From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Sep 17 12:52:15 1999 Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by luna.oit.unc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA27313 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA11101 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:11 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909171652.MAA11101@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:10 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG9905E" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 55294 Lines: 1159 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 15:31:50 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Joe Rollins Subject: Re: where do queenless swarms go? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/28/99 1:46:19 PM Central Daylight Time, tvf@umich.edu writes: << BEE-L@LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU >> I have a good source of queenless clusters every year. A migratory beekeeper brings bees to the south from California to split before taking them to South Dakota for honey production. He puts about 200 hives on my property. He picked them up the day before yesterday and took them north. I went out yesterday and collected about 10 pounds of bees in clusters, giving some brood, and adding some to existing colonies. An excellent source of free bees, besides saving the life of a lot of queenless bees. Joe Rolllins. TimberRidge Apiaries SW Mississippi ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 May 1999 20:42:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Subject: Queen Destruction of Swarm Cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings all, Today, I went out to check a swarm that I collected 1 1/2 months ago. Last weekend, I checked it, and figured that it would need a second deep body this weekend. There was also evidence of early swarm activity. The colony is not that big yet, cause it was a small swarm to begin with. When I got there, I opened the hive and began to check frame by frame. I found one frame with a capped swarm cell, which yes, I did cut. On the next frame was a sight that made me take a closer look! There were two capped queen cells, side by side, and the original hive queen chewing the wax on one of the cells. She was totally oblivious to the fact that the frame was out of the hive, and that I was watching her closely! It appears that she had opened a small slit in the top of the cell, and was chewing a hole in the side of the cell. She paid me no attention for at least five minutes. There were other bees around her, but they did not appear to be helping her. I made the mistake of breathing on the frame, and she scurried to the other side. I took my pocket knife, and inded, she had begun to open the cell. The queen inside was not close to being developed. I cut the second ceel out as well. The question that I have is was she trying to kill those rival queens and prevent a swarm? It was a sight to watch, because she worked so dilligently at it! I was hoping to see what would happen, but she would not return . Though the hive had only 5 fully drawn frames, and the rest 3/4 or less drawn, I went ahead and added the second body, and moved two frames of brood up. Ok folks, do you think this activity with the queen and the second body will prevent them from swarming? If they do swarm, both will be very weak, and I doubt they will survive long. Thanks all! Scott " I believe that beekeeping mirrors life. One must endure a few stings to reach the final sweet reward." S. Moser ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 14:19:13 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Sr. Monica Ryan" Subject: Quality of Colony MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello to All! I just thought that many Beekeepers - experienced and otherwise, might have some worthwhile ideas, of how it is possible to assess the quality of a colony and its future potential by looking at its brood pattern. I will indeed be grateful for all contributions, and then hopefuly, I will better understand what's going on in the hive. (My sight is not the best and I find it difficult enough to see the eggs.) Thank you for all the wonderful contributions to this list. (The 'computer operator' keeps me supplied). Sr. Catherine Duffy. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 23:34:38 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Queen Destruction of Swarm Cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/29/99 8:42:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, smoser@ruralcom.net writes: > Today, I went out to check a swarm that I collected 1 1/2 months ago. > Last weekend, I checked it, and figured that it would need a second deep > body this weekend. There was also evidence of early swarm activity. The > colony is not that big yet, cause it was a small swarm to begin with. When > I got there, I opened the hive and began to check frame by frame. I found > one frame with a capped swarm cell, which yes, I did cut. When a prime swarm establishes a new home, the old queen's days are numbered. Usually within a couple weeks, they raise some new queens to replace her. So the cells you saw are likely supersedure cells. Once again, I remind folks that cutting out cells are usually a mistake, except in a few special circumstances. The bees know what they need. Where does this idea of cutting cells come from, and why is it such a persistant idea? You'd better let that hive replace that failing queen, or give them a queen yourself very soon, before they dwindle to nothing. You say yourself, Scott, that they are not building. Does that not tell you something? A hive that does not build in the spring has got a problem. As to the queen chewing the cell, I am dubious that is was the old queen. It's much more likely it was a virgin queen. If it was the old queen, it is an anomoly I have never seen, and have no idea what is going on..... Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 23:54:16 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Transporting queen cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/26/99 2:19:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, sandler@auracom.com writes: > There has been some interesting discussion about requeening using queen > cells. I have also noted though some posts (I think by Dave Green) > mentioning that there is a certain time that the queen larvae are very > delicate. What exactly is the time period (days from grafting) when the > larvae are delicate? What methods do people use for transporting queen > cells during the day from yard to yard? Uncapped queen cells (larval stage) aren't too fragile, though I suppose a real hard knock could separate the larva from her food. Once they are capped, I am careful not to turn them over, or handle roughly until they are "ripe," about one day from emergence. At that point the wax at the tip will change appearance, and begin to really look like a cap. Often it will appear fibrous, as the bees are chewing on it. At this point, the cells can be cut and carried without the need to be held in the same position. I still try to be gentle though. I carry them in a styrofoam container to protect them from sudden temperature changes. If they are turned upside down during the wing development, they will not develop normally. A queen that can't fly, cannot mate. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 13:47:59 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: Sv: Queen Destruction of Swarm Cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Scott Moser Til: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu Dato: 30. maj 1999 02:46 Emne: Queen Destruction of Swarm Cells >Greetings all, > Today, I went out to check a swarm that I collected 1 1/2 months ago. >Last weekend, I checked it, and figured that it would need a second deep >body this weekend. There was also evidence of early swarm activity. The >colony is not that big yet, cause it was a small swarm to begin with. When >I got there, I opened the hive and began to check frame by frame. I found >one frame with a capped swarm cell, which yes, I did cut. It is very normal, that a swarm will replace the old queen with a new queen themself. Normaly the first swarm that goes is with the Old queen and the bees will replace her when times come. Cutting out queencells is interfering in this matter, and should not be done, because it will prevent the bees in getting a new queen, and I doubt you can stop this. What you can end up with is the old queen still present, and mayby not as god a egglayer as normal. A good queen can produce around 2000 eggs a day. By the way, I will recommend you to get hold in a new egglauing queen selected on less swarming, and replace the queen with this. Also the old hive should have a new queen selected on this criteria, becouse swarming is genetical bound and can be limited in this way. You can use the time better than catching swarms. best regards Jorn Johanesson EDBi = multilingual Beekeeping software since 1987 http://home4.inet.tele.dk/apimo (Denmark) http://wn.com.au/apimo (Australia) http://apimo.dk (USA) apimo@post4.tele.dk apimo@wn.com.au Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 08:56:21 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Brood pattern MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sr. Catherine Duffy asked how to tell the quality of a colony from the brood pattern. The "quality of a colony" largely reflects the quality of the queen, including how well she was mated. At this time of year the queen is competing for space with nectar and pollen. Typically a brood frame will have a large area all along the top of the frame filled with nectar or capped honey, and that area will extend in curves down the sides of the frame. The queen will be restricted to laying along the bottom of the frame and in the top half of a semi-circle going up the sides and in the middle of the frame. A pattern similar to a half-moon, laying on its side. If you see one or more frames with all but a few cells containing sealed brood in this half-moon shape, you have a healthy queen. If 5% or more of the cells are empty, the queen should be replaced. With a piece of cardboard, it is easy to "count" if 5% of the cells are empty. Take an empty drawn frame and place it on a table. Count ten cells in one direction, and ten cells in the other. Mark these boundaries with nail polish or something similar. Cut a square opening in a piece of cardboard so that this area will be exposed when the cardboard is laid over the frame. (Cutting this opening is the hard part, and may take a few tries.) What you have a way to quickly see 100 cells. Put this opening over a few places on a few frames with sealed brood. Count the empty cells. If you have several instances where five or more cells are empty, the queen should be replaced. What is going on with the empty cells is that the workers have eaten the eggs that were laid, because they were genetically defective. This defect results when the queen is improperly mated. From a beekeeper viewpoint, 5% or more of the potential workforce is being lost and the bees will eventually replace the queen by supercedure. It is generally felt that it is best for the beekeeper to instead replace the queen, with a queen of known stock. I hope this helps. Lloyd Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds(tm). The finest in comb honey production. http://www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 14:39:25 -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: Queen Cells/Fragility/Development Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dave says: If they are turned upside down during the wing development, they will not develop normally. A queen that can't fly, cannot mate. Does anyone have any hard evidence for or against this? We know queen breeders who take care never to tip a queen cell on its side. Others routinely lay the cells out on a counter on their sides. One major breeder just tosses them into a bag, any old orientation. All seem to be able to produce healthy queens. This falls into the same type of debate as to the fragility of the queen on the comb. Some of our commercial guys leave any queen that is laying well (good pattern), regardless of what she looks like. Some remove any queen with a missing leg (yet one of the strongest queens that I have ever observed was missing a hind leg). Others will immediately kill any queen who rolls over on her back while on the comb (say from rough handling of the frame or a gust of wind). Yet, I know several package producers who shake bees into a box lined with queen excluders. Don't even look to see if she is on the frame being shook. After shaking a hive body full of frames, they gather around, look for her, lift her out on their hive tool, and place her back in their own hive. According to the notion that she is useless if she falls on her back, how do you explain the survival and continued productivity of queens banged out of hives into shaker boxes? Also, in MD, I saw beekeepers banging packages on the ground before pulling out the feeder can and the queen. Seems to me that she got an awful pounding in her little cage when the beekeeper pounded the package to throw all of the bees to one end. Something to think about. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 19:21:33 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: P-O Gustafsson Subject: Re: Transporting queen cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > It was over two years ago when I took Sue Cobey's queen rearing > course so I am not sure of the timing. However, the concern for > gentle handling of queen cells does not regard the larvae stage > (although the concern pointed out by P-O is valid), the time when it > is critical to handle the cells with UTMOST care is the period when > the queen pupae is developing her wings. Yes I have read that too. But as we previously have discussed here, bees don't read the same books...... I regularly handle cells during that time and yet haven't seen any proof of that statement. When I introduce cells to a colony or a mating nuc they normally are 10 to 11 days from grafting. They will hatch on day 12 or 13 depending on temp. Sometimes I'm forced to use even younger cells when I don't have the time to go twice to the same yard for requeening. Before I put a cell in a colony I always check that there is a queen present that looks OK. I do it by holding up the cell to the sun or another suitable light source so I can see the queen through the wax of the cell. By slowly rolling the cell I can see the whole queen and often see her moving. I have done it with thousands of cells, and not yet had any reason to believe it will cause any defect. I have also opened cells to check queen, taken her out and then put her back again to let her hatch. This is before wings are developed, or during that process. They are not that fragile! Of course care has to be taken when handling cells, but there is no reason to overdo it and prevent people from using this simple and convenient way to requeen. But I have bumped frames with 4 day cells so the larvae fell down in the tip of the cell and couldn't get back up again. And they don't need that much of a bump at that stage. -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 10:27:35 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Valentine Subject: Laying workers, question ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Bee friends, I had a hive go queenless. This was my fault, we injured the queen during an inspection. There was a few queen cells. They hatched but for some reason there is no queen now. I found two eggs in cell and some eggs laid on the sides. I know it is queenless. Last night I took the hive 50 feet away and blew out all the bees just before dark. Took the equipment and used it on other hives. This morning I brought in a 1 1/2 story hive that I started from a swarm about 4 weeks ago and placed it a few feet from the spot the queenless hive was located. Most of the queenless bees had flown to a cement block that their hive had sat on. There was a small pile of workers and drowns at the spot where I shook out the bees last night. After placing the new hive, most of the bees flew into the new hive. I then took the cement block with a handful of bees on it and placed them back about 50 feet again. Now my question what are the odds that the laying workers are going to find their way into my new hive and kill my queen? I tried to requeen with a bought queen, that didn't work. I have been giving these bees frames with bees and brood hoping they would start an emergency cell. That didn't happen. The reason I brought in a new hive was there had to be 5 pounds of bee out there on the lawn this morning. I will say one thing, with no brood to tend to the bees filled the hive with honey and drew out new foundation too. 3 deeps. John CT ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 17:44:41 -0700 Reply-To: JamesCBach Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: JamesCBach Subject: Brood Pattern MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sr. Catherine Duffy asked about how to tell the quality of a colony from the brood pattern. Lloyd Spear remarks that "if 5% or more of the cells are empty, the queen should be replaced." A few years back I observed that some of my colonies were not building their populations in April and May as I had expected, but that they had what had always been called "an excellent brood pattern." I did 25 to 30 brood survival tests in some of my two queen colonies the way Dr. Bromenshenk used to do in conducting his research. He chose a comb that contained mostly eggs and identifies 5 rows of 24 cells by marking the corner cells with colored pins. He noted on a log sheet the contents of each of the center 100 cells i.e., eggs, one or more day old larvae, pollen, nectar, or empty. Then he came back 14 days later and uncapped the cells he had identified. He again noted on a log sheet the contents of the cells. All eggs should now have developed into black eyed workers. The percent of cells that previously had eggs and that now have black eyed workers is the percent of brood survival. I found in my tests that brood survivability ranged from 35 to 95 percent even with 5 to 10 empty cells. Consequently, I don't hold with the "good brood pattern" idea any longer. I have observed many variables between colonies with very similar brood patterns. I'm not sure that the empty cells can be used as a measuring device because bees regularly place pollen cells among the brood and it is hard to remember where those cells were, and which ones were empty, unless one does a formal documentation of cell contents. Some colonies put most of the pollen to the sides of the brood rearing area and just below the top bars, others scatter pollen more throughout the brood rearing area, and some even put whole combs of pollen above the brood nest (clearly an aberrant behavior). When Lloyd suggests the 5% figure, I wonder if that includes natural mortality of eggs, larvae, and genetic deficiencies. Somewhere I read that only 90 to 95 percent of eggs hatch, and only 85 to 95 percent of larvae become pupae, and some percent of pupae don't make it. So what is the average survivability of a disease and mite free colony with ideal pollen and honey resources? I wish I had access to a good bee library so that I could search the literature for the answer. I wonder what Jerry can add to these ideas with his latest research. James C. Bach jbach@agr.wa.gov jcbach@yvn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 11:52:12 -0400 Reply-To: info@beeworks.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Eyre Subject: Re: Transporting queen cells In-Reply-To: <199905281749.NAA24412@listserv.albany.edu> On 28 May 99, at 11:35, Aaron Morris wrote: > > I have found that the first days when the cell is capped, the larvae is > > still feeding from the jelly at the top of the cell and will fall down > > and die if the cell is handled roughly. If I have to touch cells at that > > time (cell protectors to avoid waxing up) I hold them upside down. > > > It was over two years ago when I took Sue Cobey's queen rearing > course so I am not sure of the timing. However, the concern for > gentle handling of queen cells does not regard the larvae stage > (although the concern pointed out by P-O is valid), the time when it > down or "manhandled" in any way. I cannot say with assuredness what day > that is, but it is close to the emergence date of the queen (a day or two > prior, I think closer to two). I'm saying right up front that these > guesses are not reliable. Perhaps Dave Eyre can/will assist, otherwise > hit the books. I vowed some time ago never to post to Bee-L again, mainly because of posts which 'disappeared' due to moderation, wasted time spent writing them and the 'snide' remarks they drew. Now at Aaron's request I'll join the fray on this one. I believe the original request was for information on transporting cells? We have found the best way is sawdust. We place a bottle of hot water in the bottom of a container, cover with a good layer of sawdust, allow the dust to warm before making a hole with your finger and adding the cell. We firmly believe that temperature shock is the biggest killer of cells, mind you, a gentle hand on handling is essential. We once dropped a cell,now we would destroy it, on noting which mini-nuc it went into just as an experiment, it was interesting to see a virgin with stubs for wings. There was a comment about using cell protectors to prevent 'waxing up' or webbing as it's also called. I much prefer to give the hive a sheet of foundation about 3-4 frames away from the graft frame, this draws the wax makers away and prevents webbing. Any interference during cell production should be avoided.Once we have checked the acceptance on the second day after grafting we don't touch the frame again. To pull the frame and risk temp fluctuation is foolish, and you'll knock off nurse bees and interupt production, especially if using smoke. FWIW. ***************************************** The Bee Works, 9 Progress Drive, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, Canada.L3V 6H1. Phone (705)326 7171 Fax (705)325 3461 David Eyre, Owner e-mail http://www.beeworks.com This months special:-New style foundation. **************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 11:52:12 -0400 Reply-To: info@beeworks.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Eyre Subject: Swarms > What makes it obvious that a swarm is queenless? Maybe I was expressing > myself a little to confidently. Rather than "obviously" maybe I should > have said "apparently" and rather than "swarm" I should have said "cluster > of bees" or something else. I didn't go into great detail because the > question I'm most interested in is "where do queenless swarms go?" Just to throw a spanner in the works, consider this. Driving home a week ago I stopped for a swarm crossing a busy road, coming back later I saw the swarm clustered on a bush.Now normally I don't take swarms, as usually they're more trouble than enough, this time I relented as I lost so many hives last year to Varroa. I hived what appeared to be a normal swarm, clustered and quiet. Dropped them into a box, placed the box below the branch with the inner cover partially over the box, left them till after supper. Later that evening, when all flying was finished took them to our nearest yard. Checked them the next day, all appeared normal. Here it's a week later, a few wet days to keep them in, and I opened them to find laying workers. No queen. Normally laying workers take up to 3 weeks before they appear, so why should these have turned bad so quickly. All I know is, I shall ignore swarms in future, all this one gave me was trouble, and I have to shake them out! ***************************************** The Bee Works, 9 Progress Drive, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, Canada.L3V 6H1. Phone (705)326 7171 Fax (705)325 3461 David Eyre, Owner e-mail http://www.beeworks.com **************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 23:22:25 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: P-O Gustafsson Subject: Re: Brood pattern MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > If you see one or more frames with all but a few cells containing sealed > brood in this half-moon shape, you have a healthy queen. If 5% or more of > the cells are empty, the queen should be replaced. I believe there are some misunderstandings regarding brood pattern. To make it simple; brood pattern is a measurer of the genetic diversity in the queens offspring. The closer related queen and drones that mated with here are, the more of spotty brood. We could call it a sign of inbreeding. It has nothing to do with age of queen, or lack of semen due to bad mating. When she turns out of semen she becomes a drone layer, but still produce offspring. But there could be other reasons for spotty brood. As mentioned, some bees prefer to store pollen all over the brood frames. There are queens that systematically work themselves over the combs and produce even nice looking pattern, and there are those that "run around" and put eggs here and there rather randomly creating spotty looking combs. There are different ways to improve the result (more honey). One is to work with queens fertility in order to produce more bees in the hive. To breed from bees that has more brood, and to use heterosis effect to increase vigour and brood viability. More bees will produce more honey. Another way is to breed for bees that live longer, produce more honey per individual, need less winter feed, etc. Depending on where we are and the local conditions/climate there can be different ways to get a better result at the end of day. I have had hives that produced plenty of bees and a lot of honey. But those hives will need more room (more boxes) to avoid swarming, and also will have to be checked more often for crowding and maybe for swarm cells. On the other hand, my favourite bees are those building up a bit slower taking care not to run out of feed during spring and needing supplementary feeding. They need two boxes less (saves me money) and don't get to the point of swarming before the honey flow comes and make them forget about everything else. In the end of season they have a good average crop, and haven't caused me much work and no trouble of swarming or splitting. I have used both ways when I produced my queens last year. From a larger (around 200) number of Carnica queens mated with Buckfast drones (this was 3 years ago), I picked one that were better than the rest and produced large amounts of bees. She became the mother of last years drone producing queens (raised 2 years ago) at my mating place. This way the drones had her genetic mix. The queens mated to them last summer were from my line with long living hard working Buckfast. 3 years ago; Carnica/Buckfast cross. 2 years ago; Hybrid queens reared from the best hive. 1 year ago; Hybrid queens produced drones on mating place. Buckfast queens mated to drones with 50% Carnica heritage. This summer; Plenty of honey!!..... ;-) -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 19:33:24 PDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GREGOIRE@ENDOR.COM Subject: A BEAR OF A STORY! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello Gang, Last week a bear paid me a visit and demolished one hive and damaged another. This is not unusual by any means here in Grafton county NH where the black bear population has tripled in the past ten years. As luck would have it we were away for the weekend and it rained hard on the remaining bees lying in the open. I scooped up what was left and pulled a frame of brood with eggs from another hive and ordered a new queen for this patched up colony. Still there is nothing unusual so far. This is a smart bear, I found and insulated fence wire unhooked from the electrified fence and left on the ground. The wire was at bear nose height. It makes me wonder about just where he was while I opened the gate during hive visits? No, I did not leave the wire on the ground myself, thus inviting the attack. The wires were in their place, closing up the fence. The insulators have been replaced with bare metal springs. I also took this opportunity to bring up to seven, the number of wires on the fence. The fence is about five feet high with wires about eight inches apart. I am also replacing the oak survey stakes with metal ones to hold the corners fast. This will allow me to tighten up the fence tension as the summer heat expands the metal wire causing a slight droop as well as a loose fitting gate spring. I'm about half done with the job now. The corner posts were 3/8 inch fiberglass rods and are being replaced with 5/8 fiberglass rods. They are much stiffer and will allow the fence to be physically stronger. I bought a new fence energizer too. The old one was a Parmak, which is advertised to shock through weeds, not so! There were some blades of grass touching the bottom wire, and not much of it either. I'd say about 25 feet of fence had some grass touching it. This caused the Parmak unit to degrade to 2.9 kilo volts. After cutting the grass the voltage came up to 3.5 kilo volts. The new energizer is a Speedrite and puts out 6.6 kilo volts from a New Zealand style fencer, on the same battery that had the Parmak on it. Good things do come in little packages. The fence has been properly baited with bacon, and the fence energizer is in the fast mode, recommended for training animals to what the fence is all about. I thought that I had done a good job on the fence initially. But now, after the enhancements, I am certain that this fence is indeed improved. Live and learn. Grist Mill Apiary Ernie Gregoire Canaan, NH. USA ------------------------------------- 05/31/99 19:33:24 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 18:59:09 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Unger Subject: New Queen Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I am new to this and recently installed my first two packages of bees. One package had a very large number of dead bees (compared to the other), but the queen was alive. A week after installing (and feeding) the better package was doing fine. The stressed package seemed ok and I believe the queen started laying. I next checked the hive 2 weeks later and could not find the queen, but I thought there was capped brood, but I couldn't find young brood. I looked again a few more days later, and moved over a frame of brood, with eggs from the stronger hive. A week later I have queencells in this hive. My question: Should I immediately purchase a new queen or wait for one to emerge in about 2 more weeks ?? Also, I want to purchase a comprehensive book and have been thinking about either "The Hive and the Honeybee" or "The ABC and XYZ of Beeculture". Any recommendations between the two? Or is some other book comprehensive? _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 22:39:39 -0600 Reply-To: fltdeck1@ix.netcom.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Matthew Subject: two-queen swarm vs. two-queen hive? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, Yesterday I had the opportunity to remove an existing hive which made a home with the top of a mulch bin. On the way home, someone called with another swarm call not 10 minutes from the first. When I got there I realized I was a box short and ended up combining the bees by 'bee'-vacuuming them directly into the other collected hive. My question is, since the swarm seems content amongst each other and there are two queens (or were) inside, when will the queen-battle ensue? Do they wait until they have a stake in their new hive (i.e. until they're laying) and then kill off the other queen? Or is there a chance both queens will work the hive once(if) they get used to the others smell? Thanks for your replies. Matthew Westall // Earthling Bees >8(())))- "Take me to your feeder" \\ Castle Rock, CO, USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 00:56:20 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lance Almond Subject: what to do about this comb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit greetings all: Im a first year new-bee, i started beekeeping to improve production in my apricot orchard and other garden areas i have, but have found this one of the most interesting,worthwhilw projects i have ever done. i am requried by law to register with the county i reside in (monterey,ca.) which i did in march after recieving my package of bees andgot my hive started, i got a call from the SPCA in a nieghboring town asking if would get a swarm out of a tree in someones front yard, i said sure and packed up my stuff armed with techniques from this forum (however i left my shotgun at home) the swarm was in a pepper tree about ten feet off the ground and it was huge (to me). up my ladder with my pruning shears, hat and veil i was able to gently prune around the swarm and bring it down intact. on closer inspection the bees were surrounding a foot ball size comb. i was able to put the swarm, comb, branches and leaves in a auper with the frames removed wrap the whole thing up with dense plastic shade mesh and wonder what to do next on my way home. After setting up the hive and getting some feeders going about 1/2 hr. later i was able to open the top and of the super and begin to gently cut out the branches and leaves that the comb had been formed around, opening one section of the comb the queen walked out across the top and down the feeder hole just like a model down the runway. after three sessions working in the hive today i have the hive pretty well cleaned out, the bees are feeding (sugar syrup) like crazy and don't seem to mind to much my antics, i only have three frames in the super, there is too much comb that is hatching bees (fascinating to watch) i don't know what to do next. I did recieve 3-4 stings on my bare hands taking the swarm down, but the bees have been a very tolerant group and have not stung me since. Any tips, advice would bee most appreciated. many thanx lance almond lcalmond@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 15:02:38 -0400 Reply-To: Chris Heffner Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Chris Heffner Subject: Swarming/Split Comments: To: BEE-L Posts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all, I have a colony of Carniolans that was ready to swarm, capped queen cells. It appeared that the queen had all but stopped laying. I couldn't find any eggs or young larvae 2 weeks ago. I cut out cells for the second time. I ordered a new Carniolan queen. When I returned to split the hive I looked twice for the queen without success. She had been fairly easy to spot before. There also wasn't any open brood only capped. I didn't find any new swarm cells built on the bottom bars but I did find capped supercedure cells in the hive. I split anyway assuming the hive was queenless. I introduced the queen in her cage to the split section and left 1 frame with cells on it in the parent hive. I went back a few days later and the queen was out of her cage. I checked both halves of the split yesterday and found the parent hive with cells to have hatched. I followed a strange sound coming from a frame and it was coming from the queen. Can anyone advise what she was doing? I've read of tooting but didn't think it should happen in this situation. It sounded like a "meep-meep-meep-meep-meep" I checked her out she was wandering over the comb but not laying eggs. Wondering if she isn't mated yet or just returned? The other half of the split, I couldn't find my marked queen, and they have started to build cells on the bottom bars. However they have no eggs or larvae to rear queen and they're too weak anyway. Why would they have rejected this new queen. Also the parent colony is very strong in worker numbers while the split is rather weak. I would estimate bees only covering 6 frames or so. Can anyone give me suggestions on how to handle this? I apologize for the length. I wanted to provide enough detail so you could better understand my problem. Thank you so much for taking time to read this. Chris Heffner remove nospam to reply ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 09:52:09 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Comments: RFC822 error: MESSAGE-ID field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: "Bernard.Heymans" Subject: Re: allergy to bee venom In-Reply-To: <199905271115.HAA22248@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, It seems theses kind of stuff appends, My Dad had bee 50 years ago... and he stopped 40 ago because he had become "allergyc"... When I started 7 years ago to have bees, He stated that it could be dangerous for him because allergy NEVER vanish from itself but only by a cure. He was helped in this assumption by some members of the family that are doctors... He off course got stung and seems this raction seemed normal... So he went back to the bees. We got them, togherther.. and for me it's a great help (sometime...) Bernard. The most amazing stuff is the difference between the way he is handling bees and the way I have learned to do so. He believe its wrong to visit too often. So we made a compared test two where visited , and two where nearly never visited... he couldn't run quick anough to catch the swarms. Even before we started the test, my frinds were kidding about it: I had putted the bees in such a way that he could only have a huge qqty of swarm and no honney... and it worked well. His theory that sayd that a hive cold produice between 5 and 10 KG/year turned confirmed while the bees that folowed my theory confirmed 60 KG/year.... At 10:37 27/05/99 +0100, you wrote: >As Jorn says, beekeepers and bee scientists who regularly get stung often DO >become sensitized to bee venom - I've talked to many of them in Europe. > >Often it's triggered by one sting on the wrong day - my own case included. >I've worked with bees for over 12 years now and been stung I guess more .... >I continue to work with bees as it's a passion as well as a way of life for >me. > >Not all people will be as Iucky as I was but a desensitization programme is >definitely worth a try. >Max >Dr Max Watkins ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 18:19:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Subject: Queen Destruction of Cells Followup MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings again. I failed to mention a couple of important points in the original post. First, the cells were on the bottom edge of the frames. There were no supercedure cells in the hive. Second, I mis-typed the number of drawn frames. There were 8 full frames drawn, and 2 that were 3/4 drawn. Third, the colony was the second swarm from that hive. I had marked the queen after she began to lay. She is also one of my better laying queens that I have. Of the 8 drawn frames, 6 were filled with eggs and brood, wall to wall! Lastly, I know it was the original queen, because I had marked her after I installed the swarm, and lo and behold, it was the marked queen chewing on the cell. I contacted a couple master beekeepers around here, and they informed me that I may have seen something few, if any people had ever seen! Has anyone else observed this, or even heard of it before? I am going to requeen the hive though due to the fact the queens want to swarm so easily. Thanks again all! Scott Moser " I believe that beekeeping mirrors life. One must endure a few stings to reach the final sweet reward." S. Moser ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 19:24:54 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeCrofter@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Laying workers, question ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/30/99 4:46:07 PM EST, BeeManJRV@Aol.com writes: > > Now my question what are the odds that the laying workers are going to find > their way into my new hive and kill my queen? > The theory is that a laying worker is too fat to fly so you better move them further than walking distance. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 21:50:37 -0600 Reply-To: fltdeck1@ix.netcom.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Matthew Subject: Re: Laying workers, question ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi John and everyone! Maybe someone here can answer whether this is correct, but I've been told that laying workers are too heavy to fly back to their hive. When you shake off the entire hive of bees away from their old location, they're the ones which are left crawling on the ground. Anyone? Matthew Westall - Castle Rock, CO John wrote about laying workers: > sides. I know it is queenless. Last night I took the hive 50 feet > away and > blew out all the bees just before dark. Took the equipment and used > it on > Now my question what are the odds that the laying workers are going to > find > their way into my new hive and kill my queen? > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 16:23:43 +0200 Reply-To: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Organization: Apiservices Subject: Beekeeping concerns with over 10 000 hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi everyone, In my capacity as a beekeeping consultant, I have undertaken missions in dozens of developing countries over the last 20 years, I would therefore like to take the opportunity during my trip to Vancouver in September for the Apimondia Congress to visit big honey concerns (over 10,000 hives) in North and South America. If you could you give me some good addresses, either via Bee-L or direct to gilles.ratia@apiservices.com , I should be very grateful. Thank you. Gilles RATIA - Apiservices Webmaster of the "Virtual Beekeeping Gallery" http://www.beekeeping.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 20:04:05 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: Queenles swarms and where they go MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi All/Layne Layne, you mentioned you got a queenless swarm and that it seemed to have some sort of plan as it left the box you put it in. In southern africa queenless swarms are quite common. Capensis tend to throw out excess bees in times of dearth sending of a queenless swarm. These drift around as loose swarms that forage and cluster through the cold winter nights (when they normally issue). Over time they amalgamate with other queenless swarms untile they have enough to set up a hive, then everybody knuckles down and builds a new hive and rears a queen - obviously only capensis can do that. However - queenless swarms also amalgamate with queenright swarms. Some of those bees, in the absence of a queen will have developed ovarioles. Recent research shows that bees with developed ovarioles have a number of different smells - queenlike, nonqueenlike etc. The queenlikes will probably be killed, but the non-queenlikes will get to sneak in a few drone eggs, and when the swarm supercededs - those drone should be ready to do the new queen!! Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis 6139 South Africa Time = Honey ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 20:14:42 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: DEstroying glucose oxidase in honey with air MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi All Just read Bills post about Gluc. Oxidase in honey. Most enzymes are extremely easly 'killed' by foaming - miximg them with air. I wonder to what extent the extraction process kills the glucose oxidase in honey?? There is a large surface area and vigrorous aeration. I wonder if honey were extracted in CO2 filled extractors whether it would enable a higher gluc oxid yeild in the final honey, that could then be sold at a higher price - at a few cents per cubic metre this would not cost much for the CO2, but it would increase the reasle value of the honey?? Keep well Garth Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Grahamstown Apis mellifera capensis 6139 South Africa Time = Honey ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 15:32:19 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bruce Guidotti Subject: Re: Laying workers, question ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The way that I read about to requeen when you have laying workers is similar to what you did. Namely take the hive 100 yards away. Make sure there are no bees in any of the chambers or frames and take first the bottom board then the remainder of the hive back to the original location. The workers will find it. The laying workers won't. You then can requeen. You do have to get rid of the laying workers so they don't kill your new queen. Bruce ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 18:30:28 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Watson Subject: two queens in a hive In-Reply-To: <199905302143.RAA25369@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have a colony with two queens. It has been that was for all of this month. There is some sealed brood with a not so good pattern, in the lower box. The upper box has much empty comb and one frame of eggs. Today we found a queen in each box. Of course this is a mother-daughter queen situation. The question is: is there any problem with the fact that this colony has the queen mum still in existence four weeks after the first time we discovered her? Is this a detriment to the colony ? It is not a strong colony. -Rob