Very well written and informative. You’ve told us enough to make a good start and made it interesting too.
Travlin
i received the following email from a blogger in brazil:
Avaaz has been running a campaign calling on the EPA to suspend neonicotinoid pesticides until and unless they are proved safe for bee populations. It’s been a monstrous campaign, with nearly 1 million signers: http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees_usa
We heard that this Friday there’s a Global Conference on Risk Assessment for Pollinators, in Florida. The conference is run by SETAC which unsurprisingly is made up of many of the big international chemical producers. The EPA has details of the conference here: http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/ecosystem/pollinator/science.html But other than that we’ve been unable to confirm whether or not this conference is actually taking place.
We’re now trying to frantically get more information on this. If anyone on the list has any connections at groups working on pesticides, bees, etc…that might be able to confirm whether this meeting is real or not, we’d greatly appreciate their phone number….
ill check back here tomorrow to see if anyone has info…
In case anyone is interested, I just received notice of a "beginning beekeepers intensive" workshop in the Boston area. It's being presented by Dean and Laurie, the authors of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping. Find out more and register online at:
2011 Beginning Beekeeping Intensive
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2011 Beginning Beekeeping Intensive BostonSpontaneous Celebrations
45 Danforth St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
One class in two parts:
Noon to 6pm
March 20 and March 27, 2011
Not that you should listen to me, because I’ve never kept bees in my life (yet), but this really appeals to me: http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htmSee also http://goldstarhoneybees.com/
They guarantee fresh wax, so any residual environmental contamination will be cycled out and not stick around. They’re simple, and you can make one out of just about anything, too. And they can be really cheap if you make them yourself. They’re very common in Africa for this reason. They’re usually longer horizontal hives, not boxes stacked vertically, and bees seem to want to move up in the winter as they eat. I’ve heard complaints about problems overwintering from some people. And not being a standard size means that it’s harder to balance out brood and food/pollen across strong/struggling hives unless your whole operation uses the same size. Even then, you can’t get frames from other beekeepers on Langstroth equipment. And TBs are definitely more fragile than frames on foundation.
Personally, I am doing a mix of empty frames (with popsicle sticks glued into the top of the frame as a comb guide) and small-cell plastic foundation. I get cleaner wax and benefits of small-cell/natural-cell comb size either way.
Also am currently building my own long observation hive, too. Will be great fun.
I’m super excited. I just bought and am assembling my equipment for my first two hives.
Soon it’s time to paint the outside parts and I’d like to keep things natural as possible. I also really like the look of natural wood so I am leaning towards using linseed oil even though I know I will have to reapply in the future.
Does anyone know if linseed oil is truly safe and viable for Langstroth beehives? I read somewhere that the linseed oil will breed mold/mildew.
Should I just stick with some low VOC paint?
We’ve top bar hives and use linseed oil gently warmed and mixed with beeswax. The top bars are coated with straight beeswax.
congrats, Robie
ps. i spend many mornings watching them wake(after milking)
I got my first three hives this year. Two nucs and a swarm ( my friend that caught the swarm gave me ten frames of drawn comb!). Amazing creatures. The honey flow is on with locust in full bloom and poplar just beginning.
Our bee club has a good website. WNCbees.org
Their Reference Page is full of great info.
I chose to go with English 8 frame hives and all medium supers. The hive body portions will be three mediums.
A good book was written by one of our members Keeping Bees . If you want a pretty book on bees for your coffee table and to learn from, she would love to sell you a book.
Amazingly (CMdotcom is pretty well the first web page I open in the morning!), I never saw this blogpost when it first appeared, and anyone following the Definitive Permaculture thread will know we bought 11 hives about 6 weeks ago. We sold two, and split some this week and are back up to fifteen, currently on four sites, the idea being we will sell the new ones once settled properly to recoup our substantial investment in this venture as quickly as possible. Unlike some people on this site, we are NOT made of money…
So far we have harvested eighty kg of honey (about 175 pounds) and are about to start making some Mead… Even managed to combine the recent successful restoration of our 60 year old AGA cooker with yesterday’s harvest by heating the steam source for the uncapping knife on the stove, all wood powered.
On another note, we recently viewed a most interesting movie, "Queen of the Sun" which casts a very dim view of the American commercial honey industry… I couldn’t but feel America treats its bees like shit, and all the problems encountered on your side of the planet (and we do have some of our own here in Australia) are self inflicted.
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| Parasitic fly 'may explain bee deaths' |
An Apocephalus borealis fly implants its eggs into the abdomen of a honey bee. Photo: AP/San Francisco State Universit
The symptoms mirror colony collapse disorder, in which all the adult honey bees in a colony suddenly disappear. The disorder continues to decimate hives in the US and overseas.
The disease is of great concern, because bees pollinate about a third of the United States’ food supply. Its presence is especially alarming in California, the nation’s top producer of fruits and vegetables, where bees play an essential role in the $US2 billion ($1.9 billion) almond industry and other crops.
The latest study, published in the science journal PLoS ONE on Tuesday, points to the Apocephalus borealis fly as the new threat to honey bees. It is another step in continuing research to find the cause of the disease.
Researchers have not been able to pin down an exact cause of colony collapse or to find a way to prevent it. Research so far points to a combination of factors including pesticide contamination, a lack of blooms - and hence nutrition - and mites, fungi, viruses and parasites.
Interaction among the parasite and multiple pathogens could be one possible factor in colony collapse, according to the latest study by researchers at San Francisco State University. It says the phorid fly, or apocephalus borealis, was found in bees from three-quarters of the 31 hives surveyed in the San Francisco Bay area.
Scientists say the fly deposits its eggs into the bee’s abdomen, causing the insect to walk around in circles with no apparent sense of direction. The bee exhibits zombie-like behaviour, said lead investigator John Hafernik. The infected bee leaves the hive at night and dies shortly thereafter.
The combination of a parasite, pathogens and other stressors could cause die-off, Professor Hafernik said. The parasitic fly serves as a reservoir that harbours pathogens - honey bees from parasite-infected hives tested positive for deformed wing virus and other pathogens, the study found.
"We don’t fully understand the web of interactions," Professor Hafernik said. "The parasite could be another stressor, enough to push the bee over the tipping point. Or it could play a primary role in causing the disease."
Professor Hafernik stumbled on to the parasitic fly by accident. Three years ago, the biology professor looked for something to feed a praying mantis. He found some bees outside his classroom, placed them in a vial and forgot about them. When he looked at the vial a week later, he found dead bees surrounded by small fly pupae. A parasitic fly was feeding on the bees and had killed them, he said.
The fly is a known parasite in bumble bees. Scientists used DNA barcoding to confirm the parasite in the honey bees and bumble bees was the same species.
The fly might have recently expanded its host presence from bumble bees to honey bees, Professor Hafernik said, making it an emerging threat to agricultural pollinators.
The fact that honey bees live in large colonies placed in close proximity to one another and beekeepers frequently move the hives throughout the country could lead to an explosion of the fly population, he said.
The fly, which is found all over North America, could also become a threat to native bees.
Professor Hafernik plans to expand his research to other parts of the country and to study the parasite’s impact on agriculture in California’s Central Valley.
Since it was recognised in 2006, colony collapse has destroyed colonies at a rate of about 30 per cent a year, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Before that, losses were about 15 per cent per year from a variety of pests and diseases.
AP
like shit.
Yep. Monoculture might just be the death of us all.
Boycot almonds.
Write the almond growers and tell them they should devote a small part of their fields to biodiversity and keep bees on the property.
The pollination industry must be neutered to stay local. I hate it for the entrepreneurs who make their livelihood from it, but making your money off the deaths of millions is ______________!
Americans put tens of thousands of hives on pallets and ship thim on trucks to California from as far as Maine and Florida to pollinate freakin almonds.
Eat walnuts. Drink rice milk. Quit buying almonds and tell them why.
IMO, this has two huge negative effects on bees not counting the crappy part of wrapping their homes in shrink wrap and making them poop in their living space for a few days.
1) There is no food for bees on almond farms. Almond pollen is not nutritious enough for them to live so tanker trucks full of GMO HF-corn syrup is pumped into the hives to keep them flying long enough to do the job. This stress creates huge die-off and loss in hives which creates a market for queen-mill queens. Think puppy mill hell levied on bees. No diversity. No thought given to hardiness of the queen which causes weak hives from the get-go. A few breeders shipping the same genetic stock to the four corners of the continent. My parasites, toxins, viruses where I live are not the same as the ones from where you live…
2) EXCEPT for the fact the these pollinators are shipped from my area and your area to comingle and catch each other’s diseases and take them back to their home states and pass it around to hives unable to resist the new disease.
Boycott almonds.
I've just posted a brief how-to on installing a package of bees.
http://www.joesbees.com/installing-a-package-of-bees/
I have plans to blog more regularly about my experiences as a beekeeper, and will post links here if there's interest.
apis -Nice primer on installing new packages. And a timely reminder, too, as I'll be installing 3 of them tomorrow.
This year, I'm starting 3 new hives to replace the one I lost last year. I've just finished painting and staining them and all they need now are the bees:
I'll be installing the packages at dusk tomorrow.
Kevinoman0221 from the Sebastopol Peak Prosperity Group will be coming over to watch the process - hopefully we'll add him to the list of PP.com beekeepers next year 
I hope the process goes smoothly for you this year. Today I've confirmed that one queen is out of her cage, (and I expect that the other one is, too–it's just a bit too far to drive to make sure). The only complicating factor so far is a cold snap here for the past few days. It's been a bit too cold to forage for much of the time since I installed them, and it might be challenging to keep warm. But both hives have frames of honey so I'm not really concerned.
Re: America treats its bees like doody…I have kept bees the last three years. Each year, I bought docile "packages" of bees from a supplier. None have lived through the winter. Last year I picked up two feral swarms down by the river. They were both incredibly robust.
Many breeds of dogs have been inbred so much that some have weak hips, weak eyes, etc. After my experience with feral swarms, I think it's the same with bees - they have been managed and bred to pedigreed status and the packages that are bought and sold as stock are not healthy and not resistant to viruses, parasites, or whatever comes down the row. Combine genetic engineering with the Traveling Medicine Show that is migratory beekeeping, and you have a disaster.
-EarlyG
My son, Nathan and I caught two swarms in one day, yes today. They're in 5 frame nucs and doing fine. Gotta get permanent homes ready. I need to learn how to post pics. robie
I want to first say thanks to apismellifera for your original post. It was very well written and helpful. I especially appreciate the link to Michael Bush. Partly because of you my first two hives are established and growing.
In your April 20 post you mentioned that you would consider additional blog posts if there was interest. I am interested.