one way to destroy the value of them. For the OLd timers. At one time in Northern California there was an isolated old time beekeepers who had moved into the extracted honey era from the comb honey times of old. He was successful and used a queen "excluder" made of flat tin that extended over the run or bee space room from all the side walls of the hive. If you are young enough to know about section comb honey you will recognize this as the same as the metal strips many used to hold the boxes in the bottom of the comb supers only fashioned to extend over the frames from all sides of the box instead of just the ends. ??? How could that work??? Why it worked for him. We all know from experience that the queen is found in the warmest part of the hive or cluster and if left un checked the bees will move up and the brood will also. We all assume the queen moves up and down from brood comb to brood comb or from warm area to warm area. The old time beekeeper above found from experience that in his operation and in his area this was true as we all know but the path she took is not how most of us think it is. The queen does move up with the heat of the hive but uses the sides and ends of the hive as the path ways and not the combs as today most beekeepers believe and would tell you if asked. Is this true in all areas or would it work in all bee operations? I can not say... but for sure if you have caught or spent as much time as I have looking for queens as and I can say for a fact more time then not when you can not find them on the brood combs they will be found running up and down the side of the boxes and of course I have found them also on the bottom board, and even outside the hive including more then once under it. ttul, the OLd Drone http:/beenet.com See the amazing trained bees search out the flowers on the "back page" (Netscape v.4) (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: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:58:43 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Re: Bee Predators In-Reply-To: <19980609.213745.12542.0.feliciana@juno.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:10 PM 6/9/1998 -0500, you wrote: In our part of the world, badgers do this type of damage. They like to bury parts of the frames, etc. >Has anybody had coon problems? I had a hive (four mediums, two of them >only foundation) tipped over last night and scattered around. Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:59:20 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garry Libby Subject: Re: Queen Excluder In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980610110401.523fb522@naccess.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Drew, Bob Stevens at Betterbee suggests putting the queen excluder on sideways(perpendicular to the frames),this lets the workers move freely into the supers at both ends,and as You say,the queen prefers to move up through the middle.I use three medium supers for brood chambers,and My bees always fill the top one with honey,so I haven't had to use an excluder yet.Don't cut the excluder as they come in very handy for other purposes,such as finding which box the queen is laying in.Good luck, Garry Libby Boston,USA LibBEE@email.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 15:32:32 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: paul s leroy Subject: Garrett Dodds-Bee Strains 8Jun98 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Questions: 1. Do New World Carniolans do well in Southeastern USA, specifically west central South Carolina? 2. Are queens generally available, If so from what sources? Thanks Paul LeRoy. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:10:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Williams Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I heard about someone removing siding, finding and removing the queen to = a nuc, and having all the workers remove the honey and follow the queen. = I cannot attest to the veracity of this however. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:22:41 +0100 Reply-To: mail.lists@dial.pipex.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bernie Duggan - Mail Lists a/c Subject: Re: Glued Super MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can you explain what you mean by "shear nails", please? Beginning beekeeper, always ready to learn. Regards, Bernie Duggan, Denbury, Devon, UK. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:13:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Bartlett Subject: FGMO Comments: To: gmc@vci.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Beeman, I have used FGMO since the spring of 1997. I had apistan on very early that year and when tested found no varroa. Mostly checked drone brood and did ether roll in each apiary. The bee inspecter and I did more testing this past week. We found varroa in 3 out of 4 apiaries ( have 14 hives). One hive was full of mites. Although they produced 3 shallows of honey which is rare for this area of Maryland. They also were very strong and were preparing to swarm. Split the hive. BUT we did NOT see varroa in the brood!!?? The ether roll showed about 25 to 35% infestation. Have used the FGMO about every 2 to 3 weeks since early Spring. I put it on every frame (top bars) in the hive leaving a small line of the oil on each frame. ( Use honey bear with small hole). After losing about half of my bees for the past several years using the other methods, I was pleased to have only lost one hive this past winter. It makes me wonder how much the varroa affects the bees and how much maybe the T- mites do. Or was it just the mild winter we had. Or are the only mites left, those that don't kill the host. Or does the FGMO keep the population down? I can't assertain what it does to the T - mites. Don't have the microscope. I plan to watch the hive with the mites closely. I did another ether roll yesterday and found the same 25 to 35 % infestation. And again no mites in the brood!!?? Billy Bee ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:04:47 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Garrett Dodds-Bee Strains 8Jun98 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/10/98 5:05:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, pleroy@WCTEL.NET writes: << Questions: 1. Do New World Carniolans do well in Southeastern USA, specifically west central South Carolina? >> They did poorly for me here near the coast. They couldn't stand summer heat, and dwindled badly, many never recovering in the fall. You may be slightly cooler. I don't know. Carniolans are a mountain bee in their native range. They do well in northern states. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:38:16 -0400 Reply-To: vcoppola@froggernet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: Queen Excluder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Drew LeWay wrote: > I use queen excluders although they may reduce my honey output in the > supers. If this is the case, what if I cut a 2in by 2in hole on each of the corners of the excluder. Would this help the workers to travel more freely or would this just destroy a good excluder? The excluder will not reduce your crop in most cases. If you think its holding things back you can remove it after there is a good wide band of honey at the top of the center frames of the upper brood box. The queen will usually not cross the honey to lay above. We do use excluders but don't have enough of each hive so we keep a full super of honey over the brood nest and the queen stays below. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 21:39:29 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ben Pollard Subject: Feeding bee's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a quick question, have had my bee's in the hive for about 6 weeks now, they seem to be multiplying well. Started out with 2 - 3 LB packages of Italians, one in each hive from Hoehne & Son's in CA. They each have drawn out one full deep chamber of foundation and I find lots of brood and some honey. This last weekend I added another deep section to each hive to give them more room. They still seem to be feeding on alot of sugar water. In fact they are taking more now then I have seen in the past 6 weeks. I see lots of nectar sources around and lots of activity with many bees coming in with their pollen sacs full. Is this normal and should I keep feeding till I put on a super to try to get some honey or should I quit feeding now? I say I see lots of nectar sources, but the weather has been dry with no good rain in over a month so this could have an effect. I still haven't seen my queens, but it does seem like I have one with the amount of brood being produced and it seems populations have dramatically increased without a great number of drones, do I need to worry or just let em be bees? To those that replied as to my problems with the health dept after the newspaper article on honey, we are getting closer to a solution. We now can sell burgers and fries if we so desire as we meet nearly all the same requirements as a restaurant. We still have to deal with the state and that may be completely different story. Just wanted to thank those that replied to my call for help. Ben Pollard Classic Fermentations Amarillo TX ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:09:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Williams Subject: novice seeking advice MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I am a total novice to bee keeping. I bought a starter kit and a medium = super with a queen excluder. I installed a queen with 4#'s of bees. = However, I lost or crushed the queen. So I bought a nuc with a queen, = more bees, and brood. Now I am concerned that with all these bees, I = have set them up to swarm. anyway, I'm wondering the advantages of a 2 super hive vs 1 super, and = I wonder about 9 vs 10 frames per super. I'd like to hear others = experience/advice. Thanks, Dave ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:34:29 +0000 Reply-To: S.R.PEARCE@dundee.ac.uk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Pearce Organization: Dundee Biochemistry Subject: Re: Queen Excluders Dear All My Tuppenceworth on queen excuders! I have both used them and not used them, and on balance now use them all the time. If the spacing on the supers is a wide spacing and the foundation is drawn to be deep (wide metal ends on the frames) then the queen usually doesn't like laying in them, but I have had a real mess in my deep drawn super frames when the bees decided to go up top and convert these frames to a narrower spacing by gnawing and reducing the depth of the cells and putting a lot of wild comb in the gaps. Early in the season I use excluders to keep the queen in the bottom of the hive, but later in the season when there is a good honey barrier above the nest I will remove them. Also... Tip 1: Do not over clean the wax from the excluder, I find it takes a long time for the bees to get the idea that they can go through a totally clean excluder, but the wax "bridges" connecting the frames below with the frames above, mean the bees quickly get the idea that they can go up into the next chamber. I find this is more effective than using "bait combs" . (Most beekeepers I have met are obsessed with scraping everything in sight each time they open the hive, I suppose it makes them feel useful!) Tip 2: I also rub old combs and propolis on new excluders before use, it also helps the bees go through. Tip 3: Wire excluders are a lot better than the slot variety, but if using slots make sure they go perpendicular to the direction of the frames. Best wishes to all. Steve Pearce Kilspindie Scotland ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:34:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Roger Flanders Subject: Re: Feeding bee's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ben, I too have almost the identical question about when to discontinue feeding. The only apparent differences between your situation and mine is that I put on the second hive body three weeks ago, and our weather has been wetter -- seldom more than three sunny days between extensive rainy periods. All four of my "beginner" books, the instructor in my introductory beekeeping class, and my supplier agree I should stop feeding "when the bees stop taking the 1:1 sugar water." When will that happen? My two hives of Carniolans have been consuming 1+ gallons a week since installing the packages 7 weeks ago. Yesterday, both division board feeders were bone dry again in just six days. The positive side of this is that feeding seems to be encouraging comb building on my new Duragilt frames. Can one of you experienced people help? Rog Flanders, Nebraska ---------- Ben Pollard wrote on 6/10/98: >They still seem to be feeding on alot of sugar water. In > fact they are taking more now then I have seen in the past 6 weeks. I see> lots of nectar sources around and lots of activity with many bees coming in> with their pollen sacs full. Is this normal and should I keep feeding...or should I quit feeding now? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 07:38:50 -0700 Reply-To: jcbach@yvn.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James C Bach Subject: feeding bees, novice seeking advice MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ben Pollard asks about whether he should continue feeding bees in a hive he just placed the second brood box on. You might consult with other beekeepers in your area about when the main honey flow will start. I usually recommend that beginners starting with foundation make syrup available to the bees until they draw the foundation in both of the bottom two deep boxes, or until the bees quit using the feeders. Usually when the honey flow starts the bees will quit using the feeders. Blooming flowers doesn't mean a honey flow is on. If temperature, humidity, and soil moisture is not what it should be, the bloom won't produce much if any nectar. If there hasn't been rain for a month you might be in for a lot of feeding. As someone said on an earlier post, look at the brood to determine if eggs are present. If so, a chicken didn't do it. Next look on the frames with eggs for the queen. Look at a picture of a queen, and then look for the same visual in your hives. I encourage beginners, and all beekeepers, to purchase marked queens. If the paint was applied properly you just have to look for the colored dot on the queen's thorax. If not, you have to look for the solid color and tapered abdomen, the shiny black thorax, the large body, and the queen retinue of bees (if it occurs) to find the queen. David Williams asks about using one or two supers on a hive. First, we need to be accurate about the bee management terms we use. I presume you are intending to refer to the deep broodnest boxes. Second, a beginner should always use two deeps, or their equivelent in westerns(3), for a brood nest. Third, always start with ten combs if you are using foundation, and I recommend that you always use ten combs in the brood nest. Too many times the bees build bridge comb to reduce the bee space and to tie the combs together if you don't. The second deep should be put on when eight combs are fully drawn in the bottom box (eight to ten combs of bees). Move two combs of brood up to the center of the second box, put one frame of foundation next to the walls on each side of the bottom box. James C. Bach Yakima WA jbach@agr.wa.gov jcbach@yvn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 11:07:09 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson Subject: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Today I saw this in my local paper. What is the USDA bee lab thinking???= http://www.centredaily.com/features/story3.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rory Stenerson, Secretary/Treasurer - Centre County Beekeepers Association Treasurer - C/Net 7 Government Education Access Channel State College, PA U.S.A. mailto:GliderPilot@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GliderPilot PGPfreeware 5.5.5 DH/DSS Public Key located: http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371= ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:06:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lipscomb, Al" Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain With all the problems that have resulted from bringing in non-native creatures to our environment it sounds like another potential disaster. From the article these bees are being allowed out into the wild, I wonder what unforseen results these will bring. > Today I saw this in my local paper. What is the USDA bee lab > thinking??? > > http://www.centredaily.com/features/story3.htm > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:09:49 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Re: tips for beetles Hi All I remembered that I had not answered the post from James yesterday asking about my own tips for the small hive beetle. Firstly - the beetles is a little black thing about the size of the bees abdomen. It has a shiny waxy look. The larvae are light browny cream things with a brown dot on their nose/anterior end (or whatever it is). They wiggle a lot and can stand heat up to about 80C for quite a while - probably an adaptation to breed in fire vacated brood which would not burn because of its moisture content( in veldt fires). A frame gone wrong yields about three to four cups of larvae - I have no idea how the beetle can lay so many eggs - if queens were like that they would be incredible. I believe that a hive beetle infestation is a sign of sloppy beekeeping. (leaving beetle foods in places where bees cannot defend them) The article I quoted recently did not mention that the beetles will eat brood. I have found that a hive beetle infestation is most dramatic when they get into the brood. The beetles hide in empty cells in the honey storage area. Very seldom do you find them where the article I quoted says. Usually they are at the top of the super - bees that try to get them out probably supply sugar when they 'lick' the things. If it gets cold they will take advantage of this and lay eggs in uncovered brood. I have had light infestations after cold snaps recently on some hives that I had overfed. I think the bees could not keep the whole brood area warm and the beetles came in and zapped the unprotected brood cells. The larvae then stay underneath the brood cappings and are conveniently warmed by the bees while they tunnel around trashing the frame. This can be quite a problem but the bees will usually find it. The main danger is if you have a strong pollen flow and a strong nectar flow as then the bees put pollen and nectar in the supers, the bees put nectar over the pollen and then seal in the eggs which have been laid - and then one has a problem as the bees don't constantly guard the interior of supers and the thing can theoreticaly get out of control as described in the article. I have tried trapping the beetles by leaving brood out in a pot and then boiling it when larvae were visible. The honey guides loved it but I think it hardly made a dent on the population. The beetles are also surprisingly heat tolerant. The beetles can I believe lower honey yields as they take up bee time. House bees are asigned to keeping guard over cornered bees. You will see them trapping a beetle in observation hives. I have seen as many as five bees guarding one beetle. The beetles hide in the gaps between frames as well. Then the bees propolise the frames making it difficult to get them out. If I see too many beetles in a hive I try to lower the amount of available comb space. Feeding also helps reduce the problem (as long as one does not cause the hive to over expand) The bees cannot remove live beetles interestingly enough - they don't seem to be able to grip the things which are very smooth and shiny. I have also found that if one tries to strap brood into frames when doing removals it often leads to beetle problems as while the bees are all disturbed the beetles sneak in and lay eggs in the brood. (Hence I don't do this) I believe that bad beekeeping practises, like leaving dead brood around and also leaving pollen filled supers around can be a problem. ONce enough beetles larvae are in a frame it disintegrates into a very warm moosh - at this point the things seem to be able to appear overnight and can destroy a super in three days. In my area we have a problem with short sighted 'bee keepers' who basically charge people money to kill bees in problem places. These hives then multiply the natural population of beetles as they are hundreds of kilograms of unguarded brood. As a result I am forced to do free bee removals so that most of these removals will come to me and then I can stop this multiplication of beetles which spread out to my hives around town. Finally I have also noticed that the beetles can survive in a solar wax extractor over short periods - if one is in an area with frequent cold fronts, it means that they can get a cycle through quite easily (and a lot faster than that article says) Hope this is of help. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 18:43:31 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Cheap queen excluder trick Hi All At my university Prof Hepburn who is very good with bees has used a system where he filed the edges of frames so as to reduce the bee space showing between frames - this works for our bees as they are slightly smaller - in this way it removes the brace comb. However the size of a good cape queen and a good euroqueen are not very dissimilar and I find in the hives that use some of these frames that I bought that I can fit eleven frames in a box and the queen does not go through, even if prompted. If one then moves her upwards she does not go back down. I don't like these frames and think they are a good idea with bad side efects. They result in an increased risk of rolling the queen, and ripping brood and all sorts of nasties. As Andy mentioned, a queen is very unoriginal when it comes to moving around a hive. Watch a queen in an observation hive - you will see how she moves from frame to frame on braces - recently I tried to see if it increases hive productivit to cut corks in quarters and thenembed them in the middle of frames so that two adjacent frames would be in contact by this bridge - when I opened the hive to inspect the bees had glued the things together and I ripped up the beautiful brood sheets!! Anyhow, hope that is of interest. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 18:28:59 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Information on hive beetles Comments: To: tfore@jesupnet.com In-Reply-To: <357F3437.3B09@beta.jesupnet.com> Hi Troy, James and All I have just made a trip accross to our library (not far actually) and have had a scratch around for some preliminary bits and pieces about the hive beetles. Lundies original paper describing it is at present being repacked due to the amalgamation of one of our satellite libraries but once I find it I will type it out if possible. This is what two other old books have to say. Frank Mays book, 'Beekeeping, including Honey for Health' 1969 says the following. The Small Hive Beetles (Aethina tumida Murr.), so called to distinguish it from the larger and harmless beetles (Hyplostoma fuligineus) which is often found in beehives in South Africa, appears everywhere in all parts in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of africa. In SA the insect appears more commonly in the warm regions. Andrew Murray gave this beetles a name in 1867, but it was Dr AE Lundie, an SA entomologist, who in 1940 wrote the first treatise about the beetlee as a bee plague. Like wax moths the larvae of the hive beetle mostly causes trouble in weak colonies and in stored combs, but the plague is reallyn not serious. Although some of the beetles are light brown when they crepp out of the ground most of them are blakc by the third day. These insects generally fly withing the first week of their lives to the beehive. They are found in any place in the hive, but they have a preference mainly for the back part of the floor of the hive. Perhaps this is because they are less distrubed by the filed bees. The female beetles lays her eggs in regular small heaps in or upon the bee-bread in the combs or in the cells nearby. (Interjection - I recall somebody mentioned on the list that they saw something like this??) The eggs are pearly white, archshaped abd look almost like those of the honey bees, but are somehwat smaller - about two thirds as large. They hatch out within two or three days. Within ten to sixteen days the larvae are full grown and they migrate to small holes in the ground. If the hive is much infected the migratory hordes trails stain the hive badly. Withing three to four weeks the adult beetles appear. The larvae cannot live only on pure honey but also on bee bread, or pollen and honey. The honey on which the larvae gorge becomes thinner and begins to ferment and smalls almost like wrotten oranges. As the fermentation advances the foaming honey drips upon the hive-floor and if the plague is very severe it runs out through the hive entrance. If the entrance of the hive becomes blocked or the hive slopes slightly towards the back the fermenting masss forms a layer an inch or more thick on the floor. The larvae in this case become so smeared with fermented honey honey that they looked slimy abd revolting and stain everything over which they crawl. Severly polluted combs which were stored can also be treated with carbon bisulphide (that must stink!!) or paradichlorobenzene - in the same way as for wax moths. Inspect the combs every three weeks. Combs which are slightly infected can be given to strong colonies so that the bees can clean them. Never give them more than two such combs per colony. If the combs are badly infected they must first be cleaned with water under pressure- a garden hose (this would I geuss be only good for old combs - Garth) before being given to colonies for cleaning. It rarely happens that the bees succed in completely ridding a hive of beetles but they are highly successful in removing the larvae from the combs. According to Dr Lundie the small hive beetle reacts more quickly to carbolic acid fumes than the bees. They rush out of every opening and creavice in the hive when sensing the acid fumes and can then be killed. This is the only known way of killing them. (at the time - G) End of quote That is all that the book had to say. Will scratch around in SABJ a bit and some other books I have at home as well. Hope that helps Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:01:56 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees In-Reply-To: <199806111107_MC2-3FE6-93F7@compuserve.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:07 AM 6/11/98 -0400, you wrote: >Today I saw this in my local paper. What is the USDA bee lab thinking??? >http://www.centredaily.com/features/story3.htm Hi Rory, & Bee Keeping Friends, 1st, for sure these PR puff story's on wild bees have as a purpose to generate interest in continuing support for aging high cost USDA government research at small inefficient GI labs across the country that have little or no contact with main stream beekeeping or agriculture, for that matter, that should have been ended years ago with the "beekeeper support programs". We all would be better off if these labs were closed as they have a long history of creating false negative narrations about the honey bee keeping "industry" which is an industry while they are nothing more then bee keeping hobbyists playing a the public's expense. It is interesting to note that the funding for these projects are hidden in Federal legislation such as the "Honey Promotion Bill", as they can not stand on their own or the pass the test of "daylight" or review, and all are now finding that to bite (sting) the bee keepers hand (mostly backside) is not good public policy as we honey bee keepers are the one's that are asked by the public and legislature about the creditability of these PR story's. 2nd, some of the information provided by these labs is so close to being inaccurate they boarder on being just plain lies. There is no denying that these wild bees are interesting but the best of them do not stand up in the public market place. The "alfalfa" leaf cutter bees is still the only so called "wild bee" that enjoys any popularity in field crops supplemental pollination and it has serious health problems and is considered by many in the public a pest insect because of the damage it does to ornamentals when it enters the back yard environment. Some species of "bumble bees" are doing well in green house pollination at inflated costs to growers and in the big picture of who gets what to eat in this world are of little total importance. Other favorites of the day are the "blue orchard" bee and I am sure the "horned face bee" fits into this category of individual bee pollinators that outside of their favored environs are not dependable as pollinators in commercial pollination of orchards because of their own life cycle which are not the same as most of agricultures which could benefit by their presence. I have worked with the "leaf cutter" bees and co-discovered, (I did not know what I had.), a local sub species that gained notoriety as the "killer" leaf cutter bees years back because of their stinging behavior and aggressive expansion traits. Most all of these wild bees have self protection methods and many will sting and for those who are sensitive can be as deadly as the dreaded killer bee. Its mostly a case of their populations being small resulting human exposure is low, but if you had populations needed for commercial pollination of orchards and fields the odds would change. I have a unused "bumble" bee nest box as we have very low populations here and have failed to see my "blue orchard" bees increase in populations over several seasons. Maybe its the competition from the honeybees in this area and until they have all disappeared instead of the steady increase of the last 50 years the wild bees will suffer in total numbers. The increase in honey bee populations here is a direct results in their use for pollination and not because the price of honey or honey yields have increased as they have not and if honey were priced on a parity of 50 years ago it would be bringing the producer an excess of $2.50 US per pound today. Top price today is 1/3 of that and yields have dropped from a case or two of honey per hive average year, (120-240 pounds), to about 30 pounds this area. Beekeepers here do make more honey per hive by moving their bees to other areas in state and out of state. They trade fuel oil for honey yield in most cases, but are able to increase the per hive yield to 100 or more pounds per season. But the facts are the wild bees are here, they are interesting or people like me would not have them, but they are not replacements for honey bees and those in public service who call themselves scientist of one flavor or another who are trying to sell them as that to the public have lost my respect and support. Interesting and beneficial they are, in their place, but not as a replacement for honey bees and their keepers and if there is a fight between bee keepers who pollinate crops I stand with those who keep honey bees who have demonstrated for more then 50 years with successful management for crop pollination. For years none of these wild bee keepers have ever taken a positive stand on any issue concerning honey bee keepers and for the most have tried to capitalize on our problems with less then honest hot gas about their own abilities which few delivering more then the annual inflated PR report to the press. ttul, the OLd Drone NEW Get MOONed at http://beenet.com (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: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:40:46 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Joel Govostes Subject: Re: Feeding bee's In-Reply-To: <199806111441.JAA00181@elwood.probe.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Keep supplying sugar-syrup until both brood chambers are built out and occupied. On some days the bees will tend to ignore the syrup, if there is a strong nectar flow, but there can be rainy or cool days when nothing is available in the field. Also they can take in the syrup at night. This constant supply of food will ensure the most rapid construction of combs, and fastest colony growth. Stop feeding when you give them the first honey super. By then the colony is strong enough to be self-sufficient. Rule of thumb, anyway. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:01:37 -0500 Reply-To: jkphillips@sprynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Phillips Subject: Garrett Dodds-Bee Strains MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Paul Leroy asked: >1. Do New World Carniolans do well in Southeastern USA, specifically >west central South Carolina? I can't speak to west central South Carolina, but I've kept New World Carniolans in northeast Kansas for a few years now, and intend to keep NWCs exclusively from now on. In my experience here in NE Kansas, the NWCs do not suffer from heat more than other bees. The summers here are hot with very high humidity; summer days over 90 degrees are the norm, with a couple weeks over 100. >2. Are queens generally available, If so from what sources? My favorite source for New World Carniolian queens is Strachan Apiaries, Yuba City, CA 95993, phone 916-674-3881Yuba City, CA. 95993 Steve Phillips Perry, KS ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:21:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Taylor Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I don't know... aren't honeybees "non-native creatures?" At 12:06 PM 6/11/98 -0400, you wrote: >With all the problems that have resulted from bringing in non-native >creatures to our environment it sounds like another potential disaster. >>From the article these bees are being allowed out into the wild, I >wonder what unforseen results these will bring. > > > > >> Today I saw this in my local paper. What is the USDA bee lab >> thinking??? >> >> http://www.centredaily.com/features/story3.htm >> > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:48:35 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I really don't know what all the fuss is about. These bees sound similar to the orchard bees that are already being used in pollination. I would suppose that in view of the threatened (impending?) crisis with honeybees, farmers certainly do have an interest in exploring other pollinators. This seems like perfectly appropriate USDA research to me. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:49:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:21 PM 6/11/98 -0400, you wrote: >I don't know... aren't honeybees "non-native creatures?" For sure and look at all the harm they have done, but then again are not most all are commercial food and best forage crops non native, and what about our populations, at least here on the Left Coast. ttul, Andy- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:34:03 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/11/98 2:09:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, LipscombA@HSN.NET writes: << With all the problems that have resulted from bringing in non-native creatures to our environment it sounds like another potential disaster. From the article these bees are being allowed out into the wild, I wonder what unforseen results these will bring. > Today I saw this in my local paper. What is the USDA bee lab > thinking??? > > http://www.centredaily.com/features/story3.htm >> These bees have been around for quite a while, and have been thoroughly tested for potential to be pests. They tend to peter out after awhile, if they are not managed. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 18:36:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ian Watson Subject: New World Carniolans and Raspberry Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all I was wondering what the difference is between the New World Carniolans and regular Carniolans. Also, does anyone know what Raspberry honey tastes like...that is, does it have a raspberry-like taste?. I have several colonies in an area where there is a lot of wild raspberry bushes, and today we tasted some honey from a super with VERY light coloured honey and I wasn't sure if I could taste this Raspberry-ness or it was in my head. Thanks, Ian Watson realtor@niagara.com real estate agent gardener baritone beekeeper---> 13 colonies ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:12:27 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson Subject: Re: Disturbing News Story - Hornfaced Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Ted writes: "I would suppose that in view of the threatened (impending?) crisis with honeybees, farmers certainly do have an interest in exploring other pollinators. This seems like perfectly appropriate USDA research to me. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA Maybe, I was just a little sensitive after reading this month Inner Cover= in BeeCulture. I'm hearing Kim chanting "I told you so, I told you so, I= told you so..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rory Stenerson, Secretary/Treasurer - Centre County Beekeepers Association Treasurer - C/Net 7 Government Education Access Channel State College, PA U.S.A. mailto:GliderPilot@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GliderPilot PGPfreeware 5.5.5 DH/DSS Public Key located: http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371= ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 13:01:13 +1200 Reply-To: Beeswax@xtra.co.nz Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Lyttle Organization: N Z Beeswax Ltd Subject: Beeswax Leather Dressing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone help? We are looking for a recipe for leather dressing using beeswax. Thanks Peter Lyttle, New Zealand. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 21:37:45 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: George W Imirie Subject: Re: New World Carniolans and Raspberry Honey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ian: The BEST WAY to find out about NWC is to send e-mail to their creator, Sue Cobey at Ohio State.. Address is: Cobey.1@osu.edu I switched from Italians to Carniolans 49 years ago, and believe that I have tried every stock offered; but Sue developed the New World stock about 15 years ago by artificial insemination (and LOTS of patient work), and it is the best stock that I have ever used. I use Carniolans for ONE SINGLE PURPOSE - to gain that explosive very early spring buildup in order to have my bees "up to strength" to get my ONLY Maryland nectar flow from April 15 to June 1. Carnies may not be the best bee for your area depending on your weather and your flora. But whatever, always buy GOOD stock, not something some "price" stock. I wish I could help more than just saying BOTH Carnies and Sue are GREAT! George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:49:15 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Don't E-Mail for Sue Cobey's New World Carniolans, please MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I have to agree with George Imirie about Sue Cobey's New World Carniolans. I had the opportunity to experience the stock she maintains at Ohio State and never in my life have I worked such gentle bees! But before everyone floods Sue's mailbox with queries and orders, be aware that she DOES NOT market her stock, she maintains it for research purposes only. George called it artificial insemination, but Sue is always careful to call it Instrumental Insemination. However, to obtain NWC stock, one must either attend Sue's Queen Rearing and/or Instrumental Insemination class or deal directly with members of the NWC breeding program. Strachan's was already listed on BEE-L, other members identify themselves as members in ABJ and Bee Culture. Aaron Morris - thinking Sue doesn't nee tons of E-Mail! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 22:35:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garrett Dodds Subject: Re: Garrett Dodds-Bee Strains 8Jun98 In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19980610151920.1bff4624@mail.wctel.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Questions: >1. Do New World Carniolans do well in Southeastern USA, specifically west >central South Carolina? >2. Are queens generally available, If so from what sources? >Thanks Paul LeRoy. Thanks for your questions. There are several queen breeders in California that are cooperators with the New World Carniolan breeding program with Ohio State. Visit their web page at http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/honeybee/breeding for more information. From what I've heard the do well just about anywhere they are from canada clear down to Mexico. I would be interested in any comments positive or negative on the subject of NWC's. Garrett Dodds Royal Gold Farms Custom Inseminations 305 E. Hale St. P.O. Box 63 Ridgeway, OH 43345 (937) 363-3119 dodds.12@osu.edu gdodds@bright.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 20:15:44 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: kashmir virus Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >RR>Is here anyone who nows somthing abut "kashmir virus".We have heard here in Denmark , that in Australia is wery manny bees dead of virus, that is infektet whith the varroa mite. >RR>Reagards F.Rasmussen." A message from the beekeeping news group from Denmark asking about a bee health problem which sounds serious in Australia. Anyone else have any direct news on this loss? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 09:07:00 +0000 Reply-To: S.R.PEARCE@dundee.ac.uk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Pearce Organization: Dundee Biochemistry Subject: Re: Varroa infecting Scotland Dear all, The Varroa mite has now present in at least three (to my knowledge) locations throughout Scotland, where it has been brought by ignorant beekeepers from infected areas of the UK. The policy of the official people here is education (admirable but too little too late) and also a policy of testing and destroying hives which have varroa, in a hope of eradicating the mite (is this futile and too late also ?) Am I right in thinking that once the mite is present then it is a waste of time destroying infected colonies. The best approach for the future being to help beekeepers keep alive as many colonies as possible, rather than destroying the hives. Clearly destroying all infected hives, is going to make a lot of people give up, or keep their bees out of the way of the officials, neither which is good for the disease management. Destroying hives in my opinion is like going out to buy a fire extinguisher when your house is on fire. I want the rest of the varroa ridden world to mail me and comment. Many thanks and b est wishes Steve Pearce ________________________________________________________________________ Dr Stephen R. Pearce Kilspindie Perthshire Scotland ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:42:59 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Just an observation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am experimenting with two queen hives and used a double screen to separate the hive bodies while I raised the other queen. When I checked the hives, loads of bees were on both sides of the double screen on one hive. Yesterday I removed the screens and found that the screen that I thought was loaded on both sides actually had bees inside the double screen. There was a tiny tear in the screen. For about a month, the bees entered the double screen from the upper hive. When I ripped the screen open to free them there were only three dead bees among many hundreds of very alive bees. Obviously they were being fed by the other bees for at least a month. I would love to assume it was the unselfishness of the bees that kept their sisters alive, but guess there are other things at work here. They were right at the entrance of the hive and could have been part of the nectar transfer process. But that is just a guess. I have no idea of what was at work here. And would appreciate your thoughts. In any case, it makes for a great sermon on the golden rule. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 09:28:53 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: The Hornfaced Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Concerning the Hornfaced Bees, I wonder why it is allowed to import/ study/release the Hornfaced bees in light of the STRINGENT controls there are on importation of genetic apis material (eggs and sperm, let alone the actually bees)? Is this not a double standard (rhetorical question) but I would like to know the reasons for this double standard. Anyone know? Aaron Morris - thinking what's good for the hornfaced goose is good for the honey gander. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 09:46:31 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Varroa infecting Scotland Comments: To: S.R.PEARCE@dundee.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/12/98 8:05:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, S.R.PEARCE@dundee.ac.uk writes: << Am I right in thinking that once the mite is present then it is a waste of time destroying infected colonies. The best approach for the future being to help beekeepers keep alive as many colonies as possible, rather than destroying the hives. Clearly destroying all infected hives, is going to make a lot of people give up, or keep their bees out of the way of the officials, neither which is good for the disease management. Destroying hives in my opinion is like going out to buy a fire extinguisher when your house is on fire. >> We had a number of beekeepers whose livelihoods were destroyed by officials as the mites came into the US (both tracheal and varroa). To the best of my knowledge, none were ever compensated for their losses. One of my acquaintances was a victim of this fiasco. He was a member of a rare, perhaps endangered, group -- YOUNG beekeepers. He has gotten back into the bees on a small scale, but had to enter the building trades for several years to pay off all his beekeeping debts. And I seriously doubt that it slowed the advance of the mites very much. Quarantines don't do much either. North Carolina had a state quarantine for several years to keep out varroa. They got it about as quickly as other areas, though they kept up a facade of being varroa free for quite a while. North Carolina beekeepers were the worst violators, though they had pushed this quarantine and gotten it passed. They moved freely back and forth across the borders, without much fear of repercussion. South Carolina sourwood is at low elevation and blooms earlier. Then a high elevation crop blooms later in NC. This allowed North Carolina beekeepers to move to South Carolina to get the early crop, move back and get the late crop. But any beekeeper from out of state would be easily identifiable and surely get his hives destroyed by NC officials! It did hurt honest beekeepers, and, as you say, encourages all beekeepers to keep out of sight of officials. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:52:47 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: The Hornfaced Bee Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/12/98 9:28:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, SYSAM@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU writes: << Concerning the Hornfaced Bees, I wonder why it is allowed to import/ study/release the Hornfaced bees in light of the STRINGENT controls there are on importation of genetic apis material (eggs and sperm, let alone the actually bees)? Is this not a double standard (rhetorical question) but I would like to know the reasons for this double standard. Anyone know? >> They've been going through all the STRINGENT controls now for quite a few years, Aaron. There's no double standard. As you know, honeybees have also been imported in recent years (under STRINGENT controls - at least we hope so). Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:18:35 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: New Beekeepers CONTEST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" NEW CONTEST DO NOT SUBMIT GUESSES TO THIS LIST PLEASE! All you have to do is identify the beekeeping commodity that matches the price below. "Price: C&F LONG BEACH USD635.-/MT" Date of offer to sell 6.11.98 If you are new to international business I will help by translating. The net cost of the product delivered to the dock at the Port of Long Beach California is $635.00 a metric ton. If my math is right that's about .30 cents US a US pound but I will leave it for those who know to correct me. I added the date so no one gets the idea the quote is out of the past. The prize is yet to be determined, kind of depends on how fast someone identifies the product, but I guarantee there will be a prize for the winner. RULES> DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR GUESS TO THIS NEWS GROUP. You must log in to the OLd Drones web site and use one of the e-mail things there or use this address: andy.nachbaur@calwest.net In the future I will post a few clues maybe in one of my normal bombing runs to save band width. ttul, the OLd Drone Los Banos, California http://beenet.com/bnews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:57:10 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: The Hornfaced Bee In-Reply-To: <980612.092904.EDT.SYSAM@cnsibm.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:28 AM 6/12/98 -0400, you wrote: >Concerning the Hornfaced Bees, I wonder why it is allowed to import/ >study/release the Hornfaced bees in light of the STRINGENT controls >there are on importation of genetic apis material (eggs and sperm, let >alone the actually bees)? The regulations on importation of bees and other insect pests are for you and I, not the government so they bring in what they want when they want. I suspect this is because the US government is make up of cells, now called committees and beekeepers do not work well in cells. Why, because we beekeepers who work everyday with bees all our lives are not equal to government bureaucrats in bugology or beeology and we would bring in bad bees and bugs. All should know that by now as it is the same with the beekeepers use of farm chemicals and that is why we pay maybe 1000% more to have them dosed out to us. We beekeepers can not even be depended on in choosing what stock we would import if we could as this is all handled by committee at the highest level of government. Some say ALgore heads it. There is a roomer that those beekeepers who have slept in Lincoln's bed do have some input but I am also told the last beekeeper who slept in Lincoln's bed did so when Lincoln's was still alive and out of town. Actually there has been many recent confirmed illegal importations of bees and these are the one's that are bringing us the four horseman of beekeeping, disease, pests, predictors, and bee regulators. The last being the fatal one. Most of these importations are man aided, at least in their mode of transportation when they come in by sea and the rest are "wet back" bees who fly across boarders not swim. Nobody has explained why in all these years the good bees always stay at home and obey all international boarder regulations. >Is this not a double standard (rhetorical >question) but I would like to know the reasons for this double standard. >Anyone know? Yes, its the law and the law was written with the above in mind and to protect you from your dumb neighbor who keeps bees and whom you do not know other then he know's nothing about beekeeping. Beekeepers are not mature enough even to use the best government scientist selected stock. This is a near quote from someone big in bee science I will not name as I don't want to start a food fight in this group or have you spit up your pop on the keyboard. Lucky for the beekeepers this person is now retired but we still have to live with the books produced while he was on the public payroll. ttul, the OLd Drone http://beenet.com BTW. The commodity in the BIG SILLY contest is not HONEY, thank GOD for that and this message may contain other clues. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:27:49 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Varroa in Scotland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I imagine that by the time varroa levels reach the point that they are being noticed that they've been around for quite a lot longer, or put more simply, by the time you start noticing them they're already firmly established. This is of course unless beekeepers have been doing regular tests in order to detect the very first varroa mite to don a kilt. I agree with David Green that the only impact a detect and burn policy will have will be on the beekeepers and varroa will continue unabated. A better strategy would be to sound the alarm and make a concerted, coordinated effort to treat for mite infestation. Ultimately the solution to this scourge will be through breeding, either breeding a better bee or a lesser mite. A strain of less prolific mites has been discovered (Harbo) and there are hopes for some strains of bees being more resistent. However, until the breeders are successful the practical keepers of bees must do and learn as much as they can about the enemy in order to keep their livelihood going. Whether destroyed by varroa or destroyed in a futile effort to slow varroa's advance, a practical beekeeper's livelihood is negatively impacted equally. Aaron Morris - thinking dead bees are dead bees regardless why. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 03:52:31 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Dave D. Cawley" Subject: Re: MEDICATING BEES Comments: To: Allen Dick In-Reply-To: <09151401201115@internode.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm a hobbyist with three hives. I've found that making the paties the night before with warmed Crisco and a whisk works well. I then put the patties in the freezer, this keeps them in one piece for the trip to the beeyard. The patties defrost in time to put them on when I done mucking around inside the hives. *************************************************************** Dave D. Cawley | Where a social revolution is pending and, The Internet Cafe | for whatever reason, is not accomplished, Scranton, PA | reaction is the alternative. (717) 344-1969 | dave@scranton.com | -Daniel De Leon *************************************************************** URL => http://www.scranton.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:48:39 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adrian Wenner Subject: Hive theft Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" FLASH !!! Just in: Between 25 May and 7 June, approximately 1,300 honey bee colonies were stolen from locations in Colorado. They could now be in alfalfa seed fields in the San Joaquin Valley of California or just about anywhere else. DESCRIPTION OF COLONIES: Four colonies per pallet, and either 3 or 2 stories high. At least one story on each pallet is yellow. Some supers will read, (High Mountain Apiaries," "McCollum & Sons," and/or have brand numbers of 4-256 or 4-236. The pallets themselves will be branded 4-256. IF YOU FIND EVIDENCE OF THESE COLONIES, PLEASE CONTACT Mr. McCollum: Richard McCollum (970) 527-3130 1292, 4200 DR. Paonia, CO 81428 Please pass this message on to other beekeepers in your area. Also, I am certain the owner would appreciate a posting of this message on other e-mail networks to which I do not subscribe (e.g., SCI. AGRIC. BEEKEEPING). If you do so, please let me know that you have done so directly, not on the BEE-L network. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 *********************************************************************** * "To cling rigidly to familiar ideas is in essence the same as * * blocking the mind from engaging in creative free play." * * * * David Bohm and F. David Peat 1987 * *********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 13:23:32 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Morris Subject: Re: kashmir virus question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-13 09:49:11 EDT, you write: << >RR> Is here anyone who nows somthing abut "kashmir virus".We have heard here in Denmark , that in Australia is wery manny bees dead of virus, that is infektet whith the varroa mite. >RR>Reagards F.Rasmussen." >> Contact Dr. Hachiro Shiminuki hshimanu@asrr.arsusda.gov at the Beltsville Bee Lab Bldg 476 BARC-East Beltsville, MD 20705 phone 301-504-8205 FAX 301-504-8736 Their Web site is: http://sun.ars-grin.gov/ars/Beltsville/barc/psi/brl/brl-page.html Regards, David Morris Laurel, Md ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:05:37 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Honey for safety Hi All Just thought I would share a little safety tip I worked out today. I was called to remove a swarm of bees from our supremecourt. This involved walking over a steep roof carrying all sorts of odds and ends. I slipped a lot. This was not so good as I was three storeys up on steep arched roof. I saw some honey in my basin that I always take for waste comb. I smeared this on my shoes and did not slip again. For aybody else doing removals in funny places you may find this of use. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:01:54 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Beeswax polish recipe Comments: To: Beeswax@xtra.co.nz Hi Peter and All I don't know if the recipe Iam giving is for leather dressing as I don't know what that is,but I recently spoke to a British ex-pat who used to use this recipe in the UK and wanted some of my wax to make some here. He showed me how he did it. Basically one takes a unit of beeswax (say 250grams/half a pound) and then melt it, but only just to melting point - it should be sort of forming a little film on the top. Then pour some pure natural mineral oil (thats the stuff made from boiling pine trees - it unfortunately costs a lot more than the synthetic one made from boiling fossilized pine trees/coal). Not very much, about an eighth to a little more of a cup. Beat it with a spoon. One should get something a bit like dubbin/toothpaste with a nnice smell and sort of waxy colour -it goes about a shade lighter. Hope that helps. Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis Eastern Cape Prov. South Africa Time = Honey After careful consideration, I have decided that if I am ever a V.I.P the I. may not stand for important. (rather influential, ignorant, idiotic, intelectual, illadvised etc) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 05:25:47 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Apiservices Subject: Beeswax polish recipe MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 You have an automatic calculator for beeswax polish formulae at: http://www.beekeeping.com/goodies/polish.htm Gilles Ratia gilles.ratia@apiservices.com http://www.apiservices.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 21:45:29 +0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Alan Norris Subject: Re: kashmir virus In-Reply-To: <199806120320.UAA09825@pop.thegrid.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 20:15 11/06/98 -0700, you wrote: >>RR>Is here anyone who nows somthing abut "kashmir virus".We have heard >here in > Denmark , that in Australia is wery manny > bees dead of virus, that is infektet whith the varroa mite. > >>RR>Reagards F.Rasmussen." If we have this virus is in Australia I have'nt heard of it, it is certainly not over here in the West. Nor do we have that bloody varroa mite and we dont want it. Alan Norris ANLEC PTY LTD Project Electrical Inspection and Supervision ,-._|\ Alan Norris Tel: 08 9448 7471 / Oz \ anlec@iinet.net.au Mobile:041 791 7144 \_,--._/ Perth Australia Fax: 08 9448 5014 v ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:21:48 -0400 Reply-To: beekeepr@bellsouth.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Frank Humphrey Subject: Bees in a Building MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yesterday I went to remove some bees from a boarded up window in a cinderblock building. I was told that it was a swarm which had only been in there for a few weeks. I smoked them heavily and pried off the plywood cover. Boy did I get a rude awakening. I was wearing only a veil and short sleeve shirt. The cavity was 5 feet wide, 4 feet tall, 10 inches deep and packed with honey and bees. I have never seen so many bees in one colony and most tried to attack me. After getting dressed appropriately, I sealed the cavity leaving a 1" hole for and entrance. I went back today and put a cone over it and set up a bait hive to trap the bees. I plan to trap most of the bees and go back later to get the queen. It would be just pure luck if I were to find her in that mass of bees. I took lots of pictures and scanned them in. If anyone would like to see them, let men know by private email and I will send them to you. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@bellsouth.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:33:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garrett Dodds Subject: New World Carniolans Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sue Cobey has just informed me that Ohio State is officially expanding the NWC program. Adding a few new eastern coop members and is planning to offer instrumentally inseminated NWC breeder queens for sale next year. Garrett Garrett Dodds Royal Gold Farms Custom Inseminations 305 E. Hale St. P.O. Box 63 Ridgeway, OH 43345 (937) 363-3119 dodds.12@osu.edu gdodds@bright.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 22:44:16 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Varroa Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi All The existence of the varroa mite has been confirmed in Ireland in recent days. We did not honestly believe that we would escape for ever - now we must deal with it. One outbreak so far - but I understand that the experience in other countries suggests that when it is found, it is already well entrenched. I wonder if the Irish authorities can learn from the experience gained in other countries that now have the mite?. 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 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 14:32:32 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Hutton Organization: Amigabee computer networking for beekeepers Subject: kashmir virus CHRS: IBMPC 2 CODEPAGE: 437 MSGID: 240:244/116 394da91e REPLY: 240:44/0 a4fc7633 PID: FDAPX/w 1.12a UnReg(322) Hi Dr Bailey at Rothampstead Experimental Research Station in England isolated Kashmir virus in some Apis cerana bees. At a later stage he found it in a sample of Apis mellifera sent to him from Australia. Rothhampstead has a very good website http://www.res.bbsrc.ac.uk/entnem Hope you can pick up the information you require otherwise tri I.B.R.A. whose website you can connect to from the Rothampstead site, you can then look for Dr. Baileys book or the present book by Dr Bailey and Dr. Ball on viruses. Costs something over sixty pounds to buy I believe. Best wishes from the Gatrden of England. Peter.hutton@btinternet.com --- * Origin: Kent Beekeeper Beenet Point (240:244/116) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 20:46:01 -0400 Reply-To: beekeepr@bellsouth.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Frank Humphrey Subject: Re: how do I get bees out of a house wall? In-Reply-To: <19980609.131128.7678.0.fairing@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Snip> Unfortunately many home owners want the bees > "Killed" no later than 3 days before they called you and a wait of 4 > weeks is out of the question. If there is a faster way of hiving these > bees without tearing into the wall and the associated expense, I would > like to know. I certainly am not to old to learn and am always looking > for new tricks to try. :~) > > > In HIS Service > > Robert (Scott) Fairing > > In Tennessee USA exterminators are refusing to kill honeybees. One exterminator was sued for damages after killing a colony because the honey and brood fermented and caused a terrible odor in the house. Of late they are telling home owners that it is now illegal to kill feral bees. So that leaves beekeepers. I bait most bees from homes and tell the homeowner it will take 6 weeks. If they want it done yesterday, I tell them to call a contractor. Of course they can't get anyone to come. I had on building owner last year that wanted them out in a week. I explained that it would take 6 weeks then I would allow the wall to be robbed. He finally agreed but after 3 weeks he had me to come and get my bait hive so that he could paint. I removed the hive and they recovered nicely. He has been bugging me to get them out but at present he is at the bottom of my list and the list is getting longer. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@bellsouth.net