From MAILER-DAEMON Sun Jan 14 07:40:03 2001 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 HAA04992 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:40:01 -0500 (EST) 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 HAA00120 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:42:58 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200101141242.HAA00120@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 07:42:58 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0006D" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 111919 Lines: 2370 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 14:34:57 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: Re: No Formic in 2000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello Gang, I have had the opportunity to talk with the folks who lost hives in New Hampshire, this past winter to V-mites despite applying Apistan according to the label. The thread that runs through this winter kill fabric seems to be related to later rather than early application of Apistan. One beekeeper applied Apistan for 53 days in early to mid August, he is not sure if it was applied at the very beginning of the month, but he is sure it was done by mid August. He lost 12 out of 15 hives. I lost none. Those I spoke with all collected fall honey, Golden Rod , and Aster. I left the fall honey for the bees so I did not have low temperatures at the end of my treatment period.I live in the same geographic area and I treated beginning on July 15th for the recommended time and strength. I can guess why the trouble occurred by looking back on the night time temperatures during treatment. Keep in mind, this is only a guess, not a scientific study. July and August night time temps were relatively high compared to September, and October. Example; Jul=month, 15=day, 50f= temperature in farenheight. Jul 15=50f, 16=61f, 17=62f, 18=62f, 19=59f, 20=52f, 21=42f, 22=56f 23=56f, 24=59f, 25=62f, 26=60f, 27=61f, 28=57f, 29=55f, 30=57f Aug 06=50f, 07=48f, 08=54f, 09=49f, 10=38f, 11=52f, 12=60f, 13=52f, 14=64f 15=58f, 16=xxf, 17=xxf, 18=60f, 19=48f, 20=xxf, 21=46f, 22=51f, 23=51f 24=51f, 25=52f, 26=55f, 27=59f, 28=65f, 29=44f, 30=44f, 31=40f Sep 01=44f, 02=xxf, 03=49f, 04=52f, 05=52f, 06=62f, 07=67f, 08=61f, 09=61f, 10=64f, 11=54f, 12=43f, 13=43f, 14=52f, 15=60f, 16=xxf, 17=43f, 18=45f, 19=33f, 20=36f, 21=xxf, 22=xxf, 23=40f, 24,xxf, 25=46f, 27=36f, 28=50f, 29=61f, 30=54f, Oct,01=39f, 02=35f, 03=36f, 04=37f, 05=xxf, 06=32f, 07=30f, 08=24f, 09=45f, 10=37f, 11=45f, 12=32f, 13=32f, 14=52f, 15=26f, 16=29f, 17=45f, 18=41f, 19=22f, 20=37f, 21=32f, 22=28f, 23=39f, 24=38f, 25=32f 26=28f, 27=31f, 28=21f, 29=29f, 30=30f, 31=41f, If he began treatment on July 15, day 196+53=249,it ended on Sept, 6th Treatment begining on aug 15th, day 227+53=280, ended on Oct. 7th, [Day no. is the Julian calendar date, ex. aug, 15, 1999 was day number 196. 53 is the number of days of treatment.] There is a big difference in night time temperatures toward the end of the treatment as compared to the beginning if treatment was begun on August 15th. Ernie Gregoire "Beekeeper," definition= partially brave, partially excentric Grist Mill Apiary Canaan, New Hampshire, USA ------------------------------------- 06/21/99 14:34:57 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 22:10:08 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: beekeeping in Tanzania MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Madeleine Pym wrote: > At a conference I attended today I met a woman from Tanzania who runs an I recall an excellent book that started me off as African beekeeper in the mid-eighties. Beekeeping in the tropics by Smith. Smith was involved in much extention and development in mid-east Africa, mainly the old Tanganjika (now Tanzania). He reports on excellent beekeeping in that area. SA beekepers travelling into Africa also report improved conditions for beekeeping the further north one goes. Wish you the most in this venture. Robert Post South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 22:12:07 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: Moving Eggs MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > I think there is a lot of things we see that we do not understand. The cut > and dried, nice and simple answers don't always hold up. Never forget automictic teletokous parthenogenesis. It has been proven and is a cut and dried answer, even though not often understood. Perhaps not relevant in every case, but moving eggs between hives ... correct me if I'm wrong ... has never been proved. I am disappointed that the scientific fraternity does not at least attempt answering these questions. Is this DG not frequented by them anymore? We need to clear up these issues in the minds of the every day beekeeper. I appreciate the repetitive appearance of these questions, but then turnover of beekeepers happens. Regards Robert Post ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 22:35:29 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Kilty Subject: Re: Moving Eggs In-Reply-To: <200006200525.BAA17664@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <200006200525.BAA17664@listserv.albany.edu>, James Kilty writes >I have >a hunch (as I have not recorded the detailed dates) that workers may >bring a cooled egg into play. Colleagues have reported queen cells being >produced after all eggs should have hatched, i.e., more than 3 days >after a swarm left or a split was made. I will look out carefully for >evidence and report it. Yesterday I looked at a split above its parent, completely separated by a perforated zinc barrier to check for emergency cells having 1 week earlier cut cells down to one open one as usual. I found the sealed cell as expected, no unsealed worker brood at all and one new queen cell with royal jelly in. I culled it without confirming absolutely that there actually was a larva in it. So, on with the observations. -- James Kilty ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 17:49:34 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Mann Subject: Re: NBALIST: Assumptions Assumptions Comments: To: nbalist@beekeeping.co.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "bryan Clements" wrote: >I was recently in a yard of bees that had tested positive. At the first test >the worst board had 50 mites and every other board had 5 or 6 mites. 50% of >the yard had sticky boards. We visited the yard two weeks later and >inspected 75% of the hives. We used the brood fork and did 6 digs into brood >in each hive. Made a great mess. We looked and looked everywhere and did not >find one mite. There was no drone brood present. >To me it appeared as if the sticky board test was very accurate and that >finding mites in a yard with light infestation was impossible with the eye, >even when digging out brood. This report is interesting, but I interpret it differently. On their face, these facts suggest the colonies in question had rid themselves of varroa, down to a low level if not entirely, during the fortnight in question. The simplest hypothesis would be to credit the Apistan with having achieved this, but I don't find this plausible. If we had been able to keep Dr Denis Anderson here, he'd be across into this yard tomorrow. Perhaps we can lure him back from Australia for more of the time. The complete absence of drone brood is itself interesting. Is there some suggestion that varroa cannot breed with comparable efficiency in worker brood? The insensitivity, more accurately called a high threshhold, of the Apistan/stickyboard test is beyond dispute, isn't it? Of course, one has to say 'compared with what'. One can imagine a hive that has many adult mites but for some unknown reason has few or no mites in the brood. A colony in that condition will register positive on the strip/board test. But the greater fear has been scoring negative on that test while many mites are breeding up but not yet capable of falling onto the sheet (or of being poisoned by the Apistan) because they're sealed in capped brood. In that condition, the hive will have a high threshhold or severe insensitivity on the strip/board test. I have been assuming this latter is the more common situation. Any expert correction? R - Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 03:34:53 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: beekeeping in Tanzania In-Reply-To: <200006210744.DAA19391@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I heard about them through my local bee group. We voted to support the > project with a donation (as did my family). For $30 US they can supply a > family with a hive. We all had a good laugh at the bee group - we wish it > only cost us $30 in equipment and bees to get a hive started here in the > US!! Beekeeping in movable comb hives can be dirt cheap, even in the Second World. Take a gander at Jim Satterfield's page: http://www.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm -- A Beekeeper's Diary: http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/Diary/ Package installation & performance experiments, winter loss, fondant feeding, Pierco vs. Permadent vs. dark comb, unwrapping bees, spring splitting tricks, AFB, varroa, protein patties, daily mumblings, grumblings and more... Thousands served... No waiting. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 08:12:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ben Hanson Subject: Russian Aggression? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm not talking about the cold war. My question of others is if anybody trying the new Russian queens this year has experienced aggressive (okay, defensive) behavior more pronounced than with their other breeds. A friend of mine and I, both in different towns, have tried Russians for the first time this year, along with many others, I'm sure, after each losing previous bees to varroa disease. So far they are quite healthy, productive, clean, and doing well in my back yard. However, my friend called after being stung multiple times with a concern about overly defensive behavior, and this past week when I did an inspection, I noticed what seemed to be a large number of guards bouncing off of my veil, and the following day, as I was talking to a neighbor, a couple of bees came out of the blue, almost 50 feet away and started boucing in our hair. I'm not panicking or anything, but am indeed concerned about overly defensive behavior in a quet residential town where the council can respond rather quickly to residents' concerns over such things with legislation! Any thoughts? Ben Hanson bhanson@freewwweb.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 17:52:33 +0200 Reply-To: apimo@post4.tele.dk Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: VS.: Russian Aggression? In-Reply-To: <20000622141448.YTAR389.fepA.post.tele.dk@SEGATE.SUNET.SE> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology [mailto:BEE-L@LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU]På vegne af Ben Hanson Sendt: 22. juni 2000 14:13 Til: BEE-L@LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU Emne: Russian Aggression? any thoughts? The defence grade or agressivity is genetic bound, and the only way to get around this is to select from less behaviour. As a user of queens, you have to requeen with a queen with less of those genes present. To take care of this the queen breeder have the responsibility. You can do nothing but requeening. best regards Jorn Johanesson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 13:36:11 -0500 Reply-To: boby@lakecountry.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Young Subject: bumblebees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I ran over a bumblebee nest while brush hogging a field for the first time this summer yesterday. I first became aware of the fact when something landed on my right ear. It was so big I thought it was a grasshopper, but before I could brush it off I felt it clamp down and I new I was in trouble. Didn't hurt for a few seconds but in a minute or so it felt like someone was pinching my ear with a pair of pliers! This lasted for at least three hours.Made a sting from one of my honeybees feel like a mosquito. Can bumblebees sting more than once? I could not find a stinger and oddly enough considering the amount of pain, not even an entry point for the stinger. The bee that stung me, and I assume this fact, continued to attack my face after stinging my ear and I was able to fend it off with my hat. It did not appear to be injured and moved rapidly (Looked as big as a sparrow at that point!) A Massey Ferguson tractor in low gear is not the ideal escape vehicle from angry insects! I went back this morning, in my bee suit by the way,and stood near the spot where I assumed the nest to be. I soon located it in the ground and observed the bees for a short while. They appeared to be the yellow and black bumblebee that I have observed on wildflowers and vitex plants lazily gathering nectar and sometimes even snoozing on the flowers. I have even touched them lightly without them taking any notice. Does anyone know whether the venom of the yellow and black bumblebee has an acidic or alkaline based sting so I know what to treat the sting with next time. I am hoping another sting is a remote possibility as I now brush hog in my bee suit. Bob Young Lindale, TX ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 19:18:28 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Moving Eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I presume we're talking about queenright colonies. This would require laying workers alongside a queen. Has this ever been seen? Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 19:01:00 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: J&S Maus Subject: Re: Russian Aggression? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Ben.... I know exactly what you are talking about with the aggression. My experience was not with the Russians but with another pure strain of Carniolans. A fellow I used to work for several years ago raises queens to sell in the spring and also requeens his commercial operation. That year and for 2 years or better afterward he had the nastiest, sassiest bees. They behaved just the way you described.....in your hair for no reason, jumping out at you when opening the hive, etc. This problem is caused from the mixing of bee stocks. Bro. Adam always advised to use Carniolan drones in the first cross if I remember correctly. If Italian drones mate with the first generation Carniolan queens (Russian in this scenario) you have quite a bit of aggression as you are experiencing. Your story will likely be echoed some more before this summer is finished, since the nastiness is not pronounced until the colonies get up to strength. The big thrill is taking honey off with the nasty buggers!!! I would advise either moving them away from town or taking the hit and requeening with nicer tempered stock...... thats the only way to change the nasty temper until the producers breed it out. Jim Maus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 10:19:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." Subject: Russian Aggressiveness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I tried a few Russians this year. Acceptance was poor. I did not try to requeen existing colonies, but rather only used them for nucs. Some were released and started laying a good pattern but were quickly superceded. Others just disappeared and had to be replaced. I had one left and was determined to see this one accepted. I did a few things to ensure the nuc was populated with all young bees. The queen had been banked for awhile. This may have been a factor. If she was being attended to in the bank possibly this may indicate her chance for acceptance would be better. (I arrived at this theory after the fact.) She was accepted. A few weeks later I was checking the colony and noticed they were a bit more defensive than what I consider usual. They were not coming out and stinging but every movement my hands or arms made they would fly up and hit me. I have other colonies that are more aggressive than this one, it is just that this was noticeable. I was going to mention this sooner but one colony does not make a very good representative sample of anything. I checked on them the other day and it seems they were no longer exhibiting the behavior. They did quickly line up between the top bars looking at me but they never flew out for the challenge. I really can't say if they are more aggressive or were just having a bad day. I will say that although they may be promising I don't plan on getting anymore until the acceptance problem is fixed. One unrelated comment. The normal spring honey flow is just about over for my area. Looking at my results and in talking with other beekeepers, it is shaping up to be a poor season. Although we are not having quite as much rain as New York and New England, it seemed to come during peak blooms and has severely limited flying time. Ron Bogansky Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 09:25:16 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: Moving Eggs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Everyone, Now I am sure others have also observed this as well but just because there is an egg in a queen cell does not mean it is a female egg. Laying worker colonies will at times try to raise queens from eggs that are male and will develop into only drones. I have see this several times so it does not appear to be rare. We are making an assumption that eggs seen in queenless colonies or above an excluder have been moved by the bees but they could well be from laying workers and just because they are in queen cells does not mean that they are not drone eggs. blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 10:49:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Blane White Subject: Re: NBALIST: Assumptions Assumptions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us >>> robt_m@TALK.CO.NZ 06/22/00 12:49AM >>> "bryan Clements" wrote: >I was recently in a yard of bees that had tested positive. At the first test >the worst board had 50 mites and every other board had 5 or 6 mites. 50% of >the yard had sticky boards. We visited the yard two weeks later and >inspected 75% of the hives. We used the brood fork and did 6 digs into brood >in each hive. Made a great mess. We looked and looked everywhere and did not >find one mite. There was no drone brood present. >To me it appeared as if the sticky board test was very accurate and that >finding mites in a yard with light infestation was impossible with the eye, >even when digging out brood. Robt Mann consultant ecologist P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand (9) 524 2949 Replied in part: "The simplest hypothesis would be to credit the Apistan with having achieved this, but I don't find this plausible. The complete absence of drone brood is itself interesting. Is there some suggestion that varroa cannot breed with comparable efficiency in worker brood? The insensitivity, more accurately called a high threshold, of the Apistan/sticky board test is beyond dispute, isn't it? Of course, one has to say 'compared with what'. One can imagine a hive that has many adult mites but for some unknown reason has few or no mites in the brood. A colony in that condition will register positive on the strip/board test. But the greater fear has been scoring negative on that test while many mites are breeding up but not yet capable of falling onto the sheet (or of being poisoned by the Apistan) because they're sealed in capped brood. In that condition, the hive will have a high threshold or severe insensitivity on the strip/board test. I have been assuming this latter is the more common situation. Any expert correction?" Hi Robt and others, You are starting to get into the "interesting" aspects of varroa biology. First even 50 mites on a sticky board does not mean there is a very great mite population in the colony. How many bees were in the colonies? How many brood cells were examined? If there were 30,000 adult bees in the colony and you dropped 50 mites that is only a infestation rate of 0.17 % not a high infestation at all. If you opened 50 cells of brood you would likely miss the mites. The rest of the colonies tested about 10 times fewer mites so how likely are you to find mites in a relatively small sample of brood? Many factors interplay to result in the mite drop on this test. One is that at the time when drone rearing stops the number of mites on the adult bees increases markedly and you can get seemingly high test results without high mite populations. Also under these conditions where a larger than expected portion of the mite population is on the adult bees you will get very quick knockdown with apistan. Again 50 mites is not a very high infestation. I have seen literally 1000's of mites on a 24 hour apistan sticky board test from a colony with no visible damage due to the mites. When you treat with apistan or other similar products that are effective a very large portion of the total mite drop occurs in the first few days of treatment. At times this test is rather sensitive but as you cautioned not always. You are correct in assuming that some even many of the yards that tested negative actually have low level infestations of varroa that will become apparent only with time. It also is not unusual to find seemingly great differences in infestation levels from colony to colony in a yard and this is more likely when mite numbers are low as in the case here. There is much we don't understand about varroa and the relationship between the mites and their host honey bees. blane ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 18:29:41 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Hooper Subject: Walnut pollination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am developing a walnut (Chandler variety) plantation on my farm and in the middle of it I have started a small apiary. Walnuts are known as "wind" pollinators, and it is customary to intersperse pollinators of another variety throughout the plantation. I have been unable to find any definitive statement on whether honey bees can have any place in the pollination of walnuts or whether walnut trees provide any pollen or nectar to bees. Any information or reference to relevant research on the matter would be appreciated. ________________________________ Paul Hooper Canberra, Australia . ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 09:43:40 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Walnut pollination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/24/00 4:51:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, phooper@PCUG.ORG.AU writes: > Walnuts are known as "wind" > pollinators, and it is customary to intersperse pollinators of another > variety throughout the plantation. > > I have been unable to find any definitive statement on whether honey bees > can have any place in the pollination of walnuts or whether walnut trees > provide any pollen or nectar to bees. > > Any information or reference to relevant research on the matter would be > appreciated. Paul, No plant can pollinate another plant; pollinators are the agents that carry pollen, such as bees. To pollinate, means to transport pollen from the anthers to the stigma, to acheive fertilization of the ovules. The varieties you plant for pollen sources are pollenizers, not pollinators, and they pollenize other plants. To pollenize, means to supply viable pollen at the appropriate time. It sounds like you've been steered wrong on the basics of pollination, by a nursery that should have known better. In my observations of nut trees (mostly pecans and hickories) I have not seen any evidence that bees aid in pollen transfer. The pollen is very light and fluffy and is produced in large quantities. I suspect that it has little nor no nutritional value, so bees would have no incentive to gather it unless they were desperate. I did a quick look around thru my sources, and find nothing on walnuts. If there were some info that bees were helpful, I think I'd have a reference. The only reference I could find was in McGregor, who noted that walnut pollen is gathered and used for artificial pollination (no mention of bees). You might want to check with one of the pollen vendors, referenced in the web page below. Dave Green The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 23:10:09 +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: Russian Aggression? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit J&S Maus wrote: > This problem is caused from the mixing of bee stocks. > Bro. Adam always advised to use Carniolan drones in the first cross if I > remember correctly. If Italian drones mate with the first generation > Carniolan queens > (Russian in this scenario) you have quite a bit of aggression as you are > experiencing. I have another experience of crossing different bee races. Some years ago I deliberately used Buckfast, Carnica and Ligustica mixed together in an attempt to get maximum hybrid vigour in my stock. Queens of pure stock (controlled mating on small island or similar) from all three races were used to produce queens that were mated with drones from Buckfast (first year) and later with the mix of drones. I did not find any mixture that produced very aggressive bees the first generation. They could be worked without veil sunny days provided a smoker was properly used, and without gloves a rainy day. That said to explain what I mean with non aggressiveness. They were not as quiet as pure stock and some were running around a bit on combs but no problem to handle. >From my (and others) experience the gentleness is mainly depending on the queen. If a queen of gentle stock is used as breeder, the offspring will be reasonably gentle even when mated to drones of non gentle stock. But remember I'm talking about the first generation from controlled mated stock, next generation will bee a totally different story....... -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 19:18:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Hughes Subject: WAx moth treatment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A new beekeeper in our area asked me a question about a wax moth treatment he found in a University of Tennessee Agriculture Extension Service publication titled 'BEEKEEPING IN TENNESSEE', on page 29 it states "Dust weak colonies that are moth infested with one ounce of Bacillus thuringiensis (Certan). Dust lightly over the tops of the frames in the brood chambers." Has any one ever used this and does it work? Bill Hughes The Apiaries of Bill And Joyce Hughes ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 22:10:14 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Pollen selection Hi. Does anyone have any idea on what basis bees choose to collect one pollen rather than another? About a week ago I installed a small colony. Within a few hours they were bringing in pale greenish yelllow pollen that I saw them collecting on ground elder, which grows all around. They are now virtually ignoring this, and bringing loads of bright reddish orange pollen (I don't know the source) to the virtual exclusion of other types. This must be choice, as the ground elder is still flowering abundantly. Would the choice be made on the basis of ease of collection, nutritional content, or what? Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 21:50:38 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: Re: WAx moth treatment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, it does. The exact Bt type is Bacillus thuringiensis var. aizawa. You can purchase a formulation of it manufactured in Europe for use on honey bee equipment from a company I believe is called "Beeworks" in Canada. Is anybody aware of any other beekeeping suppliers selling it for use specifically with bee equipment? You can probably purchase it cheaper from organic pest control suppliers, but they may or may not be able to give you directions for use with bees. The application directions supplied with the product I purchased are 1 part Bt solution to 19 parts water, and make sure all parts of the comb are covered when treating comb for wax moths, as the larva must eat it in order to be affected. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 20:56:42 -0800 Reply-To: Mark Osborne Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark Osborne Subject: Saved Wedding As a novice beekeeper (2nd year) I was faced with a challenge yesterday. My Brother was getting married at one in the afternoon on Saturday In Atherton, Ca (Heart of the Silicon Valley) Being in the wedding party, I got to the house at 10:45 to find the owner and his wife staring in amazement at a cloud of honey bees.... She had called a local beekeeper that told them there was nothing to be done at that time of day, just don't bother them.... well, 200 people and a wedding is hardly "not bothering them". They had clustered on a high (30+ ft) oak tree branch above the back yard. I noticed a small cluster on the ground below it. It was getting bigger by the minute. So, I took my suit coat off, got a box from the owner, baited it with a little honey from the kitchen, and to the amazement of myself, and everyone else there, hived my first swarm! No gloves, veil, nothing.Got a fireplace shovel, found the mound that looked like it had the Queen in it, scooped it in the front opening I cut in the box. All the girls on the ground followed her in in about 20 minutes! I figure between 2-3 pounds of healthy looking Carinolans. Some with full pollen baskets. I moved them away from the middle of the yard about 6 ft at a time, every 20 minutes or so, and by the 1:00 start time, they were in the corner of the yard (behind the playhouse the kids used all day!). There they stayed until dark, when the "beekeeper" came to collect them. I'd have taken them, but I live 4 hrs away and had a car full of family. So reading BEE-L can help in the strangest ways...... Mark ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 22:49:50 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carmenie Stemmler Subject: Wooden Cell Cups Hello folks, Is there anyone out there that uses wooden cell cups to graft into? I recently got some and was wondering how to prepare them so that I can graft the larvae into them. DO they need to be wax coated on the inside? I appreciate any help I can get on this matter!! Also, I have a very strong colony that just lost its queen about 3 days ago... Can I use it to put the grafted queen cells into. Should I leave them there until they are capped...? Or take them and put them into a queenright colony for finishing, making sure the queen is below an excluder? Please advise me what to do... I have lots of bees available, so number of colonies is not really a problem. Thanks, Carm ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 21:33:11 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Richard H. Glassford II" Subject: Systemic insecticide ! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I not only keep a few bee hives but I hybridize plants. I work with daylilies. Great flowers !! Gone are the days of the small yellow daylilies. I use fertilizer that has systemic insecticide in it. Its hard to kill mites and thrips without using these kinds of products. Some of the other plants that my bees visit also get these products. My question is will the insecticide hurt the bees if they visit the flowers and will it get into the honey? Many thanks ! Richard Utah, Zone 5 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 23:04:33 -0500 Reply-To: boby@lakecountry.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Young Subject: powdered sugar, varroa, and garlic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I attended the Texas Beekeeper Association summer meeting in Paris, TX a couple of weeks ago and met a gentleman who claimed to have solved his varroa problems. He said to take 4 pounds of powdered sugar and 6 ounces of garlic powder (not garlic salt) and mix them together. Dust the entire hive with this mixture; I don't recall how much he said to use, I believe it was not the whole batch but just enough to coat the bees. I have not yet tried this but he was very adamant about his success. I know the powdered sugar will dislodge the varroa but I don't know what part the garlic plays. This gentleman was not part of the official program and was an attendee as was myself. I want to pass this info on only FYI. Bob Young Lindale,TX ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 07:06:25 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Systemic insecticide ! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/26/00 3:19:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time, glassman@USWEST.NET writes: > I not only keep a few bee hives but I hybridize plants. I work with > daylilies. Great flowers !! Gone are the days of the small yellow > daylilies. I use fertilizer that has systemic insecticide in it. Its > hard to kill mites and thrips without using these kinds of products. > Some of the other plants that my bees visit also get these products. My > question is will the insecticide hurt the bees if they visit the flowers There have been problems with systemic insecticides getting into nectar and poisoning bees. One I recall is Temek (Temik?) which was poisoning bees in orange groves in Florida. I believe the label was changed to prohibit use during bloom. So, in general, the answer is yes, systemic insecticides can poison bees who ingest contaminated nectar. You don't name your specific pesticide; your mileage may vary. You might run a search at the APIS web site for more specifics, as I recall Dr. Sanford discussing this. You might also seach the Bee List archives. Also check the labels on the products you are using. > and will it get into the honey? The natural cleansing mechanism for insecticides in honey is the death of the bee that processes contaminated nectar. This is not true of contaminated pollen. Dave Green The Pollination Home Page http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 07:24:53 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Russian Queens (was Russian aggression) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I originally wrote this article last Thursday, but inadvertently tacked the entirety of the original post to which I was responding. Ever diligent in their job, the BEE-L moderators did not approve my submission. There has since been a few more submissions about Russian queens which would perhaps have softened my tone, but I am submitting the original, which follows. Ben Hanson asked if others have noticed that colonies headed by a Russian queen seem to be more aggressive than other colonies. Personally I cannot say, I have not had colonies headed by a Russian queen long enough for the colony to be totally of the queen's descent. I heard Dr. H.R. Shimanuki speak of the Russian queen breeding program and he asserted that some of the queens were culled from the program due to aggression. He did not imply the Russians exhibited a preponderance towards aggression, just that the queens that DID show aggressive traits were culled from the program. This is (or should be) routine in any breeding program; cull the undesirable traits (in this case aggression). So I would wonder how many queens are being evaluated to arrive at an assessment of "aggressive". If it's a single queen, you may just have a bad apple and an assessment that ALL Russians are aggressive is not valid. The correct assessment would be, "My Russian queen reared an aggressive colony". Ben mentioned his neighbor feels his Russian colony is aggressive. Again, how many colonies are being evaluated? Are the queen or queens from the same breeder? Are there any (other) common threads? To date, my personal experiences with Russian queens has been poor acceptance, some have been drone layers, others have lead to supercede cells which were cut out in preference for introducing queens of proven (in my area) stock (New World Carniolan). Some have been poor performers which I also replaced with NWCs. Only four have shown at least acceptable levels of performance, only 2 have me excited. This is from a sample set of 13, which is pretty small to draw statistically valid conclusions. Given my experiences I also wonder if Ben's queen or queens are still the Russian queen or queens he originally received from the breeder. In my sample case, due to the propensity to supersede, odds are that any colony originally having a Russian queen is no longer headed by the original queen and would be of unknown lineage had I not intervened and introduced a known queen. One can only be sure of these issues if queens are marked. I would like other members of this list to expand on this discussion of Russian queens. Again, my sample set is small. I originally ordered 30 queens for an April 15 delivery. My breeder was only able to supply a dozen, and not until late May. Of these only 4 are still being evaluated. It's been very disappointing so far. I'm hoping the remaining 4 show me something impressive to justify the expense and set backs in my evaluations. I recall an article in ABJ stating the Russians will be good for comb production as they make nice white cappings. All Russians I put into comb production failed miserably. I'm out the queen, I'm out a replacement queen and I'm out any hope of comb harvest for that hive. Quite an expensive trial evaluation. When I posted earlier this year that I was unable to get Russian queens, others offered sources where they were able to get some. How have these performed? What are other's overall experience? Ben asked about aggression (only one response so far). What about other traits? Acceptance? Brood patterns? Any shining stars? I suppose it's too early to evaluate honey production, at least in these parts, but perhaps not so elsewhere. Please folks, share your experiences! Aaron Morris - thinking someone's (lots) are holdin' out! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 15:45:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: James Ralston Subject: Re: bumblebees In-Reply-To: <200006221833.OAA28772@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 22 Jun 2000, Bob Young asked: > Can bumblebees sting more than once? I could not find a stinger and > oddly enough considering the amount of pain, not even an entry point > for the stinger. The bee that stung me, and I assume this fact, > continued to attack my face after stinging my ear and I was able to > fend it off with my hat. It did not appear to be injured and moved > rapidly (Looked as big as a sparrow at that point!) AFAIK, bumblebees have smooth stings, and can sting multiple times. > They appeared to be the yellow and black bumblebee that I have > observed on wildflowers and vitex plants lazily gathering nectar and > sometimes even snoozing on the flowers. I have even touched them > lightly without them taking any notice. Agreed; my experience with bumblebees in the field is that they're very docile. When I was growing up, my grandparents had a rhododendron planted along the side of their house. It occupied approximately the area of a sphere 10 feet in diameter. When it bloomed in the spring, it had hundreds of bumblebees on it. I would go around to the side of the house and watch them, usually standing only a few feet away. The bumblebees paid not the slightest attention to me. > Does anyone know whether the venom of the yellow and black bumblebee > has an acidic or alkaline based sting so I know what to treat the > sting with next time. No idea, sorry... James Ralston, southwestern PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 08:33:36 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carmenie Stemmler Subject: Cage Candy Hello, Can anyone give me instructions on how to make queen cage candy? I have some queens I need to introduce to some colonies, and lack the candy for the one end of the cage. Any other suggestions, such as which type of queen inroduction cage to use would be appreciated! The colonies that are to be requeened have been queenless longer than 3 days. Thanks, Carm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 08:15:34 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Russian Aggressiveness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" This message was originally submitted by toobock@EARTHLINK.NET to the BEE-L list at LISTSERV.ALBANY.EDU. It was edited to remove quotes of previously posted material. ----------------- Original message (ID=F121E07C) (86 lines) ------------------- Reply-To: toobock@earthlink.net X-Mailer: EarthLink MailBox 5.01.9 (Windows) From: "Donna Freeman" To: "Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology" Subject: RE: Russian Aggressiveness Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2000 8:50:13 -0400 Hi, I too started two hives with Russian Queens, they were package bees, this being my first year. One Russian queen is doing fine. build up was slow, but the are not hard to work and have not found them aggressive in any way. The other hive had to be requeened, she was laying spotty and too many drone, The new queen was started in a nuc and then put in the hive. I would like for you to email me with update on your Russian bees if you have the time. I have two other hives, one is Italian and one is the ARS Y-C-1 or Yugo. The Italian built up very fast and the queen is great, the Yugo hive is still small, but very easy for me to work. Thanks Donna --- Donna Freeman --- toobock@earthlink.net --- EarthLink: It's your Internet. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:06:40 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: glbarbor@JUNO.COM Subject: Re: Cage Candy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Carm, I use marshmellows. Jerry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:20:45 -0400 Reply-To: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andreas_Sch=FCck?= Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Andreas_Sch=FCck?= Organization: Colmenares Suizos Subject: Re: Cage Candy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Carmenie, we use to make the candy mixing honey with iced sugar till it gets hard enough and resistant to the heat. Other queen rearer may use corn sirup instead of honey to avoid the pollution from the candy with AFB spores, nosema, etc. But the use of honey and iced sugar does the job well. The amount to be mixed should be determined by yourself. The best queen cages for us are the wooden one, that with the three holes in the center and two on the edges. The JzBz cages are far more handy, but the problem is that the queen can't hide themself from agresive bees and most sure, she will get bite, usually on the legs, and will be superseded later because of that. The wooden cages are more dificult to introduce in the hive, but the results in queen acceptance are far better. Last tip: before introduce the new queen, you should wait at last one week, then look for queen cells, destroy all of them toroughly, introduce the cage and then wait again, at last, for a week before checking for their acceptance. Best regards, Andreas Schück c.suizos@surfree.cl http://www.geocities.com/colsuizos ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:35:48 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CAIR Subject: Mentor in N. Virginia for beginning beekeeper and sons? In-Reply-To: <200006260230.WAA21623@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hello I am looking for someone in the Northern Virginia area (Manassa, Gainesville, Haymarket) to mentor myself and my small sons about beekeeping. We have one hive and would be willing to help a beekeeper on occasion in return for mentoring. Ibrahim ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 11:38:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Contaminated pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Green said "The natural cleansing mechanism for insecticides in honey is the death of the bee that processes contaminated nectar. This is not true of contaminated pollen." Dave Green contributes a great deal of his time and knowledge to this list, and his thoughts are of significant benefit to beekeepers. That said, I personally am convinced by the arguments of those who maintain that much the same "natural cleansing mechanism" exists for pollen as for honey. In other words, if contaminated pollen is collected the hive will perish before the contamination reaches a level dangerous to humans. The argument goes something like this: 1. Some insecticides act upon contact, and if pollen is contaminated with these insecticides they will kill bees before they return to the hive. 2. Other insecticides are formulated to only kill after ingestion, so contaminated pollen carried in pollen baskets will not kill bees. However, when this pollen is mixed with nectar/honey to make "bee bread" for larvae, it kills the bees and, if fed, kills the larvae as well. I understand that this accounts for the large kills from Sevin, resulting in piles of bees outside the hives, and also for the devastating larvae and bee kills from pollen contaminated with Penncap-M. In either of the two instances, the hive will be quickly de-populated and incapable of collecting pollen. Obviously, if the pollen contamination will not kill bees on contact it may result in some amount of contaminated pollen in the pollen trap, before the hive is decimated and no longer collecting pollen. This pollen may be eaten by humans. I wonder how such amounts may compare with insecticide contamination humans consume along with vegetable and fruit consumption? I am told that the FDA, and possibly other organizations, regularly sample commercial honey for contaminates. My understanding is that trace amounts of fluvalinate are found in most such samples, but at levels far below those established as maximums. As we all know that honey to be extracted is frequently from cells also containing pollen, it would seem that if pollen is contaminated the extracted honey would also contain some small levels. Apparently those levels are either not measurable or are also far below maximum tolerance levels. I am not the author of the above arguments, but they make sense to me. It seems to me that if one argues that pollen may be contaminated, that one must also acknowledge that honey extracted from hives collecting contaminated pollen must also be contaminated. If we don't have to worry about one (extracting and consuming honey), why should we worry about the other? Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 12:18:34 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Contaminated pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/26/00 8:39:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time, LloydSpear@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes: > I > personally am convinced by the arguments of those who maintain that much the > same "natural cleansing mechanism" exists for pollen as for honey. In other > words, if contaminated pollen is collected the hive will perish before the > contamination reaches a level dangerous to humans. This depends on the level of processing, Lloyd. I personally know of a beekeeper who nearly killed himself with contaminated pollen collected from his own pollen traps. He used a lot larger quantity of this than most folks ever would, because, as he began to feel sick, he increased his consumption of pollen. By the time the reason for his illness was identified, he was in the hospital, in very serious condition. This pollen had no processing, as it was simply caught in the pollen trap. I am in a high pesticide use area (cotton, tobacco, veggies, mosquitoes) and I have been reluctant to sell pollen because of the liability situation. Another example is that of using frames with pollen from winter deadouts, and seeing vigorous young queens immediately take on a spotty brood pattern. This is why I have asserted that more of our winter losses are pesticide related than most of us realize. Bees can cover contaminated pollen with uncontaminated, only to uncover it in winter, when they are much more vulnerable. I wish that lab testing for pesticides weren't so darned expensive, and I would work on identifying this myself. Like you, Lloyd, I am not worried about the minute quantities of pollen that get into raw honey. Honey is tested frequently enough to show this up, if it is a problem. Pesticide contamination does not have to be at the level of the death of the entire hive to be of concern for us. My original reference was to that of individual bees who die from internal poisoning from the contamination of nectar, thus that contamination is not contributed to the total production of honey. I can't see where you have proposed any mechanism for pollen that would be in the same order of magnitude. Depending on the mechanism of the particular pesticide, loss of field force or loss of brood/young bees is far more common than outright pesticide kills of bees. Sometimes there is little visible evidence of pesticide poisoning, except that the bees get savage, as with Sevin. Having worked with orchards in the past I've done a lot of spraying in my time. Pesticides are very pervasive. Many times I've been in full gear, (suit and mask) and still the bitter taste appears in my mouth, letting me know that the pesticide is getting into my body somehow. The question, like with the bees, is at what level does this become an important concern for us? And I can't answer that question with much precision. Dave Green The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 12:28:14 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: Contaminated pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/26/00 11:39:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time, LloydSpear@EMAIL.MSN.COM writes: > As we all know that honey to be extracted is > frequently from cells also containing pollen, it would seem that if pollen > is contaminated the extracted honey would also contain some small levels. > Apparently those levels are either not measurable or are also far below > maximum tolerance levels. Would this compare significantly to residues on the crop the pesticide was initially applied to? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 17:44:56 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Moving Eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Brenchley asks if anyone has ever seen laying workers in a queenright colony. I have this weekend. A week ago I was puzzled by drone cappings in a colony with a young marked queen. They seemed happy enough and I had lots to do so I made a note to look again when I had more time, which was yesterday. Marked queen was still there. I saw eggs but many of them were not fixed to the base of the cells in the usual manner but were either offset or on the wall of the cell. I shook nearly all the bees off a few yards away and swapped positions of the hive with a queenright nuc that needed reinforcing. I shall go back in a few days and see whether or not this has helped. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 18:17:39 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: tomas mozer Subject: "the good, the bad, and the ugly" part 2 Comments: cc: gwh_nfl@hotmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit more of the beesnews from usa media outlets... the good: "Working Busily to Reverse the Honeybee's Decline" http://washingtonpost.com:80/wp-dyn/print/asection/A59594-2000Jun25.html the "bad": "Thousands of bees swarm to SUV" http://www.pioneerplanet.com:80/seven-days/4/news/docs/035582.htm the ugly: "Swarm of Bees Attacks Hikers in Joshua Tree Park" http://www.latimes.com:80/news/state/20000626/t000060468.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 16:08:27 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Comments: SoVerNet Verification (on pike.sover.net) lindena from arc3a105.bf.sover.net [209.198.115.106] 209.198.115.106 Mon, 26 Jun 2000 16:12:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Frederic Andros Subject: NH/VT July 22 beekeeping workshop, super hive, pollen production MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="x-user-defined" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit BEE-L, I hope your bees are doing well! After a lull of about a week, the honey flow is back in SW NH, and it’s staghorn sumac! Scale hives gained about 5# yesterday. Pollen production has continued at a high rate and I now have 218.9# in the freezer after 1 month of collecting from 40 colonies! Multiflora rose bloom is slacking off and soon sumac pollen will dominate. So sumac is really a special plant, in that it produces both pollen and nectar in quantity! I often get 5 gallons (31#) a day from 40 traps on sumac, just the pollen! I have a super hive! It has 2 queens occupying 3 deeps, and a medium and 7 shallows for the honey! I checked yesterday and the bees are already putting nectar in the top super that I put on a week ago! Those supers under it are heavy and they are capping honey. The step ladder is necessary now! I would estimate that this 2-queen colony has over 100,000 bees! I have two other hives in the Harlow Farm location with 7 shallows. All of these overwintered with two queens. My next workshop at the Harlow Farm is less than a month away, so I thought I’d send you a notice. Hope to see you there! On the flow, Charles F. Andros Linden Apiaries since 1973 Former NH/VT Apiary Inspector '78-’89 1 McLean Road POB 165 Walpole, NH 03608-0165 603-756-9056 lindena@sover.net Residence: Latitude: 43° 05’ North, Longitude: 72° 21’ 15" West, Elevation 1200’1 Keeper of 43 two-queen colonies for honey, pollen, propolis, beauty products, pollination, nuclei, beeswax, candles, apitherapy, and education “Learn, experiment, innovate, educate!” "Tracheal and Varroa mites are notorious killers of bees in New England. American Foulbrood disease is on the increase as dead hives are being robbed. Beekeepers must take timely steps to control these pests to SAVE THE BEES! Charles Andros, former NH/VT Apiary Inspector, will hold a beekeeping workshop from 1-3 PM on Saturday, July 22, at the Paul Harlow Farm on Route 5 in North Westminster, VT, 1/2 mile north of the I-91 Exit 5 ramp. Look for the "BEE" sign on the west side. The topics of discussion will be taking off and extracting honey, wax processing, treatment of mites and foulbrood, and making propolis tincture. Bring a veil, if you have one, as we shall be opening some colonies. Rain date: July 23. To register by email: lindena@sover.net or call 603-756-9056." "Charles Andros, former NH/VT Apiary Inspector, will hold a beekeeping workshop from 1-3 PM on Saturday, September 30, at the Paul Harlow Farm on Route 5 in North Westminster, VT, 1/2 mile north of the I-91 Exit 5 ramp. Look for the "BEE" sign on the west side. Topics of discussion will include treatment of nosema and tracheal mites, winter preparations, winter protein and carbohydrate supplements, and making beeswax handcreams. Bring a veil, if you have one, as we shall be opening some colonies. Rain date: October 1. To register by email: lindena@sover.net or call 603-756-9056." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 20:35:42 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: Re: Pollen selection MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Brenchley asks > Does anyone have any idea on what basis bees choose to collect one pollen > rather than another? I am not sure that anyone knows the answer to this. To demonstrate, when I was trapping pollen several years ago, I had about 30 hives with pollen traps on them. I would collect the pollen once a week. The hives would average about 2 kilos a hive in the good times. Top individaul weight was 4.5 kilos in a week. What I did notice when collecting the pollen was that most traps had similiar looking pollen in them when judged on colour. However, there would always be one or two hives that looked different due to the colour of the pollen in the traps. If we assume that the colour indicates a different type of pollen, then most hives seemed to be going for the same type of pollen in the same proportions but some were different. Why? The hives were on the same site but some hives were collecting pollen in different proportions. Why was one pollen more attractive to bees in one hive compared to bees in the hive next door? We are told that bees collect pollen with the highest protein value but why do they collect pollen from plants such as sunflower which recent studies in Australia showed the crude protein value at 13% well below the 20% often quoted as the minimum requirement for bees. Is there a competition factor here? Are some bees forced onto other pollen sources because they are being outcompeted on the common source? The plot thickens. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 20:43:56 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: Re: Moving eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chris Slade wrote > Robert Brenchley asks if anyone has ever seen laying workers in a queenright > colony. I have this weekend. A week ago I was puzzled by drone cappings in > a colony with a young marked queen. They seemed happy enough and I had lots > to do so I made a note to look again when I had more time, which was > yesterday. Marked queen was still there. I saw eggs but many of them were > not fixed to the base of the cells in the usual manner but were either offset > or on the wall of the cell. I wonder if the situation Chris has seen is actually a laying worker. I have seen many queens that after a time start to lay eggs in these positions that we attribute to laying workers. I actually had a young breeder queen once that started multiple egg laying and these were deposited on the side of the cells. Being curious, I grafted the eggs and these turned out to be queens so they were certainly fertilsed eggs. As for drones in amongst the workers, this is the common situation of a failing queen. Just because the queen is young doesn't necessarily mean that she cannot start failing. She may not have been properly mated and her sperm reserves are running out. She may have some deficiency where she fails to fertilise some eggs as they are laid. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 00:40:08 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Vivian Donahue Subject: Bumblebees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Its my understanding that like our honeybees, bumblebees while extremely easygoing in the field, are very aggressive in defending their hive. A friend had a hive settle in his beeyard in some empty hive bodies he had behind his shed, and the first time he went back there to get some equipment, they sent him flying out of there in no uncertain terms. He had to poison them to reclaim his equipment. In a program on bumblebees on one of the nature channels a year or two ago, one of the things I learned was that most bumblebees are fertile, although only the mother queen is mated. This would explain why they can sting multiple times. Vivian > > They appeared to be the yellow and black bumblebee that I have >> observed on wildflowers and vitex plants lazily gathering nectar and >> sometimes even snoozing on the flowers. I have even touched them > > lightly without them taking any notice. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 08:28:33 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim McGarry Subject: woodenb cell cups Wooden cell cups are great to use in grafting queens. They give you a nice base to grab on to when putting your cells out into mating nucs and can be reused over and over. You also need however either some wax cell cups or molded plastic cups in which to graft young larvae. If you go with the plastic cups, allow the bees to polish them and deposit a "scent" on them before you graft. (I would suggest leaving the plastic cups with the bees for at least 12 - 24 hours). This step is usually not necessary if you use the wax cell cups. goos luch and enjoy. Tim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 00:38:25 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: Russian Queens (was Russian aggression) Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >From: Aaron Morris >To date, my personal experiences with Russian queens has been poor >acceptance, some have been drone layers, others have lead to supercede cells >which were cut out in preference for introducing queens of proven (in my >area) stock (New World Carniolan). >I recall an article in ABJ stating the Russians will be good for comb >production as they make nice white cappings. All Russians I put into comb >production failed miserably. I'm out the queen, I'm out a replacement queen >and I'm out any hope of comb harvest for that hive. Quite an expensive >trial evaluation. Hi Aaron - It's truly sad to see so many people having such poor acceptance with their Russian queens/stock. Your report fits so well with what others are experiencing. As I was thinking through this particular problem beekeepers are having, I couldn't help but focus on the background of the stock itself. As some of you know, I have been posting on my site a lot of historical background information and research done on cell size and it's relationship to the bee, much of which was compiled by the Lusby's from their own investigations on the same subject. This spring, I decided to take a couple of swarms and follow their steps in regressing the bees back down in size to their historically natural size of 4.9 cell size, as opposed to the 5.4 cell size that all my bees are currently on. When I first hived these swarms, I put them on frames that had a 1 inch starter strip of 4.9mm foundation. After they had drawn out 2 deeps worth of comb, I measured the cell size to see what they had built. It turned out that most of the worker/pollen cells were 5.2mm and the drone/honey cells were from 6.0 to 7.0mm. On their own, with the help of the starter strip, they regressed 2mm. At this time, a month after hiving, I moved the hive a few feet and in it's place put a deep chamber with frames that had full foundation of 4.9 size and shook all the bees and queen into this new hive. Three weeks have passed and I now have this hive in 2 deeps with fairly uniform cells of 4.9mm. They managed to regress another 3mm. By the end of this summer, I will have culled out any non-uniform comb and they will be totally regressed to 4.9mm. I say all this because I know first hand that one cannot take bees that have been on 5.4 or bigger cells and put them in a hive with 4.9mm foundation or comb and expect them to adjust to this size change over night. It won't work. It takes weeks of working the stock down and getting them to adjust to a new size. Now if we stop and think about the Russian stock, we need to look at what size of cell they are on in there native land first, find out what size of cell they are put on when they arrive here in the States, and last, what size of cell you are introducing them on. It works the same in reverse, to size up. I have to believe that an underlying problem people are having with this bee can be attributed to cell size. If you take a look at the thermal/cell size zone map at: http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/therm_map.htm you will see that the native size that the Russian stock comes from is 4.9 mm - 5.1 mm cell size. As far as I know, these bees are being worked on small cell size here in the States prior to them being sold to breeders and to you. My guess is you are putting them in a hive that has at least a 5.4mm cell size. Now we have a queen on comb that knows your worker cells as drone size cells and starts laying drones or she can't make the size transition well so she is superceded. For this stock to live up to its known "resistance" to varroa, its native cell size cannot be ignored? Just read what has been done to the bee size over the years and tell me it has no bearing. ......is bigger always better? Perhaps in this case we are seeing where the two (small bees - large comb) are not very harmonious. Food for thought. -Barry -- Webmeister www.BeeSource.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:05:55 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Contaminated pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Green added to the discussion by saying "Another example is that of using frames with pollen from winter deadouts, and seeing vigorous young queens immediately take on a spotty brood pattern. This is why I have asserted that more of our winter losses are pesticide related than most of us realize. Bees can cover contaminated pollen with uncontaminated, only to uncover it in winter, when they are much more vulnerable." I have always wondered why there is not more discussion and articles about bees or larvae dying as a result of feeding contaminated pollen from dead hives. Whether from winter losses or hives that die during the summer, it is only logical that some hives die from pollen contamination. Yet I can't remember seeing any university-type research or studies on the subject. While I have seen many articles cautioning to not use frames from AFB or even EFB-infected hives, I have not seen similar cautions concerning hives that perish from no known reason...meaning they might have contaminated pollen. Beekeepers who maintain "a hive will never collect any appreciable amount of contaminated pollen (before dying)", would say there are no such warnings because unsafe levels of contaminated pollen have not been found in frames of dead hives. Is that the case, or has no one looked? I dunno. Like Dave, I know of a beekeeper who daily consumed a tablespoon of pollen on his cereal, and became very sick. His doctor suggested he stop taking the pollen, and he promptly got better! His doctor thought his illness was most likely an allergic reaction, the beekeeper thinks it was most likely because the pollen was contaminated. Yet, he says he is unaware of any decline or losses from hives used for trapping. Who knows? BeeCrofter wonders about the residual pesticide levels on pollen compared with, say, such levels on apples or spinach. Again, who knows? I sell trapped pollen (as well as pollen traps). One customer who purchases well over 100 pounds a year says he only wants spring pollen from maple through wild cherry bloom as he figures those blooms are over well before pesticide use starts. In this climate he is probably right. I have another who wants only goldenrod and aster pollen as it is extremely attractive and "is never sprayed". I have pointed out to him that farmers are still spraying cole crops (cabbage, brussel sprouts, etc.) but he apparently isn't worried about any drift. Personally, I don't trap pollen during June-August as corn pollen really messes up the traps. I also avoid the bulk of pesticide use. I generously feed pollen patties to nucs. While I have certainly had the occasional nuc fail, I have never had whole groups of nucs fail, which should have happened if I had fed contaminated pollen. As the bee tolerance level of pesticides is far lower than that for humans, perhaps feeding pollen to nucs and observing the results is an inexpensive (and inexact) method of determining whether any contamination levels are acceptable. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner, Ross Rounds, Inc. The finest in comb honey production. www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:35:23 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Pehling Subject: Re: Bumblebees In-Reply-To: <200006271235.IAA28510@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, Vivian Donahue wrote: > Its my understanding that like our honeybees, bumblebees while > extremely easygoing in the field, are very aggressive in defending > their hive. A friend had a hive settle in his beeyard in some empty ======================= Remember, also, that we are dealing with multiple species. Here in Washington State alone we have about seven species that are commonly found. These separate species vary quite a bit as to colony size and aggressiveness. Cheers, Dave Pehling Extension Analyst ============================================ | W.S.U. COOPERATIVE EXTENSION-SNOHOMISH CO. | | 600 128TH ST. S.E. | | EVERETT, WA. 98208 U.S.A. | | PHONE - (425)338-2400 | | FAX - (425)338-3994 | | EMAIL pehling@wsu.edu | ============================================ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 15:00:25 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: FYI Gardeners and Sevin: posted to garden forums MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Time to put away the Sevin dust Many gardeners use Sevin dust to control garden pests. But what they may not realize is that they cannot *legally* use this product (or any residual insecticide) on a blooming plant that is attracting bees. Many bee-attractive garden plants are coming into bloom across the northern parts of the US right now. Here are the directions from the Sevin label: <> Note that the label directions say that the material has residual action as well as by direct contact with bees. The residues from Sevin will eventually break down, but not for several days. If nectar and pollen are contaminated, bees will die. Dust is especially dangerous to bees because, the bee cannot separate it from pollen. The pollen and the dust are attracted to the bee because of static electricity, and are mixed together, raked into the bees' pollen baskets, and carried home to feed the babies. Violations of the label directions can lead to citations, fines, and liability for your neighbor's bees. Admittedly, citations for gardener violations are rare, but the chances increase if your beekeeper neighbor notices a bee kill, and calls the pesticide inspector to investigate. The most important reason to adhere to the law, is the plain stupidity of killing our pollinators -- biting the hand that feeds us. You need your beekeeper neighbor, as well. Does this mean that insecticides cannot be used to control pests? NO! It means you must use them intelligently. Look at the label directions before you purchase an insecticide. The bee directions are always under "Environmental Hazards" because our pollinators are an environmental resource. If your garden is blooming, choose one that is NOT residual and apply it after the bees are done for the day. Residual pesticides should only be used on non-blooming plants (or plants that bees NEVER visit). Dave Green, SC USA The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 12:40:03 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Cherubini Subject: Re: FYI Gardeners and Sevin: posted to garden forums MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David L. Green wrote: > Here are the directions from the Sevin label: > Do not apply this product or allow it to drift to > blooming crops or weeds if bees are visiting the treatment area.>> "Blooming crops or weeds" are not garden plants. Are you reading from a crop use label of Sevin or a home garden use label (it sounds like the former) The interpretation of label statements is not always a black and white affair. Before making blanket statements about what is legal or illegal, the responsible thing to to do is get several legal interpretations from county, state and federal pesticide regulators. Paul Cherubini ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 22:44:04 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: Contaminated pollen MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit BeeCrofter@AOL.COM wrote: > Would this compare significantly to residues on the crop the pesticide was > initially applied to? I believe that the crop, being exposed to the environment and often washed before packing and often washed before consumption, is much less hazardous than the contaminated pollen and honey we are talking about here. Subsequent to micro encapsulated products' arrival in South Africa, we have shunned pollen cropping altogether. The main reason why this substance is so extremely harmful to bees is because of it's micro encapsulation. The active ingredient methyl parathion is an extremely toxic substance, both to humans and to bees. The nylon capsule only disintegrates with exposure to light and air (or when being bitten by a bee one would imagine), releasing the venom. Our bees collect the stuff in good faith - not succumbing to the poison - store it in the cell, cover it with more of the same, more from other sources and then some nectar. Months down the line, these cells start being used, with fatal results - not just for the youngsters mixing the bee bread, but also for those cleaning up the dead and the dead and the dead ... Getting m-p or any other poison into collected pollen and selling this as a health food does not only open you up for liability suites ... it is also morally unjustifiable. The expense of testing will probably have to be paid by ourselves if we have bees in hazardous areas. Robert Post ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 22:46:33 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: WAx moth treatment MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > "Dust > weak colonies that are moth infested with one ounce of Bacillus > thuringiensis (Certan). Dust lightly over the tops of the frames in the > brood chambers." Has any one ever used this and does it work? Bill, a product containing Bt (aizawa strain) was "created" by the chemical companies and is a liquid containing millions of viable spores. The liquid is diluted with water and sprayed on the combs. Especially those in storage. We have been using it for about a decade. It is expensive, but has excellent results. See John Mitchells post as well. he is on about the same product we use. We believe that EPA did not allow registration in the US due to not all the tests having been passed. I am not sure what strain lives in certan, but believe the strains to be very specific as regards their target moth. Bt is a bacillus found everywhere. It lives in soil. It should therefore be free. Robert Post ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 20:53:55 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Russian Queens (was Russian aggression) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Barry, Why not introduce a Russian Queen to a group of bees WITH NO FOUNDATION OR DRAWN COMB and see what size natural comb is made? The Russian bee is Carniolan stock, I was told by Baton Rouge people. As you know, I switched from Italians to Carniolans 52 years ago (1948), and being a scientist, I feel that I know Carniolans rather well. The Carniolan is not as easy to introduce as other races, particularly in those cases with less than ideal conditions. This is one of the reasons that I only introduce a new queen to nurse bees only and never in the presence of forager age bees. I am surely not questioning your thinking regarding cell size; but my guess about difficult introduction would be involved with genetics and bee behavior of the race rather than cell size. Just my 2¢ worth. George ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 19:53:46 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: CAGE CANDY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I tried using fondant instead of queen cage candy recently. When I checked a week after introduction the bees still hadn't released the queen although they were attemptig to. I released her manually and she appeared to be accepted. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 19:39:08 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Judy Bagnall Subject: Vinegar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable SPEEDY BEE advertised a machine that uses vinegar to kill mites. Honey = Processors, LTD of Altonna Ia. is the maker of the machine. Will it = work? Bee Happy Paul Bagnall Gibsonia, Pa. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 18:24:38 -0700 Reply-To: beekeeper82@yahoo.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carm Subject: Re: woodenb cell cups MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi Tim, Thanks for the reply... I have a couple questions though yet... You said, 'You also need however either some wax cell cups or molded plastic cups in which to graft young larvae.' Do these go into the wood cells? Or what do I do with them? THanks, Carm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 21:57:16 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jean-Francois Lariviere Subject: New Study Suggests Honey May Increase Recuperation Comments: To: ibra@cardiff.ac.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Another great market to target - the health club population. jfl - NYC New Study Suggests Honey May Increase Recuperation After Workouts Natural Sweetener May Be an Ideal Complement to Protein Supplements ORLANDO, Fla., June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- A research study presented today at the annual National Strength and Conditioning Association meeting suggests that combining honey with a protein supplement may boost post-workout recuperation and favor better blood sugar maintenance after exercise. Protein supplements are widely used to increase one's intake of dietary protein, which increases among individuals engaged in intense activities such as weight training, running, step aerobics and many competitive sports. Previous studies have shown that a combination of carbohydrates with a protein supplement can boost muscle energy recuperation and may favor better response to training. "We were pleased to find that powdered honey promoted favorable changes in post-exercise markers of metabolism equal to that of the current standard, maltodextrin," says Dr. Richard Kreider, lead investigator of the study and Director of the Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory at the University of Memphis. "We also found that the group receiving honey as the carbohydrate source did not display the typical drop in blood sugar 60 minutes after taking the other forms of carbohydrates. These findings support our previous study on honey." The current study involved a group of 39 weight trained athletes both male and female. Subjects underwent an intensive weight lifting workout and then immediately consumed a protein supplement blended with either sugar, maltodextrin or honey as the carbohydrate source. Only the honey group maintained optimal blood sugar levels throughout the two hours following the workout. Additionally, subjects taking honey showed favorable changes in a hormone ratio that indicates a positive muscle recuperative state. "Our data suggest that honey functions well in all of the aspects associated with post-workout recuperation and energy repletion. In addition, honey appears to stand out as perhaps a better source of carbohydrate to ingest with post-workout protein supplements. These findings support our previous study presented at the annual Experimental Biology meeting in April," added Dr. Kreider. "In addition to promoting muscle recuperation and glycogen [carbohydrates stored in muscle] restoration, honey-protein combinations also seem well suited to sustain favorable blood sugar concentrations after training." This study is the second of a series of studies funded by the National Honey Board at the University of Memphis Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory. Located in Longmont, CO, the National Honey Board is a non-profit organization that develops research and consumer information programs to increase the demand for honey. The study was done in collaboration with IMAGINutrition, a nutritional research and technology think tank located in Aptos, CA. SOURCE National Honey Board CO: National Honey Board, IMAGINutrition ST: Florida, Colorado IN: FOD HEA SU: 06/22/2000 12:47 EDT http://www.prnewswire.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 08:52:15 BST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: andy sutherland Organization: Email Service Subject: Bumblebees In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I have been asked to remove many Bumble bee hives over the past few years and have done so without any aggression shown by the bees ( Until it was decided to make it illegal for beekeepers to remove Bumble bees in UK ). The hives are only between 40 - 150 in size and never once have I ever been attacked by them when removing a hive. As for Bumble bees stinging many times, I have never heard of this as Vivian Donahue suggested, and any more information on this would be appreciated. Just a question for all UK beekeepers, Is it still the case that we cannot remove Bumble bee nests as they are an endangered insect? I have had to turn down removing over 30 in the past 2 years due to the fact that I could be fined for doing it, but the counsel can come along and put powder down to kill them!!! Thanks Andy Sutherland Oldham & DIstrict Beekeepers Association Andy Sutherland E-Mail:- Andy.Sutherland@man.ac.uk Manchester University Tel:- 0161 275 4641 Electronics Section Fax:- 0161 275 4598 Chemistry Dept M13 9PL ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:48:39 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: crpost Subject: Re: Moving Eggs MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Robert Benchley wrote: > I presume we're talking about queenright colonies. This would require > laying workers alongside a queen. Has this ever been seen? We are not only talking queen right here, but also queen less. A.m. capensis colonies often go into laying worker (producing worker brood) mode in the absence of a queen. If they do, then they are extremely difficult to requeen, because the laying workers act as psuedo-queens. I'm not sure about direct observation. What has been noted is that colonies have contained brood way in excess of what a queen could possibly produce during that time. The only answer seems that laying workers work alongside their queen. Robert Post ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 07:06:46 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "john f. mesinger" Subject: Re: CAGE CANDY In-Reply-To: <200006280146.VAA19350@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" When conditions are right - queenless two days or more and forrager bees absent- I have used a mix of crisco and suger [regular Tmite treatment] and the bees release their queens in 24 hours. John F. Mesinger jfm6f@unix.mail.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 08:07:28 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Bumblebees Hi. What's the procedure for removing bumblebees? I've no experience of this, but they cause occasional problems round here, stopping people cutting weeds, etc., and I'd rather move a colony illegally than see it killed. Regards, Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 15:17:35 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Lear, Eddie(ENL)" Subject: Re: Moving Eggs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Robert Benchley wrote: > I presume we're talking about queenright colonies. This would require > laying workers alongside a queen. Has this ever been seen? Robert Post responded: We are not only talking queen right here, but also queen less. A.m. capensis colonies often go into laying worker (producing worker brood) mode in the absence of a queen. If they do, then they are extremely difficult to requeen, because the laying workers act as psuedo-queens. I'm not sure about direct observation. What has been noted is that colonies have contained brood way in excess of what a queen could possibly produce during that time. The only answer seems that laying workers work alongside their queen. I would like to add: In A.m. scutelata areas of South Africa where we have experienced invasion of A.m. capensis, I have seen the pseudo-queen laying in the presence of a queen, but the queen was no longer being attended to. She just ran around the comb as if she was lost. In case its not known, the latest info. on the "Cape Bee invasion" is the result of a single rouge cloning herself over and over again and not hybridised. It would be interesting to find out; when the Cape beekeepers experience this same problem if its the same A.m. capensis clone as that which has been found in the north. Eddy Lear ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 17:34:50 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: CAGE CANDY MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Chris et al ----- Original Message ----- From: Subject: Re: CAGE CANDY > I tried using fondant instead of queen cage candy recently. > > Chris Slade I have stopped using candy...I can buy a bag of small marshmallows (15mm dia about 15mm long) £0.65 at my local supermarket. There are hundreds in a bag and providing they do not dry out they will last a season. Best Regards Dave Cushman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:35:10 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kevin Roberts Subject: Re: Moving Eggs Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit ---------- ... just because they are in queen cells does >not mean that they are not drone eggs. > >blane > This seems to be correct. I raise queens in central California, and frequently see drone brood above the excluder in laying worker and occasional failing hives. Laying workers will lay eggs in queen cups and will produce elongate misshapen sealed queen cells. I suspect the additional day or two of feeding required by drone larvae results in the over-extended cells. The over-long queen cells resemble the ones that bees continue to build when the larvae fall away from the royal jelly in the top of the cell and lodge at the mouth. Sometimes they are two inches long and 5/16 inches in diameter. Kevin Roberts ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 20:36:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lucinda Sewell Subject: Re: Bumblebees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well I'm afraid I'm a criminal...albeit unwittingly. I removed a Bumblebee colony from the floor of a shed by lifting the panels and scooping out the rather fibrous and interwoven cells themselves. I placed them in a bucket to relocate them on a farm (Happy farmer!) I suited up after being attacked fairly aggressively and stung on the arm. Smoke didn't seem to help, nor did the bees cluster. I caught most by hand and put them in the bucket. I have just received a call about bumble bees via the police swarm line...I'll look into this legality issue and report back. Has anyone ever tried sueing people for promulgating ridiculous laws? John Sewell. -a---- Original Message ----- From: Robert Brenchley To: Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 8:07 AM Subject: Bumblebees > Hi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 21:12:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: Russian Queens (was Russian aggression) In-Reply-To: <200006280136.VAA19073@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hello George - > Why not introduce a Russian Queen to a group of bees WITH NO FOUNDATION OR > DRAWN COMB and see what size natural comb is made? All this would prove is the propensity in comb size the worker bees have that the Russian queen was joined with. I believe the queen does not regulate the size of the comb or workers, but the other way around. The size of the bees in a colony are regulated by the size of the workers which regulates the size of the queen and drones. The worker bees are the comb builders in which the queen has to lay in. > The Russian bee is Carniolan stock, I was told by Baton Rouge people. As you This does not line up with the information I've been told. I've heard the Russian bees are a small hybrid Caucasian bee. The Russian bees are said to be totally removed from the Italian and Carnolian bees, genetically, which are out of the alps, north of Italy. The Carnolian bees are closer relatives to Italian. Neither come close to the Caucasian Russian bees which is how these are classified, and they are small. Since most beekeepers are introducing them into our popular varieties they are having trouble, which in the Midwest where I live, is Italian and Carnolian. They say there is no problem introducing them into Caucasian type stocks here in the U.S., but few beekeepers like small black bees as you know. Bill Gafford of Bolling Bee is doing a good business right now with his Caucasian stock, helping out beekeepers who bought the Russian stock, to give them compatibility. I don't know if the beekeeping public has been aware of this solution. > difficult introduction would be involved with genetics and bee behavior of > the race > rather than cell size. I don't disagree that genetics and behavior play a part. I do believe though that size does factor into the equation and maybe to a greater extent than one might think. Perhaps someone from ARS could add to this? Regards, Barry -- Webmeister www.BeeSource.com