# New Video of the Lusby apiary == insanely mad bees



## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Solomon Parker has uploaded to you-tube a 20 min (lots of meaningless filler) snip of insanely defensive bees in the Lusby apiary.
The video is very sad, and very instructive at the same time.

The last time these bees were a subject on the TF forum, Forum participants deKnow and Micheal Bush vociferously denied these Lusby-raised bees were AHB. 

I demure, but the parentage looks pretty obvious to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEp9YqUE7kA


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Can I borrow the duct tape please! Says it all.


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

I have no say as to if Lusby's bees were africanized or not, but I believe those are. Question is, how long has it been since those were managed? Entirely possible no trace of the original beelines exist there still.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Working bees? Ummmm. Yaaaa. Throwing frames in a box willy nilly with no regard to housel positioning? Insane.  Yes, I remember entering in a debate with Dean and Ramona about the lineage of these bees after viewing another video. Its not hard to see how fatalities happen when unsuspecting and unequipped people cross paths with this type of bee.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

I have never seen africanized bees in their original habitats, but looking at the video I thought they would be much worse. I remember having "mellifera x ligustica x carnica whatsoever" crossings 40 years ago which were exactly as bad: Leather gloves were white from stings and you could not see through the veil because of bees trying to sting.


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## herbhome (Oct 18, 2015)

B.W.A.= bees with attitude!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

What the F was that 
Wow 
Who was screaming “put the frames in the box”?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

jim lyon said:


> Working bees? Ummmm. Yaaaa. Throwing frames in a box willy nilly with no regard to housel positioning? Insane.  Yes, I remember entering in a debate with Dean and Ramona about the lineage of these bees after viewing another video. Its not hard to see how fatalities happen when unsuspecting and unequipped people cross paths with this type of bee.


I remember the thread
Hmmm, um, ya, 
The bees are alive, that’s a positive I guess.
I would not have my kids in that yard. 
Who was on the camera ?


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I have never seen africanized bees in their original habitats, but looking at the video I thought they would be much worse. I remember having "mellifera x ligustica x carnica whatsoever" crossings 40 years ago which were exactly as bad: Leather gloves were white from stings and you could not see through the veil because of bees trying to sting.


The commercial I helped when he came back from almonds and a cactus flow, his "mean" bees were every bit as bad as the second yard. The front of my pants were full of stingers, it looked like hair they were so thick. 

I had to skip through that video but one thing I noticed in the first yard was those were the cleanest bee suits I ever have seen lol 

Sol, get a tripod, learn to edit, and get a decent mic. I could hear the woman screaming in the background clearer than I could hear you the whole video lmao


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Vehicles everywhere, lotta people wandering around aimlessly, nobody doing any work. :kn:


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## herbhome (Oct 18, 2015)

I noticed all the hives are on the ground. I didn't see any kind of enclosure. I know nothing about desert wildlife, but a setup like that around here would get harassed by varmints until the bees are all riled up.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

They would be brave varmints .


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

OMFG


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

That video showed a mess from start to finish, bees, boxes, frames and people.
It spoke a thousand words to me about our former moderator.
Although 'work' and 'talk' are both 4 letter words, one clearly takes precedence with that group.


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## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

why in the world would you even have kids out in a yard like that?
this is early in the year. imagine with a big population when pulling honey. does she even get honey? I hope she doesn't sell bees...


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## dondeemon (Jan 11, 2018)

My wife just told me that we can't have those bees lol


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Part 2;

Look at me, Look at me, Hey Look at me!


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## lemmje (Feb 23, 2015)

My favorite part of this thread is the double equal signs in the title. I write software, i always use "==" in this context too, and most people i know do not understand why.

:applause:


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

I kinda like the older videos of Dee working the bees and throwing all the boxes and equipment around, kinda like King Kong of the desert.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I kind of think Sol was seeing some humor in this as well. No one is even lighting a smoker? I'm a commercial guy and our bees DONT act at all like this. First and foremost its a safety issue, few people can keep them in an area as remote as this appears to be. I've dealt with them before and I'll get out of the business before I would place bees like this on any of our locations.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

That was Dee yelling. Sol says she's been sidelined with broken hips the past two years he was out there. I was wondering when she was gonna start yelling about housel, but she didn't... Also, it's free range so it's cattle that knock the hives over. It's hard to hear anything cuz of the bees attacking the camera, don't think there is much you can do about that. Can they not light a smoker cuz of the fire risk, I don't know?


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

Wow that made me very tense just watching it. I've had a few very hot hives in the past but never anything like that.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I can remember being that ignorant in my life. What a distillation of the mill run born again organic beekeeper. I had a hive just like those bees several years ago. It was a Russian swarm I collected in town and stupidly put out among my civilized bees. Over the winter when doing recreational looking at hives on warm days, I knew one hive was a problem. When I started feeding patties, I knew which one was the problem and I almost got run off the location waiting for my queens to arrive to split up and requeen. Amazing how sieving them thru an excluder to find the queen and splitting them three ways made the problem just go away. Bees like that should not be tolerated. If you have bees like that, you should not be running tours of free range dummies thru your apiary.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I will be selecting breeders this coming week and gentleness is always one of my top criteria. Bees that either attack or run and ball up on the comb are not the kind of bees I want to propagate. Of course a lot of it is current conditions and beekeeper handling. I've seen videos of Dee working bees and it drives me crazy. She will give the hive a little smoke upon opening and then set the smoker aside and proceed to tear the hive apart with bees flying everywhere.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

JRG13 is Sol doing ok? I just took the time to look at some of the resent up loads
The follow up video about the terrorist hunting permit he seems out of it... and he seems lost in the neoba videos .... thinking warre was still alive, couldn't rember how many days he leaves grafts in a cell builder, etc.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

Its not cell size that gives those bees varroa resistance. Anything that vicious probably chews them to pieces.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yeah well, his organistation on the day was non existant and I do not think Dee got the help she was wanting.

But I'll give Sol 10 points for one thing, he does have a very cute child with whom he seems to have a great relationship.

Sol the terrorist hunter? Where are these videos?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

No he was complaing about Dee handing them out as being divisive 
https://youtu.be/8TCmf2Kzwmw?t=9m53s


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jim lyon said:


> No one is even lighting a smoker?.


I asked - Sol replied:


> We tried smoke. We gave up. Bees got mad anyway and it took too long to light and etc.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Hungry bees getting nervous? I don´t see anything blooming.

https://www.desertmuseum.org/programs/flw_flowering.php

I remember old videos from 2011. It was the same then. Was not Dee´s stock tested?

And I remember she had seasons without a flow and most of the bees still survived. They must be very hardy.

After watching the vid my husband said: if I had taken a video while you work our AMM hybrids, not africanized, once or twice it was like that, bee clouds bumping me and 30 stings into the glove ( white glove, not black like Sols).
They were hot but not dangerous if not opened. The swiss ***** act like that too.

Dees hives are so big and so many of them. 
The visitors kept very calm and seem to have no problems. Pretty cool! Must be looking more dangerous than it actually was.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Wow, that was terrible. Where was the soap water, or flame throwers !!! I'm New, and been around folks hives with nothing as far as suits ect. Makes ya think some folks are crazy !!! Neglect, concussion, and ignorance all the way through. Sorry , I may be wrong... but some5hing was not good there.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

A lot of people claim her bees really only dislike the camera's for some reason.... but they seem fairly flighty in general.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Someone in the video needs to invest some $ in some equipment - what a bunch of junk


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

msl said:


> JRG13 is Sol doing ok? I just took the time to look at some of the resent up loads
> The follow up video about the terrorist hunting permit he seems out of it... and he seems lost in the neoba videos .... thinking warre was still alive, couldn't rember how many days he leaves grafts in a cell builder, etc.


Thanks for the post. You saw what I did not. Looking at it from another view, more to be concerned about than hot bees.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

msl said:


> No he was complaing about Dee handing them out as being divisive
> https://youtu.be/8TCmf2Kzwmw?t=9m53s


That's rich. He is mutual friends with someone on Facebook. He waded onto one of my posts about a "no cruising" sign somewhere in Florida of all things. Wouldn't leave and then seemed confused thinking that I came over onto a post he'd made. He's special.


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

The green stuff has been legal here for a while. With all his "confusion" it sounds like Sol might have become a repeat customer at Ye Olde Dispensary :lpf:


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

SiWolKe said:


> Must be looking more dangerous than it actually was.



After watching the video, that seems to be an unreasonably optimistic statement.




.


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## e-spice (Sep 21, 2013)

shinbone said:


> After watching the video, that seems to be an unreasonably optimistic statement..


I was thinking the exact same thing!!! To me, 500+ violent bees trying to sting you to death doesn't really have any positive spin though.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I can't say for sure how Sol is doing. He's trying to make a go out of being a TF Guru I think and making money as a beekeeper is secondary. I think he was askiing if he should sell queens for $50 next year... but I don't think anything is special about his bees so I'm not holding my breath. He's also doing podcasts, he's very awkward sounding in a lot of them but the guests typically do most of the talking about their methods etc.. I only know cuz someone signed me into the TF FB group, and I troll their stupid ideas pretty hard most of the time.


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## olii2d (Jun 30, 2010)

Does Dee have any help with her bees?If she has broke a hip she probably can't lift to many boxes.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Good question Olii2d.

I've always admired Dee for being able as a single lady, to run 600 hives. However as you say, she cannot have been able to do much the last couple years. 

She was certainly yelling at people, but it must have been incredibly frustrating to get a whole team of people out to help, and all they do is stand around talking, filming, and sniggering. Didn't look like any of them had ever done a days work, or even understood the concept.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

The 2018 conference is happening as this is posted -- March 2-4, 2018. There are often one or two "from the conference" reports that circulate.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Currently (and for three years now) Dee is on crutches and can't lift any boxes. Has anyone ever gone to a yard with tipped over hives and not found the bees in a bad mood? Every one of those yards had hives tipped over.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

JRG13 said:


> He's trying to make a go out of being a TF Guru I think and making money as a beekeeper is secondary.


Having watched others who have preceded him …..I don’t think making any money as a beekeeper is prerequisite.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> Currently (and for three years now) Dee is on crutches and can't lift any boxes. Has anyone ever gone to a yard with tipped over hives and not found the bees in a bad mood? Every one of those yards had hives tipped over.


Been wondering about that for a while Micheal, obviously that day was going to come when she could no longer work bees. Does she have help and the operation is still running and honey being extracted?

Also looks like she needs some new boxes or they just going to start disintegrating.

Re the hives tipped over, with my bees anyway, if I get there more than a few days after they were tipped, the bees have adapted and are just as calm as any other bees, it's also surprising how well a hive can do on it's side sometimes. I think the reason for the aggressive behavior in the video was more about the "beekeepers". Sol was pretty much holding his glove like a red rag to a bull, and with bees like that, once they are infuriated, it's only going down hill. Didn't look like anyone else had a clue how to behave.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

My treatment-free experimental yard had a couple of unworkable hives of Russian bees. I moved them off by themselves as I could not stand to work them. I cannot get to the yard in winter due to a high water creek. When I came back in spring they had tipped over, the bees were still thriving in their sideways universe. In the spring time their mood was improved, and I tilted them back up, broke them down into smaller units and queened them up with Russian grafts. Unfortunately, the 2nd year of non=treatment did those bees in. Normally the "terminal hives" I treat and move off the mountain, but those meanies just didn't encourage drastic action towards recovery.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Wonder if Dee has ever visited with anyone and worked some quiet bees, just to see what it's like.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

I just feel bad for Dee if those bees can live in that god forsaken place someone should help her select for gentalness.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Dan the bee guy said:


> I just feel bad for Dee if those bees can live in that god forsaken place someone should help her select for gentalness.


What you have to understand is that in the desert southwest, bees with that temperament is the default setting. You have to intensely manage to keep it from happening.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I was thinking about this video today. 
Who with any common curtesy would go into someone else’s apiary, record faults and post it on social media for beekeepers like me to criticize...
Not only did she get zero work from the group, she has every Beekeeper on social media looking into her apiary


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Agreed, and been thinking the same, there's a rather mocking tone to the video. My feeling is there must have been some falling out between Dee and Sol, for him after holding the video this amount of time, to make it public, unedited.

While i do not buy into everything Dee has ever said, I have a lot of respect for her, she is a hard worker and a deep thinker and has written a lot, and life has thrown her some curve balls but she has carried on where others would have quit.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

She is a tough woman and many things she advises are an improvement or something to think about. She got us all started on tf beekeeping and she talks to everyone who is interested, one hive or 1000.
Best to you, Dee!


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Honestly I hadn't thought of it like that ian, you are right though. When I saw the video, I just thought it was an abandoned yard somebody just forgot. But honestly, being new to all this... I would have never had a crowd like that in there. A chosen few, who would have helped clean it up. Even a little at a time would have been great help. It was scary for me to think about keeping bees at that point, but I'm still here... wanting bees ...lol.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Richinbama said:


> A chosen few, who would have helped clean it up. Even a little at a time would have been great help.


I think she chose the helpers but instead they made an amusement park out of this. Sol is not helping but trying to get all the attention. Not like Mrs. Herboldsheimer once.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> Currently (and for three years now) Dee is on crutches and can't lift any boxes.


The poor lady has been on crutches for the last 3 years!? How terrible. Who cares whether you believe in her methods, she is still a fellow beekeeper who needs a hand. Beesource members in the area should come together for a day and help her by at least getting her hives upright and stabilized. And leave the cameras at home.


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

I tend to agree with the majority of the above posts. What Jim Lyon has mentioned is probably most important. The surrounding genetics for bees in the areas where Ms. Lusby has her isolated colonies are the "bees on record" so to speak. Obviously the apiaries are in extreme neglect due to lack of management and investment in equipment, and one woman on crutches is hardly the answer. I recall when Mr. Parker used to post on here several years ago and he was clearly a beginner and not a seasoned beekeeper. I know several individuals in the southern part of my state who routinely visit parts of Mexico to work and manage some out-yards. "Manage" being the key word here. There are little resources to re-queen all of their hives every year so they have learned to work with the bees that they have, and there, those bees are the norm. It appears after reading the posts here regarding Dee's operation that what she really needs is an influx of $15-$20,000 for some new equipment, and then a few of our Mexican beekeepers to fix things up in order that at least a honey crop could be secured. Certainly a bus load of camera toting TF beekeepers from the local conference did nothing to assist.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

If some of the bigger beekeepers here would donate equipment and gental stock would you think Dee would accept it? I've got the time to do some labor I just have to get some protection.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Right, what we saw was a tourist trip to the zoo, not the zookeepers at work
I see no issue with how she runs her op... while the equipment is ageing, it will likely out last her beekeeping days, and if the bees do fine what is the issue with just visiting the yards a few times a year. Her bees take care of them selfs ,replace there own queens and often laying workers produce viably eggs that get turned in to queens (Thelytoky).. Her methods and stock are suited to her environment and methods...
It may not be clean little boxes in a neat and tidy back yard, its wild west beekeeping on the open range, and TF to boot.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

If humans were exterminated and the bees that could survive returned to their natural state, I wonder if that is what we would get.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

If you want to help her why not buying her book which is newly published now?

https://www.amazon.de/Biological-Beekeeping-Back-Dee-Lusby/dp/1614761043


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## herbhome (Oct 18, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Agreed, and been thinking the same, there's a rather mocking tone to the video. My feeling is there must have been some falling out between Dee and Sol, for him after holding the video this amount of time, to make it public, unedited.
> 
> While i do not buy into everything Dee has ever said, I have a lot of respect for her, she is a hard worker and a deep thinker and has written a lot, and life has thrown her some curve balls but she has carried on where others would have quit.



Thanks for catching this. I didn't notice at first but this video is two years old. Hmm.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> If you want to help her why not buying her book which is newly published now?
> 
> https://www.amazon.de/Biological-Beekeeping-Back-Dee-Lusby/dp/1614761043


Well something is better than nothing.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Michael Bush said:


> Currently (and for three years now) Dee is on crutches and can't lift any boxes. Has anyone ever gone to a yard with tipped over hives and not found the bees in a bad mood? Every one of those yards had hives tipped over.


I had a few fall over late summer this year (domino style). Their honey stores were robbed out, but they've survived the winter. It wasn't a big deal at all. Put the stacks back together, closed them up, and swapped in honey from other colonies. No stings or any behavior like this. No gloves covered in stingers... in fact, no gloves or stings at all. And not even a bee jacket. And I'm not sure I was even wearing a veil, but I usually do so I'd guess I had one on...

But I don't keep Africanized Honey Bees here in Iowa, so that probably helps.


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## Murdock (Jun 16, 2013)

If Dee is going to be on crutches a while longer you might want to consider a long hive for her. A little different but great for old backs and knees.


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## wissler (Jan 27, 2012)

Riskybizz said:


> I tend to agree with the majority of the above posts. What Jim Lyon has mentioned is probably most important. The surrounding genetics for bees in the areas where Ms. Lusby has her isolated colonies are the "bees on record" so to speak. Obviously the apiaries are in extreme neglect due to lack of management and investment in equipment, and one woman on crutches is hardly the answer. I recall when Mr. Parker used to post on here several years ago and he was clearly a beginner and not a seasoned beekeeper. I know several individuals in the southern part of my state who routinely visit parts of Mexico to work and manage some out-yards. "Manage" being the key word here. There are little resources to re-queen all of their hives every year so they have learned to work with the bees that they have, and there, those bees are the norm. It appears after reading the posts here regarding Dee's operation that what she really needs is an influx of $15-$20,000 for some new equipment, and then a few of our Mexican beekeepers to fix things up in order that at least a honey crop could be secured. Certainly a bus load of camera toting TF beekeepers from the local conference did nothing to assist.


This kind of sums up my thoughts as well as others here who have correctly observed that Sol has all but torpedoed one of the pioneers of treatment free beekeeping. Mocking her yards on social media is pretty low in my book, especially when she is unable to work her yards. I mean, who wears BLACK bee keeping gloves to work in Dee's yards anyway and then can not wait to show how many stings he has? Not sure what his motives are, but he has lost any respect I had for him.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrmMtGve-M

Here's a video from this years conference... some interesting 'opinions' discussed. Dee is pretty adamant her bees aren't africanized. Also, I found it interesting pesticides are what make hives aggressive, not genetics or africanization....


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

You have to experience bees like this to truly understand and frankly I don't think Sol's video really imparts that. To the inexperienced it might seem similar to being in a bee yard with a nice flight on but the best way I can describe this is that you can't carry on a conversation and you can feel the impact of bees hitting your body. I'm a pretty seasoned beekeeper but the first time I dealt with them it kind of took my breath away, made me take a step back and regroup. I'm an old school khaki and tulle veil guy so I suppose I experience it better than most folks who nowadays are wearing bee suits which takes away a lot of the respect that people should have for these bees.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I found this video hard to watch but I do believe some good points were made, but there also seems to be a ton of contradiction. For example, aggressiveness or even the africanization issue. First claim, it's pesticides that cause it, but then to the solution of aggressive bees.... well, requeen with gentle stocks and don't let them hybridize.... Well, that points to a genetic solution to the issue, so which is it... Also, claiming africanization isn't the issue, it's hybridization seems like splitting hairs to me. Most experienced people know hybridization may lead to aggressiveness, or that perhaps the F1 are stable and issues arise in the F2 or F3. Some hybrids are worse than others depending on who was the drone mother etc... I can agree with that, but then at the same time, if most hybrids that include african genetics on either side of the equation lead to aggressiveness, more so than other hybrids, I think you should still conclude that africanization has something to do with it and it's not just because of hybridization. The points on breeding I thought were fairly spot on though


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

My ears worked in a shipyard, can't understand a whole sentence.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Once or twice my AMM original queen or the hybrids acted like that, they bumped me like hail and I was stung by +- 30 bees through my leather glove. Looked exactly like in Sol`s vid except my gloves are white.
I had only 5 colonies, and splits they were, but I can imagine how it is in a bee yard working many hives which are as big as Dee`s.
No africanized genetics around here.
The one I have left will act like that the moment I open, being not used to be worked now for 10 months. They will jump in my face! After a time they are content except when they are queenless or a thunderstorm happens or varroa stresses them.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

My head hurts... I had to take a 2nd run at it, as i turned it off the 1st time when they said Romans were giants and needed 12'-13' doors before they shrank do to out breading 
I am confused by Dee's adamant statement that the Chinese induced Mellifera to the Americas, wouldn't it have been Cerana, Dorsata, or Florea given Mellifera wasn't introduced in China till the early 1900s ? what am I missing?

The sudo science and 1/2 facts in most of this video is painfull.....
How many times did you here "they don't want to talk about it" "they don't want to let it out" I see a small group, held together by the belief that TF is being persecuted and they are 1% minority (I love that Sol called them out.) Interject a different option or any sort of modern study's and its shut down by loud voices, emotion, and unbacked and 1/2"facts". The group think is strong 

at least Michael Bush was there as a voice of reason 
Does any one have sources to back up his statement in regards to Dee's edvance that the USDA was breeding and importing 2000-3000 AHB queens a year and distributing them thew the US for decades ? @ 46:10 
that's one I hadn't heard before.

the 2017 Q&A is much better


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Ian said:


> What the F was that
> Wow
> Who was screaming “put the frames in the box”?


Dude, I have to remember not to be drinking my coffee before I start reading your posts...'bout spit it out with that comment.

I was thinking the same thing tho...I skipped through the video, couldn't watch it in it's entirety. I don't know the folks and was just taken aback at the bees. No thank you. 

Or as my dad would say' Not just no, _HELL_ NO!"

I always have a hive or three that are a bit more excitable than the others..watching this video puts them in perspective. Kittens in comparison. I guess they aren't so bad after all.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Does any one have sources to back up his statement in regards to Dee's edvance that the USDA was breeding and importing 2000-3000 AHB queens a year and distributing them thew the US for decades ? @ 46:10 

I've seen Xeroxes of the original documents and copies of those were sent to Barry who transcribed some of them here:
http://beesource.com/point-of-view/dee-lusby/bee-breeding-in-the-field-part-2/

Steve Taber was in charge of the project of breeding crosses of African and Italian bees and got semen from Dr. Kerr, who always gets the blame for the AHB, and they believed at the time it was Apis mellifera adansonii. Here is a paper by GEORGE E. CANTWELL from ABJ, October, 1974 – Page 368-372 that refers to Taber's work breeding AHB in the US for the USDA:
http://beesource.com/point-of-view/africanized-honey-bees/the-african-brazilian-bee-problem/

It turned out to be Apis mellifera scutellata and not adansonii. It was all pretty well documented at the time, but people seem to want to forget that it ever happened now...


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> It turned out to be Apis mellifera scutellata and not adansonii


can you point me to were that identification is made? Kerr went on to study adansonii in the 60s, so he had them, are you saying he axadently sent Scutellata in yet another blunder in the 1962 shipment that was sent after the 1960 stock was lost? 

The 1st link has a lot of details of queen shipments and lines pre adansonii and none after...
maby its my bias, but all I sees is a bunch of chery picked snippets that say the USDA had mean bees they were distributing before importing Russian and adansonii stock . There is not one indication that adansonii ever got out as all the quotes give no indication as to the lines heritage and threw the edits often omits what line/stock is being spoken of



> I've seen Xeroxes of the original documents and copies of those were sent to Barry who transcribed some of them here:http://beesource.com/point-of-view/d...-field-part-2/


This isn't Barry transcribing from the originals, its a copy paste of Dee's _The Way Back to Biological Beekeeping, Part 17_..
https://static.secure.website/wscfus/9893467/2359916/the-way-back-to-biological-beekeeping.pdf page 66

not saying it didn't happen, just saying the edvance presented is unconvincing... and all the "records" of queen shipments for those thousands of queens pre date the arrival of the African genes. 



> but people seem to want to forget that it ever happened now...


It would seem its not wanting to forget, its that the information is being hidden. It would be outstanding if you would run them threw a scanner or digital camera and add them to the fine stock pile of information on your web site.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Not hidden, just forgotten. I've read a dozen times about Taber bringing Scutellata into the U.S. 60 or 70 years ago. They never got enough of a foothold to become a problem. Get a copy of Breeding Super Bees and read about it.



> I had a few fall over late summer this year (domino style).


 This is one of the reasons I have the square Dadant hives now. No more fallen hives.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> They never got enough of a foothold to become a problem. Get a copy of Breeding Super Bees and read about it.


thanks thats what I am looking for !!

however failing to get a foot hold is a far cry for the stament the southern migration is a myth and the USDA bread and distributed 2-3 thousand AHB queens a year for decades 
guess I will have to read the book


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

"African bees are a government plot, they are hiding the data". This is pure tin-foil conspiracy theory.







Source: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.833.7898&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Charles W. Whitfield has very detailed time series data on the process of Africanization at the Weller Wildlife Refuge in southern Texas in 1993-2001 (note that this data has now been extended to 2017 in a second paper).

The geographic expansion along an invasion front is well documented in Central and North America, and in an apparent static southern limit in Argentina.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I recall a video of Marla Spivak, I think, going over influx of new genes/diversity for the NA population of bees. I don't recall how far they went back, but they could trace the periods of new diversity to the introduction of Russian bees, the arrival of AHB, etc...


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

This "she said they aren't Africanized, they attack incessantly" argument could easily be resolved by anyone with access to 10 dead bees and a computer flatbed scanner.
You have 99% certainty from simply measuring total forewing length (and the FABIS protocol uses two other easily obtained measures (using the same scanner technique) of partial hindwing length and rear femur length). 

I use a scanner on high resolution setting, and the freeware medical imaging program ImageJ. Set the scale from a reticule grid (graph paper), and use ImageJ measurement tools to collect a spreadsheet's worth of high resolution data.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I was under the impression that the importation of bees into the US was banned long before the 1940s. If so, did the USDA simply ignore the ban? 
When they brought in Russian bees it was a big deal. Those bees were quarantined on an island off the coast of Louisiana, if I remember correctly. They were evaluated in depth before they were brought to the mainland.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> It turned out to be Apis mellifera scutellata and not adansonii.


I am following this now, what Kerr and others brought in was Scutellata, but it was not ID as an indpendant species from Adansonii till later... earlyer work they are call adansonii, middle work the names are used interchangeably, later work its scutellata. 


_"Africanized bee sperm from Brazil was introduced to Louisiana in 1960 and 1961, and through four generations of backcrossing, Africanized stock was maintained in the field for years (Taber 1961, 1977). Despite these opportunities for population expansion, such introductions did not noticeably modify the behavioral or genetic characteristics of the local European honey bee population. African germplasm has not been discovered in the U.S. or Europe in the few genetic
studies performed recently using isozymes (Sheppard & Berlocher 1985, Sheppard & McPheron 1986, Sheppard 1988), and mtDNA and nuclear DNA restriction patterns (Smith et al.1989, Hall & Muralidharan 1989, Hall 1990). This absence of African influence contrasts markedly with the genetic takeover documented in Brazil in the 1960s, after the 1956 introduction of bees from South Africa."_ 
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/...=1&article=6281&context=gradschool_disstheses


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

beemandan said:


> I was under the impression that the importation of bees into the US was banned long before the 1940s. If so, did the USDA simply ignore the ban?
> When they brought in Russian bees it was a big deal. Those bees were quarantined on an island off the coast of Louisiana, if I remember correctly. They were evaluated in depth before they were brought to the mainland.


Looks like they brought in sperm for II.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

JRG13 said:


> Looks like they brought in sperm for II.


Maybe so. I guess I thought that II was a relatively new thing in beekeeping. The 1940s? I'd have to confess to being surprised.


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