Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Mike E <mike.lists@mlxvi.org>]

Hi Uriel
I have had no luck trying to talk to beekeepers here in New Zealand about the smaller comb. Can you give me the contact details of a supplier that I can contact. I am particularly interested in foundation that has no wax on it, as we are unable to import wax into our country.
Mike

uriel@nasalam.org wrote:

This article strikes me wrong. It seems to have been written by  
someone who knows nothing about bees, like stating that the hive will  
swarm without the queen.  The only reason a queen would not go with  
the bees is if her wings had been clipped.  The article also blithely  
dismisses the varroa infestation as something that had been dealt  
with.  That is not true. It has devastated the industry, and most  
beekeepers have relied upon heavy applications of various poisons to  
keep the varroa at bay, when all they had to do was pay attention and  
learn.  A few years back a brilliant beekeeper in Arizona determined  
that the varroa problem was caused by breeding for larger bees.  When  
the bee size is reduced, the problem goes away.  It seems that the  
varroa is nature's way of controlling the drone population.  When the  
workers got as big as the drones used to be they became susceptible.   
When I read about that I switched all my hives over to the smaller  
comb, which produces smaller bees and I've never had to use any  
chemicals to keep them healthy.  What's happening to the bees is  
parallel to what's happening to the land when you rely upon artificial  
chemicals instead of learning from nature.  End of rant :}
Uriel
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TradingPostPaul wrote:
  

1 March 2007 16:40
Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?

Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives  
and  flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US  
agriculture  under threat. And to date, no one knows why. Michael  
McCarthy reports

It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There could   
hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than beekeeping, but the  
 beekeepers of the United States have suddenly encountered  
affliction,  calamity and death on a massive scale. And they have  
not got a clue  why it is happening.

Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey  
bee  colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively.  
Millions  of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die  
(they cannot  survive as a colony without the queen, who is always  
left behind).

Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable apiaries, or bee  
 farms, which are used for large-scale pollination of fruit and   
vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin - and there is a growing  
 threat that America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by  
the  loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the  
problem  have no idea what is causing it.

entire article at
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2314202.ece



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