========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:09:38 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: air bubbles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Walt Barricklow wrote: >>need some help on how to filter out air bubbles in my honey jars. I ha= ve a small extractor and let the honey flow into a large jar, then heat some to get the honey to flow through a cheese cloth into pint jars that have been boiled clean and dried. My honey is very thick and flavorful, but at the top of the pint jars are small air bubbles<< We let our honey sit in a bottling tank for a few days. The honey is so thick that air bubbles, dead bees, pieces of wax and whatever else gets into the honey floats to the top. We skim all that off and then bottle. = Bottles seem to be free of everthing except honey using this method. No heat is required saving energy and you don't have to do as much work othe= r than cleaning the honey tank. Besides, you have the added advantage of labeling your honey raw if you don't heat it. Of course alot of beekeepe= rs who heat their honey still call it raw. I have to look at myself in the mirror every morning. Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:09:42 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: Honey Containers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hubert Maringgele wrote: >>I have recently moved to Vancouver Island and need to find new supplier= s for honey containers. I prefer glass containers and am looking for suppliers= located in British Columbia. If you can help me out, please e-mail me at= mmarin@mail.island.net. Thankyou.<< Try Hodgson Bee Supplies in Burnaby. They are located very close to the Clarion Villa hotel where I recently stayed on a business visit to Vancouver. I checked them out and they seemed to have everything a beekeeper could want and then some. Their number is 604-294-1232. = Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:24:49 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Augustus C.Skamarycz" Subject: Re: Bee Stings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:10 PM 7/21/97 -0600, you wrote: >Yes I am new to beekeeping. I asked about shuffling frames and my lost >Queen problem and got great advice that made since. I put brood in lost >Queen hive and will check it in a week for cells. Thanks!! >Two things.. >1.) The upper side of my forearm swelled down my arm about 10 inches >from one sting and >my arm was hot. Is this normal ? > >2.) I have two suppers on top of a strong double brood.I had one supper >that they >were filling nicely so I took it off and put on an empty supper and then >put the filled but not >capped one back, but on top.This was 3 to 4 weeks ago The top one is now >filled and >capped. The lower one is about half way there. Should I harvest the top >one now and >replace it, or wait until the end of the season. This will be my first >year getting honey. >Thanks, Lawrence Cooke ( Colorado ) > > Your doing to much work. The Bees will fill the bottom super also, leave the top one on to give the bee's the sense that their reserve is increasing. If you take the super off to extract you have to keep it stored where moister will not enter. Honey will take on moister It is hygroscopic? . Meaning it will adsorb moister. Wait ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:32:59 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Augustus C.Skamarycz" Subject: Re: Supering Question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 04:07 PM 7/21/97 -0500, you wrote: >At 09:03 AM 7/21/97 -0400, you wrote: >>I have a couple of questions about supering for honey extraction. This >>is >>my first season, having installed bees in April. >> >>I only purchased and assembled 2 (medium) honey supers over 2 deep >>bodies. At this point, the bees have capped every frame in one of the >>supers. The second super seems to be about 1/3 capped but every >>frame is fully drawn and has lots of nectar in it. >> >>I live in Central Massachusetts >> >>Questions: >> >>1. Do the bees need an extra super? If so, how soon? > >Yes I would put another on immeaditly. > >I'm not sure >>when the peek >>honey flow is here, and didn't know if the honey production will drop >>off quickly soon >>or if it will continue for a while longer. Do the bees need more room? >>The hive population >>seems to be very high, each frame covered. > >They could probably use another brood chamber to keep swarming from happening. >> >>2. Can capped frames be removed and replaced with new foundation? > >Yes > >If >>so, can the >>capped frames be stored so that extraction can be done at a later time? > >I wouldn't store them moore than 4 or 5 days. >> >>3. How much honey should be left in the hive for the bees to overwinter? >> > >That depends on how your winters are. I overwinter in 2 brood chambers due >to some very cold wind chill temp, at times it gets 30 to 50 below 0. >> >>Thanks for the advice. >> > >Yes, super again leave filled supers above new supers, In central Mass you have a good flow of Purple Loosestrife on now until Mid to late august. Remember to treat for Varroa by the first of September or when you see the workers removing the Drome Pupas. You will see the outside you hive on the ground. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:15:03 +0000 Reply-To: Barry@Birkey.Com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Barry Birkey Organization: BIRKEY.COM Subject: Re: A lesson learned MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted Wout wrote: > And now for my question, how many bee stings is lethal? I know that one > bee sting can kill someone who is allergic. I'm not allergic, I suffer bee Hi Ted - Thanks for sharing your interesting story. I had a couple of interesting experiences myself this week along the same line. Friday, I got done with work early in the afternoon. I left the job site at 1:00 and went home. When I walked in the house, My oldest and youngest daughters were there but no wife and 7 year old son. When I asked for their where-a-bouts, I was told that they were at the hospital. Not the kind of words a father likes to hear! My daughter told me that my son had been stung on the foot and had an allergic reaction. I quickly changed and went to the hospital. When I got there, my son was sleeping and looked pretty good. He was hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. It turns out that it only took about 15 minutes for the allergic reaction to get to the serious stage. He had hives over half his body, skin was bright red, eyes and mouth were swollen and he itched all over. He has been stung by our honey bees several times before without much of a reaction. I guess this time it put him over the top. We now have two EpiPens on hand (one for here at the house and one to be with my son when away from the house) and I was told by the doctor that the next sting will more than likely have a worse reaction to him. I am now having to rethink my beekeeping situation. I would be interested to know if anybody on the list has had a similer experience to my son's and how have you coped with the allergy. Can one who has developed an allergy to bee stings become desensitized? Has anyone experienced this? As if this wasn't enough for one day, No sooner had we gotten home from the hospital when the power went out. We suddenly had one doozy of a storm upon us. I'm seeing rain and debris doing the horizontal thing so we all headed down to the basement. It turns out that a tornado hit down about a mile from us. Took on lady for a ride in her car up and 360 degrees around. She's fine. Anyway, I had two large limbs come down out back and both hit a hive. One fell over the 12,000 volt line and over the top of a hive and the other knocked over my biggest hive that has seven supers on it. The storm had let up a bit so I grabbed my suit and went to right the hive. Needless to say, they were a bit testy. Fortunately, they had the supers well stuck with propolis so everything was still pretty much together. I was only able to remove one super at a time and then back off for awhile as they would swell up out of the hive and give me a going over. I found out that a suit doesn't work as well when it's totally wet! Sticks to your skin so those stingers don't have far to travel. Finally got them back up on the stand and the cover on before the next round of hard rain came. I still can't believe that a fall like that only resulted in four combs pulling partially away from their frame. Poked them back in with the hive tool enough to be able to put them back in place. Still don't know if I have a living queen or not. The other hive had to wait for Edison to come by and turn the line off so the tree crew could bring it down. No damage to the hive. If you want to see grown men become real apprehensive and fearsome, make them have to work around a hive with bees flying everywhere. It was a good educational time for these men and I gave them all a bear of honey to which they were all pleased to get! I even had one of the Edison guys ask to see inside a hive. I decided my four frame nuc in a different location would be best at that time. He was really excited to see the comb with bees and had all kinds of questions. Goodness, I'm starting to write like Andy! ;>) Regards -Barry -- Barry Birkey West Chicago, Illinois USA barry@birkey.com http://www.birkey.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:11:34 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Fernihough Subject: Vancouver Island Bee Supplies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Can I suggest you look in the yellow pages in your area under Beekeeping. There is a store in Nanaimo that handles bee supplies, and another large feed and agricultural store in Victoria, I believe on Quadra Street, that sells bee supplies. Hodgson Bee supplies in Burnaby, is another resource. These places may or may not sell honey containers marked as such so you may have to make your own labels and buy canning jars. Probably won't cost that much more. 0000,0000,ffffW. J. Fernihough (Bill, billfern@istar.ca Engineer, Beekeeper, Computer Nerd ffff,0000,0000All things cometh to he who waiteth if he worketh like hell while he waiteth. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 22:30:38 -0800 Reply-To: beeman@Alaska.NET Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom & Carol Elliott Organization: Home Subject: Re: Baggie Sugar Syrup Feeders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Faith Andrews Bedford wrote: > > How does one refille a baggie with a slit in it ? > A funnel slipped into the slit will allow easy refilling. -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Eagle River, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@alaska.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 02:47:07 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Sid Pullinger Subject: Wax moth. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 <<<>>>> Many beginners make the mistake of putting a small colony of bees into a large brood chamber. If you are using brood combs that have already been= bred in (cocoons and pollen present), unless those combs are covered with= bees the wax moths will move in and destroy them. A small package should= not be given more combs than it can cover. Note that a newly established= package will not start to increase until three weeks later when the firs= t new bees emerge. I also question the wisdom of starting a new colony on w= ax moth damaged combs. There may well be eggs and larvae present. Far wise= r to start with new foundation or clean combs. Sid P. = ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 02:47:13 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Sid Pullinger Subject: Drone comb MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 <<<< However, I cannot find a supplier who sells drone comb foundation anymore. I tried Dadant, Kelley, A.I.Root, and Man= n Lake and struck out. Anybody have any suggestions for finding drone foundation in the U.S?>>>> You don't need it. Let the bees make their own. If your brood combs are= in good shape, all worker cells and no patches of drone, you can concentrate all the drone brood on to one comb. I split a brood comb horizontally in two with a quarter inch strip of wood. The bottom half i= s fitted with worker foundation and the top half is given a half inch start= er strip fixed to the top bar. Invariably the bees will turn the top half into drone comb and fill with eggs. When capped this section is cut out,= leaving the starter strip for next time, and checked for mites. The comb= goes to the bird table and is quickly cleaned out. I normally use two su= ch combs for each hive, putting them in at intervals to get continuous production. Drone production here is from April to mid July so if your season is the same you have left it too late for this year. = If you raise your own queens and select fathers as well as mothers this i= s a good way to fill a hive with drones. You can still check for the presence of mites by doing a one in ten sampling instead of destroying th= e comb. Sid P. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:47:21 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: Re: A lesson learned (severe bee sting allergy) Comments: To: "Barry@Birkey.Com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Barry, I should first make it clear that I have no medical background, just a = history of allergies and allergy shots and a story similar to yours. = I'll pound on this point below, but a good allergist is really important = you would do well to spend some time finding one.=20 My middle son, Jesse, has been keeping bees with me for about 4 years = (he's almost 15 now) and has gotten a dozen or so stings in that time. = He never had any reaction other than local pain for 10-20 minutes until = a few weeks ago when he had an episode like the one you described for = your son. Jesse also ended up in the hospital with epinephrine subQ and = a benadryl IV drip for several hours to stabilize his pulse and = breathing and to get rid of hives (the rash, of course, not the boxes. = He gave the boxes to his sister the next week.) We have started him on = shots with a local allergist and expect it to take a couple of years to = get him to where he could safely keep bees again if he wants to. It's really important to get a good allergist to handle this. I've had = allergy shots for hayfever 2 different times several years apart. The = first was with a doctor who aparently didn't know what he was doing and = it never helped at all. The second time was remarkably effective. Quiz = your doctor until you feel confident that he or she is going to do the = right thing. Find out what provisions are on hand if a bad reaction = were to happen. (My doctor's front door is 75 feet from the emergency = room entrance to the local hospital.) Be prepared to wait a half hour = at the doctor's office after each shot to be sure there isn't a = reaction. The principle involved with the shots is that you start with a dose too = mild to cause a reaction. Then gradually you increase the dose, always = staying just barely under the reaction threshold until you are taking a = dose that wold kill a horse so to speak. With the effective treatments that I took, the first dose was almost as = clear as water and very small - just a few drops. By the time I = finished it was dark brown and about a tablespoon by volumn. One word = of caution in discussing this with allergists though. There is a school = of allergy therapy that always uses tiny weak doses and never pushes = your tolerance level. It has a spotty track record and you want to = steer clear of it. That school of thought is fond of the term = "threshold" and the word is a red flag with most reputable allergists. = In the right hands, desensitization will probably work very well for = your son. I don't know if his age is a factor or not. Jesse and I have also had to make a few adjustments in our beekeeping = practices. He has stopped altogether for the course of his allergy = shots, and I've made a few changes. We don't keep bees at home any = more, including the observation hive from his room. I'm also trying to = figure out where to store unused equipment to minimize the curious bee = flights around the back yard. There are still bees around, and that's a = good thing ( let's not lose our perspective here!) They are no more out = to get Jesse than they were before, and if we keep the epi-pen handy and = take reasonable precautions, everything should be fine. We aren't doing = anything extreme like pulling out the bushes in the yard that bees like = (My wife was thinking about it) because if the shots work, and they = almost always do if done right, this will be a temporary problem. On the = other hand, we've put any plans to plant really excellent bee forage on = hold for a while.=20 The other place I have had to rethink a few things is with my 4-H = project. I'm insured through 4-H but I don't relish the thought of = someone else's kid having a similar problem on my watch. I've taken = this opportunity to remind the kids and their parents that ANYONE can = develop a life threatening allergy to bees without warning like Jesse = did. For a couple of weeks after Jesse's episode, all the kids were = sure they were having a severe reaction, some even without getting a = sting! (The mind is a wonderful thing.) By the way, about one in 10,000 people have systemic life threatening = allergies to honey bees. And your doctor was probably right, the next = one will probably be worse and quicker than the first, so shots are a = really good idea. LOTS more people swell up, and most of them think = their swelling is life threatening. (Unless you get a sting in the back = of your throat it probably is not.) My allergist assures me that the = two reaction types are not at all predictive of each other. For = example, I swelled for a dozen years and never had a systemic reaction, = but Jesse never swelled before developing the systemic reaction, and of = course some people will have both reactions. Keep your chin up, find a remote yard for your bees and don't panic. = Your son can get a bee sting any time, whther you keep bees or not, so = don't carry the whole weight of the world on your shoulders about this. = Just get him the shots if he's old enough, make sensible adjustments, = and put up with a few added inconveniences where necessary and it should = work out fine. Michael ---------- From: Barry Birkey[SMTP:Barry@Birkey.Com] Sent: Monday, July 21, 1997 5:15 PM To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: A lesson learned Ted Wout wrote: > And now for my question, how many bee stings is lethal? I know that = one > bee sting can kill someone who is allergic. I'm not allergic, I = suffer bee Hi Ted - Thanks for sharing your interesting story. I had a couple of interesting = experiences myself this week along the same line. Friday, I got done with work early = in the afternoon. I left the job site at 1:00 and went home. When I walked in the house, = My oldest and youngest daughters were there but no wife and 7 year old son. When I = asked for their where-a-bouts, I was told that they were at the hospital. Not the kind = of words a father likes to hear! My daughter told me that my son had been stung on = the foot and had an allergic reaction. I quickly changed and went to the hospital. When I got there, my son was = sleeping and looked pretty good. He was hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. It = turns out that it only took about 15 minutes for the allergic reaction to get to the = serious stage. He had hives over half his body, skin was bright red, eyes and mouth were = swollen and he itched all over. He has been stung by our honey bees several times before = without much of a reaction. I guess this time it put him over the top. We now have two EpiPens on hand (one for here at the house and one to be = with my son when away from the house) and I was told by the doctor that the next = sting will more than likely have a worse reaction to him. I am now having to = rethink my beekeeping situation. I would be interested to know if anybody on the list has had = a similer experience to my son's and how have you coped with the allergy. Can one = who has developed an allergy to bee stings become desensitized? Has anyone = experienced this? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 04:11:52 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Subject: Re: Wax moth. In-Reply-To: <199707220247_MC2-1B56-1B56@compuserve.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > ................ I also question the wisdom of starting a new colony on wax > moth damaged combs. There may well be eggs and larvae present. Far wiser > to start with new foundation or clean combs. Sid P. If you got the freezer space, freeze the damaged combs. Any eggs or larvae will be destroyed. I don't know what the minimum time is; I leave them in overnight. Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:19:25 -0700 Reply-To: mister-t@clinic.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: A lesson Learned MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ted Wout wrote about his suit and bee stings. Another possibility is ibuprofen (advil). I read that there can be an allergic reaction from be stings if you are taking ibuprofen. Did not think much about it when my Dr. prescribed it for bursitis. Got stung and had my first allergic reaction since keeping bees- hives and a rash that came on all sun-exposed skin. It cleared up with anti-allergic treatments. I cannot be sure that it was not something else, like poison ivy, but would bet it was the ibuprofen. After I stopped taking it, the symptoms subsided. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 08:45:53 -0700 Reply-To: mister-t@clinic.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: transgenic pollen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maybe someone can help me out here. As I understand it, we are talking about gene manipulation to create a plant with "desired" characteristics. That is wrong according to the posts I have read. So Brother Adam is a bad guy for his gene manipulation with honey bees. And I am bad for breeding for winter tolerant bees. And all the seed companies are bad for breeding hardier, bug tolerant plants. And nature is bad for allowing genes to change in species to allow the species to accomodate to changing conditions. And to combat it in beekeeping, we should get beekeepers with AFB or varroa susceptible hives and put them near ones where the beekeeper is breeding for AFB or varroa resistance- because they are making transgenetic bees! If we do so, we can stop all transgenic bee experiments from succeeding. If what I have said is right, I'll try to do all I can to stop the terrible evil of transgenic bees. Anyone got some AFB? Varroa? Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:07:57 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Drone Comb Foundation U.S. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT BetterBee used to have drone comb foundation (not sure if they still do or not). I'm not sure if the number below is a local number (in which case the area code is 518) or if it's an 1-800 number. BETTER BEE: 692-9669 Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 16:22:39 +0300 Reply-To: pimapis@elia40.elia.eu.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: marian pintilie Organization: pimapis Subject: honey analysis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hello everyone these days I have done some analysis to my honey and two friends of mine.they give me the results and said that everything is ok,but no more. if anyone can give me some more hints about analysis , how to correlate the results and also which are the usual standards. myself i am used only with water percentage. the honey was extracted in may from accacia. sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 water 15.2 15.2 17.0 inverted sugar 73.5 72.5 71.5 saccharose 6.0 7.0 7.0 diastasic value 13.9 13.9 23.8 HMF 0.3 0.1 0.4 thanking everyone marian pimapis@elia.eu.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:28:03 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Dimensions for slatted bottom racks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 08:37:43 -0400 > From: "Keith B. Forsyth" > Subject: Re: slatted bottom racks > > Eugene E. Killion in _Honey_in_the_Comb_, describes a false bottom or > slatted rack.... It should be noted that the dimensions quoted from _H_i_t_C_ for slatted bottom racks go hand and hand with the dimensions for Killion's standard bottom board. The Killion slatted bottom rack sits within the bottom board, not on top of the bottom board. I'm not sure if Killion's bottom boards and slatted racks are the same dimensions as industry standard bottom boards and racks. I recall some variation, but I don't have the text here to verify. If you plan on building your own check the dimensions first. As always measure twice, cut once. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:51:10 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Hot air uncapping MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 12:31:36 +0100 > From: Mike Rowbottom > Subject: Hot air decapping > > Dear All > > I have recently tried de-capping comb using an electrically powered, > hand held, hot air blower originally designed for paint stripping.... My only concern here would be one of possible contamination. I'm not claiming any expertise on hot air blowers here, but I was immediately reminded of a product scare and subsequent recall on hair blow dryers which had an asbestos shield to heep the heat from building up into the handle. Asbestos particles escaped the shield and got blown into the user's hair. I'm not sure what was done to correct the asbestos shield problem and I don't know if paint stripper blowers have or had a similar design/problem or not, but I'd make sure to find out if I was planning on using a paint stripper as an uncapping tool. The propane torch as an uncapping tool certainly removes this concern, but for the time being I'll stick to my uncapping plane. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:36:27 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: Wax moth. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sid Pullinger wrote: > <<< damage.My three pound bees have cleaned and worked them into to good > shape but they are doing little to the outside ones so I moved them in > > two frames to get them to work them too. Is this a waist of time or is > > frame shuffling common practice.>>>>> > Many beginners make the mistake of putting a small colony of bees into > a > large brood chamber. If you are using brood combs that have already > been > bred in (cocoons and pollen present), unless those combs are covered > with > bees the wax moths will move in and destroy them. A small package > should > not be given more combs than it can cover. Note that a newly > established > package will not start to increase until three weeks later when the > first > new bees emerge. I also question the wisdom of starting a new colony > on wax > moth damaged combs. There may well be eggs and larvae present. Far > wiser > to start with new foundation or clean combs. Sid P. Reply to Sid PullingerI am in Colorado usa and have been reading watching and learning for two years now which makes me a beginer..This Bee-L is a gold mine to me.I can only find so much in the books. I was conserned that to build come from foundation would be to much work for a package of bees and was glad to get this extraced moth comb..Maby I am under estemating the bees ability to build comb. I cleaned the comb with an air compresser before I put it in the boxes. A lot of time spent.. Would like to here more about the bees ableilty to move in and build up.. I started with one hive this way last year and I now have ten. Someone on Bee-L said I am working to hard at it ! Thanks Lawrence Cooke > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:37:02 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Aaron Morris Subject: Re: A Lesson Learned Comments: To: Barry Birkey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Regarding concerns over developing systemic allergic reactions to bee stings, I have a bit of personal experience. I'll say up front that your results may vary. We all have different finger prints, we all have different reactions. I have been keeping bees since the mid-seventies and have had my share of stings. Usual reaction - pain, minor swelling, itching for a few days afterwards. Last summer, after working with the bees I was taking off my gear and did not notice the bee on my suit who ended up stinging me in the butt. First and only time in that location. About 5 minutes later I was in distress - heat flashes, sever itching over my entire body, hive from head to toe. I ended up in the emergency room, received a shot of cortozone and a few minutes later I was fine (although quite drousy). The doctor gave me a subscription for an Epi-pen, the number for an allergist and the STRONG suggestion that I find a new hobby. I got the Epi-pen, but wasn't ready to go to the allergist and wasn't willing to give up my hobby. Having received hundreds (thousands?) of stings with negligible reactions, I was quite surprised to have this severe reaction. I knew about developing reactions and all that, but always figured that was for other folks, not me. Well, I kept the Epi-pen near at hand but was eager to see how I would react to the next sting. It was a few weeks in coming, but when it arrived I had the usual reaction, nothing more. I have received many stings since, all with what is for me the usual reaction - pain, redness, itching, and now that I think about it, very little if any swelling. I'm certainly NOT advocating a cavalier attitude about bee stings, especially when one has had a severe reaction. However, I take exception with the standard recommendation that a single bad reaction be followed up with desensitising treatments from a certified, highly qualified (check them credentials and get second opinions) and probably expensive allergist, and by all means, get rid of those bees! There is always the possibility that the severe reaction was a fluke! Mine may have been due to the sensitive area in which I was stung, or it may have been a reaction in combination with some exotic food I ate the day before, or it may be the ibuprofin I took that morning, or it may indeed have been the first sign of a developing severe reaction to bee stings. I honestly can't say. But I certainly am glad I did not sell the farm (either literally or figuratively). My advice is to proceed with caution, but definitely proceed! I would hate to see such a good man leave beekeeping. Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:06:43 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank & Phronsie Humphrey Subject: Re: Ants and snakes in hives Comments: To: acuell@hooked.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable ---------- From: Armando G. Cuellar, Jr. To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: Ants and snakes in hives Date: Monday, July 21, 1997 11:32 PM Kriston M. Bruland wrote: > Hi Everyone, > > I visited all of my hives this past weekend and found uninvited guests > in two > of them. One hive had black carpenter ants underneath the outer > cover, on top > of the inner cover. They had chewed big holes in the inner cover and > were > working down into the super under it. I cleaned all of them out, > removing the > eggs and all the ants. The next day they were right back in, eggs and > all. > > Another hive had two snakes sunning on the front porch, probably > eating bees > too. They went right into the hive when I approached. I managed to > drive them > out with the smoker and they went off into the woods. The next day, > there was > a different (larger) snake which also went into the hive when it saw > me. The > bees completely ignored the snakes when they went in. Fortunately we > don't > have poisonous snakes in this area. > > Does anyone have any good ideas for getting rid of either? I have > never had > either of these in hives before. > > We had some good sunny weather on the weekend and I extracted about > 400 pounds > of blackberry honey! > > Thanks, > > Kris Bruland > Member of Mt. Baker Beekeepers Association > Bellingham, WA U.S.A. Dear Kris: Can't help you with the snakes, but I battled ants and hit upon the following solution. I put my hives on 3/4" plywood boards to which I attached four 4x4 posts. These I put in plastic tubs containing motor oil. The ants could not get across the moat of motor oil to climb the posts, and my bees have remained free of ants since. -- MZ=90 ---------- Insert !/2" mesh hardware cloth in the entrance. Won't keep out ants but it will keep out rodents and all but the smallest snakes. Frank Humphrey=20 beekeepr@cdc.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 09:57:33 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: John Volpe Subject: Re: transgenic pollen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bill, You are confusing selective breeding or "breeder manipulation" with "transgenic manipulation". To illustrate consider the following: You can selectively breed cold hardiness into your bee stock by selecting the hardiest individuals each generation as your brood source - if any perceptual change occurs it will take many generations. In the end you very well could achieve a "cold hardy" stock however these colonies will not be any more hardy than a "typical" cold hardy bee. You have shifted the average performance of your colonies towards the cold hardy end of the natural distribution. This is selective breeding (cold hardy bee mated with cold hardy bee). Now consider the transgenic route. Rather than going through continuous rounds of selective breeding, weeding out the less hardy queens and drones, we excise an antifreeze gene from an alpine moth species and integrate it into your bees - this being done in one generation. This is transgenics, synthesizing new genomes by integrating genes which express favorable characteristics (bee mated with moth) with dramatic changes in performance not possible through selective means. The practice is common place in the industrial microbial world - commercial preps of enzymes, yeasts, bacterial cultures etc. The public is becoming concerned because the technology has matured to the point that "higher" organisms are now being modified (no more of a danger, just more obvious). Winter flounder antifreeze genes have been introduced to cash crops to induce cold hardiness; herbicide resistance / pesticide expression genes incorporated into many crops (e.g. Monsanto's "Round-up Ready" Soy; Ciba Geigy's modified maize - altered to make it resistant to corn-borer and to increase its tolerance of certain herbicides), salmon and trout which have had the growth hormone gene switched permanently "on" resulting in 400% growth increase. The up-shot of all this is that the full impact of these technologies have not been worked out and the resultant products have gone into commercial production (i.e. out of the lab into the field with no safe guards or mechanism of regulation) in a climate of "all that matters is the bottom line". Below are a few of the major concerns along with a single reference for those who may with to follow up. Cheers, John Biotechnology Background and Hazards: Data on release of genetically engineered organisms in the USA. Union of Concerned Scientists, Gene Exchange, 5(2), 12, 1994; 5(1), 7, 1994. Toxic and Allergenic Effects: Identification of brazil-nut allergen in transgenic soybeans. Nordlee, J.A., Taylor, S.L., Townsend, J.A., Thomas, L.A. and Bush, R.K. The New England Journal of Medicine, pp 688-728, March 14, 1996. Environmental Damage to Soil Quality: The effects of genetically engineered micro-organisms on soil food-webs. Holmes, M.T., Ingham, E.R. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America (Supplement), 75, 97, 1994. Negative Impacts of Herbicide Tolerance: Environmental concerns with the development of herbicide-tolerant plants. Goldburg, R.J. Weed Technology, 6, 647-652, 1994. Ecological Risks of Gene Transfer to Wild Species: Foreign DNA sequences are received by a wild-type strain of Aspergillus niger after co-culture with transgenic higher plants. Hoffman, T., Golz, C. and Schieder, O. Curr. Genet. 27, 70-76, 1994. Negative Effects of the Use of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) in Cows: Unlabeled milk from cows treated with biosynthetic growth hormones: a case of regulatory abdication. Epstein, S.S., International Journal of Health Services, 26(1), 173-186, 1996. Risks of New Illnesses and Negative Effects of Trans-Species Gene Transfers: Ingested foreign (phage M13) DNA survives transiently in the gastrointestinal tract and enters the bloodstream of mice. Schubbert, R., Lettman, C. and Doerfler, W. Mol. Gen. Genet. 242, 495-504, 1994. At 08:45 AM 7/22/97 -0700, you wrote: >Maybe someone can help me out here. As I understand it, we are talking >about gene manipulation to create a plant with "desired" >characteristics. That is wrong according to the posts I have read. So >Brother Adam is a bad guy for his gene manipulation with honey bees. And >I am bad for breeding for winter tolerant bees. And all the seed >companies are bad for breeding hardier, bug tolerant plants. And nature >is bad for allowing genes to change in species to allow the species to >accomodate to changing conditions. >And to combat it in beekeeping, we should get beekeepers with AFB or >varroa susceptible hives and put them near ones where the beekeeper is >breeding for AFB or varroa resistance- because they are making >transgenetic bees! If we do so, we can stop all transgenic bee >experiments from succeeding. >If what I have said is right, I'll try to do all I can to stop the >terrible evil of transgenic bees. >Anyone got some AFB? Varroa? >Bill Truesdell >Bath, ME > > --------------------------------------------------------- John Volpe Dept. of Biology - Centre for Environmental Health University of Victoria PO Box 1700, Victoria, British Columbia, CANADA V8W 2Y2 TEL. (250) 721 7098 FAX. (250) 472 4075 jvolpe@uvic.ca http://web.uvic.ca/~jvolpe/ Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove. -- Ashleigh Brilliant ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:20:25 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: L M SMITH Subject: storing honey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: Lois Smith * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- We just removed four half frames of capped honey from our observation hive, now what do we do with it? Can it be frozen? We have never done this before. We were wondering about saving it for winter feeding of the bees. thanks, LM Smith ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:29:52 -0500 Reply-To: beeworks@muskoka.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: David Eyre Organization: The Bee Works Subject: Re: air bubbles In-Reply-To: <19970721204444363.AAA618@pondsite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 21 Jul 97 at 16:27, Walt Barricklow wrote: > need some help on how to filter out air bubbles in my honey jars. I > have a small extractor and let the honey flow into a large jar, > then heat some to get the honey to flow through a cheese cloth into > pint jars that have been boiled clean and dried. My honey is very > thick and flavorful, but at the top of the pint jars are small air > bubbles. WALT , pondsite@barnwellsc.com > My favorite method is to strain it out of the extractor into a large container, allow it to stand for 48 hours before bottling. I don't allow the level to get too low before topping up, that way the bottles stay bubble free. ******************************************* The Bee Works, 9 Progress Dr, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, L3V 6H1 Phone/fax 705-326-7171 David Eyre, Owner. http://www.muskoka.net/~beeworks ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 13:29:50 -0500 Reply-To: beeworks@muskoka.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: David Eyre Organization: The Bee Works Subject: Re: Drone Comb Foundation U.S. In-Reply-To: <199707211708_MC2-1B46-2A36@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 21 Jul 97 at 17:08, Rory Stenerson wrote: > I was thinking about trying Jan Templeman's Drone Comb Method and > reporting the results back to my club. However, I cannot find a > supplier who sells drone comb foundation anymore. I tried Dadant, > Kelley, A.I.Root, and Mann Lake and struck out. Anybody have any > suggestions for finding drone foundation in the U.S? This question has arisen before, and without blowing our trumpet too loudly, you didn't ask us!! We can supply Drone foundation in a number of sizes to fit standard and nonstandard hives in North America. These are narmally packed in 10s, but if you don't worry too much about cost and shipping we will supply just one sheet. There was also a post regarding self made drone comb. Yes, I agree the bees will make drone comb in a bare frame, but only if they want to. More often than not they will make worker, then the whole exercise is lost. Using drone foundation guarantees a full frame of drone cells. Placing this frame in the middle of the brood nest will produce drones all summer long. ******************************************* The Bee Works, 9 Progress Dr, Unit 2, Orillia, Ontario, L3V 6H1 Phone/fax 705-326-7171 David Eyre, Owner. http://www.muskoka.net/~beeworks ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:13:58 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rett Thorpe Subject: Excluder entrance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I am considering adding queen excluders to my two first year hives and was wondering if it would be a good idea (or is it standard practice) to drill a hole or some other opening above the excluder for the workers to enter and exit more easily? Thanks for your replies on this matter. Rett Thorpe Salt Lake City, Utah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:07:49 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom Speight Subject: Whatever Happened to...? In-Reply-To: <17403638322413@systronix.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Looking through the Bee-L archives for 1993, I noticed two (at least) interesting points that may have been dealt with in later years, but I have not seen the replies. 1) In May '93, USDA recommended three breeders to propogate the Yugoslavian bee in the hope of breeding a varroa resistant strain. 2) Around the same time, some one had supposedly found a cure for AFB and EFB based on the fungus ascosphera apis that causes chalk brood. Could someone bring me up to date, or are these two more good ideas that have fallen by the wayside? -- Tom S South Cumbria (Lancashire really) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:41:31 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom Speight Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 20 Jul 1997 to 21 Jul 1997 In-Reply-To: <869544332.0614541.0@uacsc2.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <869544332.0614541.0@uacsc2.albany.edu>, Automatic digest processor writes >Aaron Morris wrote: >> >> The discussion of width of hive opening has touched on ventillation, >> which has also been discussed a bit on this list. Ventilation is not the same as draught. How many of you open a window for ventilation, but find there's a draught if someone opens a door at the same time? A friend of mine (also a beekeeper) lives in an old house with bee-boles (for the unknowing, recesses in walls where straw skeps were kept out of the rain and other inclement weather). In the cellar of the house were found 'bee slates' that the hives stood on. These are usually made of wood, but being about 800 meters from the largest slate quarry in Europe, it must have been easier to use the local materials. From memory, the slates are about 450-500mm in diameter, with a lip for the bees to land on. The unusual thing about them is that they have a hole about 150mm diameter in the centre. No one knows what the holes are for, but bottom ventilation would seem a good bet. Any other suggestions for them? -- Tom Speight ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 19:12:38 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James D Satterfield Subject: Queen Rearing in TBH's MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I've added a link on the homepage of the tbh beekeeping website that goes to a page on "queen rearing in top bar hives". The link is also in "What's New" on the homepage. The queen rearing page is 117K so it takes a while to load at 14.4, but it does have 9 photos. There is also a link to a larger, annotated photo (61K) that is a top bar with a queen cell. This photo is a .jpg and is from a CD-ROM photo. This is the first time I've put .jpg files on my page. Should any of you visit the site and have trouble with your browser and .jpg files, I'd appreciate your letting me know. I'm indebted to many of you who supplied information to me on queen rearing. Many thanks. If tbh beekeeping is your cup of tea, or if you're just curious, drop by http://www.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm for a visit. If you find any of the information to have errors, or if you would like to suggest alternatives which work for you, I'd like to hear from you. Hope honey is pouring in for you if it's that time of the year for you. If you're operating for pollination, I hope your bees are surviving the perils of indiscriminate pesticide usage. Cordially yours, Jim ---------------------------------------------------------------- | James D. Satterfield | E-Mail: jsatt@gsu.edu | | 258 Ridge Pine Drive --------------------------------| | Canton, GA 30114, USA Canton is about 40 mi/64 km | | Telephone (770) 479-4784 north of Altanta, Georgia USA | | | | TBH Beekeeping Website: http://www.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm | ---------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:30:40 -0500 Reply-To: lawrence@the-link.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Lawrence W. Thompson" Subject: Bees going blind in New Zealand MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those beekeepers who have access to the Internet, a stroll through the radio talk show web page of Art Bell might be in order. His URL address is: http://www.artbell.com Go to the July 19th Transcript of Bell's talk with Ed Dames. In this transcript, Dames, a former member of the US Army's "Remote Viewing Team" (meaning a so-called psychic) discusses the coming global economic collapse fueled by drastic changes in weather and by massive starvation. To support his case, Dames postulates that because the flowers in New Zealand are rapidly changing color, so fast, in fact that the ability of the honeybee to find the flower and pollinate it is being weakened and eventually destroyed. This means that our food supply will diminish and the world will starve. Dames went on to suggest a scenario that a food starved country who posessed nuclear weapons might point them at China at blackmail the US into providing food for the distressed country. All this because of the honeybees inability to adapt to color changes in flowers. Read it for yourself on Bell's web page. Absolutely incredible!!!!! Lawrence ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 00:26:55 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: crazy project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I've been working with a friend to keep up with the local swarm calls = and we got a fairly routine call the other day for a free hanging colony = under a tree branch. It's a nice little colony about 6 combs across and = 12 inches wide by 18 inches long. It's hanging about 25 feet up in a = locust tree directly over the northbound lane of a moderatly busy = residential street. Suddenly it's not so routine any more - the kind of situation I usually = decide will take care of itself without my help. But my partner has some pretty good connections among the local public = servants, and has managed to get the city arborist to schedule a morning = for us to go up in the cherry picker and bring it down a week from = Friday. Well, ok then. I'm game for something new and different. We've been working on the details, and have come up with an ambitious = plan to try to preserve the colony as much as possible in its original = form rather than binding chunks of brood comb into frames. Our current = thinking is that we can build a modified top bar hive and transfer the = existing comb from the branch to the top bars. The trick is to securely = attach the comb to the top bars. What we hope to do is to coat the = surface of the top bar with wax, cut a comb from the tree, carefully = turn it upside down, melt the wax on the top bar with a propane torch = and press the comb into the melted wax. Then, when it's cool, turn it = right side up and hang it in the hive. All this of course with bees and = brood in place on and in the comb. I don't actually know if it will = work. I don't know how defensive these bees are. I don't know how well = the wax will bond. I don't know how well the cherry picker operation = will go. It should be fun. I'll post the results here. In the mean time, if anyone out there has experience along these lines, = or ideas to offer, we're open to suggestions. Michael ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:03:54 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Bee sting allergies Hi all I have seen a few posts on the bee sting line again. I am a person who is blessed/cursed with a number of food allergies and have a brother who had an allergy to his own platelets (life threatening problem) so as a result have had to do a lot of background research about the immune system to be able to have an easy time. My first discovery is that doctors are of no use when it comes to allergy problems. You need a person who has actually specialised in the functioning of the immune system. GP's know next to nothing about this from their training. That is not to say that a good GP will not have learned, but most will just try to prescribe an antihistamine, a anti-depressant or mixture to hide the symptoms. This is faster, and more profitable than finding the effects. With bee stings it is different as this is life threatening. When we are stung by a bee a number of chemicals (both protein and other) enter the blood system. The body recognizes them as foreign and cells in the immune system that can bind to those specific poisons begin to stimulate the production of antibodies to the poisons. If you are stung again, the poisons are now coated with these antibodies, but because you have not been highly sensitised the reaction will be small. Few antibodies have been produced and so few bind. Each antibody which binds is capable of binding the poison antibody complex to a cell called a mast cell. This cell contains histamine which is released and causes swelling and the smooth muscle symptoms we all know. If you have a lot of antibodies to bee venom and get stung, the amount of histamine released will be huge and can be life threatening. Naturally, this is a stupid system as it would not make sense for ones immune regulatory mechinisms to kill one fast, so we have cells called regulator t cells, similar to the helper t cells killed by HIV, that can control the histamine response and reduce the symptoms. That is when you are protected. So, to be resistant to bee stings you must keep a healthy population of regulator t cells, so get stung a few times a month and you are safer than if you get stung a few times a year. Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray "Opinions expressed in this post may be those 15 Park Road of Pritz, my cat, who knows a lot about Grahamstown catfood." 6140 *garth@rucus.ru.ac.za* South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 In general, generalisations are bad. But don't worry BEEEEEE happy. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 03:32:45 -0800 Reply-To: beeman@Alaska.NET Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom & Carol Elliott Organization: Home Subject: Re: Wax moth. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > > I started with one hive this way last year and I now have ten. > Someone on Bee-L said I am working to hard at it ! > Thanks Lawrence Cooke Lawrence, It is only too much work if you don't enjoy it. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Eagle River, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@alaska.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 22:28:10 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: air bubbles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I need some help on how to filter out air bubbles in my honey jars. I have a >small extractor and let the >honey flow into a large jar, then heat some to get the honey to flow >through a cheese cloth into pint >jars that have been boiled clean and dried. My honey is very thick and >flavorful, but at the top of the >pint jars are small air bubbles. When honey is poured warm through a filter there are air bubbles throughout the honey. These will disappear over 24 hours. I wonder whether you have air bubbles or froth. There are some honeys which are noted for froth. In Australia, some of the mallee eucalypts appear to continually have a layer of froth even after packing. This does not indicate lack of quality or poor handling. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Glen B. Glater" Subject: One more about Ulee's Gold FYI http://www.mgm.com/uleesgold ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:08:09 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Subject: multi-egg cells Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII One frame has a small patch (15-20 square inches) of cells containing multiple eggs (2-4). The hive has a queen; she lays lots of seemingly normal eggs in seemingly normal cells; there is no sign of her failing nor of supercedure. Is she laying the multiple eggs or is there a laying worker in there with her? Facts that may help you form an opinion: - The hive came from a 3lb. package (7 weeks ago). - The packaged queen, after leaving her cage, disappeared. Eggs were never laid. - I gave them a frame of eggs from which they raised the queen (6 weeks ago). - Queen is 1 month old. - There aren't many bees (about three frames worth). I'm not worried about this since the queen is still relatively new. Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:56:54 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Subject: Tight Brood Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII One of my queens lays few eggs. She keeps them in a tight brood pattern, but barely expands it. As a result, there are few bees which, at this time of year, has me alarmed. The queen came from a new package about 2 months ago. She laid normally until I stole a frame of eggs to give to a queenless colony (see my other message entitled "multi-egg cells"). Since then, she (to use a bit of anthropomorphism) seems afraid of laying too many eggs. What happened to her? Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:03:12 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Stewart Beattie Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 20 Jul 1997 to 21 Jul 1997 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=ISO-8859-1 On Tue 22 Jul, Tom Speight wrote: > In message <869544332.0614541.0@uacsc2.albany.edu>, Automatic digest > processor writes > >Aaron Morris wrote: > >> > >> The discussion of width of hive opening has touched on ventillation, > >> which has also been discussed a bit on this list. > > Ventilation is not the same as draught. How many of you open a window > for ventilation, but find there's a draught if someone opens a door at > the same time? > A friend of mine (also a beekeeper) lives in an old house with bee-boles > (for the unknowing, recesses in walls where straw skeps were kept out of > the rain and other inclement weather). > In the cellar of the house were found 'bee slates' that the hives stood > on. These are usually made of wood, but being about 800 meters from the > largest slate quarry in Europe, it must have been easier to use the > local materials. > >From memory, the slates are about 450-500mm in diameter, with a lip for > the bees to land on. The unusual thing about them is that they have a > hole about 150mm diameter in the centre. No one knows what the holes are > for, but bottom ventilation would seem a good bet. > Any other suggestions for them? > > -- > Tom Speight > > Mabee toilet seats tom?? Stewart Cumbria, UK. (an old Gable-Endie) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 18:42:52 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: multi-egg cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Conrad Sigona wrote: > One frame has a small patch (15-20 square inches) of cells containing > multiple eggs (2-4). The hive has a queen; she lays lots of seemingly > normal eggs in seemingly normal cells; there is no sign of her failing > > nor of supercedure. > > Is she laying the multiple eggs or is there a laying worker in there > with her? > > Facts that may help you form an opinion: > - The hive came from a 3lb. package (7 weeks ago). > - The packaged queen, after leaving her cage, disappeared. Eggs were > never laid. > - I gave them a frame of eggs from which they raised the queen (6 > weeks ago). > - Queen is 1 month old. > - There aren't many bees (about three frames worth). I'm not worried > about > this since the queen is still relatively new. > > Conrad Sigona > conrad@ntcnet.com I have been told that once a hive has gone to the laying worker stage that the bees willnot except a new Queen and is best to join that hive with another. However if your hive raised a queen then it didn't (go worker). I recently learned that it might have been best to add the young brood to give them something to do and then order and install a new queen.The brood would also help with population. Sound like a confused queen that may need some psychotherapy good luck, Lawrence Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:13:10 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Subject: Re: multi-egg cells In-Reply-To: <33D6A50B.A508CED5@sisna.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > I have been told that once a hive has gone to the laying worker stage > that the bees willnot except a new Queen and is best to join that hive > with another. However if your hive raised a queen then it didn't (go > worker). > I recently learned that it might have been best to add the young brood > to give them something to do and then order and install a new queen.The > brood would also help > with population. Sound like a confused queen that may need some > psychotherapy I think you're right. Today I decided to watch the queen carefully to see if I could catch her laying multiple eggs. What I found was that she laid normally for a while and then took a walk. While walking around and without putting her rear into a cell, she dropped an egg. It seemed almost accidental. If she's dropping accidental eggs here and there, this would explain the multiple egg cells to some extent. What it doesn't easily explain is how the dropped eggs go into cells and not down on the floor. When I was watching her, I held the frame parallel to the ground so when she dropped the egg, it went down into a cell. However, in normal operation, the cells are not beneath her. What happens to cells with multiple eggs? Does a worker clean out the extras? Does the queen go back and notice her mistake? Do multiple larvae fight it out? Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:29:10 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: multi-egg cells MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Conrad Sigona wrote: > > One frame has a small patch (15-20 square inches) of cells containing > multiple eggs (2-4). The hive has a queen; she lays lots of seemingly > normal eggs in seemingly normal cells; there is no sign of her failing > nor of supercedure. > > Is she laying the multiple eggs or is there a laying worker in there > with her? > > Facts that may help you form an opinion: > - The hive came from a 3lb. package (7 weeks ago). > - The packaged queen, after leaving her cage, disappeared. Eggs were > never laid. > - I gave them a frame of eggs from which they raised the queen (6 weeks ago). > - Queen is 1 month old. > - There aren't many bees (about three frames worth). I'm not worried about > this since the queen is still relatively new. Hi Conrad, Their population is down because no replacements have emerged. In about 1 or 1 1/2 weeks new bees will emerge and the population will rise. I hope there is enough time to get them into wintering condition. I have seen the muti egg/droping egg thing in mating nucs. These queens are usually superceded, I think they are defective. As I have mentioned before, forcing bees to raise emergency cells is a poor way to raise queens. I would get a new one ASAP. I read your second post too. Its normal for pakage bees to get weaker before they get stronger. Removing those eggs may have delayed the upswing. If these colonies don't improve by late Aug. you might consider uniting them. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:18:29 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Crowding Bees Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This kind of information is hard to get out of the books so I am asking Bee-L On starting a new hive is it better to keep them crowded for a month or so (in one brood box) or should I give them plenty of room. Keep them crowded always ? I keep thinking of what natural bees do when they move into abandon tree hives. I've herd bees get depressed, overwhelmed, happy! I was thinking of going to L.A. to see if I could find a good bee psychologist . Thanks L.Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 23:26:15 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Alaska Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We are thinking of moving from Colorado to Alaska. How is the bee keeping there. Is there a long enough season. Will I be able to move my 10 hives with me.. Thanks L Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 01:51:01 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Sid Pullinger Subject: Excluders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 <<<>>>> It is definitely not standard practice in my part of the world. Your bee= s will deposit their pollen in the supers instead of in the brood chamber where ii is needed and the wax moth will have fun with your supers when i= n store. I have seen queen excluders referred to as honey excluders. This= is a nonsense. According to history the first excluder was invented in 1849 and since then bees have had no difficulty in getting through them. = If you are happy with pollen in supers and trouble with wax moth then use= a top entrance. I doubt that it will have any effect on your honey harvest= =2E = Sid P. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 01:42:34 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Beesting Reactions (Was:A lesson learned) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > ...I am now having to rethink my beekeeping situation. I would be > interested to know if anybody on the list has had a similer experience > to my son's and how have you coped with the allergy. Can one who has > developed an allergy to bee stings become desensitized? My son showed a genereal allergic reaction when he was about five and we had to rush him to the hospital. When we got there he seemed to be getting better, so we waited a while outside and did not go in. He went through a series of shots and later became as immune as anyone. I don't know if the shots worked or whether it was his habit of walking barefoot through the honey house and getting tiny stings on the thick skin of his feet that cured him. He's now 25 and works with us full time on the bees. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 14:31:58 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Beesting Reactions (Was: A Lesson Learned) In-Reply-To: <970722.115259.EDT.SYSAM@cnsibm.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > ...Last summer, after working with the bees I was taking > off my gear and did not notice the bee on my suit who ended up stinging > me in the butt. First and only time in that location. About 5 minutes > later I was in distress - heat flashes, sever itching over my entire > body, hive from head to toe. I ended up in the emergency room... I've noticed that different parts of the body react differently and parts that are stung often soon get so there is no reaction there, yet other, less experienced parts may still swell and itch on being stung. In apitherapy it is claimed that the precise locating of points to be stung is critical to success. I suspect that failure of apitherapy in some cases may well be due to inaccurate work, since comparisions are sometimes made to acupuncture, and in acupuncture no one thinks that you can just stick a needle in anywhere and get the desired result. It seems to me that immunity to bee stings has a somewhat local character, and that even after general immunity is achieved, some parts of the body may not have 'heard' about it. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 01:55:20 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Crowding Bees In-Reply-To: <33D6E5A5.29F48293@sisna.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > On starting a new hive is it better to keep them crowded for a > month or so (in one brood box) or should I give them plenty of room... This depends on many things: Time of year, size of split, presence or absence of flow, coldest weather expected, where you live, etc. Generally speaking, small hives (nucs should be confined to a space they can control in terms of humidity and temperature and that they can defend from wax moths and predators as well as other bees, but which permits them to expand and contains sufficient feed to carry them from one visit to the next. Larger hives during flow conditions and warm weather should be given about twice the space they appear to actually need. Sufficient openings for ventillation must be available in case the weather gets hot, while they should still be confined sufficiently that they do not withdraw from the supers during a cold night or rainy day due to cold. In the fall, when flows are unlikely large colonies should be reduced to two standard supers or less for wintering. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 02:39:34 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Excluders In-Reply-To: <08195710434099@systronix.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >> I... was wondering if it would be a good idea (or is it standard >> practice) to drill a hole or some other opening above the excluder for >> the workers to enter and exit more easily? > It is definitely not standard practice in my part of the world. Your > bees will deposit their pollen in the supers instead of in the brood > chamber... Here in Alberta, we do have some holes in supers above excluders and have never found much, if any, pollen in the supers. We have almost always used excluders and found that anytime we left them off that our work increased drastically and the crops were smaller. The main disadvantage of too many holes in a hive is that bees do not store honey as well near entrances, and that moreover draughts may cause the bees to withdraw to the brood chambers during a cool spell. These effects can result in earlier capping and thinner combs as well as less honey being stored in the supers. Another disadvantage is that -- under some conditions -- the bees will be very unpleasant to remove using a blower, since they are used to flying from a hole in a tall white thing and, when you have taken the hive apart and are trying to blow out bees you are the tallest white thing around :) Although we have played with various ventillation schemes and entrances for access to the supers over the last quarter century, we have concluded that two 1" auger holes in each brood chamber and a wide open entrance at the floor give very good results. I'm not even sure that the wide open entrance is necessary and was intrigued by Vince's recent post. As far as the bees getting through excluders is concerned, it is seldom a problem with strong hives. The only warning here is that the brood chambers must not exceed two standards in volume. If the broods are made of three or more standards, the bees may find they have enough honey storage below the excluder, become honey bound, and never go through. If a single standard brood box is used, excluders are no impediment at all. We feel that *reversing* doubles before adding the excluder is very wise. Although most hives will go through anyhow, having brood in contact with the excluder's lower surface makes the combs above much more interesting to the bees. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:20:53 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: OAKES DAVID W Subject: Bee in Tree MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Help, I know that this was discussed somewhat in the past. I have been called to attempt to remove some bees form a tree. I have not seen the site at this time but in discription it sound like a small hole. The question is how is the best way to attempt to remove the bees? I understand that they have just arrived-like yesterday- thanks in advanced for any help in this task. Dave in Indiana oakes.d@lilly.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 22:22:28 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Tight Brood Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >One of my queens lays few eggs. She keeps them in a tight brood pattern, >but barely expands it. As a result, there are few bees which, at this >time of year, has me alarmed. > How is the nectar supply? Laying is a hive activity not a decision by the queen. When fresh nectar and pollen are being brought into the hive this is the trigger for increased laying. If other hives at the same location have a significantly greater amount of brood I suggest requeening the slow hive. Searching for motives is a fascinating pastime but building hive populations fast is the way to get honey. Betty McAdam. HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: storing honey Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >We just removed four half frames of capped honey from our observation >hive, now what do we do with it? Can it be frozen? >We have never done this before. We were wondering about saving it for >winter feeding of the bees. Yes, before storing I recommend freezing overnight to destroy wax moth infestation and then storing in a wax moth free area until needed. Honey itself does not freeze and is undamaged by exposure to cold. You could place the frames in a plastic garbage bag and seal after freezing to protect from wax moth. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Excluder entrance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I am considering adding queen excluders to my two first year hives and >was wondering if it would be a good idea (or is it standard practice) to >drill a hole or some other opening above the excluder for the workers to >enter and exit more easily? Thanks for your replies on this matter. Extra entrances always risk robbing as the bees have a further entrance to defend and this is a weakness. I have never seen any advantage in permanently creating an extra entrance - in extremely hot weather there is a presumed advantage to extra air circulation and some beekeepers move the super slightly off centre or prop it on a sliver of wood to provide a temporary entrance and save crowding in the brood box. Again there is a risk of robbing and supervision of the hive activity is necessary. I have never found it necessary - if bees have access to water they can cool even a populous hive with several supers very effectively. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: multi-egg cells Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >One frame has a small patch (15-20 square inches) of cells containing >multiple eggs (2-4). The hive has a queen; she lays lots of seemingly >normal eggs in seemingly normal cells; there is no sign of her failing >nor of supercedure. > A vigorous queen will lay multiple eggs if she is deprived of adequate laying space. The bees will clear out these cells as rejects and the queen will lay again. The symptom of a laying worker is individual laid cells spaced apart which develop into drone cells. Make sure the queen has drawn worker comb next to the brood to lay in and see what develops. Betty McAdam. HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam From: Barry Birkey Organization: BIRKEY.COM Subject: Use of Epinephrine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I appreciate all the replies regarding your experiences with sting allergies. I would be interested to know if any of you who have purchased an EpiPen after having had a severe reaction have ever had to use it assuming you have been stung since. So far it seems that the experience has not necessarily been a more severe reaction that followed. While I would be less expectant about a terrible reaction to happen next if it was me, I am a bit more apprehensive of my son's next bee sting. Feel free to email me directly. Regards -Barry -- Barry Birkey West Chicago, Illinois USA barry@birkey.com http://www.birkey.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:51:40 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Midnite Bee Subject: beeswax seller?/Ill.or Wisconsin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit www.cybertours.com/~midnitebee Greetings!! Can anyone in Illinois or Wisconsin help this gentleman? Thanks,Midnitebee(Herb) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- George Papagiannes Wed Jul 23 15:22:51 1997 Location: Naperville, Illinois E-mail: GEOPAPAS@msn.com or aol.com Comments:Your website is helping me locate beeswax sellers. Do you have any ideas about how to locate the same vendors in Illinois and Wisconsin? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 11:54:37 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Provost,Norm (NFSPOST1)" Subject: Newbee Trials and Tribulations Perhaps a new beekeeper might benefit from this tale of experience, or one of the many veterans out there would care to comment. I'm a second year beekeeper in northeast USA (Rhode Island). Two strong hives started in the Spring of 1996 from 5-pound packages (Italians) had yet to produce one drop of surplus honey as of July 11, 1997, i.e. nearly two seasons later. Seemed odd to say the least. All equipment was new and properly assembled in May 1996, with two deep brood chambers devoted to each colony as a base. Other than a very few borrowed frames with honey and drawn comb scattered in each colony to *get them going*, all frames were undrawn Pierco one-piece plastic frames. The bees were fed syrup, and queen excluders topped by medium honey supers (no drawn frames; only undrawn Pierco frames) were placed on top of the brood chambers several weeks after starting. By mid-august 1996, I removed the honey supers. There was extremely little drawn comb in the honey supers and no surplus honey at all. The deep supers had plenty of drawn comb and honey; also the colonies appeared healthy. I was pleased that they were well equipped for the winter. Needless to say, I was very optimistic when both colonies emerged strong in the Spring of 1997. However, when I saw very little drawn comb and no honey in the honey supers by July 11, I knew something was wrong. Based on tidbits of information I gained from this list over the months, I removed the excluders and began to feed syrup again. Lo and behold, on July 19 I re-examined the hives and found perhaps six frames in each honey super had fully drawn comb and considerable honey (and/or syrup?). Only problem was that there was also a large amount (approx. 35%) of *bridge comb* perpendicular to the frames and connecting the frames. I subsequently removed all the comb that was going the wrong way. I think I'm on the right track, but I'll have to re-install the excluders by August 1 (the latest) if I see any brood in the honey supers. I'm hoping for the best when I re-examine this weekend. Thanks to all on the list who have helped me indirectly! Cheers. Norm Provost, Burrillville R.I. (USA) Engineer, Homebrewer, BeeKeeper-wannabee ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 10:22:37 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rett Thorpe Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Norm, I am only a first year beekeeper myself, so understand that anything I say comes from very little experience. However, I have heard that you should leave the excluder off until the bees have a good start on drawing out the comb. Otherwise they will never pass through the excluder to start drawing it out. Your message sounded like you put on the excluder when you added the super of undrawn foundation (is that correct?). I dont know if this is the cause of your lack of honey, but something to think about anyway. Replies from someone who has a bit more experience and knowledge would be appreciated. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 12:45:58 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank & Phronsie Humphrey Subject: Re: crazy project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- From: Michael Reddell To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: crazy project Date: Wednesday, July 23, 1997 3:26 AM I've been working with a friend to keep up with the local swarm calls and we got a fairly routine call the other day for a free hanging colony under a tree branch. It's a nice little colony about 6 combs across and 12 inches wide by 18 inches long. It's hanging about 25 feet up in a locust tree directly over the northbound lane of a moderatly busy residential street. Suddenly it's not so routine any more - the kind of situation I usually decide will take care of itself without my help. But my partner has some pretty good connections among the local public servants, and has managed to get the city arborist to schedule a morning for us to go up in the cherry picker and bring it down a week from Friday. Well, ok then. I'm game for something new and different. We've been working on the details, and have come up with an ambitious plan to try to preserve the colony as much as possible in its original form rather than binding chunks of brood comb into frames. Our current thinking is that we can build a modified top bar hive and transfer the existing comb from the branch to the top bars. The trick is to securely attach the comb to the top bars. What we hope to do is to coat the surface of the top bar with wax, cut a comb from the tree, carefully turn it upside down, melt the wax on the top bar with a propane torch and press the comb into the melted wax. Then, when it's cool, turn it right side up and hang it in the hive. All this of course with bees and brood in place on and in the comb. I don't actually know if it will work. I don't know how defensive these bees are. I don't know how well the wax will bond. I don't know how well the cherry picker operation will go. It should be fun. I'll post the results here. In the mean time, if anyone out there has experience along these lines, or ideas to offer, we're open to suggestions. Michael ---------- You don't have to go to so much trouble. Just get some cotton cord similar to butchers cord. Cut some brood comb to fit inside a frame. While holding the cut comb in the frame, wrap frame and comb, top to bottom several times and tie it off. The bees will attach the comb and remove the cord. They seem to hate having it in their nest. Find the queen ASAP cage her and put her in the new hive. The sooner you catch her, the sooner the bees will start moving in. Remove all remnants of the nest and if you have it soak it with honey robber or bee go. If you find the queen and get her in the hive, it is time for a little PR. Pick an good spot on the ground nearby spread a white sheet. Have the cherry picker operator lower you to that spot. Make it slow enough that the bees can leave a scent trail. Then place the hive on the ground and allow the bees to scent their sisters into the hive. Once this process has started, remove veil and gloves and explain the process to the crowd you are sure to draw. If the bees are completely calm, stand very close to the hive to one side while explaining. It there is a TV or newspaper photographer nearby, invite them to get close shots. the bees stand out nicely against the white sheet. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@cdc.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 18:35:53 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Leo Walford Subject: A Wandering queen - update First of all a big thank you to all those who proffered advice on my wandering, and subsequently vanished queen. Last week I ordered a new queen, as a follow-up inspection to the one I first described yielded no sign of a queen or eggs. It did yield a couple of queen cells which (wrongly, I soon realised) I destroyed. The advice I got immediately after that said: there's no option but to re-queen, so I ordered one last week, and installed her yesterday evening (still no sign of the old queen, no brood and a couple more queen cells which (rightly this time I hope) I destroyed. I now have to wait to see whether she takes. As I have only one hive (and have had that for less than six weeks) I was not able to provide the hive with a frame of brood, so I suspect there will be a hiatus while the new bees mature. In the meantime, I have a question if anyone has any views. 1. When I visited the hive yesterday to requeen, a fair number of bees were clustered outside on the front. It was rather warm and humid (more than that in my bee suit). 2. I put a super on some time ago, with a queen excluder. Although I do find a few bees up there, there does not seem to have been any comb drawn out or honey stored. There has been a lot of discussion recently about the reluctance of bees to draw comb the wrong side of an excluder and I am wondering whether I should remove the excluder. The points in favour I can think of are that it will give the bees more space (if the clustering outside is significant, that could be important) and that it'll encourage them to begin drawing the comb. The points against are that it will be a disruption of the hive while the queen is settling in and it will double the amount of space I have to look through to check whether she has settled in. Any suggestions or views would be appreciated. Thanks Leo Walford Central London ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:53:31 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Dave from Scranton Subject: Re: crazy project Comments: To: Michael Reddell In-Reply-To: <01BC96FF.3FCC1EE0@C11.hotcity.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII You're nuts! 8-} But good luck and it'll be interesting to hear what happens! ****************************************************************************** Dave D. Cawley, Maitre d' | The Internet Cafe | Scranton, Pennsylvania | (717) 344-1969 | dave@scranton.com | ****************************************************************************** URL => http://www.scranton.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:20:42 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Subject: Little Faces Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sorry to be a pest lately but I've got many problems all showing up at once. Among the older capped brood, there are some cells (about 20) which are uncapped and contain what look like pupae. I say it's a pupa because it's not a fully-formed bee and it's not a larva. To be precise, the "pupa" takes up the entire cell and I can see his little face (larva don't have faces) looking out. Questions: Who's uncapping the poor things and why? More facts: - the "pupae" are white; - they are not soft like larvae; - they don't move but I don't know if they're dead (I'll pull one out and check today); - the cell opening is smooth and circular; - there is no evidence of dead and rotting pupae; - there aren't many workers (3 frames worth); - over the course of a few days, there are about the same number of little faces (that is, is doesn't seem as if they are dying or as if more pupae are being uncovered; I'm going to start noting the positions rather than just the number); and - no workers are bothering the cells. Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 13:33:09 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: A Wandering queen - update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Leo Walford wrote: > First of all a big thank you to all those who proffered advice on my > wandering, > and subsequently vanished queen. > > Last week I ordered a new queen, as a follow-up inspection to the one > I first > described yielded no sign of a queen or eggs. It did yield a couple of > queen > cells which (wrongly, I soon realised) I destroyed. The advice I got > immediately > after that said: there's no option but to re-queen, so I ordered one > last week, > and installed her yesterday evening (still no sign of the old queen, > no brood > and a couple more queen cells which (rightly this time I hope) I > destroyed. I > now have to wait to see whether she takes. As I have only one hive > (and have had > that for less than six weeks) I was not able to provide the hive with > a frame of > brood, so I suspect there will be a hiatus while the new bees mature. > > In the meantime, I have a question if anyone has any views. > > 1. When I visited the hive yesterday to requeen, a fair number of bees > were > clustered outside on the front. It was rather warm and humid (more > than that in > my bee suit). > > 2. I put a super on some time ago, with a queen excluder. Although I > do find a > few bees up there, there does not seem to have been any comb drawn out > or honey > stored. > > There has been a lot of discussion recently about the reluctance of > bees to draw > comb the wrong side of an excluder and I am wondering whether I should > remove > the excluder. The points in favour I can think of are that it will > give the bees > more space (if the clustering outside is significant, that could be > important) > and that it'll encourage them to begin drawing the comb. The points > against are > that it will be a disruption of the hive while the queen is settling > in and it > will double the amount of space I have to look through to check > whether she has > settled in. > > Any suggestions or views would be appreciated. > > Thanks > > Leo Walford > Central London I am a new bee keeper of two years and have been on Bee-L for about a month long enough to see that I have a lot to learn but, I can answer this one I think.You don't need the top box at all if this is a new or small hive.Give them time to build up.I have two vary strong hives and haven't used an excluder yet .My bees may move up out of the second brood box at some point but they seem to want to stay below.An old bee keeper here in Colorado never uses excluders.I drill a 5/8 hole in my boxes for ventilation the bees will close it if they don't want it. Hope you Queen is good this time. Lawrence Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:05:41 -0700 Reply-To: mister-t@clinic.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Truesdell Subject: Re: Little Faces MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Conrad Sigona wrote: > - the "pupae" are white; > - they are not soft like larvae; Sounds like chalkbrood. The bees should clean them out of the cells. See if there are any in front of the hive. They look like mummified larva and are hard. They can also be yellow and have black. If they are there then it is a sure indicator of chalkbrood. It is generally known as a stress disease and will usually go away unless the hive is heavily infected which yours does not sound like it is. Some people re-queen, but it is very common with migratory beekeepers who live with it. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:53:37 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: chestnic Organization: B&I http://www.cvn.net/~chestnic Subject: Re: Little Faces MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Conrad Sigona wrote: > > Sorry to be a pest lately but I've got many problems all showing > up at once. > > Among the older capped brood, there are some cells (about 20) > which are uncapped and contain what look like pupae. I say it's > a pupa because it's not a fully-formed bee and it's not a larva. > To be precise, the "pupa" takes up the entire cell and I can see > his little face (larva don't have faces) looking out. > > Questions: Who's uncapping the poor things and why? > > More facts: > > - the "pupae" are white; > - they are not soft like larvae; > - they don't move but I don't know if they're dead (I'll pull > one out and check today); > - the cell opening is smooth and circular; > - there is no evidence of dead and rotting pupae; > - there aren't many workers (3 frames worth); > - over the course of a few days, there are about the same number of > little faces (that is, is doesn't seem as if they are dying or as > if more pupae are being uncovered; I'm going to start noting the > positions rather than just the number); and > - no workers are bothering the cells. > > Conrad Sigona > conrad@ntcnet.com since there are not that many workers it is probily the workers are busy doing other thing and just hasn't covered them over ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 15:58:20 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Walt Barricklow Subject: Re: Alaska MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Where in Alaska? I lived in Juneau for about 12 years. WALT pondsite@barnwellsc.com ---------- > From: Lawrence Cooke > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Alaska > Date: Thursday, July 24, 1997 1:26 AM > > We are thinking of moving from Colorado to Alaska. How is the bee > keeping > there. Is there a long enough season. Will I be able to move my 10 hives > with me.. > Thanks L Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:39:05 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jim Moore Subject: Surfing the web -> Patent 571247 :Self containing enclosure for protection from killer bees If you have never visited the US patent database this is patent might be a good introduction. Searches of the database for various apiculture related patents can be entertaining. I expect few have made money from most of the listed patents. The scanned pages of the patent are available for most recent patents. Visit: http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?patent_number=5571247 to see Patent 571247 :Self containing enclosure for protection from killer bees Searches for bee and hive hive and tool honey and frame yeild various patents. The database goes back to 1971. Happy surfing. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:39:06 -0400 Reply-To: conrad@ntcnet.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Organization: Conrad's Computers Subject: Re: Little Faces Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Among the older capped brood, there are some cells (about 20) > > which are uncapped and contain what look like pupae. I say it's > > a pupa because it's not a fully-formed bee and it's not a larva. > > To be precise, the "pupa" takes up the entire cell and I can see > > his little face (larva don't have faces) looking out. > > > > Questions: Who's uncapping the poor things and why? > since there are not that many workers it is probily the workers are busy > doing other thing and just hasn't covered them over Thanks for the response. If the workers were too busy to cover the larvae, would they turn into pupae anyway? I would have thought that they needed to spin a cocoon in a closed cell first. -- Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:40:13 -0400 Reply-To: dronebee@norfolk.infi.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "\\Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez" Organization: Independent non-profit research Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Provost,Norm (NFSPOST1) wrote: > Dear Friends: As a child (seems like ages ago) I used to tag along with a school teacher, also beekeeper, carpenter, food and meat canning expert, surveyor, etc. to whom I owe a great deal of my successes as a professional. My adopted private teacher was a "mine" of knowledge and immensely devoted to teaching. Many times I remember things that he would casually tell me while I watched him almost in a hypnotic trance as he worked his hives. The one that comes to mind now is "excluders exclude more than the queen." I did not know what he meant at the time but I surely can relate to it now. Sometimes I have thought that it is advantageous to allow the queen to take a few trips above the brood chamber to lay. It is the biggest inducement that the worker bees will have to visit the honey suppers. It also might be interpreted as a sign that there is no room for the queen to lay in the brood chambers. Replacing the end frames (which usually are full with honey) and placing them in the honey suppers above will also accomplish two things: 1. It will give the queen empty cells to lay and keep it from coming upstairs. 2. Those full frames will definitely entice the bees to move up to the honey supers. When the bees begin to form combs between the frames is a good indication that they want to work. They just need a little enticement and prodding from their human manager to dedicate that effort to production. This is nothing new and perhaps some will consider it a waste of time on this forum. Perhaps. But thinking about the many "tricks" that I learned from my old friend, I think not. Best regards. Dr. Rodriguez Virginia Beach, VA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 22:44:49 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom Speight Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 22 Jul 1997 to 23 Jul 1997 In-Reply-To: <869717120.055184.0@uacsc2.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <869717120.055184.0@uacsc2.albany.edu>, Automatic digest processor writes >No one knows what the holes are >> for, but bottom ventilation would seem a good bet. >> Any other suggestions for them? >> >> -- >> Tom Speight >> >> > >Mabee toilet seats tom?? Do they have slate toilet seats in Montrose Stewart?? -- Tom Speight ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:01:28 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: Alaska MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Walt Barricklow wrote: > Where in Alaska? I lived in Juneau for about 12 years. WALT > pondsite@barnwellsc.com > > ---------- > > From: Lawrence Cooke > > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > > Subject: Alaska > > Date: Thursday, July 24, 1997 1:26 AM > > > > We are thinking of moving from Colorado to Alaska. How is the bee > > keeping > > there. Is there a long enough season. Will I be able to move my 10 > hives > > with me.. > > Thanks L Cooke My wife is an RN ( nurse ) so we are thinking Eagle River or somewhere with in an hourof Anchorage.. I was wondering about the Bee season. I guess the long days in summer make up for the long winters?? It would be great to ask you some questions about Alaska without using Bee-L My e-mail is: glcooke@sisna.com If that sounds good to you just e-mail me. Thanks Larry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:19:42 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Brett D Bannon Subject: sweet clover seed Can anyone tell me a good seed company that sells White Blossom Sweet Clover seed (Melilotus albus). No one locally can find the seed (Colorado or New Mexico). Wanting around 100 lbs at a reasonable price. Brett D. Bannon bbannon@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:23:56 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Brett D Bannon Subject: alfalfa varieties Have raised alfalfa in the past and have noted that at different times honey bees like certain varieties better (or they like different blooming periods better??). Are there varieties that produce better for honeybees and are more attractive to them? Brett D. Bannon bbannon@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 18:55:24 -0400 Reply-To: "Glen B. Glater" Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Glen B. Glater" Subject: Re: sweet clover seed Comments: cc: bbannon@juno.com Brett D. Bannon said: >Can anyone tell me a good seed company that sells White Blossom Sweet >Clover seed (Melilotus albus). No one locally can find the seed >(Colorado or New Mexico). >Wanting around 100 lbs at a reasonable price. http://altavista.digital.com is your friend... It found http://www.alseed.com/ CLOVERS Big Berseem Medium Red Marathon Arlington Kura Ladino Crimson White Blosson Sweet Yellow Blossom Sweet Mammoth Alsike White Dutch For additional information on specific seed varieties and their characteristics, pricing, domestic shipment, and export options please contact: tom@alseed.com. You may also contact us by phone (800) 352-5247, (507) 373-3161 or FAX: (507) 373-7032. Our mailing address is: Albert Lea Seed House P.O. Box 127 Albert Lea, MN 56007 USA I never heard of this company before responding to your email, so if they suck don't blame me... Good luck... --glen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 16:15:47 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: John Day Subject: Re: sweet clover seed Comments: To: glen@midnight.com hi all, occasionally, i notice i get a lot of personally directed emails that are inadvertently sent to the entire list. this seems a good time to ask everyone to send their private responses directly to the person, and not to the list. thanks, john ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 22:39:08 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: Crowding Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > On starting a new hive is it better to keep them crowded for a month or > so (in one brood box) or should I give them plenty of room. Keep them > crowded always ? I prefer to put the second brood chamber on after the bottom is almost filled. But those with many colonies do not have time to keep checking on all the new col's. Very often, esecially if the weather is warm, we just put the nuc into a two story dead out. Works fine, the bees are'nt that fussy. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 20:14:21 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Fernihough Subject: multiple eggs Comments: cc: Conrad Sigona Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" I am willing to bet you have a laying worker co-existing with the queen. It is not unreported that two queen hives occur. They in fact do, and you can make it happen too, and I have had it happen quite by accident. It is however not the norm. My suggestion, ignore it, leave the hive alone and let it get on with business. You know you have a laying queen, even if she has a different approach, the bees will eventually look after it. They will likely supersede her before too long. Stay out of the hive and let mother nature take over.
0000,0000,ffffW. J. Fernihough (Bill), billfern@istar.ca Engineer, Beekeeper, Computer Nerd
ffff,0000,0000All things cometh to he who waiteth if he worketh like hell while he waiteth.
========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:29:54 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: Re: crazy project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BC9878.EFEB3D40" ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC9878.EFEB3D40 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No contest - and thanks for the encouragement! ---------- From: Dave from Scranton[SMTP:ddc1@www.scranton.com] Sent: Thursday, July 24, 1997 11:53 AM To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: crazy project You're nuts! 8-} But good luck and it'll be interesting to hear what happens! ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC9878.EFEB3D40 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 eJ8+IhgEAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAENgAQAAgAAAAIAAgABBJAG ADABAAABAAAADAAAAAMAADADAAAACwAPDgAAAAACAf8PAQAAAE8AAAAAAAAAgSsfpL6jEBmdbgDd AQ9UAgAAAABEaXNjdXNzaW9uIG9mIEJlZSBCaW9sb2d5AFNNVFAAQkVFLUxAQ05TSUJNLkFMQkFO WS5FRFUAAB4AAjABAAAABQAAAFNNVFAAAAAAHgADMAEAAAAYAAAAQkVFLUxAQ05TSUJNLkFMQkFO WS5FRFUAAwAVDAEAAAADAP4PBgAAAB4AATABAAAAHAAAACdEaXNjdXNzaW9uIG9mIEJlZSBCaW9s b2d5JwACAQswAQAAAB0AAABTTVRQOkJFRS1MQENOU0lCTS5BTEJBTlkuRURVAAAAAAMAADkAAAAA CwBAOgEAAAACAfYPAQAAAAQAAAAAAAADBjUBCIAHABgAAABJUE0uTWljcm9zb2Z0IE1haWwuTm90 ZQAxCAEEgAEAEgAAAFJFOiBjcmF6eSBwcm9qZWN0ADEGAQWAAwAOAAAAzQcHABgAFQAdADYABABf AQEggAMADgAAAM0HBwAYABUAHAAoAAQAUAEBCYABACEAAABEMTg2QUZBMTY4MDREMTExQTI1ODQw M0EwMkMxMDYyNwDiBgEDkAYAZAMAABIAAAALACMAAAAAAAMAJgAAAAAACwApAAAAAAADADYAAAAA AEAAOQCAZXdms5i8AR4AcAABAAAAEgAAAFJFOiBjcmF6eSBwcm9qZWN0AAAAAgFxAAEAAAAWAAAA AbyYs2Zuoa+G0gRoEdGiWEA6AsEGJwAAHgAeDAEAAAAFAAAAU01UUAAAAAAeAB8MAQAAABAAAABt d3JAaG90Y2l0eS5jb20AAwAGEEU/Ia8DAAcQ5wAAAB4ACBABAAAAZQAAAE5PQ09OVEVTVC1BTkRU SEFOS1NGT1JUSEVFTkNPVVJBR0VNRU5ULS0tLS0tLS0tLUZST006REFWRUZST01TQ1JBTlRPTlNN VFA6RERDMUBXV1dTQ1JBTlRPTkNPTVNFTlQ6VEgAAAAAAgEJEAEAAADxAQAA7QEAAKwDAABMWkZ1 q8IgC/8ACgEPAhUCqAXrAoMAUALyCQIAY2gKwHNldDI3BgAGwwKDMgPFAgBwckJxEeJzdGVtAoMz dwLkBxMCgH0KgAjPCdk78RYPMjU1AoAKgQ2xC2DgbmcxMDMUUAsKFFHNC/JjAEAHsG8gBaACMBMH kAVALSAAcGQgdHkRgG5rBCACEAXAHABlziAJ8AWgCHBhZxPgCfAMdCEKhQqLbGkxOIIwAtFpLTE0 NA3w5wzQH7MLWTE2CqADYBPQfmMbgSHXCocgiwwwIVZGHQNhOiLeIVYMgiBEYb52HNADUgYABQAA cHQCIABbU01UUDpkZNBjMUB3KGAuBPEnY/IuBaBtXSJ/I40GYAIwEyS/JctUaAhwc2RhAHksIEp1 bHkghDI0LhAxOTk3LrDQMTo1MxSwTSl/I40MVG8rvyXLQkVFLQBMQENOU0lCTQAuQUxCQU5ZLhhF RFUvnyqOdWJqZyGRMb8ly1JlN3AnQXqfLmAhUTcyHd8e4zM2IFdXGkUhVj1WWQhgJxYQIABudXRz ISA4LYxcfTOAPmAgZ28EcBIgCkBjaxuzaXQn+mwDIGIc0AuAE9AWEBPAfQuAZxvwGwAcwArACoV3 5xGABUARgHBwCfA+gDpsXzpvO388jAqFFTEAR7AAAAADABAQAAAAAAMAERABAAAAQAAHMOD8fjqz mLwBQAAIMOD8fjqzmLwBHgA9AAEAAAAFAAAAUkU6IAAAAABg4Q== ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC9878.EFEB3D40-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 20:39:36 -0800 Reply-To: beeman@Alaska.NET Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom & Carol Elliott Organization: Home Subject: Re: Alaska MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > > We are thinking of moving from Colorado to Alaska. How is the bee > keeping > there. Is there a long enough season. Will I be able to move my 10 hives > with me.. Lawrence, We have quite a few beekeepers in Alaska. The season is, indeed long enough to produce a honey crop. The problems we have are with wintering. The winters are so long it is hard to do a good job. It is not hard to get a colony to survive, but it rarely does nearly as well as a new package. We keep trying though. As far as bringing in equipment, that is a no-no. There is a state law prohibiting the importation of used bekeeping equipment. -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugigak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@alaska.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 21:41:25 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: Re: crazy project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable My reference to "binding chunks of brood comb into frames" had to do = with the technique yiou describe. We're challenged by the idea of = preserving the form of the nest, and a little bit interested in the idea = of top bar hives. If it gets too complicated we'll fall back to the = method you describe. =20 Michael ------------ ... = an ambitious plan to try to preserve the colony as much as possible in its original form rather than binding chunks of brood comb into frames. Our current thinking is that we can build a modified top bar hive and transfer the existing comb from the branch to the top bars.. ---------- You don't have to go to so much trouble. Just get some cotton cord = similar to butchers cord. Cut some brood comb to fit inside a frame. While holding the cut comb in the frame, wrap frame and comb, top to bottom several times and tie it off. The bees will attach the comb and remove the cord. They seem to hate having it in their nest. Find the queen ASAP cage her and put her in = the new hive. The sooner you catch her, the sooner the bees will start = moving in. Remove all remnants of the nest and if you have it soak it with = honey robber or bee go. If you find the queen and get her in the hive, it is time for a little = PR. Pick an good spot on the ground nearby spread a white sheet. Have the cherry picker operator lower you to that spot. Make it slow enough that the bees can leave a scent trail. Then place the hive on the ground and allow the bees to scent their sisters into the hive. Once this process = has started, remove veil and gloves and explain the process to the crowd = you are sure to draw. If the bees are completely calm, stand very close to the hive to one side while explaining. It there is a TV or newspaper photographer nearby, invite them to get close shots. the bees stand out nicely against the white sheet. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@cdc.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 08:43:35 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Peter Wright Organization: Edinburgh University Subject: unsubscribe Can anyone tell me how to leave the list?? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 04:54:12 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: Lesson Learned Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hello all, You may remember my experience last week with the 40+ beestings and subsequent reaction. You may also remember that I have publicly advocate= d using an entrance in the upper part of a stack of supers on a hive, sayin= g that my hives seemed to be producing MEGA honey with this arrangement. T= he two facts are related. I went back to that unbelievably violent hive to finish the job of removi= ng the last three supers of honey. This time I used much smoke and investigated first. This is what I found. I had a stack of 9 supers on this hive. I removed 5 of the supers before the attack. I checked out th= e remaining supers before attempting to remove them and guess what I found.= = A swarm had moved in through the upper opening in the hive. I didn't hav= e this problem in any of the other hives with upper vents. Anyway they ha= d whole frames of brood in these supers. When I had tried to bee-go them o= ut they were trying to stay with their brood. That's why they were so violent. = In the lower section of the hive my queen that I had introduced this past= spring to the original hive was laying away as well. With the barrier of= honey and a queen excluder the queens were happy to stay in the same hive= together. This explains the high productivity of this hive. It was a 2 queener! I've split them up and now have two hives but I have to get the queen in the supers to start laying in a deep body and move these bees out of thos= e supers before winter or those supers will be home all winter. I want to get them back into honey super duty. Any tricks or easy methods for movi= ng the bees into deep hive bodies? I'll almost certainly have to feed them for winter stores. Think the super frames that have had such intense bro= od duty will be suitable for honey super duty? I know they'll be wax moth magnets but I plan to use PDB this year. Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 20:00:21 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: multi-egg cells Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Conrad Sigona wrote: > >What happens to cells with multiple eggs? Does a worker clean >out the extras? Does the queen go back and notice her mistake? Do >multiple larvae fight it out? > I am not sure where I heard this but I believe bees will clean out all the multiple eggs laid in one cell in the same way they will clean out the eggs which are too closely genetically linked. If you look at a brood comb which has a scattered pattern of unlaid cells this is an indication of nonviable eggs. Queens should always lay in a solid patch and move on to another area to lay. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Crowding Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lawrence Cook wrote: >On starting a new hive is it better to keep them crowded for a month or >so (in one brood box) or should I give them plenty of room. Keep them >crowded always ? I would leave them in one box until you have at least 5 full frames of sealed brood well covered by bees. At this stage a super can be provided. If using a queen excluder then you must keep checking the brood box to ensure the queen has laying space available, moving any surplus honey frames up to the super if you are not ready to take it from the hive. Bees are extremely sociable and can appear very crowded but as the brood takes 4 weeks to emerge and there is constant attrition of field bees, it is advisable to ensure there are enough bees of various ages to tackle the extra work before you add the extra space. I do leave my established hives over winter with a super because the climate is mild enough that they can store honey for a good part of the winter season. In colder climates it is important not to give the bees too much space to warm. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: removing bees from inside tree Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dave in Indiana wrote: >Help, I know that this was discussed somewhat in the past. >I have been called to attempt to remove some bees form a tree. I have not >seen >the site at this time but in discription it sound like a small hole. >The question is how is the best way to attempt to remove the bees? >I understand that they have just arrived-like yesterday- I would try a reasonable heavy smoking of the hole to see if it is possible to persuade them to vacate. Once they have built comb and have eggs to protect I think it is a lost cause. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Richard Drutchas Organization: Bee Haven Honey Subject: Re: Lesson Learned Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Ted interesting story Ive never had a swarm move into a live hive are you in the africanized zone. I hear they will move in on a weak hive. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 07:56:25 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Little Faces In a message dated 97-07-25 06:21:56 EDT, you write: << Among the older capped brood, there are some cells (about 20) which are uncapped and contain what look like pupae. I say it's a pupa because it's not a fully-formed bee and it's not a larva. To be precise, the "pupa" takes up the entire cell and I can see his little face (larva don't have faces) looking out. Questions: Who's uncapping the poor things and why? >> This is known as "bald brood." It is thought to be caused by a virus. In my experience it seems to be evidence of weak stock, and they will need a lot of nursing along, and not ever do well. You otherwise indicate bees that are not doing very well. I suggest requeening. When you get bees from the new queen, they will likely be of better genetic stock. Plus they will have the vigor of a young queen. This usually works for me. If you get too late in the season for them to build up, I'd just eliminate the colony, probably by combining with another. I know it seems hard nosed, but all my beekeeping experience strongly tells me: It's not worth the effort to nurse along junk bees. Cull them. Vigorous culling is the flip side of good breeding. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA Pollination Info: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 21:51:13 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Norm, I am only a first year beekeeper myself, so understand that >anything I say comes from very little experience. However, I have heard >that you should leave the excluder off until the bees have a good start >on drawing out the comb. Otherwise they will never pass through the >excluder to start drawing it out. Your message sounded like you put on >the excluder when you added the super of undrawn foundation (is that >correct?). I dont know if this is the cause of your lack of honey, but >something to think about anyway. Replies from someone who has a bit >more experience and knowledge would be appreciated. I agree that this is the likely cause of bees not passing through the super. You can encourage bees to move up by moving 2 frames of unsealed brood above the excluder or if the frames are drawn and recently used the bees will come up in search of storage space. If the frames are dry or foundation the hive frequently confines itself to the brood box, filling the frames with honey so the laying space is limited and the population takes a nose-dive. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: A Wandering queen - update Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To reply to Leo Walford: > >1. When I visited the hive yesterday to requeen, a fair number of bees were >clustered outside on the front. It was rather warm and humid (more than that in >my bee suit). Clustering outside a queenless hive is not uncommon. Without a continuous egg laying source all recently hatched bees finish their duties and sit around on the job. > >2. I put a super on some time ago, with a queen excluder. Although I do find a >few bees up there, there does not seem to have been any comb drawn out or honey >stored. I would take the super off until you have got the queen established. The population will be decreasing for the next month until the new bees emerge. When the brood box has about 5 frames of sealed and unsealed brood, you could put the excluder back on and lift up 1 or 2 frames of unsealed brood to the centre of the super. The nurse bees will come up to feed these larvae and the house bees will follow to store honey around the brood area. Getting a box of foundation drawn is always a problem - take it one step at a time. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Fredrick, Heidi" Subject: Re: sweet clover seed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey, I disagree. I like reading responses to bee predicaments. That's how I learn. It's interesting. Heidi Fredrick Cattail Park Farm Ypsilanti, Michigan hfredrick@umi.com ---------- From: John Day[SMTP:day@advancel.com] Sent: Thursday, July 24, 1997 7:16 PM To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: sweet clover seed hi all, occasionally, i notice i get a lot of personally directed emails that are inadvertently sent to the entire list. this seems a good time to ask everyone to send their private responses directly to the person, and not to the list. thanks, john ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 17:32:37 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Robert Walker Subject: Dairy-MAP -- Its not just for Dairy anymore! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dairy-MAP now has a much improved Internet Web Presence: http://www-das.cas.psu.edu/dairymap/ Dairy-MAP (Management and Profitability) program has designed their new web page with not only the dairy producer in mind but all of agriculture while they work on their web pages. Their new web page is designed to assist individuals and businesses in locating information in agriculture from Dairy-L to Graze-L, from Bees to Sheep, Cows to Beef it's all on the Dairy-MAP web pages and linking pages. This information is free to computer users with a modem and Internet capabilities. Information from the treatment of mastitis, animal diseases, mechanical problems with your tractor, to tapping into the National Dairy Database. All of this and much more is available through Dairy-MAP and the Internet Superhighway of information. With the mission of the Dairy-MAP program to teach business skills in a workshop setting the new arm of Dairy-MAP is another skill that most producers need to learn. The web page is not only designed for managers but for all users interested in researching Dairy and Agriculture information. From the Dairy-MAP home page you can link to Ag Publications, Dairy Software, Ag Organizations, Commercial Dairy Sites, Dairy Publications, Dairy Farmer Home Pages, Ag Software Companies, Fun Cow Stuff, Computer resources, Internet Resources, Newspapers, Search Engines, Internet/Web Training, Weather Sites, other Ag-Related links and much more. Most important to anyone is the Dairy-MAP Workshop schedule pages for each of the workshops being held in Pennsylvania. From Managing For Success, Financial Management, Human Resources to the newest workshops being scheduled for Focus on the Future. The new web pages by Dairy-MAP make available new management technology for the collection of data to assist your daily business decisions to increase the opportunity for profitability. Try the new Dairy-MAP web pages at: http://www-das.cas.psu.edu/dairymap/ leave your comments, check out the scheduled Dairy-MAP workshops in your area. The Information Age is available through Dairy-MAP Home Page on the Internet Web. Robert Walker RWalker@das.cas.psu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 10:00:55 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson <71762.1664@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Little Faces MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Conrad Sigona wrote: = Among the older capped brood, there are some cells (about 20) which are uncapped and contain what look like pupae. I say it's a pupa because it's not a fully-formed bee and it's not a larva. To be precise, the "pupa" takes up the entire cell and I can see his little face (larva don't have faces) looking out. My state beekeeping inspector pointed out a few of these "Bald Faced Broo= d" in my hives. When we dug them out of their cells, low and behold a wax moth larvae/worm wriggled out. Try digging yours out, you may be surpris= ed yourself. Have fun, and bee good , Rory Stenerson, Member - Centre County Beekeepers Association State College, PA USA 71762.1664@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 11:12:47 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: Re: Lesson Learned Revisited MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Richard Drutchas wrote: >>Hi Ted interesting story Ive never had a swarm move into a live hive ar= e you in the africanized zone. I hear they will move in on a weak hive.<< I live very close to Dallas in north central Texas. We've had no reports= of africanized bees here. They're all in south Texas in the valley(Rio Grande). For some reason they've stopped dead in their tracks as far as northward movement is concerned. No, these bees came from one of my oth= er hives that swarmed. These hives were started with packages from a produce= r in Alabama. They are very aggressive and the coloring of the bees in the= upper half of the 2 queener hive match those of the Alabama bees. To my knowledge, AHB hasn't hit Alabama yet. As I understand it, AHB don't move in and coexist with the other hive. = They move in and take over, killing the old queen and using her workers. = They're kind of like the Borg for you Star Trek fans out there. Resistan= ce is futile. They pose some challenges to us southern beekeepers but, you know, when I look at a bottle of Burleson honey it says they have honey from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and other AHB infested countries. Someone= is working those hives and not getting stung too much. We have to change= the way we do things but we can still be beekeepers. It is unusual for them to move in like this. It forces me to take a look= at my practice of of putting entrances in supers above the excluder. I d= id put three supers on at once when we had a real heavy mesquite honey flow = in progress. I travel with my real job and was going to be away for awhile.= = I didn't want the original occupants to become honey bound while I was gone. Maybe having all that free drawn comb was too irresistable to them= =2E = Whenever I add a new super I just look at the top super on the hive. Whe= n they start working it, it's time to add another. During the flow, I disturb the hive as little as possible and top super only as I don't want= to disrupt honey production. Maybe I have to become more intrusive with = my supering practices as well. Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 13:06:19 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: James P Parkman Subject: Re: Lesson Learned Revisited In-Reply-To: <199707251113_MC2-1B99-5530@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello all. Does anyone know the email address of Ingemar Fries at the Swedish Agricultural University? Thanks in advance. Pat Parkman Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville jppark@utkux.utcc.utk.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 12:02:46 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Urs Schaufelbuehl Subject: Re: unsubscribe MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Peter Wright > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: unsubscribe > Date: Friday, 25 July, 1997 1:43 AM > > Can anyone tell me how to leave the list?? On subscribing to any maillist I save all the acceptance file in a folder called "maillist" for future reference. Here is a copy from BEE-L. Your subscription to the BEE-L list (Discussion of Bee Biology) has been accepted. Please save this message for future reference, especially if this is the first time you subscribe to an electronic mailing list. If you ever need to leave the list, you will find the necessary instructions below. Perhaps more importantly, saving a copy of this message (and of all future subscription notices from other mailing lists) in a special mail folder will give you instant access to the list of mailing lists that you are subscribed to. This may prove very useful the next time you go on vacation and need to leave the lists temporarily so as not to fill up your mailbox while you are away! You should also save the "welcome messages" from the list owners that you will occasionally receive after subscribing to a new list. To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to the list, just send mail to BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. This is called "sending mail to the list", because you send mail to a single address and LISTSERV makes copies for all the people who have subscribed. This address (BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU) is also called the "list address". You must never try to send any command to that address, as it would be distributed to all the people who have subscribed. All commands must be sent to the "LISTSERV address", LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. It is very important to understand the difference between the two, but fortunately it is not complicated. The LISTSERV address is like a FAX number that connects you to a machine, whereas the list address is like a normal voice line connecting you to a person. If you make a mistake and dial the FAX number when you wanted to talk to someone on the phone, you will quickly realize that you used the wrong number and call again. No harm will have been done. If on the other hand you accidentally make your FAX call someone's voice line, the person receiving the call will be inconvenienced, especially if your FAX then re-dials every 5 minutes. The fact that most people will eventually connect the FAX machine to the voice line to allow the FAX to go through and make the calls stop does not mean that you should continue to send FAXes to the voice number. People would just get mad at you. It works pretty much the same way with mailing lists, with the difference that you are calling hundreds or thousands of people at the same time, and consequently you can expect a lot of people to get upset if you consistently send commands to the list address. You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF BEE-L" command to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. You can also tell LISTSERV how you want it to confirm the receipt of messages you send to the list. If you do not trust the system, send a "SET BEE-L REPRO" command and LISTSERV will send you a copy of your own messages, so that you can see that the message was distributed and did not get damaged on the way. After a while you may find that this is getting annoying, especially if your mail program does not tell you that the message is from you when it informs you that new mail has arrived from BEE-L. If you send a "SET BEE-L ACK NOREPRO" command, LISTSERV will mail you a short acknowledgment instead, which will look different in your mailbox directory. With most mail programs you will know immediately that this is an acknowledgment you can read later. Finally, you can turn off acknowledgments completely with "SET BEE-L NOACK NOREPRO". Following instructions from the list owner, your subscription options have been set to "MIME" rather than the usual LISTSERV defaults. For more information about subscription options, send a "QUERY BEE-L" command to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX BEE-L" command to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. You can then order these files with a "GET BEE-L LOGxxxx" command, or using LISTSERV's database search facilities. Send an "INFO DATABASE" command for more information on the latter. This list is available in digest form. If you wish to receive the digested version of the postings, just issue a SET BEE-L DIGEST command. Please note that it is presently possible for other people to determine that you are signed up to the list through the use of the "REVIEW" command, which returns the e-mail address and name of all the subscribers. If you do not want your name to be visible, just issue a "SET BEE-L CONCEAL" command. More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to LISTSERV@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 12:10:39 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Feeders and Drowned Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board Feeders. How do I keep the bees from drowning in these sugar swimming pools? Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Cyberchiro and Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 14:25:29 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Steven Albritton Subject: Re: Feeders and Drowned Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" switch to baggie feeders. At 12:10 PM 7/25/97 -0700, you wrote: >I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board Feeders. > >How do I keep the bees from drowning in these sugar swimming pools? > > >Paul Cronshaw, D.C. >Cyberchiro and Hobbyist Beekeeper >Santa Barbara, CA USA > > Steven Albritton LDS Communications, Sports America, Chauvin Honey Farms Monroe, Louisiana ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:45:24 -0400 Reply-To: conrad@ntcnet.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona Organization: Conrad's Computers Subject: Re: Feeders and Drowned Bees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Paul Cronshaw, D.C. wrote: > > I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board > How do I keep the bees from drowning in these sugar swimming pools? Have something that the bees can hold on to. Try either (a) floating wood blocks or (b) throwing some straw into the feeder. If you use wood, make sure it's rough and porous. Please understand that the bees will eat (drink) from the wood; it's not that they use the wood as a pier and stick their heads in the pool. Don't use stuff that's not porous (for example, styrofoam). -- Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:48:09 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: Feeders and Drowned Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." wrote: >>I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board Feeders.= How do I keep the bees from drowning in these sugar swimming pools?<< I used to use division board feeders because they held so much (1 gal.) o= f sugar water. At first I was not amused about all the bees that were drowning so I started floating pieces of wood, any wood that I found like= branches and scrap, or straw on top of the water. That improved the odds= for the bees but still several drowned. I finally got smart and started using Boardman feeders. I'll use two half gallon canning jars or 5 lb. honey jars you can get from any supplier of bee equipment. By putting tw= o Boardman feeders on the landing board you decrease the entrance size and robbing isn't a problem. So I don't wanna hear all the diatribe from anti-Boardman feeder types. Anyone wanna buy five barely used divisio= n board feeders? Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA = ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:49:08 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Fredrick, Heidi" Subject: State Fair Beeswax Display MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings everyone. Has anyone out there ever displayed beeswax in a competition? I decided to enter some of mine in the Michigan State Fair this year (just for fun) and need to come up with some ideas for a smart display of 15# of wax for the judges. I have been told that someone previously made a really nice wax pineapple for display and impressed everyone. This is supposed to be a quality competition and I just thought I'd mold some in bread pans. This might be OK but definitely lacks pizzaz. I certainly don't have a giant pineapple mold but want to be a little bit original. I don't have any molds except some candle molds and will have to make/buy($$)/scrounge for something more suitable. I've opened my big mouth and committed myself and now I'd just like to come up with a "good effort" display. Other than cleanliness and color, I'm also not too sure what they're looking for. Any suggestions from experience will be appreciated! Heidi Fredrick Cattail Park Farm Ypsilanti, Michigan hfredrick@umi.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 13:59:26 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Calkins, Rob" Subject: Re: State Fair Beeswax Display MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain try using bread or candy molds. I have seen them in many different sizes and styles. I would spray the mold with silicone spray first to help release the wax when cool. Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: Fredrick, Heidi [SMTP:hfredrick@umi.com] > Sent: Friday, July 25, 1997 1:49 PM > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: State Fair Beeswax Display > > Greetings everyone. > > Has anyone out there ever displayed beeswax in a competition? > I decided to enter some of mine in the Michigan State Fair this year > (just for fun) and need to come up with some > ideas for a smart display of 15# of wax for the judges. > > I have been told that someone previously made a really nice wax > pineapple for display and impressed everyone. > This is supposed to be a quality competition and I just thought I'd > mold some in bread pans. > This might be OK but definitely lacks pizzaz. > I certainly don't have a giant pineapple mold but want to be a little > bit original. > > I don't have any molds except some candle molds and will have to > make/buy($$)/scrounge for something more suitable. > I've opened my big mouth and committed myself and now I'd just like to > come up with a "good effort" display. > > Other than cleanliness and color, I'm also not too sure what they're > looking for. > > Any suggestions from experience will be appreciated! > > Heidi Fredrick > Cattail Park Farm > Ypsilanti, Michigan > hfredrick@umi.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:06:04 -0400 Reply-To: "Glen B. Glater" Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Glen B. Glater" Subject: Re: Feeders and Drowned Bees >Paul Cronshaw, D.C. wrote: >> >> I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board > >> How do I keep the bees from drowning in these sugar swimming pools? Conrad Sigona wrote: >Have something that the bees can hold on to. Try either (a) floating >wood blocks or (b) throwing some straw into the feeder. If you use >wood, make sure it's rough and porous. Please understand that the >bees will eat (drink) from the wood; it's not that they use the >wood as a pier and stick their heads in the pool. Don't use stuff >that's not porous (for example, styrofoam). But be aware that: 1.) porous wood often gets waterlogged and sinks, beginning an interesting rot process and 2.) mosquitos love a bucket full of stagnent water with waterlogged, rotting bits of wood at the bottom. I speak from experience. I just removed such a mosquito factory from in front of my hives. While it was an interesting study in the life cycle of the mosquito (I had egg floats, larvae and pupae in there), it was not a desired effect so close to my house... My bees will have to go rob the neighbor's swimming pools or go to the local pond. ;-( --glen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:53:39 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: bartlett Subject: Re: State Fair Beeswax Display Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Heidi, There maybe different classes of wax. You can do a simple thing like using a pan as a mold or use a jello mold. These classes maybe what we have called molded beeswax and fancy beeswax. You can also have a catagory called artistic beeswax where you can get very fancy. There are several books on beeswax that you can find in the library or in some of the beekeeping catalogs. Be careful working with wax----- it is highly inflamable and best done in the basement or outside. have fun billy bee ---------- > From: Fredrick, Heidi > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: State Fair Beeswax Display > Date: 25 juil. 1997 15:49 > > Greetings everyone. > > Has anyone out there ever displayed beeswax in a competition? > I decided to enter some of mine in the Michigan State Fair this year > (just for fun) and need to come up with some > ideas for a smart display of 15# of wax for the judges. > > I have been told that someone previously made a really nice wax > pineapple for display and impressed everyone. > This is supposed to be a quality competition and I just thought I'd > mold some in bread pans. > This might be OK but definitely lacks pizzaz. > I certainly don't have a giant pineapple mold but want to be a little > bit original. > > I don't have any molds except some candle molds and will have to > make/buy($$)/scrounge for something more suitable. > I've opened my big mouth and committed myself and now I'd just like to > come up with a "good effort" display. > > Other than cleanliness and color, I'm also not too sure what they're > looking for. > > Any suggestions from experience will be appreciated! > > Heidi Fredrick > Cattail Park Farm > Ypsilanti, Michigan > hfredrick@umi.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:14:40 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: The Damons Subject: Re: Feeders and Drowned Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I too had this problem and it lead me to try all the other standard feeding methods. Each ended up having problems of their own, so I kept coming back to division board feeders, finally coming up with this solution. I take a piece of 1/4 inch hardware cloth and cut it to the width of the inside of the feeder and the length is about twice the depth of the feeder plus 1 1/2 -2 inches. I then fold the length of the cloth in half, forming a V-shape. I then slide this into the feeder, you should then have about 3/4 to 1 inch sticking up over the top which I then fold down over each edge. This edge fold really gives a plastic feeder much more support and helps to hold its shape. You can then put a large paper clip on to span the top at the middle, from one side to the other offering even more support at the top of the feeder. This is really not as time consuming as it may sound and has worked great for me. I now put one of these feeders in every brood chamber and leave them there year round, so whenever I need to feed there is always a feeder ready to use, right where I need it. Feeding is now hassle free and no drowning problem. Tim Damon Ann Arbor, MI ---------- > From: Paul Cronshaw, D.C. > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Feeders and Drowned Bees > Date: Friday, July 25, 1997 3:10 PM > > I have been frustrated with drowing bees in the Division Board Feeders. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:12:12 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Robert Watson Subject: Re: A Lesson Learned In-Reply-To: <970722.115259.EDT.SYSAM@cnsibm.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I wrote a while ago about getting stung several times in my left hand while hiving a swarm, this May. My hand swelled up rather large, and by the next day the swelling was going up my arm. I was convinced by some people that I should get some medical help. I was give Prednisone. The swelling went down eventually - I wondered if the drug made any difference. Anyway, today I got a sting in my left wrist...first sting since the multiple ones in May. I went immediately to the nearest Walk-in Clinic, in case I was going to have a bad reaction... I didn't! So I never got out of the car, just drove back to the beeyard. But as the day progresses, I'm finding the pain and swelling is increasing....I took one Benadryl (over the counter antihistamine)..and all it did was make me fall asleep. The swelling is moving slowly...in three hours it has crept about two inches up my arm. So now the area from my wrist to 3/4 up my arm is slightly swollen and achy. If it keeps moving I will go to the Clinic again... but I don t want to... I feel that my body has to learn how to deal with this without a major sort of drug that takes over for your adrenal system! I dimly recall getting stung by some kind of insect as a child, in the finger...the pain (i dont recall swelling) moved up my arm all the way to my shoulder over many hours... My parents (perhaps rightly) took us out shopping and I just got better on my own... ...sorry to go on ... just the concerns of a new beekeeper who aint accustomed to stings quite yet. Rob Robert C.L. Watson rwatson1@freenet.npiec.on.ca pipe organ technician organist - choirmaster early woodwind player hobby beekeeper homebrewer tenor ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:42:43 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: bartlett Subject: Re: A Lesson Learned Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Robert, All stings hurt even after all the many that I have had. My advice to new beekeepers is---- Get stung twice. Once USUALLY tells you how bad a reaction you are going to get. And USUALLY the second is not as bad. That is how it works for most people. If I work the bees and don't get stung I will grab a bee and get her to sting me. I feel that that is how I keep my immunity up. (helps my arthiritis too) If you keep getting the same bad reaction you might want to try a new hobby! Mother Nature gave the bees a wonderful thing---------- HONEY!!!! She also gave them a way to protect that good stuff!!! billy bee ---------- > From: Robert Watson > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Re: A Lesson Learned > Date: 25 juil. 1997 17:12 > > I wrote a while ago about getting stung several times in my left hand > while hiving a swarm, this May. > My hand swelled up rather large, and by the next day the swelling was > going up my arm. > I was convinced by some people that I should get some medical help. > I was give Prednisone. > The swelling went down eventually - I wondered if the drug made any > difference. > > Anyway, today I got a sting in my left wrist...first sting since the > multiple ones in May. I went immediately to the nearest Walk-in Clinic, > in case I was going to have a bad reaction... I didn't! So I never got > out of the car, just drove back to the beeyard. > > But as the day progresses, I'm finding the pain and swelling is > increasing....I took one Benadryl (over the counter antihistamine)..and > all it did was make me fall asleep. > > The swelling is moving slowly...in three hours it has crept about two > inches up my arm. So now the area from my wrist to 3/4 up my arm is > slightly swollen and achy. > > If it keeps moving I will go to the Clinic again... but I don t want to... > I feel that my body has to learn how to deal with this without a major > sort of drug that takes over for your adrenal system! > > I dimly recall getting stung by some kind of insect as a child, in the > finger...the pain (i dont recall swelling) moved up my arm all the way to > my shoulder over many hours... My parents (perhaps rightly) took us out > shopping and I just got better on my own... > > ...sorry to go on ... just the concerns of a new beekeeper who aint > accustomed to stings quite yet. > > Rob > > Robert C.L. Watson > rwatson1@freenet.npiec.on.ca > pipe organ technician organist - choirmaster early woodwind player > hobby beekeeper homebrewer tenor ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:49:09 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Brenda Wishin Subject: Re: sweet clover seed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Me too ---------- > From: Fredrick, Heidi > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Re: sweet clover seed > Date: Friday, July 25, 1997 8:29 AM > > Hey, > > I disagree. I like reading responses to bee predicaments. That's how I > learn. It's interesting. > > Heidi Fredrick > Cattail Park Farm > Ypsilanti, Michigan > hfredrick@umi.com > > > ---------- > From: John Day[SMTP:day@advancel.com] > Sent: Thursday, July 24, 1997 7:16 PM > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Re: sweet clover seed > > hi all, > > occasionally, i notice i get a lot of personally directed emails > that are inadvertently sent to the entire list. > > this seems a good time to ask everyone to send their private > responses directly to the person, and not to the list. > > thanks, > john ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:52:53 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: Re: State Fair Beeswax Display MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BC991B.351EA9E0" ------ =_NextPart_000_01BC991B.351EA9E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A pan with a nonstick surface works great without spraying. ---------- From: Calkins, Rob[SMTP:RCalkins@Wolfgang.com] Sent: Friday, July 25, 1997 12:59 PM To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: State Fair Beeswax Display try using bread or candy molds. I have seen them in many different sizes and styles. I would spray the mold with silicone spray first to help release the wax when cool. Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: Fredrick, Heidi [SMTP:hfredrick@umi.com] > Sent: Friday, July 25, 1997 1:49 PM > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: State Fair Beeswax Display > > Greetings everyone. > > Has anyone out there ever displayed beeswax in a competition? > I decided to enter some of mine in the Michigan State Fair this year > (just for fun) and need to come up with some > ideas for a smart display of 15# of wax for the judges. > > I have been told that someone previously made a really nice wax > pineapple for display and impressed everyone. > This is supposed to be a quality competition and I just thought I'd > mold some in bread pans. > This might be OK but definitely lacks pizzaz. > I certainly don't have a giant pineapple mold but want to be a little > bit original. > > I don't have any molds except some candle molds and will have to > make/buy($$)/scrounge for something more suitable. > I've opened my big mouth and committed myself and now I'd just like to > come up with a "good effort" display. > > Other than cleanliness and color, I'm also not too sure what they're > looking for. > > Any suggestions from experience will be appreciated! 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You have the same potential to have a severe reaction as someone = who doesn't swell. To illustrate this, I swelled extensively for years = and have never had a systemic reaction. My son doesn't swell at all and = his most recent sting sent him to the hospital with a severe reaction. = (I posted in detail about this earlier in this thread.) For about a dozen years I swelled intensely with every sting. Sometimes = the swelling migrated, especially when the sting was on the top of my = head. It would migrate to my eyes. My swelling usually lasted for a = week or more and itched like crazy. Finally last year the swelling = pretty much stopped. I discovered a way to reduce or in some cases eliminate the swelling = though. I found that if I took an over-the-counter antihistamine BEFORE = going to the bee yard my swelling from stings was very minimal. Taking = the medication after the sting was totally ineffective. The trick is to = find an antihistamine that doesn't make you too drowsy. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 20:25:06 -0400 Reply-To: Bob Billson Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bob Billson Organization: my honeybees are more organized than me! :-) Subject: help! dying bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi all... I've got a first year newbie problem and need some advise. I went out this evening to take a quick peek at my two colonies in the backyard as is my custom every night. I just like to watch them. :-) Tonight I got a shock. In front of the Buckfast colony there were a lot of dead bees. I would guess about 2 good size handfuls of bees. The majority of the bees were in a large pile was immediately in front of the entrance. (The hives are up on cinder blocks.) Other bees were scattered in around the hive with the highest concentrated fanning out from the entrance. There was quite a bit of activity on the landing board. Much of consisted of bees carrying out the dead bees. All the bees were Buckfast as far as I could tell. (My other colony is Italians, so I don't think robbing was going on.) All this time forgers continued coming and going. I quickly pulled off my honey supers, which I was planning to do tomorrow, to look inside. By the time I got the supers off, everything at the entrance was back to normal. If it weren't for all the dead bees outside, I wouldn't know anything had happen. As I was losing the light, I couldn't give as thorough a look as wanted. From what I could see, activity inside the hive appeared normal. Nothing appeared unusual. Although, being a newbie, I could easily overlook something. When I looked in on the 'girls' around noontime, they were actively forging. Yesterday, it rained very heavily, was very chilly (50s) here in New Jersey. Some parts got about 6 inches of rain. Last night was the heaviest rain with a lot of wind. I do have the hives tilted slightly forward so the water doesn't run into. Is it possible weather had something to do with the dead bees? BTW, the Italian hives is a normal in all appearances. No pile of dead bees. They are actively foraging also. I wasn't able to look inside, other than to quickly pop the cover off. Any suggestions on what I should look for to determine the cause? I live in a suburban area, so farm spraying isn't a concern (those folks like to load their lawns with the usual chemicals. :-( I'm not sure where the bees are going for the nectar, but they are doing it in large numbers. I could use some advice. I'd hate to lose one of my colonies my first year; especially since they given me 3 supers of honey. Thanks! Bob -- Bob Billson, KC2WZ email: kc2wz@intercall.net (\ MS-DOS, you can't live with it. You can live without it. /) {|||8- Linux: World domination. Fast. -8|||} (/ \} ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 20:39:58 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Robert Watson Subject: Re: A lesson learned In-Reply-To: <01BC991E.376A1920@C3.hotcity.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Michael Reddell wrote: > I have discussed bee stings at length with a very good allergist in Seattle, where I used to live, and he assured me that people who have a local swelling reaction are NOT at increased risk for anaphylactic shock. You have the same potential to have a severe reaction as someone who doesn't swell. To illustrate this, I swelled extensively for years and have never had a systemic reaction. My son doesn't swell at all and his most recent sting sent him to the hospital with a severe reaction. (I posted in detail about this earlier in this thread.) > For about a dozen years I swelled intensely with every sting. Sometimes the swelling migrated, especially when the sting was on the top of my head. It would migrate to my eyes. My swelling usually lasted for a week or more and itched like crazy. Finally last year the swelling pretty much stopped. > I discovered a way to reduce or in some cases eliminate the swelling though. I found that if I took an over-the-counter antihistamine BEFORE going to the bee yard my swelling from stings was very minimal. Taking the medication after the sting was totally ineffective. The trick is to find an antihistamine that doesn't make you too drowsy. Sorry for the major quote, if it appears...I cant seem to trim the quotes on this reply. What antihistamine DOESN'T cause drowsines? Also: I agree... the Benadryl that i took this time, and last time seemed to me to be useless... just put me to sleep... As i said before.. I wonder if the Prednisone I took 24 hours after the multiple stings in May was of any value ... It took a week for the swelling to go down! The swelling has barely increased, by the way, since I wrote my original post, but its pretty achy!... In reply to billy bee, Well... I dont want to give up... I want to expand, if anything... I hope to build up resistance to stings. Robbee ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 01:38:49 UT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garry Libby Subject: Re: Feeders and Drowned Bees Hello, I have read that if You put the divisionboard feeder in the hive empty,the bees will fill it with bridge comb.Then You can fill it with liquids.Good luck, Garry Libby Boston,USA LibBEE@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 21:23:40 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Curtis Atkinson Subject: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Greetings, I have a few questions. Feeding with baggies has been mentioned. How is this done? What kind of baggie, and where is it placed? In using an ether roll, how do you get the bees in the jar and how many bees are needed? What kind of methods are there to determine mites? thank you Curtis Atkinson 2701 S. Caraway Jonesboro, Ar 72401 501-932-7838 catkinson@intellinet.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 22:41:00 GMT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Organization: WILD BEE'S BBS (209) 826-8107 LOS BANOS, CA Subject: BEEKEEPING in the NEWS **This message was originally in conference IN-BEEKEEPIN on WILD BEE'S BBS. Public Opinion about Beekeepers, Bee's, and Beekeeping We all have knowledge and some say they have more then others but in todays political world what counts is not what you know or think you do but what others think about you. The public perception of beekeeping is based more on what they read in today's newspaper then ever before and not in my memory has more been written about what we do as beekeepers. Press releases from under funded tax supported beekeeping regulatory and research institutions looking for public support are soon turned into the Gospel by reporters looking for a story with a hundred different slants. The problem is not the lack of information but separating the opinion from the fact. In order to do that one must have a diverse supply of facts and opinion. There has always been depository of what is written in the press, the problem has been that they were costly, and more historical in nature. Things are changing....Try this address and mark it as I guarantee that you will be going back: http://www.newsworks.com/ This is more then maybe one of the best NEWS pages on the net its the SEARCH engine dummy that you just won't believe until you try it. You will get hundreds of hits on beekeeping topics from killer bees to the benefits of bee stings, including first person information on even becoming immune to bee stings. The local stories from 100 on-line US newspapers about local beekeepers many times would never make it to your own news stand. AND its not the same old stuff you keep hitting on with the normal search engine such as Yahoo, its fresh, even today's news. Even a simple search using "beekeepers" returned 292 newspaper articles with the top 100 sorted by relevance on pages of 10. Information on many of the questions asked in the beekeeping news group and the BEE-List can be found or expanded on using this NEWSWORKS search engine. ttul, the OLd Drone (c) Permission is granted to freely copy this document in any form, or to print for any use. (w)Opinions are not necessarily facts. Use at own risk. --- ~ QMPro 1.53 ~ http://194.112.46.22/public/default.htm (Amigabee BBS) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 22:11:08 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Andy Nachbaur Subject: Re: A lesson learned In-Reply-To: <01BC991E.376A1920@C3.hotcity.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:14 PM 7/25/97 -0700, you wrote: > >For about a dozen years I swelled intensely with every sting. Sometimes the swelling migrated, especially when the sting was on the top of my head. It would migrate to my eyes. My swelling usually lasted for a week or more and itched like crazy. Finally last year the swelling pretty much stopped. Same with me working bees commercially 7 days a week, 12-14 hrs a day when I was a kid. Swelling was a problem for years. No problem today but that is after 42+ years of having the bees use me as their target of opportunity. I won't take the time to repeat some of the now funny bee sting stories some which I have already passed on, but I will add that to this day the most often asked question asked me by the public is "Do you get stung?", should bee do you have some real honey I can buy. I am a bit surprised that no one has mentioned having had a "beekeepers finger", something that in time most all who work full time with bees get. I guess that is something that many of you can look forward to. Its not life threatening just a small irritation and embarrassment. >I discovered a way to reduce or in some cases eliminate the swelling though. I found that if I took an over-the-counter antihistamine BEFORE going to the bee yard my swelling from stings was very minimal. Taking the medication after the sting was totally ineffective. The trick is to find an antihistamine that doesn't make you too drowsy. Some have used the meat tenderizer (MSG) to reduce the swelling. ttul, Andy- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 23:14:38 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: bee stings notes Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wrote, awhile back, about my arm swelling because I had never had a reaction larger than a quarter. I Didn't get any response from Bee-L so I looked it up.. in abc & xyz. Look on page 410 the first type reaction is small. the second is large , likes my arm, and the third is the allergic reaction. The percentage of people ( allergic ) is vary low. A friend of mine says,. When all else fails, read.. lc. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 23:29:35 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Curtis Atkinson wrote: > Greetings, > > I have a few questions. > > Feeding with baggies has been mentioned. How is this done? What kind > of baggie, and where is it placed? > I havn't needed to feed my bees or use the bag feeder but all it is, > is a baggie filled > so that when flat it is about 1" thick with one ,two,or three razer > slits about 1" long on the flat top side..Lay it on top of the top bars of the brood. This is what I got from Bee-L .. Some say they work great some say the leak.I think it is in the care in laying it..good luck. > In using an ether roll, how do you get the bees in the jar and how > many bees are needed? > > What kind of methods are there to determine mites? > > thank you > Curtis Atkinson > 2701 S. Caraway > Jonesboro, Ar 72401 > 501-932-7838 > catkinson@intellinet.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 23:41:22 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Foulbrood Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... It may be the same frame I put into the upper brood box to encourage the bees to move up.. at the start of the season. I installed new patties today. Will this keep it in check or do I have a real problem on my hands.I've read , the old school would burn the hive.. Thanks' Lawrence Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 00:14:56 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Note to Bee-L Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tried to send message to (Tom) in Alaska by useing his e-mail adress and by using ( new message ) on my netscape 4.0. It still went on Bee-L sorry. lc. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 02:44:20 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank & Phronsie Humphrey Subject: Re: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Curtis Atkinson > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: questions > Date: Friday, July 25, 1997 5:23 PM > > Greetings, > > I have a few questions. > > Feeding with baggies has been mentioned. How is this done? What kind > of baggie, and where is it placed? > > In using an ether roll, how do you get the bees in the jar and how > many bees are needed? > > What kind of methods are there to determine mites? > > thank you > Curtis Atkinson > 2701 S. Caraway > Jonesboro, Ar 72401 > 501-932-7838 > catkinson@intellinet.com For all those interested in Baggie feeders. Check out Barrys Bee Page at http:birkey.com/BLB/index.html Barry has some very good pictures of baggie feeders in use along with good descriptions. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@cdc.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 06:51:30 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Foulbrood Comments: To: Lawrence Cooke In-Reply-To: <33D98E01.705420D@sisna.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... > I installed new patties today. Will this keep it in check or do I have a > real problem on my hands? They say that patties will not clean up AFB, they will only prevent it -- if used correctly. We used grease patties again this year for the first time in about 15 years. This time we used them for their reputed mite suppression properties as well as for AFB and EFB. Usually we just dust and use TM in syrup, but this year we have used no dust and only added TM to syrup and the patties. (FWIW, we also fed non-medicated *pollen supplement* patties as long as we could get into the brood chambers easily; we even have them on nucs right now Our theory is that well nourished bees are more resistant to any disease or pest). AFAIK, in about 2000 colonies we haven't seen any AFB or EFB although we were going through the colonies regularly splitting all spring. The only exception I can recall is one colony I saw somewhere with a little bit early in the spring. I didn't do anything special with it since it was in a distant yard, I had no dust along, and since it was morning and I had a full day ahead, I did not want to take it home. So, it appears that the patties may be working well for us in combination with the medicated feed. Usually we see a few more hives with a touch of AFB than that. Anyhow, dusting with a 1:5 TM / icing sugar mix is usually required to *clean up* (as opposed to preventing) any active AFB, and removing any combs with hard scale (or flattening the cells so the bees tear them down and rebuild) is always wise, since unless the colony is large and conditions are just right, the bees may not be able to deal with it. Besides the scale is usually right in the middle of your brood chamber occupying prime real estate. A heaping tablespoon of the dust should be applied to the top bars of frames in each brood chamber and the dusting repeated weekly until all traces of AFB are gone. BTW, If the bees do not remove the dust between dustings, it will obviously not work. I have seen beekeepers also dust the infected (and flattened) comb area a bit. Avoid getting the dust on any larvae you want to remain alive, since even a grain or two of the mixture will kill. No medication should be used during any honey flow that will be extracted or while collecting pollen for human consumption. And the usual caveat: YMMV > I've read the old school would burn the hive. Yup, they will definitely recommend such measures. In some areas and countries where AFB is virtually non-existent it is probably (definitely?) wise, but for most of us it is like spitting into the wind... Used correctly, TM will save your hive and your bees *and* within a year or two the chances of having a repeat breakdown in that hive will be no greater than that of any other hive within 5 miles. Hope this helps. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:17:42 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: A Wandering queen - update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Leo Walford wrote: > There has been a lot of discussion recently about the reluctance of bees to draw > comb the wrong side of an excluder and I am wondering whether I should remove > the excluder. If this is the same hive that has no queen, it does'nt matter. They probably will not draw foundation without a queen laying unless the colony somow got very strong before getting queenless. Once the new queen begins to lay, they still will be reluctant to to draw new comb until they need it and will first use up the available comb. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 08:35:40 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Eric Abell Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Use your drawn comb - likely filled with honey, and brood to entice them through the exluder. Select the frames you want to use, shake off the bees and move them above the excluder. If you select a frame or 2 of brood to move up the bees will not hesitate to move through the excluder. Alternately, you might consider running your colonies without an excluder. I am not aware of the situation in your area but I would be suspicious of these 2 hives than have not advanced further by now. If this was in my area I would suspect either the queen or tracheal mites. Good luck Eric At 11:54 AM 24/07/97 -0400, you wrote: >Perhaps a new beekeeper might benefit from this tale of experience, or >one of the many veterans out there would care to comment. > >I'm a second year beekeeper in northeast USA (Rhode Island). Two strong >hives started in the Spring of 1996 from 5-pound packages (Italians) had >yet to produce one drop of surplus honey as of July 11, 1997, i.e. >nearly two seasons later. Seemed odd to say the least. > >All equipment was new and properly assembled in May 1996, with two deep >brood chambers devoted to each colony as a base. Other than a very few >borrowed frames with honey and drawn comb scattered in each colony to >*get them going*, all frames were undrawn Pierco one-piece plastic >frames. The bees were fed syrup, and queen excluders topped by medium >honey supers (no drawn frames; only undrawn Pierco frames) were placed >on top of the brood chambers several weeks after starting. > >By mid-august 1996, I removed the honey supers. There was extremely >little drawn comb in the honey supers and no surplus honey at all. The >deep supers had plenty of drawn comb and honey; also the colonies >appeared healthy. I was pleased that they were well equipped for the >winter. > >Needless to say, I was very optimistic when both colonies emerged strong >in the Spring of 1997. However, when I saw very little drawn comb and >no honey in the honey supers by July 11, I knew something was wrong. >Based on tidbits of information I gained from this list over the months, >I removed the excluders and began to feed syrup again. Lo and behold, >on July 19 I re-examined the hives and found perhaps six frames in each >honey super had fully drawn comb and considerable honey (and/or syrup?). > Only problem was that there was also a large amount (approx. 35%) of >*bridge comb* perpendicular to the frames and connecting the frames. I >subsequently removed all the comb that was going the wrong way. I >think I'm on the right track, but I'll have to re-install the excluders >by August 1 (the latest) if I see any brood in the honey supers. > >I'm hoping for the best when I re-examine this weekend. Thanks to all >on the list who have helped me indirectly! > >Cheers. > >Norm Provost, Burrillville R.I. (USA) >Engineer, Homebrewer, BeeKeeper-wannabee > > Eric Abell Gibbons, Alberta Canada T0A 1N0 Ph/fax (403) 998 3143 eabell@compusmart.ab.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:40:29 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Curtis Atkinson wrote: > In using an ether roll, how do you get the bees in the jar and how > many bees are needed? 200-300 bees is standard. In a pint jar about 1" deep. You may count the bees in the first couple samples you take to get a feel for how many you are geting. To get the bees in the jar, hold the comb at about 45 degrees with the bees you want on the bottom side. Start at the lower edge holding the jar opening almost paralell to the comb and scoop them into the jar. Of course make sure you don't scoop the queen. Close the hive and step back a few yards before using the ether and you will avoide some stinging. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 08:58:36 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Eric Abell Subject: apitherapy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A friend has been getting bees and stinging herself to treat her MS. She is pleased with the results so far and is interested in having a source of bees throughout the winter. As my hives will be covered with snow much of the winter and as I am not anxious to disturb them every week, we are looking for a way for her to keep her own bees and have a ready source of venom. Does anyone have a design or ideas for a hive kept inside but with access to the outside for flight? The design must incorporate an easy way to collect bees every few days. So far, the best idea I have is to house the bees in a bee-tight hive in their attached garage and provide a pipe to the outside. The entrance can be screened once flight is to be discouraged. If there was a 'T' and a valve in this pipe and if a glass jar was attached to this 'T' would the bees move into the jar because of the light? If so, this can be controled by a valve and she could have bees at will. Any ideas? Eric Eric Abell Gibbons, Alberta Canada T0A 1N0 Ph/fax (403) 998 3143 eabell@compusmart.ab.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 11:07:36 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: Foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > > One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... It may be > the same frame I put into the upper brood box to encourage the bees to > move up.. at the start of the season. I installed new patties today. > Will this keep it in check or do I have a real problem on my hands.I've > read , the old school would burn the hive.. Your first line tells me you are not familiar with AFB. If you can get someone local, who is familiar, to examine the hive you may be saved alot of worry. I would not recomend trying to cure an AFB infection. It has never been shown to be reliable. The risk is spreading the disease to other colonies and incurring an even greater loss. This is especially true for those not able to positivly identify the disease in the first place. Is burning "old school" ? The only relavant research I am aware of (Matheson in ABJ) showed that world wide, inspect and burn results in the lowest incidence of AFB. I have discussed this with Dr. Shiminuki, who has performed much research on AFB and TM,and he says burn. I know this is going to be an unpopular post because so many beekeepers do not burn. Makes me wonder why we are asking for more research. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 09:11:38 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: (Fwd) Re: Foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Forwarded message: From: Self To: Lawrence Cooke ,BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Subject: Re: Foulbrood Reply-to: allend@internode.net Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 06:51:36 -0600 > One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... > I installed new patties today. Will this keep it in check or do I have a > real problem on my hands? They say that patties will not clean up AFB, they will only prevent it -- if used correctly. We used grease patties again this year for the first time in about 15 years. This time we used them for their reputed mite suppression properties as well as for AFB and EFB. Usually we just dust and use TM in syrup, but this year we have used no dust and only added TM to syrup and the patties. (FWIW, we also fed non-medicated *pollen supplement* patties as long as we could get into the brood chambers easily; we even have them on nucs right now Our theory is that well nourished bees are more resistant to any disease or pest). AFAIK, in about 2000 colonies we haven't seen any AFB or EFB although we were going through the colonies regularly splitting all spring. The only exception I can recall is one colony I saw somewhere with a little bit early in the spring. I didn't do anything special with it since it was in a distant yard, I had no dust along, and since it was morning and I had a full day ahead, I did not want to take it home. So, it appears that the patties may be working well for us in combination with the medicated feed. Usually we see a few more hives with a touch of AFB than that. Anyhow, dusting with a 1:5 TM / icing sugar mix is usually required to *clean up* (as opposed to preventing) any active AFB, and removing any combs with hard scale (or flattening the cells so the bees tear them down and rebuild) is always wise, since unless the colony is large and conditions are just right, the bees may not be able to deal with it. Besides the scale is usually right in the middle of your brood chamber occupying prime real estate. A heaping tablespoon of the dust should be applied to the top bars of frames in each brood chamber and the dusting repeated weekly until all traces of AFB are gone. BTW, If the bees do not remove the dust between dustings, it will obviously not work. I have seen beekeepers also dust the infected (and flattened) comb area a bit. Avoid getting the dust on any larvae you want to remain alive, since even a grain or two of the mixture will kill. No medication should be used during any honey flow that will be extracted or while collecting pollen for human consumption. And the usual caveat: YMMV > I've read the old school would burn the hive. Yup, they will definitely recommend such measures. In some areas and countries where AFB is virtually non-existent it is probably (definitely?) wise, but for most of us it is like spitting into the wind... Used correctly, TM will save your hive and your bees *and* within a year or two the chances of having a repeat breakdown in that hive will be no greater than that of any other hive within 5 miles. Hope this helps. Allen Allen Dick VE6CFK Rural Route One, Swalwell, Alberta Canada T0M 1Y0 dicka@cuug.ab.ca & allend@internode.net http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 11:14:11 -0400 Reply-To: dronebee@norfolk.infi.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "\\Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez" Organization: Independent non-profit research Subject: Re: Note to Bee-L MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > I have been having the same kind of problem! Some of the recipients on Bee-L have complained to me. There is nothing that I can do! Is this a common problem for others also? Best regards. Dr. Rodriguez Virginia Beach, VA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 11:40:50 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Foulbrood In a message dated 97-07-26 01:56:22 EDT, glcooke@sisna.com (Lawrence Cooke) writes: << One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... It may be the same frame I put into the upper brood box to encourage the bees to move up.. at the start of the season. I installed new patties today. Will this keep it in check or do I have a real problem on my hands.I've read , the old school would burn the hive.. >> Personally, I would burn the frame with the infection, because there a zillions of spores on it. If the rest of the frames are not yet infected, or if they only have a cell or two, I would medicate repeatedly. You'll have to stop honey production, of course. Keep a close watch. Some hives will clean up infection. Others seem susceptible, no matter how much they are medicated. It has to do with their natural trait of good housekeeping. One more thing. I would make certain that it is actually foulbrood. If you put a frame above the excluder in a hive that was a bit weak, and there were some cold nights following, the brood may have gotten chilled and died, or gotten stressed and had a lot of chalkbrood or European foulbrood break out. Make certain it actually is American foulbrood. If it is one of the stress diseases, it would also be a good idea to requeen. The weakness that makes them susceptible is genetic. It might also help with AFB. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 12:19:27 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: An Experiment with Foulbrood All our bees are checked before, or as, they go out to cucurbit pollination. Any hive that do not make our minimum standards are held back. One such disqualifier is American Foulbrood, and we do have an occasional case. (Any commercial beekeeper who will not admit that he has some AFB has got to be a liar! We have one "hot spot" where a lot of equipment has been abandoned several years ago by a beekeeper who was put out of business by unchecked AFB. In that area, which unfortunately is a major veggie growing area, we must be extremely diligent in medication, and we usually still pick up a few cases. I have not been able to locate all the exact spots, but there are many. I don't hold it against a beekeeper for getting foulbrood, but for letting it run, unchecked, though his outfit.) I've done a number of experiments with foulbrood. In the past I've taken the cases to a "hospital" yard and treated them with TM for the rest of the season. Where there is only a few cells infected, I've gotten good results. Where there are massive infections with scale in many cells, it's not worth trying to save the comb. They usually break down again. In the spring of 96, I had one such case that I treated differently. They were badly broken down, but the hive population was still pretty good. They were the lone hive left in the bee yard, so they gained a few extra bees from the drifters that were out in the field when we moved out the yard to pollination. I treated them with TM, not to clean up the infection, which I considered impossible, but to keep them alive and not get robbed out before I could get back to them. I returned to the yard at the end of pollination season (late June), and shook all the bees off the frames. In place of the original hive, I put a new one with all foundation. The bees crawled into the new hive. The old hive I took home to burn the frames and sanitize the box. I fed the hive heavily, as the spring honeyflow was over. In this area, the spring flow is usually "it." Bees can starve at midsummer, expecially if the thermometer is in the 100 degree area. I also kept TM on them. On syrup, they drew out the foundation beautifully. By fall they were ripping strong, and there was no trace of AFB. I put a deep of foundation on them in early fall, over an excluder, because they needed space. They drew this as well, and filled most of it. I left this on them until early March. They still showed no trace of AFB. I then felt safe to use these frames for feed frames for other weaker hives (along with TM, of course). So I removed the deep for feed honey, and put more syrup to these bees. By mid-March they were so heavy, I removed the feeder and added supers, which they promptly filled with bees, and by the first week of April they were also full of honey. In the fall I had brought back 40 hives to the yard. All had been fed, treated with TM and Apistan over the winter, and most looked quite good. I used this yard exclusively for spring honey production. No nucs were made, only a bit of brood equalizing. At the end of the first week of April the experimental hive had three shallows full of capped honey. The other hives had some honey, but little capped. I removed the three supers for extraction, and gave them three more. In late April they had these full again, and were about equivalent to the rest of the yard at that point. So they doubled the average production for the yard. Two conculsions from this (admitedly limited) experiment: 1. Placing AFB bees onto foundation seems to clear up the disease. 2. The Europeans are probably right about renewing old, dark combs periodically. Much of my operation has, at least some dark old comb in the brood chamber, and it probably does carry pathogens. This hive with only newly drawn comb was amazingly powerful. The bees looked large (well fed) and clean. The hive smelled sweet and good. The brood pattern was excellent. They were the kind of hive I might mark as possible breeding stock, if I hadn't known their unique history. Just food for thought. I'm going to do more of this. -Probably even with some bees that are not infected. If they will draw such nice comb at midsummer on syrup, it would obviously be a way to get some "premium" bees ready for next spring. Maybe we can kick up our honey production. This may be the main reason why hobby beekeepers often outpace commercial beekeepers in production per hive. Some get all excited and increase the number of hives, only to find that it is much harder to get the same production per unit from 100 hives as one got from 5. Forgive my ramblings and natterings. Maybe it will trigger some creative thoughts? Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 10:41:54 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > One side of one frame has a patch of foul brood I think ... > I installed new patties today. Will this keep it in check or do I have a > real problem on my hands? They say that patties will not clean up AFB, they will only prevent it -- if used correctly. We used grease patties again this year for the first time in about 15 years. This time we used them for their reputed mite suppression properties as well as for AFB and EFB. Usually we just dust and use TM in syrup, but this year we have used no dust and only added TM to syrup and the patties. (FWIW, we also fed non-medicated *pollen supplement* patties as long as we could get into the brood chambers easily; we even have them on nucs right now Our theory is that well nourished bees are more resistant to any disease or pest). AFAIK, in about 2000 colonies we haven't seen any AFB or EFB although we were going through the colonies regularly splitting all spring. The only exception I can recall is one colony I saw somewhere with a little bit early in the spring. I didn't do anything special with it since it was in a distant yard, I had no dust along, and since it was morning and I had a full day ahead, I did not want to take it home. So, it appears that the patties may be working well for us in combination with the medicated feed. Usually we see a few more hives with a touch of AFB than that. Anyhow, dusting with a 1:5 TM / icing sugar mix is usually required to *clean up* (as opposed to preventing) any active AFB, and removing any combs with hard scale (or flattening the cells so the bees tear them down and rebuild) is always wise, since unless the colony is large and conditions are just right, the bees may not be able to deal with it. Besides the scale is usually right in the middle of your brood chamber occupying prime real estate. A heaping tablespoon of the dust should be applied to the top bars of frames in each brood chamber and the dusting repeated weekly until all traces of AFB are gone. BTW, If the bees do not remove the dust between dustings, it will obviously not work. I have seen beekeepers also dust the infected (and flattened) comb area a bit. Avoid getting the dust on any larvae you want to remain alive, since even a grain or two of the mixture will kill. No medication should be used during any honey flow that will be extracted or while collecting pollen for human consumption. And the usual caveat: YMMV > I've read the old school would burn the hive. Yup, they will definitely recommend such measures. In some areas and countries where AFB is virtually non-existent it is probably (definitely?) wise, but for most of us it is like spitting into the wind... Used correctly, TM will save your hive and your bees *and* within a year or two the chances of having a repeat breakdown in that hive will be no greater than that of any other hive within 5 miles. Hope this helps. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:20:15 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Formula Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I know this is basic info. but would someone take the time to give the TM formulas for making small amounts of feeding syrup and for the dry sugar powder. I have ten hives.. Thanks lc. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:31:37 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Extracting Time Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This will be my first year getting honey. I went in today to look for problems and to do some frame shuffling. It was suggested that I could remove the outer frames if full of honey and replace with empties. They were and I did. Some of the frames in the suppers are capped also. Why can't I extract them now. People say they don't until the end of the season.. lc. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:36:31 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Drones Comments: To: Bee's Bee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a note When I went in today I found a cluster of about 30 drones on some open honey cells, odd. lc. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:50:44 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: Note to Bee-L Comments: To: dronebee@norfolk.infi.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit \Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez wrote: > Lawrence Cooke wrote: > > > > > I have been having the same kind of problem! Some of the recipients on > > Bee-L have complained to me. There is nothing that I can do! Is this > a > common problem for others also? > Best regards. > Dr. Rodriguez > Virginia Beach, VA I f I e-mail my sister it doesn't come up on Bee-L so one has to brake off and put inthe e-mail address separately or put the persons e-mail address in there address book. and use it that way.I don't know the rules of this Bee-L or if there are any but my half of a brain is able to read between to lines. lc. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 17:18:28 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "MR WILLIAM L HUGHES JR." Subject: help! dying bees Comments: To: kc2wz@intercall.net If someone has a garden your bees could have still gotten into some poison. Bill Hughes Bent Holly Honey Farm Brighton, TN USA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 19:43:09 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Alexander Subject: Re: An Experiment with Foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David Green wrote: > ( big snip ) > Two conculsions from this (admitedly limited) experiment: > > 1. Placing AFB bees onto foundation seems to clear up the disease. > > 2. The Europeans are probably right about renewing old, dark combs > periodically. Much of my operation has, at least some dark old comb in > dave. i have done this often and with the addition of TM to keep afb suppressed i think that is a good was to salvage strong hives with afb. i also agree with the second point. getting the old dark comb out of the hive will do a lot to give the bees a chance to get back on the mend. it will also get pathogens out of the hives. when you stop and think about it there a lot of things that bother the bees that can be trapped in old wax. so why now get it out of the hive and melt it down for the wax. dave k7da... washington state... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 22:57:44 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Paul Cronshaw, D.C." Subject: Manuka Honey with Bee Venom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" My aunt arrived today from NZ with a jar of Manuka Honey that has Extra Bee Venom in it( the label says .04 - .06 ppm added). One teaspoon of this honey contains less than half the venom of a single bee sting. It is classified as a Dietary Supplement. I am wondering if anyone has had experience in desensitization or arthritis treatments? Is it available in the USA? Paul Cronshaw, D.C. Cyberchiro and Hobbyist Beekeeper Santa Barbara, CA USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:36:44 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Computer Software Solutions Ltd Subject: Taranov Board Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I heard recently of a Swarm Contol method called a Taranov Board. I have only sketchy information on it. I was told that you do not have to find the Queen and this attracts me greatly as I am only a beginner. Thanks for any assistance Sincerely Tom Barrett 49 South Park Foxrock Dublin 18 Ireland Tel + 353 1 289 5269 Fax + 353 1 289 9940 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 08:06:23 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Joel Govostes Subject: Re: Taranov Board Comments: To: cssl@gpo.iol.ie Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm not sure if I am recalling the correct device, but -- The board is a piece of wood sloping to the ground, which is set up in front of the hive. It is positioned to leave a few inches-gap between it and the hive entrance. The bees are then shaken off the combs at the base of the board. When they run up its surface, the older bees go straight across the gap into the hive, but the younger bees (and queen?) end up clustering at the edge of the board, like a swarm. Then they can be taken away and hived elsewhere. Or that is the jist of it, I think. Can anyone elaborate? Thanks muchly, Joel Govostes Freeville, NY ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 16:47:49 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Stewart Beattie Subject: Re: Taranov Board In-Reply-To: <199707271136.MAA12179@mail.iol.ie> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun 27 Jul, Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > I heard recently of a Swarm Contol method called a Taranov Board. > > I have only sketchy information on it. I was told that you do not have to > find the Queen and this attracts me greatly as I am only a beginner. > > Thanks for any assistance > > Sincerely > > Tom Barrett > 49 South Park > Foxrock > Dublin 18 > Ireland > > Tel + 353 1 289 5269 > Fax + 353 1 289 9940 > > > Tom I use my Tarnoff board quite a lot it is a useful tool to have for splitting young bees and the queen from old bees. Its easy to make a board the width of the hive, fixed at an angle on a base board sloped as you would hive a swarm. Set it back from the hive entrance by about 100mm (4 inches ) shake the bees of the frames on to the board. The old bees will fly into the hive leaving a cluster under the board of old bees and the queen. Easy way to artificially swarm a stock that has queen cells. also I use it to obtain young bees to stock mini-nuc boxesfollow method as book by Bernhard Mobus, Mating in Minuture. published by Btitish Isles Bee Breeders Association. Hope this adds interest to your beekeeping Stewart Cumbria, UK. (an old Gable-Endie) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 14:59:26 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson <71762.1664@compuserve.com> Subject: Slatted Racks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Greetings, I just purchased and painted some slatted racks. Can anyone advise me which side should be up against the bees, the shallow side or the deep side? Also, any additional comments regarding their use would be appreciated by this beginning and gullable beekeeper. Thanx, Rory Stenerson, Member - Centre County Beekeepers Association State College, PA USA 71762.1664@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 14:59:28 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson <71762.1664@compuserve.com> Subject: Nassenheider Evaporators MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Greetings, I just purchased some Nassenheider Evaporators for use with formic acid. = Does anyone have any experience with them and advice they may wish to giv= e me? I'm planning on treating a couple of my hives with formic and the re= st with Apistan and see and compare the results. Thanx in advance for any advice and comment, Rory Stenerson, Member - Centre County Beekeepers Association State College, PA USA 71762.1664@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:40:45 -0700 Reply-To: snielsen@orednet.org Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Susan L. Nielsen" Subject: Brood comb to honey comb? Tell me, if one has some frames which are substantially filled with capped honey comb, but which have small areas of capped brood comb, and one returns these frames to the hive after extracting (being a small-timer, I would not consider wasting the frames just because they contain a few brood cells; the extractor and the strainer are quite fine for separating them; I do not have an yuck quotient ;-) in my makeup), will the bees reuse the brood areas for honey storage? Should I cut out the brood areas and make them draw new comb to compell the bees to use it for honey storage? Or, as I have found to be the case in other matters, should I just trust the bees to know how to deal with things? They seem to be pretty able at managerial decisions. Thanks. Susan -- Susan Nielsen | Beehive: If you build it, snielsen@orednet.org | they will comb. -- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 12:49:07 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bob Rolfness Subject: Re: Nassenheider Evaporators MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rory Stenerson wrote: > > Greetings, > > I just purchased some Nassenheider Evaporators for use with formic acid. > Does anyone have any experience with them and advice they may wish to give > me? I'm planning on treating a couple of my hives with formic and the rest > with Apistan and see and compare the results. > > Thanx in advance for any advice and comment, > > Rory Stenerson, > Member - Centre County Beekeepers Association > State College, PA USA > 71762.1664@compuserve.com Rory - Is the acid legal now in the USA? Bob ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 17:58:24 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Mares Subject: LIABILTY Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I'm starting to sell some of my honey--it's still strictly an amateur operation and I estimate we'll take in between $500-$700. My lawyer-brother thinks I need to establish a corporation and the whole nine-yards to protect against the cranks out there who will sue anyone for anything. Two questions: A. What do you professionals do about this problem? B. What course do you recommend to amateurs, or does selling make me a professional? Thanks, Bill Mares, ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:28:50 +0100 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom Speight Subject: Re: BEE-L Digest - 24 Jul 1997 to 25 Jul 1997 In-Reply-To: <869889933.0515247.0@uacsc2.albany.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 In message <869889933.0515247.0@uacsc2.albany.edu>, Automatic digest processor writes Snip >Tonight I got a shock. In front of the Buckfast colony there were a lot >of dead bees. I would guess about 2 good size handfuls of bees. Snip Were they workers or drones? If you have take three supers of honey, it seems you are coming to the end of your season and that's when the poor old men get dragged out - literally. -- Tom Speight ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:37:01 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "(Thomas) (Cornick)" Subject: Re: Slatted Racks In a message dated 97-07-27 15:01:26 EDT, you write: << Greetings, I just purchased and painted some slatted racks. Can anyone advise me which side should be up against the bees, the shallow side or the deep side? Also, any additional comments regarding their use would be appreciated by this beginning and gullable beekeeper. Thanx, >> shallow side up flat board towards front to break draft ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:43:13 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Gerry Visel Subject: Raising Queens At our last bee club meeting, a researcher presented how he raises queens. He traps the queen on an empty comb with some screen or queen excluder material for 12 - 24 hours, then grafts the eggs and royal jelly from these cells into queen cell cups for a queenless nuc to raise into queen cells. (Trapping the queen gets all the eggs to be the same age.) He uses queen cell protectors to introduce the queen cells to (queenright) hives, saying the protector keeps the queen from attacking the cell, and when the new queen emerges, she always wins the fight. My question: Why graft the eggs into new cells? It seems like an awfully delicate operation, with plenty of opportunity to damage the egg. Why not just put the frame she laid them in into the nuc and let them draw out queen cells from that, cutting out the area around the cell to introduce it? Comments? I just tried grafting today, and of course, thought of it _after_ I was done. I gave them the extra frame anyhow and will letchya know how they turn out! I would think the undisturbed cells will do better. Would a small cone of window screen do if the cell protectors don't get here in time? Thanx muchly! Gerry Visel, northern Illinois, six hives ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 21:56:51 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank & Phronsie Humphrey Subject: Re: Raising Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Gerry Visel > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Raising Queens > Date: Sunday, July 27, 1997 6:43 PM > snip ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 22:53:29 -0400 Reply-To: dronebee@norfolk.infi.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "\\Dr. Pedro P. Rodriguez" Organization: Independent non-profit research Subject: Re: Drones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence Cooke wrote: > Just a note When I went in today I found a cluster of about 30 drones > on > some open honey cells, odd. > lc. There is an erroneous impression from way back when that drones are not capable of feeding themselves. That is totally wrong. Drones will feed from open honey cells. Drones have a short tongue and thus can not forage but they surely, and they do, feed from open, full honey cells. Honey bees can not think, but they sure have a mechanism of "self protection." They "know" that drones represent a form of reduction of their honey stores, and no small wonder, they do take them out of the confines of the colony. As soon as the nectar flows stop, the drones are in danger of being expulsed by their sisters. The timing is not exact, ti varies from year to year. Best regards. Dr. Rodriguez Virginia Beach, VA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:49:16 -0800 Reply-To: beeman@Alaska.NET Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom & Carol Elliott Organization: Home Subject: Re: Taranov Board MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Computer Software Solutions Ltd wrote: > > I heard recently of a Swarm Contol method called a Taranov Board. > > I have only sketchy information on it. I was told that you do not have to > find the Queen and this attracts me greatly as I am only a beginner. > Tom, The Taranov Board appears to have some uses and some advocates. But, I would certainly not use it to avoid learning to find the queen. Every beekeepeer should learn to locate the queen, even though it is not often necessary. Tom -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugigak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@alaska.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 21:23:50 -0800 Reply-To: beeman@Alaska.NET Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Tom & Carol Elliott Organization: Home Subject: Re: Brood comb to honey comb? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Susan L. Nielsen wrote: > > Tell me, if one has some frames which are substantially filled > with capped honey comb, but which have small areas of capped > brood comb, and one returns these frames to the hive after > extracting (being a small-timer, I would not consider wasting the > frames just because they contain a few brood cells; the extractor > and the strainer are quite fine for separating them; I do not have > an yuck quotient ;-) in my makeup), will the bees reuse the brood > areas for honey storage? > > Should I cut out the brood areas and make them draw new comb > to compell the bees to use it for honey storage? > > Or, as I have found to be the case in other matters, should I > just trust the bees to know how to deal with things? They seem > to be pretty able at managerial decisions. > Susan, I am sure this will not be a popular response, but I make no distinction between brood comb, and honey comb. I know that there is a lot of verbage on this subject, but my honey has always tasted great, and has been popular with others (even those who "don't like honey", because all they have tasted is blended over heated commercial varieties). I say just use it and don't worry about it. When your combs get too dark, replace them completely. -- "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Tom Elliott Chugigak, Alaska U.S.A. beeman@alaska.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:46:50 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Seppo Korpela Subject: Re: Lesson Learned Revisited (address of Ingemar Fries) In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Hello all. > Does anyone know the email address of Ingemar Fries at the Swedish > Agricultural University? Thanks in advance. > > Pat Parkman > Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville > jppark@utkux.utcc.utk.edu > The address is: Ingemar.fries@entom.slu.se ============================================================================= * Seppo Korpela Agricultural Research Center of Finland * Phone INT + 358 3 4188 576 Institute of Plant Protection * FAX INT + 358 3 4188 584 FIN-31600 Jokioinen * E-mail seppo.korpela@mtt.fi Finland ============================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:34:53 GMT+0200 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Garth Organization: Rhodes University South Africa Subject: Bee removal and other things Hi all Just had a gret weekend of bee events. Went through to a town about 120kilometers down the coast from my town in South Africa to collect a swarm from a friends back yard as well as to get some bee bits and pieces. This year our year seems to be starting about a month early so everything is already hotting up, way before spring. The hive I fetched was in a barrel, so was able to lift the lid and prop it between bricks then cutt of the combs and fit them into frames. Was able to cut the comb so it fitted the frames exactly and fix them with elastic. Next I was able to scoop up eight kilograms of bees!! So got a full langstroth of bees in one scoop and one super to fit all of them!! They also had a few kilograms of wild honey which was in nice fresh drawn comb which goes into the family supply. Lovely eucalyptus tang to it. Secondly checked my hives and found all of them running over five frames of brood, one with ten frames. This same hive had also drawn one full super of foundation and half filled it! All this with daily temps never going much above 18 degrees and night temps often leaving frost on the hives bodies. Oh well, can't imagine what spring will be like with all these bees around already. This is supposed to be when the hive is declining. Just my few highlights. Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray "Opinions expressed in this post may be those 15 Park Road of Pritz, my cat, who knows a lot about Grahamstown catfood." 6140 *garth@rucus.ru.ac.za* South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 In general, generalisations are bad. But don't worry BEEEEEE happy. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 04:38:38 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Crowding Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is a reply to a personal email that I thought might interest the list: > You said in the fall, reduce supers. I have a very large colony that I > had to put on a 3rd deep super just to contain the bees, waiting to see > how many will still be around after one more sept honey flow. When it > comes time to reduce them down to two deep supers for the winter how > should I go about this. You can winter in three standards too. I guess I forgot to mention this, since for running with excluders, a double works better -- unless you plan to two-queen. And my comments about space in the original post do not apply to comb production where bees must be crowded into the sections to get a good job. Many good beekeepers winter in three boxes. It has some advantages such as less worrying about running out of feed in early spring or failing to give sufficient room when required. Of course, this approach requires more equipment and the boxes and frames that are used for wintering are exposed to weather and deteriorating conditions moreso than boxes stacked in a good honey house. We've used three broods for wintering, and since our wraps only are designed for hives that are two high, the bottom boxes were exposed. Since the hives were pushed tight together with only inner covers, there was not too much draft coming up under and we experienced no adverse effects. Now to answer the question: by the time you need to reduce the boxes to two, the brood rearing should be reduced to the point where it is all taking place in one or two of the boxes -- in Alberta at least (I'm not sure where you are). When you inspect the hive, one of three conditions will be found: all the brood will be near the bottom with honey packed into the upper box(es), all the brood will benear the top with empty boxes below, or -- more unlikely if the season is over -- there will be brood in all three boxes. In the first case, just remove the top brood chamber as you would a full super and replace the lid. In the second, remove the bottom box as you would remove an empty super and proceed to feed heavily until the two remaining boxes weigh 60 kg or more including lid and floor and bees. In the third, you will have to decide which two boxes contain most of the brood and pollen and feed and move the brood from the least occupied box into the others, removing the least filled frames from them to make room. Do not shuffle the combs around any more than necessary, since the bees have things much the way they want it for good winter survival. Another option is to slip in an excluder and wait the three weeks or so necessary for all the brood to hatch in the isolated box. While mentioning excluders again, I should mention that once bees are accustomed to working strongly in a third box, adding an excluder will cause no impediment whatsoever to the bees -- with the exception of the queen. All the difficulties that inexperienced (and experienced beekeepers) report are related to getting the bees to initially expand through an excluder during the buildup season. Once they have become accustomed to occupying the real estate above an excluder they will pour through the wires as if they were not there. Bees learn that there are three boxes on a three box hive. If you remove a third, they attempt to go where it used to be and they will seem very crowded until they adjust to having only two. If you pull a third from a hive that has never had an excluder then add an excluder and an empty box, it will fill with bees in moments. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 04:47:38 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Brood comb to honey comb? In-Reply-To: <33DC2CE6.6A86@alaska.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > ... I make no distinction between brood comb, and honey comb. To carry this further, we don't worry about using brood combs for honey. In fact that is exactly what we do with brood combs that are misshapen, warped or getting too full of drone cells. We just put them above the excluder and they work for many more years. Our honey invariably grades 'water white'. For extraction, the perfection of combs is entirely unimportant to us as long as they are not so bent that honey cannot escape in a radial extractor. We *do* fuss about our brood frames, though, and have found that if we use too many white 'honey' frames in a new brood chamber that it has a very negative effect on buildup and wintering until the bees have occupied them for a year or two. Freshly drawn foundation does not seem to have the same effect. The bees apparently have preferences exactly oppose those of beekeepers: I have heard that they much perfer to store honey in dark comb and raise brood in new white comb. Seems to fit with my experience. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 04:57:35 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Brood comb to honey comb? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > ... I make no distinction between brood comb, and honey comb. To carry this further, we don't worry about using brood combs for honey. In fact that is exactly what we do with brood combs that are misshapen, warped or getting too full of drone cells. We just put them above the excluder and they work for many more years. Our honey invariably grades 'water white'. For extraction, the perfection of combs is entirely unimportant to us as long as they are not so bent that honey cannot escape in a radial extractor. We *do* fuss about our brood frames, though, and have found that if we use too many white 'honey' frames in a new brood chamber that it has a very negative effect on buildup and wintering until the bees have occupied them for a year or two. Freshly drawn foundation does not seem to have the same effect. The bees apparently have preferences exactly oppose those of beekeepers: I have heard that they much perfer to store honey in dark comb and raise brood in new white comb. Seems to fit with my experience. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 05:06:04 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Crowding Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is a reply to a personal email that I thought might also interest this list: > You said in the fall, reduce supers. I have a very large colony that I > had to put on a 3rd deep super just to contain the bees, waiting to see > how many will still be around after one more sept honey flow. When it > comes time to reduce them down to two deep supers for the winter how > should I go about this. You can winter in three standards too. I guess I forgot to mention this, since for running with excluders, a double works better -- unless you plan to two-queen. And my comments about space in the original post do not apply to comb production where bees must be crowded into the sections to get a good job. Many good beekeepers winter in three boxes. It has some advantages such as less worrying about running out of feed in early spring or failing to give sufficient room when required. Of course, this approach requires more equipment and the boxes and frames that are used for wintering are exposed to weather and deteriorating conditions moreso than boxes stacked in a good honey house. We've used three broods for wintering, and since our wraps only are designed for hives that are two high, the bottom boxes were exposed. Since the hives were pushed tight together with only inner covers, there was not too much draft coming up under and we experienced no adverse effects. Now to answer the question: by the time you need to reduce the boxes to two, the brood rearing should be reduced to the point where it is all taking place in one or two of the boxes -- in Alberta at least (I'm not sure where you are). When you inspect the hive, one of three conditions will be found: all the brood will be near the bottom with honey packed into the upper box(es), all the brood will benear the top with empty boxes below, or -- more unlikely if the season is over -- there will be brood in all three boxes. In the first case, just remove the top brood chamber as you would a full super and replace the lid. In the second, remove the bottom box as you would remove an empty super and proceed to feed heavily until the two remaining boxes weigh 60 kg or more including lid and floor and bees. In the third, you will have to decide which two boxes contain most of the brood and pollen and feed and move the brood from the least occupied box into the others, removing the least filled frames from them to make room. Do not shuffle the combs around any more than necessary, since the bees have things much the way they want it for good winter survival. Another option is to slip in an excluder and wait the three weeks or so necessary for all the brood to hatch in the isolated box. While mentioning excluders again, I should mention that once bees are accustomed to working strongly in a third box, adding an excluder will cause no impediment whatsoever to the bees -- with the exception of the queen. All the difficulties that inexperienced (and experienced beekeepers) report are related to getting the bees to initially expand through an excluder during the buildup season. Once they have become accustomed to occupying the real estate above an excluder they will pour through the wires as if they were not there. Bees learn that there are three boxes on a three box hive. If you remove a third, they attempt to go where it used to be and they will seem very crowded until they adjust to having only two. If you pull a third from a hive that has never had an excluder then add an excluder and an empty box, it will fill with bees in moments. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 20:58:33 +0900 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: State Fair Beeswax Display Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >A pan with a nonstick surface works great without spraying. I wipe the inside of my moulds with a cloth moistened with vegetable oil (the cheapest I can find). Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Extracting Time Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This will be my first year getting honey. I went in today to look for >problems and to do some frame shuffling. It was suggested that I could >remove the outer frames if full of honey and replace with empties. They >were and I did. Some of the frames in the suppers >are capped also. Why can't I extract them now. People say they don't >until the end of the season.. Extract sealed frames whenever you like. When I had two hives I was extracting everytime I had 8 frames sealed. Storing frames until the end of the season to make it a once only job risks having completely candied and unextractable frames. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: j h & e mcadam Subject: Re: Taranov Board Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm not sure if I am recalling the correct device, but -- > >The board is a piece of wood sloping to the ground, which is set up in >front of the hive. It is positioned to leave a few inches-gap between it >and the hive entrance. The bees are then shaken off the combs at the base >of the board. When they run up its surface, the older bees go straight >across the gap into the hive, but the younger bees (and queen?) end up >clustering at the edge of the board, like a swarm. Then they can be taken >away and hived elsewhere. >Or that is the jist of it, I think. Can anyone elaborate? > Do not know anything about a Taranov board but from above description would not recommend this to a beginner as I think there are too many possibilities for losing the queen. I recommend reading L.E. Snelgrove's book on Swarming - its control and prevention. It was written in 1934 but the principles are still valid. It is not necessary to locate or handle the queen as if she is not with the brood separated from the rest of the bees, this will quickly become apparent. The book includes diagrams of the various hive splitting devices to enable a hive to be maintained at full strength without swarming. When attempting swarm control measures, I find the following worth remembering. "To prevent swarming, separate the queen (and any potential queens) from the field bees until swarming mode is over." Once you understand your objective, there are a number of ways to go about achieving this. Betty McAdam HOG BAY APIARY Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island j.h. & e. mcadam From: Tillie Welsh Organization: Environ. Biology & Horticulture Subject: Re: Ingemar Fries Comments: To: Excerpts from BEE-L From: "Excerpts from BEE-L" Organization: BestOfBee@systronix.net To: BestOfBee@systronix.net Date sent: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 13:53:28 -0500 Subject: Ingemar Fries Send reply to: BEE-L Priority: normal From: James P Parkman Does anyone know the email address of Ingemar Fries at the Swedish Agricultural University? Thanks in advance. Pat Parkman Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville jppark@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Hi James, The e-mail address of Ingemar Fries = Ingemar.fries@entom.slu.se Greetings Tilli Welsh ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:52:41 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Provost,Norm (NFSPOST1)" Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations Eric, thanks for the advice. I chose to remove the excluders, and the bees have since moved up nicely into the supers above. They're building comb like crazy and the honey is flowing in. I'll watch for brood, and re-install the excluders this coming weekend if I see any. Taking into account the 3 week brood cycle, the time to extract here in R.I. is August 15 but a stretch to the 22nd is ok too. Thanks again! Norm >---------- >From: Eric Abell[SMTP:eabell@compusmart.ab.ca] >Sent: Saturday, July 26, 1997 10:35AM >To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU >Subject: Re: Newbee Trials and Tribulations > >Use your drawn comb - likely filled with honey, and brood to entice them >through the exluder. Select the frames you want to use, shake off the bees >and move them above the excluder. If you select a frame or 2 of brood to >move up the bees will not hesitate to move through the excluder. >Alternately, you might consider running your colonies without an excluder. > >I am not aware of the situation in your area but I would be suspicious of >these 2 hives than have not advanced further by now. If this was in my area >I would suspect either the queen or tracheal mites. > >Good luck > >Eric > > >At 11:54 AM 24/07/97 -0400, you wrote: >>Perhaps a new beekeeper might benefit from this tale of experience, or >>one of the many veterans out there would care to comment. >> >>I'm a second year beekeeper in northeast USA (Rhode Island). Two strong >>hives started in the Spring of 1996 from 5-pound packages (Italians) had >>yet to produce one drop of surplus honey as of July 11, 1997, i.e. >>nearly two seasons later. Seemed odd to say the least. >> >>All equipment was new and properly assembled in May 1996, with two deep >>brood chambers devoted to each colony as a base. Other than a very few >>borrowed frames with honey and drawn comb scattered in each colony to >>*get them going*, all frames were undrawn Pierco one-piece plastic >>frames. The bees were fed syrup, and queen excluders topped by medium >>honey supers (no drawn frames; only undrawn Pierco frames) were placed >>on top of the brood chambers several weeks after starting. >> >>By mid-august 1996, I removed the honey supers. There was extremely >>little drawn comb in the honey supers and no surplus honey at all. The >>deep supers had plenty of drawn comb and honey; also the colonies >>appeared healthy. I was pleased that they were well equipped for the >>winter. >> >>Needless to say, I was very optimistic when both colonies emerged strong >>in the Spring of 1997. However, when I saw very little drawn comb and >>no honey in the honey supers by July 11, I knew something was wrong. >>Based on tidbits of information I gained from this list over the months, >>I removed the excluders and began to feed syrup again. Lo and behold, >>on July 19 I re-examined the hives and found perhaps six frames in each >>honey super had fully drawn comb and considerable honey (and/or syrup?). >> Only problem was that there was also a large amount (approx. 35%) of >>*bridge comb* perpendicular to the frames and connecting the frames. I >>subsequently removed all the comb that was going the wrong way. I >>think I'm on the right track, but I'll have to re-install the excluders >>by August 1 (the latest) if I see any brood in the honey supers. >> >>I'm hoping for the best when I re-examine this weekend. Thanks to all >>on the list who have helped me indirectly! >> >>Cheers. >> >>Norm Provost, Burrillville R.I. (USA) >>Engineer, Homebrewer, BeeKeeper-wannabee >> >> >Eric Abell >Gibbons, Alberta Canada T0A 1N0 >Ph/fax (403) 998 3143 >eabell@compusmart.ab.ca > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:24:56 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Curtis Atkinson Subject: Gloves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I have seen picutures of bee keepers not wearing gloves. When I try to do that, i always get stung. Am I missing something? Curtis Atkinson 2701 S. Caraway Jonesboro, Ar 72401 501-932-7838 catkinson@intellinet.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:27:05 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "(Thomas) (Cornick)" Subject: Re: Gloves In a message dated 97-07-28 09:26:27 EDT, you write: << I have seen picutures of bee keepers not wearing gloves. When I try to do that, i always get stung. Am I missing something? >> how long ya been beekeeping? takes some experiance before you are gentle enough or recognize bees that are gentle enough I keep a pair of gloves to wear for jobs like replacing a bottom board but pretty much go barehanded ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:47:52 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: RICHARD BARNES Subject: Re: LIABILTY Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Depending on your personal assets, you might need just an "umbrella" insurance policy. Since my hobby is beekeeping. I only have 15 hives. My home owner's insurance covers the honey sold. I pay an additional approx. $100 per year for $1 million of liability coverage. This policy has a $50,000 deductible which is the amount my regular home owner's insurance will pay. In effect, I am increasing my home owner's liability to $1,000,000. check with your insurance agent. This will work as long as I am able to say my beekeeping is a hobby. Check to see if your state allows Limited Liability Companies (not a corporation). This form of business allows the liability protection of a corporation but with none of the headaches of a corporation. In Oklahoma, the cost is $100 per year to the state and there are kits for around $30 that will let you set up the company. The company is like a partnership with straight forward tax flowing through to your personal income tax form. The LLC return is informational and no taxes will be owed on the LLC. The income will go straight to your personal income tax and is taxed at your personal rates. NO, this is not a limited partnership. Similar but not the same. Remember to use seperate checking accounts for the business. This helps guarantee the seperation of the business from your personal assets for liability reasons. LLCs and LLPs are relatively new forms of business in the US. Limited Liability Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships are hybred types of businesses. For once, government got something right. You get the benefit of liability limited to the business assets, but none of the headaches of a corporation.( coprorate tax, minutes of director's meetings, franchise taxes, state fees, etc.) I recommend this form of business set-up for all "small" businesses. My farm is set-up this way. I am the managing partner and get 50% of the income. My wife is the "silent" partner and gets the other 50%. If we ever make money, I will pay social security tax on my 50%, but my wife will not have to pay social security tax. There are lots of other benefits. CHECK IT OUT! If you do a little research, you will see that a lot of large closely held corporations have switched to the LLC and LLP format of business. An example is the large accounting firms and law firms. If your lawyer doesn't know about LLCs and LLPs then have them look into it or get a better lawyer. Richard L. Barnes, CPA rbarnes@halnet.com At 05:58 PM 7/27/97 -0500, you wrote: >I'm starting to sell some of my honey--it's still strictly an amateur operation and I estimate we'll take in between $500-$700. > My lawyer-brother thinks I need to establish a corporation and the whole nine-yards to protect against the cranks out there who will sue anyone for anything. Two questions: > A. What do you professionals do about this problem? > B. What course do you recommend to amateurs, or does selling make me a professional? > > >Thanks, Bill Mares, > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:47:24 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: JRmintin@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Bee removal and other things as a new bee keeper here in Wisconsin with 2 hives that i started may1st. should i expect to retreive any honey this first year? i ordered a italian queen and 6000 bees there seems to be a lot of action. to my dismay when i lift the cover there are a lot of earwigs on top of the frames. what can i do to get rid of them buggers i hate em.. i never had bees before and is it common for them to be so nice to me. when i am around them or open the cover they really dont go after me have i got tame bees or just lucky? thank you kindly regards Jerry ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:34:59 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rett Thorpe Subject: Re: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Feeding with baggies has been mentioned. How is this done? What kind > of baggie, and where is it placed? > When I got my new bees this year I asked around to determine the best method of feeding. With the help of this list I also decided upon the baggie method. This has worked great. The bees seem to get all the syrup they want and I haven't had any of the problems mention by others. I did experience one annoyance. When I would go to work the bees, it was a real hassle getting the baggie off (unless it was empty). It is pretty much impossible to get the baggie off the frames without spilling some syrup down onto the bees, and this happens again when you try to place the half full baggie back on the frames. However, I think I have a very simple solution. Next time I feed I plan to put the baggies on a piece of plywood or in a small tray of some sort. This should remedy my problem of lifting off a baggie with slits in it. I also think this could help those who say that the syrup spills down over the frames, if you used a small tray it would collect the syrup and not spill down into the hive. comments? Rett Thorpe Salt Lake City, Utah First year, two hives ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:39:17 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Rory Stenerson <71762.1664@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Nassenheider Evaporators MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Bob Rolfness wrote: "Is the acid legal now in the USA?" I'm not a lawyer so this is not an informed legal opinion, however here i= s my limited understanding of the situation. Formic acid is a hazardous material and since the USDA/EPA doesn't want anyone to get hurt they are not allowing it to be sold to the general public, i.e. to an untrained beekeeper. There is some work being done on= creating a "child proof" application which involves using an evaporative gel mechanism. = However, I do not believe that it's a controlled substance nor does it po= se an environmental threat. You probably noticed that I didn't answer your question, "is it legal in the U.S.?" = Rory Stenerson, Member - Centre County Beekeepers Association State College, PA USA 71762.1664@compuserve.com = ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:56:26 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Lawrence Cooke Organization: Dolores Door&Trim Subject: Re: Bee removal and other things MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit JRmintin@AOL.COM wrote: > as a new bee keeper here in Wisconsin with 2 hives that i started > may1st. > should i expect to retreive any honey this first year? i ordered a > italian > queen and 6000 bees there seems to be a lot of action. to my dismay > when i > lift the cover there are a lot of earwigs on top of the frames. what > can i do > to get rid of them buggers i hate em.. i never had bees before and is > it > common for them to be so nice to me. when i am around them or open the > cover > they really dont go after me have i got tame bees or just lucky? thank > you > kindly regards Jerry I've been at it only about two years but I may be able to help.Check your lid to see if it is sitting right on the top bars if the bees can't get up there they may not be able to get to them.Bees will expel most any bugs that try to get in. Check to see if you have a laying Queen (look for eggs) if you hive lost its queen they may be weakening. Good luck, Lawrence Cooke ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:17:01 -0400 Reply-To: "Glen B. Glater" Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "Glen B. Glater" Subject: adding honey supers Info: My hives are in Massachusetts, 20 mi. west of Boston. I checked my hives this weekend and one has a *FULL* medium and *FULL* shallow on it. The other has 3 shallows, none of which seem to be full yet. There is nectar in frames in all of them, but not capped honey yet. I was going to add another shallow to the one with the full supers. When I called my beekeeping supply person, her answering machine said: "Don't add supers in August." Now, I've always heard the CW to be that since there is no honey flow in this region during the summer, there was no reason to put on additional supers. On the other hand, I don't see what it could hurt, since there is a lot of purple loostrife in flower here now... So, my question is: Can I harm this hive by adding a shallow honey super to the top of all this? It will have to be frames/foundation, since I don't have any drawn comb for them... Thanks. --glen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:52:31 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Frank & Phronsie Humphrey Subject: Re: questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- > From: Rett Thorpe > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Re: questions > Date: Monday, July 28, 1997 10:34 AM > > > Feeding with baggies has been mentioned. How is this done? What kind > > of baggie, and where is it placed? > > > When I got my new bees this year I asked around to determine the > best method of feeding. With the help of this list I also decided upon > the baggie method. This has worked great. The bees seem to get all the > syrup they want and I haven't had any of the problems mention by others. > I did experience one annoyance. When I would go to work the bees, it > was a real hassle getting the baggie off (unless it was empty). It is > pretty much impossible to get the baggie off the frames without spilling > some syrup down onto the bees, and this happens again when you try to > place the half full baggie back on the frames. However, I think I have > a very simple solution. Next time I feed I plan to put the baggies on a > piece of plywood or in a small tray of some sort. This should remedy my > problem of lifting off a baggie with slits in it. I also think this > could help those who say that the syrup spills down over the frames, if > you used a small tray it would collect the syrup and not spill down into > the hive. > comments? > > Rett Thorpe > Salt Lake City, Utah > First year, two hives I usually put baggies on a Queen excluder or add a super and put it on top of the super frames. This makes it easy to lift off and look into the brood chamber. Frank Humphrey beekeepr@cdc.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:12:40 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Faith Andrews Bedford Subject: Re: Foulbrood In a message dated 97-07-26 15:57:32 EDT, you write: << A heaping tablespoon of the dust should be applied to the top bars of frames in each brood chamber and the dusting repeated weekly until all traces of AFB are gone. >> I was undert the impression that any hive with AFB had to reported to a state bee inspector, the bees killed and the hives either burned, scorched or treated in a "gas" chamber. Am I wrong? Is that info outddated? Faith Andrews Bedford, Tampa and Ivy, VA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:52:23 -0400 Reply-To: conrad@ntcnet.com Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Conrad Sigona <"Conrad Sigona"@NTCNET.COM> Organization: Conrad's Computers Subject: Re: Gloves Comments: cc: conrad@ntcnet.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Curtis Atkinson wrote: > > I have seen picutures of bee keepers not wearing gloves. When I try > to do that, i always get stung. Am I missing something? Speaking from inexperience, since I've only tried keeping bees for 4 years, I can say that I do not recommend wearing gloves except maybe for the greenest of beginners. I myself wore rubber coated canvas gloves at the start and indeed never got stung, but I found that the gloves made me clumsy and that would rile the bees up. With gloves, you have little to lose by making awkward movements, by squishing bees beneath your fingers, by squishing bees when you replace frames or by continuing to work the bees when they are already very angry. Taking your gloves off teaches you to pay more attention to the mood of the hive and to be careful with your movements. After all, the result of a wild jerky movement is a case of instant bio-feedback (namely, a sting). Here are some things I learned using the instant bio-feedback method: 1. Use slow movements and avoid jerking things around (for instance, snapping the frame out of its propolis or dropping the frame against the hive). Be smooth and deliberate. 2. When you handle a frame, learn to feel for a bee beneath your fingers before you grip tightly. Most of the stings I received were from a bee squished beneath my clumsy fingers. 3. Listen to the bees and you'll learn to recognize when they are calm, when they are perturbed and when they are angry. 4. If you're getting the bees angry, slow down or stop altogether. 5. There are major differences among honey bees in their tolerance to beekeepers poking around in their hives. This seems to be a genetic trait. That is, some races of bees are friendly; some are mean. Just now, I have five hives of the sweetest, friendliest bees imaginable, much nicer than any I've had before. I'm not so thrilled by their honey gathering abilities though, so it seems to be a compromise between friendliness and production. 6. Even though you leave your gloves off, continue to wear your veil. 7. Even the sweetest of bees get annoyed if you continue to bother them so don't leave the hive open for long periods while you're figuring things out. This may be hard to do if you're still getting the basics down and are intrigued by the goings-on within the hive. You may be tempted to spend an entire afternoon probing around in one hive; don't do it! 8. If you get stung, grit your teeth and continue. Don't wave your arm around; try not to jerk your finger away; don't drop the frame! There are also guidelines about how to use your smoker, but this has been discussed a lot here. I tend to not use the smoker at all unless the bees are getting riled up, but that's because my bees are such a calm bunch. -- Conrad Sigona conrad@ntcnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 14:05:04 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Ted Wout Subject: Re: Foulbrood MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Faith Andrews Bedford wrote: >>I was undert the impression that any hive with AFB had to reported to a= state bee inspector, the bees killed and the hives either burned, scorched or treated in a "gas" chamber. Am I wrong? Is that info outddated?<< To the best of my knowledge we don't have a state bee inspector in Texas.= = I also don't think we have a law or act that requires destruction of a hi= ve that has AFB. We also don't have a "gas" chamber here in Texas. We used= to hang 'em but now we inject'em(death by lethal injection). I think that you could be right depending on geographical location. Everything like this is regulated by state in the USA and by federal/provincial governments abroad. = I've had one case of AFB in my short tenure as a beekeeper. That hive wa= s turned around with terramycin but crashed the following year. Based on that limited experience I'm not a good reference for turning an AFB infected hive around. If I get it again, I'll try to save the hive again= =2E = Perhaps I'll try Dave Green's method of putting them in a hive full of foundation. Whatever the case, I would hate to just give up on the bees.= = They're so tenacious. I learn so many lessons from them. I think we cou= ld all learn some of that from them. On the other hand, they'll march along= to their drum, ignoring a fallen comrade as if he/she weren't even there.= = So they also know not to mess around with a lost cause. = Ted Wout Red Oak, TX, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:07:00 +0000 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: OAKES DAVID W Subject: Re: Gloves In-Reply-To: <199707281325.IAA10350@sibyl.intellinet.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Cutris Atkinson spoke: I am new to beekeeping also.(2 yr) I have been stung only once for not wearing gloves. I was holding a frame with my little pinky finger up in the air and one of those little girls thought it was a flag waving in the wind.:) She popped me good. My advice is just do not squeeze the bees. No trouble-go at it easy with smoke. Dave in Indiana ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:45:56 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Foulbrood Comments: To: Faith Andrews Bedford In-Reply-To: <970728131128_-2110934830@emout08.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > I was undert the impression that any hive with AFB had to reported to a > state bee inspector, the bees killed and the hives either burned, > scorched or treated in a "gas" chamber. Am I wrong? Is that info > outddated? It depends what state you live in. Many states are represented on this list including Canada, France and South Africa. Allen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:48:59 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jennifer Louise Pehanich Subject: walnut toxicity Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello. My name is Jenn Pehanich, I am a senior at the Penn State University majoring in Forest Science. This summer I am working at our Forest Resources Lab and agriculture extension office. We received a call from the regional honey bee inspector who had an interesting question we are trying to find information on. This gentleman has found a colony that appears to be free of mites, he is currently checking to be positive. But the interesting thing is the colony is in a black walnut tree. We were wondering if the toxins in the walnut have some effect of why the mites haven't got to the bees yet. If you have an information it would be greatly appreciated. Maybe some ideas could be tossed around also. Thank you for your time. Jenn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:10:52 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Walt Barricklow Subject: feeding the bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I put in a 3pound box of bees this spring. They filled the first deep super, and the 2nd deep super. To contain the bees I had to put on a shallow super of foundation. I am going to feed them 1to 1 sugar syrup to help them make foundation. I thought that I might give them some terimycin in their syrup as a preventative measure for good health. How much would go in a 1/2 gal bottle feeder. I use boardman feeders. I am not going to take any honey from them this year, I just want them strong for next year. Thanks for all the info on the air bubbles in my honey. I did what was suggested and how simple. It worked just fine. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:34:27 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: David Green Subject: Re: Foulbrood In a message dated 97-07-28 13:59:13 EDT, Faith Andrews Bedford writes: << I was undert the impression that any hive with AFB had to reported to a state bee inspector, the bees killed and the hives either burned, scorched or treated in a "gas" chamber. Am I wrong? Is that info outddated? >> I've been told by state inspectors in more than one US state, that, if they don't find foulbrood, they don't have to do anything. I interpret that as encouragement, at least for experienced beekeepers, to take care of their own foulbrood. I'd be lying, if I said I'd never had foulbrood, but I can't recall ever having an inspector find it, because I do take care of it, whether by burning or treatment with TM. American foulbrood is not particularly infectious, as long as a hive is strong enough to prevent robbers from entering. That also presumes that we don't switch around contaminated frames. So finding some cells of foulbrood is not a call for panic. It just means that appropriate and timely means must be taken to prevent the spread of the infection. I am much more concerned, if I find a deadout with a lot of cappings on the floor, evidence of being robbed out. The spores have already been spread around. That's a good reason for a prompt check of other bees in the area, and a protective TM treatment before the disease has a chance to get established. Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA Practical Pollination Tips: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:07:35 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: bartlett Subject: Re: Gloves Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Curtis, Try this. It is easier working the bees without using clumbsy gloves. It will make you a better beekeeper because you will bee more careful! Just use one glove for awhile and see how that works. If you can one day use none. If the bees continue to sting you and the stings are too much then where the gloves. billy bee ---------- > From: Curtis Atkinson > To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU > Subject: Gloves > Date: 28 juil. 1997 04:24 > > I have seen picutures of bee keepers not wearing gloves. When I try > to do that, i always get stung. Am I missing something? > > > Curtis Atkinson > 2701 S. Caraway > Jonesboro, Ar 72401 > 501-932-7838 > catkinson@intellinet.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:57:51 -0500 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Bill Mares Subject: Re: LIABILTY -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Dear Richard, Many thanks for your detailed and thoughtful suggestions about LLC's and LLP's. I'll follow them up with my accountant and my brother. best , bill mares ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:03:52 EDT Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Jim Moore Subject: Re: Gloves Before switching to bare hands try disposible latex gloves for a while. The thin surgical type gloves. They are sold in pharmacy for about $6 for a box. They provide a much better feel than leather gloves, though not perfect and provide an easy way to remove any stingers should you be stung. You just pluck the glove and the stinger is removed. I find them great when doing extracting and working with hives with sticky propolis, your hands don't feel sticky at all. When finished you just throw them away. Also, for some reason a agrivated bee on the back of a hand is more likely to sting then on the latex glove. After a while your sense of touch will improve and you will be less likely to agrivate the bees. Also occasionally a glove will rip and you will find yourself working the bees with "exposed flesh" and won't even get stung. I must admit as a second year beekeeper I'm still using them most of the time. My frame manipulation technique needs a bit more improvement before going with no gloves. Jim Moore ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:01:54 -0600 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Brett D Bannon Subject: Alfalfa cultivars??? "Research to select alfalfa plants with increased nectar production has been successful, thereby suggesting the possibility of someday producing cultivars specifically for use as be pasture (Teuber and Barnes 1979)."-----from Forages the Science of Grassland Agriculture. Forth Edition. Iowa State University Press. Dear List Members: Does anyone know of alfalfa varieties available that are really good for nectar production. Thank you. Brett D. Bannon bbannon@juno.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 20:09:15 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: "W. G. Miller" Subject: Re: Gloves Many beekeepers (myself among them) don't normally wear gloves because quitre frankly they are hot and clumsy. We still get an occaisonal hand sting, but that is OK. That said, gloves (or something like them) are required for handling Apistan strips, and I use gloves for handling the occaisonal rotten colony (usually to requeen it to make it more gentle). Summary: Use gloves if you think you need them. In general, you will find you use them less and less as you gain experience. W. G. Miller Gaithersburg, MD ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 23:53:49 -0400 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Albert W Needham Subject: Re: questions On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:34:59 -0600 Rett Thorpe writes: >I did experience one annoyance. When I would go to work the bees, it >was a real hassle getting the baggie off (unless it was empty). It is >pretty much impossible to get the baggie off the frames without >spilling some syrup down onto the bees,....... >a very simple solution. Next time I feed I plan to put the baggies on >a piece of plywood or in a small tray of some sort. Rett: You could use a Queen excluder if you have one laying about, or invent something out of free junk lying about as you suggested. Al, awneedham@juno.com - Scituate,MA,USA Honey Bees & Beekeeping - / - Doktor Finkle Play " Interlotto " and win at: http://www.xensei.com/users/alwine/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:19:32 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: Raising Queens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gerry Visel wrote: > My question: Why graft the eggs into new cells? It seems like an > awfully delicate operation, with plenty of opportunity to damage the egg. > Why not just put the frame she laid them in into the nuc and let them > draw out queen cells from that, cutting out the area around the cell to > introduce it? A properly prepared swarm box can start 90 or more grafted cells/day for 3 days. If you just give them a frame of brood they will start far fewer, usually 5-30 or so depending on their condition and breed. Queens raised by grafting are not inferior to queens raised from the egg or from undisturbed larvae. The technique is not difficult, there are other aspects of the proccess that are more critical and more difficult to manage. See "Queen Rearing" by Rutter for details (Available from Wicwas Press). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:28:31 -0700 Reply-To: vcoppola@epix.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Vince Coppola Subject: Re: Nassenheider Evaporators MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rory Stenerson wrote: > > Bob Rolfness wrote: > > "Is the acid legal now in the USA?" > > I'm not a lawyer so this is not an informed legal opinion, however here is > my limited understanding of the situation. > > Formic acid is a hazardous material and since the USDA/EPA doesn't want > anyone to get hurt they are not allowing it to be sold to the general > public, i.e. to an untrained beekeeper. Actually its not too difficult to buy, and legal. However it is not yet legal to use as a pesticide. Its the use thats regulated, all pesticides have a use lable. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 20:48:39 -0700 Reply-To: Discussion of Bee Biology Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology From: Michael Reddell Subject: Re: Gloves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, I've been at it for 16 years, which makes me a moderately experienced beekeeper by Conrad's standards, but I think his response was pretty darned experienced. The most important things to work bees barehanded in my opinion are: 1. Pay attention and be gentle. 2. Don't panic. 3. Replace queens with proven gentle stock when needed. Michael ---------- Speaking from inexperience, since I've only tried keeping bees for 4 years, I can say that I do not recommend wearing gloves except maybe for the greenest of beginners...