Beekeeping from Jamaica

[Lburou]

Since year, the beekeeping industry in my country haas taken a big blow. The mites have taken over.The beetles have moved in on the weaaker hives. Truth be told though, I broke my brood cycles and then continuously did splits. So I'm one of the few beekepers smiling. Most of the older guys just go by routine and even when I've tried to share with them some are not receptive.

Well I started off with 10 single brood chambers and 20 5 frame nucsss in February as an experiment. I am now at about 90 with a feww nucs. Soundss crazy but I'm trying to reach 200 before december. I don't let them go lazy on me and I give them lots of work to do by building fresh combs to expand. I extract not crush the combs. I havnt fed once for the last 2 years can u imagine if I did?

Oh apart from the mites, bettles and ants we have foul brood. I had it about 5 years back but I shook them down phased out those beess and purchased this new stock which I have tested for being hygenic and they are in majority. My queens are replaced after a few months and they out breed most pests...oh ya we have some birds we call pitcheries. I pay my little cousins for shooting them with the sling

Thank you for the reports, they are very interesting. We old people are resistant to change....I guess it applies to bees too.