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You two are soo far behind the curve on this....

Thanks John. From the abstract: " in many Southern hemisphere countries widespread treatment did not occur since miticides were prohibitively expensive, or a centralised choice was made not to treat, both allowing natural selection to act. " That's the interesting bit. IMHO. If you (can)...

I've been reading the BBKA News special issue: Natural Varroa-resistant Honey Bees: Biology, Testing and Propagation. These are my main thoughts: The focus is on 'NVR's - Naturally Varroa Resistant bees. Most of the issue comprises explanations of bee/mite biology, prior to explanations of...

Its ok, it isn't my shed or my question, those belong to Bryang :) I'm just sticking my oar in! I've had woodstoves since the early 80's, always fitted my own, and even worked for a company fitting stoves and lining chimneys for a couple of years. I confess I can be a bit blasé about safety...

Sheds probably don't fall under building regulations, in which case such regulations don't apply. Until quite recently most houses were heated by open fireplaces and most cooking done on combustion burners. We still burn gas in our cookers (and making a roast for 4 people can be pretty...

Interesting, thanks. Interesting, thanks. I'd never heard of white lead paint. 'Red lead' for metalwork can still be bought, but perhaps they've taken out the naughty stuff. I have some in the ws, I'll look later. We were sold black lead paint by a company specialising in traditional materials...

Black lead hereabouts is sister to red lead - both were/are paints. I once used some sort of authentic black lead paint, made with linseed oil. It literally didn't dry! Painted miles of cast iron guttering, then couldn't fit it! Eventually we got fed up and fitted it anyway. I wouldn't...

It won't rust enough to harm it. You'll always be able to wire brush it and black it again if you want it to look nice. If your garage is well vented it will barely rust at all; if sealed and warmed from time to time never. I would think about insulation first. How big is your shed...

I think that's a really important thing to say, and I'm grateful Michael. What I take from it is, first: That we have opportunities that you don't have; secondly In finding ways of making best use of our opportunity, we should always be mindful to avoid carelessly treating the US experience...

Horses for courses (I could be stretching the topic here): last year I made a few 2 frame mating hives, and one sat squished all summer (it could have swarmed at some point). I last visited the apiary about 6 weeks ago. It was amazingly heavy and there was no shortage of bees.

Sound perfect to me. In groups even better.

x

That link is messed up and I can't make it work - searching this gets you there: bbka-special-edition-natural-varroa-resistant-honey-bees There is a good introduction to the Snowdonia bees here...

Sadly, the more effective any treatment is, the more it downgrades resistance in any wild bees living around. I think something that should be said is that the interests of a hive (or several hives), and the interests of the local population are... two entirely different things. Of course it...

The pole affair or the person in the veil? :)

John Kefuss has been breeding bees in France and writing scientific papers about bees and varroa since 1995 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7218-6823 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Kefuss His own outline of his findings: "Abstract A survival field test was initiated in 1999 to observe...

This is (just part of) the sort of thing I mean when I say talk about working no-treatment/with free living bees etc is suppressed on the forums. We could have an section where people could ask and learn, about all sorts of aspects of non-treatment; but its as if its painful for a few to hear...

Hi Michael. I went the collect/live and let die routine. I was ruthless: they got a box and that was it for the first 6 years. Now I have perhaps 20 good strong hives that have stood continuously for between maybe 4 and 7 years, and my losses not down to clumsy beekeeping are around the 10%...

Can we clarify: "That breeders found in adapting 'survivor' populations". The injunction to breeders from bee scientists to source these population for resistant traits is frequent and longstanding in the literature. No. The logic is: in the UK adaptation that has played out in 'survivor', or...

I agree, fabulous. I especially I agree too with Kirk's prescription and prognosis: "As far as I can tell, after studying this problem for 30 years, and getting to know many farmers and beekeepers—the people who have the best lives in farming of any kind are very skillful in all three of these...