How are your honey bees?

[POC]

Had 4 hives 3 years ago, all died over the winter. Got a couple more last year, they both left, think hive placement might have been the issue. Trying again this year.

 

[troutsqueezer]

I've said this a few times. Bee populations have ebbed and flowed for fifty million years. Old beekeepers will tell you there have been times of colony prosperity and times when colonies die for unknown reasons. We are in a period when colonies don't seem to prosper. It will pass.

Think about this: has there ever been a time in history when man has been able to drive any insect species to extinction, try as hard as he might? Nope. The bees will be here long after we're gone.

 

[CobyRupert]

And during that fifty million years was there ever been a time in history when man covered the earth with death chemicals (pesticides)?

"Don't worry about that canary, he's just sleeping."

The pollinators dying out ain't the only problem. New milestone reached: Carbon dioxide levels reach global milestone

 

[AndyBees]

Well, I don't want to get on that soap box at all (Global warming).

Where I live, there are no agricultural chemicals in use or Department of Transportation (State or Local) road crews spraying road sides. Also, the local electrical utility does not spray the right-of-away .......... however, the bee keepers here experienced the same die-offs with their bees as everyone else did across the country.

Bees are on the come back, in my opinion. Darwin's theory is working with them quite well. They are learning to cope with the various diseases quite well. Back when I use to attend beekeeper meetings, we had a guest speaker (PHD in ag) reporting that several beekeepers were electing to not medically treat their colonies for the varroa mite as well as some of the common maladies that bees experience..... just let nature run its course.

 

[CobyRupert]

Good point Andy. And I certainly hope it is a natural phenomenon.

Do those bees migrate (in a truck) from state to state with the seasons?

 

[AndyBees]

Nope. No one here follows the crops with their bees. I'm strictly talking about the average beekeeper with 10 to 20 hives.

I think bee pollination services contribute to the spread of diseases. Of course, there's not much that can be done about even with the requirement to inspect bees when they are moved to another state.

 

[mx1alex]

Commercial bee keepers move bees all over the country. If you talk to most in the industry they say the varroa mite is their number one concerned followed by lack of habitat/nutrition due to lack of native flowering plants. Some crops that require pollination are actually very stressful to bees. Cantaloupe pollen for instance basically provides zero nutritional value to bees so when that's all their fed for a few weeks they get very stressed. They might travel a few miles over to say an alfalfa field that was just treated for alfalfa weevil and then get exposed to an insecticide.

Another thing to keep in mind is that honey bees are not native to the U.S. I think one of the biggest things we can do to help pollinated crops is to improve the habitat of native pollinators like wood bees, birds, butterflies, etc. A wood for instance can be 10x as affective a honey bee at pollination. And they're more winter hardy and can work in colder conditions.

 

[skylarkguy]

I had 5 hives going into winter. 1 winked out the other 4 are doing great. Just split 2 because their populations were huge. I don't treat the bees with any thing. Mite loads are low. I get honey but try to leave honey for over winter so to feed as little sugar water as possible.

 

[AndyBees]

Yep, I've seen semi-flat bed trucks loaded with bees heading north on I-75. Last August, we were just west of Cody, Wyoming stopped at a road side view and a truck loaded with bees stopped.

It is my understanding that bees are taken to Alaska for pollination purposes but are destroyed at the end of the season.

Well, here in southeast Kentucky, practically all honey is a mix of various sources of nectar. White clover and sourwood might be the exceptions. About 7 years ago, there was a 75 acre tract of land sold. The new owner prepared about 50 acres of it for mixed hay (bluegrass and white clover). The fields were white with clover blooms the next spring/summer. My bees worked us to death putting the honey. Two years later, the owner leased the property for cattle grazing, thus clover was about a zero for honey production from those fields.

Back several years ago, when coal mining was big, they would sew clovers as part of the reclamation.

 

[troutsqueezer]

As for the Varroa mite, it is not a problem in hives that use small cell or natural foundation. There is no room in cells for mites in those circumstances. With the advent of the Langstroth hive came foundation with slightly larger cells than what occurs in nature. Get rid of those and the varroa mite will go away.

 

[troutsqueezer]

And during that fifty million years was there ever been a time in history when man covered the earth with death chemicals (pesticides)?

"Don't worry about that canary, he's just sleeping."

The pollinators dying out ain't the only problem. New milestone reached: Carbon dioxide levels reach global milestone

Think about that question for a minute..... What do you think happens when super volcanos decide to erupt?

 

[mark02tj]

As for the Varroa mite, it is not a problem in hives that use small cell or natural foundation. There is no room in cells for mites in those circumstances. With the advent of the Langstroth hive came foundation with slightly larger cells than what occurs in nature. Get rid of those and the varroa mite will go away.

That's INTERESTING!! Can you point me to anything that supports that theory? What's the size difference between a "natural cell" and a "foundation cell"?

I've been thinking about doing a couple of top-bar hives. This might push me a little quicker in that direction (because I don't have enough projects already! LOL!)

 

[forgeblast]

Mark check out beesource.com there were a lot of discussions about going with the natural cell, biobees.com is also a good site has a lot more on topbar. you may want to check out warre hives.

 

[troutsqueezer]

That's INTERESTING!! Can you point me to anything that supports that theory? What's the size difference between a "natural cell" and a "foundation cell"?

I've been thinking about doing a couple of top-bar hives. This might push me a little quicker in that direction (because I don't have enough projects already! LOL!)

No sweat. Google Michael Bush and beekeeping. You'll find a lot of info there.

 

[mark02tj]

THANKS forgeblast and troutsqueezer!!

 

[CobyRupert]

Think about that question for a minute..... What do you think happens when super volcanos decide to erupt?

Which produces more CO2, volcanic or human activity?

"..studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value. "

 

[forgeblast]

Michael Bush he has a lot of great articles I enjoy reading what he writes.

 

[NorTracNY]

Interesting articles. There are lots of people doing lots of experimenting, but controlled studies are not the norm. The smaller sizes are not because the mites won't fit. The thought is that the larva are capped a day earlier. The bees will be smaller. Bush just refers to beekeepers having made the cells larger over time which has created larger bees.

 

[bcjmmac]

Another site with great info - Scientific Beekeeping
Mr Oliver is a biologist & does controlled experiments to see what does or doesn't work in the field. He did a controlled experiment to see if small cell size reduced mite populations versus "normal" cell size - results indeterminate due death of all colonies (CCD). You can read the article on the site & also other articles on mite control.
We use green/drone boards throughout the season and haven't had any problems with mites (for explanation - mites prefer drone cells due size and longer gestation so by trapping them on green boards they are easier to kill/control). Not necessarily practical for commercial growers but not too much work with a small setup.