# AHB The class room 3 to 4 pounds?



## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

Q AHB . . . A Farce??!!



Jerry, I intend to throw a question at you on Africanized honey bees. First, do you live in the Africanized zone? Second, do you live with them all the time? I do and yes they are mean, but let’s get the swarm show put into the fire where it belongs and quit the scare tactics on people. I handle these kind of bees a lot and yes they sting more than Italian bees, but to scare people into thinking that they are a killing machine from you-know-where and you must kill or be killed is a farce. How do you think the people in Africa handle this kind of bee? I really would like to know. 
Gene from Arizona 


A



Well, Gene, let me bring you up to speed with our situation in Florida. Tell the lady who lost the 900 pound horse to AHB they are a farce*. During the autopsy the veterinarian found three to four pounds of bees in the lungs and stomach. *Not funny. Or, how about the owners of the eight dogs that have died or the goats or sheep that this situation is overblown. Or, maybe the dozen people sent to the hospital that they were victims of scare tactics. I could go on with the events that have brought our attention to the transition to AHB in Florida. Our expanding population of AHB has been tracked for the last several years as they apparently came off of ship traffic directly from South America, Central America and Mexico to our many deep water ports. We have had approximately 500 AHB swarm traps at the deep water ports for many years knowing that these were possible entry points. But obviously, not all swarms hitchhiking on this ship traffic chose to occupy these traps and entered the environment. 
In a tropical and sub-tropical climate, more like their home than Arizona, they are reproducing in the void in the environment left by varroa decimating the EHB population before varroa. All voids are filled and AHB is doing that as it reproduces, swarms and absconds, primarily in South Florida at this time. We are in the beginning of this transition to a 100% AHB feral population. My ultimate job as Chief of the Apiary Section of the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services is to protect the citizens and visitors to Florida. Add to this, protecting the large beekeeping Industry, Florida production Agriculture and keeping our public safe and this has been a major undertaking for us the last couple of years

Comment please on the 3 to 4 pounds
Ernie


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Is that the horse in Pharump NV?*

Some horses were taken out by the tropical hybrid there a few years back. There have been reports from South America and Central America, that the initial swarms from these tropical lines are more deffensive than latter populations.

Steve Taber worked with this bee (he was among the first in the Continental U.S.) and he expressed in his book "Breeding Super Bees" that their exists a varriation of temperment in these tropical hybrids.

For decades (Since the fifties) the USDA used a program of "Europeanizing this tropical bee, settling on "Africanized" as a term, which in any other use would be blatantly racist. The terms are not the only problem, the system of "Europeanizing" this bee never showed any results at all for all of those decades.

To date, i have not read of any researcher who has attempted to breed out a better, calmer bee from this obviously superior stock, all the efforts are based upon destroying the bee (good for contractual pest control folks and their petrochem foundations). 

During all the surveys on CCD i kept asking if anyone was testing the ferral populations of the tropical hybrid. All i heard was that it was too much trouble. I suspect when a population is excluded, esspecially one that has shown resistance to other problems thus far, that those who examine do not want to know the answer, that or they have an undisclosed agenda. Thos tropical hybrids need to be included simply (if for no other reason) to determine the true nature of the pathogen or pathogens (biological or chemical/genetic), so that all information is added into the investigation.

Thus, though the tropical bee certainly does have its sure down side, it is not a one size IS all as it is portrayed in film and the news. At this date i would certainly expect it is going to play into the genetic scheme of bees in much of the south and southwest. I would not expect this to be a breeding area in the U.S. in fifty years anyway--those days are simply past and beekeeping needs to be re-thought in the deep south and southwest. It remains to be seen who and what will be done?

Chrissy


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

<*Tell the lady who lost the 900 pound horse to AHB they are a farce*>

To put this in perspective. There are records of <entire teams of horses> dying from defensive bees here in the USA. Especially in the late 19c when the Italian / Black cross often produced a particularly defensive bee. And also a spike in attacts in the early 20c when the introduced Cyprian bee caused problems.

<*how about the owners of the eight dogs that have died or the goats or sheep that this situation is overblown.*> 

Nothing unusual here either. There are records of flocks of geese, dogs, and other farm animals dying from bee attacks for several hundred years now.

<*Or, maybe the dozen people sent to the hospital that they were victims of scare tactics.* >

Again, history will show many human deaths due to bee attacks occurred much prior to AHB invasion.

There is a propensity to blame "all AHB" for bee attacks. But by exterminating all AHB, some suggest this will only delay any progress towards the development of a gentler strain, and that blaming AHB is simply another scare tactic, for not all AHB are extremely defensive. 

From where I Sit
By Mark L. Winston 1998, page 52

“Guzman and Page made another interesting discovery about
Africanized bee detection. In one sense, it’s not all that important
to diagnose individual bees as Africanized or not; it is a colony’s 
behavior, not genetics, that we need to examine. Would a gentle
Africanized bee cause a problem, or should we simply bee screening
against the extreme defensive behavior that some colonies exhibit, no
matter what there genetic origin?” 

Best Wishes,
Joe
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Very well said, naturebee.

Earlier I was about to waste the time of honeybee scientists and send some samples to be checked for Africanization, but decided against doing it. Instead I simply continue raising queens, growing Nucs, and eliminating any and all colonies/queens that exhibit any undesirable traits - particularly defensive or those considered nervous. 

Personally, gentle, vigorous, and productive bees are the limit of my honeybee racial prejudice - whether their ancestors came from Northern Europe or South Africa makes no difference to me.


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Just to put things into perspective how many times does the average (non-allergic) adult male need to be stung before it presents a health risk?


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## josethayil (Jul 17, 2008)

There are reports from Africa about breeding a very gentle bees using apis mellifera scuttellata as the only base stock. Selective breeding was the only method used for this. There are other races in africa which are very gentle and disease resistant and pest resistant(varroa resistant) like the Monticola bees(Apis mellifera monticola). They are bees of the tropics and they dont abscond. They do produce large colonies. They can be used to produce a gentle stock in africanized areas by cross breeding them with the existing africanized population. 

There are reports that Brother Adam used these bees in the making of Buckfast line. The present day Elgon Bees are a cross of Buckfast and Monticola bees making them very gentle and varroa resistant.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

JPK1NH said:


> Just to put things into perspective how many times does the average (non-allergic) adult male need to be stung before it presents a health risk?


The figure has been floating around that it would take 5 to 10 stings per pound to kill a person. 

But the numbers are deceiving, because stings to the inside of the mouth and throat pose a much higher health risk. I would suggest that any number of stings from a single sting up, has the potential to pose a health risk. 

Best Wishes,
Joe


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

naturebee said:


> The figure has been floating around that it would take 5 to 10 stings per pound to kill a person.
> 
> But the numbers are deceiving, because stings to the inside of the mouth and throat pose a much higher health risk. I would suggest that any number of stings from a single sting up, has the potential to pose a health risk.
> 
> ...




The thought of being stung 2000 times is unpleasant to say the least.


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## BigDaddyDS (Aug 28, 2007)

JPK1NH said:


> The thought of being stung 2000 times is unpleasant to say the least.



Then I suggest you lose weight! Then, it'd only take, say, a thousand stings before you're done in! 

(Ha-ha! Sorry...)
DS


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

BigDaddyDS said:


> Then I suggest you lose weight! Then, it'd only take, say, a thousand stings before you're done in!
> 
> (Ha-ha! Sorry...)
> DS


lol

200 lbs x 10/lb 

"Get in my Belly!"


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Deffensive bees and genetics*

Actually it is genetic selection of A. m. sc., genetics are not a hard wire situation, but rather a number of genes that produce defensive behaviour. If you go look at Dee Lusby's video on Google video you will see a behaviour i call "Popcorning." This is when there is a great deal of flight from a colony and they bees exihibit defense that is mock attacks. Given the size of the colonies in the video and the low amount of smoke used, these bees might be even more gentle than they seem.

In the sixties i placed a super on a colony headed by a Hasting's Caucasian (or perhaps a hybrid daughter) and within seconds i was stung in the hundreds of times through canvas gloves. In all my beekeeping that was the worst situation i ever faced in such a short period of time. The weather, cool, damp, in the fifties, perhaps was the reason i suffer so fast from this large colony.

So there are two behaviours, stings without popcorning, direct crawling and stinging and the popcorning without much stinging. If you have kept bees for awhile then you could add to this list of characteristics. Some bees, even in poor conditions in the environment seldom stir from an open hive, others help the truck ride in. That is a set of characteristics that all exist on a slider.

If you think of overall defensive behaviour of tropical bees on a large slider, A on the left (representing the very worst collection of ALL behaviors) overt to the right at Z. Initially it may be hard to identify enough factors to represent 26 behaviours, but with close attention a breeder can record and reference behaviours. This is exactly how general breeding genetics move forward with honeybees and since there is evidence that different lines of tropical hybrids also posses these variable factors, a person can develop a bee from these lines alone that would be commercially viable.

Chrissy


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Chrissy, can I assume that the "Popcorning" behavior (w and w/o stinging) is the rapid headbutting that you sometimes get from many bees in a short period of time?

Do you find that going into a hive when the temp is cooler (mid 50s to mid 60's) generates a more defensive reaction than going in when temps are solidly into the 70's/low 80's?

Any correlation with relative humidity?


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Chrissy Shaw said:


> Actually it is genetic selection of A. m. sc., genetics are not a hard wire situation, but rather a number of genes that produce defensive behaviour. If you go look at Dee Lusby's video on Google video you will see a behaviour i call "Popcorning." This is when there is a great deal of flight from a colony and they bees exihibit defense that is mock attacks. Given the size of the colonies in the video and the low amount of smoke used, these bees might be even more gentle than they seem.
> Chrissy


I’m not sure that it can be determined from the video that those were ‘mock’ attacks. The video shows beekeepers in 'space suits' with no exposure to stings what so ever, with what appears to be extreme fury of the defending bees. I have difficulty in believing that a space suit would be needed to defend against mock attacks. 

Regardless of how the video is interpreted, one thing that is sure, is that the traits exhibited on the video; popcorning, running on combs, flying off combs are all traits that are ‘management characteristics’ and correlated with defensive behavior, these are traits that must be selected against. 

Joe


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

wrt the videos, those "space suits" are comprised of dadant inspector jackets (that were on sale), painters pants from walmart (dee was wearing khakis from the thrift store), and dishwashing gloves.

this is hardly what i would consider "full protection"...not what i would wear if i were walking into a situation that i considered dangerous. bees can, do, and did sting through painters pants...but not enough that i felt i needed more protection.

going through 100+ hives in a day with barely any hives smoked (because we were doing splits), you do accumulate alarm scent, and there are lots of bees in the air.

another aspect of these bees that is generally overlooked: these bees live in open rangeland. there are no fences around the bees. in almost every yard, there was at least one hive that had been knocked over by cattle (either for scratching, or to get access to the honey and/or pollen). these cattle largely take care of themselves...it isn't uncommon to see parts of cactus hanging off their lips or skin. given this, there is a definite selection for "cow resistant bees". any hive that is not defensive enough to respond to cattle _before_ the hive is knocked over is....likely to be knocked over.


deknow


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Selection criteria*

Hi Joe and JPK,

What counts as things to select against really is up to the breeder's criteria. When i first was around people with over fifty colonies in the 60s, bees of the nature shown in Dee's video were common up here in the NW. The bees i sold last year (40 nucs w/queens from multiple sources and home grown) were amazingly gentle overall except in one case.

The genetics represent the potential for behaviour, the environment is where those potentials are arrived at. Even within a single colony, containing a queen with seven or more contributions from the male side for the workers genetics and the queens own combination, how bees act varies in sub families.

Overall, the environment is even more unknowable. Buying some queens in California many years back, the workers coming in from the field in the almonds, said that the bees were nasty becuase of the wild mustard being sprayed. Too hot, nectar sources, humidity too high/low, wind and a million other things can act seperate or in concert to effect the temperment of bee yard. Time of day, shade, pests, yard location can be part of effects that are specific in a yard.

Small colonies are just as easy to evaluate as are large ones, so checking how your bees act in defense can be done in nucs that have a population of bees at least ten weeks from when that particular queen laid her first egg. It is better to wait even longer to be sure where the bees you are judging came from.

This applies to all bee breeding for selection, but can be adapted to the tropical bee. One really should have some hardy experience with bees before you dive in with the tropical bees and some direct experience would be my best guess. A beekeeping trip to operators in Mexico or further south would be in order.

Chrissy


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

also, citing a few instances where people and livestock are killed seems a little silly. don't get me wrong...these instances are tragic. but of course, 50,000 people die every year in car accidents, pets are killed by coyotes, wolves, fisher cats, 175-300 children die in farm related injuries every year, dog attacks, ...and 1 in 17 people worldwide die from mosquito bites.

a childhood friend of mine died from bee stings (i assume he was allergic, but i don't know the details).

if we want to be concerned about the risks of "killer bees", let's first decide what reasonable risks are in a more general manner, and evaluate them within this context rather than in a sensationalistic one....and also look at other aspects of our lives in this country and on this planet in the same context.

deknow


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Finding what works*

The huge yards, loaded with full colonies, weather bad, bees all home and bouncing off everything that moves...those type yards were around long before the tropical bee arrived and yes there were plenty of people killed, even beekeepers.

I really like the idea of locating the strengths of the tropical bee, there are certainly drawbacks, absconding and small colonies, multiple swarms per-season, but in the end all of these features are subject to breeding and evaluation. Where the parent stock of these tropical hybrids come from in Africa, traditionally the bees were worked at night because of the dangers and lack of protection. Even in their homeland there is great variation in how these bees act. The proof of value is that these bees are still able to out-breed others. Imagine now developing a higher quality bee from these hybrid stocks that can KEEP a genetic accendancy or at least par with ferral populations around them?

The cost of keeping American hybrids from European stock is not cost effective against a bee that holds the field in mating. Since these tropical hybrids are so adept at this, this one feature is of high value to a breeder. Re-thinking how one might use this bee is long overdue. It remains illegal (as far as i know) to knowing keep this hybrid anywhere in the U.S. That is the major glitch to making real progress here with the bee.

Chrissy


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

deknow said:


> wrt the videos, those "space suits" are comprised of dadant inspector jackets (that were on sale), painters pants from walmart (dee was wearing khakis from the thrift store), and dishwashing gloves.
> this is hardly what i would consider "full protection"...
> deknow


I do consider that full protection. I wear jeans with dadant jacket and hood, and either dishwashing gloves or blue dot work gloves, OR occasionally bee gloves which I hate to wear. Even though stings do occasionally penetrate jeans and gloves, I do consider this full protection, and is exactly what I wear to break down the hottest colonies.

What I would like to see, is those bees worked without gloves. Then claims of “mock attacks” , ‘bluffing bees’ and popcorn bees could be more easily determined by the person working the bees, as well as the video photographer and those viewing the video. In any event, the type of behavior exhibited on the video is often described by experts as what should be selected against.

I will go on record saying, that if a person is working a colony in a manner that would cause it to exhibit the behavior of panic, running, flying and defending; similar to that of a bear inspecting a colony:
http://www.sharkle.com/video/112355/

Not using smoke OR rough handling of hives and frames shoud be NEVER be an excuse for the colonies behavior as well as the beekeepers behavior.
I would consider this “treatment of a bee colony in an inhumane manner” 

This means the withholding of sufficient smoke needed to calm the colony, and movement of frames in a manner that makes the colony overly excited when options less violent are available, is IMO inhumane treatment of bees. 

Joe


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

naturebee said:


> In any event, the type of behavior exhibited on the video is often described by experts as what should be selected against.


yes, i have read what these experts say about bees and bee breeding. i'm curious, can you cite even one that both agrees with your above statement _and_ either has bees that are never treated, or advocates the breeding of bees without treatments? if these "experts" are so wise, where are their clean bees? clean honey? clean comb? clean pollen? clean practices? how are their bees recovering from ccd?



> This means the withholding of sufficient smoke needed to calm the colony, and movement of frames in a manner that makes the colony overly excited when options less violent are available, is IMO inhumane treatment of bees.


good thing bees are insects and not humans .

seriously though, that's quite a bit of judgement you are dishing out. given how we know migratory beekeeping is practiced, how treatments that kill brood, negatively affect the queen, and simply mask symptoms infection raging below the surface are all par for the course...it seems funny to call bees that are not being smoked in order to keep the nurse bees with the brood in order to make strong splits with a very, very good chance of thriving "inhumane". how do you feel about pinching unproductive queens? scratching open sealed brood to look for mites? using bees to sting intentionally for medical purposes? working bees on a rainy day because it is the only possible time to do so? is it inhumane to keep bees from swarming?


also, your claim:


> The video shows beekeepers in 'space suits' with no exposure to stings what so ever


doesn't quite jibe with your later claim:


> Even though stings do occasionally penetrate jeans and gloves, I do consider this full protection


"no exposure to stings whatsoever" does not leave room for being stung.

deknow


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*As Years Role by*

Migratory beekeeping and bottom lines are part of large operations. I worked for JZ's--BZ's and Mr. Jim Payson had a manner of nuc making that involved rolling singles into a building under a red light, i found queens, the next person madea nuc from that, the next person added a caged queen in that one and honey was added to both and then these were all stacked right back on top of each other on a hand truck and Dave Hansvold or Charles Ario would tote them out to the field yards on one tons--this went on day after day with the semi loads of bees brought in until there were 7000 made up. I assure you it was not the most perfect conditions in which to work in.

Jim called that "assembly-line nuc making". I will tell you this about Mr. Jim Paysen, he made money with bees and hauled honey in his own tanker trailers and pulled it with his own truck. He was a business man.

Unless you are making an entire living off your beekeeping enterprise, you have no idea what it takes.

The idea is breeding is a set of optimums. In the old days (before the 80s) the main way a commercial beekeeper determined what queen to breed from often was as simple as asking commercial beekeepers to give in trade, or sell their best queens for breed stock with only one criteria entertained; how much honey will she get me?

The standards in place today favor the post-mite beekeepers, small, many back yard folks who demand gentle bees. I promise you from the bottom of my heart folks, that most of the bees i have seen since my return have been utter angels. 

If you hate killing bees so much that it bothers your deepest moments of sleep, please don't get more than a few colonies. 

***​
The tropical hybrids bees will never be lambs as are some of the more northern honeybees, but there is a place, a point to which they can be drawn to with breeding. It will not happen in one season, it would take a good and solid tens years at the very least once the actual selection and set up was made. It would take around one hundred working hives (five hundred would be better) and a group of one hundred lines selected from a set of characteristics. This is not a project for a backyard beekeeper to dabble in on weekends and you can see there is cost invovled as well, work (lord the work) as well, but it does not mean it can not be done--it just means no one has done it to the degree required to arrive at the bee wanted.

Now as to the question of will it work? Of course, just look how gentle your bees are today! The bees Dee is working in those videos are no more pesky than the standard bee of my early years in beekeeping. The market asked for gentle and you now have it, don't discount success, esspecially when it was done for you.

Chrissy


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

deknow said:


> yes, i have read what these experts say about bees and bee breeding. i'm curious, can you cite even one that both agrees with your above statement _


Well, Brother Adam for one. Which BTW, many of Dees breeding requisites highly mirror that previously written by the Bro. I’m not going to dig it up for you, its there in his writings, you can find it yourself. 



deknow said:


> and_ either has bees that are never treated, or advocates the breeding of bees without treatments? if these "experts" are so wise, where are their clean bees? clean honey? clean comb? clean pollen? clean practices? how are their bees recovering from ccd?


Here you are interjecting something that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, which is the <’inhumane handling of bees while working them’> therefore I will not answer.



deknow said:


> seriously though, that's quite a bit of judgement you are dishing out. given how we know migratory beekeeping is practiced, how treatments that kill brood, negatively affect the queen, and simply mask symptoms infection raging below the surface are all par for the course...it seems funny to call bees that are not being smoked in order to keep the nurse bees with the brood in order to make strong splits with a very, very good chance of thriving "inhumane". how do you feel about pinching unproductive queens? scratching open sealed brood to look for mites? using bees to sting intentionally for medical purposes? working bees on a rainy day because it is the only possible time to do so? is it inhumane to keep bees from swarming?


Again, you comments <have nothing to do with the point I made>, which is the <’inhumane handling of bees while working them’> , when options are available to work them in a more gentler fashion. You attempt to string me out into defending other positions, and I will not fall for the trickery. 

Would you rough house your dog, throwing it down, and hog tie it for a routine inspection for fleas? OR would you calm the dog, talk nice and reassure the dog in a gentler manner? 
There are humane choices in working bees also!

Again, the manner in which the colonies in the video were handled was completely unnecessary. I agree with comments from I think it was PB on Bee-L in which he stated “man, those bees were pissed!” 


Joe


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*I do understand*

I do understand the concept of nice, peaceful colonies and smaller beekeeping. I hope you all get that. So if you think i am against small beekeeping, that is not true at all. I do not like killing bees at all, but i am a beekeeper and from years and years of experience in nearly every phase of this vocation i can promise you that the more tao centered your beekeeping is, the smaller you are wise to be.

I love working without gloves and most of the time i can with the bees i have had of late. One in forty gave me real problems and that one also stung me and my two dogs for my wearing "Off" when the biting flies were bad, the flies went after my ear holes, eyes and mouth, the bees went after all of us. This small colony also went after me when i spread compost, just the one, i could watch the bees fly out from that one and come right after me. I requeened them, they turned her out and raised yet another just as nasty a mother to them all. 

Selection, selection and on and on. Other colonies from a certain breeder built comb between the frames. I was using the PF-100 and measured the cells, all was right, they just did not like my nine in a ten spacing and thus, this one trait exculded them for consideration as future breeders, that and they were not the most gentle bees in the yard. Another breeder sent queens in which all were rejected. It may be nosema, weather, or perhaps i treated the group in a different way, but they could not be examined for other traits.

You do not need to know genetics to select gentically, you just need to know what you want and what you don't want in the generations you breed out. Since breeding a trait involves the loss of some other thing most times, there is a balance. It comes down to balance. The tropical hybrid has a broad gentic base, select wide enough in its range and you will have a huge pool of material to reduce a good bee from.

Chrissy


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

*Unless you are making an entire living off your beekeeping enterprise, you have no idea what it takes.-Chrissy

Perhaps the above, innocent comments, perhaps an attempt at belittling.
I'm not offended, but lets keep it honest and move on here…

*The standards in place today favor the post-mite beekeepers, small, many back yard folks who demand gentle bees.-Chrissy 

I disagree here, you can go back over 100 years and see the same demands. A demand for a gentler bee is what led to the replacement of the black bee with the Italian. I have newspaper clips from the later part of the 19 century on the Historical Honeybee Articles site that show this GREAT demand for a gentler bee, and is often stated in these articles as THE reason to replace the black bee with the Italian. 

I would further argue that the standards set in the USA where always in favor of the back yard beekeeper, as well they should be, as history shows beekeeping in early America as a backyard venture for hundreds of years. Just one eyewitness listed below:

“A British Army Officer who served during this ’Revolution’ commented that, whereas in Pennsylvania ‘almost every farmhouse has 7 or 8 hives of bees, in New England (there are) very few’ (Woodward, 1953).” 
(Source: Eva Crane, World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, Pg. 304) 

I see your argument as an attempt to portray the industry as making concessions to the demands of back yard beekeepers, and I do not agree with that assessment. One must consider that commercial beekeeping is perhaps demanding concessions on the industry, put in place by the back yard beekeeper which was well established for hundreds of years prior to commercial beekeeping as we know it today; made possible by gas powered engines and interstates. 

*If you hate killing bees so much that it bothers your deepest moments of sleep, please don't get more 
than a few colonies.-Chrissy 

I don’t mind killing bees, but I do mind the unnecessary killing of bees. 

Joe


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*That is sure history Joe*

What happened in the 20th Century though was the advent of commerical beekeeping via the use of larger and larger trucks. That set about what is the modern history of beekeeping in the U.S. Extremely few beekeepers would have thought about a thousand colonies before the Interstate system was developed very well. As commerical beekeeping grew, the desires of the larger beekeepers became the determining force of pressure on breeders of honeybees. It became an industry as it is today aside migratory beekeeping. The gentle bee was not the priority with the commercial guys, as it was in JZ's case, the most critical concern was cash flow, so honey production was the critical element sought.

During the mid-eighties (the first year i had a yard inspected for mites) there began a crash of many of the large operations due to the mites. That forced breeders (who once could rely upon thousand and thousands of queens and packages sold to commerical outfits) to be forced to listen to what smaller operators wanted from their bees. Thus, as a more time-tollerant group of beekeepers came to the front of the demand area of the market, the wise breeders did what a few already had done (Binford Weaver has peaceful bees in the 70's) just to keep a cash flow themselves.

With the loss of the pool of commerical operators breeding stock, selection was edged back to the breeder and as a result the bees of today (in most cases) can be worked rather easier.

In 1971 i watched bees literally flow out of colonies in the Cascades, these were stock Italians from that years packages, they'd attacked the truck when we arrived, they attacked me as i slept overnight to where i had to get up and suit up when i awoke. That was the worst yard for overall behavior, but these (my friends bees) made honey for him and that was all he cared about. He bought hundreds of queen every year, hundreds of packages as well, he was not about to turn on those "nice" bees.

What i mean is that things have really changed and when one is operating five hundred or a thousand or more colonies, what one does is not the same as when one has fifty, or twenty...it is a different world, different as knocking on doors of friends houses and knocking on doors to sell vacuum cleaners. JZ,(Jim Paysen), when he interviewed me to work for him said, "I hope your not one of those people who likes to study bees--we don't have time." What works in a small operation, a sideline or a back yard situation is often not allowed due to time or cost in larger operations. 

With breeding moving north and the south and southwest left to fend for themselves from pressures such as the politics of the almonds, citrus and the tropical hybrid, likely South American importation as well of honeybees, the grasp of what this means is perhaps vital. Back yard beekeeping, already a feared activity by many outside of bees could be outlawed totally, even at county wide levels in the south and southwest. I am of the opinion that an effort should be made to produce a viable bee from the hybrid. Personally, the abject destruction of every ferral colony found i find a bit over the top, but it is done regularly in some places now. It keeps the pest control guys busy. 

Since 1956 no one has fully done what i suggest here and was suggested by Steve Taber long before i dug in. Take that bee, superior in so many ways, and bring it on line as a usable honeybee.

Chrissy


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

joe, the point is that what you consider unnecessary (not using smoke in specific circumstances) _is_ considered necessary by the beekeeper who, in this case, has had enormous success.

traits that you consider unacceptable (and cite "experts" to boot) _are_ considered acceptable and productive to the beekeeper who has had enormous success.

i'm not sure why i have to point out to you that an operation that doesn't use or require treatments or inputs has tangible advantages over one that does, and that the "experts" have not been able to demonstrate or deliver this...yet you cite them for their vast knowledge in what should be bred for and what bred against.

you certainly don't have to answer anything you consider somehow "off topic", but this is all related. the traits and management practices that you are claiming are inhumane, unacceptable, or cruel are considered essential by successful beekeepers that have a leg up on the "experts". so are they inhumane? unacceptable? you say no...i (and others) say yes...of course there are many who think that smoking bees and taking their honey is inhumane. you don't buy their schpeil, and i don't buy yours. it isn't a big deal, it is a matter of opinion.

if these traits and practices aren't somehow necessary, let's see a comparable operation that doesn't use them...any examples to cite?

deknow


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

*The gentle bee was not the priority with the commercial guys, as it was in JZ's case, the most critical concern was cash flow, so honey production was the critical element sought.-Chrissy

Yes I agree, and it is clear that the priority change was a relatively recent concession made within the commercial industry of today for the benefit of themselves.

*During the mid-eighties (the first year i had a yard inspected for mites) there began a crash of many of the large operations due to the mites. That forced breeders (who once could rely upon thousand and thousands of queens and packages sold to commerical outfits) to be forced to listen to what smaller operators wanted from their bees.-Chrissy

Please elaborate exactly how that would force them to rely on smaller beekeepers…?
...If commercial operations were crashing, would that not increase demand for packages and queens sold to these failing commercial operations and away from smaller operations?
But you propose the opposite effect occurred. Who then replaced these crashing colonies by the thousands, in commercial beekeeping?

My personal opinion is that there is MUCH more to it than a single factor (mites) causing in a major shift in demand. I would propose that the resurgence in backyard beekeeping, in combination with environmental concerned homesteaders, a surge in organic farming, as well as the internet effect, all together allowed the backyard beekeeper to be restored to a dominate force in American beekeeping not realized since the 19th century.

Joe


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

*joe, the point is that what you consider unnecessary (not using smoke in specific circumstances) _is_ considered necessary by the beekeeper who, in this case, has had enormous success.-Deknow

I am not arguing against the success of a beekeeper.

*traits that you consider unacceptable (and cite "experts" to boot) _are_ considered acceptable and productive to the beekeeper who has had enormous success.-Deknow

But when it is due to a failure to properly calm the colony by use of adequate smoke, this is unacceptable. Smoking is a simple procedure, used for thousands of years, and I know I am not mistaken when I say that Dee often promotes the old ways of beekeeping over the new, then why not practice what you guys preach?  

I think, 3 people there, one holding the camera, if one would have held a smoker and using a bit more smoke would have helped to lessen the shock to the poor colony.

PS. is the Organic beekeeping list still banning people that use Clorox in their wash?
And I also see that they are censoring the message board to ‘members only‘, something that was said to me would "never happen". Strange how things change. 

Joe


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

naturebee said:


> I do consider that full protection. I wear jeans with dadant jacket and hood, and either dishwashing gloves or blue dot work gloves, OR occasionally bee gloves which I hate to wear. Even though stings do occasionally penetrate jeans and gloves, I do consider this full protection, and is exactly what I wear to break down the hottest colonies.
> 
> What I would like to see, is those bees worked without gloves. Then claims of “mock attacks” , ‘bluffing bees’ and popcorn bees could be more easily determined by the person working the bees, as well as the video photographer and those viewing the video. In any event, the type of behavior exhibited on the video is often described by experts as what should be selected against.
> 
> ...


It sounds like you haven't had much experience with some defensive characteristics - where more smoke just increases the agitation and the hive becomes more unmanageable the more smoke they get.


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Joseph Clemens said:


> It sounds like you haven't had much experience with some defensive characteristics - where more smoke just increases the agitation and the hive becomes more unmanageable the more smoke they get.


JC, I encountered a situation that in retrospect seems to fit this description.

Any suggestions for handling this kind of situation?

Walking away and coming back in a few days is always an option for me with just a few hives.


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Who does what right?*

I am not big on moral crusades, though i suppose my adamant propositions regarding A. m. sc. is on the verge of that. 

Actually, the mites, just as the problems with AFB etc always pin the larger operations down first. Proximaty is the cause. The mores hives in a yard the quicker things spread. The mites hit the breeders, the breed send out the mites and it takes one large operator in a packed area like South Dakota used to get to bring mites all over the state.

Not everyone lives in the productive areas, not everyone is bringing bees in everywhere and so the movement of even a very aggresive problem like Varroa can be slow. 

I do agree the internet had a great deal to do with current trends and pressures, but small queen orders (ten or less) comapred to what someone is looking for in ten thousand queens, it just is not the same thing.

I think it is great that there are so many smaller beekeepers and i see a great deal of bleed over from dog training going on with bees these days. As for the over use of smoke--my guess the factor of how long the colony was opened was not brought into the mix. Smoke will not quell a colony that is not going to quell, in most cases though, a few puffs at the door, one as you open the lid is a less sting filled day and that is from forty years around honey bees working ten of thousands of colonies over the course of those years. I began not using smoke, but Dadant Midnights bees got me to rethink the idea.

I use a veil as well, i don't have much respect for anyone who does not and then gets one in the eye and complains about it. 

The idea here, the one i began with, is about an active and possitive approach to the tropical hybrid and what has not really ever been done, why and how attempting to rethink the problem instead of react to it might be a good way to proceed.

Gentlemen, don't forget the public does not really care your bees are important to them, more and more, even rural kids think food grows in stores. There is no question this bee is effecting the southern and southwestern states--the time was fifty years ago to think outside the box and breed a better tropical bee. Fifty years of "it didn't work last year--lets do the same thing this year" got the bee nearly in the same condition it was in, in San Palo--it need not be so, the only real questions are who and when, not who is the most organic, or taoist, or chuan, in their gentler than the next beekeeper--be the best you can, but lets get some solutions to the critical problems at hand on this bee.

If you think that honeybee defensive ways are all tied to what you do, please re-examine the subject a bit more.

Chrissy


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

JPK1NH said:


> JC, I encountered a situation that in retrospect seems to fit this description.
> 
> Any suggestions for handling this kind of situation?
> 
> Walking away and coming back in a few days is always an option for me with just a few hives.


JPK,
When I discover a colony with that response to smoke (thankfully it happens less and less often), I mark the hive, then in about six to eight hours, once they have composed themselves again, I avoid all smoke, open them like the combs were filled with Nitroglycerin, then diligently search out the queen and remove her. The next day I even more carefully give them a ripe queen cell from my cultured queen cells. It can often be quite difficult to locate and capture the queen, but I believe doing that is most essential.

One problem of colonies with this level of disturbance response, is they often evacuate the hive and cluster in a collar around the outside of the topmost super, even if no smoke is used at all. They continuously "RUN" around inside the hive and across their combs, they form small clusters on the edges of the frames and small groups of them seem to "drip" from the combs.

In retrospect I must love a challenge, because as I compose this response, I realize that it can take as many as three queen cells before a virgin emerges that the bees will accept. Perhaps there is an easier way to replace a queen whose bees have these undesirable traits.


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Tx JC.

2 colonies I got as nucs from a commercial breeder this spring are pretty similar in temperment and are hotter/more defensive than I like.

One of them has been better since I knocked down the population a little over a month ago by robbing bees, brood and honey from the strongest of the two to make 2 late season nucs with Russian Queens.

The Russians in the 2 nucs seem to be very good.

The third solid hive I have are NWC's and they are the most gentle bees I've worked with.

Its a little late for me to take action on the 2 hives in question at this late a point in our season but come spring when the population is more manageable I will use these two hives to make nucs and requeen both of them provided they make it through the winter intact.

Tx for the advice...and it looks like I need to take a queen rearing class if I can find one not too far from me.....or do a lot of reading and trial/error


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Great advice from Joe C*

and JPK, i have to agree 100% on the experience i had with NWC. It is very very limited experience, but the couple i had allowed me to do things no other bees would dare to. My Oliverez Italians were pretty calm, but the lest bit of crowding and they swarmed and kept me busier than i like. The one fellow in Tennessee, his Caucasians and some dark bees i got from Upstate NY were fine bees, but the NWCs were the calmest of all. 

When one could still get the bees called "black bees" from commercial sources, all the ones i can recall all ran from the combs, dripped as JC mentioned and not real fond of fast movement. I did not find them the meanest of mean as some claim, but they never stood out as exceptional either.

I hope you do follow up and breed bees. JC started two years before i did keeping bees. In those days it was held that one could not breed bees in the NW. The evidence offered was that no one had done it. It took me another fifteen years to finally arrive at what it took to breed queens in the Puget Sound. The only thing that stopped it was not trying to figure it out long enough. These days folks are raising queen in even less likely places all the time. I didn't have anything to do with that. If there is anyone near you, maybe from your local bee association already breeding, they might have just the right mix for what will work in your locale. May you arrive at your goal.

Chrissy


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Chrissy and JC, thanks much for the advice (and encouragement).

My local beek association is non-functional (ie website not updated for years and returns on e-mails to members listed...no big deal....I have no problem going it on my own with advice from folks here and books....live and learn....sometimes learning on your own is a much better teacher than always having folks around to answer questions/look at stuff.


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Yvw Jpk*

If you think i might know something don't be afraid to ask or think i am crazy when i answer. There are a host of great books on the subject, i am big on Steve Taber's book, he was such a great breeder and researcher, but there are others, some very rare...i hope they find their way to you.

*Breeding Super Bees* by Steve Tabor, was published by A.I. Root in Medina, Ohio and even if it is out of print, they might know where a copy can be had. It is not a beginner's book per~se, but it does have a large amount of basic breeding information in regards to genetics and traits and such that anyone familiar with bees will grasp fully. 

I wish you the best.

Chrissy


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## Jeffrey Todd (Mar 17, 2006)

The confirmed Africanized bees I have dealt with around here were most easily dealt with by using lots of smoke. Yes, they would run all around the hive then empty out and cluster underneath it, but at least they weren't trying to sting by the hundreds. 
I also found it easier to deal with them by exposing as few frames at a time as possible.
Eventually, I killed the colony that had taken over one of my hives at my home yard. They were not a problem as long as they were left alone but the risk of them doing harm to someone was too great.
Suspected wild colonies of defensive AHB I have just killed outright. 

With all the discussion about breeding out the extreme defensiveness of AHB, I wonder why it has not been done in South America or Africa (or has it?).


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Jeffrey Todd said:


> The confirmed Africanized bees I have dealt with around here were most easily dealt with by using lots of smoke. Yes, they would run all around the hive then empty out and cluster underneath it, but at least they weren't trying to sting by the hundreds.
> I also found it easier to deal with them by exposing as few frames at a time as possible.
> Eventually, I killed the colony that had taken over one of my hives at my home yard. They were not a problem as long as they were left alone but the risk of them doing harm to someone was too great.
> Suspected wild colonies of defensive AHB I have just killed outright.
> ...


Word is that it has been done.


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Hi Jeffery*

I think you will find many instances of some degree of breeding having been done south of here. The Peace Corp went into the major area of the tropical bee in Afric, but there was emphisis upon working with, not overriding the cultural practices of local populations. For thousands of years the locals had whatever bee they had and still do.

In Africa there is a great deal of behavioral traits in the one bee labeled A.m. sc. (formerly adonsonii) to the degree that some researchers think there are more than one stand-alone strain of bee under one title, but also there are some who insist the A. m. cap. is also merely A. m. sc. 

It is interesting that you too mention the running trait, festooning, etc...when the flurry of the mass attack of media videos gets boring, that feature is something i noticed in the Tropical bee hybrid as well. If that is a trait that won't budge it sure is a bad one. Even marked queens are easily lost in a festoon of bees. Have you had enough experience with these bees to notice any variation from colony to colony in degree of the trait where you could say this one is a ten (worst) and this one five (half as bad?) 

I never fully explained my criteria slider. A-Z is another way of saying twenty six on the horizontal, each represents a trait, that is the median line. The slider is five above and five points below the line for a given trait. If thought of this in genetics, then some traits in some lines will never arrive beyond the bottom median point, some will be in the middle always and some will reach only the top most. How you set this is individual, but it is like a graphic equalizer in its use, the difference is some traits are set, so it would be a stuck slider. 

The environment will be what slides each slider up or down the vertical numbers, the five over and five under for a given colony.

In breeding one would keep a graph such as this for a particular line and perhaps one for each unit. The one for the line would give a rough idea of how the line behaves at median and what traits are most amendable in breeding. A trait, lets say you pick seven guards on the landing board at seventy degrees at nine AM as one of the things you want to breed for. I don't know why you would, but lets say you like that and want it. Out of fifty nucs with breeder stock and queens, you run out to the bees every day at nine when it is seventy and four (the same four)have seven bees any day the wind is not over 10 Mph. Some will have twelve, some will have two.

The bees you want to work with will be those who are not at your selected criteria. The idea is to select from those with the ultimate character. In stinging the ones with two would be it. If the stock is the same and there is variation (the more the better) then there is a breeding potential expressed.

This of course represents too great a simplification, location, shade wind patterns, nectar flows, brood hatch can all effect such a result, but the rough idea is there. Even II queens Single drone mothers mated to their own parent drones will express some variations colony to colony. The idea is to establish a base line that makes sense to you and then measure by your own means.

Chrissy


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Another interesting, though highly frustrating behavioral trait, I attribute to possibly AHB, I describe thus:

The inability to shake bees from combs and have any of the shaken bees stay where they are shaken.

These bees may not be as nervous and runny as some, though they may also exhibit a high degree of both traits. I enjoy making up or adding young bees to queen cell starter/builder/finisher colonies by simply shaking bees from different hives onto the cover of the hive I've chosen for this purpose. This works well, the older foragers almost immediately take flight and return to their parent colony - the younger house and nurse bees remain and cluster together and quickly enter the hive once I move the cover over to permit their access. This technique is not possible when 80-90% of the bees shaken take flight and return to their parent hive as soon as they are dislodged from the combs and the remaining 10-20% take flight immediately after they have landed. If these nurse/house bees haven't yet taken their orientation flights, perhaps they are following the older bees back to their original hives. Regardless of the mechanism the result is extremely annoying.


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Yeah that is not good...lemme think a min Joe*

At least with festooned bees you can just drop them off in a makeup starter. I don't know how you are using your starters, but you might be able to spray them with a light sugar water mix, use a shaker cone or even one of those dog collars in top hole (specially made) and then cover the cone top afterwards. If you have enough young brood and pollen in the combs, the act of cleaning themselves off will allow them to stop on the brood. Once on the brood itself i think the nurse age bees will remain and you can lose the field bees by opening the front a bit latter. You'd have to watch the heat though and it is too warm to extremely overstock when the largest number of field bees are out of the donor colony. Down where you are you might need ice packs on a thin top just to keep from meltdown.

Then again the aggitation warms bees so that simply adds to it.

The way around that might be to use an excluder and move all the eggs and larve up to bring most of the nurse bees up a day before you shake.

I like starters with bees on bees. Joseph, see if you can find someone breeding in Mexico in the desert area and ask them, someone has found the way around it.

I think you are right on the following--this bee is prone to swarm and sent trails are part of swarm formation, it might well be scent orientation one finds in swarms. I don't know who has looked at pheromone differences and how that effects flight in the bee we are used to and this tropical bee, but absconding takes all and they abscond heavy so it would be better adaptation to have scent in all the adult bees rather than queen alone. That or perhaps aggitated bees are simply relasing enough alarm to use as a guide, but that seems a bit of a stretch. 

I think the way around this i would try is to sugar spray the frame, then shake in a funnel (cone etc.) allow time enough for the nurse bees to get busy with eggs and larve and then open enough entrance to allow field bees to get out. I would test the heck out of it before i thought of adding cells. 

Please let me know if you try this (BTW: dollar store for sprayers--buy a few--cheap and clog no faster than the fancy ones at the supermarket) Now you have me half lost with curiousity...let me know how it goes.

Chrissy


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*For bees in flight (general ideas)*

and bouncing (rather than sting cling as upon the veil screen) a small bottle of sugar syrup mix, on the light side with the sugar, stops flying bees almost on the spot. They revert to grooming and bees are amazingly one-thing-at-a-time creatures. This helps with freshly shaken swarms and i usually add a touch of mint extract--i am not sure the bees care, but it smells nicer and covers alarm scents and the like.

I saw an ABJ artcle on painting veils white on the outside surface with a light spray of white paint to reduce face bouncing. This was in Tropical bee territory and it worked in the photos, i suspect that is a good plan when the bees are testy, a veil with white outter screen. I will say it, even though you know, very light with the paint!

Chrissy


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Joseph Clemens said:


> It sounds like you haven't had much experience with some defensive characteristics - where more smoke just increases the agitation and the hive becomes more unmanageable the more smoke they get.


Yes I have had much experiences with these types, Joe.
In fact, these are just the bees I am talking about when I say they should not be tolerated. You can often smell alarm pheromone from 4 feet away in these types, they burst out of the colony without stimulus, they respond highly to visual stimulus.

Remember I collect ferals and many aggressive types are being found in this area.
You should have seen the swarm from this season that I kept in a nuc for experiments because it was so fearsomely defensive.

I would however suggest that its NOT that smoke increases the agitation, its that they simply do not respond to it, IMO they are reacting to the visual stimulus of the smoker and beekeeper movements each time he smokes the colony, the increasing aggressiveness of these colonies while working and smoking in vain <<gives the appearance>> that they are being agitated by the smoke, when in actually, its the visual stimulus they are reaction to, the heat from the smoker, and the smoke having no effect. 

Have you ever seen the size of the smokers used in AHB areas? Apparently, smoke does calm highly defensive colonies. And the ones you describe, I would recommend requeening.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

joe, as i've said i think 2 times in this thread, and in other threads here and on bee-l when this came up....

the lack of smoke is not due to not having a smoker lit (we always had 2 lit, every day, every yard), or not enough hands, or lazyness. we were not smoking because we were making full box splits. smoke tends to drive the nurse bees off the brood. since the goal was to get a full box with 6-8 frames of brood and the nurse bees to care for them onto another stand, smoke was barely used. at other times of year, with goals other than splitting, smoke would have been used on every hive before opening....even if dee were working by herself and didn't have 2 extra sets of hands. i don't really understand why you keep insisting that the lack of smoke was out of lazyness or cruelty.

post number 14


> going through 100+ hives in a day with barely any hives smoked (because we were doing splits)


post number 19


> it seems funny to call bees that are not being smoked in order to keep the nurse bees with the brood in order to make strong splits with a very, very good chance of thriving "inhumane".


...do you understand?



> And I also see that they are censoring the message board to ‘members only‘, something that was said to me would "never happen". Strange how things change.


"censoring" is the wrong word joe....using it in this context is nothing but an attempt to make the organic list "look bad"....no one is refused membership to the list, and only spammers and the worst trolls are removed from the list. ...and yes, things change. when you have someone start posting to the list, being a first class ****, lie about what list members have said, and threaten moderators that they will use legal means to have the list shut down if the offending posts aren't deleted from the archives (starting with this person's own posts, as they were the most offensive), threaten moderators with "consequences" offlist...then yes, things have to change. you do have to be a member to read posts now. anyone can be a member. new members posts are moderatated.

fyi, your name came up in this mess (in a private email...i will post an excerpt, but not the author)


> Dean is too loose a cannon to allow any freedom of
> action at all! This guy is as bad, perhaps worse than, Joe Waggle!


of course, if you prefer the word "censor" for this, we can all be thankful that the benevolent dictator of the historical beekeeping articles list has deemed the masses worthy of viewing the archives, and stopped censoring the message board...at least for national honey month <insert big, fat eyeroll here>.

deknow


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

JPK1NH said:


> JC, I encountered a situation that in retrospect seems to fit this description.
> 
> Any suggestions for handling this kind of situation?
> 
> Walking away and coming back in a few days is always an option for me with just a few hives.


Requeen.

In my experience, it is NOT so much that the smoke increases agitation, it is that they are agitated by the movements of the beekeeper, his arm, and hot smoker over the hive.

It gives the appearance that smoke is doing the agitation, but it is a well known fact visual stimulus are a trigger for defensiveness, the same as vibrations are.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Chrissy Shaw said:


> If you think that honeybee defensive ways are all tied to what you do, please re-examine the subject a bit more.
> 
> Chrissy


They are not, but,,,
IS it tied to failure to use a smoker and banging around frames?


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Joe Nature*

Yes...sir i do understand. Actions ellicit actions, but genetics limit those actions, environment outside of the beekeepers actions influence those honeybee actions. Dee has her way of keeping nurse bees in, i use smoke below (a puff) and smoke below (a puff). If bees are running hard and not responding to smoke at all? I am not so sure. If you are working with the Tropical bee i would try the spray on one small isolated colony and see what comes of it. 

Banging frames around is not a good plan; on a hot day, bees all worked up, work yet to do, bills screaming at home, kids wanting college, stuff gets banged around. If you have the genuine luxury of time, can work slow, use reasonable amounts of smoke as applies to the situation, the environment you selected is proper (weather, nectar flow, pollen flow, wind, local spraying, time of day) then the odds lower if one adds some care.

I happen to like that pace, this last one, better. That surely is not what the Tropical bee is about though and the degree that the upper half (better behavior) can be reached and exactly what that would be has never been fully shown. Part of that problem is that they way each of us access bees is different. Each person might find a situation different on different days. That is a human blind spot and why eye-witness is the weakest evidence in a court of law. That human factor is best addressed by good record keeping and having standards of judgement that can be effective in narrowing our own innate variances. 

I am very interested in shaking and this particular problem. Let's suppose that an area is in total saturation and this is the only line of honeybee one could work with without either giving up or going broke re-queening. Before i slide out i want to face a few of these tougher challenges with this particular bee and see what i can do.

Chrissy


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## Keith Benson (Feb 17, 2003)

deknow said:


> considered necessary by the beekeeper who, in this case, has had enormous success.


I am curious - how are we measuring success here? I suspect that one thing that gets overlooked in these discussions is that one man (or woman's) enormous success may be another man or woman's fair to middling success or worse.

I am curious, though I don't really think I will ever get an answer as the nitty gritty facts of someone elses operation are simply not my business, but how many beekeepers out there practice the total no-chemicals system that Dee espouses and A) make a profit on their endeavors and B) how does it compare to more common forms of beekeeping in terms of net results?

IOW, Dee might consider herself successful, and you might think her blindingly successful, but her criteria for success may not work for someone else as their needs and priorities are different. Not better, not worse, just different. Having said that she may also be fabulously wealthy from her bees - I haven't the slightest idea.

Keith


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## CSShaw (Aug 25, 2008)

*Subjective and Relative*

Very true Keith. I like Dee, was asked by her to come down there to work, she is bright, her husband and her made some very fine progress in regards to small cell and she seems commited to what she is doing and live on around five-hundred colonies. 

Jim Paysen no longer keeps bees, never made most of his money from bees though he was one of the larger operators of his day and as an engineer was top notch and he still makes more than the profit margin than most large bee operations on one invention.

Charles Ario was or is (i really don't know if he is alive) one of the most brilliant men i have ever met. He would walk around in shorts when bees were being brought in to load on the semis in Texas. He had a laid back manner that was amazing and honored me by being the one person in the outfit he would speak to. He took up a stationary bee business in the Basswood section of western Minn and seemed happy to just do that with five hundred.

The man who got me into honeybees (Karl Raup) had ten or less colonies when he kept bees and he just was happy as a clam and led me to think beekeepers were all happy and encouraging--then i met the stuffy old clan at the bee meetings and personal politics.

There i met the people who were the biggest influences on my beekeeping: Charles Cross (in his 90s) Jim Fulton (in his sixties) and Vincent Henery (in his forties). Each of these men ran from a hundred to three hundred colonies and were all about major thrift and honey production...all except Jim, were quick with a smile...Jim simply would pop with a quick funny. Each of these men were scraping along, but they were overall happy with their lives.

If you place all these people together, add in Binford or Howard Weaver in the mix and ask, who is the best or most successful beekeeper i have ever known i would have to point to all of these and say, well this group seems happy to me.

Chrissy


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

naturebee,
Requeen is also how I remedy hives with these undesirable traits. 

I use Cordovan Italians from Kohnen's for my mother queens - I find them to be very calm bees, I raise daughters from them that are still homozygous for the Cordovan trait, though they are open mated with whatever drones are naturally available, including some Cordovan drones. I find that nearly all of this first generation of queens, even those mated with nearly all non-Cordovan drones, whose female offspring do not exhibit the Cordovan trait rarely exhibit any of those less desirable traits mentioned in this thread, are still very calm and yet very vigorous and productive. Where I see these traits reocurring is in colonies headed by open mated, normal colored daughters of Cordovan Italian queens.

Thanks to this strategy I see very few colonies with behavior problems.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Chrissy Shaw said:


> *Yes...sir i do understand. Actions ellicit actions, but genetics limit those actions, environment outside of the beekeepers actions influence those honeybee actions.
> 
> *Banging frames around is not a good plan; -Chrissy


Just the point I was trying to make.
This thread is resolved.
I will exit now.
I enjoyed the chat.

Best Wishes,
Joe


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## Jeffrey Todd (Mar 17, 2006)

Hi Chrissy,

You asked about what I have seen regarding the running and festooning traits; I would say about 1/3 to 1/2 of my hives will exhibit the running trait, and perhaps 20% of those will festoon fairly readily. I have not had these tested for African genes (perhaps I should)
The running trait I refer to seems to be a somewhat coordinated effort; the bees will all start running around the inside of the hive first in one direction, then another. If I am in the hive long enough, they start to festoon (if they are in the 20%). None of these bees are especially defensive. Do any of your bees typically run around in a coordinated manner like this?
All of my bees are from captured wild colonies and queens raised from these same bees.

Jeffrey


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I think selective breeding of the AHB is our only defense. 

Who's to say that over the next 100 years this bee won't learn to change its lifestyle & colonize the colder areas of our country. Now is the time for the breeders in the south to see what they can do.


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

KQ6AR said:


> I think selective breeding of the AHB is our only defense.
> 
> Who's to say that over the next 100 years this bee won't learn to change its lifestyle & colonize the colder areas of our country. Now is the time for the breeders in the south to see what they can do.


IMO, this is already happening to some degree. More than half of my 100 or so hives have come from cutouts or swarm captures. I work all my hives gloveless, my protection is never more than light trousers, tee shirt and veil. I have yet to re-queen a hive because the bees are unmanageable. The latest AHB study done in my area (2005) indicated that the feral population was at least 30% to 40% AHB and possibly as high as 70%. I find it hard to believe that given those stats, I would not have come across a single hive of AHB's after removing 100+ feral colonies over the last two years (many from counties that supposedly have been Africanized for more than 10 years). Either this study is greatly exaggerating the AHB intrusion, or the ones in my area are not nearly as nasty as the ones further west and south (could have something to do with the influence of the large numbers of migratory bees being overwintered in this area). I do have a few hives that exhibit some of the runny or flighty traits like AHB, but they don't exhibit any more defensiveness than my hives headed by northern reared EHB queens of known genetics. I have a couple of hives that raise lots of brood like AHB do (18 frames of solid brood in a double deep and not unusual to also find 2 or thee frames of brood in the first super) but they are not at all aggressive and the large amounts of brood have come in real handy for splits or re-queening. I have not yet experienced any of the EHB queen acceptance issues that others out west lament about.


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## knightm1 (Sep 5, 2008)

*Killer bees circa 1913*

*American Bee Journal - Page 15*

Bee culture - 1913
Mrs. RW Herlong, of Fort White, Fla., had a mare and colt *stung to death* the past 
season, and several members of the family barely escaped *death* at the same *...
http://books.google.com/books?id=HN4TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15&dq=stung+to+death&lr=&as_brr=1
*



While I believe that any bee hive can be dangerous to life and health, the tropical alien, aggressive bees ARE!!! more dangerous, but we will probably have to deal with them. As you can see, the so-called Africanized bees are not the first killer bee's in US history. The article listed above was very enlightening to me. 
It is better to have beekeepers who can or willing to learn how to, deal with these animals. Hysteria is not the answer.


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