2012 Dieback Already?

[Ian]

but mal nutrition does not have a lot to do with the carbs, its more protein related.
And you do not see that effect of mal nutrition til a generation of two after the fact,
Big hive working hard, maybe even bringing in boxes of honey will completely crash is its nutritional requirements are not met.
Blueberry pollen, = deficit of nutritional value

[Ian]

I would even suggest the same with any plant that is mal nourished, it will provide pollen lacking in nourishment.
Perhaps that is a problem that is becoming evident with our protein sources being yielded off of fields lacking in proper crop nutrition.
I know for a fact that the soils that we are farming here are lacking many trace minerals that it once always had. Our farm relieves that problem with a manure rotation over much of the farm.

[soupcan]

The bees that were on blueberries for pollination were sprayed at least one time with fungicide.

[Ian]

AND blueberry pollen has little to no nutritional value to it, leading most hives on those crops to mal nutrition,
Look at the bigger picture, its not always out side factors taking hives down,
sometimes its as basic and natural and predicable as you can get it

Most every time there is a drought, if we are not quick on the feed, we have suffering hives, thats natural
the bees food source is stressed , leading to lower quality of feed produced by the plants

I see this in our cattle operation, with our silage
We have our feed tested and analysed every season, every year brings different requirements.
This year our protien was lacking a bit, and also our calcuim. So we have had to supplement protien and calcuim to meet our cattle dietary feed requirments. Why was the calcuim and protien down this year? Lots of factors but the bottom line is that we needed to supplement to meet those requirements.

Why would it be any different with bees? I think we expect way too much from nature herself. We demand performance every season from our bees and expect nature to be able to provide us with all those requirements predicably every season. We need to be more aware of whats happening in our hives

[soupcan]

IAN
PLEASE read my entire posts again. As I pray you sir do not have to go thru the the same " stuff " we are going thru here in the states.
Your implication seems to be that we do not know as to what is going on in our hives or for the most part what is going on around us & for the most part the bees.
I am a farm boy at heart & know cattle & hogs.
I just seem to know a wee bit more about bees than livestock.

[Ian]

I have, and dont think you see the obvious

Your Russian friend commented
>>The bees that were used on blueberries for the most part were all gone, dead & what was left living were probably not going to make it untill spring.
He explained that the bees had been fine for quite some time after removed for the blueberries but they never really looked right from pollination time on. And now there is nothing but empty boxes to look at!

I suggested
>>isnt that a classic case of mal nutrition ? Blueberries are notorious for that

and you suggested
>>Doubt it, when there are no bees left in the box & some were still over half full of honey.

I know guys in blueberry pollination, they feed sub right through the bloom

[Ian]

Mal nourishment + nosema =

[delber]

Sorry for a relatively new beekeeper question here. . . On hives that aren't in blueberry pollination, but are left in the same yard. How do you tell if there's some sort of malnutrition in the hive? There's no way that I know of, other than using a microscope, to tell what pollen they're bringing in. I have seen hives this year dwindle to finally die out. They had some pollen and stores while they were going down. If it was malnutrition I'd like to have some way to be able to see this as it's happening so I can stop it before I have a hive that dies out. It didn't appear to be mites either as the hives that I'm referring to were nucs started late June early July and had a 3-4 week break in brood. ( I have one hive that I used to start queens, let them rear them and then broke the hive up with the queens they reared. One in question was doing great w/ 4 deep frames of brood in all stages looking fabulous.)

[soupcan]

I guess we would be considered small commercial beekeepers.
We operate in a strip that is aprox 50 miles by 30 miles. I know darn small by many standards now a days. We could run more but found out years ago it wasn't about the number of boxes you had out in the field ( hives ) but the number of bees you kept in those boxes. And with that thought in mind I really feel we do a better job of running the number hives we run.
I remember the so called CCD thing all to well & this spring I thought to myself what have we done as beeks to make this problem disapear. Well guess what " I'm Back " and or " Find me if you can "
In the past 90 days I think I have spoke to the best of the best in the bee business world, researchers & beekeepers alike. And I have come away with probably more questions now than before. A little education can be dangerous I am told but the questions & facts still linger and can not be ignored.
Us beeks are I feel have always been in this alone, very alone as we are such a small minority in todays world.
Get over it and move on or ????
Someone will have to go probably hungry to change the course of this ship we all seem to be on, but then again that may be to late I fear!

[Ian]

I found the same thing in regards to your comments about finding differences in performances related to queen breeding genetics. I think I read into your comment correctly,
I ran 4 or 5 different breedings of queens this year, and I can directly associate better performing hives to a couple of breeders we used. I have always found that generally the breeders provided much the same performance quality and characteristics over the last number of years. This year I had a couple of breeders really significantly stand apart from the others. Was this an overall queen health issue, I dont know.
Ill see if I see the same next year.

[Ian]

How do you tell if there's some sort of malnutrition in the hive?

I dont know either, and Im making a comment generally towards other pollen producing plant in reference to what we know about blueberry pollen nutritional value and from my experience in finding variable year to year nutritional feed values in livestock feed.
Im suggesting, why would we not expect to find the same nutritional variability in plant pollen from one normal year to the next extreme hot drought year,.? It certainly was on my mind all summer this year.

I know guys around here are starting to feed their bees sub during the late summer early fall months where as that was basically un heard of around here. Is there a nutrient deficit in our soils where as we did not have years past? Are the plants changing as modern day agriculture shifts towards different breeding of plants? Or is it just the plain a simple fact that our bees are under attack by many more pathogens now and absolutely require to be in tip top shape to be able to winter properly,...

[delber]

Thanks Ian. Perhaps there's answers elsewhere that may help? I have also read (Mainly I think on Michael Bush's site) that pollen sub isn't as good as "real" pollen that they bring in. Is it better to perhaps trap pollen in the spring to feed back to them later?

[JBJ]

Sorry for a relatively new beekeeper question here. . . On hives that aren't in blueberry pollination, but are left in the same yard. How do you tell if there's some sort of malnutrition in the hive?

Analysis of the fat bodies and vitelogenin levels are probably the best measurement of nutrition levels in the hive.

[sqkcrk]

Is that what you do JBJ? I don't. I determine whether my bees are in a good location by whetehr they thrive in a healthy manner and produce brood and surplus honey. That's why I don't keep very many colonies hee at home. The necassary forage is not available. I found this out by keeping bees on this location, not by analysis of fat bodies and vitelogenn. I don't know how one does such analysis.

On the other hand, technically you are probably correct, but realistically? Economically? Easily?

[Ian]

On the other hand, technically you are probably correct, but realistically? Economically? Easily?

Never use to be done with livestock feeds, now its done on an ongoing basis,
perhaps it will also be done in bees, I doubt it but makes a person think

[soupcan]

Sorry guys but I do think we are missing the point here big time.
We should not need to feed bees during a nectar & pollen flow, we never used to and so what has changed????
I will share this from my findings, one main item of intrest I have been told is that there has been no testing of fungicides on bees, & none required.
So let us ask that question of who ????
Or let us have a look at the testing if it has in fact been done. Very easy & real simple & right to the point.
No I have no proof of any thing at this point just some ideas from my farmer friends that can not be ignored.
So are these products used in Canada?

[JBJ]

Is that what you do JBJ? I don't. I determine whether my bees are in a good location by whetehr they thrive in a healthy manner and produce brood and surplus honey. That's why I don't keep very many colonies hee at home. The necassary forage is not available. I found this out by keeping bees on this location, not by analysis of fat bodies and vitelogenn. I don't know how one does such analysis.

On the other hand, technically you are probably correct, but realistically? Economically? Easily?

Well good field observations are always the first line of defense, however there is so much blood and treasure at risk in a large commercial operation this would be valuable information to know in order to eliminate inaccurate assumptions. This also could be away to actually determine the affects of pollen sub in the bee diet. Randy's article http://scientificbeekeeping.com/fat-bees-part-1/ is a pretty good introduction on the subject. It would be nice to to be able to have this analysis done at the bee labs or do it ourselves in a similar manner that we can look at Nosema spores. Anybody know the "how to" for analyzing the fat bodies?
Plant tissue analysis is common in horticulture for diagnosing nutrition problems. We really should be able to do this for bees. It could eliminated guesswork before failure to thrive kicks in. Eishcen's work has shown great nutrition as the major factor in how a hive is able to deal with mites and Nosema. Imunocompetance is highly dependent on nutrition so we need a reliable methodology for accurately assessing BEFORE problems kick in.

[dgl1948]

Sorry guys but I do think we are missing the point here big time.
We should not need to feed bees during a nectar & pollen flow, we never used to and so what has changed????
I will share this from my findings, one main item of intrest I have been told is that there has been no testing of fungicides on bees, & none required.
So let us ask that question of who ????
Or let us have a look at the testing if it has in fact been done. Very easy & real simple & right to the point.
No I have no proof of any thing at this point just some ideas from my farmer friends that can not be ignored.
So are these products used in Canada?

Yes and many other chemicals as well.

[Roland]

Wildbranch - one of the oldtimers blames acid rain for the change in the plants. Do you think there is any possibility it has had an effect?

Delber - feed a few hives sugar, pollen sub, and Sugar and pollen sub. See what happens.

Crazy Roland

[Ian]

Sorry guys but I do think we are missing the point here big time.
We should not need to feed bees during a nectar & pollen flow, we never used to and so what has changed????
I will share this from my findings, one main item of intrest I have been told is that there has been no testing of fungicides on bees, & none required.
....
So are these products used in Canada?

Soupcan, or who ever you really are, come on, your talking in the commercial beekeeping forum, why hide behind a tag name,

agricultural crop land fungicides have been used for nearly 20 years, on our farm anyway
has there been a formulation change, or a change in carrier within the last 5 years to start causing all of our bee troubles ?
It is fungicides your blaming, right?