"closed herd" bees available?

[Jimmy]

I keep a few hives in northern Minnesota and am growing frustrated with buying California bees when I need more bees. I have both TBH's and langs, but have had trouble overwintering bees for several years. I'm beginning to wonder if part of the problem is where our bees come from... "industrial" bees from California. We've used both Italian and Carniolans.

If I was the only one in our area with this problem, I would look closer at my management, but in talking to seveal other hobby beekeepers, this seems to be a consistent problem.

We also have a farm and keep a "closed herd" with our animals. In other words, we don't bring in "outside" animals and tend to keep the ones well adapted to our environment and cull the rest. This has been very successsful, but does this concept apply to bees? Would it make more sense for me to buy new bees from someone that keeps a "closed hive"; someone that breeds their own queens, overwinters their hives in a environment similar to ours, and does not import bees not adapted to a specific environment?

If this makes sense and if bees such as this are available, where would I find them?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Jimmy

[Michael Bush]

>If this makes sense and if bees such as this are available, where would I find them?

Surviving in your hives and in the woods around you. :) There are northern queen breeders and that might also be a start, but in the end, I think you're on to something. You need to raise bees that survive in your climate. And those are probably already there.

[Ardilla]

You could try Superior Honey Farms (U.P. Mich.) and their "Great Lakes Sooper Yooper Queens". They are associated with Zia Queenbee (in NM). Their contact info. can be found through the Zia website here http://www.ziaqueenbees.com/index.htm

I'm not sure if he only sells queens or has packages as well. May be worth a call.

[Jimmy]

Thank you Michael and Ardilla for your responses!

This issue weighs on me and makes me wonder about the environmental burden placed on our honeybees. Maybe I'm over reacting, but this spring will be my last purchase of bees from the industrial model of beekeeping.

Ardilla: I'll check out website you referenced and follow up. These folks seem to share my philosophy on beekeeping.

I would still like to hear from any Canadian beekeepers to learn more about other options.

Thanks again,

Jim

[Cold Bees]

I agree, I am so glad I found these forums. You know, I'm not very experienced even as a beekeep, and never bred bees intentionally, though I am sure a small swarm took off form my 1st colony cause they were fed so much. I am not answering as an expert here. I am hoping to help this thread continue, there are very big ideas here for the small time beekeep with a limited budget.

I earn my money by working, and I want a rewarding hobby in beekeeping, and paying too much for supplies is the first way to spoil the fun of a hobby! Buying bee stock and woodenware retail and having it shipped is just too expensive, I mean, at retail, a setup of 2 deeps, a super, bottoms, covers, feeder and a bee package is around $200 plus shipping. To replace a queen costs almost as much as a package from the big breeder shops, since they only want to do overnight air shipping. The local club helps, but marginally so.

This is basically a question of the value to a hobbyist or very small scale bee operation of the package bee industry. The idea of paying for all this new woodenware and fresh packages and fresh queens on a small budget, seems pricey in the first place. Add to it the cost of diesel fuel based shipping costs, the fact that diseases are running rampant anyway, wintering over is always an issue, productivity involves buying a new queen regularly, and you don't have a sense that you have reduced any risk in keeping a healthy hive for a long time, anyway. Then consider that local feral bees seem to manage to overcome all these problems without writing checks to mail order houses makes it seem foolish not to take their lead. They must be productive, they get through the winter, don't they? And without a feeder.

I think that Mike Bush's and Dee Lusby, and the other "local feral - natural comb" beekeepers present us with a great way to reduce that risk, so I am going to put my money where my mouth is and try to get and raise local ferals using homemade equipment.

If you read Brother Adam's accounts of his efforts to breed the Buckfast bee, you’ll notice his was a thrifty effort, he found bee strains by word of mouth, older literature, etc. There were no full-page, 4 color offset ads to pay for, so I imagine it was work and ingenuity, not money that built the Buckfast strain to begin with. So, yes, Buckfast breeders use a herd book, and have a huge network of breeders and controls, etc, but the answer for the small guy is probably not to buy stock from the large scale industry, but to follow his example and either become a small scale local breeder, or find and support one.

Hope this keeps the ball rolling

[okb]

This has been posted before but its an eye opener as to what you are saying IMO.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4279358984761013878

[Cold Bees]

Thanks for posting it, I just watched it, I see the related content links, I'll watch them too. I'm glad that the pros are thinking twice.

I have so much to learn, but this seems like such a win win to me:

Cheaper to build tbhs,
Cheaper to capture feral swarms and breed them,
Cheaper to let feral stock do the hygeine
Supporting whatever bee is appropriate to the region
Fun to use forums like this, to find like minded souls
Just had a nice day with tools, neighbors building
That their is some sort of benefit to the 'local food' initiatives, etc is a nice bennie too, especially the hopeful reduction in chemistry.

[Jimmy]

Cold Bees:

Thanks for your insightful comments! If you're new to beekeeping, you'll find this forum most helpful and enjoyable; I know I have!

I am still on my quest to find bees that'll overwinter in my TBH's. If I stumble on some success, I'll be sure to share it.

Jimmy

[beemanlee]

I keep a few hives in northern Minnesota and am growing frustrated with buying California bees when I need more bees. I have both TBH's and langs, but have had trouble overwintering bees for several years. I'm beginning to wonder if part of the problem is where our bees come from... "industrial" bees from California. We've used both Italian and Carniolans.

If I was the only one in our area with this problem, I would look closer at my management, but in talking to seveal other hobby beekeepers, this seems to be a consistent problem.

We also have a farm and keep a "closed herd" with our animals. In other words, we don't bring in "outside" animals and tend to keep the ones well adapted to our environment and cull the rest. This has been very successsful, but does this concept apply to bees? Would it make more sense for me to buy new bees from someone that keeps a "closed hive"; someone that breeds their own queens, overwinters their hives in a environment similar to ours, and does not import bees not adapted to a specific environment?

If this makes sense and if bees such as this are available, where would I find them?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Jimmy


Jimmy,
Raise some of your own Queen and bees every year just like you do with your other animals.
Get some local swarms, they usually work good at finding the bee that does well for you in Minn.
Every area that bees a kept in this country has its own special needs.
Randy Oliver, a local beekeeper here in California's "Mother Load", Likes to do just that. He raises his own Queens from ones he has on hand. They usually go through the winter and then picks the best "Leathery Looking" ones he can find that meet his requirements of a good Queen.He is very knoledgeable on most of the bees needs an gives classes allover the state.
I have been following his same line of reasoning.
Those Queens and bees that make it through the wet, cold and windy coastal weather into spring are used to raise bees for next season. Only new Queens and bees should be kept for the next season! Keep experimention open to new drone stock that comes from another local beekeeper. Queens need to have drones to breed with but not their own brothers. What will happen is that both the queen and her brothers mating will end up producing only drones. So you can think about this an come to see that every so often you need new blood lines worked into your bees. This can be done by swapping strong hives with drones for breeding with your new Queens from another beekeeper near your location of at least more than 3 miles. Some do this all the time...
Lee....

[Cold Bees]

Jimmy,

I was also wondering what you do to insulate the bees to winter over up there? Over the last couple of years I've seen posts from Canada about making polyethelene thick mil plastic blankets stuffed with kevlar insulation, and other pretty intense insulation efforts.

I'm in a cold place, but quite dry, and I did not need anything last winter for my Lang hive, but I have them in a sunny spot, they were a large population of Italians, and the entrance faced south. Whatever snow I had stayed powder, and never turned to ice. But it is only 1 hive, not a valid sample, and it was fed a lot, and they had 2 full deeps. I will use straw bale walls next fall to reduce wind, but I'll want to let the sun hit the boxes.

[Jimmy]

Beemanlee:

Thank you for you thoughts! Yes, this is indeed a wonderful idea. I've not tried to rear my own queens, but I'll have to learn. The University of Minnesota offers a class on queen rearing, so I have one within easy reach.
Jimmy

[Jimmy]

Coldbees:

I've tried different things... Storing inside, leaving outside, covering hives with snow, wrapping with tar paper, do nothing, raw wool fleeces on top in empty super (We raise sheep, hence the wool thing...), switching to Carniolans, etc.. Not everything has failed, but I've yet to find consistent success.

In our climate, Carniolans seem to make more sense because they are supposed to originate from a climate more similar to ours. However, I'm not sure if those traits hold true on bees bred in California. Does that make sense?

The other option is to find a local (or Canadian) beekeeper doing what I would like to do; one that keeps a "closed herd". Perhaps if I started with "hardier" bees, maybe I'd have a head start and be able to self-perpetuate a local strain.

If I'm unable to find someone like this, and if I'm able to overwinter my new bees, rearing my own queens makes good sense. Plus, I can also keep a look-out for swarms.

Thanks again for your comments!

Jimmy