From: Anthony Morgan <Anthony@iet.hist.no>
Organization: Sør-Trøndelag University College
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 15:16:10 +0100
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Food chambers

RSBrenchley@aol.com wrote:

> Allen writes:
>
> > 1.) There are many honies and honeydews that cause predictable high or total
> > bee loss if they are the principal feed used for wintering. Determining
> > whether they are present and in what amounts is not always possible. If
> > that is a risk, routine replacement with a substitute cannot lead to worse
> > results, and with judgement, can lead to equal or better success.
> >
> How did bees cope in areas of, say, high honeydew production in the days
> of skep beekeeping? I've read of strains from heather areas which winter
> particularly well on this honey (which has a high protein content), so
> perhaps it depends on the bee?

It stands to reason 8-) that it depends on the bee race/strain and where
they are kept, ie. the geographical location in relation to their
natural range (climate + flora, which in the late season can be 'single
crops').

In my case I keep Am carnica in Mid-Norway where it cannot be documented
that bees ever occurred naturally (race + location=long cold winter) and
the final honey flow is heather(single crop) which they cannot use as
overwinter food. Hence sugar feeding is a necessity.

I cannot quote references but Amm in some parts of Germany is known as
the heather bee, so presumably in that area can overwinter on heather
honey. At least one ecotype of Amc is said to be able to overwinter well
in Slovenia with a high proportion of spruce (christmas tree) honeydew
in its winter food whereas Aml in the same location overwinters very
poorly on the same food. One would expect that bee strains adapted over
time to their location will do better than the same race/strain imported
from elsewhere, even in the same country.

Tony
--
Anthony N Morgan,
Førsteamanuensis
Institutt for Elektroteknikk
Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag
N-7005 Trondheim, Norway
anthony@iet.hist.no
Tlf. 73 55 96 04
Fax. 73 55 95 81