fool proof requeening Feral AHB's

[Tatonka]

I've got a great (going gangbusters) feral hive of africanized bees that I need to requeen (worried about the neighbors horses) Everyone I have talked to says it is very hard to do as they always kill the queen. What do you guys feel is the most fool proof method of requeening.

No I don't want to get rid of them they are doing better than my other 2 hives.

Also I've had enough trouble with laying workers so I'm trying to avoid that problem again.

Yes I'm pretty sure there AHB's they go nut's when I work them and follow me a 1/4 mile away on my quad when I leave.

Thanks,
Eric

[Bob Harrison]

I don't know the recommended method in Arizona but in Texas the hive is split into three parts and then each is given a caged queen.

AHB does not take to European queens. Different pheromones.

Make sure your laying worker problem is not a pusedo queen AHB problem.

The Tucson bee lab has reported on going puesdo queen problems.

Regardless what a few on the list say. Walkaway splits are what AHb love.

Marked queens from reliable sources is the way to be sure of your genetics.

In areas of AHb you always need to keep a smaoker going when working hives (in case of a problem) and wear protective clothing. Maybe not gloves but at least a veil.

100 stings in the time it takes to walk 30 feet is not an unreal estimate. I have seen European bees sting a 100 times in the time it takes to walk 30 feet when a pallet has been dumped.

[Michael Bush]

A push in cage is a very reliable method for introducing a queen. Put the push in cage over some emerging brood. Even better you use the push in cage to introduce the queen to a nuc and then combine the nuc with the hive.

[dickm]

Consider that you are filling the air with AFB drones which can't be good for your other hives or your neighbors. They swarm often and may set up feral colonies nearby so that you can be reinfested. You may be calling down a plague on yourself and for what? $100 or $200 worth of honey. Is it really worth it?

Dickm

[gds]

I would say it is worth it. If he didn't have the feral bees, they would be somewhere else. At least w/ Tatonka having them, they can be managed and replace them. I would say everybody down here should adopt a feral hive.

[dickm]

Is it really that thick with AHB in your part of the world? I could see working them but not if it affects others. Are things so far past that that it doesn't matter?

Dickm

[Joseph Clemens]

I make up a nuc from the colony being requeened, use a push-in cage to introduce her to the nuc, then combine using the newspaper method. Worked like a charm. Be especially careful that you don't get a queen, virgin queen, or queen cell in the nuc. I just finished this process with 4 new queens, unfortunately I accidentally included the queen in one of the nucs, this resulted in the loss of that new queen. :(

[Tatonka]

I've been thinkng about the push in cage method also...How long would you guys say I should give them before recombining?
Another idea that was tossed at me was to kill the queen, after 4 days remove all queen cells Then requeen. This is supposed to leave them hopeless and a bit more receptive to the idea of my queen.
Yes we have quite a few AHB's here in Arizona, most beekeepers I've talked to encounter a couple swarms a year, I just got lucky when getting started by picking them up.

Since I couldn't get a package out of anyone this year and we had plenty of swarms running around this spring I had a go at it with ferals.

Thanks for the replies,
Eric

[Tatonka]

Dick,

Just to give you an idea what it's like here in Arizona, I've caught 4 swarms within a mile of my house this spring. Yes this is a lot as we rarely see this many but we finally had some good spring rains after a long drought. Beekeepers are few and far between around here so I know of no one within 5 miles of me and only 2 within 20 miles of me.
The AHB's scare around AZ has been the death of thousands of swarms each year. The phone book is full of AHB removal services. When you call one of these places they tell you that all AZ bees are AHB's and ask 295.00 dollars to come out and foam your swarm. When you look in the beekeeper section of the book there's 3 outfits. I'm just trying to do my part in keeping a few more swarms from vanishing before we fall back into the drought cycle and make a little honey.

Eric

[Tatonka]

Rob,

I can't imagine working this hive without a full suit. 100 stings would be a low figure in my mind.
The last time worked them I was trying to combine with another small swarm. I had at least a hundred bees latched on to my gloves straining to get a stinger through. I can work my other hive gloveless but not this one. I have also noticed that when they find a weak spot in your veil or find a gap in the sleeve of your glove they all crowd in to get some action, I'd swear they are communicating the gap by the numbers that get in.

Eric

[Brent Bean]

A suggestion, move all the brood to one box place a queen excluder between them, wait a few hours remove the excluder then place a snelgrove board between them. Wait a day then introduce the queen to the top box. The only thing left in the top box will be house bees that should except the new queen better, I used introduction cages for the new queens. I did this method this year and had 100% expectance for six queens. After waiting for a week I checked that the new queen was laying and removed the old queen in the bottom box, the snelgrove board maintains the smell of the hive and they went about their business without a problem. The advantage was if the new queen was not excepted the old queen was still in the hive, and no lost brood time incurred.

[Lew Best]

what's a snelgrove board?

Lew

[Michael Bush]

>what's a snelgrove board?

http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=302

[Jim Young]

>what's a snelgrove board?

Aaron Morris discusses his trials using the "Snelgrove Board".

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/snelgrove.html

[Beemaninsa]

You are concerned about area livestock already. If you split or requeen you are going to stir up this hive like mad no matter how much smoke you use. I would kill the hive. If you decide to requeen, split to no more than 2 frames of brood. Wait 4 or 5 days. Remove ALL queen cells from ALL frames. If no queen cells, look for another queen. Instal a marked queen, do not poke a hole in the candy. Do a quick queen release check in 5 days. Leave the hive alone for 5 weeks.

[Malcolm McNabb]

hi
Suit up i wear jeans ,tee shirt ,denim shirt rubber boots then goes on the bee suit
Smoking has little to no effect on the ones ive delt with. Smoked the entrance and they pour out and your covered with bees. Removed the top and had approx 1000 bees on me in a matter of seconds,and more coming. Pulled 1 frame and turned to hand to helpers and they were running across the field, left me standing there. I closed it up and rode to the other hives in the back of the truck. We returned at night yes at night livestock and neighbors around and made 9 splits from 1 hive of 4 deeps 3 deeps of brood requeened them, and moved to different yard. All but 2 splits excepted the queens right away, 2 splits had 2 queens each laying queens, i believe there was 4 laying queens in the original colony. In 5 days I was able to examine splits not the 2 with the old queens ,and no gloves needed mellowed out We tried to feed them as the other hives were guzzling the feed these splits wouldnt touch it.
Also no mites,moths,mice,beetles,or beekeepers, they had been abandoned years ago. Its hard to pass up free bees they all survived. i wouldnt want to do it every day ,just prepare suit up and take your brave pills and dont panic. The ahb colonys build up so fast i have considered keeping a few colonys around to have extra brood to put in weak colonys... on second thought maybe not.
Mal

[odfrank]

Ammonium nitrate fertilizer...friend to both terrorists and beekeepers. Get your smoker going good, pour in about half a teaspoon of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. A huge plume of smoke gushes from the smoker, gas the bees good, do not breath. The bees fall unconcious. Take apart the hive and brush unconcious bees onto a tarp. To find queen make them re-enter hive through excluder or drone guard. Bees awaken in about 15 minutes. Introduce new queens over division screens. Mark old queen and place in small super under divison board so she is easy to find when you want to squish her. Or squish her right away and leave the original hive broodless so they can't raise another queen. Once the new queen is accepted remove divison screen.

[Beemaninsa]

Can't find ammonium nitrate here any more.

[Brent Bean]

what's a snelgrove board?
You can find answers and uses of this versatile piece of equipment in the book, “Swarming: It’s control and prevention” by L.E. Snelgrove Written by England's most respected beekeeper, this essential work deals with the subject of swarming control and prevention in a most practical manner.
You can get it form www.BetterBee.com (http://www.BetterBee.com)

[Jim Fischer]

If swarming could be reliably controlled or
prevented by any specific approach, it would not
be a constant subject of discussion, workshops,
and magazine articles.

[Joel]

I know little about africanized bees other than what I read. I think since the orginal infestation in Brazil started with about 26 hives and it has spread accross South America and into North America we aren't going to do much to stop the advance. I think Buffalo and the others have little choice but to join the pioneers who are forced to find the answers to managing yet another problem for bee keepers or concede one of their lifes great joys. I would keep my hives as isolated as possible and follow every published control method (there are many), and carry a couple million in insurance coverage. I would ask what are my moral obligations to my neighbors, their children and their animals. Also ask yourself If someone gets stung to death, which doesn't happen that often, do you have deep enough pockets or enough insurance to defend and pay a lawsuit. I have a freind who was in Trinadad when it was africanized. Their dog and their pig were stung to death in a 2 week period (by his bees). Current information indicates it will be fight to prevent reinfestation and the AHB genetics will remain dominate. Many, many considerations other than free bees. Best of luck whatever your decided.

[Tatonka]

Well I found there are some uses for AHB's afterall.

I went over to check my hives yesterday morning and found the top missing from the mean one. About 25 yards away I found the lid and a bud light can, the tracks seem to be pretty deep in mud as if someone was running. I seriously doubt he will be back for some free honey.!!
I am glad there wasn't a body 20 yards further away.
Where do you guys find remote spots to set up your bees? With acre lots going for $300,000 around here I can't find any open areas and surely can't afford to buy a 20 acre parcel.

Eric

[TwT]

BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Bet they want try to mess with another hive in this life time. they might have been thinking of taking the hive but this is probably a lesson they want forget to some. ;)

[Brent Bean]

Jim Fischer asks:
If swarming could be reliably controlled or
prevented by any specific approach, it would not
be a constant subject of discussion, workshops,
and magazine articles.

Bee Culture and American Bee Journal have many articles on the subject, and most every book I have read on beekeeping devote at least a chapter or better part of a chapter to the subject. And if swarm prevention or control is not practice by beekeepers it can be very costly to the beekeeper. There are no specific methods or perfect methods, but an once of prevention is worth a pound of control. Snelgrove developed several methods of control when the prevention methods fail, that have a high degree of success. Just as Langstroth discovered the bee space, Snelgrove discovered some of the triggers the stimulate swarming behavior, and methods to discourage or stop it. To me it’s all part to being a beekeeper or a beehaver.

[Aspera]

Brushy Mountain makes a nice looking division board. Forgive my ignorance, but couldn't you use a bunch of queen excluders to isolate the queen and then squish her?

[Michael Bush]

>Well I found there are some uses for AHB's afterall.

Maybe you should keep them afterall. smile.gif

[Aspera]

A heartwarming tale of defensive bees......

[gds]

Most of the bees (around here anyway) aren't 100% AHB any more. They're more like super european bees w/ a bad attitude. I really believe that over time the 'mean' trait will eventually be bred out, even though it is really dominate. Nature adapts which is why they are mean now. I don't think it is a trait they will need anymore. So don't be so quick to kill free bees because they have a lot of really good traits also.

[Bob Harrison]

Super European w/a bad attitude is a good descrption of AHB.

The problem is most AHB carry the aggressive genes even if the are not displayed in the current queen.

Open mate with another drone with aggresive genes and then you have got around a 100% scut.

I thought most beekeepers realized these facts as article after article has been written. A huge amount of valuable research dollars has been wasted on this research in many commercial beekeepers opinions.

One researcher was given 50,000 dollars a year to keep AHb *nucs* in Mexico for five years. His report was:
Mean as hell and not the kind of bees I would want to keep! Hell I could have made the same statement without taking 250,000 of research money.

AHB is here and nothing we can do about it. Its PR time now and trying to keep AHb out of our hives!

[Aspera]

Just out of curiosity, what do South African beekeepers do (scutella is native there). I don't mean the guys with full bee suits, but rather the less equipped rural beekeepers. Do they use capensis? Hybids? Do they skip beekeeping alltogether?

[Michael Bush]

http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/kenya.htm

This picture may not be in South America or Africa, but it's typical of what I hear is the norm in Africa. They are keeping the pure scutella (or mostly). The top bars help to keep them from getting as mobilized.

As far as I know Apis mellifera capensis are not in either of the American continents. I certainly hope they aren't.

[Aspera]

Thanks for the link, its a great site. I imagine working african bees bare-armed can't be much fun....

[Joao Campos]

I requeened some AHB hives with carniolan queens once. That's very uncommon here in Brazil, because almost everyone keeps AHBs, and the guy who sold me the queens was particulary worried about the introduction method. Basicaly, he advised the following:

1) Kill the old queen and put the cage with the queen only (no workers at all) inside the hive. The cage must be kept closed with plugs, so the queen won't be released. The candy should be kept.

2) *Seven* days later, open the hive, take the plugs off the cage. Be sure to leave there enough candy, so the workers will take some hours more to make direct contact with the queen.

When I did that, I also split my hives in two, because they were quite strong. The method worked perfectly, because no carniolan queen was rejected.

The bees, however, were a frustrating experience. Maybe the selection wasn't good, or probably they suffered from diseases or varroa a lot more than my AHBs. The fact is that they performed less then poorly, and one year later, I took back the AHB way. But they were sooooooo kind! :)

João

[Brent Bean]

Joao:
I am curious, how do you handle such aggressive bees? And do you have to keep your apiary yard a long ways away from people and livestock? And what would you say are some of the good points about AHB ?

[Joao Campos]

Hi, Brent.

Well, there's no short answer to these questions, but I'll try to be as concise as I can.

In fact, AHB is not a homogeneous race and the "mean" trait varies a lot. My (unforgetable) meaner hive was so nasty that the bees would get off the hive to attack me as soon as I smoked them by the entrance. They left in waves and jumped on me, trying to explore any crack in my suit and even going down my boots, to get my ankles. They also knocked hard at my mask all the time. And all of that *before* I opened the hive.

It's not a nice picture, but, in fact, that extreme situation is far from common. In average, we manage colonies less aggressive than that. And, like any other race, AHBs aggressiveness is subject to the colony size, nectar flow and the weather. One day, you need almost no smoke, the other, you need it a lot.

In short, you need only two things to deal with aggressiveness: apiary isolation and specific equipment. The isolation is not necessarily the 500-meter distance from people and animals that is advocated by several authors. A good obstacle, like a small hill or trees will work perfectly. My house, for example, stands about 150 m from the apiary, with some 50 m of woods in between, and never-never-ever the bees got anyone but me (in the apiary when I was working, of course). I also have dogs and chickens around there, and they don't get stung either. The woods also help me to get rid of the follower guard bees very easily - I only need to walk among the trees in a zig-zag path (sometimes, I have to puf a little smoke in the air too).

I believe that the clothing is similar to yours, but probably more reinforced. Full suit (nylon, cotton or albene), boots, a mask with a hard screen and leather or rubber gloves. With the meaner colonies, you have to use two suits and tape the legs around the boots. Some beekeepers work mainly without gloves and there are even some who don't wear the mask sometimes (just to show "courage" to friends, I think). Maybe the most different equipment is the smoker. Ours is much larger than yours, and can produce a lot more of smoke for a greater period of time.

Now, what is good about AHBs? First and mainly, they don't need any drugs or special procedures to stay healthy. Yes, they do suffer with varroa, but we don't even look at the contamination rate. If the colony is not strong enough, we just requeen it ou unite it with a stronger one, and that's it. There is EFB here, but it's not important. Acarapis woodi and nosema aren't in our repertoire. We never had AFB in Brazil - I mean never, no one case registered - despite it exists in Argentina and Uruguay (which are not totally africanized). Second, they perform better in tropical climate than the europeans. I live in the subtropical southern Brazil, and even here they outperform by far the europeans (at least the carniolans I tested).

What is bad? Well, I don't like the aggressiveness, but many others do. (I think "defensiveness" is a non-specific, politically correct expression, but not precise enough to qualify the kind of reaction we are talking about). The reason is exactly what Eric discovered and reported here some days ago - robbery gets more dificult to be accomplished. Anyway, we get used to it in such way that gentleness is not a criterium of selection used by the majority of the queen breeders anymore. And I should add that the mean colony I mentioned above was also my best honey producer in 18 years (but, to be fair, the second place was much more gentle).

We still have some accidents with people who know nothing about bees and meet them by chance, but they are not as common as they used to be some decades ago.

The excessive swarming trait is another bad thing we have to deal with. Gradually, I'm getting to the solid conclusion that a new AHB queen is good just for the next nectar season, which means that, from now on, I'll have to requeen my hives twice a year. By the way, to find an AHB queen is a very hard task, because the workers tend to protect her very well.

Regards,

João

[Bob Harrison]

If given a choice would you pick the AHB with their good and bad traits over the European bee?

I realize its been awhile since you worked bees so gentle you brush with your bare hand.

In the last two years I only had to put a full bee suit on one time. The rest of the time I wear a bug baffler made of flimsy nylon (available from Mid Con). I can not stand the heat of a full bee suit in 90-100 F. weather! Let along taped ankles and banging on the veil! Yes I get a few stings I would not in a full suit but worth the stings to stay comfortable.

Thanks for your honest post and sharing.

My close friend Terry Brown (Browns Bees Australia) is starting an operation in Brazil (already running) and might be able to mellow out some of your queens or be able to figure a way to keep European queens in your hives. Maybe not but he is willing to try.

I would bet money I have got bees that would equal your AHb in honey production tropics or not.

Thanks again for sharing! Posts like yours keep me on bee lists.

[Joao Campos]

I would really love to work with gentle, calm bees wearing only a light veil. I could accept lower productivity (not too lower, of course) with gentleness, because I'm not a pro, but I don't think that all beekeepers would agree with me.

But, definitely, I wouldn't trade aggresiveness for greater susceptibility to mites and diseases. I'm not an ecofanatic, but I like very much the idea of getting honey (and pollen, and propolis, and wax) as uncontaminated as possible. And for the pros, that's starting to be a must, since the domestic and international market is rewarding significantly better the "organic" products. After all, I think that the AHB undesirable behaviour is a fair price for its strength.

Some people here don't think like me, and they suggest something like an "europeanization" of the apiaries. But it was already tried in the sixties, without any success. The problem is that european bees here seem to be unable to compete. I know people who brought euroqueens from Argentina, and the eurocolonies can't protect themselves from AHB robbery, for example. Or they are ursuped by AHB swarms. So, it seems that even if I could buy Australian queens (mite/disease/tropics tolerant) every year, my colonies wouldn't be as productive here as they're there. I don't doubt your queens can produce more in US than my AHBs here, but, in your place, I wouldn't put my money at risk with such a bet... :)

By the way, I don't see AHBs as superproductive bees. Our average productivity in *migratory* beekeeping, as far as I know, is about the same of the Canadian or Australian average (including fixed apiaries). What I'm pretty sure is that AHBs have a good chance to outperform Euros here, in this tropical/subtropical, AHB-saturated environment. Also, it's possible that, although varroa isn't a devastating plague to AHBs, maybe it's responsible for some less-than-optimal performance. If we treated AHB against varroa, maybe our productivity would be better, I don't know.

(I too like this forum very much, and regret not having more time to spend with it.)

João

[Aspera]

Joao,

Many thanks for your inciteful replies. Although I wouldn't want to keep them, AHB seem like a fascinating honeybee and its great to learn more about them. Do you know anything about the low temperature Andean AHB. Are they more like Italian strains or just better adapted to the cold? Do they migrate with the seasons of the slopes (I think I read somewhere that subsaharan bees follow the rain).

[Bob Harrison]

Thanks for the honest reply!


I have been always said to be one step ahead of the beekeeping game (and a few say one step ahead of some researchers but another issue).

If the list reads the above post carefullY. Now read again. Think about what he has honestly said.

The point is trying to keep European bees in areas of AHB seems to be a futile attempt. Am I missing something?


Don't worry folks we are working on the problem over a decade or two in advance of our research community!

Could only AHb be kept on a large scale in parts of Texas, California and Florida in a couple decades like Barzil?????

A hybrid bee (with some AHb genetics) easily accepted by AHb workers is the answer in our opinion.

Could also be an answer to the world's varroa problem.

I don't think the above queen would be hard to come up with but losing the constant swarming, running on frames and other bad traits of most AHB is hard in my opinion

[Brent Bean]

João

Thanks for such a detailed response, it’s reassuring to know that if AHB’s eventually overtake the entire US that beekeeping will still go on. I don’t think it will be anytime soon before we would see AHB’s in Michigan because our winters are long and cold. And everything I have read on AHB indicates that they winter with very large populations and open cluster. So starvation is likely for that race. It can get cold here in mid October and not warm up until late March or early April. Honeybees like Carniolan and Buckfast have tight cluster in winter and seem to winter very well. I have been following with great interest the spread of AHB’s in the United States not sure if I would give up Beekeeping if they ever became prevalent in the Mid West USA, but after hearing your experience with them, I think I could adjust. It would be a question how the public would react, with Hollywood over dramatizing bees in general, it wouldn’t be long before the general public would think they were all in great peril and want to destroy every bee they could find.

[Robert Hawkins]

Bad news Mr. Bean,

The latest study that I've read stated it's not the temp that stopped the AHBs. It's the humidity. That scares me cuz i got none. So don't gloat until we've made it.

Can't get this picture out of my mind. Sugar rolling AHBs. I better get some sleep.

Hawk

[Tomas]

This is in reponse to Aspera's question about the behavior of ahb in the Andes. For what it's worth, here's my experience with ahbs in Honduras and how altitude sometimes affects them.

My current apiary is up in the mountains on a coffee farm. It's at about 1250 meters, more or less 3750 feet above sea level. Until now I have had no serious problems with devensive hives. The bees will come out of the box and fly around but they rarely start to attack. I may have only three or four stings in my gloves when I'm finished working with them. The apiary was started last year but the first swarms we caught grew to the point where they had about 30 combs plus a good bit of surplus honey--the boxes were well populated. They were strong hives.

A while back the workers on the coffee farm mentioned that they had to cut the weeds in the area of the hives and they had no problems. None of them got stung. They didn't have to use any smoke.

Right now we are in the dearth so we're feeding the bees. There's not much of anything flowering. But the hives continue to be calm, even when we go into the brood nest. The weather is usually cool and was even dreary/cloudy up there on occasion when we entered the hives.

Now down in the valley, where I live and where I have had hives before, it seems to be a different story. Based on my experience the hives are a lot more defensive. The valley is at about 600 meters above sea level, more or less 1800 feet. Although it is usually always sunny, it gets very hot and very dry when not in the rainy season.

As an example of the defensive behavior, I had a small hive in the backyard, about 6 or 7 combs. It was a new swarm, which are usually well behaved. With the start of the rains I had to cut the weeds in the backyard. With just a couple swipes of the machete I had some bees coming out and stinging me. I couldn't do anything with out keeping a bit of smoke of them. And keep in mind this was a small hive. A strong hive would have been a different story. (And up in the mountains they weren't bother by the noise of the machete.) Other beekeepes have also mentioned the defensive behavior are the lower elevation.

So it seems to me that usually (but not always) altitude could play a factor on keeping the bees more calm. And there is no difference in the bees since several of the hives up in the mountains came from swarms I caught down in the valley. They behave the same as the hives started with swarms in the mountain.

The only bees that got real defensive on me up in the mountains were in Langstroth boxes. My present apiary has only top-bar hives, which seems to help me control their behavior. But there is another beekeeper in the area who has hives at the same altitude in Langstroth boxes and he doesn't have a problem with defensive behavior. So this means the type of box doesn't make a difference at times.

I'm beginning another apiary here in the valley with top bar hives also. I'm anxious to see if the top bar hives will help me to keep the bees calm when working them down here or if they will continue to be defensive.

--Tom

[Brent Bean]

There was also a study that was circulated by Catch the Buzz which is put out by Bee Culture magazine. Which indicated that average rainfall in excess of app. 54 inches a year could be the primary reason that AHB’s haven’t seemed to spread to the Eastern US like they have went West. This is of course all theory, either way rainfall or humidity or temperature, since I can’t change the elevation like Tomas lives at. I just hope something keeps them form the Mid West.

[Joao Campos]

Aspera:
In fact, I know nothing of Andean AHBs. Maybe there's a transition zone in the Andes where euros and afros can coexist, but I've never heard of a hybrid race like the one you mentioned. But Brazil is not an Andean country, so it may exist and I'm just not aware of that. Even so, we know that AHB is not able to *cross* the Andes, because Chile, which is surrounded by those mountains (and by Atacama desert at North), is still the only country not invaded by AHBs.

Bob Harrison:
We have to consider that Americans are doing something we've never done here in Brazil - fighting hard the feral colonies and swarms. *Maybe* if you keep this policy, you'll have AHBs, but not an AHB-saturated environment like ours, and you will still be able to keep euros. If not, the scenario you described seems likely to me.

Anyway, the genetic improvement of the AHB, in my opinion, is the best idea. Last year, Marla Spivak was in the Brazilian Congress of Beekeeping, talking about her work with hygienic and SMR bees. I asked her if there weren't people in US thinking of making good hybrids from AHB. She said no, and another researcher added emphatically "so far...!". She just smiled.

In Brazil, the selection has been done fairly successfully, but, as I've said before, not for gentleness or non-swarming tendency. The few good breeders we have are working mainly in honey and propolis productivity. Since American research is of excellent quality and people there are truly worried about that matter, I really believe you'll eventually end up with a good solution like the one you foresee.

Brent:
In South America, AHB invasion stopped by the latitude 35 S (there's a transition zone, starting about 32 S). We thought the reason was the winter coldness, the hypothesis about the 55 inches of rain, evenly distributed along the year, is very new and wasn't verified here so far. Michigan is farther North, I think, and it's really possible that AHBs never get there by themselves.

João

[Bob Harrison]

On Marla Spivak:
She is one of my favorite bee researchers. She has really provided steps to adavnce my own research. I love her hygienic queens!

Her name is becoming common with SMR now but we can not forget Dr. Harbo. Has taken quite a while for the research community to accept SMR. Years ago Dr. Harbo explained to me after a talk (45 minutes of explaining) exactly how to select for the SMR trait. Only two people waiting to talk to Dr. Harbo after his talk back then. My partner and me.

The research communtity is slow (to say the least) to accept knew ideas and methods.

In June Michael Bush and I took her queen rearing class in Nebraska. We both were drawn into sharing our different beliefs which differ from mainstream researchers a couple times by those attending that knew our names and beliefs. Marla always let us talk but kept her position which is very mainstream. Would love to know her off record thoughts on a few subjects!

Love ya Marla if you are lurking on Beesource! Keep up the good work!

[Brent Bean]

Rob:

I couldn’t agree with you more about your faith in people like Marla Spivak and Dr. Harbo, that in order to beat pest like varroa we need a better Bee. I also believe that is also true with the AHB problem. Control of feral swarms is only a band-aid and nature will break out despite of our intervention. We haven’t been able to stop any pest or disease so far, the only advantage we have on AHB invasion is the experience of Beekeepers south of the US. Perhaps the only way to control them is to breed them out.

[Aspera]

I will swear by the SMR/russian F1 cross as far as disease resistance goes. A friend told me that the Minn Hyg/SMR is even better. It amazes me what good, controlled selection can do. I don't know what bees were like in the past, but it seems like their getting better now. I just wish that Drs. Harbo and Spivak or anyone could set up some kind of system to maintain the "heirloom" bee varieties for the future. Especially some of the African and Indian bees sound really neat, if not productive.

[Tatonka]

Well I worked that hot hive again today. It's time to try requeening them, they got under my veil and gave me some nasty stings. My old paper suit and worn out gloves looked like a battle zone. I had to run around in a nearby tall field for 20 minutes to give the rest the slip. It did prove the stories about bees going after dark spots, I have a blue emblem on the front of the white suit with around 60 stings just above it. I wonder why they sting above it instead of all around it? It's time to invest in a decent suit with zip on veil.

Eric