# Why is my beekeeping experience so different?



## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Lately, I've been noticing that my experience in beekeeping is different to others. It's not just that I'm contrary and do most things differently, it's that I see things differently, things seem to happen differently. I have a few examples.

Comb: My comb seems to be much more attractive to wax moths. People have told me that empty brood comb is not as attractive. If I leave mine sitting around the shop, even in open air exposed to light, it will pretty soon have worms in it. A guy who took care of some of my hives for a while noted how much quicker the moths went after my comb than his in a deadout.

Hive size: Even with tasty comb, my bees still seem to have no problem guarding massive amounts of empty comb year 'round. Others tell me that if the hive is too big for the colony, they'll lose comb in the extremities to wax moths. Is this related to the differences in the bees' ability to detect intruders due to the presence of chemicals?

Upper entrances: Others talk about chimney effect and chilled bees. I have hives survive year after year with both upper and lower entrances.

CCD: Haven't seen it.

Varroa: Large crashes in my apiaries predicted many dozens of times have not materialized.

AFB: Haven't seen it. And I have been looking.

EFB: Haven't seen it.

SHB: Not a big problem around here, but I do find beetles from time to time.

Nosema: Other than a couple of cases of dysentery mid-winter, I see no evidence of it.

Swarming: My year 'round really big hives do not swarm much if ever.

I'm trying to figure out how best I can serve the beekeeping community, especially the avid hobbyists and micro-sideliners like myself. It's hard to do that if I'm not experiencing what everybody else is experiencing.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

For whatever reason, I think your situation is very unique. Just keep on doing whatever it is your are doing and continue to report your successes and observations. Your positive results may not be commonplace with other beekeepers but it will at the very least give hope, and it offers an alternative for some to try to emulate.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Solomon Parker said:


> Comb: My comb seems to be much more attractive to wax moths.


Not mine. I have to protect against mice.



> Hive size: Even with tasty comb, my bees still seem to have no problem guarding massive amounts of empty comb year 'round.


Same here.



> CCD: Haven't seen it.


Nor have I.



> Varroa: Large crashes in my apiaries predicted many dozens of times have not materialized.


Same.



> AFB: Haven't seen it.


Same.



> EFB: Haven't seen it.


One hive this year. Before that it was one hive 12 years ago.



> SHB: Not a big problem around here, but I do find beetles from time to time.


Same.



> Nosema: Other than a couple of cases of dysentery mid-winter, I see no evidence of it.


Same.



> Swarming: My year 'round really big hives do not swarm much if ever.


Big swarm urge this spring so I split everything.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Solomon, like politics, all bee keeping is local  

I've been reading Brother Adam's books this month. I wonder if many of the dependant variables affected by bee strain have gone your way, meaning: You have a good strain(s) of bees for your area. Your bees keep the hive clean enough to make brood diseases the exception rather than the rule, and finally, to resist the affects of phoretic mites and bee viruses. Independant variables like wax moth populations and SHB survivability will vary according to the weather conditions. 

Didn't I read where you had purchased some Buckfast bees, or some strains based on the Buckfast? They were bred to do all of the above.

Don't discount blind luck either Solomon.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

You must have been reading about somebody else. My original stock came from Koehnen's, regular Italian. Later editions came from Don Kuchenmeister and Zia Queenbee. Neither of those claim much Buckfast if any. Still, my star hives have been the Koehnen descendents.

A couple of things I have noticed about the local bees (with which I am certainly intermixed): they tend to shut down the brood nest for the most part during the summer, keeping an active brooding volume of about a soccer ball. They also winter in frighteningly small clusters, soccer ball to basketball size, with softball seeming to be the survivable limit. I've also never seen a swarm larger than about 3 deep frames worth of bees in these parts.

I don't believe in luck. I believe in chance and skill. Chance is the number of questions on the test to which you know the answer. Skill is knowing a lot of answers. 

As an aside, I was listening to the radio a couple months back and somebody asked a sports analyst why a certain team had won. He said it was luck. I was overtaken with incredulity. That's just not something an intelligent educated person says.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Barry said:


> Not mine. I have to protect against mice.


I have had mice. They climbed in and ate the honeycomb above the cluster.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

An overwinter dead-out usually will have wax moths develop in the comb by the last week in May/first week of June. Stacked supers outside in full sun will delay development of the worms.

An average overwintered colony will care for the comb in 2 deeps and 3 or 4 supers and prevent wax worms if the hive is in full sun.

Bottom entrance, upper entrance, screened bottom or solid does not affect how well the bees overwinter here in Arkansas. Ventilation techniques used in the northern states are not needed here. A bottom entrance 8 inches wide with the hive tipped forward will allow air circulation and moisture to exit the hive. Screened bottoms and a 2 or 3 inch entrance helps prevent winter robbing. The prime need for moisture control is for the hive to be in full sun and have 6 to 8 frame solid with adult bees in October. 

There has been no confirmed case of CCD in Arkansas.

Any colony of hygenic bees will survive at least 3 years with no varroa treatments here, if the beekeeper sees to their needs. Varroa killed colonies usually die from failure to requeen after losing a queen in late summer because the workers suffer from the virus load passed to them from the mites. BPMS is seldom seen if the colony is hygenic.

AFB is seldom seen, I have seen 5 cases in 35 years and 4 of those were in one location. They were caused by a beekeeper making splits using frames from a dead-out without checking them for scale.

EFB is seldom seen, usually it is found in the early spring in bees that are not hygenic in a location that is damp and on low ground.

SHB is no problem in north Arkansas, it is in the delta and south Arkansas.

Nosema apis has never been a problem in Arkansas, I think the new Nosema ceranae is. The new nosema is a dry nosema, no feces droped on frames or hives. Look for k wing, crawling bees and colonies that will not take syrup when being fed while other colonies do take it.

If you are splitting colonies or adding supers of drawn comb before the colony is crowded you may have few swarms. You also may be having swarms and not seeing them and the colony is so strong you do not notice diminished adult populations.

As to luck, Napoleon Bonaparte believed in luck and I do too.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Sol,

I think you're very detail oriented which helps. I think you provide the best homes for your bees as you possibly can and thus they thrive. If you look at hives with moth's and beetles I bet you will find a lot of sloppy housekeeping as well. The area around the hive not being clean, boxes not seated properly, tops not seated properly, messy comb all over the inside, neglected bees etc... thus pests finding their way in very easily. 

Not to say if you get any infestations you're doing something wrong, sometimes it's all about location, location, location.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

It's a statistical thing, sooner or later you will have all of the maladies. If you got mites, you are not isolated.

Crazy Roland


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

AR Beekeeper said:


> An average overwintered colony will care for the comb in 2 deeps and 3 or 4 supers and prevent wax worms if the hive is in full sun.


 I've had at least one hive with 5 deeps every winter than I can remember. I don't use any screened bottoms. Do you think lack of CCD could be tied to lack of commercial beekeepers in Arkansas? The only one I know of is Coy in Jonesboro, the other side of the state.




JRG13 said:


> I think you provide the best homes for your bees as you possibly can and thus they thrive.


Eh, okay. A lot of my lids are leaky. And they're only neglected in the summer.




Roland said:


> It's a statistical thing, sooner or later you will have all of the maladies. If you got mites, you are not isolated.


I'm not isolated, I do have mites. Just keep waiting for the crash you've been predicting. opcorn:


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I don't think your experience is all that unusual, it's what works for you.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

AR Beekeeper said:


> As to luck, Napoleon Bonaparte believed in luck and I do too.


And what happened to Napoleon? Something call Waterloo???


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

I have a Waterloo toolbox..HEE HEE
Solomon, Are you trying to assimilate yourself?? Stop it!. 
Keep doing what you are doing like you are doing it. If you change anything you you will instantly get AFB and mites in your tights. and possibly bird flu. or stub your toe.
But really, you seem to question each step,... which leads to an understanding of processes rather than a memorization of outcomes. The more you ask why? the better.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Do you think lack of CCD could be tied to lack of commercial beekeepers in Arkansas?

Yes, it is called California Co-mingling Disease for a reason.

Your results are consistent with a semi isolated apiary. You will be fine until an outside influence happens along. It is a mater of statistics, it will happen, like Waterloo.

Crazy Roland


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Last time I made a snide comment about someone's ability to predict the future, I got booted from Tailgater. :lpf: 

I'll just have to fall back on the fact that none of y'all's dire predictions have come true yet, so there's no reason I should start worrying now.

Given, if my bees were the same bees as the CCD bees, you might have a point, but they aren't. And I don't see how they can be isolated considering the number of packages shipped in and installed every year (only to die in November). Furthermore, some of that equipment is given to me which I then unthinkingly incorporate directly into my home yard. Check the pictures, look for the 8-frame stack with the copper lid. That lid is the most valuable single thing in the yard! It's my most valuable piece of beekeeping equipment besides what's in the shop!

I'll stop being incendiary now.


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## Nature Coast beek (Jun 10, 2012)

It's the Awesome Sauce...that you take of course, giving it to the bees would be _treatment_.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

I have a beekeeper here in Mountain View that sends bees to California every year. He has 2 yards within 2 miles of me and I have not had problems. I believe most beekeeper loses here are due to the beekeeper's inexperience. It seems the more a beekeeper studies/works at learning to manage bees the fewer losses he has.

There was an old song that went "Everybody has his day, everybody has his way, how will you meet your Waterloo?" 
You will usually get there a lot sooner if you make foolish decisions, but we all will eventually. 

Most of us had a Waterloo when the tracheal mite arrived, but we overcame them with management and selection for resistance. The problems beekeepers have today will be solved the same way.


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## Goldprospector (May 17, 2012)

I guess I have to chime in here. I am a newbie to the forum but not to bee keeping. Any of my experience is from 20 or more years ago.
I understand that certain things that bee keepers are seeing are supposed to be new or recent in terms of years that humans have been keeping bees....IMO, I think it is and has been the bee keepers killing bees and not diseases or mites or what have you. Too much treatment kills bees along with other "bad" bugs in the hive. This is a totally different argument, but I bring this up simply because of past experience.

1) 20 years ago, I know for a fact that I saw little black bugs crawling around inside the hives that look very much like today's SHB's. They were not called SHB's nor were they really identified or worried about. We saw them, they did not cause too many problems that we knew of and we had definitely never heard of any kind of treatment for them. We squashed them when we saw them and saw bees chasing them around. 

2) AFB and EFB, has been around for ages, but I have never personally seen a case of it. I know several people who said they have had it in their hive at some time or another, but it has never been epidemic in my time of bee keeping.

3) CCD, I have an opinion about this that may set people off and I apologize in advance if it does. IMO, anything that usually ends up with the word "Disorder" at the end of it is an anomaly...not a rule. It is something that can't be explained and probably never will. I know there have been tons of studies done...but if they can't find the reason for the bees to die or leave...then it is CCD. But again, simply because it now has a fancy name...does it mean that it has not been around for hundreds of years?

4) Mites, I've never had a problem so I can't reasonably comment on it.

5) Wax moths. I have seen them get to some hives and make a mess but not others. I am of the opinion that a strong hive will take care of these. So as I did years ago...I would either cull or combine weaker hives. Try to propagate stronger bees.

6) Nosema, My opinion is that there is too much man made stuff out now that some bees just can't handle. There is a definite cause for it. It has been identified and studied. It may or may not have been around for years...But what I am concerned about is the bees susceptibility. Why are the bees susceptible to it now? I think it is either week bees or week hives...just not sure which one yet.

7. Swarming, Never ever had a hive to swarm that I know of. The most amount of hives that I ever had at one time was 20 for a couple years in a row. they were managed, they were split if they were too large. We usually sold or gave away the splits or we just added more boxes during the flows. It just did not happen to us. Call it luck or chance...I just never saw it in my hives.

Again, for a disclaimer...these are all my opinions, I have no proof or studies to back this up..

.I just remember most of my experiences with bees. Some stuff we did for reasons of affordability. We were not pioneers by any means. But in the areas that I was raised we were poor. I remember several beeks getting together to make an order of supplies. We would order a box of foundation and split it between us and most of us used a starter strip back then simply because we could not afford to use a whole sheet per frame. So was that "Small cell" in action? who knows! There were medications for bees back then as were vitamin, pollen subs, and any other number of things that are out now. But we gave none of this to the bees because we could not afford to buy it.

We saved honey for the bees and fed it to them for the spring build up. If we mismanaged, and got rid of too much honey or if the flow was not good...we fed with 1:1 sugar water...sugar was dirt cheap back then. But that is all we ever did. So are the bees better off with intervention? 

Sorry for the long post...or rant. Not sure which it is.


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

Solomon Parker maybe because your such a nice guy?? I sometime wonder the same thing about life it's self. Why does it rain on my parade and not on the bad guys?? Life is not fair Period.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

So am I a bad guy? I'm bad so everything goes well for me?

Well, I certainly haven't heard that one before. :scratch::lpf:


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## summer1052 (Oct 21, 2007)

I think beekeeping, and most ag, is much more localized than it used to be, which is kind of odd since so much is now commercialized.

Wax moths are a huge problem for me, partly because they don't go dormant here. The Bt didn't kill the moths, but the bees don't like it, and won't word frames sprayed with it. I have one hive that is obviously part AHB, and even they get moths, so size/strength/attitude are not the only factors.

No varrora problems for me, but I know that makes me odd (er).

SHB also a problem here, but again, no dormant season. AJs traps and vinegar work well.

CCD, EFB, AFB, Nosema, not a problem for me.

Fire ants BIG problem for me, and they are not like other ants, so the helpful advice from those who've never dealt with them is just irritating.

Weather extremes here in TX have also been a factor -- 2007, wettest year on record. 2008 below average moisture. 2009-2011 Record drought across the state. 2012, better than last year, but still behind.

If you read most of the major books, they write as if all conditions, problems and solutions are the same everywhere, and I'd like to see more forum members recognize that it just ain't so anymore. And my different experience does not automatically mean that I am wrong. But that's another thread.

Keep up the good work, Solomon. If we keep swimming upstream, we'll eventually make progress, right?

Summer


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

I hope it put a smile on ur face for real,,like I say who knows why things go the way they do??


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Sol. having grown up in a commercial operation, then being a hobbiest for 2 decades. and now commercial again, your situation is exactly as I would predict. I saw no disease as a hobbiest. It all about numbers. If you only have a few hives(less than 20), your chances of catching a disease are very slim, but NOT ZERO. The point is sooner or later, when you get bigger, you will have problems. 

Crazy Roland


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

My experience is similar to yours. I really have no wax moth issues here. They exist but prevention is a great cure. No SHB. No CCD. Probably see more swarm activity than you report but I recognize it and deal with it in time unless I am just caught out or lazy. Only had one hive swarm this year and I could have prevented it if my sons didn't want to go camping so bad. My sons take priority so a few bees into the woods is no big deal.

I am curious what your honey production per colony averages in the South compared to us up here in the North. You seem to have a tidy operation and similar size to mine so I would love to know what you are extracting down there.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

You have done everything right:

Followed the teachings of Dee Lusby
Disciple of Michael Bush
Gone small cell and foundationless
Used cube hives
Moved from Oregon to Alabama

Sadly enough because of your great insite and following these roads, you will never suffer any pestilence and therefore never experience anything to teach about these problems. You will lead a boring life merely extracting gobs of honey and making numerous divides off of those never swarming hives. Because of suffering no losses, you will expand to a size equal that of the biggest beekeepers in the country. Bigger than Roland even. You will become fabulously wealthy and spend lonely winters rebuilding moth eaten combs and yearning to solve the moth larvae infestations. You will eventually solve this problem which will make you even wealthier. Life is good.


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

Waterloo=bad luck, its still luck.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

odfrank said:


> Moved from Oregon to Alabama...yearning to solve the moth larvae infestations.


I'm not sure you've been reading what I've been writing.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Solomon Parker said:


> I'm not sure you've been reading what I've been writing.


Alabama, Arkansas, tomato tomato....did you solve the moth problem?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Don't have a moth problem. I have bees. They keep the moths back.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

sfisher said:


> Waterloo=bad luck, its still luck.


The military definition of luck:

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"

...and, as sfisher points out, it does go both ways. 

ROTFL sfisher...'Catfish tremble at the mention of your name', wish I could say the same.


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## Nature Coast beek (Jun 10, 2012)

@ odfrank

Whoa...Lusby, Bush...no FatBeeMan????


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## julysun (Apr 25, 2012)

:applause::applause::applause:


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Solomon Parker said:


> Varroa: Large crashes in my apiaries predicted many dozens of times have not materialized.
> 
> AFB: Haven't seen it. And I have been looking.
> 
> ...


Are you sure you are not rewriting history a bit? Didn't you start with 20 nucs and lose all the way down to 2, with half those loses being attributable to varroa? I would call that a significant crash. 

As for me. 

AFB. Have not seen it. 

EFB. Seen it in my weak OB hive but they recovered on their own 

SHB. Largest problem I have. Move to Florida and you can experience them at their worst(strong hive or not)

CCD. Have not seen it 

Varroa. Lost a few hives to them. But probably lost over 50% to them last year if I attribute losses of hives weakened by them that eventually died or absconded from stresses from being weakened by varroa first. 

Wax moths are not a problem on my comb as long as the bees have first cleaned them ( removed all protien, pollen etc). Hardly any of my comb has seen chemicals. Nor is any of it more than 3 years old. 

Nosema apis, nosema ceranae have not seen any. 

Swarms: 1 abscond and 2 swarms. Latest one last week from my top bar hive that I had already split three ways this spring. 

I don't see that your experience is so far afield of others.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

jbeshearse said:


> Are you sure you are not rewriting history a bit? Didn't you start with 20 nucs and lose all the way down to 2, with half those loses being attributable to varroa? I would call that a significant crash.


That happened, but Roland, Ted Kretschman, Mark Berninghausen, and others (you know who you are) hadn't predicted it dozens of times at that point. And it wasn't a crash, it took six or seven years without making increases to do it. I have 28 hives now, I'd expect a crash to kill at least half of them in one year. I have not experienced a crash due to varroa.

I did follow the teachings of Dee Lusby, but I'm moving away from them. I have exchanged one email with her in the last several years. I like Mike, but I'm not his disciple. Disciple involves discipline to his methods and I have none. I bought some of Don Kuchenmeister's nucs, but I in no way follow his teachings. Plus, I don't think he likes me. I keep asking him why he'll drink FGMO from a plastic bottle, but he won't put plastic frames in his hives because they're not natural.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ok here is my scorecard:
AFB: Saw a case last year, havent seen one yet this year
EFB: We have seen a few cases this year, not surprising considering the stresses the bees have been under lately
SHB: A minor pest in our climate, just had to change our way of doing a few things. Have never lost a hive to them but have lost a few frames in the extracting room
CCD: I have never seen significant losses that were unexplainable
Varroa: The "big dog" and always our biggest concern but seems to be less of a problem in recent years.
Wax moth: Has always been a concern when storing dark comb in the heat of the summer and never a problem for a strong hive to control. Leaving all dark comb on the bees until fall pretty well takes care of the problem
Nosema: Treated for a couple of years and not at all the past two years. Our bees are better now.
Swarming: We requeen each year and rarely lose swarms. 
Beekeeping in general: So easy a caveman could do it.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Parker, 

What have your losses been from?

My losses were at first glance absconds or SHB or Queen failures. But the reality is it was probably from hives being weakened due to varroa. Even a spotty queen (queen failure) can be a varroa problem. How do you determine varroa loads?

I really think that frequent swarms and supercedures are a natural
Defense againt pest loads of today and think we will see that become more and more prevalent.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I know, no matter how I describe a dead hive, it's always varroa. Check the archives, I have submitted several cases for opinions. The most varroa I've ever found on a bottom board was from a living hive. Pics on the blog, earlier this spring. It's still alive today.

And it's Solomon or Mr. Parker. I do not like to be called Parker.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

I'll ask again. Can you tell me what you are averaging for honey or are you just working on increase at this time?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I'm truly sorry, I saw your post and was going to reply, but I got distracted doing something else.

I had set aside only one hive this year from which I intended to harvest honey and robbed brood from the rest to make nucs, however, when honey harvesting day came, I found five (three that had brood robbed, and one that was used as a queenless cell builder) had honey in excess. Unfortunately, a lot of frames in the one I had saved to make honey had brood or major sections of pollen or uncured nectar in them so I wasn't able to harvest as much as I had liked. Still, they were left with 6 mostly full deeps. In total, I harvested four deeps of honey, totaling 17 gallons when extracted.

I started this year with 10 hives, made 29 nucs, sold some, lost some to failed matings ect., sold some queens, caught one swarm, and right now I have 28. My goal is to come through winter with 20, I'll be doing some experiments with overwintering nucs. I'd like to sell 10-20 nucs next year.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Solomon Parker said:


> I know, no matter how I describe a dead hive, it's always varroa. Check the archives, I have submitted several cases for opinions. The most varroa I've ever found on a bottom board was from a living hive. Pics on the blog, earlier this spring. It's still alive today.
> 
> And it's Solomon or Mr. Parker. I do not like to be called Parker.


Okay, Soloman,

I was not implying that any of your hives that died, died of varroa, I don't know, I was simply asking what they died from. I won't wade through archived posts, not worth the time. Let us know how that particular hive is doing at the end of September.

I will say this and attach a link to a photo. This a bottom board from one of my hives last year, they produced lots of surplus the honey, built up well and managed to survive a heavy mite load with no treatment. They did however abscond late in the year after they began to dwindle and the DWV became prevalent. Notice the amount of drones in the photo. No doubt one reason the mite count was so high, but high drone counts mean a hive is doing well in my opinion (unless you have a laying worker or failing queen of course, and this had neither problem at this point.

It has been my experience that a hive can survive one season with an extraordinary mite load then will either dwindle down and break its own brood cycle (which also breaks the mites cycle) or they will abscond or die out. This is not based on just one hive, but many.

http://flic.kr/p/9jX1uM

But this is all off topic. You were wondering why your experience if different, everyone's is somewhat different. I don't think your is much of an oddity, when you consider the range of experiences there are in beekeeping.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Here's my two cents on this list:

I live close to Sol and have a similar climate, but I treat for v. mites (with either Thymol or Hopguard) and also use fumigillin going into winter. (I know this is the treatment free forum, and I'm not advocating treating. I'm just giving context to my list of observations.)

Wax moths destroy my comb in the blink of an eye if it's off the hive and had any pollen or brood in it. I HATE WAX MOTHS!!!!! When I extract, I can't seem to rotate it into the freezer fast enough to save it all. There's a turkey in there that I need to cook to make more room for frames. We have the same problem. Also, I had some real experts (Jim Tew and Kim Flottum) tell me that wax moths won't bother frames if they are left exposed to light. That may work in Ohio, but it does not work in Oklahoma. I think it depends on temperature -- if its hot enough, they will eat frames in full sun.

However, if I've got an active hive to put come on, the comb is safe, even if the hive is relatively small. So that's similar too. If a hive gets really weak, then I have seen moths work on the outside frames. 

I have upper entrance holes on some hives. I don't think it makes any difference to anything at all, one way or the other, so far as I can tell.

Haven't seen any CCD.

No varroa crashes, but I've had some that I'm really sure were about to crash before I treated. Lots of deformed bees. Other hives seem to keep the population of mites down on their own and those are also my best hives. 

Never seen AFB, but had one isolated case of EFB that cleared up on its own. 

Have a few SHB but not many and I do not use traps or need to. I think the soil type and sunlight to the hive make a big difference. I've got extremely heavy clay soil where I keep my hives. I could make bricks out of the soil at my house. A person I mentor has a hive in a garden area with amended loamy soil and shade who lives about 4 miles from me. She has beetles galore. Right now, the clay at my house is so hard that no beetle larvae could possibly dig into the soil. 

Nosema -- I dont' have it when I treat. I have had signs of it in some hives when I did not treat. 

Swarming: I checkerboard, and that usually prevents swarms and creates huge brood areas with hives that make lots of honey. This year, the warm winter caused me to checkerboard too late, and I had issues with swarming that cost me some honey. I also had a hive that, with hindsight, may have been trying to supersede the queen, which I mistakenly thought was swarming and I cut out queen cells on an experimental basis and screwed up the hive. (This year has not been my best, but I managed to harvest some honey.)

Drought and heat: Although not on Sol's list, the overwhelming factor for the last two years has been living in one of the levels of Hell, also known as Oklahoma, and, ironically, the part that tries to call itself "Green Country" (Ha-Ha-Ha). If this keeps up another year, I'm not sure we will have any feral bees at all.


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