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A few of you may recall that a researcher (Geoff Williams) tested my bees for varroa November 2nd, 2019. Here is the text from that set of samples. "Geoff Williams with Auburn University came out today and collected bee and mite samples from 8 of my colonies at one apiary location. I have only...

Geoff Williams with Auburn University came out today and collected bee and mite samples from 8 of my colonies at one apiary location. I have only taken mite counts from one or two colonies over the years so today was rather eye opening. Criteria was that each colony sampled had to be at least...

We are up to 0C today so a real heat wave. Last night was down to -11C. Poor finman, I think this cold wave left him out. Helsinki is running about 5C daytime and 2C at night. I'm glad we had a warm spell just before Christmas. I was able to go through my bees and figure out which colonies...

Interesting article in ABJ this month that describes finding marker proteins on antennae associated with mite resistance. Anyone seen other research published online discussion sense of smell in context to honeybee disease/pest resistance?

https://peerj.com/preprints/2976.pdf There are some very interesting conclusions reached among which is that VSH is not important to resistance. :ohthedrama: Credit: Posted by Juhani Lunden on Beesource a couple of days ago.

Randy Oliver published in American Bee Journal his method for performing an alcohol wash on all of his colonies of bees. His objective is to find and breed from colonies that have extremely low mite levels. A short summary of the method is to take mid-summer alcohol washes, identify the...

I put more time into managing my bees this year and in some cases got pretty good results. The hive on the left has a full shallow square super of honey which will extract 40 pounds. The deep beneath it is also full and will extract about 110 pounds. The brood box beneath has another 40 or 50...

I posted this on beesource, thought some of you might get a kick out of it. One of the comments had me rolling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GF3TOKf97U

Here are some pics to give perspective. These bees are all highly mite resistant. Look carefully and you will see zero mites. My bees were last treated in fall 2004 spring 2005. Bands of pollen are around the brood areas. These pics were taken today during the 3rd brood cycle. Most of my...

Don't tell hoppy and jbm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgR5FzMx_uA Do be sure to see where the URL on the page leads. Seems there is always an agenda.

I'm setting up my hives to run 2 queens for honey production and plan to winter at least 12 colonies as 2 queen units. Here is a link with hardware very similar to what I have built. https://www.imkertechnik-wagner.de/shop/magazinbeuten/12er-dandant-modifiziert.html Has anyone else run 2...

This is for discussion of whatever it was that got you started beekeeping and a chance to talk about the hive you use and why. 47 years ago, when I was 10 years old, my dad traded for 2 hives of bees and promptly told me they were mine. I was totally clueless having nobody else that I knew to...

There are basic things that "must" be done when keeping bees, a few things that are beneficial but not totally necessary, and a lot of unnecessary things you can do when keeping bees. Here are a few of the things I do to manage my bees. Keep them in a location conducive to bee survival. This...

I'm writing this to give some hands on experience working bees in an area that has hive beetles (Aethina Tumida). I am in Northwest Alabama, U.S.A. which is roughly at the same latitude as Morocco, Africa. My climate is temperate with winter lows around -10C and summer highs near 45C. Spring...

I've read numerous times that some bees have significantly enhanced sense of smell, presumably as a result of changes in receptors on their antennae. Brother Adam mentions this in describing A.M. Lamarckii and attributes it to beekeeping methods that put large numbers of colonies in very close...

I thought it might be worth posting a thread about the differences between mass selection and individual selection. These are two very different genetic tools that have significantly different outcomes. As beekeepers, we tend to focus most on individual selection, i.e. picking out the best...

I think we could all benefit from discussion of the elements that lead up to a swarm issuing from a colony. I will post some thoughts about the behaviors of bees that lead to swarming. This is about reproductive swarming, not absconding. Swarming is the honey bee's natural method of...

Which one is spelled right? Well, if you believe the dictionary, maybe both. I've seen - and used - both spellings over the years to describe that time when a colony produces a new queen to replace one that is past her prime. There are signs a colony has queen problems. They tend to keep an...

Does anyone extract this size frame? If so, what extractor do you use? Do you use wax foundation? or plastic?