[permaculture] Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
mIEKAL aND
dtv at mwt.net
Fri Mar 2 11:14:29 EST 2007
Kevin
If I may ask what do you feed your hive? Just saw a presentation by
Gunther Hauk, a well-known biodynamic bee keeper & he was saying it
was essential to not harvest all of the honey & save a portion to
feed the hive. I know absolutely zero about beekeeping but this made
a lot of sense to me.
~mIEKAL
On Mar 2, 2007, at 8:30 AM, Kevin Topek wrote:
> All,
>
> I lost my Italian hive this January to Colony Collapse Disorder,
> CCD. They
> swarmed on a cold and very cloudy day, essentially absconding.
> Foreign bees
> raided the hive for honey and wax while the remaining workers
> fought to the
> death over a period of a week. Despite efforts to capture the
> swarm, I could
> not get them to stay in a cluster. I blocked most of the hive
> entrance with
> an entrance reducer to allow the remaining guard bees to defend the
> hive,
> but they eventually lost. This CCD is real! I have never had a
> swarm in
> January. I live inside the center of Houston, Texas and have kept
> bees for
> more than 20 years. This is the most unusual hive death I have
> experienced.
> Another local beekeeper also near the center of Houston, but on the
> northside had the same thing happen to her Italian colony. We are
> dismayed.
> We think that the hive beetle we both had last fall, in low
> numbers, may
> have spread the disease. Hive beetles are a new pest here in
> Coastal Texas.
> Anyone else have this experience? By the way, I have never fed my
> bees GMO
> corn syrup!
>
> Kevin Topek
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