beekeeping

[Magicdirt]

Has anyone tried the construction method from Anastasia in the Ringing Cedars?

I know fuck all about bee-keeping but the log method she talks about seems fine for someone who just wants a bit of honey for their family and also wants a few helping hands in the vege garden.

I'm not interested in selling honey but a little bit every now and then would suit me fine.

[Torsten]

I recon you got jipped Torsten, the guy who sold you your log/hive should have sat it in a paddock for a year or so first to build back up before selling it, to do otherwise is just shoddy.

Are you going to try to get them into a box at some point? Education perhaps?

 

The supplier was a logging area rescuer. I think he also rescues other critters, so maybe not the most specialised.

really don't have any particular plan for my TC hive. I am happy if it survives and maybe proliferates. No intention to harvest. I'd just like to see them established and helping our native trees along. And once we do school group tours it would be a great thing to show the kids to raise awareness.

[synchromesh]

Which bees do y'all recommend?

[San Rainbow]

If you have a strong Tc hive up our way can you harvest yearly? can they get food reserves back up for winter?

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NATIVE-BEES-HIVE-/280578288127?pt=AU_Business_Industrial_Farming_Agriculture_Farming_Agriculture_Equipment&hash=item4153c4e9ff

Dont seem to bad a price if your close enough to pick it up

[San Rainbow]

Looks good, cheers for posting the link!

[shortly]

If your as close to the coast as we are san rainbow & your not splitting the hive i don't see why you couldn't rob every year, mind you they only produce a coupla cups of honey for the year.

I once worked out that if we were to produce our own sugarbag instead of buying Apis honey we would need 45 to 50 TC hives to produce the amount we go through in a year as opposed to one good strong European bee hive

That is a good price, it will be interesting to see what it eventually go's for.

[watertrade]

I just received a swarm of bees tonight from a local catcher. Not really being that confident with bees I was quite anxious about it! We transferred the swarm into a hive which I will take out to my site tomorrow. All while the neighbours waved off their friends from a kid’s birthday party a few meters away. It was a big swarm too!

[synchromesh]

 

Good luck with 'em, watertrade. Fascinating creatures bees are.

[watertrade]

I inspected them on the weekend ( one week after delivering to their new site and they have almost filled the 8 frames I provided. well, 6 plus a bit. which was exciting, so much so I returned on Tuesday and added another brood box. I'm not sure this was the right thing to do. ? either way I will spend the first few years learning about which includes learning from my mistakes. I'm going to get another swarm for a 2nd hive

[San Rainbow]

Good stuff mate, sounds like you will be eating honey in no time

[Uda]

For Perth peeps

[kadakuda]

such a cool thread. what are some MUST have books for general bee keeping stuff? i am a noob, but a quick study if interested so i dont like kiddy/basic books much. any must haves? i will be doingit in canada, but is there much difference in strategy between OZ and NA?

[hutch]

Yeah it is a cool topic...I have a huge dead tree on my place that has a little hole in the middle and it is full of native bees. I can sit on it for ages just watching them coming and going. Every now and then you get this most beautiful aroma of honey. I leave them be and never even attempted to take their honey but as I have just fenced off 10 acres and am planting it out in natives and ethno-botanical plants, maybe I should invest in a hive to assist in germination but it sure would be good to get some fresh honey as well. My garden is full of flowering plants and I seem to have a large population of European bees around as well but I have never been stung. Now wasp's is a different story. They seem to attack me in numbers and they hurt like hell. Funny thing is though at about the 2 minute mark after a sting it feels awesome. I think my adrenalin must be pumping through my veins or something but I like it...It's almost worth the pain

[hutch]

A few of my locals in action....they never tier....

[random]

Ah sounds like heaven, sitting on a log watching native bees. cool pic too. Would love to see the log with the bees too *grin*

[mud]

I lost my 3rd hive the other day

That is, the 3rd hive to fall from the sky,

returnd the same way they came. My other 2 are very happy.

A note,

if anyone boxes a wild swarm, but then the bee supplies people..

take 4 weeks instead of 2 days to get your gear to you..

and you open a cardboard box full of awkwardly stacked comb and brood

DO NOT

try to string them up top bar style in your new box.

Just leave em bee

[mutant]

hey hello

I have not really read up the thread but I wonder If any of you has done something similar...

my 3 yo Turbina has hundreds of flower buds, if not some thousands. I know a local bee-keeper, keen on experimentation - he has made honey from unlikely woods and plants, f.e. he has made excellent chestnut honey, simply excellent, not commerically valuable, but people who tried it loved it.

I was thinking of asking him to bring a small hive in my roof as soon as the turbina begins to flower.

As far as I remember, turbina honey and a drink is made in mexico, as turbina's flower are supposed to be pleasantly aromatic.

Well I don't know if a single big plant is enough to aromatise a the whole hives honey, but I think I will give it a try and it would certainly aid the pollination.

this way I could make my 2nd bee docu/video - i've done this for/with another bee-keeper friend of mine , in a way a video logging of the experiment

PS: Could such a thing result in an imbalance, like a 'pest' of 'too many bees in the area'?

Edited March 10, 2011 by mutant

[mud]

It's time I get a keepers suit.

Can anyone suggest something I should/shouldnt buy?

Until now its been mossienet, tight jacket.

But the hotter u are.. the sweatier or more stressed, the crankier the bees will be.

Im still keen to make a smoker outta a milto-tin and matress pump..

but that's a work in progress

Edited September 5, 2011 by mud

[devance]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-global-honey-bee-declines-diesel.html

Diesel road-traffic is increasing in the UK and research from the US has shown that nanoparticles found in its fumes can be detrimental to the brains of animals when they are exposed to large doses. We want to find out if bees are affected in the same way – and answer the question of why bees aren't finding their way back to the hive when they leave to find food," explains Professor Poppy.

Bees are estimated to contribute billions to the world's economy - £430 million a year to the UK alone - by pollinating crops, producing honey and supporting employment. Yet winter losses have led to the loss of tens of thousands of beehives year on year since 2007. The US has seen a 35 per cent unexplained drop in the number of hives in 2007, 2008 and 2009*. Extensive research, including a recent United Nations Report, has so far not identified the cause of bee declines.

The team from the University of Southampton, including biologists, nanotechnology researchers and ecologists will test the behavioural and neurological changes in honey bees, after exposure to diesel nanoparticles.

Chemical ecologist Dr Robbie Girling, adds: "The diesel fumes may have a dual affect in that they may be mopping up flower smells in the air, making it harder for the bees to find their food sources."

Recent research which has revealed more about the effects of nanoparticles has enabled scientists to investigate this possible link to bee colony collaps0]

my theory is there dislink from the bee hive older member 3 to 5 weeks from the bee lavae as a smell reaction from contaminated pollen or nector thats been feed so the bees know the larava will be malformed and try to escape with queen to a new place.. Bees only live 6 weeks except for the Queen who lives 2 years o

[Stillman]

I have a few TC hives I rob the bigger one every other year and get almost a litre of honey. The honey is amazing but.

You can't rob them if your winters are harsh. If you want native bees talk to tree loppers offer them a carton of beer for every hive over a certain size. Trust me before to long you will be on first name basis with the local bottle shop and have more log hives then you can poke a stick at. Then once they settle you can have a go at boxing them, best thing about native bees is they have "queens in waiting" so you can split a mass and as long as there are enough bees in both they should form two separate hives. I was going to get into it in a big way leasing them out to lychee, macadamia,mango farms schools etc but with time constrates never got there unfortunately.

[Mt.B]

After 2 years and two swarms that didn't sick around, I've now got a package of honey bees (Italian - apis mellifera ligustica) to setup residency in my Kenya Top Bar Hive. The 2nd swarm was during this Spring, then they buggered off and Summer came, so I contacted a local Commercial Bee Keeper and sourced a caged queen with a cardboard box of bees to go with her. A month has passed and they have built onto 8 top bars free form comb. Here’s the largest of the 8.

[Mt.B]

what are some MUST have books for general bee keeping stuff? i am a noob, but a quick study if interested so i dont like kiddy/basic books much.

Not sure if it is a must have but I find this a good resource - http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm It comes in book form too, so if you like the sight, you can buy the book.

Im still keen to make a smoker outta a milto-tin and matress pump..

but that's a work in progress

I don't use smoke at all, it's really not necessary. It's not good for the bees either. If I need to open my hive I do it in the middle of a hot day, when they are busy at work. Being gentle with them also helps a lot. If they need to be encouraged to move out of the way while I'm closing up the top bars, a light misting of water does the trick. They think it is raining and in they go.

[devance]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-supersoldier-ants-lab-reactivating-ancestral.html

The international team of scientists, led by Dr Ehab Abouheif of the Department of Biology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, looked at the genomes of two ant species that produce supersoldiers. They identified the genetics behind the supersoldier caste and were able to activate the genes by treating ant larvae with methoprene, a growth hormone. As expected, the ant larvae became supersoldiers.

They then treated in the same way larvae of Pheidole morrisi, an ant species which lives in New York and that does not normally produce supersoldiers, but which lead author, Dr Abouheif, had previously noted produced large-headed ants resembling supersoldiers on rare occasions. The treated larvae grew to become large headed and jawed ants resembling supersoldiers. The same effect was produced in two other Pheilode species, which are not known to produce supersoldiers.

Dr Abouheif and colleagues report, in their paper published in the journal Science, that ant larvae normally develop into soldiers or workers depending on the levels of the "juvenile hormone": if levels are high the ants become soldiers, while if they are low they become the smaller worker ants. In the species that produce supersoldiers there is a second high threshold of the juvenile hormone, above which the larvae develop into the larger supersoldiers. The growth hormone methoprene, used in the experiments, mimics the effects of juvenile hormone.

The results of the experiments suggest that even those species that do not produce supersoldiers must have been able to do so in the distant past, some 35 to 60 million years ago, and that they still retain the genetic information for supersoldier production that can be reactivated under certain environmental or nutritional states. The researchers say that retaining the ancestral genetic tools could be important for the evolution of new physical traits.

Supersoldier ants occur naturally in species found in Mexico and the south-west of the USA. They were also known in ancestral species, and Abouheif and the team suggest the common ancestor of the entire Pheidole genus had the ability to produce supersoldiers.

[whitewind]

Unusual honeybee die-offs have become so severe that some US beekeepers will qualify for disaster relief funds

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/13/honeybee-problem-critical-point

Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

"We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point," said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD -- a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind -- bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.

"In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in what's going on," said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don't like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from." These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that "we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry." In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for example, he knows that "if I spray, I'm going to kill all the beneficial insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg's awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.

 

Pesticide Action Network

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/10/4177304/beekeepers-are-critical-to-economy.html