From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 07:38:22 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on industrial X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-83.1 required=2.4 tests=ADVANCE_FEE_1,ADVANCE_FEE_2, AWL,MAILTO_TO_SPAM_ADDR,SPF_HELO_PASS,USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=disabled version=3.1.8 X-Original-To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Delivered-To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Received: from listserv.albany.edu (unknown [169.226.1.24]) by metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6971B48FAB for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:40 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n1SCLoXL010061 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:28:39 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0210E" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Message-ID: Content-Length: 56229 Lines: 1195 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 07:25:30 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: FWIW: Re: thickness of the hive wall MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Murray McGregor Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping Subject: Re: thickness of the hive wall Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 08:56:22 +0100 >His position is: A hive built from thin wood >is as good as a hive built from styropor. >Bees in a "cold" wood hive have a steeper >development in spring and you can earn as much honey >as from "warm hive bees". I run hundreds each way, and I can assure you this is not in keeping with my experience (in Scotland). If I could afford it at this time I would convert the lot over to the polystyrene and have a big fire of the wooden ones. The wintering performance is vastly better, with losses far lower, and spring strength much better. This is comparing like with like too, as we have both wooden and polystyrene Langstroth hives. The honey production point is a little less obvious until you really do the sums. The spring growth of the wooden hives does indeed seem to be faster, with an earlier start to breeding, but suddenly the polystyrene ones get going and overtake the wooden ones. In 2002 we had a really good wintering in the polystyrene ones, but pretty modest in the wooden. Losses were a pretty high 18% in the wooden ones, but only 4% in the polystyrene. The strength of the wooden ones was on average about three bars of bees less. The wooden ones were not of adequate bee power to work the rape, and indeed were still being boosted between colonies right up until late June. The polystyrenes were ready to go right from the first flowering of the rape. (This proved an academic issue here this year as there was virtually no crop anyway due to poor weather) The polystyrene ones mostly gave a split in May, which refilled many of the wooden ones, plus an increase in numbers on the polys. These were back to splitting strength again in late June and needed further attention to prevent swarming. About 30% of them were split again at this time. Their recovery rate from splitting is tremendous, and very few of them went on to the heather below production strength. We are still extracting, and thus far we find the polystyrenes running at around 29Kg of heather each, and the woodens at around 23Kg. Not seemingly a big difference, but if you take into account the fact that around 20% of the woodens are actually splits from the polystyrenes, and that the polystyrenes themselves gave further increase, and draw a line back to last autumn, then every wooden hive put down to last winter went on to average 18Kg of heather, whilst those in polystyrene account for 37Kg. Slightly more than double. Previous measures in 1999 and 2000 gave similar results, whilst 1998 was even more remarkable insofar as the parent polystyrenes (this was only a small experimental unit at this time) alone averaged double that of the wooden hives, plus they gave an average of two splits each whose crops were not even added in to their average. 2001 went somewhat against the trend as there was a severe dearth of nectar on the heather, and the increased brood rearing in the polys caused increased stores consumption and the bees then needed fed earlier than those in wood. In the end they all got a bit, but crop (after deduction of summer feeding) was only slightly (10%) higher in the polys. Much of the early season effort in these hives appears to be devoted to brood rearing and colony development, and spring crop can be surprisingly poor. No worse than wooden hives for sure, but less than you would expect. I do not keep apiary by apiary statistics for blossom honey, but there is always less on the polystyrenes than you would expect. Summer harvests such as phacelia and spring rape do show them up well though, with them filling deep supers quickly as well as putting on a lot of 'condition' for the heather crop to come. Bro. Adam was operating in a different climate from ourselves, however there are also some merits in his statements. US boxes are markedly thinner than their British equivalent, so much so that you can struggle get 10 US frames into a British box, yet there is apparently no difference in the wintering or summer performance of these. About 30% of our wooden Langstroths will be on US boxes and they perform exactly the same as the thicker UK ones. -- Murray McGregor ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 16:26:11 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: William Lord Subject: bulk honey shipments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Can someone tell me the capacity of half and full size shipping = containers (or semi-trucks) in terms of barrels of honey and overall = weight? Are weight limitations a function of restrictions on highway = weight regulations or capacity of the shipping container? thanks, Bill Lord ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 11:57:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: MARK'S QUESTIONS ON WINTERING MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >...better yet, do not wrap at all. COLD DOES NOT HURT BEES. Moisture and lack of food hurts and kills bees. They can stand periods of 3-4 months of severe cold without any wrapping at all... Not to take issue too much with Lloyd's otherwise good advice, I'd like to say that this statement -- "COLD DOES NOT HURT BEES" -- may be true where he lives, and may be true in the Vancouver area, but it is untrue in many regions, and believing it has caused many, many beekeepers to come to grief. Cold DOES kill bees. Take a few and put them in a freezer. They'll be dead when you take them out an hour later. Granted, a strong cluster of bees on sufficient feed can 'stand 3-4 months of severe cold', BUT, in many areas, winter can last longer. Moreover, cold -- particularly if accompanied by extreme dryness and wind -- is a stressor. In many regions, by moderating that stress with appropriate wrapping, a beekeeper can ensure better survival and much r colony condition at the end of winter, particularly if the cluster is small and conditions less than ideal. Towards spring, the protection wrapping can provide will make a huge difference in survival and buildup. In the case of weak colonies and nucs, wrapping or indoor wintering can mean the difference between life and death for the bees. This has been proven enough times in enough places to be considered a fact. Murray's latest post to sci.ag.bee reproduced here also shows how insulation can make a difference in production. Nonetheless, there are places and circumstances where wrapping may not be beneficial or even counterproductive. I agree with Lloyd that Vancouver B.C. is likley one of those regions. allen http://www.internode.net/honeybee/diary/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 08:57:19 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Nick Wallingford Subject: Re: Maryland (USA) Hearings on Live Bee Imports Oct 29th MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > The bad news is that the prospective live-bee exporters at hand happen > to live fairly near to Tropiaelaps and the Cape Bee, and > want to sell live bees to anyone who will pay in US dollars. Geography might not be your strong point... Though it might look like only an inch or two on your map, the water between New Zealand tropilaelaps is wide and deep. Contrary to some of the beliefs expressed in the list, the NZ bee industry is not collapsing following the introduction of varroa. North Island areas are for the most part into the second, third (and possibly fourth) seasons of the incursion, long enough to give the capable beekeepers the initial experience they needed to learn to develop effective management systems. South Island is still free of varroa entirely. The feeling here is that if the US could get varroa and the bee industry managed to keep going, we aren't too worried (heh, heh...). Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 15:57:01 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Arne Haugaard Subject: Re: Varroa Control with Copper Gluconat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello All, I´m doing tests myself now, I´ve used Copper Gluconate in the second apiinvert winter feeding 27 Kg, inverted sugar solution and 9 grams of Copper Gluconat. I´ve done Varroa Mite count for 4 hives during this autum from the date 06-09-2002 to 10-10-2002. The count is from 231 mites to 321 mites pr. hive for this period, numbers dropping rapidly as the last Brood is out. You be your own judge of these numbers, the interesting part will be to se if I have bees next autum .... As to the residue issue, look at your vitamin and mineral tablets, recomended daily amount of copper pr. human being is 2 mg(in Denmark). I´m testing my honey next year and it´ll be interesting to se how much the copper residue has increased, remember that copper is already in the honey, low values - but it´s already there. Issues regarding resistance problems with pesticides/antibiotics contra Copper treatments - we´ll time will tell. Best regards Arne Haugaard(Danish beekeeper) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 13:03:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: LLOYDSPEAR Subject: Bees hurt by cold? As always, Allen Dick's comments on the effects of cold on bees were accurate and worthwhile. Nonetheless, Allen and I approach this subject from very different perspectives. As a personal goal of mine is to get beekeepers to open up their hives with ventilation (winter and summer), I think it is worthwhile to provide a word or two on the difference in perspectives, and why I think (despite Allen's worthwhile experience and thoughts) that beekeepers should adopt the position that 'cold does not hurt bees'. Our perspectives are different because: 1. Allen is in very cold Alberta, Canada, where the winds blow hard all winter. I am near Albany, New York. Here the winters are much colder than most of the US, but not nearly as cold as in Alberta or in Northern Maine (we are colder than southern Maine), Minnesota, or similar places. While we have a fair degree of cold (often enduring a week or more of nightly temperatures of -10 degrees F), and think our westerly winds are bad, we do not nearly have the near-prairie conditions that lead to the kind of winds that Allen gets. 2. I am trying to give advice to the thousands of beekeepers who keep fewer than 25 or so hives and think it is best to speak to 'normal' conditions (whatever those are) rather than the extreme cold conditions faced by a few. >From studies by Mark Winston (now at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada) we know that once bees form a cluster they 'stay put' and do not, as once thought, rotate so that the bees on the outside (where it is very cold) move to the center (where it is 90 degrees F) and bees in the center move to the outside. The only warmth the bees on the outside of the cluster get is that provided by those on the inside...sometimes for several months at a stretch. Marla Spivak at the University of Minnesota, and others, have used probes to measure the interior of beehives, as well as the temperature of clusters. In the dead of winter, they found conditions where bees were surviving with an interior cluster temperature of 90 degrees, an exterior cluster temperature of 50 degrees, and a temperature of -30 degrees just 4 inches from the cluster! Moreover, the bees survived as strong clusters until spring. This is why I make the generalization that 'cold does not hurt bees'. Without exception, every year literally dozens of beekeepers tell me their bees died during the winter, despite ample honey stores and appropriate and timely mite treatments. They want to know why and how to prevent similar deaths in the future. After I have asked all the questions to eliminate disease and lack of honey stores as possibilities, I ask 'when you opened the hive in the spring, what did the interior look like?' By then, I pretty much know the reply I will get 'there was a black soggy mess, mold or fungus was everywhere'. Yuck! Then we go through the drill, with me telling them to open up their hives, particularly with top entrances and them telling me that they are afraid to do so 'because the draft (or cold) will kill their bees'. I have been through this so many times that if I were more intelligent I'd avoid the discussion. But I patiently explain to them that a by-product of the bees maintaining a 90 degree temperature in the center of the cluster is that air is heated. Warm air will gain moisture as it rises upward in the hive. If it hits the top of the hive, where it is cold, that moisture will precipitate (as cold air will not hold as much moisture as warm air), literally causing 'cold rain' to fall onto the bees below. Dry and cold the bees can handle, wet and cold they cannot handle. They die, mold and fungus can survive just fine in 50 degree temperatures, and they feed on the carcasses...yuck! So, if your conditions are at all like those in Alberta, Northern Maine, Minnesota, etc., protect your bees from cold...and still provide a means for the warm moisture-laden air to escape the hive. If your conditions are more like Chicago, Boston, Kansas City, Detroit, or Albany, NY, don't worry about the cold, and be generous about upper ventilation. Hope I can help, Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner of Ross Rounds, manufacturer of comb honey equipment for beekeepers and Sundance pollen traps. http://www.rossrounds.com Lloyd@rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 13:40:40 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: Bees hurt by cold? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Everyone, Lloyd wrote in part: "But I patiently explain to them that a by-product of the bees maintaining a 90 degree temperature in the center of the cluster is that air is heated. Warm air will gain moisture as it rises upward in the hive. If it hits the top of the hive, where it is cold, that moisture will precipitate (as cold air will not hold as much moisture as warm air), literally causing 'cold rain' to fall onto the bees below. Dry and cold the bees can handle, wet and cold they cannot handle." Lloyd there is another way to prevent the condensation that drips down on cluster namely insulating the top of the hive. I know a beekeeper here in MN who wraps his bees but makes sure that the top of the hive in insulated and there is an upper entrance between the two broodboxes. He wrapped hives one year in many different ways and opened them up every week all winter long. When it got cold he observed hoarfrost forming around the upper entrances at the top and spreading across the top and down the sides of the hive. The longer the cold went on the worse it got. Hives with the upper entrance between the broodboxes and with the top insulated did not have any frost form inside the top of the hive. I have wintered colonies here unwrapped with an upper entrance at the top of the hive and they usually do fine but have switched to an entrance between the boxes and insulation on top of the inner cover. This might actually be better for early spring than for the coldest part of winter as the insulation helps the cluster remain looser and larger so more honey stores are covered. So provide an upper entrance like Lloyd and most beekeepers advise but I suggest it should be between the boxes instead of at the top of the hive. My observation is the main benefit of the upper entrance is to allow cleansing flights when there is a shorter break in the cold weather than a colony without an upper entrance can take advantage of. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 08:53:08 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Nick Wallingford Subject: FW: Maryland (USA) Hearings on Live Bee Imports Oct 29th MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" With all due respect, Australia and New Zealand (I'll presume to speak for both, though some might say there are a few differences :)) are simply asking for the same sort of market access that the US expects and generally receives from us. The issue is restrictions on trade based on matters other than sanitary and phyto-sanitary, restricting trade because of non-technical reasons. Down here, we regularly hear of the US's respect and regard for free trade, trade that is not manipulated or managed by unfair subsidies, dumping, protectionism and the like. On the basis of that, we are expected (by both our government and the US) to accept things such as the grapes that Trevor referred to. If there is a disgruntled aspect here, it would be that the exporters of those grapes have continually failed quarantine requirements, with the result that we have on a number of occasions had to use our own biosecurity facilities to stop such things as (to us) exotic spiders, etc. In spite of this *technical* reason for now refusing the grapes, or imposing higher standards of expected behaviour by the exporters involved, we are expected to bear the demonstrated and significant risk involved... Me? I'm a reluctant supporter of many of the concepts of free trade, given the US's intransigent and bullying behaviours. I'm a supporter because we are being obliged to play by those rules that have been to a great extent imposed/supported by the US. I'm a supporter as long as we all play by those rules. I'm kind of tired of being told we have to accept US goods under these rules while being put into 30 year loops by the US while they 'consider' the issues we have raised regarding our own possibilities for export. Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 16:20:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Karen Oland Subject: Re: FW: Maryland (USA) Hearings on Live Bee Imports Oct 29th In-Reply-To: <02Oct31.085817nzdt.119066@gateway.boppoly.ac.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Although both are export products, the issues on grapes versus live bees are quite different. In theory, you can simply gas (or otherwise treat) the grapes and kill all the pests (although that apparently is not done very well). Doing the same to live bees would not result in a sellable product. Live bees are not even comparable to sending live plants your way (again, you could, in theory, treat the plant in such a way to kill any pests on it, remove the soil and bleach to kill pathogens, etc, and still have some plants arrive ok). Sending livestock or other live animals, however, is a more risky proposition. That is why almost every country has stringent quarantine requirements for such importations (for example, hooved animals in the EU or ask the CDC where the current West Nile Virus "epidemic" came from -- carried by birds, spread by mosquitoes and native to the middle east region, has spread nationwide in just over a year in the US). Perhaps if you were willing to quarantine queen imports for six months for observation and pest removal (which would probably require massive doses of some chemical that would damage egg-laying), prior to the bees being delivered to the customer? > -----Original Message----- > From: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu [mailto:BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu]On > > On the basis of that, we are expected (by both > our government and the US) to accept things such as the grapes that Trevor > referred to. If there is a disgruntled aspect here, it would be that the > exporters of those grapes have continually failed quarantine requirements, > with the result that we have on a number of occasions had to use our own > biosecurity facilities to stop such things as (to us) exotic spiders, etc. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 17:12:27 -0500 Reply-To: "jfischer@supercollider.com" Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: FW: Maryland (USA) Hearings on Live Bee Imports Oct 29th MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nick said: > With all due respect, Australia and New Zealand (I'll presume to speak for > both, though some might say there are a few differences :)) are simply > asking for the same sort of market access that the US expects and generally > receives from us. But live animals? Like Bees? What live animals can ANYONE ship to NZ? Are any of them are accepted with zero inspection, based solely on the word of the shipper that they are "disease free"? That's what is being proposed for bees in the cases at hand. Blind trust. Live animals. No port-of-entry inspection possible. None even considered as "statistical samples". Can any beekeeper on the list, or any bee inspector offer any possible support of such an approach? > The issue is restrictions on trade based on matters other than > sanitary and phyto-sanitary, restricting trade because of > non-technical reasons. Well, here's the problem. The US appears to not really have a "biosecurity policy". We need one, or we need a better thought-out one than what we have. My suggestion is to adopt a mix of Europe's approach and... >>New Zealand's<< approach. Elegant, huh? Your own rules on imports are applied to you for your exports. One must admit that New Zealand has quite a good policy. Sounds fair to me! In their own words, New Zealand: "?will incorporate a level of precaution in its import risk analyses to account for uncertainty. What constitutes sufficient scientific evidence will need to be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the degree of uncertainty and the severity of potential harm. Where biosecurity risk management measures are adopted in situations where there is not sufficient scientific evidence necessary for a comprehensive analysis of risks, MAF Biosecurity Authority will take appropriate steps to seek the additional information necessary for a more objective assessment of risk and review the measure accordingly within a reasonable period of time." http://www.maf.govt.nz/biosecurity/pests-diseases/risk-policy.htm#2.5 I want the US to adopt EXACTLY New Zealand's posture, and learn from their well-thought out and conservative approach. Except for the part about "sufficient scientific evidence", because that's just plain silly. I also like Europe's "Precautionary Principle", and think everyone should adopt it as the de-facto standard interpretation of the overall WTO guidelines. http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2000/com2000_0001en01.pdf > Down here, we regularly hear of the US's respect and regard for free trade, > trade that is not manipulated or managed by unfair subsidies, dumping, > protectionism and the like. I would not expect any beekeeper to listen to any such posturing hot air. From anyone. We all want hard facts, not chest-pounding. We should also abandon politics and national pride (except for when the Olympics are on, or the World Cup is on.) > On the basis of that, we are expected (by both our government and the US) > to accept things such as the grapes that Trevor referred to. Your OWN government? Sounds like you need to speak up. I don't ever expect to be subjected to insults or criticism by someone for what I say and do in an attempt to influence my own country's policies, and I would never make the same mistake about your actions. Why not just organize a consumer boycott so that anyone who tries to import grapes from the US gets stuck with several metric tons of rotting grapes he can't sell? Do that once or twice, and "WTO rules" won't matter, 'cause no one will ORDER any. > Me? I'm a reluctant supporter of many of the concepts of free trade, I'm not sure that "bio-sanitary standards" can work for live animals. Steel, yes. Plastics, yes. Maybe veggies. But live animals? Hard to fumigate a live animal shipment. They die. > given the US's intransigent and bullying behaviours. I'm a supporter because > we are being obliged to play by those rules that have been to a great extent > imposed/supported by the US. I'll ignore the unfortunate choice of adjectives, but I'm not sure that free trade really ever works, since no matter what, someone, somewhere is going to try to use "biosecurity" as leverage to achieve a blatantly protectionist and anti-competitive agenda. Flags don't matter to these types, they are just greedy. So the problem is greedy people who want to manipulate their own government to either sell, or block competition. It may wrap itself up in "science", and "WTO rules", but under it all, I see only naked greed. > I'm a supporter as long as we all play by those rules. > I'm kind of tired of being told we have to accept US goods > under these rules while being put into 30 year loops by the US while they > 'consider' the issues we have raised regarding our own possibilities for export. Well, I don't know the whole history, but it sounds like that for 30 years, you have been trying to sell bees to someone who has no need or use for them, and sees no "reward" to justify the "risk". jim ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:20:31 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: polystyrene vs wood hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, Murray wrote: > If I could afford it at this time I would convert the lot over to the > polystyrene and have a big fire of the wooden ones. We are not fans of the polystyrene hive in the U.S. except for hobby beekeepers on permanent locations. They simply do not work in migratory beekeeping as they will not stack. We use four hives to the skid and stack four skids high. Many sideliners have found out the hard way when they try to sell their beehives that the migratory beekeeper will simply not pay money for telescoping covers, inner covers and bottom boards. We do not buy what we do not use. If the sideliner had his equipment in polystyrene hives all he has which *might* interest me is the 20 frames of bees. I probably would not be interested if I had to come up with wooden shells to put his bees in. If you put you hives on skids other than industry standards those most likely will not be bought. When making skids *always* make to industry standards (approx. 33 in. wide). Width is more important than depth as about all larger trucks will accept 4 foot skids. . Bottom planks in the right place so skids will stack on migratory tops is very important. Put the first bottom plank in the same position as a grocery skid and I would have to empty the skid and knock off the plank and reinstall so would fit a migratory cover for stacking. Hauling skids of bees with telescoping slick covers from coast to coast is a disaster waiting to happen when stacked four skids high as many a new migratory beekeeper has found out. I give friendly advice so you can get the most out of your operation when the only possible buyer might be the local commercial migratory beekeeper. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 04:07:36 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Scott Jeffreys Subject: Imported Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, For what it's worth, I for one would llike to buy inseminated queens out of Mexico where they have been utilizing the proven disease and pest resistance of the AHB for years and enjoying all the savings of getting off the chemical treadmill. Here in California we have a new geographic race that flew in on its own from Mexico, and yet we can't buy the selected commercial performer and save several years of American trial and error. I would bet a couple of beekeepers in Texas and Arizona are already making some chemical free honey. Sustainable agriculture is a good thing. Even I would like to eat some of that! Scott Jeffreys Scott's Bee Rock Honey Los Osos,CA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 12:07:41 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mats Andersson Subject: Re: FWIW: Re: thickness of the hive wall In-Reply-To: <003401c27e8d$ded9cf20$62ae73d1@allen> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Murray McGregor wrote about his bees in Scotland and the difference between plastic and wooden boxes... And i'd like to ask him: what race are these bees? Are they Buckfast? Do you have experiences from several races and if yes - do your statements cover all those regarding spring buildup in different hive types? Between what dates will Dandelions typically be in bloom over there? Just trying to compare your early season to ours (Stockholm, Sweden), where Dandelion bloom often begins early May 1:st and ends by the beginning of June. /Mats Andersson, Stockholm Sweden ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 10:00:06 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Feelings Of Insecurity about Bee Biosecurity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Trevor Weatherhead said: > Might live nearer to Tropilaelaps but we have managed to keep it and Varroa > destructor and tracheal mites and small hive beetle out of our country "Keeping out" pests might be a valid way to look at the integrity of one's bio-security programs. But another perfectly valid explanation could be that it is simply chance, rather than skill. To illustrate the difference, my grandfather told me long ago the parable of the man that marched through town, banging a pan with a spoon. When asked why he was doing this, he explained that this was to keep the tigers away from town. When it was mentioned that no one had ever seen a tiger in the entire country, except in zoos, he said "Then it is working very well, isn't it?" ...and continued to bang the pan. Which is a cute story, but not as useful as metrics. A much better indicator would be to openly list metrics. What bee pests have been detected and halted at which ports of entry on what dates, and from where? (Transparency, we call it.) Here's some transparency for example... look what just appeared on the ABC Australia website: http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s716008.htm "Thursday, October 31, 2002. Posted: 18:30:15 (AEDT) An exotic beetle has been discovered in Australia which has the potential to destroy the local honey production industry. The first small hive beetles have been detected at two beekeeping sites at Richmond, west of Sydney by New South Wales Agriculture. The destructive beetles are native to southern Africa and have recently established themselves in North America. They eat their way through hives and foul the remaining honey producting material. CSIRO entomologist Dr Denis Anderson says agriculture authorities are on high alert to prevent the beetle from spreading. "If the incursion can't be reversed and the beetle is here to stay then beekeepers will have to radically change the way they manage colonies," he said." Not exactly a confidence builder, given all the muscle-flexing and bragging that has gone on about "bio-security" to date. ... sorry, but you'll have to remove "Small Hive Beetle" from your list of things you kept out. Don't feel bad, nothing is perfect, no system is foolproof, and I hope you call up your air force and ask them to drop some napalm on those apiaries TODAY, 'cause that seems to be the only method not yet attempted in the fight against small hive beetle. As both Australia and New Zealand are both isolated by large bodies of water and are not major trans-shipment points for the entire planet, this simplifies things greatly for both, and good for them. But many of the ships that dock and planes that land are from areas where very nasty bee threats live. That scares us silly. Wait till varroa get going in New Zealand, and count the survivors to understand our fears. Don't count hives, count surviving beekeepers. > through our quarantine systems. > We must be doing something right. Yes, you clearly ARE doing something right. You have a quarantine system. You aren't about to abandon it. We'd like to keep ours too, please. We've had it for bees since 1922, and while it needs much improvement, it is all we have right now. The changes demanded by a handful of NZ and Australian bee breeders would require the US to abandon any/all controls, and allow imported live animals (bees) that simply cannot be inspected at all until they are well into an apiary, perhaps in the hands of a 10-year-old child starting his first hive. So we are asked to turn the responsibility for all pest and disease control and inspection for these imported live animals (the USDA does this for everything else), over to the same handful of bee breeders, for-profit companies whose primary motive is money, not disease control. This would be similar to turning USDA meat inspection for McDonald's over to... ...ummm.... McDonalds. No, not just similar, but EXACTLY the same. But we are expected to "trust" them. And whoever else wants to sell bees, it would seem. We are ordered to do so by the representatives of this handful of commercial firms, who pretend to represent entire countries, rather than just a few firms in this matter. We are not used to being ordered about. Certainly not by folks who can't even hum a tune by the Ramones upon demand. We like to build consensus, talk things over, find common ground. We are not accustomed to being expected to trust people who have done nothing to earn that trust, and have not even thought to write even one document that might support the constant claims of superior bio-security capability, like one entitled: "How We Plan To Protect Your Bio-Security" or "Our Bees Are WORTH The Extra International Airfreight Charges" or "Here's What You Can Do About Pests Other Than Osama Bin Laden" or "Bio-Security Does Not Mean Mutually Assured Destruction" Now, we are trusting folks... like trusting everyone to play fair, kick the ball rather than the other player, not keep secrets, not fly airplanes into office buildings before anyone has had a chance to even have coffee, and be honest. But we do not have attention-deficit disorder, so we hesitate to trust just anyone. For example, back in August, we learned that the "Contaminated Chinese Honey" appeared in the US, and it tried to come here more than once, with a number of entertainingly different sets of paperwork claiming that it was a product of different countries on different occasions. (I think they were tripped up by one customs inspector's habit of putting a chalk mark on each barrel as he counted them. That will teach 'em a lesson - WASH those drums, inside and out!) Now, nothing against Australia as a country, and no hard feelings against anyone but ONE Australian for-profit company, but the hard facts are that one Australian company was served with a search warrant in connection with these matters, and was apparently involved in a scheme to not only evade the anti-dumping provisions placed upon China, but worse yet, to ship the US honey that was known to be contaminated with massive amounts of an unusual antibiotic, and had already been banned nearly everywhere. Not a good basis for trust in Australian companies in the bee business, is it? ...and we are not sure that we even understand what the USDA proposes. Nor are we sure that the USDA itself really understands what it proposes. So, on Oct 29th, we asked for some time to at least better understand the proposed regulations actually mean. We asked for an "extension to the comment period". (We also asked questions for several hours straight, aimed at trying to simply understand the main points of the document. It was a hard slog through turgid text.) Both the Australian and the New Zealand trade representatives were present, but in their defense, they both likely had much more interesting things to do than to devote much time or thought to a low-volume, low-price, low-revenue, low-tech export issue like "Honeybee Queens and Packages". And they both made the same serious and massive strategic error. They stood up and opposed any such extension in very shrill tones, and then walked out of the hearing in a huff. No dialogue, no perspective on their view of what the mechanics of the import process would be, not even a hint that they might be able to explain anything. Just bluster. (An error I hope that someone will realize will do nothing but galvanize "opposition" to any country who declares itself unwilling to even tolerate some informed discussion. We call countries that play those games "rouge nations". Not as bad as "axis of evil", but not good.) ...even though there were only two beekeepers who came to the hearing, ...and even though only two dozen or so comments had been received, out of a population of least 120,000 beekeepers in the US ...both clear and compelling evidence that US beekeepers had not been adequately informed by the USDA. Yes, I said TWO. Me and one other fellow. In a several hundred seat auditorium. Alone. Maybe it was the pouring three-day-long rainstorm. Maybe it was the total lack of publicity from USDA. Maybe it was the fact that a dozen random people had been shot by a "sniper" around the Washington DC area over the past few weeks. Maybe we were the only two foolish enough to come anyway. Maybe after the "Bee Labs" fight, everyone was sick of trying to work with a USDA that can't even remember to put some money in the budget for the fine group of scientists who make actual progress with whatever scraps and cast-offs they can scrounge up on the shoestring budget they THOUGHT they had. But the USDA appears to have had plenty of money to try and design what appears to be the first-ever "no inspection-required" international system of live animal delivery, direct from the opposite side of the planet to the beekeeper. (Even Fed-X can't do that!) But no money or time to tell anyone about what they were doing, it seems. Anyway, the USDA and the (now sadly, I must say) "rouge nations" say that the comment period ends on November 18th, before we can get an article printed in the bee journals to explain what it all meant (assuming that anyone could figure out what it all meant) and suggest that beekeepers express their views to the USDA, one way or the other And this is an indicator of how important this is. With two phone calls to explain the situation, I got BOTH bee journals to agree to run the SAME article at the SAME time - something that has never happened before. They also both did a "stop press" to let me go to the hearing and find out what it all meant. Recall that they would be the only US interests that might profit from a few more queen breeders appearing. They could sell ad space, which is how magazines make money. But they don't care about the money, they care about being able to continue to publish a magazine at all, which would be difficult if "the next varroa" (whatever it might be) came over and wiped out the few beekeepers still plugging away after varroa mite, tracheal mite, EFB, PMS, and the rest of the alphabet soup of exotic pests and diseases wiped out about half our beekeepers in a decade. So, the obvious question is - what don't the Australian and New Zealand trade representatives want US beekeepers to know? What don't they want us to find out? Where's the deep dark secret that can't stand the light of day? Why do they want to rush this, and shove this down our throats before we even know what it means, when enlightened self-interest would suggest that they sit down and spend a little time (gasp!) trying to EXPLAIN it. This does not build trust. This does not build confidence. It makes a reasonable man suspicious. Very, very, suspicious. And I am a very reasonable man. The basic problem is that the announcement was "published" in the "Federal Register" back in August. "Publication" of such "announcements" apparently consists of printing it out, and then sticking in a filing cabinet in the unlighted sub-basement of an abandoned Woolworth's department store somewhere near DuPont Circle in Washington DC, open for public access only on the third Thursday of the month between 1:30 pm and 4:00 pm. At that time, US beekeepers were just a little busy with a few other minor issues: a) All but a few of the entire team of USDA scientists that focus on bee issues had been defunded in the 2003 USDA budget, and we were trying to get Congress to restore the funding. b) The "Chinese Honey Contamination" issues mentioned above came up c) We also had the minor problem of massive swings in the honey market mostly due to loss of the aforementioned contaminated honey from the market. Prices went over $1 a pound, and kept climbing. d) There was an ongoing debate about "producers" and "packer-importers" and how many of each should be on the Honey Board, the group that promotes "Honey". (No, not "US Honey" or even "Clover Honey" or "Sourwood Honey". Just "Honey" is all they ever promote. That bunch.) e) ...and there were a few other minor things going on, like our harvest... f) It was also time for both the Eastern and the Western Apicultural Society meetings. Funny how no one from USDA mentioned any of this to the assembled groups at either national meeting, even though I know that EAS was addressed by four of the top research people from USDA. I guess they did not know about any of this either. But while Australia's and New Zealand's shills for their bee breeders don't want US beekeepers to even get a chance to loosely translate several pounds of dense and obtuse government documents into plain English, let alone offer comments, New Zealand DOES want to make sure that their beekeepers send in LOTS comments, and they want to ghost-write them for the beekeepers. "Never mind understanding anything, just say exactly what we tell you to." seems to be their approach to their own beekeepers: http://www.nba.org.nz/latest/30-10-02-hawiian-meeting.PDF And Dr. Helen Beban, "National Adviser on International Animal Trade for MAF Biosecurity" is doing the cheerleading for the New Zealand team, eh? Well, that does not exactly build trust either, does it? It forces a reasonable man to wonder... ...wonder if "MAF Biosecurity" is an impartial group of scientists who deal in hard facts, or nothing but a marketing and PR department dressed up in white lab coats. So where do I put all the pages with the "MAF Biosecurity" logo at the top of the page? Are these Science, or propaganda? And where do I put all the Australian paperwork? What goes under "fact", and what goes under "wishful thinking"? I wonder what the USDA files them under... Maybe they file them all under "Blind Faith". If anyone wants to comment: The e-mail address is regulations@aphis.usda.gov The subject MUST be "Docket No. 98-109-1" Include your name and postal address to show that you are a US Citizen. Consider asking to extend the comment period on live bee imports until Jan 31, 2003 so that we all have time to figure this out, and maybe even help the USDA fix it. And if anyone has any of this stuff figured out, send me a note. jim ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 12:58:09 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mark Hubbard Subject: Re: Bees hurt by cold MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Llyod said: "If your conditions are more like Chicago, Boston, Kansas City, Detroit, or Albany, NY, don't worry about the cold, and be generous about upper ventilation." And then Blane added: "So provide an upper entrance like Lloyd and most beekeepers advise but I suggest it should be between the boxes instead of at the top of the hive." What would be the best way to provide this ventilation between brood boxes? A drilled hole? Some other way? Curious as I head into my first winter with bees, Mark H ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 05:20:43 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: Re: Feelings of Insecurity about Bee Biosecurity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > An exotic beetle has been discovered in Australia which has the > potential to destroy the local honey production industry. > > The first small hive beetles have been detected at two beekeeping > sites at Richmond, west of Sydney by New South Wales Agriculture. Looks like I was a little premature. We only have just got the final confirmation so haven't posted anything before this. Also add that it has been found in another area in Queensland which was as a result of hives coming up from Sydney. We are currently working on the situation so I have not got time to reply to all the aspects of this last post. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 09:23:35 +1300 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Nick Wallingford Subject: Re: Feelings Of Insecurity about Bee Biosecurity MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I am not going to enter into extensive comment on Jim Fisher's postings to the list (having said that, I probably will, but I'm not going to go through point at a time...). I would have to say that for a considerable number of them, I either agree wholeheartedly or at least have a lot of sympathy for the positions from which he expresses them. Indeed, though Australia and New Zealand are being painted as a fissure-less wall attempting to gain access through stealthy, speedy means, we do the same things to each other, and have the same frustrations with international trade and the international gamesmanship that accompanies it. Western Australia, for instance, has applied on the basis of 'area freedom' from EFB (it is present in the rest of Australia) for access for their honey into NZ. We, in that case, are dealing with their processes and our own, trying to stop that from happening. The point is that the arguments are required to be technical in nature. We can't oppose the WA honey on the basis of "it will probably be expensive", or "it will wreck the orderly marketing of our own honeys". Simply not allowed to use those, even if we believe them to be true. We (NZ beekeepers) actually have some doubt that there *is* some honey producer/seller who made the application that NZ is obliged to process and deal with - we've got a feeling it might just be a principle someone is trying to establish... What I'm trying to say is that NZ *is* both cognisant and sympathetic to arguments that say a country needs to maintain as high a level of biosecurity as can be rationally argued. But we are also continually reminded of the need to abide by accepted standards of risk assessment and acceptance. We (between ourselves and with you) are not given the luxury of demanding no risk at all, however much we'd like to be able to do that. No, we do not plan to boil our queens before shipping them to you... This has not been a sneaky or quick process. The call for submissions from beekeepers on the proposal is *almost exactly* what happened about 5 years ago. After that, the US officials managed to push it quietly to the side and refuse to deal with it again. Fair enough! I think the US beekeepers should be *thanking* your officials for managing to effectively lose the paperwork for that long, all the while NZ beekeepers fuming and smouldering at the arrogance. (And while I'm at it, I'll express thanks to our own officials who have been doing that same dancing in one place routine for us with the WA honey issue - take that, Aussies!) (That one is going to rebound on me, I know...) The process has been long, drawnout, and voluminous in paper. I have waded through risk analyses, reports and extensive surveillance and biosecurity quantifications over the last 10 years. I think it is wrong to paint this as a nefarious conspriracy. Nick Wallingford nickw@beekeeping.co.nz http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 14:57:21 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Blane White Subject: Re: Bees hurt by cold Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Mark and Everyone, Mark asked "What would be the best way to provide this ventilation between brood boxes? A drilled hole? Some other way?" I hate drilling holes in the boxes partly because they always seem to end up where they are not wanted somewhere down the road. Simply use pieces of cedar shingle on sides and then you can either make a piece for the front with an entrance opening or cover most of the front with something like duct tape and leave a small opening in the middle. The shingle blocks draft from the sides and you only need a 0.25 inch opening for the bees which is too small for mice. An entrance 1 to 3 inches long is enough and some make them even smaller - just big enough for 2 or 3 bees to fit through. Some attach a 0.25 inch thick wood strip to each shingle long enough to leave the desired opening in the front when the shingles are inserted in the sides of the hive. I simply cover most of the front opening with tape or my hive wrapping. These are quick and easy to put in and take out as needed. FWIW blane ****************************************** Blane White MN Dept of Agriculture blane.white@state.mn.us ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 21:40:24 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Bees hurt by cold MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Blane, Mark, and Everyone: In spite of my very strong directions about ONLY using an Imirie Shim during a nectar flow and only in the supers area, there are those people who have used the Imirie Shim as an entrance BETWEEN brood boxes in the winter; and then complained that the bees built comb in between the two boxes. Of course they built comb there, because "bee space" was violated. I just thought I would mention this while people were writing about "cold does not kill bees". By the way, Dr. Edward Southwick has research papers where he put colonies of bees in a refrigerated room and kept them there at -40° (and other temperatures) for periods as long as 3 months, and very few bees died! The point of the story is "if your bees are HEALTHY, with 70 pounds of honey for winter stores, the queen is young (not over one year old), and with some upper entrance to let the DAMP warm air out of the colony", the bees will be alive and healthy in March and April. I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all, and tell everyone how wonderful it is to be a FREE AMERICAN! George Imirie Certified EAS Master Beekeeper Ending my 70th year of beekeeping in Maryland and Northern Virginia Author of the MONTHLY George's PINK PAGES at: www.beekeeper.org/george_imirie/index.html