# Vermont Photos



## deknow

We traveled to Vermont to visit Kirk Webster and Mike Palmer after the conference with Erik Osterlund and Mike Bush. Here are some photos from the trip.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/ConferenceAndAfter

deknow


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## MWillard

Thanks for sharing photos of your trip. It's great to see. As a side note, I'm also trying Mike's double nuc box with a split super this year.


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## winevines

i am deleting all of my posts on this. You win deknow


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## deknow

i have no knowledge of anyone on beesource with any kind of grant, so it was not personal to anyone here.

with that said, i've seen some of these SARE grants, and many are silly (and include grants that some of my friends have recieved).....a sare grant to study top entrances...a sare grant to try to overwinter bees indoors so that early northern package bees can be shaken out...a sare grant to determine the best way to introduce a russian queen into an italian colony are some examples off the top of my head. a successful beekeeper has resources (by definition), and will steer some of those resource towards improving things.

these are the kinds of things beekeepers should be doing as part of being beekeepers...experementing and finding improvements.

i have no idea what you are doing with nucs...and i'd be curious to hear what you have learned with your grant....is it something new?

deknow


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## Maine_Beekeeper

I think any USDA funds directed towards beekeeping, whether educational, research, demonstration or otherwise is GREAT. "silly" or not, beekeepers need to be working on new ways to keep our bees healthy.

Yes, I have a SARE project, the synopsis is here: 
http://nesare.org/get/farmers-examp...etween-nucleus-and-package-started-colon.html

-E.


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## deknow

well, my jaw is agape.

1. the idea that an unqualified _any_ grant towards beekeeping is good is ridiculous for any number of reasons.

2. (and forgive me, i didn't bring it up), $10,000 to determine if locally produced northern nucs do better than imported packages? there is an obvious answer to the question, and there is no reason the usda should spend 10k looking at this. you know it works better, and it's the direction you would have gone in regardless of if you got the grant or not....am i correct? i don't blame you, but i think it's a silly thing for the govt to spend money on, and i don't think they should spend money in this way. why should the usda pay for you to make up nucs? making up nucs is profitable!

in any case, i wasn't looking for an argument here...this is in response to a caption on a photograph. apologies if it doesn't belong here.

deknow


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## Maine_Beekeeper

Deknow:

Are you serious? Do you actually think this is not worthwhile?

How to you propose to demonstrate to your local beekeeping community that (more expensive) overwintered nucs are preferable to (less expensive) packages? 

At least 90% of new colonies started in Maine at this time are package started. How else would you propose to spread the word?

I am not making up nucs with the grant colonies. I am tracking the health/disease load/mite load/ wintering success of the colonies and reporting results through our State Association Newsletter as well as through presentations and talks to regional clubs. 

Currently the three strongest in my group consist of two packages and one nuc. The two weakest are one nuc start and one package start. 

We'll see what happens through the winter. 

I am disappointed that you seem to think $10k is ridiculous for the project. Do the math - $10k bought 24 hives worth of two deep and two medium equipment plus 16 packages and 8 overwintered nucs. There is also about $1200 for "expert consultants" to come and inspect the colonies (two Master Beekeepers for two days each, travel included), some money for feeding the colonies and about $500 total for mileage for the two major participants (myself being one) to and from the bee yards (which are outside of our own apiaries to elimintate the possiblility of interference from the home colonies. ) Our time is uncompensated in this project. 

I welcome your efforts to increase awareness of positive trends in beekeeping and honey bee management. I hope you will respect the efforts of others, including mine.

-Erin


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## Beeslave

Our goverment run USDA is handing out free money for beekeepers to be beekeepers? I can't wait to tell my carpenter friends that maybe they could get some free money to buy a bunch of hammers to see which ones will fit there business best. Sounds like wasteful gov. spending to me. If I understand this correctly the gov. is paying for you to do what has already been done many years over( by beekeepers being bekeepers)? If the money was for finding a cure for CCD, Mites, Nosema, etc. I would understand. But it is not. You say your time is not compensated but you got 24 hives that should be producing honey?


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## winevines

deleted by me. you win deknow. go hang out with the commercial guys


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## JBG

Nice set of photos and lots of 'em. Informative too. Keep them coming and Tx for the posting.


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## Natalie

You have to admit that some of these grants are just plain ridiculous and I could see how some people are going to take advantage of them for personal gain.
I don't think the government should be spending money on these grants given the kind of debt this country is already in, especially if the beekeeper is going to benefit personally from them.

Are you saying those 24 colonies are not producing honey? Or won't be split?
So when this study is done who keeps all these bees/hives?
It seems that alot of the methods that are revolutionizing beekeeping today and making it more sustainable are done by people on their own, on their own time and their own money with no monetary benefit.

By the way I do not see $10,000 as "a tiny little grant either" and could be put to better use given the shape we are in, but the government is notorious for misusing funds.
Add up all these "tiny little grants" and see where we are at.

quote from whitevines" 
The queen breeder he gets his queens from also has a SARE grant, a very small little grant, but one that keeps him motivated enough to keep trying to rear a better local queen. Still think these small SARE grants are a waste of money? end quote"

Money is a great motivator isn't it?
I am more impressed by all the beekeepers who are doing all this on their own because they are passionate about what they do not because they would give up except they got a grant so they keep plugging along.
He wants to produce a better local queen but only if he can get it funded?

There are plenty of people who are doing this already without grants and they don't feel they are doing the world a favor as the tone here suggests.


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## winevines

deknow said:


> We traveled to Vermont to visit Kirk Webster and Mike Palmer after the conference with Erik Osterlund and Mike Bush. Here are some photos from the trip.
> 
> http://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/ConferenceAndAfter
> 
> deknow


BTW, the photos are a treasure trove- espcially the ones of overwintering nuc designs. I know it can take a while to upload and caption. Thanks for sharing.


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## Barry Digman

I always enjoy seeing photos of the folks who are hands-on making stuff happen. And it's nice to see a face matched with a name. You all keep up the good work.


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## berkshire bee

Great photos, and it looks like it ws also a great learning experience


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## bleta12

Pictures were great and I liked all of them.

I am very surprised that any beekeeper have a problem with the Sare grant given to another beekeeper to do a study on an essential question, local stock vs. packages from far away.

Beekeeping industry is so underestimated and underfunded that we should applaud every dollar that goes to studding bees.
Instead of complaining why those beekeepers don't get theirs hand dirty and try to get a grant of their own and have a study of their own?
Probably because complaining is easy.

Gilman


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## Chef Isaac

what is this pic of?

http://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/ConferenceAndAfter#5367073741772190098

is there a queen in both nucs?


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## winevines

bleta12 said:


> Pictures were great and I liked all of them.
> 
> I am very surprised that any beekeeper have a problem with the Sare grant given to another beekeeper to do a study on an essential question, local stock vs. packages from far away.
> 
> Beekeeping industry is so underestimated and underfunded that we should applaud every dollar that goes to studding bees.
> Instead of complaining why those beekeepers don't get theirs hand dirty and try to get a grant of their own and have a study of their own?
> Probably because complaining is easy.
> 
> Gilman


Thanks Gilman. Some of your own photos have helped educate me and what we are doing down in VA.


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## Chef Isaac

great pictures. What a lovely time to see them as I sit back with a hot cup of coco


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## Michael Palmer

Chef Isaac said:


> what is this pic of?
> 
> http://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/ConferenceAndAfter#5367073741772190098
> 
> is there a queen in both nucs?


Double nuc box with 4 frame super above each. Yes, both have queens.


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## deknow

winevines said:


> BTW, the photos are a treasure trove- espcially the ones of overwintering nuc designs. I know it can take a while to upload and caption. Thanks for sharing.


thank you karla, i knew that if i didn't do all this right away, that i wouldn't get to it until winter (or later).

the captioning is limited...it doesn't explain the systems that kirk and mike are using, and it doesn't show all of the equipment (most notably, the bottom board with the cleat divider is not shown). if you have heard either of them speak, or read their writings, the photos might help put a "face to the name".

deknow


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## adamf

Natalie said:


> You have to admit that some of these grants are just plain ridiculous and I could see how some people are going to take advantage of them for personal gain.
> I don't think the government should be spending money on these grants given the kind of debt this country is already in, especially if the beekeeper is going to benefit personally from them.
> 
> quote from whitevines"
> The queen breeder he gets his queens from also has a SARE grant, a very small little grant, but one that keeps him motivated enough to keep trying to rear a better local queen. Still think these small SARE grants are a waste of money? end quote"
> 
> Money is a great motivator isn't it?
> I am more impressed by all the beekeepers who are doing all this on their own because they are passionate about what they do not because they would give up except they got a grant so they keep plugging along.
> He wants to produce a better local queen but only if he can get it funded?
> 
> There are plenty of people who are doing this already without grants and they don't feel they are doing the world a favor as the tone here suggests.



Knowing Mike, Kirk, Karla, Deknow and Keith I think the old internet has clouded the communication 
here--these guys all work together and beekeeping is the primary goal they all share.

True, not all granted research will be usefull, yet the research that IS usefull does ausauge the fluffy stuff. 
Any research program is this way. SARE funding requires some effort and thinking to apply and then merit a grant.

AT LEAST SOME FUNDING IS AVAILABLE for on-Farm research!

There are so many *other* areas in the budget where one could point out waste. 
The SARE budget is fairly modest. If you peruse the database you'll find plenty grants that provided usefull information. 
Some are even in Apiculture 

Adam

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


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## deknow

bleta12 said:


> Pictures were great and I liked all of them.


thank you gilman, they were culled from around 2000 exposures (mostly without a flash, and mostly in rapid fire mode, so there are several shots of the same scene).



> I am very surprised that any beekeeper have a problem with the Sare grant given to another beekeeper to do a study on an essential question, local stock vs. packages from far away.


is this really a question we don't already know the answer to? if i offered you a package from georgia or an overwintered nuc from your local area, which would you choose? would you even hesitate?

i want to reiterate that this line of discussion started from one caption out of 147 photos. the caption was not meant to rile people up on beesource, the photos were posted to several lists and forums. this is akin to taking a written sentence from someones website, pasting it here, and discussing it's merrtis. i'm happy to have this discussion, but it was not my intent to start it here.

can you name a sare grant that has helped your beekeeping? in fact, can you name any publicly funded bee research that has influenced how you keep bees successfully?

inovation comes from professionals. inovation is part of running a successful business...it's part of being a beekeeper. what i showed in these photos are 2 commercial beekeeping operations who have helped one another develop new methods for dealing with northern wintering issues. when experiments had to be run, the beekepeer ran the experiment. when custom equipment needed to be fabricated, the beekeeper built (or hired someone to build) the equipment..because it was potentially profitable to do so. 

i can't think of a better way to determine the merit of an experement than to have the person that wants to run the experement fork over the cash and time out of their own pocket.

i never set out to cast a spotlight on anyone's grant here. those receiving the grants have done so, so i offer the following observation:
if your business (or business plan) is making and selling overwintered nucs, then a study of such nucs vs. imported packages is little more than product research. we know that locally adapted bees are better. we know that nucs build up more quickly than packages. we know that a colony that has overwintered has already demonstrated vigor. overwintered colonies are better than packages. local queens are better than imported "factory" produced queens. this is not a mystery. collecting the data to prove this may help sell nucs, but what does it really add to our collective knowledge?

note that these privately funded research projects (by kirk and mike) are not top secret. the photos are here. they both speak at beekeeping conferences around the country where they share their results. they are both active in their local beekeeping association where they help new (and old) beekeepers for free.

i don't think that i'm speaking out of turn if i say that both would do anything they can to help the industry...without a grant to pay for their time to do so.

my wife and i missed several farmers markets taking this trip (and taking these picutres). what we learned was well worth our time without being compensated.

the conference we just held was supported by the beekeepers that wanted to attend, not by the viewpont of a grant committee.



> Beekeeping industry is so underestimated and underfunded that we should applaud every dollar that goes to studding bees.


so you think every dollar is well spent?
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm/pdf/oursare/disease_resistant_bees.pdf
...was funding someone to buy breeder queens, raise the daughters, and market them. how disease resistant were the queens? did anyone keep them without treatments? how do we measure success?
http://nesare.org/get/farmers-examples/a-middle-entrance-for-beehives-phase-2.html
a grant to study "middle entrances"? please.

the best way to influence beekeeping in a positive direction is through doing your own innovation, profiting from it, and getting noticed by doing so.

i don't blame the beekeepers for taking the grants, it's the system that awards them that i'm critical of.

of course i think overwintered nucs is a worthwhile project. i just don't think the govt should be funding it...it's a freaking business plan!



> Instead of complaining why those beekeepers don't get theirs hand dirty and try to get a grant of their own and have a study of their own?
> Probably because complaining is easy.


you are entitled to your opinion...but my hands are plenty dirty without writing grants, thank you. we do quite a bit of research (field, "kitchen lab", and library) on our own. the "glove test" that we did with formic acid cost a few dollars. 

the conference we just hosted (and financed ourselves, btw), made money after paying all travel expenses, paying all speakers, paying all kitchen/logisitcal help (except our parents), paid for the venue, bou.ght (and cooked) all the food. if we had had a grant to run the conference, it would have cost whatever the grant was for to do so.

again, can you name a publicly funded study that has influenced your beekeeping? was it based on what someone did on their own first? where does innovation come from?

the less we (as an industry, and as businesses) are dependent on govt handouts, the freeer we are to innovate and profit. govt handouts are like drugs that make us feel empowered. profit from successful business practices actually empower us.

deknow


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## deknow

adamf said:


> Any research program is this way. SARE funding requires some effort and thinking to apply and then merit a grant.


yes adam, but "meriting" a grant is an artificial metric....it is the ability to convince a committee to fund your research. i think self funded research is much more likely to have actual merit, to be useful...and to be profitable.




> There are so many *other* areas in the budget where one could point out waste.


yes, there is lots of waste, but the problem here is (imho) more than mere waste. i think it's harmful for the govt to fund people's businesses. imagine if you've just spent $30k building a breeding program out of your pocket, hoping to pay off the invenstment and then make a profit. now, a neighbor gets a $30k grant to do the same thing. there is less incentive to be successful enough to pay off the investment quickly with a grant. there is less incentive to be successful at all if all losses are covered with the grant money (perhaps the govt funded competition is making lousy queens and giving them away for free to all the beeks in your area..doesn't cost him a thing). ...and the business person/beekeeper that invested their own money is now at a $30k disadvantage to the grant recipient. all things being equal (and all things are never equal...but assume they are), how can the business person compete with govt funded businessplans? in addition, some of the "silly" grants are accomplishing nothing, are informing us of nothing, we are learning nothing other than how much money it costs to give someone a grant.



> The SARE budget is fairly modest. If you peruse the database you'll find plenty grants that provided usefull information.
> Some are even in Apiculture


adam, i'd be curious to know which ones you think have been useful, and if the end result was really pretty well known before the grant was issued.

deknow


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## JBG

Apiary research, development and business is so underfunded in this country relative to the real benefits to agriculture. We have giant ag sectors funded by the most flagrant special interest taxpayer scams. Ethanol aproaching 1/3 of the total corn crop supported by a $0.54/gallon tariff on ethanol from efficient countries like Brazil, along with billions of dollars in tax subsidies for example. Hard for me to get upset about the miniscule funding of bee work here by comparison.


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## deknow

JBG said:


> Apiary research, development and business is so underfunded in this country relative to the real benefits to agriculture. We have giant ag sectors funded by the most flagrant special interest taxpayer scams. Ethanol aproaching 1/3 of the total corn crop supported by a $0.54/gallon tariff on ethanol from efficient countries like Brazil, along with billions of dollars in tax subsidies for example. Hard for me to get upset about the miniscule funding of bee work here by comparison.


but this is exactly my point. all this funding for ethanol drives short term profits at the expense of any long term sustainability or growth. long term, agriculture would be better off without this artificial support...and so would we.

deknow


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## winevines

i am deleting all of my posts on this. You win deknow


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## whodoctor

The idea of grants being silly or relevant, helpful or not, is 'silly' in itself. 

Some beekeepers have the resources to invest in experimentation, and are willing and able to invest those resources and their time, while some people are unable or unwilling to invest their own resources into experimental or quantitative projects. 

Anyone will to do anything to add to the pool of knowledge and data that we have access to as beekeepers is wonderful. I applaud all you 'silly' grant holders. Nice work writing and receiving your grants! Good luck with your projects! I also applaud anyone else doing anything to further the craft on their own. Neither population of beekeepers is any better or worse than the other.

With all the polarity of thought in the world it would be awesome if beekeeping could also be free of people asserting what is "right", or better, or silly.

I think my techniques are the 'right' techniques (for me), but I reserve the right to discover that I'm wrong and learn about what other people are doing that might help my craft improve.

It seems to me that this openness of thought has been serving me well.

Or maybe I'm just being silly.


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## deknow

whodoctor said:


> The idea of grants being silly or relevant, helpful or not, is 'silly' in itself.


unless grants are actually hurtful to the industry (which i think they are), in which case it isn't silly at all.




> Some beekeepers have the resources to invest in experimentation, and are willing and able to invest those resources and their time, while some people are unable or unwilling to invest their own resources into experimental or quantitative projects.


well, which group is more likely to give good advice? in beekeeping, resources come from success..and rarely from throwing money at a problem. mike and kirk, for instance, share their innovations freely. they have something of value to share because they invested their own time and money into success.

call me cynical, call me a jerk if you like, but although i applaud all efforts to educate beekeepers about nucs, raising their own queens, overwintered nucs, etc, i'm not terribly impressed with $10 to 'educate' 24 beekeepers of something as simple as "overwintered local nucs are better than imported packages". it's great these people have learned what they have learned, but it cost $10k.

on the other hand, a commercial beekeeper who has real demonstrated success overwintering nucs in novel ways, who is willing to show their colonies and have it all be photographed, who travel around the country speaking and presenting this material in detail to 100 people at a time. who made money by investing money into the system, and who is supported by both by their own profits, but also by clubs and conferences, etc. ...and it cost nothing.

again, can anyone cite any of these sare (or virtually any publicly funded bee research) that has helped them in beekeeping and/or gave us new information? who is much more likely to have techniques that work?

langstroth, miller, dadant, doolittle, evans, etc ...all the great beekeeping books have been written by commercial beekeepers. very few by researchers.

deknow


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## JBG

deknow said:


> agriculture would be better off without this artificial support...and so would we.
> 
> deknow


Agree in the case of ethanol, milk, etc. but there is a big diff between price supports, tariffs, subsidies etc. and doing basic research. CCD is a good example where you need to spend govt. money to try to solve it. I only know one private sector co. addressing the problem http://www.beeologics.com/ and they are a tiny startup. Similar story for AHB here in the US, no simple field test kit. There is a good area that needs grant money. Even with a laptop PC and a digicam I think you could do a better job with some pattern matching and statistical smarts than the tests I've looked at. Also, some of these research ag grants are not as way out as you might think like reducing manure odors. Try living next to a big hog operation or where I am with a 15,000,000 gal dairy manure lagoon a mile away.


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## deknow

JBG said:


> CCD is a good example where you need to spend govt. money to try to solve it. I only know one private sector co. addressing the problem http://www.beeologics.com/ and they are a tiny startup.


solve what? ccd is the ultimate boogie monster. very close looks reveal no single common pathogen or toxin. symptoms may vary. there has been 
some interesting data turned up for sure, but nothing we should already be looking at if we care about what's in our food. still no one really testing honey off the shelf to see what's in it though.
i know of virtually no researcher who keeps bees without treatments, or has even seen bees kept without treatments. what do they know about how bees live in a natural system? ccd is likely the sum total of the bad breedng, treating, and environment poisoning that was originally supported by the same research institutions that are doing the current research.
certainly some people lost bees, but there has been no real shortage wrt pollination. so, what's the crisis? that stressed migratory bees die?




> Similar story for AHB here in the US, no simple field test kit. There is a good area that needs grant money.


what would one do with such a kit? you have a colony that is so hot to handle that you feel the need to test it for ahb genes. if it tests positive, you destroy it. ...what if it tests negative? you want to keep these aggressive genes in your operation?
select bees for temperment! forget these artificial metrics.


deknow


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## JBG

deknow said:


> what would one do with such a kit? you have a colony that is so hot to handle that you feel the need to test it for ahb genes. if it tests positive, you destroy it. ...what if it tests negative? select bees for temperment! forget these artificial metrics.
> 
> deknow


Are you serious? How about when a new package arrives from Texas or you get some new colonies for your orchard, don't you think it might be a wee bit helpful to quickly know if they are AHB positive? The point is that by the time you notice the agressive behavior it's too late.


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## whodoctor

Deknow,

I COMPLETELY agree that folks like Palmer and Webster are moving the craft along with their obsession for efficiency and improvements, and absolute love for the bees. That sort of enthusiasm is just awesome. Their innovation, however, is part of who they are and how their minds are wired. Rather than viewing them as superior to those folks who seek and work with grants, wouldn't it be ok to see them as different? While its true that I can relate very strongly with Palmer and Webster, having been a part of a scientific community, I can also see where the other people stand in terms of their approach.

What I don't understand is the polarizing position that you seem to be taking about right and wrong. This feels like it has the personal nature of a religious argument. Can you not suffer some of the inefficiency of the system, and lack of purity of intent, and oft misguided focus, in order to allow the potential for something positive to pop out once in a while...even if by chance or accident?


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## deknow

whodoctor said:


> What I don't understand is the polarizing position that you seem to be taking about right and wrong. This feels like it has the personal nature of a religious argument. Can you not suffer some of the inefficiency of the system, and lack of purity of intent, and oft misguided focus, in order to allow the potential for something positive to pop out once in a while...even if by chance or accident?


i'm happy to suffer some inefficiencey of the system, lack of purity, miguided focus, or even blatent corruption if we get a valuable result. but where are the valuable results?

i suspect i know who this is, and i'm happy to have this discussion. i kind of know what your beekeeping practices are, and i can't think of one thing that you do that was "discovered" or "proven" with public research money...sare grant, bee lab, or other.

useful innovation has always come from beekeepers trying to make a profit.

again, can anyone cite any useful data, discoveries, or other outcomes from sare grants or other research that has helped them in their apiary? i can name dozens from commercial beekeepers...this is where it all should come from, and it always has.

i have no desire to trash anyone's individual grant.

deknow


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## deknow

JBG said:


> Are you serious? How about when a new package arrives from Texas or you get some new colonies for your orchard, don't you think it might be a wee bit helpful to quickly know if they are AHB positive? The point is that by the time you notice the agressive behavior it's too late.


it's well documented that ahb (from kerrs own stock in brazil) was imported and distributed to us queenbreeders rather freely in the 50s. i expect if you started to test every package out of texas, you'd find them all testing positive. as it is, only the aggressive ones are tested, so there is a perception that all africanized stock is aggressive.

deknow


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## JBG

Just Texas?


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## whodoctor

Deknow,

I'm not trying to hide my identity, nor am I trying to give you a hard time. My beekeeping practices are based on tons of reading, talking with mentors and people who are smarter than me, trying new things that seem to make sense, and finally, this year, a bit of true experimentation (finally), with more experimentation to come. I am a tinkerer, like Palmer and Webster and yourself. 

I also agree that the people who are in the thick of things are the ones who are FAR more likely to discover important things that people conducting an experiment, assuming that those same people are not also in the thick of things, lol. This is true in many fields. Necessity breeds innovation and results, over time.

I love your obsession with natural beekeeping, and I share your goals 100%. As you know, I don't add chemical or medicines to my hives, and I never will. If the bees can't cut it, they don't belong in my apiary. And I do everything I can to support them and their health. I'm simply trying to soften your edge a bit. Its easier to give and take with a wider perspective, and a somewhat less sharpened edge. On the other hand, its people like you who have such strong opinions that often blaze new trails (look at Luzby, right?).

So, in the end, I might be teasing you a bit. I might also, as your friend, be trying to get you to open up your focus just a bit and leave some room for people with approaches that are not like your own.


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## deknow

JBG said:


> Just Texas?


of course not just texas, but it was the example you used 

deknow


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## deknow

my point is simply that those that argue how important sare grants and other publicly funded research should look at history, and see how unfruitful it has been. believe me, i found it shocking when michael bush pointed this out to me in arizona. but what? i can't think of a single thing.

there isn't one thing developed/discovered/refined by such research that you use in your beekeeping practice. doesn't this seem odd? doesn't t seem like research money should yield somewhat valuable results at least sometimes?

i know i'm being a bit contrary and argumentative...but if we can't cite one valuable result, we should rethink what we are doing.

deknow


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## whodoctor

Deknow,

If you had access to grant money, what would you do with it? 

If I had it, the first thing I would do is test honey from every commercial manufacturer of shelved honey, for chemicals used in the beekeeping process.

I'd like to know what that actually looks like.


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## deknow

whodoctor said:


> Deknow,
> 
> If you had access to grant money, what would you do with it?


short term? i'd do just what you suggest. i'd also setup a program to produce/mill clean wax foundation (we are working on an inexpensive solution..affordable to a single beekeeper, group, or club).

i'd also do a test the bjorn suggested here (before he "left the forum"):
get packages from different suppliers. feed them clean sugar syrup and confine them for 48 hours without foundation. test the wax they are secreting. what's in it?

localized line breeding programs (no II, no treatments, very limited outside stock).

i'd look at the microbial culture in untreated hives (i don't believe ANYONE is doing this). we are collecting samples of bees and pollen for a local university researcher to look at what viruses are present...is it really useful to collect this data from treated hives if you don't have a baseline?

that's just a start. i think the old plastics museum (or even industrial hardware) would make a great beelab 

deknow


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## JBG

deknow said:


> i know of virtually no researcher who keeps bees without treatments, or has even seen bees kept without treatments.
> deknow


How about the nation of Brazil? Why don't you come to my apiary and we will allow you to not only see bees kept without treatment but we will also standby while you test your theory of non-aggressive africanized stock.


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## adamf

deknow said:


> yes adam, but "meriting" a grant is an artificial
> metric....it is the ability to convince a committee to fund your research.
> i think self funded research is much more likely to have actual merit, to
> be useful...and to be profitable.


Perhaps, but are you then also stating that only self-funded research is
valid? This sounds like a syllogism.

Self-funded research is R&D. Whether proprietary or not.
There's nothing wrong with subsidizing R&D. Russian Queens and VSH Queens
now exist because of cooperative efforts between the government and
private enterprises. I'm sure that you'd agree that both hold merit.




deknow said:


> yes, there is lots of waste, but the problem here is (imho) more than mere
> waste. i think it's harmful for the govt to fund people's businesses.
> imagine if you've just spent $30k building a breeding program out of your
> pocket, hoping to pay off the investment and then make a profit. now, a
> neighbor gets a $30k grant to do the same thing. there is less incentive to
> be successful enough to pay off the investment quickly with a grant.


None of the SARE grants are anything like this--they're either for on-farm
research or for extension or extension/marketing. Sure some are less useful than others, but an "on-farm research" grant encourages a farmer to be curious and to risk something. Small farmers being able to take risks without having to be completely financially responsible encourages growth in Agriculture at this level, I think.



deknow said:


> adam, i'd be curious to know which ones you think have been useful, and if
> the end result was really pretty well known before the grant was
> issued.


Well, there's been a bunch of Dr. Spivak's research funded by SARE. Her lab's papers are usually pretty succinct. 
There was some interesting on-farm research for mite tolerance awhile back too. Also some very interesting non-Apicultural research funded by SARE as well. 
Anyone can search the database. Check it out.

Perhaps more people need to apply for SARE grants thus making them more competitive?

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


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## deknow

adamf said:


> Perhaps, but are you then also stating that only self-funded research is
> valid? This sounds like a syllogism.


i don't know adam. i use a lot of techniques from a lot of sources in my apiary. not one of them comes from publicly funded research. if we want to make a case that such research (sare grants specifically) are valuable, we need some examples of value created by them. is 24 beekeepers learning about nucs for $10k the best we can hope for? working through a bee club, this same thing can be acomplised for free.



> I'm sure that you'd agree that both hold merit.


perhaps merit, but that doesn't mean the govt should have funded them. neither seem to have eliminated the need for treatments by most consumers. clearly, not treating is not impossible. neither of these lines (russian or "vsh") accomplishes this. funding breeding programs for locally adapted stock would do much more good, imho.



> None of the SARE grants are anything like this--they're either for on-farm
> research or for extension or extension/marketing. Sure some are less useful than others, but an "on-farm research" grant encourages a farmer to be curious and to risk something. Small farmers being able to take risks without having to be completely financially responsible encourages growth in Agriculture at this level, I think.


again, is there a single beekeeping related sare grant that you can cite as having been useful? what growth has been accomplished?
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm/pdf/oursare/disease_resistant_bees.pdf
shows a $5k sare grant to buy namebrand queens, breed them, and learn to sell them. this is exactly the kind of grant i'm describing.





> Well, there's been a bunch of Dr. Spivak's research funded by SARE. Her lab's papers are usually pretty succinct.
> There was some interesting on-farm research for mite tolerance awhile back


that's a pretty vague summary of the useful beekeeping information obtained via sare grants. anything you use? anything of note?



> Perhaps more people need to apply for SARE grants thus making them more competitive?


i think smart people's time is better spent doing something rather than writing grant proposals. but that's just my opinion.


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## Countryboy

Government funded research tends to yield inconclusive results. Inconclusive results need more studying, and more taxpayer dollars to fund that research. The moment the study is finished and yields a conclusion, the funding stops.

Necessity is the mother if invention/innovation. Rarely is curiousity. (and grants are used to fund studies for curiousity sake) 

I enjoyed looking at the pics. Thank you.


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## adamf

deknow said:


> i don't know adam. i use a lot of techniques from a
> lot of sources in my apiary. not one of them comes from publicly funded
> research. if we want to make a case that such research (sare grants
> specifically) are valuable, we need some examples of value created by them.
> is 24 beekeepers learning about nucs for $10k the best we can hope for?
> working through a bee club, this same thing can be acomplised for
> free.


I spent three hours last night inseminating queens here--made some nice
crosses. I used my stock, some of another breeder's stock and VSH stock. I
haven't treated in 11 seasons. I produce nice honey that I sell and feed to
my family. I also sell queens to others who have given me good feedback on
their performance.

I enjoy what I do and although at times I'm thwarted by the weather (as all
folks are who work in production agriculture) I feel that our efforts here
are helping other beekeepers also.

We've taught ourselves many of our techniques. We've also had the good
fortune to have had help from others, several from the USDA. Their knowledge and
experience contributed to our growth.

A portion of the stock I used last night has some link to the USDA bee breeding program. 
I select or course, but some of the good qualities I can select for were
originally elucidated by the USDA.

When I publish my final report for my SARE grant, I'll cover what we
learned, what we can transfer to other beekeepers, and what happened. This
information will hopefully be useful to other beekeepers--thus meeting 
one of the SARE grant's goals, and our goals. The purpose of our grant was to help other beekeepers.

The grant money barely covered what we did, financially. We had to come up
with the operating money before receiving any grant money. Certainly the
grant money was utilized, but the role it played in our operation was 
minimal.

We would have done what we did for the grant experiment anyway, and we've
always shared what we do with others--the grant we received enabled us to
focus on the problem and facilitated our being able to meet and speak with
other beekeepers who are also continually conducting on-farm research with
alacrity, because they are good people with good ideas and values. Also
because they are curious and love what they do.



deknow said:


> again, is there a single beekeeping related sare grant that you can cite as
> having been useful? what growth has been accomplished?
> http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/smallfarm/pdf/oursare/disease_resistant_bees.pdf shows a $5k sare grant to buy namebrand queens, breed them, and learn to
> sell them. this is exactly the kind of grant i'm describing.


*I* found some useful SARE information. Hopefully the work we've done will
be considered useful too.



deknow said:


> i think smart people's time is better spent doing something rather than
> writing grant proposals. but that's just my opinion.


It is! And you've stated it here very well. I find looking at an issue from all sides is an extremely adaptive method when solving problems. I understand your point, and see where you derive your conclusions, but having worked on a SARE grant AND having conducted on farm research all my beekeeping life, I think BOTH are good things.


Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


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## deknow

adam, i like you, i think you are smart, and all reports are that you raise excellent queens.

i've looked at the abstract to your grant (perhaps a different grant...reporting 2008), and i'm puzzled.

your business is as a queen breeder. a successful breeder must evaluate stock.
your $4k+ grant was to evaluate mite resistant lines of queens?

i firmly believe what you posted...that you would have done this work with or without the grant (am i misreading?). i think you would share important information with others whether or not you had a grant.

so what good does the grant do? well, at the very least, it gives you a $4k headstart over someone doing something similar without a grant.

from my perspective, this is a grant to pay you to do what you (as a queen breeder) should be already doing. this is paying you to research the product you are selling. i don't see the value in funding something like this, mostly, because i don't think for a minute that you wouldn't do all of this even without the funding.

what does $4k pay for? breeder queens? cell builders? finishers? mating nucs? are you not taking speaking fees you otherwise would? where is the "outreach website"? what are you going to share?

deknow


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## beemandan

Grants allow payment for planned, organized and collected data to be placed in the public domain. Do we have a moral obligation to make that data public without those payments? That is a matter of opinion. If I invest my own time and energy, without any public assistance, then those results are proprietary and release is a matter of personal philosophy. 
Its been pointed out that some of these grants appear to only collect that data on concepts that have, already, obvious results. It reminds me of Galileo…..he insisted that the sun was the center of our solar system, while to everyone else it was obvious that the earth was the center. What sometimes seems apparent isn’t always so.
Releasing data from well-planned studies adds to the storehouse of common knowledge and although some of those studies may seem foolish to some of us the results may still apply to further investigations that do have meaning.
If the issue is should the federal government be funding these, then that’s a personal opinion and no amount of argument is going to sway someone on the other pole.


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## JBG

deknow said:


> it's well documented that ahb (from kerrs own stock in brazil) was imported and distributed to us queenbreeders rather freely in the 50s.
> deknow


A unique historical rendering of AHBs spread in South and North America. Care to offer the cite?


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## deknow

JBG said:


> A unique historical rendering of AHBs spread in South and North America. Care to offer the cite?


well, i have some documents here, but you could start with a mainstream source.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Beekeeping
edited by Roger Morse and Ted Hooper

p230
"it is known that sperm from africanized bees was introduced into the united states and used to inseminate local queens in the late 1960's, without apparent adverse effect, and it is likely that queens were earlier introduced from africa into north america, again without problems."


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## JBG

deknow said:


> iit is likely that queens were earlier introduced from africa into north america, again without problems."


So you maintain that testing for AHBs is not needed because they are indistinguishable from the result of these introductions which contaminated all of North America?


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## deknow

...i think you would find a lot of "standard stock"...the foundation of a lot of businesses, would test africanized if you tested it...which is whey bees are not routinely dna tested. sometimes cell size is used, sometimes variations in the wing veins. both of these tests are innaccurate (at best), and even dna tests for africanization don't seem to match from lab to lab.

deknow


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## JBG

So you think it is a waste of time to test for AHB in North America because it is not possible to distinguish them from our standard EHB stock?


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## deknow

yes. i don't think there is a such thing as "our ehb stock".

deknow


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## JBG

I am looking at a really interesting study out of Buenos Aires province where they address this. I don't know how to post .pdfs here but is from IBRA 2007
I found it interesting they can id haplotypes to the geographic origins of Iberia and North Africa for example. I don't know if any similar study has been done for Tx or Ga. Probably not. I realize this is way off thread but bear with me.....

http://www.ibra.org.uk/articles/20080611_115

Which seems to indicate a more pure European stock preserved in BA Argentina than in the US perhaps. At least they did the research there. Shows how some other big Ag countries value Apiary resch.


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## deknow

JBG said:


> Shows how some other big Ag countries value Apiary resch.


you do realize that the reason ahb was brought to brazil and the u.s. (by their respective goverments) was ag research?...to improve honey production. you do realize this was actually successful (especially in brazil).

do you realize the political (non-beekeeping related) issues wrt to dr kerr?
http://www.badbeekeeping.com/kerr.htm

deknow


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## deknow

beemandan said:


> Grants allow payment for planned, organized and collected data to be placed in the public domain. Do we have a moral obligation to make that data public without those payments? That is a matter of opinion. If I invest my own time and energy, without any public assistance, then those results are proprietary and release is a matter of personal philosophy.


in theory, i agree 100%. historically, however, beekeepers (pros and hobbyists alike) _have shared_ their results rather freely. not only that, but the publicly funded research has returned very little (if any) practical results. none that anyone has bothered to name. the introduction of ahb genetics may well be the biggest success of such funding.

so, do we justify such things based on theory, or the practical result?



> Its been pointed out that some of these grants appear to only collect that data on concepts that have, already, obvious results.


yes, of course. common knowledge is often wrong, but funding people in business to research the products they are selling (overwintered nucs and resistant queens as examples) is hardly the objective perspective needed.

deknow


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## deknow

whodoctor said:


> Deknow,
> 
> If you had access to grant money, what would you do with it?


i'd like to add to this.

over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of discussion of imidacloprid, and its effect on the bees.

i know 2 people (both from different parts of europe) who have told me that their bees died from imidacloprid poisoning. when i asked about lab results, they had not had them tested..expensive, and frowned upon by the authorities.

i'd like to get a fund together to pay for tests of such claims. if imidacloprid is a widespread problem for bees, we should figure it out sooner rather than later. if these claims are accurate, it should be easy to start putting together a world map with pushpins everywhere there is a confirmed kill. this would be data rather than assumption.

i don't know. part of me suspects that the reluctance to have these hives tested might be that the beekeeper is using something they don't want known. it also might simply be the political climate. either way, if we could supply a shipping container for the samples, paid postage to the nearest lab, and pay the lab directly, we could start to collect real data, and have a real idea if this is of concern in realworld situations or not.

deknow


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## JBG

deknow said:


> you do realize that the reason ahb was brought to brazil and the u.s. (by their respective goverments) was ag research?...to improve honey production. you do realize this was actually successful (especially in brazil).
> 
> deknow


If you read my posts you will see that I do beekeeping with AHBs in Brazil at my fazenda in Teresopolis, RJ. 

So AHB is now in the US because of US ag research?


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## deknow

...they were here decades before they "marched north".

deknow


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## JBG

deknow said:


> ...they were here decades before they "marched north".
> 
> deknow


AHBs were in the US decades before they marched north. OK, how about Central America and Mexico, were they there too?


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## deknow

my impression (which may be wrong) is that some of the later stock brought in was in fact kerr's stock. where/when other lines may have come into the picture are anyone's guess.

i do have documentation in front of me that places dr. kerr at the madison bee lab in 1951.
from "third quarter 1951, madison laboratory
"brief abstract for administrative use only"
"dr. warwick kerr, university of sao paulo, brazil, spent 2 months visiting the madison laboratory where he worked on cytological problems in bees in conjunction with ......He was the most stimulating foreign visitor this laboratory has entertained..."

it's also worth noting that in some of these old documents, you find references to the crosses they are testing being very hot:
"...bee gloves and coveralls, frowned upon by progressive beekeepers as cumborsome and unnecessary, had to be used even during the height of the honey flow to avoid an unbearable amount of punishment". this is from december of 1951. are these africanized lines? i can't tell. but looking through these things, you find over and over that attempts to breed a "superbee" often led to unacceptable behavior.

so, i can't answer your question. if i come up with anything, i'll let you know.

deknow


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## JBG

So were these lab bees getting released in the US back in the 50s?
Kerr's stock in Brazil that resulted in what is tagged as AHB is post 1956 and
generally accepted as acccidental via documentation and the empirical observations of how AHB spread in Brazil. Regardless, I think I agree about attempts to use current tech to engineer a super bee/super anything. Kerr was not doing anything like what is possible today of course.


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## mythomane

What you need to do deknow, is set up a website (or put in your book) all information relating to AHB supporting this theory of yours. Or, perhaps more appropriately, Dee's theory that you have jumped coattails on. I think also that you have a more of a rosy picture about AHB being up in Massachusetts, as you do not have to deal with the monsters that live down here in Texas. How long have you actually been keeping bees? Many theories do not play out over time. You should also maybe think about extrapolating on Dee's other theories for your book -- that there are native American bees for example. At EAS there was a short talk on CCD, and its history in the media. Apparently, this has been going on for the last 100 years, and CCD is nothing new...
I talked to Mary Ann Fraser and she would be very happy to help any keeper with testing. $200 covers something like 150 marks. Also, you seem to doubt a little the successes of the Russian keepers (Webster), or the hygenic bonuses of VSH strains but many of them are not treating and they are not on small cell either.


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## deknow

i'm not sure what you think i'm saying is a "theory".

it's well documented that the usda brought stock from kerr, bred from it, and distributed it to breeders in the u.s. this is in even some of the mainstream litterature (illustrated encyclopedia of beekeeping, for example). usda breeding programs described crosses that were very hot before ahb came into the picture.

no breeders that i'm aware of have their stock genetically tested for AHB. if keeping ahb out of breeding stock were important, this would be routine. as it stands, the only tests done are on bees that are already established to be aggressive.

if you read the original documentation of FABIS (it's here on beesource, i believe), you will see that the researchers say clearly that a baseline of the local population must first bee established....as far as i know, this has never been done in the u.s. ...and likewise, the same would be necessary for dna tests.

i have done my own reading and research on the above...i'm not taking anyone's word for it (dee's or anyone elses). what about the above do you think is not fact?

wrt native american bees, i have not seen the primary sources that dee claims to have seen. i have no reason to doubt dee (as she has consistantly proven to be correct in even some of her more outragous sounding claims), but i don't claim things as fact based on someone elses opinion.

ccd is a set of symptoms, like puking is a symptom. food poisoning and the flu have similar symptoms, but are very different diseases with different causes. certainly most (if not all) of the ccd symptoms are not new (perhaps the exception is the not being robbed out), but since there is no consensous on the cause, it's premature to claim that "it is nothing new"...it might be, it might not be. i expect that the not being robbed out symptom (if it is new) is because pollen isn't fermenting properly, and therefore not attracting robber bees, wax moths, etc.

wrt the russian beekeepers, kirk is a good friend (and we buy his honey in bulk to sell with his name on it, fwiw...and it's an extrodinary honey). he certainly makes a living without treating with his russian stock...but it's not so easy. he also keeps 3 nucs as backup for every production colony. to my way of thinking, that's more resource intensive than i'd like to be, and not an operational method that i'd like to copy. fwiw, he is not "small cell", but he does use a 5.1mm mill for his foundation, so he is not "large cell" either. i hate to discuss someone's operation who isn't online here, and kirk especially, has often been misrepresented by others.

there are certainly beekeepers using russian stock, and some of them don't treat for varroa (i'm not sure about other things). there are, however, very few people that buy russian stock that don't treat, at least as far as i can tell. how many do you actually know about outside of the members of the breeding program? i know of 2 including kirk for sure.

as far as what you think should go into a book, what you suggest is not what our publisher wants for this book, and not what we are being paid to do. i've offered quite a bit of documentation here for free, and when i have spare time, i'll do so more.....but for the time being, we have deadlines, sales, marketing, and production of our products...and rent to pay on our certified food production facillity...as well as dealing with a backlog of video tapes, and planning next year's treatment free conference (which will have camping available, and be much more extensive than this year's was). understand that ramona and i held and financed a 3 day conference with no support from local or state bee clubs, kept the cost more than reasonable, and were able to pay all speakers (plus transport and lodging), all kitchen help, 6 meals with all food issues being addressed, and didn't lose money. this is to say, there is a lot on our plates, and we simply don't have the time to do everything we want to do, nevermind what others want us to do.

deknow


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## winevines

Some of the posts in this thread directed towards SARE grants in beekeeping have plagued me for years. Today I just want to say that I am awestruck that our SARE project not only added some evidence based practice to the universe, changed the way beekeeping is taught and practiced in our club and in our region, helped teach someone some skills they used to put a home reared queen in the WH Beehive, assisted countless people here and beyond, AND resulted in a photo of beekeeping and a nucleus colony as part of the Southern SARE display. That puts beekeeping and a nucleus colony to boot, right in there on the public face of agriculture, right above the USDA logo and some other great photos of agricultural pursuits. Whatever you think of the USDA or federal funds for this type of activity this is a good thing in my view. Is this going to change the world? One nuc at a time it just might change this little corner of it. 
http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l224/winevines/Photos to Post/?action=view&current=display.jpg


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