quote: Only a few decades ago, farmers could rely on wild bees and other insects to pollinate their crops. Now that wild bees have all but disappeared,....
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I hadn't heard that there was a problem with the wild bees. If true,that's got to be an incredible blow to the local ecosystem.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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We've looked into it several times (my grandfather used to keep bees, and we still have many of the old hive parts) but it appears to be pretty difficult to get started, if you can't find a mentor to show you the ropes.
And there is that problem with the mites (?) or something that is destroying much of the bee population.
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I have two jars of creamed honey that I brought from a local beekeeper who had a kiosk in the mall around Christmas time. I think I will call him up and buy more. Maybe a few of those beeswax candles he was selling too.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I would thank Scott R for being a beekeeper, but that goes against my longstanding policy of thanking or otherwise praising Scott R for anything, ever.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:We've looked into it several times (my grandfather used to keep bees, and we still have many of the old hive parts) but it appears to be pretty difficult to get started, if you can't find a mentor to show you the ropes.
FG-- there is lots of information available on the web. I went into beekeeping with my Father-in-Law, but we didn't have much of a mentor.
We did okay. I suggest doing lots of research for multiple points-of-view, and then diving into it. Learn by doing.
quote:And there is that problem with the mites (?) or something that is destroying much of the bee population.
Varroa mites are a problem, but there is medication you can buy to help protect your hives. It usually works.
Our biggest obstacle (and I have to admit, it's been a while since I've done any beekeeping-- just don't have the time between the job, the fam, and the novel) was winterizing the hives.
[ February 05, 2007, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I'd also put in a plug for checking with the nearest university's cooperative extension service, just in case there is beekeeping info accessible there.
This pursuit has always struck me as a Scott R kind of quest: quiet, lots of unseen work, little individual benefits, greater societal benefits. I'm just sayin.' Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Beekeeping is something that Beverly is very interested in. I'll have to giver her a heads up about this thread.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Which Scott R is this you're talking about?
Oh, the one plugging away at a novel, which has to be some of the most underappreciated work that there is.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Isn't it the mites that have killed off the wild bees?
Yay for beekeepers! We ran across a pile of old hive boxes and things that had been used to pollinate the apple orchards near where I used to live. It was sad to have the bees gone now that the land is being otherwise developed.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Isn't it the mites that have killed off the wild bees?
Mites and brood sicknesses (viruses that attack bee lavae) are the big killers.
I'm interested in how the Africanized honeybee is affecting pollination; we hear so many bad things about these guys, but usually only in terms of how aggressive they are. Aggressive or not, their population is growing in the wild, while wild hives of domestic bees are practically unheard of. I'm not willing to write Africanized bees off yet-- maybe through selective breed and release, we can bring the honeybee back to the wild.
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I knew that wild bees were disappearing. However, until I read this article, I thought most beekeeping was done by large commercial beekeepers. Hooray for the little guys!
Oh! And I should have mentioned this to begin with. I found this article over on Diane Duane's blog.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Scott, question for ya. Is this a US-only problem? A developed-country only problem? Or is this a worldwide problem?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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The varroa mite used to be a problem just for Asia. Around 1987, it got imported into the US by way of Maryland (Baltimore port? I'm not sure), and it spread from there.
If the hive is strong, it should have no problems with the mites. Now anyway-- back in 1987, there was no protection from it.
I don't know how widespread the varroa mite problem is; my instinct is that bees in the countries in which it developed have built up some type of a immunity to its effects... I don't know.
I DO know that American foulbrood disease is MUCH more feared than its European counterpart. It is much more deadly, and spreads easier. In my understanding anyway-- Wikipedia seems to concur.
I *think* I remember reading that wild hives in your part of the world are doing quite well. One of the first things I studied when I was becoming a beekeeper was a documentary on these nutsy tribesmen in some place like...I dunno, Borneo, or ( ) Sri Lanka, harvesting a hive using smoke and their bare hands.
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Yeah... Shall I tell you about honey here? We buy the imported from Australia stuff... That stuff tastes good...
You can buy honey from peddlars selling house to house (a friend of mine did that) or from roadside stands or grocery stores or the like - that's all local honey. It tastes terrible. Seriously. I can't choke that stuff down - it tastes smoky smoky smoky. Also, locals usually cut it with half sugar syrop so they can make more of a profit. Problem is everyone knows they do it, so it sells for much cheaper than the imported stuff because no one will pay the higher prices. Vicious circle. Oh, and it has a higher amount of floating bits of beeswax and other impurities - who the heck knows what, but they're dark brown to black - in it.
At any rate, I've heard that the roadside honey frequently is from locals who've found hives in the wild and, well, yeah, using smoke and their bare hands, retrieved it. Liberated it?
Also, I've had bees in my yard here, and not just once or twice but a whole bunch of times. I'm allergic (or so the assumption goes), so I tend to run. But still, they've wandered into my yard, and while we're not in Colombo proper, we're not in the middle of nowhere either. We're in the equivalent of the suburbs.
Hmm. Now I'm curious. Very interesting subject. Thanks for the info, Scott. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Very interesting. The documentary I saw had them lighting a bunch of green branches to make lots of dark smoke, so I can believe that the odor/flavor of the smoke transferred over to the honey. We smoke our hives, here, too. But we use cotton patties in an actual smoker. The cotton doesn't stink, and makes a clean, white, light smoke; and you can control just how much smoke you use by the bellows on the smoker.
(The smoker is an interesting little device-- it's a bellows attached to what looks like a wide mouthed oil can. You light the cotton patty or pine branches or whatever inside the can, and keep the smoke going by pumping the bellows.)
Of course, we have hive bodies here-- on the documentary I saw, the bees were building their hives hanging underneath branches. That's pretty unheard of for American bees. Bees will swarm on branches but they won't build hives there. They like dark places...
quote:it has a higher amount of floating bits of beeswax and other impurities - who the heck knows what, but they're dark brown to black - in it.
My guess is that there's beeswax, dirt, pollen, bits of bees, and bee poop in that honey. I'm not especially anxious to eat honey straight from the comb, either.
To get our honey "clean," we remove the frames (called supers) that hold the honeycomb from the hive. Bees will cap honeycomb that isn't being used for brood; that has to be cut off. We use a heated knife to saw off the caps, and then put the supers into a hand-cranked centrifuge, called an extractor. We then call one of my kids to turn the crank. The honey is slung out of the honeycomb to the sides of the extractor, where it dribbles down to the bottom. When there's enough honey in the bottom of the extractor to make turning it difficult (the centrifuge part of the extractor is about 3-4 inches up from the bottom of the extractor), we put a strainer over a bucket, and empty the honey out of the extractor through a spigot in the side.
The strainer keeps most of the yucky stuff from getting into the honey.
Don't feed raw honey to babies under 1 year old, by the way. They can get botulism from it.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: flavor of the smoke transferred over to the honey. We smoke our hives, here, too. But we use cotton patties in an actual smoker.
This makes much more sense when not read as "cotten panties."
(Why panties? Why not, say, tea towels? Wouldn't the elastic make it nasty?)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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There's a lot of interesting stuff in this article, so read it. In particular, I found this interesting:
quote:I’ve gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren’t aware, and I wasn’t for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I’ve measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. …What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells. (14)
How does a beekeeper have that affect whereby the bees produce the larger brood comb? Is this a common practice even among hobbyists? I find it interesting that something as simple as a brood comb size can have that much affect on the health of a hive.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I am a bit less than impressed by an article which cites wikipedia as its first source. Not to mention some serious writing/editing challenges the article failed to surmount. And boy, is it pushing an agenda!!
That said, this is definitely concerning. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Yeah, I agree with your comment on citing Wikipedia as its first source. That doesn't impress.
On the other hand, I think it raises a lot of interesting questions and helps raise awareness of beekeeping problems in general, which I think is good.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I was thinking of getting a hive or two and starting up a colony. What really interested me, aside from the promise of sweet, delectable honey of course, was the idea of skulking around at night secretly planting flowers in my neighbors gardens. Aha! I have just planted...tulip bulbs near your hedges!
In a matter of mere months with adequate watering and barring discovery by the local neighborhood watch at two AM, these will bloom and provide life-giving nectar to my hive!
Mwuhahahahaha!
Poor fool, you thought your yard was your own, only to discover that you, like all the people within a two mile radius of my bees, have become mere vassals in my kingdom; peasants if you will of my bee keeping imperium! Grovel before me with offerings of nectar and sweet, vegetative sex or you will go...unfertilized!
Anyway, that's my dream. Props to Scott.
Posts: 218 | Registered: Nov 2001
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I've always wanted to keep bees. Sounds like it's a lot of work though. Thanks for the insight Scott!
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:The study, co-authored by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several other institutions, suggests that the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) helps trigger the mysterious condition known as colony collapse disorder, which destroyed about 23 percent of U.S. beehives last winter. The paper is being published today in the journal Science.
...
The scientists who authored the paper emphasized that they have begun to solve the puzzle but have yet to determine exactly what causes a colony's abrupt decline.
"This is a major finding," said Columbia University professor W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist who normally focuses on human diseases. "What we have at present is a marker. We do not think IAPV alone is causing this disease."
Israeli scientists had already identified a lethal strain of the virus in their country. Lipkin said in a telephone interview that U.S. researchers had found a closely related virus that "may be somewhat muted," or less virulent. Other factors, such as the varroa mite, a well-known parasite that attacks bees, may be weakening bees' immune systems and making them more vulnerable to the virus.
Edit: The link to this story from the front page of the Post website reads "Study: Virus Cause of Collapse of Bee Colonies." At least the headline on the story itself is more accurate.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I liked the headline that said it was an alien virus. Alas, the reality is less cool than it sounds like. It's an alien virus, but only in the sense that it's from another country.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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At least the headline on the story itself is more accurate.
