From MAILER-DAEMON Sat Feb 28 11:14:05 2009 Return-Path: <> X-Original-To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Delivered-To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Received: from listserv.albany.edu (unknown [169.226.1.24]) by metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 641AB490A7 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:41 -0500 (EST) Received: from listserv.albany.edu (listserv.albany.edu [169.226.1.24]) by listserv.albany.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n1SG3Y7Q017265 for ; Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:03:35 -0500 From: "University at Albany LISTSERV Server (14.5)" Subject: File: "BEE-L LOG0811B" To: adamf@IBIBLIO.ORG Message-ID: Content-Length: 267161 Lines: 6187 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 07:51:40 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill T Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <49150B75.9000306@sc.rr.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > > Those that kill the host too quickly are wither not passed on, or are not > passed on to as many new hosts as those that are less virulent. Simple > math. In biology the name of the game is to spread far and wide. Killing > one's host before it can pass on your progeny does not make for a bug that > lasts. We are assuming that the bug changes and that is the reason for a symbiotic relationship. In the case of Varroa, which is where this all started, Varroa is only the agent that allows bad things to happen. The bug may have been in a symbiotic relationship before Varroa, but not after, and that is mostly because of the host, not the bug. The host is selected for by the bug, not the other way around. In the case of bees, maybe it is hygienic behavior, or shorting the emergence of brood. That is what breeding is all about, getting the correct bee, not the correct bug. Again, something like Ebola and HIV is a cross species jump. It can care less if it kills off all its hosts in the new species as it still has a home with the original species. We do not live in a static universe that obeys our desires. Otherwise I would have T-Rex in my backyard. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 05:54:36 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: C Hooper Subject: Propolis Boosts Bees=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99?= Immune Response Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Propolis Boosts Bees’ Immune Response International Pollinator Conference Highlights Importance of Bees U.S. continues efforts to protect declining pollinator populations By Daniel Gorelick, U.S. Department of State, 11/7/2008 http://tinyurl.com/5p2lc2 …Spivack’s preliminary studies suggest that treating laboratory bees with propolis reduces the number of bacteria and helps their immune responses. She is now repeating these studies in the field using more bees, hoping that propolis may be a useful tool in the fight to save the bees. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 10:09:34 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Marron Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <8c0381120811080451p5df24b17w700e08e8e5db537a@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bill T. wrote <<<< It can care less if it kills off all its hosts in the new species as it still has a home<<< [I'm still thinking DWV as the "bug."] I know you guys don't think the bug "cares" whether it kills its' host. I wish you could stop talking as if it did. People may read this list! On this point: many bugs come from another species. West Nile Virus and Lymes Disease come immediately to mind. Plague is vectored by fleas. How does that change the dynamic? The bee may be holding DWV for another species. [Before varroa] >>>> We are assuming that the bug changes and that is the reason for a symbiotic relationship.<<<< Nothing "changes." The variation that allows for adaptation was always there. It merely comes front and center. Ditto for the host. The swarming tendency of AHB may protect them from mites. This could be amplified by nature while those colonies that stay put. and build up the large killing populations of mites, drop out. >>>>The bug may have been in a symbiotic relationship before Varroa, but not after, and that is mostly because of the host, not the bug.<<<<< Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't DWV exist happily in the adult Bee? Ergo they have achieved symbiosis. Varroa vectors it down to the larva/pupa where it kills. Eventually the kids may take after the parents. >>>The host is selected for by the bug, not the other way around.<<<<<< I know you don't think bugs "select" anything. Consider that the host, by walking around with a particular vulnerability, chooses its' disease. The bugs are everywhere waiting for something to stick to. They are not discouraged when %99.99999 die. >>>>>In the case of bees, maybe it is hygienic behavior, or shortening the emergence of brood. That is what breeding is all about, getting the correct bee, not the correct bug.<<<<< Agreed. That is what nature does [or would do if we left her alone]. The trouble is, we have narrowed the gene pool almost systematically eliminating the variation that could save us. If, as I mentioned, swarming is a defense mechanism that defeats varroa [new comb, new clutch of brood, small population] it's never going to be popular with US beekeepers as it defeats current management. By breeding for docile, productive bees we may have gone in the wrong direction. Dick Marron **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 07:48:41 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Propolis Boosts Bees' Immune Response MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Just wanted to make sure this posted here as for years I have talked about = propolis paddies in beehives for treating of secondary diseases............= ..and also so bees can use it to help resterilize the broodnest to their ne= eds for raising healthy brood without the foul and chalk, etc, etc.........= .nothing new. Beekeepers physically doing it for years now that personally = know me, though others have tooted it in the past. Much in archives here ot= hers can go reread thru now again if they want to. =A0 Dee A. Lusby ------------------------------------------- =A0 Propolis Boosts Bees' Immune Response International Pollinator Conference Highlights Importance of Bees U.S. continues efforts to protect declining pollinator populations By Daniel Gorelick, U.S. Department of State, 11/7/2008 http://tinyurl.com/5p2lc2 =85Spivack's preliminary studies suggest that treating laboratory bees with propolis reduces the number of bacteria and helps their immune responses. She is now repeating these studies in the field using more bees, hoping that propolis may be a useful tool in the fight to save the bees. =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:14:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: parasites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It's nearly a truism that when a parasite "jumps species" that it is very "hard" on the new species Black death, spanish flu, etc etc There are very few counter examples It is said that there are 4x the # of parasites vrs hosts I'm still waiting for any useful help ie how to make life unpleasent for Virii without killing the bees ie how to steralize a dead out without burning Anything else feasable dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 21:02:07 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Propolis Boosts Bees' Immune Response In-Reply-To: <741281.25217.qm@web51608.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Agree with you on this Dee. As I understand you give the raw propolis in paddies. I give them process propolis in the syrup. Now the question is How is Marla "treating laboratory bees with propolis"? -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 15:08:45 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Propolis Boosts Bees=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99?= Im mune Response MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 In a message dated 08/11/2008 13:00:58 GMT Standard Time, editor@MEDIBEE.CO= M=20 writes: Propolis Boosts Bees=E2=80=99 Immune Response International Pollinator Conference Highlights Importance of Bees=20 U.S. continues efforts to protect declining pollinator populations =20 Are bees placed for pollination purposes in large monocropped areas able to= =20 gather much propolis? =20 Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 22:29:57 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Propolis Boosts Bees=?WINDOWS-1252?Q?=92?= Im mune Response In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline As far as my experience goes the propolis collection will depend on 1.- Type of bee. Some of the colonies are great propolis collector some not. Most people select for not propolis as it is a pain ... to work those hives. I think this is a mistake. 2.- Strenght of the colony. When you place propolis mesh/collector on top of the frames bees need to feel unconfortable / crowded to fill the mesh with propolis. In this regard placing the formic pads on top of the mesh greatly improve the collection of propolis (4x) 3.- Finally propolis collection will depend on surrounding floral sources. Bees collect propolis from many sources, not only from trees. They gather from grass, bushes, even road bitumen!!! if in need For those of us who use chemical to treat varroa, we need to take out the propolis collector when the treatment is on, so as not contaminate the propolis. -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:15:39 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: parasites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 19:16:44 GMT Standard Time, dthompson@NEXUSISP.COM writes: I'm still waiting for any useful help ie how to make life unpleasent for Virii without killing the bees ie how to steralize a dead out without burning As, according to Bailey and Ball, a virus is just a small piece of genetic material in a protein shell I wonder how long they can survive in the absence of a living host. Dealing with a dead-out means you don't have to worry about killing the bees and so replacement of the wax and exposure of the frames and woodwork to acetic acid fumes, or to caustic soda solution (probably it wouldn't be a good idea to use both at the same time) .should be effective. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:32:56 -0800 Reply-To: naturebee@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <8c0381120811070422v762d2be8ka0478347a4f62574@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Plus, it is not Varroa or other mites that are the main > problem. It is the > pathogens that do most of the killing. Mites weaken bees so > they are more > susceptible to anything that might be out there, including > winter. Please clarify your statment. If I am reading it right, you are saying that ‘mites are not the main problem‘, then turning in the same breath to say that they ‘are the main problem’ in that they ‘weaken bees’ so that other causes which honeybees normally are not be susceptible to can kill them. Best Wishes, Joe Waggle http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:33:11 -0500 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Several mixings of fact and assumptions have been made to come up with a series of statements about microbes that, while interesting, have little or no application to beekeeping. The ability of Dean's microbes to mutate rapidly is due to the simple fact of their rapid reproduction rate, a feature not shared by either honey bees or varroa. It has been estimated that if microbes increased without check, the progeny of one microbe in forty eight hours would number 281,500,000,000. In 72 hours the weight of that lone microbe's descendants would be 74,178 tons. Pretty amazing when you realize that the mass of a single dipio, strepto, staphylo, or sarcina form of bacilli or spirilla is nearly zero. > are you claiming here that this is proof that if left to > their own devices, varroa would kill off all honeybees > in north america? This sort of question betrays a misconception that is common among those who have never tried to breed a specific trait into their bees. Before anyone goes and bets their hives and their harvests on concepts like "breeding from the survivors" or "small-cell", or any of the other amazingly non-technical approaches that are claimed to result in bees that can survive this or that, you may want to consider asking the opinions of a few queen breeders who use every tool at their disposal to breed varroa resistance into their lines, yet still cannot assure their customers that the offspring of the queens they sell will remain varroa resistant for even a single supercedure generation. Three of the most qualified to answer these questions would be Tom Glenn (queenb95@aol.com), Adam Finklestien (adamf7@gmail.com) and Sue Cobey (swcobey@ucdavis.edu). All are happy to sell and ship breeder queens that are the result of significant work to test for and select for varroa resistance, and show significant resistance to varroa. One could also speak with researchers in the field, such as Dr. Harris (Jeffrey.Harris@ars.usda.gov) of the USDA, who is working on the Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) lines [formerly called "Suppressed Mite Reproduction" (SMR)]. One might even speak with Dr. Marla Spivak (spiva001@umn.edu) who developed the "Minnesota Hygienic" lines of bees. All these very highly-qualified and credentialed people can attest to the complexity of their own breeding programs, the illusive nature of "varroa resistance", and explain just how unlikely it would be for any beekeeper to stumble upon success via a "breed from the survivors" approach, or get any tangible results from merely forcing the bees into a smaller cell size. Secondly, one can do some basic research on the central claim of the small-cell beekeepers, that the smaller cell size reduces the capped time of the brood, and thereby allows the bee to emerge before varroa in that cell have fully matured. First, one is not going to change a genetic feature like maturation time with physical manipulation of cell size, and second, emergence times fall into a traditional bell curve, some earlier, and some later. Both points appear to be simply outside the comprehension of the advocates of small-cell. The arguments by the proponents of small-cell are many, varied, and often highly entertaining. (The ever-changing tale of "Mite Leveling" alone has given me hours of enjoyment.) The small-cell approach is an idea that spreads easily among novice beekeepers, beekeepers who have limited educations, and those who have had little success keeping their hives alive via conventional approaches. The reason it creates so many often highly annoying proselytizers is built into the idea itself, making it spread like a virus among the credulous who are exposed to it by an infectecd beekeeper: 1) This will solve all your bee's problems 2) If it doesn't, it is because your neighbor's bees are to blame, and also need to be small-cell bees. (See "mite leveling") 3) If everyone followed these practices, no bees would need any treatments of any type 4) You should spread the word, as the truth has been repressed by the evil companies that sell miticides, who have bribed the beekeeping "establishment". So, you can see how this sort of thing can get out of hand very quickly. Our local bee associations actually had to set up separate "deprogramming" novice courses for disillusioned beekeepers who were ready to give up the craft after several years of dead-out hives, no harvests, and regular swarms from 4-comb colonies in their all-too-common Top-Bar Hives. The reason was that instructors were being heckled and argued with by the small-cell advocates, even though those people were attending the classes due to admitted failures to keep their bees alive using small-cell techniques. The cult-like nature of the small-cell advocates include specific advice to novices to not register one's hives with apiary inspectors, to avoid local beekeeping associations, and to keep one's bees a secret from other beekeepers. The excuse is that smaller bees will be mistaken for Africanized Bees, which is utter nonsense given that several states use DNA tests to identify Africanized Bees. It is quite a bit of trouble to educate people who have had their heads filled with utter nonsense, even to the point of being convinced that a widespread conspiracy extends even to the basic beekeeping texts that they have been advised to ignore. Needless to say, the belief system is an excellent way to turn an enthusiastic novice into an ex-beekeeper in record time, and that's the tragedy. The goal of returning beekeeping to what it was in the early 1980s before varroa started causing problems is at hand, but it will not come from unscientific approaches like "small cell", "breeding from survivors", or "breeding from feral colonies". It will come from hard work in sophisticated bee breeding, where tangible success that shows up in controlled studies can be seen. I like to joke that small-cell beekeeping is just like Scientology, but without the celebrities. But I'm not really joking, now am I? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:42:24 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 06/11/2008 11:17:03 GMT Standard Time, gavinrbox-beel@YAHOO.CO.UK writes: <> I didn't do so badly, losing one out of four, not counting the one I united due to bad temper. I picked up two swarms in July, which replaced them nicely, though it was too late to get any honey from them. the honey crop was athetic, a mere ten pounds. They were short of stores by the end of the winter, and they're even shorter now, despite feeding. As a result, there's a distinct chance of starvation if I'm not careful. I don't believe in routine feeding, but this year I'm going to be giving candy to every colony. Colonies were never broodless during trhe season, but they took a very long time to build up, and spent much of the summer unable to forage due to the foul weather. Regards, Robert Brenchley Birmingham UK **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:51:26 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: Re: parasites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Sat, 8 Nov 2008 14:14:35 -0500, Dave Thompson wrote: > >I'm still waiting for any useful help >ie how to make life unpleasent for Virii >without killing the bees >ie how to steralize a dead out without burning >Anything else feasable > what evidence do you have that you have virus contaminated comb or CCD? Your posts IMO suggest varroa mite problems. How about mite testing? Did you monitor mite levels during the season? Did you do any Nosema spore counts? Without any hard data, its mere speculation that you have the only verifiable case of CCD in all of Canada. The Ontario and Manitoba Provincial Apiarists appear to offer analytical services for nosema and mite inspections. Perhaps you could make use of those services as a place to start next season? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 17:56:31 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: healthier colonies Comments: To: james.fischer@gmail.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 22:40:01 GMT Standard Time, bee-quick@BEE-QUICK.COM writes: or get any tangible results from merely forcing the bees into a smaller cell size You are likely to see healthier bees from moving bees onto a smaller cell size simply because the brood combs are NEW and therefore not carrying a load of infective material of one sort or another. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 18:01:27 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 22:43:51 GMT Standard Time, RSBrenchley@AOL.COM writes: Colonies were never broodless during the season Quite a few were for weeks at a time in this area, which is about 150 miles S of you. I've never known it before, indeed there is usually no break at all, even during the depths of winter. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 18:09:27 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >> or get any tangible results >> from merely forcing the bees into a smaller cell size > You are likely to see healthier bees from moving > bees onto a smaller cell size simply because the > brood combs are NEW and therefore not carrying > a load of infective material of one sort or another. Agreed, but anyone who does not renew brood comb on a regular cycle is acting foolishly. I use flat metal colored thumbtacks that match the queen colors, and replace 2 frames per box each year, so that no comb is older than 5 years. The best part is that it is self-documenting. No record-keeping required. Sadly, even this may not be enough. I've heard that overseas work (maybe Sweden?) has shown that cycling combs over 3 years is better, but the same sort of scheme could be employed. Funny, I've neever heard anyone describe the specifics of their comb rotation scheme. Does this mean that everyone else does it by eyeballing the comb condition? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 18:19:43 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: healthier colonies Comments: To: bee-quick@BEE-QUICK.COM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 23:11:01 GMT Standard Time, bee-quick@BEE-QUICK.COM writes: I've heard that overseas work (maybe Sweden?) has shown that cycling combs over 3 years is better, The recommended practice in Denmark is to renew all brood comb annually. I have this year experimentally taken to removing the central, bred-in, part of brood combs leaving the peripheral honey storage part as a footprint/guide and have been amazed at the excellence of the almost unbroken brood pattern when they have rebuilt what I have removed. Chris ps Jim, the reply settings on your mails are to you and not to BeeL. Have you broken BeeL? **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 23:52:59 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert wrote: > I didn't do so badly, losing one out of four, 25% is not far off the national average! Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 19:06:54 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: DAVID ADAMS Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Jim, There is no doubt that the more often the better. But when it comes to a commercial outfit, with one or two thousand hives or more, then you add in five or six thousand supers to rotate comb out of also ,it becomes a large expense. Now I know there are those that will now say you can't afford not to but add in CCD losses ,a poor honey crop , high fuel, much higher feed ,it's easy to not get it done, and still stay in business. Back to point one, it is the number one best thing we can do ,but most guys,other than small beekeepers find it hard to stay on top of. Most of us are now trying harder than ever to rotate ,,but Farm Credit and the other guys like to be paid on time.Speaking for myself it's hard to get caught up and not go further in debt to get it done across the board. I feel in the past alot of folks haven't put alot of focus on it . **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 10:10:21 +1000 Reply-To: Trevor Weatherhead Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Trevor Weatherhead Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim wrote > Funny, I've neever heard anyone describe the specifics > of their comb rotation scheme. Does this mean that > everyone else does it by eyeballing the comb condition? I will correct the situation. I aim to rotate out three (3) combs very year which means a three (3) year complete change. I use a colour system on the frames so I know the age. By just looking at the colour on the frame, you know what year it was put in. I draw the foundations in the honey super before extracting and putting down in the brood chamber. I find that if I put the foundation directly into the brood chamber the bees can chew out the wax along the wires and you end up with a mess. As can be guessed I do not use plastic frames. All this fits in with my barrier system which I have described before. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 01:13:36 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Statistics are increadible. I must be happy cause I only lost 20%, 500 out of 2500 colonies. Great (not)!. -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 19:25:52 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 09/11/2008 00:09:21 GMT Standard Time, pollinator@EMBARQMAIL.COM writes: you add in five or six thousand supers to rotate comb out of also It shouldn't be necessary to rotate super comb as frequently provided you've kept the queen out of them. However, as you're going to take the supers off anyway, why not simply cut out all the comb with honey, leaving a 'footprint' round the edge as a starter for next season? The honey could be separated from the wax by mashing and floating which preserves much more of the flavour than the usual centrifuge does and gives you an additional crop of valuable wax to harvest. You hear the argument that it takes X pounds of nectar to produce Y pounds of wax, but a glance at the debris on the floor under the mesh will always show wax scales, even during florally quiet times: the bees are going to produce wax anyway in a flow so you may as well let them put it to good use rather than waste it. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 00:45:20 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: healthier colonies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- James Fischer wrote: >This sort of question betrays a misconception that is common among those who have never tried to breed a specific trait into their bees. jim, i would never presume to put words in your mouth...so can you please clarify? i asked a fairly straightforward question of peter who gave an example (and hinted at others) that honeybees, when exposed to varroa, will all die without human intervention. do you believe that if all varroa treatment were stopped (or had never started) in north america, that all honeybees so exposed in north america would die? this is an important question. >"breeding from the survivors" ...or any of the other amazingly non-technical approaches... breeding from survivors is 'non-technical'? perhaps (depending on your definition of 'technical'), but breeding from survivors is the one, the only, and the defining way in which life perpetuates from generation to generation, regardless if you are a bacteria or an elephant. breeding from survivors (and survivors with desirable characteristics) is what agriculture _is_. it's hard to imagine that the queen breeders you cite don't breed from survivor stock...i was under the impression that glenn at least exposed his stock to high disease pressure (although i might be thinking of another breeder...the glenn site seems to be down due to an aol thing). not all breeding programs are based on "survival stock"...i've had queen breeders describe the inbred lines for hybrid stock as being so weak that they needed constant feeding in of capped brood and feeding...they were unable to care for themselves. to my way of thinking, almost anything _but_ this kind of approach is "breeding from survivors"...the question just remains, "survivors of what"? ...could be survivors of this or that chemical/treatment..or it could be survivors of biological pressures with no treatment....i have some bees that are remarkable in that they have spent the summer traveling in an observation hive in all kinds of conditions about 1/2 the time, and with very little help. this hive has survived considerable stress...but would the genetics be helpful for afb resistance? i don't know, as far as i know they have not been exposed. >All are happy to sell and ship breeder queens that are the result of significant work to test for and select for varroa resistance, and show significant resistance to varroa. i won't comment on anyone's program, or their bees. i will ask how far you think all of this work has gotten us. how many treatments are _not_ being used because of these carefully bred lines?...i'm sure it's some. interestingly, i came upon this document...the fy 2003 "summary report on federal labrotory technology transfer...it included the following wrt to russian breeding program: "A team of ARS researchers led the effort to select, test and breed Russian honeybees that would be naturally resistant to both mites. The team also selected for high honey production to assure the value of the stock. ARS scientists entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with a beekeeper to breed and gather information on honeybee queens for commercial production. Now, thanks to ARS’s efforts, it is estimated that nearly 40 percent of the Nation’s 2.5 million commercial honeybee colonies are currently stocked with Russian honeybees—producing an annual honey crop valued at about $85 million, and pollinating crops valued at $6 to $8 billion. The Russian honeybees typically produce about 10 percent more honey per colony and can survive northern winters. Treatment savings using the new bees totals about $17 million a year." >...and explain just how unlikely it would be for any beekeeper to stumble upon success via a "breed from the survivors" approach, or get any tangible results from merely forcing the bees into a smaller cell size. i'm sure they could explain that...but would they be right? without naming names, there are certainly many who are not using treatments (on both lc and sc), and their bees aren't dead. is this from breeding? or some other factor? fwiw, i can show you a photo of a varroa mite on a drone larva in one of dee's yards...they are not so isolated as to not have mites. >...central claim of the small-cell beekeepers... the 'small cell beekeepers' are hardly a homogeneous lot...there are lots of opinions....and no 'central claim' other than 'sc seems to help' and 'historically the comb size was smaller'. yes...we have had this discussion many times....bees on islands being measured as bigger...historical accounts...dr. erickson's version of the historical size of comb...we don't need to go through this. my point is that saying that there is a central claim that the capping time is shorter is simply not the case. michael bush has timed it himself...and i'm unaware of how many capping times he has measured (ie, how big a database he has of his own capping time measurements...lc and sc...feral, etc). >...one is not going to change a genetic feature like maturation time with physical manipulation of cell size, maturation time is, i'm sure, partly genetic. it's affected by temprature as well...so it's not solely a genetic factor: http://www.apidologie.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/apido/pdf/2005/01/M4055.pdf i'm not convinced either way, although i know michael bush, and if he said he measured it, i'm inclined to assume he did a thorough job of it. >The small-cell approach is an idea that spreads easily among novice beekeepers, beekeepers who have limited educations, what does that mean? beekeepers with/without a ged, or beekeepers that haven't attended 'bee school'? >...advice to novices to not register one's hives with apiary inspectors, i keep in close contact with my county inspector. he inspects my hives every year (this year he said he saw one mite out of 16 hives). i keep him very up to date with what we are doing, why, and how it is working out. imagine...he even invited us to present what we've been working on to the entire club...hive opening and all. fwiw, he thinks our bees are going to die...which is also what he thought last year. >to avoid local beekeeping associations, i regularly attend both board meetings and our general club meetings. i do sound for all of our events where amplification is needed (i bring my own expensive equipment), and help out other members of our club regularly. we also encourage people to join their local club (whether they are in our area or not) on our website...even people that don't want to use treatments. i also write fairly regularly for the newsletter. >and to keep one's bees a secret from other beekeepers. again, we have done a hive opening for our club just in september...several members of our club have visited our bees, and we invite all who are interested to come out and see. many more have seen them from the road. there are no 'secret hives'. i don't really know who you are talking about/accusing with all this...but it's certainly not me. >...smaller bees will be mistaken for Africanized Bees, which is utter nonsense given that several states use DNA tests to identify Africanized Bees. is this nonsense in all states? or just those that use dna testing? >...the belief system is an excellent way to turn an enthusiastic novice into an ex-beekeeper in record time, and that's the tragedy. i've seen lots of first year beekeepers fail and give up...even second and third...but it does not seem limited to those using sc. at this point, i'd like to bring things back to microbes...which is what i was talking about, not sc. what do you think the influence of the microbial culture in the hive is jim? how important do you think microbes are in the proper functioning of the hive when compared with the genetics of the bee? how do you think these microbes are affected by 'hard' (ie fluvalinate) and 'soft' (ie organic acids)? do you think the microbial balance always returns to it's original composition after being disturbed? do you think all in hive microbial cultures are equally beneficial for the bees? i would value the opinions of a scientist on these questions...thanks jim, deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 19:46:21 -0500 Reply-To: wwfarm@wctel.net Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Carolyn Ehle Subject: Re: healthier colonies Comments: To: Boozer Donna In-Reply-To: <009f01c941f1$fbb2e9a0$6902a8c0@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit James Fischer wrote: ... > Before anyone goes and bets their hives and their harvests > on concepts like "breeding from the survivors" or "small-cell"... >... you may want to consider asking the opinions of a few queen > breeders who use every tool at their disposal to breed varroa > resistance into their lines, yet still cannot assure their > customers that the offspring of the queens they sell will > remain varroa resistant for even a single supercedure generation... I believe very few locations are isolated enough to have drone populations of sufficient number, diversity, and resistance for successful natural matings that enhance, rather than dilute, the multiple resistance characteristics. I doubt one can evaluate any breeding/management technique without addressing drone population numbers, genetics, and timing. My location in the South Carolina Western Piedmont is better than most, though our perpetual droughts have limited the drone populations after early summer so that late supercedures are often doomed. For 11 years we have mostly used the Bond method (live and let die) and introduced a steady trickle of true ferals and many lines of bees selected for resistance; we are seeing improving survival with no treatment, including observed multi-year feral colonies. Queens I have given other beekeepers for the last 5 years have mostly out-survived their commercial queens in minimal or no-treatment conditions. All queens are from natural swarm or supercession cells, naturally mated. The first year that Russians were available, they became part of the mix and their characteristics seem to dominate throughout our association of like-minded beekeepers. For several years I have been battling neurological Lyme and too much work time, plus the drought situation and terrible spring weather, so I have not built the hive numbers that I would like. I'm hoping for a good spring (don't we always) to make the most of whatever useful genetics we may have evolved. Of course the micro and macroscopic "bugs" may also have evolved to co-exist better with their hosts. We like to say that all beekeeping is local, but we forget that may also apply to all bee populations that can live without chemicals. The restoration of a backyard and feral bee for McCormick County, SC, is my focus at this time. I tend to view the development of local bee populations from the perspective of island evolution and biogeography, having grown up and studied biology in the rather unique laboratory of the Caribbean islands. Carolyn in Plum Branch, SC PS I keep my empty equipment where the bees can mine the propolis from it, which they do with vigor. We also have many pine and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) trees and a large population of the resinous Baccharis halimifolia (the same genus I believe as the much-touted Brazilian green propolis). I have always selected in favor of heavy propolis production. It certainly helps the bees build their hive beetle traps (another positive selection trait). **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 20:25:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: parasites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > how long they can survive in the absence of a living host At least 6 months, maybe 2 yrs > what evidence do you have that you have virus contaminated comb The brood corpses? At least 20 frames. It can be shown high doses of vit C influence symptoms -- dramatically, QED virus Search my posts for "nosema" Tests jun24/07, jan20, feb16?/08 Yes the fall formic was a partial failure 20-25% of the excavated (coloured) pupae had no mite feacal spots (wearing too strong reading glasses) Lots of mites, but nary a bee They have had their first OA(v) Too early, I know but what else can I do? dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 21:25:00 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Not arguing against frame rotation or removal as a disease reducing mechanism / procedure - But, many commercial beekeepers are using plastic foundation as a protection against frame rupture during honey extraction. The forces imposed upon frames full of honey whilst being spun results in those with traditional wax bases being blow out. Sterilisation of the plastic by physical means is not easy, nor are chemical methods as far as I am aware. Peter **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 12:00:09 +1000 Reply-To: Trevor Weatherhead Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Trevor Weatherhead Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Chris wrote > Try not using foundation apart from starter strips. I found that = 'wiring' the frames with nylon fishing line rather than metal wire = usually results in the bees incorporating it > in their comb ok; however = nowadays I don't usually bother to use any sort of wire. As always, = when letting bees build their own comb, the hive must be level. Starter strips are no good for me in that they build a lot of drone = comb where the space is and I want brood combs that produce workers and = not drones. I just put in empty frames in a hive to get them to draw = drone comb for me to use in the drone colonies for our queen rearing = operation. No worker cells are drawn in these drone combs. They need = the foundation to draw workers cells. How would you imbed the fishing line? It does not conduct electricity = so using a battery charger, as I do with wire foundation, is out of the = question. Trevor Weatherhead AUSTRALIA **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 23:26:43 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: parasites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave, Have you the possibility of passing on a few of your colonies to a Provincial person or equivalent - who may be able to run the colonies outside your set up and see if there is a difference in status? This may indicate some measure of control in trying to identify the cause of the problems. They may continue as previous, may not. Peter PEI Canada **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 10:07:52 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii;format=flowed In message , Chris Slade writes > >It shouldn't be necessary to rotate super comb as frequently provided you've >kept the queen out of them. However, as you're going to take the supers off >anyway, why not simply cut out all the comb with honey, leaving a 'footprint' >round the edge as a starter for next season? The honey could be separated >from the wax by mashing and floating which preserves much more of the flavour >than the usual centrifuge does and gives you an additional crop of valuable >wax to harvest. > >You hear the argument that it takes X pounds of nectar to produce Y pounds >of wax, but a glance at the debris on the floor under the mesh will >always show > wax scales, even during florally quiet times: the bees are going to produce >wax anyway in a flow so you may as well let them put it to good use rather >than waste it. In a UK environment too of course, this is NOT a viable option if you are looking to earn a living. Produces lovely showbench standard honey for sure, but that brings no premium in the trade, only a sense of satisfaction to the beekeeper. Over many years of experiment, many years of hearing that starter strips and new comb in the supers every year is a viable option, all this stuff that is being repeated over and over again (sorry to pick your post Chris, it could have been others) that it does not harm your crop and improves your honey quality I have some pretty firm evidence backed conclusions, garnished over several hundred colonies and over several seasons, on the subject. I will accept that if your only focus is showbench standards you may have a point. ( Even that is moot, as my honey, bought and misrepresented as their own by amateur beekeepers, has won prizes at major shows, and it is mostly done off drawn combs these days.) However the idea that it does not harm quantity is nonsense (in OUR environment). Drawn comb brings comfortably the best honey harvest in terms of quantity. THICK foundation is next best. Thin foundation is doubtful except in big flows and should only be used if after comb honey. Starter strips are a disaster and a complete false economy. (I think the origin of their use is contained in the old name they had, and which still refers to a form of their usage, which was a 'eke'. Eking out a scarce resource, or one considered expensive? In a big season, or over a small number of colonies, it IS possible to see anomalous results. The odd colony does well enough to give grounds to think it might work. If you want percentages worked out over many years here you go. Take drawn DEEP comb as the baseline (they do best on that) and call it 100..the rest are percentages over several years done in the 1980s Drawn deeps 100 Drawn shallows 79 Foundation deeps 75 Foundation shallows 60 Thin super 48 Starter strips 22 Note.22%.........taken over years of trying all sorts of systems......in a good flow and good season they do OK........but in a bad year with low flows the crop is NIL. This is the main reason that the crops fall off as you drop down the list...........the less convenient it is to dump nectar fast in short windows of flow the less harvest you get. Starter strips get a reduced harvest in a good year, and none at all at least one year in three here, and these blanks are the primary reason the systems overall performance is so paltry. Cell building is quick, midrib building is much slower, hence even thin super has a performance more than twice as good as starters. A friend had 100 boxes on for cut comb this season in our heather area and he got precisely zero over 100 hives. ( Not ONE piece of comb, and nothing for chunking and squeezing/spinning) Heavy broodnests, even to the point of brood raising being curtailed, which does not bode well for winter....and exactly nothing in his shallows. Over the fence in some cases similar strength colonies on mainly drawn deeps with no excluders had an extracted crop in the low 50lb range. Both are commercial outfits and both units were seen by me on our annual trip we have round eachothers bees. The friend trying for the cut comb chose his 100 best to do the job, the rest he gave drawn comb to. He extracted a reasonable harvest from those. A different case:- Two units in the same area in 2008. If anything the first one has the better bees and equipment. 1. Uses mostly foundation. Total heather harvest 700lbs. 2. Uses mostly drawn deeps. Total heather harvest 26 tonnes. Now, this was an *exceptionally* bad season for comb drawing on the mountains, but the same pattern to a more limited extent is visible most years. btw.....unit 2 also has 3 times as many colonies as unit 1.........but numbers come nowhere even close to explaining the difference. I now only come on here very rarely indeed as I am in deep disagreement with SOME of the most persistent contributors, in full agreement with others. The tone of things and its slant towards fringe views does not square with my experience and what I see in the field, and it only gets fractious if you wade in, hence my absence for so long. Will now retreat back to the bee work. Murray McGregor ps....wax? a valuable harvest? Tried selling it lately and costing in all the things you should? Heating, transport, wages? Its a marginal affair. Some years here it is worth processing cappings and old combs, sometimes not. fwiw........80p......USD 1.20........per lb was quoted to me recently if I wanted to buy bulk purified wax (it was form Aus or NZ). You can get a lot higher against goods here from appliance dealers, but then they often have a huge margin on the goods so can afford to offer an inflated price. Buying foundation etc for cash from a truly competitive dealer reveals a different story. I can usually buy outright for less than the BALANCE the leading traders want after my wax value has been deducted! You have to do your sums before assuming a thing is valuable or not. I DO usually process my wax, but am aware that many times that is because of conditioning not to waste an asset, rather than because its a viable thing to do. -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 23:19:22 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter said: > But, many commercial beekeepers are using plastic > foundation as a protection against frame rupture > during honey extraction. No one has ever suggested in my hearing that recycling honey super comb was going to help control diseases. Everyone has always focused on brood comb. Any comments to enlighten me if I am misinformed? I hope I am not wrong, as the only asset a beekeeper can claim as a tangible asset is supers of drawn comb. Bees die, brood chambers rot, trucks wear out, employees quit, and everything else is a "consumable". Supers of drawn comb have value, and can even serve as collateral for a loan from a small bank in a rural area. I am a very big fan of plastic in wood frames for honey super combs. No one likes a blow-out at high RPMs. Most of them will burn up an extractor drive belt pretty good if you have wandered away from the extractor when they happen. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 00:37:28 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: parasites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >to a Provincial person or equivalent They aren't really interested (I've already offered this) As I said before I continue to see symptoms, much less than at "crisis level". Hard to imagine that it would just vanish. dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 04:35:16 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 09/11/2008 01:08:29 GMT Standard Time, deknow@NETZERO.NET writes: smaller bees will be mistaken for Africanized Bees, which is utter nonsense I have a small apiary on Portland (UK). I noticed that in 2 of the 3 hives the bees were of different sizes whereas in the third they were uniformly sized. The 2 hives were using comb of their own devising (as described in an earlier mail) but the third was on foundation-based comb. The 2 hives seemed to be 'doing' better than the third. On the other hand it was in those 2 hives that (in September) I saw my first varroa mites of the year in my own hives. Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 08:51:06 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Stan Sandler Subject: highly obscure bee trivia Comments: cc: fitnyc@earthlink.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jim Fischer wrote (regarding nursing Joanne): >She demands that I teach her a new "bee fact" every day >over breakfast, so highly obscure bee trivia from other=20 > beekeepers would be especially enjoyed. The number of neurons in the human brain (male and female) is roughly 900 billion. The number of neurons in the female worker bee is about 1 million. The number of neurons in the male bee is=20 more than 3 million. =20 Possible ramifications: -Women (bees) *ARE* better at multitasking. -Male (humans) have not been provided with=20 sufficient extra neurons to compensate for.... -Male (bees) have a lot more time and equipment to contemplate their navels (or lack thereof). Stan **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:19:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: healthier colonies Comments: To: deknow@netzero.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 00:45:20 GMT, deknow@netzero.net wrote: > i asked a fairly straightforward question of peter who gave an example (and hinted at others) that honeybees, when exposed to varroa, will all die without human intervention. do you believe that if all varroa treatment were stopped (or had never started) in north america, that all honeybees so exposed in north america would die? this is an important question. First, let me say that I am reluctant to answer this or any other question from you because of the heavy load of foregone conclusions you insist on bringing to the table. Second, almost everything I have said in the past is misinterpreted by you either because I am an incredibly bad at explaining or? my response: That is an utterly amazing leap from what I said to what you think I said. But look, "the bees" have been in North America less than 600 years. Furthermore, beekeeping in modern hives has been going on for even less time. We certainly know that species that come under our influence can go extinct pretty quickly. Are you sure we haven't damaged the honeybee stock in North America to such an extent that it cannot survive in the wild? We have done it to innumerable other species. That is why there are collections of heirloom seeds and why there are organizations in Europe that aim to preserve original honey bee stock, lest we foul them up permanently through our so-called improvements. But back to the original question. Do I claim that left to their own devices ... no, because that is simply conjecture. Bees will not be left to "their own devices", any more than there is but a smattering of this earth left where human beings don't control and manage everything. Furthermore, there in my statement is my actual thought, which is that "left to their own devices" the European honey bees would be replaced by Apis mellifera scutellata, as it has been from Brazil all the way to Mexico, much of Texas, Florida, parts of California and of course, Arizona. "Left to their own devices", African bees resurged in South Africa (Mike Allsopp) and colonized a huge area of the Americas. Meanwhile, with our help, the demise of the European honey bee has been forestalled with various chemicals, no doubt to the detriment of the industry and the animal. This is widely known. What is not widely known is what we are going to do about it. You and your friends may be on to something. If you are, then I salute you. But wild claims are not something I am susceptible to. -- Peter L Borst **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:11:50 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have followed this thread for a little bit, and have read a few arguements based on the presupposition that evolution is a(the?) creative process by which organisms are developed over long periods of time. Now, I will make it plain that I have a deep respect for the competency of most all I have heard who hold to this view, and listen carefully when they speak.. I do not , however believe in evolution(macro-evolution as Darwin described it). Clearly there are variations in animals that are communicated to the next generations. The ability to go beyond certain limits is what I question eg. a grasshopper changing by a series of neo-Darwin , Punctuated Equilibrium etc. type changes. I was a convinced evolutionist the first 28 or so years of my life-having scorn for most(at least any educated person-I pitied the others) who didnt see it as a fact as"well established as the earths circuit around the sun". For those who are interested in another perspective I recommend a couple of books as an introduction to the other side of the arguement.: "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" by Micheal Denton "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson Both of these men hold Doctorates and both have formidable intellects. Both hold -in my view- to the Joe Friday approach: "Just the facts ma'am." Now I dont hold to all their science-especially the age of the earth and their view of the geologic column, but they definitely have observations that were not emphasized or even noted in the science books I read growing up. I have purposely kept from outlining scientific evidences here in this particular email, because I personally am not eager to start a thread here. I simply want to point out another point of view. If you look at it carefully-especially the books mentioned- and then laugh,well...... laugh heartedly and loud, as that can be a healthy thing!. I have felt that it was good to bring another point of view in beecause the foundation of much of modern thinking(about bees too) is rooted in the belief in evolution, which I think can be counterproductive, or at least void of real benefit-scientifically or otherwise. John Horton **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 15:27:02 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <00a601c941f7$0c8e4df0$6902a8c0@j> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Jim, Chris and all others in this thread I live roughly halfway between Murray and Chris and have a set of local conditions that reflects this to some extent, but in the main I get less sunshine that either of them. As far as brood comb rotation is concerned, I started out believing that renewing two combs per box per year was 'right' (because that was the message being propagated by those that I learned from). I gradually modified my view over a twenty five year period until I now consider 3 or 4 combs per year to be 'right' (British hives have 11 combs) giving a nominal 3 year rotation like Trevor. Super comb has always been different for me, I do not worry too much about the age of honey storage combs, so long as they look clean and have not been bred in. I have used foundation and starter strips in about equal measure and have found very little to choose between the two as far as productivity is concerned, which could be a reflection of being halfway between Murray and Chris. If I were starting all over again I would probably use 5.3 mm plasticell foundation for honey combs and would also use it in mating nucs, providing that the bees would draw it properly. As my 'outfit' was geared to breeding and selection, I have another type of comb... That in mating nucs and in my case that amounted to about 45% or 50% of the comb in the operation, this comb spent part of the year in mating nucs and in the winter is was occupied by full sized colonies, it was used for brood and was also filled with honey for re-populating the nucs. This comb was replaced less frequently, probably less frequently than its lower breeding use might indicate at something between five and ten years rotation (often difficult to find them empty). Any scruffy of damaged comb would be pulled as soon as possible, regardless of age, some drone cells were transplanted in circular chunks into brood combs for raising early drones and some of the patches were much older than the comb they were spliced into. I cannot say that the bees showed any preference for any type of comb, although some experiments that I made with plastic foundation in brood frames were a failure (the bees appeared not to like it), however since conducting the tests I have found out that the cell size of this plastic foundation was 5.9 mm or even 6.0 mm, which is a bit large even for British bees, which prefer and usually get 5.4 mm or 5.45 mm foundation. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 11:25:21 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > I have followed this thread for a little bit, and have read a few arguments based on the presupposition that evolution is a (the?) creative process by which organisms are developed over long periods of time. This is absolutely correct. Most of modern science proceeds on the assumption that evolution takes place. By studying the fossil record, the idea was hatched. It has been supported by studying dna, which is essentially a living fossil record of the species which preceded and traits that they had and which still exist in the species of today. If this were not true then species would be immutable and inviolable, which is not the case. I don't propose that we debate this. I merely politely point out that this is considered a done deal in most of our minds, which means a debate would probably be mostly futile. I freely admit that I am 100% biased, currently working as I am in a Genomics laboratory. for more info see: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v422/n6934/pdf/timeline_01626.pdf or email me for a copy of "Landmarks in genetics and genomics" -- Peter L Borst Danby, NY USA 42.35, -76.50 http://picasaweb.google.com/peterlborst **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 12:47:34 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Erin Martin Subject: Re: highly obscure bee trivia In-Reply-To: <15B9D2A8600E420F93A8F642DBA28FBD@AM1610E1202A> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >She demands that I teach her a new "bee fact" > every day > >over breakfast, so highly obscure bee trivia from other > > > beekeepers would be especially enjoyed. > This is wonderful--I hope more people contribute. I don't know how "highly" obscure this is, but it's one of my favorites. Amos Root, despite inventing the smoker, was very anti-smoking. He promised a free bee smoker to anyone who wrote him saying they'd quit smoking cigarettes. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 20:07:41 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Michael Palmer Subject: Re: highly obscure bee trivia In-Reply-To: <709740.70594.qm@web54304.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > Amos Root, despite inventing the smoker, was very > anti-smoking. He promised a free bee smoker to anyone who wrote > him saying they'd quit smoking cigarettes. When reading letters to the editor in a "Gleanings" from the late 1800's, I came across one letter from a beekeeper who had received a smoker from A.I. He was returning his reward, as he had once again taken up the smoking of tobacco. Mike **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 20:34:04 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?windows-1252?Q?Allen_Dick?= Subject: Re: healthier colonies Comments: To: Murray McGregor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >In a UK environment too of course, this is NOT a viable option if you >are looking to earn a living. In Alberta either. Also wintering will suffer badly. >Drawn comb brings comfortably the best honey harvest in terms of >quantity. True and proven over and over. It has been said that drawn comb is a beekeeper's most essential asset. >Drawn deeps 100 >Drawn shallows 79 >Foundation deeps 75 >Foundation shallows 60 >Thin super 48 >Starter strips 22 That bears repeating. >A friend had 100 boxes on for cut comb this season in our heather area >and he got precisely zero over 100 hives >The friend trying for the cut comb chose his 100 best to do the job, the >rest he gave drawn comb to. He extracted a reasonable harvest from >those. I used to produce a thousand or so supers of comb honey on foundation. As you say, it takes a good flow, and can be spotty. Some hives refuse. >I now only come on here very rarely indeed as I am in deep disagreement >with SOME of the most persistent contributors, in full agreement with >others. The tone of things and its slant towards fringe views does not >square with my experience and what I see in the field, and it only gets >fractious if you wade in, hence my absence for so long. Agreed, Murray. I just happened to drop by too today, seeing as I just started writing again at http://www.honeybeeworld.com and maintaining the site a bit. Thought I'd drop by to see if anything is new under the sun and was delighted to see your post. Good to see you can present the hard, simnple facts so well. Good writing style a popular theory and a good imagination are a poor match for extensive commercial experience and facts documented and presented directly. Thanks. Where I live, the kind of comb rotation some theoreticians recommend would be financial suicide for a commercial beekeeper. Bees neither produce or winter well on 100% new comb. The best compromise for me has been 10% per year. Of course, I don't use organophospates, and that reduces the panic to get that comb out of the hives. >Will now retreat back to the bee work. I'm running a few hives again, too. Don't know if I'll be back here much or not. Haven't decided. allen http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 21:19:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: ALDEN MARSHALL Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Slade" > the current losses are driven mostly by poor beekeeping weather and that > will change > It probably doesn't need repeating, "sick bees succumb much easer in poor weather" ay least that has been my experience for 30 some years. Alden Marshall Hudson, NH **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 21:50:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 9-Nov-08, at 5:07 AM, Murray McGregor wrote: > > Take drawn DEEP comb as the baseline (they do best on that) and > call it 100..the rest are percentages over several years done in > the 1980s > > Drawn deeps 100 > Drawn shallows 79 > Foundation deeps 75 > Foundation shallows 60 > Thin super 48 > Starter strips 22 Hi Murray Allen and all Great to see you two nibbling at the edges again. Murray, what are the dimensions of the shallows that you use. The ones I use are 6 5/8 " deep. Great info, thanks Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 22:30:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Marron Subject: Obscure bee facts MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Back around 1900 horse-manure was tried as a hive insulator in CT. Dick Marron **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 19:32:36 -0800 Reply-To: naturebee@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: highly obscure bee trivia In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The scientific name for honeybee; apis mellifera is actually incorrect. In 1758, Linnaeus, in error, categorized the honeybee as apis mellifera, meaning ’honey-carrying bee’, which implied that bees merely carried honey from flowers to comb. In 1761 Linnaeus’s brother who was a beekeeper, spotted the mistake and proposed to have the name changed to apis mellifica, meaning ’honey-making bee’. But according to the international rules, the earlier name had to be maintained. Joe http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:39:37 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Italian documentary MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1;format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Anyone fluent in Italian? Link to this sent to me by one of my associates in France. I think Bob in particular might find it interesting. Dont ask me what it says, apart from a few key words I am as fluent in Italian as I am in Klingon. http://www.la7.it/approfondimento/dettaglio.asp?prop=repliche&video=18941 The following is the text my colleague sent to me (who is one of the top bee professionals in France). I understand it fine, but will put it here intact rather than the inevitably clumsy effort at a translation I would present. .......................................................... Ce documentaire explique le mécanisme de pollution environnementale induit par la volatilisation des molécules d'enrobage des semences. Ce mécanisme, constaté par les apiculteurs, a été vérifié et confirmé au moins dans trois accidents de grande ampleur. En France avec le Régent (fipronil) en 2001. En Allemagne avec le Poncho (clothianidine) en 2008. En italien avec plusieurs molécules d'enrobage puisqu'elles étaient encore toutes autorisées au printemps 2008. ................................................................ -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:48:27 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <88ABA130-D8BD-4227-8C75-EC7655493DB4@interlog.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii;format=flowed In message <88ABA130-D8BD-4227-8C75-EC7655493DB4@interlog.com>, Bob Darrell writes >Murray, what are the dimensions of the shallows that you use. The >ones I use are 6 5/8 " deep. Great info, thanks Two sizes...........one is the standard Langstroth medium as you describe.....the other in our oldest unit is a standard British shallow (hive type is a Smith for those that will mean anything to) which is 6" deep. Most modern unit, Langstroth in polystyrene, is deeps only. Murray -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:10:28 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii;format=flowed In message , Allen Dick writes >I'm running a few hives again, too. Don't know if I'll be back here much or >not. Haven't decided. > >allen >http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/ > > Wow....I got a real fright here. Thought I was seeing a ghost and Halloween is well past! GREAT to see you back, even if for occasional postings. Bees are like a whirlpool. Even if you escape, just a soon as you hover on the edge again out of curiosity you get inexorably drawn back in. Usually only antidote is a combative spouse. ( Thinks mines had some africanised genetics in her!) -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 18:52:44 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Harrison Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street In-Reply-To: <383382.20090.qm@web86203.mail.ird.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Gavin & All, >The high losses cited for last winter come from real data and ring true >around here with some beekeepers losing a high proportion of their stocks. The deaded winter losses. I can't count the number of articles written about wintering honeybees. Even I have considred doing an article on wintering bees. Mine would most likely say take your losses in fall and do not try to winter "dinks". Do not combine two "dinks" as all you will end up with is a big "dink" with a poor queen! Second that healthy *winter* bees wintering over plenty of stores and protected from dripping moisture can take the most severe winter has to offer. > After a wet summer with poor queen mating and continuing problems with > miticide-resistant Varroa some predict a similarly poor winter to come. Poor queen mating is always a problem in rainy weather. I have no answer for poorly mated queens. Mite resistant varroa: With thymol and formic available I would drop fluvalinate as soon as resistant mites are found in your area. In the U.S. we have not seen any varroa resistant to those products but both are temperature dependent and in my opinion you need to treat twice a year. Rotating between the two. Formic spring and thymol fall is what I do. Its been ten years this year since we found fluvalinate resistant varroa and 8 years for coumaphos resistant varroa. I switched to thymol as soon as legally available and added formic since first on the market. Yet all the bee supply houses still sell both products. Both are worthless as a varroa control in our area. >It's not a CCD thing, and, although there are many that would like to think >so, it doesn't seem to be a pesticide thing either. I can't tell you the number of claimed CCD cases I have looked at. None really fit the described symptoms. I will describe the most common claimed CCD symptoms I see. All bees missing from a hive which obviously was a strong hive not long before. ( 2 weeks?) Spotty sealed brood over 4-5 frames. Never a solid pattern like in the CCD photos. No eggs or larva in most cases. plenty Honey & pollen in frames. Ovals around what used to be sealed brood. No obvious signs of disease. No robbing at a time the bees should rob. However in some cases a dead out is robbed but the beekeeper had not been in the yard for three weeks to a month so hard to tell exactly how long the bees have been gone. The CCD team says after a couple weeks the bees will rob and seems to be true from my observations. In almost all the cases the beekeeper says the hive was strong last time he checked. In many cases fall treatments had been completed . In some cases a large crop of honey was produced but when supers were pulled the bees were gone. No sign of the bees and no large amount of dead bees outside the entrance. Two years ago we saw a small group of young bees and a queen. Now we see a empty hive. After 48 years of beekeeping I can not say I have ever saw exactly what we are seeing now but I have to say I started seeing the problem at least two years before David Hackenberg brought attention to the issue. I only post the above so you U.K. beeks can compare what you see with what I see. U.S. & Canada beeks are seeing record losses but little actually fit the described CCD symptoms. Good luck with your problems and email direct if you have other questions! I will be in Texas next week but will answer when in a wireless connection area. bob **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 15:01:32 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Walter Weller Subject: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A paper by Schwander and Keller in Science of October 24, 2008, = describes their work with harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex rugosus), a = species which, like honeybees, has colonies with multiply-mated queens. = They found that different patrilines affected the relative frequencies = of queen vs. worker development from fertilized eggs. In other words, = some males were better queen producers than others, at least with a = particular queen. The authors hypothesize that this effect may be due = to interaction between the parental genomes, and may be common amongst = social insects. It would be interesting to know whether harvester ants have anything = analagous to the royal jelly of honeybees. Walter Weller **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 22:37:30 +0200 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John Phipps Subject: Re: UK Honey Price In-Reply-To: <7eb65cc10811061119v161c1f40t64fcde327c70c055@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v929.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Attica (Greece) are selling honey for as much as 19.95 euros a kg in supermarkets. Local beekeepers, including myself are selling directly to customers for 15 euros. However, I am not going to make a fortune - with just 50 kg from 25 hives due to flying bees dying in early spring and a drought from the end of April until the middle of October - and money being spent to keep colonies alive . . . . I can see a time when I will be numbering tins as a 'special issue' ! John Phipps S Greece manifest@runbox.com > > **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 07:00:18 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >But the advent of such a relationship is by no means assured as evidenced by the experiment on Santa Cruz Island. It has taken place in populations of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera scutellata. well peter, are you claiming here that this is proof that if left to their own devices, varroa would kill off all honeybees in north america? it's been 100 million years (and an asteroid impact to boot) and the bees are still here despite all the physical and biological challenges they have faced...only recently have they had any help from humans. reply: That is an utterly amazing leap from what I said to what you think I said. But look, "the bees" have been in North America less than 600 years. Furthermore, beekeeping in modern hives has been going on for even less time. We certainly know that species that come under our influence can go extinct pretty quickly. Are you sure we haven't damaged the honeybee stock in North America to such an extent that it cannot survive in the wild? We have done it to innumerable other species. That is why there are collections of heirloom seeds and why there are organizations in Europe that aim to preserve original honey bee stock, lest we foul them up permanently through our so-called improvements. But back to the original question. Do I claim that left to their own devices... no, because that is simply conjecture. Bees will not be left to "their own devices", any more than there is but a smattering of this earth left where human beings don't control and manage everything. Furthermore, there in my statement is my actual thought, which is that "left to their own devices" the European honey bees would be replaced by Apis mellifera scutellata, as it has been from Brazil all the way to Mexico, much of Texas, Florida, parts of California and of course, Arizona. "Left to their own devices", African bees resurged in South Africa (Mike Allsopp) and colonized a huge area of the Americas. Meanwhile, with our help, the demise of the European honey bee has been forestalled with various chemicals, no doubt to the detriment of the industry and the animal. This is widely known. What is not widely known is what we are going to do about it. You and your friends may be on to something. If you are, then I salute you. But wild claims are not something I am susceptible to. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 22:47:38 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jerry wrote: > Before anyone decides to import Apis ceranae, remember - Kashmir virus > came > to us from that species of bee. Perhaps the greatest danger would come from tropilaelaps. I suspect that the move to cerana would mean the demise of beekeeping with mellifera - a huge change. Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:41:01 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: UK Professor Hopes Modified Bee Genes Can Prevent Colony Collapse Disorder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://tinyurl.com/6gqjgx or http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/11/09/uk-professor-hopes-modified-bee-genes- can-prevent-colony-collapse-disorder/ "He hopes to reverse the decline of the honeybee by breeding cleaner bees to protect hives from harmful diseases. The cleaner bee is a breed of worker bee that will be genetically programmed to keep hives clean. They will be responsible for removing pupae and larvae from the hives if they are dead or dying. Currently these cleaner bees only exist in very small numbers. The hygienic bee was first observed in the 1930s, but at most only 10-percent of a hive has bees with this gene." I'm confused by the entire premise, as I thought that we had several types of more hygienic bees already, and could produce them reliably with normal breeding strategies. On the bright side, the GM bees could handle pollination the GM crops... no, never mind - that would be stupid. :) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:31:22 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Honeybee queens are not reared at random but are preferentially reared from rare "royal" subfamilies, which have extremely low frequencies in the colony's worker force but a high frequency in the queens reared. This results in a peculiar genetic composition of the colony, where individuals from "royal" families are extremely rare in the worker force but very frequent in the newly reared queens. Because the subfamily composition in the queens is different from that of the worker larvae, it seems plausible to assume that those larvae, which were reared to queens, were particularly attractive to the nurse bees rearing them. Genetic variance for rearing attractiveness of larvae has been shown several times in honeybees. If our model reflects the actual proximate mechanism for the selection of queen larvae in honeybee colonies, this would give rise to paternal lineages of royal families, which indeed are only rarely found in the worker caste. from "Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera" Moritz, et al Naturwissenschaften (2005) 92: 488–491 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:51:08 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: UK Professor Hopes Modified Bee Genes Can Prevent Colony Collapse Disorder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Jim > I'm confused by the entire premise, as I thought that > we had several types of more hygienic bees already, > and could produce them reliably with normal breeding > strategies. It's not like you to admit your confusion! :-) It *is* work based on normal breeding strategies. Read the original source cited on the PlanetSave blog thing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/apiculture-hygienic-bees-francis-ratnieks Nothing to do with GM at all. best wishes Gavin **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:20:22 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 03:49:48 GMT Standard Time, kgbenson@SC.RR.COM writes: Killing one's host before it can pass on your progeny does not make for a bug that lasts. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:22:10 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Robert Brenchley Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 08/11/2008 03:49:48 GMT Standard Time, kgbenson@SC.RR.COM writes: <> Not under normal circumstances. But this one has obliging humans culling it to stop it wiping out colonies, putting colonies bang next to each other specially to help it spread, and even moving it round theworld. I wonder whether the normal rules apply! Regards, Robert Brenchley Birmingham UK **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:30:07 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bill T Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: <49150B75.9000306@sc.rr.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline " Killing one's host before it can pass on your progeny does not make for a bug that lasts." The comment is true and keeps coming up, but the assumption that comes from it, that there eventually will be a symbiotic relationship, is not true. We have examples of that with the importation of bumblebees for pollination of greenhouses, and the demise of native US bumblebees. The bug does last as it has its own host. But the new host does not last. Bill Truesdell Bath, Maine **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:57:43 -0800 Reply-To: naturebee@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: Obscure bee facts In-Reply-To: <000001c942e4$bd8f4670$38add350$@net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >From the Historical Honeybee Articles Archive: Etymology for the word honeymoon. HONEY MOON.—It was the custom of the higher order of Teutones; an ancient people who inhabited the northern parts of Germany, to drink Mead or Metheglin, a beverage made with honey, for thirty days after every wedding. >From this custom comes the expression " to spend the Honey Moon " —Attila, King of Hungary, drank so freely of this liquor on his wedding day, that he was found suffocated at night, and with him expired the Empire of the Huns. -The Edinburgh Advertiser January 16, 1816 Edinburgh, Midlothian Joe http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:34:37 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: healthier colonies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen, Real good to see you back and kicking A.., er Bottoms! Jim F. - "No one has ever suggested in my hearing that recycling honey super comb was going to help control diseases. Everyone has always focused on brood comb." I agree to a point, but! Many individuals consider rotation of combs from supers into brood chambers. The cost and time to get frames built up via. the brood chamber activities ensure that "used" super frames are very attractive seeing as they are deemed to be clean. Hence origin of my comment regarding plastic foundation in honey supper frames. Peter **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:26:46 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Walter Weller Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks, Peter. I had noticed the article in "Science" describing work on the harvester ant, and wondered about its significance to honeybees. Walter Weller > **************************************************** **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:23:15 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >But the advent of such a relationship is by no means assured as evidenced >by the experiment on Santa Cruz Island. It has taken place in populations >of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera scutellata. The ability of bees to survive varroa, in the wild and in apiaries, when observed, appears to have both genetic and environmental components. Moreover such observations are over limited time spans and made up of limited samples. Ignoring that fact results in questionable conclusions about the genetic contribution to apparent success in each case. That is not to say that such conclusions are not correct, but that they are unproven -- or not provable -- until sufficient time has passed and until the effects are observed in diverse environments Although Santa Cruz is a good example of an extinction, it does not -- to use a metaphor -- prove that black swans do not exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory#Non-philosophical_epistemological_approach allen http://www.honeybeeworld.com --- All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:19:42 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Honeybee queens are not reared at random but are preferentially reared > from rare "royal" subfamilies, which have extremely low frequencies in the > colony's worker force but a high frequency in the queens reared. I assume that is if the colonies get to decide about the timing and other details of queen rearing. Does this imply that we are skewing things when we just grab a frame of eggs to graft? If so, the implications are staggering. allen http://www.honeybeeworld.com --- Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:35:54 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Record Losses US&Canada MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Bob Harrison said: "U.S. & Canada beeks are seeing record losses but little actually fit the described CCD symptoms." Is this Bob right now or you are talking about history? -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:56:39 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Obscure bee facts (honeymoon) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline The idea behind this "honeymoon" was to equalice the PH (acidity) of the couple, so as to "engendrar" a male. Male sperm is lighter therefore goes in front of the race. If the PH is different they react (die) and prepare the way for the females ones. On that time cause of wars they need lots of males/warriors. -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:22:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: A, Bee, C, G, T MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline > Comparison of the honeybee genome to that of other insects revealed a number of interesting differences. Not a complete surprise was the identification of nine new genes linked to the production of royal jelly, which workers feed to the queen and larvae. These genes apparently evolved from a single progenitor gene which encodes a member of the ancient Yellow protein family. > Similarly, the striking expansion of the odorant receptor family in honeybees (170 genes) relative to D. melanogaster (62) and the mosquito Anopheles gambiae (79) makes sense given the prime role of pheromones in communication and the need for workers to discriminate between diverse floral odors. > These discoveries should help elucidate some of the bees' fascinating skills, which include precise memory of space and odors as well as the abstract modeling and linguistic abilities shown by the 'waggle-dance'. -- from: "Behavioral Genomics: A, Bee, C, G, T" Current Biology Vol 17 No 2 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:24:54 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street Comments: To: Bob Harrison Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob Harrison wrote: > U.S. & Canada beeks are seeing record losses but little actually fit the described CCD symptoms. OK, here is a "disorder" where colonies collapse. Nobody knows why, but you are saying they don't have it because it doesn't fit the symptoms. Either A) they don't have this disorder which nobody knows what it is, or B) the list of symptoms needs to be changed. I would suggest the finer points are not the key point; the point is that colonies keep collapsing, for whatever reason. This problem -- they have. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:35:31 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >Either A) they don't have this disorder which nobody knows what it is, or B) the list of symptoms needs to be changed. Amen Before '07, in 25+ yrs of BK I don't remember EVER seeing a (all bees gone) collapse With a VD collapse there are still 2K+ bees And there are more symptoms than you list See my previous posts, starting Apr07 I am NOT over wordy dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:12:36 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: joe mc cool Subject: honey bee screen saver In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Please, from where can I get a nice honey bee screen saver? I suppose I could shoot some film of my own bees - but hopefully someone has beaten me to it. Thanks Joe McCool **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:29:37 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The deaded winter losses. Dreaded? Obviously dead(ed). > I can't count the number of articles written about wintering honeybees. > > Even I have considred doing an article on wintering bees. I wrote one, at least, and it was even published in one of those old-fashioned magazine thingies. > Mine would most likely say take your losses in fall and do not try to > winter "dinks". Do not combine two "dinks" as all you will end up with is > a big "dink" with a poor queen! Hmmm. I said to combine them and take your chances. If you kill them, you have obviously lost for sure. If you don't, you have a 50/50chance. Sometimes they are just struggling because a new queen cam on late. Depends on what winter feed is worth, I suppose. I'm not from Missouri. > Second that healthy *winter* bees wintering over plenty of stores and > protected from dripping moisture can take the most severe winter has to > offer. Yup. Good bees are hard to kill, but most of us can find a way. allen --- People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly. --- Brendan Francis **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:23:40 -0600 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: John & Christy Horton Subject: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen wrote: Does this imply that we are skewing things when we just grab a frame of eggs to graft? If so, the implications are staggering. It is a fascinating fact i agree, and I am glad Peter brought it up. as i have never heard anything like this. Some people believe that supercedure queens are best, so this would play into possibly reinforcing this. Bro. Adams had a firm conviction however that supercedure queens never met his standards for quality queens compared to ones he had grafted...he mostly attributed this to the fact that a supercedure queen is the offspring of a failing queen-in other words(if I read him right), the robustness of the egg-not the eggs genetics- was the driver. That being the case, any positive effects due to "royal blood" might be masked. So, I wonder if there would be a major difference in a yard composed of hives that raised their own queens vs one full of grafted queens. And what are we doing when we run roughshod over that "royal family" selection by our grafting.? Lots of food for thought here. Thanks for the post Peter...what enormously fascinating and dazzlingly complex little critters here. No wonder man is so taken with them. john Horton **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:18:14 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Caucasian bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I'd like to know if people - commercial, sideline, and hobbyist - are keeping Caucasian bees and why? They are reputed to be excessive propolizers and to have extra long proboscis allowing them to forage on deeper flowers such as red clover. I'd like to hear about your reasons and about your positive and/or negative experiences. Please specify where you keep your Caucasians. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:51:23 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Bro. Adams had a firm conviction however that supercedure queens never met > his standards for quality queens compared to ones he had grafted I wonder how apis managed before he came along. allen --- The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation. William Hutton **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:13:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: DAVID ADAMS Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. In-Reply-To: <20081111.151814.11982.0@webmail20.dca.untd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have used them and had no problems , I guess i've used 700 or so . I'm in central Florida. I got the queens from a family queen business in Mississippi. I just started getting more from places that used credit cards ,which made it easier for ordering and not having to remember to get a check out. It's been 4 or 5 years since my last ones but I have to say I've been thinking about getting back to using some of them to keep a genetic mix in the herd.To be honest, I've used queens, queen cells of all kinds and don't have any that just jump out as special stock, I wish there was some that did. I personally think the USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad to get some vigor back in our bees. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:11:23 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 11-Nov-08, at 9:24 AM, Peter L Borst wrote: > > Either A) they don't have this disorder which nobody knows what it is, > or B) the list of symptoms needs to be changed. > Hi Peter and all I agree with B The original symptoms, if I remember correctly, were noticed in the south in early 2006. Our bees in Canada and likely many of the northern states, were not opened until late March April or even later. The one symptom that comes to mind is there were no dead bees but a small cluster and a queen. Here we opened our hives with lots of dead bees, with a small cluster, which died shortly, or dead hives. The fact that our weather wouldn't let our bees die away from the hive doesn't change the fact that the bees were dead. This is not intended to criticize the researchers who made up the original list as they had to start somewhere. \ Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W Bob Darrell **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:20:24 -0800 Reply-To: mws1112004@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Mike Stoops Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <005b01c94465$67457280$f5bb4d0c@greenbripi7wfd> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable --- On Tue, 11/11/08, John & Christy Horton wrote: In supercedure, the failing queen and the robustness of the egg-not the egg= s genetics- was the driver.. , How about swarm cells then?=A0 Robust queen still, but the bees select the = best of the eggs for replacement queens. Mike in LA =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:39:25 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I'd like to know if people - commercial, sideline, and hobbyist - are > keeping Caucasian bees and why? I had some about 30 years ago and still remember them fondly. They were the calmest bees ever, and they capped combs with perfect white capppings. I'm trying to remember where I got them. allen **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:40:09 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit i've always assumed "subfamily" referred to the offspring of a single drone within a hive that has multiple drone fathers (same queen). is this how the term is being used in this article peter? if not, what defines a subfamily? deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:07:34 -0800 Reply-To: naturebee@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "J. Waggle" Subject: Re: honey bee screen saver In-Reply-To: <4919F544.9000603@benburb.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A while back, I got a really nice honeybee screen saver from this site: http://www.bees-online.com/Download.htm But I don't see the link for it, look around, I hope its still there somewhere. Joe http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:12:14 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_de_Bruyn_Kops?= Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob Harrison wrote: >Do not combine two "dinks" as all you will end up with is a >big "dink" with a poor queen! The strongest, best-producing colonies are the ones most likely to have varroa trouble and can end up being dinks in October with good queens. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:26:41 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Dillon Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <1049ADA835A44C038B9919AFFF585A74@Aristotle> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Allen wonders how "apis" fared before Man cam along and started stirring the pot. A point that comes to mind: Maybe Man was delivered a creature that was not the most ideal item. Environmental considerations may have resulted in a better format in an earlier epoch but one that was no longer available to play with. The bees I presume could not conscientiously direct their own destiny. Peter **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:53:20 +0900 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Detchon Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=response Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Dillon posted > Sterilisation of the plastic by physical means is not easy, nor are > chemical methods as far as I am aware. I know this is dangerous discussion territory, but for what its worth, I do sterilise plastic frames and foundation using chlorine, and its not really hard! I have been using chlorine to sterilise AFB infected equipment for some time with no evidence of breakdown. However you have to be very selective in order to achieve that. Timber frames and brood combs can NOT be sterilised this way. Plastic foundation in timber frames must be separated, The frames can stay in the box when this is hot wax dipped or irradiated. The wax comb can be stripped from the foundation by freezing and then flexing. The bare plastic foundation sheet can then be sterilised by soaking in chlorine solution. One piece plastic frames and foundation with drawn comb that is WHITE, ie that has never had brood in it and therefore has no pupal cases in the comb, can also be sterilised this way after it has first been soaked in water to remove all traces of honey. FWIW I also use this method to sterilise boxes, provided that a) the paintwork is in 1st class condition (no bare wood), or the box has previously been wax dipped (ours are wax dipped when new as a preservative for the timber, and then only painted on the outside for temperature control). b) all wax and propolis is scraped off, and the box is detergent washed first. It works for me, and is much preferable to burning plasticware. When using chlorine sterilisation the important thing is to remember it is a surface steriliser only. If the surfaces are non-wetting due to wax or propolis deposits it will not work and breakdown will occur. Also, bare timber + chlorine = paper pulp! Peter Detchon (Western Australia) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:45:42 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Simply looks to me like one in 10 or even one in 17 picked by bees in mongr= el hives to match latitude and longitude again besides climatic conditions = the old way. Nothing hard! =A0 D =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:10:29 -0400 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Stan Sandler Subject: Fw: highly obscure bee trivia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable "Coelho (1991) found in tethered honeybees the maximum force production of drones to be twice that of workers" 3.95 mN (drone) 1.73 mN (worker) "but on a body weight basis to be similar" 19.4 N/kg and 21.0 N/kg So, in theory, if they all get together and pulled, they could move the beehive. Stan (thinking, need a lot of trained spiders) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:59:13 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 12/11/2008 02:19:16 GMT Standard Time, bobbee@INTERLOG.COM writes: Here we opened our hives with lots of dead bees, So you had corpses upon which to perform post mortems. Was this done? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:59:49 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <005b01c94465$67457280$f5bb4d0c@greenbripi7wfd> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All Replying to John Horton > Some people believe that supercedure queens are best, so this would play > into possibly reinforcing this. > Bro. Adams had a firm conviction however that supercedure queens never met > his standards for quality queens compared to ones he had grafted...he mostly > attributed this to the fact that a supercedure queen is the offspring of a > failing queen The two statements above need qualification... supersedure queens are best But I would say only in those races of bees that exhibit supersedure as a large part of their normal behaviour, all bees will use supersedure in the case of queens failing, but some races make a point of using it to produce extra queens that can then reduce the stress on the original queen by laying a proportion of the colony's brood, thus allowing genetic stability over a longer period than would be the case by other queen generating strategies. In the case of Bro. Adam, his bees had no natural tendency to use supersedure to the degree that A. m. mellifera would and so his judgement may well be correct for his strain of bee. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:41:00 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Michael Palmer Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <005b01c94465$67457280$f5bb4d0c@greenbripi7wfd> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > >Bro. Adams had a firm conviction however that supercedure queens never met >his standards for quality queens compared to ones he had grafted...he mostly >attributed this to the fact that a supercedure queen is the offspring of a >failing queen... While supercedure queens might be the offspring of failing queens, I wouldn't think it would effect their genetics. If a quality queen is superceded, does it mean that her offspring would necessarily be inferior? Mraz always said that the bees know better that we which larva to use. Bro. Adam believed that the best queens came from the swarming impulse, so he made his cell builders with 20 frames of brood. When that brood emerged, the colony population exploded, and swarming preparations were started by the bees. I think it's more about nutrition and population of nurse bees. Mike **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:11:27 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8;format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In message , Peter L Borst writes >If our model reflects the actual proximate mechanism for >the selection of queen larvae in honeybee colonies, this >would give rise to paternal lineages of royal families, >which indeed are only rarely found in the worker caste. > >from "Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera" Moritz, et al >Naturwissenschaften (2005) 92: 488–491 Hmmm...................I wonder. There are a few things that could be at play here and perhaps none of them are actually all that important to us the beekeepers. IF, and in a practical situation I have my doubts, this is valid it may well be little more than one drones progeny at the egg or young larva stage having more of a 'CHOOSE ME' kind of pheromone than others, and this tells us nothing about the qualities of the offspring for us as beekeepers. However, going back a few years, when we brought in queens from Hawaii (Kona carniolans) and also from breeders in California (Vaca Valley, best queens I ever got) and also Midnites from Yorks in Georgia, it was very noticeable (ok, glaringly obvious) that these dark queens had open mated to a selection of drones, and many yellow or yellowish progeny were present in all types (least in the Vaca Valley ones). If allowed, for whatever reason, to end up in a swarming condition and the virgins were being produced it was easily noticeable that their colouration was across the same range and broadly in proportion to the workers in the colony. If dark bees were uncommon in the hive you only got a few dark virgins, if on the other there were a preponderance of dark workers you got a preponderance of dark virgins. This is not consistent with a rare patriline being selected. -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:25:11 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline The preferential care of queen larvae is more often shown to supersisters A female will be, on the average, more closely related to her supersisters (r = 3/4, sisters sharing a common drone father) than to her own offspring (r = 1/2). A female may be favored by kin selection to act as a sterile worker to help produce supersisters as reproductives, potentially passing on more genetic information than if she had reproduced herself. This result is not unexpected when one considers the evolutionary advantage to behavior that may result directly in closer relatives being the reproductives of the next generation. There are undoubtedly far more constraints on relatedness-based preferential care to worker brood. Selection to ensure a thriving worker population and an integrated colony should be strong and could counter selection favoring preferential care of relatives. -- Journal of lnsect Behavior, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1989 Kin Recognition of Worker Brood by Worker Honey Bees, Apis mellifera L. Katherine C. Noonan and Steven A. Kolmes **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:53:51 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Murray > their > colouration was across the same range and broadly in proportion to the > workers in the colony. If dark bees were uncommon in the hive you only > got a few dark virgins, if on the other there were a preponderance of > dark workers you got a preponderance of dark virgins. This is not > consistent with a rare patriline being selected. The selection has to do much more with the patriline of the worker making the selection being close to, or identical to, the larvae. I know work on this was carried out at LASI Sheffield during 1998-2000, but in searching for the paper to quote, I came up with a blank, however during my search I did find a 1943 paper by Otto Mackenson entitled 'The Occurrence of Parthenogenetic Females in Some Strains of Honey Bees' (Journal of Economic Entomology 36: (3):465, which was related to a previous thread on Thelytoky, that of course does not impact on the current thread, but at least its title can now be searched for by those that were interested. -- Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:06:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Bob Darrell Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 12-Nov-08, at 4:59 AM, Chris Slade wrote: > > So you had corpses upon which to perform post mortems. Was this > done? Hi Chris and all The Ontario Beekeepers Association Tech Transfer team, commonly called the Bee Girls, found N Apis and N Cerana fairly widespread throughout the province. Their recommendations included fumagillin treatments of all hives and acetic acid fumigation of deadout combs and boxes before reuse. Dr Ernesto Gusman, of the OBA and U of Guelph, recently encouraged our local group, Dufferin Beekeepers Assoc, to fumigate all brood combs including those of live overwintered hives as acetic gets the spores whereas fumagillin does not. Bob Darrell Caledon Ontario Canada 44N80W **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:33:30 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <491AEDFF.8080701@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I did find a 1943 paper by Otto Mackenson entitled 'The Occurrence of Parthenogenetic Females in Some Strains of Honey Bees' (Journal of Economic Entomology 36: (3):465, =A0 Reply: Funny, here we go with thelytoky again which is/was know back then by Otto = Mackenson to be in all races/strains looked at, though not wanted by most b= reeders, though great trait. It needs to be back in all races/strains again for backup queen rearing nat= urally since it has been weeded out so long.... =A0 D =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:15:06 -0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter Edwards Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote: > Selection to ensure a thriving > worker population and an integrated colony should be strong and could > counter selection favoring preferential care of relatives. I am just wondering if a temporary situation would be possible in a colony, where a large proportion of the workers were from one patriline but a large proportion of the brood was from a different one. Could this have a negative (short term) effect on the colony? Presumably a high number of matings by the queen is advantageous because there will be more patrilines in the colony, but each will have a smaller population? Best wishes Peter Edwards beekeepers at stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:39:21 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Funny, here we go with thelytoky again > ...it has been weeded out so long.... How, exactly was it 'weeded out'? I cannot imagine how that could be accomplished. allen --- The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion. Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:43:41 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Beekeepers protest outside Downing Street Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Bob >The Ontario Beekeepers Association Tech Transfer team, commonly >called the Bee Girls, found N Apis and N Cerana fairly widespread throughout the province. Jun/07 &jan/08 test done by them Then they said "no more free tests, go to BP" This cost me $8 for the feb/08 test All tests zero (0) Should I then use fumagillin/acetic? If the hives were full of corpses then unlikely ccd While there may be a frozen cluster (20%), on the BB will be only 1-2 cups of corpses (or <) They will leave at inapropriate temp/time Down to -12C (+10F) and quickly chill Birds will clean up these corpses dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:08:00 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: healthier colonies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>But the advent of such a relationship is by no means assured as evidenced >>by the experiment on Santa Cruz Island. It has taken place in populations >>of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera scutellata... I just received a copy of 'Changes in Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colony and Survival Pre- and Postarrival of Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) in Louisiana' from the author. Download here: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/villaferal2008.pdf allen --- I have only one superstition. I touch all the bases when I hit a home run. Babe Ruth (1895 - 1948) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:23:02 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "=?windows-1252?Q?J._Waggle?=" Subject: Re: Obscure bee facts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Perhaps, another obscure fact is the procedure of burying bees, practiced by some beekeepers during the 19c Here are two of my favorite articles on the subject: “My "modus operandi'' is as follows: a hole is dug considerably larger than the hive or hives, in every respect.— On the bottom of the hole two sticks of three or four inches in diameter are placed for each hive, and on these the floor board, which should be a sound one; is placed. Another board, (two inch plank is preferable,) is put on the hive and dry straw is as compactly as is convenient placed around it. This, in rainy weather, if the ground is clear from frost, allows the rain to pass fairly down, while the space between the blocks furnish a ready reservoir, from which it is absorbed by the earth, without offering any injurious effects to the bees. The earth is placed in a conical form, to turn the water from the hives, the top of which about four inches below the surface. With respect to the experiment of 1833-4, I cannot say whether the apertures of the hives were closed, but in that of 1834-5, they were not. This experiment succeeded, but weather it is the best way of proceeding I shall not advise.” Yours, &c. WILLIAM BACON. Richmond, Mass. April, 1835. “Burying Bees. — Mr. Joshua Goodrich of Granger, by way of experiment, buried a hive of bees last November, on the recommendation of Alexander Russell. He took the bottom out of the hive with 4 or 5 pounds of honey, and placed the hive on the top of a heap of potatoes, covering them in the usual manner of burying potatoes. He took them up in the Spring as bright and lively as possible.” — Akron Democrat. 1845, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Best Wishes, Joe http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:55:44 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: PDF Problem Fixed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I just received a copy of 'Changes in Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) > Colony and Survival Pre- and Postarrival of Varroa destructor > (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) in Louisiana' from the author. Download here: http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/villaferal2008.pdf Some people using Adobe Reader reported problems opening the PDF. Others were able to read it just fine. So I re-uploaded it using FTP, and the problem is reportedly now solved. Personally, I don't use Adobe any more, but use Foxit -- free at http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/ -- and it never had a problem. Foxit is much faster loading and nicer to use. allen --- Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish" **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:58:19 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Genetic compatibility effects on caste determination In-Reply-To: <1490DEDD49524F3BB3857F2B2066A5DB@office> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Peter (Edwards) > I am just wondering if a temporary situation would be possible in a > colony, where a large proportion of the workers were from one patriline > but a large proportion of the brood was from a different one. This situation may occur for a few hours, even days, and may skew things a bit, but the balance between patrilines both in adult and larval populations is going to be maintained in the main. Colonies produced with a predominance of one patriline are 'demoralised' (whatever that really means) and less able to perform any colony duties as well as colonies with a high number of patrilines. > Presumably a high number of matings by the queen is advantageous because > there will be more patrilines in the colony, but each will have a > smaller population? The larger numbers of patrilines give rise to a greater ability to specialise, each patriline has its own subset of abilities which allow those that are the best undertakers to do their job, while those that are best at detecting varroa in sealed cells will do theirs and so on. The more patrilines there are, the more finely tuned can be the colonies workforce. -- Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:44:39 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Parasitism in the honey bee colony MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline This year (2008) Madeleine Beekman and Ben Oldroyd, two of the foremost honey bee scientists, published a paper on the parasitic character of certain subfamilies in the honey bee colony. excerpts for review purposes: Until recently, scientists were burdened by the widespread view of insect colonies as harmonious entities sharing none of the strife that so often characterizes our own societies. Now that we have discarded most of our historical baggage, the new facts are apparent. Worker bees can be parasites of their own society or those of their neighbors. In this review we examine these recently revealed instances of intraspecific reproductive parasitism in eusocial bees. We focus on different systems in which worker reproduction is commonplace: intracolony parasitism in queenright anarchistic honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies, parasitism by Cape honey bee (A. m. capensis) workers in colonies of their conspecifics A. m. scutellata and in their own colonies. Analyses have revealed the presence of intraspecific parasites: reproductively active workers that either have sneaked into non-natal colonies or have managed to circumvent the mechanisms that normally ensure functional worker sterility. Understanding the ways in which these parasites avoid mechanisms that are normally in place to prevent the expression of selfish behavior gives us an appreciation of the often subtle means by which functional worker sterility is achieved. Although at a collective level workers agree that no worker should reproduce, owing to the low relatedness among subfamilies, the potential for worker-worker competition is severe. Workers therefore police each other's eggs to ensure that no worker breaks the collective agreement brokered by evolution. As a result, intraspecific parasites are only successful once policing has ceased or if they manage to disguise the maternity of their eggs. -- "When Workers Disunite: Intraspecific Parasitism by Eusocial Bees" Madeleine Beekman and Benjamin P. Oldroyd Annu. Rev. Entomol. 2008 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:50:34 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "R.M." Subject: Fipronil MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have heard that some people use this chemical to control the small hive b= eetle.=A0 I found this information on the web and wondered if anyone had fu= rther information.=0AFipronil=0A=0AUse sparingly and avoid if pregnant or a= round young children=0AFipronil is considered a possible human carcinogen.2= 2 It also blocks a neural pathway responsible for preventing excessive stim= ulation resulting in over-excitation of the nervous system in both insects = and humans.23 Fipronil binds less readily with mammalian nervous receptors = than insect receptors, reducing its toxic effect in humans.24 Signs of pois= oning from fipronil may include sweating, nausea, vomiting, headache, abdom= inal pain, dizziness, agitation, weakness, and tonic clonic seizures.25 Whe= n exposed to sunlight, fipronil breaks down into a compound nine to ten tim= es as potent as fipronil itself.26 Studies have shown that fipronil residue= s from pet fur can get transferred onto a wipe or a child's hand.27 Fiproni= l is also suspected to disrupt the endocrine system.28=0AFipronil is listed= as a least-toxic chemical control by the Integrated Pest Management Practi= tioner.45 It is listed on EcoWise Certified IPM Program Materials List. 47 = =0A=0AThere are significant health concerns associated with fipronil but in= areas with severe tick problems limited and careful use may be warranted. = =0A=0ARoni=0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:46:34 -0500 Reply-To: james.fischer@gmail.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Someone at Penn State is writing for the Sunday supplements: http://live.psu.edu/story/35937 with links at the bottom to parts 2 and 3. Nothing new, no announcement, just a puff piece. I've never seen so many press releases and so little actual productive work out of such a well-funded group of researchers. It has now been over a year since their last published article in a peer-reviewed journal. And we all remember how that paper turned out, after all the hype and PR: http://bee-quick.com/reprints/claims_collapse.pdf **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:58:17 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit But wait, there's more The Cape bee (Apis mellifera capensis) is unique among honeybees in that workers can lay eggs that instead of developing into males develop into females via thelytokous parthenogenesis. We show that this ability allows workers to compete directly with the queen over the production of new queens. Genetic analyses using microsatellites revealed that 23 out of 39 new queens produced by seven colonies were offspring of workers and not the resident queen. Of these, eight were laid by resident workers, but the majority were offspring of parasitic workers from *other colonies*. The parasites were derived from several clonal lineages that entered the colonies and successfully targeted queen cells for parasitism. Hence, these parasitic workers had the potential to become genetically reincarnated as queens. Of the daughter queens laid by the resident queen, three were produced asexually, suggesting that queens can 'choose' to produce daughter queens clonally and thus have the potential for genetic immortality. -- "Cheating honeybee workers produce royal offspring" Lyndon A. Jordan, Michael H. Allsopp, Benjamin P. Oldroyd, Theresa C. Wossler and Madeleine Beekman Proc. R. Soc. B (2008) 275, 345–351 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:12:36 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:13:23 -0500, DAVID ADAMS wrote: > I personally think the USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad to get some vigor back in our bees. > We already have them and they are called Russian bees (regional variation of the Carniolan). They swarm more, are resistant to tracheal and varrora and possibly nosema. While the first introduction was not received by the industry many of us have found these bees are easy to keep alive with minimal to no treatments of any kind. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:59:28 -1000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Howard McGinnis Subject: Re: Fipronil In-Reply-To: <209426.91264.qm@web57401.mail.re1.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>I have heard that some people use this chemical to control the small hive beetle. I found this information on the web and wondered if anyone had further information. >>Fipronil It's also the ingredient that New Zealand proposed to use to poison the bees in an effort to eradicate honeybees as a method of eliminating varroa. Hawaii considered it, but the manufacturer BASF will not allow it to be used in this manner. It's the active ingredient in FrontLine flea and tick products, I believe. Howard in Hawaii **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:15:32 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It seems few folks are keeping Caucasians. I thought, with their slower longer build-up, they might be better suited for the southern US. I was also curious what honey plants, anywhere in the US, would yield higher crops with the longer (by a 1.0 mm or so) Caucasian proboscis... Any thoughts on this? Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:52:41 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Brian Ames wrote: >We already have them and they are called Russian bees (regional variation of the Carniolan). Far Eastern bees are originated mostly from European bees. True Russian bees are relative to dark bees from North Europe (Apis mellifera mellifera). Ukrainian bees (Apis mellifera acervorum) most probably are transitional form from Russian bees to Carnica. So cell size of Far Eastern bees should be equal to European bees (~5.4 mm). ------ contributed by Viacheslav Sheveliov slavash@aha.ru **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:28:56 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Africanised bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Has it been determined whether the African bees in America are Scutellata, Adansoni or something else? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:57:12 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: Cause of CCD? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barry said: > Does not this paper identify N. ceranae as the cause > of CCD, and provide the control? Bob H's comments aside, no one working on CCD has ever thought that CCD was as simple as "just Nosema ceranae". It is generally understood that Spain has a much more virulent strain of Nosema ceranae than we do here in the USA. But the informal consensus list of "CCD Symptoms" are very different from that of any simple Nosema ceranae infection. What I have maintained for over a year now in my articles and here on the internets is that CCD will eventually be found to be a combination of: a) Both Nosema apis AND Nosema ceranae (at the same time) b) An invasive virus known to infect bees elsewhere, but not yet identified as present in the USA, and certainly not "IAPV". c) Possible miticide misuse (over-use, homebrew off-label mixes, etc) in the specific case of the migratory operations who keep pointing at systemics and corn to draw attention away from the damning evidence of the lab results on samples . The first announcement of the involvement of Nosema ceranae was made by Joe DeRisi of UCSF back on 04/25/2007: http://tinyurl.com/2t6eh8 or http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/26/MNGK7PFOMS1.D TL At that time, the USDA/Penn State team was still focused on the "blackened internal organs", insisting that the problem was fungal in nature: http://tinyurl.com/6pmuam or http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/10/science/sci-bees10 At that time, those that Bob called "beekeepers in the loop" were not paying attention to either form of Nosema. So little attention was being paid to Nosema prior to the recent concern over Nosema ceranae that Mid-Con stopped making the product "Fumadil-B" rather than update their label to comply with EPA's concerns about the "dose consistency" of the product from tablespoon to tablespoon and package to package. There simply were not enough sales at that time. Bob said: > Finally researchers admit that what they call CCD symptoms do vary. No, this has been said from the start. In fact, there still is no formal definition of CCD anywhere, not even a consensus on the list of specific symptoms that are associated with the problem. The reason is the variation between observations of which Bob has apparently only recently become aware. > What they label CCD on the East coast can (and usually does) have > symptoms which do not match those on the west coast. Perhaps Bob can list what he thinks are the two different sets of symptoms, as I have yet to seen any consensus on even something this basic. Even TWO symptom lists would be an improvement over the current lack of any agreed-upon symptom list at all. Bob continued: > So far the USDA-ARS has not been able to explain why bees > lived half as long when fed HFCS instead of sucrose. The lack of a paper submitted for publication would tend to indicate that the results are "not worth publishing". I suspect that there was a significant error in the methodology. But let's not go there, no one likes to have their mistakes highlighted. However, it is nice to see that claims of a "USDA coverup" have ceased. (See the "Pesticide news from Italy" thread from September 19th.) > (Kevin Hackett) saying that the Tucson Bee lab would soon be reporting > interesting findings from the labs HFCS research. The combined clues of work being done at Weslaco NOT being submitted for publication and Kevin pointing you toward Diana Sammataro in Tucson should clearly indicate that something was found to be amiss with the Weslaco work and results. > despite many of us being skeptical a switch from feeding HFCS > (after decades of successful use) to sucrose would produce better > bees the list is long with beeks which all agree the switch provided > better bees. Strange - I recently spoke with Bill Bernacchi of B&B Honey Farm, who sells both HFCS and sucrose in bulk. He explained the shift to sucrose as a "temporary thing", a result of the price of HFCS going above that of sucrose. The price of HFCS has gone back down, so he is seeing the bulk of orders being placed for HFCS once again. As far as any difference in longevity, he says that not a single beekeeper has mentioned this issue to him. If the problem was real, one would think that someone like Bill would be very much aware of the issue, as the bulk of his living is made from selling feed to beekeepers in bulk. > For those thinking of writing an article on a bee lab you need to > get approval first and then get final approval of the text to be > submitted. Nonsense. No legitimate journalist tolerates such prior restraint on their ability to write an article. I certainly don't. I'm sure that the USDA press office would LIKE to have so much control over the media, but they can only dream of this level of control. Kevin and his lab heads have never tried to impose any such restraint on me, and I've written some pretty bare-knuckled stuff that put the USDA-ARS in a less-than charitable light more than once. Looks like you got conned by Kim Kaplan and her minions, Bob. She would LOVE to "review and approve" articles if she could. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:17:20 -0500 Reply-To: lloyd@rossrounds.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Lloyd Spear Subject: Caucasian bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline For many years (almost 100!) a commercial beekeeper near here in frigid upstate NY kept only Caucasian. They had 3,000 hives for many years, but now run around 1,500. They liked them because of the small brood nest during the winter, compared especially to Italians. Then when Cobey's New World Carniolans came along they switched because of greater availability, excellent wintering, and superior honey gathering. Lloyd **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:30:49 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Gavin Ramsay Subject: Re: Africanised bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Chris There is a paper that looked at the DNA in the mitochondria of Africanized bees. Such DNA is passed down from mother queen to daughter. Matrilinial inheritance. The outcome seems to be that the great majority have Am scullata mitochondrial types, but a small percentage are typical of other bees, particularly Am adansonii. Interpreting this is perhaps not so straightforward. Does Am scutellata itself carry a wider range of mitotypes than those sampled, and could it be harbouring those rare adansonii types - or did adansonii also give rise to Africanized bees? Details (available to all on the internet I believe) and a quote are below. all the best Gavin Genetic structure of Africanized honeybee populations (Apis mellifera L.) from Brazil and Uruguay viewed through mitochondrial DNA COI–COII patterns T Collet1, KM Ferreira1, MC Arias2, AEE Soares3 and MA Del Lama1 Heredity (2006) 97, 329–335 http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v97/n5/pdf/6800875a.pdf The main patterns observed in Brazil are the African A4 (68%) and A1 (26%) haplotypes (Figure 4). The proportion of A4 mitotype is higher in populations from Central and Southern Brazil (being also the most common in Uruguayan samples), whereas the frequency of A1 pattern increases toward the north. The Pearson test indicated a negative and significant correlation between the A1 frequency and latitude (r¼0.561; Po0.0001). The C1 mitotype is present in some southern populations (Table 1), whereas the mellifera pattern was not observed in the Brazilian colonies and only one Uruguayan sample showed the M4 pattern. Seven populations from Brazil and one from Uruguay contained A26 (as determined by restriction patterns and their P sequences) (Figure 2), a mitotype also observed by Franck et al. (2001) in the Southwest African A. m. adansonii. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:55:13 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Africanised bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 13/11/2008 22:50:16 GMT Standard Time, gavinrbox-beel@YAHOO.CO.UK writes: Does Am scutellata itself carry a wider range of mitotypes than those sampled, and could it be harbouring those rare adansonii types - or did adansonii also give rise to Africanized bees? Did Kerr import bees from only one African location? Can there have been more than one importation event? Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:47:43 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.com" Subject: Re: Africanised bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- Chris Slade wrote: > Can there have been more than one importation event? well, there was also the importation of african drone sperm by the usda directly into the u.s. ...this did not require a migration from south america. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Beekeeping edited by Roger Morse and Ted Hooper p230 "it is known that sperm from africanized bees was introduced into the united states and used to inseminate local queens in the late 1960's, without apparent adverse effect, and it is likely that queens were earlier introduced from africa into north america, again without problems. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:57:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > http://live.psu.edu/story/35937 Thanks for that link. Maybe it is not what we hoped for, but I found the article thoughtful and pretty accurate. Knowing many of the names involved, having sat through their explanations in meetings, the bar, iHop, or elsewhere, and having driven through California at almond time (and lifted a few lids) and met with some USDA researchers, beekeepers, brokers and other knowledgeable people along the way -- including some who know the true state of Hackenberg's outfit before the 'surprise' -- I have to say that the article -- for me -- is pretty much right on. Chemicals are mentioned. Diseases are mentioned. Parasites are mentioned. Truck driving is mentioned. None of these are particularly good for bees. Now combine them all... You can check back in BEE-L as long as it has existed and 'mysterious' bee disappearances have been a perennial topic. Sure, something is happening, and the experts have been called in. Something has always been happening, and it is not ever just one something. CCD may or may not be a real syndrome, but it is keeping quite a few people, including writers, occupied and labs funded. How can that be a bad thing? allen --- In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:09:42 -0500 Reply-To: Tim Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Tim Subject: Re: africanized bee questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Q: Are there any restrictions on knowingly keeping African bees in an > apiary situation in the US? > > Section 174. Keeping of diseased and banned bees prohibited; > existence of disease to be reported. > > 5. If any inspection made by the commissioner or his duly authorized > representative discloses that any apiary, appliances, structures, > colonies, or comb constitute a nuisance within the meaning of this > section, the commissioner or his duly authorized representatives may > ......immediately proceed to abate the nuisance by destroying or treating > such colonies and equipment, This is a good example of a poorly worded law being more harmful than anything else. If applied literally, it would destroy most everyone's hives, including those hives which may well represent the future of beekeeping. This is the case in some countries... which results in a self fulfilling failure situation. Destroying bees in the wild in an effort to save other weak bees just compounds the problem. Government often IS the problem. Nature the solution. Tim **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:56:14 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I personally think the USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad to get some vigor back in=20 our bees. Reply: Not really, there is enough good genetics left if one knows where to look h= ere in N. America and around the USA. It's just not common channels used by= most beekeepers, and may take a little work and thought relative to wholeb= ee breeding/looking at things. =A0 Dee A. Lusby =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:51:04 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. In-Reply-To: <20081113.131532.8077.0@webmail21.dca.untd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I thought, with their slower longer build-up, they might be better suited for the southern US. Reply: What says they are slower building up? They seem to build up fast to me whe= n kept on a natural beekeeping system relative to their homeland race/strai= n sizing. And they work many plants other races do not seem to......at leas= t IMPOV. =A0 Dee A. Lusby =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:01:39 -0800 Reply-To: deelusbybeekeeper@yahoo.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The Cape bee (Apis mellifera capensis) is unique among honeybees in that workers can lay eggs that instead of developing into males develop into females via thelytokous parthenogenesis. =A0 Reply: No it is not unique among honeybees in that all races looked at by Mackenso= n and Roberts and others showed this trait......it's just been bread down b= y factory farming beekeepers not practicing modified line/outmating breedin= g for the backup it gave to beekeepers for raising queens of own early on. = Nothing hard actually..... =A0 Dee A. Lusby =A0 =A0=0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:10:38 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -- Allen Dick wrote: > CCD may or may not be a real syndrome, but it is keeping quite a few people, including writers, occupied and labs funded. How can that be a bad thing? hi allen, i can't really tell your intent here...is there sarcasm in these remarks? my response to these few lines would be: 1. by definition, displayed symptoms indicate a syndrome. a syndrome is real or not based on if there are symptoms. that said, there may well be more than one 'syndrome' being seen. there may or may not be more than one set of root causes. 2. keeping writers occupied concerns me not....especially if they are writing about something that "might not be real". the problem with keeping writers occupied on such a mission is that they are spreading what they write about to the public. garbage in, garbage out. if the writers are misinformed, poorly informed, or way out in left field...they "infect" the public with such. imho, this is the same logic that caused the nhb to praise the 'bee movie' as an educational film, and spend money in co-promotion. not every discussion of bees does the industry, or the children/public good. what actually goes on in a beehive is much more interesting than male bees doing all the work, driving cars in the hive, and collecting nectar and pollen with guns. the public was ill served by this 'work of art', and beekeepers were ill served by the nhb supporting it in word and dollar. ...same goes for the stories of ccd in the media. the closer we get to the truth, the better. the closer we can get writers to the truth to help the public get closer to truth, the better. 2. ditto for the labs. i've been impressed by much of the work that has been done...especially at penn state. we have learned a lot...a lot about bees, and a lot about how beekeepers treat their bees. but keeping labs funded by keeping writers occupied who in turn turn up the panic level of the public seems silly. funding labs for the sake of funding labs...the snake eating it's own tail. there is important work for researchers to do...and some of it is being done as a result of ccd. i speak to a few hundred people a week about bees, and everyone is concerned that the "bees are dying." "pesticides" are always what the farmers and homeowners use...never what the beekeepers put in the hive. migratory pollination contracts pay big bucks...especially the almonds. reward is in direct proportion to investment (enough bees to bring to the almonds, transportation costs), supply, demand, and risk. losing bees under such circumstances isn't surprising. picking up and spreading disease under such circumstances isn't surprising. ...which is why, if one can fulfill these contracts and avoid the above problems, the payoff is big. is losing bees while attempting to do this any different from going broke on a risky investment? the way we tend to grow food in this country (monocrop farming) both requires insect pollinators, and cannot support insect pollination. ....these are the stories that the public should be reading. dealing with these issues will help us as a nation, and as humans living on earth fund the labs to do needed research. deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:21:22 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Allen: >CCD may or may not be a real syndrome 5-10% excess mortality isn't real enough? USA & Can thats 150-300K hives Whats a hive worth? There may be exposure to only 1/3 of the total pop (migatory and/or within 3 mi of a "hot spot") If it becomes widespread, what then? >keeping ........quite well funded I thought this was the problem? OK Jim, here's my list of symptoms I, at least, have been paying attention These are nearly all cool weather crashes Gross symptoms 1) Empty hive, no adults occasionaly a small frozen cluster that didn't all reach flee stage at once Dead brood is left uncleaned in a minority of cases In all cases few bees on BB (typ 1 cup) 2) Bees flee hive even when cold No circle or return 3)Birds hanging around to eat chilled bees above Under bird perches are abdomens, see below 4)Foul feaces (because of damaged guts) If you doubt, pull last segment -- phew Individual symptoms 5)STR (sore tummy rub, because of damaged guts) common, variable (extreme w/ staggers to pefunctory & moderate) 6) Ankle rub (less common, definitive IMO) misnomer, whole lower rear leg 7) (rear) feet too close (less common) 4mm or < 8)Hoppers (common at very low level rare at noticable level) 9) Paralyzed rear legs (rare) Only easily seen on flat Brood symptoms 10) 98-99% mortality 1-1.5 d larvae (rare) If the very last seal, then they die as pupae Daily inspection of course for 7 d or > 11)Patches of dead pupae (rare?) 10 "^2 or > These are coloured, some emergents. Reluctence to clean these corpses Other symptoms 12) If you are insane enough to raise Qs from a ccd hive the developement is wrong, too long You will get NO Qs in the end, all sealed die in cells The royal jelly is bland, I'd bet $ pH is +3 from normal 13) Trucking is likley to turn a mild case into an acute case 14) Moderate dysentry due to ccd, not associated with nosema (which I supposedly do not have -- 13+ hives tested) 15) Ants can be infected with ccd, reccover the next year 16)Avoidence of deadouts, the honey is safe, nothing wants it exception: Already infected bees don't avoid robbing in fall, then mob mentality takes over Curious that no one wants samples from me, I had to bug OBA to come and of course they have no test for ccd I would much rather not have experienced this, most demoralizing to see the poor response, both from TPTB and this very BBS dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:32:40 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > I personally think the USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad to > > get some vigor back in our bees. > Not really, there is enough good genetics left if one knows where to look > here in N. America and around the USA. Seems there was a recent survey of US honey bee genes, comparing now and sometime earlier, which showed a loss of quite a number of genes, but also an introduction of a somewhat similar number of new ones. I don't recall the details, but maybe someone has the details at hand. New material originated, seems to me, from Australian and New Zealand imports -- directly, and via Canada or Mexico over the past decades. (The latter countries share long land borders in prime bee terrain which are not particularly respected by flying bees and have different import regulations from the US) Also, some new genes came with the Primorsky stock , and, I seem to have heard that there are importations of germ plasm in various forms permitted for various reasons. Moreover, I am sure others have arrived with many undeclared private imports to the USA, Mexico, and Canada by beekeepers, and perhaps, even occasional researchers. Of course, the big story over recent decades is the new genes which originated from Kerr's various famous and less known importations and shipments to various parts of the hemisphere. > It's just not common channels used by most beekeepers, That is an interesting, if somewhat cryptic string of words. Not sure what these "channels" are, and hopefully Dee will explain, but I don't think there a lot of secrets out there, or much of significance that the survey missed. I could be wrong, and would love to see the proof. > and may take a little work and thought relative to wholebee > breeding/looking at things. If this is true, maybe an explanation of what specific work and thought is in order and what "wholebee" means and if that is relevant to the question. As for the need for more new genetics, to obtain 'vigor', that is an interesting and possibly controversial topic. For one thing, the specific genetics that would/might provide vigor need to be identified, as well as the unintended consequences, if any, of any new introduction considered. Kerr's introductions, along with, reportedly, Tabor's have had very far-reaching adverse effects on both beekeeping and the general population. Other importations have had less of an obvious impact. There are, indeed, probably quite a few stocks out in the rest of the world somewhere that might make some contribution. Is that contribution predictable, or economically significant? Good question. Interestingly, I recently attended a talk by a BEE-L member mentioning some _Chilean_ stock apparently in commercial use in the Peace River country. It was of interest in the talk because it was more AFB resistant than any of the other stock in the test, including the Peace River selected stock, and, I believe NWCs, but I said myself, "Huh! Chlean stock in Canada?" Things keep changing. So, we are seeing a flux of genetics through the Americas, and interestingly, genetics do not just form one large homogenous pool, but tend to follow routes -- both natural and asphalt -- and vary over regions. Moreover, some genes intermix better than others. It is a complex and dimly understood topic. Where bees are left to their own devices, populations will stabilize and adapt to localities, with specific genetics in each region, but with human management, breeding and transport, there are numerous competing agendas and techniques of selection, resulting in genetic combinations that might not have evolved 'naturally', and which may not be particularly fit or stable with unnatural concentrations and distribution. New techniques for quickly and simply identifying specific genetics and associating traits with them will vastly accelerate this divide between 'natural', and managed populations. Are more genes and new genes required? Depends which genes, and what they are known to contribute -- both beneficial and suspicious -- and what other new genes they bring along with them, if any. allen --- We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. - Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:41:35 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Several years ago I had the good fortune to meet Madeleine Beekman. She is one of the foremost bee researchers in the world and has traveled all over it. When she puts pen to page, I would guess that she brings to bear the experience of that research and the research of her many associates. She writes: > In the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis, workers lay female eggs without mating by thelytokous parthenogenesis. *Unlike other honey bee species*, where worker-laid eggs are haploid and develop into males, eggs laid by Cape bee workers are diploid and develop into females. This information is unanimously corroborated by researchers all over the world. So far from being common, queens from worker eggs are exceedingly rare. And this is good thing, because self-cloning is a reproductive dead end. The primary function of sexual reproduction is to provide different genetic material which is recombined to produce new and possibly better offspring, thus generating new traits which allow species to adapt to the changing environment; that is, the real world. This is the norm in natural honey bee breeding; the queen mates with numerous unrelated drones to produce colonies containing many subfamilies; this genetic diversity helps the colony much like a varied work force is needed in a human society. For workers to lay unfertilized eggs would be to clone themselves, producing colonies of bees exactly like themselves, a degenerate condition. This is what has been seen in South Africa: the Cape Honey Bee is considered an insidious parasite. -- "A non-policing honey bee colony (Apis mellifera capensis)" Madeleine Beekman, et al Naturwissenschaften (2002) 89:479–482 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:22:01 +0100 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Juanse Barros Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Amazing !!! *23 out of 39 new queens* produced by seven colonies were offspring of workers and not the resident queen queenright *anarchistic* honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies Of the daughter queens laid by the resident queen, three were produced asexually, suggesting that queens can 'choose' to produce daughter queens clonally and thus have the potential for *genetic immortality*. -- Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ juanseapi@gmail.com **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:42:32 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "deknow@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/bsmay1991.htm ...now, before we all go calling these bees "africanized", lets look at the timeframe....this was written 2 years before ahb were found in arizona (where there was a bee lab looking for such)...and these bees were being worked with by erickson and others at the tucson bee lab. if these "lus bees" were really "ahb", it would say a lot about the observational abilities of these researchers. seems to me that thelytoky is a useful survival mechanism, and not a genetic dead end. if a queen never returns from her mating flights (and there are no young brood, eggs, or already started queens) , the conventional wisdom is that laying workers will produce drones until the hive explodes with worker layed drones (in a last ditch attempt to spread the genetics of the previous queen) and dies off. why would one of these worker layed eggs developing into a queen via thelytoky be more of a dead end than this explosion of workers? queens can get picked off by a bird in flight, and this is not necessarily a sign of weak genetics. beekeepers who never let things get to this point (colonies with laying workers in a queenless situation left to their own devices to the end) will be diluting any genetics that produce thelytoky...these traits will never be selected for in such situations. i expect queen breeders are careful not to let this kind of situation develop...which will lead to "breeding against" this trait. any thoughts? deknow **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:19:50 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Chris Slade Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Look at _http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/workerpolicing.html_ (http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/workerpolicing.html) Chris **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:55:12 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?UTF-8?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad Comments: To: Allen Dick Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Allen Dick wrote: > hopefully Dee will explain ... maybe an explanation of what specific work and thought is in order and what "wholebee" means and if that is relevant to the question. No explanation is needed, just belief in the Wholebee Faith. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:52:13 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad Comments: cc: Peter L Borst MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > No explanation is needed, just belief in the Wholebee Faith. Is the Wholebee Faith something that can be revealed in whole sentences, whole explanations, and whole paragraphs, using common, accepted English words? allen --- Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible. -- Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:03:46 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > ...now, before we all go calling these bees "africanized", lets look at > the timeframe....this was written 2 years before ahb were found in arizona > (where there was a bee lab looking for such)...and these bees were being > worked with by erickson and others at the tucson bee lab. if these "lus > bees" were really "ahb", it would say a lot about the observational > abilities of these researchers. Of course that was then and this is now. Whether or not Lusbys' bees were AHB at that time, Dee had some samples taken so the answer is out there somewhere, and AFAIK the results were never released. Lusbys had a falling out with the lab, and things changed. The situation got very political and a lot of people who know are not talking -- publically, at least. > seems to me that thelytoky is a useful survival mechanism, and not a > genetic dead end. I personally agree that it can be useful, and we went through that here a few times a decade or so ago. We also speculated that colonies that raise and tolerate multiple queens well without special manipulations might also be a bonus. > beekeepers who never let things get to this point (colonies with laying > workers in a queenless situation left to their own devices to the end) > will be diluting any genetics that produce thelytoky...these traits will > never be selected for in such situations. Not selecting for a characteristic that is fixed in a population should neither increase nor decrease its frequency. Instances it proves more useful than useless or harmful -- results in survival in a hopeless situation -- should increase its frequency in future populations. allen --- Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944), "The Little Prince", 1943 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:30:35 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>CCD may or may not be a real syndrome > 5-10% excess mortality isn't real enough? > Gross symptoms [1-16] > Curious that no one wants samples from me, I had to bug OBA to come and > of course they have no test for ccd Yes, curious. Interesting list of symptoms. Especially about the ants. If symptoms and diagnosis are that clear-cut and obvious, then solving the mystery should have proven to be less elusive than it has proven to be. After all, we have a long time and concentrated firepower on it. > most demoralizing to see the poor response, both from TPTB and this very > BBS. What were you expecting from this 'BBS'? To be precise, BEE-L is actually not a 'BBS' at all, but a mailing list (Thank Heavens!), and known for critical discussion -- not for cheerleading, faith-based beekeeping fireside chats -- or effusive outright sympathy. We try to be polite and agreeable but for some of us that turns out to be a real chore. That having been said, you have my sympathy and I hope that whatever is behind your losses can be explained and cured. Whether it is "a real syndrome" or not as questioned by several, is not the issue. You are experiencing real losses and the name or classification of the phenomenon is unimportant. allen --- Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -- Helen Keller (1880 - 1968) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:50:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dick Marron Subject: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Peter Borst wrote: >>>The primary function of sexual reproduction is to provide different genetic material which is recombined to produce new and possibly better offspring, thus generating new traits which allow species to adapt to the changing environment; that is, the real world<<<<< No one would really dispute this. It should be noted here that this is not the only way variation occurs. The formation of the egg (meiosis) provides for variation before fertilization occurs. Then too, perhaps we could find a few words to praise the varroa mite which seems to be very adaptable and does so with brother/sister matings. >>>>> For workers to lay unfertilized eggs would be to clone themselves, producing colonies of bees exactly like themselves, a degenerate condition. This is what has been seen in South Africa: the Cape Honey Bee is considered an insidious parasite.<<<<< This requires thinking about. It would seem that this "degenerate condition" exists in the Cape bee and they are out-competing Scutellata. Also, in the south of South Africa the Cape bee is propagated and beekeepers are making money from them. (....sure, they are less than ideal). Not everyone considers them a plague. The problems arose when they tried to do migratory beekeeping with them; they were moved north to areas where Scutellata Had been supreme. Bad news for SA beekeeping. Any news on where SA is today? Deknow wrote>>>....why would one of these worker layed eggs developing into a queen via thelytoky be more of a dead end than this explosion of workers?<<<<<< I have often thought that since all bees are assumed to come from a common ancestor that the two approaches are merely on natures test bed as she watches to see what succeeds. Thelytoky is likely a trait that is inherent in honeybees but almost bred out. It can be one arrow in the quiver. If queen mortality continues to climb it would naturally breed itself back in. Dick Marron **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:06:57 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_L_Borst?= Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD Comments: To: Dave Thompson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dave Thompson wrote: >I would much rather not have experienced this, most >demoralizing to see the poor response, both from >TPTB and this very BBS I think if you go through the archives you will find that Bee-L contains a wide variety of responses, opinions, facts, rants, and all around information. Many of us dedicate dozens (hundreds) of hours to making it so. pb **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:31:00 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Cushman Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: <20081114.084232.17917.0@webmail13.dca.untd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Dean & all > seems to me that thelytoky is a useful survival mechanism, and not a genetic dead end. Indeed it is a useful bridge mechanism that allows propagation of genes to further generations in the case such as a queen not returning from her mating flight, but overall it seems so rare that we should not make a song and dance about it. Martin Luther King 'had a dream', I have a dream also, that one day there will be a huge database of behavioural, morphometric and DNA data on all races and strains and all castes of honey bee, freely available to all on the Internet. Mr King's dream has come to pass sooner than many would have imagined, perhaps my dream may happen sooner than we think, then such questions would be far easier to answer definitively. Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY http://melliferabees.net Email: dave.cushman@lineone.net Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01 Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:41:43 +0000 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Murray McGregor Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. In-Reply-To: <719159.22194.qm@web51603.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii;format=flowed In message <719159.22194.qm@web51603.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, Dee Lusby writes >What says they are slower building up? They seem to build up fast to me >when kept on a natural beekeeping system relative to their homeland >race/strain sizing. And they work many plants other races do not seem >to......at least IMPOV. Sorry, but I have had these bees from various breeders including a considerable number direct from the Caucasus mountains. They ARE a relatively slow spring bee whereas a carnica is much faster. The roll out slowly and get little or no surplus from spring sources, but get into their stride by mid season, and are good clover bees. Yes, they winter small and pack the nest area, and almost completely close off the entrance and all gaps with propolis, sometimes like big gobs of chewing gum attached to the bottom corners of the frames in the lowest box. Have had them direct from Georgia (the country, not the state), France, and in the more distant past from Georgia (the state) and Alabama. The French ones were modest tempered and quite good bees. The Georgian ones were of mixed temperament (some outright tetchy}. The USA ones were for the most part of little value in my environment. Slow spring build up which misses the rapeseed (canola) is a serious issue here. Like someone else posted, once the New World Carniolan came into my unit the wish for Caucasians vanished. I have experimented with them since but not found anything of sufficient merit to include in my programme. FWIW, the purest Caucasians frequently show a trait of extreme melanistic drones. They are intense black, so much so that even the wings carry some colouration. From past experience, if you see that in any of your bees you have some Caucasian blood in there somewhere. -- Murray McGregor **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:31:06 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Re: Africanised bees. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually, after the sperm was imported from Brazil and introduced into breeding stock, we had empty hives in the spring in MT, Wyo, Dakotas. Bill Wilson traced the losses to lines that were produced with this sperm. He almost ended his career on this issue - Wyo lab was closed, everything shipped to Weslaco. Jerry **************Get movies delivered to your mailbox. One month free from blockbuster.com (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212639737x1200784900/aol?redir=https://www.blockbuster.com/signup/y/reg/p.26978/r.email_footer) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:34:39 -0500 Reply-To: bee-quick@bee-quick.com Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: James Fischer Subject: Re: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Where bees are left to their own devices, populations will > stabilize and adapt to localities, with specific genetics > in each region, If the above were the case, breeders would have none of the trouble that they do when they attempt to breed bees with specific traits that persist over several generations. The bees would retain traits over successive generations without the need to constantly "select for" this trait or that one. > but with human management, breeding and > transport, there are numerous competing agendas and techniques > of selection, resulting in genetic combinations that might not > have evolved 'naturally', and which may not be particularly fit > or stable with unnatural concentrations and distribution. If the above were the case, the basic honeybee would differ between the Southern USA and Alberta Canada. Problem is, they don't differ much at all, and the same exact bee can thrive in both locations without much help from beekeepers. Multiple people have mentioned my favorite bees, the "New World Carniolans" in the "Caucasian bees" thread, and they each keep bees in very different climates/conditions. How could people in such divergent climates all like the same bee so much if there was any tangible advantages to "local adaptation"? While we all understand Allen's somewhat unique climate, and his need for extraordinary measures to simply overwinter bees in his area, his case is an extreme outlier. I think it is important to keep in mind that the same hive of bees could be moved anywhere in the western hemisphere from Northern Alberta to Tierra del Fuego, and be expected to both overwinter and make a harvestable crop of honey. Yes, it would need to be wrapped to overwinter in Allen's backyard, and it would need ventilation to overwinter well in mine, but these same concerns would apply to humans trying to endure the winter weather unique to each location. This is why I keep challenging the advocates of "localized bees" with simple questions like "What specific traits are uniquely required for YOUR area?" So far, no one can list any traits that would be uniquely good for their area, thereby falsifying the claim that a "localized bee" would offer any advantages over a professionally-bred and produced "generic best practices" bee. Now that I am North of Adam Finklestien, I will be pitting his best work (impressive varroa resistance) against Sue Cobey's best work (the bees that paid the mortgage off on the entire farm). Spring will be interesting. One of the reasons that bees have survived for so long with so few changes is that they are generalists - flexible, and able to adapt to such a wide range of conditions. They remain generalists, so "regression to the mean" helps to keep bees adaptable generalists that rather than narrow-focus specialists. Breeders fight this all the time, and know that they will never really "win". Breeding any sort of "Better Genetics" requires the breeder to run as fast as they can to simply stay in the same place. Maintaining the "better genetics" is a difficult job that never ends. The bees will not retain such traits on their own, and the breeders make this point all the time whenever anyone is within earshot. Without a constant supply of "new genetics", the breeders end up inbreeding themselves into a corner in their attempts to breed that "best practices bee". **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:36:13 EST Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Jerry Bromenshenk Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Thompson's list of symptoms does NOT reflect what we have been seeing in CCD colonies across the U.S. Some of them are what we see with CCD and/or N. Ceranae, but MANY that he listed are NOT CCD symptoms. Let's not obscure things even more by changing the list of symptoms - unless you've seen several thousand CCD colonies all across the country, as we and a few others have. Jerry **************Get movies delivered to your mailbox. One month free from blockbuster.com (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1212639737x1200784900/aol?redir=https://www.blockbuster.com/signup/y/reg/p.26978/r.email_footer) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:16:16 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Penn State Backgrounder on CCD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >What were you expecting from this 'BBS'? Beside myself only Jerry has "come out of the closet" I'm not sure about Dee It is beyond belief the we 3? are the only ones with bees afflicted by ccd As well, for those without, any kind of idea (even off the wall) how to make life "hard" on virii, sterilize dead outs etc Other suggestions for "experiments" dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:26:30 GMT Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: "waldig@netzero.net" Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>What says they are slower building up? I read that some place. May not be entirely accurate. They also said they maintain a large population of bees even during a nectar shortage. But if other flowers offer them nectar because of the longer proboscis, then what the heck. Waldemar **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:27:00 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Caucasian bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Brian Ames wrote: >We already have them and they are called Russian bees (regional variation of the Carniolan). Peter said: >Ukrainian bees (Apis mellifera acervorum) most probably are transitional form from Russian bees to Carnica. bzzt. Sorry wrong door Bro Adam said "Macedonia" -- northern Greek I agree Think of Ukraine 12K yrs ago covered with ice yr around Imagine the next 4K yrs as ice melts Black sea is probably landlocked (& smaller) Trees grow, get big enough for bees Easier for bees to miagrate north than ENE out of mountain valleys Once bees reach steppe then they stop due to lack of trees dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:00:49 -0700 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Allen Dick Organization: Deep Thought Subject: Re: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jim, if it is not asking too much, I would appreciate it if you would read what I say more carefully before you set out to argue with it each time. I notice that you repeatedly contradict me, set up a straw man, then set out to say pretty much what I was saying or write about something entirely different as if it addressed what I wrote. I find it tiresome. If you understand what I wrote, you will see we are pretty much in agreement on all points. > If the above were the case, breeders would have none of the trouble that > they do when they attempt to breed bees with specific traits that persist > over several generations. See my original post. That is addressed. allen --- It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. -- Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 - 1799) **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:06:53 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Aaron Morris Subject: FW: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Asserted: >> Where bees are left to their own devices, populations will stabilize >> and adapt to localities, with specific genetics in each region, Responded: > breeders would have none of the trouble that they do when they attempt > to breed bees with specific traits that persist over several > generations. The response simply is not so. The assertion was if left alone bees would adapt to local conditions. The response points out that breeders must keep up selective pressure to keep traits for which they select. The assertion and response are actually in agreement. Truthfully, in this day and age there is no "natural" honey bee population. All other traits aside, for over a century the industry has selected for a queen who can be shoved into a cage, given to a populaton of unrelated bees and shipped off to a hive hundreds of miles away. Face it folks, that ain't natural! This was my eureka moment at the National bee meeting in Sacramento last January. My thanks to Dr. Gloria DeGrande-Hoffman. The assertion that "populations will stabilize and adapt" is correct, but because breeders continually attempt to breed bees with specific traits that persist over several generations, the former will never happen. It would take a long time for a stable, regional bee to develop. Look at the efforts to reestablish A.m.m. in GB. A concerted national effort is making headway, but is continually thwarted by those who exercise their right to pollute the gene pool. Such is the state of affairs in the US. The regional pools that would/could/should develop never will because there are simply too many beekeepers, stationary and transient, adding to the gene pool soup that exists in virtually all beekeeping areas in the US. And this is precisely why breeders continually have trouble keeping the traits for which they select. So, is the US in need of new genetics from abroad? Perhaps more genes in the pool will expand the range of possibility, but I am assured that the pool is already quite diverse. Aaron Morris - thinking it's nice to see Allen and Jim in agreement! **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:29:46 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline deknow@netzero.net wrote: > if these "lus bees" were really "ahb", it would say a lot about the observational abilities of these researchers. I am not sure what you think it says, but -- What does it say that this work was done in 1991 and none of the participants except the Lusbys thought it was worth pursuing? In fact, in the ensuing almost 20 years, the original paper has only been cited once that I could find: Thelytoky by honeybee workers other than A. m. capensis is rare but has been described repeatedly (Mackensen, 1943; Tucker, 1958; DeGrandi-Hoffman et al., 1991*) [* "Thelytoky in a strain of U.S. honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)" G. DeGrandi-Hoffman, E. H. Erickson Jr., D. Lusby, and E. Lusby May, 1991 - Bee Science] However, none of these occurrences evolved into stable thelytokous or parasitic populations. Although thelytoky promotes the evolution of reproductive dominance and social parasitism, these systems must be lacking other traits necessary to allow for the fixation of the parasitic behaviour. In the case studied here, the invasive lineage probably lacks an efficient host finding mechanism because the phenomenon is sustained by beekeepers' activities. In the other cases where thelytoky appeared, the local potential host was certainly not susceptible enough to allow parasitism to evolve or the thelytokous strains lacked other necessary traits associated with successful reproduction. Alternatively, parasitic lineages may occur at a low frequency and could have remained undetected We hypothesize that the monopoly of the invasive lineage in the parasitic population is due to the ability of this lineage to out-compete other A. m. capensis lineages through a superior or more rapid ability to produce mandibular gland pheromones. We suggest that the competition for reproductive dominance occurred at two levels during the selection process of this lineage: (a) intracolonial level: there is strong competition between individual workers for reproductive dominance within queenless colonies of Cape honeybees and of other subspecies. This competition results in the reproductive domination by one or a few patrilines in a given colony. This probably also occurs in multiply infested A. m. scutellata colonies, where a few thelytokous A. m. capensis lineages can dominate reproduction (as they pheromonally out compete A. m. scutellata, see above). (b) population level: winners of intracolonial competition are likely to compete directly with each other for limited host resources, because * the colonies they infest eventually die and they have to find new host colonies * "Pheromonal dominance and the selection of a socially parasitic honeybee worker lineage (Apis mellifera capensis Esch.)" V. DIETEMANN, et al Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 20(3):997-1007, May 2007 **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:30:52 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Peter L Borst Subject: Re: Caucasian bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Dave writes: bzzt. Sorry wrong door Bro Adam said "Macedonia" -- northern Greek I agree Well, my source was a Russian beekeeper, not to dispute Bro Adam. I think his detailed response is interesting: From: "Viacheslav Sheveliov" Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping Subject: Re: Russian bees Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 Hi! Sorry for delayed response, I have many work. Far Eastern bees was not included in state program of bee zoning in Soviet times, so no breeding work have been done and was no breeding apiaries offering genuine Far Eastern bees/queens. According to state zoning program, central Russian strain was designed for Far East. Still there are discussions about origin of Far Eastern bees. Most researchers agreed that they are originated mostly from Ukrainian bees (Apis mellifera acervorum). In Primorsky region in mid 19-th century was settled with many Ukrainians, and still there are areas in Primorsky region populated mostly with Ukrainians. So, among Far Eastern bees there are families most relative to Ukrainian bees and ones relative to Russian bees (Apis mellifera mellifera). Russian bees are very aggressive, Ukrainian are less, so bees described by Steve seems are more relative to Russian bees or they are pure central Russian bees. OK, I stop my amateur reasoning and give citation from serious book Bilash G.D., Krivtsov N.I. Breeding of honey bees Moscow, Agropromizdat, 1991 - 304 pp. ISBN 5-10-001701-5 Pages 83-85 Far Eastern Bees. Those bees can and should be classified as primitive strain, however officially they are not accepted as a strain, despite there are no any serious reason against such decision. They populate territory of Chitinsky, Amursky, Khabarovsky and Primorsky regions, where Far Eastern bee formed as primitive strain from the end of 19th century till present times as result of excursive crosses of bees introduced by frontiersmen mostly of Ukrainian strain, less - central Russian strain, lesser - yellow and gray Caucasian strain and much lesser - Italian strain, and also as result of natural and artificial selection. As result of heterogeneous origin Far Eastern bees differ from other strains by greater amplitude of variability, however according main characteristics quite answer to conditions of primitive strain (array of specific features, their stabile inheritance from generation to generation, great number of families, which exclude probability of relative crosses in big scale and so on). V.V. Stasevich (1913), known specialist of Far Eastern bee-keeping, considered that Far Eastern bees are product of successful combination of central Russian and Ukrainian bees in conditions of Primorsky region. V. Grudnov (1913) reported, that in Amursky region settlers introduced central Russian bees from Altay, from Perm and Voronezh regions, Ukrainian bees - from Poltava region, and Caucasian bees (most probably, yellow ones) - from northern Caucasus. Caucasian bees badly hibernated here, they was very swarmed (up to 4 swarms, and sometimes 7-8 swarms per family during summer), but was outstanding by honey production. Far Eastern bees quite prune to swarming, but remarkably less than central Russian bees. Before main honey production time up to 50% of families can be in swarm conditions, best way to reduce it is forming of splits. Number of queen cells is differ from 4 to 150, as a rule, gray bees builds less queen cells and less prune to swarming than yellow ones. * * * If you are still reading, I will mention that Apis mellifera acervorum, the Ukraine bee, is not a generally accepted honey bee subspecies. Naturally, it is in the Ukraine. The whole issue of honey bee subspecies, at least outside of their native ranges, is probably a non-starter **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:06:54 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Caucasian bees. In-Reply-To: <20081114.062630.27523.0@webmail18.dca.untd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Careful now, for to maintain a large population of bees even during nectar = shortage they had to build up adequately, but then they do stay strong whil= e others don't! So why do they hold while others fold? =A0 Dee =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:22:17 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable For workers to lay unfertilized eggs is to clone themselves, like drone lay= ers which most are. This sure is a good trait for those needing drones in o= ff season fwiw.........Now for workers to lay fertilized egges is good too,= and a great back up system. and intercastes have been written about going = back decades.......but how to trigger and use them!!! Actually nothing hard= .......and yet seen early on in ALL races/strains looked at. So is thelytok= y intercastes? or done by simple trigger(s) that happen from time to time, = then man simple replicates=A0by setting up simple triggers. =A0 Dee=A0 =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:31:06 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Whether or not Lusbys' bees were AHB at that time, Dee had some samples taken so the answer is out there somewhere, and AFAIK the results were never released. =A0 Reply: Yes they were, and we were supposedly covered too for non-AHB or at least t= old so, but then the politics stepped in for money for the labs and motor m= ouths came on board,=A0and SC and other for control of varroa/trachael, etc= =A0was thrown aside, for it just couldnt be that simple for correction. =A0 Dee A. Lusby =0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:42:53 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: Parasitism in the honey bee colony In-Reply-To: <491DA7C4.6040407@lineone.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Indeed it is a useful bridge mechanism that allows propagation of genes to further generations in the case such as a queen not returning from her mating flight, but overall it seems so rare that we should not make a song and dance about it.Reply:Well this is just a splendid reply for what it actually is Dave. So you tell me then, just what are cape bee take overs then, other then those that really don'tknow what is going on! Dee **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:45:05 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Brian Ames Subject: Re: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:34:39 -0500, James Fischer wrote: Sue >Cobey's best work (the bees that paid the mortgage off >on the entire farm). Please educate me on what this work is. I grew up with the NWC and stayed with it until I found way better mite resistance elsewhere. Also the quality of the mating of the most available NWC queens appeared to go down the tubes in the last 5 years. **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:51:37 -0800 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dee Lusby Subject: Re: FW: The USA is in bad need of new genetics from abroad In-Reply-To: <6999718ED3E19D4AA061F73254EEA3410517D167@UAEXCH.univ.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The assertion that "populations will stabilize and adapt" is correct, but because breeders continually attempt to breed bees with specific traits that persist over several generations, the former will never happen.=A0 It would take a long time for a stable, regional bee to develop.=20 =A0 reply: That is why you need independents and not today's factory farm mills. Then = you teach acclimitizing again, and following the bees and whole bee concept= s with nature. Nothing hard...........But does take a long time, seeing how= now over quarter century into it and still going and learning more each da= y. =A0 Dee=0A=0A=0A **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:55:37 -0500 Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology Sender: BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: Caucasian bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Peter: You miss my point All I was saying is "not Carniolan" and a theory why I agree central Russian bees are melifera Again, following the glaciers (at quite a distance and time) I had heard that precise mix of genes for sibera before too At least 2 yrs ago??? dave **************************************************** * General Information About BEE-L is available at: * * http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm * ****************************************************