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Post by davidjp on Mar 24, 2015 12:01:54 GMT -5
Theres a couple of interesting documentaries about colony collapse and the state of bees generally, although if you see above I have my doubts on the accuracy of the claims made, but good films nonetheless Vanishing of the bees www.vanishingbees.com/More than Honey buy.morethanhoneyfilm.com/Both are currently available streaming on Netflix I prefer the second film which is by Markus Imhoof which has some remarkable photography, especially in early scenes of a Swiss beekeeper fetching swarms in the Alpine meadows which looks about as close to paradise as you can get, but probably not in winter. Also good scenes of chinese farmers manually pollinating apple trees, climbing trees with paintbrushes of apple pollen The BBC on Radio 4 did a good documentary following American honeybees on their annual pollination tour of the USA, mainly focusing on California almonds, the biggest pollination event on the planet apparently, still available for streaming below, almond acreage has expanded since this was broadcast as well www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rg226In addition to that they have a whole raft of bee related broadcasts as well www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02b8j0l
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Post by James on Mar 25, 2015 19:21:45 GMT -5
"james, you mentioned bee keepers cut out the queen cells to prevent swarms. well, isn't a swarm natures way of keep UP the population of bees? so in essence, bee keeping is one of the culprits then, for the declining bee population - ? hmmm..."
Yes, swarming is what bees do to multiply. When they are building up strong and getting crowded they will make queen cells, and just before they hatch, the old queen will lead a swarm out. She leaves as the first new queen to hatch will likely open and kill all the other queen cells then kill the old queen. Sometimes other queens do hatch and leave taking more workers with them. Bees that leave do not pack honey for the beekeeper. You have to ask "Why do I keep bees?" If the answer is for honey or economic gain, then you have to keep your bees home.
It is OK if the bees swarm and cluster close by and the beekeeper then hives them. But they are likely to fly off and then they are lost. We prefer to avoid swarming in the first place.
The beekeeper can divide a strong colony when he sees swarming activity and keep all the bees and get an increase. This is what often happens. If the divide comes early enough in the season, it is likely the divides will produce a crop of honey too.
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Post by James on Mar 25, 2015 19:25:54 GMT -5
I am sorry, but the brood diseases and mites are the reasons for the decline of the honey bee. Not the beekeeper! Here is a nice swarm of bees.
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Post by davidjp on Mar 25, 2015 20:12:08 GMT -5
True but you could argue that by trucking 1.6 million hives from all over the US to a small area of California the concentration of hives provides the perfect environment for disease transmission. I also wonder how varroa made it from east Asia to Europe and the US, it had never done so by itself for millennia, so I suspect beekeepers were the inadvertent cause.
Having said that, the current agriculture system depends on them and I hope that things will sort themselves out and resistant strains of bees are developed. It will be the beekeepers who do that. I also think looking at the USDA figures of hive numbers I don't really think there has been a dramatic decline in bee hives but maybe the figures are wrong. Who knows.
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Post by brownrexx on Mar 26, 2015 8:24:28 GMT -5
We don't keep bees for honey production or economic gain so we do not try to prevent swarming. I guess that "real" beekeepers do this. Our bees are more just "pets".
We like to watch them and they are good for the garden. I also like the fact that we are helping at least 4 colonies of bees to have a home. We have 4 hives of bees and last year we only took honey from one of them totaling about 25 lbs. The other 3 hives were young and we left all of their honey in the hives for them to eat over the winter.
We didn't intend to have 4 hives. We only wanted about 2 but then we had swarms so we started new hives. I have the names of several people who want bees so when we see swarms we will call one of them.
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Post by brownrexx on Mar 30, 2015 8:51:48 GMT -5
SAD NEWS - hubby opened our hives yesterday and it appears that 2 out of 4 of them died over the winter.
He did not see any obvious signs of disease but he only did a quick inspection. The hive was not empty of bees like with CCD. There were still bees on the combs, they were just dead. Possibly they got too cold but I just don't know. We will check it more thoroughly later.
There was still honey in the hives so they didn't starve.
I guess that I'll have to clean up the frames and be ready to collect a swarm if we get one from the other 2 hives.
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Post by desertwoman on Mar 30, 2015 9:01:13 GMT -5
Oh that is so sad. It was (is) a brutal winter for you all. Perhaps that is the reason they didn't survive. Makes you wonder, though, why some did and some didn't.
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Post by brownrexx on Mar 30, 2015 9:36:07 GMT -5
The 2 youngest hives made it and it's the two older ones that died. We'll have to look through all of the hives further when we can leave them open for longer. It was too cold yesterday to do more than take a peek.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Mar 30, 2015 10:43:52 GMT -5
awww...how sad! Will you have the hive tested in any way? Will you be able to tell at what point they died?
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Post by brownrexx on Mar 30, 2015 11:15:53 GMT -5
We have a beekeeping license from the PA Dept of Agriculture and they inspect our hives every couple of years.
I had not thought about it but you gave me the idea to call them and see what they think, Pea. Thanks.
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Post by James on Mar 30, 2015 16:25:04 GMT -5
Winter losses are a fact of life in this harsh climate. I just plan on some winter loss no matter how well I get them ready, there is always losses. Winter is hard on bees. I just plan to buy some packages in the Spring for replacements.
Yes the California almonds is a big crop. Many acres in almonds. Yes they need bees to pollinate them, and they pay to have the bees brought in for the bloom. A beekeeper can make some money on the pollination. However as soon as the almonds stop blooming the bees have to leave because in that big mono-culture there is nothing for the bees after the almond bloom.
Here in Northern Utah the clover blooms about the time the bees come back from California and the colonies are built up strong and ready to pack some of that delicious clover honey. The bees that wintered here are just building up on that early clover bloom. Yes trucking bees around has some drawbacks, but there are some pluses too.
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Post by ncgarden on Mar 30, 2015 18:04:04 GMT -5
brownrexx - so sorry to hear about your bees. It is oddly disturbing to lose a hive, it feels like you must have done something wrong (even when you know you didn't!). I have been worrying about my bees, because my husband I do not seem to agree on what needs (and does not need) to be done. But they are his to manage, so I try to stay out of it. Hope you find a swarm! One of our neighbors just posted a video of him catching his first swarm of the year, only to realize they had actually swarmed from one of his own hives!!
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Post by davidjp on Mar 30, 2015 18:30:02 GMT -5
Sorry about the loss, its been a long winter and I'm sure the surviving ones will burst forth and re populate. I've heard that nectar flows can be very good after a long hard winter, something to do with delayed flower opening and they all have to pack it into a short window so hopefully the hives will expand appropriately.
I was talking with a local beekeeper who brought his 50 hives back from almonds and they are now in avocados and will then go to citrus in the valley after that, the last two he expects to harvest 50lb honey per hive. I've never had it but he said that avocado honey is good but almost black in colour. There's tons of flowers on my few avocado trees at the moment and the bees seem to really love them, as always theres tons of bees here as well. All slightly surreal, you've got european bees pollinating guatemalan trees in southern california. I only rarely see a native bee.
There's a great scene in one of the films I mentioned above where the beekeeper drives thru row after row of almonds stops his truck, gets out and all you can hear is the humming of the bees and a sea of white blooms as far as the eye can see. He takes a minute and says "Hear that, thats the sound of money". I think he was someone with several thousand hives and I seem to remember he made $650K from almond contracts. Even with that I wonder how much he makes by the time he trucks them all across country and all the stuff involved. Quite an operation and I'm actually quite impressed by the endeavour of it all. I didn't go thru the almond country this year but in past years I have and it really is quite a sight.
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Post by James on Apr 1, 2015 16:24:06 GMT -5
Tried to post a picture of a swarm.......... it didn't work.......... try again.
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Post by James on Apr 1, 2015 16:25:11 GMT -5
Gaaaah..................... stupid software. I give up.
OK, I think something on the board software has been changed as now my picture posting attempts are working. No, I am not doing anything different than I always do to put pictures on forums. Go figure??????????
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