Subject: NEED BEANs Save the BEES

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 22:55:00 GMT

BEANS, beans the musical fruit comes in time of need to the
keepers of bees! Or is it all just passing gas?

ì”ì This ì”ì post ì”ì is ì”ì a ì”ì follow up!

California....

  Beekeeper's here are experimenting with a chemical product they
mix with sugar syrup at ratio's of 300 gallons sugar to 2 quarts
product and feed it to the bees in early spring to kill varroa mites.
The product sells for about $50. a gallon and is 0.25% Azadirachtin
(active ingredient).

  Have you heard anything about this product made by GRACE and sold
as NEEMAZAD 0.28 EC?

************************Follow UP***********************

  NORTHERN AGRICULTURE RESEARCH CENTRE

   Français (this is English)

Research Branch
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
P.O. Box 29
Beaverlodge, Alberta
T0H 0C0

Tel.           (403) 354-2212
Fax            (403) 354-8171
EM             OTTB::EM380MAIL
Internet       [email-masked]

Apiculture pathology                         T.P. Liu, Ph.D.
Apiculture (seconded out)                    T.I. Szabo, Ph.D.

   The Northern Agriculture Research Centre (NARC) improves production
   systems for crops, honey bees, and other pollinating insects adapted
   to environmental conditions in northwestern Canada. It also develops
   technology for managing the soil, water, and climatic resources of the
   region, for a productive and sustainable agricultural industry. The
   centre has breeding programs in canola, wheat, and honey bees. Our
   major crops are
     * cereal grains
     * pulse crops
     * forage seed production
     * oilseeds.

   The Fort Vermilion field site develops crop management systems for
   oilseeds, cereals, and pulse crops.

    Achievements

        ì”ì This ì”ì looks ì”ì real ì”ì good ì”ì .....

   Controlling chalkbrood disease of honeybees It's an environmentalist's
   dream: a natural pesticide found in the seeds of the neem, one of the
   most common trees in India and Burma. Neem extract controls diseases
   and pests of crops, yet leaves pollinating insects and mammals
   unharmed. Neem extract was tested and results showed that treated
   colonies had 350% less chalkbrood and 100% less nosema than control
   colonies. Treated colonies also collected 3.5 times more pollen and
   produced 1.5 times more honey.

----------------------------------OLd Drone Comments--------------------
The Honey Producer in me says:

*WOW 1 and 1/2 more honey, up the mites, we all should be feeding
 this chemical and get the increase in honey production, have cleaner
 bees, and any residue in the honey will cure MS along with a few
 bee stings in the right places.........after all it a natural poison.

AND The farmer Almond grower who pays me says:

**HOT DOG, up the mites, up the honey, up the people, collecting 3.5x
 the pollen, HOT DOG! How much of this stuff do you need..
_________________________end of comment-------------------------------

   Biological control of tracheal mites in the honey bee Breeding honey
   bees that are resistant to tracheal mites is the most desirable
   approach to reducing the damage caused by infestations of this pest.
   Biological control of tracheal mite infestation may be another
   attractive alternative. A DNA virus has been found in tracheal mites
   taken from honey bees. When this virus was introduced into
   mite-infected colonies, the infestation level decreased from 23.7% to
   5.2% within 2 months.

-------------------------More added-------------------------------

** I must add to this that without looking at what exactly happened
   in the controls in this piece of work one must remember that the
   tracheal mites are infamous for spontaneous remission in numbers
   of mites making it very hard to derive reliable information or
   control stratagems. It may be that this virus is present and is
   naturally triggered by some environmental input that may or may
   not be controlled.
-------------------------end of off the wall comments--------------

   NARC has a staff of 50 full-time equivalents, with 16 in the
   professional categories. The center controls 390 ha of land at two
   sites and rents about 35 ha of land a year for research. In addition,
   NARC manages the Fort Vermilion field site, which owns 187 ha of land
   and rents about 3 ha of land for research. Operation is on a growing
   season basis only.

   NARC manages a budget of $3.3 million. It has a 12-person advisory
   committee consisting of farmers and provincial and university leaders.
   The centre supplements its resources by receiving funds from outside
   agencies, including the provinces, producer groups, and agri-business.

    Research Publications

   Fairey, D.T. 1993. Pollination of Trifolium hybridum by Megachile
   rotundata. J. Appl. Seed Prod. 11:34-38.

   Fairey, D.T. 1993. Pollination and seed set in herbage species: a
   review of limiting factors. J. Appl. Seed Prod. 11:6-12.

   Fairey, D.T.; Lefkovitch, L.P. 1993. Bombus and other bee pollinators
   in Trifolium hybridum seed fields. J. Appl. Seed Prod. 11:87þ-89.

   Fairey, D.T.; Lefkovitch, L.P. 1993. Arrangement of new and used
   nesting materials in leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata (F.),
   shelters to maximize cell production. J. Appl. Entomol. 115:62-65.

   Fairey, D.T.; Lefkovitch, L.P. 1994. Collection of leaf pieces by
   Megachile rotundata: proportion used in nesting. Bee Sci. 3(2):79-85.

   Fairey, N.A.; Lefkovitch, L.P. 1994. Herbage production as influenced
   by stand arrangement, nitrogen fertility and supplemental water. Can.
   J. Plant Sci. 74:115-120.

   Grant, G.A.; Nelson, D.L.; Olsen, P.E.; Rice, W.A. 1993. The þ Elisa"
   detection of tracheal mites in whole honey bee samples. Am. Bee J.
   133:652-655.

   Li, M.; Nelson, D.L.; Sporns, P. 1993. Determination of menthol in
   honey by gas chromatography. J. AOAC Int. 76(6):1289-1295.

   Liu, T.P.; Chu, L.T.Y.; Sporns, P. 1993. Formic acid residues in honey
   in relation to application rate and timing of formic acid for control
   of tracheal mites, Acarapis woodi (Rennie). Am. Bee J. 133:71-721.

   Liu, T.P.; McRory, D. 1994. The use of gamma radiation from Cobalt-60
   in a commercial facility in Ontario to disinfect honey bee equipment.
   1. American foulbrood disease. Am. Bee J. 134:203-206.

   Liu, T.P.; Nasr, M.E. 1993. Preventive treatment of tracheal mites,
   Acarapis woodi (Rennie) with vegetable oil extender patties in the
   honeybee, Apis mellifera L. colonies. Am. Bee J. 134:873þ-875.

   Mills, P.F. 1994. The agricultural potential of northwestern Canada
   and Alaska and the impact of climatic change. Arctic 47(2):115-123.

   Nelson, D.; Sporns, P.; Kristiansen, P.; Mills, P. 1993. Effectiveness
   and residue levels of 3 methods of menthol application to honey bee
   colonies for the control of tracheal mites. Apidologie 24:549-556.

   Szabo, T.I. 1993. Brood rearing in outdoor wintered honey bee
   colonies. Am. Bee J. 133(8):579-580.

   Szabo, T.I. 1993. Length of life of queens in honey bee colonies. Am.
   Bee J. 133(10):723-724.

   Szabo, T.I. 1993. Selective breeding of honey bees for resistanct to
   Varroa jacobsoni. Am. Bee J. 133:868; Can. Beekeep. 17(10):222.

*Ripped of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada web page, edited to
 save band width.
                      ttul OLd Drone

(c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document
in any form, or to print for any use.

(w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk.
Not a invitation to use or an endorsement of any product
legal or not legal.
---
 þ QMPro 1.53 þ What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee!

---

From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Sat, 11 May 1996 03:33:00 GMT

----------------------------------------
*FOLLOW UP on Neem*
                    ----------------------------------------
  >Subject:      Re: NEED BEANs Save the BEES

SS>>BEANS, beans the musical fruit comes in time of need to the
  >>keepers of bees! Or is it all just passing gas?  <snip>

SS>I gather from the ridicule that you poured out on the subject of neem
  >research and honeybees, that you do not have much use for the researchers or
  >their methods, Andy.  For all I know about the subject, and that is next to
  >nothing, you could be perfectly correct.  However, my curiosity was aroused,
  >and I wanted to get beyond the ridicule to obtain some facts about what the
  >experiments involved and what the results were.  However, when I send an

SS>Does anyone know who is actually doing experiments on bees using neem and
  >what their address is?  It is a little bit unclear in your post whether
  >these are the people doing the research.  I don't think it was your
  >intention to encourage people to spend time investigating this!  :-)

Hi Stan,

Sorry you did not find my humor funny, and yes the idea is to have
beekeeper's take the lead and judge for themselves as many are
and at the same time bee careful. My post may reek of black humor
but are not meant to ridicule anyone and should maybe be read as you
would political commentary. I believe that the day of depending on
others (government institutions) to satisfactory solve beekeeping
problems ended long ago in the United States but at the same time
I am one of a handful of long time commercial beekeepers who has
always support both basic and applied beekeeping research and have
done so when other beekeepers would not, from what ever political base
I have worked from within the industry or the land grant university
system we have here in the US.

Much of the information on Neem has been published in the Bee Journals,
and I don't know exactly what current research is going on at this
time, except that some is.

Beekeeper's here have found the Neem chemical is available from their
friendly local farm chemical supplier and are doing their own testing.
The material tested at Beaver Lodge is available at most garden stores
at a much higher cost then the farm chemical.

I had no trouble finding much information on neem by using the
first internet search engine I came onto with "neem extract" as the
search words. Some of the info is several years old, and it is hard
to track down via the old internet text pages.

                          ttul Andy-

PS If I seem a little harsh on beekeeping academics please forgive me
   it is from years of experience and I must say many friendships within
   the beekeeping scientific community and my personal style at
   deflating some bureaucratic egos. Please read what I have to say
   but consider the source, a beekeeper, nothing more, nothing less.
---
 þ QMPro 1.53 þ ... Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden,