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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 19:50:26 -0600

Eugene,

You had me until that UT comment. Dude, WTF? Bailed us out. Y'all freakin'
died alongside us! Silly Hillbillies! !Recuerdo el Alamo!

To the matter at hand. I am afeared of Apistan. I am of the opinion that it
will permeate the wood & wax and hence the honey. The old timers 'round
these parts taught me to minimize messing with the bees, and I have to say I
agree. I did spend a lot of time capturing wild swarms in the '80's. They
were mean, but had few diseases and were mostly resistant to wax moth. When
the AHB's arrived the swarms were even meaner and would sting when they
heard a lawnmower, it's the vibration. You still got a lot of honey, just
not a lot of disease or pest resistance. The Yugo-Russian bee is touted to
be mite resistant, as Don says, but not availble here in southern Texas.
These hive beetles are new to me, but I do not want to use Apistan. Anyone
else have some experience with hive beetle or CCD?

Kevin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 5:18 PM
Subject: [permaculture] Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril


> My daughter and I live on the same block. Last Spring we bought 2
packages
> w/ queens from Rossman in S. Georgia. I already had one colony of
> Carniolans that wintered over from last winter but they were weak. I had
> fed them during the fall a syrup I made from organic cane sugar I got at
our
> food coop, and they put a lot of it up as extra food. I didn't take any
> honey off that year. I had also medicated them with Menthol and Apistan
on
> the advice of the local beekeepers who swore I would lose them otherwise.
> When spring came they seemed to be doing alright but the cluster was
small.
> I figured they would pick up as the weather warmed and the spring flow got
> underway.
> I introduced Rossman's Italians into a new hive about 30' away. My
daughter
> took the other colony down the street. A month or 2 later, somewhere in
> early June, the queen from the 1st hive (Carniolan) was suddenly gone, but
> the workers were still bringing in nectar and pollen; there just wasn't
any
> brood. This had happened the year before when I had lost 2 hives, and I
> knew that if I didn't get a new queen fast, the hive would die. I called
> around to try to find a nuc (that's a queen with a half-hive of bees); but
> it was too late in the season.
> By this time my new Italian hive had a laying queen and brood, but it
wasn't
> as robust as I had hoped for. I went ahead and took a frame of uncapped
> brood from the Italian hive and put it in the Carniolan hive. Within 15
> days the Carniolan workers had made a new queen from the fresh brood (they
> pick one hatched egg that's 3 days old and feed it Royal Jelly, and then
the
> cap it.) Now that Carniolan hive with a mix of Italians is doing well
(more
> in a minute).
> My daughter's hive in the meantime died out; the symptoms were very much
> like the CCD I'm hearing about, but I don't think that is what it was. I
> have heard that the CCD thing is hitting more the keepers that move their
> bees around and pollinate the non-organic farms. Ours just eat from the
> trees and gardens in the neighborhood, mostly trees.
> My Italian hive was never doing so well; the cluster always remained
small.
> Eventually, in November it gave up the ghost. I never saw any evidence of
> mites, and although they did seem to just one day disappear, the colony
was
> weak and small, they hadn't put up much honey, and I didn't think they
would
> make it through the winter. For a while I thought that since they came
from
> Florida, perhaps they were too dumb to put up enough honey to get through
> the winter here, not realizing that it would get cold. I was going to
feed
> them in late November to help them get through the winter, but they were
> gone. They just never had any real life force; plus we had a summer
drought
> and that no doubt took its toll. I thought that perhaps they joined
forces
> with the neighboring colony, abandoning their colony and combined their
> energy with the others to get through the winter. Kind of like what might
> happen if the energy bills get too high, people might move in together
> instead of everybody trying to heat their own house. This is all gut
> speculation because I didn't watch them closely enough to see physical
> evidence of what they were doing.
> I also think they were weak queens, bad genetics. And I also think that
> since everybody is convinced that the mites will get the bees if they are
> not medicated, we have bred disease-resistant mites, and bees with
piss-poor
> immune systems, like AIDS for bees: if the mites don't get them, something
> else will. Kind of like humans that take antibiotics all the time, have
> weak immune systems. I vowed to find a way to breed bees with strong
immune
> systems. There are essential oil formulas on the market that work under
> that principle. I figure that if they can gut it out through a season,
they
> will be better off.
> I also have heard stories from the old timers that if you can find a wild
> colony, they will be the strongest and will make the best honey. This is
> probably because they have adapted to local conditions better than the
> genetically-engineered queens. I don't know if I will ever find a wild
> colony, and if I did, I'd be inclined to leave it alone. Anyway, I did
not
> feed my bees this past fall, and I did not take any honey off the hive,
and
> I did not medicate them with anything. This approach is criticized by the
> local PhD apiculturist at UT (the Real UT, big orange, the Vols who went
to
> Texas and bailed out the Texans at the Alamo) as being what he calls a bee
> "haver" as opposed to a bee keeper. But I think they are bee meddlers or
> bee fuckers and are so far off the trail that it's almost hopeless to
follow
> their advice. So far my bees have survived the winter and are out every
> warm day foraging on the maples. I'm hoping that they will remain strong.
> I haven't opened the hive in a while because I don't want to create chill
> brood. But I can tell from the buzz that they are alive and well.
> If this was just a random shot-in-the dark approach, I could be described
as
> a fool, and maybe so far just a lucky fool. But what I've learned most
> recently is that one needs to communicate with the Keepers of the bees (as
> in Spirit Keepers), and get ones' advice from them. Easier said than
done.
>
>
>
> Gene Monaco
> Knoxville, TN
>
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> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture






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