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Bees
Dec 25, 2013 10:08:16 GMT -5
Post by MikeH on Dec 25, 2013 10:08:16 GMT -5
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Bees
Dec 26, 2013 0:39:53 GMT -5
Post by paquebot on Dec 26, 2013 0:39:53 GMT -5
The falsehood with giving credit to honeybees for our food supply is that anything which evolved in the Western Hemisphere did so without them. They are not native to either North or South Ameica. Beans, corn, potatoes, and squash nourished civilizations quite well before Europeans introduced the bees. Technically, honeybees could even be considered an invasive species!
Martin
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Bees
Dec 26, 2013 1:43:04 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 26, 2013 1:43:04 GMT -5
In my garden, bumblebees are the primary pollinator of potatoes and tomatoes. A bee that collects pollen on it's belly is a heavy pollinator of squash. Corn is wind pollinated. And I haven't paid attention to how beans are pollinated.
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Bees
Dec 26, 2013 1:43:13 GMT -5
Post by steev on Dec 26, 2013 1:43:13 GMT -5
Without honeybees, certainly, but not without bees.
First, our current food-stream is heavily dependent on honeybees; so many of our crops being from the Old World; also there are a lot more of us than there were in the 16th Century; most of us want to eat nearly every day, if I am not mistaken.
Second, the collapse of honeybee colonies is not solely their problem; it also affects native species. Being largely non-colonial and non-productive of honey, they are mostly ignored. However, despite their great importance in the pollination, especially of native plants, as well as cultivars, they are very negatively impacted by mega-agriculture, mono-culture, pesticide, and herbicide usage.
In short, if we allow the destruction of honeybees, we also allow the destruction of the native bees that pollenated those New World crops that one might suppose could pick up the slack, if one were'nt really thinking ecologically, but only focussing on agribusiness.
We stand to lose much more than honey.
Shall we return to living on wind-pollenated grains, mostly? The Romans did fine so, at an average height of 5' 6", on a diet mostly of wheat (from Egypt).
Oh, wait, their culture collapsed. Never mind.
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Bees
Dec 26, 2013 2:04:55 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 26, 2013 2:04:55 GMT -5
I consider honeybees on only an acre to be a nuisance... Course we have 30 colonies on an acre. It ain't so bad if there is a fence or hedge around the hives so that they have to fly upwards before flying outwards. They fly in a straight line to their water source, so during flight hours there is a stream of bees from the hive to the water and back to get caught in your guests hair and sting them. The wildflowers growing in the lawn will be constantly visited by bees and sting the grandkids when they step on them while playing. That's with a good-tempered hive. A foul tempered hive will chase you away. Gotta plan mowing and weeding for rainy weather, or at twilight, or during cold weather when the bees aren't flying. The bees fly in every direction, so your closest neighbors will experience the same conditions. I've painted the bleakest picture. A more moderate view is that you will have to make adjustments to your schedule and way of doing things but lots of people keep bees successfully on tiny lots, even on tiny lots surrounded by other tiny lots.
Most of the problems I see with small-scale beekeeping can be attributed to lack of attention. The beekeeper installs the hive in the spring, and never looks at it again, and expects to bees to be gentle and the harvest abundant. Successful beekeepers monitor the hives regularly, both by opening them up to look at what's going on inside, and by watching the behavior of the bees as they come and go.
I also culture solitary bees: A pile of sand that is kept free of weeds, holes drilled in wood, clumps of grass laying around all summer, flowers to feed them, and no pesticides.
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Bees
Jan 1, 2014 22:52:10 GMT -5
Post by steev on Jan 1, 2014 22:52:10 GMT -5
Lots of urban bee-hives here in Oakland, but not many non-honeybees anymore, several species of which I've not seen for 20-30 years; it's too bad.
On the farm, there are plenty of honeybees, there being commercial beekeepers, but there are also lots of other bees, there being no agribusiness. One reason I just throw the weeds and slash into the tree-lanes, is to promote and allow nesting by the native bees; the other is that I just don't have the time/energy to haul all that off to a compost pile. One must prioritize. I work hard at spinning my growing incapacity into a greater good, for which I should be thanked, profusely.
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Post by DarJones on Jan 3, 2014 0:05:34 GMT -5
/me thanks Steve profusely, realizes it is a fools errand, beats a hasty retreat, brags about taking the course of greatest valor. More seriously, watch this. There are a LOT of mistranslations. When they say "colony", think "Apiary" and ignore the price for queens, it is actually $10 U.S. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vaNmdY-iWk
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Post by MikeH on Feb 3, 2014 6:21:41 GMT -5
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Post by flowerweaver on Feb 3, 2014 9:53:13 GMT -5
I've kept a couple hives on 5 acres for about four years mostly for pollination. Unfortunately my timing on acquiring them was such that with the drought I've had to supplement food for three of those, and out of kindness let them have all the honey the year they did produce. One hive was a gentle swarm I caught but they could not defend themselves from hive beetles and left after a couple years. The purchased (Texas) bees are much more aggressive (probably some Africanized genetics in the line), but also better at defending themselves. I keep the queen clipped. I am very rarely stung (maybe once a year), but I do wear a full suit for protection while working them. They do not bother me otherwise. A handful of guard bees will instantly hit my veil, and usually follow me home over a couple of acres of trails. I've gotten used to it.
I'm about an hour as the crow flies from Mexico, and Africanized bee attacks are not uncommon. South of me some of the folks in the bee club work Africanized bees on large cattle ranches. One of my mentors went along just for the experience. He said they covered his suit and veil that he could barely see, and even though they parked very far away, the bees stayed all over them even when entering the vehicle. They cracked the windows and turned the air conditioning up full blast and then the bees finally left after a half hour. He said it was a harrowing experience. But apparently the bees are very productive and healthy.
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Post by DarJones on Feb 6, 2014 15:01:29 GMT -5
Mnjr, your area can typically support between 20 and 40 colonies of bees at a location. As for splitting them, you don't even have to locate the queen. Open the colony, pull out at least 3 frames of brood including eggs and larvae. Put the frames in a new box and put it on the old location. Move the old colony to a new place at least 10 feet away. The foragers will return to the old location. If you happened to get the queen in the new box, so what, they will build up rapidly and you will have a new queen in the old box. If she is in the old box at the new location, so what, they will build up rapidly and you will have a new queen in the new box. The only caveat to this is that you have to do it after the 1st of April for your area. You would also have to be prepared to feed at least some to each side of the split WITHOUT inducing robbing. This is easiest done when early bloom is available.
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Bees
Apr 24, 2014 15:36:27 GMT -5
Post by greenfinger on Apr 24, 2014 15:36:27 GMT -5
Hello, all. What bee forums do ya'll consider to be good? Joy
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Post by MikeH on Apr 25, 2014 2:52:52 GMT -5
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Bees
Apr 29, 2014 13:39:29 GMT -5
Post by greenfinger on Apr 29, 2014 13:39:29 GMT -5
thank you.
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Bees
Feb 9, 2015 12:44:15 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by robertb on Feb 9, 2015 12:44:15 GMT -5
Bee-L. Its US based and gets a lot of traffic. Dont believe everything you read there.
I have bees on my allotment in the UK. Im building up again after a bad outbreak of nosema (a disease to watch for, it kikls colonies over winter). Last year I picked up four swarms - beekeeping here is very small scale by US standards - two were no good and died out in early winter, two are going strong with the bare minimum if feeding. I dont believe in mollycoddling useless colonies!
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Bees
Feb 12, 2015 22:32:13 GMT -5
Post by glenn10 on Feb 12, 2015 22:32:13 GMT -5
I saw a documentary a while back about sudden colony collapse where the bees get all disoriented and leave the colony for no known reason. Anyone experience this? I was thinking about getting into keeping this year but after talking to a few folks locally there seems to be a trend towards using antibiotics and a bunch of other treatments for some mite that is a big problem and still losing whole colonies. Kinda makes me think twice or even three times about getting into bee keeping.
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