Subject: "Here, Clyde, Help Me Tamp Down These Bees!"

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 24 Aug 1996 04:38:07 -0400

You're scaring me!

    (Sigh)  I guess I'd better store up some adrenalin.  Next spring's
package season is going to bee! another manic session.
   
    All you guys in good fall honey country that are removing supers to
treat for mites.  Do you realize what you are doing?

   You are shutting down the queens, at least a month early.  As soon as
all those bees are jammed into the brood nest, and fall nectar is filling
empty cells, the queen will have nowhere to lay.

    How are they goina' make the young bees that are needed for the winter
cluster? They'll be going into winter with OLD bees.    - A guaranteed
prescription for heavy winter loss.

   I mentioned this a week or so ago, without any response.  So I bring it
up again, more clearly, more forcefully.  THINK!

    Now I know there won't be a response from those who are quietly making
the fall crop......with Apistan strips in place.  They're not gonna' have
this problem, though they may have others......

    But all you guys who are making this drastic management change.....
without testing..... on advice from folks who, by and large, don't keep
bees, or at least don't require them for their livelihood.  THINK!

    If I were in your shoes right now (and I've kept bees in the north),
I'd sure have supers on.  If not, I'm throwing away a resource, and
endangering my bees to boot.

    Now I didn't say, extract it and sell it, did I?    Surely you have
some deadouts, or extra deeps around.  Maybe you can get some foundation
drawn.  I think deeps would be preferable to shallows, as you can then put
the frames right into a brood nest later.  But if you use shallows,  take
a spray can and paint a big red dot on the ends of a few supers.  That
will remind you not to extract those.

    Get all the honey you can, in whatever form you can, and save it;
don't extract it.
Next March, put supers of these onto your light hives.  Then when the
weather warms, and your bees are building nicely, take three frames of
brood and make nucs.  Put deep frames of honey on either side of the
brood, and let them raise a queen, or give them one.  Now, they are better
fed than they could ever be with syrup.  Shucks, give them syrup, too.   -
Get's them going fast!

   If you didn't get your honey in deep frames, then put an excluder over
your three frames of brood in the brood chamber and put on a super.  You
can stretch it, by putting five frames of honey directly over the bees,
rather than a full one.  If you are not able to keep track of them using
it up, take a permanant marker and put an x on the top bar, so you won't
extract that frame.

    In the spring I promise to say "I told you so!" if you let the brood
chambers plug up this fall, and die over winter.

   Varroa mites will kill bees.  But it also makes a nice whipping boy,
when poor management kills bees.   Let's not panic, folks.  Think!

    I'd like to sell some packages come spring.  But I don't want to fill
my pockets, from someone else's *unnecessary* losses.

[email-masked]    Dave Green,  PO Box 1200,  Hemingway,  SC
29554

Practical Pollination Home Page            Dave & Janice Green
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html

[email-masked]                                   Dave and Janice Green
Practical Pollination Home Page    
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html  
PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC    29554

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From: [email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 01:01:00 GMT

guess I'd better store up some adrenalin.  Next spring's

P>From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
 >Subject: "Here, Clyde, Help Me Tamp Down These Bees!"

P>    All you guys in good fall honey country that are removing supers to
 >treat for mites.  Do you realize what you are doing?

Here in central California a good fall flow is rare, and this is not
one of those rare years. In our mild winters singles winter better
and are easier to give extra care to then doubles so many good
beekeepers knock them all down to singles. There is also a few who
also make fall nucs and move them and any dinks to the coastal areas
for the early pollen which starts the first week in January one week
one way or the other.

P>   You are shutting down the queens, at least a month early.  As soon as
 >empty cells, the queen will have nowhere to lay.

In this area the bees are on cotton and have reduced broodrearing
naturally because of the lack of pollen and beekeepers on the cutting
edge are just starting to feed pollen substitutes laced with natural
antibiotics and natural mite killers and even some sugar syrup. This will
increase into early November depending on the weather. When it gets cold
in most cases its too late until spring.

P>    How are they goina' make the young bees that are needed for the winter
 >prescription for heavy winter loss.

This is a problem, many times those nice fall young bees are reared on
poor or single source pollens and don't seem to live that long anyway,
or maybe they have less of what it takes to make brood food and burn out
early. There is also a grater number of bees showing signs of virus this
time of year, (dark hairless bees, which stick out when you are looking
at a frame of brood), this is a bad sign and if it is common in all the
hives most beekeepers experience problems later from dramatic dwindling.

P>    But all you guys who are making this drastic management change.....
 >bees, or at least don't require them for their livelihood.  THINK!

I am living proof of that. It's my bees that are dead!<G>

P>    Get all the honey you can, in whatever form you can, and save it;
 >don't extract it.

I agree with that part "get all the honey you can", but in my own
experience it is better to spend the money on sugar and TM and forget
about feeding any honey, yours or mine, as it may not be the best
food to rear bees on anyway. If you think about it the bees do best
during the honeyflow, (nectar), and this you can duplicate with sugar
syrup. Frames of honey are nice to have around in emergencies, but
figuring the time and labor involved its may be more cost effective to
extract the honey and feed the bees "pure" sugar syrup.

 >fed than they could ever be with syrup.  Shucks, give them syrup, too.   -

I tried for years wintering honey with several supers of honey and even
in this mild climate it does not work as well as leaving just enough
honey so not to have to worry about them starving and planning on
supplementing that with sugar syrup for the increased broodrearing and
opportunity to get a real idea of what is really in your bee hives early
next spring.

P>   Varroa mites will kill bees.  But it also makes a nice whipping boy,
 >when poor management kills bees.   Let's not panic, folks.  Think!

DITTO, and you can add both mites and just about everything else.

                                ttul Andy-
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