Editor -

Eugene Makovec
Advertising Manager -
Marta Menn
Publishing Department -
Dianne Behnke & Susan Nichols
info@americanbeejournal.com
www.americanbeejournal.com CONTENTS
Volume 159 No. 2 February 2019
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
ARTICLESS
Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . 135
• Beekeeping Basics: The Winter Check
News and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Tina Sebestyen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Classified • Gregor Mendel the Beekeeper
Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Norman L. Carreck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Advertising • Treatment-free Beekeeping: A Practical Hands-On Approach — Part 2
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Terry Combs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

• Building a Small Bee Trailer

COLUMNS William Blomstedt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
The Classroom
Jerry Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 • Beekeeping in an Era of Mosquito Control for
Zika Virus and West Nile Virus
The Scientific Trenches David E. Arnal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Alison McAfee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
• The Pesticide Situation Part 2
Notes from the Lab: The Latest Bee Randy Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Science Distilled
Scott McArt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .199 • Beekeeping in Cuba... A New Frontier
Charles and Karen Nielsen Lorence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
The Curious Beekeeper
Rusty Burlew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 • Honeybee Emergency Response: A Practical Guide for
Responders — Part 2
Bees and Beekeeping, Past and Andy Hemken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Present
Wyatt A. Mangum . . . . . . . . . . . 225 • Modern Farm Myths Part — 2
Charles Linder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
The American Bee Journal
ISSN 0002-7626 • You Can Never Tell with Bees: An Interview with Tom Seeley
THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL (ISSN 002-7626) Dr. Leo Sharaskin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
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ON THE COVER
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Box 998, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. ©Copyright
Dadant & Sons, Inc., 2017. All rights reserved,
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(217) 847-3660.

February 2019 127

128 American Bee Journal
August 2018 129

It’s been over a decade since Col-
ony Collapse Disorder first made
headlines. The resulting flood of me-
dia coverage has produced both good
and bad results.
One tangible (and ongoing) benefit
is that honey bees and beekeepers are
now appreciated like never before.
It used to be you’d get funny looks
from people if you told them you
were a beekeeper. Now it’s more like,
“That’s so cool ― tell me more!”
And I love how our demograph-
ics have changed. When I attended
my first club meeting in the mid-90s,
it was mostly a bunch of old guys in
overalls. There were three women in
the room, and two were just there
with their spouses. Until fairly re-
cently, “Women’s Auxiliary” groups
were pretty common in many organi-
zations. These days I look around at
our local clubs and see a cross-section
of society: artists, realtors, printers,
bankers, engineers, you name it. And
women ― at least a third at meetings,
and about half in beginners’ work-
shops.
I’m proud to say that I was a bee-
keeper before beekeeping was cool.
That isn’t to imply that I somehow
became cool along the way, but I still
don’t look good in overalls. (Give me
a few more years.)
Here’s another thing that’s changed:
I’ve done a lot of community outreach
events (garden shows, craft fairs and
the like), and it used to be the most
common question we got was, “Do
you ever get stung?” Now it’s more
like, “What’s going on with the bees?
Are they going extinct? Is our food
supply in danger?” This is often fol-
lowed by a declaration of who exactly
they feel is to blame.
In that sense, our modern, 24-hour
news cycle has not been helpful.
Where CCD is concerned, some in
the media have swerved blindly from
culprit to culprit (neonicotinoids,
GMOs, cellphone towers and now
February 2019
FROM THE EDITOR
Eugene Makovec
editor@americanbeejournal.com
glyphosate), seizing on every new
“study” — the more sensational the
better — and rushing to press with-
out taking time to read findings or vet
sources.
Worse yet, journalists sometimes
manage to contact those who should
know, only to ignore their opinions
because they don’t match the precon-
ceived narrative. Randy Oliver cites
one such instance in “The Pesticide
Situation, Part 2” in this issue.
For my part, I got a call in 2007
from a local television reporter after
a German study purported to pin the
blame for CCD on cell tower radia-
tion. I briefly described the study and
told him it had already largely been
debunked. He thanked me, hung up
and found a more cooperative bee-
keeper in time to make the evening
news. (“Tonight at 6 — could your
cell phone be killing the bees?”)
Of course, agricultural chemicals
catch the most flak. Pesticides have
long been a problem for beekeepers,
but the issue has not always been
straightforward, nor the solutions
simple. And some of today’s social
media commentators make my TV
reporter look like Edward R. Murrow.
This is just one reason it’s more
important than ever for beekeepers
to get good information from good
sources. Last month we ran several
articles on beekeeping and pesticides,
and more follow in this issue. While
cotton fields and almond orchards
can sometimes be dangerous places
for honey bees, so can the local golf
course, or even your suburban back-
yard. So a little perspective is in or-
der, especially when beekeepers have
their own pests with which to con-
tend.
David Arnal writes in these pages
of a West Nile-driven increase in
mosquito-spraying in South Carolina,
and describes how beekeepers there
are working with local authorities to
protect their colonies.
Terry Combs wraps up a three-part
series on how he avoids having to put
miticides in his own beehives.
And Ali McAfee takes a look at a
new “vaccine” in development for
American foulbrood. It’s waaay early
to get excited, but if it works it could
make that long-time scourge of bee-
keeping a little less scary.
Winter has been mild in the early-
going in Illinois and Missouri. That
keeps our fuel costs low, but it can
be the opposite for the bees, who eat
more when they’re active. Wherever
you are, it’s not too late to check your
colony’s food supply; Tina Sebestyen
has some tips inside on topping them
off if needed.
Winter is also the time to catch up
on your reading. So when your local
weather does turn nasty, take advan-
tage of the downtime to curl up by
the fire with your ABJ, order some
equipment and the latest gadgets,
and dream of spring.
131
134 American Bee Journal
 Send your letters to the editor,
Attn: Eugene Makovec,
Dadant, 51 S. 2nd Street,
Hamilton, IL 62341,
Fax: 1-217-847-3660,
or email: editor@americanbeejournal.com
Due to size and content, we may be unable to publish all information received.
We may also edit your letter to avoid offensive language. Thank You!

SUE HUBBELL
When I first kept bees, about 30
years ago, the bee inspector of my
county loaned me a paperback copy
of Sue’s “A Book of Bees and How to
Keep Them.” Later a friend gave me
a hardback copy of the first edition of
the book which I have treasured. Her
ability to write so beautifully of her
thoughts, situations and life in gener-
al was truly inspirational. Thank you
for the article (December 2018).
I meant to write sooner as I think
the improved content, readability and
style of ABJ has made it much easier
to understand. I now read almost
cover to cover whereas I used to just
skim. I could not let the Sue Hubbell
article pass without comment.
Looking forward to a new year
with lots of good ABJ reading.
Judy Pendergast
Rocky River, OH
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Dear Kirsten,
Last December I renewed my
subscription, after an absence of 35
years, to the American Bee Journal. I
am so glad I renewed. I really enjoy
the overall organization of the jour-
nal from your opening letter, letters to
the editor, events around the country,
“The Classroom,” many interesting
articles and yes, even the advertise-
ments. I read the magazine cover-to-
cover as soon as it arrives.
I understand that you became the
editor just last year. I wanted to send
along my thanks and appreciation
for a great journal. A strong and in-
formative ABJ is more important now
than ever as we fight to keep our bees
alive. There were a few articles that
were particularly helpful to me.
The first was your own article in
the September issue, “Beekeeping
Basics: Are You Ready for Winter?”
In just two well-written pages you
were able to present the key prepara-
tions for winter. I found it very help-
ful and I am happy to say that I did
everything on the list starting in July
like you have outlined.
The August article “Fishing for
Honey Bees,” by Jennifer Standley,
helped me to understand why some
of my swarm catcher hives work great
and others do not. Jennifer’s clear di-
rection on box size, entrance size, en-
trance direction, height off the ground
and location in the shade all matched
my successful bait hives and now I
know why they worked. Going for-
ward I will be locating all my swarm
catchers higher and in the shade.
I really enjoyed Jerry Borger ’s
“Hobbyist Queens – Using a Double
Screen Board,” also in the September
issue, outlining how to raise a few
queens from a favorite colony with-
out grafting during the prime time
for queen development. His one page
summary of the procedure was excel-
lent and I will put it to the test this
coming spring, with one of my long-
lived colonies headed by a local queen
that shows the best resistance to mites
in my apiaries.
My favorite article was in the April
issue by Caroline Abbott entitled “A
Turn in Approach – The Long Lang
Hive.” I found Caroline’s experiences
with this hive very inspirational. With
this hive I can avoid lifting full deeps
that are stacked three or four high and
work with a colony at waist level. Sign
me up! Caroline kindly answered my
email and shared the plans for the
hive. Building one of these hives is on
my list for this winter.
Suggestions: Make Randy (rock
star) Oliver ’s illustrations larger;
sometimes they are hard to see. Do an
article on Vavaldi boards. (I am trying
them this winter.)
Compared to the challenges we
face today, keeping bees 51 years ago
when I became a beekeeper was easy.
All my colonies always survived the
winter, purchased queens lasted
three years, and my bees made lots of
honey. My biggest problem was find-
ing enough money to purchase more
boxes for all the bees. This is the defi-
nition of the “good old days”. Now I
measure success by one metric: Did
I keep my bees alive? The answer is
no, with 2017 and 2018 showing my
highest losses. It’s bad enough to lose
a colony (that was packed with bees,
had monitored mite loads, and was
treated as needed to maintain low
mite counts), but when it is a hive of
one of the young beekeepers that I
mentor (and I am supposed to know
what I am doing) it is heartbreaking.
I look to the ABJ as one of my sources
for help. Keep up the good work, I am
counting on you.
Sincerely,
David
North Carolina
RESPONSE FROM THE EDITOR:
Dear David,
As you likely know by now, Kirsten
recently stepped down as Editor to
pursue other interests. She made a
positive mark on this magazine, and
we will continue some of her innova-
tions, as well as the sort of how-to ar-
ticles that you and other readers have
long found useful.
I also appreciate your suggestions,
and have already addressed the read-
ability of “Rock Star” Randy’s graphs
and illustrations.
It’s good to have you back! I sin-
cerely hope we can continue to earn
your trust.
Eugene
UPDATE ON CAMP FIRE
SURVIVAL HIVE
Last month we heard from Erin Dick-
erson, who fled California’s horrific Camp
Fire with her family on November 8. The
conflagration took her house, her car and
even her place of employment, but some-
how her lone beehive survived, and she

February 2019 135

was trying to find a way to rescue “the la-
dies” from the desolate aftermath. The last
we heard, Olivarez Honey Bees (OHB) in
Orland had offered to help her out.
Here is an update:
November 20: I got some disap-
pointing news this morning. Olivarez
is not able to help me get my ladies
off the mountain. We’re still under
evacuation order for the foreseeable
future, so I can’t get up there to feed
them. I’m concerned about the bears,
they are going to be hungry, and we
have a terrible rain storm coming! I
feel so helpless right now, I’m so wor-
ried and there is nothing I can do. It’s
such a double edged sword, I was so
happy to find them alive and now I
fear that I will lose them anyway. It’s
hard to describe the amount of loss
I’ve felt over the past 10 days, this just
hurts so much. I will let you know
how things turn out.
After hanging up the phone with
OHB in tears this morning I was so
distraught. Later this afternoon Chris-
tina called me back. They had been
on the phone with the Butte County
Ag inspector to try and get authoriza-
tion to get into the evacuation area.
He denied access because our house
is still in the evac zone, and they are
looking for human remains in my
neighborhood. So that is basically
the end of our efforts, they will not
let anyone in. I am hoping that they
are able to survive until we can get
back up there, but the silver lining is
that they felt so bad at OHB that they
are going to give us a new hive, sup-
plies and nuc in the spring at no cost!
It feels good to have some hope that
this is not the end of our beekeeping
adventure, so I am hoping for the best
for our ladies and only time will tell if
we have a hive to go home to or not.
This has been such a roller coaster
of emotions, but I wanted to thank
you for your interest in our story and
your kind words of support. I will
be in touch to let you know how this
whole thing works out!
December 18: I have wonderful
news. We were able to get the hive to
safety this past Saturday after 5 weeks
of worrying. Unfortunately many of
the bees were lying dead in front of
the hive but when we opened the lid
there was a large cluster around the
queen so we quickly closed it up and
packed it into the truck. I had to plug
the hive door with aluminum foil and
duct tape, then I taped the supers and
the lid down and we covered it with
a tarp for the drive. In a perfect world
we would have done this at night, but
we had to move them around 4pm so
hopefully we got most of them. Today
they are flying in and out of the hive
with vigor!!
Eric Dickerson
California
BEEKEEPER’S LAMENT
As an “older” Maine beekeeper,
I thought other, similarly aged bee-
keepers might appreciate the attached
thoughts. Thanks for reading.
My hives were busy all year long
Bees greeted me with busy song
The summer flow gives way to fall
When honey harvest feeds us all
Bees themselves, of course, partake
Then store it up for winter’s sake
All this of course is a part of the leaving,
From life into death, hope into grieving
For a little more time among my dear
bees
Sharing their joy with the fullness of
ease
That comes from their work, ‘oft show-
ing to me
That life can be simple, unbounded, and
free.
Now I stand here among them, taking
my leave
Shedding a tear, barely able to breathe
When I notice, it seems, for the very
first time
Their humming has become like a verse
in a rhyme.
The next moment there’s silence. A
deafening hush.
Not a move, nor a wing beat to disturb
the rush
Of memories we share from seasons
long passed
For they know that I’m leaving; their
eyes downcast.
Their keeper is going to a much better
place
Filled not with honey, but immeasur-
able grace
That moment has passed. They return
to the air
With strength in the knowing that I’ll
always be there
Not in the field, nor alongside their
hives
But there, nevertheless, in the bright
summer skies.
Jeff Knuckles

Every day for years gone by

I have watched my workers fly
BEE HIVE THERMAL
INDUSTRIES
To fields of clover, meadows of rue
Soybeans and fruit trees, to name a few.

The end of their season marks the ad- ORGANIC TERMINATION

vent of mine
Though I’ll have to admit, my health’s OF THE VARROA MITE
in decline
LEARN MORE AT
Husband Cody works to tie down the Which may prevent my trips to those www.beehivethermalindustries.com
surviving hive for the trip to its new fields 803-504-9313
home. Some of the fire’s destruction can Checking the hives, fair bursting with
be seen in the background. yields lynn@beehivethermalindustries.com

136 American Bee Journal


APISPROTECT TEAMS UP WITH TWO
LOCAL ST. LOUIS BUSINESSES TO
PERFECT HIVE HEALTH MONITOR
St. Louis, Missouri – ApisProtect had its principal execu-
tives in St. Louis on October 18th to begin the USA science
validation phase of its previous published work in the use
of IoT technology and machine learning for the improve-
ment of honeybee health.
The rollout in St. Louis will involve 24/7 monitoring of
15 honeybee hives across three area apiaries managed by St.
Louis County’s Isabee’s, including hives at Missouri Botani-
cal Garden. At the Garden, the monitored hives are located
across from the Kemper Center for Home Gardening, in the
fruit garden. The monitoring will involve the ApisMoni-
Three hives along the path at Missourie Botanical Garden - left
and center now have ApisMonitor devices installed.
February 2019
tor in-hive device installed by ApisProtect with bee health
assessments and data provided by the National Agricul-
tural Genotyping Center (NAGC), headquartered in Creve
Coeur. Validation is expected to run through June 2019.
ApisProtect has committed to installing their device in
200 hives across the world for testing and development
of this new monitoring technology, utilizing Internet of
Things (IoT) enabled sensors and machine learning. Ac-
cording to ApisProtect’s Andrew Wood, “The goal is to
provide beekeepers with important information when it’s
difficult to inspect, say at night, during poor weather or
when hives are a distance away. The information they re-
ceive will allow them to respond quicker to possible health
concerns and be positioned to make more effective deci-
sions. The economic impact we are looking for will pro-
vide cost savings for pollination services, improve honey
production, and better prevent colony loss for beekeepers
worldwide.”
ApisProtect is an Irish company, located in County Cork
and headed up by Dr. Fiona Edwards Murphy, Andrew
Wood and Dr. Padraig Whelan, a team with diverse back-
grounds including engineering, scientific, beekeeping and
commercial experience. Dr. Edwards Murphy has a PhD in
Electrical Engineering and founded ApisProtect after re-
ceiving her BE from University College Cork in 2013. This
project has received international recognition, including at
least eight academic publications, awards from the Irish
Research Council, IBM, The Irish Laboratory Awards, and
Google. ApisProtect was partially funded by St. Louis-
based agtech accelerator The Yield Lab in 2016.
Isabee’s is a home-grown business founded by Jane
Sueme in 2009, currently housed in St. Louis County Eco-
Fiona and Andrew modify hive covers, mounting the ApisMoni-
tor to the underside and strapping a solar panel to keep the
battery charged, to the outside.
137
nomic Development’s VentureWorks business incubator
in Lemay. Isabee’s is a unique, full-service beekeeping
equipment supplier, providing bee stock, education and
hive management services to the area’s 4,000+ beekeepers.
Isabee’s will provide communications to ApisProtect and
facilitate sampling for bee health analysis to NAGC dur-
ing this testing period.
National Agricultural Genotyping Center, headquar-
tered in Creve Coeur and staffed by Pete Snyder, Presi-
dent and CEO with laboratories in Fargo, ND, is a 501(c)5
corporation serving private and public scientists, from
breeders to quality control and food safety researchers.
NAGC was established in 2016 under a partnership of The
National Corn Growers Association and Los Alamos Na-
tional Laboratory.
The United States commercial apiculture industry cur-
rently manages 2.6 million hives to pollinate over 90 dif-
ferent crops, creating a multi-billion dollar honeybee in-
dustry, the world’s largest.
CALIFORNIA BEEKEEPERS MUST
REGISTER THEIR BEE HIVE LOCATIONS
By Patrick cavanaugh, Editor, california ag today
There’s a mandate set in place by the state of California
to help the bee industry safe from pesticide spraying. Ethan
Rasmussen with Rasmussen Farms and a beekeeper in the
Gustine area of Merced County discussed it with Califor-
nia Ag Today recently. The Bee Where program mandates
beekeepers to register their hives under AB2468. It was set
up to help pollinating bees during the pollination season. It
especially helps the almond crop during bloom.
“It’s definitely a step forward for beekeeping industry be-
cause we have so many beekeepers coming to California,”
Rasmussen said. “The almond industry is growing. It’s go-
ing to keep on growing. And that means there’s going to be
an increased amount of beekeepers in the state during the
springtime for almond bloom.”
With increased bees in almond orchards, it definitely in-
creases concerns, specifically with theft and with sprays,
and this program looks like it should help with that.
However, Rasmussen fears too much paperwork because
there are so many different locations where there will be
bees and so many different beekeepers.
“It’s going to be a lot of work, but if we can coordinate
and everyone does their part it should definitely a step in
the right direction.
And while all of the registrations are done online, Ras-
mussen noted that there still a complicated amount of pa-
perwork to keep up with all those locations where you will
have those bees.
“We’re going to have over 150 locations during almond
bloom, and each one of those has to be registered with the
county or whatever agency is going to handle it, and that’s
a really busy time of year for us. So that’s the only concern
I see,” he said.
Rasmussen said that compared to five years ago, almond
growers are way more aware of protecting bees, thanks to
beekeeping organizations and the Almond Board of Cali-
fornia. There have been a lot of resources given to growers,
and they are doing well.
“We are not so much concern with almond growers;
it may be the peach grower down the road that could be
138
spraying when our bees are foraging,” he said. “The new
law is going to keep us registered, so anyone that’s going to
spray is going to go through their PCA, and they will know
where the bees are. That way, they will know whether or
not to spray.”
SIOUX HONEY TO SHOWCASE WHO
THEIR HONEY COMES FROM
co-oP’s camPaign to fEaturE local BEEkEEPErs
SIOUX CITY, IOWA – Sioux Honey Association Co-op
wants Americans to know who their honey comes from.
That aim is the basis of a national campaign launched in
December which features the faces and stories of local bee-
keepers across the country.
“It’s not just where your honey comes from that matters.
It’s who,” stated Rob Buhmann, chair of the co-op. “We
know each of our 270-plus beekeepers by name. Whether
they’re tending to hives in the Dakota prairies or on the
Hawaiian Islands, our co-op members make decisions
based on what’s best for our honey and what’s best for the
families who buy our honey.”
Amongst its 270 members, Sioux Honey Association Co-
op selected beekeepers from Idaho, North Dakota, Min-
nesota, Arkansas, Michigan and California to be the faces
of its “Who Does Your Honey Come From” campaign. The
beekeepers will be featured on Sioux Honey’s new website
and in a nationwide ad which highlights the challenges of
beekeeping and the persevering nature of America’s bee-
keepers.
“Sioux Honey is synonymous with quality and with val-
ues,” said Darrel Rufer, a Minnesota beekeeper featured
in the campaign. “I know a lot of Sioux Honey members,
and they’re all the same. It’s not about seeing how much
money you can make, or how fast. Beekeeping is not big
agriculture. Beekeeping is big families. A lot of brothers,
sons, dads, grandfathers. That’s why it’s a generational
thing. It’s a lifestyle.”
Editor’s/News Director’s Note: An image of Darrel
Rufer and audio, video, and a photo of Rob Buhmann are
available here.
Beyond introducing local beekeepers, the co-op is ad-
vocating for consumers to look at the label when buying
honey, know who and where it comes from, and keep an
eye out for both the “Grade A” and “Product of the USA”
designations. “Grade A” is the highest grade awarded by
the UDSA, and “Product of the USA” is a guarantee of the
country of origin. Combined, the labels confirm honey is
pure, with nothing added, and of the highest quality, ac-
cording to Buhmann.
“Bootleg honey – usually originating from China – is
an unfortunate, yet real, concern today,” Buhmann said.
“When you pick up ‘Grade A,’ ‘Product of the USA’ honey,
you don’t have to wonder about the quality or who it came
from. You know what you’re getting.”
About Sioux Honey
As a co-op, not a corporation, Sioux Honey Association
was formed to operate based on what’s best for its bee-
keepers, its honey and its customers. Established in Sioux
City, Iowa, in 1921, the co-op distributes pure, “Product
of the U.S.A.,” Grade A honey to retailers nationwide on
behalf of its 270 independent beekeeper members. From
American Bee Journal
classic Sue Bee to unfiltered Aunt Sue’s, the co-op has a
honey for every preference and use.
DR. BROCK HARPUR WILL BE
STARTING AS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY’S
DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY,
Starting January 1st Dr. Brock Harpur will be starting
as assistant professor at Purdue University’s Department
of Entomology, replacing Dr. Greg Hunt. Congratula-
tions Brock!
Brock Harpur is currently a Na-
tional Science and Engineering
Research Council Postdoctoral
Fellow at the Donnelley Centre,
University of Toronto. His work
brings together large data sets to
explore the evolution and genetics
of honey bees. Brock completed
his Ph.D. on population genomics
of honeybees at York University
(Canada). He has established bee-
keeping programs in Northern Canada, worked with the
City of Toronto to establish goals for pollinator health, and
given public talks to dozens of local organizations. Brock
has been awarded the Eickwort Award from the Interna-
tional Union for the study of Social Insects, the prestigious
Julie Payette Research Scholarship from the National Sci-
ence and Engineering Research Council, an Ontario Grad-
uate Scholarship, the Entomological Society of Canada’s
President’s Prize, and was an Elia Research Scholar during
his time at York University.
The lab has positions available!
https://dev.extension.entm.purdue.edu/beehive/NEW/
index.html#
We have two Graduate Research Assistantships (Ph.D.)
available beginning Summer/Fall 2019 in the lab. We’re
looking for Ph.D. students to combine genomics, tran-
scriptomics, computational biology, and biochemistry to
understand how transcript regulation evolves and influ-
ences the behavior and physiology of eusocial bees. Ap-
plication of molecular techniques and outreach to bee-
keepers and the community will be an integral part of the
students’ training.
Interested candidates should contact Dr. Harpur. To be
considered for this position send a C.V., contact informa-
tion for 3 references and a 1-page cover letter describing
research interests and background. We could also use some
MsC students! Contact Dr. Harpur: bharpur@purdue.edu.
BURST OF MORNING GENE ACTIVITY
TELLS PLANTS WHEN TO FLOWER
ST. LOUIS, MO – For angiosperms — or flowering
plants — one of the most important decisions facing them
each year is when to flower. It is no trivial undertaking.
To flower, they must cease vegetative growth and com-
mit to making those energetically expensive reproduc-
tive structures that will bring about the next generation.
February 2019
Knowledge of this process at the cellular level is critical for
understanding how plants allocate resources to produce
grains, tubers, leaves, nuts and fruits that mean so much
to humans and animals alike.
In a paper, Molecular basis of flowering under natural
long-day conditions in Arabidopsis, published today in
the journal Nature Plants, He Huang, Ph.D., research sci-
entist, and Dmitri A. Nusinow, Ph.D., assistant member,
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and an internation-
al team of researchers demonstrated that the gene FT —
the primary driver of the transition to flowering in plants
each spring — does something unexpected in Arabidopsis
thaliana plants grown in natural environments, with im-
plications for the artificial growing conditions scientists
commonly use in the lab.
“This work showed us that plants are integrating many
different signals together when making the critical deci-
sion of when to flower,” Dr. Nusinow said. “Subtle chang-
es in the environment can have a big effect on how the
plants will respond.”
The research team, led by University of Washington
(UW) biology professor Takato Imaizumi, showed that
FT has a peak of activity every morning leading up to
the transition, something that scientists had not previ-
ously seen in Arabidopsis, a model plant that is widely
studied for understanding the molecular details of the
transition to flowering. The morning peak of FT activity
causes plants to transition earlier from vegetative growth
to flowering.
Prior research, which saw only an evening peak of FT
gene activity, had been conducted on Arabidopsis plants
grown indoors under fluorescent light. The team — which
includes researchers in Switzerland, Scotland, South Ko-
rea and Japan — grew their plants outside under sunlight
in Seattle because conditions at the summer solstice are
similar to the standardized, artificial “long-day” growing
conditions for Arabidopsis: 16 hours of light and eight
hours of darkness.
The team grew non-transgenic Arabidopsis plants out-
doors for five consecutive summers and compared them
to plants grown indoors under artificial long-day condi-
tions. Outdoor plants produced fewer leaves than indoor
plants, indicating that the outdoor plants flowered earlier.
Both outdoor and indoor plants showed evening peaks of
FT gene activity, but outdoor-grown plants also showed a
morning peak of FT activity. Researchers concluded that
the indoor, artificial growing conditions missed key quali-
ties of natural conditions, throwing off expression of the
FT gene and the trait it governs. When active, the FT gene
produces a protein that travels from the leaves to the shoot
apical meristem — the niche of stem cells in the shoot that
produces above-ground growth — and switches the meri-
stem from vegetative growth to floral growth.
To identify the differences between indoor and outdoor
growing conditions, the group focused on light. The fluo-
rescent bulbs commonly used in Arabidopsis research do
not emit the same wavelengths of light that sunlight does.
Fluorescent bulbs, for example, generate less light from
far-red wavelengths. In the outdoor growing plots, the
ratio of red-wavelength light to far-red wavelength was
about 1-to-1, but for fluorescent bulbs this ratio is higher
than 2, which means they emit more red light than far-
red. When the researchers added a far-red LED lamp to
the indoor growth chambers to mimic outside light, the
Arabidopsis plants then showed a morning peak of FT
gene activity.
139
 In addition, by modifying the temperatures in the in-
door growth chambers to cycle daily from about 16 de-
grees Celsius to almost 23 C — or from 61 degrees Fahr-
enheit to about 73 F — the evening FT gene activity was
reduced, similar to the outdoor plants.
FT has been studied in other plants, including some
crop plants, which also show morning peaks of FT expres-
sion. But most commercially important plants are too large
or grow too slowly for the controlled-environment studies
that are required to determine the cellular and genetic de-
tails of plant traits. That is why Arabidopsis, a small, fast-
growing weed from the mustard family, is widely used as
a substitute model organism.
Critically, their results illuminate a path forward for
plant researchers to adopt artificial growth conditions that
more accurately reflect natural growing conditions.
“Arabidopsis has been studied for decades. Researchers
set up their indoor growing conditions the best they could,
given equipment, time and funding, and passed those
conditions down to scientists they trained,” said Imaizu-
mi. “But we need to change those conditions so that what
we find in the lab reflects nature more closely. If we see a
change in flowering by making these minor alterations, I
imagine that other traits will change as well.”
“A better understanding of how the controlled environ-
ment conditions that are used in research compare to the
complex reality of the outdoors will allow us to design
better experiments,” Nusinow said. “This will likely push
our work from simple, reductionist conditions to a richer,
more complex synthesis of light and temperature that re-
flects the real world. This is an exciting direction for our
work to be moving towards.”
Co-lead authors on the paper are former UW postdoc-
toral researchers Young Hun Song and Akane Kubota.
Song is now an assistant professor at Ajou University and
Kubota is an assistant professor at the Nara Institute of
Science and Technology. Co-authors are Dmitri A. Nus-
inow and He Huang at the Donald Danforth Plant Sci-
ence Center; Michael Kwon, Nayoung Lee, Ella Taagen,
Dianne Laboy Cintrón, and Nhu Nguyen at the University
of Washington; Michael Covington with Amaryllis Nucle-
ics; Dae Yeon Hwang at Ajou University; Sarah Hodge
and Andrew Millar at the University of Edinburgh; Reiko
Akiyama with the University of Zurich; and Kentaro Shi-
mizu of both the University of Zurich and Yokohama City
University.
The research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes
of Health, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Rural
Development Administration in South Korea, the Japan
Science and Technology Agency, the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science, the Swiss National Science Founda-
tion, UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research
Council, and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
About The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science
Center is a not-for-profit research institute with a mission
to improve the human condition through plant science. Re-
search, education and outreach aim to have impact at the
nexus of food security and the environment, and position
the St. Louis region as a world center for plant science. The
Center’s work is funded through competitive grants from
many sources, including the National Institutes of Health,
U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation,
and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Follow us on
Twitter at @DanforthCenter.
140
GENOME PUBLISHED OF THE
SMALL HIVE BEETLE, A MAJOR
HONEY BEE PARASITE
By Kim Kaplan
BELTSVILLE, MARYLAND, December 19, 2018 — Bee-
keepers and researchers will welcome the unveiling of the
small hive beetle’s genome by Agricultural Research Ser-
vice (ARS) scientists and their colleagues. The small hive
beetle (SHB) is a major parasite problem of honey bees for
which there are few effective treatments.
The SHB (Aethina tumida Murray) genome — a genome
is the sum total of all an organism’s DNA; a gene codes for
a single protein to be built — is available at https://www.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/annotation_euk/Aethina_
tumida/100 and was recently published in GigaScience.
This information will provide crucial keys that should
lead to better, more targeted SHB control methods, includ-
ing insecticidal treatments and possibly even genetic/
breeding solutions.
The SHB has a strong gene-guided system that lets the
beetle detoxify many insecticides. Having the genome will
allow researchers to gain a more precise understanding of
these detoxification genes, so more effective choices for
control treatments can be made.
“The big challenge is identifying control methods that
will target SHBs but not harm honey bees,” said geneti-
cist Jay Evans, who ran the project and is also leader of
the ARS Bee Research Laboratory. “One strategy is to look
for insecticides that hit pathways in the genome where
the SHB has few or no detoxification genes. It would be
even better if an insecticide could be identified for which
the honey bee has detoxification genes but that the SHB
doesn’t.
A native of sub-Saharan Africa, the SHB has spread to
many other locations, including North America, Europe,
Australia, and the Philippines. It was first found in the
United States in 1996 and during the summer of 1998, the
SHB was blamed for losses of more than 20,000 honey bee
colonies in Florida alone.
Today, the SHB has spread throughout the United States.
It is a major problem especially for queen breeders and
honey production. SHBs eat everything and anything in
a bee colony: pollen, brood, honey, dead adult bees and
combs) and cause honey to ferment in the process. If the
number of SHBs is high enough, adult bees will abscond
from the hive.
One avenue to which the SHB genome has already
pointed is where to look for clues for how the SHB finds
beehives; what pheromones or other smells do SHBs fol-
low to target honey bee colonies.
Although there are about 350,000 beetle species and sub-
species, only seven beetle genomes, including the SHB,
have been completed and published.
Completing the SHB genome takes on even more impor-
tance when you realize that among the SHB’s close rela-
tives are the destructive and invasive Asian longhorned
beetle along with other sap beetles that are pests of sweet
corn, tomatoes, strawberries and other fruit and vegetable
crops.
The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research
agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural
problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in agri-
cultural research results in $20 of economic impact.
American Bee Journal
 MISSOURI LAUNCHES POLLINATOR
STEWARD PROGRAM
Missouri is the first state in the nation to launch a pol-
linator steward program designed for the general pub-
lic. Besides its wider scope, Missouri’s Master Pollinator
Steward program takes the innovative approach of part-
nering with conservation-oriented groups and bee clubs to
educate non-beekeepers about pollinators, their foraging
needs and role in our natural environment.
The Missouri Master Pollinator Steward Program of-
ficially launched in the fall of 2018 after being tested at
several major urban locations. Ten contributing authors
wrote the five chapters and associated hands-on activities
designed to capture those nine out of 10 people who want
to help pollinators but don’t want to keep honey bees, the
largest of the pollinator groups. One out of every three
bites of food we eat is from bee pollination, which helps
plants reproduce through fruit, seed and nut production.
Lack of plant diversity and poor nutrition sources are
among the major challenges impacting bees worldwide.
The program was funded through a Natural Resource
Conservation Service grant which paid for the services of
a professional editor and a University of Missouri Exten-
sion Specialist to coordinate pulling program sections to-
gether. It took two years of volunteers working with the
University of Missouri to research and write the five chap-
ters, which include: an overview of insects; relationship
between pollinators and nature; native bees; honey bees;
and pollinators in nature and agriculture.
To host a program, local bee clubs and conservation-
oriented groups such as Master Gardeners and Master
Naturalists can work with their University of Missouri
Extension Councils to request the program in their area, to
get class participants registered, and to host the sessions
either as individual classes or as two day-long sessions.
The suggested cost of the program is $90 per person. The
recommendation is that $25 goes back to the local sponsor-
ing group; another $25 is a required University of Missouri
state fee. The remaining $40 is used to cover expenses such
as printing and supplies. Any surplus will be kept by that
local extension office.
“Details of how funds will be dispersed is part of the
discussion a conservation-oriented group and bee club
should have with their respective county extension center
council,” according to James Quinn, University of Mis-
souri Extension specialist and steering committee member.
“It’s been exciting to see this program evolve and to take
it out for a test in May 2018,” said former Missouri State
Beekeepers Association President Valerie Duever, another
working group member. “This program should be a great
resource for local bee clubs and other conservation-orient-
ed groups interested in helping to restore Missouri’s pol-
linator foraging areas.”
February 2019
Missouri State Beekeepers Association endorsed the
general concept for this program October 2015.
Other steering committee members include Travis
Harper and Bob Pierce, University of Missouri Extension
specialists; Mike Conroy, Sedalia Beekeeping Association;
Jim Duever, Boone Regional Beekeeping Association; Bob
Lee, Master Naturalist representative; Amber Edwards,
Conservationist educator, and Charlotte Wiggins, master
gardener representative.
For more information on Missouri’s master pollinator
steward program, visit https://extension2.missouri.edu/
programs/programs-master-pollinator-steward.
Guidelines on how to set up a Master Pollinator Steward
program class are here: https://extension.missouri.edu/
pollinator.
A narrated program overview has been posted here:
https://youtu.be/0AvESofVLuI.
For more information, contact James Quinn at quinnja@
missouri.edu.
NEWLY PUBLISHED RESEARCH
OFFERS NEW INSIGHTS IN ABILITY
TO MODIFY AND STUDY
HONEY BEE CHROMOSOMES
DAVIS--Newly published research by a team of Germa-
ny-based honey bee geneticists, collaborating with Robert
Page, Jr., of Arizona State University/University of Cali-
fornia, Davis, offers new insights in the ability to modify
and study the chromosomes of honey bees.
Martin Beye, a professor at the University of Düsseldorf,
Germany and a former postdoctoral fellow in Page’s lab at
UC Davis, served as the lead author of the research, “Im-
proving Genetic Transformation Rates in honey bees,”
published in Scientific Reports in the journal Nature. The
work was accomplished in Beye’s lab in Germany and the
Page labs.
“The significance of this paper lies in the ability to modi-
fy the chromosomes of honey bees and study the effects of
individual genes,” said Page, former professor and chair of
the UC Davis entomology department before capping his
academic career as the Arizona State University provost.
“The honey bee genome,” Page explained, “is composed
of about 15,000 genes, each of which operates within a
complex network of genes, doing its small, or large, share
of work in building the bee, keeping its internal functions
operating, or helping it function and behave in its environ-
ment. The ability to transform, change genes, or add or
delete genes from chromosomes of bees, has been excep-
tionally challenging and the effort spans decades. Martin
tackles problems such as this. He takes on the most chal-
lenging genetic problems and solves them.”
Beye was the first to map the major sex-determining
gene for honey bees, considered one of the most important
papers ever published on honey bee genetics. He “then
moved on and developed a way to implement gene edit-
ing, being able to alter single genes within the genome,”
Page related. “Now he has developed a method to intro-
duce new genetic material into the honey bee.”
In their abstract, the six-member team wrote that “Func-
tional genetic studies in honey bees have been limited by
transformation tools that lead to a high rate of transpo-
son integration into the germline of the queens. A high
transformation rate is required to reduce screening efforts
141

Honey bee geneticist Robert Page Jr. (left) with colleagues: bee
breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk (center) of UC Davs, and geneti-
cist Martin Beye, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Page lab,
and now a professor at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.
because each treated queen needs to be maintained in a
separate honey bee colony. Here, we report on further im-
provement of the transformation rate in honey bees by
using a combination of different procedures.”
Specifically, the geneticists employed a hyperactive
transposase protein (hyPBaseapis), tripling the amount of
injected transposase mRNAs. They injected embryos into
the first third (anterior part) of the embryo. These three
improvements together doubled the transformation rate
from 19 percent to 44 percent.
“We propose that the hyperactive transposase (hyP-
Baseapis) and the other steps used may also help to im-
prove the transformation rates in other species in which
screening and crossing procedures are laborious,” they
wrote in their abstract.
For their research, the scientists chose feral Carniolan or
carnica colonies. Carniolans, a darker bee, are a subspecies
of the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera.
Beye joined the Page lab in 1999 as the recipient of a Fe-
odor Lynen Research Fellowship, an award given to the
brightest young German PhDs to provide an opportunity
for them to work in the laboratories of U.S. recipients of
the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize. Page, who
won the Humboldt Prize in 1995, continues to focus his
research on honey bee behavior and population genetics,
particularly the evolution of complex social behavior.
Following his postdoctoral fellowship, Beye returned to
the Page labs at UC Davis and ASU as a visiting scientist.
(https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/ honey bee-gene-find-
ends-150-year-search ) Beye spoke at UC Davis this spring
as part of his Humboldt-funded mini sabbatical, the guest
of Page and hosted by the Department of Entomology and
Nematology. During his visit, he and UC Davis bee sci-
entist Brian Johnson developed collaborative projects that
they will begin in the spring of 2019. “This is exactly what
the Alexander von Humboldt foundation wants – to build
and extend interactive networks of researchers,” Page
commented.
OBITUARY
EDWARD ALLEN FISHER
February 7, 1943 — November 21, 2018
Edward Allen Fisher was born in Independence, MO,
grew up in the Nashua area and graduated from Liberty
High School in 1961. He married Jean (Dallman) Fisher in
142
1963 and they made their
home in the Smithville
area.
Ed was a mechanic at
TWA/American Airlines
for over 40 years, retiring
in 2005. He was passionate
about all things aviation
related. He obtained his pi-
lot’s license and instructed
other aspiring pilots.
Ed was also an avid bee-
keeper — so much so that
he and Jean purchased a
beekeeping supply busi-
ness in 1986 and have run Ed Fisher demonstrates mois-
it together ever since. He ture level testing of honey
was an active member of entries for the 2014 Missouri
the Midwest Beekeepers State Fair.
Association and the Mis-
souri State Beekeepers Association, and became a friend
and mentor to many other beekeepers through the years.
Ed is survived by his wife, Jean, and children David
Fisher, Steven Fisher and Cinda Fisher.
STATES
ALABAMA
The Alabama Cooperative Extension System will hold its
24th Annual Beekeeping Symposium at the Clanton Con-
ference and Performance Arts Center, 1850 Lay Dam Road,
Clanton, AL on February 2. Speakers include Tammy Horn
Potter, Reed Johnson, Charlie Parton, Larry Connor, and
others. For more information or to register, visit www.aces.
edu/home-garden/beekeeping/ or contact Lindsey Tramel
at 334-844-4450.
GEORGIA
hoPE to sEE you at thE
2019 young harris BEEkEEPing institutE!
The University of Georgia offers an annual beekeeping
event at the campus of Young Harris College. The dates the
institute will be held are May 22-25. Our special guest in-
structors will include Dr. Francis Ratnieks, Dr. David Tarpy
and Dr. Wyatt Mangum, plus a whole host of talented and
experienced beekeepers. For more information please visit
www.ent.uga.edu/bees.
ILLINOIS
Will county BEEkEEPErs association. BEE PrEParEd 2019.
• A full day of workshops for all experience levels.
• A sustainable apiary is healthy bees all season long
• Meghan Milbrath, David Burns, Jim Lindau & others
• Bee Curious? Find out if beekeeping fits in your life-
style.
• Already doing it? Hear about the latest research in
IPM.
American Bee Journal
 • Your partner does it but you don’t? There’s something
here for you too.
Saturday March 23, 2019
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Weitendorf Agricultural Education Center
Joliet Jr. College
17840 Laraway Rd., Joliet, IL 60433
Joliet is just down the road from Chicago. Well worth the
trip. Learn more and register at willbees.org
INDIANA
indiana BEE school Xvii
The Beekeepers of Indiana will host the 17th annual In-
diana Bee School on Saturday, February 23, 2019, at De-
catur Central High School, 5251 Kentucky Avenue, India-
napolis IN 46221. We have two first time guest speakers:
Dr. Tom Seeley from Cornell University, and Jeff Pettis, a
Research Scientist with Pettis and Associates.
The school has 4 sessions with 5 breakout talks for each
session and we have talks for beginners, intermediate and
advanced. You may find a full agenda at www.indianabee-
keeper.com.
With over 30 vendors attending, beekeepers can find all
types of equipment. Many vendors will bring orders to
the bee school to save on shipping.
We have worked with two local hotels for discounted
rates. Country Inn & Suites is about 1.5 miles away for
$95 and Hampton Inn & Suites is about 3.6 miles away for
$104. Each hotel includes a breakfast.
You can register online at www.indianabeekeeper.com
or you may print the registration form and mail it in. Cost
is $35 for members and $45 for non-members and lunch is
included.
Folder pickup starts at 7:00 a.m. (EST), with the program
starting promptly at 8:30 a.m. and concluding around 5:00
p.m.
More information about the agenda, the hotels, the
vendors and registration can be found on our website at
http://indianabeekeeper.com/contact_us/indiana_bee_
school_xvii
MICHIGAN
michigan BEEkEEPErs association
2019 mBa sPring confErEncE
march 8-9th, 2019
Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center
219 S. Harrison Rd.
East Lansing
Keynote: Dr. May Berenbaum (Univ. of Illinois)
Breakout Sessions
Beginners Track
Trade Show
Registration opening soon at www.michiganbees.org
February 2019
MICHIGAN
southEast michigan BEEkEEPErs association
sEmBa announcEs its
81st annual BEEkEEPing confErEncE
Several hundred beekeepers are expected to attend the
81st Annual SEMBA Beekeeping Conference, which will
be held on Saturday, March 16th from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm.
This year’s event will have keynote speaker Kent Williams
who will be speaking on the topic Races of Honey Bees,
A year in the Life of a Beekeeper. Other speakers will in-
clude Meghan Milbrath, Jamie Walters, Rich Wieske, Dave
Pearce, Jim Ford, Earl Hoffman and more.
The conference will be held at Wayne County Commu-
nity College, 9500 Haggerty Road, Belleville, MI 48111.
Registration will begin after the first of the year. For
more information go to SEMBABEES.org
MISSOURI
EastErn missouri BEEkEEPErs to host annual BEEkEEPing
WorkshoPs and BanquEt in st. louis on
fEBruary 8-9, 2019
Honey Bee Researchers and Education Specialists
to Present Courses for Beginners
and Experienced Beekeepers
The Eastern Missouri Beekeepers Association (EMBA)
will offer a full day of professional beekeeping instruction
and honey bee research for beginners and experienced
beekeepers on Saturday, February 9, 2019, at Maritz in
Fenton, Missouri. Registrants are encouraged to attend
the Annual EMBA St. Louis Beekeepers Mardi Gras Ban-
quet the evening before the workshop on Friday, Febru-
ary 8, at Maritz.
Leading beekeeping educators, honey bee research sci-
entists and authors from Agriculture Canada Beaverlodge
Research Farm, Oregon State University, the University
of Minnesota Bee Lab, and Bee Culture magazine, will be
among the visiting faculty leading the workshops.
Instructors will include Kim Flottum, author and Senior
Editor of Bee Culture magazine, Stephen Pernal, PhD., Ag-
riculture and Agri-Food Canada’s lead scientist specializ-
ing in honey bee research, Andony Melathopoulos, PhD.,
extension pollinator specialist at Oregon State University,
Becky Masterman, PhD., University of Minnesota Bee Lab
Team Leader, and Ana Heck, Minnesota Bee Lab Bee Squad
Instructor, The Experienced Beekeepers course will be tai-
lored towards intermediate and expert level beekeepers
and will place special emphasis on hive management and
honey bee health issues.
The Beginners Beekeeping course is intended for novice
beekeepers and persons with no prior beekeeping experi-
ence. The class will cover all aspects of basic beekeeping to
prepare students to start keeping bees in 2019.
Tuition for the workshop is $85 per person if registered by
January 20, 2019. Tuition is $95 per person for those register-
ing on or after January 21. Banquet registration costs $30.
Banquet registration closes February 3rd.
Lunch and refreshments are included with the work-
shop. Registration packets will include course materials, an
143
authoritative reference book, beekeeping periodicals, and
equipment catalogs.
The Friday evening banquet features New Orleans style
food and music, a cash bar, door prizes, including nucs,
queens and beekeeping equipment, and a keynote speaker.
The cost of the banquet is in addition to the workshop. For
more information, visit www.easternmobeekeepers.com
Equipment vendors include representatives of Dadant &
Sons, Isabees, and others.
EMBA supports beekeepers with a broad program of co-
operative procurement and educational events throughout
the year. Members may obtain complete beginner’s equip-
ment kits, nucleus bee colonies, and queens for delivery in
the spring. The Club also sponsors open hive instructional
workshops and guided colony health monitoring, during
the season, at the Club’s teaching apiary in Creve Coeur,
Missouri.
Registration is available online at www.easternmobee
keepers.com
More information is available by email to info@eastern
mobeekeepers.com or calling 314-669-1828.
MISSOURI
sPring confErEncE
march 15- 16, 2019
Southeast Missouri State University
1 University Plaza, Cape Girardeau, MO
Register online at: https://mostatebeekeepers.org/
The Southeast Missouri State University located in this
scenic, historical town will provide a comfortable setting
for conference attendees while talented guest speakers will
include Dr. Kirsten Traynor, Zac Lamas, PhD candidate;
and Bob Finck, retired Food Chemist for Allen Foods.
Dr. Traynor will be speaking on “American Foulbrood”,
“Halting the Unstoppable Swarm”, and “Simple Smart
Beekeeping”. Zac Lamas will cover “Requeening a Hive”,
“Winter Prep Begins Mid-Summer”, and “Rapid Expan-
sion”. Bob Finck will present on “Moving From Hobby to
Sideliner”.
Breakout session speakers will include the following:
Gregg Hitchings “Local Club Speaker Development” and
“European Foulbrood”; Charlotte Wiggins “Native Plant-
ing for Pollinators”; Bernie Andrews “Setup for A Side-
liner Extraction House”; and Chef Bill Allinder “Cooking
With Honey Part Two”. There will be a group led “Spring
Hive Inspection” if weather permits.
Registration begins at 7:00 am Friday morning with a
vendor hall and Beehive Café with complimentary treats.
There is an evening banquet at 6 pm. Activities begin
again at 8:30 am Saturday and go until 3:30 pm. Lunch
will be offered both days at additional cost. For more de-
tailed information including meal and registration fees
and available hotel/motel discounts visit the web address
for the Missouri State Beekeepers listed above. Bruce Sna-
vely, Conference Chairman, will be available to answer
any questions at brucesnavely@hotmail.com.
OKLAHOMA
The Northeast Oklahoma Beekeepers Association will
hold the Big Bee Buzz on the evening of March 29 and all
144
day March 30, 2019. The Buzz is one of the largest bee-
keeping conferences in Oklahoma and the region. The
event will be held at Venue 68, located at 6910 S 101st E
Ave Tulsa OK 74134.
There will be plenty of information for beekeepers of all
levels of experience, from seasoned beekeepers to people
who want to give it a try. Two lectures will be happening
almost all of the time, with one talk geared to beginner
topics and the other devoted to more advanced subjects.
This year’s speakers include Dr. Dennis Van Engles-
dorp, Jerry Hayes, Ed Levi and Katharina Davitt.
The price is $40.00 if you pre-register at a NEOBA meet-
ing or use online registration, which is available at NEOBA.
org. The price will be $50.00 at the door. Pre-registration is
not required, but greatly appreciated and saves you $10.00.
PENNSYLVANIA
tEmPlE univErsity, amBlEr, Pa
introduction to BEEkEEPing,
fEB. 2-3, and march 23-24, 2019, 11 a.m.-3:30 P.m.
This two weekend course is designed for those who
want to learn about honey bees and beekeeping: begin-
ning beekeepers or relatively new beekeepers wanting re-
fresher training now that they are really into beekeeping.
In this course you will learn about:
• Honey bee biology and behavior
• Building an apiary and harvesting honey
• Apiary equipment and supplies
• Management practices for each season
Taught by Master Beekeeper Vincent J. Aloyo, PhD
For information or to register, see: http://
vincemasterbeekeeper.com/courses/ or https://noncredit.
temple.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.
do?method=load&courseId=90889
TENNESSEE
march 21- 23, 2019
fountainhEad collEgE of tEchnology
3203 tazEWEll PikE – knoXvillE, tn, 37918
For more information and to register for this exciting
event please visit www.honeyconvention.com
The HONEY Convention is dedicated to educating all
beekeepers and people wanting to help honey bees. With
over 380 people last year at the convention, we are grow-
ing and will be even bigger in 2019. If you are just getting
started or even thinking about honey bees, we have classes
for you. If you are a beekeeper for a year to 50+ years, we
have classes for you. There will be over 20 speakers and
over 60 classes to pick and choose to attend.
There will be a FREE beginners beekeeping class that
will talk about what you need to become a beekeeper. We
encourage all to come! This class is free and open to the
public.
The HONEY Convention is a not for profit, 501C-3 chari-
table organization.
American Bee Journal
 SOUTH CAROLINA
NATURAL BEEKEEPING WORKSHOP
Charleston, SC ~ March 16-17, 2019
A comprehensive 2-day Natural Beekeeping Seminar
with Dr. Leo
Sharashkin. Program includes in-depth discussion of
successful natural methods and hands-on apiary visit –
see treatment-free horizontal hives in action.
This comprehensive two-day class attracts participants
from all over the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Leo is a full-time
natural beekeeper from southern Missouri, editor of
“Keeping Bees With a Smile,” and a regular contributor to
American Bee Journal.
ABJ readers get $50 off - use coupon code ABEEJAY
when you register at HorizontalHive.com

VIRGINIA
dr. lEo sharaskin’s natural BEEkEEPing
an all day intEnsivE WorkshoP
aPril 6, 2019
BluE ridgE community collEgE (off i-81)
WEyErs cavE, virigina
Keeping bees can be sim-
ple, healthful, and reward-
ing. Dr. Leo shares time-
honored methods that take
the sting out of beekeeping
and make it fun and acces-
sible to all. Experienced
beekeepers – from backyard
hobbyists to commercial –
who seek ways to keep their
bees treatment-free with
minimal intervention and
expense will glean a swath Dr. Leo Sharaskin
of ideas that can be applied
to their existing operations. Dr. Leo Sharashkin is founder
of HorizontalHive.com and editor of Keeping Bees With a
Smile, a comprehensive resource on keeping bees natu-
rally in horizontal hives. He is contributor to American Bee
Journal, The Beekeepers Quarterly (UK), and Acres USA, and
speaks internationally on sustainable beekeeping, organic
growing, and earth-friendly living.
For complete details http://shenvalleybeekeepers.org/
upcoming-events/ Discounted Early Bird tickets avail-
able December 1 until March 25, 2019 from the Shenan-
doah Valley Beekeepers Association website. Full price
tickets at the door.

VIRGINIA
virginia statE BEEkEEPErs association (vsBa)
summEr mEEting

fri., may 31st (noon) – JunE 1, 2019

frEdEricksBurg hosPitality housE, frEdEricksBurg, va.

Featuring Kim Flottum, Dr. Jennifer Tsurdua, honey

and hive product workshop, and more. See: https://
www.virginiabeekeepers.org/

February 2019 145

146 American Bee Journal

Q
FLOWERS....WE
NEED MORE
Hi Jerry,
I was listening to a podcast today,
found at:
https://www.sciencefriday.com/seg-
ments/looking-beyond-honeybees/
As I venture into the world of
queen rearing in my relatively remote
piece of land in Southeastern Ontario,
I’ve been doing some thinking about
some of Tom Seeley’s research that
has been published in ABJ on the feral
colonies in upstate New York.
Compounded with a query at a re-
cent presentation that I did at a local li-
brary where a lady asked me the ques-
tion, “Do honey bees ever harm native
pollinators?” I’m wondering about
the carrying capacity of a given area
and, as the vice president of my lo-
cal guild, what is my responsibility in
pushing the local city council to allow
urban beekeeping vs. discouraging
individuals from becoming beekeep-
ers and instead being bee stewards by
creating pollinator gardens?
I’d like to know your thoughts and
whether you are aware of any current
studies on the effects of managed bees
on native bees, or the carrying capac-
ity of a given urban/rural space.
Thanks,
Harley
A
Carrying capacity for these pollina-
tors is all connected to “food”, i.e., flo-
ral resources. Honey bees and bum-
February 2019
ble bees are generalists and forage on
a succession of blooming plants that
provide nectar and pollen. Solitary
bees are most times not generalists
but have developed a relationship
with certain plant flower species and
those species only. If there is a lack
of (the key word is “lack” of) a large
variety of many kinds of flowering
plants, and all of the resource collec-
tion is focused on a few species, then
there is a general competition for sur-
vival and somebody is going to win
and somebody isn’t for resource col-
lection and acquisition. And this com-
petition could be between and among
honey bees and bumble bees and oth-
er pollinating bees. It all depends on
the location and what is the mix and
density of ALL kinds of pollinators in
the area.
There is data available that is show-
ing that climate change is having an
effect on some of these plant/bee
relationships. Remember that for
specialist pollinators who have this
specific plant flower relationship that
the plant has to grow and flower at a
prescribed time because the bee polli-
nator has to emerge from her nesting
hole, tube, or tunnel in the ground at
the same time the plant is blooming.
If this coordination doesn’t happen
the plant doesn’t get pollinated and
can’t produce seeds and reproduce
and the bee doesn’t have access to the
flower nectar and pollen to supply
her small nest with this fundamen-
tal food source so she can reproduce.
They are distinctly tied together.
In some places in North America,
spring is advancing sooner on the
calendar, sometimes by a few weeks
already. The result of warming tem-
peratures is the plant grows and
blooms earlier. The specific pollina-
tor in many cases has not made the
emergence adjustment and so misses
the food resource and can’t repro-
duce, and so their populations have
dropped. The plant population drops
as well if there are no other pollina-
tors to fill the pollination gap. The
plant doesn’t care who does the pol-
lination but the bees do.
I don’t know what the numbers
are in Canada, but here in the U.S.
we have approximately 40 million
acres of suburban lawns consuming
approximately 80 million pounds of
chemicals, and 10,000 gallons of wa-
ter per yard above and beyond rain-
fall, to keep them looking like the 18th
hole at the golf course. Just think if we
could convince the owners of 5%, 7%,
10% of those 40 million acres to plant
some pollinator friendly forage in
suburbia. I am not saying that some-
body should dig up their whole lawn,
but how about those areas next to the
driveway or walkway, or that place in
the corner of the backyard, to plant
something else except useless grass?
It would be an amazing resource for
bees, butterflies, birds and on and on.
Plant it and they will come.
We do need to not point fingers at
each other, but see where gaps are in
meeting and sustaining a healthy en-
vironment with opportunities to fill
those gaps together, not behind the
walls or gates of closed communities.
Below are a few links to interest-
ing information about your insightful
questions:
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/
postdetail.cfm?postnum=11627
http://news.cornell.edu/sto-
ries/2011/10/native-bees-are-better-
pollinators-honeybees
https://resonatingbodies.files.word-
press.com/2010/02/beeshabitatco-
evolution.pdf
Q
CEDAR HIVE...?
Hello, I am wondering if you think
that cedar wood would help detract
wax moths. The reason I ask is be-
cause I am a wood worker and know
that if you build a chest out of cedar
then moths don’t like to eat holes in
blankets that you put in your chest.
So I was wondering if you made a
bottom board or lid or even just put a
thin layer of cedar on the inner sides
of the boxes if you think that it would
149
detract the wax moths.
Waiting to hear back from you.
Thank you.
Jerry D.
A
No. :)
Many things old are new again. Recy-
cled ideas. Not that it isn’t a good ques-
tion but a couple things are going on.
Honey bees don’t like these kinds
of unfamiliar odors and cover the
source with propolis to contain
them. If you built a cedar hive the
bees would coat the interior with
propolis to cover up the smell.
Honey bees do this also to stabilize
their environment with these tree
gums, saps, and resins we call propolis.
But if you want to do it because it is
fun and would look cool from the
outside, do it. Beekeeping should
be fun as long as you are manag-
ing appropriately on the inside with
this partnership with these insects.
The bees will help you on the inside
part as they look for colony hive sta-
bility, but wax moth repellency isn’t
part of it.
Q
NO FUMIDIL-B...
NOW WHAT?
First, thanks for all your help in the
past and all the information you pro-
vide monthly. It’s a great service.
I wanted to get your opinion on
the ads I see now that Fumagilin-B is
no longer available, suggesting that
you use as a replacement Super DFM
Honey Bee. There are several of these
products available, another being Pro
DFM Honey Bee. I have tried to get
some information on its ingredients
and how it will help treat for Nosema
which is what Fumagilin-B was used
for, however so far I have not found
any clear details.
Please provide me with any details
and opinions you may have or can
find.
Thanks for the information and
your time.
Ron
Scottsville, Va.
A
Thank you for the compliment.
150
Let’s see if I can keep your confidence.
Fumidil-B was a chemical that act-
ed on the honey bees’ cells so that the
Nosema could not pirate them and
use the cells to make more Nosema.
It did not act on the vegetative/grow-
ing stage of Nosema itself. Sales were
not that great and so the product was
dropped. Others are trying to bring it
back but there were two patent hold-
ers so some negotiations have to be
made.
Healthy honey bees have robust
gut/intestine bacteria, yeast, even
virus populations that together are
called a microbiome, which helps the
bee digest beebread and contributes
to the overall health of the individual
bee. When this balance of organisms
in the microbiome is changed — or
thrown off by exposure to varro-
acides in the colony, poor nutrition,
antibiotics, toxins brought in from the
environment, etc. — this allows other
organisms that are not helpful to gain
a foothold and dominate the gut. Like
Nosema apis or cerana or both.
Kind of like you or me when we eat
something that causes diarrhea, or
take antibiotics that kill the bad bac-
teria but also the good bacteria and
cause diarrhea because our microbi-
ome is off balance. Many times fer-
mented foods, foods that use bacte-
ria to partially digest and change it
for preservation (like yogurt, kefir,
kombucha or other fermented prod-
ucts) rebalance our microbiome as
they make their way to and through
our gut. And you may have heard
about people who this doesn’t work
for and they have a ‘fecal transplant’
to reintroduce the correct organisms
into the intestine.
The products above are like yogurt
or kefir or kombucha for honey bees.
But one of the biggest problems we
have had in the beekeeping industry
is the overuse and arbitrary use of an-
tibiotics because of the thought that
bad looking bees need antibiotics.
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Anti” means “against”, and “biotic”
means “life”. Antibiotic = against life.
Many times antibiotics are needed
if there is an accurate diagnosis of a
bacterial disease, but most beekeep-
ers don’t know how to do this so they
prophylactically treat and can cause
worse problems.
Soooo, if you want to use the prod-
ucts above you have to look long-term
and quit using antibiotics and use the
products according to label directions
consistently for best results. Because
these products contain certain bacte-
ria, if you use antibiotics, guess what,
it kills them too. And you have wast-
ed your money and stressed your
bees again.
I hope this helps.
Q
WAX MOTHS
I am a rescuer beekeeper in a re-
mote, high desert town, so far re-
moved from any commercial honey
bee operations that we do not yet have
varroa mites. We do, however, have
moths this year, lots of moths! Moths
and their brood have destroyed sev-
eral of my active hives (the bees ab-
sconded), and eaten through plastic
garbage bags containing brood boxes
and supers in storage in my garage,
rendering honeycomb to dust! What
can I do to keep moths out of active
hives, and away from stored hives?
Thanks,
Tom Geiger
A
If you are a honey bee swarm col-
lector in Page, Arizona, that means
you are an Africanized honey bee
(AHB) expert. Africanized bees, be-
cause they abscond so much and
swarm so much, will certainly have
fewer varroa than the genetically Eu-
ropean stock that most of us main-
tain, but they will still have varroa.
Your AHB absconding problem
may be from varroa or the varroa/
virus complex or one of the other
4 P’s of beekeeping - Parasites, Patho-
gens, Pesticides and Poor nutrition.
Wax moths in an active honey bee
colony are ‘secondary’ predators. If
the colony is strong enough with suf-
ficient population for a bee to cover
each square inch of comb, these ‘sec-
ondary’ predators cannot enter with-
out being recognized as intruders - let
alone lay eggs without those eggs or
early larvae being removed by the
colony police force. What you have
to figure out is whether your African-
ized bees swarmed or absconded and
the population dropped precipitous-
ly, which left more unused comb than
the bees could protect. If there are still
bees in the colony, then you need to
take boxes off and crowd the remain-
ing bees into one box or so and get
American Bee Journal
back to that one bee per square inch
goal so they can protect this resource.
For the combs taken off, if you have
room in a freezer then put them in it,
as the wax moth cannot tolerate freez-
ing temperatures. If you don’t have
freezer capacity then you will have
to resort to wax moth crystals where
the active ingredient is paradichloro-
benzene. NOTHING else, or you will
ruin your comb and kill bees. Follow
label directions perfectly.
Q
UPPER
VENTILATION
What is your feeling on putting
ventilation tops on beehives during
the winter months? Do you think it is
really worth it? I mean, there isn’t one
in a hollowed out tree, and they seem
to do fine
Hope you are doing well.
Mark
A
But, the assumption is that the
beehive in the hollow tree was in
the same configuration as the one
that Langstroth and others designed
with the entrance at the bottom and a
front porch and confined space with
a solid top.
Truth is, before varroa, when there
were more feral colonies, it was found
that when given a choice bees select-
ed a cavity with an upper entrance.
Think hollow vertical space with
brood chamber below and no bottom
entrance, so temperature and humid-
ity could be consistent and excess hu-
mid air could rise like warm air in a
chimney and be vented out.
And yes, honey bees are survivors
and can live in many different cav-
ity configurations. I have seen them
in mailboxes, old gas tanks, and the
trunk of an old Buick. Kind of like
people; we can live in all sorts of
cavities from igloos to caves, tents to
penthouse apartments. But we need
ventilation and air flow too, so hu-
midity doesn’t build up and give us
moldy walls.
In a perfect world, I would
close down the bottom entrance to
an inch or so and create an upper en-
trance above the brood chamber, in
winter and the rest of the year too.
February 2019
Q CLEAN THOSE
Hi Jerry,
CELLS OUT
Thanks for your fun and education-
al column!
I read in an old magazine that peo-
ple could buy something that could
clean the cells and remove old pupa
cases. Is that true? Isn’t that what the
nurse bees are supposed to do? Does
it allow them to do other work in the
hive?
Did it work? If so, what happened
to it? I have never seen anything like
that. Can it help remove AFB (Ameri-
can foulbrood) spores?
Thanks for your advice!! :)
Clive Baldwin
A Q
Wow, you must be as old as I am.
Great question.
As a quick aside, the many larval
skins that are shed during a honey bee
larval development are layered on
top of one another. And as you can
visualize in a brood area, those same
cells are used time after time and that
is why comb darkens and becomes
a reservoir waste area. This is where
wax moths came in for wild honey
bee health.
Honey bees living in a hollow tree
someplace generally only maintained
a colony there for a few years before
they swarmed or died and left the
empty colony with all the old brood
comb sitting there. Wax moths would
move in and eat the old dark comb, as
the larval skins were their nutrition.
Wax moths would ‘destroy’ the old
dark comb and basically sanitize the
tree cavity so another colony could
move in and not be exposed to the
reservoir of disease.
We beekeepers want to keep all the
comb, old and new, as a resource so
the colony doesn’t have to use energy
making new comb all the time. So
unless you remove a couple frames
of old dark comb a year and replace
with new foundation and have new
fresh comb built, your hives don’t get
this ‘sanitizing’ process.
Yes, long, long ago on a planet far,
far away there was a product, a bio-
logical product nonetheless, that the
beekeeper could spray on old dark
combs and the fungus/mold in the
mixture would use the shed larval
skins as food. The organisms would
eat the many larval skins, which are
a reservoir for many chemicals, bac-
teria and fungal organisms which
can hurt a colony. It was a great idea
but there were few sales to sustain
it, mostly because nobody wanted
to remove frames, spray them and
let the organisms do their job eating
the old comb larval skins, and so it
was taken off the market. I have no
idea if it impacted AFB spore count,
but one would have to think so, as
the cell debris they created as they
ate it would have been cleaned out
by the bees after the organisms did
their job.
You are the first to ask about this
in 30 years. So you know now why it
was taken off the market.
FREE FORM COMB
Hello Mr. Hayes, Teacher of all
Things Bees,
I was told today by a beekeeper
that all of his colonies have founda-
tion-less combs because they “typi-
cally result in smaller sized cells
which helps control the mite popula-
tion.” Not one to argue, I only stated
that small celled foundation has not
been found to control mites; however,
I have also seen that foundation-less
combs often result in more cells that
are larger in size in the spring, result-
ing in more drones in the spring than
colonies starting with the standard
foundation.
Can you shed some light on this
subject? The ONLY advantage I see
in not letting bees start on foundation
is that they should not have much
chemical residue in the cells if they
build it all themselves (depending
on what products are in their flying
range), but it takes a lot more work
for the bees to build from scratch and
the frames tend to be more irregular
and fragile when moving frames or
tilting them to look in cells.
Bee Inspector
Somewhere in Ohio
A
Here is the answer.
In particular, I like the one below
that starts with Ellis :)
151
Seeley, Thomas D. and Griffin,
Sean R. 2011. Small-cell comb
does not control Varroa mites in
colonies of honeybees of European
origin. Apidologie 42:526-532, DOI:
10.1007/s13592-011-0054-4.
Berry, J.A., Owens, W.B., Delaplane,
K.S. (2010) Small-cell comb founda-
tion does not impede Varroa mite
population growth in honey bee
colonies. Apidologie 41, 40–44.
Coffey, M.F., Breen, J., Brown, M.J.F.,
McMullan, J.B. (2010) Brood-cell
size has no influence on the popu-
lation dynamics of Varroa destruc-
tor mites in the native western
honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera.
Apidologie 41, 522–530.
Ellis, A.M., Hayes, G.W., Ellis, J.D.
(2009) The efficacy of small cell
foundation as a Varroa mite (Var-
roa destructor) control. Exp. Appl.
Acarol. 47, 311–316.
Zhou, T., J. Yao, S.X. Huang, Z.Y.
Huang. 2001. Larger cell size
reduces varroa mite reproduc-
tion. Proceedings of the American
Bee Research Conference, American
Bee Journal 141: 895-896.
Taylor, M.A., Goodwin, R.M., Mc-
Brydie, H.M., Cox, H.M. (2008)
The effect of honeybee worker
brood cell size on Varroa destruc-
tor infestation and reproduction. J.
Apic. Res. 47, 239–242.
Biologically, honey bees want to
spread their colony genetics broadly.
One of the ways to do this is to pro-
duce drones. As a general rule of
thumb honey bees will want to have
approximately 10-15% drone cells in
comb if allowed to build free-form
comb ... not using foundation as a
pattern. You can certainly have them
do this but workers are called work-
ers because they do the ‘work’ of vis-
iting flowers. Drones are a direct re-
source drain as they eat and don’t do
anything directly to contribute to the
health of a honey bee colony. A food
resource sponge. That is why drones
are dragged out and allowed to die
when there is a dearth of flower re-
sources during spring, summer or fall
and of course winter.
But, if you are raising queens and
you want those traits from a particu-
lar colony shared around then you
need ‘drone colonies’ that contribute
lots of drones to the drone congrega-
tion area (DCA).
It is basically the beekeeper’s man-
agement decision of what s/he wants
to accomplish.
152
Q SMALL HIVE
BEETLES
Mr. Hayes, is there anything
available to fight the small hive beetle
other than the usual traps that are
advertised to trap them? Normally
the numbers are down in a strong hive
but what can be done if the numbers
get high in a strong healthy hive?
I enjoy reading The Classroom ev-
ery month.
Sincerely,
Daniel Cady
Axson, GA
A Good morning Daniel. I am in the
airport heading off to another meet-
ing. Here is a quickish answer.
A few things to think about: Small
hive beetles (SHB) are opportunists.
They are looking for a colony regard-
less of size that is sick and might be
getting sicker. You might not notice
it but they are. Colonies under stress
produce alarm pheromones (odors)
that SHB ‘smell’ and say to them-
selves, ‘Let’s go to that colony be-
cause if they get weaker we can lay
eggs and make SHB babies.’
The SHB adults, you see, have been
attracted to that colony.
The question to ask yourself is,
what is your varroa count now —
assuming you sampled, treated and
sampled again back in August or so.
Is there any American or European
foulbrood, or any other overt disease
issue?
Other than traps, not much you can
do except have a healthy colony. You
can trap SHB all day long, but if the
colony is weak it will continue to at-
tract them from the environment.
Whatever you do, don’t follow
any suggestions on the Web to put
various unlabeled pesticides found in
other insect traps into your colony. It
just stresses the colony even more.
Take a look at your colonies, sample
for varroa and diseases, then make a
decision.
All the Best.
Q I am NOT a
Believer
Good day, Jerry.
I would like to respond to your in-
troductory comments in the October
The Classroom. First, let me share my
personal feelings on beliefs. Humans
once BELIEVED that our planet was
flat, and that the sun revolved around
it. The majority of us now KNOW
that neither of those beliefs is true.
My point: Beliefs are often the enemy
of knowledge, facts, and truth.
We’ve had this conversation before,
but I now come prepared with infor-
mation beyond personal experience.
Let me start with the first statement
I have questions/comments about:
“Because of varroa mites, honey bees
cannot live and establish long-term
colonies in the wild and survive.”
I would refer you, and all your
readers, to Barbara Locke’s paper;
Locke, B. (2016). Natural varroa mite-
surviving Apis mellifera honeybee
populations. Apidologie 47(3): 467-
482. It seems that honey bees are sur-
viving varroa without chemical treat-
ments and both with and without
any human involvement, all over the
planet. Following the citations given
will lead you on a journey revealing
much more.
“Without active beekeeper manage-
ment, varroa mites and the varroa/vi-
rus complex will weaken and kill an
untreated colony in 12 to 18 months”
I can find numerous exceptions to
that, and Locke and her citations are
just a portion of them. I recently con-
tacted Barbara to see if these colonies
still survive; her answer is attached
below.
Another comment I have concerns
the reference to bees being “pets” that
can’t live without us. My simple an-
swer to that is bees are not pets, nor
will they ever be. Anyone thinking
they are does not, in my opinion, un-
derstand insects, nature, or their role
as a beekeeper. The example I gave
you once before I give again: The cou-
ple that purchased a “pet” boa con-
strictor snake and raised it to a ma-
ture specimen abandoned that foolish
conception after the adult snake es-
caped its cage and devoured their
infant child in its crib. Ideas such as
this can be dangerous, possibly caus-
ing injury or death. Locke and other
researchers have shown they can sur-
vive without us.
“Varroa isn’t stupid.” They also
aren’t intelligent. They exist in a world
of odors and instincts completely
alien to our own. They are subject to
the selective pressures that drive their
destiny (unless we humans interfere).
To confer intelligence on them is to
engage in the very thing you men-
American Bee Journal
tion a couple of pages later: anthro-
pomorphism. The same applies to the
“stupid gene” you’ve mentioned in
the past; there’s no stupidity to it. In a
climate where bees could forage year-
round, a gene directing a second fall
swarming season could confer advan-
tages to the species. As far as arthro-
pods and intelligence are concerned,
I agree with J. Henri Fabre, Norman
Gary and his chapter in The Hive and
the Honey Bee, 2015, pg. 276-277, In-
fluence Of Learning On Bee Activities:
“Bees learn quickly and can remem-
ber some experiences for the remain-
der of their lives. However, this does
not mean that they are clever, smart,
or intelligent.” Borror and DeLong
in their book An Introduction to the
Study of Insects, 3rd Edition, page 53:
“It is unsafe to assume that a mental
process such as liking or disliking
something has anything to do with an
insect’s response. The nerve pathways
involved in insect behavior are largely
hereditary; hence the responses are
largely automatic and not learned.”
A whole host of other entomologists
agree. E.O. Wilson, in The Insect Soci-
eties (1971 Harvard University Press,
p. 219), comes closest to attributing
intelligence to insects: “Experiments
on the learning performance of hon-
eybees and ants have already revealed
many kinds of constraints which, by
themselves, must hold the potential
intelligence of these insects far below
that of mammals.” Most of E.O.’s ref-
erences to insects involve robotic and
instinctual actions.
I’ve kept this discourse short as I
currently have a full plate. I do whole-
heartedly agree with you in the last
paragraph and give my version of the
sentiment: We as beekeepers need to
be better educated, cooperate with
and assist our bees in what they seek
to accomplish. One of the things bees
are trying to accomplish is a natural
host-parasite relationship with var-
roa. Our cooperation and assistance
would help bring this about.
I’m not a believer.
Terry
A
Hello Terry,
Thank you for sharing your
thoughts and opinion. I think you
may agree that Dr. Tom Seeley is the
go-to expert for research into varroa
impacts on isolated honey bee colo-
nies in the Arnot Forest.
February 2019
I copied and pasted an interview Dr.
Seeley did that appeared in the July 1
ABJ, titled, “Natural Beekeeping and
Ideal Hives“.
......genetics alone is not going to
solve the problem completely, I feel.
There is breeding work being done
selecting for Varroa-Sensitive Hy-
gienic (VSH) behavior. The USDA
lab in Baton Rouge worked hard to
get the Russian bees precisely be-
cause there was the expectation that
they would have gone through selec-
tion for resistance to varroa. I have
not used Russian bees, but quite
a few people do. But what Marla
Spivak tells me regarding the VSH-
trait bees that she has promoted, is
that these bees offer some control of
the mites, but you still need other
controls as well.
I cannot say for sure whether the
bees that are living in the Arnot For-
est would show resistance to the var-
roa mite without all of the features
of their lifestyle - it may not be just
those genetics that are helping them.
Their persistence may be due to
their genetics in combination with
how they live in small nests, have
the freedom to swarm, etc. So I can
see a lot of reasons why people want
to find the magic-bullet treatment.
Here’s the chemical to use - be it ox-
alic acid or thymol or formic acid.
Honey bee colonies surviving with-
out varroa controls in the Arnot Forest
are doing so because they are isolated
from other honey bee colonies and the
dispersal ‘Varroa Bomb’ events are re-
duced. They maintain much smaller
colonies which mean less brood which
means less varroa reproduction. And
they swarm freely, breaking the varroa
reproduction cycle.
All of the above are totally oppo-
site of the beekeeping model that has
proven most effective and valuable
for pollination and honey produc-
tion. We manage colonies in apiaries
or yards with many other colonies.
We encourage large colonies, as more
bees collect more nectar and pollen
than small colonies, and we try to re-
strict swarming as it is a loss of bees.
When isolated colonies are put into
our standard equipment in an apiary
with other colonies, these varroa re-
sistant traits disappear. They are af-
fected and die at the same rate as the
‘other’ managed colonies.
All that to say managed honey bees
are pets or livestock, as they need
educated attention and management
if we beekeepers are to be responsible
for our honey bees’ health and wel-
fare. To ignore this reality is simply
wrong.
Q
BEE-GYM ...
Really??
I bought a thing called the Bee-
Gym just for fun at the vendor sec-
tion at the recent AHPA Conference
in Phoenix. It is a yellow plastic thing
with wires on it that are supposed to
help bees groom themselves and get
varroa off. I thought it was a waste
of money and time but I have spent
money on goofier things for my back-
yard colonies. AHPA meeting was
great. Since I live in the area and our
weather is always warm I put it in a
colony. I have a sticky board on the
bottom board. Look at the photo I sent
you. It is incredible. Look at the kind
of square outline in the center with
all the VARROA making the outline.
I had no idea it would actually work
this well. What do you think?
Charles K.,
Phoenix, AZ
A
I have bought goofy stuff on a whim
as I got caught up in the excitement of
a meeting too. Most of the time they
are a waste of money because they
don’t work but make me curious and
loose with my CC while they sell this
stuff and check their emails while on
the beach in Jamaica.
You are not the first one to share
pictures like that with me. I have
scratched my head and let it go but
yours was the tipping point to have
my comment. If you go to the Euro-
pean company Vita and their website
www.vita-europe.com and click on
Bee-Gym there is a lot of information
and a video of the bees grooming
themselves (maybe) on it.
Are the bees grooming themselves
and using this as a tool? Or are they
looking at this device as a piece of de-
bris in the colony and trying to figure
153
out how to get rid of it and crawl all
over it?
The thing is that it does remove
varroa that is exposed/phoretic in the
dispersal phase. I have not seen any
firm research data that shows to what
extent it does help bees remove var-
roa. Or, if the varroa it does remove as
you see on the sticky board is signifi-
cant or not.
I guess in my mind, fewer var-
roa is better than more varroa. I
wouldn’t rely on this as any more
than part of your IPM (Integrated
Pest Managment) strategy and keep
sampling, sampling, sampling and
treat appropriately.

154 American Bee Journal

 Beekeeping Basics
The Winter Check
An out-yard that can only be reached by snowshoe when checking on winter feed. 8000’ in Colorado
Spring is the most dangerous time of year for honey bees.
They typically begin brood rear-
ing at about the winter solstice, and
thus need to keep the brood chamber
warmer for the babies, besides pro-
ducing all those extra mouths to feed.
This is when they really begin to use
up their honey stores more rapidly. If
the winter has been warm enough for
the bees to fly frequently, they will be
even closer to the knife edge of star-
vation, since flying requires elevated
caloric expenditures.
An extended early warm spell can
encourage bees to forage fruitlessly,
expending even more calories than
cleansing flights would burn up. If
the early foraging yields early pollen,
the situation becomes even more dire,
since incoming pollen induces more
enthusiastic brood rearing, even more
mouths to feed, and even faster honey
consumption. Early pollen producing
plants often do not produce nectar,
so there is no food coming in to feed
adult bees.
We do the winter check in Febru-
ary these days in most of the country.
Our main job is to ascertain whether
the bees have enough honey remain-
ing. In Langstroth beekeeping all we
need do is to tip the hive either from
the back or from the side, just enough
that you can feel its weight. It should
feel fairly heavy. Keep in mind that
besides the honey, there is the wood,
frames and foundation, combs, top
and bottom and five to seven pounds
of bees. If you forgot to heft the hive
in the fall and have no point of ref-
erence, you may not feel confident in
February 2019
by TINA SEBESTYEN
your assessment. If the hive feels too
light, or you aren’t sure if the bees
have enough honey left, you may
need to visually check on the bees.
I am not suggesting that you re-
move combs, or in any way disturb
the cluster. A visual check should be
done on the warmest day available
(50 degrees is nice). Pop the covers
and just see where the bees are. If they
are in the topmost hive body against
the lid, it likely means that they have
eaten the honey below. Even if that
box is full of honey (and you can’t
really tell without removing frames),
it will not hurt at all to place some
emergency sugar rations.
If you must pop the top, do it
quickly and have everything you
might need on hand so that one open-
ing will do the job. A sheet of news-
paper laid on top of the frames with
room around the edges to allow the
bees to come up, and covered with 4
pounds of plain white sugar is won-
derful emergency food. This is called
A spring candy board with pollen patty
the mountain camp method of feed-
ing bees.
If you plan ahead, you can make
bee candy instead. Bee candy has the
added value of incorporating a tiny
bit of water, making it more read-
ily consumable by the bees. Both bee
candy and mountain camp feeding
give one more benefit to the colony:
They absorb moisture that might oth-
erwise rain back down on the bees.
In fact, bees cannot use dry sugar. We
are relying on water absorption to
make the sugar available for the bees’
consumption. If you placed mountain
camp or bee candy in the hive in fall,
all you need to do is check to see if it
is still there. If it is bone dry, a quick
spritz with a spray bottle of water
will remedy the situation.
Either of these two methods of
feeding requires a shim, or “eke”, to
allow space for the sugar. Hopefully,
you put this on in the fall, so that the
bees could propolize it down. If time
got away from you and you are plac-
ing the eke now, you will need to duct
tape it to the hive body below, all the
way around. Bees need ventilation
in winter, but not quite as much as
would happen with a hive body or
eke not propolized in place.
This brings us to our next winter
job, ventilation check. We humans
think we need to help our bees keep
warm, which is completely untrue.
In one of my out-yards, I once dis-
covered a colony whose outer cover
had blown off. The inner cover stayed
on due to all that wonderful propo-
157

1/4 inch hardware cloth for mouse guard
lis. It had snowed several times, and
the wind had been blowing. The bees
were fine, even though the inner cov-
er had that big opening in the middle
and snow could go right into the hive.
They survived the winter, and came
out strong in the spring. (Yes, I did re-
place the outer cover and used a strap
this time).
In fact, our attempts to help the
bees stay warm can be detrimental if
by so doing we decrease their ventila-
tion too much. If the inside of the in-
ner cover appears dry, nothing more
is needed. If it is wet, or mold is ap-
pearing on the tops of the frames, a
bit of air at the top of the hive is the
Snowshoeing to an out-yard in Feb. for the critical winter check
158
answer. If your inner cover has a slot
in the rim, place it toward the front of
the hive, so that air goes in the lower
entrance, straight up and out the top,
pulling moisture with it. Putting that
slot at the back of the hive would pull
air through the cluster, and we don’t
want that. If there is no slot in the in-
ner cover, a piece of a Popsicle stick
under each front corner of the inner
cover is the trick for you.
Remember that the lower entrance
needs to be clear. Snow and ice can
keep even oxygen out, and definitely
keeps bees in when they might need
to go on cleansing flights. Shredded
newspaper from mountain camp
feeding, or dead bees can also clog
the entrance. I usually attach my
mouse guard to the entrance reducer
rather than to the hive face, so that
pulling it out of the way is easy and
I have room to sweep debris out with
my hive tool. Everything should be
done quickly and quietly. We want to
disturb the bees as little as possible.
Remember that it must be at least 40
degrees for bees to be able to leave the
cluster and get back up before being
paralyzed by the cold. We would like
them to stay in the cluster rather than
thinking they need to defend the hive
because of loud and clumsy manipu-
lation by the beekeeper, but if they
do come to see what you are doing,
it shouldn’t be death for them. An
upper entrance is insurance against
these troubles.
If you must pop the top to check
on them, they will probably seem un-
bothered by your intrusion. Don’t let
this fool you into thinking that you
are not bothering them. Letting the
scent and warmth out is hard on the
bees, so be quick. Definitely do not
give in to the temptation to remove
combs, or to separate hive bodies,
even if you don’t see any bees. Intact
propolis between the hive bodies is
critical for them. The propolis on the
inner cover will be re-activated by the
warmth rising from the bees, but this
will not work on seams lower down.
If you do not see any bees, and you
fear that they are dead, still don’t
break propolis seals. They’ll still be
dead in the spring when it is safe to
look, whereas if there is a little clus-
ter of bees hanging on for dear life
down below, appeasing your curios-
ity might be the end for your girls. If
you really must know, on a day that is
above 40 degrees, put your ear right
against the hive and knock light-
ly. They’ll answer if they are alive,
though they might be disturbed a bit.
Using a pollen patty can be espe-
cially dangerous for new-bees who
might need a bit more experience
learning how fast bees use honey
in spring, what blooms when, and
whether it provides nectar or only
pollen. Also, remember that Small
Hive Beetles like pollen, too. Supple-
menting with patties can increase
beetle numbers the same way it in-
creases bee numbers.
Pollen and pollen patties increase
brood rearing, which can easily out-
run honey stores. In most parts of the
country, dandelions provide the first
nectar of the season. Here in Colora-
do, that happens in mid to late April.
American Bee Journal
Getting a huge brood chamber going
in February might be too early. If the
colony has sufficient stores, getting
an early start on increased popula-
tion a month before dandelion bloom
might lead to increased honey pro-
duction later. Just beware the danger.
Be ready to feed if spring is delayed
or if you have any concern about star-
vation, which is most likely in March.
Feeding sugar water in hive top feed-
ers can cause condensation that rains
on the cluster, so it is usually held off
until freezing stops. Feeding sugar
water away from the hive on flyable
days is all right as long as you can
be there to remove the feeders before
afternoon temperatures drop and
paralyze the hard-working bees who
will be found floating if you are not
vigilant.
The winter check for horizontal
beekeepers is a bit different. Top bar
and long Langstroth hives afford the
opportunity to move honey stores
closer to the cluster since this can be
done without disturbing the bees.
Top bars form a solid roof over the
bees, and wool or burlap on top of
the frames can give the same protec-
tion to the bees in a long Langstroth
hive. Starting at the back of the col-
ony, away from the entrance, remove
bars or frames and set aside until you
begin to see a few bees on the comb,
rolling the burlap as you go. Those
few bees are the clue as to where the
cluster is. Don’t go any farther. I can’t
emphasize enough the importance of
not disturbing the cluster. Now, put
full honey combs in place against
the back of the cluster, and move any
empty ones to the back of the hive.
Now that you have made sure that
your hives have sufficient honey and
ventilation, close them up and leave
them alone. Go inside and read about
bees! The more you learn, the better
your bees will survive.
Happy Beekeeping!

Tina Sebestyen has

been keeping bees
since 2007 in top
bar, Langstroth and,
more recently, long
Langstroth hives.
She is founder of the
Four Corners Bee-
keepers Association, and is vice president of
the Colorado State Beekeepers Association.
She helps with large scale queen produc-
tion for commercial operations, raises locally
adapted queens for SW Colorado, helps pro-
duce nucs, does structural removals of bee
colonies, and writes and speaks about bees
everywhere she gets the chance. She can be
reached at bee.seeking@gmail.com

February 2019 159

160 American Bee Journal
 Innovative honey bee vaccines pass immunity down through the generations
I
get a flu shot every year. Actually,
I’ve had a swath of vaccines, from
influenza to rabies (the latter came
in handy when I was trapping small
carnivores in Kenya). The immune
system is amazing, isn’t it? Delivered
by the prick of a needle, harmless
fragments of pathogens give us mem-
orized immunity against real diseas-
es, so we don’t have to worry about
dying from rabies if we get nipped
by a frothing jackal. What if we could
also vaccinate our bees, to prevent
diseases like American foulbrood?
For a long time, it didn’t look like
such a feat would be possible. The
bees’ immune system is just so differ-
ent than ours. They don’t have B-cells
like we do, which give us that memo-
rized immune response. They don’t
have T-cells, which hunt down and
kill infected cells. They don’t have an-
tibodies, which glob on to pathogens
and stop them in their tracks. In fact,
bees don’t have a conventional adap-
tive immune system (also known as
the “acquired immune system”) at all
— a system that is necessary for vac-
cines to work.
But in a series of discoveries, re-
searchers have shown that it’s not that
bees don’t have an adaptive immune
system, it’s that we just didn’t recog-
nize it. Now, Dalial Freitak and Heli
Salmela — researchers at the Univer-
sity of Helsinki, Finland — have fig-
ured out how to capitalize on this sys-
tem to immunize queens, which can
then give rise to immunized colonies.
“Insects have both innate and adap-
tive immunity just like other living
February 2019
creatures — humans, dogs, or chick-
ens. However, it works somewhat dif-
ferently in insects,” Freitak explains.
It depends on a specific protein, vi-
tellogenin, that floats around in the
blood, instead of T- and B-cells. But
there’s an added twist: The acquired
immunity not only acts within the in-
dividual bee exposed to the pathogen
— it is also passed down to the next
generation.
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Salmela and Freitak were not the
ones who discovered this immune
pathway, but they did figure out
how it worked. It was Ben Sadd —
who now runs a lab at Illinois State
University — who provided some of
the first uncontested evidence of the
phenomenon over a decade ago in
bumble bees.2 He and his colleagues
injected Bombus terrestris queens with
either heat-killed bacteria or saline
solution, and then measured immune
stimulation in their daughters. Sur-
prisingly, daughters from bacteria-
injected queens had a heightened
immune state compared to daughters
of queens injected with saline alone,
despite not receiving the bacterial in-
jection themselves. It was clear that
the queen’s own immune stimula-
tion was being passed on to her na-
ïve daughters — a process which
researchers call “transgenerational
immune priming”.
Transgenerational immune prim-
ing is nothing new; we have known
about it for over a hundred years,3 be-
ginning with work on mammals and
birds. For example, hens donate their
own antibodies to their eggs. This an-
tibody sharing gives the chicks some
protection against pathogens early in
life and tides them over until they can
start producing antibodies for them-
selves. Transgenerational immune
priming happens in people, too: As
developing fetuses, we shared our
mother’s blood supply and are there-
fore born primed with the same an-
tibodies that circulated in her. But if
bees don’t produce antibodies, how
can they prime their babies’ immune
systems?
Enter: vitellogenin. Vitellogenin is a
yolk protein produced in egg-laying
animals, including fish, birds, frogs,
snakes, and bees, among others. Its
regular role is to provide nutrients
to developing embryos. But in honey
bees (and other social insects), this
protein is central to nearly all aspects
of life, including reproduction, lon-
gevity, the nurse-to-forager transi-
tion, and now, immune priming.
In their 2015 paper in PLOS Patho-
gens,1 Freitak and Salmela elegantly
showed that in queen honey bees,
vitellogenin binds to bacterial frag-
ments and transports them into eggs,
thereby presenting these fragments
to the naïve future embryo. “The
next generation will develop its own
immunity as a response to that ex-
posure,” says Freitak. Just like how
immunizing vaccines spare us from
the actual disease, these fragments
are harmless to the bee embryos, but
are still enough to stimulate their
immune system. Furthermore, the
161
data suggest that vitellogenin may
preferentially transport fragments
from “Gram-positive” bacteria. This
includes Paenibacillus larvae and Me-
lissococcus plutonius, the causative
agents of American and European
foulbrood, respectively.
Not everyone agrees that this kind
of immunity should be called “adap-
tive,” because that term is usually re-
served for the magnificently complex
system we possess (the T-cells, B-
cells, and myriad diverse antibodies
and receptors).3 However, the defini-
tion of adaptive immunity is simply
“immunity that develops after ex-
posure to a suitable agent (as by an
attack of a disease or by injection of
antigens),” which is exactly what this
immune priming mechanism enables.
The pathway is not in the form of the
usual B-cells, T-cells, and antibodies,
but it serves a very similar purpose.
If people disagree, I understand — af-
ter all, an adaptive immune system is
thought of as a hallmark of complex
life, and we like to think of ourselves
as the most complex of all. But small
things, like bees, can be complex too.
a Vaccine that’s easy to swaLLow
Armed with knowledge of the
mechanism, Salmela and Freitak have
applied for a patent on their technol-
ogy. They call their research project
“PrimeBEE” and are in the process
of forming a company (Dalan Ani-
Fig. 1 The vaccine can be fed either as a candy patty to adult queens (A) or mixed with
queen larval diet for lab-reared queens (B). The queen larva can float in the vaccine
and consume it until pupation. After eating the vaccine, the inactive bacterial frag-
ments are transported into the queen’s ovaries by the protein vitellogenin. C) A colony
headed by a vaccinated queen will then be resistant to American foulbrood. Vaccines
for other pathogens may be produced in the future.
162
mal Health) which will be in charge
of commercially producing and dis-
seminating their product (either pre-
vaccinated queens or vaccines in the
form of a small candy patty).They
don’t yet know exactly where or when
these products will become available,
but their hope is that one day they
will be accessible everywhere they
are needed. The cost of such queens
and vaccines is also not yet known;
however, Freitak estimates that it will
be around the cost of other livestock
vaccines. A study on the vaccine’s ef-
ficacy is in preparation, and Freitak
and Salmela’s patent application5 al-
ludes to targets of 90% survival when
larvae ingest five viable AFB spores
and 50% survival when they ingest
up to 20 spores. These are relatively
low doses, considering that a single
AFB scale can contain around a billion
spores, but the idea is for this to be a
preventive treatment. Vaccinated col-
onies, theoretically, should never en-
counter whole AFB scales (remember,
don’t use old comb!), just low-dose
environmental exposure. Freitak and
her team are moving toward clinical
trials and are confident that the vac-
cine’s performance will be satisfying.
“We are in the middle of forming a
company called Dalan Animal Health
that will focus on the R&D [research
and development] around these new
products,” says Freitak. “In the mean-
time, my lab will continue the basic
research on insect immunity to fur-
ther our understanding of it.”
Other researchers, who appear
not to be affiliated with Salmela and
Freitak,6 have shown that 74% of
daughters from queens injected with
heat-killed AFB are able to survive a
20-spore AFB challenge, compared
to just 51% of daughters from queens
injected with saline. The study used
a different delivery method than
PrimeBEE (which delivers vaccines to
queens by feeding, rather than injec-
tion) and until the data is revealed it’s
not yet clear if the PrimeBEE vaccine
fares better or worse than this meth-
od. But it’s better than nothing, right?
Probably. But people had a similar
idea when they discovered that hens
could be bred to have strong immune
systems, and that these hens passed
on lots of antibodies to their chicks.4
This should have been a good thing:
The chickens had mighty immune
systems, and so did their young. But
those hens also had lower fertility,
produced fewer eggs, and started lay-
ing eggs later in life, suggesting that
there is a trade-off between having a
super-active immune system and be-
ing reproductively fit. Similar trade-
offs may or may not affect honey
bees, but it awaits complete testing.
Freitak and her colleagues find no
negative effects of vaccination on
queen survival or fecundity, and she
adds that “How the vaccination of the
queen would affect the new queens
produced by vaccinated mothers is
something we will vigorously test.”
So far, the vaccine against AFB is
the only one that’s been proposed. But
of course, there are numerous other
pathogens that honey bees can be af-
flicted with. EFB is a promising tar-
get, since type of bacteria that causes
this disease should also be amenable
for vaccination via the PrimeBEE
strategy. Viruses, though, may or may
not be compatible. There is a need for
virus treatments, both preventive and
reactive — currently, there are none
(unless you count controlling viruses
indirectly by controlling varroa), de-
spite viruses being some of the most
widely spread honey bee pathogens.
Luckily, honey bees may have a
special kind of immune priming just
for viruses. Eyal Maori, a researcher
at Cambridge University, has report-
ed this immune priming against hon-
ey bee viruses for the first time just
months ago.7 The research has not yet
undergone peer review, but the work
is publicly available and the results
are compelling. Here is how it works.
American Bee Journal
sharing is caring
Honey bees’ main immune defense
against viruses is called “RNA in-
terference,” or RNAi for short. Like
many other insects, honey bees have
molecular machines inside their cells
that can use RNA molecules with spe-
cific sequences to target and destroy
(or “interfere” with) the virus’s ge-
nome. This prevents the viruses from
replicating, and abates the infection.
Maori and his colleagues propose
that nurse bees can actually share
these immune-stimulating RNA mol-
ecules with the larvae they feed. The
nurse bee, who may have previously
had a viral infection but recovered,
could transfer those leftover RNA
molecules to new larvae through her
worker jelly secretions. Those larvae
then gain immunity against the virus
without being infected themselves,
which is much like transgenerational
immune priming, except it isn’t ex-
actly between different generations
(since the nurses and the larvae are
sisters), and the bees are sharing RNA
rather than bacterial fragments.
You might recall another company,
Beeologics, that spun off from honey
bee immunity research. Back in 2010,
researchers involved in that company
(including Maori) published research
demonstrating that feeding colonies
virus-destroying RNA molecules (a
formulation which they called “Re-
mebee”) lent the bees substantial
immunity against the virus (Israeli
acute paralysis virus, in that case).8
Surprisingly, as Maori writes, the
“treated hives also produced more
honey, when the main honey flow
was 3-4 months after the last RNA
treatment. By that time, most of the
originally treated bees would have
been replaced by new generations.”
That observation spurred him and his
colleagues to look into whether the
bees were sharing the RNA molecules
through the generations. And it turns
out, they can. With a little imagina-
tion, this RNA treatment could be
thought of as a vaccine, too.
Beeologics’ treatments were a
hopeful answer to the demand for vi-
ral protection. But the company was
acquired by Monsanto (now Bayer-
Monsanto), which discontinued the
virus treatment plan. According to
one Bayer-Monsanto rep at the 2017
Entomological Society of America
(ESA) meeting, “Honey bee virus con-
trol is not one of our priorities at this
time.” Instead, they’re using the same
kind of technology to try to control
varroa, which will hopefully achieve
February 2019
the same goal in the end (since var- Hunter W et al. (2010). Large-scale field
roa are the main vectors for viruses). application of RNAi technology reduc-
I’m told by their representative at the ing Israeli acute paralysis virus disease
in honey bees (Apis mellifera, Hymenop-
2018 ESA meeting, William Moar, that tera: Apidae). PlOS Pathogens. https://doi.
they are “close” to obtaining federal org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1001160.
approval for an RNA-based varroa Gleit-Kielmanowicz M and Golani Y
control product. No other company (Beeologics). Compositions and methods
can pick up this RNA-based treat- for virus control in varroa mite and bees.
ment strategy to control viruses be- Patent publication number 20170037407.
cause Beeologics holds the patent to Paldi N and Glick E (Beeologics). (2014).
Prevention and treatment of nosema dis-
use this technology against IAPV and ease in bees. Patent publication number
other viruses, as well as Nosema.9,10 9932579.
Let’s hope that with the RNA-based
varroa control product getting off the Alison McAfee has a
ground, their priorities may focus on PhD in genome science
these other pathogens again. and technology from
the University of British
The coming years will be an in- Columbia, where she
novative time for honey bee disease studied mechanisms of
prevention. There are many questions hygienic behaviour in
that still need to be answered, but it’s honey bees. She is now
possible that bees may soon enjoy the a post-doc at North
benefits of vaccines just like we do. Carolina State University in David Tarpy’s
lab, and studies what keeps honey bee
Whether it’s a sugar patty queen vac- sperm alive. Email her at alison.n.mcafee@
cine against AFB (PrimeBEE’s strat- gmail.com.
egy), or an RNA-containing syrup
to treat and prevent virus infections
(Beeologics’ strategy), beekeepers
might have more tools to prevent
outbreaks before they happen. Honey
bee vaccines will not be able to eradi-
cate diseases the way the smallpox
vaccine has for humans. But, hope-
fully, this technology will help us to
dismount the chemical treadmill of
antibiotic resistance.
Queen bees may not have to worry
about dying from rabies. But maybe,
just maybe, beekeepers will be able to
worry a little less about foulbrood.
references:
Salmela H, Amdam GV, and Freitak D.
(2015). Transfer of immunity from mother
to offspring is mediated via egg-yolk pro-
tein vitellogenin. PlOS Pathogens. https://
doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005015
Sadd BM et al. (2005). Trans-generational
immune priming in a social insect. Biology
Letters. 1(4): 386-88.
Cooper D and Eleftherianos I. (2017). Mem-
ory and specificity in the insect immune
system: Current perspectives and future
challenges. Frontiers in immunology. 8: 539.
Lopez JH et al. (2014). Trans-generational
immune priming in honeybees. Proceed-
ings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sci-
ences. 281(1785):20140454.
Salmela H and Freitak D. (2016). Edible vac-
cination against microbial pathogens. Pat-
ent publication number US15747252.
Grindstaff JL, Brodie ED, and Ketterson
ED. (2003). Immune function across gen-
erations: Integrating mechanism and evo-
lutionary process in maternal antibody
transmission. Proceedings of the Royal Soci-
ety B: Biological Sciences. 270: 2309-19.
Maori E et al. (2018). A transmissible RNA
pathway in honey bees. BioRxIV. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/299800.
163
164 American Bee Journal
February 2019 165

Fig. 3 Memorial statue of Mendel unveiled in 1910.
G
regor Mendel (1822-1884) (Fig-
ure 1) is celebrated throughout
the world as “the father of ge-
netics” for his pioneering studies on
inheritance, but I wonder how many
people know that he was also a bee-
keeper who carried out research on
bees? On a recent visit to the Czech
Republic to speak to beekeepers in-
volved in the COLOSS colony loss
monitoring program, I was privileged
to visit the Mendel Museum (Figure
2) at the Augustinian Abbey at Brno,
including Mendel’s bee house which
is still in use today.
Johann Mendel was born in the
small village of Heinzendorf (now
Hynčice) in Silesia, then part of the
German Empire but now in the Czech
Republic. His family were of modest
means, but he was soon recognized
as a very bright child, and after at-
tending school nearby he studied at
the Philosophical Institute at Olmütz
(now Olomouc) for three years. In
1843, he entered the Augustinian Ab-
bey at Brünn (now Brno) as a nov-
ice, where he was given the name of
Gregor and was ordained priest in
1847. The Abbey sent him to the Uni-
versity of Vienna in Austria between
1851-1853 where he studied math-
ematics to become a teacher, but he
failed to achieve his professorship.
Between 1854 and 1864, his ground-
breaking experiments on the inheri-
1
Carreck Consultancy Ltd., 9, Warren
Drive, Southwater, West Sussex, RH13
9GL, UK
2
Laboratory of Apiculture and Social In-
sects, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brigh-
ton, East Sussex, BN1 9QG, UK
February 2019
Gregor Mendel
the Beekeeper
by NORMAN L CARRECK1,2
Email: norman.carreck@btinternet.com
tance of characteristics in peas and
other plants were carried out in the
Abbey garden. In 1865, he published
Versuche uber Pflanzen-hybriden [Ex-
periments on Plant Hybridization] in
the Annals of the Natural History Soci-
ety of Brno. Unfortunately, the paper
made little or no impact. He was ap-
pointed Abbott in 1868 and, from that
time on, had little time to carry out
further experiments on genetics.
Mendel was aware of Charles Dar-
win’s On the Origin of Species (1859)
and his heavily annotated copy sur-
vives. Mendel actually visited Lon-
don in 1862, but he was too modest to
visit Darwin. Although Darwin lived
until 1882, sadly he was entirely un-
aware of Mendel’s work. It could have
been forgotten forever, but it was re-
discovered in 1900 by three scientists,
all working independently: Corens in
Germany; Tschermak in Austria and
Fig. 1 Gregor Mendel
de Vries in the Netherlands. They rep-
licated his results, giving birth to the
field of modern genetics.
In his 1965 article celebrating the
centenary of the publication of Men-
del’s paper, Vecerek stated, “In the
last war, during the battle of Brno in
April 1945, many of Mendel’s docu-
ments were destroyed, and only
the first page of his manuscript Ver-
suche uber Pflanzenhybriden was ever
found.” Fortunately, this was not the
case. After a convoluted history, Men-
del’s original manuscript was redis-
covered. It was recently purchased
by Masaryk University, and is now
on public display in the Mendel Mu-
seum (Figure 4).
Mendel’s family probably kept
bees, but he would have maintained
his interest when he joined the Abbey.
Certainly, he actively kept bees by
1855, and at one time, he had 50 colo-
nies. He applied his scientific train-
ing to beekeeping, saying, “It is im-
portant for every beekeeper to carry
out experiments, since this is the only
way to achieve successful results.”
Mendel kept several types of bee
for comparison, including the black
bee Apis mellifera mellifera and the
Carniolan bee A.m. carnica, both of
which were in use locally at the time.
He also obtained the Italian bee A.m.
ligustica, the Cyprian bee A.m. cyprica,
the Egyptian bee A.m. lamarki, and
even tried stingless bees (Trigona lin-
eata). It is thought that he tried breed-
ing experiments, analogous to his
work on peas, but his notes do not
survive.
However, fortunately Mendel
wrote reports for the local Moravian
167

Fig. 2 The Mendel Museum in the Augustinian Abbey in Brno.
Association of Beekeepers, so some
evidence of his work remains. For
example, it is recorded that Men-
del had a flight cage 4m x 4m x 3m
constructed and that he attempted to
observe mating between queens and
drones, but was unsuccessful for rea-
sons that have only become clear in
recent years.
He crossed a yellow Cyprian queen
with local drones and observed the
resulting colony for nearly three
years. He found the colony was a
good honey producer but the bees
were unsuitable for further use as
they were very aggressive. They at-
tacked people some distance away
from the hive. It is likely that his
breeding experiments puzzled him,
as the results would not fit with his
understanding of what we now know
as “classical genetics” and patterns of
heredity. It is only in relatively recent
years, with our understanding of the
168
unusual sex determination system of
bees, multiple mating of queens and
haplodiploidy, that we are beginning
to understand why successful bee
breeding is so difficult.
Published in 1851, Langstroth’s de-
sign for a movable comb hive was a
new innovation, and it was a great
period of development and experi-
mentation of hive design. Mendel
adopted the Moravian Union Hive
(Figure 8) which is related to the hives
still used in parts of central Europe
today. These hives were fixed boxes
with movable frames, fitted on slide
runners, but he also experimented
with other designs and with larger
frame sizes.
Mendel was an active member of
the Moravian Association of Bee-
keepers, giving talks and publishing
articles in their magazines. He and
other members of the association
corresponded and shared ideas with
Fig. 4 Original
page of Mendel’s
handwritten
(in German)
manuscript
of Versuche
über Plflanzen-
hybriden.
beekeepers elsewhere, and many visi-
tors observed his bee house and ad-
opted his ideas. In 1865, a meeting of
the Austrian and German Beekeepers
was held in Brno and attended by 300
delegates.
In addition to his iconic experi-
ments with peas, Mendel also made
experimental crosses of fruit trees to
produce peach, apricot, plum, apple
and pear varieties suited to the Mora-
vian soil and climate. He gave away
young trees free of charge to friends
or neighbors, and to professional
gardeners who would then propa-
gate them for the public benefit. A
few trees from his time survive in
the Abbey grounds today. He also
analyzed the nectar production of
various plants, and studied the ef-
fect of weather on nectar and honey
production. He was a great advocate
for the improvement of land for bees
by planting nectar producing herbs,
shrubs and trees. He concluded that
the best honey yields were obtained
from colonies containing numerous
field bees which did not swarm.
A scientist with many interests,
Mendel also studied meteorology,
and established several weather sta-
tions in the Abbey grounds. Daily,
he recorded data over many years.
He studied the development of bee
colonies throughout the year with
a particular focus on the overwin-
tering of bees. He tried different
types of hives, and compared colo-
nies kept outside with those in his
bee house, constructed in 1871, and
with colonies he had overwintered
in cellars in the hillside behind the
Abbey, These cellars had chimneys
of different diameters to adjust the
air flow. He concluded that bees
overwintered best in large colonies
kept in large hives, where brood
and honey chambers were kept to-
gether, equipped with upper venti-
lation and kept outside rather than
indoors. The design of his bee house
meant that the bees are in full sun
during the winter, but are shaded by
the roof in the summer.
The final years of Mendel’s life
were soured by criticisms from some
of the other monks that his experi-
ments were inconsistent with his role
of Abbot. He had to defend himself
to the Bishop and his superiors on
the grounds that “nothing is im-
moral in nature as created by God”.
He experienced various periods of ill
health during his lifetime, and for the
last three years of his life he suffered
from kidney disease and high blood
American Bee Journal
pressure. After his death many of his
papers disappeared, probably at the
hands of his successor as Abbot.
With the realization of the impor-
tance of his work, surviving artefacts
were assembled and the Mendel Mu-
seum was opened in 1910, at which
time a statue of him was unveiled
(Figure 3). The museum had mixed
fortunes during the Nazi and Com-
munist eras, but in 2007 was taken
over by nearby Masaryk University.
In 2016 it was refurbished with mod-
ern interactive displays, including
educational facilities for children.
We were also shown several rooms
of the Abbey, which is once again a
working monastery, including the
magnificent church and baroque li-
brary (Figure 6). The bee house was
fully restored for the Mendel cente-
nary in 1965, but then apparently fell
into disrepair and has recently been
restored once more. It now houses a
Fig. 9 Spectacles worn by Mendel.
collection of different hives show-
ing the development of the Czech
bee hive maintained by Prof. Vladi-
mir Ptáček, an expert on bumble
bee rearing, formerly of Masaryk
University, Brno. My thanks go to
Jiří Danihlík for inviting me to the
Czech Republic and Dr Otakar Fojt
(British Embassy, Prague) for spon-
soring my visit.
further reaDing
Betts, A D (1931). Mendelism. Bee World,
12(6): 69-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/00057
72X.1931.11093024
Comery, W (1921). Mendel’s discovery and the
breeding of bees. Bee World, 3(10): 240-242.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0005772X.1921.
11095256
Crane E E (1965). Gregor Johann Mendel. Bee
World, 46(1): 3. https://doi.org/10.1080/000
5772X.1965.11095314
Dostál, O (Ed.) (2016). Gregor Johann Mendel.
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Repub-
lic. 36 pp.
Mendel, G (1866). Versuche über Plflanzen-
hybriden. Verhandlungen des naturforschen-
den Ver-eines in Brünn, Bd. IV für das Jahr
1865, Abhand-lungen, 3-47.
Quigley, A S (2015). Taking the Long View:
Bee World 75, 50 and 25 Years Ago. Bee
World, 92(3): 75-78. https://doi.org/10.108
0/0005772X.2015.1118972
Simunek, M, Hoßfeld, U (2010). Mendel’s
Manuscript of ‘Versuche über Pflanzen-
hybriden’: The (Never) Ending Story?
Vecerek, O (1965). Johann Gregor Mendel as
a beekeeper. Bee World, 46(3): 86-96. https://
doi.org/10.1080/0005772X.1965.11095345

Fig. 5 Mendel’s bee house. It has space for 15 hives together Fig. 6 In the library of the Abbey. L to R: Ivan Černý (Czeck Bee-
with a storage room and office. L to R: Ivan Černý, Prof. Vladi- keepers Union), author, Flemming Vejsnæs (Danish Beekeep-
mir Ptáček (formerly of Masaryk University, Brno), Flemming ers Association), Dr Jiří Danihlík (Palacký University, Olomouc).
Vejsnæs, author.

Fig. 7 A selection of different hives with bees adjacent to the Fig. 8 Inside the bee house Prof. Ptáček demonstrates a maga-
bee house. zine hive of the kind in use in Mendel’s time.

February 2019 169

170 American Bee Journal
172 American Bee Journal
 Parts I and II of this series
appeared in August 2018 and
January 2019.
E
valuation and Selection. Thor-
oughly examine your records
and analyze the results. Those
colonies (queens) showing movement
toward your goals become candi-
dates for further selection. Any show-
ing no improvement or the wrong
movement are not used for selection.
Those queens are either replaced or
the queen eliminated, and the bees
combined with another colony. Look
at the big picture during the evalu-
ation/selection process; don’t focus
entirely on any one characteristic/
trait/behavior. You may find some
interesting and thoughtful decisions
will have to be made.
A Continuous Process of Refine-
ment: Ultimately, you keep selecting,
narrowing those originally selected
down to the very best for further
propagation. For my operation I se-
lect the very best two or three colo-
nies. Those ruled out for breeding, yet
showing good traits and some pro-
gression, can become production col-
onies, or sources of additional brood/
bees for other colonies or splits. They
can also be requeened with my se-
lected breeder queen’s daughters and
also evaluated. I would replace any
queens that aren’t progressing.
Recordkeeping will be necessary in
order to evaluate colonies and make
selection decisions for future breeders.
Untested feral survivors are due to
non-directed, natural selection (Moth-
February 2019
er Nature) and can be quite valuable.
For this reason, I will collect feral
colonies. Once I house them in tradi-
tional equipment, I begin analyzing
what they may have to offer. If they
meet my selection criteria, I will raise
daughter queens and evaluate those.
Exceptional feral colonies are good
(Drone Mother Colonies (DMCs) and
possible sources of new lines.
Records are essential. They will
also aid in avoiding the use of the
same breeder queen or dmcs year af-
ter year if you have a large operation;
thus helping to prevent inbreeding. If
the beekeeper conducts tests, such as
for hygienic behavior or mite levels,
records should be kept for this also.
Record-keeping is best done while
the info is still fresh in one’s mind—
that’s why I take my Yardbook to the
apiary. The field inspection sheets are
transferred into a computer program
and on to permanent record sheets.
The decisions regarding future breed-
ing plans can then be tailored to the
individual’s wants and needs.
Records can be as simple as written
notes or put into computer programs
or one of the software programs avail-
able for beekeepers. Good record-
keeping and evaluations are the most
important considerations in stock se-
lection and subsequent decisions. If
you use a computer, remember they
are subject to crashes, etc. Back them
up or print them out.
We can do more than just select our
“best colonies” based solely on what
we see and remember. By keeping
accurate records, making controlled
measurements, using standardized
testing, and making educated deci-
sions in the selection process, we can
develop a localized, reliable, predict-
able, pest and disease resistant and
productive line of bees.
Colony Evaluations: New queens
should not be evaluated until the
population has turned over. The first
year they should be evaluated as a
nuc colony, then transferred into full-
size equipment and allowed to de-
velop. I don’t overwinter nucs. I want
them built-up to full-sized colonies
before winter and accomplish this
by starting nucs in the spring. This
2-step evaluation in nucs and full-size
colonies allows for queen evaluation
first and then colony considerations
such as mite resistance, production,
wintering, spring-build-up and other
general full-sized colony characteris-
tics in the next step. Dead-outs elimi-
nate themselves (Autopsy and try to
determine why they died).
Evaluation in the nucleus: After
the population turnover in the nuc;
evaluation of the queen can begin.
The queen’s brood pattern, build-up,
and egg laying rate are the first con-
siderations. The colony can also be
evaluated for defensiveness, behav-
ior on the comb, housekeeping, use
of propolis, mite load and hygienic
traits even at this stage. Behavior in
a nuc may differ somewhat from be-
havior in a full-sized hive.
Evaluation in the full-sized hive:
All the observations made in the nuc
should be redone once the colony be-
comes a full-sized hive. A full-sized
173
 Colony TraiTs EvaluaTion/ranking
*Disposition (20)
• Defensiveness: [1-chase you out of apiary; 5-ave., 10-
no smoke or protection needed] (10)
• Behavior on Comb: [1-vacate, 5-ave., 10-stay put &
ignore you](10)
*Health (50)
• Disease Resistance: [1-death by; 5-ave., 10-highly
resistant/none] (10)
• Pest Resistance: [1-death by; 5-ave., 10-highly
resistant/none] (10)
• Adaption to Area: [1-unadapted; 5-ave., 10-adapted]
(10)
• Medications: [1-medicate or die; 5-ave.; 10-never
medicate] (10)
• Yearly Cycle: [1-Don’t act like bees/dead before
year’s end; 5-normal yearly life cycle; 10-excel in
every season year after year]
*Production (30)
• Honey Quantity: [1-none; 5-ave., 10-top producer] (10)
• Honey Quality: [1-bad; 5-ave., 10-perfect] (10)
• Pollen: [1-none, 5-ave., 10-copious amounts] (10)
*Swarming (10)
• [1-readily swarm, 5-ave., 10-never/only when
induced] (10)
*Supersedure (10)
• [1-always, 5-ave., 10-only if necessary] (10)
*Adaptability to System/Needs (10)
• [1-will not work, 5-ave., 10-fully adapted/
dependable] (10)
*Spring Build-up (30)
• Spring build-up: [1-very late/not on time, 5-ave., 10-
very early/on time](10)
• Resource Utilization: [1-don’t work, 5-ave., 10-take
full advantage](10)
• Queen Laying: [1-late/does not build-up, 5-ave.,
Total Colony Points = 330
10-starts early and builds w/season] (10)
*Winter Survival (30)
• Cluster: [1-too small/poor, 5-ave., 10-large &
organized] (10)
• Stores Consumption: [1-devour all/have to feed,
5-ave., 10- highly conservative/begin year w/excess]
(10)
• Fall Preparations: 1-combine, feed, or die; 5-ave.,
10-enter winter w/stores to next spring] (10)
*Work Ethics (140)
• Pollen Gathering: [1-don’t, 5-ave., 10-gather to
excess] (10)
• Nectar Gathering: [1-don’t, 5-ave., 10-gather to
excess] (10)
• Super Entry: [1-don’t, 5-ave., 10-readily enter &
work] (10)
• Wax Working: [1-don’t, 5-ave., 10-readily draw
comb] (10)
• Cappings: [1-wet & dark, 5-ave, 10- pure white & dry]
(10)
• Economical Brood Rearing: [1- raise w/o resources,
5-ave, 10- go with the flows] (10)
• Hygenic Behavior: [1-none, 5-ave., 10-excellent] (10)
• Robbing: [1-rob over gather, 5-ave., 10-don’t rob]
(10)
• Burr Comb: [1-everywhere, 5-ave., 10-none] (10)
• Propolis: [1-glue everything, 5-ave., 10-none/as
needed](10)
• Absconding: [1-won’t stay put, 5-ave., 10-never] (10)
• Start/Finish Foraging: [1-noon/2pm, 5-ave., 10-dawn
to dusk] (10)
• Forage Temperature: [1-only at 60-80, 5-ave., 10-
from 40-100] (10)
• Forage Weather: [1-only on a clear day, 5-ave., 10-
rain or shine](10)

hive should also be evaluated for full-
colony issues and characteristics such
as wintering, spring build-up, produc-
tion, and disease and pest problems.
Large colonies provide for more ex-
pressions of each sub-family within
the hive. When recording data; make it
as easy as possible on yourself. Instead
of using a scale hive, one can count the
number of frames of honey produced.
Count frames of bees instead of every
bee in the hive. Use percentage esti-
mates for things such as brood, pollen,
nectar, honey or empty cells. A simple
scale of 1 to 5 can be used for many
subjective observations.
Selection of high and low lines for
a specific trait: As an example; pol-
len collection. You can select for high
or low pollen collection by measur-
ing total pollen collected in a pollen
trap during a certain or specified time
period. In selecting for high pollen
collection; daughters from the high-
est pollen-collecting colony would
be crossed with drones from the next
highest pollen collector.
Culling and Further Propagation:
This is a critical step in breeding. Infe-
rior stock must be culled. Those colo-
nies/queens showing no progress or
negative progression are culled from
the process. This is where the lessons
I learned in breeding quality fish re-
ally come into play. If I were to allow
just 1 inferior male guppy having an
off color, improper tail angle, curved
spine or any other problem to reach
maturity and mate with my females, I
could lose or be set back several years
on my goal of a show-quality guppy.
For that reason, rigorous and timely
culling of any fish not in line with my
goals is a necessity. Something as se-
rious as a curved spine must be de-
stroyed. Off-color fish or a delta tail
with an improper angle could be giv-
en to someone wanting fish for their
home aquarium, but have no place in
a serious breeding program.
The same must apply to bees, ex-
cept it’s even more so that an inferior
queen is eliminated. A queen ruled
out from the breeding program due to
no improvement or negative charac-
teristics cannot be given away or sold
to someone else, as she will continue
to produce drones that may come
back to haunt me or my customer.
The queens not meeting my selection
criteria are destroyed; usually by a
head pinch or dropped into a jar of
iso alcohol. (Fish are captive within
aquaria, bees are free to move about
and affect other bees)
Usually, I can simply kill and re-
place a queen, but there are times
that it may become necessary to cull a
whole colony. Trying to keep a badly
diseased or pest-ridden colony alive
is, in my opinion, a serious mistake,
especially one that shows persis-
tent/repetitive issues with diseases/
pests. Keeping a queen that is not in
line with your goals is also a serious

174 American Bee Journal

 QuEEn TraiTs ranking
 Spring Laying: [1- no winter brood / begins in April,
5-ave., 10- winter brood / begins laying very early] (10)
 Summer Laying: [1-stops; doesn’t lay, 5-ave.,
10-continuous and plentiful] (10)
 Fall Laying: [1-stops in August, 5-ave., 10- continues
late /into winter] (10)
 Egg Laying Rate; [1- decreasing/negative/none, 5-ave.,
10- increasing/positive] (10)
 Number of Brood Frames: [1- none, 5- ave., 10-
bountiful] (10)
 Brood Pattern: [1-none, 5-ave., 10- solid /excellent /
perfect] (10)
 Size /Appearance: [1- small & ugly, 5-ave., 10-big &
beautiful](10)
 Useful Life: [1- <1yr., 5- 2-3yrs., 10- 3+ yrs.] (10)
 Drone Production: [1-excessive/ drone layer, 5-ave., 10-
only as and when needed] (10)
 Behavior: [ 1- runs off comb / takes flight, 5-ave.
(calmly moves away), 10- goes about her business as if
you weren’t there] (10)
 Daughter / Offspring Characteristics: [1- trash, 5- only
ave, 10- perfect] (10)
Total Queen Points = 110
Highest Possible Overall Colony Total = 440
Many traits can be broken down even further; Pest
resistance can be broken down into a new category for
each pest; Varroa resistance, SHB resistance, wax moth
resistance, etc.
Which traits you use can be tailored to your preference;
traits having to do with health, survivability over time,
adaptation, and performance best to start with.
Queen Egg Laying Rate (A good productivity predictor):
 On each brood frame; measure the length and width
of sealed brood, both sides.
 Multiply the length x width for each side, add the 2
products to get the square inches of brood for the
frame.
 Add the totals for each frame together. (Drone cell
totals to be separate)
 Multiply the total sq. in. of brood in the hive by 25
(average # of worker cells per sq. in.; 16 for drone
cells).
 Divide the product by 12 (# of days a worker spends
capped)
 Answer is the daily egg laying rate
 Accuracy can be increased by counting & subtracting
unsealed cells

1 = least desirable trait / behavior; do not keep! CULL.
5 = average; don’t bee stuck here! No consideration for
breeding.
10 = most desirable trait / behavior; this is the goal!-With
due consideration; is a colony w/out any propolis a good
thing? Is a colony that gathers copious amounts of pollen
ideal? Is foraging in a thunder/rain storm deserving of 10?
There are numerous statistical correlations between the egg
laying rate and nectar & pollen collection. The brood may
also be estimated in 10ths of a frame (.9 = 90%) Use 3400
cells per frame side. Whether by measurement or estimate;
this gives a good idea of the upcoming workforce. 4-6 weeks
before a known honey flow, measuring the sealed brood will
tell how many foragers will be available for the crop.

mistake. You may think this cruel or
unwarranted, but if you remove our
species from the equation, this is ex-
actly what the selective force that has
sustained bees for millions of years
engages in. Natural selection does
not engage in any sorrow, moralizing,
cruelty or any other emotion connect-
ed to the human race. It is a test of fit-
ness. Only those capable of surviving
make it to the next year. The purpose
of natural selection is to ensure that
only the strong, healthy, and produc-
tive forms of life pass on their benefi-
cial genetics in order to keep a spe-
cies alive and prospering. Those that
don’t are thrown into the trash pile.
It may be a hard pill to swallow,
but if you truly want to help bees,
you’re going to have to adopt na-
ture’s hard stance against the weak,
deformed, and inferior and cull those
that don’t have what’s needed to re-
main healthy, prosper and carry on
the species. Bees are not, nor should
they be, regarded as pets and I don’t
want to see a day when they are total-
ly dependent on us. When you start
using human emotion or think your
logic should dictate bee behavior, you
need to read Norman Gary’s chapter
in The Hive and The Honey Bee: Ac-
tivities and Behavior of Honey Bees,
especially the section titled Problems
in Understanding Bee Behavior. (The
bees live in a completely different
world than we do.)
I’ve had 4 instances where I’ve had
to kill entire colonies. First, in 1977,
I had a colony diagnosed with AFB.
The colony was destroyed by putting
potassium cyanide on cardboard (a
chemical used for insect killing jars,
but I don’t think the public has access
to cyanide anymore), putting it into
the hive entrance and sealing up the
hive. This was then placed into a pre-
dug hole and burned and buried ac-
cording to my state regulations. The
second was in 2004 when a colony
from a source outside my apiaries
became so mite infested that I didn’t
consider it worth saving. The colony
was shut up one evening and a brush
pile fire started the next morning. I
hand-trucked the colony to the burn
pile and quickly removed the frames,
shook bees into the fire and cut the
comb with bees and brood out over
the fire also. Caution: wax can cre-
ate an intense fire, so as we say in
the mines; safety first. The third col-
ony was overrun by SHB after being
blown over in a severe storm. The
boxes were placed into a double layer
of black plastic and into direct sun for
two days. Clean out and burn comb
immediately if you do this (Dead
bees/beetles/brood will rot quickly
and beetle-fermented honey does no
one any good). Last fall I had to kill
a colony from a swarm caught else-
where that was severely infected with
CBPV. Although the woodenware
might have been salvageable, it was
fairly old and the bees had gone cra-
zy propolizing the interior so it was
sealed and set on top of a burn pile
and torched. My inspector informed
me there was an outbreak of CBPV
the previous year in the area I caught
this swarm. Deprived of food, bees
could also be frozen in a deep freezer.
Some also seal the colony and spray in

February 2019 175

CO2. Let me finish by saying these are
not the only colonies I’ve lost in my
time as a beekeeper. I’ve had winter
dead-outs from various reasons, SHB
takedowns, lost swarms, absconding,
beekeeper error and other disease
and pest problems along with endur-
ing a period of virulent Deformed
Wing Virus (DWV). Other than from
1966 to the early 70s, the more recent
years have been my most trouble-free
and enjoyable since letting bees, Var-
roa and viruses try to come to their
own equilibrium.
There are two other management
practices that will help in breeding
your bees. First, if you have a fail-
ing, drone-laying or missing queen; a
frame of eggs and young larvae from
your best colony is a good way to get
them requeened. Even better, raising
a few spare queen cells from your
best colony(s) throughout the sum-
mer will give you the ability to solve
176
many issues, spread good genetics or
help another beekeeper in need. New
queens are the standard recommen-
dation for virtually all bee ailments in
most beekeeping literature for at least
the past century.
Those colonies/queens showing
progress are again candidates for fur-
ther selection and propagation. This
process repeats itself until you reach
your goals. These are then refined or
new goals started and, once again, the
process is started anew. Bees, mites,
and viruses will always be evolving
and interacting; we beekeepers will
always need to be ready to adapt and
assist our bees as this develops.
Finally; I’ve learned that when re-
ferring to research, all viewpoints
should be considered. Bretell and
Martin2 in documenting the oldest
known Varroa-surviving population
predict this “population is a ticking
time bomb”. The authors attribute
this to a virulent variant of DWV that
has yet to develop. Having seen one
period of intensified DWV that my
colonies survived, I’m hoping their
prediction does not come true.
Terry Combs’ lifelong
interest in insects and
spiders led him to the
Boy Scout beekeeping
merit badge in 1966.
He has been a mem-
ber and officer of sev-
eral beekeeping orga-
nizations. He teaches
numerous beekeeping
and insect classes and will be adding a course
on pollinator protection this fall at Kaskaskia
College in Centralia, IL. He recently completed
the Journeyman level of the University of Mon-
tana Master Beekeeping program and plans to
complete the Master level in 2019. Terry lives
in Keyesport, IL with his wife Debbie, and
produces award-winning varietal honey while
working on his local strain of survivor bees.
American Bee Journal
 Building a Small Bee Trailer
The bees in their fall pasture, a national wetlands
B
eehives are awkward pieces
of furniture. Even at one story,
each is a little too wide and of-
ten too heavy for a single person to
easily pick up. Add to this a few mov-
ing parts – the bottom, top and feeder,
all of which may or may not be stuck
on with propolis – as well as living in-
sects churning inside, and moving a
hive alone becomes a daunting prop-
osition. The chances of injuring one’s
back or one’s bees are uncomfortably
significant.
How does a beekeeper move hives
if he doesn’t have anyone on the pay-
roll? Some pieces of heavy machinery,
like a boom loader or forklift, work
for larger operations, while a hobby-
ist might use a smaller contraption
like a hive trolley. As I was mulling
this challenge over at the start of my
solo small-scale beekeeping career,
another idea kept burning in my gul-
let: what if I didn’t have to pick up
the hives at all? What if moving the
hives was as easy as starting the car
and driving away?
My idea did not stem from nothing:
I live in Slovenia and many Slovene
beekeepers have trucks or trailers
with hives built into them. Slovenia’s
national hive, known as the AŽ, was
specifically created for migratory bee-
keeping – it opens from the back, so
the hives can be stacked directly next
to and atop each other, while inside
it incorporates a metal spacer to keep
the frames from clattering. When
reaching a new destination, the Slo-
vene beekeeper can jack up the trailer
February 2019
by WILLIAM BLOMSTEDT
and walk away – no back-breaking
labor required.
I still mainly use Langstroth hives,
but I wanted to have a similar system
as I drove them around the country
to catch different honey flows. At
the end of 2016 I knew that this was
my next step in beekeeping and I
began the process – searching for a
trailer, designing a frame, installing a
hitch, finding locations – all of which
dragged through the winter. Slove-
nia’s first main honey flow in April
– black locust on the coast – crept up
quite fast. By that time I had found
the location, installed the hitch and
bought the trailer, but its bed was still
bare. I thought about asking a friend
to help me load and unload hives the
old-fashioned way, but then I would
need to recruit him again (or some-
one else) for the next move. If it takes
a good friend to help you move to a
new home – loading and unloading
benign cardboard boxes and furniture
– then it takes a very good friend to
don a suit and stack living beehives at
an ungodly hour. Instead I parked the
trailer on a vacant piece of land and
decided to have one more stationary
season. A year’s delay in advancing
a complicated beekeeping plan is not
always a bad thing.
I had purchased a trailer meant for
hauling an ATV or motorbike: 8’ by
4’5’’1 with a 4’’ rim encircling the bed.
I mulled over a few different plans on
how to transform this trailer into a
rolling bee yard. The most complicat-
ed one involved a metalsmith weld-
ing a frame so that, when parked, one
row of hives would be able to extend
rearward and all entrances could face
the same direction. Instead I erred on
the side of simplicity and something
that I could easily make myself: two
rows of hives facing opposite direc-
tions, separated by an aisle.
One of the first debates I had to
overcome was whether I wanted the
hives to sit flush next to each other or
stand separately. The benefits of the
former were that an extra hive would
be able to fit on each row and a single
strap might be enough to hold all of
them down. The downside was the
difficulty in working in puzzle-tight
spaces – I could envision a frustrat-
ing future when trying to slip a heavy
super into a slot with only 1/16 inch
of space on each side. But after in-
cluding telescoping lids in the design,
each hive body sat around 3” apart,
and I was still able to comfortably fit
two rows of five hives.
To keep the hives situated, I de-
cided to build a wooden frame for the
bottoms while a strap would hold the
rest down tightly. With 2x4s of treat-
ed pine, I cut four pieces nearly the
length of the trailer and bolted them
far enough apart so that the front
and back corners of each hive would
stand on them. Next, I crafted 20 U-
shaped pieces which would screw
to the 2x4s and hold the bottoms in
place. Using two empty hives to help
measure, I leap-frogged up and down
the two rows fastening the wooden
frame in place.
177
This hitch lock prevents anyone from
driving away with the trailer. To the right
is the trailer’s 5th leg which adds a bit
more stability.
Though I wanted to believe that a
single strap from the front to the back
of the trailer would securely hold
down the hives, I decided to err on
the side of caution instead. Below the
entrance of each hive I bolted a steel
D-ring to the metal skirt, as well as in
the central aisle. Each hive could then
be held down by its own strap from
the side of the trailer to the center.
Around this point I decided my
hives needed a further feature to facil-
itate migration – entrances that could
close while on the journey. Rather
than stuff something in the entrance
before each move (or deal with nets),
I realized my landing board could
also act as an entrance blocker. (Ad-
mittedly, this also was inspired by the
Slovene migratory beekeepers.) After
sawing off a bottom’s landing board,
I routered a ¾’’ x 6’’ hole along its cen-
ter. After painting the raw wood once
again, I covered the hole with metal
mesh and then attached it back to the
hive with a pair of hinges. Finally, I
added a simple screw latch which,
Removing one wheel adds another layer
of security.
178
One of the telescoping jack legs that lifts
the trailer off the ground. This can be de-
tached during the drive so it won’t drag.
when twisted, could hold the landing
board/entrance blocker flush to the
hive. With it secure, the bees would
be trapped inside the hive but still
able to get air through the mesh dur-
ing their journey.
The frame was ready, but more im-
provements were required. The trail-
er only had one axle, meaning that it
would lean nose-first into the ground
whenever it was off the hitch. How
would the hives be able to rest on it?
And how would the trailer be able
to stand still on an uneven surface?
Eventually I found a solution – jack
stands. These are telescoping legs
which I could attach to the four cor-
ners of the trailer and jack the wheels
off the ground. These stabilized the
trailer so I could walk on it easily, and
they could also be adjusted to make
the trailer sit at a slight incline to keep
rainwater from pooling. Over the
course of one frigid February after-
noon, I patiently drilled increasingly
bigger holes in the trailer’s frame
and bolted on the leg holders when I
could no longer feel my fingers. With
Bees flying out of the trailer hives on an
autumn day.
The center aisle with d-rings where
straps will attach
that final touch, my bee trailer was
complete.
I had no place to store the trailer
where I lived, so I drove it to my
main bee location 30 minutes away.
After arriving, I attached the legs and
jacked it up so that the wheel was off
the ground. Though it was without
hives, I climbed on and gave a few
good jumps. It stayed strong, and I
was convinced that it would be able
to support my plan.
What about security? The trailer
would often be kept in a rural area,
alone and unguarded. I came up with
two theft deterrents: 1st, after jack-
U-shaped wooden pieces hold the bot-
toms in place. Straps go from the d-ring
on the outside skirt (bottom of the pic-
ture), over the hive and attach to the d-
ring in the middle of the trailer (top of the
picture).
American Bee Journal
When the trailer is settled, I take off the straps to work inside
the hives and leave them off until it is time for the next move.
ing it up, take off a wheel. Someone
could certainly bring their own spare
trailer wheel and drive away with
all my hard work, but it would take
some planning and effort. The 2nd
was a hitch lock, preventing anyone
from attaching the trailer to their
towbar. Though with enough time
and planning, both deterrents could
be thwarted, the idea was to deeply
tip the balance on the amount of ef-
fort required to get them vs worth of
goods (and hold faith in the kindness
of people).
With the trailer ready, I waited for
the landscape to wake up. Two weeks
before the black locust bloom normal-
ly began, I traveled to my bee location
at sundown and closed the entrances
of each hive. Then I tightened a strap
around each (another solo bee-mov-
ing technique), wrestled them onto
the trailer, and cranked them down.
Driving away, I kept one eye fixed on
the rearview mirror as I started down
the winding roads, into the flatlands
The trailer as I purchased it
February 2019
The trailer as I purchased it
and then onto the highway. I arrived
at their new location after an hour of
smooth driving and five minutes of
an extremely bumpy field (the latter
bit making me thankful for my exces-
sive strapping). After attaching the
legs and jacking it off the ground, all I
had to do was flip down the entrances
and walk away.
My first year at migratory beekeep-
ing is another story in itself, fraught
with last-minute location problems
and with strange weather patterns
that left many of the old-time bee-
keepers here scratching their heads.
The trailer itself, however, I would
call a mild success. I transported bees
around the country and captured
multiple honey flows – black lo-
cust, basswood, chestnut – and then
moved it into a national wetlands
for the bees to stock up on golden-
rod in the autumn. Looking back on
its functionality after the first year, I
have a few comments and critiques
I would like to offer to my past self
Building the frame: how to space the u-shaped pieces so the
hives could fit
(and to those interested in trying this
themselves).
1. The center aisle is too small: I did
not fully consider the space be-
tween the two rows of bees when
designing the plan, and now I real-
ize ~16 inches is not very big. My
size 13 feet are unable to fit between
the two rows, and I am instead
forced to stand at a strange angle
while working with the bees.
2. There are too many straps. Though
I only move the hives a hand-
ful of times during the year, put-
ting ten straps over ten hives is a
pain, as well as tying up the extra
strap length. I could try to use less
straps, but I still believe that secu-
rity trumps haste. I don’t want to
get to my new location with defen-
sive, confused bees pouring out of
a jumbled hive, or have one hive
missing off the back.
3. Weight limits. This is not something
I had a problem with, but when
179
 When my hive bottom is set between
these two u-shaped pieces, it will not
shift about.

Completion of the wooden frame

putting together something like footnote

this, it is good to know the limits al-
lowed on the trailer and the vehicle,
as well as an estimate about what is
the heaviest your hives will weigh
while towing them.
With Season One complete, the
bees and trailer wait through this
dreary autumn. Rain pelts down and
snow will soon follow. In a few short
months they will once again suf-
fer through a night of bumping and
jostling, before waking up to a new
world and a landscape that will bring
them plenty of nectar.
1
Note – all measurements have been gener- A hinged entrance for a migratory hive,
alized, as I was working in metric units open
William Blomstedt is
a geographer and bee-
keeper. Raised in Mas-
sachusetts, he is now
married and lives in
Slovenia. He recently
published a book which
details his beekeeping
career and time spent
writing for the American Bee Journal: Forag-
ing Afar: Tales from a Decade of Beekeeping
around the Globe. It is out on Wicwas press. When closed, the hole covered in mesh
allows airflow in the hive but prevents
bees from escaping.

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Strapped down, still in one piece after my first move

180 American Bee Journal


B
“ eehives could increase West
Nile virus risk,” read the front
page above-the-fold headline
of the local Island Packet newspaper
on August 10, 2017. The story began
with the false assertion, “If you have
beehives in your backyard, you may
be at a higher risk of contracting West
Nile virus from a mosquito bite.” I
quickly read the article and then re-
read it to discover that the reporter
never backed up his sensational story
with any facts. Without any scientific
basis for his claims, I realized that I
was dealing with Fake News! Only
this time it was hitting close to home.
As the President of the Beaufort-
Jasper Beekeepers Association on Hil-
ton Head Island, South Carolina, I im-
mediately notified our members and
our State Association. Next, I called
our State Bee Inspector, Brad Cavin,
to inform him about the article and
garner any information that he could
share. But my next phone call to
Gregg Hunt, the Director of Beaufort
County Mosquito Control, proved to
be the most significant. “Hi Gregg,
this is David Arnal. Have you seen
the outrageous article that the Island
Packet ran today?” Mr. Hunt stated
that he had seen the article and sug-
gested that we meet that afternoon. I
agreed. When I arrived at his office, I
could see that he was in full damage
control mode like me.
After briefly reviewing the article
together, we decided to call the news-
paper reporter. Upon reaching him,
we discussed his uncorroborated
claims and outright falsehoods. More
importantly, we asked why he did
not interview either one of us before
he published the article. The reporter
steadfastly refused to acknowledge
February 2019
Beekeeping in an Era of
Mosquito Control for
Zika Virus & West Nile
Virus
our rebuttal or budge on his article.
At that point we asked him to connect
us to the editor. The editor proved to
be just as much of a dead end – no re-
tractions, no follow-up story, and no
letters to the editor. When I shared
that the previous editor would never
have run a story without substanti-
ated facts, he hung up on us. How
frustrating it is to deal with dishon-
est, unprincipled people who have a
big “megaphone.”
Mr. Hunt, an entomologist by train-
ing, had clearly explained that the
vector species of mosquito for West
Nile Virus was an “urban” mosquito
(Culex pipens complex), and the area
identified in the article was very, very
rural. Without a vector for WNV, there
cannot be an outbreak of WNV. Duh!
No matter, we were up against sen-
sationalism that is often used to sell
newspapers today. Gregg began up-
dating me on the current status of the
recent West Nile Virus outbreak in our
area. But what he said next stunned
me - if there was a Zika virus outbreak,
mosquito control spraying will prob-
ably take place during daylight hours
since the vector mosquito species (Ae-
des albopictus) is active mainly during
broad daylight. He would need to
double his staff and end the county’s
policy of “No-Spray” zones around
beehives. This set of facts troubled me.
How was I able to engage my lo-
cal mosquito control office with one
phone call and get an immediate
meeting? Simple, our local beekeep-
ers association had already devel-
oped a good relationship with Mr.
Hunt and his staff over the past sev-
eral years. We have hosted him as
the guest speaker at our monthly bee-
keepers meeting on several occasions.
by DAVID E. ARNAL
Beekeepers here, like most bee-
keepers, regard mosquito control
as the enemy of the honey bee. This
adversarial relationship is nothing
new or unique. However, Mr. Hunt
was instrumental in setting up “No-
Spray” zones around bee yards in
Beaufort County. Upon request of the
beekeeper, his team takes GPS read-
ings of each apiary location. When
aerial spraying for mosquitoes is be-
ing performed, a ½ mile radius ‘No-
Spray” exclusion zone is enforced by
the pilot, who turns off the pesticide
applicators upon entering the 1 mile
diameter exclusion zone and does
not turn the equipment back on un-
til leaving it. Similarly, ground based
spray trucks have a smaller ‘No-
Spray” exclusion zone around identi-
fied bee yards.
This solution worked very well un-
til what Mr. Hunt describes as an “in-
vasion of commercial beehives” oc-
curred in the rural, northern portion
of the county in 2016. Commercial
beekeepers from Georgia and Florida
put the word out that our area pro-
duces a large crop of saw palmetto /
Chinese tallow honey from mid-May
through June and has easy access
from Interstate 95. Mr. Hunt and the
Mosquito Control pilots were the first
to report this “invasion” as they spot-
ted large numbers of bee hives from
the ground and air, respectively, that
had not been previously identified.
Of course they shut off their pesticide
applicators upon spotting these bee
hives to be compliant with the EPA
pesticide label requirements. It was
estimated that at least 3,500 hives
were present.
Rural homeowners in the north-
ern part of the county began calling
183
about clouds of biting mosquitoes
only to receive the news that they
would not receive any significant
mosquito control as long as these
commercial bee hives were present.
As the situation started to heat up
politically, a bee kill that attracted na-
tional and international attention oc-
curred in Summerville, South Caro-
lina (about 80 miles away) on August
28, 2016, where the local government
was treating for Zika virus carrying
mosquitoes using 1950s-era insecti-
cides. The headline in the Washing-
ton Post newspaper read, “‘Like it’s
been nuked’: Millions of bees dead
after South Carolina sprays for Zika
mosquitoes.” A total of only 46 hives
were lost, but the state and local gov-
ernments paid a huge political price.
The local county also reached an un-
disclosed settlement with the affect-
ed beekeeper.
On October 8, 2016 Hurricane Mat-
thew hit Hilton Head Island as a Cat-
egory 2 storm. It is estimated that on
Hilton Head alone we lost 120,000+
trees and many of our beekeepers lost
hives to the storm. The cleanup work
took many months, and the massive
amount of rain and vegetative debris
created the perfect environment for a
possible outbreak of West Nile Virus.
Within a couple of weeks of the storm
the first human case of WNV was
identified on Hilton Head. The victim
was gravely ill, and it was verified that
the mosquito bite causing the illness
occurred near her residence.
Prior to public knowledge of this
West Nile Virus outbreak, I received
a call on October 24, 2016 from Mr.
Hunt requesting an urgent meeting.
As luck would have it, two of my
seven bee yards were in very close
proximity to the West Nile victim –
well within the “No-Spray” zone. Mr.
Hunt explained that mosquito control
was likely to be authorized to oper-
ate under a Public Health Emergency
designation, meaning they would no
longer be required to follow the pes-
ticide label regarding honey bees. In
other words, they could spray any-
where and at any time without regard
for my honey bee colonies. Being an
honorable person, Mr. Hunt request-
ed my input on the situation.
The solution we generated at this
meeting provided a clever work-
around that protected my bee yards
while directly addressing the immi-
nent human health concerns. Since
Culex pipens complex mosquitoes are
one of the few primary vectors for
WNV in the U.S., and this vector is
184
typically active in the early morning
and late evening (especially at dawn
and dusk), we developed a plan to
spray for mosquitoes during these
time periods and at night. This solu-
tion worked for all those affected and
produced significant good will. The
onset of winter suppressed the WNV
mosquito problems for the remainder
of 2016.
Heading into 2017 Brad Cavin, our
State Bee Inspector, wisely developed
a strategy to handle the influx of com-
mercial beekeepers into our part of
the State. He put the word out that
any commercial beekeepers import-
ing bees into Beaufort County would
have their bees subject to quarantine
if they did not notify him and present
an inspection certificate. His strategy
worked and paperwork identifying
at least 8,000 colonies was submitted.
The number of honey bee colonies
had more than doubled in a year!
With the growing “invasion of
commercial beehives,” the size of the
‘No-Spray” exclusion zones began to
rapidly expand.
Since controlling WNV is primar-
ily concerned with targeting a dis-
ease vector mosquito, the primary
reason for spraying here is to control
the Saltmarsh Mosquito (the No. 1
pest species). Keep in mind that our
part of South Carolina is called the
“Lowcountry” based on very sound
reasoning: It is wet, flat, and swampy.
The Lowcountry answer to one of the
most commonly asked questions by
the public of a beekeeper, “Do you get
stung?” is “Yes, by mosquitoes.” Our
area is host to over 50 native species
of mosquitoes and several others that
are non-native. Historically, our area
was well known for plagues of ma-
laria and yellow fever, also mosquito
borne diseases.
As the calendar progressed into the
Summer of 2017, a second outbreak
of WNV in humans occurred in July
on Hilton Head. With the growing
concern that this virus activity would
become worse because of the consis-
tently hot temperatures, Mosquito
Control determined that they “must
consider the abandonment of the no-
spray policy throughout the County”.
I was asked to contact all beekeepers
about the proposed plan of action and
encourage them to monitor the tenta-
tive treatment areas (by ground and/
or air) each day via the Mosquito
Control website. Beekeepers were
also asked to initiate protective mea-
sures during these abatement efforts.
Once again a clear and effective com-
munication protocol was established
between Mosquito Control and our
association. And as of this publica-
tion, our county still enforces “No-
Spray” zones even though 22.3% of
our county’s land area is now located
in one of these zones (approximately
82,000 acres).
Being a beekeeper in this environ-
ment is certainly an adventure. We
are blessed with an abundance of nec-
tar and pollen sources. Typically, we
have brood in our hives year round,
leading to serious varroa mite infes-
tations. But the number one colony
health issue we face that is outside of
our control are these abatement activ-
ities for adult mosquitoes. While “No-
American Bee Journal
Photo 1. 10-Frame High Bottom hive (left) Red layer (left) is a
slatted rack 8-Frame High Bottom hive (right)
Spray” zones may directly protect our
colonies from pesticide exposure, our
field bees are out working flowers
during applications of various mos-
quito control products, such as those
containing the active ingredients of
Sumithrin and Prallethrin from the
air and Permethrin from the ground.
Additionally our bees are collecting
water from sources that may have
been exposed to these insecticides.
One of the best methods that I have
developed to deal with these mosqui-
to control issues is to construct what
I call “High Bottom” hives (see Pho-
tos 1 & 2). The goal of this beekeep-
ing tool is to prevent the colony from
bearding on the outside of the hive,
to avoid poisoning from pesticide
drift. The bees cluster during the heat
of summer under the slatted rack in-
stead of on the outside of the bee hive.
It has proven to be successful after
almost eight years of use. It is com-
prised of a medium super with one
of the short sides cut away to provide
the entrance and a solid bottom board
Photo 3. View into 10-Frame
February 2019
Photo 2. 10-Frame High Bottoms (combs indicate where a
cluster locates instead of bearding outside the hive)
made of exterior grade plywood. Al-
ternatively, you can use #8 screen
wire instead of plywood on the bot-
tom to make a screened version.
On my 10-Frame High Bottoms the
slatted rack is its own component that
is added on top of the High Bottom
(red layer in Photo 1). This compo-
nent type of slatted rack has slats that
run parallel to the frames in the hive
(see Photo 3). Slats that run parallel to
the frames are designed to accommo-
date mite testing with sticky boards
by allowing mite drop through the
spaces between slats that align with
the spaces between the frames above.
An alternative method for incor-
porating a slatted rack is used on
the 8-Frame version (see Photo 1).
A traditional slatted rack (with slats
perpendicular to the frames above)
is dropped down into a longitudinal
rabbet that I cut along both sides of
the medium super, eliminating an
additional piece of equipment (see
Photo 4). I prefer this traditional, per-
pendicular-style of slatted rack to the
Photo 4. View into 8-Frame
parallel-style in the 10-frame version
(see Photo 3), because the bees seem
to do better with it (i.e. the brood pat-
tern extends all the way down to the
slatted rack) and they tend to draw
less comb down from the rack.
With the 10-Frame version the
Langstroth hive bodies are placed on
top of the slatted rack. The 8-Frame
version (with the inset slatted rack)
allows the beekeeper to place hive
bodies directly onto the High Bot-
tom. Foragers typically fly directly
through the opening to and from
the slatted rack with either version.
However, bees loaded with pollen of-
tentimes land on the bottom board or
side walls. In the event that the bees
are clustered below, the foragers often
land right onto the cluster.
The prototype for the High Bottom
was based on several distinct ideas:
C.C. Miller’s bottom board design;
Comb honey production methods of
the Killion family in Illinois; and Ger-
man beekeeping equipment. I will
be discussing these influences and
185
demonstrating the use of High Bot-
tom hives in greater detail at the 2019
EAS annual meeting in Greenville,
South Carolina. I will also share my
experience using High Bottoms for
186
agricultural environments, pollina-
tion services, pesticide applications,
transporting bees, feeding bees, and
Small Hive Beetle management.
At both major Bee Meetings being
organized for South Carolina, this
year the health of bee colonies and
the need to control Zika virus will be
a program feature. We invite you to
the EAS meeting in Greenville, SC,
July 15-19. Come visit us and see
how we are handling Zika and our
bees in 2019.
David E. Arnal has been
keeping bees since 1988
and is Principal of Hilton
Head Honey LLC, with
75 hives on Hilton Head
Island, South Carolina.
He is President of Beau-
fort-Jasper Beekeepers
Association, and a for-
mer Director of the South Carolina Master
Beekeeper Program.
American Bee Journal
 The Pesticide
Situation
Part 2
by RANDY OLIVER
ScientificBeekeeping.com
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act requires that a pesticide will
generally not cause any unreasonable risk to man or the environment — taking into
account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of that
pesticide. The two italicized caveats are what allow each stakeholder to have a different
perspective on pesticide use.
T
he Pesticide Situation is a
contentious topic among bee-
keepers. There are those who
divide everyone else into either of
two groups — those who agree with
them, or those who are complete mo-
rons. I, on the other hand, have found
that I learn little in an echo chamber.
Indeed, in order to truly understand
an issue, one should be able to argue
either side’s perspective with equal
facility. Thus, I go out of my way
to understand the viewpoint of the
“other side”.
But rather than simply accepting
others’ opinions, I then check out the
supporting evidence and scientific in-
terpretation. To that end, in trying to
understand The Pesticide Situation, I
not only read widely, but also talk to
growers, beekeepers, and ecotoxicol-
ogists. I thank the many beekeepers
who’ve endured my grillings about
their pesticide issues, and especially
appreciate my conversations with
those who are both commercial bee-
keepers and farmers — who thus see
the issue from both sides. The end re-
sult is that when I was asked to write
an article on pesticides and bees, I
soon realized that I couldn’t begin to
objectively cover the subject in a sin-
gle installment — thus you’re reading
what’s turned into a series.
So let’s continue by seeing whether
I can fairly represent the viewpoints
February 2019
of the various stakeholders — I’m The media loved “the sky is falling”
happy to receive emails for sugges- story — and it was even better that the
tions as to things that I may have death of our bees was apparently due
missed. to some mysterious unknown culprit
(Fig. 1). Pesticides and the evil chemi-
the stakehoLDers cal companies were obvious suspects,
The majority of my readers will be just begging for a lynching.
beekeepers; and we of course have
a pretty one-sided view about pesti-
cides. But we beekeepers constitute
less than a tenth of a percent of the
population, and until recent years
were generally regarded as weirdos
who for some reason kept stinging
insects in boxes.
But everything changed when
colonies suddenly, and inexplicably,
started dying in the early 2000’s. The
key word was “inexplicably”, since
this caught the media’s (and thus the
public’s) attention.
Practical application: although
those colony losses were painful to
us, it was our good fortune that the
sting-ey honey bee was suddenly
turned into a beloved poster child
for a public coming to terms with
the fact that human actions appeared Fig. 1 Fear sells. In preparation for the
to be possibly threatening that now above issue, the Science Editor of Time
cute and fuzzy little critter with im- phoned and interviewed me for an hour.
minent extinction. Keep in mind that I carefully explained the reality that hon-
if it weren’t for the demands of the al- ey bees were in no danger of going ex-
tinct, and that the number of hives had
mond industry in California for this
actually been increasing for a few years.
non-native invasive insect, our plight
But that didn’t stop the magazine from
might have remained invisible. printing this cover.
187
 Those who demonize the “pesti- need to do it to “protect” their crop. planting of Bt crops, which require
cide companies” should keep in mind (If you’re not a farmer yourself, you fewer pesticide applications. And
that it’s not the companies who actually might want to take a look at the sort under intense public pressure from
introduce pesticides into the environ- of pesticide-heavy information that the French, the bloc banned some
ment — instead, it is growers, land- they use for guidance1). of the neonicotinoid insecticides —
scape managers, foresters, mosquito Hey, farmers gotta pay their bills. summarily forcing farmers to figure
control agencies, and homeowners. No farmer wants to lose his crop to out other ways to protect their crops.
And those applicators are not that bugs, but must weigh the cost of a Many feel that those decisions were
much different from those who keep pesticide application against what based upon politics rather than sci-
bees for a living — when we previ- they stand to lose. And farmers have ence, which is hardly the best way to
ously pesticide-abhorrent beekeepers choices as to price range and overall regulate pesticides.
were confronted with a pest (varroa) ecological toxicity (which may not
that threatened our livelihood, we be clearly explained). Luckily, fam- We’re now trying to figure out to
suddenly became major pesticide ap- ily farmers live close to the land, and what extent the neonic ban cost those
plicators ourselves. generally want to protect their fami- farmers, and whether the replace-
Not only that, but commercial bee- lies and the environment. A face-to- ments turn out to be environmentally
keepers in many countries became face friendly talk along with a case of worse than the seed treatments. As
pesticide scofflaws — desperately honey can really help a beekeeper to you might expect, the Industry side
applying chemicals to protect their get along with his neighbors. is claiming massive financial losses2,
bees from the destructor mite, flouting And if we want the growers to be whereas others are treading more
pesticide regulations, and hoping that more careful, we gotta show them carefully.3
they didn’t contaminate their “natu- how to profitably practice pollinator- On the other hand, based upon
ral and pure” honey to the extent that safe pest management. We can’t just sound science, all regulatory agen-
the packers would reject it. tell them to stop doing what has pre- cies have been trying to phase out
viously worked for them; we need the persistent and human-dangerous
My point: Before we go blaming to give them economically-viable al- organophosphates and carbamates4,
others for being irresponsible with ternatives to the more harmful pesti- and California, where I live, may soon
pesticides, we should first (as an in- cides. At the governmental and uni- ban the most popular one — chlorpy-
dustry) look at ourselves in the mir- versity level, we can help them by rifos — which is the most frequently
ror. From that perspective, perhaps providing more demonstration proj- found insecticide in bee-collected
we can better understand the posi- ects and extension outreach to show pollen samples. If it’s indeed banned,
tions of the other stakeholders. them how to practice Integrated Pest farmers will need to adapt.
Management, and to minimize their
The above said, I’ve found that use of pollinator-unfriendly products. sPeaking of caLifornia
people of all stripes have a remarkable California is the nation’s #1 agricul-
ability to rationalize whatever it takes PoLitics Vs. science-baseD reguLation tural state, and tends to lead the way
for them to perform their job, make a As with beekeepers, farmers are a in both agricultural practices and pes-
profit, or maintain their style of life. So minority in this country, and also at ticide regulation. California voters are
it’s not so much whether someone is the mercy of urbanites. Perhaps the also quite health conscious, and leery
right or wrong, but what the Big Pic- worst thing with pesticides is for pol- of any chemical that could possibly be
ture effect is of their actions. Unfor- iticians (who may know little about hazardous to their health.
tunately for the Earth, the effect of 8 agriculture, pesticides, or ecology) to Our Department of Pesticide Regu-
billion humans rationalizing their pri- regulate them by fiat, simply in order lation (CDPR) maintains a publicly-
orities may leave the environment and to appease vociferous urban constitu- available database of all applications
other species of life on the losing end. ents. Voters can be easily swayed by of restricted pesticides in the State.5
So let’s start with the main applica- scare messages, especially by well- Below is a sample from the 2016
tors of pesticides … meaning but perhaps overzealous summary, indicating the number of
environmental groups, or by organic pounds of pesticides applied over
the growers marketers wanting to gain sales by time (Fig. 2).
Rationalization: it’s easy for farm- painting others’ products as being CDPR also shows how many acres
ers to rationalize their “need” to ap- dangerous to our health. those pesticides were applied to —
ply pesticides, since it’s the “norm” for insecticides it was well over a
for their peers, and a state agency or Practical application: In the E.U., pound per acre of active ingredient.
salesman may advise them that they several countries do not allow the This doesn’t mean that growers can’t
successfully shift to safer products.
The good news is that over the past
California’s Prop 65 20 years, some of the nastiest “broad-
spectrum” insecticides — such as the
Remember, I’m talking about California, in which every store that sells organochlorines (DDT and chlor-
beekeeping supplies must warn the buyer that woodenware may be con- dane)7, and a number of organophos-
taminated with sawdust, which under Proposition 65 is “a substance phates and carbamates have been
known to the State of California to cause cancer.” Ditto for that cup of phased out, whereas inert oil and
coffee that you buy on the way home — it’s known by the State to contain biopesticide use is increasing (Fig. 3).
acrylamide (which forms any time that foods are roasted). At this point, Note that there are 100 million acres
we Californians are so used to seeing Prop 65 warnings everywhere we in the entire state of California, so the
go (such as every time we fill up the gas tank), that we just ignore them. pesticides above are only applied to a

188 American Bee Journal

tiny percentage of the State acreage.
Compare that to the state of Iowa, in
which two-thirds of the state’s total
acreage is harvested cropland — vir-
tually all in typically pesticide-heavy
corn or soybeans.

how about huMan risk?

With regard to FIFRA, first in the
regulators’ minds is the risk of any
pesticide to “man” — meaning the
consumer, the applicator, as well as
those living near agricultural lands.
In this matter, California is doing a
pretty good job (Fig. 4).

Most farMers aren’t organic

cheMists
California’s legislature passed the Fig. 2 Wow, still a lot of insecticides being applied on California farmland! But keep
Economic Poison Act in 1921, fol- in mind that the orange fungicide/insecticide plot mostly represents applications of
lowing the inadvertent poisoning of dusting sulfur. Also note that this chart would not show any neonic seed treatments for
consumers by arsenic insecticides. corn. (There’s not much soy or canola planted in the State). Source.6
By 1925, there were about 1,700 prod-
ucts marketed in California for pest
control; today there are about 13,000,
containing some 1,000 active ingre-
dients. This gives growers a stag-
geringly-wide choice of chemistries,
but unfortunately I doubt that many
farmers fully understand each chemi-
cal’s ecotoxicological effects. So they
often delegate the job to a Pest Con-
trol Adviser (PCA).

Pest controL aDVisers Fig. 3 The top 5 insecticides applied in California, as far as acres treated.8 Note the
Many, if not most, growers de- trend toward using inert oils (pink). Of interest is the increased use of abamectin
pend upon advice by a PCA. Un- (red) — a “natural” and organically-certified insecticide, but still highly toxic to bees
fortunately, even in pesticide-strict (although its residues are short-lived). Also highly toxic to bees are the pyrethroids
California, one can obtain a license lambda-cyhalothrin (green line; with a half-life on plants of 5 days) and the neonic
imidacloprid (olive line; with an extended half-life on the surface of plants, as well
to be a Pest Control Adviser without
as systemic absorption). Finally, the lepidoptera-specific methoxyfenozide (blue) ap-
any educational requirements in biology,
pears to be pretty safe for bees.
chemistry, entomology, or integrated
pest management10, so long as they
can score 70% in limited testing.11
As pointed out to me recently, PCAs
may “just follow the label,” and in
almonds, may ignore the published
Best Management Practices regard-
ing pesticide applications put out by
the Almond Board--thus resulting in
unwarranted applications of insect
growth regulators (IGRs), pollinator-
hazardous “tank mixes,” or the day-
time spraying of fungicides onto or-
chards in full bloom.
If a PCA is indeed practicing Inte-
grated Pest Management, then they
will sample and monitor any pest
population to determine whether
it is approaching the “economic in-
jury level.” At the point where the
pest density exceeds the “economic Fig. 4 This chart is from Steve Savage’s Applied Mythology website9, which I highly
threshold” (alternatively termed the recommend for anyone wanting to get an informed view from a knowledgeable sci-
“action threshold”), control measures entist with a practical perspective on sustainable agriculture. Steve and I are both
are implemented—one option being “deeply concerned about the increasingly anti-science environment in which we live
the application of a pesticide. today”. Check him out for his entertaining and objectively informative blogs.

February 2019 189

 A MODERN TALE OF THE FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE: THE INHERENT CONFLICT OF
INTEREST THAT EXISTS WHEN PESTICIDE DISTRIBUTORS EMPLOY PEST CONTROL ADVISERS

In California, when agricultural growers want to apply pesticides to their crops, they are required to first obtain
a recommendation from a licensed Pest Control Adviser (“PCA”). Imagine you are a grower and in need of such
a recommendation. A PCA visits your property to determine what type of chemical you need and how much of it
is required to keep your precious crops protected from pests that could destroy your profit. The PCA tells you that
he just so happens to sell the exact pesticide that he has recommended for your crop. This is a common scenario
experienced by farmers, considering that nearly ninety percent of all PCAs are employed by agricultural chemical
distributors and sell the very products they recommend to farmers…This presents an extraordinary conflict of in-
terest: PCAs employed by pesticide distributors provide pest control advice that is biased toward the profit of their
employers and also aimed at earning a commission.
Quoted from the San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review.12

Practical application: any PCA is
going to err on the side of caution
(or perhaps extreme caution) so that
they don’t wind up getting blamed
for any minor decrease in yield. The
net effect is that PCAs who also get
commissions from pesticide sales
may tend to advise very conserva-
tive (and pesticide-heavy) risk man-
agement rather than a demonstrated
need for treatment (or alternative
management strategies). On the oth-
er hand, when bee scientist Dr. Gor-
don Wardell was with Paramount
Farms, he advised them that in their
environment, there was no need to
spray fungicides at all.
Along that line, the need for pol-
linators does give us one ace in the
hole. …
Pollination services (one intersec-
tion of agriculture and beneficial
insects):
Back in 2004, in response to the first
major short supply of bees for almond
pollination, the offered rental price
more than tripled. This resulted in a
watershed change for the bee indus-
try—almond pollination was now as
important to the industry as was hon-
ey production. And although some
emphatically blamed the neonics for
the elevated colony losses during the
CCD epidemic, colony numbers have
rebounded, despite a quadrupling of
the amount of neonics applied each
year.13 As pointed out by a thorough
analysis by Ferrier, et al:14
“High prices are the solution to
their own problem.”
Those sky-high payments offered
by almond growers for pollination
services became the new lifeblood of
our industry, with “innovative” bee-
keepers ramping up their numbers
of hives.15 The almond growers now
know the value of pollinators—that
is, up ‘til petal fall. After that we gotta
find somewhere else where our colo-
nies can safely forage. That often in-
volves other agricultural landscapes
— and therein lies the rub:
Practical application: we must
keep in mind that our major crops,
as far as acreage planted—corn and
other grains, potatoes, soybeans,
and forage crops—aren’t dependent
upon insect pollination, so those
growers have little reason to care
about protecting pollinators on their
fields, other than just doing us bee-
keepers a favor. And if they feel that
beekeepers are causing them prob-
lems, they’re likely to respond by
simply kicking us off their land.
The good news is that there’s a new
buzzword in agriculture: “ecosystem
services,” which includes not only
the pollination performed by native
insects, but also the pest control bene-
fits derived from parasites, predatory
insects, and birds.16, 17, 18 This is a good
thing for us beekeepers, since what’s
good for native pollinators and “ben-
eficials” is also good for honey bees.
In order to realize the full benefits of
ecosystem services, landowners need
to manage diverse habitats at the eco-
system scale, and think twice about
any unintended effects from pesticide
applications.

PubLic Pressure anD Voters

There is always peer pressure. No
farmer that I know wants to kill pol-
linators. And many family farmers
are proud to maintain their land in
an eco-friendly and sustainable man-
ner, often enjoying having bee hives
Fig. 5 Jim and DeAnn Sattelberg received Conservation Reserve Program funding to on their property. Dayer19 points out
plant “filter strips” that protect water sources on their Michigan farm. These strips can that “… landowners who perceived social
also provide pollinator and wildlife habitat, so long as they don’t receive too much acknowledgement of their conservation
pesticide drift. Photo credit USDA.20 behaviors were more likely to state an in-

190 American Bee Journal

tention to persist after [participating in
a conservation] program”(Fig. 5).
Unfortunately, at this writing it ap-
pears that the 2018 Farm Bill will re-
duce the Conservation Stewardship
Program somewhat, and not provide
adequate funding for the Conserva-
tion Reserve Program, although some
pollinator health provisions may re-
main in place.
I’m out of space — next month I’ll
continue with the future direction of
pesticides in agriculture, as well as the
perspectives of other stakeholders.
acknowLeDgeMents
Thanks to Peter Borst for library
assistance, my wife Stephanie for
her patience and proofing, and to my
soft-spoken beekeeper/farmer friend
Charlie Linder, who delicately sets
me straight if he feels that I’ve misin-
terpreted anything. Feel free to check
out discussions at Bee-L.
health, ERR-246, U.S. Department of Ag-
riculture, Economic Research Service.
14. “Innovative” meaning that they stopped
pointing the finger, and started controlling
varroa and feeding supplemental protein
when indicated.
15. Holzschuh, A, et al (2012) Landscapes
with wild bee habitats enhance pollina-
tion, fruit set and yield of sweet cherry.
Biological Conservation 153: 101–107.
16. Brittain C, et al (2013) Synergistic ef-
fects of non-Apis bees and honey bees
for pollination services. Proc R Soc B 280:
20122767
17. Pfister, S, et al (2018) Dominance of crop-
land reduces the pollen deposition from
bumble bees.Scientific Reports 8: 13873.
18. Dayer, A, et al (2018) Private landowner
conservation behavior following partici-
pation in voluntary incentive programs:
recommendations to facilitate behavioral
persistence. Conservation Letters 11:2
e12394.
19. https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/
18277927008/
20. https://www.sjcl.edu/images/stories/
sjalr/volumes/V24N1C6.pdf
Randy sees beekeeping
through the eyes of a bi-
ologist. He’s kept bees for
over 50 years, and with
his sons runs around 1500
hives in the California foot-
hills. He closely follows bee
research, engages in some
himself, and enjoys sharing
what he’s learned with others.

enDnotes
1. 2018 Insect Control Recommenda-
tions for Field Crops https://extension.
tennessee.edu/publications/
Documents/PB1768.pdf
2. Bruins, M (2017) The impact of the ban
on neonicotinoids. https://european-seed.
com/2017/12/impact-ban-neonicotinoids/
3. Kathage, J, et al (2018) The impact of
restrictions on neonicotinoid and fipro-
nil insecticides on pest management in
maize, oilseed rape and sunflower in
eight European Union regions. Pest Man-
ag Sci. 74(1): 88–99.
4. These neurotoxins are termed acetocholines-
terase (ACHE) inhibitors.
5. Pretty much anything that you can’t get at a
nursery, hardware, or garden store.
6. https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pur/
pur16rep/chmrpt16.pdf
7. I was running a farm store when chlordane’s
registration was revoked. Although we hadn’t
been selling it, our pesticide salesman urged
us to stock up. He waxed poetic about how he
sprayed his entire property with it each year,
and never, ever saw any bugs.
8. Source https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/
pur/pur16rep/16sum.htm#trends
9. http://appliedmythology.blogspot.
com/2015/09/a-closer-look-at-organic-
pesticides-in.html
10. https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/license/
min_qual_pca.pdf
11. I haven’t attempted to take the test, but the
test that I’m required to take every two years
in order to maintain my Private Applicator
Certificate is not challenging.
12. As far as I can tell, CCD was the result of a
perfect storm of the failure of varroa control
products, the evolution of viruses, the inva-
sion of Nosema ceranae, changes in forage op-
portunities, beekeepers’ failure to manage the
mite, coupled with unrealistic expectations
for what it takes to supply strong colonies for
almond pollination.
13. Ferrier, RM, et al (2018) Economic effects
and responses to changes in honey bee

February 2019 191

192 American Bee Journal
February 2019 193
194 American Bee Journal
 BEEKEEPING IN
CUBA…
A NEW FRONTIER

By CHARLES AND KAREN

NIELSEN LORENCE

C
uba is a country that we know research center of Cuban beekeeping. lishing a handbook on good beekeep-
little about, simply because The staff is multidisciplinary, consist- ing practices. These have included
most of us have never been ing of biologists, chemists, veterinar- api-therapeutic and food supplement
there. As a result of the Cuban Missile ians, agronomy engineers, zootech- hive products, beauty products with
Crisis in 1961, Cuba has been closed nical (insect husbandry) engineers, the trademark APIQUEEN, and the
to travel for Americans. Beginning microbiologists, biochemists, cyber- production of a delicious honey mead
with the People’s Revolution and neticists, and pharmacologists. It is that the group was able to sample.
the overthrow of the dictator Fulgen- a one-of-a-kind institution in Latin The Genetics Lab studies molecu-
cio Batista, Cuba under Fidel Castro America. The staff includes 37 uni- lar and parasitological tests of select-
aligned itself with the Soviet Union, versity professionals, 36 technicians, ed strains. The Honey Flora Lab does
and the United States was seen as an and 15 service personnel. Men and research on the potential of honey
adversary. women are equally represented on flora and pollination. The Physics-
Cuba has recently been opened to the staff. Chemical Lab tests bee product com-
travel by Americans as long as they The Research Institute claims a position, does quality checks and sets
are on a government approved edu- stellar record of success in achiev- bee product standards. The Chroma-
cational tour. When the opportunity ing disease- and pest-resistant bees, tography Lab studies and certifies the
came along for beekeepers to visit initiating a geographical information composition and quality of Cuban
Cuba and to study their unique meth- system for beekeeping, maintaining hive products. The Microbiology Lab
od of beekeeping, thirty Americans work sheets for yearly honey produc- conducts research on antibiotic activ-
signed on and enjoyed nine days of tion plans and cost control, and pub- ity of bee products, sanitary quality,
education in November of 2018. They
learned about the industry from the
perspective of a country that has been
relatively isolated from us by busi-
ness and culture rather than by dis-
tance. Although Havana is only 105
miles away from Key West, Florida,
their beekeeping practices and honey
production are radically different.
The Beekeeping Research Institute
near Havana was the first stop for the
group, providing technical expertise
on beekeeping in the country. Their
goal is “To create, anticipate, adapt,
and transfer scientific-technical
knowledge to improve beekeeping
development, both in process and in
productivity.” The chief executive,
Mr. Pérez Piñeiro Adolfo, met with
the group and provided the back-
ground information. The Research
Center known as CIAPI consists of
a conference center, local apiary lab,
and packing plant. It was founded
in 1982 as the scientific and technical

February 2019 195


Queen breeding yard in Manicarauga
and some other microbiological as-
pects of bee products. The Informat-
ics Lab develops and controls all in-
formation systems. The Technology
Lab does research, and transfers and
adapts beekeeping technologies.
The main activities, then, of the
Scientific and Technical group is to
field and practice research, develop
the work, and register products. The
technical advising group develops
new technology and disseminates
Pedal power: A worker pedals the bike, which turns the centrifugal extractor to extract
the honey.
196
it to enterprises, cooperatives, and
to individual producers. Teaching
is done with introduction courses,
training for producers, tutorials, and
teaching classes requested by the stu-
dents. Research projects being carried
out presently include Bees, Selec-
tion, Breeding and Production, Cu-
ban Honey Plants, and Cuban Hive
Products and Their Uses.
Finally, the Scientific and Technical
Services seek to certify honey for ex-
port using eleven parameters, certify
propolis (nine parameters), conduct
quality audits, provide technical as-
sistance services to provinces and
producers, audit organic honey prod-
ucts, and provide technical inspec-
tion for honey production. What are
the honey bee products that are pro-
duced? Honey rum, honey mead, bio-
active pollen extract used for cosmet-
ics, soft propolis extract, and honey.
What are the main research sub-
jects at the institute? They include bee
breeding and genetics, honey flora
and pollination, beekeeping technol-
ogy, beekeeping economics including
costs and production planning, new
product development, and apitherapy.
The main strategic actions, then,
are to (1) promote, stimulate, and fa-
cilitate beekeeping modernization ac-
cording with actual market demands,
(2) develop new value added prod-
ucts with high quality, and (3) select
tolerant bees facing major diseases
and pests. Because Cuba is a socialist
form of government, the apiculture
industry is controlled by the state. The
research facility for apiculture ben-
efits the entire beekeeping industry in
the country. They provide the direc-
tion for all beekeeping in the country,
including veterinarian services and
providing queens to beekeepers —
one per year per hive. Most honey is
sold to a government cooperative and
is marketed to European countries.
Because Cuba is still a developing
country and cannot afford the latest
technology in beekeeping equipment
or in pharmaceuticals, their honey is
chemical free and thus, organic. Even
though they have the same maladies
(varroa mites and small hive beetle)
that affect bees in the United States,
they do not use pharmaceuticals to
treat but instead raise queens that
develop a natural immunity to these
pests. Their main goal is honey pro-
duction with no use of chemicals with
hives parented by queens resistant to
disease and parasites.
According to Mr. Perez, Cuba
rarely gets temperatures as low as 32
degrees F. Thousands of wild hives
abound in Cuba because of the tem-
perate climate. The bee yards resem-
bled those of American beekeepers
and use ten-frame hives with wax
foundation (known as blades), nuc
boxes, brood boxes, and supers. Even
equipment such as smokers and veils
were common to ours. The bees were
relatively gentle. A smoker fabricated
from an old tire inner tube used for
the bellows was an uncommon sight
American Bee Journal
and the smoker fuel was sliced wood
chips.
Floral sources were unique to Cuba
with the only recognizable flowers
being types of acacia. In addition,
Turbina corymbosa, Ipomoea triloba,
Gouannia polygama, Gliricidia sepi-
um, Vighiera helianthroides, Bucera
buceras and Lysiloma latisiliqua are
the most important tropical honey
plants in Cuba. There are over 300 A specialty
different plant species of national store in the city
flora but only 75 of them contribute featured an
to national honey production and 20 attractive display
of them are the main Cuban honey of local honey.
plants. Ninety-five percent of Cuban
honey is provided by the wild plants
that bloom in the country. Because
of the tropical climate, there is floral
bloom year-round. The honey pro-
duced is dark in color, full bodied in
flavor, and higher in moisture content
(about 19.5%). It shows no inclination
to ferment. As far as pollination, there
is not a great deal of request for that
service. Beekeepers move their hives
for productivity, not pollination. He acquired the farm thirty-five years said the bees fight against the beetles,
Bees have been on the island of ago and has made it an entity unto encapsulating them in propolis. Bee-
Cuba for over 250 years and have be- itself, producing everything from keeping today is completely differ-
come well adapted to the conditions. fruits and vegetables and livestock ent than it was in the ‘70s according
The Cuban government has made it to honey, plants, and even pottery. to Correa. Climate change, different
their goal to capitalize on these natu- They are totally self-sufficient. It was flora, and diseases all have impacted
ral requisites and to market the hon- suggested that he reminded us of a his beekeeping practices.
ey, mainly to Europe, as organic. The ‘hippie’ and he laughed and heartily “El Servi” in Caonao offered a
island is famous for sugar, coffee, fish agreed. In addition to raising honey wonderful tour of their apiary and
and tobacco, but organic honey is Cu- bees, he also raises stingless bees. He extracting facility. This was the apiary
ba’s fourth most valuable agricultural agreed that his bees have both var- where the vintage extracting equip-
export. In fact, 97% of Cuba’s honey roa mite and small hive beetle but ment and beautifully preserved 1930s
is exported. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, the island was
no longer able to afford pesticides
because of a lack of foreign currency
and the U.S. trade embargo. Thus, the
government embraced organic agri-
culture. With imported equipment for
honey extraction and processing, they
foresee an extremely successful adap-
tion to modern technology.
There are no Africanized bees.
Black bees arrived in 1974, while Ital-
ians came in the first half of the last
century. Now there is a hybrid stock
that is a mix of Italians and black
bees. There are over 163,000 bee hives
in the country, managed by 1600 bee-
keepers. Extracting takes place four
times a year, after each major flow.
The average yield is 50 - 70 kilos (110
- 154 pounds) per hive per year. Com-
mercial beekeepers extract their hon-
ey at the apiary site on the back of a
flat-bed truck.
“Finca Coincidencia” in Jovellanos
was an apiary that welcomed the bee-
keepers. Héctor Correa is the owner Stingless honey: With a straw we were able to sample the honey produced by sting-
of the farm, which is self-sustaining. less bees.

February 2019 197

 truck were showcased as their state-
of-the-art gear.
The queen apiary, “El Cocal” in
Rodas, was an extremely interesting
visit. There, Nora Paraasadol, direc-
tor of the queen breeding center, in-
troduced us to her method of queen
rearing. There are two queen breed-
ing centers in Cuba and this is the best
in the country. One queen is provided
to beekeepers per hive each year but
additional queens can be purchased
for $3.00. In the queen rearing facility,
they do not use artificial insemina-
tion. Diversity in the queen’s line is
preferred. For the drones, it is homo-
198
geneity. Gentleness is not a goal. Pro-
ductivity and disease resistance ARE
the priority.
A visit to an apiary in Manicaragua
and finally a visit to another queen
breeding center in Santa Clara round-
ed out the week. What more could
the guests of the Cuban government
expect?
There is no doubt that Cuba is an
up-and-coming country where bee-
keeping and honey production are
concerned. Perhaps the remoteness
… not in distance but in the use of sci-
ence and technology … will actually
be the factor that helps Cuba influ-
ence other nations in improving their
product and productivity.
a note froM the authors:
After experiencing the wonderful
tour of Cuban beekeeping planned
by Transeair, we would like to com-
mend the guides who interpreted all
that was said by the beekeepers and
bee professionals to us Americans,
many of whom have limited lan-
guage skills. We also realized as a re-
sult of the trip that our understanding
of the political situation in Cuba has
been limited. With that in mind, we
recognize that the guides provided us
with information that the Cuban gov-
ernment wanted to convey. It seemed
to be a win-win situation if we all
remain open minded and willing to
learn and discern.
Toward the end of our trip, Juan
Carlos (our guide) shared how he had
been educated in Poland and had had
an opportunity to stay there. “I was
born in Cuba. I love Cuba and want
to stay in Cuba. This is where I want
to die.”
Cuba is a developing country, so-
cialist though it may be. Open commu-
nication between our two countries is
paramount to better relationships.
Charles and Karen
Lorence of Aurora,
IL have been bee-
keepers since 1971.
At one time they
kept 150 hives.
As teachers, they
had summers free and their hobby turned
into a thriving business. Today they manage
hobby hives in Wisconsin and Illinois and
sell honey and value-added products. They
teach classes in beekeeping, offer seminars
at community colleges and arboretums, write
for a professional beekeeping magazine, and
do presentations to garden clubs and special
interest groups. Their honey and beeswax
products have been awarded special honors
on both the state and national level.
American Bee Journal
 Notes from the Lab:
The Latest Bee Science Distilled
by Scott McArt
The Importance of Habitat to Both Native and Managed Bees

L
ocation, location, location. Any what was good habitat for bees in tionships between land-use, wild bee
real estate agent will tell you North Dakota. The authors sampled, abundance/diversity, and honey bee
it’s critical. But does the same counted and identified 13,426(!) wild productivity/survival.
rule apply to bees? In other words, if bees, representing 149 species from So, what did they find? Was good
you could construct the optimal real 18 locations over the course of 3 habitat for honey bees the same as
estate for bees, what would it look years. They also monitored honey bee good habitat for wild, native bees?
like? Lots of wooded areas? Flow- colonies from 6 apiaries, measuring To a large degree, yes. The authors
ering crops? And what bees are we honey production and proportion of found that wild bee abundance and
talking about, exactly? The western colonies surviving each year. Finally, diversity were positively associated
honey bee (Apis mellifera) forages at they used data gathered by the U.S. with honey production by honey bees.
a larger radius, collects more nectar, Geological Survey — essentially a In other words, if an apiary was good
and is active for a longer portion of handmade version of Google Maps at producing honey, it also had a more
the year than the other ~4,000 spe- — to determine the exact composition abundant and diverse wild bee com-
cies of bees in North America. Does of different types of land-use (i.e., dif- munity nearby. This supports the no-
that mean its ideal habitat is different ferent habitat for bees) around each tion that good habitat for honey bees is
from other bees? This is the topic for of the sample locations. Then, once also good habitat for wild, native bees.
our fifteenth “Notes from the Lab,” they had all of these data in hand, What made some locations better
where we highlight “Wild, native they looked to see if there were rela- than others? This is what we all want
bees and managed honey bees ben-
efit from similar agricultural land
uses,” written by Elaine Evans and
colleagues and published in the jour-
nal Agriculture, Ecosystems and En-
vironment [268:162-170 (2018)].
In case you didn’t know, North
Dakota is essentially Mecca for bees.
It’s the top honey producing state in
the U.S., with nearly a half million
colonies producing over 17 million
kilograms of honey/year, valued at
~$70 million annually. In addition,
North Dakota is home to >300 species
of wild bees. However, for the past
10 years, there’s been a dramatic in-
crease in land used for corn and soy
production in the state. This has led to
concern about loss of bee forage and
potential impact on pollinators and
honey production.
To address these concerns, Evans
and colleagues set out to understand Mellisodes tray

February 2019 199

to know, of course. If you could pick
anywhere on a map to put your bees,
what should you be looking for? Or,
if you wanted to conserve and pro-
mote wild, native bees, which habi-
tats or land-uses should be conserved
and promoted? Evans and colleagues
found that wooded areas, wetlands,
ND woodlands, grasslands and wetlands
Collecting bowl trap
Bee collection
200
grasslands, pastures, and crops pro-
viding bee forage were associated
with greater wild bee abundance and
diversity. No particular habitat or
land-use type stood out more than
another; each was important.
In contrast, only a few land-uses
were associated with less wild bee
Collecting bees in canola
abundance and diversity. Evans and
colleagues found negative associa-
tions between bee abundance/di-
versity and land used for corn, soy,
wheat, and other small grain crops.
OK, this seems intuitive. But why
is this important? It’s very useful
to know that habitats and land-use
Roadside bee forage
Collecting trip
American Bee Journal

Nomada_aquilarium Photo by Wayne Boo, USGS
types containing good bee forage are
good for both honey bees and wild,
native bees. And it’s also useful to
know that the conversion of land to
corn and soy production results in
less abundant and diverse communi-
ties of bees. Clearly, the past decade of
increased land used for corn and soy
production could be having an over-
all negative impact on pollinators in
North Dakota. This is a risky situa-
tion in a state with historically high
bee diversity, which also happens to
February 2019
be the nation’s top honey producer.
But perhaps the most important infer-
ence that Evans and colleagues’ study
makes concerns the amount of good bee
habitat that can make a difference. Bee-
forage crops (mostly sunflower, canola
and alfalfa) comprised as little as 1%
of the landscape in their study, but of-
ten had a positive impact on bees. This
suggests that shifting some corn/soy
production into sunflower, canola or al-
falfa production could have major ben-
efits for bees. Furthermore, conserving
wooded areas, wetlands, grasslands
and pastures is critical.
Given the importance of North Da-
kota to bee conservation and honey
production in the U.S., let’s hope that
growers, land managers and regula-
tory agencies are paying attention. A
little effort could go a long way.
Until next time, bee well and do
good work,
Scott McArt
reference:
Evans, E., M. Smart, D. Cariveau and M.
Spivak. 2018. Wild, native bees and man-
aged honey bees benefit from similar agri-
cultural land uses. Agriculture, Ecosystems
and Environment 268:162-170. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.agee.2018.09.014
Scott McArt, an As-
sistant Professor of
Pollinator Health,
helps run the Dyce
Lab for Honey Bee
Studies at Cornell
University in Ithaca,
New York. He is par-
ticularly interested in
scientific research that can inform manage-
ment decisions by beekeepers, growers and
the public.
Email: shm33@cornell.edu
Lab website: blogs.cornell.edu/mcartlab
Pollinator Network: pollinator.cals.cornell.edu
Facebook: facebook.com/dycelab
201
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202 American Bee Journal

 Honeybee emergency response:
A prActicAl guide for responders

pArt ii of two pArts

by ANDY HEMKEN, Bee Guy
andy@hemkenhoney.com

ProceDures for use in a • Resources – Bee supply compa- ing appropriate agencies. Informa-
bee eMergency nies or other suppliers can supply tion should be solicited to outline the
There is the potential for many equipment ahead of time. scope of the response location of the
people and entities to participate in • Public relations – Downplay the incident, bees in a building or area,
a bee emergency. Keep in mind that danger and minimize sensational- vehicle and approximate number of
these incidents may not last very ism; municipal spokesperson can hives involved, injuries, conditions,
long. Our intention should be to help to put a positive spin on clean and any other pertinent information.
minimize panic, and concentrate on up efforts. Each dispatch center should have a
the positive aspects of any response. list of local beekeepers who may be
The following is a list of potential DisPatcher available, as well as a potential list of
responders. Information regarding a bee emer- beekeeping resources such as trucks,
gency normally reaches the local dis- trailers, skidsteers and beekeeping
• Dispatcher – Normally first contact patcher first via phone. This could equipment.
in an incident; dispatchers should be a municipal, county or state pa- Small swarms of honey bees are nor-
solicit appropriate information, be trol dispatch center. The dispatchers mally referred to local beekeepers to
able to offer solutions for minor in- should have a pop-up screen for bee take care of, and this is an agreement
cidents, and to dispatch appropriate emergencies to assist in dispatch- between the caller and the beekeeper.
responders and resources if needed.
• Law Enforcement – Their role is
normally to evaluate the situation,
and establish a control perimeter
and containment area
• Fire Departments – Evaluate the
situation, rescue any victims if pos-
sible, and utilize firefighting foam
to kill honey bees if warranted.
• Municipal Department of Public
Works (DPW) – Clean up results of
incident.
• Local Beekeepers – state or lo-
cal beekeeping associations may
be able to provide volunteers and
resources to clean up bees and
equipment, to deal with individual
swarms or honey bees in buildings
or other situations.
• Commercial vs. hobbyist – Larger
beekeeping operations may have
resources to assist. Local hobby
beekeepers may be available to Fire departments often have been trained to deal with stinging insect emergencies
assist. and may also carry specialized equipment such as protective bee suits or veils.

February 2019 203

This would also include honey bees
nesting inside of a house, building or
other private location. If a beekeeper
is not available, an exterminator can
be called. Wasp and hornet problems
are referred to an exterminator, and
this is normally the responsibility of
the caller. Incidents on public prop-
erty are usually the responsibility of
the appropriate municipality.
These three bee spill photos are courtesy of Matt Winstead of Midwest Bee Removal.
He helped clean up this mess last year at Interstate 35 and 435 in Kansas City.
204
PotentiaL Questions by the DisPatch-
er to DeterMine conDitions
• Are the bees bright yellow and
black, or bright black and white?
Indicates wasp or hornets.
• Are the bees gold and brown and
fuzzy? Indicates honey bees.
• Are the bees in a structure or ob-
ject? They need to be removed by a
beekeeper/exterminator.
• Are the bees in a grey ball attached
to a tree or object? These are wasps
or hornets.
• Vehicle involved in an accident;
size; pickup or flatbed semi?
• Are there injuries? How many? Se-
rious injuries? Notify hospital of
number and type of patients.
• Are the injured people exposed to
stinging insects?
• Location and surroundings of acci-
dent?
• Is the accident on the active road-
way? Should traffic be shut down
or re-routed?
• How do we notify local beekeepers
for assistance?
• Dispatch appropriate resources
based on information solicited.
Law enforceMent
Law enforcement is normally the
first responder on site of an incident.
The intention is to check out the com-
plaint, and identify the issues and
priorities. Based on this, site decisions
will be made, and further resources
allocated. Depending on the situation,
hot and cold zones may be set up,
similar to a hazmat incident. The hot
zone depends on the situation, with a
small incident utilizing 50 feet, and a
large truck accident utilizing a radius
of 50 yards. All unauthorized persons
should be kept out of the hot zone.
The intention is to protect bystanders
from stings.
Small-scale beehive incidents are
normally on private property, or a
swarm may be anywhere on public
property. These are normally handled
by a local beekeeper. Vehicle loads
of beehives involved in accidents, or
overturned, are more intensive and
may call for a group of local beekeep-
ers with equipment, or fire depart-
ments with firefighting foam. Law
enforcement will normally have com-
mand of the situation.
In a bee hauler truck accident, a hot
zone should be developed, to keep
unauthorized personnel away. This is
intended to minimize honey bee con-
tact with bystanders and responders.
In setting up a hot zone, base deci-
sions on road and traffic conditions,
scope of the accident, and wind and
weather conditions. An arbitrary pe-
rimeter might be 50 yards around the
accident site, although honey bees
may not respect this. Honey bees
are more active in hot weather, and
are more lethargic under 45 degrees.
Following an accident involving
overturned beehives, and in the eve-
ning, honey bees will start to clump
American Bee Journal
(L) Loading a flatbed semi with pallets of beehives. (R) What you will see – netting & straps, with some honey bees looking at you
through the netting.
together on objects. This is an indica-
tion that the honey bees are starting
to settle down.
Because of the unusual nature of a
honey bee emergency such as an over-
turned truck hauling beehives, there
will be people slowing or stopping
their cars to look, or possibly exiting
their vehicles or walking onto the
scene to look and take photographs.
One of the roles for law enforcement
would be to keep people away from
this hot zone.
Determine access to the site by fire
departments, beekeepers and others.
Beekeepers are normally a volunteer
resource, and will know more about
the situation than anyone else. De-
pending on circumstances, let them
organize and do their work.
fire DePartMent
Fire department response to a hon-
ey bee emergency is typically called
for to take advantage of manpower
and the rescue capabilities. Most fire
departments also carry fire-fighting
foam, which can be used to kill honey
bees that cannot be salvaged, or may
be too aggressive to work with. Full
coverage fire-fighting turnout gear
with air packs will provide good pro-
tection from honey bee stings, but
not full protection. There are usually
problems around the head and neck.
Some fire departments, including
those in southern California, will keep
beekeeping veils on the fire trucks, for
dealing with Africanized and other
honey bees. Work with your local bee-
keeper or beekeeping organization for
acquiring bee-related equipment.
MuniciPaL DePartMent of PubLic
works (DPw)
The task of the department of
public works/highway department
is to clean up following an accident
involving honey bee hives. They are
February 2019
the janitors of the response world.
Typically, remaining honey bees
have been killed using fire depart-
ment fire-fighting foam, which is a
soap solution. Tools needed may in-
clude: end loader, dumpster, dump
truck, shovels, brooms, barricades,
etc. The intention is to clean the de-
bris off of the roadway as quickly as
possible. The fire department may be
requested to stay on scene to hose off
the roadway.
LocaL beekeePers
Beekeepers in the area of an inci-
dent will most likely be the ones to
better assist in a bee emergency. Lo-
cal officials normally know who they
are, but it is better to have them listed
for faster contact. Most beekeepers
will have basic protective equipment
and beekeeper tools, and a working
knowledge of what should be done.
Larger beekeepers, including com-
mercial beekeepers, will have addi-
tional equipment and supplies.
For a large situation such as an
overturned truck or semi hauling
beehives, a full coverage bee suit is
recommended. Fire-fighter turnout
gear is a good alternative, but honey
bees will normally penetrate the area
around the head. A bee veil may pro-
tect the head if worn properly. Honey
bees are very adept at penetrating
any kind of clothing. Duct tape is a
well used item among beekeepers.
VictiM rescue
Human life is the most important
consideration in any incident. Victims
should be removed as soon as is safe
for responders. Blankets and tarps
can be used by responders to cover
injured or other personnel in need
of rescue, to help in protecting them
from additional honey bee stings.
About 1.5% of the population are con-
sidered allergic to honey bee stings.
Sting victims who are allergic can be
treated with EpiPens®, and transport-
ed immediately to the closest hospital
for treatment. Anaphylactic shock is
always a possibility with bee stings,
and symptoms are normally evident
within 15-20 minutes; redness, hives,
difficulty breathing. Most people will
have localized swelling around the
sting area, which is normal, and sim-
ply uncomfortable. It is important to
continuously monitor sting victims
during an incident.
PubLic inforMation / PubLicity
The cleanup of a large accident in-
volving beehives generates a lot of
publicity. It is typically the responsibil-
ity of law enforcement to make a state-
ment or answer questions for the press.
Due to circumstances, this publicity
can be very positive when explain-
ing that the agencies involved have
an established plan and procedures,
and emphasizing working together to
clean up and save as many honey bees
as possible. Public information should
follow established incident command
procedures.
LegaL issues
As always, attorneys and the law
can present challenges, and common
sense does not always prevail. The
intention of response should be to
save lives and property, in the best
way possible. Insurance and liability
can change, depending on the courts,
but it is up to responders to act in
everyone’s best interest. Beehives
on a truck belong to the beekeeper.
Typically, the truck and driver are
contracted to move beehives. Some
commercial beekeepers run their
own large straight trucks, trailers and
semis for transporting beehives. If the
truck tips over, the beehives are typi-
cally covered by the truck insurance.
Usually, the beehives are covered by
205
insurance, and the honey bees are
not. Insurance companies rarely cov-
er the cost of the bees, or the full cost
of the damaged equipment. There is
a history of beekeepers recovering
only partial compensation; thus, the
beekeepers are very interested in re-
covering as much of the load as possi-
ble. There may be significant liability,
due to stinging insects, so responders
should work to restrain bystanders,
and keep the hot zone clear.
seVeraL situations May contribute
to a honey bee eMergency:
Migratory beekeePer. Semi flatbed
trucks may carry 400-500 beehives,
and these are typically moved 500
to 2000 miles or more across the
United States. Hives are placed four
to a clipped pallet, with four to eight
boxes total. Some beekeepers use six-
way pallets, with six or 12 boxes total.
Each box holds 8 - 10 wood and wax
frames that the honey bees call home.
These hives are placed on the clipped
pallet without securement, other
than the clips. The pallets are stacked
against and on top of each other on
the trailer; the trailer is covered with
bee netting, and strapped down to the
flatbed trailer with four inch ratchet
straps. If the trailer overturns, the
straps may not hold the load, and it
may spill equipment and bees. The
netting may break loose, allowing the
equipment to scatter. Netting is in-
tended to keep the bees confined, and
contributes little to load securement.
Some hives may collapse or break
apart while others will stay together.
The bees will not be happy, making
this a bad situation. There are few
alternatives to securing a load, and
the majority of trucks do not have
problems. If a truck rolls over and the
beehives break apart, the honey bees
will scatter in all directions, and be re-
ally crabby. After a short while, bees
should start to settle in bunches onto
objects. Toward evening, conditions
should improve.
MoVeMent of beehiVes
Heavy truck transport of honey
bees across the country is normally
southward and westward around Oc-
tober to Florida, Texas and California,
and spreading back across the coun-
try in March/April. Throughout the
spring and summer there are large
and smaller trucks and trailers mov-
ing beehives throughout the country
for pollinating work. In total, beehives
are transported on most roads across
the country, most of the year. The ma-
206
A package cage with honey bees, getting
ready to be emptied into a beehive
jority of larger loads are netted and
strapped. Loaded beehives will be
accompanied by a health certificate
from the state of origin. In April/May
package bees are moved across the
country and distributed to thousands
of beekeepers, new and experienced.
These packages are moved in closed
trucks and trailers. Once distributed,
the packages are hauled in trucks,
cars, vans, etc. Beehives may also be
transported by pickup truck, inside
vans and other vehicles, and may not
be secured. This is how things have
been done for many years.
Local beekeeper. Another situation
is a local beekeeper moving hives
around the area. A single hive on a
pickup truck, or possibly 50 or more
hives on a flatbed truck will be mov-
ing, usually early morning or late at
night. These are normally better se-
cured, but may spill in the case of an
accident.
Package bees. Package bees are
used to restock dead or new beehives,
typically in April or May. A wood
and screen cage holds approximate-
ly 6000 honey bees, and one queen,
and a semi-load will typically hold
2000 packages. These packages are
usually hauled in specially designed
box trucks or trailers. There may be
smaller trucks or vehicles that may
haul 10-500 packages. When involved
in an accident, these are much less of
an issue. The cages may crush or tear,
releasing thousands of honey bees.
These will typically land on anything
handy, and form large balls of bees.
At an accident site, the intention
is usually to treat the injured, move
vehicles out of the way, and open the
road as soon as is practical. With a
wrecked flatbed hauling beehives, it
may be tempting to push the hives
to the side and burn them to end the
situation. This makes a bad situation
worse; the fire will consume the hives,
but there will be many more bees fly-
ing through the air. In this situation,
it is better to utilize the fire fighting
foam, which will kill the honey bees,
allowing the equipment to be placed
in dumpsters, dump trucks or other
means to haul them away.
DeVeLoP a List of contact nuMbers
• State apiarist
• State and county beekeeping as-
sociations
• Local beekeepers
• Potential supplies and locations
• Other appropriate resources
tooLs for resPonDers
Software can be developed to pro-
vide a pop-up screen for the 911 dis-
patch center, for information and de-
cision making. This should include
information on honey bee and wasp
response, and traffic accidents involv-
ing the movement of honey bees in
city, rural and expressway settings.
This should also include listings for lo-
cal beekeepers and exterminators, and
links to the state beekeeper emergency
list, if one exists. Pocket cards, or quick
references can be developed for dis-
patchers, law enforcement, fire depart-
ments and others. These are normally
quick lists of priorities, procedures
and contacts. These can be laminated
cards, or apps for smart phones.
notes to beekeePers
Addressing honey bees nesting in
a building or structure usually in-
volves removing building features,
and agreement needs to be made
ahead of time as to who repairs the
hole. Some beekeepers charge for this
service. This is an agreement between
the homeowner and the beekeeper.
Retrieving swarms is relatively easy.
There are mentors and resources for
assisting with swarms safely.
In the event of a road accident with
numerous hives, the intention of law
enforcement is to open the road as
soon as is practical. Law enforcement
may allow an hour or so to clean up
and organize as many hives as possi-
ble. Thus, work must be done quickly
as possible.
Action by beekeepers depends on
the situation. If the load of hives is
simply shifted, a skidsteer might be
able to shift the load back in place.
Additional straps can be used to al-
low the truck to move to a safe area,
where the load can be disassembled
and reassembled on the truck.
If the truck is overturned, then the
hives and parts must be removed
completely from the truck. Pallets
are placed on the ground, and boxes
are stacked, regardless of where the
American Bee Journal
queen might be. Pallet, eight boxes,
four covers, repeat. Broken hive box-
es, frames and other equipment are
put to the side for later disposal. The
intention is to attack the situation in
a quick and dirty manner. The hives
can be straightened out at a later date.
Make up a potential list of equip-
ment needed for a large cleanup: duct
tape, skidsteer(s) with bucket & forks,
flatbed trucks, flat deck trailers, clip
pallets, pallets, ladders, tarps, extra
bee suits, gloves, veils, straps, ham-
mer & nails, screws and drivers, duct
tape, blocking lumber, empty hive
boxes, dumpsters, plywood, etc.
Sometimes we beekeepers are
guilty of contributing to bee emergen-
cies—like using bungee cords, bits of
rope and bailing wire to secure our
bees and equipment on our trucks and
trailers. What is needed is to properly
secure your load—whether moving
one or two hives in your minivan or
pickup truck, a dozen or more hives
on a pickup or trailer, fifty or more
hives on a flatbed truck or trailer, or
a semi-truck load. Dedicated and
proper ratchet straps and other fas-
teners, good tie downs and anchors
on our vehicles, and good equipment
that lends itself to properly securing
the load are all essential. Consider
where you are going: driving through
construction, over railroad tracks,
deep potholes, debris on the road, un-
even ground, or backwoods.
One factor that is common to semi-
truck accidents and load shifting:
the truck wheels change elevation
suddenly due to rolling off of the
shoulder, onto a curb or other circum-
stance. The top of the load shifts side
to side violently, dislodging and shift-
ing the pallets and boxes. The way
in which loads are secured is mostly
with downward pressure. One idea
would be to place several vertical
plywood bulkheads between stacks
of pallets — two pieces of plywood
LOHMAN APIARIES
since 1946
Quality Queens and Packages
Old World Carniolan
for Over-wintering and Honey Production
Dennis Lohman Apiaries
6437 Wagner Road
ARBUCKLE, CALIFORNIA 95912
530-476-2322
Member of California Bee Breeders Association
February 2019
bolted together to fit the profile of Writer & contributor to the Ameri-
the load, and placed between stacked can Bee Journal
hives. Stacks of pallets may move Beekeeping Instructor, 10 years
side to side, and the bulkheads are 11 years volunteer firefighter, Big
intended to retard this movement, be- Bend, Big Bend Vernon Volunteer
ing part of the load. Large round cut- Fire Departments
outs could be incorporated into the 11 years Emergency Management
bulkheads, to facilitate front to back Director, Big Bend Vernon Emer-
airflow through the load. The bulk- gency Management
heads could be unbolted and stored Chairman, Big Bend Public Safety
more easily between hive shipments. Commission
This article is not intended to pro- Municipal work, training and com-
vide complete response information, mittee work
but to help organize local units of Beekeeping presentations for vari-
government and beekeepers to allow ous beekeeping and other groups
for a better response to bee emergen-
cies, large and small. This should give thank you to:
all those involved better tools to put Mary Wiltgen, Beekeeper
together a framework for response Lt. Steve Ladue, Mukwonago PD
procedures. Most of you as beekeep- Lt. Nathan Clarke, Wisconsin State
ers may volunteer freely to help in a Patrol
bee emergency, and this is intended to Chris Werner, Indian Summer Hon-
help out a fellow beekeeper, and your ey Farms
community. I would hope that there Curt Bronnenberg, Spring Valley
would not be this type of emergency Honey Farms
in your community, but if it does oc-
cur, I hope that this information will
contribute to a better response.
Regards,
Andy Hemken, Bee Guy
Big Bend, Wisconsin
contact inforMation:
Andy Hemken, Beekeeper
Hemken Honey Company
W229 S7120 Guthrie School Road
Big Bend, WI 53103
414-531-8220
andy@hemkenhoney.com
backgrounD:
28 years as a safety & ergonomics
consultant
23 years beekeeping; currently a
small commercial beekeeper
Past President, Wisconsin Honey
Producers Association
15 years President, Milwaukee
Waukesha Beekeepers Association
Borntrager Bee Farm
4036 Gaitan Lane
Beeville, TX 78102
361-362-3281
(Let ring during business hours) or
361-362-3283
Italian & Carniolan Queens 2018 Prices
1-9 10-24 25-99 100+
$25.00 $23.00 $21.00 $20.00
Virgins $10.00
Ask for cells and nucs
207
208 American Bee Journal
 Modern Farm Myths
Part 2
L
ast month we discussed some of the myths in farm-
ing, pertaining in particular to land use. This section
will cover many misconceptions about what we are
actually doing to the soil and why. In this discussion I will
also be pointing out some of the issues with organics and
how they fit in. My goal is not to bash organics in any way,
but to make you aware of the issues and shortcomings and
why organic farming has all but vanished. Don’t forget that
what is considered “new organic” farming was actually the
only way we farmed up until the last 50 years or so.
While modern agriculture uses a lot of synthetic fertiliz-
ers, there are very good reasons for it. Organic has its bene-
fits but its downsides are also huge. We as beekeepers need
to understand the full picture. While at times “all natural”
sounds great, we as adults have to understand how that
may affect overall food safety and land use. While it may
seem to be a bit far from the beehive, I promise you, in the
big picture it is very, very important for us to understand
at least the basics. As beekeepers we hold a unique posi-
tion in being able to bridge the gap between consumers,
environmental activists, and the real world of agriculture.
As beekeepers most of us interface with farmers at many
points. Ask yourself seriously, what kind of men and wom-
en are they? The answer is always the same: outstanding
people with a passion and drive to protect the land and
produce as much as they can. The kind of people, who
usually point to a corner of their farm and say, put your
hives there, with nothing expected in return but a $5.00
bottle of honey and a thank you. The same people who
pull you out when you are stuck in the mud and loan you
a tractor when you need to load hives. As you read this,
do not forget these are the people we are talking about.
It is easy to say it is everyone else, or the ”big agriculture
corporations”, but that is simply not the case. We should
also realize that, just like in beekeeping, some of them do
not have all the facts and make some missteps, but the vast
majority of them know far more about what is going on in
their fields than we do in our hives.
steriLe grounD
A common one I hear is that the farmers are “stripping
the land,”; somehow many have gotten the notion that corn
February 2019
by charLes LinDer
takes out so many nutrients for the soil that either (A) noth-
ing will grow without adding chemicals; or (B) they have
to rotate to allow the soil to rest. That theory is not even
remotely close. The fields we grow corn and beans in are
fertile fields even after the row crops; in fact, weeds are the
number one problem in farming. You leave that field after
corn and the next season it is a mess. Weed seeds you never
imagined abound in that dirt and will pop up so fast it is
scary. Did you know the real reason for the current rotation
is actually for weed control? The reality for farming is the
rotation of beans and corn so that you can get maximum use
from herbicides. (I will detail spraying issues next month.)
There are really four types of herbicides: broadleaf weed
killers, grass killers, ones that kill everything (otherwise
known as sterilizers), and ones that simply slow seed ger-
mination to allow crops to canopy and shade out weeds.
Beans are broadleaf plants, so you can plant them and spray
with a grass killer; corn is actually a grass so you can use
a broadleaf weed killer on it without damaging the corn.
By rotating from year to year, you can get maximum weed
control. Try to run two years in a row with corn, and grasses
will take over your fields. The same with beans; two years
in a row and broadleaf weeds will choke down your yields.
So the rotation is mainly for weed control, not soil health.
Yes, corn does like a lot of nitrogen; in the past the normal
rotation was corn, beans, then hay for two or more seasons,
as the alfalfa pulls nitrogen from the air. In the last year the
green hay got plowed into the dirt to add vegetative matter
to the soil. Remember the cattle I mentioned everyone had
in part one? They also created a huge use for that hay.
Those disappearing cattle and the added ability to easily
use anhydrous ammonia has changed that need to grow
as much alfalfa in many areas.We need to understand that
many of those that raised cattle did so because they had
the hay and corn already on the farm. It made sense to just
use the feed; since everyone had hay, it had zero resale val-
ue. Cattle on the other hand would sell. Part of the change
on farms is based on the ability to no longer need to plant
alfalfa. While it seems quaint for small farms that raise ev-
erything, it is not an efficient model to try to do it all.
One thing to consider in that great rotation we used to
do (alfalfa, corn and beans) is that the plant that was the
209
hardest on the soil was alfalfa. Removing that biomass
had terrible drains on the soil, so the second year crop
was plowed under. The decaying roots and plant material
were a help to corn by fixing nitrogen, the huge return of
biomass from corn helped the beans, the soil rested with
beans and then went back to work for hay.
You hear a lot about chemicals and fertilizers. The two
major chemicals are lime and nitrogen. Lime to balance the
pH of the soil -- read that again -- to balance the pH of the
soil. Have you ever wondered why your sweet corn patch
looks so pathetic? Did you check the soil type? Every farmer
does, and balances the soil to match the needs of the plants
they are growing. Mother Nature did not leave us perfect
soil for all plant types in very many places. We fine tune it.
Just as blueberries grow in an acidic soil, other plants like
alkaline soils. Corn and beans have pH balances they like.
The second major player is a source of Nitrogen to feed
the plant and become protein in the plant and in the grain.
So Ammonia (NH3) is “knifed” into the soil just before
planting and is converted to usable NH4 over time by nat-
ural soil organisms. An alternative to NH3 is urea-based
dry or liquid sources that are typically spread across the
soil surface by mechanical means to be moved into the soil
by rainfall. There are some new technologies out there that
are applied directly to the plant at the critical point in the
growth cycle, but this is still an emerging technology that
not everyone has started implementing. This may drasti-
cally reduce the amount of nitrogen being used as it is ap-
plied when the plant needs it most. Last, but not least, are
fertilizers such as phosphorous & potash. In some areas
we used to get our sulfur from the air (acid rain), but now
sulfur must be purchased and applied just like the other
nutrients. I believe that is a reasonable trade-off!
But let us back up here a little; recall that I am talking
about the theory of the destruction of soil here. What is
missing is that none of these things we added are required
to grow normal crops of corn or beans. They are required
to grow massive amounts of corn and beans. Remember
when I said land use was going down? It is because yields
continue to rise. The 1960 corn yields averaged around 80
bushels an acre, if you did well. Today’s yields are not the
same. Fields that ran 80 bushels in 1960 run around 210
bushels today. Yields vary a HUGE amount year to year,
field to field, based on soil types and climates, with rain-
fall timing and amount being an even bigger factor. The
national average for 2014 was 172 bushels, which includ-
ed some very bad locations in dry land corn in Texas.The
Fig. 1 Historical Corn Yeilds1
210
University of Illinois has some test plots where they have
grown corn on corn year after year since the mid 70s, basi-
cally unfertilized and untreated. Average yields are in the
area of 40 bushels an acre and have been steady for a long
time. In beekeeping, that is akin to opening up a hive to
find ….. no honey.
The really cool thing about this graph is, look at the line
upward at 60 degrees — no decline in growth rate in sight
yet!
Bottom line — we have all seen those Miracle-Gro® ads
where they raise huge tomatoes and plants by adding their
product. The chemicals added (lime and nitrogen usually)
are the farmers’ Miracle-Gro®, to ensure maximum yields
per acre. With input costs soaring and grain prices flat, it is
the only way to make the most of that land.
Fig. 2 Acres in production2
Figure 1 Acres in production is a repeated from the first
section, but compare that with the figure 2 chart, and you
start to see the problem, as well as why the use of what we
call the modern agriculture system is important. Luckily
the slope of the population chart has been less than the
slope of yield increases, but not by much. I predict that at
some point in the future these lines will cross. When that
does we will see dramatic increases in food cost, and more
land, much of which is marginal will fall to tillage.
A good friend of mine from California keeps bemoan-
ing the price of food here in the U.S., insisting that it is too
cheap. He is convinced we should be paying more, as that
would change the way farmers grow things. We disagree
strongly on this point. His theory is that if we are willing
to pay more, organics and such would be used more. But
as I will show, this would mean more acres plowed and,
worse yet, an economic incentive to overuse chemicals of
all sorts for higher yields. Right now in farming, with all
the major crops in the US, profit margins are tight. In fact
many experts will tell you that production costs for corn
are higher than the market price. In this model the farmer
is always tasked to reduce input costs. While a bit of extra
fertilizer or pesticide seems like it might help yields, there
has to be an absolute cost/benefit ratio established. Low
food and crop prices simply mean to the producer that
extra input costs have to be justified by a yield bump to
offset not only the cost of the product, but the cost to apply
it as well. This leads to every single grower looking very
closely at the bottom line, and not overusing any inputs.
The absolute best way to keep any agriculture production
American Bee Journal
doing its 100% best is to keep margins very tight. When
there is no economic incentive from “adding a bit more
fertilizer” they will calculate the absolute right amounts
to use. Wasted products and tillage come right off their
bottom lines.
Fig. 3 Current and expected population growth
This ability to keep feeding us has been achieved by
what many call the “green revolution”; this is based in
part upon the ability to pull nitrogen from the air and lit-
erally inject it (along with other agro chemicals) into the
soil. We also have bigger equipment, higher-yielding vari-
eties, improved irrigation, the development of things like
Roundup, and making farms more efficient in cultivation
and harvesting. This “package of practices” almost com-
pletely superseded traditional organic farming.
Many claim that organic farming will save the soil and
feed the world. Unfortunately the math doesn’t work.
Typical yields run at about 30% less for organics. While for
some small grains this is not a big deal, when you look at
the big four — corn, beans, rice and cotton — the numbers
are staggering. Many researchers have raised question on
the productivity of organic farming when compared to con-
ventional farming, while some studies do state that organic
farming may be able to feed all the population, most do not.
According to a 2014 report in The Wall Street Journal3, or-
ganic yields are far less than yields of conventional farming.
A 2011 survey data from the National Agricultural Sta-
tistics Service (NASS), a branch of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), notes that organic farming would re-
quire 14.5 million acres more to equal conventional farm-
ing production of 14 staple (human-focused) food crops in
the U.S alone.. That is 14.5 million acres falling under the
plow just for human based foods. That is cereal grains, fruits,
nuts and vegetables only. When you add in the big four of
corn, rice wheat and cotton, the numbers come much clos-
er to 200 million acres more needing to be farmed. That is
our pollinator and wildlife habitat we are talking about, as
I mentioned, this does apply to beekeeping.
organic MateriaL anD bioDiVersity
Many of the proponents of organics will talk about
how regenerative farming returns organic material to the
February 2019
ground that conventional farming does not. This state-
ment is very misleading, and false, because both methods
return the same amount of organic matter to the soil. In
all farming, MOG (material other than grain) is returned
as fast as possible to the ground, it is not hauled from the
field. Watch a combine run through any crop, organic or
conventional, and anyone can quickly see it is the grain,
seed, or fruits removed, all the rest is returned. While there
are crops such as silage where the whole plant is taken, it’s
a small percentage, and in truth organic farmers are more
likely to do that than conventional farmers.
In organic farming that MOG is plowed under to “im-
prove soil health”, while in most conventional farming it is
left on top as “no till” where it decomposes during the off
season to be lightly disced under in spring. While it makes
a great story to plow in the organics, it takes diesel fuel to
do it. Many studies done over decades show us that no till
is generally superior to conventional plowing practices.
They show the cost in erosion and soil health is not worth
the expense. No till has been supported and encouraged
as the best soil practice for decades. No till was developed
to prevent soil erosion, reduce soil compaction and inputs
such as diesel, and reduce damage to soil microbes.4 Turn-
ing soil over causes oxidation and exposes it to erosion
from wind and water. This tillage can increase soil com-
paction and washout. All the organic material gains made
are temporary, no matter which type of farming you do,
only last anywhere from a few months to a couple of years
depending on soil types and weather, after which the soil
returns to its previous carbon levels.
Here in the Midwest we fight hard to increase the soil
carbon points for each season. We would be tickled to
death if a cover crop plowed in provided lasting and pe-
rennial improvements. Many farmers plant cover crops
such as radishes and parsnips to break up soil and increase
organic materials. Unfortunately those gains are always
temporary. I happen to live in Illinois now but grew up in
central Iowa. Where I grew up our soil was naturally 3-5
points of carbon (measurement of organics), while here in
southern Illinois we struggle to ever get to a 3 using every
trick in the book. Every point of carbon in the soil cuts
your fertilizer inputs in half. Even after a season of tilled-
in cover crops, this soil reverts back to its normal state
within a season or two. (This is true with some conven-
tional inputs as well, though things like lime to balance
pH may last 3-5 years.)
Another claim of organic management practices is that
it reduces CO2 through tillage. It is suggested that plow-
ing in plant material would help sequester carbon. This
is a very misleading idea. While you are plowing under
the plant, you are plowing up the roots, and exposing the
soil to wind, sun, and rain, while releasing the previously
plowed in carbon. At best it is a zero sum game and, if you
factor in the diesel fuel required to accomplish it, common
sense tells you to accept that it is equal at best. In a meta-
analysis of studies comparing conventional and organic
farming, there was no consistent difference in the amount
of sequestered carbon, so the benefit of carbon reduction
attributed to organic farming lacks support.5
The last point on soil health concerns biodiversity. It has
been said that organics have a much higher level of biodi-
versity in the soil. While there is some basis to the claim,
we have to ask more detailed questions. This biodiversity
includes many things we would deem as extremely harm-
ful, and many others which are of unknown or dubious
value. Organics rely on waste products from animals to
211
put nitrogen in the ground. These waste products contain
many bad things such as E.coli, mycotoxins and aflotox-
ins. In modern farming, we use nitrogen directly, it is the
same chemical with the same results; one uses direct ap-
plication, while the other relies on waste products and de-
composition. Is more biodiversity really of benefit when
some of it is actually bad for you? The soil itself maintains
a normal level of this biodiversity, and our farming, or-
ganic or otherwise, creates only temporary changes.
Our review of the science so far indicates that, in spite
of what you may hear, there is still a great deal of
ambiguity in the data regarding the nutritional value
and health benefits of organic food. Food Sentry’s
own data show more than 50 organic food recalls
in the past year in Canada and the U.S. The reported
contaminants have included Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria
monocytogenes, cadmium and mycotoxins.( from www.
Foodsafety news)
The use of the word “chemicals” is often a bit of mystery
magic intended to scare you. Nitrogen is a chemical, no
matter how you put it on the roots.
Right now in modern agriculture there is a cool trend to
apply micronutrients to the soil in the furrow as seeds are
planted. Did you know that plants actually rely on the rhi-
zobacteria to stimulate growth? These are normally pres-
ent in the soil (if not, nothing grows); modern agriculture
is actually adding them as we plant, to increase the growth
rate of young plants. As an industry these guys are on top
of things! The future trends for farming and the amount of
details worked on by these leaders is staggering.
key Points
• Land is far from sterile or even damaged
• Increased yields mean less acreage used
• Crop rotation is mainly for weed control
• Yields continue to rise with no end in sight
The bottom line is, modern agriculture is not killing the
soil and is in fact performing yield miracles that allow us
to grow more food on less acreage. We should look at the
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) report.6 North
America and parts of Europe are the only areas with a sur-
plus of food. Here in the U.S. the people entrusted to pro-
duce our food are doing so without damaging the soil, and
doing everything they can to increase yields while lower-
ing inputs and environmental impacts. Sure we have some
missteps, but overall the green revolution brought on by
modern agriculture has allowed as living a wonderful,
well fed life our grandparents could only dream of.
https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agricul-
ture-better-for-the-environment is a great read on
the subject of which is better for our planet.
https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutri-
tion/en/ is a must read if you want to talk agriculture
to your friends
Next month is pesticides and spraying practices. Comments
and questions? email me at Gm_Charlie@frontier.com.
Miller, a physician and molecular biologist at Stanford University,
writes that while some tout organic farming as a sustainable way to
feed the planet’s expanding population, the evidence argues oth-
erwise. Organic farming, he says, could work well for certain lo-
cal environments on a small scale, but such farms produce far less
food per unit of land and water than conventional ones. Organic
agriculture’s low yields, he adds, impose various stresses on farm-
land and especially on water consumption. He cites a British meta-
analysis that found “ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching and
nitrous oxide emissions per product unit were higher from organic
systems” than conventional farming systems, as were “land use,
eutrophication potential and acidification potential per product
unit.” Increasing the scale of organic production, he argues, would
increase the pressure for the conversion of more land to farming
and more water for irrigation, both of which are serious environ-
mental issues. Miller also states that organic farming’s exclusion
of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is illogical and unsus-
tainable. He writes: “the exclusion from organic agriculture of or-
ganisms simply because they were crafted with modern, superior
techniques makes no sense.” Miller concludes: “In recent decades,
we have seen advances in agriculture that have been more environ-
mentally friendly and sustainable than ever before. But they have
resulted from science-based research and technological ingenuity
by farmers, plant breeders and agribusiness companies, not from
social elites opposed to modern insecticides, herbicides, genetic
engineering and ‘industrial agriculture.’”
4 https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/06/02/no-till-agriculture-
offers-vast-sustainability-benefits-so-why-do-organic-farmers-
reject-it/ is a good summary.
5 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3357676/
6 https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/en/ is a
must-read if you want to talk agriculture with your friends.
Charles Linder is a serious sideliner running bees for honey and pol-
lination in the Midwest. He is a semi-retired Manufacturing Engineer
and spent the last 12 years of that career with CNH, building combines
and harvesting crops worldwide. He has lived on farms all his life, and
is still involved with day to day operations of growers and farmers.
E. Suhre Bees
Package Bees available April and May
Queens available April through October
For information, pricing or ordering
call Eric (530) 228-3197

references
1 https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/
yieldtrends.html
2 http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/365348/datafeature2_fig01_1_.gif
3 https://www.wsj.com/articles/henry-i-miller-organic-farming-is-
not-sustainable-1400194137 Original article behind paywall, sum-
marized here by Meridian Institute: In this opinion piece, Henry I.

212 American Bee Journal

N
o one knows exactly when
some of the ancient hunting
wasps stopped chasing their
meals and opted for veggies. We sim-
ply don’t have detailed records of
early transitional species. What we do
know is that some descendants of the
early Crabronidae family of wasps
gave up meat in favor of pollen, even-
tually becoming bees.
By 80 million years ago, we had
fully-formed social bees equipped
with all the paraphernalia of modern
pollen eaters. In fact, a bee preserved
in New Jersey Cretaceous amber is a
dead ringer for some of today’s sting-
less honey bees.1 Still, we don’t know
when the changes occurred. In the
typical way of evolution, the transi-
tion was probably a series of chance
events that turned into something
good for both bees and plants.
But how could it happen? Well,
imagine this. Mama wasp goes hunt-
ing for food and pounces on a small
beetle resting on an inconspicuous
green flower. She zaps it with her
stinger, then flies the helpless creature
home to feed her young. But after she
drops the insect in the nest, mama
discovers something clinging to her
thorax.
She tries to brush it away, but it
transfers to her leg. She swipes it with
another leg, but it sticks there, too.
Like a piece of Velcro, a pollen grain
adheres to everything it touches.
Vexed, she finally drags her leg across
the stunned beetle where it sticks like
February 2019
glue. Relieved to be rid of the thing,
she mutters under her breath, “There,
kid, eat that too.”
the bee is born
Most likely, this scenario — or
something like it — played out over
and over until pollen became a regu-
lar part of the wasp diet. Maybe the
offspring thrived on this food, or per-
haps the mama wasp flourished be-
cause she no longer needed to tussle
with so many unfriendly entrées. In
any case, pollen most likely became
part of the diet before it became the
main event. Perhaps, over the mil-
lennia, pollen became a greater and
greater portion of the menu: Pollen
Medley. Pollen Glazed with Nectar.
Pollen Primavera with Minced Beetle.
More hairs appeared on the insect’s
body to help collect pollen, and later,
the hairs became branched. Eventu-
ally, the descendants of the Crabroni-
dae sported the complete pollen op-
tion — hairy bodies, antenna cleaners,
electrostatic charges, pollen brushes,
combs, and presses. They foraged in
a world where the flowers had also
changed. Newly evolved flowers had
eye-catching colors, alluring odors,
and sweet rewards. Suddenly — geo-
logically speaking — these insects
separated from their ancestors and
the bee was born.
nutritious PoLLen
If some wasps began eating pollen
by accident, nutritious pollen must
have already been available in the
environment. Indeed, a recent finding
of a beetle in ancient amber seems to
support that idea.2
The fossilized beetle, Cretoparacucu-
jus cycadophilus, was found preserved
in amber along with pollen grains
that appear to belong to an ancient
cycad. Some evolutionary biologists
believe that cycads were pollinated
by beetles long before flowering
plants appeared on Earth, perhaps as
early as 250 million years ago.
The researchers reasoned that the
preserved beetle was a cycad pollina-
tor based on a number of clues. The
proximity of pollen along with the
shape of the mandibles, the presence
of maxillary palps (mouthparts com-
mon in today’s pollinators), and the
fact that modern descendants of the
beetle still collect cycad pollen, all in-
dicate an established relationship.
Since insects were consuming pol-
len long before wasps began using
it as baby food, pollen was probably
already quite nutritious. If beetle pol-
lination was advantageous to cycads,
cycad pollen most likely evolved to
attract them. From there, the leap to
other insect pollinators was almost
inevitable.
a strange fooD
No matter how you look at it, pollen
is on odd menu item. Pollen contains
the male gametes of a plant. Of all the
edible plant parts — leaves, stems,
flowers, roots, fruits — it’s hard to
213
Agapostemon: A striped sweat bee, Agapostemon, collects
yellow pollen, the most common color.
imagine gametes being a hit. But in
fact, pollen is a nutritional power-
house, responsible for multiple lines
of animal life and a complex web of
plant/pollinator co-dependencies.
A vast number of species eat pollen,
and an incredible variety of pollen
grains exist to feed them.
The diversity of pollen is even
more mind-bending when you con-
sider that many plants are pollinated
by wind alone. Wind-borne pollen
— the type that makes some folks
wheeze and sneeze — is small and
light, allowing it to travel for miles
on soft currents of air. In compari-
son, animal-mediated pollen is often
large and bulky and crammed with
nutrients. While animal-friendly pol-
len is expensive for a plant to make,
it has a much better chance of reach-
ing its target than wind-blown pol-
len — a perfect example of nature’s
economy.
In order to harvest the many types
of pollen available to them, bees de-
veloped a panoply of pollen-collecting
variations. Depending on what kind
they collect, some bees have small
hairs packed closely together, while
Bees on mariposa lily: A long-horned bee, Melissodes, and
two small sweat bees, Halictus (Seladonia), collect pink pollen
on the Oregon high desert.
others have long hairs spaced farther
apart. Honey bees, stingless bees, and
bumble bees carry pollen in moist-
ened pellets, while most bees carry it
in patches of hair located on their legs,
abdomen, or thorax. Some bees swal-
low it whole and regurgitate it later,
and many bees just steal it from other
bees. Truly, it’s a zoo out there.
fooD that tastes gooD
Living creatures like food that tastes
good. In fact, things that have gone
bad or are dangerous to eat generally
don’t taste all that great. Indeed, their
foul taste warns us away. Since bees
love nectar, honey, and syrup — all
things that taste good to humans too,
I assumed pollen must be tasty. So
one day, I popped a few bee-collected
pollen pellets in my mouth just to see.
I cannot stress my discovery enough:
Pollen tastes vile.
Afterwards, I heard that some pol-
len is worse than others, and I prob-
ably just tried an unfortunate sample.
So I retained an open mind – at least
until a few months later, when I was
manning a honey booth at a local fair.
I was serving little squares of comb
honey on crackers when a gentleman
at the next table gave me a piece of
dark chocolate infused with pollen
pellets, a confection he had purchased
from another vendor.
Being an aficionado of dark choco-
late, I was delighted, even though I
was horrified at the price he’d paid.
Since I didn’t know him, I especially
appreciated the kind gesture. I eager-
ly peeled back the gold foil and took
a bite.
Honestly, I didn’t know it was pos-
sible to desecrate a piece of chocolate
to that degree. In fact, I didn’t know
something could taste that bad with-
out killing you. I immediately chased
it with a mouthful of honeycomb and
tried to choke the whole thing down
while I graciously thanked the guy
who was standing there watching me.
If not, I would have spit.
reasons for bitter
The question is simple: Consider-
ing that evolution created plants with
sweet nectar, alluring oils, heavenly
scents, and gorgeous colors, what’s
with pollen? Must gametes be so
gross?

Green pollen: A honey bee with green Ceanothus pollen. Leafcutter on thistle: This leafcutting bee, Megachile (Saya-
pis), collected purplish-blue pollen from a thistle.

214 American Bee Journal

Blue pollen of scilla: This honey bee has collected a shiny
pellet of blue pollen from Scilla siberica.
My first thought was that bees may
have a sensory spectrum different
from our own. Just like they can’t see
red, maybe they can’t taste vile. On the
other hand, perhaps a more practical
aspect is involved. Maybe plants don’t
want bees to be too greedy for it. If it
were overly delicious, the bees might
not leave enough for pollination.
In a honey bee colony, the nurse
bees are the primary consumers of
pollen. They digest the pollen, which
provides them with the nourishment
they need to secrete brood food. Their
glandular secretions are fed to the
young larvae until they gradually
transition to bee bread. Is it possible
that fermented bee bread is tastier
than freshly-caught pollen? Maybe. I
have yet to try it.
In solitary bees the adults seldom
eat pollen. Small mounds of pollen
mixed with nectar are left for the
larvae to eat without adult interfer-
ence. So once again I wonder, does
pollen mixed with nectar taste better
than raw pellets? Certainly, chocolate
doesn’t help. Making pollen attrac-
tive — but not too attractive — was
probably an evolutionary strategy in
the best interest of plants.
sensing the fLaVor
Honey bees generally don’t taste
pollen with their mouthparts until
they eat the bee bread. Foragers that
collect pollen stuff it into their pollen
baskets, and later upload the pellets
to the hive. However, they most likely
February 2019
Multicolored pollen baskets: This bumble bee, Bombus,
changed flowers mid-foraging trip, something honey bees sel-
dom do.
do taste the pollen through the recep-
tors on their antennae and feet. This
seemed like a reasonable explanation
for the bees’ tolerance to bitterness
until some researchers found that
honey bees do not detect bitterness
with their antennal or tarsal sensors.3
Does that mean bitterness is not im-
portant to bees?
In my quest for an answer I found
a paper entitled, “Bees found to use
pollen’s taste to determine which
flowers to visit.”4 The bees in this
study were common eastern bumble
bees, Bombus impatiens, and the pollen
was purchased. In the experiments
described, the bumble bees were of-
fered pollen laced with powdered
quinine, cellulose (control), or su-
crose — all of which were presented
on white artificial anthers.
Results showed the bees spent the
most time collecting sucrose-laced
pollen and the least time collecting
quinine-laced pollen. When the bees
were presented with different colored
flowers placed close to the artificial
anthers, the bees collecting quinine-
laced pollen were the most likely to
switch to a different color flower. The
researchers speculated that the bees
tasted the pollen when they groomed,
so after grooming, bees were more
likely to change flowers.
I finished the paper with more
questions than answers. If bees don’t
like bitter pollen, why is pollen bitter?
Could the bees in the experiment be
responding to quinine in particular
rather than bitter in general? Clearly,
more work needs to be done.
the structure of PoLLen
The pollen grain is designed to pro-
tect the plant’s male genetic material
as it is transferred from one flower to
another. In order to assure the genetic
message is not scrambled in transport,
or spoiled by bad weather, it is locked
within several concentric layers.
In the center of the grain, the ge-
netic package floats in a pool of cy-
toplasm. The cytoplasm acts like a
cushion, but also provides the rich
food source that bees require.
The cytoplasm is tucked inside a
tough cellulose layer known as the
intine.
The intine is wrapped in another
layer called the exine. The exine,
made of a substance known as spo-
ropollenin, is designed to fend off en-
vironmental hazards like ultraviolet
radiation, moisture, drying, changes
in pressure, and fluctuations in pH.
Finally, the exine is coated with an
extremely sticky substance called pol-
lenkitt, which enables pollen to ad-
here to flowers without being blown
or washed away. The stickiness also
allows bees to clump it together in
pellets. The odor, color, and taste of
pollen also originate in the pollenkitt.
All these protective layers, especial-
ly the inner capsule of cellulose, make
pollen extremely hard to digest. But
bees can penetrate pollen’s weak spot
— the germinal pore — with enzymes
215
that allow them to digest most, if not
all, of the grains. An examination of
bee feces will reveal digested pollen
grains that look like popped balloons.
In those, everything is gone except for
the tough cellulose husk. Some grains
are only partially deflated, and some
remain whole.
a coLorfuL Package
One of the first things beekeepers
notice about pollen is its color. Pollen
loads come in many shades of yellow,
white, orange, pink, blue, gray, green
and purple. The subtle variations in
color often give us a clue as to where
the bees foraged.
Because honey bees have flower
fidelity, the pellets on their legs are
a consistent color throughout. Other
bee species, such as bumble bees, may
have pellets layered with color like
neapolitan ice cream. I wondered, do
bees care about the color of pollen, or
is that delight reserved for humans?
Does the coLor Matter?
We know that bees are attracted
to flowers based on their scent and
color, including ultraviolet patterns
humans cannot see.5 We also know
that bees scouting for food sources
may bring home samples of nectar
and pollen from flowers they visited.
But some scientists have concluded
that honey bees are not good at deter-
mining the nutritional value of pollen,
especially in the field.6 Honey bees
have been known to collect sawdust
and coffee grounds, for example, al-
though these items apparently get the
nix from nurse bees whose job it is to
sort through the groceries. But if the
odor or color of pollen were impor-
216
tant to bees, why would they bring
home such unappealing particles?
We know that the choice of pollen is
sometimes made based on the physi-
cal characteristics of the flowers or
the size of the pollen grains. Honey
bees avoid pollinating alfalfa flowers
because of the spring-loaded petals
that bop them on the head. To collect
alfalfa nectar, the bees go through the
back of the flower where they touch
no pollen. Honey bees also avoid
plants like tomatoes, which require
buzz pollinators to release the grains.
In addition, honey bees often refuse
to collect pollen that is too big and un-
gainly, such as hibiscus.7
no cLue to coLor
After an extensive search, I have
found no evidence that pollen color
is a selection criterion for bees. One
paper speculates that certain colors
may make pollen especially visible to
animal eyes (pollinators) or may hide
pollen from other animal eyes (con-
sumers), but the study was mostly
conjecture and didn’t discuss bees in
particular.8
Bees of all types make foraging de-
cisions based on the color and scent of
flowers. Once they get into a flower,
it appears to be the sweetness of the
nectar or the odor of the pollen that
commands their attention. Perhaps
the odor of pollen is much more com-
pelling than either the color or the fla-
vor — a situation that reminds me of
coffee.
For now, the reasons for the gor-
geous colors and bitter taste of pollen
remain an evolutionary mystery. Per-
sonally, I will continue to admire and
photograph bee-collected pollen, but
I will pass on eating it in any form,
regardless of how it’s disguised.
references
Michener CD, Grimaldi DA. 1988. The old-
est fossil bee: Apoid history, evolutionary
stasis, and antiquity of social behavior.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-
ences of the United States of America, 85(17):
6424-6.
Cai C. et al. 2018. Beetle pollination of cy-
cads in the Mesozoic. Current Biology 28
(17): 2806-2812. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
cub.2018.06.036.
De Brito Sanchez MG. 2011. Taste percep-
tion in honey bees. Chem Senses 36(8): 675-
92. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjr040
Yirka, B. 2016. Bees found to use pollen’s
taste to determine which flowers to visit.
Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2016-
07-bees-pollens.html#jCp
Muth F, Papa, DR, Leonard AS. 2015. Color
learning when foraging for nectar and
pollen: bees learn two colors at once. Pub-
lished by the Royal Society. DOI: https://
doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0628
Permal SF, Currie RW. 2001. The influence
of pollen quality on foraging behavior in
honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) Behavioral
Ecology and Sociobiology 51: 53-68.
Mattingly R. 2012. Honey-Maker: How the
Honey Bee Worker Does What She Does.
Portland, Oregon. Beargrass Press.
Pacini E, Hesse M. 2005. Pollenkitt — its
composition, forms and functions. Flora
200: 399-415.
Rusty Burlew has stud-
ied agriculture, honey
bees, and environmen-
tal science for over 30
years. She is a passion-
ate advocate of native
bee conservation and
founded the Native Bee
Conservancy in Wash-
ington State. https://honeybeesuite.com or
email her at rusty@honeybeesuite.com.
American Bee Journal
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February 2019 217
218 American Bee Journal
 “You Never Can Tell With Bees”
Dr. Tom Seeley interviewed by Dr. Leo Sharashkin,
HorizontalHive.com

The apiary on Appledore Island, which offered a perfect isolated setting for researching swarms’
house-hunting behavior. Photo by Tom Seeley.

To answer this question, I built a hive weren’t ventilating their nest as

Editor’s note: This is the fourth sensitive CO2 analyzer and I set up much, especially at night when it was
in a series of interviews by Dr. Leo two colonies in hive boxes of the cool. Indeed, on chilly nights, they
of the scientist best known for his same size — one with few bees and had to shut down their ventilating
study of honey bee swarm behavior. the other with lots of bees. And all entirely in order to keep their brood
Previous articles were published in along I was thinking “Oh, this is go- sufficiently warm.
the February 2016, March 2016 and ing to be so beautiful!” But the results So my original hypothesis failed
July 2017 issues of this magazine. came out exactly opposite of what I miserably, and it took me about a
had predicted. The bees in the large week to accept that fact. But this fail-
a beautifuL hyPothesis DisProVeD colony had lower CO2 levels in the ure taught me a very important les-
Dr. Leo Sharashkin: Every time I air inside their hive than did the bees son: You can’t let your ideas get too far
read and reread Honeybee Democracy in the small colony. Why? Because ahead of your data. It’s like a hunter
and your other books, I am amazed at the bees in the big, strong, crowded tracking an animal: You have to track
the number of bee mysteries you’ve colony had a greater need to venti- along behind it. Let your “prey” —
solved. But were there instances late their nest thoroughly for proper your data — lead you along. And es-
when you had a hypothesis about bee thermoregulation and to expel the pecially when you get surprises, pay
behavior that turned out to be totally carbon dioxide from their respira- attention -- you’re onto something.
incorrect? tion. On the other hand, the bees in This is when you might be about to
the smaller colony in the same size discover something. In this case, I dis-
Dr. Tom Seeley: That’s a very valu-
able question! In fact, that’s exactly
what happened with the first study I
did more than 40 years ago. I had what
I thought was a great hypothesis —
one so good and so beautiful that I fig-
ured it had to be correct! The question
was this: what do the bees sense about
their colony that tells them the colony
is strong enough to swarm? After all,
individual bees don’t count their sis-
ters, yet they can sense the strength of
their colony. How do they do that?
I had read about how rotifers — mi-
croscopic animals that live in fresh-
water ecosystems — switch from
asexual to sexual reproduction when
their population density gets high:
A high CO2 concentration triggers
the switch to sexual reproduction. I
thought: could honey bees also use
a high level of CO2 to sense a high
population density in their nests, and The fanning response of honey bees when CO2 was introduced to their hive. Bees
so know when their colony is strong were living in an observation hive so the number of fanners could be counted. Graph
enough to cast a swarm? by Tom Seeley.

February 2019 219

covered that a high level of CO2 in a
honey bee nest elicits a ventilation
(wing fanning) response by the work-
er bees.
The sunrise gassing with calcium cyanide
of a bee-tree colony, in preparation of col-
lection of the bees and their nest for care-
ful description. The tall ladder reaches up
to the nest entrance high up in the tree,
which is marked by a white cloth stuffed in
the entrance opening. Even the cows are
curious about what is going on. In 1975,
dairy cows still got their food by grazing in
a pasture! Graph by Tom Seeley.
The behavior of a tremble dancer. Graph by Tom Seeley.
220
Pay attention to the unexPecteD
Leo: Can you give another example
of such a surprise discovery?
Tom: Yes. I was delighted to discover,
almost by chance, the reason for the
tremble dance performed by bees.
As you know, nectar foragers do
not deposit their loads directly into
storage cells when they return from a
collecting trip. Instead, these foraging
bees pass their loads mouth-to-mouth
to receiving bees who then store the
nectar in cells. As part of an experi-
ment conducted to understand how
the ease (or difficulty) of finding a
nectar receiver affects a nectar forag-
er’s motivation to produce a waggle
dance, I removed overnight most of
the nectar receivers from a colony.
The following morning, I saw that
the nectar foragers returning from the
field did indeed have trouble find-
ing bees willing to receive their loads
of nectar. I also saw that the nectar
foragers refrained from performing
waggle dances (a communication sig-
nal to recruit more foragers to a prof-
itable source), and that they started
performing tremble dances!
The tremble dance is a behavior
in which a nectar forager jiggles her
whole body back and forth, at the
same time rotating her body axis
while walking slowly across the comb.
It was first described by Karl von
Frisch in Germany back in the 1920s,
but its meaning was unknown until I
performed my study. It revealed that
a long search time to find a nectar
receiver bee will trigger a nectar for-
ager to perform this behavior. Later
work showed that the tremble dance
is a “call” for more middle-aged bees
to function as nectar receivers. When
there’s more nectar coming in than
the colony is able to process, nectar
foragers use this signal to get more
help with unloading, thus balancing
nectar collection and nectar process-
ing within a colony.
Learning what triggers the tremble
dance was a finding that came out of
blue, it was fortuitous. If anything,
I’m proud that I didn’t ignore it or
think to myself: “Hmm! That’s weird,
that doesn’t make any sense, I’m just
going to forget that.” No, I saw it
and it was such a striking result that
I could not ignore it and I realized it
must be important to the bees.
That was one of the most pleasing
findings: seeing the unexpected and
then using it as a guide to discover
something important. It’s the same
kind of message, though. I’ve long
learned that when you see something
surprising, don’t ignore it, don’t
think that something didn’t work.
No! Something worked, and you’ve
now stumbled onto a clue that there’s
something cool going on here.
Leo: That’s such a valuable insight!
Was it Winnie-the-Pooh who said:
“You never can tell with bees?” We
actually can tell a great deal today, but
you can’t glean any real understand-
ing by jumping to conclusions.
attention to DetaiL
Tom: Correct. Answering questions
about bee behavior does not always
require super sophisticated tools. But
it does require somebody who likes
to observe the bees carefully, perhaps
with an observation hive, and who is
willing to work through the various
possibilities about what is going on to
find out which one is the reality. Plus
you need to be very patient — some
experiments, for example, require
that you label the individual bees so
you know the age of the bee you are
looking at. It takes weeks of work to
set up such experiments. But in the
end it can all be for naught if you
don’t pay attention to detail.
Let me tell you this story. In the
1990s and 2000s, I did a lot of work
on Appledore Island off the coast of
Maine. It has no indigenous honeybee
population, and it’s far enough from
American Bee Journal
the mainland that swarms cannot
reach it or fly from it. This isolation
provides a perfect setting for some re-
search projects.
When I was studying how a swarm
chooses its future home (later re-
ported in Honeybee Democracy), my
colleagues and I would take out
a half dozen colonies and make a
little apiary on the island. This way,
instead of going all the way back to
the mainland for new bees for each
experiment, we could make artificial
swarms right there, and we figured
out how to do it so the bees wouldn’t
go back to their original nest. Basi-
cally, if you cage them for three days
and you feed them heavily, bees
largely forget about their old nest.
Then when you shake them out of
the cage, they function like a swarm.
A few go home, but the vast majority
do not.
One afternoon we finished an ex-
periment and took down the artificial Many bee experiments do not require complex equipment. On Appledore Island, ar-
swarm. We did this at twilight — tificial swarms were set up on a porch. This allowed for comfortably monitoring the
behavior of the scout bees during the house-hunting process. Graph by Tom Seeley.
dump bees into a nuc box (a 5-frame
hive); the bees will crawl inside their
new home without making orienta- that direction, except in the apiary. a lack of attention to detail can inter-
tion flights, so they don’t learn that Foolishly, I did not realize at first that fere with your work.
the nuc box’s location is their new these bees had found the empty nuc
“home address.” This was important box that I had left sitting atop a hive Leo: You certainly won’t get very re-
because we didn’t want them to come in the apiary, and were excited by liable readings if you set up your rain
back to this site, which we intended their discovery of a marvelous home sensor under a balcony where some-
to use in another experiment with an- site. Eventually, I figured out what one is watering begonias! But at least
other swarm. was happening and took away the many of these oversights can be eas-
After dark, we screened the en- nucleus box so that our experiment ily corrected.
trance of the nuc box and moved it to could proceed.
the apiary, about 300 yards away. The I know that’s probably not a very PLease be safe!
next morning, I transferred the bees, funny story; it just goes to show how Tom: Fortunately, oversights can be
frames and all, from the nuc box into corrected, assuming you stay safe
a regular hive in the apiary, their new and sound! I had one experience that
home. Then what happened? Well, I hesitated to share, but I ended up
foolishly, I left the empty nuc box, including it in Honeybee Democracy.
with its entrance wide open, sitting Back in the early 1970s, I was describ-
on top of one of the hives in the api- ing the natural nests of bees. Part of
ary, and I completely forgot about it. this research involved the procedure
In our next experiment, conducted of finding a bee tree and then col-
on the side of the island away from lecting the section of the tree with
the apiary, we set up a new swarm the colony inside. My method was
and a set of experimental nest boxes this: in the early morning before the
for the bees to choose from. As I sat bees start flying, I would go into the
by the swarm waiting for the scouts woods, climb a ladder to the nest,
to find our nest boxes, I suddenly saw spoon in some powdered calcium cy-
(from the liveliness and direction of anide (“Cyanogas”), and seal the en-
the scout’s dancing) that a scout bee trance opening with a cloth plug. This
had discovered a superb home site chemical reacts with the moisture in
on the side of the island away from the nest, producing cyanide gas and
our experimental nest boxes. It was killing the colony, but it’s very quick
obvious, from the persistence of her and pretty humane — I think it was
dance, that whatever this site was, justified for the scientific purpose.
she really, really liked it! Soon, other
scouts were also dancing excitedly Tom Seeley’s next book is coming out Leo: I appreciate your being straight-
for this location. At this point, I de- May 2019. It sums up a lifetime of discov- forward about that part. I’d like to
termined the scouts’ beeline to their ery of bees’ natural ways, and is full of point out that the population of wild
find and I searched everywhere in information you have not seen before. colonies in that forest was probably

February 2019 221


Hive Plastic
unaffected by the loss of the individ-
ual colonies you took. In fact, more
wild colonies are killed every day
through logging and “pest extermina-
tion” than what you destroyed during
that one-time study forty years ago. I
know how much you care about bees,
so I wanted to say this “in your de-
fense”, putting things into perspec-
tive, because the image of “Tom See-
ley killing wild colonies” might not
sit well with all readers! But tell me
the rest of the story.
Tom: The calcium cyanide came in
a can and had a metal lid, much like
a paint can. To dispense the calcium
Covering the top of the hive with plas-
tic over the winter is not as crazy as you
might think. In fact, bees living in trees
carefully seal the top of their nest with
propolis. In a horizontal hive with a well-
insulated top, the space around the win-
tering cluster stays perfectly dry, while
the empty portion of the hive collects
condensing moisture that can be reused
by the bees, saving them dangerous wa-
ter-collection trips in early spring. Photos
by Leo Sharashkin.
222
cyanide powder, I’d open the can and
quickly spoon some into the nest. Of
course, I would hold my breath while
I was opening the can and handling
this horribly dangerous material.
One time, when I was performing
this procedure, I dropped the can!
And the powder went everywhere.
There was suddenly this big cloud
of cyanide gas — and I am up on the
ladder thinking: “OK, now what do
I do?” All I could do is take a deep
breath before the gas came up, then
climb down, and quickly leave the
area. I realized then just how utterly
careless I was in treating this material
so cavalierly and working all by my-
self up on a ladder with an old spoon.
I think that when male human beings
are about 18 or 20 years old, their
judgment is often poor, particularly
on issues of safety.
Leo: Well, you don’t have to be 20
years old for that! I confess having
fallen off the ladder twice while hang-
ing my swarm traps, luckily without
sinister results. But a friend beekeep-
er told me about a $20,000 swarm he
once caught. That is, he fell off a very
tall ladder when collecting it, and
spent $20,000 in medical bills to re-
pair himself.
Thanks for bringing up the issue of
safety, we should all be more careful.
You know, every time I watch a swarm
of 10,000 bees moving at high speed
without bumping into each other, or
a bee carefully landing by the creek to
get some water, I wonder if their ac-
cident rate is lower than ours!
want soMe MineraL water?
Tom: Water collection is actually
very dangerous business for the bees.
Many of them do perish — either
by drowning or, in winter or early
spring, by taking in cold water and
chilling their muscles to the point of
being unable to fly back to the hive.
Leo: No doubt this is the reason some
beekeepers hold that a moderate
amount of water condensation inside
the hive is actually beneficial. If wa-
ter condenses in the right place, away
from the wintering cluster and combs,
bees can collect it without leaving the
nest. I’ve seen it in my horizontal
hives, and Russian beekeepers even
make condensation plates, providing
a “water fountain” for the bees right
inside the hive.
You describe in The Wisdom of the
Hive how bees allocate their foraging
workforce, choosing between sources
of nectar based on nectar abundance,
sweetness, and proximity to the hive.
Do bees estimate the value of differ-
ent water sources in a similar way:
water temperature, maybe mineral
content, or some other parameters?
Tom: Most often we find bees going to
the closest sources of water; distance is
probably the most decisive factor. The
longest distance I’ve ever seen is prob-
ably 300 yards, and that was because
there wasn’t a good source of water
nearby. Bees are trying to find and col-
lect water from a source that does not
require much cost to get to, and there
is a physiological explanation for that.
When the bee is filled up with wa-
ter, how she gets home depends on
Yarosvet, 4, is checking a bait hive for
swarms. Please be safe when scaling
trees! Photo by Leo Sharashkin
American Bee Journal
that rather small amount of sugar
she has in her blood. Most bees flying
around don’t have water in their crop,
but sugar solution, so they can release
a little of this food into the midgut
and refuel themselves. A water col-
lector, however, cannot do that. They
are carrying a very dilute, only 2% or
3%, sugar solution, and they can’t use
it to replenish their energy and propel
their flight. That’s because if you try to
run on 2% or 3% sugar solution, you
have to take a lot of water into your
midgut. That water is going to go into
your hemolymph (bees’ equivalent of
blood) and either the bee is going to
experience osmotic shock, or it’s go-
ing to have to work real hard to pump
that water out with the Malpighian
tubules and put it into the hind gut
for defecation. Physiologically, that’s
not a good option at all for the bees.
So I think the energetics of traveling to
and from a water source is of critical
importance, and unless the colony is Bees licking shreds of paper in a composting toilet in early spring, when they are not
desperate for salts, I don’t think they getting enough sodium and other minerals from pollen. Photo by Leo Sharashkin
would travel a much greater distance
to collect water with more salt in it. the pollen does vary from one plant It’s a rich topic, with interesting
species to another, and there can be parallels to the human diet: We need
Leo: It also explains why I never situations where a colony is just not calories, water, protein — but the hu-
catch swarms in bait hives positioned getting enough sodium from pollen. man hunger for salt is historically
more than a few hundred yards from At that stage they become desperate hugely important. That’s what sup-
a water source, and why in arid re- for salt, and I’ve seen that. ported certain trade routes and even
gions you only find bee nests in prox- Spcifically, I once grew borage for played a role in the slave trade in the
imity of a water source. an experiment, and I fed the pot- Old World. There’s a very rich story
It’s interesting that you mention ted plants with liquid fertilizer. One about humans’ need for salt.
salt. All the textbooks say bees col- morning I saw bees all over the soil
lect nectar, pollen, resin, and water where I had just watered those plants. Leo: I can certainly think of more than
outside the hive, but many beekeep- I doubt it was the water that attracted one person who prefers soda to plain
ers are aware that bees will also visit them (there were other water sourc- water! Can it be that bees are likewise
manure puddles. es); probably it was the salt in the fer- selective in terms of the mineral con-
tilizer solution. tent of nectar?
a saLt Lick for your bees
Tom: Yes, that’s probably for the sodi-
um chloride (NaCl). There have been
a number of experiments with salt,
sometimes with very strong results —
researchers have seen bees dancing for
it. Recently, Rachel Bonoan and col-
leagues published a nice study of the
seasonality of salt foraging by honey
bees (see Ecological Entomology 42 (2),
195-201).

Leo: Sounds like a salt lick for deer.

Tom: Yes, and it’s not surprising.

Most herbivores — and bees are her-
bivores — are sodium-deprived. It
would be interesting to know wheth-
er some plants put sodium into their
pollen to boost its attractiveness to the
bees. Mostly plants do not use pollen
as an attractant to pollinators, they
want bees to spread it rather than Some plants may be enriching pollen and nectar with mineral salts to better attract
eat it. But the amount of sodium in honey bees, but there is little we know about it. Photo by Leo Sharashkin

February 2019 223

 erN Cali fo r
Tom: Possibly so. It would be very
interesting to know if some plants
orth Nia
make their nectar more attractive
to bees by putting some sodium in N PaCkage
aCkage Bees
ees
it. And they would not need to add QuAlity itAliAn And
much. Almost all animals are exqui- CArniolAn Queens
sitely sensitive to the presence of so- All bees fed Fumagilin Fall & Spring
dium at very low concentrations. We
do not need a lot, but we need some Powell APiAries
— our nerves don’t work without 4140 Co. Rd. KK
sodium. You are touching upon sub- Orland, CA 95963
jects that have not been fully investi- Phone: 530-865-3346
gated yet. There is certainly so much Fax: 530-865-3043
more we can discover about the hon- Package Delivery Available
ey bees’ hunger for salt.
Member:
California Bee Breeders Assoc.
Leo: One topic that fascinates me is American Honey Producers Assoc.
whether bees have feelings and even
collective emotions. Can we discuss it
next?

Tom: Well, I’ll give it a try!

Dr. Tom Seeley is Professor of Biology
at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. A
leading researcher of honeybee ecol-
ogy and behavior, he is widely known
for his award-winning books Honeybee
Democracy and The Wisdom of the Hive.
His recent research explores how wild
honey bees survive Varroa without
any treatments, and what beekeeping
practices could help mimic the success
of the wild colonies. Dr. Seeley’s next
book The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story
of the Honey Bee in the Wild is coming
out May 2019.

Dr. Leo Sharashkin is a full-time

natural beekeeper in the Ozarks of
southern Missouri. His treatment-free South Florida
apiaries are entirely composed of local South Georgia Apiaries Bees-N-Honey
survivor stock, and he sells nucs. Dr.
Leo catches feral swarms, uses easy-to- Quality Italian Queens 18299 Clearbrook Circle
Boca Raton, FL 33498
build horizontal hives, and leads natu-
ral beekeeping workshops around the
Queen cells Queens and Nucs
country (coming up: Charleston, SC, for pick-up only at: available for sale
March 16-17, 2019, and Rockbridge, For information and pricing please
300 Wisteria Ln.
MO, May 4-5, 2019). He is editor of call, text or fax.
Keeping Bees With a Smile, a compre- Baxley, GA 31513
Credit cards accepted.
hensive book on natural beekeeping, Tel (912) 366-9022
Phone: (561) 715-5715
and a regular contributor to American Fax (912) 367-0012 Fax: (561) 423-0304
Bee Journal. His website (including free
plans and information): www.Hori-
zontalHive.com
Dr. Tom Seeley and Dr. Leo Sha-
rashkin will present a joint Natural
Beekeeping Conference in Charles-
ton, SC, on November 16, 2019.

224 American Bee Journal

O
n a brief warm sunny after- porate some of my techniques into staple prongs pointing up. Removing
noon, I hived five packages the way they already hive packages, the little cover revealed the top of the
of bees (see Figure 1), know- which is usually the way of things in feeder can. Also visible was a strip of
ing a cold night was coming. When beekeeping. material, which goes into the hole by
I had my 50 packages, mentioned in Before hiving the packages, I lit the feeder can and is attached to the
the previous article, I hived them in a smoker, which I always do. Even queen cage inside the package. Over
two big 25-hive apiaries in two days. though I have done this procedure the years, the material has been a
At the time, none of my neighboring for decades, occasionally something strip of metal, or screen, or currently
beekeepers had ever done that. So I goes wrong, which is easily corrected a plastic strip stapled to the cage.
was on my own. by a precise, surgically placed puff There are three ways to remove a
Years later, while working in the of smoke. Knowing how to use a bee feeder can from the package: the usu-
bee research program at North Caro- smoker properly is a high-level bee- al “vertical” slow way, and my two
lina State University, one of the bee- keeping skill, which also depends on other techniques consisting of anoth-
keeping courses provided each stu- constantly and carefully observing er slow way and a fast way. The usual
dent with new hive equipment and a the bees while listening to changes in way is to pry the feeder can up with
package of bees. For almost 10 years, their hum. the hive tool. The advice, often given,
I helped students hive their packag- For a package, I pried off the cov- is to keep the top of the feeder can as
es while troubleshooting all sorts of er without splitting the thin wood. horizontal as possible. That keeps the
start-up problems. It will be needed during the hiving feeder can from becoming crooked in
In all those situations, I laid out process. Some beekeepers remove the the cage hole–grinding its removal to
the new apiaries to minimize drift- staples or just reuse the cover with the a halt. The tedious prying from differ-
ing since thousands of bees could be
learning their new hive locations at
nearly the same time. I spread out the
hives and turned them in different di-
rections except Northwest.
As for my five package hives, they
were up on the high 30-inch stands
where I put my top-bar hives (see
Figure 2). I inspect my top-bar hives
without bending over. While I was re-
turning to my frame hive roots with
packages, I was not going to hurt my
back bent over brood chambers that
were essentially on the ground. Veter-
an beekeepers no doubt will wonder,
what are you going to do when the hives
are stacked high with supers? I figure I
have a solution for that, which will
emerge in due time.
First, understand that I do not
claim the following is a comprehen-
sive procedure on hiving a package.
Rather, the description comprises
the main points and crucial details Fig. 1 The five packages shown as a thermal image. They are on my workbench in the
of how I do it. Beekeepers can incor- cool morning air.

February 2019 225

 But when I have numerous pack-
ages to hive, I want the feeder cans
out in seconds, not minutes. So my
fast way is to quickly snatch the pack-
age straight up, just a few inches. In-
stantly, I catch the feeder can when it
pops out of the hole for a split second.
When I work alone with lots of pack-
ages, this quick method is a blessing.
On the other hand, if the feeder cans
are tight in their holes, this quick
method will not work. Then I must
resort to one of the slower methods.
For whichever method works, as the
feeder can leaves the cage, slide the
cage top over the hole to keep the bees
in the cage (see Figure 4).
Next comes queen cage removal.
First, separate the plastic strip from
the top of the cage. Next, thump the
shipping cage on the ground to dis-
lodge the bees. Then briefly open the
shipping cage and give the plastic
strip a couple of shakes to remove
Fig. 2 Part of the apiary layout for the package bees. I have finished hiving the bees, the mass of bees clinging to the queen
leaving the syrup cans on the hives (orange arrows) and the empty shipping cages cage. Quickly remove the queen cage,
under the entrances (blue arrows). I separated the two pairs of frame hives, leaving in and close the shipping cage all in one
between flight space for the dense bee traffic from three five-foot long top-bar hives motion.
over to the right (yellow arrow). These were large power-house hives. No matter the number of packages
I hive up, a flash of queen-hunting
ent sides of the feeder can is difficult. not to let it bind in the cage hole. Now eagerness focuses my attention on
Barely getting a grip around the top the feeder-can weight does not work the queen cage. The young queen at
rim of the feeder can feels like a vic- against its removal. After a bit of pry- this time of her life is usually little
tory. Instantly, the sneaky can ducks ing, draw out the feeder can enough larger than her attendant bees, as-
back in its hole, dashing all hope of to grasp it properly (see Figure 3). suming they are present. I also check
ever seeing bees in the hive and hon- Hold on to the feeder can and turn the to see that the queen is not damaged
ey on the table. Maybe we need a gi- shipping cage upright. Now the can is from handling - no dents in her ab-
ant magnet to pull out the feeder can. ready to remove. domen, and not damaged by hostile
Before trying that, another slow
way to de-can the cage is to merely
lay the cage gently on its side. Then
pry out the feeder can, being careful

Fig. 3 The shipping cage lying on its side
with the hive below (see the top bars and
comb). After some brief prying, the feed-
er can slid out easily. The feeder cans do
not leak while briefly on their sides.
Fig. 4 The feeder can removed, and the cage reclosed. The thin cover is very light-
weight. The bees are eager to leave. They can squeeze under the cover and escape.
Weigh the cover down with the feeder can, holes up to prevent dripping syrup. On the
cover, the staple prongs point up so it fits flush on the cage. The strip attaching to the
queen cage is to the right (arrow), under the state inspection label.

226 American Bee Journal

 Fig. 6 The candy end of the queen cage,
close up, before pushing the adjacent
Fig. 5 Reconfigured for queen introduction. The queen cage will fit into the depression frames closer together. The bees must
I made in the comb right under the top bar. If the frame has foundation, the cage will have access to the cage hole leading to
fit between the tops of the adjacent frames. I will attach the long yellow strip to the the candy (arrow). I have not put a hole in
frame. the candy. The bees must have access to
the screen with the queen behind it. Here
the screen is almost perpendicular to the
bees (for example, no missing parts displaying accepting behavior, I pro- adjacent combs.
from her feet). ceeded as follows. With the queen
While I conduct the above proce- cage out of the shipping cage, one of the strip, projecting upward, for at-
dure, I have begun letting a small can see how the bee producer at- taching the cage to an adjacent frame.
cluster of bees cling all over the queen tached the plastic strip to the cage. Queen cage placement is extremely
cage. Several layers of bees may cover The candy compartment of the queen important. Moreover, the cage must
the screen. So why don’t I shake off cage was in the lowest position dur- be secure up in the bee cluster (see
these bees? ing transit. For queen introduction Figures 5, 6, and 7).
I have studied queen introduction with attendant bees in the cage, the Especially with new woodenware,
in detail in my bee house with 30 ob- candy should be in the highest com- where the frames slide easily on the
servation hives. Using several obser- partment. First, I removed the cork rabbets (frame rests), I would never
vation hives at a time, I have watched to the candy compartment. Next, us- leave the queen cage merely pinched
(day and night) what happens dur- ing a pocketknife and a staple gun, I between the top bars of the frames.
ing the time when bees acclimate to detached the strip and reattached it The frames could easily separate, just
their new queen. That is the very time to the cage so the candy end of the slightly, weakening the grip on the
when beekeepers are advised to leave cage was up. I left an extra long tail queen cage.
the hive alone (about three days).
Now I want to see how the bees in
the shipping cage have been reacting
to their new queen, although the situ-
ation is very disturbed. I gently nudge
the bees, herding them away with my
fingers, until I reveal the ones directly
on the screen of the queen cage.
If the bees are just walking on the
screen, most likely they have already
accepted the queen, although the bees
could have been displaying some
mild hostility towards the queen, and
stopped because of the disturbance (a
false negative). In contrast, if several
bees persist in biting the screen, and
appear to sting between the wires,
that behavior is a very aggressive
queen-rejection response. This hos-
tility toward a new queen is known
as balling, because without the cage
a small ball of hostile workers would
form around the queen. One of the Fig. 7 The frames pushed together with the queen cage in between. The same
packages had this symptom (which queen-cage configuration works with foundation for a beginner without frames with
we will deal with in the next article). combs. See the strategy: the queen and sugar energy, two critical components, are
For the four packages with bees high up and in the heat of the hive.

February 2019 227

 should support the queen candy bet-
ter than the upper position because
the candy may not remain solid in the
hive environment.
While apparently uncommon,
sometimes the solid structure of the
candy fails. The thick semi-liquid
runs down into the lower two com-
partments, letting in the hostile bees
too early. After hostile bees kill the
queen and clean up the candy, the
beekeeper finds only an empty cage
and no sign of the queen. In my book
Top-Bar Beekeeping: Wisdom and Plea-
sure Combined (available at my web-
site), I wanted beekeepers of any hive
design to acquire an extensive under-
Fig. 8 Queen candy failures. With the candy in the upper compartment sometimes standing of queen introduction. So
its solid structure fails. The candy runs into the compartments with the queen and the book has a detailed description
attendants. Hostile bees can enter the cage prematurely and kill the queen. The bee- of queen introduction, including spe-
keeper only finds an empty cage and a missing queen, correctly presumed dead. This cial technical close-up photographs
rare image is from my book Top-Bar Beekeeping: Wisdom and Pleasure Combined. (on pages 182-194). Figure 5.49, seen
The cages were from an experiment on queen introduction from my bee house. here as Figure 8, shows queen cages
with the candy running down into
Understand the condition of the up. The candy position is compatible the lower two compartments. The
colony, which is like a new swarm, with leaving the attendant bees in the candy failure ruined my queen-intro-
its priority on wax production. Un- queen cage. Typically some of them duction experiment, but I got a rare
derstand the microenvironment in perish during the introduction peri- photograph, and it gave me a greater
the gap created by the queen cage. od. Dead attendant bees could block appreciation of how little we know
Festoons of wax-producing bees, en- the queen’s exit if the candy end was about what goes on during the queen
gorged with syrup, will hang from the down. introduction period.
queen cage, pulling at it constantly. If However, if the cage has no atten- While I recommend removing the
the little cage falls out of the warm dant bees, leaving the candy compart- attendant bees from the queen cage
cluster, the queen could chill some- ment in the lowest position would be when requeening an established colo-
where below on a cold spring night. best (though checking the cage for ny, especially during a dearth, hiving
The previous three photographs the queen’s release would be more a package is a much different situa-
showed the candy compartment of difficult since the exit hole cannot be tion. There is no established colony,
the installed queen cage pointing seen from above). The lower position no brood nest, etc. So I leave the at-
tendant bees in the cage, in agreement
with most others. Observations sup-
port this decision. Many package bees
already display accepting behavior
(but be sure to put them through the
introduction process). (Also I wanted
to see firsthand the difficulties I have
heard from other beekeepers. If their
queen cages had attendant bees, the
attendants typically would have re-
mained in the cage. So the same for
me.)
In contrast with some others, I do
not make a hole in the queen candy
with a small nail. Observations from
the bee house support this decision.
Unless the candy is rock hard, a rar-
ity, the bees do not need much help
to remove it. Devoted bees will work
24/7 to remove the candy.
I have learned of a claim that bees
need the hole to work from its edg-
es to get through the candy. Bees do
work from an edge for materials like
Fig. 9 Right before installing the bees. I just sprayed the dislodged bees. Notice the wax for comb construction and need-
bees were on the bottom of the shipping cage. I would quickly pour and shake the ing a distinctive sidewall on founda-
bees into the gap (arrow). The queen cage was under the shipping cage, and the tion to extend the cell walls (which
frame feeder was full. historically, foundation makers had

228 American Bee Journal

to understand). However, queen can-
dy is sweet and edible. I have not seen
bees inside the cage hole chewing the
candy. Rather–they lick it, with their
tongues extended.
Fig. 10 Moments after pouring in the
bees. The dark pile of bees on the hive
floor began to spread out. The upper edg-
es of the combs were still without bees–
but one bee was already out flying! Who
was that photo-bombing super bee?
Fig. 11 A minute or so after the bees went
in. Mostly a single layer of bees covered
the floor, seen as pale new wood. Now
the combs were virtually covered in
bees, the same for the adjacent combs
with the queen cage.
February 2019
Moreover, hive bees, on the out- syrup (see Figure 11). After closing
side of the queen cage, would lick the hive, I shook the remaining bees
the candy right through the screen of out of the shipping cage close by the
the cage, as far as their tongues can entrance.
reach inside, but in most cases they With all the packages hived, I re-
cannot do so; do you know why? A turned to Hive #35, the one balling its
little piece of wax paper on the candy queen cage. From what I have learned
prevents that. about queen introduction in the bee
So how do I know what the bees house, regular beekeeping practices
were doing inside the little hole? In could get its queen killed. To make
my bee house with the observation matters more dire, two other new
hives, I made split-open queen cages. package colonies would show severe
I mounted them on the glass of the queen problems on their very first
observation hives. Specifically, these brood cycles.
queen cages let me see inside their In the next article, we will confront
exit holes, the candy compartments, these package-bee queen problems,
and the two compartments with the and I will share more of my technical
queen and the attendant bees. With- photographs. While it was not typi-
out a hole in the candy, the bees licked cal introductory beekeeping, it was
it, like most any sweet. It probably required for the survival of these new
takes longer to release the queen, colonies.
but that delay, I surmise, is brief, and
gives the bees more time to build out acknowLeDgMents
and prepare new brood cells, collect The author thanks Suzanne Sumner
additional pollen, and in general be- for her comments on the manuscript.
come better established. (On the third Visit TBHSbyWAM.com and Bee-
day, for any colony with a queen still ChildTheBook.com.
in a cage and hive bees showing ac-
cepting behavior, I manually release Dr. Wyatt Mangum,
the queen and watch for hostile be- author of Top-Bar Hive
Beekeeping: Wisdom
havior directly at her. If even one hive and Pleasure Com-
bee is hostile towards the queen, the
bined, is an internation-
queen goes back in the cage, no atten- ally known top-bar hive
dants. I try another direct release in a beekeeper, who started
keeping bees at age 10.
couple of days. With packages, these
measures are exceedingly rare.) He switched all his colonies to top-bar hives
With the frame feeder full of syr- back in 1986, long before it became popular.
He is also an apicultural historian, who blends
up, a frame of foundation next to it, his knowledge of beekeeping history with his
the queen cage mounted on the next study of honey bee behavior. email: wmangum
frame, and adjacent to it a two- to @umw.edu. www.TBHSbyWAM.com
three-frame gap, the hive was ready
for the bees. Figure 9 shows this set-
up, with pine straw floating in the
frame feeder to prevent bee drown-
ings.
Installing the bees was brief. With
them clustered in the shipping cage,
I sprayed them lightly with 1:1 syr-
up. Then I thumped the cage on the
ground. The fallen mass of bees re-
ceived a couple more quick sprays.
I only want to reduce bee flight, not
drench the bees.
I quickly poured the bees in the
gap, shaking out the screen clingers
with a few jolts to the cage. In about
10 seconds, the bees should be in the
hive (see Figure 10). Pouring the bees
in slowly and timidly gives time for
the bees to fly out of the top of the
hive. I wanted the bees to learn the lo-
cation of the hive - best done by com-
ing out of the entrance. I replaced the
other frames as the pile of bees spread
out. Instantly, they began crawling
upward toward the queen cage and
229
230 American Bee Journal
February 2019 231
232 American Bee Journal

MarketPlace
FOR SALE
1000 hives 10-frame two-story on 4-way pallets,
new outfit & queens, excellent condition, available
in May in California. (530) 671-6188.
FOR SALE: Singles and 1 1/2 story hives for sale.
1000 available. Call for Pricing, Jon@(208) 412-
1092 or Golden @ (208) 250-8420. www.golden
beeinc.com
Five frame NUCS for sale mid-April through Fall.
Price dependent on season and quantity of order.
Minimum order of 24 NUCS. No frame trade,
only return of our boxes. Call early to secure your
order. FOB Lewistown PA or Dade City, FL.
Please call W. Fisher Bee Farm for more infor-
mation. 1-800-736-6205. Ask for Aaron.
Cowen Heated top and bottom bar cleaner with
extra SS tub and hot water supply unit purchased
in 2009 less than 40 hours, asking $6000.00.
Item available for pickup in Lewistown, PA or
Dade City, Florida. For more information call
800-736-6205.
Singles for sale, delivery possible on orders over
200. For pricing and availability call: 800-736-6205.
2000 10-frame hives, new queens, on 4-way pal-
lets, very good equipment in FL. Now or after al-
monds in CA. Limited numbers of 4 and 5-frame
deep nucs. Also available in FL starting in March.
Call NOW!! (262) 689-1000.
Make your own Honey Sticks. Complete sys-
tem to start putting your honey in your own
sticks for pennies per stick. Keep the profits
for yourself. www.honeystickmachine.com
Strong, healthy 5 frame Nucs (deep or medium)
available in South Florida starting in April of
2018. Limited quantities of mated queens are also
available. Call Joseph at (561) 715-5715 to place
your order.
HONEY PRICE UPDATES. Call Honey Hot
Line. (763) 658-4193.
PACKAGED BEES AND 5-FRAME NUCS.
TAKING ORDERS NOW FOR 2018. CALL
(231) 735-1203.
For Sale: 200 5-frame nucs and 400 single hives
in Florida. (772) 633-1134.
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING-Net price $1.00 per word per insertion. Initials, letters as in street address, counted as individual words. No advertisement accepted for less than 10
words. Payable cash in advance. Blind Classified 10% additional. (A blind ad is one in which responses are addressed to the ABJ and then forwarded to the advertiser.) Extreme care
always is exercised in establishing the reliability of all advertisers, but the publishers do not guarantee advertisements. Orders close the 20th of the second month preceding cover
date. Send typed copy to : Advertising Dept., American Bee Journal, 51 S. 2nd St., Hamilton, IL 62341 or FAX to 217-847-3660 or e-mail to: abjads@dadant.com.
February 2019
American Bee Journal
PARSONS’ GOLD SOLUTION - The Only
Solution For Keeping Your Honey Bees
Healthy! Herbal Treatment Oil & Jelly
- Bee Grooming Stimulant - Train The
Bees To Do The Work - Healthy Bees
Year Round. No Negative Effects On
Bees, Queen, Wax or Honey. Business
(419) 273-3066; Cell (419) 235-7037.
www.parsonsgoldhoneybees.com #33
Treatment Loaded Syringe - $20.00
plus $8.00 S/H. Checks, Money Orders,
Credit Cards. Parsons’ Gold Apiaries,
c/o Robert B. Parsons, 2092 Twp. Rd.,
195, Forest, OH 45843.
For Sale – 3000 10-frame singles. 2015
queens, new equipment. Also, 5-frame
nucs available. Call Chris (941) 720-
6025.
Bobcat, Hummerbee and Superbee Trailers cus-
tom built. New S450 Bobcat’s, set up with masts
and fifth wheels complete. Fifth Wheels sold
separately. Used Bobcat’s bought, sold and trade-
ins welcome. Custom truck bodies and Custom
smoker boxes, all built by a beekeeper FOR bee-
keepers. www.tropictrailer.com - Eli Mendes
239-340-0484, eli@tropictrailer.com
5 frame Nucs, 10 frame single hives on four-way
pallets, doubles, and story and a half hives, avail-
able year round in large and small quantities. Lo-
cated in the Florida Panhandle. Call for pricing,
Ryan Faircloth 850-510-4627.
FOR SALE: Deep extracting supers, 9-frames per
super. (308) 470-0177.
5 Frame nucs in NorthEast Oklahoma. Available
Late April through Fall. No minimums. Taking
orders now for Spring 2019. www.RoarkAcres.
com Michael Roark (918)578-9201 nucs@
roarkacres.com
Hundreds of boxes with drawn comb. Deeps
+ shallows. Phoenix, Arizona (480) 206-8740.
ATTENTION BEEKEEPERS!!! OUT OF BUSI-
NESS SALE IN CALIFORNIA!!! REDUCED
PRICING!!! TRUCKS DO NOT MEET CALI-
FORNIA CARB REQUIREMENTS. 2 - 2007
Freightliner Flatbeds, 10-Wheelers 23’x8’
bed $30,000 each. 2006 International Flatbed
6-Wheeler 23’x8’ bed $15,000. USED IN BEE-
KEEPING OPERATION. ALL IN EXCEL-
LENT SHAPE. CALL FOR DETAILS - ANNE
661-805-0058.
New Beekeepers Forklift Trailers: 8000 lb. torflex
axle, 17.5/16 ply tires, electric brakes, tilt bed, ex-
panded metal treads. $6,500.00 For photos E-mail:
gcamfab@yahoo.com 269-685-1000 (cell/text).
MITE MEDICATION FOR SALE! ALL
TYPES, BEST PRICES, AND MORE! CALL
OR TEXT 909-800-2695 TODAY
BUSINESS FOR SALE! 600 PLUS HIVES,
COWEN 120 EXTRACTING SYSTEM, HONEY
TANKS, SUPERS, BOBCAT, TRUCKS AND
MORE! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SUC-
CEED! POSSIBLE OWNER FINANCING,
PLEASE CONTACT KEVIN@SARTINFARMS.
COM 909-800-2695
HIVES FOR SALE! DOUBLE DEEPS, GOOD
EQUIPMENT, CALL WITH ANY QUESTIONS
909-800-2695
Top quality cut comb honey. Comb in the jar,
and extracted star thistle, basswood, Florida or-
ange and melaleuca free pepper honey. 10 frame
singles and 5 frame nuc’s available for almonds.
Call Larry at 231-735-1203 or email debbie@
hilbertshoney.com
For Sale: 1000 hives; 10-frame doubles or singles
on 4-way clipped pallets, available after Almond
Pollination 2019. Very good condition. 5-frame
nuc’s available May 24th. Call (559) 974-4042,
Madera, CA.
For Sale: 1000 singles, 500 1 1/2 story on 4-way
pallets available after almond pollination in
CA. Very good condition. Also, 300 5-frame
nucs with new 2019 queens available April/
May. Contact (510) 731-7801.
New 700 --6 5/8 supers w/foundation, painted,
ready for bees. $30 each. (360) 263-2425.
For Sale- 400 strong, heavy 8-frame doubles on
4-way pallets - good equipment. Before almonds
$320 - after almonds $160. OBO (949)407-0369.
FOR SALE: Good bees in newer equipment. Dou-
ble deep 8-frame hives and 1 ½ -story 10-frame
hives available after almonds in California. Call
Mark McCoy (561) 723-2921.
FOR SALE: 8-frame doubles, heavy, 2018
Queens, on 4-way pallets. Newer equipment.
$315.00 before almonds. $175.00 after almonds.
$140.00 second week of May. Cottonwood, CA.
Sam & Joyce Van Vleet, (530) 347-1987.
Supers for sale in California. 6 5/8 supers 10-
frame, 6 5/8 feeders with wooden tops. Cedar
lids. (909) 286-8288.
Bees and equipment for sale. 10-framer before
and after Almonds, new store bought queens. Pick
up 50 miles north of Bakersfield in Terra Bella,
CA. Call mornings: Fred Jones 559-719-9734.
BEES FOR SALE - After Almond Pollination,
10 Frame Double Deep, (951) 906-4254.
500 five frame nucs for sale late April-early
May. Lots of 100 -$125.00 each - Discount
for whole. Southern Arizona 520-730-8884.
garden88@cox.net
FOR SALE: 1000 telescoping lids - $4.00 each,
Kelley wax melter - $600.00, 170 8-frame hive
body with screen bottom boards - $8.00 each, 250
3-lb. empty package cages - $1.00 each. All in
good condition- (301) 416-0486.
4-way clip pallets, hive lids, empty hive boxes,
gallon feeder jars and extracting equipment
(209)324-6873.
Semi-load of double deeps on 4-way pallets for
sale after almonds. Good bees – Good Equip-
ment – 2018 queens. Call Joey McCoy (561)
723-3170.
1000 Bee Hives for sale after almond
bloom. Strong hives. 10 fr. equipment.
New or near new equipment. Sold as
singles or doubles. (530) 476-3211, (701)
226-6202.
5-frame nucs for sale in May - $125.00. 100 or
more $120.00. Bees are state inspected. Nice
equipment. Moses Stoltzfus, W12235 Spring
Creek Road, Black River Falls, WI 54615.
233
West central North Dakota beekeeping opera-
tion. Currently running 4000 plus story and
a half colonies. All 6 5/8” honey supers. 9000
square foot warehouse with employee living
quarters. Cowen 120 system, Cook and Beals
spin float and heat exchanger. 120 plus regis-
tered North Dakota locations and California al-
mond contracts. Complete turn key operation
with trucks, trailers, bobcats or partial sale.
All past production records available. Contact
phones: 701-938-4647 or 701-290-0175. Email
contact: bon@ndsupernet.com
FOR SALE: 5 SEMI LOADS of 1 1/2 story
beehives in excellent shape with new queens.
Available in March after the almonds in Cali-
fornia. Contact Bill Rhodes, 352-516-1134.
Single hives after almonds. 209-600-9905.
2500 10 Frame hives, 5 frame nucs.
Available in CA and CO. 970-856-6710
irishtemperbees@yahoo.com Will fill equip-
ment.
Retiring. 75 colonies, 120 Cowen Decapper De-
boxer, Auger, Spinner, Pump, 1000 6-5/8th Su-
pers, Lids, Pollen Traps, Drip Boards 6-5/8th
End bar machine, Much misc. 951-694-5319
For Sale: New 5-frame nucs with covers, bottoms
and frames. Preassembled and painted. 300 avail-
able. Call Riley 801-471-6910. Based in TX.
2015 Dodge Ram 4500 4X4 Cummins die-
sel, 6 speed auto, 16.5 ft. flatbed, 46000 miles.
Dominisse Honey, Randolph, NE (402) 360-0952.
700 strong honeybee colonies available after
spring 2019 almond pollination. Price: 180/unit
in semiload lots, F.O.B. Wasco, CA. Like new
equipment. Downsizing. Ask for photos. Call
Ed 231-408-7485 or email: edeisele@gmail.com
2007 Freightliner truck, M2 Series, fully cus-
tomized with 25 ft bed, 4 mounted tool boxes,
two 80 gallon fuel tanks, good rubber, 480K
road miles. Price: 25,000. Photos available.
Downsizing. Call Ed 231-408-7485 or email:
edeisele@gmail.com
2017 Turbo II Hummerbee, fully loaded, tall
mast for semi loading, loaded tires, HD hy-
draulic pump, clamp down kit, etc. Only 300
hrs, Price: 44,000. 2013 Hummerbee trailer,
3,500. Photos available. Call for Ed 231-408-
7485 or email: edeisele@gmail.com
Foundation Support Products: Poly foundation
support rods and pins. E-Z installation, reusable
wax foundation support products. Color coded
available, wholesale supplier. Contact; Tepweld@
comcast.net, 717-713-8693. Bees and Baskets
Carlisle Pa.
4 & 5 Frame Nucs For Sale $125-$140. Quantity
Discounts Available. **Almond Field Discount**
You bring the boxes, we’ll fill them. Call for info.
608-553-3470.
2,000, two story, ten frame hives on four-way pal-
lets ready to split after the almonds in Bakersfield,
CA area. Call Ray at 909-709-9192.
For sale, 1,500, two story, ten frame hives after
almonds. Phone Chad at 951-265-7594.
1,000 strong two-story, ten frame hives, excellent
equipment after almonds. Call Steve 951-551-7150.
300 five frame nucs available mid to late April
Northern California pickup. 120$ each. Fresh
queens, good equipment. (530)415-3172
Travis Neves.
Ten frame hive bottom pollen traps.
200 plus. $8 each. Also have other bee
equipment located in Wyoming. Call for
pricing. 801-916-4592 Leave message -
might be out some of March.
Hives and Splits available after CA Pollination,
apx. 600 Deep Boxes w/drawn comb, 400 Deep
Boxes w/foundation, 2014 Ford F450 12’ Bed,
1600 Swinger Forklift. Will sell separately, but
bees have to go first. Serious Inquiries only! 509-
731-1560.
234
For Sale: 5000 6 5/8” shallow supers, 9 frames
per super. 2000 Bottom Boards call for details -
Scott 909-503-3601
3 Cowen stainless honey barrel warming ovens. 9
barrel, 4 barrel, and 4 barrel capacity. Call for in-
formation and pictures. Colorado. 970-566-2337
4 FRAME NUCS - Calm & Gentle Bees. Pickup
in SW MO. Mid-May $145 each. ph 417-882-
8008
LARGE SINGLES - New Equipment - Late May
in SW MO $215 each. These will make honey!!
ph 417-882-8008
HONEY FOR SALE
Excellent clover honey in drums and light beeswax
available. Mark Gilberts Apiaries, (608) 482-1988.
U.S. sweet clover, alfalfa, thistle mix, (9 drums of
black locust-limited supply), white honey, melter
honey, filtered, new drums, excellent honey-
f.o.b. several loads available. Produced by Bald-
win Apiaries, Darlington, WI (608) 776-3700.
Very nice looking & good tasting Nebraska
bottling honey. (402) 319-5125.
CLOVER – Buckwheat, Orange, Tupelo, and
Wildflower – pails or drums. PURE SWEET
HONEY FARM, 514 Commerce Parkway,
Verona, Wisconsin 53593. (608) 845-9601.
Clover, Basswood, Wildflower honey available in
pails and drums in WI. Great tasting! Light bees-
wax available. Call (262) 689-1000.
Honey and beeswax for sale. Clover, Orange
Blossom, Wildflower. Many varietals available.
Smitty Bee Honey (712) 748-4292.
QUALITY HONEY, barrels, your buckets.
Hollenbeck, Kirksville, Missouri. (660) 665-2542
evenings.
Viet Nam, Indian and Brazilian honey
for sale in bulk. Beeswax and bee
pollen in bulk. Please call 908-967-
1484. Email: info@Sarahimpex.com
Premium Michigan Honey from blueberries,
wildflowers and thistle. Selling by truck load.
Call Cory at 269.217.4404.
Premium Florida honeys for all your pack-
ing needs: gallberry, mangrove, pepper,
orange blossom, call Ed 231-408-7485 or Steve
239-896-0777, email: edeisele@gmail.com or
seisele007@gmail.com.
Barrels ND white honey by the drum or truckload.
Call 701-650-0200. mackrillhoney@hotmail.
com
Premium Oregon meadowfoam, blackberry,
clover, alfalfa honey in drums. Prescott Honey
Farms. 541-977-8848.
HONEY AND
BEESWAX WANTED
HONEY WANTED—Extracted or comb.
LEIGHTON’S HONEY, INC., 1203 Commerce
Ave. Haines City, Florida 33844. (863) 422-1773.
FAX (863) 421-2299
HONEY WANTED– all grades. Also, honey barrels
for sale. Contact Pure Sweet Honey Farm Inc., 514
Commerce Parkway, Verona, WI. (608) 845-9601.
Round comb, Fresh, good tasting
Pollen, Varietal Honeys. 800-678-1226.
tasty@zspecialtyfood.com
HONEY PRICE UPDATES. Call Honey
Hot Line. (763) 658-4193.
ROYAL JELLY
BEST 100% PURE FRESH ROYAL JELLY.
$65.00 per kilo + shipping. HIGHEST PO-
TENCY. LOWEST PRICES guaranteed on
large orders. TOP QUALITY. Stakich, Inc.
248-642-7023 X 301
POLLEN
QUALITY, CLEAN, LOW MOISTURE POL-
LEN $5.50/lb. Min. 10 lbs. + shipping. LOW-
EST PRICES guaranteed for large orders.
Stakich, Inc. Phone 248-642-7023 X 301
Fresh 2018 Northern California raw bulk pol-
len available. Available raw uncleaned and
semi-dried and cleaned. Call for pricing at
(916) 224-2211.
Fresh California pollen. Spring blend of wild-
flowers. Selling in bulk and shipping available
to 50 states. Cleaned, dried and frozen or raw.
Call for pricing (916) 956-8869.
Irradiated fresh pollen guaranteed from Cali-
fornia. We have irradiated fresh bee pollen for
sale. For inquiries or to place an order, please
email us at: backroadbeekeeping@gmail.com,
or call 916-716-0302. You can also visit us at
our website at backroadbeekeeping.com
POLLINATION
Bees wanted for the Almonds. Art Harris, 6301
Victor St. #63, Bakersfield, CA 93308 (661) 444-
1470.
Almond Pollination 2019 - We are looking for
over 4,000 additional hives for the 2019 season.
Wintering yards with full service maintenance,
feeding and medication. We have trucks, fork-
lifts and crew to place hives in orchard. You are
paid 50% on February 25th and 50% April 20th.
Visit:www.almondbeepollination.com for more
details. California Almond Pollination Service,
Inc. (209) 202-8915. E Mail: steve@almondbee.
buzz
WWW.POLLINATIONBOARD.COM
Search pollination jobs and submit price offers
directly to farmers. Find pollination contracts.
BEES AND QUEENS
JERRY FOSTER QUEENS quality Carniolan and
hybrid Italian queens at competitive prices. Nucs
and packages also. Jerry Foster Apiaries, 937 9th
St., Colusa, CA 95932. Phone (530) 458-4234.
Pacific Northwest mated queens. Orders of 50 or
more. Treasure Valley Idaho. Call for Pricing, Jon
@ (208) 412-1092. www.goldenbeeinc.com
QUALITY QUEENS from HAWAII, available
year round. Call KARRUS QUEENS (808)
854-5308.
3 lb Packages Bees for sale, for pick up in
Wisconsin. Contact: Mark Gilberts Apiaries 608-
482-1988.
Let us put bees into your equipment with enough
time to feed them up for the almonds. May be
willing to do the feeding. Also, willing to fill your
equipment in the spring. Call Rick Riggs (661)
204-2631.
Doubles, singles, brood for sale
year round. FOB Jan-April, Oak-
dale, CA. April-Dec., Milton Freewa-
ter, OR. Queens less than 6 months,
great equipment. Ryan@sweetbee
honeyco.com (360) 907-0842. $5k min.
purchase.
Marked Queens - 25 minimum order, tested on
full size deep frames - Breeders selected from
our most productive hives-$28 per queen + UPS
overnight. outwestapiary@gmail.com (530) 908
1311.
WILD SURVIVOR BREEDER QUEENS
NW Feral Stock - Hardy - Hygienic
Mite Tolerant - Disease Resistant.
– OLYMPIC WILDERNESS APIARY
Isolated Yards – (360) 928-3125. www.
wildernessbees.com
American Bee Journal
Taking orders for spring 2019 Russians Nucs!
Call today for pricing. (601)-433-9108.
NOW BOOKING FOR 2019 SEASON FOR
MN HYGIENIC QUEENS, BROOD, OR
FILL EQUIPMENT OUT OF OUR DEEP
EAST TEXAS LOCATION! FOR PRICING
AND SCHEDULING , CONTACT DARREL
@ (612) 325-1203.
2019 Early-bird pricing–School House Bees.
Italian & Russian-hybrid pkg bees & queens:
P/U–KY ship-midwest. 5-Frame Nucs, Single &
Double Hives P/U–KY. Pails of Spille’s honey all
year. www.schoolhousebees.com (859) 356-1350.
ITALIAN PACKAGE BEES, 3# $90.00, cage in-
cluded. Pick up only. 50 minimum. 10% deposit.
Cottonwood, CA. Sam & Joyce Van Vleet, (530)
347-1987.
HAWAIIAN QUEEN BEES
AVAILABLE JANUARY-APRIL.
971-808-3223. LIMITED QUANTI-
TIES - SCHEDULE YOUR DELIVERY
TODAY!
PACKAGE BEES AND QUEENS for sale
spring 2019. Also, 10-frame singles and some
double deep 10-frame and 8-frame hives. Powell
Apiaries, 4140 Co. Rd. KK, Orland, CA 95963.
Phone (530) 865-3346. FAX (530) 865-3043.
Package Honey bees FOR SALE
in Ohio and eastern Indiana
www.olddrone.net
ITALIAN QUEENS, MARKED AND MATED.
JONES BEE FARM, HOUSTON, MS 38851.
CALL SAM JONES: 662-456-6285.
5 Frame Nucs for sale mid-April in Ventura
CA. Minimum order is 20 nucs. Call early
to secure your order. Brand new 2019 Italian
queens, 3 frames of brood, a frame of pollen
and honey $125 each. Call Steve 805-636-4426
www.missionbeekeeping.com
Eastern Bee Supply - Nucs /Queens/Pack-
ages. 910-290-4186 https://easternbeesupply.
my-free.website/
NUCS & QUEENS – shipping available.
NorthFloridaBees@mail.com (850) 661-
8077
George S Zimmerman in northern California
is now taking orders for 2019 Queens being
ready around first of April. VSH trait (Varroa
Sensitive Hygiene) hybrid queens or Cordovan
Italian Queens. All queens are open mated in
my Cordovan Italian yard. Call 530-736-7343 or
email me at gszimm42@gmail.com
NUCS
NEW! ZipNetBags.com! 36”x26” double-
layered net bag w/36” zipper to
transport NUC of bees. 281/556-6798,
info@ZipNetBags.com
WANTED
Honey and Beeswax wanted. All colors and
varietals. Send samples or call Smitty Bee Honey
(712) 748-4292.
Beekeeper w/bees needed for 2019 North Da-
kota Honey Season. Serious inquiries only.
Contact: BumblebeePalace76@outlook.com
Would you like to operate your bee company in
North Dakota? Contact: carrot201611@yahoo.
com
HELP WANTED
Full time position available in Oregon. Bee-
keeping experience and CDL required. Contact
Ryan@sweetbeehoneyco.com PO Box 558,
Milton Freewater, OR 97862 (360)907-0842.
February 2019
Seasonal and full-time help needed at our migratory
bee operation. We are located in FL and WI. We do
pollination, queen rearing and honey production.
Some experience preferred, team environment,
wages dependent on experience, good opportunity
or advancement. Prior work history and references
required. Contact Gary at (262) 689-1000.
Olivarez Honey Bees/Big Island Queens is seek-
ing motivated beekeepers to join our Hawaii
team! Experience preferred. Self-motivator and
ability to work in a team environment a plus. Po-
sitions are full time, salary based on experience.
Great Benefits Package. Prior work history and
references required. Advancement opportunities
available. Submit resume to info@ohbees.com
or Olivarez Honey Bees Inc/Big Island Queens,
P O Box 847 Orland Ca 95963, Fax: 530-865-
5570, Phone 530-865-0298
MISCELLANEOUS
The AMERICAN BEEKEEPING FEDERA-
TION has many benefits to offer its members.
Send for a membership packet of information
today! We also offer a free Beginning Beekeeping
Packet. Contact the AMERICAN BEEKEEPING
FEDERATION, 3525 Piedmont Rd. NE, Bld. 5.
Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30305-1509, Phone (404)
760-2875, Fax 404-240-0998, or email info@
abfnet.org.
PERIODICALS
L’ABEILLE DE FRANCE—The most important
of the monthly publications in France - for all
beekeepers, from the amateurs to the professional.
Each month: an article for beginners, reports from
specialists, a review of the latest information all
over the world. Ask for a sample Annual subscrip-
tion: 40$ US. ABEILLE DE FRANCE- 5, rue du
Copenhague-F 75008 PARIS.
THE AUSTRALASIAN BEEKEEPER—
Senior Beekeeping Journal of the Southern
Hemisphere. Complete coverage of all bee-
keeping topics in one of the world’s largest
beekeeping countries. Published by Pender
Beekeeping Supplies Pty. Ltd., “Bilga” 79 Nay-
lor Road, Urila, N.S.W. 2620, Australia. Annual
subscription paid in advance $160 AUD.
THE AUSTRALIAN BEE JOURNAL—
Caters to both amateur and commercial
apiarists. Subscription $120.00 Australian
currently for all overseas subscribers per annum.
Published monthly. Victorian Apiarists’ Asso-
ciation, Inc., P.O. Box 40, California Gully,Vic.
Australia 3556 Ph: 03 5446 1543, Email:
vaa@vicbeekeepers.com.au.
BEECRAFT The UK’s leading monthly beekeep-
ing magazine. View a digital copy and subscribe on
line at www.bee-craft.com.
DIE BIENE – ALLGEMEINE DEUTSCHE IM-
KERZEITUNG (ADIZ) – IMKERFREUND The
Bee magazines with special publications in bee
science and management for the hobbyist as well
as for the sideliner and professional beekeeper.
Three regional titles but same content today for
Germany except partly Imkerfreund for Bavaria.
Monthly publications with 64 pages. Subscription
Euro 44.50 per year – Deutscher Landwirtschafts-
verlag GmbH, Postfach 870324, 13162 Berlin, Tel.
+49(0)30/293974-87, Fax +49(0) 30/293974-59,
www.diebiene.de
HIVELIGHTS, National magazine of the Cana-
dian Honey Council. Published quarterly. Free
sample on request, write to Canadian Honey
Council, Suite 236, 234-5149 Country Hills
Blvd. NW, Calgary AB T3A 5K8, CANADA.
Subscription information available at www.
honeycouncil.ca.
HONEYBEE NEWS, The Journal of the New
South Wales Apiarists’ Association, Inc., Inter-
national Subscription AUS$50.00 (Airmail) Bank
Draft, Visa or MasterCard payable to NSW AA.
Published bi-monthly—For more information
contact: The Editor, PO Box 352, Leichhardt
NSW 2040 Australia. E-mail: honeybee@
accsoft.com.au
IBRA (the International Bee Research Associa-
tion) is a unique organization established in 1949
for the advancement of bee science and beekeep-
ing. It publishes two magazines: JAR – the Journal
of Apiculture Research, for scientists, and BW
- Bee World, for beekeepers who want broaden
their horizons by learning about other beekeeping
traditions, other bees, other ideas. Members chose
which magazine(s) to include in their membership.
IBRA is a vital bridge between the local (hive)
and global concerns. IBRA is registered under UK
charity law (Office: 91 Brinsea Road, Congresbury,
Bristol, BS49 5JJ, UK) www.ibrabee.org.uk
IRISH BEEKEEPING—Read An Beachaire
(The Irish Beekeeper). Published monthly. Sub-
scription $50.00 per annum post free. Dermot
O’Flaherty, Journal Manager, Rosbeg, Westport,
Co. Mayo, Ireland
ATTENTION LIVESTOCK PRODUCERS—
Ranch Magazine is your monthly information
guide for Angora, Cashmere and meat goats, as
well as sheep and cattle. Comprehensive Breeder
Directory. 1-Yr $27, 2-Yrs $54. Foreign &
Canada add $36 per yr. postage. Subscribe today!
Box 2678-ABJ, San Angelo, TX 76902. Call for
free sample. (325) 655-4434
THE SCOTTISH BEEKEEPER—Monthly Maga-
zine of the Scottish Beekeeper’s Association. Inter-
national in appeal, Scottish in character. View back
numbers and Subscription rates at: http://scottish
beekeepers.org.uk
SOUTH AFRICAN BEE JOURNAL—The offi-
cial organ of the S.A. Federation of Bee Farmers’
Associations. Published Bimonthly in English
and Afrikaans, primarily devoted to the African
and Cape Bee races. Subscriptions incl. postage
(six copies). All subscribers outside of South Af-
rica R100-00 surface mail, payment to be made
in S.A. Rands. NB. Sample copies only available
on receipt of a donation. P.O. Box 41 Modder-
fontein, 1645, South Africa.
ULADAG BEE JOURNAL - Publication of
Uludag Beekeeping Association, published quar-
terly in Turkish (with English titles and summaries
of all articles) and English in all aspects of bee-
keeping; beekeeping news, practical beekeeping,
and research articles, and considered a link be-
tween Turkish beekeeping and the world. Gazcilar
Cad. No. 9/2 16220 Bursa-TURKEY Fax:+90 224
224 3964 http://www.uludagaricilik.org.tr
235
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236 American Bee Journal

February 2019 237

A.N. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
A & O Forklift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Acorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
American Bee Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
American Honey Producers . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Bastin Honey Bee Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
BeeCulture.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Bee Excellent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Bee Hibernation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Bee Hive Thermal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
BeeInformed.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Beekeepingins.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Beeline Apiaries & Woodenware . . . . . . . 134
Beelite Wax Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
BeePros.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Bee Smart Designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Betterbee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
BL Plastic Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Blue Ridge Honey Company . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Blue Sky Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Bordelon Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Borntrager Bee Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Brand New Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Brown Honey Co. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Browning Cut Stock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Brumley Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Butte Valley Apiaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Buzz’s Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
CC Pollen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
California State Beekeepers Assoc . . . . . . 160
Carbolineum Wood Preserving Co. . . . . . . 236
Central Valley Beekeepers Assoc . . . . . . . 145
Complete Bee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Contract Pros Mfg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Cook & Beals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Cowen Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Cuba Unique Beekeeper Tour . . . . . . . . . . 198
Dadant & Sons, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . 129, 160, 202,
235 & Back Cover
Dakota Gunness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Draper’s Super Bee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
238
Advertising Index
Ernst Seeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
East Texas 10-Frame Singles for Sale . . . . 232
Globalpatties.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Hardeman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Hawaiian Queen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Heilyser Technology Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Heitkams Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Hilbert’s Honey Bees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Hogg Halfcomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Honey B Healthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Honey Land Farms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Horace Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
JJ’s Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Kelley Beekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Koehnen, C.F. & Sons, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Kona Queen Hawaii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Koppert Biological Systems . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Lohman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
LorAnn Oils & Flavors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Mann Lake Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147, 182
Maxant Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Meyers, A.H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Miller Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Mother Lode Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
NakedBeeHives.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Nod Apiary Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Old Sol Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Olivarez Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
OxaVap.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Park-Burris Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Pierce Beekeeping Equipment . . . . . . . . . . 146
Pierco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Plastic Packaging Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Pollination Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Powell Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Queen Right Colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
QSI Honey and Food Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
R.M. Farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Roberts Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Ross Rounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Rossman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Sanders Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Selby Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Shastina Millwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Sherriff, B.J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Simpson’s Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Southeast Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
South Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
South Georgia Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Spell Bee Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Stan’s Pure Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Stayers Quality Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Strachan Apiaries Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Strong Microbials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Suhre, Adam Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Suhre, E. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Sunshine Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Superior Bee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Swienty Beekeeping Equipment . . . . . . . . 202
UMT.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Taber’s Honey Bee Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Texas Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Tree’s for Bees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
T.R.S. Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
VitabeeHealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
VP Queen Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Weaver, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Western Apicultural Society . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Western Bee Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Wicwas Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Wilbanks Apiaries Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Winters Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Wintersun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Wooten’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Z’s Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Z Specialty Food, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
American Bee Journal
March 2018 239
240 American Bee Journal