 |
| Part 1 (Below) |
Part 2 |
|
| |
|
|
Since 1997, the
Lusby's
have successfully maintained their honeybee colonies the traditional
way, without the use of drugs, essential oils, or chemical treatments.
Through their experience, they believe to be successful at keeping
bees the "non-chemical" way, three elements make up
the solution; matching comb size to the natural environment is
1/3, diet is 1/3, and breeding is 1/3.
After reading through historical documents that the Lusby's have
compiled from countless hours of research through periodicals,
journals, scientific papers and books, it is clear that a deliberate
change took place back in the early 1900's to go to the outer
bounds of possibilty in creating a bigger honeybee. A point can
be made that a sudden increase in bee diseases and pests also
happened at the same time.
Seeing that our country was founded upon and originally used
4.83mm cell sizing, the Lusby's have found that there is naturally
an optimal cell size for ones own geographic area, of which they
have complied these sizes on a world map for reference. Many beekeepers
throughout the world, either have, or are in the process of converting
to a natural cell size for their bees. I have decided to do the
same and will be posting here, the progress and steps taken to
convert 8 colonies over to 4.9mm cell size and then monitor them
for their abilities to deal with todays pests and diseases.
It is may opinion that an extreme emphasis over the years on
breeding a bigger and better bee that produces more to supposedly
pay back the beekeeper more has lead to a problematic honeybee.
I guess it's human nature to always want to improve and push
the limits to get more and more back, but at what price?
While the Lusby's have shown that it is possible, and now just
as profitable as well, for a commercial beekeeper to convert
over to biological beekeeping, my goal is to duplicate and show
the steps taken for the benefit of hobby beekeepers.
|
| Retrogressing
bees hived on 5.4mm cell size, to 4.9mm. |
|
| April
26, 2000 |
I started this
year by using the swarming season as a means of gathering my
needed base stock for comb building. As the swarm cells were produced in several hives
this year due to an unusually mild late winter and early spring,
I was able to easily gather several swarms
to start my nucs with.
Once a swarm had settled, the cluster was brushed into a 4-frame nuc that contained
frames with only a 1 inch starter
strip of 4.9mm foundation.
A point should be made here that bees would build a cell size
close to the size they were on before if no cell pattern was
given for them to build off of. When you look at your newly caught
swarm, if the bees look like the same size as in your hives then
they have swarmed out of a large domestic hive and will have
to be retrogressed. If the bees in the swarm appear half and
half in size then the queen was mated part way in matings to
feral size. If you look at the swarm and the bees all look small
then they will probably go to the smaller size right away without
too much difficulty.
I know my swarms came out of my hives and the bees are big so
it will take several steps to regress the bee size down.
I gave sugar water
right away to the newly hived swarm and let them settle down
for a few days. Three days later (April 29),
I moved the bees and four frames out of the nuc and placed in
the center of a single
deep hive body that had the remaining six frames with starter
strips installed. On May 2nd, an inspection
of the combs revealed that the queen had started to lay eggs.
The bees are taking in a quart of syrup everyday now. |
|
| May
6 |
Checked on the
apairy this morning and noticed another small swarm on the trunk
of a nearby sapling. I'm starting to run out of available hive
bodies. Last week I decided to be better prepared for the next
swarm so I made up 10 new frames, all with 1" starter strips
of 4.9mm foundation, and had it sitting in the apairy all closed
up just waiting for this situation. Of course I would have to
find it just 15 minutes before I had to leave to take my son
and buddies out for games on his birthday.
I was able to place the single deep hive body with frames on
top of a 4 foot ladder and be within a few inches of the cluster.
Since time was of the essence, I grabbed my queen catcher in one hand, and with the other,
started to gently scrape a handful of bees at a time off the
cluster and onto the top bars, always looking for the queen.
Usually the queen will be high up in the cluster and as far to
the center as possible. After 2/3 of the bees were scraped off
onto the hive, I finally saw the queen run across the remaining
cluster and take flight. I paused for about a minute and assumed
she would fly right back as all the bees were fanning and staying
put. Sure enough, there she was again moving across the remaining
cluster on the tree. I caught her in the queen cage and knew
the hard part was over.
Running out of time, I spread two frames apart just enough to
allow me to slide the queen catcher down between the frames and
wedge itself in place. I layed an inner cover over the top leaving
a gap by placing a stick under it so the remaining bees could
get in through the top. I returned 2 hours later to find all
the bees had moved into the hive and settled down.
To increase my odds that the swarm would stay after I released
the queen, I decided to take a frame with bees from the first
swarm's hive that had been drawn out halfway and had a few eggs
in it, and place it down in the center of the cluster of this
swarm, one frame away from the caged queen. After waiting about
15 minutes to allow the bees time to sense the open brood cells,
I took the queen cage out from between the frames and opened
it up on top of the bars. She came right out and headed right
down between the frames. I put the inner cover back on and placed
a feeder jar of sugar water over the center hole and closed it
up. I expect this will be my second hive on it's way down to
4.9mm cell size. |
|
| May
15 |
Today was cloudy
with temps around 52°F and a 25 mph wind. Not a good day
to be pulling frames of brood out and inspecting. Both hives
are building comb at a progressive rate. Hive 1 (first swarm)
has comb on 9 frames with brood of various stages on 3 to 4 frames.
They should be ready for a second deep hive body in about a week.
I prepared 10 more frames with starter strips and have another
hive body ready to go.
It's interesting to see how the bees first start building comb
on the rear (opposite of entrance) of the frames and work forward
with their cresent shaped comb design.
As I go down this road of regressing the bees to smaller cell
size with the goal of being able to manage my bees and produce
honey, without resorting to chemicals or drugs to keep the bees
healthy from disease and alive from the ravages of the mites,
a lot of questions come up as to the best way to make this change.
All my hives were started on Duragilt foundation which measures
5.4mm across 10 cells. Last week I was able to do a quick measure
of one frame of comb that had brood in it from Hive 1 and it
measured 5.2mm across 10 cells. As soon as the first round of
brood emerge I will take several measurements from these combs
to get a better average. Assuming 5.2mm is the average, and the
bees regress in size by .2mm after each swarm or shake down,
I will need to go through this process one more time before I
can safely put them on full sheets of 4.9mm foundation and have
them drawing it at that size.
I wonder about this late summer when all my hives will have developed
substantial levels of Varroa mite infestation. This is a stage
in the regression process that the two hives will be most vulnerable
as they are not yet regressed down to their natural cell size
of 4.9 - 5.0. If I choose to treat these hives with Apistan,
I will be interferring with the bees own defenses to deal with
the mite and the combs will be contaminated with chemicals. If I refrain
from using any chemicals and let the bees do their best to survive,
the worst that will happen is the bees will die out by spring
and I'll have to start again but I'll now have several deep supers
full of 5.2mm drawn comb to start with again next spring. I can
see why this is the place where you either commit to taking a
new direction in keeping bees and break all ties to chemicals
or you buckle and resort to using the latest trick the "dustys"
have to offer.
I've made up my mind to make a total break from chemicals and
give the bees every fighting chance I can for them to survive
on their own. I've been told that I will need to take my time
and look at my bees closely to observe them for every aspect
on their frames as to behavior, adequate stores, and especially
their health. Second, since varroa stay with the drone first
and only get out of control really reproducing there on a natural
system, I will need to cull drone brood, once capped, and keep
to under 10% as I am retrogressing down. I will let the bees
keep all they can store between now and winter. If they can pull
out a third super and fill, I'll give it to them. Now, EXCEPTION
HERE, if honey is put into larger drone size cells, which they
do a lot in Nature, I will have to carefully watch and make sure
my retrogressed bees do not get stupid and try to reuse it for
brood of any kind. So if it becomes empty, I'll get rid of it,
like culling normal drone cells with capped brood.
People have been asking me where can they get 4.9mm foundation.
Dadant,
in the U.S., has just started selling 4.9 mm foundation. As far
as I know, the next smallest sized foundation available is 5.2mm
from Miller's Honey Company in Colton, California. I called them
to confirm this and they are sending me a sample sheet of foundation.
Their particulars are:
Miller's Honey Company
125 East Laurel
P.O. Box 500
Colton, CA 92324
Ph: 909-825-1722
Fax: 909-825-5932
Hours: 9-5, M-F |
| |
|
|
| Part
1 (above) |
Part
2 |
|
|
|
