Robert Jones, bee farmer from Pembrokeshire

[Bob Bee]

If Robert's on the forum, thanks for a really refreshing presentation (both of them) at the bipCo day on Saturday. I too enjoyed the B4 Pie charts

 

[charlievictorbravo]

I was there and found it really interesting.

What surprised me as a new beekeeper was the overriding importance of well-bred drones in beebreeding – having only one parent, they carried only the mother’s DNA and are a true repository of the colony’s good and bad traits. Before I heard this, drones had been characterised as being beer-swilling layabouts that were just a drain on the colony.

There was also the assertion that queen excluders could accumulate electrostatic charge, which initially discourages bees from going near them until the bees give them a protective coating of wax. The speaker was so sure of this condition that he protects his bees and encourages bees to pass through the excluder by earthing his metal excluders by means of copper straps and ground rods. I did some googling when I got home and found no reference to this on the internet so is this a possible explanation for the heavy waxing of QEs

All in all, the Bipco conference was well worth attending and it’s a pity more local beeks did not make the effort to attend.

CVB

 

[drstitson]

"Before I heard this, drones had been characterised as being beer-swilling layabouts that were just a drain on the colony."

they are a drain on the colony if you're not breeding from it.

why anyone would think however that the contributors of 50% of the genetic material in both queens and workers are not important?

 

[alanf]

...There was also the assertion that queen excluders could accumulate electrostatic charge...so is this a possible explanation for the heavy waxing of QEs...

Does it seem likely that's why they also cover plastic excluders with wax and propolis? And frames? A large metal grid with any sort of electrostatic charge placed in the damp of a hive is not going to have that charge for long.

 

[clv101]

I was also at the BIPCO event last Saturday. I really good day, well attended, good talks, friendly people... if only folk behaved on-line as well as they do in real life!

 

[Stiffy]

I was there and found it really interesting

All in all, the Bipco conference was well worth attending and it’s a pity more local beeks did not make the effort to attend.

CVB

Probably reflects the lack of interest in the aims of a very vocal minority.
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Hivemaker.]

Probably reflects the lack of interest in the aims of a very vocal minority.

Those two again.

 

[Apple]

Probably reflects the lack of interest in the aims of a very vocal minority.
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I for one do not think such a comment was really called for!

I am finding out as a possible new beekeeper that there are many different approaches to keeping bees, and have received some very informative and helpful advice from some of the forum members.
I could not get along to the meeting, and possibly missed an interesting and local to me, lecture.

Please try to be nice in future.

 

[Stiffy]

I for one do not think such a comment was really called for!



I am finding out as a possible new beekeeper that there are many different approaches to keeping bees, and have received some very informative and helpful advice from some of the forum members.

I could not get along to the meeting, and possibly missed an interesting and local to me, lecture.



Please try to be nice in future.

Didn't know I wasn't being nice just offered my thoughts on why the event wasn't attended by more local beeks
Please don't read anything more into my replies and make it sound worse than it was meant to be?
S

 

[Apple]

 

[Hivemaker.]

Icanhopit.

 

[pargyle]

Icanhopit.

He's not been around here for a while ... what's he up to - last excursion was fencing with Finman in December ? We have appear to have lost him ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

We have appear to have lost him ?

No, of course we haven't, still around.

 

[pargyle]

No, of course we haven't, still around.

"Last Activity: 16th December 2013 06:13 PM "

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Maybe he's chopped another digit off and is having difficulty operating the keyboard?

 

[user 6228]

I was there and found it really interesting.

What surprised me as a new beekeeper was the overriding importance of well-bred drones in beebreeding – having only one parent, they carried only the mother’s DNA and are a true repository of the colony’s good and bad traits. Before I heard this, drones had been characterised as being beer-swilling layabouts that were just a drain on the colony.

There was also the assertion that queen excluders could accumulate electrostatic charge, which initially discourages bees from going near them until the bees give them a protective coating of wax. The speaker was so sure of this condition that he protects his bees and encourages bees to pass through the excluder by earthing his metal excluders by means of copper straps and ground rods. I did some googling when I got home and found no reference to this on the internet so is this a possible explanation for the heavy waxing of QEs

All in all, the Bipco conference was well worth attending and it’s a pity more local beeks did not make the effort to attend.

CVB

A hive with a humid atmosphere and with wooden components is not going to retain a charge for more than a few moments. Dry wood is sufficiently conductive to dissipate electrostatic charges from the metal excluder. If you were of a generation where physics masters were allowed to charge kids up from the van der graaf generator, you would remember the non-shock way of discharging the pupil was with a long wooden ruler. Its the plastic excluder that can retain a charge for longer. To remove surface charge from the plastic is more involved, but a high humidity atmosphere will do it. Changes in humidity play merry hell if you are doing measurements in electrostatics. If you are in very wet North Wales and dont have it all in climatically controlled chamber, you have to be very quick, and do all your measurements in a single day otherwise they are all over the place even when you are pouring the charge on to the plastic with a stonking great 30Kv power supply.

metal excluders are thermally conductive moving heat from the centre to the cooler periphery. They may get propolised because they are "cold" or because there are "there" and its a "paint everything white" syndrome.
a few phds to be got out of that one


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0304388681900450

 

[Stiffy]

Maybe he's chopped another digit off and is having difficulty operating the keyboard?

Think he has become a Cornish pixie or Troll ;-)
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Ross]

I was also at the BIPCO event it was a really interesting talk. Some of the very simple ways that Robert simplified his beekeeping and particularly his bee breeding to enable him to work a large numbers of colonies was really useful.

Such as not bothering to find the queen in a large colony when splitting it. Shake all the bees off the frames you want and put them in a new box above the queen excluder, the next day those frames have nurse bees on them and you can pull them out and he splits into 2 frame nucs. He uses them instead of mating nucs and once mated just adds more frames until it's a colony (it was a bit more complicated but not much).

Also he doesn't graft larvae for queens, just turns a freshly laid up frame on its side in an adapted eke and the bees draw out the queen cells from that. I have read about this elsewhere but not tried it, I will be trying this year.

He said at the start that some of his ideas were controversial but they worked for him, and he seemed pretty successful. Not sure I agreed with the earthing QX idea but I'm not going to knock it until I have thought about it more and maybe tested the potential difference, he has tested it and now earths all his QX.

Robert if you do read this forum, thank you very much for a very informative day.

Ross

 

[user 6228]

Even if the bees are generating charge, and there is sufficient insulation in the hive, earthing the excluder is going to make static discharges to bees worse not better unless there is a substantial resistance in the earth wire. The mechanism of this claimed effect is not clear

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Even if the bees are generating charge, and there is sufficient insulation in the hive, earthing the excluder is going to make static discharges to bees worse not better unless there is a substantial resistance in the earth wire. The mechanism of this claimed effect is not clear

Now I have this image of bees attaching an antistatic discharge cable to one leg before unloading. Oh sorry that's for fuel or powder tankers