Big Bee Buzz 2013

[Solomon Parker]

Sorry about that Herb, I don't know how all my videos got set to private. Fixed it. http://youtu.be/uLlbuwJUg2U I wondered why I hadn't been getting any comments lately.

I don't tend to see robbing necessarily from the smaller ones, unless they get killed off while I'm not looking, which does occasionally happen in the summer. So there is some selective pressure there.

The one in the video has long been my strongest or at least top two hive. I have kept it with continuous unbroken lineage for ten years treatment-free. It was completely robbed out, not a drop of honey left in the hive. After the robbing was over and the robbers stopped coming back, I gave them a frame of honey, reduced the entrance to a single bee size and let them start rebuilding. That was two summers ago, and after being knocked over by a mobile trampoline this winter, they are still alive and were doing fine yesterday when I peeked in.

On a side note, I don't consider it the same hive if it has been requeened artificially.

[sqkcrk]

Don, that should read "hive" not "hives". You dump bees on the home hive, they will scent fan so the queen may find her way back better. As we beekeepers tend to move things around, often the hive where she returned on her mating flight is not in the same location as she is now. I don't even know if she would be able to remember that.

Mark, I have heard some horror stories about inspectors overstepping their bounds, whether they were performing their jobs according to the law or not. So it was not just what was legal that I was concerned about. I've always been the sort that likes to stay out of the spotlight, preferring to do my own thing on the sidelines. It's fine if one of y'all gets vendetta on the mind here on Beesource. It's a bit different when I get somebody who thinks treating is the law of the land and wants to make my life miserable and has the power to do so, legally or not. My bees and their genetics are precious to me and I'm not one who thinks all bees are the same. I'd prefer if registration were optional here like several of the amendments have proposed and I could just stay out of it until I wanted my little "Inspected" piece of paper. But that's not the way it is.

I understand. Those sorts of things can happen w/ anyone in a position of power or assumed authority. Enjoyed the Post.

[Michael Bush]

>A handy trick I learned from Mike Bush was when a queen flies off, to dump some bees on the topbars of the hives. They will begin scent fanning and she'll have a better chance of making it back to the right hive.

Just to clarify. I'm talking about pulling a frame from the hive the queen left, and shaking that frame of bees back into their own hive. They then get on the top bars with their butts in the air ans start to nasonov...

[Solomon Parker]

Thanks Mike, that's what I meant.