[Joseph Clemens]

Right now, here in the Picture Rocks area of Tucson, mesquite is in full flow mode. It is the largest honey flow in this area, and is extremely reliable, despite rainfall or none. But in seasons with little rainfall, it can often be just about the only flow, so in those years, in order to harvest any, you'd need to feed them generously, after you take their mesquite honey, or the bees won't do very well. There are quite a few of us here, but I'm pretty sure we're not organized into any particular groups.

There is a USDA honey bee lab. They might be able to point you in a good direction, as far as contacting other beekeepers. Dee Lusby is south of here, I'm pretty sure she's still in Pima County. I know she was teaching her beekeeping methods - and would likely be a good one to contact.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

I don't really harvest much honey. Due to the combination of factors: 1) I mostly keep bees to raise more bees and to share them with others; 2) I have diabetes, and a touch of O.C.D.

O.C.D. makes touching sticky honey highly undesirable.

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I don't really know how to tell if a colony is Africanized, or not. I can only tell if a colony exhibits traits that I don't like. That may translate to, "the colony is Africanized", but I don't know and don't really care. I treat all colonies the same, despite where their ancestors may have originated. I eliminate queens whose colonies have developed undesirable traits. I mark each queen that I rear, as soon as I observe that they have begun laying. If, later, any colony appears to have an unmarked queen, I assume I did not raise her, so she and her colony are scrutinized more closely.