Why is my beekeeping experience so different?

[Solomon Parker]

Lately, I've been noticing that my experience in beekeeping is different to others. It's not just that I'm contrary and do most things differently, it's that I see things differently, things seem to happen differently. I have a few examples.

Comb: My comb seems to be much more attractive to wax moths. People have told me that empty brood comb is not as attractive. If I leave mine sitting around the shop, even in open air exposed to light, it will pretty soon have worms in it. A guy who took care of some of my hives for a while noted how much quicker the moths went after my comb than his in a deadout.

Hive size: Even with tasty comb, my bees still seem to have no problem guarding massive amounts of empty comb year 'round. Others tell me that if the hive is too big for the colony, they'll lose comb in the extremities to wax moths. Is this related to the differences in the bees' ability to detect intruders due to the presence of chemicals?

Upper entrances: Others talk about chimney effect and chilled bees. I have hives survive year after year with both upper and lower entrances.

CCD: Haven't seen it.

Varroa: Large crashes in my apiaries predicted many dozens of times have not materialized.

AFB: Haven't seen it. And I have been looking.

EFB: Haven't seen it.

SHB: Not a big problem around here, but I do find beetles from time to time.

Nosema: Other than a couple of cases of dysentery mid-winter, I see no evidence of it.

Swarming: My year 'round really big hives do not swarm much if ever.

I'm trying to figure out how best I can serve the beekeeping community, especially the avid hobbyists and micro-sideliners like myself. It's hard to do that if I'm not experiencing what everybody else is experiencing.

[Mike Gillmore]

For whatever reason, I think your situation is very unique. Just keep on doing whatever it is your are doing and continue to report your successes and observations. Your positive results may not be commonplace with other beekeepers but it will at the very least give hope, and it offers an alternative for some to try to emulate.

[Barry]

Comb: My comb seems to be much more attractive to wax moths.

Not mine. I have to protect against mice.

Hive size: Even with tasty comb, my bees still seem to have no problem guarding massive amounts of empty comb year 'round.

Same here.

CCD: Haven't seen it.

Nor have I.

Varroa: Large crashes in my apiaries predicted many dozens of times have not materialized.

Same.

AFB: Haven't seen it.

Same.

EFB: Haven't seen it.

One hive this year. Before that it was one hive 12 years ago.

SHB: Not a big problem around here, but I do find beetles from time to time.

Same.

Nosema: Other than a couple of cases of dysentery mid-winter, I see no evidence of it.

Same.

Swarming: My year 'round really big hives do not swarm much if ever.

Big swarm urge this spring so I split everything.

[Lburou]

Solomon, like politics, all bee keeping is local

I've been reading Brother Adam's books this month. I wonder if many of the dependant variables affected by bee strain have gone your way, meaning: You have a good strain(s) of bees for your area. Your bees keep the hive clean enough to make brood diseases the exception rather than the rule, and finally, to resist the affects of phoretic mites and bee viruses. Independant variables like wax moth populations and SHB survivability will vary according to the weather conditions.

Didn't I read where you had purchased some Buckfast bees, or some strains based on the Buckfast? They were bred to do all of the above.

Don't discount blind luck either Solomon.

[Solomon Parker]

You must have been reading about somebody else. My original stock came from Koehnen's, regular Italian. Later editions came from Don Kuchenmeister and Zia Queenbee. Neither of those claim much Buckfast if any. Still, my star hives have been the Koehnen descendents.

A couple of things I have noticed about the local bees (with which I am certainly intermixed): they tend to shut down the brood nest for the most part during the summer, keeping an active brooding volume of about a soccer ball. They also winter in frighteningly small clusters, soccer ball to basketball size, with softball seeming to be the survivable limit. I've also never seen a swarm larger than about 3 deep frames worth of bees in these parts.

I don't believe in luck. I believe in chance and skill. Chance is the number of questions on the test to which you know the answer. Skill is knowing a lot of answers.

As an aside, I was listening to the radio a couple months back and somebody asked a sports analyst why a certain team had won. He said it was luck. I was overtaken with incredulity. That's just not something an intelligent educated person says.

[Solomon Parker]

Not mine. I have to protect against mice.

I have had mice. They climbed in and ate the honeycomb above the cluster.

[AR Beekeeper]

An overwinter dead-out usually will have wax moths develop in the comb by the last week in May/first week of June. Stacked supers outside in full sun will delay development of the worms.

An average overwintered colony will care for the comb in 2 deeps and 3 or 4 supers and prevent wax worms if the hive is in full sun.

Bottom entrance, upper entrance, screened bottom or solid does not affect how well the bees overwinter here in Arkansas. Ventilation techniques used in the northern states are not needed here. A bottom entrance 8 inches wide with the hive tipped forward will allow air circulation and moisture to exit the hive. Screened bottoms and a 2 or 3 inch entrance helps prevent winter robbing. The prime need for moisture control is for the hive to be in full sun and have 6 to 8 frame solid with adult bees in October.

There has been no confirmed case of CCD in Arkansas.

Any colony of hygenic bees will survive at least 3 years with no varroa treatments here, if the beekeeper sees to their needs. Varroa killed colonies usually die from failure to requeen after losing a queen in late summer because the workers suffer from the virus load passed to them from the mites. BPMS is seldom seen if the colony is hygenic.

AFB is seldom seen, I have seen 5 cases in 35 years and 4 of those were in one location. They were caused by a beekeeper making splits using frames from a dead-out without checking them for scale.

EFB is seldom seen, usually it is found in the early spring in bees that are not hygenic in a location that is damp and on low ground.

SHB is no problem in north Arkansas, it is in the delta and south Arkansas.

Nosema apis has never been a problem in Arkansas, I think the new Nosema ceranae is. The new nosema is a dry nosema, no feces droped on frames or hives. Look for k wing, crawling bees and colonies that will not take syrup when being fed while other colonies do take it.

If you are splitting colonies or adding supers of drawn comb before the colony is crowded you may have few swarms. You also may be having swarms and not seeing them and the colony is so strong you do not notice diminished adult populations.

As to luck, Napoleon Bonaparte believed in luck and I do too.

[JRG13]

Sol,

I think you're very detail oriented which helps. I think you provide the best homes for your bees as you possibly can and thus they thrive. If you look at hives with moth's and beetles I bet you will find a lot of sloppy housekeeping as well. The area around the hive not being clean, boxes not seated properly, tops not seated properly, messy comb all over the inside, neglected bees etc... thus pests finding their way in very easily.

Not to say if you get any infestations you're doing something wrong, sometimes it's all about location, location, location.

[Roland]

It's a statistical thing, sooner or later you will have all of the maladies. If you got mites, you are not isolated.

Crazy Roland

[Solomon Parker]

An average overwintered colony will care for the comb in 2 deeps and 3 or 4 supers and prevent wax worms if the hive is in full sun.

I've had at least one hive with 5 deeps every winter than I can remember. I don't use any screened bottoms. Do you think lack of CCD could be tied to lack of commercial beekeepers in Arkansas? The only one I know of is Coy in Jonesboro, the other side of the state.

I think you provide the best homes for your bees as you possibly can and thus they thrive.

Eh, okay. A lot of my lids are leaky. And they're only neglected in the summer.

It's a statistical thing, sooner or later you will have all of the maladies. If you got mites, you are not isolated.

I'm not isolated, I do have mites. Just keep waiting for the crash you've been predicting.

[sqkcrk]

I don't think your experience is all that unusual, it's what works for you.

[snl]

As to luck, Napoleon Bonaparte believed in luck and I do too.

And what happened to Napoleon? Something call Waterloo???

[Keefis]

I have a Waterloo toolbox..HEE HEE
Solomon, Are you trying to assimilate yourself?? Stop it!.
Keep doing what you are doing like you are doing it. If you change anything you you will instantly get AFB and mites in your tights. and possibly bird flu. or stub your toe.
But really, you seem to question each step,... which leads to an understanding of processes rather than a memorization of outcomes. The more you ask why? the better.

[Roland]

Do you think lack of CCD could be tied to lack of commercial beekeepers in Arkansas?

Yes, it is called California Co-mingling Disease for a reason.

Your results are consistent with a semi isolated apiary. You will be fine until an outside influence happens along. It is a mater of statistics, it will happen, like Waterloo.

Crazy Roland

[Solomon Parker]

Last time I made a snide comment about someone's ability to predict the future, I got booted from Tailgater.

I'll just have to fall back on the fact that none of y'all's dire predictions have come true yet, so there's no reason I should start worrying now.

Given, if my bees were the same bees as the CCD bees, you might have a point, but they aren't. And I don't see how they can be isolated considering the number of packages shipped in and installed every year (only to die in November). Furthermore, some of that equipment is given to me which I then unthinkingly incorporate directly into my home yard. Check the pictures, look for the 8-frame stack with the copper lid. That lid is the most valuable single thing in the yard! It's my most valuable piece of beekeeping equipment besides what's in the shop!

I'll stop being incendiary now.

[Nature Coast beek]

It's the Awesome Sauce...that you take of course, giving it to the bees would be treatment.

[AR Beekeeper]

I have a beekeeper here in Mountain View that sends bees to California every year. He has 2 yards within 2 miles of me and I have not had problems. I believe most beekeeper loses here are due to the beekeeper's inexperience. It seems the more a beekeeper studies/works at learning to manage bees the fewer losses he has.

There was an old song that went "Everybody has his day, everybody has his way, how will you meet your Waterloo?"
You will usually get there a lot sooner if you make foolish decisions, but we all will eventually.

Most of us had a Waterloo when the tracheal mite arrived, but we overcame them with management and selection for resistance. The problems beekeepers have today will be solved the same way.

[Goldprospector]

I guess I have to chime in here. I am a newbie to the forum but not to bee keeping. Any of my experience is from 20 or more years ago.
I understand that certain things that bee keepers are seeing are supposed to be new or recent in terms of years that humans have been keeping bees....IMO, I think it is and has been the bee keepers killing bees and not diseases or mites or what have you. Too much treatment kills bees along with other "bad" bugs in the hive. This is a totally different argument, but I bring this up simply because of past experience.

1) 20 years ago, I know for a fact that I saw little black bugs crawling around inside the hives that look very much like today's SHB's. They were not called SHB's nor were they really identified or worried about. We saw them, they did not cause too many problems that we knew of and we had definitely never heard of any kind of treatment for them. We squashed them when we saw them and saw bees chasing them around.

2) AFB and EFB, has been around for ages, but I have never personally seen a case of it. I know several people who said they have had it in their hive at some time or another, but it has never been epidemic in my time of bee keeping.

3) CCD, I have an opinion about this that may set people off and I apologize in advance if it does. IMO, anything that usually ends up with the word "Disorder" at the end of it is an anomaly...not a rule. It is something that can't be explained and probably never will. I know there have been tons of studies done...but if they can't find the reason for the bees to die or leave...then it is CCD. But again, simply because it now has a fancy name...does it mean that it has not been around for hundreds of years?

4) Mites, I've never had a problem so I can't reasonably comment on it.

5) Wax moths. I have seen them get to some hives and make a mess but not others. I am of the opinion that a strong hive will take care of these. So as I did years ago...I would either cull or combine weaker hives. Try to propagate stronger bees.

6) Nosema, My opinion is that there is too much man made stuff out now that some bees just can't handle. There is a definite cause for it. It has been identified and studied. It may or may not have been around for years...But what I am concerned about is the bees susceptibility. Why are the bees susceptible to it now? I think it is either week bees or week hives...just not sure which one yet.

7. Swarming, Never ever had a hive to swarm that I know of. The most amount of hives that I ever had at one time was 20 for a couple years in a row. they were managed, they were split if they were too large. We usually sold or gave away the splits or we just added more boxes during the flows. It just did not happen to us. Call it luck or chance...I just never saw it in my hives.

Again, for a disclaimer...these are all my opinions, I have no proof or studies to back this up..

.I just remember most of my experiences with bees. Some stuff we did for reasons of affordability. We were not pioneers by any means. But in the areas that I was raised we were poor. I remember several beeks getting together to make an order of supplies. We would order a box of foundation and split it between us and most of us used a starter strip back then simply because we could not afford to use a whole sheet per frame. So was that "Small cell" in action? who knows! There were medications for bees back then as were vitamin, pollen subs, and any other number of things that are out now. But we gave none of this to the bees because we could not afford to buy it.

We saved honey for the bees and fed it to them for the spring build up. If we mismanaged, and got rid of too much honey or if the flow was not good...we fed with 1:1 sugar water...sugar was dirt cheap back then. But that is all we ever did. So are the bees better off with intervention?

Sorry for the long post...or rant. Not sure which it is.

[Ben Franklin]

Solomon Parker maybe because your such a nice guy?? I sometime wonder the same thing about life it's self. Why does it rain on my parade and not on the bad guys?? Life is not fair Period.

[Solomon Parker]

So am I a bad guy? I'm bad so everything goes well for me?

Well, I certainly haven't heard that one before.