From: Dina and Don Hess <ddhess@bellsouth.net>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 20:06:20 -0500
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Reduce or not Reduce? and other questions

Hi and welcome! :)

Joe Waggle wrote:

> Placed hives in full sunlight up on 12 inch
> blocks to get them higher off the cold damp ground and
> above most snow that falls in my area.

Snow can be a good thing, provides good insulation.

> But Beekeepers in my area are
> suggesting I not use a reducer and just a mouse guard.
> How can
> they survive a winter without reducing the entrance at
> all? Reduce or not Reduce what should I do?

To get an idea on the temperature vs ventillation issue, I suggest you
look into what people have to say about open mesh floors. Here's an
article and a link to do searches of bee-l (for OMF or open mesh
floors): http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/kenhomf.html
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S1=bee-l

Basically, people are replacing solid floorboards with wire mesh even as
far north as Canada and the bees seem to love it. I wish I could find
the link I'd read that talked about the temperature regulation of the
cluster - shivering to keep warm (cluster core temp tends to hang out
around 95 deg if I remember right), gradual circulation of bees to put
the chilled insulating outer bees toward the middle so they can warm up
and take their turn at shivering. With regards to your question, from
what I've read I would agree with the beekeepers in your area: reduce if
you need to defend against robbing, otherwise a mouse guard would be
better.

> How could
> honeybees with thousands of years of evolution in
> northern climates be wiped out by a simple fluctuation
> in temperature?

I take it you don't have italians? Not all honeybees are adapted to
northern climates. But temperature fluctuation doesn't seem a
convincing argument to me either.

Drifting: the measures you mention should help to reduce drifting, but
they aren't going to eliminate it. (Do drones drift more or less than
workers?) The mites are still going to get around.

> I have treated my bees with formic acid. Since
> formic acid is a natural substance produced by some
> ants for defense I have always considered it organic
> in nature.

Sulfuric acid is natural too, as are nicotine and a great many poisons,
but I'm not about to use them on my bees. Formic acid isn't selective.
It may not promote mite resistance, but it's not going to put a healthy
glow on the bees that are exposed to it - at best it doesn't hurt them
much, at worst it may weaken their defenses against further mite attacks
as well as viruses and other things the bees may not like. (Well, I
guess worst would be where the bees die from overdose.) Having spent my
undergraduate years in the chemistry dungeons, formic acid isn't
something I'd want to be around.

Anywas, there are some preliminary responses. Feel free to ask more
questions or for clarification.

-Don