Subject: Re: Cat Quandary

From: [email-masked] (Bob "Another beer, please" Christ)
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 21:12:18 GMT

Why not ask the experts?  Followups to talk.politics.animals because, 
that's where all this started.

Rosemary Waigh ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Some honey producers disable the queen bee by blinding her or clipping
: her wings.

Will someone shed some light <hee> on this issue.  Do 'some' honey
producers do this?  What would be gained by doing so, if true?

: Some, in cold climates, kill the bees (who are from a warmer part
: of the world) rather than help them survive the winter.  Around here
: at least, if there are apiarists who treat their bees well, the
: honeys are not labelled as such so it's impossible to support them.

Anyone know if 'some' kill their bees "rather than help them survive 
the winter"?

This sounds a little bogus to me.  Then again, Rosemary is the one that
tried to 'live trap' cockroachs in her apartment rather than allow the
landlord to exterminate them. (true fact!)

Also....

[email-masked] (Jeff Smith) writes:

>There are thousands of varieties of pollinating bees.  It seems very
>unlikely that "most fruit" in this country (or any other) is pollinated
>by honey bees.  Sue has made this rather odd claim in the past - always
>without support.

Anyone know the stats about this?

Bob

---
This person is currently undergoing electric shock therapy at Agnews
Developmental Center in San Jose, California.   All his opinions are
static, please ignore him.
                             Thank you,  Nurse Ratched

---

From: [email-masked] (Adam Finkelstein)
Date: 16 Jan 1995 22:33:12 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>producers do this?  What would be gained by doing so, if true?
No honey producers do not blind the queen. They sometimes clip a portion of
her wing so that if she flys to swarm, she will not go far and will return
to the colony, with the bees. The idea is to not loose the colony. Since
queens rarely fly after mating, this clipping doesn't impede her lifestyle,
but no I haven't really talked to any queens so I'm not positively sure. 

>: honeys are not labelled as such so it's impossible to support them.

 Yes this is true. Some feel it is more profitable to this. I don't condone
it, but some do it. The part of the world is North of the USA usually.
In the USA honey has to have the country of origin on the label, so if you
want to, you may boycott those countries you think would be killing bees,
but you might hurt the ones you want to support. 
Anyway most honey is from such huge packers. The best strategy is to support
local beekeepers who you can look in the eye. The honey is lots better too,
if produced with care.

>>by honey bees.  Sue has made this rather odd claim in the past - always

 Well you're wrong. Wild fruit might be pollinated by other species,
but get your behind out to an orchard sometime during bloom and check
out the honeybees. I don't think everyone is imagining that the bees are
useful. Pollination is a much more valued beekeeping service than honey
production. Maybe you'd want to talk with some farmers, beekeepers, and
even read a little about pollination biology, ecology and management?

 Adam
beekeeper, apicultural graduate student, honey lover, admirer of nature.
-- 
____________________________________________________________________________ 
Adam Finkelstein                     Price Hall 
Entomology                   VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA  24001-0325 
[email-masked] ______________________________________________________

---

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 16 Jan 1995 23:22:05 -0500

Bob Christ asks:

>Why not ask the experts?  Followups to talk.politics.animals >because,

>: Some honey producers disable the queen bee by blinding her or >clipping
: her wings.

>Will someone shed some light <hee> on this issue.  Do 'some' >honey
producers do this?  What would be gained by doing so, if >true?

   (I am a commercial beekeeper - not really a honey producer, but a
pollination specialist, and publisher of a pollination newsletter. I'll
try
to >shed some light< on these questions.

   Clipping the wings of queens is an old method of reducing swarming.
Swarming is the natural reproduction of honeybees, but if you are not
present
at the right time,  you are likely to lose the swarm. Allowing this would
be
akin to raising cattle, and letting the calves run off to be lost in the
woods.  Besides the economic loss of livestock, their survival becomes
iffy
without care.
   The thought was that, if the queen could not fly with the swarm, they
would not leave. Usually the swarm was only delayed by a few hours or a
couple days, and the swarms left with a virgin queen anyway.
   Today the technique is mostly practiced by hobbyists who read about it
in
an old book and don't realize that it rarely works.  There are other,
better
ways, of saving the >calves<.
   I've never heard of blinding queens, and expect that the attempt would
kill her.

Again:
>: honeys are not labelled as such so it's impossible to support >them.

>This sounds a little bogus to me.  Then again, Rosemary is the one >that
tried to 'live trap' cockroachs in her apartment rather than allow >the
landlord to exterminate them. (true fact!)

   Ten years ago there was some truth to this. Some background: It takes a
tremendous amount of feed or honey for bees to get through winter.  They
use
the energy of the sugars to create heat, because the brood at the center
of
the winter cluster must be maintained at 94 degrees F.  The winter
survival
rate of bees in northern areas is not very good and it is getting worse
with
clearcut logging (loss of feed), changing farm practices (ditto),
pesticide
misuse, and new parasites and diseases.
   The majority of  American commercial beekeepers from northern areas
load
the bees on tractor trailers and go south for the winter.
Canadians were not allowed to cross the border with bees on comb, because
of
brood disease quarantines, and it became common practice to kill off the
bees
in the fall and restock the hives with package bees from southern USA in
the
spring. They were transported across the border without brood, in screen
cages, so there was no danger of spread of brood diseases.  This practice
was
not only cheaper, but less risky, because a severe winter could kill off a
lot of the bees.
   This practice mostly stopped when varroa mite, a new parasite was
discovered in the US, and a quarantine was established for all bees from
the
USA.  A few Canadians get bees from New Zealand, which does not yet have
the
mite, but this is expensive and there have been problems with shipping.
   Many Canadians beekeepers have established indoor wintering barns, and
they are improving the technology to increase survival rate. This is
expensive and a loss of power (=ventilation) can cause heavy loss, so
there
must be backups.  Some beekeepers have quit.
I doubt very many today would kill their bees. They are too valuable a
resource, and too difficult to keep alive.

   Yes, there are thousands of pollinating bees. However they are
declining
for many of the same reasons that honeybees are being lost.  Furthermore
commercial fruit production is in larger and larger tracts (monoculture),
and
pesticides have removed many native pollinators, so today most fruit
pollination is managed.  Hives are brought to the crop when needed, during
bloom, and removed before spraying resumes.

   I don't have official figures (I'm not sure they exist) but I'm sure
you'd
be in the ballpark with about 100,000 hives of honeybees used each year
for
apples (New York 26,000),  about 65,000 hives for blueberries and
cranberries
in New England and New Jersey.  Almonds in California require more than
any
other crop, and several tractor trailer loads went this past spring from
the
east coast. If I recall correctly, it was around 275,000 colonies total.

   I provide bees primarily for watermelon, cucumbers, Kiwifruit,
cantaloupe,
squash and strawberries.  If your watermelon (from South Carolina) tastes
lousy, the grower didn't get bees from me. Look at the seeds; if half of
them
are white and undeveloped, the fruit is only half pollinated and it will
never fully ripen.  It didn't have enough bee visits in the blossom.  If
your
melons is well rounded, deep red color, and almost all black seeds, it
will
be so sweet you'll want another piece, and you'll know the farmer got bees
>from  me.

    Without honeybees, we would lose much of our fruit.  And that means
managed honeybees, because few honeybees would survive in the wild today.
(The African bee, a very vigorous bee with better resistance to disease
and
parasites may actually help reestablish wild pollination in some areas of
the
South).

    There is some development of other pollinators.  There is a small and
growing supply of bumblebee colonies (purchased rather than rented like
honeybees) for use with tomatos and other crops that honeybees do not work
consistantly.

    There is a lot of interest in about a half dozen species of solitary
bees
as well.  Some have been used a little for fruit, but we have a long way
to
go. One has been used a lot for alfalfa seed production.
The USDA has just released a new one which is supposed to be good for
southern rabbiteye blueberries and some other crops.

   The threats to our bees is probably a more important environmental
issue
than whales and pandas (though I don't begrudge the attention they get).
If
we do not pay attention, we are going to lose some our our foods and find
others getting extremely expensive.

    Did you see the news this past week about American apples being sent
to
Japan and people snatching them up because Japanese apples had only been
available for the rich.  I remember seeing a photo, a few years back, of
schoolchildren in the orchards hand pollinating the apples.  Japan has
ideal
growing conditions for apples, but has very few bees, so that crop is
extremely difficult and expensive to grow.

Some >food< for thought.

[email-masked]

Dave Green
Eastern Pollinator Newsletter, PO Box 1215, Hemingway, SC  29554

(Also posted back to talk.politics.animals)

---

From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 16 Jan 1995 23:45:49 GMT

Adam Finkelstein ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>,
: Bob "Another beer, please" Christ <[email-masked]> wrote:
: >
: >Rosemary Waigh ([email-masked]) wrote:
: >
: >: Some honey producers disable the queen bee by blinding her or clipping
: >: her wings.
: >
: >: Some, in cold climates, kill the bees (who are from a warmer part
: >: of the world) rather than help them survive the winter.  Around here
: >: at least, if there are apiarists who treat their bees well, the
: >: honeys are not labelled as such so it's impossible to support them.

:  Yes this is true. Some feel it is more profitable to this. I don't condone
: it, but some do it. The part of the world is North of the USA usually.
: In the USA honey has to have the country of origin on the label, so if you
: want to, you may boycott those countries you think would be killing bees,
: but you might hurt the ones you want to support. 
: Anyway most honey is from such huge packers. The best strategy is to support
: local beekeepers who you can look in the eye. The honey is lots better too,
: if produced with care.

Bees require a certain amount of honey to make it through the winter 
- bees do not hibernate - indeed, this is essentially the purpose of 
honey production and storage by the bees in the first place.  The actual 
amount needed depends on factors such as:

	weather conditions and length of time nectar is unavailable
	(i.e., length of winter)

	frugality of the ecotype (specific race of bee - there
	are many types) with respect to honey consumption

	number of bees in the hive (presumably there's a trade-off
	between heat conserved through large cluster size and honey
	consumed by larger than necessary cluster-size)

	diversity and type of floral (food) sources

	and...?

When I kept bees in N. Virginia, I used to leave about 90 lbs of honey as
winter food stores.  I.e., this is what you'd leave AFTER taking some of
the honey as a crop.  In Philadelphia, I leave more, because its colder
and the winter is a bit longer.  The point is that some beekeepers in
colder climates apparently find it more profitable to take ALL the honey,
leaving none for the bees, since they'd apparently have to leave a huge
amount in order for them to actually make it through the winter.  I'm not
condoning the practice or condemning it - just elaborating on Adam's
response.  Presumably, someone who keeps bees in these conditions will 
respond with a better or more thorough explanation.  I've never actually 
met anyone who would actually kill their bees or let them starve just to 
get a little extra honey.  Most beekeepers LIKE their bees.

As long as I'm being verbose, I will point out that I'm not making my
living beekeeping; although it does provide supplemental income, I do it
primarily out of interest and enjoyment.  If I were a commercial honey
producer, depending on production for my livelihood, I MIGHT feel
differently about this.  But I'd like to think that I wouldn't.  In otehr 
words, I can understand that there might be financial pressure to 
practice this kind of profit maximization, but presumably, these are the 
same pressures that gave us factory-farming, bovine growth hormone, 
tottering turkeys, and a host of other embarrassments.  I'd second Adam's 
advice: buy locally-produced honey and read the labels.

> : >Also.... : > : >[email-masked] (Jeff Smith) writes: : >
: >>There are thousands of varieties of pollinating bees.  It seems very
: >>unlikely that "most fruit" in this country (or any other) is pollinated
: >>by honey bees.  Sue has made this rather odd claim in the past - always
: >>without support.

:  Well you're wrong. Wild fruit might be pollinated by other species,
: but get your behind out to an orchard sometime during bloom and check
: out the honeybees. I don't think everyone is imagining that the bees are
: useful. Pollination is a much more valued beekeeping service than honey
: production. Maybe you'd want to talk with some farmers, beekeepers, and
: even read a little about pollination biology, ecology and management?

Also, you might consider remaining subscribed to this newsgroup.

David J. Trickett - UPenn

---

From: [email-masked] (Aaron Morris)
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 11:15:46 EST

>local beekeepers who you can look in the eye. The honey is lots better too,
 
The practice of killing off bees in the fall and restocking the hives
with packaged bees in the spring has fallen out of favor.  This is due
to the quarantine on imported bees implemented by the Canadian
government.  Prior to the closed border, northern beekeepers would
manage their hives to maximize honey production, taking all they could
in the fall.  I'm not sure if the practice was to kill the bees after
the harvest or to let them starve in the winter, but the effect was the
same.  The profit realized by harvesting ALL the honey was more than
the cost to restock the hives with packaged bees in the spring.
 
The Canadian government closed their borders in the mid/late 80s in an
attempt to keep mites out of their country.  Unfortunately the mites
didn't care whether the border was closed or not and are now a problem
in Canada too.  However, the closed border did change the management
practices in Canada, as Canadian beekeepers were no longer able to
procure packaged bees to restock equipment in the spring.  Hive
management practices shifted from maximum harvest to attempts to
overwinter existing stocks.  A 'kinder, gentler' management technique
was effected.
 
Considerations have been given to reopen the border to packaged bees,
but the quarantine remains in effect due this time to the fear of spreading
Africanized bees.  It's one thing to have a few beekeepers upset because
their hives died off from mites, but it's an entirely different matter
if legislators allow the African nemesis to invade their country.  The
potential of a media craze fueled by a single AHB stinging incident far
outweighs the concern of a handful of beekeepers!  So the quarantine
remains in effect.
 
For the sake of complete information and to avoid flames, the quarantine
on imported bees targets bees from the USA.  Canadian beekeepers are
able to import bees from New Zealand, and have been doing so with mixed
results.  New Zealand has no problem with either mites or Africanized
bees.  Reports indicate that there have been mixed results with New
Zealand packages north of the Canadian/US border.  Speculation is that
the bees are coming from a different hemisphere where the seasons are
opposite.  New Zealand packages that are sold to Canadian beekeepers are
put up in New Zealand's fall and shipped to Canada's spring.  Perhaps
the mixed up seasons has a detrimental effect on the bees.  This was a
topic of discussion at my beekeeping club just last evening and the
mixed season speculation is merely speculation, unsupported by any sort
of emperical evidence.
 
Submitted for your consideration,
Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!

---

From: [email-masked] ("Chris Price")
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 09:02:40 GMT

[email-masked] (Bob "Another beer, please" Christ) wrote in
 Message-ID: <[email-masked]>:---

> producers do this?  What would be gained by doing so, if true?<<<<<

I don't know about blinding the queen but wing clipping is used as a 
swarm control:  the ides is that the queen can'y fly so that when she 
tries to leave she falls onto the ground and dies and thus there is no 
queen for the swarm to follow; or she walks back to the hive and the 
swarm still has no queen to follow to a new place.   i don't clp my 
queens because I'm too ham-fisted to do it well--otherwise.......

Chris.