Good morning, colleagues

[Podilia]

May I introduce myself for this respectful community. My name is Eugene. Podilia is a historical name of the south western part of Ukraine. My region is a good place for beekeeping. From my childhood I like nature, gardening, animals, insects etc. I collected bugs, butterflyes and all such things. At least being adult I found the best way to communicate with nature in beekeeping. I suppose beekeeping is a kind of art. Several years ago I bought three hives and made two splits. Since that time I made a lot of mistakes and lost many colonies. This is the price of experience which is very important in beekeeping.
I've made some progress in English so I feel now that I'm able to read and write something clear for other people. Anyway it's useful for my writing skill.
This forum is interesting and a little different from our beekeeping forums. We have main topics that are discussed for many years. Here I see that every question has its topic.
My bees haven't flown since the end of October. We are waiting for the first warm days soon.

 

[enrico]

Welcome. We too are hoping for warm weather as soon as possible. Look forward to hearing of your learning experiences!!!
E

 

[madasafish]

It's still winter here and snowing as I write...
Roll on Spring..

 

[mintmoth]

Welcome, Eugene. It will be interesting to see how Ukrainian beekeeping differs from British beekeeping. For starters, what type of hives do you use?

 

[For want of a better word]

Welcome, Eugene. It will be interesting to see how Ukrainian beekeeping differs from British beekeeping. For starters, what type of hives do you use?

eBay item number:
372208887563

Not like these... but take a quick look at the beekeeper up the tree and the device for keeping bears at bay!

and of course a great big Beekeeping Forum to our latest poster!!

Yeghes da

 

[Podilia]

It will be interesting to see how Ukrainian beekeeping differs from British beekeeping.

I don't know much about British beekeeping but I know that British weather is very different, so beekeeping differs in some aspects as well. Now I can see that our beekeeping becomes more professional and commercial oriented than it was a decade ago. For example, the most discussed subjects of our forums are the price of honey, the price of packages, the prices of honey in the world, the price of queens. Retail is almost dead and not interesting, more people try to produce as much honey as possible for exporters.
Anothe one topic is races of bees: what race is more productive, less swarming etc. You don't have this option in your profiles but for our beekeepers it's very important. Some guys love only local bees or local races which are allowed by law. We even have a law which controls the races of bees in the particular regions. In fact this law controls nothing and I would have been happy if it had been the only one violated law. We can have any race we want. Some guys believe in bucfast, Italian, carnica. They say that local bees are bad and we have to buy good queens from famous breeders for our success. Thus many beekeepers break the law buying or selling those races or carpathian bees in some regions and blame each other in that crime As for me I have local wild bees (swarms) and I far from those disputes. It was time during Soviet era when so called Ukrainian steppe bee was very productive and strong against diseases. For some people it was not enough and they started to purchase Caucasian bees. In result, steppe bees almost disappeared. They got mixed hybrids with bad temper. Now some breeders try to revive this race.
Another big problem is pesticides. Irresponsible farmers use everything they want to protect their crop. Bees, bumble bees, other insects and animals are not important for our agricultural business at all. We can get a lot of honey or we can lose our bees without compensation - such a lottery. Farmers don't pay for pollination, moreover sometimes they are the biggest enemy of bees.
Isn't it strange?

 

[MartinL]

I don't know much about British beekeeping but I know that British weather is very different,

You've opened a black hole there;
firstly , us Brits love to talk about the weather.
secondly, Can you please define Ukranian for "Cold? "
British "cold" is anything below 10 Deg in the towns, (-1 in the country) "Warm" ???

well;
indoors or outdoors, Summer, Winter or Spring/Autumn????

Anothe one topic is races of bees:
Some guys love only local bees or local races which are allowed by law. . . . . . . In fact this law controls nothing,

Not really any different over here.

so called Ukrainian steppe bee was very productive and strong against diseases. For some people it was not enough and they started to purchase Caucasian bees. In result, steppe bees almost disappeared.

I'd really like to see what european's define by the word "buckfast" (especially since the departure of BA)?

They got mixed hybrids with bad temper.

? ? similar here.

Another big problem is pesticides.
Isn't it strange?

Not really, Pesticides are readily available at the supermarkets, aisle in between the cat food & the frozen Beluga!





PS, do you export Queens???

 

[Podilia]

You've opened a black hole there;
firstly , us Brits love to talk about the weather.
secondly, Can you please define Ukranian for "Cold? "
British "cold" is anything below 10 Deg in the towns, (-1 in the country) "Warm" ???

well;
indoors or outdoors, Summer, Winter or Spring/Autumn????

Ok. Winter "Cold" is a temperature lower than -10 (usually at night). If air is humid it feels like colder. Average winter is between -5 +5. Now it is 0°.This winter is warm. Almost all days of December was +. There were just two weeks with -15 at night and -10 in the daytime in January.
The temperature inside is +18 now. Light snow are falling and melting. Mom says when she was young winter was colder and snowy (1 m and more). Now 20 cm of snow cause panic of the road service.

Warm summer is +25-30. This is average summer. Cold weather is +20 (north-west winds). More than +30 is a hot weather, usually during the second half of summer. Summer lasts for nearly 4 months in my location. Summer and autumn droughts can occur in many places especially in the south. Often warm weather returns in October for a couple of weeks - indian summer, or we call it (difficult translation ) "old ladies' summer".

Spring can be early (in March) or late. Fruit trees bloom in the beginning of May. First flight of bees is in the second half of March or the last days of March (+12 in shadow). Cold weather and snow storms can return sometimes.

I suppose your British weather is warmer but less predictable and stable.

I'd really like to see what european's define by the word "buckfast" (especially since the departure of BA)?

I don't know. It seems that those buckfast fans would be happy if you call them "european" They buy queens from Germany. Artificial insemination is also developing. They translated brother Adam's book. Recently they organized an association "Buckfast" with the symbol of a deer. Some buckfast fans asked:
- What is this deer doing here? Are we hunters? Where is a bee?
- This is the symbol of Buckfast Abbey. Everyone in Europe knows it. If they look at this they will know that we are buckfast fans too.
Anyway some guys would like to see a bee as a symbol.

Not really, Pesticides are readily available at the supermarkets, aisle in between the cat food & the frozen Beluga!

They buy the cheapest and harmful pesticides from China. I hope this practice will be changed because a lot of apiaries have died for the last years. Media and society have noticed this problem. It is very difficult for a beekeeper to prove that bees were poisoned.

PS, do you export Queens???

No, I neither export nor sell queens. May be if my apiary will increase I will start to rear queens with some professioanl methods. Now they are from swarming colonies or supersedured etc (I don't know the proper terminology yet).

 

[Podilia]

For starters, what type of hives do you use?

I started with horizontal dadan hives. Now I have such hives
It's easy to made them. There is 1/2 of a standart dadan frame (145 mm) or one dadan frame (300) in two boxes. Each box include 10 frames

 

[Kenson]

Welcome Eugene

 

[john t]

Welcome to the forum Eugene, your posts about Ukraine beekeeping are most interesting,
how and who is policing what strain of bees you guys have ?

 

[Podilia]

Thank you for your questions. I'm very pleased.

Welcome to the forum Eugene, your posts about Ukraine beekeeping are most interesting,
how and who is policing what strain of bees you guys have ?

Our parlament voted the law about beekeeping many years ago. Nevertheless this law is rather formal than real. It includes the plan of races allowed in different regions. In fact bekeepers have the races which they want.

We also have a state scientific institute of beekeeping. It's purpose is scientific research and recomendations for beekeepers. In fact nobody knows neither their research nor recomendations. But they have a pretty good and interesting museum of beekeeping with a lot of old hives and equipment used many centuries ago in our country and from other places of the world.
There are several beekeeping associations which are not popular among beekeepers though. Their purpose is unclear. Seems they are involved in corruption.
Our beekeepers used to be free and independent people, being alone in forests or field with their bees, they don't want to see any official faces near their apiaries. This is the result of 25 years of corruption, injustice and crimes on the all levels of the government service. For many years we have been happy to be invisible for our government but it seems this status quo is going to change because beekeeping has some good results now.

 

[Hivemaker.]

There are several beekeeping associations which are not popular among beekeepers though. Their purpose is unclear. Seems they are involved in corruption.
Our beekeepers used to be free and independent people, being alone in forests or field with their bees, they don't want to see any official faces near their apiaries. This is the result of 25 years of corruption, injustice and crimes on the all levels of the government service.

Reminds me of somewhere else I know of.