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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Geneva <gggreen AT mindspring.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Valentine Meeting
  • Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:48:08 -0500

Thank you to everyone who came out to OCBA on Valentine's Day.  We had a lovely meeting beginning with Lizbeth's reading of E.B White's poem about the mating of the Queen. Then after a little business we began a lively discussion about confusing terms in beekeeping.  After we had come to some definitions, [see end of email]  we answered the survey below.  I had a lovely time and am excited to see these conversations continue in many different forums. I will continue posting some related articles to things brought up in our discussion and feel free to do the same.  Much thanks to our transcriber, whose name I would know if I had managed to get new name tags made.
Geneva

Survey:

Number practicing Organic Beekeeping: 0


Number practicing Natural Beekeeping: 1 Maybe


Number practicing CNG Beekeeping: 5


Number practicing conventional Beekeeping: 15


Number using Coumophos: 0


Number using Fluvalinate: 1  only every 8-10 years


Number using Formic Acid: 7


Number using Thymol: 6


Number monitoring hives: 17


What is the greatest current threat to the honey bee? 
beekeepers, varroa mites, small hive beetles, price of honey, pesticides, lack of forage


Defining Terms


Beekeeping terms

Organic: meeting the requirements as meeting the guidelines/rules of the federal government. No organic standard for honey in the United States. (The organic answer according to Randall Austin.)

Organic movement - Moving away from artificial chemicals and pesticides. 



Chemical Free: Impossible to have chemical free. Synthetic chemical free. 

Absence of chemicals with toxic long-lived residues

Not introducing anything that doesn’t naturally occur in the hives


Natural: Not introducing anything that doesn’t naturally occur in the hives

Working toward the ideal of a feral bee colony. Managing a hive as closely as a bee hive would manage itself in the wild.


CNG: Certified Naturally Grown - Beekeepers monitor each other. One of the issues with organic farming is most are large farmers because of fees associated with certification process. CNG attempts to return sustainable agriculture to a Grassroots level. 



IPM: Integrated Pest Management - know the plant, know the pest, physical barriers, series of steps, hard chemicals as a choice as a last choice

examples in beekeeping: Powdered Sugar treatments, Drone Brood Removal, screen bottom boards, splits, breaks in brood cycle

Minimizing collateral damage. Don’t overuse any method. Employ a number of methods. Being informed. Know variety of ways to treat pests. Prevention (getting hygienic bees). 


Traditional Beekeeping:  meaningless term

Convention Beekeeping: more or less according to Keith Delaplane’s book



top bar hive: Trapezoidal, long one story hive, trough, expanded horizontally (somewhat)
Pros: Bees make the wax, bees choose size of hive, cell size, very popular in third world countries, advantageous for Africanized bees, bees as pets
Cons: hard to remove, no supports, inefficient extraction, have to squeeze to extractor, not as portable to be used for pollination, 


[This is where we ran out of time in our discussion}

langstroth hive
Pros:
Cons:

the Bond Method: live and let die: David Tarpey and Buddy Marterre, 50-100 colonies needed, 


Feral Bees: 



AHB: Africanized Honey Bees



VSH: Varroa Sensitive Hygiene 



Open mated - vs artificially inseminated



  • [ocba] Valentine Meeting, Geneva, 02/15/2013

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