Posted on 04/24/2007 8:24:42 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Bumblebees are not honey bees.
it’s very simple- they’re sick of all the illegal imigrant bees coming here and taking away their jobs, so they’ve left the country for greener pasteurs. No mystery-
It might be merely an internet urban legend. My research turns up nothing....
Regardless, this issue of disappearing honey bees is serious.
Actually, the honeybees are immigrants and not native to the Americas. Maybe they have decided they hate America just like all their European ancestors.
Interesting...thank you very much for the info. I really don’t have enough bio-chemical background. I constantly rely on the advice of those “in the know”, in regards to more things than I can keep track of...
Yes, there is a build up of material in brood comb cells. They do get smaller. Which may be one reason wax foundation makers went from original sizing (in the late 1800's) of 4.85 mm, or thereabouts, to approx. 5.35mm, in one particular large-scale commercial bee supplier's standard brood cell size? That, and they thinking went, "bigger bee, more nectar=more honey", etc...
I just measured some brood comb from a feral hive (which absconded, leaving comb behind) and found 5.2mm cell size in the brood comb. This leaves me to consider that these bees were from a swarm thrown from somebody's standard (foundation size) equipment, since they were not regressed in size from the widely used 5.2-5.4 mm range of size.
Periodic renewal of brood comb, though going against commercial orthodoxy, to an extent, might be a help, just from a hygenic point of view.
What I do wonder much about, among so many other considerations, is the re-use of wax. If one is thinking about reducing exposure to viruses, then just how much virus might be found in the wax? We know trace amounts of chemicals bees have been exposed to (or treated with!) can be in wax, so if one is using this wax again making their own foundation...
Oh, well, nevermind about that, since unless one could actually BEGIN with completely virus-free bees, then some virus present in the wax won't matter too much, will it, if the virus is present on the bees bodies anyway?
I'm certainly not covering any new ground here...beekeepers have been mulling things like this over, and experimenting (and getting mixed results, quite often) for some time now. It's not like things once were. All these new challenges, on top of some of the same OLD challenges...times have changed.
I do wish some folks could come along, and sort out the root causes of these latest bee disappearances. And I wish those capable, could be funded to investigate viruses, and fungus, and how those may effect honeybees, along with further work towards reducing varroa, like --- making (relatively cheap, and very effective) oxalic acid treatements legal in the U.S., like they are in Europe!
You say you experienced losses due to mites? The tracheal, or the varroa, or both? Do you still have bees? Did you ever try feeding "grease patties" for reduction of tracheal mites, or use Api strips for the varroa? Ever try other varroa treatments? Powedered sugar, (as long as it doesn't contain corn starch, very important!) works if one can thoroughly dust the bees. The sugar seems to kill the varroa mites on contact. The trouble with that method, is that it is thoroughly disruptive and invasive, and the bees don't appreciate it much, at the time, hehehe... i can't imagine doing that to hundreds of hives, like 12 hundred, or 17 hundred, like the big commercial operators have.
It appears to me, that there are better strategies for varroa treatment, than Apistan, and other similar stuff. But I won't go into all of it in detail here...since it's much better to get that sort of info from those with more authority than myself.
got any used bee equipment you want hauled away? heheheh...
Theo, thank you for looking for an answer to my question. I’ve not been able to find an answer either, but haven’t had an opportunity to do some serious research. I doubt Einstein would make such a remark without having some basis for saying it. You are right, it could well be an internet urban legend. I hope so. This is a serious issue for all of us. I have a few bee hives (hence my handle “miele” which is Italian for honey)and have not encountered the problem...yet. I’ve heard of beekeepers in Alabama (where I live) who have lost large numbers of hives yet the NY Times article on this showed no losses in Alabama.
What is this? Some kind of test?
1. Never sure about this. Until the publicity of the mites showed up, I would loss 1 or two hives overwintering - out of 15 or so. (Ask me about the 3000 lbs of honey in late 80s one time.) This included the severe winters in the seventies (east central Illinois). Mostly those were weak due to various reasons - including Penicap poisoning (spelling?) and yellow jacket predation. Likely due to the mites, overwintering losses went to about half or more. Soon I was down to 0 overwintering.
2. Never looked for mites. Didn’t think I could see them so didn’t bother. The last few years my granddaughters (for a 4-H project) and her mother have started keeping bees - attending classes and the local beekeeping meetings. (I never did get involved with that kind of thing. Too much time and too little information, I thought.) They have learned quite a bit there and my daughter-in-law has pointed out some varroa mites on her bees. She uses the screened bottom board and we have procured some commercial ones with the hive bettle traps. They thought they had the hive beetle last year. Don’t know if that was a false alarm or what.
3. I am up to three hives again now. One here in town and two out in the country.
4. Tried both a number of years ago. Could not tell that the bees were doing anything with the grease patties or that the strips were effective.
5. Have used food grade mineral oil fogging. Don’t know if that is supposed to treat tracheal mites or the varroa. Two years ago, I did it faithfully once a weak and my tow hives overwintered well. Last year, I fogged the country bees twice and the home bees not at all. All overwintered, but the home ones are considerably weaker. My take on the fogging is that it suffocates the mites and has limited effect on the larger bees. The bees’ response to the oil fogging is somewhat similar to smoking.
Do you mean the”killer bees” that are coming up from Mexico?
I don’t think we need them.
The screened bottom boards are probably a good idea. Some add a shallow tray of mineral oil, to drown the mites when they drop. Trouble is, one has to go clean the trays out.
You know, you raise some very good points. In fact, you make me regret some changes I made in early season pollen supplements. I remember Dr. Furgala at the U of M many years ago raising the point about soy flour problems, but I hadn’t thought of it in years. It so happens, that I extended last year’s feed and this year’s feed with some soy flour I had laying around. Hmmm...I had fair losses this year, too, but at least half of them were starvation and higher moisture levels due to screwed up moisture board/inner-cover arrangement (my bad).
So...you think the cell size is worth the time and expense for varroa control?
The bee is before all creatures the sponsor, inspiration, and guide of the Great Trek. As a creature of the preexistent or prediluvian world, and all but sole survivor of the great catastrophes that desolated the earth,39 the bee is first to arrive on the scene and start things going again in the new world.
Please share the one aspect they do have in common..
1. They’re social insects.
2. Same family.
3. Collect nectar and make honey.
4. Secret wax for use in the nest.
Usually, I'm laughing my a$$ off at your bizarro but uproariously funny posts.
Now that you seemed to have fairly well nailed it, forwarding Key West's post to this thread I'm only as flummoxed and flabbergasted as is "normal", without the laughs.
Then again, maybe guys were just using too much
That's a tough question. For small time hobbyists willing to trade production for smaller sized bees, or those who wish to otherwise experiment, then yes, even though I don't completely yet believe doing so will completely forgo the eventual need to treat for tracheal and varroa mites.
Call me pessimistic, but willing to try it, at this stage.
I'm not completely sold on the small cell idea, even coupled with careful stock selection and breeding (always a good choice, regardless, if one can manage to do THAT) but the small cell size, too, might help...
If it really does cut the "prime-time" by a day, for when the varroa enter the cells to breed beneath larvae before they are capped, then that could cut a mite load in half, right there.
If I was a big time, commercial bee guy, I seriously doubt that I'd do much more than experiment with regressing a small percentage of what stock I had. Even that would result in a reduction in ability to exchange frames between hives, thus limiting management options, sort-of segregating one's equipment. It would also increase management and monitoring work, to verify or falsify results. Just what a guy needs, more headaches, huh?
From what I read, the big operators are not moving towards small cell, for the most part, though there is a notable, small to mid-sized commercial exception, who happen to be the same folks who sort-of started the movement to small cell.
To regress what bees one does have;
It does seem like one would have to shake down an entire colony at a time, too, at a time when there were good flows either "on" or soon to be expected to occur.
If one attempted to mix sizes, then mixed sizes and who knows what sort of confusion could occur, not only with the bees?
Other than just planning on starting any new packages or captured swarms on the 5.1, on the way down to 4.9, what should a guy do?
Maybe one could attempt giving them frames of smaller cell foundation, by way of checkerboarding new foundation between drawn frames, in a typical effort to reduce swarming tendencies, particularly if one then planned on removing those frames to Nucs, and re-queening wherever it is determined to be necessary?
Then, hive those who have been regressed, into normal, larger quarters when they show they're ready, holding them over in that condition until the next season, before regressing those yet again in the spring, or after they start booming again, either by shaking them down, or letting them expand again into frames of yet smaller foundation...which would result in some complications, leaving a guy with three cell sizes to juggle and keep track of, on top of all the rest, undoubtedly also resulting in having some colonies too weak, in the long run, forcing one to make combines at some point, while still keeping cell foundation sizes segregated.
Whoaa...what a pain, huh? Twice over, to get all the way down to 4.9 mm, too.
OR perhaps:
Going back into the broodnests after checkerboarding, removing those frames that one placed there, of the smaller cell size [once those held capped & open brood, preferably with the queen also present & active on these smaller cell size frames] in a take-away split, taking the hive on normal, larger celled foundation "away" in the hopes the foragers would take up residence in the smaller cell hive put in the same exact place the "original" larger celled hive was. This would work smoother if one could determine that the queen was with the hive of smaller cell...
Re-queening issues arise here again, regardless, but I won't suggest strategies on how to do that, here. I'll leave that to the experts. There is certainly more than one way to do it.
One would need keep the equipment, particularly all frames, well marked, and careful logs of what one did to what colony, regardless of how this mixing of cell sizes on the way down to "small" actually went.
It's no wonder the Lusby's just shook 'em all down (forcing multiple, entire colonies at a time to "start over", on smaller cell foundation) hive by hive. And they had to do it twice, to get to 4.9 mm. Ouch. It's also no wonder the big operators are hesitant to follow THAT program.
They have multiple, yearly pollination contracts they want and need to meet.
Keeping what one has, and attempting to stay on top of the mites, is the option most seem to be going with, and I can't blame them at all.
In five years, maybe I'll have better answers. I do hope so...
Re: Einstein’s supposed remark. I found this information.
“Also on the Internet is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein on how humans would die off in four years if not for honeybees. It’s wrong on two counts.
First, Einstein probably never said it, according to Alice Calaprice, author of “The Quotable Einstein” and five other books on the physicist.
“I’ve never come across it in anything Einstein has written,” Calaprice said. “it could be that someone had made it up and put Einstein’s name on it.”
Source: www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OSE3VO2&show_article=1&catnum=-1
yes ive also found sites that where debunking the myth
No bees and cooling sun equals famine for those who cannot afford the much higher food prices that are coming.
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