[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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