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Walt Wright's Ongoing CCD, Disappearing Disease, Fall Dwindling thread

33K views 163 replies 26 participants last post by  Walts-son-in-law 
#1 ·
Walt wanted a thread where he can post the results of his ongoing investigations into the CAUSES, not effects of causes, of CCD, also known as disappearing disease or fall dwindling. Your ideas and observations are also welcome.

His current thrust is the lack of adequate pollen.

For any who haven't seen the earlier threads on this subject, check out:

Walt Wright's take on CCD - disappearing disease
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210727

and

Walt's take on CCD - Part 2
http://www.beesource.com/forums/printthread.php?t=211240


Walt plans on using this thread to post future updates. If you are interested in following his investigations, please subscribe to the thread so that you can receive notices. It may be days between posts, so ...


Stay tuned.
 
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#59 ·
Ethanol corn; treated and not eaten.

What a lot of people also do not realize is barley and other crops are being cut back for the stupidity that is Ethanol corn production.

If you'd like to do some research on ethanol, it is a complete joke cost and efficiency wise. Not only is it as much as other fuels but the refining transportation and costs make it a complete loser. The net result is a bust.

The reason corn is being treated is for ETHANOL..........the seed producers could care less if its toxic, if livestock can't eat it, or if it pollutes, since the corn is going towards fuel, not food.

Every politician is ranting ethanol, but its a complete con job and the end result will be 1000s more fields of corn that are toxic.

I hope when you do some research you will find that these crops probably destroy the ecosystem and the balance of nature, if there was any left.

So expect many more chemicals.........and a lot less bees.

However, I do agree that the irregular weather, unstable pollen availabity, and poor management, including feeding inappropriate protein sources, to be the general collapse of most hives.
 
#60 ·
#61 · (Edited)
I read the "food for thought" article today. Its about the same information we were discussing here on beesource months ago. Lack of diversity in nutrition, poor quality pollen, stress, and so on.

What it lacks is an in depth look at the poor nutritional suppliments that we have been given in the past. It also does not cover the ignorance of the beekeeping community in regards to proper bee nutrition and standards for suppliments.

We keep bees where we need them. We keep bees on mono-agriculture thereby forcing them on one source pollen diets. Pollen that may be lacking in essential amino acids for proper health. Suppliments may be needed for certain industry practices and situations. But the suppliments are way below what is required for healthy bees.

I find it ironic that it took this much time for a "generalization" type article to be written. Its one small baby step. I hope the rest of the needed steps are not this long in the making.

I have posted many threads about nutrition, stress, along with some websites (info available 20 years ago) detailing symptoms of "low protein deficiency". Dwindling desease, efb, shortened bee lifespan, nosema, and other problems can all be seen in bees reaching low protein mass. Bees use their internal stores of protein in times of need , as humans use our fat reserves. With bees, if their internal body mass dips below a certain level (30%), serious problems can develope. This can be for two primary reasons. Poor nutrition pollen and a lack of pollen.

I quit posting about this a couple months back as I thought people were getting tired of the stuff. I passed much of whats in Eric's article to the CCD group more than 6 months ago.

I am glad to see some now take up and bring this discussion back to life. For those interested, you can do a search and read the previous threads on this topic. If I have time tomorrow, I'll paste some of them myself.
 
#62 ·
Walt and the Pollen Reserve and CCD

I have used Walt's "pollen box" maneuver for quite a few years now. For those that are unfamiliar, I'll describe how I do it:

I use one standard Langstroth deep for the brood nest in my colonies. As a general rule, I use shallows throughout the rest of the hive for a number of reasons. My overwintering configuration has one shallow beneath the deep, and either one or two shallows of honey above the deep.

My bees are located on the Alabama Gulf Coast, so all but my most northern yards have brood year round. By late January or early February, the buildup is well underway in my area and brood nests are expanding. This is when I checkerboard and add empty supers (shallows) above. As the season progresses, the brood nests will expand upward through the shallows (important to note the difference between expanding and relocating: during this expansion the base of the brood nest remains in the deep, sometimes including all 9 frames). When the shallow directly above the deep has at least 5 frames of brood, I put it to the side and inspect the shallow that is below the deep. Most of the time this shallow is empty, and if so I remove it and replace it with the shallow of brood. The empty is used upstack as a super. Occasionally the brood nest has been expanded into the lower shallow. In this case I just put everything back as it was.

When the colony begins to reduce brood nest volume, this shallow below the deep is backfilled with pollen as brood emerges. The pollen in this box is not the bright, colorful pollen I see at the edges of an expanding brood nest, but rather the dull, glazed, compacted pollen for long term storage.

This "pollen box" maneuver results in a boxful of pollen reliably and consistently in my area. My observations are just that; observations. No "science rigor", but these observations have, to this point, been repeatable. My overwintering success improved when I started using this technique. My colonies are also stronger at the beginning of the buildup than they were when I did not use the pollen box. (Note: to those that will point out that the improvements in my overwintering may have been the result of something else since I did not use the scientific method to prove that the pollen box was the cause of the success: you're right. It may be something else. But the improvements were across the board and coincidental with the change in my management practices.)

As to why I use shallows: first I will say that I do not intend to say one method is better than another, just why my method works better for me. Second, I usually do not use excluders. When the bees in my colonies begin to reduce brood nest volume as the season progresses, they (most of the time) start from the top of the brood nest and reduce down until the brood nest is back in the deep. Early on, I just assumed this was normal behavior. Then a few years ago I was short on shallow comb so had deeps and mediums on some colonies instead of shallows. When I was pulling honey at the end of the season, I found that in these colonies, the bees had moved the brood nest 2, 3, or 4 boxes up from where it started, and had completely filled the 3,4, or 5 boxes below them with pollen. I have played with this for the last few seasons and found that while the bees are content to expand the brood nest up into shallow boxes, they don't want the brood nest to end up there going into Winter. However, given deep or medium boxes above the initial brood area, they move the brood nest higher up the cavity, and have more pollen stored below. Note that the use of an excluder would prevent upward movement of the brood nest as or more effectively than the use of shallow boxes. (Again, I don't own or wear a white lab coat. Just observations.)

Ok, why did I explain all this boring stuff? Because I think the bees' pollen plan is, as Walt and Bjorn have pointed out, much more important than I used to and that it doesn't receive the attention it deserves. Also to point out that there may be some real merit to Walt's supposition that standard management with Langstroth equipment may seriously impair the colony's ability to manage pollen storage the way they "want" to. Given the opportunity, my bees almost always move the brood nest upstack and store huge quantities of pollen (1 1/2 or more deeps!) below the brood area. And this happens well before the Spring flow is over.

If this is what they "want" to do, and our management prevents them from doing so, what are the effects? Are they quantifiable? In a year where Mother Nature conspires to cause major pollen shortages, could the bees' ability to recover from our management practices be stretched past the limit, resulting in higher than normal colony losses (CCD)? I think that it is at least possible, and I'm glad there are folks like Walt and Bjorn and others to bring these ideas into the forum.
 
#63 ·
Bjorn wrote,

>We keep bees where we need them. We keep bees on mono-agriculture thereby forcing them on one source pollen diets. Pollen that may be lacking in essential amino acids for proper health. Suppliments may be needed for certain industry practices and situations. But the suppliments are way below what is required for healthy bees.

> With bees, if their internal body mass dips below a certain level (30%), serious problems can develope. This can be for two primary reasons. Poor nutrition pollen and a lack of pollen.

Keith replies,

Vitellogenin Reservoir levels,

The one, most keepers should be looking at.
 
#64 ·
"That same thing happens nearly every year when elderberry blooms. The big white cluster of bloom that appears in early summer draws an assortment of species but not honeybees. Elderberry must have some valuable forage, or it wouldn't attract the other species."

I'm a native plant nut, and one of the species that I have planted on my property is Elderberry. I have witnessed many bees working elderberry for pollen. I've only seen them working it when the flowers are in direct sunlight though.
 
#65 · (Edited)
How to tell who is speaking

This is from me, not Walt.

There seems to have been some confusion, lately, as to who is 'speaking' during this thread. It has been my fault. Please understand that Walt is NEVER online. I am Roy, his son-in-law (hence the online ID). I handle all of his ecommunications. Walt doesn't like computers. Say he doesn't like a machine telling him how to do things.

So, communications occur like this:
I periodically check the thread and print out any recent activity (this might NOT occur every night).
If Walt has a reply or update, he hand writes it and gives it to my daughter, his typist.
She types it in Word, prints it and gives it back to him for proofreading. This process is usually pretty quick as he eats dinner with us most nights.
After all of that, I post it to the thread.

This is why you may not see a reply for several days. A little cumbersome, but that's the way it is. PMs are handled the same way.

Usually I just stay in the background but lately I have been butting in. Looking back through this thread, post numbers 7, 10, 11, 48, 51, 52, and 54 have been mine.

In the future I will try to be more clear about who is 'speaking'.

If the beginning line is something like:
"This is from me, not Walt"
and the post ends with:
Roy, for me

then Roy is speaking.

If there is no lead-in and the post is signed by Walt and ends with:
Roy, for Walt

then Walt is speaking.

However, I am not perfect. My Profile signature is 'Roy, for Walt' and I might forget to turn it off.

Roy, for me
 
#66 ·
Update – July 5, 07

Had an interesting day. What interests me may be boring to you, but can take that risk. If this thread deteriorates into a monologue, I can live with that. It’s just for the record. Son-in-law Roy has a feral bee colony in a tree on the back corner of his property in the line fence row. At this point in the season, I hadn’t seen any significant incoming pollen for three full months (13 weeks). Another feral tree colony has already crashed – cause unknown. Wanting to give the local feral bees a helping hand, decided to try supplying some Feed Bee. The excess from mixing two batches filled a cottage cheese container (24 oz). When I climbed up to their entry to hang the CC container such that they could walk to it from home, surprise! They were coming in with their socks full. The pollen color is hard to describe – dirty white or cross between beige and pale gray. So what is it?

Two local fall-fruiting trees that I had not ever caught in bloom came to mind. Perhaps they bloomed in early summer? Got out the binoculars and went to check sycamore and persimmon. No sign of fruit or bloom. Apparently, both were taken out by the freeze.

Along the way to where I knew sycamore was plentiful, saw some trumpet vine along the road in bloom. Made a mental note to check it on the way back. Snipped a vine end with two blooms and took to the truck to examine more closely. Bingo! Color match! The stamen had been completely stripped of pollen, but the interior walls of the bell tube had some residual coloration.

After finding incoming pollen at the feral colony, and before looking for the source, went to check the “raggedy three.” No pollen coming in – not even any corn. Went back in late afternoon – still nothing. These bees have been trucking along with essentially no pollen coming in for 3 months. It’s a miracle they are still going.

The second dose of pollen substitute was provided on 28 June. Twice as much as the first time. Three days later, (1 July) they had consumed about half of it. They’re taking it a brisk rate, and apparently they prefer it to corn pollen.

As it applies to promotion of the pollen box concept, I’ve shot myself in the foot. I doubt that anyone reading this has resorted to that radical manipulation on my say – so. Now I’ve fed pollen sub in addition to that insurance measure. Bad idea – weakened the sales pitch.

Walt
 
#67 ·
Walt wrote,
> Had an interesting day. What interests me may be boring to you, but can take that risk. If this thread deteriorates into a monologue,

Walt & son -in -law,

This is not boring to me, BUT, I find alot of folks talking about pollen feeding, but how much are they doing.

I find a lot of fluff here, I have shown picks of how much I feed and so forth.I have feed pollen sub in large amounts (20 pounds plus per hive ) for years, and all I here are these Johnny come lately. I dont see any body taking about, Vitellogenin Levels and so forth, Can anybody help???

Keith, the rookie at pollen feeding
 
#69 ·
walt or walt's son in law first adds:
Your reference to "somewhat confused' was certainly a gentle slam, but I am sensitive to any insinuation that I came to the bee meeting in my turnip truck. I have a fair understanding of the workings of a beehive and how the colony applies the required support of the local vegetation.

tecumseh replies:
didn't think I made any reference in regards to a turnup truck... although mine is sittin' in the drive way. in regards to bee's and such I didn't fall off of mine yesterday either.

then walt adds:
It is not my nature to enjoy confrontation. You are welcome to challenge my conclusions, but try to avoid challenging my observations. I report what I see, and to challenge my observations is to call me a liar.

tecumseh responds:
the question is not so much what you see but what assumption you bring to the event when the observation is made... this IS a simple process of questioning your aprior ASSUMPTIONS and suggesting that this is the equivalent to calling you a liar is a bit of an over reaction.

then walt or walt's son in law adds:
It is possible that you did not go back to the two referenced threads at the beginning of this thread. They provided some background for this thread. The intent of this thread is to track the full season effects on three colonies that were exposed to a very poor early season from the standpoint of pollen availability. Should they do well, and other colonies fail that were not prepared for the pollen shortage, that might be all the proof needed to lend some credibility to the concept that pollen shortage could be a contributor to CCD.

tecumseh replies:
fine... but how do you propose to place a quantative number on the pollen and or pollen reserves without having some long term numbers in regards to the pollen that is brought into the hive... ie without some kind of long term pollen trapping numbers for a specific geographical area this would be, at it's very best, an extremely subjective determination.

even if you pocessed this kind of raw data then questions in regards to pollen quality would cloud any projected analysis.

ikeep bees sezs:
Is it improper for Walt to offer his hypothesis to us for consideration? Don't most of us have limited access to data? And yet we offer each other ideas and possibilities on myriad subjects on a daily basis. Isn't this the purpose of a forum such as this? Or are we to quietly await the input of someone that has the appropriate amount of "data points" and sufficient "science rigor?"

tecumseh replies:
as my wife's mentor (he won the nobel for establishing a link between genetics and behavior) said most directly... it is a good to throw out a hypothesis everyday before breakfast.

once tossed you may then proceed to the next hypothesis... the problem being that the number of possible hypothesis is infinite.

and most certainly good clean data is limited and thereby not without cost. larger numbers (data points) simply gives you greater confidence (confidence that you have collected data in the entire range of the population) in the final conclusion.

as to your last question I suspect this might fall into what most economist might group together as 'in the long run' conclusion to a particular problem and like Keynes suggested 'in the long run' we will all be dead. so NO I don't think a plan of doing nothing is acceptable.

tecumseh most humbly ask once again:
I would like to acquire some answer to my previous question in regards to sutton bee man's experience in regards to the ccd thingee. to repeat the question again... what kind of afb treatment did sutton bee man and his bee keeping buddy use?
 
#70 ·
Kieth,
You ask about Vitellogenin Levels. Why?

In an industry such as beekeeping where just understanding the basics for nutrition is lacking for the 99% of beekeepers, who the heck is having their bees tested for Vitellogenin levels?

We have suppliments being marketed to us that are below any industry standard for nutrition. We have suppliments being marketed with no nutritional information listed on the packages. As an industry, its hard to find out the nutrition levels of the major pollen sources we have in this country. (Something other countries have done years ago)

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. But for an industry that lacks just basic understanding and concepts for something as easy as feeding bees and nutritional requirements for maintaining healthy colonies, discussions of "levels of Vitellogenin" seem way over board.

DeGroot had a nutrition standard in 1953 for bees. I had spoke to four county clubs this past spring. Not one beekeeper could tell me what was isoluecine, what the protein level of thier pollen patty was, or anything else for that matter.

If we can't keep it as simple as knowing whats in pollen or a suppliment.....whats the average beekeeper going to do about Vitellogenin? Once you read about it...then what? Nothing! Lets get over the latest fancy "word of the Day"....Vitellogenin.
 
#71 ·
>You ask about Vitellogenin Levels. Why?
Why not.


>We have suppliments being marketed to us that are below any industry standard for nutrition.

What is the standard?

>We have suppliments being marketed with no nutritional information listed on the packages.

If thats the case why are we talking about CCD, why waste the time with any of this?

> its hard to find out the nutrition levels of the major pollen sources we have in this country. (Something other countries have done years ago)

No it is not... And something I have done for years, dairyland food labs do all mine.

>I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. But for an industry that lacks just basic understanding and concepts for something as easy as feeding bees and nutritional requirements for maintaining healthy colonies, discussions of "levels of Vitellogenin" seem way over board.

Well Bjorn, that may be true but you have to get the fire going somehow.

>DeGroot had a nutrition standard in 1953 for bees. I had spoke to four county clubs this past spring. Not one beekeeper could tell me what was isoluecine, what the protein level of thier pollen patty was, or anything else for that matter.

I think that why we need to be exposing this info here so we can get off the CCD parade.

>If we can't keep it as simple as knowing whats in pollen or a suppliment.....whats the average beekeeper going to do about Vitellogenin? Once you read about it...then what? Nothing! Lets get over the latest fancy "word of the Day"....Vitellogenin

Maybe that why some net 200 plus a hive and others just get by.I here talk about Queens ect..on beesource. Maybe your right, we should just talk about what the fastest way clean up dead outs or a better way to keep the mice out of dead equipment.
 
#72 ·
Keith,
You ask about standards and then answer your question with the DeGroot part of the reply.

I talk much about "industry". If your sending samples yourself off to a lab...good for you. But lets get a grip on reality from a "industry" standpoint. I don't expect each and every interested beekeeper from across the country to send in samples. Some may...overwhelmingly MOST will not!

My personal gripe, or slant is from an industry view. Show me a modern beekeeping book that details nutritional information and the requirments of amino acids, protien levels, and basic essentials. No where to be seen.

Show me a beekeeping publication that outlines the good or bad with pollen, or the industry practices that limits bees on mono-agriculture. Show me a beekeeping book or publication outlining the nutritional values of almond, apple, or any sort of list for beekeepers to utilize. Nothing.

I never said anything about queens, cleaning dead outs or mice.

What I did say, is that for an industry that lacks basic information and knowledge.....your passion to bring up "Vitellogenin", is a little like beating your head against a wall.

Do we as consumers demand nutritional analysis be listed on suppliments? No.

As readers, do we expect more than the rehashed garbage over and over again from the many "standard" books being published? No.


I am not saying that nutrition is solely the reason for CCD. But due to CCD, I have found out how lacking we are when it comes to this critical area. I have rehashed this many times over. Remember my comparision of an apple grower not knowing whats in his fertilizer, or what nitrogen is? Thats like a beekeeper not knowing what in his bees food stores, or what isoleucine is? Most industry, no matter what you choose (beef, milk, alfalfa cutting, apples) understand nutrition and industry standards and requirments for a healthy crop or production. Beekeeping is lacking years behind other industries. And lacking behind other countries within the beekeeping industry.

Got to go now.....need to read the next story of some researchers debating bottom boards.... ;)
 
#73 ·
>Show me a beekeeping publication that outlines the good or bad with pollen, or the industry practices that limits bees on mono-agriculture. Show me a beekeeping book or publication outlining the nutritional values of almond, apple, or any sort of list for beekeepers to utilize. Nothing.

Well Bjorn, I agree

>I never said anything about queens, cleaning dead outs or mice.

I never said you did, that was a general statement. In other words, we should find methods on cleaning up behind the problem, instead of solving it.

>What I did say, is that for an industry that lacks basic information and knowledge.....your passion to bring up "Vitellogenin", is a little like beating your head against a wall.

Well... maybe so




>I am not saying that nutrition is solely the reason for CCD. But due to CCD, I have found out how lacking we are when it comes to this critical area. I have rehashed this many times over.

agree, me too


I will sit out for awhile and see what comes through this thread... NOT.
 
#75 ·
FROM WALT

Keith J. and Bjorn


Sorry I came in late on this subject – retired, you know. When Dickm’s article appeared and tweaked my interest, I asked Roy to check BeeSource for activity on the subject. He got so many hits on search, he refused to print them for me. So, I’m playing catch-up.


What I bring to the table in this discussion are two old observations that are not recognized by the experts:


1. Use of Langstroth hive equipment inhibits storage of the colony pollen reserves.


2. Failure to build the pollen reserve early in the season handicaps the colony in coping with shortages in pollen availability for the remainder of the active season.


Pulled two old articles from my files this week to see what I had written then. Both the “Evils” and the “Pollen Box” articles reflect my thinking at the time. The Part 2 predecessor of this thread acknowledges the faulty conclusions contained therein.


This year I learned how early in the season the pollen reserve is stored. We tend to forget that the honey bee is a forest creature. Their whole survival format is based on life in the woods. In the forest pollen is plentiful in the early season. It’s important that they build a pollen reserve while it’s available.


I’ll stand behind numbers 1 and 2 above against all comers. What could be more basic to the whole country than the standardized boxes that we use? If I can show a single case where some weather aberration caused an unusual reduction in field pollen, I’ll take my case to court.


The stumpy T formed by Ala., crossed by Tenn., is one of the few white spots on the national map of CCD-affected areas. This year, it’s our turn. But the affected areas won’t be reported until later in the season. We’ll have to wait it out. In the meantime, I’ll expect some 06 areas to drop out this year. The Easter freeze that wiped us out will have less impact as you move north. (See Part 2 response to Peggjam.)


Can we start over with the new info available this year? I’m not too old to learn.

Walt
 
#78 ·
From Walt

Observation: The bee colony surrenders to adversity.

Discussion:

This subject needs a few words up front on semantics. We intend to anthropomorphize freely. I am of the opinion that the bee colony “thinks”. The experts are sure that insects don’t think. The closest they will come to saying that bees have some mentality is to call the colony a “super organism”. That label is a small condescension that the colony performs at a higher level than an individual insect. They attribute that higher level of performance to pheromones.


I see evidence that the colony makes decisions as a group. The group decision may be incorporated in their instincts and not a case of deductive logic, but the whole colony can change operations overnight. An example might help: In the fall, the colony decides it’s time to protect winter stores by dispatching the drone burden on resources. The next day the girls will be harassing the drones everywhere in an effort to throw them overboard. Did the drones suddenly develop a bad case of BO to make them unwelcome? Not likely. Note that running the drones off is delayed if the colony has a supersedure queen in process. That could be an effect of pheromones, but it’s hard to imagine that there is a significant change in pheromones just because it’s Oct. 12 or whatever date the decision is made.


Anthropomorphizing is unavoidable when discussing bee thought processes. Not only does our language only have descriptive words relevant to our species, but we don’t speak beealese. My antenna are too short to communicate in their language if I knew it. Sorry George, see no alternative.


That same literature that denies that bees think has a multitude of references to colony moods. Describing colony disposition, there are words such as cross, excited, happy, gentle, morose, etc. Having worked with feral stock mostly, I would add vicious and hostile. You likely have seen some of these mood changes. If you have any experience at all, you will be careful to work your bees when they are busy and happy to be at work. The upshot of mood description is to ask the question: Do not moods suggest a composite colony mentality?


On to liberal anthropomorphizing. The subject of this blurb is the colony knowing when to say uncle, or whatever your favorite expression is for quitting. When they perceive that they have lost the battle for survival, they throw in the towel. An example that you may have seen is when the weak colony that is overwhelmed by robbers does not fight to the last man (lady) standing. They yield to the inevitable and retreat to let it happen.


I first saw this characteristic when doing tear outs (structural removal) to acquire feral stock for my purposes. When starting a tear out, to gain access to the comb, the bees were quite defensive. As structure was removed, they got more defensive with each nail pulled. When I started cutting down comb, defensiveness peaked. But when cutting down the last of the comb, the fight had gone out of the colony, and they had retreated to a cluster in a neutral corner. The last of the comb could have been removed without protectve gear. Could have pulled off my gloves already peppered with stingers. That may be a slight exaggeration but it was obvious that the colony, collectively, had recognized defeat and surrendered.


This characteristic is offered as a possible explanation for the colony not “taking” pollen substitute when in decline from CCD. If the colony has already thrown in the towel and are resigned to die it may be too late. The decision to quit has been made and it could be irreversible.


The work of this crackpot will continue.


Stay tuned.


Walt
 
#79 ·
Hi Walt,
I too have observed how a bee colony becomes demoralized during the course of removal. I've also observed how, at some point, the bees being robbed may actually join the robber bees to complete the demolition of their former hive. I also know that a hive seems to "remember" stuff like the locations of where to find food/water for weeks. Have you written any articles about hive/swarm decision making or other seemingly intelligent behavior? Any good references?

But, none of this is the subject of your nutritional based CCD thread. Mayve a new thread is needed?
 
#87 ·
From Walt

Hi Walt,
I too have observed how a bee colony becomes demoralized during the course of removal. I've also observed how, at some point, the bees being robbed may actually join the robber bees to complete the demolition of their former hive. I also know that a hive seems to "remember" stuff like the locations of where to find food/water for weeks. Have you written any articles about hive/swarm decision making or other seemingly intelligent behavior? Any good references?

But, none of this is the subject of your nutritional based CCD thread. Mayve a new thread is needed?
Dbland

An article in BC Oct 03 briefly described a more dramatic decision: That of the colony going on “short rations” and stop feeding larval brood. Happens overnight. A scanned version of that article can be found at


http://www.knology.net/~k4vb/all walt articles.htm

Colony decisions pursuant to swarming are in two places, BC, Apr 03 provides an introduction to reproductive cut off. In the May 03 issue some of the steps of swarm preps are treated. Both are available in the POV area of this site.

If you think a new thread appropriate, start it. Then it’s your baby to nurse.

Thanks for your input on this one.

Walt
 
#80 ·
Tecumseh

Gravitating away from confrontation, I agree with your comments about quantification of pollen reserves. An elusive prospect. I am a practical sort, and seeing the need to support this colony survival requirement, several ways were tried over several years. The pollen box maneuver gave me results that satisfied me. Quantification of how much is enough might be unique to every location in the country. In my area, field forage certainly is.

Walt
 
#81 ·
I am not certain what you are calling a 'pollen box'. perhaps you can provide me with some simple explanation. is this somewhat like the old concept of feed box (pretty much a southern bee keepers term)?

what I will descibe for you here is somewhat like ccd... but not......... it is also a pretty good description of how quickly a group of bees can become demoralized and abscond from their existing hive.....

as I have suggest to a number of individual I have a reoccuring problem locally (I am about 20 miles directly north of the weavers) where we have a enormous pollen flow and a modest nectar flow. this typically results in my best (most productive) hives becoming pollen bound in the lowest box mid way thru the season (mid summer). the brood area moves upward and it seems that the workers loose interest is guarding the pollen since these frames have almost no nectar or brood. the consequence of this is that the wax moth and shb quickly move in, gain a foothole at the bottom of the frames and from this point on the bees are fighting an almost impossible battle to evict these invaders. the hive cluster continues to move upward as do the invaders. at about the point at which the bottom box is totally over run by moth and shb the bees will typically abscond from the hive. years back I saw a similar event occur when fire ants gained a foothole on a hive with a 'fancy' bottom board (we sat them on the ground in those days). both do suggest that as some point the bees will abscond when then they have finally become totally demoralized.

then walt adds:
Anthropomorphizing is unavoidable when discussing bee thought processes.

tecumseh replies:
well I am not so certain I could go with the absolute tint of this statement....however we are not being totally rigorus here from an intellectual/academic standpoint so I would suggest that if anthropomorphizing allows someone a handle to make a clean description then we likely have no need to be absolutely pristine.

some (natural) science is considered descriptive and some is considered to be hypothesis driven. I would 'suspect' that antropomorphizing is used in the first but TOTALLY disallowed in the second. the problem with antropomorphizing is that it may lead to description of what you expect (from the human prospective) to see rather than what is actually occuring (see prior comments on assumptions). a bit tooooo much anthropomorphizing should suggest to the individual who is making the observation that they take a cold had look at exactly what they are observing.
 
#86 ·
From Walt

I am not certain what you are calling a 'pollen box'. perhaps you can provide me with some simple explanation. is this somewhat like the old concept of feed box (pretty much a southern bee keepers term)?
... <snip> ...
a bit tooooo much anthropomorphizing should suggest to the individual who is making the observation that they take a cold had look at exactly what they are observing.

Tecumseh

Glad you’re still with us. Your negativism helps keep the pot stirred. Thought you had signed off in disgust.

Scroll back to I Keep Bees description of the pollen box maneuver on the GulfCoast. He, like you, is in a near-tropical area. Am currently writing an explanation for extra pollen stores at the bottom of the brood nest. Will be posted in a week or so. Based on your description, I’m assuming you do not use an excluder. Is that true?

Walt
 
#82 ·
From Walt

My Sunday newspaper on June 17, 07 had an AP article on CCD. Title: Pesticide, pathogen focus in bee die-off. A photo of Dave Hackenberg with a deep frame of brood, standing on a lower corner is included with the text.

It’s interesting that the article reports that a new pathogen has been found in dead bees. I am surprised that there is only one, so far. The scientific community is boring down on this problem.

Prior to meeting with Maryann at Penn St., I had cautioned her via email about announcing a pathogen as THE cause – it would be necessary to sort out cause from effect. She responded via email that if a pathogen were identified, the real work would begin. Perhaps that “real work” is in progress, and that’s why we haven’t heard more about it. ( This may be old news)

But that is not what was significant to me about the news release. The picture of the frame of brood IS. Dave would have every reason to be proud of that frame of brood. It’s picture-perfect. Some capped honey (small amount) in the upper, outside corners, some open-cell feed of about 4 to 5 cells in an arc inside the capped honey, and a few open feed cells down the side bars on both sides. The center third of the top bar contained brood and after flaring out under the feed band at the shoulders, brood was solid to the bottom bars. Very few open cells – good solid brood pattern. You couldn’t want a better-looking frame of brood.

Hold it right there. Where is the pollen reserve that the bees store in the early season? Dave told me that he wintered in a deep and a shallow. I presume this deep frame of brood was from the basic brood chamber on the bottom board. The trees in the photo background are fully leafed out. The vegetative season has advanced beyond the period that the pollen reserve should have been stored, and it IS NOT HERE.

An earlier posting stated that Langstroth equipment inhibited storing of the full season pollen reserve. I fully expected to have to explain that somewhere along the way on this thread. When a deep is used on the bottom, or double deep is reversed during build up, brood to the bottom bars overrides the natural inclination to backfill pollen below the brood nest expanding upward. No pollen reserve is the result.

Thanks to AP, this picture saves me a thousand words. The pollen box maneuver was incorporated in my seasonal management about 6 to 7 years ago to offset this effect of the use of the Langstroth deep. Now my bees have required pollen reserve to sustain them through the effects of weather disturbances on pollen availability. We’ll see this season if that protection is enough to handle this extreme disturbance of 2007.

Walt
 
#83 ·
walt states:
An earlier posting stated that Langstroth equipment inhibited storing of the full season pollen reserve. I fully expected to have to explain that somewhere along the way on this thread. When a deep is used on the bottom, or double deep is reversed during build up, brood to the bottom bars overrides the natural inclination to backfill pollen below the brood nest expanding upward. No pollen reserve is the result.

tecumseh ask:
why? what is the mechanism that would make langstroth equipment any different from bees in a tree?
 
#91 ·
walt states:
An earlier posting stated that Langstroth equipment inhibited storing of the full season pollen reserve. I fully expected to have to explain that somewhere along the way on this thread. When a deep is used on the bottom, or double deep is reversed during build up, brood to the bottom bars overrides the natural inclination to backfill pollen below the brood nest expanding upward. No pollen reserve is the result.

tecumseh ask:
why? what is the mechanism that would make langstroth equipment any different from bees in a tree?
_____________________________________

First, an aside by Roy:

tecumseh, Due to the process we use, Walt's replies will often lag your posts. By that I mean Walt will be reading and replying to one of your posts while you have already sent one or more after it. I have asked him to make sure he tells me which post he is referring to so that I may quote it in the reply.

Roy, for me
______________________________________________

Now, Walt's reply:

Tecumseh,

Valid Question, poor answer follows:

More of a preference than a mechanism. The colony "wants" brood to the bottom bar on a deep frame. The "brood ball" as my friend Bob calls it is really the top half of a ball. They want the arched top for reasons I won't go into, but the bottom is essentially flat, if restricted to a deep box. This is readily apparent when the cluster of a double deep is in the upper and the lower deep is empty.

Further, they don't "like" the break in functional comb between boxes of roughly an inch and a half. In the tree hollow comb is continuous from the top down. Their "contempt" for the break in comb shows up in many ways. One of which is the feature we are discussing here. The brood ball might really be round in the tree hollow, more on this is coming up soon.

Bottom line: I don't know the why's; It's just what I see on a regular basis.

Walt
 
#92 ·
From Walt


Michael W

Exactly! Three boxes is better than two boxes. The break in functional comb is not right where they want the winter brood nest. They really try to avoid a winter brood nest that spans the gap in functional comb between boxes. In the far north where they winter in triple deeps, the bees get it right there also. If the brood is lowered to the bottom board in late winter, the bees have the opportunity to work around the box design we provide.

Walt
 
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