From MAILER-DAEMON Sun Jan 14 10:28:49 2001 Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by luna.oit.unc.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA06288 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 10:28:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA01973 for ; Sun, 14 Jan 2001 10:31:42 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200101141531.KAA01973@listserv.albany.edu> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 10:31:39 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0003D" To: adamf@METALAB.UNC.EDU Content-Length: 173122 Lines: 3779 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 23:14:33 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Coumaphos and TM reaction Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I was made aware recently, about a Florida beekeeping newsletter recommending not to use coumaphos and TM together as it was causing a bad reaction. If you look up coumaphos in the chemical book, Agricultural Chemicals, it has precautions on mixing with fluvalinate and I quote: "Do not mix with other insecticides nor use in conjunction with oral drenches or other internal medicines. Toxic to birds and fish." The TM beekeepers use is an internal medicine and therefore in no way should be mixed with coumaphos and could easily explain the problems beekeepers are starting to have in Florida mixing the two. Is this information printed on the label? I don't know since I won't use coumaphos. -Barry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 00:59:14 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: Coumaphos and TM reaction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barry, are you implying that beekeepers ever bother to read labels? I wish it were true! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:33:02 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: Re: COMPETITION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/21/00 1:04:45 AM, JMitc1014@AOL.COM writes: << Interestingly, the generally upbeat feature on honey bees is illustrated with a picture of a bumblebee. >> If increasing support for bees and beekeepers, honey bee research and other programs is important, then beekeepers need to respond when somebody publishes inaccurate, incomplete or highly conjectural information as fact about honey bees. Beekeepers should make a point of writing a letter or email to the media organization disseminating the offending information by pointing out the inaccuracy, hyperbole, omission or whatever. If you can write a post that will be approved by the moderators of Bee-l, then you can write a publishable letter to any newspaper or magazine. I wrote an email to the Environmental News Network pointing out the bumblebee graphic with the Jerry Bromenshenk article. Here was the photo editor's response: Hello: I am the photo editor at ENN.com and I received your e-mail today about the animal sentinel graphic. Thank you for bringing this inaccuracy to my attention. I talked to the graphic designer who made the piece. There was some difficulty in locating a quality honey bee photo and given the deadline situation, this was the best that could be done. ...If you see anything else, please let me know. Thank you for your message. Teresa Tamura Photo Editor, ENN.com Next time, perhaps the graphic designer will try a little harder to find a picture of a honey bee, or one will be made available to her. News organizations want your letters. Speaking from years of experience working in newspaper and magazine journalism, letters are considered a measure of the vitality of the newspaper, and are one of the most read sections. Perhaps if beekeepers had been more proactive in writing letters to editors when incomplete information was being presented to the New York Times and elsewhere about the "nasty competition" of honey bees, there would have been more public support for research and more options than just Apistan to combat mites and other problems afflicting beekeepers today. What follows is an example of an effective letter to the editor of the New York Times. It is well-written and respectful of all points of view, while redirecting momentum away from the original editorial, which was a clear, undiluted call from the editorial board of the New York Times for massive action to save the honey bee. It's a good model for writing a good letter and it must have been effective, because the NYTs hasn't made another such call supporting the honey bee since: HEADLINE: Pollination Needs More Than Honeybees To the Editor: Thank you for your Dec. 25 (1996) editorial "America's Endangered Honeybees." The decline in wild honeybee colonies and resulting losses in pollination services to gardeners and potentially to commercial agriculture has led the United States Department of Agriculture to describe the situation as an "impending pollination crisis." Yes, we need more money for research on honeybees. Another critical part of the solution is the quest for alternative pollinators. In research we did this past summer, we found that bumblebees, squashbees and other native, wild insects were doing the lion's share of pollinating squash and pumpkin flowers in Maine, Arizona, Georgia and Tennessee. The answer is to figure out not only how to save the honeybee, but also how to manage other species of bees for pollination and how to sustain populations of wild native pollinators near our gardens and farms so that we have a diversified pollinator portfolio. A pollinator-friendly environment fits in easily with integrated pest management techniques and other strategies for a healthy, more sustainable American agriculture. STEVE BUCHMANN MRILL INGRAM, GARY NABHAN Tucson, Ariz., Dec. 30, 1996 The writers are co-directors of the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:03:29 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: Re: COMPETITION In-Reply-To: <200003221343.IAA17229@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:33 AM 3/22/00 EST, you wrote: The problem is that very few in the popular press care anything about accuracy. Best most of us do is to not sound foolish. If asked, I could have provided the ENN graphics department with any number of pictures of honey bees - but the graphics person never asked. Same about the poll that asks a question that has nothing to do with our plans - we're not moving honey bees or any other bees from the U.S. to other countries around the world. But all of this gets worse. Over the past year, I have found myself quoted numerous times by reporters who have never talked to me. I get e-mails and calls that say "We've written an article about your work, can you provide pictures to illustrate it" but THEY DIDN'T EVEN TALK TO ME or anyone on my team. It's a shame when the tabloids get the story more or less correct, and the main line business and news magazines get it all wrong - or appatently don't care. Ask if you can review the story for accuracy before it goes to press, and about 95% of them say they have a policy that prohibits anyone seeing the article! But a fact checker may call - and all they want to know is how to spell your name, not if the facts of the story are correct. So, keep an open mind. Hope they at least get the general idea - that unfortunately seems to be the best that we can do. > If increasing support for bees and beekeepers, honey bee research and >other programs is important, then beekeepers need to respond when somebody >publishes inaccurate, incomplete or highly conjectural information as fact >about honey bees. >I wrote an email to the Environmental News Network pointing out the >bumblebee graphic with the Jerry Bromenshenk article. Here was the photo >editor's response: > Hello: I am the photo editor at ENN.com and I received your e-mail today > >about the animal sentinel graphic. Thank you for bringing this inaccuracy > >to my attention. I talked to the graphic designer who made the piece. > >There was some difficulty in locating a quality honey bee photo and given > >the deadline situation, this was the best that could be done. Jerry J. Bromenshenk jjbmail@selway.umt.edu http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:06:56 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: Re: eastern seaboard nile virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I spoke to John Kenny, a representative of the Mass. Pesticide Control Board, about possible Malathion spraying. It's too premature to talk about timing or whether spraying will be necessary at all he said, and, of course, human health takes priority over animal health. I pointed out that the spraying should take place with a mind to minimize as much collateral damage as possible. He agreed. It turns out though that DC3s flying in formation were used for widespread Malathion spraying in some areas of Massachusetts to control an outbreak of Eastern Equine Encephalitis in the mosquito population in 1990. Beekeepers and other interested parties were notified well in advance. Kenny said that helium balloons were distributed to organic farmers so the planes could avoid contaminating organic crops. Perhaps commercial and sideliner beekeepers could avoid direct application of Malathion to their hives by asking for helium balloons that could be placed around their apiaries. I'm sure a certain density of hives would be necessary to merit this, which would leave hobbyist beekeepers in the lurch. Perhaps hobbyists, working through their local bee clubs, could move their hives into common areas to achieve sufficient density of hives to merit exception. Are their any members of the list who have experienced Malathion spraying of this nature (widespread, for public health reasons), and what was your experience? John Mitchell ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 10:19:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Making Foundation In-Reply-To: <200003220500.AAA09141@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" RE:
Making Foundation

I am just wondering, why would you want to try to make this? No handmade foundation is ever as good as factory made, and I doubt that it's cheaper unless you are in a remote situation.


PB ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:53:48 GMT 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: Competition Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello All Richard Yarnell is quite right when he says: >Loss of range and competition with us is what's harming most dwindling species. Surely the same will hold true for the insect world. In my opinion, Mankind is in a class of its own when it comes to a destructive approach to things. The fundamental urge in all species is the desire to maintain the existence of the species. This urge is in man also. But look at how he goes about it. About 200 years ago, man got a handle on technology and said 'Yipee, we can now ensure that we do not have to die from diseases so he began a process of what I might term 'Death Control'. And without a corresponding 'Birth Control' the most dim witted member of this intelligent species should have been able to see that this would cause run away population growth. Not only that, but man was from then on allowing to live,those members who were targeted by disease, in fulfillment of nature's policy of eliminating the weak. What surprises me is that we have got away with it for so long. But I do believe that the invoice is on its way from nature. Thus Man's urge to preserve himself on the planet had an effect directly opposite to what was intended. He interfered with a natural balancing system by which all of nature is controlled. So the intelligent species acted unintelligently. I daresay that few people would not go for a cure for a disease if offered, but the terrible equation was not seen and is still not seen. The cure was good for the individual but bad for the species. Bees and all other species act differently. They consider the good of the species first and if the individual must die in upholding that policy (stinging or disease for example) then so be it. Sign is on, the bees have been here for 40 million years. And Mankind after about 1 million years or so has in my opinion very little time left. If that is intelligence I would sure hate to see stupidity. But Mother Earth, after heaving a sigh of relief at our demise, will then repair the damage. And then the same thing will probably happen all over again! Beats me for sure! Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:47:35 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: Competition Comments: To: cssl@iol.ie In-Reply-To: <200003221826.NAA28777@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd > In my opinion, Mankind is in a class of its own when it comes to a > destructive approach to things. > > The fundamental urge in all species is the desire to maintain the existence > of the species. Hi Tom and all - I have a hard time understanding how one can routinely place the animal/insect species on such a high pedestal of perfection and use it as a benchmark to compare mankind to. I think this type of discussion and belief is extreme and makes me wonder which you value more, insects or your fellow human. To compare the two to anything requires a huge leap and either raises the bee to a human level or reduces mankind to an insect level. You say mankind is in a class of it's own but then go on to compare us to the bee. > This urge is in man also. But look at how he goes about it. About 200 years > ago, man got a handle on technology and said 'Yipee, we can now ensure that > we do not have to die from diseases so he began a process of what I might > term 'Death Control'. And without a corresponding 'Birth Control' the most > dim witted member of this intelligent species should have been able to see > that this would cause run away population growth. Not only that, but man was > from then on allowing to live,those members who were targeted by disease, in > fulfillment of nature's policy of eliminating the weak. What surprises me is > that we have got away with it for so long. But I do believe that the invoice > is on its way from nature. Man was created with a mind and a will that allows us to reason and think and choose unlike any other species. Perhaps the next time you are ill, you will consider abstaining from the use of our technology and let Nature take it's course? Perhaps nature has targeted you. Then what? I'll defend the goodness and superiority of mankind over "nature" if no one else will. The creation of all nature is wonderful and great but it is man who rules over it and can use it wisely or destroy it, which is a whole other discussion. Regards, Barry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 18:57:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: darrells Subject: Re: Making Foundation Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Peter Borst said: > I am just wondering, why would you want to try to make this? No handmade > foundation is ever as good as factory made, and I doubt that it's cheaper > unless you are in a remote situation. A friend went through the exercise of being classified as an "Organic Honey Producer". One of the many requirements was to use foundation that was from a registered organic source. Where better than your own organic Apiary! Bob Darrell RR#2 Caledon Ontario Canada L0N1C0 80W 44N ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:49:27 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lance Gillette Subject: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space I'm becoming a new beekeeper next month. If a box is 9 5/8" deep and the frames for it are 9 1/8" tall there will be 1/2" space above and below the frames. This is 1/8" more than the maximum allowable bee space. People recommend this size equipment but when I email them this question I get no reply. How is this supposed to work? Lance Gillette ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:42:57 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/22/00 6:21:37 PM Pacific Standard Time, fnldg1@UAF.EDU writes: > I'm becoming a new beekeeper next month. If a box is 9 5/8" deep and the > frames for it are 9 1/8" tall there will be 1/2" space above and below the > frames. This is 1/8" more than the maximum allowable bee space. People > recommend this size equipment but when I email them this question I get no > reply. How is this supposed to work? Don't worry about it. The bees do need some space to raise drones. And you can look at the drones in the broken burr comb for a quick varroa check when you split apart the boxes. Dave The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:00:57 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Coumaphos and TM reaction MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barry Birkey wrote: > > I was made aware recently, about a Florida beekeeping newsletter > recommending not to use coumaphos and TM together as it was causing a bad > reaction. Please be more specific as to problem. If you look up coumaphos in the chemical book, Agricultural > Chemicals, it has precautions on mixing with fluvalinate and I quote: "Do > not mix with other insecticides nor use in conjunction with oral drenches or > other internal medicines. Toxic to birds and fish." > > The TM beekeepers use is an internal medicine and therefore in no way should > be mixed with coumaphos and could easily explain the problems beekeepers are > starting to have in Florida mixing the two. Is this information printed on > the label? I don't know since I won't use coumaphos. Please email me your solution to the varroa mite problem. Rudolf Steiner's prediction 1923 that mankind would lose the honeybee in eighty years time is looking ominously correct. In the U.S. pollination is the number one value of the honeybee. Pollination is the single factor keeping the commercial beekeepers going. Honey production is a nuisance to many and with the wholesale price of honey below production costs not worth the effort. The bank manager will not loan money on the huge crop you say you are going to harvest but he will loan money on signed pollination contracts. Thousands of hives are crashing in U.S. because Apistan is not working as it did for so many years. Each colony destroyed by varroa costs a beekeeper at least $100 in lost pollination fees,honey and of course replacement costs. Truck loads of coumaphos strips are in hives in U.S. and are providing close to 100% varroa mite kill. formic acid gell is still not available yet in Missouri and should have been put in colonys a month ago. Most beekeepers believe the gell is not going to get the mite kill we need if put on to late in the fall. Menthol works great in Florida(tracial mites)but does not work well(in the packets)in Missouri in the fall because it is to temperature dependent. Formic acid gell is temperature dependent also. I will try the gell along with testing to make sure its working this fall. The above are the legal choices at presant in the U.S. R.P. Harrison P.S. I was at at Florida State beekeepers meeting in 1962 when the prediction by Rudolf Steiner was brought up. We all had a good laugh. I am not laughing now! > -Barry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:11:47 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Competition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > In my opinion, Mankind is in a class of its own when it comes to a > destructive approach to things. snip he began a process of what I might > term 'Death Control'. And without a corresponding 'Birth Control' the most > dim witted member of this intelligent species should have been able to see > that this would cause run away population growth. The earth can sustain a population much greater than we have now. Some say as many as 36 billion. We will never get there. Many western countries are in negative population growth. The US would be the same without immigration. So the key is freedom and technology. Both of which those who know better want to do away with, so we- which means everybody but me- can return to nature or third world conditions, depending on how you define it. And there is where you find problems with population, just what they say they are fighting against. As beekeepers, if we want to return to the natural state, forget the hives, forget apistan, forget crisco, forget terra, forget... well you get the idea. we treat to keep our bees healthy. We treat to keep our kids healthy. I had malignant melanoma. Darwinistically, I was wrong for having it treated, but I already gave to the gene pool and do not intend to add any more unfit to our overpopulated planet. Darwinists never get sick. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 22:13:13 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Thom Bradley <"thombrad spam n mustard sandwiches"@VISI.NET> Organization: Thom's House of Cards Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If you measure the true sizes of a deep box and the assembled frames, measure the space above and below. I think the addition of the two numbers will come up to bee space. Thom Bradley Lance Gillette wrote: > > I'm becoming a new beekeeper next month. If a box is 9 5/8" deep and the > frames for it are 9 1/8" tall there will be 1/2" space above and below the > frames. This is 1/8" more than the maximum allowable bee space. People > recommend this size equipment but when I email them this question I get no > reply. How is this supposed to work? > > Lance Gillette ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 23:59:50 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Peter C. Wilson" Subject: Re: eastern seaboard nile virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John Mitchell's mention of Malathion spraying for Eastern Equine Encephalitis carrying mosquitos in Massachuestts in 1990 brings back painful memories. The Mass. Pesticide Control Board directed the DC-3 operation which was conducted during daylight hours starting from 6:30 to 7:00 AM and continued until dusk. I moved 50 nucs to Cape Cod which was out of the spray area and moved them back again a day after spraying was completed. There was no effect on them. But colonies that were too heavy to be moved, and too numerous around cranberry bogs to move, suffered heavy losses. Such losses were not considered necessary as the flights could have been flown at night when the bees would have been relatively unaffected. The operation came from down south and we were told they used Loran for navigation. We saw no reason that they could not have flown a night operation and strongly requested such to the Department in Boston. The three DC-3s flew over my house at 7:00 AM at an estimated 300 feet in a heavy fog such that they were barely visible for only a moment. Within a few minutes the trees around my home were filled with the screams of birds. The noise subsided after about five minutes and all was dead silence. Sure the beekeepers were notified well in advance, and a letter was sent to the Commissioner of Agriculture strongly requesting that flights be restricted to hours between dusk and early dawn, and to avoid cranberry bog areas. We hope that the experience will never be repeated but know we cannot count on it. Peter Wilson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:29:01 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "David L. Green" Subject: Re: Competition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Interesting study: http://www.nal.usda.gov/ttic/tektran/data/000010/98/0000109898.html Dave Green ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:22:50 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dan Kerl Subject: spam question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm curious about BEE-L's tolerance for use of its mailing list. While being a member of this list for awhile, I've had it set to NOMAIL for some time now (work scheduule problems). I received a solicitation from someone that's running a bee/honey related business. Since I'm a lurker by nature, my posts to this list are very scarce, which makes me think that the individual with the business accessed my name through the address list for BEE-L. Am I incorrect in this assumption? Thanks-- -- Dan Kerl dlkerl@ro.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:06:04 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Making Foundation Comments: cc: "L-Soft list server at University at Albany (1.8d)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter After a long period of using "factory milled foundation" I became bankrupt and as I had no financial resources I started using a "Leaf Foundation Press" to make my own. I cannot reach the rate of sixty sheets per hour that I have seen quoted but on a good day I get 30-40 sht/hr. The quality is indistiguishable from any that you may buy although if it gets frozen and then thawed it does become more brittle. I am also in control of the purity of the wax. I am also certain that there are no residues of varroa treatments that I have not introduced myself. As regards cost...I am a disabled person and would sooner struggle to make foundation at no cost than use what limited financial resources I have. I do not use wire re-enforcement but "wire" the frames horizontall using nylon fishing line. ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Borst To: Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 3:19 PM Subject: Re: Making Foundation > > RE:
> Making Foundation
>
> I am just wondering, why would you want to try to make this? No handmade > foundation is ever as good as factory made, and I doubt that it's cheaper > unless you are in a remote situation.
>
>
> PB > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 21:26:20 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lance Gillette wrote: > > I'm becoming a new beekeeper next month. If a box is 9 5/8" deep and the > frames for it are 9 1/8" tall there will be 1/2" space above and below the > frames. This is 1/8" more than the maximum allowable bee space. People > recommend this size equipment but when I email them this question I get no > reply. How is this supposed to work? > > Lance Gillette The worse problem you should run into is a little burr comb. I have seen equipment with not enough space above for the bees to cross the top of the frames. Personally i wouldn't give it another thought but if the 1/8" bothers you you could add a stoller frame rest or after the foundation is drawn go to a nine frame spacer. You could add a 1/8 piece of wood on shelf but i don't think it would hold up over time to shelf cleaning with a hive tool. I have spaced shelfs with 1/4" wood on some old equipment i purchased and they held up ok. Through the years i have seen many different depths of shelf cuts. Beekeeping needs new beekeepers so if you have questions fire away! R.P.Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 01:23:50 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Richard Yarnell Subject: Re: Competition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I guess I'd better jump back in here to get things back on track. I didn't mean to compare insects with man and don't think I did. The subject seemed to be whether domesticated bees are successful at the expense of other species of pollinators. I suggest that that may appear to be the case because we have done several things to eliminate some of the native pollinators. a) we systematically clear diverse native plant populations which are dependent on and support an equally diverse population of pollinator species; b) we plant enormous expanses of single species crops, thereby excluding many pollinators. It seemed to me that these two mechanisms were being ignored in the discussion and that the roll of the domesticated bee in the decline of other (some native) pollinators was being exaggerated. The result may, in fact, be the same in the long run. Off topic but introduced by others: I don't much admire the way we've fouled our nest. I think we are overly dependent on technology and chemistry which we don't sufficiently understand to make up for our imprudent destruction of other species and systems on which depend. We tend to put too many eggs in too few baskets. I was raised in a place and at a time when USDA and Dow, among others, pretty much ruled the roost and were in bed together. I've grown out of that better nutrition through chemistry and profligate application of water. I've also grown skeptical of our tendency to attempt to fix one problem at a time. We always run into unexpected results which, often, make the original problem worse. As for the absurd figure of 36 Billion Humans: even if the Earth could support that many people, why? We've found serious flaws in the idea of mono cropping. 36 Billion people would be mono cropping to a faretheewell. Bill Truesdell wrote: > Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > > > In my opinion, Mankind is in a class of its own when it comes to a > destructive approach to things. > snip > > he began a process of what I might term 'Death Control'. And without a > corresponding 'Birth > > Control' the most dim witted member of this intelligent species should have > been able to see > > that this would cause run away population growth. > > The earth can sustain a population much greater than we have now. Some say > as many as 36 billion.... The US would be the same without > immigration. So the key is freedom and technology.... > > As beekeepers, if we want to return to the natural state, forget the hives, > forget apistan, forget crisco, forget terra, forget... well you get the > idea. we treat to keep our bees healthy. We treat to keep our kids healthy. This was not implied by my original post. However, I suspect that packing large numbers of hives in close proximity exacerbates the spread of disease and parasites. There are economic reasons for the practice but there is a price to be paid: pest management through better chemistry. Sooner or later, the chemistry will fail. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 16:16:57 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: HStarJE@AOL.COM Subject: postage stamps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Where can I get postage stamps with bees/beekeeping topics? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:35:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Foundation In-Reply-To: <200003230500.AAA21541@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" RE: A friend went through the exercise of being classified as an "Organic Honey Producer". One of the many requirements was to use foundation that was from a registered organic source. Where better than your own organic Apiary! I posted a message to this list a few months ago inquiring about Organic beekeeping procedures and if there actually are any beekeepers trying to adhere to such procedures. Noone ever responded. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - Peter Borst Dyce Honeybee Lab Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 plb6@cornell.edu phone: 607 275 0266 - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 07:21:29 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Caldeira Subject: Re: Making Foundation In-Reply-To: <200003230500.AAA21541@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote: >I am just wondering, why would you want to try to make this? >No handmade foundation is ever as good as factory made, >and I doubt that it's cheaper unless you are in a remote situation. Yes, remote situations. For developing economies, especially, building one's own equipment allows beekeepers to add more value and reduce reliance on imports. As a Peace Corps volunteer I struggled with a metal foundation mold (waffle-style, 1980's), and always had problems with sticking wax. It greatly slowed our production, regardless of the release agent we used. I hope someone has built a practical, low-cost mold by now. I am asked this question several times a year by readers of web site section on Fiji. -John John Caldeira Dallas, Texas, USA http://home.earthlink.net/~jcaldeira/beekeeping/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 06:49:52 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space In-Reply-To: <200003230224.VAA17260@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I'm becoming a new beekeeper next month. If a box is 9 5/8" deep and the > frames for it are 9 1/8" tall there will be 1/2" space above and below the > frames. This is 1/8" more than the maximum allowable bee space. People > recommend this size equipment but when I email them this question I get no > reply. How is this supposed to work? I think you will make a good -- but often puzzled -- beekeeper. I've had to deal with the same questions over the years, and the reason for many things is "That's how we've always done it". Often there are better ways or understandings, but they are beaten down by convention and old saws. The books often just repeat the same old baloney. As an example of the kind of thing you are up against in learning this ancient craft of beekeeping, let me use a modern example of how people think, and the stupid things we do when we know better. If it does not fascinate (and scare you a bit), just skip the next paragraph. The Y2K thing was an *obvious* and serious eventual problem to any thinking person as far back as the seventies when I was programming early micros. At that time memory and storage was scarce and expensive and the year 2000 was far in the not too certain future, and using two digits was an understandable. What was not as obvious was why the programmers continued to use two digits right into the nineties when memory and storage and communication lines were cheap and the year 2000 was only a few years away. The Cold War was over and it looked like the year 2000 was an unstoppable sure thing. The reasons? One was that the subroutines underlying the higher level languages was a bit difficult for current programmers to understand and modify and was also widely distributed, but the main reason -- and the one that blew me away -- was this: when asked why the vast majority of programmers did not deal with it well in advance and proactively, the response was, "We did things the way we were *taught*". That is what is the problem here. People do what is done (copy) without knowing -- or caring -- why. There are good reasons why the super is 9-5/8 inches high, but the reasons are no longer current and few know what the original (good) reasons were. Softwood -- which is the only wood suited to supers due to weight, cost, and other factors -- shrinks, often unpredictably in width -- sometimes as much as 3/8" to 1/2" on a box from the time it is freshly cut, and not always uniformly over the length of a board. Even using dried wood -- which good box makers do -- it is hard to guess what the final shrinkage will be in advance. Moreover, the ripped edges which were originally perfect will sometimes not be quite straight after curing. Boxes cut to our demanding tolerances at the time of original manufacture might be found shallow within weeks of assembly. Also, if the fit is not perfect, sometimes a little needs to be shaved off the top and the bottom on different sides to get things right after assembly. Extra material allows for adjustment. Suppliers know that anyone can make a box shallower in a few moments, but most don't like to nail on thin, vulnerable strips to make a new box taller, and since nowadays they are cutting down from nominal 12" boards anyhow, they still err on the safe side. Since they are box makers and usually not beekeepers, they don't know any more than that they get many fewer complaints vs. when they make a box too shallow, and the solution -- to anyone bothered by their generosity and a few extra sixteenths -- is simple. At one time cured planed boards were widely and cheaply available at 9-5/8". So boxes were 9-5/8" and the frames a bee space less in height. But lumber varies across the grain when drying, not much lengthwise (end bars), so the frames were made 9-18" not 9-3/8" and the assumption was that the box could be cut shorter if necessary, since stretching the frames in height was not an option. With a 9-1/8" frame, the minimum box depth should be between 9-5/16" and 9-1/2". Therefore the box was made at 9-5/8". After the box was made and had shrunk or been trimmed, it would be sure not to be under the 9-5/16 depth that would give the minimum permissible 3/16" bee space. Bee space AFAIK is 3/16" to 3/8" although some will argue. At any rate the extra height is there to allow for trimming or for shrinkage. Years back, after our standard sizes were widely accepted, the lumber changed dimension and also became inferior in quality. The size of a finished 10" board is now supposed to be 9-1/2" but is often under that, and the quality is poorer. Unfortunately the 9-1/2" boards are sometimes not dry and will shrink below 9-1/2" in service or even before. Because of the uneven edges and knots, most box builders buy 12" boards and cut them to -- you guessed it -- 9-5/8". This is a somewhat technical explanation to a fascinating question from a man who has made his living building furniture and was also the original founder of a large bee furniture building business several decades back. (Me). Next you will ask if the bee space goes on the top or the bottom, but that is in the logs. Hint: there is no reliable answer or standard. Anyhow, I personally don't care much. We have some on top, some on bottom, and therefore end up with double space sometimes and none others. It's not ideal, but we get by. allen ----- Access over ten years of bee discussions. Search BEE-L and sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 05:43:56 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Normand Gravel Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Thom If you worry about the bee space, put your frames in the super and you should have 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch above the frames and no space under. >From what you say, you have 1/2" to play with so shave 1/8" top or bottom and you will have the bee space respected. I would take care of that for brood chambers more than for honey supers Enjoy, Normand. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 09:30:40 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeCrofter@AOL.COM Subject: Re: 9 5/8" boxes, 9 1/8" frames, and Bee space MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/22/00 11:04:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, Pollinator@AOL.COM writes: > > Don't worry about it. The bees do need some space to raise drones. And > you can look at the drones in the broken burr comb for a quick varroa check > when you split apart the boxes. > After the bees put propolis on everything you will come to need the extra space as the lugs on the frames get a little thicker and the rabbet the frames rest upon gets a little higher. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:31:27 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Quotes of previously posted material MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi Folks, In the past week or so, submissions quoting the entirety of previously posted material has become commonplace. EVERY RESPONSE to the query about bee space has quoted the entirely of the original question. Please remember the guidelines for submissions when submitting material to BEE-L. It's been a while since the guideline for submission have been posted, so I've included them below. Please take a moment to review the guidelines. Sincerely, Aaron Morris Guidelines for BEE-L Submissions 1. Do not include excessive quotes of previous submissions. If you must quote previous postings, include only what is necessary to make your point. Submissions that include the entirety of previous posts will be rejected without comment or notice. 2. Submit your posts as TEXT ONLY! There are many sub scribers whose mailers will not interpret text markup languages and to them submissions which include markup characters (such as HTML) appear as gibberish. Submissions to BEE-L must be in the lowest common denominator for all subscribers, which is TEXT ONLY! Posts submitted to BEE-L in markup languages will be rejected without notice. 3. Binary file attachments are not allowed on BEE-L. Similar to markup languages, many subscribers have mailers not able to decipher binary file attachments (such as MS Word attachments). Submissions with binary attachments are never approved by the list moderators, most times without notice. Suggestions for binary attachments include deciphering them at your end to include in the text of your submission or making them available at your site and advertising their availability on BEE-L. Please verify your URLs. If detected, submissions with invalid or nonexistant URLs will not be approved, possibly without notice. 4. Do not send personal responses to the entire list. If Bea Keepr posts something to the list that inspires you to write to Bea, DO NOT send your personal response to BEE-L, send it to Bea! Only send to the list that which you want read by everyone. Submissions to the list that appear to be personal responses are rarely approved by the list moderators, often without notice. 5. Trolling (name calling, baiting, incivility) is not tol erated. Heated discussions are allowed, after all we're beekeepers and may not always agree. But as Rodney King put it, "Can't we all just get along?" This is a grey area up to the discretion of the moderators, but offending submissions will be rejected without notice. 6. Do not send LISTSERV service requests to the list. Requests of LISTSERV for list services must be sent to: LISTSERV@listserv.albany.edu LISTSERV service requests sent to BEE-L are never approved by the list moderators, no notice is given and the requested service is not provided. 7. Submissions to BEE-L must be related to the "Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology". SPAM is NEVER approved! Furthermore, submissions must be "Informed"! BEE-L is not intended to be a substitute for beginning texts on keeping bees. If your question is a basic beekeeping question, it has probably been asked and answered on BEE-L before, perhaps many times. Answers to frequently asked questions may be found by searching the BEE-L archives. Submissions of frequently asked questions may be approved or not, with or without notice. Approved frequently asked questions are often met with cries of "Search the Archives!". Cries of "Search the Archives!" are sometimes approved to drive home the point, but rarely. 8. Submissions to BEE-L should not contain misinformation. Although slow to admit it, the moderators do not know it all. However, blatant misinformation is rejected with out notice. Realizing there is a fine line between new, thought provoking ideas and misinformation the moderators strive for leniency in their judgment and prefer to err on the side of thought provoking ideas. Reader beware that if you read it here it ain't necessarily so! 9. BEE-L is not a marketplace. Product reviews are welcome. Product announcements are tolerated. Repeated announcements and marketing are less welcome proportionately to their frequency. Advertisements may be rejected without notice. 10. Lastly, long signature files are discouraged. A guide line of five lines maximum is suggested. Life histories and driving directions to your doorstep or place of business are strongly discouraged and are often rejected without notice. The BEE-L moderators and subscribers thank you in advance for adhering to these guidelines. We hope you find your BEE-L experience informative, engaging, educational and most importantly, fun! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 11:29:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: trim deeps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am shifting from deeps to mediums. I have deeps with frames of drawn comb and intend to cut all down to mediums and replace them over the next two years with new. It seems easier to get the bees into the mediums with drawn comb, which is why I am trimming the frames. Anyone else do this, especially cutting down frames with drawn comb, and any problems I should anticipate? Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 12:26:34 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: Re: eastern seaboard nile virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In a message dated 3/23/00 12:32:28 AM, pcwil@IBM.NET writes: <> If the state was willing to distribute helium balloons to protect the organic farmers' certification in 1990, why could it not take the extra step and protect the acreage upon which large apiaries sit. Since previous promises to limit spraying to after-dark hours were not kept, a physical marker that marks the land for pilots to avoid spraying is a guarantee of sorts that an effort will be made to minimize damage during the daytime. The state has established a precedent of setting some land aside to protect a valuable agricultural resource. It's not that much of a reach to extend it to large apiaries. Also, for the broader list, if we can establish a precedent here, or somewhere, of protecting apiaries with physical markers (helium balloons) duri ng nonspecific area-wide pesticide applications, it can be cited elsewhere by beekeepers to set up the same protections there. I recently read on one of the on-line lists about beekeepers losing hives during post-hurricane spraying in North Carolina. And how about out in California when Gov. Brown was spraying Malathion for Med Fly infestation? This type of pesticide application may become a more frequent challenge for beekeepers nationwide as the government tries to fight off harmful invasive insects and new diseases. The larger question is would such protection make any difference. According to the books, whether the hives get sprayed or not doesn't matter because the foragers will die on the blooms. However, that theory is based wholly on the experience of pesticide application to agricultural crops. The target is the bee's food. In the case of a non-specific area-wide public health application, the bee's food is usually not the target. There may not be much we can do about pesticide drift or the choices the bees make as to where they forage, but we could potentially protect apiaries and any bee forage directly adjacent to the hives. Of course, if the hives are sitting in the middle of prime mosquito habitat, say, a cranberry bog or a wetland full of purple loosestrife—and the mosquitos are the target—then an exception for those areas could just lead to more spraying later. But since the best farmland is usually in low areas, floodplains, near swampy areas, etc., why exclude the organic farmers? Are there any citations that anybody on the list could provide about studies that have looked at the different effects (if any) on honey bees of a massive public health pesticide application vs. the usual targeted agricultural spraying? Any research anybody is aware of? Please don't let the silence be deafening. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:29:24 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Viktor Sten Subject: Re: postage stamps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Try ebay.com Search under stamps and coins, use bee* in search field. Viktor ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 18:32:22 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Lance Gillette Subject: The Far Far North and the Two Queen System I will become a new beekeeper April 14 when my four 4 pound bee packages arrive in Fairbanks on Alaska Airlines. We have a short beekeeping season here in the interior of Alaska and overwintering bees is possible but not generally considered economical. I have read some about the two queen system and how it can be useful in northern areas during the nectar flow. Generally what I've read seems to start with the premise that a beekeeper has hives that have been overwintered and that he or she will introduce a second queen into the colony rather than establishing a new colony with two queens from a package. I've asked around here to find out who locally uses the the two queen system. There are only about 400 hives in the Fairbanks area and only a few people with more than perhaps a dozen hives. One man told me he had tried it but that generally the workers would dispatch one of the queens. Any suggestions on successfully starting a two queen hive with carniolan bees from a 4 pound bee package? Lance Gillette ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 21:51:27 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Carolyn Ehle Subject: Re: Foundation MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Re: organics. Although I am awaiting National Standards for actual certification (should I live so long at this rate), we have managed our farm using Rodale-type organic principals for ten years (3 with bees). I plan to use formic in some hives, tho I don't know if it will become "approved". If this drought keeps up.... In selecting bees I plan to use AFB hygienic test (freezing larvae), but it seems to me we need a test related to grooming behavior for varroa. Maybe test the time to clean off powdered sugar or something. Any thoughts from the list? IPM discussions on this list include many 'organic' strategies such as drone removal, brood cycle breaks, etc. I have mentioned my mineral oil/beeswax glop before (still doing well tho I lost a few hives during bad winter stretch, all hives that I should have re-glopped or combined but I THOUGHT I'd have formic last fall). I keep every molecule of uncontaminated wax my bees make to use for "glop" and in future for foundation, I expect. Haven't bought foundation (except drone) since Coumaphos introduced. Be nice to have more organic discussions tho the risk of flaming and ranting about one extreme or the other seems unfortunate. There are many reasons to attempt pure or partial "organic" management. Mine include 1) residence in several areas of highly complex natural ecosystems easily disrupted by pesticides, some of which I was attempting to study scientifically, and others, like fish, that I raise commercially; 2) a very fried liver from too many toxic spill jobs when I worked as a biologist and thus became intolerant to most chemicals; 3) a conviction that the processes evolved in nature are the first place to look for efficient, time-tested management methods and 4) being small, we concentrate on local and niche markets, and the natural/organic consumer is usually an easy sell if you are genuine and knowledgeable. I'd love to see more on organics. The lessons learned are helpful for all beekeepers. Carolyn Ehle, Wood Widgeon Farm, Piedmont South Carolina, USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 23:52:49 -0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: The Far Far North and the Two Queen System MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lance, > Any suggestions on successfully starting a two queen hive with carniolan > bees from a 4 pound bee package? I have several times made two queen colonies, from two packages, here in the Anchorage area. I install in separate boxes separated by a screen. Later I replace the screen with a queen excluder. I have also simply put two separate colonies which were started one above the other, switch to a screen separation, then to queen excluder. I have yet to have either queen in such colonies "dispached by the workers. I pull out a nuc from one colony at the beginning of the flow and have one very large colony. Good luck and have fun with your bees. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@gci.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 07:08:20 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: Bee space In-Reply-To: <200003240500.AAA02582@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Allen wrote: Softwood -- shrinks, often unpredictably in width -- sometimes as much as 3/8" to 1/2" on a box from the time it is freshly cut, and not always uniformly over the length of a board. Even using dried wood -- which good box makers do -- it is hard to guess what the final shrinkage will be in advance. Comment: This is the word from a beekeeper with many years of experience. I can't emphasize too much how valuable this is. I learned this same thing many years ago -- from another experienced beekeeper. PS. In bee equipment, never make the bee space too small, this is much worse than too big. -- PB ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 21:00:27 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: daems frans Subject: Re: postage stamps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit go to ebay.com select bees, beekeeping queens and/or bee indicate only stamps Than you receive them all one by one. If you like I can sent you a price for my double stamps. Regards Frans ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2000 10:16 PM Subject: postage stamps > Where can I get postage stamps with bees/beekeeping topics? > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 14:17:48 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: trim deeps In-Reply-To: <200003231631.LAA05723@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Access over ten years of bee discussions. Search BEE-L and sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ > I am shifting from deeps to mediums. I have deeps with frames of drawn comb > and intend to cut all down to mediums... any problems I should anticipate? I cut down jumbos to standards 25 years ago (stupid me -- there is no better brood comb than a jumbo) to standardize. I used a band saw and just cut the bottom 2" off the combs, wax, wire, honey, and all. A fairly fine tooth blade with some steel cutting capability is the best. I then just nailed on new solid bottom bars. A couple of finishing nails up through the bottom served to keep the comb centred, but were not necessary usually. No worries. allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:29:14 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Musashi Subject: Re: Making Foundation Dave Cushman says: "... I started using a "Leaf Foundation Press" to make my own..." Dave, What is a leaf foundation press? Did you make it, buy it, if so where? I am not familiar with a leaf foundation press. Can you give more information about it? Thanks, Layne Westover College Station, Texas P.S. the beginning beekeeping class I teach for community education started this week and my enrollment doubled from last year (that may sound like a lot, but it went from 4 to 8. Still, it's nice). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 22:23:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul S LeRoy Subject: Looking for Beekeeper MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" There is a fellow and his wife who live in Arkansas City, Kansas, near Wichita, who needs a mentor. He is thirty some and has little background with bees but has a definite interest. His parents live here in South Carolina and are relatively new beekeepers who I am mentoring but I cant help him in Kansas. Please contact me privately at pleroy@wctel.net if you would be kind enough to help this person get started in beekeeping and I will relay to him and get you in contact. Thanks. Paul LeRoy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 23:53:54 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: LJConnor@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Honey Bee Brood Diseases by Henrik Hansen, Search For MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In a message dated 3.13.0 6:59:55 AM, you wrote: <> I (Wicwas Press) was the North American distributor for this for over 10 years, but I dropped it because it was not being revised and it was getting too expensive. Plus there were several excellent publications which I felt did did a better job. The book is still in print in Europe if you want to contact someone there. Larry Connor Wicwas Press LLC ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 00:06:39 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: Foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You lost some hives in a "bad winter stretch". Bees live quite well in northern Canada and Alaska. I don't imagine you checked their trachea for tracheal mites with a microscope. The great majority of colony death in December or particularly January when there is still plenty of honey stores in the hive is tracheal mite infestation. Unfortunately, because this mite is microscopic and beekeepers can't see it, they blame the colony death on everything from El Nino, lousy queen breeders, to the beekeepers polka dot red underwear. I think you better check for tracheal mites. George Imirie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 05:03:40 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Your Post Will Not Appear on BEE-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ...unless you follow the guidelines. I now delete about five or more otherwise good posts a day from my moderator's inbox. I often don't even bother to read much if they obviously don't meet the quote limit (see note below). They are rejected without consideration simply because the writer did not bother to read the rules for posting to BEE-L. I used to edit some of the better ones and post them. Aaron has done the same, but none of us has time any more, and I think we have also run out of patience, particularly with those who take more time to berate us than it would take them to read the rules and fix their work up to standards. The rules are simple and clear-cut. They are available, complete with detailed explanations and some handy tools at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/BEE-L/ and several other places. Please read them before writing to BEE-L, and refer to them if your post does not appear on the list in a reasonable time. You will receive a copy of your own post back after approval if you have not set your options to NOMAIL or NOREPRO. (why would you?) If you did not get accepted, it is up to you to figure out why and repair your post and send it in again. Note: Long quotes are okay if they are quotes of material not previously posted to BEE-L, such as private communications, USENET posts, etc. Please DO NOT post material (particularly copyrighted material) from websites where simply giving the URL would take the reader there to read the whole thing, unless you are using an excerpt in your own writing. allen ----- Access over ten years of bee discussions. Search BEE-L and sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 16:15:44 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Language - not language MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Two different reasons enter my head for dances noticed on the outside of swarms...firstly they may be to do with foraging activities from the cluster itself...secondly they may be part of the avalanche of scout recruitmment that nominates which of many possible sites will ultimately be chosen by the colony. This selection process starts several days before the swarm issues and is rarely complete when swarming occurs. Dave Cushman ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Dick To: ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 11:34:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tim Rich Subject: Re: trim deeps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill Truesdell asks about the conversion of deeps to medium supers: I would look for someone who is going from medium to deep - if you can find them. I went from medium to deep over the last two years. Of course, I am assuming that you mean for brood chambers. I am much happier with deep brood and wish that I could have found someone to swap with. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 15:54:19 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Frames and ladder? comb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi If bottom bars are approx 28mm wide and frame spacing is about 37mm apart then less brace comb will be built on the side faces of the bar...but if too much space is allowed under such bars then comb may be built under and from them. Regards Dave Cushman ----- Original Message ----- From: William Morong Subject: Frames and ladder? comb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 23:31:52 -0000 Reply-To: John Burgess Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Burgess Subject: Re: postage stamps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: > Where can I get postage stamps with bees/beekeeping topics? > There is a group of beekeeping philatelists based in Holland. They produce an English language magazine "The Postal Bee" and a stamp list. Contact Jan de Crom, Donkerstraat 4/b, 4063 CZ Heesselt, The Netherlands. Telephone 0344-652290 John Burgess, Editor Gwenynwyr Cymru/The Welsh Beekeeper ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 05:15:35 +0800 Reply-To: joelmags Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: joelmags Organization: ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Subject: Re: Organic Honey > A friend went through the exercise of being classified as an "Organic Honey Producer". One of the many requirements was to use foundation that was from a registered organic source. Where better than your own organic Apiary! I posted a message to this list a few months ago inquiring about Organic beekeeping procedures and if there actually are any beekeepers trying to adhere to such procedures. Noone ever responded. > Peter Borst Hello Peter, IFOAM, the International Association of Organic Associations and Movements, visited me last year as part of their international conference tour. I am also in the process of being certified as an "Organic Producer" of honey and other bee products. Existing guidelines are promulgated by the OCIA or Organic Certification International Association based in Ohio. Essentially, being certified by IFOAM involves visits by a licensed inspector who determines that: 1. That your bees forage in an area which is fairly isolated from air, water and chemical pollution in the soil/plants. 2. That you employ practices that ensure that the honey and other bee products that you produce are chemical free. Joel F. Magsaysay ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS Cavite Highlands, Philippines ilogmria@cav.pworld.net.ph (063) 46-865-0018 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 16:18:16 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Adrian Wenner Subject: Swarm movement Comments: cc: ponerine@dakotacom.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On March 14th Allen Dick asked: >Have any observations been made as to which direction swarms normally move from >their hives in comparison to the normal winds in an area, or the time of day >that the swarms move, seeing as [how] winds often shift predictably with >the >time of day? To the best of my knowledge, no one has conducted such studies --- but they should be done, and soon. The only substantive work on wind direction and honey bee orientation I know of was that by Larry Friesen, published in 1973. That is the work I summarized in the Oct, Nov, & Dec 1998 issues of the American Bee Journal. Justin Schmidt (USDA-ARS Bee Lab in Tucson AZ) has conducted some interesting experiments on the role of artificial Nasanov gland pheromone in attractiveness of swarm hives (decoy hives, swarm traps). Perhaps he has some information on wind direction and swarm movement. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 ******************************************************************** * * "When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, * we must accept that fact and abandon the theory, even when * the theory is supported by great names and generally * accepted." * * Claude Bernard --- 1865 ******************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 20:45:30 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: bad news-good news U.S.A. If i am not the first to post this important news please forgive me but felt to important to ignore. When i returned a few minutes ago from the bee yards and checked todays snail mail i recieved the following news. Almost knocked me over as i thought progress was being made and only a small problem with packaging was taking place. From Mid-Con. The Formic Acid gel pack available under the name Apicure will not be available to beekeeping supply dealers until fall. Good news in same memo is as follows. The makers of Apistan are working to get another product approved any day! This will be fed in sugar syrup and will be systemic to the mites. The mites will bite the bees and get the chemical that way. It will be called Apitol. I will try and call Mid-Con tomorrow and see if i can get information but i do have the above in writing and was informed by other beekeepers over 200 mailings with above were mailed. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 18:57:14 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: WIRING FOUNDATION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I too have been experimenting with using nylon fishing line for wiring foundation as I sometimes use formic as an alternative to strips for varroa control and it should be unaffected by the acid. I put the unwired foundation in the frames and wire the frames so that the upper strand lies close to the foundation on one side and the lower strand the other. The bees draw the foundation around it. Early days yet but so far, so good. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 18:57:16 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: CSlade777@AOL.COM Subject: Re: MAKING FOUNDATION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I recently won a couple of plastic shallow foundation makers in a raffle. One is a "mono", which is a tray, the base of which has the foundation imprint. One pours molten wax into it and peels out a sheet of one sided foundation. The other is two matching sheets of embossed plastic joined at one end like pages in a book. A sheet of warm wax is placed between them and they are then squeezed through an old fashioned clothes mangle or pressed under a garden roller or pastry rolling pin. I have yet to use them. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 00:24:27 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Thom Bradley <"thombrad spam n mustard sandwiches"@VISI.NET> Organization: Thom's House of Cards Subject: Re: Swarm movement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Experience, (not study) is that in my yards, they either move nearly exactly 90% to prevailing wind, exactly down prevailing win or nearly directly above the originating colony as their initial settle point. I have never had a swarm move any other direction (that I have found) in any other direction. They also tend to settle in the same spots and issue between 11 and 2:30 during the day. I also note the bees performing flying practice come out about 1 hour before the temperature drop enough that foraging effectively ends. Thom Bradley Chesapeake, VA Adrian Wenner wrote: > > On March 14th Allen Dick asked: > > >Have any observations been made as to which direction swarms normally move from > >their hives in comparison to the normal winds in an area, or the time of day > >that the swarms move, ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 07:27:19 -0500 Reply-To: mpalmer@together.net Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Michael Palmer Organization: French Hill Apiaries Subject: Re: WIRING FOUNDATION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In 1986 I purchased 500 colonies from an orchard in NY state. They had wired their frames in this manner, although they used steel wire. Many of the combs were drawn out in an "S" shape. and eventually were drone along the concave side of the "S". CSlade777@AOL.COM wrote: I too have been experimenting with using nylon fishing line for wiringfoundation I put the unwiredfoundation in the frames and wire the frames so that the upper strand lies close to the foundation on one side and the lower strand the other. Chris Slade ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 08:05:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Sid Pullinger Subject: Making Foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <<<>>> Speaking as a small time beekeeper (20 to 30 colonies) I must disagree with the above statement. Every summer I reclaim with the aid of a solar wax extractor more than enough wax to fill all my foundation requirements, candles, furniture polish, etc.. Back in 1980 I bought a Herzog foundation press from Germany, Dadant size. This press has been in constant use for twenty years by me and members of my local association and is still churning out perfect foundation. I must admit to having a very large beehouse. Foundation making is not a job for the household kitchen unless you have an angel for a wife. All who use the press agree that the bees prefer the home made to commercial sheets. The frames are wired, three horizontal, and embedded electrically with a six volt embedder. Since my wax costs nothing but time and a little propane for the boiler I can afford to be lavish in comb replacements. Dadant foundation bought commercially currently costs rather more than £12 for ten sheets, (about 20dollars US). Langstroth deep about £10 (16dollars US) so it is not cheap. Home made foundation is twice as thick and more easily handled. Sidpul@compuserve.com Beekeeper since 1930 and beginning to feel the strain.. Southern England ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 13:48:40 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dave Cushman Subject: Leaf & Herzog Foundation presses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all I have now had many requests for information on the two types of foundation press mentioned and I have knowledge of others. I used to be the proprietor of the UK Beekeeping supplies company APEX ENTERPRISES, that company went bankrupt in 1995. I will deal first with the roller mills that have been common for 120yrs, they are available from companies like A.I.Root, in USA, E.H.Thorne in UK, Thomas in France etc. any large dealer should be able to source one, either hand cranked or motorised but expect to pay up to 5000 Dollers US! The press type items fall into two groups...the first of these is known as "the Herring method" after its inventor, alas he is deceased and his product stopped manufacture many years ago. Panels of plywood that had been soaked in water were dipped into just molten wax...the resulting films of warm wax were then peeled off and placed between nylon plates that were embossed with the matrix impression of foundation. The resulting sandwich was put through an old fashioned washing mangle thus forcing the wax into the mould impressions. Foundation of various thicknesses could be made by dipping the boards several times to build up the film thickness. The resulting sheets of foundation were pliable and not brittle. I use this method personally to make thin section squares and sheets for Ross round sections. The second type of press consists of two robust plates hinged together so that they open like a book...the inner surfaces are equipped with metal or plastic dies that are the inverse of the foundation surface. In use the dies are brushed with a mould release agent (washing up liquid in water) molten wax is poured generously over the bottom die and the "book" is closed whilst the wax is still liquid...after a pause for the wax to solidify the press is opened and the sheet of foundation peeled off. repeat ad infinitum. I personally use this method for all normal thickness foundation. This type of press has two subgroups...Factory made & Home made. The Factory made ones I know about are:- "Leaf Products" (this is the type I use). This company went out of business during the 1980's...and Herzog who are a German company but I suspect they would have agents or agencies in other countries. They used to be available from E.H. Thorne in the UK. but I think they have dropped them in favour of roller mills. Expect to pay about 400 dollers US for one. The DIY version is made from two sheets of thick, heavy, waterproof plywood hinged with several stout hinges. The die plates are formed from epoxy resin which is coated on both sides of a piece of foundation whilst this is wet it is placed in a polythene bag, sandwiched between the hinged panels and allowed to cure. When cured the polythene is peeled off... this leaves a rigid epoxy plate which contains inside it a sheet of foundation...this must be trimmed on its edges so that the wax is just visible round all four edges. The trimmed epoxy/wax/epoxy plate is then glued in position between the hinged plywood sheets. After the glue has set the whole assembly is put in a warming cabinet or oven and the temperature raised until the foundation that is in the sandwich is melted. clean up with turpintine and you have a plastic version that I am told works just as well as the factory produced item. I have no personal experiance of this method but I intend to make two such presses...one for drone foundation and the other for a version of foundation that has worker cells on one side and drone size cells on the other. This special type is for a project that I have on hand to transplant drone eggs from one colony to another... but more of that later. Home made costs will vary depending on what you have on hand that can be utilised, but 30 dollars US should cover it, even if you have to purchase all required materials. I hope the information I have provided will allow you to trawl the net, or your mail order dealerships, for the items mentioned. Regards to all, Dave Cushman G8MZY ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 11:01:22 +0100 Reply-To: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Organization: Apiservices Subject: postage stamps MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HStarJE@AOL.COM wrote: >>>>>>>> Where can I get postage stamps with bees/beekeeping topics? <<<<<<<< Have a look at: http://www.beekeeping.com/goodies/philathelie/ and don't forget the world's first beekeeping classified ads system at: http://www.beekeeping.com/photoads/ Choose the category "Collectables". It is free of charge ;-)) Another address: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/niddabeilles/collectiona.htm (1 US $ = 6 French francs) Good luck. Gilles RATIA APISERVICES gilles.ratia@apiservices.com http://www.apiservices.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 15:48:27 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: Making Foundation In-Reply-To: <200003251335.IAA25735@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 >Dadant foundation bought commercially currently costs rather more than 12 >for ten sheets, (about 20dollars US). Langstroth deep about 10 (16dollars >US) so it is not cheap. Home made foundation is twice as thick and more >easily handled. > Sorry to disagree, but I know where the poster who said factory made was best was coming from, and tend to side with him. I reckon properly milled foundation (of course there are lots of makers out there who give various qualities from excellent to lousy) is superior to cast foundation (as from a hand mould) under almost all circumstances. I have to admit that the Dadant foundation can be a bit brittle when cold, and extra thickness can be a little helpful in that case. We currently have our own wax converted by Thornes, and there is no way you could even pay for melting and purifying the wax in all but a large establishment for the price they take for beeswax conversion. It is also doubtful to say the wax does not cost you anything, as it both has costs of recovery in time and energy, and it has a measurable trade in or sale value which you must take into account when establishing the true cost of your foundation. Currently your wax has a trade in value of GBP 1.40, but less if you want cash. getting it converted costs GBP 0.35 per pound. At 7 sheets to the pound you get a good thick foundation (you can specify extra thickness if you wish) from good home produced wax. Total cost 25p per sheet, plus a little extra for wiring if you want it factory wired. Incidentally I have found no advantage in having foundation which is much thicker than an optimum level, but too thin, and especially if it includes lower melting point waxes (usually from certain other countries), is just a recipe for bad, and saggy, combs. Allowing for the value of your wax I defy anyone to FULLY and PROPERLY cost out home made and claim they do it for less. I certainly could not, and we can melt 2 or 3 hundred pounds of wax at a time. Your price for Dadant wax is ferocious! I do not know where you are having to pay a rate like that for it, as the true price is more like 63c ex works, and allowing for shipping etc, and a reasonable (actually, quite good!) margin, this should be available at no more than 75 pence a sheet, plus VAT and carriage on small orders. It might surprise you that I could sell you good quality pre-waxed deep plastic foundation for less than that! (This is not an ad!) One factor though, that I can never calculate for you, is the value of the sheer satisfaction of having done it yourself, done it well, and then seen the results. Having it done my way means I can never claim that it 'all my own work'. Murray McGregor -- Murray McGregor ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 13:30:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: JCooper Subject: Re: Swarm movement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Over the course of many years, my casual observations of swarming in my home yard agree with Thom Bradley's experience in the following details: 1. For east-facing hives, swarming tends to be directly down wind from the prevailing westerly winds or at a ninety degree angle to the north of the hives. 2. The downwind swarms that I happen to witness always stop on a false cypress (Chamaecyparis sp) about 50-60 yards (45-55 meters) east of the hives. They obligingly land on low branches and are a cinch to retrieve. 3. Northbound swarms that I (or my neighbors) happen to witness pause either high in one of three white pines (difficult to recover) or at mid-height in a juniper (easy to retrieve). 4. Swarming seems to take place mid-day, roughly during the part of the day that is preferred for most photography. All observations have been accidental. Beekeepers’ lore has it that the surefire way to prevent swarming is to stay out of sight of the beeyard. Joseph Cooper Latitude: 40.083661; Longitude: -83.010478 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 15:31:30 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: workerbee@HONEYROAD.COM Organization: My Beekeeping Homepage: http://www.honeyroad.com Subject: Re: WIRING FOUNDATION MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have given up on plain foundation. I will only use plastic foudation with the wax coating. The bees build it out faster, it more durable, wont warp in the hot weather, the bees cant chew it up, if their a spot of drone comb, it can be scraped down and the bees will rebuild it as worker cells because the imprint is their, wont blow apart while extracting, and the price is now comparable to regular wax foundation. Plus, you save a ton of time while assembling, as you dont have to wire and crimp it in place! Allen Banks Honey Road Apiaries authorised Mann Lake Dealer ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 08:45:31 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: Making Foundation In-Reply-To: <200003251336.IAA25741@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Access over ten years of bee discussions. Search BEE-L and sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ Those who are making their own foundation might want to visit http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/part6.htm to read a discussion on cell size. This is a site of Barry's where he has posted some of Dee Lusby's ideas. While I do not necessarily subscribe to her conclusions, her historical account as presented in regard to size of worker cells is fascinating. allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 18:20:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "W. Allen Dick" Subject: Re: Maximum Brood Area On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 17:41:08 -0700, Allen Dick wrote: > While in San Diego, I bought Bee Culture's pollination video "The > Honey Bee -- A growers Guide". It's a great video, but one thing > bothered me: the part about brood area. Frankly, I'd be afraid > to show it to a grower -- and that was my intent in buying it. I've had some more thoughts on this since then and written a bit more about it at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ in Friday's diary. This whole matter concerns me quite a bit. For one thing, it makes me realize how unobservant we are, and what a bad job we do of estimations sometimes, and how unscientific and subjective our business is. I also am amazed that, after calculating possible brood area from numbers given by good authorities, and after counting the cells on a normal frame, that I want, somehow to believe that I have seen more brood in a hive than I can possibly have seen. I'd like to believe in as many as eight full frames of brood sometimes. But when I calculate it out I realise that my mind must have been playing tricks. I also realise that estimating areas of circles or elipses on rectangles is tricky. What are the true numbers on how many eggs a good queen can lay for weeks on end? Is it the 1,500 to 2,000 that I found in the books, or some other number? Has anyone here actually measured brood areas in hives scientifically for a period of time or counted the egg output of a queen? Or do we all just go by what we think we see? Anyone? allen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 12:00:55 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ken Hoare Subject: Email address required MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone assist with the email address of Karl Marc Fritz, the German equipment suppliers. Thank you. Ken Hoare ludlowbe@freenetname.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 17:52:22 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Gunnar Sporrong Subject: Feeding in spring.. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi I heard some years ago about a method giving the bees extra food in the early spring. I believe it was a bee keeper in Canada that described the method. The method is described shortly; One gives the hive suggar in a lower concentration in early spring. Almost befor the first own colected nectar. The suggar is transported into the hive by workers. The queen will be fed with it to. The lower sugar concentration makes her thin that it is spring and that fresh nectar is colected which makes her laying mor eggs. In this way one makes the hive strong so it will be welkl prepered until the spring realy starts. Do anybody know: - Which concentration, (water, sugar) to feed with? - When to start? - Does the hive need any extra protein as substitute for the pollen not colected? Gunnar ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 07:53:54 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Potassuium Sorbate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been into the books again, and Gilles Fert in his book 'Breeding Queens" says regarding thin syrup, which we all know ferments quickly,: "If the syrup is prepared in advance, 2 drops of potassium sorbate per 100 litres (US quarts) of syrup may be added to prevent fermentation". Has anyone tried this, or have any idea if there are any side effects on the bees. I gather Gilles know what is talking about, but has anyone else used this trick? allen Access over ten years of bee discussions. Search BEE-L and sci.agriculture.beekeeping at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 00:32:26 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: peter dillon Subject: Re: Potassuium Sorbate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen, I have used Potassium sorbate when wishing to stop"further" fermentation after bottling mead.It is frequently mentioned in wine making texts. Regarding bees , no idea! Peter. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 16:53:05 -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: Swarm movement Comments: cc: ponerine@dakotacom.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On March 14th Allen Dick asked: >Have any observations been made as to which direction swarms normally move from >their hives in comparison to the normal winds in an area, or the time of day >that the swarms move, seeing as [how] winds often shift predictably with >the >time of day? On 24 March I responded with a comment that I knew of no study about where swarms eventually move from the vicinity of the parent colony. On 25 March Thom Bradly and Joseph Cooper responded with some excellent observations on where swarms settled just after they left the parent colony (initial settling site). However, I believe that the "intent" of Allen Dick's query was: Where do swarm clusters me AFTER the disband from the initial cluster in relation to prevailing winds in an area. My original suggestion stands --- I know of no such studies. Please correct me if I am wrong. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 ******************************************************************** * * "When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, * we must accept that fact and abandon the theory, even when * the theory is supported by great names and generally * accepted." * * Claude Bernard --- 1865 ******************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:01:19 +1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Paul Hooper Subject: Beekeeping for Fun ... Chapman-Taylor and Davey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Only recently I have taken up beekeeping, and found it fascinating and very rewarding. I have obtained many good books to help me but, having searched the bookshops and the Internet for the past two months, I cannot find a copy of the one book I would desperately like to own. The book is "Beekeeping for Fun, A Handbook for New Zealand Amateurs" written by Ray Chapman-Taylor and Ivo Davey and published in New Zealand in 1981. I have read the book once, but it is so full of practical advice for the beginning beekeeper that I would really like a copy for ongoing reference. I would be most grateful to hear from anyone who can direct me to a source of supply, or to anyone who would be willing to part with their copy for a reasonable financial return. Paul Hooper Canberra, Australia . ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 19:29:54 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Maximum Brood Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit bob harrison wrote: Allen, > I have counted the output several times but never for 24 hours in a row. > I have taken a prolific queen and put her into a observation hive. Use a > counter every time she lays a egg and then multiply a hours worth of egg > laying by 24 hours. From my observations i don't believe over 2000 per > day to be a realistic figure. I found queens are like people with many > differences. Some would look in every cell before laying a egg. Others > would look in only half and some only on occasion. I found some queens > would lay for awhile and then wonder about for awhile. By my > observations the most egg laying was done by the queens not looking in > each cell first to check cell fo cleanliness. Maybe they were looking > but not sticking there head in. Anyway its easy to check a queen once in > a while with a counter if not interrupted. I really don't know how you > could count egg laying in a closed hive but suppose you could count a > queen laying eggs in the field on a pulled frame for a period of time > and multiply for a rough estimate. Many times i have seen queens > continue to lay on a pulled frame if kept from direct sunlight. > Bob ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 21:10:47 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: Feeding in spring.. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Feed is 1 pound of plain sugar dissolved in 1 pint of water. The best time to start feeding is about 6-8 weeks before dandelion blooms. You can NOT put the feed OUTSIDE of the hive, because other bees will start robbing. Fill a can or jar with the sugar syrup, punch 4-5 very small holes (1/32 inch or 1 millimeter) in the top, turn the can or jar upside down over the hole in the inner cover or crown board, put an empty hive body over he can or jar, put the hive top or roof on. If the bees do not have any stored pollen, mix some pollen with sugar and put 1-2 ounces of it on the frame top bars of the bottom hive body. Where are you located? George Imirie in Maryland, USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 17:49:15 -0500 Reply-To: Steve Newcomb Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Steve Newcomb Subject: Nucs-Ada, MI MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I convinced one of my "real job" customers to get back into beekeeping = by sending him some liquid and creamed honey. He is definately = interested, but is looking for nucs in the Ada, Grand Rapids, MI area. = I you have nucs for sale, you may contact Glenn directly at = haggy1@juno.com. Thank you Steve Newcomb ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 10:48:40 -0500 Reply-To: midnitebee@cybertours.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Midnite Bee Subject: Re: beekeeping information MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings! We received this email. Hopefully,someone on the list(Virginia Area) can help. jbcpub1 wrote: > Hi! My name is Sa'adia Khan and I live in Richmond, Virginia. > Recently, I have been reading a lot about honey, bees, and beekeeping. > I would love to get some experience in beekeeping but the schools that > have been listed on your website are not in my area. Do you know of any > beekeeping apprenticeships from private beekers in the area? > Thank you, > sa'adia > s2sskhan@atlas.vcu.edu -- Herb/Norma Holly-B Apiary PO Box 26 Wells,Maine 04090-0026 The Beekeeper's Home on the Internet http://www.mainebee.com Stony Critters http://www.stonycritters.com "an educated consumer is YOUR best customer" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 04:06:01 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Dirie, Ahmed" Subject: Re: Organic Honey MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On organic honey: I guess that these are very important questions to consider for all organic related farming business especially organic honey. 1. What is the foraging distance of your bees? If the bees are collecting pollen and nectar from chemically-polluted plants outside your isolated apiary then the organic product is questionable. Migratory beekeeping will not qualify I guess. 2. How safe is your surface and underground water in the particular area? The water sources could be contaminated by chemicals from residential areas, industries, crop and animal farms, golf courses etc. In fact, I know someone who sells organic veggies to his golf club mates while his farm is located right next to the golf course. He argues by saying "I don't spray any chemicals and he is isolated from other farms. 3. How long you will be protected from expansion of residential, industry, and agricultural expansions? You could be organic beekeeper at present, but you might not be in a 2-5 years to come. I love to know comments and reactions on this thread. Ahmed Dirie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 01:47:13 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Maximum Brood Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen, I like you disagree with the brood method of determining the polination capabilities of a colony as put forth in A Growers Guide when dealing with spring orchard polination in midwest or possibly your far north area. A beekeeper using The Growers Guide tape can slip nucs in on the grower. Rent him a lot more hives than he needs and get his nucs ready for the clover flow while being within the brood guide lines. In Missouri the smart growers want hives with field bees and not nucs. There isn't room in this discussion to go into what the beekeeper does with said nucs after the apple bloom but combined back they make stong hives for clover bloom. Many beekeepers make nucs by pulling sealed brood up above a queen excluder and then come back a few hours later and take the nuc after NURSE bees have moved up to cover brood. To get the six or eight frames of brood as per the Growers Guide you need brood from several hives at that time of year usually. I would expect from many hives farther north. They add a caged queen and head for the orchards. Whats wrong with this picture you say? If egg stage is 3 days and larva stage is 5.5 days then the sealed brood stage would need approx 12 days till all is hatched. Even if some of the brood pulled up was to hatch the next day they wouldn't be field bees and polinators for at LEAST two weeks. if some of the brood pulled up was sealed the day before the nuc was made up it wouldn't hatch for eleven days and wouldn't be polinators for another fourteen days at the least. If you say the hatching bees will replace the first nurse bees freeing those bees up to polinate they will and maybe enough to keep the grower off your back. After all he saw all those frames of brood and saw The Grower Guide tape you showed him. Beekeepers pulling this scam allways bring a veil for the grower and show him the frames of brood and some charge according to the number of frames of brood. NOT a scam according to The Growers Guide and common practice with over wintered bees in north country as hives with eight frames of sealed brood are scarce when apples bloom. I don't have a big problem with the above as long as the beekeeper tells the grower he is bringing nucs and charges less because he has to bring double or triple the hives to get the job done but the above is not the way i do business. I bring strong hives with field bees. Beekeepers using nucs for polination usually make the nucs up a day before going into the orchard. The growers call for the bees and then want the bees out in appox two weeks. Two or three good flying days are usually enough if there is enough field bees on hand. Most apple growers judge pollination the way i do in my home orchard. You go out in the middle of the day like i have been doing all week and see if blooms are being worked by enough bees. After a couple years a grower knows what a orchard in bloom with enough bees to polinate looks like. If he doesn't see enough bees he calls the nuc beekeeper and complains and he brings more nucs and usually charges regular pollination fees for those nucs.OK by the Growers Guide tape if enough sealed brood. Other crops don't have this problem as bad because then northern bees have got a full force of field bees and who wants to count brood in double boxes packed with bees. On those hives we tilt the top box forward on as many as the grower wants to look at at about 5pm in the evening and look at the bottoms of the frames. On strong hives usually most of the frames are covered with bees and the grower is satisfied. The scam beekeeper lifts the lid without any smoke and the bees rush to the light giving the appearance of being strong or scaring the grower bad enough he has seen enough. Most beekeepers are reputable and most growers in our area use the same beekeepers each year but the nuc scam is used more than most growers realize. I do see the Growers guide as a valuable tool for beekeepers renting nucs for apple polination but field bees do the polinating and even a strong colony may only have a few thousand of them at apple blossom and nucs in singles made up as above only a few hundred. I allways hate when a fellow grower wants me to take a look at his bargain out of state bees which are not polinating. Most of those type situations involve newly made up nucs in singles represented as hives with a force of field bees. I am a beekeeper but i hate dishonesty. Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 06:32:45 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Douglas Whynott Subject: Package Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am looking for a good package supplier that can deliver fairly soon. I just discovered that I lost my hive over the winter and would like to get bees back into it ASAP. Can anyone suggest a company? I live in New Hampshire. DW ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 09:20:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bill Mares Subject: truman quote Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Laurence Cutts, the chief Florida bee inspector asked if anyone knows the source of the following quote allegedly made about Harry Truman : "I never met a beekeeper I didn't like. I only wish that Harry Truman had kept a hive of bees." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 08:35:52 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: Organic Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I love to know comments and reactions on this thread. > > Ahmed Dirie I personally don't like the honor system that most organic honey producers want to use. Can they really tell us without testing that there is no chemicals in their honey? In our area water tests for each chemical costs about $28 U.S. per chemical tested. How many chemicals do you feel you want to test for in todays environment OR can you afford to test for and be profitable? I grow organic fruits and vegtables on my farm and have for years. I don't have a problem with small beekeepers selling what they call organic honey by word of mouth BUT if a large packer puts the organic label on his product without chemical testing i am going to yell FOUL! I sell honey on shelves next to these large packers and the only thing i have going is i am local and selling local honey from the area. I am the little guy Wal Mart is trying to crush ! The low prices of Wal Mart honey has cut deep into the small beekeepers profit margin. I read last week Wal Mart sales in U.S. were 5% of all sales and growing. Since Wal Mart has went to grocery sales the large grocery chains are staggering! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 10:20:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stan Sandler Subject: Re: Making Foundation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Murray wrote: > Currently your wax has a >trade in value of GBP 1.40, but less if you want cash. getting it >converted costs GBP 0.35 per pound. At 7 sheets to the pound you get a >good thick foundation (you can specify extra thickness if you wish) from >good home produced wax. Total cost 25p per sheet.... You are getting a good deal from Thornes. Or perhaps to put it another way, here in Canada we are getting robbed by Jones who has a monopoly on wax conversion. There used to be some competition from Western Waxworks, but they no longer will do conversion. Jones is charging $2.40 (Canadian $) per pound for makeup charge (wired). They also say that they average 5.5 sheets per pound, but I have had batches that were only 4. In addition, I have shipping charges for the wax which adds another .15 per pound. So, if the wax is worth $2 a pound and I get 5 sheets per pound it is costing me .90 per sheet which is the same as plastic. So given those figures and the recent postings on home made, I might consider making. I like the plastic for deeps, but I like the wax for shallows. However, the prices I quoted were all for deep langstroth frames. Regards, Stan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:00:42 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Stan Sandler Subject: Re: Maximum Brood Area Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I happen to have a copy of this years blueberry pollination contract from the Jasper Wyman company (of Maine, and now in PEI as well). I believe they rent well over 10,000 hives in Maine. Blueberries flower slightly earlier than apples (only a few days or a week). >From that: "The minimum standard is 6 frames of brood and 8 frames of bees. If the inspection team determines, in their opinion, that a 4 or 5 frame hive has more than enough bees to provide adequate pollination, they will mark that hive as a 6 frame hive. Payment will be based on the inspection as follows: 0-3 frames of brood $0 4-5 frames of brood 20% less than base rate 4-5 frames of brood with a solid box of bees= base rate 6-7 frames of brood = base rate 8-10frames of brood 20% more than base rate The base rate for crop pollination year 2000 will be $50.00" End of quote. That is US$ My understanding is that a frame of brood is any frame with over 50% coverage. However, the contract does not spell this out. 3% of the hives are tested. You cannot "fool the grower" as it is a beekeeper doing the testing. Regards, Stan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 12:29:44 -0500 Reply-To: heritage.hollow@sympatico.ca Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: HERITAGE HOLLOW Ted & Joan Pichurski Organization: Heritage Hollow Honey and Herbs Subject: Organic Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It is my understanding that Canada adopted new standards regarding Organic certification in April 1999. According to the Organic Crop Producers and Processors Ontario Inc., they will be granting new 'organic' status to honey producers in Southern/Central Ontario. The rationale is that there are no beeyards in this area that can comply with the new standards. To their knowledge there is only one beekeepers in Canada that has been approved by this organizations affiliates and that yard is located in very northern Alberta. The standards are available (I believe) on OCPP's website at www.ocpro-certcanada.com. If anyone knows differently - I would appreciate to be informed. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 10:42:20 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Jerry J Bromenshenk Subject: To brood or not to brood Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ok, We have years of data concerning brood areas at different times of the year in hives from all around the NW U.S.A. - in both full sized and nuc hives. I can provide some summary information based on lots of years of work and some projections from our bookeeping bee population models. The models allow us to input the number of cells per frame, vary the queens egg-laying, selectively remove some or all of the brood of any age, etc. 1. Brood frames and pollen gatherers: As most of you know, a broodless colony often discontinues foraging for pollen. You can have a large field force of forager, but they will be bringing in nectar, not pollen. The point being made in the pollination guidelines is not that the brood patches will suddenly provide foragers for the crop, but rather that the presence of uncapped brood requires pollen for the protein needed by the brood, and lots of it. A quick rule of thumb regarding the brood status of a colony is to look at the front entrance when the bees are flying. If they aren't bringing in pollen, it's a good bet that they don't have any uncapped brood in the hive. The queen may or may not be present. Pollen gathering (numbers of bees) should scale in some manner to the area of uncapped brood - unless the colony has large stores of pollen, all those mouths need food. 2. Queen egg-laying rates: Queens vary widely in their per day production. There are lots of myths regarding good and poor queens. One is that large areas of contiguous capped brood = a good queen = healthy brood. The implication is that she lays systematically, filling cells as she goes WITH the expectation that adjacent cells in any small area of the comb should have brood of similar age. This is only partially true, and you can check this by picking caps off of pupal cells. Some queens produce nice, neat brood frames with a very uniform laying pattern. Other queens produce brood patches that are also uniform in capping, but when you pick the cells open, the pupae are of mixed ages. The queen lays in a spotty manner, then comes back and fills in. If you have something that is killing early stage brood, the queen may be able to mask this by the relaying. She just keeps replacing eggs and larvae until you get a survivor in each cell. 3. One has to distinguish between a queen's egg-laying potential, and her day to day laying rates. In the spring, the queen can and may really crank out the eggs. But, our models and data both indicate that the colony can only support the amount of brood that can be fed and covered by the current bee population. At about 2 brood (eggs, larvae, pupae) per adult bee, the colony seems to hit an upper limit and either the queen shuts down and/or the bees remove any additional eggs. This ratio seems to change somewhat with time of year. The queen's egg-laying will also fluctuate with weather, forage, etc. Later in the season, the upper limit for her egg-laying seems to be mostly a function of available space (and I don't mean just count the cells per side of a comb). During a nectar flow, brood nest cells get filled with nectar during the day, which may later be moved to upper stores. The number of cells available to be laid in is the total number of cells in the brood boxes minus the number of cells already containing brood, pollen, nectar, honey, etc. If you use a queen excluder to force the queen down, and this space becomes even more constrained. 4. Queen egg-laying is often disrupted (to the point of shutting down) when queen excluders are placed on hives and sometimes when stacks of honey supers are added during a nectar flow (in which case, supercedure of the existing queen may occur). We have seen this often in commercial beeyards. 5. My estimate, it is not uncommon for as many as 25-30% of the queens in any large bee operation to be superceded within the growing season - and the beekeepers have no idea that this is happening to this extent. Again, we have the data to back this up. At least, it holds in the NW and parts of the east coast. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 15:02:06 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: To brood or not to brood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jerry J Bromenshenk wrote: > > Ok, > > We have years of data concerning brood areas at different times of the year > in hives from all around the NW U.S A. Hi Jerry, Great Post! I agree with everything you have said and matches my primitive observations in midwest. Your no. 1 observation reinforces my statement about nucs made up with only sealed brood and house bees. I used to get a lot of pollen in my comb honey. Real health food people would fight for chunks with pollen but others would turn up nose. After a lot of research and reading Dr. C.C. Millers fifty years with the bees i started useing his method of producing comb honey over queenless bees with only sealed brood. Bingo no more pollen in comb honey. You speak the truth! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 12:16:01 -0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Tom Elliott Subject: Re: Foundation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit George, > You lost some hives in a "bad winter stretch". Bees live quite well in > northern Canada and Alaska. While we do keep bees in Alaska, overwintering is still fairly uncertain. We have had some success, but nothing like what you would expect outside (outside of Alaska that is). Still, you are correct, the bees can easily endure the weather. I have never heard of bees killed by cold. They usually succumb to starvation (too cold to move down to existing stores), or simply dwindling (most queens do not readily begin laying during the winter). Mites have yet to be a significant problem. I expect that it will not remain such for long. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugiak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@gci.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 14:16:59 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Allen Dick Subject: Re: To brood or not to brood In-Reply-To: <200003271932.OAA29002@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Great post Jerry. You hit a lot of important points one after the other. I'll comment on just a couple. > Queens vary widely in their per day production. There are lots of myths > regarding good and poor queens. One is that large areas of contiguous > capped brood = a good queen = healthy brood That is always nice to look at, but what really matters is the total area and whether it is well nourished and healthy. I am not sure at what level of (mal)nutrition, the bees actually stop making new brood. It would seem that there is a value to making fewer well fed bees, but also a value to having larger numbers -- even if the resulting bees are smaller, and weaker. I don't know how the go/no-go decision is made. > In the spring, the queen can and may really crank out the eggs. But, our > models and data both indicate that the colony can only support the amount > of brood that can be fed and covered by the current bee population. We've seen this over and over again. The queen is seldom the limiting factor in hive development around here until late May, at which time it is easy to replace her or split the colony to get maximum use of the nurse bees. >At > about 2 brood (eggs, larvae, pupae) per adult bee, the colony seems to hit > an upper limit and either the queen shuts down and/or the bees remove any > additional eggs. This ratio seems to change somewhat with time of year. That's a valuable rule of thumb. I've been aware of the relationship, but never quantized it. When I compare it to my experience, it holds well. A two pound package has about 7,000 bees, I think, so that means 14,000 cells maximum brood by your rule. That is equivalent to two 100% full standard frames of brood, plus a little. Frankly, until the weather warms in May, and the pollen gets going, we don't get that much. Maybe we get -- going by memory -- about half that initially. We may approach that upper limit during the second cycle as the populations begin to balance in age. allen ----- "If I make a living off it, that's great--but I come from a culture where you're valued not so much by what you acquire but by what you give away," -- Larry Wall (the inventor of Perl) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 17:05:50 -0500 Reply-To: heritage.hollow@sympatico.ca Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: HERITAGE HOLLOW Ted & Joan Pichurski Organization: Heritage Hollow Honey and Herbs Subject: Organic Honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oops! Error - should be - NO - organic status to south/central Ontario. Sorry! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 17:32:57 PST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: GREGOIRE@ENDOR.COM Subject: Re: Package Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello Douglas, Packages this time of year are dubious at best. Why don't you consider buying a nuc. Nucs are way ahead of packages to begin with whereas they are an established colony. By the end of June the nuc will be at least a month ahead of packages. I have names and telephone numbers of several nuc sellers right here in NH. You can look them in the eye when you buy. This is a big plus in my book. If you need the information soon call me at home. 603-523-9003 Ernie Gregoire "Beekeeper," definition= partially brave, partially excentric Grist Mill Apiary Canaan, New Hampshire, USA ------------------------------------- 03/27/99 17:32:57 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 20:18:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bob Harrison Subject: cleaning queen excluders The easy way of doing ten to twenty at a time is to put a couple of wood strips in a big plastic garbage bag laid on its side. Then stack in 10-20 excluders. Then two more strips of wood and a piece of plywood. The wood keeps the garbage bag from melting on the wires. Tie the neck sack tight and set in the sun on a bright sunny day. Use gloves to remove and give them a slap while still hot to remove any wax left. I would not scrape wax off with a hive tool as there is a thin layer of electroplate on the wires and when scratched off they will rust. Rusty excluders tear bees wings! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:47:08 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Bruce Murphy Subject: Slotted rack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I just bought a slotted rack for the bottom of one of my hives as an = experiment. I know the 4 inch plywood slat goes at the entrance but does = the deep side of the rack go up or down? Bruce Murphy Murphy Ranch Olympia, Wa. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 20:43:16 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: John Mitchell Subject: Where dandelions come from MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Beekeepers often cite the bloom of the ever-present dandelions in the U.S. as signaling the start of the beekeeping season in earnest. A search of the Bee-l archives shows beekeepers planning nuc sales, supering, splitting and reversing all around the dandelion bloom. The plant is described as an important source of forage for honey bees by beekeepers across the country in almost all regions in a survey of beekeepers reported in "The Hive and the Honey Bee." Surprisingly (to me at least), the dandelion is not a native species in the North American landscape. In a new book called "The Landscaping Revolution: Garden with Mother Nature, Not Against Her" by Andy Wasowski, the author describes the origins of the flower: "Invasive exotics are not new. The first came over on the Mayflower, in cattle feed. By 1672, twenty-two weeds were documented in New England, including the ubiquitous dandelion, which is native to northern Europe and Siberia." Native pollinators forage on dandelions too. The first European settlers may have brought an unexpected bounty of nectar and pollen to native pollinators that outweighed any competition from the newly introduced honey bee. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 07:36:06 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: cleaning queen excluders In-Reply-To: <200003280447.XAA18823@listserv.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In article <200003280447.XAA18823@listserv.albany.edu>, Bob Harrison writes >The easy way of doing ten to twenty at a time .........etc A pressure washer, set to the highest temperature, just blasts them clean in seconds. We stack them against a fence about half a dozen at a time and just get the jet onto the grids. It is really quick to do a good satisfactory job, around 100 an hour, sometimes more. For gleaming perfection it takes a bit longer. We have our own pressure washer, but they are not expensive to hire. Be sure to get a powerful one which can go right up to steam heat, as small domestic sized steam cleaners are a lot slower. -- Murray McGregor ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 10:46:31 +0200 Reply-To: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Apiservices - Gilles Ratia Organization: Apiservices Subject: Re: Package Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Douglas Whynott wrote: >>>>>>>> I am looking for a good package supplier. Can anyone suggest a company? <<<<<<<< Try http://www.beekeeping.com/photoads/ and choose "Bees" Gilles RATIA APISERVICES gilles.ratia@apiservices.com http://www.apiservices.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 06:24:49 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "C.R. Crowell" Subject: Re: Winter Behavior and Moisture Release MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have witnessed an odd behavior this winter in a couple of my hives- the bees have built partition walls across the opening in the center of the inner cover, and in one case across much of the opening across the bottom board. The partition is thin, brownish gray, kind of like re-worked wax with some propolis possibly mixed in. I reverse my inner cover for the winter, concave side down to allow the bees to "roll" over the frames easily,and also leave a 3/8 inch shim at the top rear of the inner cover so that the lid is pitched down in front. This pitch is to allow any moisture that condenses there to run forward and hopefully down the outer face of the hive. Across the entrance I partially reduce the full height of the entrance with quarter inch hardware cloth with all but 3/8 blocked with duct tape. The hives in question erected their partition behind this, building up from the bottom board to the inner face of the front wall of the hive. Has anyone tried using a goretex barrier membrane across the top of the hive, one that would contain heat but at the same time allow moisture to vent outwards? It seems like it might work well as a partition, provided: it is not too expensive, the bees do not interfere with it to alter its property of allowing moisture to pass through, and also that no moisture condenses on the inside of the membrane before being vented (and possibly drain onto the cluster). I thought I might try something like this next winter, on a few hives. /Curtis Crowell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 06:45:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Della Cortiglia Paolo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You can find a lot of italian professional beekeepers sending packages and nucs on the following sites: http://digilander.iol.it/aaab http://web.tiscalinet.it/aaab_it/yellow/welcome.htm Best Regards Paolo (Italy) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:00:43 -0800 Reply-To: dadant@dadant.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Dadant & Sons Organization: Dadant & Sons, Inc Subject: Re: Package Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------6F2B76377CF7" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------6F2B76377CF7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Douglas Whynott wrote: > > I am looking for a good package supplier that can deliver fairly soon. I just > discovered that I lost my hive over the winter and would like to get bees back > into it ASAP. Can anyone suggest a company? I live in New Hampshire. > DW --------------6F2B76377CF7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="1beelist.txt" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="1beelist.txt" PACKAGE BEE SUPPLIER LIST Below is a list of some package bee and queen producers. We suggest you book your orders as early as possible in order to have a better shipping date. Please book your orders directly with the producers. This list is provided for your convenience and does not represent an endorsement of the producers by Dadant & Sons Inc. GEORGIA YORK BEE COMPANY P O BOX 307,JESUP, GA 31598 PHONE 912-427-7311 FAX 912-427-4131 ROSSMAN APIARIES P O BOX 905 MOULTRIE,GA 31776-0905 PHONE 912-985-7200 OR 800-333-7677 FAX 912-985-0209 JERRY SHUMANS APIARIES 949 BILL MORRIS RD BAXLEY,GA 31513 PHONE 912-367-2243 THE WILBANKS APIARIES INC P O BOX 12 CLAXTON,GA 30417 PHONE 912-739-4820 FAX 912-739-4821 SPELL BEE CO 425 PATTERSON RD BAXLEY,GA 31513 PHONE 912-367-9352 FAX 912-367-9352 PLANTATION BEE CO P O BOX 24559 ST SIMONS ISLAND,GA 31522 PHONE 912-634-1884 HARDEMAN APIARIES P O BOX 214 VERNON,GA 30445 PHONE 912-583-2710 FAX 912-583-4789 MISSISSIPPI RUSSEL APIARIES 5348 RAYMOND BOLTON RD BOLTON,MS 39041 PHONE 601-866-4300 ALABAMA HARRELL & SONS INC P O BOX 215 #2 TUSKEENA ST HAYNESVILLE, AL 36040 PHONE 334-548-2313 OR 334-548-2262 NORMAN BEE FARM P O BOX 26 RAMER, AL 36069 PHONE 334-562-3354 OR 334-562-3542 ED NORMAN APIARIES RT 1 BOX 727 RAMER, AL 36069 PHONE 334-562-3357 CALIFORNIA WOOTEN'S GOLDEN QUEENS 11189 DESCHUTES RD PALO CEDRO,CA 96073 PHONE 530-549-3555 BEAR RIVER HONEY CO BOB & JOAN SEIFERT P O BOX 782 WHEATLAND, CA 95692 PHONE 946-633-4789 C. F. KOEHNEN & SONS INC 3131 HWY 45 GLENN, CA 95943 PHONE 530-891-5216 OR 530-934-5216 JOHN FOSTER APIARIES P O BOX 699 ESPARTO, CA 95627 PHONE 530-787-3044 STRACHAN APIARIES INC 2522 TIERRA BUENA RD YUBA CITY, CA 95993 PHONE 530-674-3881 FAX 530-674-5802 HEITKAM'S HONEY BEES PAT HEITKAM & FAMILY 25815 POST AVE ORLAND, CA 95963 PHONE 530-865-9562 PACKAGE BEES AVAILABLE FOR PICK UP ONLY FRIESEN HONEY FARMS 8099 RD 29 GLENN, CA 95943 PHONE 530-934-4944 TOLLETT APIARIES 8700 HONEY LANE MILLVILLE, CA 96062 PHONE 530-547-3387 FAX 530-547-5327 TEXAS B WEAVER APIARIES INC BINFORD & DANIEL B WEAVER RT 1 BOX 256 NAVASOTA, TX 77868 PHONE 409-825-7312 FAX 409-825-7351 @copyright 1997 Dadant & Sons Inc All rights reserved for private use only may not be copied or redistributed without permission. --------------6F2B76377CF7-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 07:04:00 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Beekeeperc@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Slotted rack MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Deep side down, I have been using them for years. Norm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 07:34:08 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Peter Borst Subject: Re: organic honey In-Reply-To: <200003280501.AAA19486@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Greetings, I confess I am a little surprised at the way organic honey has been defined by non-beekeepers. I assumed that they would have some standards regarding beekeeping practices. When I called a local organic farming organization, the representative told me that I could raise organic honey in my area because of the crop spraying. When I said i thought that most of the honey was made from wild trees like locust and basswood, she said that didn't matter. I agree that it is wrong to assume that honey is chemical free if it has never been tested - I also agree that it is wrong to assume that it is tainted, simply because of the practices of farmers a few miles down the road. If they are going to be this demanding I don't see how there can be any organic food at all, since there are traces of chemicals in the water and air everywhere now. One would think organic standards would be based on the presence or non-presence of some detectable, harmful substance. Not based on vague assertions. -- PB ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 09:20:09 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "BOGANSKY,RONALD J." Subject: Eastern Russian Beekeeping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello All, I was approached by a teacher who is not a beekeeper, but teaches about bees in her science class. She was attending a seminar trying to learn more about beekeeping and heard mention of the Russian Queens that will be used in the United States this year. This sparked her interest as she will be traveling in eastern Russia this summer and has contacts there. She is hoping for some questions that can be asked of Russian beekeepers. She will translate them to and from Russian. If anyone is interested in starting a dialog or submitting questions you can contact her directly. Her name is Kim Eberle-Wang, and her email is hkejwang@worldnet.att.net . Ron Bogansky Kutztown, (eastern) PA, USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 08:31:38 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: cleaning queen excluders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Murray McGregor wrote: > > In article <200003280447.XAA18823@listserv.albany.edu>, Bob Harrison > writes > >The easy way of doing ten to twenty at a time .........etc > > A pressure washer, set to the highest temperature, just blasts them > clean in seconds. > Hello Murry, I have used the power washer myself and does work great. For years i have been putting most excluders in my Better Way wax melter but then i have to pay the 220 electric. I use a comb honey frame i make myself from obsolete end bars from Dadant bargain shelf. Which will fit a bottom bar the out of business Leahey bee supply made and a couple cases were gave to me as a friend bought them at a sale and they wouldn't fit any of the frames he sells. I then make the two top pieces on my table saw. Its similar to a comb honey frame David of River Valley Apiaries in Canada uses. They work great. I bought the better way to clean those comb honey frames and started using the better way to clean excluders. The garbage bags or the better way melter won't get the propolis off like a pressure washer. I have never had any problems with using the power washer except getting wet! The other two methods do save the wax but the washer is the choice for large numbers! i did use a car wash washer once but spent a huge amount of time cleaning up the stall as i am the only beekeeper around and figured i would get a knock on my door from the car wash owner if i didn't! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 09:20:47 -0600 Reply-To: busybeeacres@discoverynet.com Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: bob harrison Subject: Re: organic honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > One would think organic standards would be based on the > presence or non-presence of some detectable, harmful substance. Not > based on vague assertions. > -- > PB I agree with your conclusions completely. The organic certifications people are not doing their homework. If there is going to be organic honey let the beekeepers have a say! In my organic orchard its simple. No pesticides,fertilizer or herbicides but those approved for organic use for the last three years. The inspectors come out each year and collect fees and look around.Mostly for signs of chemical fertilizer and herbicide use. Being lazy and using labor saving chemicals has cost many a organic grower his certification! NOT SO SIMPLE WITH ORGANIC HONEY and i don't think the honor system will work. I am from Missouri- the show me state. If you are going to use the organic label and say your honey is some how better than all the rest. Fine. I have a open mind but you are going to have to prove to me your honey is chemical free and then if i send my honey to the same lab and get the same results as you is not mine as good. What if the large packer sent his to the same lab. Maybe only a sample from one drum out of a semi load is honey not as good. I don't think the organic label should apply to honey and could hurt the industry as a whole by implying all other honeys are inferior. As you can tell i feel strongly about the issue and unless others wake up you are going to see and all ready have organic labeled honey on shelves with only the producers word its organic and better then yours. I will know get down off my soap box and wait for the many comments i HOPE i have stired up! Bob ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 12:53:40 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: William Morong Subject: Bees rolling in wood chips Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yesterday was bright and sunny, and hundreds of my bees were rolling in wood chips left from cutting firewood with a chainsaw. Some of the chips were wet, but they were rolling only in the dry ones, rolling as one would expect of a dog or a horse. Since they have been consuming copious pollen sustitute, I though a colony might have run out, so put a tray of dry pollen substitute amongst the chips. The bees ignored the pollen substitute and continued rolling in the chips. They did not seem to carry anything away from the pile of chips. What were my bees doing? Bill Morong ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 12:36:54 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Subject: Re: Bees rolling in wood chips Comments: To: William Morong In-Reply-To: <200003281801.NAA08212@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Yesterday was bright and sunny, and hundreds of my bees were rolling in wood > chips left from cutting firewood with a chainsaw. Some of the chips were Hello Bill - A few years back I observed the same performance. I had deposited a couple of garbage cans worth of sawdust from my shop, out in the garden. The sawdust had gotten wet and on an early spring day, the bees were not just picking through it, but actually rolling around it as a cat would do with catnip, almost in a frenzy state. All I could figure was they had found something that solved a need they have in some way. Reminded me of how birds will roll and fluff around in dirt. I don't observe that there is anything in it that they pick up and took back to the hive. Still a mystery to me. -Barry -- Barry Birkey West Chicago, IL U.S.A. www.beesource.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 14:43:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: Bees rolling in wood chips MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >> bees were rolling in wood chips > Reminded me of how birds will roll and fluff around in dirt. Well, birds roll in dirt in an attempt to dislodge mites. Were it not the season where bees will collect anything that resembles pollen, I would wonder. I'm wondering anyway. Could it be? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 14:14:03 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Mark G Spagnolo Subject: bear fence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hello: I am setting up my electric bear fence. =20 What voltage do I need to keep bears out? Bear populations are at = record levels here in Minnesota, so a fence is a necessity. Any advice? Thanks, ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 16:00:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "Timothy C. Eisele" Subject: Re: bear fence In-Reply-To: <200003282041.PAA13923@listserv.albany.edu> from "Mark G Spagnolo" at Mar 28, 2000 02:14:03 PM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark G. Spagnolo wrote: > > I am setting up my electric bear fence. =20 > > What voltage do I need to keep bears out? Bear populations are at = > record levels here in Minnesota, so a fence is a necessity. > > Any advice? The key points on an electric fence are: 1. The animal should be shocked in front of the eyes (which will encourage it to back up, not bolt forward). This means that there should be wires at approximately head height for the animal, and spaced closely enough that the animal's head can't go past without touching a wire. For bears, this means about a 6 to 8 inch wire spacing. 2. The animal should be well grounded. If the ground is moist, there will be no problem. If the ground is dry and sandy, then you can do something like putting metal chicken wire flat on the ground, so that the animal will be standing on it when it touches the "hot" wire, and connecting the chicken wire to a grounding rod. Alternatively, you can alternate "hot" wires with grounded wires on the posts. Note that this will require a closer wire spacing, so that the animal will touch two wires at once. 3. The electric fence unit should also be well grounded. Follow the grounding instructions for the unit carefully. 4. A fast pulse cycle is best. Electric fence units are not "on" all the time, they send out periodic pulses. The pulses should be frequent enough that the animal can't saunter through the fence between one pulse and the next. Most of the units that I've seen put out about 1 pulse per second, which seems to be adequate. 5. If possible, get the animal to stop and sniff at the wire. For bears, a strip of bacon draped over the "hot" wire is reported to be a good way to do this. 6. Of course, be careful to keep vegetation from growing onto the fence and shorting it out, and keep it in good condition. A lightning arrestor is also a good idea, as a lightning strike anywhere near your fence will otherwise burn out the fence unit. I hope these pointers are of some use to you. The main thing is, a poor fence energizing unit with a good installation, will be better than a good energizing unit with a poor installation. -- Tim Eisele tceisele@mtu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 17:26:54 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: BeeCrofter@AOL.COM Subject: Re: bear fence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/28/00 4:11:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, tceisele@MTU.EDU writes: > > 2. The animal should be well grounded. If the ground is moist, there > will be no problem. If the ground is dry and sandy, then you can > do something like putting metal chicken wire flat on the ground, so that > the animal will be standing on it when it touches the "hot" wire Rock salt will increase soil conductivity hold moisture and keep the weeds and grass down spread some on the ground under the wires and back a couple feet. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 17:57:45 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: "john f. mesinger" Subject: Re: Slotted rack In-Reply-To: <200003281235.HAA26217@listserv.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have used slotted racks with slats crosswise to the frames. Now I see parallel slots advertised. After adding beltsville screens below the racks [reversed so I can test for dead mites from the rear of the hive], I have begun to wonder whether the slotted rack will not reduce the effectiveness of the screen. I also wonder whether the hive will not be harder to defend with slotted racks in place [Last fall and this spring I have a very gentle Carniolan colony under repeated attacks from a neighbor's Italians The raiding is constant on warm days with a hive full of capped honey in the third Illinois from last year, and some of the carnies are now getting hostile toward anything that moves within 20 feet of the hive. Two other carniolan hives slaughtered Italians last year and seem not to be troubled this year. However, their queens obviously bred to some Italians in addition to the carniolan drones a year ago]. John F. Mesinger jfm6f@unix.mail.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 17:38:33 -0800 Reply-To: Ian_Farber@bc.sympatico.ca Sender: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology From: Ian Farber Subject: Re: bear fence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark G Spagnolo wrote: > > Hello: > > I am setting up my electric bear fence. =20 > > What voltage do I need to keep bears out? I use the D cell Gallagher B-11. It uses 6 D cell batteries. With good grounding a fence will reach 10 000 volts, but performance in the 9000 volt range is more typical. The batteries last about 5 weeks with a slow drop in voltage and then when the voltage drops to about 5000 volts, with good grounding, the batteries don't last very much longer. This voltage seems to work to keep the bears out. If they get in then Gallagher does make much more powerful fencers that will keep out elephants. Buy the alkaline batteries in bulk and get a digital tester for accuracy. I wouldn't go to a car battery again because of the low cost of D cells compared to the short time a car battery will perform. Our area is very dry and we only need to use the bear fence in the fall in most years (Kamloops, BC, Canada). Ian Farber Westsyde Apiaries