CABK Zoom Lecture

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Joined
Jan 8, 2020
Messages
1,299
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1,279
Location
Bracklesham Bay, West Sussex
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
It's a fairly fluid thing.... more than 10, less than 15
Did anyone attend the CABK Zoom Lecture last night on the Importance of Propolis to Bees? Speaker was Marla Spivak from Minnesota University. Some really interesting information on the research done to ascertain how it protects the colony versus a relatively un-propolised colony (ie that in a hive).
It was being recorded so should be available on YouTube soon.
It certainly challenges the doctrine of scorching the hive to clean it....
 
It certainly challenges the doctrine of scorching the hive to clean it....
It's been known for ages - it's only the donkeys that persist in 'spring cleaning' the hive every year, scraping, scrubbing and scorching to little benefit. Manley in his 1947 book 'beekeeping in Britain' ridiculed the practice, yet some still persist.
 
Did anyone attend the CABK Zoom Lecture last night on the Importance of Propolis to Bees? Speaker was Marla Spivak from Minnesota University. Some really interesting information on the research done to ascertain how it protects the colony versus a relatively un-propolised colony (ie that in a hive).
It was being recorded so should be available on YouTube soon.
It certainly challenges the doctrine of scorching the hive to clean it....
I guess it’s more “clean” in bee terms when heavily propolised?
 
It's been known for ages - it's only the donkeys that persist in 'spring cleaning' the hive every year, scraping, scrubbing and scorching to little benefit. Manley in his 1947 book 'beekeeping in Britain' ridiculed the practice, yet some still persist.
I’m still learning so much and was actually going to ask the question on the forum about cleaning boxes as I keep getting reminders from local BKA and various website newsletters that I should be scorching my equipment (not a euphemism!) Having read about propolis, it seemed so counter intuitive to just destroy it all.
 
I guess it’s more “clean” in bee terms when heavily propolised?
They have their own microbiome in a propolis ‘envelope’ . Research is still ongoing but may explain why feral colonies survive without human intervention although it’s still not clear if it helps with varroa levels.
 

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