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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril

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  • From: "Kevin Topek" <ktopek@houston.rr.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
  • Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 16:35:37 -0600

Miekal & Bob,

I do not feed my hive any supplements (sugar, corn syrup, vitamins). I
always leave honey in the brood or large super for the worker bees to feed
the emerging brood. Honey should not be taken too close to the end of the
flow (flowering) season for safety's sake. Here in Houston there are flowers
year 'round, so there is still a lot of winter forage. I have never seen
swarming in cold, damp and overcast weather. Something is amiss. My English
bees, Buckfast, seem to be doing just fine though. Bob, I'll be happy to
take a gander at your wild bees. They are possibly Africanized, or as we
used to call them years ago, German Black bees, that have African bee genes.

Kevin

----- Original Message -----
From: "mIEKAL aND" <dtv@mwt.net>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 10:14 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril


> 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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