# Bees gone from hives CCD?



## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

Went to one of my yards today. 20 strong hives 3 weeks ago. Today I had 14 with no or almost no bees.

Had brood and larva found some hives with very small clusters (usually less than a cup full) and queens, but they would never make the winter. Found one queen all by herself on the innercover. She looked fine, just lonely. I saved her to send in for testing. 

Have had a hive or two with the same symptoms in every yard. Hope I've seen the worst, but I'm not too confident of that. The rest of the hives look strong with lots of bees, but that is what I thought about this yard three weeks ago.

Any thoughts appreciated
Thanks
Kevin


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## queenking (Oct 24, 2007)

all of my hives are doing fine


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Heavy mite load?

High nosema count and the recent cold wet weather did them in?

What did you see for pollen in the combs? 

Was the honey close to them or did you pull all the honey off and are now trying to feed them back up with syrup?

Are they in a low damp area or up on a knoll/hill/ridge/high area?

Where these hives being run by new queens or early spring queens from this last spring?


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

We had treated with treated for mites twice since pulling honey in late July, but to be honest I don't have a mite load estimate, same with nosema. Fairly new to beekeeping and need to improve these areas. I would be interested in info on what you do for these problems.

They had plenty of honey and pollen. I am running 2 deeps and a med on each hive. Trying to leave them their own honey and not feed syrup.

Terrain flat/open trees 1/8 mile away. I live in Ohio

All new packages this spring. Pulled 150# avg. from this yard and still left them heavy. Also had a decent fall flow to top things off.

Thanks again for the thoughts.
Kevin


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Look closely on the bottom boards, if you see a lot of dead mites then you've found your problem. Another quick mite diagnosis is to take a small patch of sealed brood from a hive that dosent have the bees to properly take care of it and scratch the caps off and tap out the pupae/larvae on to a white surface the mites can then be easily seen if they are there. Tis the season for hives to crash unfortunately.


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## Laurence Hope (Aug 24, 2005)

Sounds like CCD. I had it 6 years ago - a year before it was "officially" described. It looked like exactly what you are describing. Have the waxworms come? They didn't on mine and that is one symptom I read about CCD. I have read to get the hives out of the yard they are in to stop cross contamination. Also let them air out until several months before re-using them.
I hope it stops where it is. I lost 80% during my bout with it.
Wish you the best.
Laurence


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Kevin who was your bee supplier??? WHAT IS CCD???


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## gregstahlman (Oct 7, 2009)

tis the season to start hearing about the elusive CCD. what did you use for mite treatments? opcorn:


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Any open(hatched) queen cells. Late swarming. Absconding(AHB genetics).

Packages shouldn't be crashing from mites but very possible.

Where these hives made in deadouts from last year?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

It sounds like CCD to me.


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

gregstahlman said:


> tis the season to start hearing about the elusive CCD. what did you use for mite treatments? opcorn:


Mite away 2, I had not noticed many mites in the brood, on the bottom board or on the bees in this yard.

Thanks
Kevin


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

Beeslave said:


> Any open(hatched) queen cells. Late swarming. Absconding(AHB genetics).
> 
> Packages shouldn't be crashing from mites but very possible.
> 
> Where these hives made in deadouts from last year?


No queen cells, but plenty of capped brood and larva. These hives did get some drawn comb in one box (not sure of the history, part of what I purchased from Wayne Stoller, I know this comb had been stored for years since he had not been running many hives for the last 5 years). They also had another hive body of foundation to draw, which is impressive since they also drew a super of foundation and gave 150# avg. honey. Like I said they were all stong 3 weeks ago.


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

beemandan said:


> It sounds like CCD to me.


Thats what I worry about and hope this condition don't spread to my other 25 yards


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Don't know if that latest study on CCD will prove to be valid, but the problem they found was Nosema C, along with an attendant virus. I wouldn't just let them die off without a fight; try giving them Fumagilin to treat the Nosema part of the equation. And please keep us posted! :s


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

I think I will try and treat for Nosema C, I have a large bottle of Nozevit and Fum B on hand.

It is too late more me to get sugar, mix and distribute 350 feeders to my hives, but what do you all think about drenching? I've read you can mix 9.5 fum B in 5 gal pail syrup and drench with 1 cup per hive. Any suggestions?

Also, what is the minimum temperature you recommend drenching? My 10 day forecast is mid to upper 50's?

Thanks for all the input
Kevin


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Sweet to the Soul said:


> Today I had 14 with no or almost no bees.
> 
> Had brood and larva found some hives with very small clusters (usually less than a cup full) and queens, but they would never make the winter.


Go back and look at the brood. Look for bees dead or dying as they emerge with their tongues out. Pull some with a knife. Do they have wings? Do they have full size abdomens or stumpy, flat little abdomens?


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## CentralPAguy (Feb 8, 2009)

Sweet for the Soul, I am having the same symptoms in multiple yards here in Central Pa. There is something bad happening in my yards as well. Lots of my hives that once contained 30,000 to 50,000 bees now have only several hundred bees and more likely than not with no queen.

There is abandoned brood scattered across the frames. Another wierd thing is that the bees and queens have abandoned the frames and have taken up residence on the wooden box itself. I don't understand what I am seeing.

Now the only thing that is different this year is that my water company changed the treatment of the water from Chlorine to Chloramine in July. Chlorine will leave the water, while Chloramine will not and I started feeding them in August and September. 

Another observation is that I brought home a shallow that had minimal amount of honey and just put it outside for my home bees to clean up. Well, tonight, there were hundreds of dead bees below the frames. I don't know if they were killed in battle or whether the honey was toxic to them. Some of the bees look like they died on the frame as they were gathering honey.

On some of the hives that still had active amounts of bees even though small in quantity, I did see a few bees with deformed wings.

I did not do treatments in two of the yards where the decimation occurred. 

I am contacting Penn State University and our State Department of Agriculture and provide them with samples of bees, honey, frames, whatever they need in order to help find what my problem is. 

It is extremely depressing to know how quickly the bees die off or abscond.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

If the hives made honey, I vote NOT CCD. If you put new bees in the hives next year, and they make honey and do fine, I was right. If you put new bees in the hive next year, and you see brood issues, frequent attempts to requeen, and little honey, I was wrong.

The only sure fire cure I have found is new clean bees in new clean equipment.

Roland


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

I have no experiance with CCD or anything but I have been reading the new news on the possibility that CCD is nosema and a new iridescent virus. Supposedly every CCD colony tested possitive for both of them. Both do not grow well in warm dry weather but thrive when temps drop and humidity goes up. Might mean something to you.

http://www.geekosystem.com/colony-collapse-disorder-causes-discovered/

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_e22a9ce4-d8d5-11df-b315-001cc4c002e0.html


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

The "textbook" description of CCD is that there is no queen, and no dead bees lying around, they just vanish to who knows where.

Sweet to the Soul, and CentralPAguy, your problems sound to me VERY MUCH like mites. In particular CentralPAguy, your symptoms are classic mite and PMS. It will be interesting when the lab results come back, i take it they will look for mites?

The Mite away 2 treatment could be a factor. It can be effective if all the required conditions such as temp & humidity are just right, but it can be very hit and miss also, there are a lot of failures. If using this treatment you need to test your bees afterwards to see how effective it was.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Oldtimer said:


> Sweet to the Soul, and CentralPAguy, your problems sound to me VERY MUCH like mites. In particular CentralPAguy, your symptoms are classic mite and PMS. It will be interesting when the lab results come back, i take it they will look for mites?


Exactly, Oldtimer. The symptoms are classic PMS. No need to send off samples. No need to spend money on lab analysis. It's Varroa and viruses.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Oldtimer said:


> The "textbook" description of CCD is that there is no queen,


I reckon it depends on whose textbook you're using.

'The main symptom of CCD is simply no or a low number of adult honey bees present but with a *live queen *and no dead honey bees in the hive.'

http://seprl.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd/


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

No one here really knows from afar what caused this problem in Sweet to the Soul's bees. My only observation or maybe I should call it a gripe is when people want to too quickly assume the unknown (CCD) before they have eliminated what remains the single biggest factor in fall hive decline which is varroa. It can sneak up on the most diligent of beekeepers simply because it is set up by high brood production and the resulting high hive populations in late summer. Everything can look so good until the queen starts to slow egg laying and then things can fall apart pretty quickly. Almost every year we see in our own outfit (almost always in locations that missed a timely treatment) problems a lot like what are being described here, I see them as mite issues first and foremost and vow to figure a way to get them treated a little earlier in the fall and later in the spring the next year. Mites must be monitored closely it is quite simply the most important management issue in this business.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

jim lyon said:


> No one here really knows from afar what caused this problem in Sweet to the Soul's bees.


Which is true of every piece of speculation that goes on this message board. 


jim lyon said:


> My only observation or maybe I should call it a gripe is when people want to too quickly assume the unknown (CCD) before they have eliminated what remains the single biggest factor in fall hive decline which is varroa.


Sweet posted some symptoms. There's plenty of room for speculation. I reckon it's Ok to gripe if others' speculation doesn't immediately support your speculation. If Sweet doesn't understand that all of this is sight unseen, untested guesswork, he's gonna be on a wild goose chase regardless.


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Around here CCD means Couldn't Control Dam Mites(CCDM). We see CCDM every year in yards that , as Jim L pointed out, didn't get a TIMELY treatment. 
Its a virus issue, and is compounded by nosema. If you have enough hives to justify it, I would suggest getting a microscope and learn how to do your own testing for nosema spores. Randy Olivers website has complete info on all aspects of this.

For varroa, alcohol shakes are the best we have found for checking levels. After you have all the testing results then you can decide what treatments are required.

But its too late in the year to solve any of these problems in my opinion.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

jim lyon said:


> My only observation or maybe I should call it a gripe is when people want to too quickly assume the unknown (CCD) before they have eliminated what remains the single biggest factor in fall hive decline which is varroa.



Exactly.

In fact I've seen so many people claim CCD when the symptoms match varroa, or some other cause, that I'm starting to wonder if CCD actually exists.

Over the years there has always been the "latest breakthrough" to explain CCD, which has been everything from escaped microwaves, to cellphones, to genetic crops, etc. Now it's a certain combination of viruses.

When a hive dies of varroa or certain other causes, these viruses, if present, are going to be exacerbated and detected anyway.

I guess in a broad sense, any hive that dies could be described as CCD. The colony collapsed.









I'm thinking that the idea of CCD is contributing to poor beekeeping. Instead of investigating why the hive REALLY died and doing something to correct that in future, the beekeeper goes "CCD", and shrugs his shoulders.


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## CentralPAguy (Feb 8, 2009)

I have been posting to another thread that I started asking about Chloramine and its toxicity.

Today, the State Dept of Agriculture did stop out at three of my yards to take back samples. We did a sugar roll and I do have a significant mite count and they mentioned that I need to treat for mites, but I wonder what good it will do for me at this stage of the hive declines. I can't imagine that they will make it thru the cold of winter with their small handfuls of bees.

The only thing that doesn't make any sense to me is that my hives are devoid of bees suddenly when you would think that I should have hives in various stages of decline in all of my yards.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

In fall it happens suddenly. It's just the way the mite cycle works. During the newish beekeepers learning phase, by the time you notice, the hive is past the point of no return without intervention from the beekeeper.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Can anyone of you tell me at what drop count or roll count you would consider a hopeless situation come september/october? Or is it more an issue of if they have enough bees to raise the brood needed if you can knock out the mites.

I know there is info on web and I have read plenty of it but I would like to hear when you throw in the towel and whatnot. I have read some info from Europe as well and they have complete different guidelines than are commonly accepted here.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

OK well for me anyway, I don't go by natural drop because a number of factors can make it pretty unreliable, it's a rough guide only.

But I've seen figures of 40 or 50 a day being mentioned, to me that is WAY too much, I'd be investigating the hive further for possible treatment at a 10th of that number or even less.

I can't answer your question about cut off for winter survivability because I don't know your US seasonal conditions, plus you guys have, I think, more mite tolerance in a lot of your bees, than we do in my country.

However, in my view, just about any hive can be saved, if the queen is still alive. Basically it's just a case of adding enough healthy bees, plus treating the mites. However most on this forum would disagree with that, and tend to write hives off if they cannot recover on their own. I think that is because of the ready supply of spring package bees you have in the US, whereas in my country there are no spring packages available, we HAVE to get our bees through the winter. So again, it's about local influences that will shape the judgement call you make.

Hope you get some local guys answering also who can be more specific to your situation than I can.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Im not real scientific on this but our situation is treat as soon as you have removed the honey the sooner the better, we use an alcohol shake and I would say if you are seeing more than 6 to 8 in a half cup sample you better get some treatment on. More severe cases may easily have 20 to 30. A more specific answer in my perspective is what is the size of the hive and what time of year is it. After treatments (thymol followed by oxalic in our case) your numbers should be quite low but we usually combine any hives 3 combs or less before shipping south. As Oldtimer states almost any hive can be saved its just that there isnt a lot to be gained by trying to get a small hive through the winter, some make it and begin to grow in the spring but too many just fade away. One more observation dont expect to shake 3 dinks together to make one good hive because what you usually end up with is 1 bad hive. Our saying when combining is that you must have an "engine" our term for a pretty decent growing unit.


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Anything queenless or less than 3 frames(clustered) at this time of year,I consider goners.If they still look viable(hard to define but you know it when you see it, they may be given a chance to make it. I'm talking Italians and Italian/carn crosses here.Otherwise they are shaken out and equipment stored to try again next year. 

10 mites in an alcohol shake of 300 bees from the brood nest in mid August testing means trouble-very soon!Some hives seem able to handle higher levels-for awhile anyway.You have to watch the brood! Look for those scattered brood patterns with yellowish sick brood.Thats the first sign that viruses are taking hold. The final stage is a handful of bees with a few small patches of brood with stunted bees that died as they tried to emerge.These tend to get robbed out by the stronger hives on a warm day and of course bring the mites and viruses home.
I know its tough to lose that many hives all at once. It happens to a lot of us from time to time, though some will never admit it.


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

The reason its too late (in the colder areas) is winter is almost here, the winter bees have been raised (or not) and the queens are shutting down.

When DWV first hit us years ago it was 100% death for the hive. In recent years I have seen hives turn around if treated for mites early enough in the season.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

I agree with Jim and Logger.
We had Randy Oliver speak at one of our bee semiars this past February. One of the ideas I took away from the semiar was those stick pins with colored ends. Throughout the spring and summer a hive I suspected which might be or end up being a dink, i placed a pin on the bottom board. Simple and easy to do. Each inspection or check while supering or noting which hive produced honey poorly got a pin. If they picked up in the season, the pin stayed until next inspection, but i placed it on a different corner of the bottom board. Doing this I was able to see hives grow and or decline more easily. Come the beginning of August those pins meant more. 
Be assured though, I also monitor mites and check for other problems....and treat. But the idea of the pins removed the "my hives were doing great and bang...gone, dead etc"
About two years ago I also start "grading" my hives the beginning of August. The pins made grading a lot easier. My grading of hives started early so that I could avoid wintering dink hives and spending money needlessly on hives which would not make our winter.

I have seen a few hives in my yards like what Central Pa guy and Sweet to the soul have described. All of my investigation into the hives have pointed the way to mites, nosema, decine in the queen due to viruses and mites, decline of eggs due to the queen starting to slow down at that time of year. At first to me it seemed oh no my hives are failing. But with experience I learned signs which usually started to show up in May and June. Now by using colored pins on hives during inpections...the guess work is really gone.

O yeah....three pins and Mid August, no sign of improvement, I pinch the queen, shake the bees a ways from the hives and think hard on what i will do with any left over brood. Some hives, the frames get destroyed other hives, if the brood i pick out looks OK might get dispersed in other hives.

First year, destroying brood frames with larva and brood was hard....now I look at it as a management tool to stop the spread of viruses in sick emerging brood. Does it cost money...yeah sure... but so do sick unproducing hives.
I strongly believe in comb management. I strongly believe we exasperate some of our own problems by placing comb from sick hives into healthy hives reducing the health of the healthy hives especially when we do not look for signs of health or disease. Viruses which are out of control represent a clear and present danger to healthy hives when considering thresholds of mites and what mites represent. GMP to me dictate that i do not increase the risk to healthy hives. I would much rather place the comb in place where the bees will not find it (our dark and cool barn) and send it for rendering when we get a pallet of comb at the end of a season, or if it is really bad, burn it so the bees can not rob it. Some might think this is extreme, but so is our fight with the spread of viruses. I look at it like us washing our hands often to do our part to help prevent or slow down the flu or common cold virus in humans....sort of. 

edit: 
I also have a hand held torch in my bee tool box. Mostly it is used for lighting the smoker. However it is also used to clean my hive tools after working a hive which i think is sick. Does it help, I dunno, but it give me peace of mind that i am taking some precautions. I also have a few pairs of gloves with me and wash my bee suit every night especially when I am inspecting hives ...sometime I will change my bee suit at lunch cause the one I was wearing was pretty dirty. It's that bio security thing that has carried over from measures we have put in place with our cows to slow disease and virus spread with our cows while calving

JMO in my yards


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Some good ideas!

Personally I'm not into burning combs, except for foul brood, although we still don't have nosema ceranae in my area yet. In my country it is illegal to feed bees antibiotics, and as a result our bees have had better tolerance to virus such as n. apis bred into them down the years. However if i was hard nosed enough burning a bad comb might be a good thing.

The pin thing is a great idea.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

I think I treated mine in time this fall. I did get to watch one fall apart most surely from mites this summer and learned alot from it. I am sure its toast but I treated it along with all my other colonies with apistan and have watched it go from not being able to raise any brood, then half of larva make it, then on last inspection I see I finally have a decent brood pattern. I will give it fout frames of honey that I saved and see what happens.

Has anyone ever seen a colony decline to a cup of bees and recover to a full healthy box or two? I had a colony dwindle this spring. It just got weaker and weaker till I was sure it did not have enough bees to keep brood warm and could not find the queen. I also seen stunted bees with short stumpy abdomens with their wings spread and pointing up. Not K-wing though. I was going to shake it out and take equipment but I was going to be late for work that day so I left it planing to do it later. A couple weeks later when I came back, after inspecting other colonies I went to shake this colony out but when I pulled the frame with the two hundred bees left (or less, it may have been less than a hundred) or so I saw the queen and a small patch of healthy looking brood. It had been warm for tha past couple weeks and continued for the coming couple weeks. I just couldent shake it out and to my astonishment it started growing, supercieded when it grew to four or five frames and now is probably a deep and a half strong. I am not sure what happened to this colony to begin with but I could not believe they did not get robbed out when they had no chance at defending their colony. They also had so few foraging bees. I kept moving what honey they had to small cluster.

If it was mites I am wondering if it is possible that they both can be reduced to such an extent that remaining mites die trying to reproduce in what little brood is provided then the colony recovers when mites have collapsed themselves. 

If it was CCD (which I have no clue of one way or the other) It kind of vakes sense to me because they did not recover until it warmed into the high 70's and 80's every day as the new research suggests.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

WI-beek said:


> I think I treated mine in time this fall. I did get to watch one fall apart most surely from mites this summer and learned alot from it. I am sure its toast but I treated it along with all my other colonies with apistan and have watched it go from not being able to raise any brood, then half of larva make it, then on last inspection I see I finally have a decent brood pattern. I will give it fout frames of honey that I saved and see what happens.


Nice work! I do hope you will be rewarded by seeing this hive come through OK. If it shows mites in spring, another treatment should see it do well next summer.

And as to your other "survivor" story, yes these things can happen, and it can be causes other than mites.

Always good to hear some success stories.


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## S&H (Feb 25, 2010)

WI-beek said:


> ... reduced to such an extent that remaining mites die trying to reproduce in what little brood is provided then the colony recovers when mites have collapsed themselves ...


I've had this same thought regarding some of my hives that were not treated, and then almost fully collapsed last September. There was way too much brood (much of it dying) for the remaining bees to cover, and the bees were spread all over two deeps. I reduced to a single and removed all but a few of the best remaining brood frames and stores. The bees were then able to make a reasonable cluster, started brooding up in January, and by mid March were once again fully occupying two deeps, going on to provide a good crop of honey. I then treated using thymol, and they're way more robust than last year at this time.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Thanks old timer. 

It will be interesting to see if the colony which went from a strong 09 nucleus colony to near collapse in 2010 survives or was a complete waste other than by letting things run there course in the given situation, I have learned valuable experience I can use in the future. I have never been able to gain any real hands on experience from a mentor. That said, beginning beekeepers today like myself must have a huge advantage over others in the past with the ease of access to information over the web like this forum. If I had to rely solely on what written information I could get my hands on, I would have serious difficulty trying to assess and solve the seemingly endless afflictions that affect apis millifera today.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

jim lyon said:


> Our saying when combining is that you must have an "engine" our term for a pretty decent growing unit.


Mine is...Old bees plus old bees equals old bees.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

...word on the street (although denied by the authorities) is that all hive deaths in ohio are considered ccd by the state apiarist.

deknow


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## Sweet to the Soul (Sep 1, 2010)

Thanks to everyone for the input. I have been reading and considering every post. I do appreciate all the input and am learning much from the discussion.

I get help locally from Wayne Stoller and another longtime beekeeper, they wanted me to send off samples so we did. I will let you know what we hear back. 

From the post I've been reading I am leaning toward the mite problem also. I did check two other yards Friday and they are very strong with lots of winter honey stores. So I am just trying to figure out why the one yard dropped so hard after having the same treatments.

I will be checking the rest of my yards next week, so we will see if it is an isolated problem or more widespread.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

Oldtimer said:


> Some good ideas!
> 
> Personally I'm not into burning combs, except for foul brood... However if i was hard nosed enough burning a bad comb might be a good thing.


we have an outdoor wood stove which heats our house. It does not go all year long, but there are days when it is lit. Makes it easier for the dozen or so frames i destroy in a year...which is not much.

I think if i were to put it into words to describe the comb and hive....
...really sparse brood pattern
... a hive that has been in total decline and done everything to reverse it, even requeening. not alot of bees in the hive. If i had to guess about a frame or less...down from a thriving spring early summer hive. DWV, slow moving bees, older bees. Dark comb.
Shaking the bees out, the strong foragers will find a home. The weak will die in the grass. But my biggest concern is the left over brood in those frames. When those bees hatch in another hive will they be healthy or contaminate the healthy hive they were placed in.

My thought is, am I going it place this comb in a healthy hive...even next year? If not, do I want the bees to rob it out and taking what ever was making the bees sick back home with them? Because in the cool dark barn, there is that risk in a dirth since the barn is not sealed up. Yeah burning a dozen or so frames sounds extreme, it works for me.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I agree with those that cull the failing hives with bad genes. Those are obvious. But what do you do to differentiate between a hive with good genes that has had bad thing happen to it, such as a dearth , or failed requeening; and a hive with bad genes that is in the same condition. Both hives may be sub par, but one is caused by external events, the other internal. These seem to be the hardest decisions to make. It seems that good record keeping is the only way to clarify the conundrum. 

Roland


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Our decisions on which to cull aren't infallible. But it costs me money every time a hive is picked up and moved so I like to leave the culls behind to be dealt with later. I have been surprised a few times by weak hives that were left in the cold snowy mountains to peg out. Some not only survived but were good hives the next year (a little fumidil drench in early spring helped them along).
For the most part I am right about the ones that aren't going to make it.

But yes, bad things do happen to good bees.


And I agree with the good record keeping. I couldn't even start to remember what was done where without my computer daily log. I still have stacks of handwritten notebooks from before the computer age. We still use blue lumber crayons codes on the hives. Pins is a nice idea.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Well here we go! I started a thread not to far back asking is hbh drench really worked to knock out nosema cerana or not and I did not get any real responses from beeks who used it.

So loggermike, please tell my more about your experience with the stuff. Have you ever used it to clear up nosema? If not when do you use it?

If the stuff really works for nosema and has other benefits as well, it would be a no brainier, especially when you can use it during a flow.


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## loggermike (Jul 23, 2000)

Ha ha. Well here's the truth. I have used fumagillan off and on for years .And essential oils since Amrine and Noel first wrote about it. My own versions, not HBH. Sometimes I felt it made a difference, other times not sure. But it was only fairly recently that I bought a pricey microscope and decided to try to answer the question for myself.. I have several yards that had high (10 to 20 million) spore counts.3 yards have received 3 fumagillan drenches . One yard has gotten 2 drenches of homemade lemongrass/spearmint/thymol plus some syrup with with the oils. I haven't finished this project and actually am getting behind..... But a sample from the essential oil group showed still very high spore loads-in the range of too high to count.I will take samples from the fumagillan group when it quits raining .
Remember this is just a simple test of my own concoctions on nosema spores and NOT any kind of rigorous scientific study.I'll leave that to those with more time and money.

Here are 3 good pictures of what we are talking about(CCD varroa) on Allen Dicks Beekeeping diary.
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/default.htm
Scroll down to Oct.30

By the way the first time I saw this in my own outfit I tried to combine everything till I had a hive full of bees. Then dribbled some oxalic on them . They all died anyway but at least the oxalic finished off the mites so they didn't go somewhere else on the bees that were robbing them. The combs were re-stocked the following year with no problems as long as they were treated for varroa in a TIMELY manner. That is -the viruses apparently did not winter over in the dead brood on the combs.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Hey thanks Loggermike, your "non rigorous scientific study" is still the best info I've had on this so far, rather than the claim / counterclaim, based on heresay, that I've seen on the forum , on the subject thus far.

As you get further results, please keep us filled in!


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_I strongly believe in comb management. I strongly believe we exasperate some of our own problems by placing comb from sick hives into healthy hives reducing the health of the healthy hives especially when we do not look for signs of health or disease. Viruses which are out of control represent a clear and present danger to healthy hives when considering thresholds of mites and what mites represent. GMP to me dictate that i do not increase the risk to healthy hives. _

Honeyshack,
Have you tried spraying combs with a Clorox bleach solution to disinfect combs, or is burning your management choice? I believe 1:9 Clorox to water is the mix Randy Oliver advocates.

With 10 or 12 combs a year, that is nothing. You probably lose more combs than that due to breakage while extracting. But if you started needing to cull hundreds of combs a year, Clorox might be an alternative method.

I'd favor washing down the barn with Clorox before I'd resort to burning down the barn and building new to control disease.


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## honeyshack (Jan 6, 2008)

Countryboy said:


> I'd favor washing down the barn with Clorox before I'd resort to burning down the barn and building new to control disease.


I would spray our barn down if necessary as well. 

I choose to burn those frames because it is easier both in cost and time. A barn does not have all the nooks and crannies that comb has. Being as busy as we are I cannot justify the time cost. Especially when fresh frames cost so little (yes a cost to the wax)...barns cost so much more.
I am very much a cost/ratio kind a girl. I looking at all angles, calculate the risk, and calculate the cost. It's that pencil, paper and eraser thing that i have mentioned more than once. I would rather place in fresh foundation or honeycomb frames rather than risk...yes I know a small risk...

Country boy, are you a cattle producer as well? If you are, you will understand what I am about to say. If not however...sorry. Calves get a virus known as scours. It can actually be several different viruses. However, as per our vet, and many many years in the field, scours is a 95% management issue. Lots of space, always clean bedding, good food, pre calving management practices like clean calving areas, good timely clostrum. As well as reduce the bio security risks with the introduction of new cows or calves or even a farmer coming to visit you in the calving area. All of this plays a part of scour management. All of these things reduce the risk greatly, when all parts are used in conjunction with each other. Take away one...such as clean bedding or say space for the cattle, and the disease risk rises alot. To the point of sick or dying calves. It does not cost alot to give cattle more space, and it does not cost alot to keep the bedding clean (unless a good spring storm comes in), but the cost of weight loss, meds, drench, and death add up all too quickly.

That is how i look at comb that has come from a sick hive.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Roland said:


> I agree with those that cull the failing hives with bad genes. Those are obvious. But what do you do to differentiate between a hive with good genes that has had bad thing happen to it, such as a dearth , or failed requeening; and a hive with bad genes that is in the same condition.


In a natural setting, bees will periodically be exposed to relatively uncommon stressors (drought, disease outbreak, wildfire, inbreeding, sharp increase in predators, etc).

Traits that effectively address these stresses are needed in the general population.

These traits are strongly reinforced in “hard times” and selected against in “good times”. If it is all “good times” (feeding anytime there isn’t a flow, treatments for any and all ailments, coddling of any kind), these survival traits are never selected for, and even the multiple matings and haploid male genetics that the bees use to keep a wide range of genes available will fail to preserve them.

deknow


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_Especially when fresh frames cost so little (yes a cost to the wax)...barns cost so much more.
I am very much a cost/ratio kind a girl. I looking at all angles, calculate the risk, and calculate the cost. It's that pencil, paper and eraser thing that i have mentioned more than once. I would rather place in fresh foundation or honeycomb frames rather than risk...yes I know a small risk..._

At this stage, I can certainly understand your reasoning for 10 or 12 frames. It's more of an inconvenience than anything to give any special treatment to such a low number of combs. If you start doing more combs a year, get out that paper and pencil and see if it is worthwhile to disinfect with Clorox rather than making the bees draw out 10 or 20 boxes of combs.

_Country boy, are you a cattle producer as well? _

No, I am not a cattle producer, but I know what scours are. I've seen bottle fed fawns get scours from changing brands of formula or goat milk. Hot weather can bring on scours sometimes too.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Deknow, maybe I was not clear. For example, a hive with good genes has a supercedure queen fail due to a week of rainy weather when she was to be mated. It is now in the same condition (below average) as a hive that has bad genes but has not lost it's queen. Do you cull both hives?

Roland


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

hi roland,

...i think this is a poor "for instance", as in the case of the virgin that fails to mate because of weather, you end up with a drone layer...in which case you have a doomed hive that you will requeen or watch die. 

this is unlike a properly mated queen with questionable genetics, as you will not know if the genetics are "good" or "bad" without letting things play out.

a drone layer is a dead end no matter what (save the small chance of parthenogenesis)....it is already culled.

deknow


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Actually, I was thinking more of a queen with good genes, that had a week of rainy weather when she mated(with good drone), but not well. and the hive suffers. Do you cull this hive? It has good genes. 

I realize I am drifting off topic, but the point is that sometime finding the cause of a problem is not as easy as we think. We often treat the symptom, not the disease. The effect, and not the cause. 

WE had back to back near total losses 2 years in a row, and where able to make some sound decisions only after we set up a matrix of different variables. All of the hives in a yard shared variables, a couple yards shared variables, forming six groups. It was then easy to pick out which variables where significant. The results where that new bees in new equipment a factor of 10 more honey than all the other groups, including new bees in warehoused (3 years) equipment. 


Roland


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

Roland said:


> The results where that new bees in new equipment a factor of 10 more honey than all the other groups, including new bees in warehoused (3 years) equipment.


Was that new bees from your hives or packages brought in? 

If they were packages brought in "what if" they would of came from a supplier that had sick bees? If purchasing packages from a supplier that has nosema present in his operation will those packages have a higher mortality rate than if purchased from a nosema free operation? In northern areas that get packages from the south the packages arrive when the weather is cool and rainy. Is this the cause of so many "package bee" failures? 

Was all the equipment(hive bodies and honey supers) new or just the brood nests?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

New bees : New bees in a package, from a supplier that I was told was in an isolated dry area. I have no reason to believe that they carried any significant diseases.

New equipment: New bottom board, brood chamber(deep), excluder, inner cover, roof, 4 supers(deep), new wood frames, and crimped wire foundation. 
The hive stand and roof weight were reused. All bees where removed from the yard for at least a week before new bees where introduced.

We have not seen problems with the packages we have purchased in the last 5 years. Queen failures in the early groups, yes. The bees them selves have been healthy and well mannered. Some times it pays to be nosy and ask the background of the bees you are buying. 

More than 5 years ago, a different supplier was used, and we saw more problems with ill tempered bees, both from the package, and the queen's offspring, and bees that seem less than motivated.

Roland


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> If it is all “good times” (feeding anytime there isn’t a flow, treatments for any and all ailments, coddling of any kind), these survival traits are never selected for,
> deknow


I know we've talked about this before, Dean. I believe that it's not always the fault of the bees. In my case, I feed sugar only when necessary. I manage my bees so I don't have to feed. I don't take all the honey and feed back replacement syrup. I do my best to leave the last flows of the year with them for winter. I select breeders that have the ability to raise colonies that can support themselves.

But, sometimes it's not the bees fault. Last summer was a good example. The main flow was very short. Many colonies made almost nothing. The Fall Goldenrod flow failed. There was no honey for wintering or harvesting. Without supplemental feeding, I would have lost 75% of my colonies. 

How can breeding select for an abnormal year, or bad weather conditions?


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> But, sometimes it's not the bees fault. Last summer was a good example. The main flow was very short. Many colonies made almost nothing. The Fall Goldenrod flow failed. There was no honey for wintering or harvesting. Without supplemental feeding, I would have lost 75% of my colonies.


hi mike (and all),

to what do you attribute the difference between the 75% that would have perrished, and the 25% that would not have? in your selection process (for queen rearing), do you distinguish the two groups (ie, are you less likely to graft from colonies that needed feed)?

with a caution that one does not simply want to select for "the best robbers", one wants (or at least i want) bees that can manage with the resources and conditions available.

since we cannot count on the weather and/or flow to be consistant from year to year, we have to take this into account in our longterm management/breeding statagies. obviously, given the number of millions of years bees have been around, mother nature _does_ take these things into account in her management and breeding stratagies.

one of the effects of the breeding mechanism of the honeybee (multiple matings, haploid male genetics) is that genetic traits that are not needed for survival most years (and may even be costly) are likely to stay in the gene pool for a long time.

catastrophic events (such as you describe, with little flow) are devistating to populations, but necessary to select for traits that allow survival in such circumstances (as rare as they may be, they are certain to occur from time to time, and the population must have some way to deal with them).

one method the bees handle these issues is to be valuable to beekeepers...insuring that they are cared for and fed if necessary. once this becomes a long term "solution", any other techniques the bees might use to survive such events are selected against (as there is no culling of colonies that do not display effective stratagies to deal with these events), and over time, they will be lost in favor of bees that do well when fed, medicated, etc. the "environment" in which such bees are adapted is one in which they are fed if hungry, medicated if sick...beekeepers become part of the immune system of the bee, and beekeepers become part of the bee's food gathering technique.

the other method is to let the bees that don't have traits to let them survive in a given year (even if it is unusual) die (as they would in nature), and breed and build from bees that do survive. might you lose 90% (or perhaps even 98%) of a population? yes. is this bad for a beekeeper who relies on this year's crop to pay the bills and to eat? yes. are these kinds of losses tollerable for the majority of commercial beekeepers? NO!

...but this is entirely the point. we need bees that are able to withstand rare events. what we have are bees that produce the most under near ideal conditions, and need help in any other circumstance.

is it the "fault" of the bees if they starve? no....they are at the mercy of generations of selection and the whim of mother nature.

this is not to say that we can't have commercial beekeepers, but if we want robust bees (which at least i do), we need a different approach.

if feeding is economical for someone's business long term, go for it...i have no problem with someone making money (and not losing their shirt). there are consequences, however, ranging from the microbial culture in the hive (which may affect the quality of honey produced, as these microbes are involved in honey production), to the long term robustness of the kept honeybee population.

deknow


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> hi mike (and all),
> 
> to what do you attribute the difference between the 75% that would have perrished, and the 25% that would not have? in your selection process (for queen rearing), do you distinguish the two groups (ie, are you less likely to graft from colonies that needed feed)?
> 
> ...


There are plenty of reasons some colonies would be heavy enough. A colony wasn't strong enough to store honey in it's supers, and it all went into the broodnest. Or, a colony swarmed and stored its honey in the broodnest. And maybe, just maybe...they're the "Ones"?

Yes, one method would be to feed them and forget it. Go to Costco and buy a ton of sugar. Maybe stir in a little HBH..put the lime in the coconut...

And yes. THE? other method would be to "Live and let die". That will work, too. Don't hold your breath.

But there are more than two methods Dean. The third other method works well, too. Faster than LALD. Feed the colonies that need feeding to keep them alive for next year's bees and requeen them with daughters of from colonies that didn't need feeding AND had the traits you like in your bees. 

And then are they perfect bees? No. There's always something new coming down the Pike. Something the bees haven't seen before. And they're gonna lose. Nope, not all. But many. If I can breed from those able to stand the change, without losing the rest, that seems like the best plan and that's what being a beekeeper is all about. To me.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Well said Mr Palmer. Once more, it sounds like theory and practice must diverge. 
That necessity to keep food on the table, and the tax man at bay, force us to make compromises. The real rub comes when none of the hives survive. Then who do you breed from? We have seen this, We even lost the feral line of genes, that where so tough that less than 100 bees in spring could come back to full strength by honey flow time. So sooner or later the live and let die crowd will lose it all. 

Roland


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I've heard experienced breeders say that often when you select for one trait, you lose another trait. How often do you get years like last year, when you would lose 75% of the bees if you didn't feed? 25 years?

What trait are you willing to lose in order to gain the trait of being able to withstand a 1 in 25 year problem? Sometimes it's easier to deal with the 1 in 25 year problem and do some supplemental feeding, rather than lose a trait which is valuable the other 24 years.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Good perspective MP sounds suspiciously like a commercial beekeeper who makes his living from his bees, but of course we are on the Commercial Beekeeping/Pollination Forum :applause:


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Just trying to figure what is "suspicious" about making a living from bees.

I think there are quite a few on the forum who would aspire to be able to do that.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Oldtimer said:


> Just trying to figure what is "suspicious" about making a living from bees.


I guess you never saw the 'Bee Movie'.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Countryboy said:


> I've heard experienced breeders say that often when you select for one trait, you lose another trait. How often do you get years like last year, when you would lose 75% of the bees if you didn't feed? 25 years?


Which is why I said: 

"Feed the colonies that need feeding to keep them alive for next year's bees and requeen them with daughters of from colonies that didn't need feeding AND had the traits you like in your bees".

May I add...It's also the reason I gave up on the isolated mating yard up in the mountains. Since I'm not God, and I only have an inkling of what's really going on out there, how do I know what I'm leaving behind in the valley. Although plenty of the colonies in the valley aren't the bees I would choose for adding to the isolated mating yard, I wonder what traits they do have. Am I selecting for a narrow range of genes and leaving important genes behind? I would rather keep my mating yard in the valley where nutrition is better and remove queens in colonies that have problems. Really the reason I don't requeen by the calendar, and leave supercedure queens that perform well.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

beemandan said:


> I guess you never saw the 'Bee Movie'.


Ha! Now i can see!


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

There are 2 reasons 2 feed bees. In extreme cases to prevent imminent death and most importantly to increase production. Studies have shown time and again when bees are stimulated early with supplemental feed they produce more honey at the end of the year. So why wouldn't you do it? As long as the spread is big enough between sugar and honey then there are huge incentives to feed. It's really very simple. All honeybees irrespective of race, colour etc benefit by feed.

As far as Nosema goes fumigillin works , the rest doesn't. It sure would be nice to have an alternative product that is cheap and effective.

Jean-Marc


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

mike, i don't disagree with anything you are saying here. as i've told you before, last season (2009) we did a "hard selection" without feeding at all...the purpose of which was to cull out some genetics that couldn't do what others could (build up in a bad year enough to overwinter comfortably)...if we had been 3 years further down the road of selection and breeding we would have done things differently...at this point, i have no regrets....this may be "theory" to some, but it is what we have been practicing.

there are a few things to think about though:

1. in some studies from 1974, martha gilliam (at the tucson lab) was looking at gut microbes in honeybees. free-flying, unfed and untreated bees (this was before mites, before ahb) showed NO yeasts in the digestive tract. once the bees were caged, fed sucrose, or treated with OTC, 24d, or fumagillin, there were yeasts in the digestive tract (indicating to me that feeding sucrose exerts some kind of stress on the bees that leads to similar results as other, more obvious stresses). modern studies looking at gut microbes seem to find yeasts in all the digestive tracts they look at...this indicates some kind of change the stresses that bees are exposed to.

2. the genetic traits that result in the best yields in a good year are not necessarily the same ones that lead to survival in a bad year. if you are grafting (and using drone stock) from you best producers in a good year, you _may_ be selecting fairly hard against "survival traits". durring the great depression, there were plenty of businessmen who were successful durring the boom, but were incapable of surviving the bust....a time when practical hands on skills were more valuable than more abstract book keeping skills.

with all this said, i don't see anything wrong with what you are doing or saying here, but no matter the approach we take, there are downsides, and your approach is no exception.

deknow


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

jean-marc said:


> Studies have shown time and again when bees are stimulated early with supplemental feed they produce more honey at the end of the year. So why wouldn't you do it?


well, there are 2 reasons that come to mind:

1. we have customers that want honey from bees that are not fed...and willing to pay a premium for such a product.

2. feed often makes it into the honey. one commercial beekeeper we have spoken with (and who's honey we had tested) had 5% sugar in the honey. when we told him our findings, he was not surprised and said, "that sounds about right"...even though he claimed to only feed when the hives were near 100% dry.

there are other reasons (for the overall health of the bees), but these 2 are the most relevant "business" reasons.

deknow


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Didn't know you could do such a test. How is it done?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> there are a few things to think about though:
> 
> 1. 1974, martha gilliam (at the tucson lab) was looking at gut microbes in honeybees. free-flying, unfed and untreated bees showed NO yeasts in the digestive tract. once the bees were caged, fed sucrose, or treated with OTC, 24d, or fumagillin, there were yeasts in the digestive tract (indicating to me that feeding sucrose exerts some kind of stress on the bees
> 
> 2. if you are grafting (and using drone stock) from you best producers in a good year, you _may_ be selecting fairly hard against "survival traits".



1. Fair enough, I guess. Yeasts in the gut. Of caged bees. I have to ask, how would finding yeasts in the gut of the bees effect the colony. Perhaps it is merely a sign of stress and nothing more. Sure you would agree that if bees with yeasts in their guts are stressed, it's better than being dead..

I'm not a scientist, I'm a beekeeper. I can only evaluate results by performance. Stress and yeasts aside, those sugar fed bees produced 38T of honey, 1500 queens and 470 nucs. Hundreds were requeend with this years' stock. They needed very little feeding this year. Assuming that they were stressed and compromised by yeasts, where is it showing?

2. I may be selecting against survival traits, but may also be selecting for them. I know what it takes for a colony of bees to survive and be productive here in Vermont. If I were to select for honey production alone, I guess you could be right. The same holds true if I were selecting for survival alone. Non-productive "survivors" are better off dead. No management costs.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> 1. Fair enough, I guess. Yeasts in the gut. Of caged bees.


NO! yeasts in the gut bees that are free flying and fed sucrose, bees that are caged, bees that are fed 24d, bees that are fed OTC ...in any of these situations yeasts were found. in unfed free flying bees there were no yeasts found.



> I have to ask, how would finding yeasts in the gut of the bees effect the colony. Perhaps it is merely a sign of stress and nothing more. Sure you would agree that if bees with yeasts in their guts are stressed, it's better than being dead..


yes, i brought up this data because it does indicate stress (and the stress is likely causing other stress reactions as well). i would agree that bees under stress are healthier than dead bees (and certainly "starving" bees are under stress as well). i don't know if there is any data on yeasts in the gut of free flying bees fed honey....perhaps they also exhibit stress (certainly the most healthy human diet will be less healthy if it is spoonfed to someone that doesn't get out of bed).



> ....those sugar fed bees produced 38T of honey, 1500 queens and 470 nucs. Hundreds were requeend with this years' stock. They needed very little feeding this year. Assuming that they were stressed and compromised by yeasts, where is it showing?


it's hard to know...there was no reasonable control group.....but a guess as to where it _might_ be showing is in the 75% that needed feeding to have a chance at surviving winter.
the unfed bees might represent some control group (but of course they were also in better shape during the season to bring in enough food). perhaps a control group of bees fed honey rather than sugar would yield interesting results. if only one had 38 tons or so of honey for such a test:doh:




> 2. I may be selecting against survival traits, but may also be selecting for them. I know what it takes for a colony of bees to survive and be productive here in Vermont.


i know what it takes too....feeding 3/4 of the colonies after harvesting 38 tons of honey:doh:



> If I were to select for honey production alone, I guess you could be right. The same holds true if I were selecting for survival alone. Non-productive "survivors" are better off dead. No management costs.


...non productive survivors are nothing more than a start. one could start by selecting for productivity _then_ look at survival...but of course you have done this to some extent, and your estimate was that you would lose 75% to starvation alone.
my guess is that 90% loss when stopping treatment is about right. such losses are, imho, better taken at the beginning of the process, before selection for productivity.

in any case, i hope you take this with equal parts of humor and seriousness. i greatly value your perspective (even if you are wrong :doh...but seriously, i think we are on the same team, but with slightly different goals and with slightly different needs.

some quick and dirty math:
let's use round numbers (that i think are in the ballpark, but not totally accurate):
let's say you are running 1000 hives, 250 were well stocked for the winter, 750 needed feeding.
let's say the ones that needed feeding needed an average of 30lbs?
let's assume that 1lb of feed is eqivilant to 1lb of honey.
that's 11.25 tons of syrup or honey that needs feeding.
if you fed back honey, it would leave you with 26.25 tons to sell

yes, honey is more costly than sugar, but sugar is more costly than HFCS. there are upsides and downsides to everything...i'm assuming that you have found the extra expense of sugar to be worth the extra $$$. might you find honey to be worth the extra expense? i don't know, but there is a difference.

deknow


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

No, I understand your humor and seriousness. I appreciate both. I just wish you would stop with the "maybees" and "what ifs".


>> deknow 
i know what it takes too....feeding 3/4 of the colonies after harvesting 38 tons of honey 

You have that backwards. I fed the syrup last year after the weather conditions prevented the bees from makeing either a crop or winter stores. The 38T of honey etc was made this year and very little feeding was needed.



>>...non productive survivors are nothing more than a start. one could start by selecting for productivity _then_ look at survival...but of course you have done this to some extent, and your estimate was that you would lose 75% to starvation alone.

Dean, that's all I do. Select from productive colonies that have the other traits I require...one of which is survivability without needing suplemental feed. Yes, I would have lost 75% by my rough estimates. The way I see it, I'm on the right track. There have been 2 seasons in the last 35+ where I had to feed like this.

>>my guess is that 90% loss when stopping treatment is about right. such losses are, imho, better taken at the beginning of the process, before selection for productivity.

Yes, true. That's why the selection is in the spring...after winter losses. Also after colonies needing supplemental feeding have shown themselves and are removed from the list of possible breeders.

>>in any case, i hope you take this with equal parts of humor and seriousness. i greatly value your perspective (even if you are wrong :doh...but seriously, i think we are on the same team, but with slightly different goals and with slightly different needs.

I do, and I agree.

>>some quick and dirty math:
let's use round numbers (that i think are in the ballpark, but not totally accurate):
let's say you are running 1000 hives, 250 were well stocked for the winter, 750 needed feeding.
let's say the ones that needed feeding needed an average of 30lbs?
let's assume that 1lb of feed is eqivilant to 1lb of honey.
that's 11.25 tons of syrup or honey that needs feeding.
if you fed back honey, it would leave you with 26.25 tons to sell

First, I don't view this as an economical issue. It's not about feeding back syrup after taking the honey. OK? I'm not feeding 11.25 tons of syrup so I can harvest 26.5 tons of honey. I see it as a production issue in the following year. If I feed say 30 pounds of feed to 750 colonies...colonies that would have starved...I have them alive next year. And this year, those colonies produced a 100+ lb average. So are we talking being more economical by taking the bees honey and feeding them syrup so I'll make more honey...remember they didn't make much honey last year. I don't think so. I'm talking about feeding syrup so the bees will be alive the following year and are able to make the 100+ lb average that they did this year. See? It's not about being more economical with a 30 pound crop of honey. It's about maintaing the bees so they can harvest 100 pounds next year.

The difference is 30 lbs taken with syrup fed back and 100 lbs taken and no syrup fed back.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

deknow said:


> one commercial beekeeper we have spoken with (and who's honey we had tested) had 5% sugar in the honey. when we told him our findings, he was not surprised and said, "that sounds about right"...


How do you do such a test?


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Oldtimer said:


> How do you do such a test?


There are several methods. The 2 in most common use are carbon isotope analysis, and a protein profile. There are a number of labs that will do such tests all over the world. These tests do not "see" rice syrup...which is a problem (see below).

The test that we had run in this case was a forier transform infrared spectroscopy. Polarmetrics (who have made a few posts on beesource) has produced a turnkey system that will test down to about 2-3% sugar aduletration. This test is not good at distinguishing between corn sugar and beet sugar...but does detect rice syrup. One packer/blender that started using this system found that 30% of what they were buying as "pure honey" was adulterated...and some of it up to 50%!

deknow


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> The test that we had run in this case was a forier transform infrared spectroscopy. Polarmetrics (who have made a few posts on beesource) has produced a turnkey system that will test down to about 2-3% sugar aduletration. deknow


Dean, what is the margin of error on this test? You have mentioned finding honey with 5% sucrose. Would a margin of error effect that 5% find?

Also, from the_ Hive and the Honeybee_ I see that honey has sucrose in it already. The average content is 1.3%, but the range is 0.2-7.6% So, adding in the margin of error, it is quite possible that finding 5% sucrose in a sample doesn't necessarily mean the sample is adulterated. A honey with a 3% natural sucrose content and a 2% margin of error could easily account for the 5% reading.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Hi Michael,

The tolerance of the test is about 2%.

Unlike other testing methods, the IR absorbsion spectra apparantly is unique (more or less) with the source. For instance, they see an easily discernable difference between cane sugar and beet sugar (both are 99.? sucrose chemically). As I said before, it has a hard time differentiating between beet and corn sugar...but it does see rice syrup.

It is not the amount of sucrose, it's the source of the sucrose present that is being measured.

One industrial user found rice syrup adulteration up to 50%, and a total of about 30% of the "pure honey" it was offered was adulterated more than 5%.

Another interesting thing is that when they were testing and calibrating the database, they got honey from local beekeepers. The developers knew nothing about beekeeping, and were told it was pure honey....yet they were finding adulteration where none was supposed to be. Of course, this was feeding.


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