2012 Dieback Already?

[ryan]

Well, this has gone way off topic. Par for the course I guess.

At 5-7lbs/hive, you spend all day to pollen sub 167 hives. 2 "chicken squares" go on really fast while we are in the yard pulling honey.

The bees do go through that amount very fast. And we have to make an additional trip back to each yard a week or so later. But I have lots of time and extra labor to go back to those hives and add more sub after the honey pulling is done.

Sometimes I want to be fast and wasteful. My crop comes in at least a week or 2 later than the other Ryan. I'm usually in a tighter time pinch than most guys.

I'll accept your last post as a polite No Thank You, can't mess with it right now or maybe ever. But I had to ask. I can still use some of your stuff for my second round of pollen. Thanks again.

ryan

[Keith Jarrett]

At 5-7lbs/hive, you spend all day to pollen sub 167 hives. ryan

There's an ole boy up by Tonys that use our sub he throughs 5-7 pounders on the bottom boards (tip hive foward), he can run thru 2000lbs of sub a day on cruise control. He does this with triples on he says feed the sub before you pull the last super.

To each it own. That's why there's good bees & no bees.

[jean-marc]

I think the chillard meant natural drop of varroa mites.

Jean-Marc

[squarepeg]

nd = natural drop, got it, thanks!

[Roland]

SQKCRK asked:

Can we look back and see when and how things changed from a time when our bees got enuf of what they needed from the environment and now when we seem to need to feed protien patties and corn syrup or our bees will die?


I can not pinpoint the time when the change occurred, but I believe it was not sudden , but rather a slow transition over a decade, maybe 1995 to 2005???? I blame the weather that is effecting the plants. Years ago you saw a field of flowers and assumed rightly the bees would make honey. Now, not so much. We have had the craziest STRONG honey flows in the last 5 years, Wild Cheery trees about 4 springs ago, Red Maple this march, and an unknown dark honey in early June(chicory????).

Something is wrong with the plants, and is is affecting our bees adversely.

Crazy Roland

[jean-marc]

I don't get it. Weather affects plants and creates strong honey flows, I understand. I also understand that something could be wrong with plants. I'm not sure if you were saying that plants are being affected by the weather and ultimately this was creating strong honeyflows. How can that be adverse for the bees, unless you do not give them room soon enough to take advantage of this flow.

Jean-Marc

[benstung]

Keith
Do you think the reason you need so much pollen on your bee's is because there is none for them in CA.

or for example should i be using your protein substitute even if there is enough nature pollen.
what we need to know is if the bees are better off with a sub par substitute than they would be with our contaminated natural pollen.
has nature become so contaminated we are better off feeding them?????

Just remember we need to figure out the real problem, not just put duck tape on it.

[HarryVanderpool]

I blame the weather that is effecting the plants. Years ago you saw a field of flowers and assumed rightly the bees would make honey. Now, not so much. Something is wrong with the plants, and is is affecting our bees adversely.

Crazy Roland

I blame our queens. All beekeepers want to talk about is varroa resistant, SMR, VHS, Hygenic, etc....
Not me.
I want good bees. Productive and gentle bees and I will take care of the mites.
Many of us are worried that queen producers are selecting ONLY for mite issues and ignoring all of the traits we have selected for over the years.
The queens I raise are grafted from the most gentle and productive hives.
Productive and gentle bees are what I attempt to purchase as well but sometimes I wonder.
It is the beekeeping community that is pressuring our queen producers to select for mite issues. I don't blame the producers; they are just listening to the misguided customer.

[Keith Jarrett]

Keith
Do you think the reason you need so much pollen on your bee's is because there is none for them in CA.
with our contaminated natural pollen.
Just remember we need to figure out the real problem, not just put duck tape on it.

Ben, I run bees in your state of TX also ND & NV, it's not all calif. Why do you feel your natural pollen is contaminated ? First let me say most of natural pollen is better than my sub, but many times (most) in the late summer-fall they need a boost to spur brood production to get lots of young fresh bees for winter.

[squarepeg]

there's no arguing with success keith.

but it seems counter-intuitive that one would want to ramp up brood rearing in the fall, when the bees are in the process of decreasing their population for overwintering.

is there any risk of encouraging too much brooding, resulting in too many bees, which would eat through the winter stores too quickly?

[Keith Jarrett]

but it seems counter-intuitive that one would want to ramp up brood rearing in the fall, when the bees are in the process of decreasing their population for overwintering.

is there any risk of encouraging too much brooding, resulting in too many bees, which would eat through the winter stores too quickly?

SP, yes, you do need to watch weight going into winter, But let me ask you this SP, have you ever heard a keeper in jan or Feb say, " dang these cluster are just too dang big for this time of year" ?? lol

P.S. there is a reason why we have a huge package market here in Calif.

[squarepeg]

SP, yes, you do need to watch weight going into winter, But let me ask you this SP, have you ever heard a keeper in jan or Feb say, " dang these cluster are just too dang big for this time of year" ?? lol

P.S. there is a reason why we have a huge package market here in Calif.

not sure, is the reason that california doesn't have much of a natural fall flow, and those with pollinating contracts get paid by the frame of bees?

never heard of anyone complaining about cluster size, only that their bees starved before the spring blooms arrived.

barring having big hives early for pollination, there may be an optimal cluster size for overwintering. i haven't fed mine this year, and they are smaller and lighter than when i fed them last fall. i guess i won't know until spring.

thanks for your reply.

[benstung]

Ben, I run bees in your state of TX also ND & NV, it's not all calif. Why do you feel your natural pollen is contaminated ? First let me say most of natural pollen is better than my sub, but many times (most) in the late summer-fall they need a boost to spur brood production to get lots of young fresh bees for winter.

I think the pollen is potentially contaminated with fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides because of all the corn and beans being farmed in my area.
Here in MN we have lots of pollen coming in well into September.
Pollen substitute maybe a necessary tool for beekeepers but the lack of it is far from the problem.
this year it seems there was a large loss all across the industry(bee's falling apart late summer/fall).
And i guess that is what this thread is about.

And Keith you aren't the only one crossing state lines with bee's or who knows when the bee's need pollen.

[Keith Jarrett]

the reason that california doesn't have much of a natural fall flow,.

SP, it's not so much that Calif doesn't have a fall pollen flow as it is the way commercial bees are running these days. Most commercial outfits are alot larger then they use to be, I run three thousand an I'm on the smaller end of things. What you end up having is alot bigger yards & alot of yards that are close together. There isn't enough bee pasture any more like there once was, crp is going away, corn is more & more every year. So pollen sub feeding is an important part of fall management these days.

[squarepeg]

ahh, now i get it. thanks keith.

[Keith Jarrett]

Pollen substitute maybe a necessary tool for beekeepers but the lack of it is far from the problem.
this year it seems there was a large loss all across the industry(bee's falling apart late summer/fall).
.

Ben, how do you know this to be true? I know alot of folks tell me the one's they starting feeding first did the best, and look the best now.

[benstung]

because the bees fell apart before there was ever a need to feed anything.
maybe those folks are in a different climate, that can change a lot of things

[Keith Jarrett]

maybe those folks are in a different climate, that can change a lot of things

Very true Ben.

P.S. I was mixing sub in July fouth this year for a queen breeder and I haven't stop yet.

[Roland]

jean-marc -
I was not clear. The good flows where from plants that normally do not produce. They only appear good because the normal plants, basswood, alfalfa, Sweet clover, where such a failure this year. I blame the weather for effecting the plants in a non typical manner. It may well be possible that the pollen quality has also been disrupted. Should we be doing monthly tests on the pollen to see if what is normally good pollen now no longer has the full complements of amino acids?

Crazy Roland

[Ian]

I sent a sample of bees taken from one of my yards that seemed to "fall apart" mid to late September.
My mite counts this fall were under threshold, my nosema counts were low and over the most part all my hives went into winter looking good,
except this one yard that had about 50% of the hives die off Mid Sept.

I had found a queen in one of the dead hives and took a sample of bees from the other dead or dying hives

The queen came back as having no Nosema spore counts
The sample of bees came back with mid to high spore counts

Why was nosema high in this particular yard,.?
Did it have anything to do with my losses,.?