From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Sep 17 12:52:10 1999 Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by luna.oit.unc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA27272 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA11074 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909171652.MAA11074@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 12:52:05 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG9904A" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 125177 Lines: 2712 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 20:01:23 EST 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: AFB in supers (Ethelyne Oxide) Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Gamma radiation (my life's work testing atom bombs and cobalt irradiation) definitely kill spores, but the places that will allow you to do it seem few and far between. The radiation facilities usually are pretty clean, so they don't want any dripped honey or dead bees on the floor. Massachusetts does some of it. Get hold of Garry Libbee about their program. New Jersey "used to" but I think they stopped it. The cost is what you can arrange, maybe as cheap as $3 for a deep body - I am not sure. Surely there must be someone on the West coast that knows about it. How about Jim Bach up in Washington State. Jim usually know about most things and is a very helpful and knowledgeable guy. Looks like my April Bee Culture has "taken legs" or I would give you Jim's E-mail address. Every now and then I have found someone who won't use radiation for fear that "things get HOT" Of course, there is no heat involved, just like you getting a chest X-ray. If Maryland had a radiation facility, it would be my #1 choice., but we can use ETO, so that is good too. I hope I have helped Shucks, I just thought of Jim Selway at Montana University, and he is a fine dictionary. Just fine an April Bee Culture Magazine for those addresses. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 08:30:31 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Jean J. MENIER" Subject: Re: Pollen Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 21:48 31/03/99 +0000, Jan Tempelman a écrit: >Bob wrote: > >> The worst color, however, was black. There was some pitch black pollen that >> looked almost like mouse turds. > >I think, must be tulp (nl), Tulipa spp. > >from Holland????....;-) > Black pollen can also originate from Papaver sp. (poppies cultivars that bloom early ), or related genera .... Sincerely to all, ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 21:51:44 -0500 Reply-To: Peter John Keating Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter John Keating Subject: AFB in melter honey Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings, what temperatures are required to kill AFB spores in honey? Would honey from a large cappings melter where the honey has been at 90oC. for 12 hours be considered a health risk when feeding it to bees in the spring? Removing skunks from bee yards.The most effective treatment is now no longer legal (in eggs).What are commercial beekeepers using to control skunks? (Replies can be directed to me and not the group!). Yours, Peter. {technical adviser to the commercial group in Quebec} ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 13:40:39 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rune Stenseth Subject: Heating of Hives Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear Group Members We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives in the spring to increase early strength. We plan to insert resistor wires in the bottom, with termostatic temperature control elements. Do any of you have an idea of what our best strategy would be? We think og placing the control elements in such a way that ideal temperature was ensured from the first day of outside activity until summer temperatures was normal. This beeing Norway that is not so soon as many other places, and we believe this extra heating would make life easier for the bees. What is the ideal temperature in the various places in the hive during the spring? Best Regards Rune Stenseth Sekretfr Ullensaker Biroekterlag -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address: Gudmundsrud Gaard - 2056 Algarheim Norway Email: rsten@online.no - Mobile +47 93 29 34 31 Phone: +47 63 98 64 99 / +47 63 97 72 29 Fax: +47 63 97 46 65 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 21:31:41 PST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: T & M Weatherhead Subject: AFB in melter honey In-Reply-To: <199904010256.VAA02500@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter Keating wrote > what temperatures are required to kill AFB spores in honey? There is a good article on killing AFB in honey. The reference is:- "Thermal resistance of Bacillus larvae spores in honey" by Eleanor J. Calesnick and Jonathan W. White Jr. from Journal of Bacteriology Vol 64 1952 pages 9-15 inclusive. Of course, the name for AFB has now changed from Bacillus to Paenibacillus but the article is from 1952. Hope this helps Peter. Regards Trevor Weatherhead ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 07:25:27 -0500 Reply-To: info@beeworks.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Eyre Subject: Re: Swarm Cells Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: <199903312239.RAA28012@listserv.albany.edu> On 31 Mar 99, at 22:19, P-O Gustafsson wrote: > I have 2-3% swarming now. I don't need to bother about it, and can > keep large productive colonies. Now and then there is a hive that is > faster to build up than the rest and get so crowded they start making > cells. If I give them more room, one or two more supers, they tear down > the cells themselves and go back to work again. Good post with positive information. To often a keeper will add another super and think he's given the bees more space, where in fact all he's done is added another honey super. Big hives then fill it quickly and still swarm, then the cry goes up 'I gave them more room'! ***************************************** The Bee Works, 9 Progress Drive, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, Canada.L3V 6H1. Phone (705)326 7171 Fax (705)325 3461 David Eyre, Owner e-mail http://www.beeworks.com This months special:-Therapik, soothing aid for stings. **************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 07:43:42 -0500 Reply-To: BobCan@tdpi.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Subject: Pierco Frames MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As a new BeeKeeper, I purchased all my hives with Pierco plastic frames. Being so new, I don't have any drawn out foundations. I am worried when I get my new bees and place them in a box with 10 new Pierco frames they won't take to them. I have heard to spray all the frames with sugar water, however I am not convenced that this is going to work. Can anyone offer me any comfort that going this method is going to work! Or... am I going to learn a lesson the hardway? Thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 12:01:01 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Pierco Frames Comments: To: BobCan@tdpi.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 4/1/99 8:32:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, BobCan@tdpi.com writes: > As a new BeeKeeper, I purchased all my hives with Pierco plastic frames. > Being so new, I don't have any drawn out foundations. I am worried when I > get my new bees and place them in a box with 10 new Pierco frames they won't > take to them. I have heard to spray all the frames with sugar water, > however I am not convenced that this is going to work. Can anyone offer me > any comfort that going this method is going to work! Or... am I going to > learn a lesson the hardway? A hobby beekeeper who got a 5-frame nuc from me put them in with 5 plastic frames. Three times they started building the comb in between the frames rather than on them. He finally took some melted beeswax and brushed it on with a small paintbrush. Then they got right on them and all was okay. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 12:28:36 -0500 Reply-To: tvf@umich.edu Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Organization: ACB Dept., Univ of Michigan Subject: Re: Swarm cells revisited Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Scott Moser wrote: I got into it again and found several fresh queen cell cups with jelly and larvae in some. I have come to the conclusion, that they wont last 2 weeks till the new queens arrive. Can I split the hive now, and allow the queenless half to raise a queen or place a frame with a nice big swarm cell on it in there, and the queenright half to supercede,or do what it wants to? Will they still swarm either way? I will worry about finding the queens later and requeen then. Thanks all. I appreciate your help. Scott, My advice would be to severly break up this colony into three-frame nucs, each nuc supplied with a frame containing a swarm cell and a frame of honey/pollen. Keep the queen back and supply her to the original colony, with a few frames of brood (no swarm cells of course) and lots of empty combs or combs with some stored honey and pollen. If you don't need or want all the extra colonies, put them together later as two-queen units during the major honey flow. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 08:50:55 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Pierco Frames MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Bob writes: > ... Pierco plastic frames ... (no) drawn out foundations ... spray all > the frames with sugar water ... offer me comfort .... I have never had problems getting bees to draw plastic foundation. Secret is, strong colonies during a flow. Helpful hint is, don't mix plastic with wax. All plastic, strong colonies during a flow GUARANTEES excellent results. Now, starting with a package means you won't have a strong colony and I doubt you are having a flow in mid April (but I don't know your location), so you only have one out of 3 (all plastic). So, FEED, FEED, FEED! Spraying sugar water will help, but since your package will have no choice, spraying is not required but it won't hurt. Another nice thing abour plastic is that if the bees don't draw it as you want it you can simply scrape out the bad spots and the foundation is still intact. Just keep runnin' that play until your bees get it right! Aaron Morris - thinking plastic foundation rules, but I still like wood frames! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 09:20:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Keeler, Lisa" Subject: Strange Situation in Central Indiana Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Hi Everyone; > > I'm in a strange situation here in central Indiana. The weather here has > been up and down all winter with serious stress to all plants and other > living creatures. Last weekend spring finally hit and I watched my 2 > hives carefully sure that I would see the wonderful sight of bees heavily > laden with pollen coming in for percarious landings. I was wrong - not > more than 10% were coming in with any visible pollen and no heavy loads. > Two other local bee hobbies saw the same thing. > > What I think has happened is that the maples around here were just about > to burst forth in flower just as the last cold snap hit (20 degress at > night) and this appears to have done in most of the maple pollen. I have > maple flowers falling all over today and still no great pollen rush for > the bees. > > Can anyone tell me how serious this lost of an important early pollen > sourec will be and what plant/tree should be next in line as a spring > pollen soure? > > Thanks > > Lisa K. > Zionsville IN > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 10:34:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Pierco frames MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bob said "I am worried when I get my new bees and place them in a box with 10 new Pierco frames they won't take to them. I have heard to spray all the frames with sugar water, however I am not convenced that this is going to work." Well...it probably won't work, but only because it is the wrong time of year unless you are in the southern part of the country. To draw any new frames, Pierco or otherwise, you need a very strong honey flow, which you probably don't have. Moreover, as a new beekeeper, I don't think you should rely on such a flow in any case. You should feed your bees. Get a five gallon bucket, your Home Depot or hardware store has one. Fill it with 25 pounds of table sugar. Add very hot water to the top. Stir with a drywall mixer in a 1/2" drill. If you don't have such a tool and don't want to buy one, still do the same, but do just five pounds of sugar at a time and mix with a stick. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to retard mold. Take your five gallon bucket to your beehive. Dip the frames into the bucket and then put them in the hive. Don't do this more than a few hors before you put the bees in the hive. To feed your bees, I recommend you buy a hive top feeder. While they are expensive, it will last you a lifetime with just a little care. If you don't want to spend that much, buy a division board feeder. Either "wood" or plastic. If working with a hive top feeder, fill it half-way. If a division board feeder, fill it to the top. Check after three full days, if empty refill. If not empty, wait until empty, checking each day if necessary. If using a hive top feeder, you can fill it to the top when the hive is strong enough to empty a half-filled feeder in three days. The bees will draw the center combs first. Start with 10 frames in the hive. When four are filled, move a frame from the far end into the center. When that is filled, repeat (at the same time, the bees will be working on frames adjacent to the center frames). When you have at least eight frames filled, remove one filled frame. Try to select one without any brood or eggs. Use that frame for your next hive body or save it as a spare. If you leave it in a shady place for a couple of days, the bees will rob all the honey/sugar out of it. Put the top on the five gallon paid tight, and leave it by the hive. You will need it all, and may well need 10 gallons! Good luck, Lloyd Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds(tm). The finest in comb honey production. http://www.rossrounds.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 15:14:24 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Garry Libby Subject: Re: Pierco Frames Comments: To: BobCan@tdpi.com, BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: <199904011329.IAA10730@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Bob, I have used Pierco frames in some hives exclusivly with great success. I never tried using sugar syrup on them. I think the most important thing with Pierco frames or foundation is how it is stored. If it is fresh You can smell the beeswax coating, if it has been sitting in an open box in a warehouse for a year then it will lose the smell of fresh beeswax. I applied melted beeswax on stale smelling Pierco frames with a foam brush, it worked really well. You don't have to coat the whole frame, mainly the top area. I am buying only Pierco frames now, I have had My fun nailing frames together and like the simplicity of taking the frames out of the box and putting them right into the super. Good luck. Garry Libby Boston, USA LibBEE@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 11:02:20 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: JOHNSON JOSEPH Subject: Stinger evolution Comments: To: "BEE-L@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Hello - I have a quick question about the evolution of the stinger. Is it true that stingers in general evolved from ovipositors? Can it be said that a worker bee's stinger is actually the reproductive system tweaked to produce poison rather than eggs and to insert that poison into flesh rather than to insert an egg into the ground? Is the stinger a remnant of a sterile worker bee's reproductive tract? Or did I make this up? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 15:42:28 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Fwd: Obituary for Dr. Ichiji Okada Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Subj: Obituary for Dr. Ichiji Okada From: Pollinator@aol.com Post by Dr. Jim Cane, forwarded from the Apoidea list: >Dear Bee Friends, >It is with great sadness that we report the death of Dr. Ichiji >Okada at >the age of 89. > >Obituary Ichiji Okada (1909 - 1999) > > Ichiji Okada, Professor Emeritus of Tamagawa University, former >Dean of >Faculty of Agriculture and Graduate School of Agriculture, and >former >Director of the Institute of Honeybee Science, Tamagawa >University, Tokyo, >Japan, died on 18 March, 1999. His career in Tamagawa University >made him >world-renowned researcher, educator and consultant for the >beekeepers in Japan with numerous >contributions to the field of apicultural research. > As a boy Ichiji Okada lived in the country town on the Japan >Sea, >collected butterflies. He wrote his first article including a >newly recorded >butterfly during his high school age. He continued his studies at >Hokkaido >University on the classification of mushroom flies(32 articles). >He worked on soybean >pod borer moth(22 articles) at the Experiment Station in the >northern China. After obtaining the degree of Dr. of Agriculture >with his >contribution to the moth studies, he was invited to teach and >work as a >professor at Tamagawa University in 1949. > At Tamagawa University, he carried out research about the native >Japanese >honeybees Apis cerana as well as Apis mellifera, and the applied >apicultural research on bee products including honey, royal >jelly, pollen, beeswax and >drone brood. His research was a great support to the beekeeping >in Japan >which had had limited scientific background. He also maintained >important >international exchanges; sent disciple researchers abroad and >welcomed >researchers to Japan, which made him known to the world of >honeybee >science. > For over 30 years Prof. Okada dedicated himself for the >advancement of >apicultural research and published more than ten books and 300 >papers. He >also had supervised hundreds of students, many of whom are >prominent >researchers, beekeepers and school teachers now. When Tamagawa >University >established the Institute of Honeybee Science in 1979, >recognizing the >contributions of his group, Prof. Okada became the first >director. > In 1982 he was awarded the Third Class Order of the Sacred >Treasure by >the Emperor Hirohito, for his long years of dedication to >apicultural research >and education. In 1983 he received a Special Recognition Award >for service >and support to the beekeeping industry from the Japan Beekeeping >Association. In 1985, he took the role of general secretary for >the 30th >International Apicultural Congress (APIMONDIA) in Nagoya >organized by the >Japan Beekeeping Association. > Ichiji Okada retired from the University in 1985 and was given >the title >of Professor Emeritus. He is survived by his wife Yuri Okada, one >son, two >daughters and four grandchildren, two brothers and three sisters. >He >leaves behind a long career of dedicated service to Japanese >beekeeping and >honeybee science. His many former students, researchers, >beekeepers and >friends, will miss him. > >Prof. Dr. Tadaharu Yoshida >Director of Honey Bee Science Research Center >Tamagawa University, >Machida, Tokyo, Japan >Email: tyoshida@agr.tamagawa.ac.jp >James H. Cane _ >USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Lab | ] >Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-5310 USA (\|/ / >tel: 435-797-3879 FAX: 435-797-0461 -{||||O+8< >email: jcane@biology.usu.edu (/|\ \ >web page: http://www.LoganBeeLab.usu.edu/ | ] >*^*^*^*^^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ - > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 14:22:04 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Nicholson Subject: Re: AFB in supers (Ethelyne Oxide) Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology In-Reply-To: <199904010909.EAA06203@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 20:01 -0500 3/31/99, GImasterBK@aol.com wrote: >Gamma radiation (my life's work testing atom bombs and cobalt irradiation) >definitely kill spores, but the places that will allow you to do it seem few >and far between. [snip] I just did a searc on "radiation sterilization" in yahoo and got 78 hits. There are several companies listed in the U.S. as well as supplliers. I did not see a listing for the one east of L.A. A little research with these contacts would find out who could do it. As I remember from the article in the LA Times, this place was mostly sterilizing spices and other food products. The items are put on pallets and moved through the exposing area. I guess you would just stack your supers on a fork lift pallet, put in on your truck, and drive your truck there. A wrap of clear plastic pallet wrap would keep everything together and keep the detritus in your hive from falling out in the exposing roon, after all they can't just go in there any old time to sweep up. Paul Paul Nicholson Electronic Imaging Systems, Inc. TEL 805 532 1068 5148 Commerce Avenue, Unit F FAX 805 532 1065 Moorpark, CA 93021 U.S.A. paul@eisusa.com http://www.eisusa.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 22:41:12 +0000 Reply-To: jtemp@xs4all.nl Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jan Tempelman Organization: on trip in Chile Subject: Re: Heating of Hives Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rune Stenseth wrote: > We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives > in the spring to increase early strength. The bees will feel: " Oh, nice weather, and they fly out" it's cold outside (poor Norway), so they will not come back....... Same as my observation hive insite our house. greeting jan -- Chile op http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/Chili.html -- Rotterdam------ 51.55 N, 4.29 E-------------- San Javier------ 35.36 S, 71.44 W-------Chile- -- http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/index3.html Jan Tempelman mailto:jtemp@xs4all.nl -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 23:14:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: DNBrown Subject: Cost of Gamma Sterilization Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:19 -0500 3/31/99, GImasterBK@aol.com wrote: >All of what I have written here is exactly the reason the US DEPT. of >AGRICULTURE started the official honey bee inspection program so that BY LAW, >colonies had to be BURNED UP in order to protect non infected colonies. >Commercial beekeepers HAVE to treat with Terramycin because they just risk an >entire apiary becoming infected. :I think Ethyl Bromide and Vikane gas are used as termite fumigants. I :wonder if these will kill spores. :Also a few months back I was reading about a radiation sterilizing plant :that was built in the Riverside Callifornia area. No doubt this would kill :spores and allow the equipment to be salvaged. I wonder what the cost would :be. In Massachusetts the cost of running an entire rack through a gamma cell is about 400 US dollars (the dose is 1.5 to 2 Megarads). This will sterilize about 90 cardboard boxes 24 x 18 x 10 inches in size. Each box will hold one hive body, frames, combs, and inner cover. Or, one super, frames, comb, bottom board, and outer cover. Suits, gloves, and tools can also be packed in. Cost runs between 5 and 8 US dollars per box (much cheaper than burning them and buying new). FDA approves of the procedure, as far as I know. We use Isomedix, but a Web search or yellow pages will dig up many others. This year we did not irradiate because we only had 60 boxes signed up. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 08:46:32 EST Reply-To: Pollinator@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Strange Situation in Central Indiana Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 4/1/99 3:13:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, lkeeler@dowagro.com writes: > not > more than 10% were coming in with any visible pollen and no heavy loads. > Two other local bee hobbies saw the same thing. > > > > What I think has happened is that the maples around here were just about > > to burst forth in flower just as the last cold snap hit (20 degress at > > night) and this appears to have done in most of the maple pollen. I have > > maple flowers falling all over today and still no great pollen rush for > > the bees. > > > > Can anyone tell me how serious this lost of an important early pollen > > sourec will be and what plant/tree should be next in line as a spring > > pollen soure? It depends. Certainly the loss of this major pollen source will set back the bees. But, if they had a good goldenrod season last fall, they may still have a lot of reserves. You'll have to look inside to evaluate that. We commonly have a spring freeze (South Carolina) that kills buds and open flowers (that's why we love canola, which blooms for half the winter and seems unaffected by cold). Each freeze will do damage, but the extent depends on the colony reserves and actual brood rearing at the time. Last spring we had a hard freeze in mid-March, and bees were really hard to handle afterwards and apparently set back quite a bit. But they were jammed up with pollen from wild mustard, which had been blooming profusely, so I think the lack of nectar was a more important loss. Pollen supplementation might be a good idea. I gather that the farther north you get, the more likely it is to help. Some of the Canadian beekeepers always supplement pollen in the spring, and swear by it. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 11:09:57 -0600 Reply-To: barry@birkey.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Organization: BIRKEY.COM Subject: Heating Hives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Submitted to BEE-L by Jerry J. Bromenshenk ------------------------------------------------------------- My response (below) states that our on-line observation hive in Montana does not fly outside on cold days, never to return yet Jan says >>The bees will feel: " Oh, nice weather, and they fly out" >> it's cold outside (poor Norway), so they will not come back....... After writing up our observations, I realized that maybe I was missing something. Why should my bees in Montana be smart enough not to fly on cold days. And then it struck me, MY BEES GO TO THE UNIVERISTY. >>Rune Stenseth wrote: >>> We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives >>> in the spring to increase early strength. and Jan says the bees in the hives inside the house fly out and don't return, so don't heat the hive. With respect to each of these issues: Heating Hives Studies have been done concerning the benefits of heating hives in the winter. In the 60's, commercial firms tried marketing hive heaters. To date, every study that I have seen has failed to clearly demonstrate any significant benefit of heating a hive - although there also doesn't appear to be any evidence that gentle heating will harm them. Observation Hives I don't know what the bees from your observation hive do, but MY BEES in our observation hive in my warm office in Montana (and our days may not be as cold as Norway's, but we certainly are not known for our warm winters) DO NOT FLY OUT WHEN IT IS COLD OUTSIDE AND NOT COME BACK. This hive has been on-line for almost a year. The bees fly on warm, sunny afternoons. They have no interest in flying on cold days, nor do they even check the outside conditions. About three weeks ago, they started foraging again. These days, they make short runs in and out of the entrance at colder temperatures than they did during the winter. Apparently, they are anxious to get out to forage and run in and out to get a better check on the weather - very anxious to fly. During the winter, they do not go out when temperatures are below 40 degrees F. For the past three weeks, even at temperatures as cold as 33 degrees, some bees stick their heads out. BUT THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING, JUST WALKING OUT AND BACK IN through the counter mounted inside the hive entrance. They don't fly until it gets into the 40s. Anyone can check this out by visiting our web page. Jerry J. Bromenshenk, Ph.D. Director, DOE/EPSCoR & Montana Organization for Research in Energy The University of Montana-Missoula Missoula, MT 59812-1002 E-Mail: jjbmail@selway.umt.edu Tel: 406-243-5648 Fax: 406-243-4184 http://www.umt.edu/biology/more http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 23:08:13 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Heating Hives Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Rune Stenseth wrote >We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives >in the spring to increase early strength. I would be of the opinion that such a course of action could cause unpredictable results to the bee colonies. Surely this is major interference with the bees' response to their environment, a response which has been fine tuned by them over millions of years. Would there not be an element of danger in this since it could well fool the bees into believing that the outside temperature was warm enough for flying when it may not be?. If we give crutches to the bees will they then be able to do without them?. And the question must then arise as to what kind of bees we will end up with. All in all it seems to me to be interference with another delicate balance achieved by nature. The result of such interfeence has up to now been pretty devastating e.g. varroa. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland Tel + 353 1 289 5269 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 19:56:49 EST Reply-To: Attila31@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Attila31@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Heating of Hives Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi ! I tried a heating system years ago. It was a disaster. Outside temp was around 0 C. The bees in large number came out of the hive and froze to death. It migth be a riski experiment. Attila ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 20:21:18 +0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: GUM Trees Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Karl Dehning wrote: > Where, besides The SA bee journal can I get good Eucalyptus > referances??? There is a very good reference book (in 2 volumes) by Stan Kelly published by Nelson in 1969. The author painted in watercolour eucalypt species including fruit and there are descriptions of size and trunk which are helpful in identification. You may find these books in public libraries. Alternatively, when puzzled by botanical specimens, I take leaf and flower to our local Botanic Gardens. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island J.H. & E. McAdam Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Package Bees & Plastic Hives Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I had the opportunity this past weekend to visit a warmer part of Canada and take a look at some neighbours' bees that were residing there and it reminded me of some things about package bees that can cause people grief, problems with wintering caused by late summer crowding and why I don't own any plastic nucs -- yet, anyhow. The first group of bees in question were two-pounders from Australia and had been installed March 6th into five frame expanded polystyrene nucs of the style that have caught on recently in Alberta. These nucs are reportedly made in Quebec and cost about $32 Canadian dollars ($21 US). They have a fairly thick wall (1-1/4"?) which is covered inside and out with a tougher plastic, much like a good picnic cooler. Each nuc holds five standard American frames. A hole that appears to be about 1-1/4" in the front and about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way up serves as an entrance. The top is a slab that is similarly made and has a slightly raised centre portion which fits down into the bottom part which serves to locate the lid precisely on each nuc. There is no hold-down for the lid, and I am uncertain of how good a seal it makes. The two parts fit pretty well, but things do get between the surfaces. Maybe that is a good thing. Bricks or boards serve as weights to keep the lids on. The inner cavity is pretty well rectangular to fit the frames, which sit on a ledge with a space underneath the frames of about 1/2" (I'm guessing here). Above the frames, there is a bee space of maybe 3/8". The outer surface is slightly rounded at the corners. They appear to be a tough and attractive box for bees. Mildew seems to grow on the outside after some use, but I would imagine that they would last 20 years or more. Feeding syrup is accomplished by shooting a measured amount of syrup into the entrance. Because the bottom is molded and leakproof, the syrup sits there until the bees take it up into the frames. Apparently they do this quickly and as a result do quite nicely. Protein patties are a different matter, and unless some other lid or a sack is used, the patties cannot be very thick due to the small headspace. This makes the amount of patty that is practical to feed directly over the cluster smaller than what is optimal to minimize trips to the yards. The hives I saw had all eaten every bit of their previous patty, which is a less than ideal state. Patties must be replaced before they are entirely eaten for best results. One use of these polystyrene boxes is to make up small nucs in early summer and to allow them to develop into colonies that can be transported easily to warmer spots for wintering and early buildup before returning home in the spring to make up producing colonies. Having said all that, I am not convinced I personally like the nucs. I have been watching them for some time now. Some master beekeepers have set up highly successful systems using them, however any nuc requires very disciplined management. A nuc can fill with bees and honey quickly and plug up prematurely, cutting off brood rearing at the critical time for making winter bees. This ruins the prospects for good wintering. I suspect that the secret to success is to super them in August -- three such colonies side-by-side can share two excluders and two stacks of supers, I understand. I know that such 5-frame nucs I have personally seen have plugged in late summer and consequently winter less than ideally. Nonetheless, the overwintered ones I saw last weekend looked better than the packages which had been installed into the same type of nuc box a few weeks earlier, and which got me started on this epistle. Earlier I had heard reports of the wintered hives being damp with thin honey in outside frames, but when I saw them, they appeared fine. I'm a big strong colony type of guy, and the only thing I like about nucs is that they will very soon be big colonies and be able to care for themselves. I also hate transferring frames of bees from box to box. Therefore I prefer to make my nucs in standard supers and split whole boxes from one another instead of playing with individual frames and hunting queens. But that's just my preference. The main advantage of these nucs is that 8 can be put nicely on one pallet. Since everything is exact in dimension, screens with a 1" headroom can be made to fit perfectly and the pallets stacked as high as you like for transport. 1,000 such hives can be easily placed on a trailer and moved great distances safely and efficiently -- even in daytime -- using a highway tractor. I suppose that some care must be exercised to make sure that the nucs do not get too strong or get moved in really hot weather, since use of screens can result in melt-downs if the bees mass on the screens and block their own air intake. Anyhow, back to the packages... My friends had purchased a large number of packages from a reputable supplier and they had arrived on time and in good shape. They installed them into the nucs on March 6th and the weather was perfect: cool enough that there was very little drifting. They fed Fumidil(r) treated syrup and several days later a small pollen patty (with about 33% pollen and the balance yeast and soy with lots of sugar syrup to bind the patty together). The bees appeared to take well, and with very few exceptions remained queen-right and even in size. However, after several weeks, some started to dwindle. When I arrived, they had been installed for three weeks and were due to have a hatch. This is the time that packages look most miserable, since the old bees have run their course and are dying off or looking decrepit, and the first young bees are not yet out. It was a cool, breezy day and I was even wearing shoes, not sandals, and in spite of my fleece-lined ski jacket, I was becoming chilled after a while. We looked at several hunded hives, and after a while a pattern was quite evident. We would see a run of good, even hives, then a few scattered poor ones, often with several close together. On examination, we would see that the poorer ones had recently been good and had several frames with brood, as could be expected, but the bees were virtually all gone. Those bees that remained clustered at the top of the frames, in some cases leaving sealed brood uncovered. Since fumigillan was used at installation, we ruled out nosema. I suppose that viruses are not entirely out of the question, but due to the pattern and frequency of the poor hives, I strongly suspect old bees were shaken into some of the packages and shipped to my friends. They had specified that they did not wish to receive bees from the first shaking, and had been told that the hives had been used for a previous shipment to another country, but the evidence strongly suggests that this was not the case -- at least for the group of hives that provided bees for this shipment. The reasoning is simple: on the first shaking, some hives will have a large population of mostly old bees. This is because that particular hive peaked and plugged at some point, or the queen failed and is being replaced -- or simply failed. If there was not a recent flow to wear the bees out, and brood rearing is cut back, and the hive is well provisioned, they can last quite a while. The first shake will get rid of them and at the next round -- if it is within a reasonably short time -- only young bees will be gathered since the poor hives will be too small to shake while they are recovering. Due to the way many (most) package producers shake bees, each package will predominantly contain bees from only one or maybe two adjacent hives. Unless the bees are shaken into a bulk box before packaging, they go directly through a funnel into a cage as each hive is shaken. The result is that some packages will have mostly young bees, some will have mixed populations, and some will have old bees. Adjacent packages will often share the same population characteristics, depending how they are gathered and stapled onto the sticks. In my experience, roughly 10% of hives in any yard at any given time will have queen problems, so the pattern and frequency of my friends package dwindling fits the scenario perfectly. I have often noticed that a two pound package is a bit more than large enough to make a good hive. However because of the risk of dwindling like we see here, and variability in package size -- even in one shipment -- that turns out to be the minimum size that is consistently viable in our region. I have thus thought I should mix the bees up by dumping the packages into a bulk box and then ladling them out into hives. Last year I did something that caused me to think twice about that idea. Last year I bought three pound packages with one queen each. Most I installed into separate singles on pallets (see http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ and choose 'Pictures of our Operation'). The last 50 or so I installed into normal standard supers divided into two separate five-frame compartments with separate entrances. I gave the original queen that came with the package to one half, and a queen from a queen shipment to the other. The idea was that the smaller space should keep warm and that 1-1/2 lbs. of bees should be enough. I would save on cost of bees. What Happened: I went back in a day or two and found that the bees from the half with the foreign queen had migrated across the box to the entrance to the other compartment and gone in. The other queen was in many cases left almost alone. Many were chilled. I had assumed that package bees -- like a swarm -- will accept any queen. That may be true, but if they have a choice, they may express a preference for the one they travelled with. Having said that, I must also remark that packages have been successfully shipped with only pheremone strips and united with a new queen from a new country on installation -- apparently most successfully. I must also remark, though, that where the pheremone strips are not picked up from the yard and removed, the beekeeper has been known to come back the next morning to find the bees have gone out and clustered on the strips. allen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 21:57:55 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Heating Hives Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: <199904022051.PAA14213@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > >>> We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives > >>> in the spring to increase early strength. > Studies have been done concerning the benefits of heating hives in the > winter. In the 60's, commercial firms tried marketing hive heaters. To > date, every study that I have seen has failed to clearly demonstrate any > significant benefit of heating a hive - although there also doesn't appear > to be any evidence that gentle heating will harm them. I think Farrar proved that heat tapes in winter packing to moderate the effects of extreme cold periods were beneficial in Ohio. But the question is not so cut-and-dried. As with any bee question there are a large number of complicating factors. Some that come immediately to mind are: How long have the bees been confined? What is their nutritional status? How large is the cluster? What is the state of their stores? What breed are they? How old are they? Are they healthy? If not, what diseases are they bearing? How much heat is to be applied. How? where? What is available to tempt them to go out of the hive? What has been the weather recently? What is the relative humidity? Are they raising brood? How much? What stages? Szabo showed that when the weather warmed relative to previous conditions, his wrapped bees became active and exited the hives in considerable numbers. No matter whether the temperature rise was from below zero to zero or from zero to 55 degrees F. The internal hive temperatures were not above clustering temp in most of the hive. This is *not* a simple question. FWIW, we unwrap our hives early so that the bees do not dwindle. We are currently 80% unwrapped and will finish in the next few days. We find that the bees will fly around and bother neighbours if we don't. If we do, they are obliged to stay and sit on the brood and they last longer into spring. allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 18:59:04 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Rimantas Zujus Subject: Re: Heating of Hives Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1257" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Rune Stenseth and all Beefriends Before some years I designed and made a"wisdom" electronic devise for hive heating. Why wisdom? I noticed that if I fixed a heating temperature (not power), returning to my bees after a week, or , maybe sooner, I used to find the "stupid device" refused to heat my experimental hive. The reason was found soon. Spring colony becomes stronger every week. Then the temperature in measured point goes up and becomes higher than one preset by me. My solution was to measure the warmth periodically. Using self made electronic clock- timer I choused - daily. A temperature measuring time may be preset by bee keeper (explore :-). This way you may choose the degree of interference to bee life. If measured in a daybreak, the lowest air temperature round o'clock, I suppose, no electric heating will occur. It seemed to me that I saved the honey used as a fuel by bees, especially during great air temperature drops at night in spring season and, as well, helped the brood not to freeze. The heater ( 100 x 300 x 3 mm plate ) was put on the floor in the middle of a hive. The device can give a power in range of 0 to 10 Watt continuously up or down. It works as follows: 1. At preset by beekeeper time ( for e.g. at the midday) there was measured a temperature in a hive under the ceiling. Measurement continued for e.g. 2 hours, preset by user. The highest measured temperature was saved in memory. (Heating Forbidden at that two hours). 2. After that the hive was slightly heated. The sun goes down, temperature in the measured place drops little by little and heating power rises trying to restore the recorded temperature. 3. In the next morning sun goes up, outside and inside temperatures rise, heating power falls down. 4. At a preset time (electronic clock - timer) heating is interrupted for e.g. for one hour i.e. heating is forbidden one hour. The hive temperature goes down to natural balance. 5. At preset by beekeeper time ( for e.g. at the midday) ... - Go back to "1" Hi ! I tried a heating system years ago. It was a disaster. Outside temp was >around 0 C. The bees in large number came out of the hive and froze to death. >It migth be a riski experiment. Attila Use "Sophisticated heater" :). It heats in a midday little or not any. >Do any of you have an idea of what our best strategy >would be? > > >Rune Stenseth >Sekretfr Ullensaker Biroekterlag Good Easter Holiday to everyone. Sincerely Yours Rimantas Zujus Kaunas LITHUANIA e-mail : zujus@isag.lei.lt ICQ# : 4201422 http://www.lei.lt http://gytis.lei.lt/ 55 N, 24 E ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 13:01:56 -0700 Reply-To: fltdeck1@ix.netcom.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Matthew Subject: Re: Heating of Hives {date corrected! please delete prior post} Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Everyone, Here's a mild story of success with 'heated hives': Last summer I went to the trouble of removing feral bees all the way through September starting them on pieces of their own brood & comb. Of course, late in the season, their chances for survival aren't much better than Clinton to keep office. On the theory that wide swings in weather are a primary cause for bees to engorge on honey & energy I constructed a frame for nucs to sit part way out an upstairs window. >From this, I had four nucs staggered one on-top the other with removable 'feeder' holes screened-in atop at the rear which I fed sugar-syrup from late-November on. The feeding started with pouring honey by the spoonful and moved to 1 gal top-feeders. Pictures of these nucs may be seen at Barry Birkey's site: http://www.birkey.com/BLB/Beekeeping/nucs.html I only found time to fill three of the four nucs but all three started with less than 2 filled frames and survived with 3 - 5 frames at the end of March. This room sits away from the heated majority of the house and is unused except for storage, leaving both the door and the heat risers closed. The general room temperature is probably 30-50 degrees F throughout the winter. With the entrance to the Nucs closed down to 1/2 inch on the entrance and duct-taped to seal outside winds, I'm estimating the bees were able to survive by reducing the temperature to more of a constant cluster-forming climate. Happy Keeping, Matthew Westall in Castle Rock, CO ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 21:58:12 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Cleaning Solar Wax Melter Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All I am trying to get into shape for the new season just around the corner. To day I decided to clean up the Wax Melter. There is quite a lot of 'gunge' on the metal surface of the drip tray and with the best will in the world I cannot get it really clean. Can anybody tell me of a solvent which will get rid of all of the dross?. Thanks very much for any help. Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland Tel + 353 1 289 5269 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 13:20:01 -0900 Reply-To: aredandi@mailhost.alaska.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Andison Organization: Alaska Resource Economic Development Subject: Re: Heating of Hives Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have found that a weak colony will benefit from additional heat. To incubate brood and to maintain a healthy temperature requires that each bee contributes thermal units to the hive. In the event that the cluster is small, the heat required of each bee to maintain incubation temp over the brood area is increased for each individual, leaving the hive under stress. The stress will require each bee to attempt unusually high shivering activity, or the bees will succumb to cold stress. Either way, a small thermostatically controlled heat source can make up for lost biomass of bees and reduce the stress on the remaining bees. The thermostat should be set to allow the bees to maintain a normal level of heat by themselves, but failing that, the low temperature heating pad will assist in temperature maintenance. This approach will not "imbalance" the bee, nor create a weaker bee. The additional heat should not be continuous, but only on demand. When the bees are unable to maintain appropriate temperatures and become dormant, the air will not circulate well in the hive, humidity builds and other problems begin building and stressing the bees. A small amount of heat underneath the bottom board will cause an updraft of air, and if there is a ventilation outlet at the top, the circulation of air will keep humidity levels within an acceptable range. My assumption is that we are often keeping bees in an environment that they were not genetically equipped to thrive in. In order to aid them in their survival and propagation, we sometimes must adjust their environments to become closer to that of their indigenous environs. I, therefore, make Alaska seem more like southern California. I've found that when I assist them too much, (adding optimum continual heat rather than minimal controlled heat) they will come out of the hive and freeze in the outdoors. So thermostatic control is important. If set just to the minimum level of healthy survival, they are not "fooled" into thinking it is summer outside the hive. Steve Andison
Alaska Resource Economic Development (ARED)
(907) 790-2111
Fax: 907-790-1929 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 18:17:05 EDT Reply-To: Gusrow@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gusrow@AOL.COM Subject: Pests on plants Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello fellow beekeepers. Is there anyone out there that can tell me what to use to get rid of the aphids and other pests on my plants that won't hurt the bee? The biggest problem I have is the aphids, and I don't want to use anything that will hurt my bees. I have heard that soapy water works, but I don't know what affect it has on the bees. Thankyou for your assistance. Bob in NM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 21:58:05 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ernest Huber Subject: Heating Hives Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear BEE-L, On April 1 Rune Stenseth wrote: > >We are about to start an experiment with heating of hives >in the spring to increase early strength.< I have been experimenting with heating hives on an off for nearly 20 years and I am certain that it is possible to do this in a beneficial way without having bees swarming out in to the cold and dying as some others have found. The first year I tried this I was advising my daughter on a High School Biology project. The goal was to see if a direct trade-off could be made on heat for less honey consumption. Although there were many pitfalls and near disasters- including having all the bees start to come out into freezing weather- nevertheless we found a safe way to do it and found that our heated hive consumed far less honey and survived the winter with a lot more live bees than a comparison unheated hive of about the same strength. This was all before the complications of tracheal and varroa mites hit our area. Since then I can summarize many other experiments with the following list of observations and operating principles: 1) One thing is sure: bees are attracted towards sources of heat. 2) Don't make sudden changes in the amount of heat being introduced. Do everything gradually and in small increments. Otherwise the bees will, as has been suggested, think that Spring has come and rush out to make flights. 3) I doubt that you should put even a thermostatically controlled element in the hive in such a way that the bees can surround it. The reason is that the bees own body heat will quickly shut it off if it is thermostatically controlled. And if it is not thermostatically controlled the insulating properties of the bees own bodies will quickly raise the temperature to the point where the bees begin to get damaged by the heat. They don't seem to have sense enough to abandon a too warm source- like moths aroud a candle flame. 4) Instead I think you should DECOUPLE the heater (and I have tried both thermostically controlled heaters and uncontrolled heaters) from direct bee contact. This might consist, for instance of placing the heater in a box underneath the hive with screened off vent holes in the bottom board to allow the heat to come up and envelope the cluster. The thermostat could be located near the top of the heater box and screened off from bee contact by the screening in the vent holes. You would primarily be controllin the temperature of the heater box itself. 5) Only about 10-20 Watts are required if you are efficient in delivering the heat to the bees. You can see that this is so by converting the Calories in the maybe 50 pounds of honey that you wish to conserve into its Joule equivalent and comparing to how many Joules (Watt-seconds) you would need in a typical winter heating season. 6) If instead of a bottom board with vent holes you use a solid board-such as a sheet of thin Aluminum (for efficient thermal transfer) you may find a temperature stratification such that the bottom of the hive is much warmer than the top. In that case I have found that although the bees will quickly congregate in the hotter regions they will feel much more confined. They will raise brood if it is warm enough. I have seen SWARM CELLS in January with snow on the ground. ( I had made double paned observing windows which permitted me to see this.) 7) I have used light bulbs most often as heaters. Two 40 bulbs wired IN SERIES will last forever and produce a total of only 20 Watts. I have not observed adverse behavior effects of the light (which the bees can see through the bottom holes) altering bee behavior, although that is a possibility. The heated air coming off the bulbs is very hot and will quickly be convected upwards towards the top of the hive which maybe accounts for less temperature stratification with this arrangement than with a solid sheet bottom board. 8) This arrangement works even better (uses less electricity) if the whole hive and heater box are insulated. There should be a vent hole/bee escape hole near the top of the hive in addition to the regular constricted bottom entrance. And probably there should be a way to draw off moisture at the top. I use an additional hive body sitting on a fiberboard (Homosote board) top (instead of the usual inner cover) and the hive body is filled with fiberglas insulation. The fiberboard is sitting on a thin spacer rim so that the bees can roam around on the top bars. If desired a small bee access hole can be made through the fiberboard to permit an inverted feeder pail to be inserted under the fiberglas insulation. 9) Having a top box with Homosote underneath and a feeder pail inside under a blanket of fiberglas insulation works so well that in recent years I have stopped heating hives and have mostly experimented with various forms of this arrangement (not even bothering to use an outside blanket of insulation-just using the insulating top box). I have been able to overwinter single brood chambers with this arrangement with consumption of only about 20 pounds of honey plus about one to two gallons of sugar water. This in contrast to the traditional double brood box for our area containing maybe 80-100 pounds of honey for overwintering. If the access hole through the Homosote is large enough (maybe two inches in dia.) the whole fiberglas covered feeder pail will be maintained at a temperature of about 50 deg. F by the bees own heat- even when the outside temperature goes to minus twenty degrees. They cluster around this warm syrup source tenaciously and will hang from the feeder pail in a tight cluster if it is opened and lifted out in the winter. (You can break the cluster loose by sliding a thin sheet of carboard under the feeder before lifting it out.) 10) But don't let this last result deter you from a hive heating experiment. One additional advantage of hive heating is that you can introduce menthol packets in the Spring on the heated bottom board if you suspect an infestation of tracheal mites. Ordinarily the menthol packets would not be effective in our area (Massachusetts) in the Spring because it is too cold to evaporate the menthol. And an additional benefit is that you can start up Spring Nucs on a heater box without worrying about a cold snap killing off the brood. Good Luck Ernie Huber ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 04:11:20 +1200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Nick Wallingford Organization: Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Subject: Searching BEE-L Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU With the recent change in address for the BEE-L listserv software, the form based front end to help people sub, unsub and search BEE-L archives is not operating. Until I can figure a workaround (anyone with CGI abilities and access???) it will be marked as 'not working'... (\ Nick Wallingford {|||8- home nickw@beekeeping.co.nz (/ work nick.wallingford@boppoly.ac.nz NZ Beekeeping http://www.beekeeping.co.nz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 23:58:09 -0600 Reply-To: fltdeck1@ix.netcom.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Matthew Subject: Re: Any chance of oil-base primer sealing/killing disease? Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, In hindsight, making the mistake of purchasing some used equipment, I'm now perplexed with what to do with the woodware since they have an unknown history. Does anyone have an idea if a thick coating of oil-base primer (to tops & bottom boards) is enough to seal off any potential disease? From the few pieces I've coated, the primer soaks into the wood and has a 'dissolving' effect of sorts on propolis & wax. Two coats makes the things 'look' new, but I'm still unsettled on their use until I hear from someone whom knows better. Thanks, as always for any attention. Matthew Westall in Castle Rock, CO (now - buyer of new woodware ONLY!) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 13:03:22 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jorn Johanesson Subject: Sv: Searching BEE-L Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: Nick Wallingford Til: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Dato: 5. april 1999 12:42 Emne: Searching BEE-L >Until I can figure a workaround (anyone with CGI abilities and >access???) it will be marked as 'not working'... If interested I can expand my CGI to accept a forminput mailing the listserver for access or disconnecting. Searching I am not sure of. best regards Jorn Johanesson By the way new Bidata on the net with expanded printout possibilities EDBI = multilingual Beekeeping software since 1987 http://home4.inet.tele.dk/apimo http://wn.com.au/apimo http://www.apimo.dk apimo@post4.tele.dk apimo@wn.com.au Jorn_Johanesson@apimo.dk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 08:49:29 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Cleaning the solar melter MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT The "grunge" on the metal sheet cleans quite easily and nicely when the sun has been shining on the solar melter. Just wait for a warm sunny day (do you get those in early April in Ireland?) and the surface will scrape clean (or nearly so) with a spatchula. Aaron Morris - thinking a nice sunny warm day would be nice! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 07:55:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gauthier Buddy J Subject: Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Here is my situation: A few weeks ago, I noticed a few drones appearing. I checked the brood and the majority of it was drones. I started to get things in motion by ordering another queen. While waiting for the new queen to arrive, I figured I would find the old queen and take it from there. Well, she was marked with a red dot, and I could not find her anywhere. I noticed that queen cells were being formed.(Peanut sized cells on the side of the frames) My queen was not going to arrive for a couple of weeks, so I just observed what was happening. Colony population was tremendous and honey/pollen supplies were in large quantities. The new queen hatched and I saw her twice. Once, I tried to grab her with my fingers to kill her, but she escaped. The second time, I tried to slash her with my hive tool, but she flew away. I've tried 10 times to find her in the last 8 days, but now I'm not even making eye contact. My new queen is sitting on my counter top waiting to be introduced and now I'm getting concerned. I did notice yesterday, new queen cells are being worked on. Is it possible they killed her or I killed her and that is why I can't find her? What if I never find her? Am I fighting a losing battle if I never find her? How long will my new queen last with her nurse bees in their cage? If I introduce her in her cage and there is still a queen in there, what is going to happen? P.S. My hive is 3 levels high; 2 for brood and 1 for honey(full sized supers). I wish there was someone locally that I could call, but I know of no one close enough to come and assist me. Please help me!! Buddy Gauthier Computer Systems Analyst / Bee Hobbyist Cameco Industries, Inc. Thibodaux, LA 70301 Phone: (504)448-0339 Fax: (504)435-4704 Email: T802273@deere.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 16:12:54 -0400 Reply-To: info@beeworks.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: David Eyre Subject: Vandals! Just thought you might like to add this vandal damage to your lists. We started spring stimulation feeding today, and found two more hives with no bees against the inner cover. Pulling them apart we found dead bees. So we went down to the bottom and would you believe, no Apistan strips! Someone had opened the hives and removed two strips from one hive, and one from the second. (Before someone starts, we know we shouldn't leave strips in all winter, but we had no choice as we diudn't find Varroa till mid October.) My question. How low can people get? Man, it makes you want to give up helping others. ***************************************** The Bee Works, 9 Progress Drive, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, Canada.L3V 6H1. Phone (705)326 7171 Fax (705)325 3461 David Eyre, Owner e-mail http://www.beeworks.com This months special:-Therapik, soothing aid for stings. **************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 00:58:18 EST Reply-To: GImasterBK@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GImasterBK@AOL.COM Subject: Re: AFB in supers (Ethelyne Oxide) Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Paul: Sounds like you are doing a good job researching, and I like your exposure plan using a pallet rack and pallet wrapper. Now your TOUGH job will be negotiating a price for service. If you find something good, please inform the beekeepers. So many are just plain afraid of anything they can't see or touch, and hence are shy of radiation. But they still will get an X-Ray for a broken arm. By the way, The A. I. Root Co web site lists all those names I mentioned like Jim Bach. I hope I have helped. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 09:03:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Waskey, Dick" Subject: Re: Queens Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Whoa Buddy...You're managing your bees like a project at work. Micro-management is for inept employees. Bee's knows what they is doing, you jest gotta help em along... A home spun queen is not a bad thing and here you are sending Zorro after her. A new queen in the hive is worth two in the mail I always say. You say you had a mess of drone brood yet queen cells. This would indicate a failing queen as opposed to drone laying workers. Now after your assault on her you said she flew away and now you can't find her? Humm... If your queen is not coming for a couple of weeks, I would let the other queen cells hatch and let the queen take over...(note: Find a different Queen supplier. I get mine in 3 days all the way up here in Minnesota) Also this searching 10 times in 8 days is a bit excessive. I would guess you have really ticked them off a bit and they are playing games with you. :) At this point I would take your least populated box. Pull it off and place it a ways from the hive. The older bees will fly back to the hive leaving only young bees (they will accept your queen more easily) and the next day introduce the queen to them. After a few days (3) put the box on top of your other deep box seperated with a sheet of lightly slashed newspaper. Check to see if they chew through in a couple days...help them if needed. Now you ask what will happen if there is another queen in the hive? They will either co-exist (Not likely) Fight to the death (one likely will win) or kill each other (Not likely). You could check for eggs depending on how long you think the old gal or in your case the young gal has been missing in action. No eggs and you know she's not home... Dick Wm. Waskey Email: Dwaskey@andersencorp.com (\ -{|||O8< (/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 10:23:13 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Thom Bradley Subject: Re: Queens Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gauthier Buddy J wrote: > . While waiting for the new queen to arrive, I figured I would > find the old queen and take it from there. Well, she was marked with a red > dot, and I could not find her anywhere. I noticed that queen cells were > being formed.(Peanut sized cells on the side of the frames) > The new queen hatched and I saw her twice. I've tried > 10 times to find her in the last 8 days, but now I'm not even making eye > contact. My new queen is sitting on my counter top waiting to be introduced > and now I'm getting concerned. If there are no eggs you probably do not have a queen any longer. If there are eggs try the following. Use the bees own instinct to your advantage. We will use the new queen to find the old one. The theory being, if you place the new queen in the hive the old queen will try to kill her. If we place the new queen in the hive the old queen will come to us. Wrap the queen cage in a piece of screen 8 holes to the inch or finer. Queens and workers the will not be able to get through it. Attach a piece of wood, coat hanger or similar material for you to use as a handle when you go in to retrieve it. Get an empty super or a spacer. 1) Give your new queen a couple of drops of water. Do Not Remove the corks. We don't want her released yet. 2) Do not use smoke if at all possible. Place the super or spacer (with no frames) just above the brood chamber. 3) Place the new protected queen cage in the empty super with the open face of the queen cage accessible- to help spread the queen pheromones. Replace the Top super and leave them be for 1 or a couple hours. 4) Come back and without using smoke remove the top super, and by using your convenient handle (with no bees on it), carefully examine all sides of your protected cage. Your old queen should be there or very close. The use of smoke may cause her to begin to run. Do not use smoke if possible. If this doesn't work try 1 more time. If that doesn't work let us know. Thom Bradley Chesapeake, VA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 19:04:12 +0100 Reply-To: John Burgess Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Burgess Subject: Re: Cleaning Solar Wax Melter Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Tom Try putting your wax in a polythene bag in the solar melter. Make a row of pinholes along the lowest edge (I use an uncapping fork) and the wax will be automatically filtered as it melts, leaving all the dross behind. If things get *very* hot, the plastic sometimes melts a bit in contact with the metal tray, but it is still easier to clean than without. I suppose that covering the surface of the tray with a sheet of cooking aluminium foil would also work, but without the filtering effect the mesh at the exit would still get clogged. I did think of trying turkey roasting bags to resist the high temperatures, but they are expensive compared to supermarket shopping bags. I you have enough sunshine this year to melt anything, why not try these ideas and let us know which works best John Burgess, Editor Gwenynwyr Cymru/The Welsh Beekeeper pencaemawr@bigfoot.com > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 12:09:32 -0400 Reply-To: mcmanus Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: mcmanus Subject: Cleaning Solar Wax Melter Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Tom I saw your post on the problem of wax removal and I like Aaron would wait for a hot day, but then I was there, so there might be time in waiting for the sun. If after you have removed all that you can and if you want it real clean. You might try to pick up, from the local candle supplier, (your bee supplier may know) a candle wax remover. The ingredient: D-IIMONENE which is non-toxic and bio-degradable. While your there, you might want to ask about Mold Release, which is a silicone spray that is used for releasing candles from their molds. You can use this after to coat your metal to prevent sticking. I you are unable to find these products in Ireland or maybe England, then let me know and I will sent you an E-Mail to put you in touch with a company here in Seattle, Wa. Joe McManus "Loving You Honey" Farms Bremerton, Wa. USA mcmanus@budsters.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 16:00:09 EDT Reply-To: RCLynn@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: RCLynn@AOL.COM Subject: Feral Hive in San Diego, CA Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Comments: cc: koffolk@worldnet.att.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Listers: I just spoke with a guy in San Diego County, California. He has a feral colony in his back yard. It is apparently in a "bush" next to his dog pen. His wife is after him to kill it. He would prefer to have a local beekeeper take it away. If anyone is interested please contact him directly. Mr. Erick Wolf 619-759-8012 koffolk@worldnet.att.com Thanks in advance for your help. Randy Lynn Greensboro, NC, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:20:00 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Queens Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Thom Bradley suggests what appears to be an elegant method of finding the queen by using a new queen in a protected cage to lure the old queen on to the cage. It is so simple and appears so logical that I must ask - where is the snag? Has Thom used it himself and with what results? Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland Tel + 353 1 289 5269 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 15:43:42 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Scott Moser Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80) Subject: Ideal Hive Placement?? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings all, I hope everyones bees are as busy as mine here in St. Louis have been. I think I got a handle on the swarming for a while. I do have my fingers crossed. I have been trying to find good locations for outyards lately. My question is, can hives be placed in the woods near nectar sources. I am not too keen about placing the hives in fields where there will be people baling hay. I am not worried about them disturbing the bees. I am more concerned about the bees disturbing them. How far from the hives can machinery like that operate without the bees accosting them? Around here, by the time the trees leaf out, the weather is warm enough to cause the bees to be fanning. There would be little need for sunlight to warm the hives. As far as I can see, wouldnt the bees benefit from the shade provided. How much shade can be tolerated? Thanks in advance for your help in this matter. Scott Moser Get your FREE Email at http://mailcity.lycos.com Get your PERSONALIZED START PAGE at http://personal.lycos.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 16:55:32 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adrian Wenner Subject: Re: Stinger evolution Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joseph Johnson asked: >Hello - I have a quick question about the evolution of the stinger. Is it >true that stingers in general evolved from ovipositors? Can it be said that >a worker bee's stinger is actually the reproductive system tweaked to >produce poison rather than eggs and to insert that poison into flesh rather >than to insert an egg into the ground? Is the stinger a remnant of a >sterile worker bee's reproductive tract? > >Or did I make this up? I won't pretend to be able to answer all that was asked but can provide some insight. Ants, bees, and wasps belong to a group called "Aculeate Hymenoptera" ("aculeate" means sword) That means that most species in that group have stingers that evolved from ovipositors. It also means that one can pick up a drone honey bee with abandon, since it cannot have a stinger, being a male (a good way to impress the "tourists" you might have nearby when you open a hive). In other hymenopteran groups females use the ovipositor to inject an egg into a host --- often a quite an impressive accomplishment. For instance, some of the ichneumonflies have very long ovipositors and somehow manage to drill a hole into a log and place the egg into a larva deep down therein. One can see a transition between the ovipositor used solely as an egg laying device and as a stinger in some ichneumonflies. When one picks up one of those individuals, they act as if they are going to sting you. However, they have no poison sac and usually cannot break the skin. While many ant species have stingers (note the notorious "fire ants"), many other ant species have lost the ovipositor (stinger) altogether and instead have glands that exude noxious substances. Some species are known as "piss ants" because they can shoot a steam of formic acid several inches straight up at an intruder near the nest. However, I cannot comment about the correspondence between the poison sacs of stingers and where they might have come from. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93103 **************************************************************************** * * "Nature only answers rightly when she is rightly questioned." * * Goethe **************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 11:23:25 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "John K. Warsaw" Subject: Re: Pests on plants Comments: To: Gusrow@aol.com, BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I use a spray of made from a couple of tablespoons of dish soap to the gallon of water, applied with a pump sprayer. Exact measurement isn't critical. There are organic soaps sold for the purpose, but I just use whatever I have around. I haven't seen any difference between soap and detergent. Spray the aphids or other small pests liberally. This stuff works by gumming them to death. They aren't strong enough to get free of the solution. (The actual mechanism is asphyxiation.) Bees, being larger and stronger, don't seem bothered by it. If you want to be super careful you could spray late in the day. The liquid will dry before the bees show up for work the next day. You could also wash the stuff off before the bees get to it. When I treat azaleas for lacebugs I sometimes mix a stronger solution, leave it on for several hours, and then hose it off so the plants wont burn. -----Original Message----- From: Gusrow@aol.com To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Date: April 04, 1999 9:06 PM Subject: Pests on plants >Hello fellow beekeepers. Is there anyone out there that can tell me what to >use to get rid of the aphids and other pests on my plants that won't hurt the >bee? The biggest problem I have is the aphids, and I don't want to use >anything that will hurt my bees. I have heard that soapy water works, but I >don't know what affect it has on the bees. Thankyou for your assistance. > >Bob in NM ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:03:24 EDT Reply-To: Pollinator@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Pollinator@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Ideal Hive Placement?? Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 99-04-05 21:19:32 EDT, s_moser@mailcity.com (Scott Moser) wrote: << I hope everyones bees are as busy as mine here in St. Louis have been. I think I got a handle on the swarming for a while. I do have my fingers crossed. I have been trying to find good locations for outyards lately. My question is, can hives be placed in the woods near nectar sources. I am not too keen about placing the hives in fields where there will be people baling hay.>> Sounds like a good plan to me. Most of my bee yards are holes in the woods. I like to have full wind protection from prevailing winds (absolutely necessary in late winter/early spring, even here in SC. It's always a good idea to avoid people traffic lanes. <> I'd rather have no shade in winter (ie: hardwoods) and partial shade in summer. Bees in deep shade tend to be snotty and not very productive. But full sun in the summer in the south or midwest can also hurt them, especially when the temps get around 100F. In some northern locations where 80's is a hot day, full sun is best year around. Dave Green SC USA The Pollination Home Page http://www.pollinator.com The Pollination Scene http://members.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop on the Internet (honey & beeswax candles) http://members.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 09:00:37 +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: Queens Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Thom Bradley suggests what appears to be an elegant method of finding the > queen by using a new queen in a protected cage to lure the old queen on to > the cage. It is so simple and appears so logical that I must ask - where is > the snag? Bees aren't logic...... ;-) It has never worked for me when I tried it. This is what I often do; take the cage with the new queen and leave it for a minute on a frame with bees. Watch the workers, if they show aggressiveness to the new queen and bend the abdomen down looking like they want to ball her or run away when they feel the scent like they don't want to know her, then you should be careful and sieve all bees through an excluder. If the bees start fanning around the cage to spread the new queens pheromones to other bees, lifting the abdomen and showing the Nasanov gland then you are pretty sure she will be accepted. Picture on http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/biodling/req.htm -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden beeman@algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~beeman/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 07:49:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gauthier Buddy J Subject: Locating Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Thanks to all of you helping me with my problem of locating a queen.(especially Mr. Waskey and Mr. Bradley) She was located quite easily, this time, and I was able to get rid of her. After two weeks, she did not lay any eggs and they were still working on 5 to 7 queen cells. My new queen is waiting on the wings to get busy and I'll introduce her tomorrow. Since I'm a greenhorn rookie, you can imagine how difficult this was. I've seen my queen dozens of times while my hive was small and 1 level deep. Now it is 3 levels high with thousands more bees and 10's of lbs. of honey/pollen; it was overwhelming. I'm looking forward to my first harvest of honey. From what I see and smell when I get into the hive, I can't wait. I really appreciate having all of you at my disposal. I'm still trying to find someone locally so I won't go into panic mode every time something "weird" takes place. Thanks, Buddy Gauthier Computer Systems Analyst / Rookie Bee Hobbyist (2 hives and growing stronger) Cameco Industries, Inc. Thibodaux, LA 70301 Phone: (504)448-0339 Fax: (504)435-4704 Email: T802273@deere.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 09:58:24 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Thom Bradley Subject: Re: Queens Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I have used this method 1 time with success (my 2nd year) in a colony that was built up from a recent swarm. The queen's pattern was spotty and I was replacing her with a Carniolan from a major breeder. I could not find the swarm queen after several attempts (due to lack of experience), and the colony was in my backyard close to neighbors. I was attenpting to find her with the least disturbance to the colony, for the neighbor's sake. It worked on the second attempt in the same afternoon. I have not tried this method since then, (I have become rather good at spotting queens). I had to carefully sort out adhering bees to spot her. With additional thought I feel the details may be worked out with this method. But then again, there I go thinking. Mr. Gustafsson is correct though, bees don't react logically, they react instinctively. As much as I try to reason with them, they have a great time displaying how wrong I am sometimes. I swear I heard (the 5 lb swarm I recaptured twice from my own primary yard Sunday) laughing with that serious belly laugh. The worst that can happen is .... they say "No." Thom Bradley Chesapeake, VA Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > > > Thom Bradley suggests what appears to be an elegant method of finding the > queen by using a new queen in a protected cage to lure the old queen on to > the cage. It is so simple and appears so logical that I must ask - where is > the snag? > > Has Thom used it himself and with what results? > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 13:46:20 EDT Reply-To: RASpiek@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: RASpiek@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Swarming Comments: To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I came home this a.m. to find a ball of bees (basketball) hanging from a tomato plant near my greenhouse about 20 feet from my 2 hives. Within 3 minutes I had gathered up a hive body and some drawn comb. Too late. When I came back they were leaving. I followed them for about 1/2 mile but as I climb a fence and looked back up, they were gone and I could not find them. What do I do now? I was intending to make splits and my new queens are to arrive next week. Can I still do this? I opened both hives and cannot tell which one swarmed. They are both full of bees, brood, honey, pollen. I mean full. 1 deep, 1 medium, each full of brood and honey. I had given them a medium to make more room and they drew the comb and filled them with honey pollen and some drone brood. So I gave them another deep to draw that comb. They did sin the empty deep over the inner cover where I feed them, I gave them some more foundation and they are working on it. I cant keep up with them. Help! Richard ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 14:01:56 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adrian Wenner Subject: Re: Pests on plants Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "Gusrow" wrote (in response to Bob in NM, who asked about controlling aphids, etc., without harming bees): >I use a spray of made from a couple of tablespoons of dish soap to the >gallon of water, applied with a pump sprayer. Exact measurement isn't >critical. There are organic soaps sold for the purpose, but I just use >whatever I have around. I haven't seen any difference between soap and >detergent. > >Spray the aphids or other small pests liberally. This stuff works by >gumming them to death. They aren't strong enough to get free of the >solution. (The actual mechanism is asphyxiation.) Bees, being larger and >stronger, don't seem bothered by it. If you want to be super careful you >could spray late in the day. The liquid will dry before the bees show up for >work the next day. You could also wash the stuff off before the bees get to >it. When I treat azaleas for lacebugs I sometimes mix a stronger solution, >leave it on for several hours, and then hose it off so the plants wont burn. Soaps and detergents certainly work. However, those substances also kill the beneficial insects that prey on or parasitize the pest species. By controlling the ants instead of spraying, I can enjoy watching those beneficial insects at work on the aphids --- including ladybird beetle adults and larvae, syrphid fly larvae, and braconid wasps. We covered that sort of information in our book: 1991 Klein, H.D. and A.M. Wenner. Tiny Game Hunting: Environmentally Healthy Ways to Trap and Kill the Pests in Your House and Garden. Bantam, New York. The bad news: it sold out fast, and Bantam did not put out other print runs. However, your library may have a copy. The good news: we just signed a contract with the University of California Press to put out a second edition. It should be out within two years. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93103 **************************************************************************** * * "Nature only answers rightly when she is rightly questioned." * * Goethe **************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 07:23:27 -0400 Reply-To: BobCan@tdpi.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Subject: Entrance Reducer or NOT? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My question for today is, does the hole on the entrance reducer face up or down ? I have heard that it faces up to keep water out however, I see many pictures with it facing down. If it faces up isn't it hard for bees to push dead bees up and over the hump? If it faces down isn't it easier for water to come in? My wife was reading my bee books the other day and said that I reminded her of a drone. I wonder what she was trying to tell me....... Bob Southeastern Ohio ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 07:44:20 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Entrance Reducer or NOT? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT BobCan@TDPI.COM asks: > ... does the hole on the entrance reducer face up or down? Well, it all depends how you install it and whether you're in the northern of southern hemisphere. ;) Actually it can go either way with pros and cons for both (as you mentioned). Another pro for facing up is there is a little extra space available for dead bees to collect on the bottom board without blocking the entrance. I usually face mine up after 20 years of facing them down. Can't honestly say I've noticed a difference. This whole question becomes moot if you buy galvanized metal entrance reducers, there's only one choice then, facing down. I like those entrance reducers because you can screw them to the hive body when you take them out in the spring and you don't have to search around for them in the fall. Plus, you don't have to worry if they're upside down or not AND if you turn them upside down they seal a hive (good for preventing robbing from deadouts until you can remove them from the yard). Aaron Morris - thinking I don't know which side is up! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 16:36:52 -0400 Reply-To: String & Linda Monteith Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: String & Linda Monteith Subject: Re: Ideal Hive Placement?? Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am not worried about them disturbing the bees. I am more concerned about the bees disturbing them. I have a hive on the side of our house. We regularly take visitors to "visit the bees". We have never had a sting. We move slowly through the bees, mow around the hive and my husband even takes the weed eater around it - while wearing shorts and sandals ( I know but he's crazy anyway.) How much shade can be tolerated? Thanks in advance for your help in this matter. I don't know about this one, always had my bees in the sun. Linda Monteith ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 08:24:01 EDT Reply-To: RASpiek@aol.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: RASpiek@AOL.COM Subject: Bee Book MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I can get a used paperback copy of "Fifty Years among the Bees" in good or better condition for $35 US. Is this a good price? Is it a good read? Richard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 09:26:49 EDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: _50_Years_Among_the_Bees_ for $35? Less than $1 per year! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I statred writing this a few months ago when Miller's _50_Years_Among_the_Bees_ was the hot topic on BEE-L and Barnes and Nobel's online order web site ;) Alas, I never finished and submitted it. Now RASpiek@aol.com asks if $35 for a paperback copy is a good price. I paid $75 for a hard cover copy and almost $50 for hard cover of _40_Years_... (Miller re-released an updated version every decade, _50_Years... was the last release). There are a lot of things of lesser value one could purchase for $35. Obviously I have more money than brains, but I'd buy the paperback. Andy Nachbaur wrote: > Not a real review....just some more thoughts on why this book after > 84 years is still a "must read" for old and young bee keepers ... I couldn't agree more with Andy on this statement. Reading _50_Years_ reminded me of a football team that just played a real stinker of a game. The first thing a coach does at the next practice after such a game is to get back to the basics. Miller's book was just such a practice. I found a lot of the descriptions of the equipment he used, innovations in his time, a bit tedious today when most are stock items. However the concepts behind the innovations are as valid today as they ever were and his observations of beekeepers as tinkerers who would rather invent or reinvent a wheel than use a stock item was priceless! > things have not changed that much with the invention of the honey > extractor. Dr. Miller writes of the comb honey days that most in > this generation know nothing about. His extractor as pictured sets > out abandoned in the apiary ... Well, things have changed more than that. In his final chapters when Dr. Miller muses, "If I had it all to do over again...", he speculates that he would manage bees for liquid honey rather than comb. I was amazed that Dr. Miller's methods for comb preparation for market was so similar to Killion's description and it made me wonder how much of what I know and attribute to more current stars of beekeeping came from the masters who came before them. > Miller must have been blessed with daughters ... at least judging by > his photo illustrations. Actually, he had a son who, although of some assistance did not "take" to the bees. Dr. Miller married, was widowed, remarried and I believe his second wife had a sister(?) who was most active with the bees. The photographs were quite the sites. Blouses and full skirts, with all the undergarments of the period made quite the amusing bee suits! Other plates in the book gave a good appreciation for beekeeping in the last millinneum. Migratory beekeeping (actually trips to nearby out yards) atop horse drawn wagons. Get a trailer? Dr. Miller used a horse team! 20 hives to a yard? Dr. Miller had 100, in an area he describes as at best, marginal. And even the pictures come from an era when pictures themselves were new and exciting! Dr. Miller reminds you of this when he writes, "I point the camera, Mr. Kodak does the rest!". > Ten cents per hour was top wages, and 12 cents was really big money > for honey...the same price for honey we got in the 1950's, Hmmmm ... I thought he was getting 25 cents per pound for his comb, which amazed me when I realized the price of honey has just more than doubled in a century's time. Would that the rest of inflation had kept that pace! > ... a "must read" bee book (because) when you read it I guarantee you > will come away with not only answers to some question not answered > before but ideas from the early days of beekeeping that you will think > are worth a try today in your own "modern" apiary. You will also come away challanged to continue to seek answers that have yet to be found. I expected to find in _50_Years... the definitive way to keep your bees at home in the supers where they belong, not in the woods where they are want to go. Alas, no answers! Miller was confounded by swarms - he offers a number of strategies for control, most of which employ some means of splitting up the hive for increase - more like controlled swarming, not swarm prevention. There are also GREAT(!) tips for keeping bees today - things really haven't changed all that much in the past century. The section where Dr. Miller writes how he increased 9 so-so hives to over 100 (I seem to recall 140 but am not sure of the exact number) has a permanent bookmark in my copy. _50_Years_Among_the_Bees_ truly is a _MUST_READ_ for any serious beekeeper. Seek it out, you'll be glad you did. $35? Buy the book! Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 10:19:45 -0500 Reply-To: tvf@umich.edu Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Organization: ACB Dept., Univ of Michigan Subject: Re: Swarming MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit RASpiek@aol.com wrote: > I came home this a.m. to find a ball of bees (basketball) hanging from a > tomato plant near my greenhouse about 20 feet from my 2 hives. Within 3 > minutes I had gathered up a hive body and some drawn comb. Too late. When I > came back they were leaving. I followed them for about 1/2 mile but as I > climb a fence and looked back up, they were gone and I could not find them. > What do I do now? I was intending to make splits and my new queens are to > arrive next week. Can I still do this? I opened both hives and cannot tell > which one swarmed. They are both full of bees, brood, honey, pollen. This is an experience common to all who have had bees for more than a year. It is truly frustrating to have a swarm so easy to get and then lose it. The easiest way to tell which one swarmed is to look for ripe queen cells, or perhaps cells that are recently opened and have a little "trap door" hanging from the end. The old queen goes with the swarm and leaves behind ripe cells or virgin queens. The one which swarmed will also be lacking eggs and very young brood, because the queen has had to trim down her weight in order to take flight with the other bees. I plan this year to purchase swarm traps and to place them around my yards. These will have pheromone attractants which should entice a swarm to enter rather than find a new place several miles away. I have several yards and I know that I lose swarms every year which I'd rather have myself. Even in my home apiary last year I had a super large one land at the very top of a tall pine tree. No way could I reach it by any means possible, so I just watched it sit there for two days before it flew away. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 16:50:23 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Switching Hives and Queen Introduction Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All It is a recommended practice to switch strong and weak hives especially early in the year to even up colonies, always carrying out disease checks beforehand of course. I need to switch hives shortly and it got me thinking (I know! thinking can be dangerous!). Now what is puzzling me is this. Bees do not like a queen which smells differently to what they have been used to - (hence the difficulty in introducing queens) - so why is the queen in each hive not attacked by the bees from the other hive?. Why do they not behave towards what they must see as a strange queen, as they would have behaved had she been introduced to them without protection?. The older flying bees are normally most of the problem during queen introduction. Could the fact that the flying bees do not attack the queen in this case be turned to good account?. To introduce a queen to each of two hives, why not switch the hives first?. Then all you would have to worry about are the relatively friendlier house bees. What do the list think? Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park, Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland Tel + 353 1 289 5269 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 13:54:15 -0400 Reply-To: Peter John Keating Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter John Keating Subject: Payne Loader Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone know where l can purchase the push button switches for the Payne loader. Peter ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 11:35:39 -0600 Reply-To: fltdeck1@ix.netcom.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Matthew Subject: Re: Wax-moth infested frames Comments: To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all! Our season is just starting here in Colorado and the bees are really moving on the days it doesn't snow (12" in two days last weekend). My question is on wax-moth infested frames. I purchases some used frames from a guy last year (Peirco one-piece) which the moths really went through. Without scraping down the hives, I placed them in an out-building expecting the winter would freeze them. After 15 days of consistent -20F temperatures this year, imagine my surprise when I open the hives to find LIVE larvae all over the frames. Now what? Will the bees take care of these if I re-use them or should I scrape them all down? Thanks - as always, for your interest & reply. Matthew Westall in Castle Rock, CO ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 12:30:40 PDT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Kevin Palm Subject: OKC Beekeepers?? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi, Folks!! I'm down here in Oklahoma City for the next couple of months, and I was wondering if there were any good bee-related happenings going on?? I'd love to go to a couple of local meetings or such, or see any good bee-type exhibits!! If anyone has any info for this (temporarily) transplanted Ohioan, please let me know!! Thanks, Kevin Palm Kevin R. Palm <*> Beekeeper Grafton, Ohio USA <*> Mountain Dulcimer Player (near Cleveland) <*> FAA ATSS kevinpalm@netscape.net <*> USN Veteran (1981-1993) ET1(SW) ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 17:37:55 -0400 Reply-To: tvf@umich.edu Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ted Fischer Organization: ACB Dept., Univ of Michigan Subject: Re: Wax-moth infested frames MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Matthew wrote: > My question is on wax-moth infested frames. I purchases some used > frames from a guy last year (Peirco one-piece) which the moths really > went through. Without scraping down the hives, I placed them in an > out-building expecting the winter would freeze them. > > After 15 days of consistent -20F temperatures this year, imagine my > surprise when I open the hives to find LIVE larvae all over the frames. > Now what? Will the bees take care of these if I re-use them or should I > scrape them all down? Badly damaged combs cannot be used by the bees. However, the bright spot is that you have Pierco frames. You can scrape off the junk down to the plastic and reuse them. If you are then able to give them a quick dunk in hot melted beeswax, the acceptance will probably be better. However, the frames ought to be accepted by bees, especially when the flow is on in full force. Ted Fischer Dexter, Michigan USA