Editor - Eugene

Makovec
Advertising Manager - Marta Menn
Publishing Department -
Dianne Behnke & Susan Nichols
info@americanbeejournal.com
www.americanbeejournal.com
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CONTENTS
Volume 159 No. 8 August 2019
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843 ARTICLES
Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
• From the Home Office
News and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Gabe Dadant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .865

Classified Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . 947 • Pesticides in the News

Randy Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .875
Advertising Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950
• The Agronomist: British Oilseed Rape Following the EU
COLUMNS Neonic Ban
Richard Rickitt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .885
The Classroom
Jerry Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859
• Beekeeping With a Disability
Beekeeping Basics: Insurance Against William L Blomstedt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .903
Doom: The Late Summer Nuc
Tina Sebestyen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869
• Beth’s Journey into Blindness While Tending Honey Bees
Notes from the Lab: What Will Growers Christopher J Stalder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .915
Use If Neonics are Banned?
Scott McArt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 883
• The Seasonality and Effects of Nosema
Science Insider: Leveraging Hormones to Randy Oliver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .919
Fight the Mite
Alison McAfee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891
• Measuring Propolis Deposition: A Novel Approach
Beekeeping, Past and Present: Apiaries Doug Galloway and Dennis Clay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .931
as Part of an Ecosystem of Wildlife
Wyatt A. Mangum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 895
• Bodacious Blackberries
The Curious Beekeeper: The Valkyrie Charlotte Ekker Wiggins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .935
Long Hive
Rusty Burlew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909
• Why We Squeeze Out Every Drop
A Close Look @ the Hive: A Bit About Howard Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .937
Honey: The Major Honey Plants
Peter L Borst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923
• Fulbright Nat Geo Storyteller Award Takes WSU Bee
The American Bee Journal Researcher to Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .941
ISSN 0002-7626
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August 2019 839

840 American Bee Journal
March 2018 841

It was a rare cool evening in Au-
gust, so we decided to have a fire.
Behind our back deck is a depressed,
circular area that was once home to a
25-foot above-ground pool. The pool
in turn backed up to a secondary
deck, which sits on a berm overlook-
ing the two acres below.
The house was a foreclosure, va-
cant for a year. The pool was still full
of water, though at least it was cov-
ered. I closed on the property at noon
and met a guy there at 3. He gave me
300 bucks, and I gave him the pool —
though I would have agreed to pay
him the 300 if needed. I’ve had a pool,
and I’ve had escargot, and I don’t
need to try either again. Anyway, I
had other plans for the space.
Draining the thing was the easy
part: I hooked a 3” flexible vinyl
hose to the pump port and pointed
it down the yard; it was a summer of
drought, and the unkempt hayfield
below slurped down the 12,000 gal-
lons without a trace. Disassembling
the structure was a little more trouble;
who knew there were so many parts
to a pool?
Within weeks I’d put down some
rocks and built a crude firepit from
free Craigslist bricks. It was my first
masonry project — not pretty but
functional.
So where was I going with this? Oh
yeah, skunks.
On that August evening a couple of
years later, I went out shortly before
dusk and gathered up some small
kindling, an old deep frame of black
brood comb (one of the reasons I still
like wax), and the remnants of an ag-
gressive, early spring pruning of the
peach trees. (They may not be good
for peaches, but the bees like the
blooms, and the branches are great on
a fire.) About the time I’d got it blaz-
ing, Diane came out with a beer and
August 2019
From the Editor
Eugene Makovec
editor@americanbeejournal.com
Unwanted GUests
a glass of wine. It was about twilight,
and before we sat down I asked, “Do
you want to walk around and take a
look at the bees?”
One of the great things about hav-
ing bees at home is strolling out on
a summer’s night when they’re all
back home and checking out the ac-
tivity: Bearding on hot nights, wash-
boarding up the front, and fanning to
dry nectar — there’s nothing like the
scent of curing honey wafting out the
front doors of your hives.
But that was not the activity that
greeted us. The six beehives are right
behind the aforementioned berm, fac-
ing out into the yard, and as we round-
ed the corner what got our attention
was a pair of small, dark mammals.
“Skunks!” I shouted, as they emerged
from beneath the closest hive and
scurried away down the line.
With no time to think (obviously),
and without even asking my wife
to hold my beer, I took a half-dozen
quick steps and then swung my foot
hard. I had a mind to boot the little
miscreant halfway to the road below,
and I still don’t know how I missed.
But about midway through my fol-
low-through, it dawned on me that
this maybe wasn’t one of my bright-
er moves. “Honey …” came a voice
from behind me as I backed slowly
away, and then the two of us headed
quickly back around front.
Back at the fire, we both burst out
laughing. Channeling Katy Perry,
I broke into, “I kicked a skunk, and
I liked it!” And then we smelled it:
Those forms may have been indis-
tinct in the dark, but the mild odor
that now wafted over the area was
unmistakable. Fortunately, both the
berm and the prevailing breeze were
in our favor, and the now-blazing fire
did not hurt either. I tossed the brood
frame on top for good measure, and
the fire doubled in intensity, sucking
the rest of the malodourous scent out
of the firepit area.
After a few minutes, curiosity got
the better of me. I crept around the
berm again just to see. Wow — that
skunk may have been a juvenile, but
it’d sure packed a powerful aroma.
I made a quick apology to the bees,
then went around and tossed some
more branches on the fire. From there
on we had a pleasant evening.
I looked the next day and did not
see signs of chewed-up bees on the
ground. Skunks are known to scratch
at the entrance at night and chomp
up the investigating bees, spitting
them out after sucking out whatev-
er nutrition they can. At this point I
was more worried about the chickens
than the bees, but a few days later
I went out and bought a couple of
8-foot strips of carpet tack, cut them
to size and affixed them to all the en-
trance boards.
The month being August, most of
the honey crop for the year had al-
ready been removed, and fall gold-
enrod had not yet come into bloom.
But for future reference, I should
probably work up a label — who
knows, there may be a highly profit-
able niche market for skunk-infused
honey.
843
 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!

THREE-YEAR-OLD
BEEKEEPER
Three-year-old Gary is proud of his hive!
Susanne Cooper (Grandmother)
Nashville, Tennessee
BREEDING TREATMENT-FREE
BEES
We are so grateful to see Randy Oli-
ver’s post; especially after almost ALL
of our speakers at our annual Buzz in
N.E. Oklahoma have been telling us to
develop our own local survivor bees.
We had been taught in 2000 that we
HAD to use chemicals to keep varroa
in check. By 2002, we went cold tur-
key, incorporated the screened bottom
board and IPM methods culling hives
down to just 2 who met our stringent
requirements. Recently we also joined
CNGfarming/Apiary which allows
Oxalic Acid by monitoring and doing
just what Randy suggested and has
done for 2 years!
So, since 2002, we only raise our
own queens the old fashioned way
from making splits, minimal sugar
water feeds and instead working on
bee forage. What a DELIGHT to read
how Randy’s crew is having FUN
again working with bees that are nat-
ural SURVIVORS. We love Randy’s
DEDICATION to documentation and
monitoring! This way natural bee-
keepers can also learn and share this
genetics with others as we do. Our
17 year strain(s) include a mixture of
Carnolians, Italian (less so) and a Rus-
sian strain from the NM Rojas Project
about 5 years ago. We have searched
and obtained 2 more 4-7 yr non treated
hives which survived without chemi-
cals from other beekeepers to add to
our own gene pool.
Randy is demonstrating what our lo-
cal club told us COULDN’T BE DONE
18 years ago! (we already know AND
DID!). We sell only a couple of nucs to
new beekeepers each spring who are
interested in more natural beekeep-
ing methods and MENTOR them.
Last year, we overwintered with only
honey frames from our than 20 hives.
Four were one brood/one super w 4-6
honey in frames (ALL SURVIVED).
We need to follow through with
MORE confirmation that hobbyists
CAN and DO PROVIDE BEES THAT
HAVE DEVELOPED NATURAL RE-
SISTANCE/HYGENIC BEHAVIOR
AGAINST VARROA. We have also in-
creased forage for our bees from Feb-
ruary to Frost (late Oct) for Oklahoma.
The problem? Breeders/Research-
ers need to contact and obtain some
of these survivor strains from hob-
by beekeepers around the country
who are already proven including
Randy’s strains he found. Breeders
could then raise queens from MUL-
TIPLE AREAS using strains which
are healthier and hardier, instead of
artificially inseminated queens from
a low gene pool! Randy Oliver is ON
THE RIGHT TRACK! Guess what? It’s
NOT about selling anything. Most of
us would donate a hive to a project!
We would like to see a project compar-
ing sugar “roll” vs 24 hr mite drops
(or averages/24 hrs), as we do NOT
kill bees testing for mites. We worked
on survivability FIRST then honey
production and gentleness last. We
even mentored one fellow in another
town who is doing the same with his
BUCKFAST strain from Weaver in TX.
He only culls a queen now if her hive
gets too “angry.” :)) WE CAN’T WAIT
TO READ ARTICLES FROM RANDY
OLIVER!
Mack and Helen Hickey,
Sand Springs, Oklahoma
WORKS OF CREATOR
CONTINUE TO AMAZE
In the June 2019 edition of the Ameri-
can Bee Journal there is an article on
page 620 entitled “Israeli Scientists
find a flower they say can hear ap-
proaching bees.” I found this short
news article very exciting. To think
that when God designed the flow-
ers and the bees, he would include
this ability for a flower to hear the
approach of the pollinators and then
to “produce extra and sweeter nectar
in response” causes me to pause and
say WOW. The Creator of this world
in which we live continues to amaze
us as we learn more about how it
has been put together. Thank you for
sharing this article and for all the hard
work in putting the American Bee Jour-
nal together each month.
Gordon Goeking
BeeKeeper in
Raleigh, North Carolina
EDITOR RESPONSE
Thanks, Gordon. I also found this
fascinating, and it will be interesting
to see if other researchers are able to
duplicate their findings. And I’m with
you — it seems the more closely we
delve into the world around us, the
more incredible it all becomes.
Eugene

August 2019 845

 SWARM
After hearing of a bee swarm being
attacked with insecticide in our area, I
was stirred to write this poem:
In spring, a beehive may have
one too many queens.
A new queen emerges,
and the old queen takes flight,
and with her, a supporting swarm.
Alighting on a resting place
in a tight mass,
the bees wait the return of scouts,
gone off to find a new location for them.
In a few days, they will all move on.
But Joe Brown doesn’t know that.
Local swarm-removal experts
aren’t so hard to find.
With patience, proper gear
and know-how, they will guide
a swarm into an empty hive.
For doing this, they might not charge a cent.
A hive of bees is payment for their work.
Their names are listed on the internet.
But Joe Brown doesn’t know that.
In Joe Brown’s yard, a swarm of bees
settles in a tree.
Joe sprays them with insecticide.
Some die, some fly away, their
colony destroyed.
An empty beehive goes unused.
Some flowers aren’t pollinated.
Pounds of honey aren’t produced.
But Joe Brown doesn’t know that.
Don’t Spray That Swarm!
I would especially like to know
whether or not a bee colony is likely
to survive and be re-established when
attacked in this way.
Hilda Landis
Telford, Pennsylvania
EDITOR RESPONSE
Hi Hilda,
When a swarm is sprayed with
insecticide the outlook is usually not
good. I’ve shown up for swarm calls
to find the swarm on the ground,
with the rest of the swarm in a heap a
few feet away. One woman said, “Oh
yeah, I guess I should’ve told you, my
husband poured gasoline on them the
other day.” After learning that, there’s
no point in me taking the survivors
home — not only is there a good
chance they won’t survive, but I don’t
want them contaminating whatever
hive I would put them in.
Eugene
846
REFLECTION
Hello,
I recently started backyard beekeeping and enjoy photography as well.
After sharing a photo with my state area inspector, she encouraged me to
submit it to your magazine.
I labeled the image “Reflection” for two reasons:
1 - Because of the obvious reflection of the bee in the water.
2- But also because I keep contemplating how significantly altered — if not
drastically shortened — human life on this planet would be, if those little
magical insects were to vanish. This is why I decided to become a bee-
keeper. I want to help humanity.
I wish for deep reflection for us all.
Thank you kindly,
Josée Bourget
Fayetteville, North Carolina
I was an American soldier and
the Italian authorities would not let
LIGURIAN BEES me ship dark Italian queens home
to Tennessee from Italy. In 1922 the
Greetings Mr. Campbell, U.S. forbade the import of bees due
I am just now completing your to the acarine/tracheal mite epidemic
article, which I scanned but enjoyed of Europe that almost totally wiped
immensely. The romantic in me is out the English Black Bee. The Dark
pretty strong and the idea of tending Italian mixed with the Old Black
such a bee as the Ligurian has captured English Bee saved some of the
my mind! Thanks for introducing. genetics. This hybrid cross of dark
So, from your article I take it there Ligurian Alps Italian and English
is, currently, no way to import? honeybees are the two foundation
stocks of the Buckfast Bees developed
Wayne Hunsucker by brother Adam.
My motives with this article are
FROM GLENN to (1) generate a lot of interest in the
Hi Wayne, Dark Italian Ligurian bee and (2) then
Glad you enjoyed the article. I convince the U.S. Government to let
discovered I could not import the us import this wonderful bee.
Dark Italian Ligurian Queen back in
the early 1970›s when I was a very Thanks again for your kind words.
young man. Glenn Campbell
American Bee Journal
 BEEHIVE BELT
Last night at our place. The bears are out in force looking for something
yummy! These supers were empty but she really got into them!!!!

Amber Brunson
Earth Family Bee Farm
Fruitland, Washington

Browning Cut Stock

Boxes are Ponderosa Pine
9-5/8 Com. Boxes $10.50 / Budget Boxes $9.00
7-5/8 Com. Boxes $8.20 / Budget Boxes $7.95
6-5/8 & 5-11/16 Com. Supers $7.50 / Budget $6.85
All #1 frames $.70
1-3/4 Cleats $.22
1571 Hwy. 3 • Juliaetta, ID 83535
Phone 208.276.3494 FAX 3491

August 2019 847


NEAL WILLIAMS SELECTED FELLOW OF
CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
Pollination ecologist
Neal Williams, professor
with the UC Davis Depart-
ment of Entomology and
Nematology, is a newly se-
lected Fellow of the Califor-
nia Academy of Sciences, a
group of world-class scien-
tists known for their scien-
tific impact or outstanding
contributions.
Williams was nominated
by Academy Fellow James
Neal Williams
R. Carey, distinguished
professor of entomology, and seconded by Academy Fel-
low Claire Kremen of the University of British Columbia,
formerly of UC Berkeley.
In his letter of nomination, Carey wrote that Williams
is “widely known and respected for his excellence in re-
search, extension, outreach, teaching and leadership” and
“is not only one of the stars of our campus, and the UC
system, but is an internationally recognized leader in pol-
lination and bee biology and strong voice in the develop-
ment of collaborative research on insect ecology. He has
organized national and international conferences, leads
scores of working groups, and guides reviews of impacts
of land use and other global change drivers on insects and
the ecosystem services they provide.”
Williams is one of 13 Fellows in the Class of 2019, which
also includes UC Davis physician Emanual Maverakis of
the UC Davis School of Medicine’s Department of Derma-
tology, nominated by Walter Leal, distinguished professor,
UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
The Fellows will be inducted at the organization’s annual
meeting and gathering on Oct. 15. The academy, a scientific
and educational institution based in San Francisco’s Golden
Gate Park, is dedicated to exploring, explaining, and sus-
taining life on earth. The Fellows extend the academy’s im-
pact on research, public engagement, and education.
Williams’ research spans the ecology and evolution of
bees and other pollinating insects and their interactions
with flowering plants. “He has become a leading voice for
pollinator diversity and conservation in the California and
The West,” wrote Carey. “One focus of his work has been
in understanding the responses of bees to different envi-
ronmental drivers and developing practical, scientifically
August 2019
grounded actions to support resilient pollinator commu-
nities. These efforts are particularly timely given concern
over the global decline in bees and other pollinators.”
The UC Davis professor is co-chair of the seventh an-
nual International Pollinator Conference (with Extension
apiclturist Elina Lastro Niño). a four-day conference focus-
ing on pollinator biology health and policy. It is set from
Wednesday, July 17 through Saturday, July 20 in the UC
Davis Conference Center. The conference, themed “Mul-
tidimensional Solutions to Current and Future Threats to
Pollinator Health,” will cover a wide range of topics in
pollinator research: from genomics to ecology and their
application to land use and management; to breeding
of managed bees; and to monitoring of global pollinator
populations.
Williams seeks and finds found common solutions for
sustaining both wild and managed bees and commu-
nicates that information to the public and stakeholder
groups. Said Carey: “This is a critical perspective in natu-
ral and agricultural lands, but also in urban landscapes in
northern and southern California.”
Each year Williams speaks to multiple beekeeper,
farmer and gardener groups, and provides guidance to
governing bodies, including the state legislature, and
environmental groups. He and his lab are involved in a
newly initiated California Bombus assessment project
(https://calibombus.com/), which is using both museum
and citizen scientist records to understand past, current
and future distributions and habitat use by bumble bees.
This program will host a series of workshops this spring
and summer open to practitioners and the public.
Williams received his doctorate in ecology and evolu-
tion in 1999 from the State University of New York, Stony
Brook and served as an assistant professor in the Depart-
ment of Biology at Bryn Mawr (Penn.) College from 2004
to 2009. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009, advanc-
ing to full professor in 2017. He began making his mark
early in his career. In 2013, he and several UC Davis hon-
ey bee colleagues won the Team Research Award from
the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America
(PBESA). In 2015, the UC Davis chancellor singled him
out as one of the 11 Chancellor’s Fellows; the five-year
of $25,000 supported his research, teaching and public
service activities. This year Williams received PBESA’s
Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award, presented annually for
outstanding accomplishments in the study of insect in-
terrelationships with plants.
Williams also holds a three-year visiting professorship
to the Swedish Agricultural University in Uppsala. The
award is to lead work in sustainable agriculture, focusing
in integrating multiple ecosystem services.
In addition to Carey, other Fellows of the Academy from
the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematol-
ogy include:
• Professor Phil Ward
• Frank Zalom, distinguished professor of entomol-
ogy and a former vice chair of the department
• Robert E. Page Jr., distinguished emeritus professor
and a former chair of the department
• Walter Leal, distinguished professor and a former
chair of the department (he is now with the UC Da-
vis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology)
and
• Visiting scientist Catherine Tauber, formerly of Cor-
nell University.
849
 Former Fellows from the department included Robbin
Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor of
entomology, and visiting scientist Maurice Tauber (1931-
2014), formerly of Cornell University.
U.S. BEEKEEPERS LOST OVER 40% OF
COLONIES DURING THE LAST YEAR,
WITH ANNUAL SURVEY SHOWING
WINTER LOSSES AS THE
HIGHEST EVER RECORDED
Results point to a need foR incReased ReseaRch,
extension, and Best ManageMent pRactices
by Samantha Watters
Beekeepers across the United States lost 40.7% of their
honey bee colonies from April 2018 to April 2019, accord-
ing to preliminary results of the latest annual nationwide
survey conducted by the University of Maryland-led non-
profit Bee Informed Partnership. The survey results indi-
cate winter losses of 37.7%, which is the highest winter
loss reported since the survey began 13 years ago and 8.9
percentage points higher than the survey average. Honey
bees pollinate $15 billion worth of food crops in the United
States each year, so their health is critical to food produc-
tion and supply.
“These results are very concerning, as high winter losses
hit an industry already suffering from a decade of high
winter losses,” says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, associate pro-
fessor of entomology at the University of Maryland and
president for the Bee Informed Partnership.
During the 2018 summer season, beekeepers lost 20.5%
of their colonies, which is slightly above the previous
year’s summer loss rate of 17.1%, but about equal to the
average loss rate since the summer of 2011. Overall, the an-
nual loss of 40.7% this last year represents a slight increase
over the annual average of 38.7%.
“Just looking at the overall picture and the 10-year
trends, it’s disconcerting that we’re still seeing elevated
losses after over a decade of survey and quite intense
work to try to understand and reduce colony loss,” adds
Geoffrey Williams, assistant professor of entomology at
Auburn University and co-author of the survey. “We don’t
seem to be making particularly great progress to reduce
overall losses.”
Since beekeepers began noticing dramatic losses in their
colonies, state and federal agricultural agencies, univer-
sity researchers, and the beekeeping industry have been
working together to understand the cause and develop
Best Management Practices to reduce losses. The annual
colony loss survey, which has been conducted since 2006,
has been an integral part of that effort.
The survey asks commercial and backyard beekeep-
ing operations to track the survival rates of their honey
bee colonies. Nearly 4,700 beekeepers managing 319,787
colonies from all 50 states and the District of Columbia re-
sponded to this year’s survey, representing about 12% of
the nation’s estimated 2.69 million managed colonies.
The Bee Informed Partnership team says multiple fac-
tors are likely responsible for persistently high annual
loss rates and this year’s jump in winter losses. They
say a multi-pronged approach to research, Extension,
850
and Best Management Practices is needed to combat the
problem.
The number one concern among beekeepers and a lead-
ing contributor to winter colony losses is varroa mites, le-
thal parasites that can readily spread from colony to colony.
These mites have been decimating colonies for years, with
institutions like the University of Maryland actively re-
searching ways to combat them. “We are increasingly con-
cerned about varroa mites and the viruses they spread, says
vanEngelsdorp. “Last year, many beekeepers reported poor
treatment efficacy, and limited field tests showed that prod-
ucts that once removed 90% of mites or more are now re-
moving far fewer. Since these products are no longer work-
ing as well, the mite problem seems to be getting worse.”
“But mites are not the only problem,” continues vanEn-
gelsdorp. “Land use changes have led to a lack of nutri-
tion-rich pollen sources for bees, causing poor nutrition.
Pesticide exposures, environmental factors, and beekeep-
ing practices all play some role as well.”
Karen Rennich, executive director for the Bee Informed
Partnership and senior faculty specialist at the University
of Maryland, elaborates on land use and environmental
factors that may be significant, including increases in ex-
treme weather.
“The tools that used to work for beekeepers seem to be
failing, and that may be evident in this year’s high losses.
A persistent worry among beekeepers nationwide is that
there are fewer and fewer favorable places for bees to
land, and that is putting increased pressure on beekeepers
who are already stretched to their limits to keep their bees
alive,” says Rennich. “We also think that extreme weather
conditions we have seen this past year demand investiga-
tion, such as wildfires that ravage the landscape and re-
move already limited forage, and floods that destroy crops
causing losses for the farmer, for the beekeeper, and for the
public.”
According to Rennich and Williams, more research is
needed to understand what role climate change and vari-
able weather patterns play in honey bee colony losses.
“Beekeepers have to be very dynamic in their response
to weather and environmental conditions,” explains Wil-
liams. “If it is a cold, long winter, beekeepers need to be
very diligent and make sure they have enough food for
their bees to survive. On the other hand, warm winters
can create favorable conditions for varroa mites, which
means beekeepers need to know how to manage them
properly.”
Williams and the other researchers on the survey team
agree that in addition to understanding the impact of
weather conditions, beekeepers need to stay current on
science-based Best Management Practices.
“One of the best things that a beekeeper can do is imple-
ment Best Management Practices for their region, and they
can find those through the Bee Informed website,” empha-
sizes vanEngelsdorp.
The survey is conducted by the Bee Informed Partner-
ship with data collected and analyzed by the Univer-
sity of Maryland and Auburn University. Survey results
are available on the Bee Informed website (https://bee
informed.org/), with a summary provided below.
Winter Loss Estimates:
1 October 2018 – 1 April 2019: 37.7% losses
7 percentage points higher than winter 2017-2018
8.9 percentage points higher than average winter loss
(2006-2019)
American Bee Journal
Summer Loss Estimates:
1 April 2018 – 1 October 2018: 20.5% losses
3.4 percentage points higher than summer 2017
Equal to average summer loss since summer survey be-
gan in 2011: 20.5%

Total Annual Loss Estimates:

1 April 2018 – 1 April 2019: 40.7% losses
0.6 percentage points higher than 2017-2018
2.9 percentage points higher loss since annual survey
began in 2010-2011: 37.8%
Winter Loss Comparison by Beekeeper Category:
Backyard beekeepers (manage 50 or fewer colonies):
39.8%
Sideline (manage 51-500 colonies): 36.5%
Commercial (manage more than 500 colonies): 37.5%
Media Contacts:
Samantha Watters, College of Agriculture & Natural Re-
sources, samurai7@umd.edu
Kimbra Cutlip, College of Computer, Mathematical, &
Natural Sciences, kcutlip@umd.edu
BEES REQUIRED TO CREATE AN
EXCELLENT BLUEBERRY CROP
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, June 17, 2019—Getting
an excellent rabbiteye blueberry harvest requires helpful
pollinators—particularly native southeastern blueberry
bees—although growers can bring in managed honey bees
to do the job, according to Agricultural Research Service
(ARS) scientists.
This is especially true for commercial rabbiteye blueber-
ry producers in Mississippi and Louisiana. With sufficient
pollinators, they have been able to increase the percentage
of flowers setting fruit from 10-30 percent to 70 percent or
more. A mature rabbiteye blueberry bush can produce as
much as 15 pounds of berries.
Fully pollinated berries also are bigger and mature ear-
lier than fruit from inadequately pollinated flowers. So,
bee-pollinated flowers produce fruit that bring a premium
in the marketplace.
“We looked at multiple species of bees to see which did
the best job of pollinating rabbiteye blueberries. We tested
managed honey bees, native bumble bee species, south-
eastern blueberry bees and carpenter bees,” explained re-
search entomologist Robert Danka with the ARS Honey
Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Research Labora-
tory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who co-led the study.
Of these bees, only the southeastern blueberry bee and
the honey bee significantly increased fruit set, according to
Danka “And the native southeastern blueberry bee did the
best job,” he said.
But the only way for commercial growers to have
enough southeastern blueberry bees to provide a superior
level of pollination is to provide habitat on the edges of
their fields that encourages their population to grow.
“What commercial growers can do is provide wood-
lands near the edges of their fields because that’s where
southeastern blueberry bees prefer to nest. They are
ground-dwelling bees that like shade and leaf litter but
don’t like wet or soil heavy with organic material,” ex-
plained research entomologist Blair Sampson with the
Southeast blueberry bees are best at pollinating rabbiteye blue-
berries. Photo credit Blair Sampson, ARS
ARS Thad Cochran Southern Horticultural Laboratory in
Poplarville, Mississippi.
A small grower with 1-3 acres of blueberries can prob-
ably get by solely with the pollination of native bees, espe-
cially if they have encouraged them with attractive habi-
tat. But a grower with fields of 25 acres and more should
probably consider supplementing by bringing in honey
bee colonies, Sampson pointed out
Complicating the matter is that some southeastern blue-
berry bees’ population vary greatly from year to year, de-
pending on rain and other weather conditions while other
populations were reliably present every year in the study.
“A farmer who sees that during the first few days of
bloom they are not getting prolific visits from the native
bees should probably arrange to bring in some honey bee
colonies. But even that may not guarantee ample pollina-
tion, because there is no way to be sure honey bees will
stay on blueberries if there is something else in bloom that
is more attractive to them,” Sampson added. “After all,
rabbiteye blueberries are native North American bushes
and honey bees are not natives so there was no co-evolved
adaptation between these species.”
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.
SLOVENIAN HIVE GIFTED
TO POPE FRANCIS
From left to the right: Dr. Peter Kozmus, Apimondia Acting Presi-
dent; Boštjan Noč, President of Slovenian Beekeepers Associa-
tion; Bogdan Benko, Ambasador of Republic of Slovenia in Italy;
Pope Francis; Matjaž Florjanc Lukan; Dr. Alenka Pivec’ Minister for
Agriculture, Forestry and Food; Snežana Popovič; Luka Kočevar;
and Tomaž Kunstelj, Slovenian Ambasador in Vatican City

August 2019 851

 The Pope renamed the honey sparkling wine holy water.
Slovenia donated a Slovenian apiary to the Holy Father
on 22th May 2019. On behalf of the Slovenian Beekeep-
ers’ Association and all the beekeepers from Slovenia and
around the world Dr Peter Kozmus, the Vice-President and
Acting President of Apimondia, and I gave the Holy Father
honey sparkling wine, a jar of Slovenian honey, a 20- bees
silver coin, a copy of No Bees, No Life book and a World
Bee Day table flag.
When presented with the gift, the Pope particularly curi-
ously asked what it was and was thrilled with the explana-
tion. He renamed the honey sparkling wine holy water.
The Pope paid close attention to the “Save the Bees” badge
on Dr Peter Kozmus’s formal dress wear. Peter was gener-
ous enough to give it to him and pin it to the Pope’s dress.
Boštjan Noč, President of Slovenian Beekeepers’
Association
GENE KILLION AWARDED THE CARL
AND EUGENE KILLION TROPHY
The Illinois Department of Agriculture has officially
renamed its Carl Killion Trophy as the Carl and Eugene
Killion Trophy, making a ceremonial presentation to
Gene Killion at its Springfield headquarters on June
26th.
The award is given each year as the Illinois State
Fair’s “Sweepstakes” trophy, to the top Open Class ex-
hibitor in the Bee Culture category. The platter is en-
graved:
2019 Illinois State Fair
Carl and Eugene Killion Trophy
Bees and Honey
The trophy was presented by Agriculture Director
John Sullivan in an event attended by Gene’s son Mark
Killion, Illinois Chief Apiary Inspector Brian Renneck-
Illinois Agriculture Director John Sullivan presents the award to
Gene.
852
Left to right: Illinois Ag Director John Sullivan, Gene Killion,
Mark Killion, and Illinois Chief Apiary Inspector Brian Rennecker
er, and a number of other inspectors and board mem-
bers of the Illinois State Beekeepers Association.
In his comments, Mr. Sullivan mentioned that his
wife has been trying to talk him into getting a hive of
bees, but that he unfortunately would need a good deal
of help getting started.
“I’m still available,” Gene quipped.
Eugene E. Killion is a legendary beekeeper and patri-
arch of American beekeeping. His father, Carl, started
beekeeping in 1916 as a young boy when he cut down a
bee tree in Indiana, and kept what is called a log hive.
Gene had his first beehive when he was five. The family
moved to Paris, Illinois in the 1920s.
Gene Killion is a World War II veteran, having served
in the United States Army Air Force for 3½ years in Cal-
cutta, India.
Carl Killion served as the fourth Chief Apiary Inspec-
tor of Illinois. He was appointed to the position in 1938
and served for 32 years. When he retired in 1970, Gene
was offered the position, which he held for 18½ years.
Gene started the Illinois Registration of Beehives Pro-
gram in 1970. The registration is mandatory and free.
Gene also wrote the honey house sanitation guidelines
for the State of Illinois Health Department in the 1970s.
The American Honey Producers and Packers copied it
for their national guidelines for honey house sanitation.
Gene was successful in getting the United States Post
Office to issue a commemorative stamp featuring the
honey bee. Carl had worked for 25 years at this en-
deavor. The postmaster notified them of approval of
the stamp two days before Carl passed away.
The honey bee stamp was issued on October 10, 1980
at the Paris, Illinois Post Office. This inspired the first
Honey Bee Fest, which has been held every year since
then in Paris.
When Gene retired from the Illinois Department of
Agriculture, he became the University of Illinois Exten-
sion Specialist in Beekeeping.
At the 2006 American Beekeeping Federation Con-
vention held in Louisville, Kentucky, Gene was the re-
cipient of the ABF President’s Award.
In 2011, the Illinois State Beekeepers Association
awarded Gene Killion its Beekeeper of the Year Award.
Carl and Gene may be best remembered for setting
a world’s record for comb honey production in 1951.
They averaged fourteen wood section supers per hive
over 100 hives.
American Bee Journal

WORLDWIDE
APIMONDIA
ON THE ROAD TO APIMONDIA MONTRÉAL 2019!
Register now!
To register for Apimondia Montreal 2019, simply go to
http://www.apimondia2019.com/ and follow the instruc-
tions. The cost to attend the scientific program and Api-
Expo from 8 to 12 September 2019 is $375 CDN. We have
negotiated competitive prices for accommodations near
the Palais des Congrès de Montréal with 3 to 5-star ho-
tels available. Montreal is a popular tourist city and we
anticipate several thousand delegates, so do not hesitate
to make your hotel reservations to ensure your desired
choices will be available (go to the “Accommodation” tab).
Our scientific program is fascinating with numerous
symposia, round tables and training workshops on hot
bee topics.
Excellent sponsorship options and several ApiExpo
spaces / kiosks are still available; we invite all beekeeping
stakeholders to take advantage of this unique opportunity
to promote your business or sell your products. Interest-
ed? Go to the website http://www.apimondia2019.com/
and look under the “Sponsor” tab for more information,
or write directly to Marguglio Marienza (m.marguglio@
aimgroup.eu).
Follow Apimondia Montreal 2019 on our facebook page
https://fr-ca.facebook.com/apimondia2019/.
Rod Scarlett, Steve Pernal and Pierre Giovenazzo
Apimondia Montréal 2019 executive committee
LEARNING FROM THE BEES
BERLIN 2019
29 august–1 septeMBeR
Kühlhaus BeRlin
LearningFromTheBeesBerlin.com
Learning from the Bees | Berlin 2019 is dedicated to
the bee and strives to spark cross-disciplinary dialogue
among beekeepers, farmers, foresters, and others. Its
mission is to bridge differences in ideology and practice
and come together, unified by bees, to brainstorm alter-
August 2019
natives to failing systems and help shape the future of
beekeeping and environmental stewardship.
This international conference features such experts as
Prof. Thomas Seeley (Cornell University), Heidi Her-
rmann (Natural Beekeeping Trust), Dr. Przemysław
Nawrocki (WWF, Poland), Markus Imhoof (More Than
Honey), Albert Muller (Demeter beekeeper), and many
others. Keynote presentations, panel discussions, and
participatory breakout sessions address politically sen-
sitive issues — rewilding bees in trees, pesticide control,
ecosystem regeneration, activism — while Speed BEE
Talks showcase several innovative projects.
Preceding the conference is a smaller, intensive, two-
day workshop on Zeidlerei, the centuries-old treebee-
keeping tradition, largely preserved in East Europe.
Under the guidance of Polish and German Zeidlers, par-
ticipants will learn the craft: its history, how to carve and
install log hives, both traditional and modern treeclimb-
ing techniques (weather permitting), safety precautions,
tool maintenance, etc. Limited to 60 participants.
The conference will be held in English and German.
MITE-A-THON 2019
help pRotect Bees eveRywheRe
Hello beekeepers,
We are the Pollinator Partnership, an organization de-
voted to pollinator conservation, and we are reaching out
to you about a collaborative effort we are leading to help
beekeepers and honey bees across North America - the
Mite-A-Thon.
The Mite-A-Thon is an initiative to assist beekeepers in
checking their bees for the parasitic mite, Varroa destruc-
tor (varroa), with the two primary objectives of 1) raising
awareness about honey bee colony varroa infestations in
North America through effective monitoring methods and
2) making management strategies available for discussion
within bee organizations utilizing Mite-A-Thon partner-
developed information and outreach materials.
As you may know, varroa compromises a bee’s health
and can lead to many colony health issues. Having var-
roa in the hive is a common occurrence, and knowing how
many mites are in the colony is invaluable to the beekeeper.
For the Mite-A-Thon, beekeepers are invited to check
their hives at least once during a one week period from
September 7 to 14. Checking for the varroa mite follows
one of two standard protocols found at http://www.
pollinator.org/miteathon. Beekeepers participating in
the Mite-A-Thon check their hives and then upload the
results at www.mitecheck.com or using the MiteCheck
app. All the data entries are kept anonymous, and the data
are not tied to specific beekeepers or organizations. These
data are then aggregated and will provide a snapshot of
the level of varroa mites in colonies across the continent
during this week.
Can we count on your participation in the 2019 Mite-A-
Thon? As a beekeeper, there are no costs to you, and the
ability to accurately gauge the level of mite infestation in
a hive is an important tool to master. Last year over 650
North American beekeepers participated in the Mite-A-
Thon and we would like to surpass that number this year.
You might want to ask your beekeeping organization to
make this a group activity and to support learning more
about varroa.
853
 We hope you will participate in the Mite-A-Thon, and
would appreciate your confirmed commitment by Friday,
August 9th. Simply reply to this email. We would love to
also highlight your participation by posting your opera-
tion’s logo on the program website and other materials.
If you have a logo and want it posted, send along a high-
resolution version in your email.
Thank you for your partnership and collaboration! If
you have questions feel free to call us at 415.362.1137 or
visit http://www.pollinator.org/miteathon.
STATES
ALABAMA
2019 alaBaMa BeeKeepeRs association annual Meeting
septeMBeR 20 & 21 2019
clanton, alaBaMa
Register online at Alabama Beekeepers Association:
https://alabamabeekeepersassociation.formstack.com/
forms/conference_registration_form_template_copy
www.alabamabeekeepers.com
CALIFORNIA
califoRnia state BeeKeepeRs annual convention
Save the date for the 2019 Annual CSBA Convention.
Taking place the week before Thanksgiving! Join us No-
vember 19th - 22nd, 2019 at Pechanga Resort and Casino in
beautiful Temecula, California! Learn about the latest bee
research, trade ideas with fellow beekeepers, and explore
innovative products at the Tradeshow.
We are excited to announce that attendees will get to
hear key messages from Katie Lee and Brandon Hopkins
on their 2018 research proposals. Both proposals are a part
of the $158,399 the CSBA has funded for research.
Californiastatebeekeepers.com/events
CONNECTICUT
CONTACT: Bobbie Meyzen bobbiemey@aol.com
WEBSITE: www.backyardbeekeepers.com
WHO: Jamie Ellis
WHAT: “The Indispensible Nuc”
WHERE: Norfield Church Community Room,
64 Norfield Road,
Weston, Connecticut
WHEN: Tuesday October 29, 2019 at 7:30pm
Jamie Ellis: The Indispensible Nuc
“Nucs” are small honey bee colonies housed in small
hives. Consequently, their importance in beekeeping is
often overlooked. Despite this, nucs can become an indis-
pensable tool in one’s beekeeping operation. In this lec-
854
ture, the benefits of using nucs will be discussed and their
importance emphasized.
The purpose of the BYBA is to provide its member-
ship with interesting and practical information about the
“how-to’s” of beekeeping. The club also provides the gen-
eral public with educational programs about honey bees
and the benefits of beekeeping in our communities. The
BYBA is a not for profit, 501C-3 charitable organization.
For more information check our website for the latest
updates www.backyardbeekeepers.com.
FLORIDA
Join the UF/IFAS Honey Bee Research and Extension
Laboratory for Bee College, a two day training event for
beekeepers of all experience levels held in Gainesville,
Florida. Bee College participants get the opportunity to
learn about honey bees and beekeeping from experts from
around the world. Class topics include beginner beekeep-
ing courses, in-hive skill practice, research updates, native
bees, and more. Join us for one or both sessions of Bee
College on August 5th and 6th and August 8th and 9th.
Details and registration here: https://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.
edu/honey-bee/extension/bee-college/
GEORGIA
GEORGIA BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION MEETING
Sept. 26-28
Cumming, GA
Our speakers include Jennifer Berry, Leo Sharashkin,
Clarence Collison, and Lewis Bartlett. Friday night is din-
ner, drinks and a talk. Great sponsors: Rossman Apiaries,
Mann Lake, and Pigeon Mountain. For more info on the
Honey Show rules, registration and accommodations:
www.gabeekeeping.com.
INDIANA
2019 indiana fall confeRence & woRKshop
October 25th/26th, French Lick Springs Hotel
Keynote Speaker: Randy Oliver
French Lick Springs Hotel is a place where history is
made. It will host The Beekeepers of Indiana’s Fall Confer-
ence and Workshops. Our guest speaker is Randy Oliver,
who started keeping bees as a hobbyist around 1966 and
now keeps around 1000-1500 hives with his two sons.
On Friday evening Randy will have a one-hour talk fol-
lowed by a half-hour question and answer session. On
Saturday morning, we start with an hour meet-and-greet
followed by several break-out sessions. We have hands-on
workshops on how to make packages and creamed honey
along with Catching Swarms, Bee Anatomy and Being a
Good Beekeeping Neighbor.
Walk-in registration begins at 7:30 am with the program
ending around 4:30 pm. We have a Honey Show with the
rules and categories posted on our website, along with
how to reserve rooms, directions to the hotel and the latest
agenda: http://indianabeekeeper.com/
American Bee Journal
 MISSOURI
MissouRi state BeeKeepeRs association
2019 fall confeRence
October 18 - 19th
Moberly Area Community College, Moberly, MO
The Missouri State Beekeepers Association will hold
its Fall Conference beginning Friday, October 18, at 8:45
am and continue through Saturday, October 19 on the
campus of Moberly Area Community College (MACC).
Registration is open at 7:00 am on Friday in the spacious
auditorium at MACC. There is seating capacity for 400 so
there’s plenty of room for you to enjoy this conference!
We encourage attendees to register early before the con-
ference to guarantee you will get the meals offered at the
conference.
Keynote speakers include Peter Borst and Dr. Krispn
Given. Peter was Senior Apiarist at Cornell’s Dyce Lab for
Honey Bee Studies for seven years, served as an apiary
inspector for New York State, and is currently President
of the Finger Lakes Bee Club. He is a prolific author and is
currently a regular contributor to American Beekeeping Jour-
nal and Bee Culture.
Dr. Krispn Given is Apicultural Specialist at Purdue
University’s Department of Entomology in West Lafay-
ette, Indiana. Krispn started breeding bees over 25 years
ago and gives lectures to beekeepers and researchers at na-
tional and international conferences. He was instrumental,
along with Dr. Greg Hunt, in developing the “mite-biter”
bee strain in helping to control Varroa mites.
Rounding out the General Meeting speakers are Collin
Wamsley, Chief Entomologist/Program Administrator
for the State of Missouri to talk about what the Missouri
inspection program entails to help Missouri beekeepers;
Casey Berthoud, Missouri’s Quail Forever and Pheasants
Forever state coordinator who oversees 16 biologists and
the Missouri for Monarchs coordinator, to talk about for-
age planting for beekeepers and how the organizations
he oversees might help; and Sheldon Brummel, Master
Beekeeper Project Coordinator, Department of Entomol-
ogy for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE
to talk about the newly developed Great Plains Master
Beekeeping Program. Missouri State Beekeepers Associa-
tion is one of the partnering states in this exciting new
program.
There will also be breakout classes each afternoon to
highlight topics of specific interest to local beekeepers and
clubs. These classes will be announced on our website,
along hotel reservation info.
Details and Registration at https://mostatebeekeepers.
org. If you have any further questions you may email
brucesnavely@hotmail.com, MSBA Program Chair.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Beekeeping Workshops, at $35 each, children under 18
free when accompanied by parent. I have 46 seasons of ex-
tensive apicultural experience which I like to pass on! All
held at my home from 1-4 PM. Look for the “BEE” sign on
the south side of Walpole Valley Road (18 MacLean Road,
Alstead, NH 03602:) Bring a veil, as we shall be opening
some colonies. Water and sunscreen are also a plus. We’ll
August 2019
be inside if it is a rainy day. Registration required. Email:
lindenap@gmail.com or call 603-756-9056.
“Charles Andros, former NH/VT Apiary Inspector, will
hold a beekeeping workshop from 1-4 PM on Saturday,
September 7. Topics of discussion will include treatment
of nosema and mites (including using oxalic acid), winter
preparations, winter protein and carbohydrate supple-
ments, and making beeswax hand creams.”
VIRGINIA
viRginia state BeeKeepeRs association
The Fall VSBA meeting will be Saturday Nov. 2, 2019 at
the Blue Ridge Community College in Weyer’s Cave, VA
and feature Dr. Heather Matilla, Dr. Alison McAfee and
Jerry Hayes. For more information see: https://www.vir-
giniabeekeepers.org/.
WASHINGTON
The Northwest District Beekeepers Association is proud
to offer western Washington beekeepers an educational
and fun conference on Sept. 21, 2019.
Tickets for NWDBA members are $20.00 and nonmem-
bers $30.00 (plus fees). We will be meeting at the Snohom-
ish PUD Auditorium. There is limited seating (300 guests)
and we expect to sell out well before the event so if you are
interested please sign up early. This year we have 3 excel-
lent speakers and some very good presentations.
Andony Melathopoulos, Assistant Professor of Pollina-
tor Health, Oregon State University:
Doing the Multiplication — expanding your apiary the
old school and “the Next Generation” way;
Unsung Bee Diseases and How to Manage Them
Randy Oliver, commercial beekeeper, researcher, ABJ
author:
Reading The Combs — Understanding Bee Biology
Over the Course of a Season;
Oxalic Acid Tips
Kevin Oldenburg, President, Washington State Bee-
keepers Association:
Bees, Science and How the Media Gets it Wrong
Complete schedule and registration available at https://
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4248173
WEST VIRGINIA
wv BeeKeepeRs association annual fall Meeting
August 23-24, 2019
at the Robert H. Mollahan Building of the
WV High Technology Complex in Fairmont, WV.
Parking garage, front door drop off and handicap acces-
sible. Featured speakers are Dr. James Ellis and Dwight
Wells. Enjoy a variety of workshops, vendors, refresh-
ments and on site meal options. Online registration be-
gins July 1.
Visit www.wvbeekeepers.org for more information.
855
August 2019 857

REMINDER from Jerry
Beekeepers, this is now August.
Days are already getting shorter
and bees are equally understanding
this seasonal cycle, getting ready for
winter coming really soon as we live
by the days. Winter Bees are differ-
ent than Summer Bees. Winter Bees
have to live much longer and store
food in their bodies as “fat” as pret-
ty soon in many parts of the country
flowering plants will disappear.
Winter bees are being produced
now and need to be super healthy
to make it through a long hard cold
winter. Healthy in 2019 means few
varroa mites and limiting the Var-
roa/Virus legacy connection. Time
to sample for varroa, treat, and sam-
ple again to be sure the treatment
worked. Get out your “Tools for Var-
roa Management Guide” from the
Honey Bee Health Coalition.
Q
SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT
Hello Jerry,
I’ve gotten myself in a bit of a mess.
Let me explain.
I’m a second-year beekeeper and
I’ve been trying to learn as much as I
can to manage them properly, (some-
thing I started doing a year before
I got them). I opened up one of my
hives to see if the bees have built up
enough comb to put a honey super
on. This was a few weeks after I ro-
tated the boxes. I found they were
filled with nectar, pollen, and brood
August 2019
with a few empty frames. I also found
over half a dozen capped queen cells.
I thought I could use these to start a
new hive.
I found a queen making noise with
her wings on one of the combs with
a queen cell. She crawled on my arm
and disappeared. I thought she flew
off, so I left one frame with a queen
cell in the original hive and put the
rest in the new hive.
When I got back to the house I
found the queen on the back of my
hood under the zipper. I rushed her
back to the hive in my backyard in a
plastic container. I put her in the front
entrance and put an entrance guard
with queen excluder bar spacing to
keep the queen inside. I didn’t want
to open the hive again to grab the
frame with the queen cell and stress
the hive further. I put a brood patty
on top of both hives and decided to
open them up in a week or so. A few
days later I go to check on their activ-
ity and found hundreds of bees either
gathered at the entrance or crawling
to the top entrance. What’s going on
and how do I address this. I apologize
in advance for any facepalms I may
have caused you to do.
Really enjoy reading The Classroom
in every issue of ABJ. Thank you.
Josh
A
When you are a passionate 2-year
beekeeper it can be crazy. That is be-
cause honey bees have been around
a lot longer than we have been and
have the genetics to survive. They are
kind of like rats of the insect world.
They adapt and live basically from
pole to pole as a result of great genet-
ic variability based on survival of the
fittest and based on global location.
The things to think about are, do
you know if they were going to swarm
a first time, or were there going to be
after swarms, or were they supersed-
ing a failing queen, replacing a queen
that died, or did they already swarm
before you put on the entrance queen
excluder? Who knows?
With the swarm preventer en-
trance guard on you have trapped all
of the potential queens you saw in-
side if they emerged. The queen you
put back in the colony could have
emerged from a cell someplace and
she could have gone around and
stung through all the other un-
emerged queen cells and killed them.
Other cells could have had queens
emerged at the same time and they
had a WWF fight to see not who
would be the best most amazing
queen, but who was the best fighter
and had the luckiest stinger.
I would remove the entrance guard
thing and take a look inside and see
what’s going on. The basic things,
like are there eggs or larvae? Do you
see a queen that is laying? Or, was a
surviving queen trapped inside and
couldn’t get out to mate and is still
a virgin. Are there still unopened
queen cells which might indicate
dead, killed virgin queens in the cells.
You need to let the colony stabilize
from their forced confinement and
seek normality.
Take a look inside and assess the
situation as soon as possible. Let me
know.
Q
DRY SWARM
Last year was my first year as a bee-
keeper. It was super exciting and I did
all you said by following the “Tools
for Varroa Management Guide” and
my bees made it through winter and
crazy spring weather successfully.
There are a few other beekeepers in
my subdivision. I had a swarm on
my kids’ swingset. It actually was on
the bottom of the swing about 2 feet
off the ground. I don’t know if it was
from my colony or somebody else’s.
I had read about and looked at You-
Tube videos about how to collect gen-
859
tle swarms and I was all set, ready to
go and pumped about collecting my
first swarm. I got my extra deep hive
body and bottom board and a top
and took them and carefully placed
and positioned them right under the
swarm, no top on. I was a little ner-
vous so put my bee suit on but didn’t
put the attached veil on because I
had read and seen on YouTube that
swarms are always gentle and I want-
ed to see them better. I knelt down
next to the hive under the swing
and took a deep breath, grabbed the
swing and, looking at the swarm and
the open hive, gave it a good shake.
Instead of the bees falling down into
the hive like on the videos they went
sideways into my face and all over
me and I got more stings in 5 seconds
than EVER! It hurt big time. What
did I do wrong? I ran into the garage
and warned my kids to stay out of
the backyard. It was terrible! I don’t
know what happened to the swarm
because I really don’t care right now.
This all happened after work and it’s
getting dark now and I am emailing
you from the safety of my kitchen.
L. Snow
Massachusetts
A Welcome to the diversity of honey
Many years ago on a planet far, far
away I had exactly the same experi-
ence with my first swarm. And it hap-
pened again about 2 weeks ago after
many years of the perfect YouTube
video of collecting gentle swarms
that you could put your hand in the
swarm and happy bees would crawl
all over you. Brought back many
memories. Not necessarily bad ones
but surprised the heck out of me and
brought back OMGosh memories.
First, I guess as a metric having a
honey bee colony swarm is a valida-
tion that the colony is healthy enough
and strong enough to want to asexu-
ally reproduce. Plus they can do it.
Which all means that varroa and the
Varroa /Virus legacy are not domi-
nating and other diseases are not
found at destructive levels. That’s
my rationalization at least. :) In order
for a colony to split themselves and
a significant portion leave to spread
their genetics around and set up a
new colony somewhere, they try to
coordinate the growth of the colony
based on flower food resources com-
ing in that allows colony growth,
860
weather and stored food resources.
If all is in line the colony grows, the
weather is nice and the individual
bees that have been recruited or
made the decision to leave fill up on
honey/nectar so that there are food
resources available for the swarm
when they find a new cavity to live
in and there is no food. Change this
dynamic a bit and the colony grows,
but when they reach the swarming
point there are 4 days of cold rain
or a sudden shut off of flower nectar
production and the swarm individu-
als can’t fill up on food to take along.
The swarm still leaves as there are re-
placement queen cells in the colony
ready to do their thing, the popula-
tion has reached the growth tipping
point and this asexual reproduction
can’t stop. The swarm leaves. The
bees that are supposed to be full of
honey and happy aren’t. They land
on your swing set and voila the bees
that are supposed to be plump and
happy and full of honey are skinny,
they think you are a predator and at-
tack and sting the snot — that is a re-
search word :) — out of you.
It happens. And it happened to
me again after I got complacent after
decades of easy swarms, but I won’t
anymore. And neither should you.
bees. Kitchens are nice many times.
Q KALE and
STRAWBERRY
Hope all is well. Just wanted to
send you an updated picture of the
kale field in full bloom, When we get
a sunny day (far and few between) it
is absolutely full of honey bees amidst
other pollinators. Wish you could see
it up close, amazing!!
Another item that is very interest-
ing I got involved in is hydroponic
strawberries.
One of the vegetable farms I have
a small apiary on is a fairly big
grower of strawberries. The apiary is
in close proximity to the berries for
pollinating purposes. We have been
playing around with hydroponics for
the last few years and decided to try
hydroponic strawberries this year.
It will extend the season through
October if all works out right. The
honey bee colonies are within approx-
imately150 feet of the greenhouse and
it is open on both ends and about 4
feet around the sides. We cannot seem
to attract the bees onto the strawberry
plants which concerns me as straw-
berries are pollinator dependent. Any
reason you can think of why they
won’t enter the greenhouse?
Just another wonder of the natural
world.
Mike Wuerrfel
Illinois
A The kale is simply amazing gor-
geous. Golly!! Nice job.
Strawberries are not particularly at-
tractive to honey bees. Strawberries
know this and also can pollinate with
wind or mechanical shaking. Honey
bees are great but it looks like you
need more. Then with the non-attrac-
tiveness of strawberry flowers (pol-
len/nectar), and competition from
other things in the environment this
spring, and then getting them to go
under a low canopy is tough for sure.
Below are a couple of things I found
that may or may not be helpful.
https://cals.arizona.edu/strawberry/
Hydroponic_Strawberry_Inform
ation_Website/Pollination.html
“Bees visit strawberry flowers to
collect pollen and or nectar. However,
they do not find them particularly at-
tractive. Between six and 15 bee visits
are reported to be needed to pollinate
a strawberry fruit, fully.”
American Bee Journal
Q LOVE BUGS
Hi Jerry, I know you have some
Florida beekeeping experience so I
thought you might remember these
little lovelies. Over some years of
beekeeping, it’s been my experience
that there’s a good palmetto bloom
every two to three years. This year is
/was very promising. With all the is-
sues of keeping my bees alive along
comes a super love bug hatch! They
are absolutely covering the bloom! I
have watched and seen a few honey
bee and other bee visits for that mat-
ter. The question is, are they taking all
the nectar and/or fouling the bloom?
Are there any studies on insect com-
petition for nectar?
Pete
A
Love Bugs (actually a fly) do domi-
nate the environment from Texas to
Florida at certain times of the year.
Adults only live a few weeks. They
do look for nectar as an energy re-
source and pollen for other nutrients
for reproduction. Sometimes they can
dominate a bloom making it hard for
any other insect to access the “food.”
As most all insects do that forage on
flowering plants for nectar and pol-
len, they leave behind chemical odors
called pheromones which tell their
species that this place has already
been visited. They also have an en-
zyme in them when they get hit by a
car that eats through the clear coat on
the car paint. That’s why in Florida
you wash your car all the time or you
can spray cooking oil on the front of
your car to keep them from sticking.
Females look for decaying organic
matter to deposit their eggs. Their
larvae which hatch in the ground are
very good at eating decaying organic
matter on the soil, which results in
compost. So a combination of good
and bad like everything else in the
world.
August 2019
Q PACKAGE BEE
PROBLEMS
Year Two started not so good. Last
year’s bees were active and moving.
A week later ... all dead. Hindsight:
Put a feeder jar inside a hollow super.
All the comb was completely drained.
It was satisfactory to know that they
had lasted the winter after the initial
struggles.
Now the struggle is this: Got a new
package with a queen. They had a lot
of clean up to do in the dead hive,
which now looks nice. They’ve fixed
damaged comb areas. Sugar syrup
from the feeder is filling up some
frames. Bees are collecting a little pol-
len. But I have not seen any eggs, and
no larvae yet. How long should it take
for a queen to start laying eggs from
a package in a beehive that was dam-
aged and suffered from dead bees
clogging cells and some mold? Would
she have initially flown away after es-
caping her cell? Did the package get
rid of her? Is she waiting for cleaner
frames to drop eggs into? When do
I go out to buy a queen so that I can
start rebuilding the population?
Thanks for your help,
Casey
A
Sorry for year 2 issues but this may
continue until year 5 generally. Lots to
learn, connect and put into practice.
To cut to the chase, if the queen was
in her own cage with the rest of the
package how was she released to join
the colony?
You said the bees were active in
collecting pollen. Honey bees only
collect lots of pollen if there are baby
bees to feed. Are you sure there are no
larvae?
Sometimes package bee suppli-
ers are less than excellent and send
queens that are virgins, i.e., unmated
queens, so they can move packages
out more quickly and collect money
hoping that the virgins will be able to
mate when they get to the new own-
er’s location. You got yours about 3
weeks ago so that should have hap-
pened, or she went out to mate and
had an oops moment and got eaten
by a bird, etc.
Mated queens can be damaged by
temperature swings as the package is
subjected to weather at the producer,
the transporter like the Postal Service,
or the person in a pick-up truck driv-
ing up and bringing packages.
If you had a mated queen, the
colony would have cleaned up and
prepared the old comb in a few days
and she would have been laying by
now. Check one more time and look
on each frame/comb, then make your
decision.
Hang in there. Let me know.
Casey Update:
I got a new queen from New Eng-
land Bee. It is hard to find a supplier
this time of year.
The queen got installed Tuesday.
Checked today. Cage empty. Found
the green marked queen.
Thanks for your support.
Q
MORE
OVERWINTERING
CHALLENGES
I kept 10 colonies and lost 8 this
past winter. I was on top of my var-
roa, however, I failed to test after my
last oxalic acid treatment last fall. I
live on the Connecticut coast, zone 5b.
All colonies got bee cozies, solid
bottom boards, and Styrofoam above
inner cover.
Most died in spring, plenty of hon-
ey, all found on bottom board. What
did I do wrong?
Tested for Nosema, none present.
Did I wrap them too tight?
Thank you,
Tom Kalal
East Lyme, Connecticut
A Losing 80% of colonies is not
something that you want to do con-
sistently. You gave me tidbits. What
were your varroa counts before treat-
ments? When were treatments and
with what? Did you treat with oxalic
every time?
Everything else you did was prob-
ably OK, but not necessary if colonies
are healthy, i.e., Varroa/Varroa Virus
legacy, and have plenty of food.
Let me know if you would.
Tom:
Started mostly monitoring June 1.
Single MAQS June when one 1%, and
August when over 2%
NO monitoring after that. Did Apivar
861
 Sept 20-Oct 1 (however I discov-
ered this spring I did not remove
all of them).
Oxalic dribble end of November.
I know now I should have moni-
tored after the oxalic dribble. Any-
thing else missing? I really thought I
did a good job, but do admit no moni-
toring after Sept 1.
Thank you for your time. If you
can, please offer overwintering tips.
JERRY:
I was suspect of your treatment re-
gime but what you shared with me
took that away. You did good.
And the colonies had food (stored
honey) in X guesstimated lbs. even
with the bees dead on the bottom, or
was it all gone?
TOM:
From my little knowledge, com-
mercial apiarists run ventilated hives.
I hear Tom Seeley talk about bees in
the Arnot Forest, living in a dry cavity
1-gallon size. So no upper entrance,
just a lower one, and bees drank their
condensate.
So I tried to mimic that in double
Langstroths, sealed tip tight all sides
expect a 2” bottom entrance.
Too much moisture, all had plenty
of food, checked for nosema. More
thoughts, please.
JERRY:
You said they died in spring which
means they almost made it. Which
means that the colony was small
when it died and couldn›t maintain a
survivable temperature in late winter
Connecticut. Which means that the
winter bees did not live as long as
they needed to. Perhaps dying 2-3
days earlier than was optimum.
Which means that over a long winter
there weren’t enough for the home
stretch. Why they did not live as long
is perhaps due to health issues such
as viruses that stress them over the
long months of winter. You can kill
varroa mites but the viruses they vec-
tor, and those that take advantage of
the shallow immune system of honey
bees, last for months and months.
Kind of like you having a viral cold
for 5-6 months. You can do it but it
wears you down and might turn into
pneumonia.
Your personal home in Connecti-
cut is not airtight. Your heating sys-
tem brings in the fresh air. You have
healthful fresh air leaks around doors
and windows and every time you go
862
outside there is an air exchange at
your door. If your home was airtight,
warm, and you never left it over win-
ter your walls would be covered in
mold and fungus. Which would not
be healthy for you as they produced
spores and toxins. Think of a honey
bee colony keeping the center of the
cluster at around 93F for the surviv-
ability of the queen. Think of them
eating honey at 18% moisture and
then exhaling that moisture as they
breathe. Then think of their colony
being hermetically sealed with only a
2-inch opening at the bottom. Where
is warm, moist air going to go? It
will rise, condensate at the top and
freeze there. And when outside tem-
peratures moderate, this frozen water
melts and rains on the cluster inside
the hive. Put a virus load and winter
bees dying off slightly sooner and you
might not have a live hive in April.
Those are my thoughts, Tom.
Q
ANTIBIOTICS
Hi Jerry,
Is there any alternative to Terra for
foulbrood? Now you need a Veteri-
narian’s signed Gov’t form to order
it from bee supply dealers. Ran Gov’t
form off the Web, which requires in-
credible information. Took it to local
Vet’s who told me by law I must be
one of their “patients” plus they must
come out and check out my apiary.
And yes, all at my cost just to order a
small container of prepared Terra.
Bob Hough
Pennsylvania
A
That is the law now called the VFD,
Veterinary Feed Directive. There are
some alternative management tech-
niques but what makes you think you
have AFB?
Prophylactic or pretreatment for
AFB or EFB has no effect on actual
infection post treatment. Antibiotics
(anti=against, bio=life) kill, hurt or
damage good gut bacteria and bad. A
big stressor of bees.
Antibiotics are a great tool to keep
us alive. I have gone to the doctor for
strep throat. Been prescribed antibiot-
ics which killed strep bacteria but also
gave me diarrhea because it killed
good bacteria in my intestines that
do all my body’s digesting. The same
thing happens to honey bees, giving
them nosema-like symptoms.
All that to say: Do you have AFB or
EFB? Easy way to find out is the Foul-
brood Diagnostic Kits (just like strip
glucose or pregnancy test in the phar-
macy section) in the Dadant catalog.
Some Vets will accept that diagnostic
tool since most have no earthly idea
about AFB/EFB. They are not trained
in Vet school for this animal.
Q
REHAB ON PLASTIC
FOUNDATION
Thank you for your dedication, wis-
dom and great column in ABJ. I turn
to it first. For many years I’ve been
using wired frames with crimped
foundation. I’m going to try Plasticell
on some hives that will go over the
road to some cotton in Texas.
What is the best way to rehab Plas-
ticell frames? What is the best way to
re-coat a small number of Plasticell
frames with beeswax?
Subject to your wisdom, I would
inspect frames for disease (AFB, etc.),
scrape with hive tool or wide spatula
to get wax off. Then power wash with
hot water/soap and dry in the sun.
My limited idea on beeswax
application is a double boiler, melt
beeswax and apply with a clean new
throw-away “paintbrush” a thin ve-
neer of beeswax to the cleaned Plasti-
cell. I look forward to your thoughts.
Thank you,
John Cash
Soper, Oklahoma
A
You have nailed it. That is exactly
the correct process. My question to
myself when I have done the same
thing and am ready to re-coat with
beeswax is how much beeswax ve-
neer is enough and how much is too
much. Because when we talk about
bees “drawing out” foundation that
is what they actually do. If they can
take that foundation beeswax, and by
using their spatula like mouth parts
grab and pull and stretch that exist-
ing wax out into cell walls, then that
means they don’t have to biologically
make beeswax in their wax glands. A
very energy intensive process. I think
the awkward and probably unattain-
able goal for you and I using a paint-
brush is applying a coating of bees-
American Bee Journal
wax that gives the bees plenty of raw
material to work with and not have to
make more beeswax, while not cov-
ering up the hexagonal cell pattern
embossed in the plastic foundation.
This is actually one of the fun parts
of beekeeping. There is no Extension
Publication on stuff like this.
Thank you so much for the Class-
room compliment. Glad I am a bee-
keeper with you.
Q A FEED
SUPPLEMENT
I read the article in the ABJ about
feeding bees, and it says they need
amino acids and will select samples
that have the ones they need. I take
an amino acid supplement. Could
I break open some of the capsules
and smear the contents on the inner
cover for them to utilize? The only
drawback I can see is that the contents
are in a creamy, oily suspension,
and oil is not mentioned in bee food
supplements, so I wonder if that
makes this contraindicated. Always
read the Classroom first when I
receive my ABJ!
Thanks,
Spirit
A
As you know amino acids are the
components of proteins. Different
proteins are composed of the main
10 essential acids. We all need these
10 essential amino acids to make the
proteins our bodies, whether yours or
honey bees, need to carry on biologi-
cal processes that keep us alive. You
would have to look on the label to
see what and how many amino acids
are in your capsule and what the oily
August 2019
stuff is. My guess is that if you opened
a capsule up and squirted the con-
tents on a top bar the bees will either
eat it or remove it as trash or a little
of both. I’d say don’t worry about this
as a nutritional supplement for your
bees. It most likely won’t hurt but
mostly won’t help dramatically either.
Q
WEIGHING A
HIVE
GREAT IDEA!
This offering to The Classroom may
be so trivial and its content so well
known to be deleted on first sight.
However, just in case ...
As president of our local beekeep-
ers club (100+ members), I was fre-
quently asked How do I know how
much my hives weigh? Or, how do
I know there is enough honey stored
for winter? Or, how do I know if there
is a nectar flow?
I got to thinking about ways to an-
swer the question with something
more helpful than “just grab the back
of the hive and heft it. If it is heavy
you’re probably okay; if light your
bees are going to die.” I thought of the
very accurate (and precise) baggage
scales now commonly available for
around $10-12. They are accurate to
0.1 lb. and can measure up to 110 lbs.
Here’s a picture of the model I have
used for the past two years. (There are
many to choose from.)
All one does is hook the hook on
the back of the hive, preferably on
the bottom box. I have cleats on my
hives but the common hand holds on
most hives would work fine. Lack-
ing either, one could simply place a
common 1-5/8” screw about half-
way in and on the center line of the
hive to make a fine connection place.
The unit is turned on, attached and
enough steady lift is applied to get a
weight reading.
Of course, the reading is not the en-
tire weight of the hive as one is only
lifting the back. Doing the math/ge-
ometry it works out to be very close
to 1/2 of the total colony weight. That
is, a reading of 30 lbs. means the hive
weighs pretty close to 60 lbs. One
must be consistent, of course, to get
comparable measurements. That is,
always with the top on (or off) and
no feed buckets/internal feeders (or
filled to the same level each time).
If one is only interested in know-
ing if there is enough stored honey,
the standard “heft method” may be
fine for those with the “touch.” For
others, this method offers a reliable
measurement.
At certain times of the year, we may
be interested in weight gain or loss.
This method affords the beekeeper
a way to accurately measure gain or
loss over time. This may also be an
indicator of colony health/strength
as well as an indicator of nectar flow.
Bottom line ... it works, it is cheap,
it is accurate, it is easy and gives im-
portant information.
Hope that helps. Feel free to “can”
this if you think it of little value. (I
guess that goes without saying.)
Fred Berthrong
Providence, Utah, USA
863
864 American Bee Journal
 notes From
the
home oFFice
by Gabe Dadant
A
ll winter long I waited for
spring to come. With spring
comes black locust honey.
Well, not this season. The rains also
came and didn’t want to stop. The
wind/rain combination wiped out
our locust bloom here in the west cen-
tral part of the state, and when my son
and I made the trip to McHenry Col-
lege for the Illinois Summer Meeting
we were a bit envious of the beekeep-
ers up in the northern part as the lo-
cust was just starting to bloom. That’s
how it goes some seasons. You win
some, you lose some.
August 2019
Gabe, CC and CP checking out a new split, Spring 2017
With the locust flow behind us
we are concentrating our efforts on
the main flow here in our area. The
Dutch clover has been blooming for
well over a month now, and yellow
and white sweet are starting to fill the
roadside ditches and pastures across
the state. Cool weather pushed this
flow off a bit, but it is in full swing
now and one box of honey sits on all
producing colonies awaiting extrac-
tion, with hopes of more supers being
filled and a decent crop not too far off
in the near future. Silent prayers for a
dry 4 weeks.
Gabe and Charles
prior to ISBA
summer meeting at
McHenry College
So as I wait for the bees to pack
more honey into the supers I think of
the good things that have come from
this season. The first thing that comes
to mind are my two boys. Both boys
enjoy packing and selling honey but
in years past didn’t care much for
work in the bee yard. This season my
oldest son Charles has taken charge in
the bee yard. This shows me his matu-
rity and how he is becoming a young
man instead of the little boy I once
knew. His old bee suits and rubber
boots of years past have been traded
in for just a jacket and no gloves. At
13 there was no way I would have
braved the bee yard without a suit of
armor, much less take a sting to the
hand like a man would. He also at-
tended his first state show this past
weekend and I must say did one heck
of a job and showed his old man that
one day he too will be a leader, if not
in the bee business, in whatever pro-
fession he chooses. My youngest son
C.P. Dadant is now ten years old has
come a long way this season as well.
He has been instrumental in our suc-
cess, catching swarms and increasing
the number of hives the two boys run
together. He is witty and sharp as a
tack. He will attend his first bee con-
vention later this summer and I will
be a proud father standing in the
booth with both boys tending to cus-
tomers as I have in years past.
While at the state show at McHen-
ry College I let my son take some of
last season’s crop to sell. The boys
don’t sell much plain honey as they
865

try and differentiate themselves from
the many customers that also try to
sell their honey crop locally. They
came up with a product they like to
Dadant and Sons flooding summer 2019. The small building at right is Gabe’s honey
house. Photo by Wade Plowman
866
Sweet
Heat Honey
call Sweet Heat Honey. It is a honey
infused with the essence of fresh, lo-
cally grown peppers. The varieties
sold depend upon what the garden
Natural Comb Honey in 3 lb. round
produces from Jalapenos, Habanero,
or Ghost Peppers; they infuse each
batch with precision, giving each the
right amount of sweet and heat.
This season they are branching
out even further with our infused
products and will try to win a spot
on many of the local grocery store
shelves. A mint honey is in the works
with thanks to Rose Leedle. While
standing around in-between breakout
sessions many stories and successes
are shared. She was kind enough to
tell us about her mint honey which
sparked even more ideas for our in-
fused products. We hope to add at
least three new types of infused honey
to our line and hope to give other bee-
keepers ideas on ways to market and
sell their crop.
As I finish this today I look outside.
The river water that was inside our
shipping department has receded.
The dried mud from the old Missis-
sippi sits in our parking lot and the
bee yard behind the plant is a muddy
mess. The little outbuilding that once
housed my father’s honey extraction
room and my equipment is also a
muddy mess in need of cleaning and
paint, which will become the boys’
next task. Cleaning that building out is
not much fun from what I recall after
a good flood. It’s been 26 years since
I cleaned that building out. I was 13
years old in 1993 when one of the last
three 100-year floods came through.
The three of us want to wish you all
the best of luck beekeeping this sum-
mer, and have hopes we all will make
a bumper crop.
Till next time,
Gabe, C.C., and C.P. Dadant
American Bee Journal
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August 2019 867

868 American Bee Journal
 Beekeeping Basics
by TINA SEBESTYEN
O
ne of the most basic parts of
beekeeping is figuring out
how not to lose all your bees
in one year. Beekeeping is hard. A
couple of fun quotes from mentees
sum it up well … “I’ve figured out
the worst thing I can put in my hives
… my hands”; and, “I haven’t discov-
ered yet how I’m going to kill my bees
this year.” I have to disagree with the
first guy, although I understand the
sentiment. Even when I don’t know
what I’m doing to help my colonies
survive, the ones I pay the most at-
tention to are the ones least likely to
die. My colonies in out-yards are the
most likely to die. The best thing you
can acquire to ensure your bees’ sur-
vival is experience. Get out there, get
This five frame nuc box is too small, the bees will quickly out-grow it and will swarm.
Photo credit: Tina Sebestyen
August 2019
in your bees, and learn (not more than
once a week, or they’ll learn to hate
you). This is one of the reasons we
have been encouraging you to learn
to do powdered sugar rolls, and to get
your courage up and split your colo-
nies when they need it. Everything
you accomplish not only helps your
bees, but it helps you learn and gain
experience.
This month, I am encouraging you
to pull a late summer nuc for yourself.
It might sound scary, but it is fairly
basic, helps you gain experience, and
most importantly, gives you what
is called a resource hive. A resource
hive is insurance against doom. The
late summer nuc, The Resource Hive,
gives you an extra queen in case you
lose one, it gives you eggs to donate
to a colony so that they can raise their
own queen, extra bees in case a skunk
eats a bunch of your big colony, or
sheets of brood to normalize phero-
mones while waiting for a queen to
mate. It is pretty important. You may
have more than one big colony, but
you aren’t going to want to take the
queen out of one big colony to give
to another, and you may not want to
steal resources from a production col-
ony that may handicap its production.
Convinced? Here’s what you need.
First, you need another hive body,
top, bottom, and feeder. This works
best if you have at least two colonies
to pull from. Even colonies that start-
ed out this year as packages should
have enough resources by the first of
August for this to work. You aren’t
expecting to get honey this year any-
way, trade that in for bee survival.
If your two colonies have filled two
deep hive bodies, or three medium
hive bodies, you have enough bees,
and hopefully enough honey to share
with your nuc.
The definition of “nuc” is nucleus
of bees, and that is what we are going
to create. At a minimum, a late sum-
mer nuc needs three frames of brood,
a queen, two frames of honey and
bee bread, the bees that are on these
frames, and room to work. We are go-
ing to put our new nuc into a full-size
hive body, not a five frame nuc body,
unless the nuc box can be supered.
You can pull one frame of brood from
your weaker hive, and two frames
(or bars!) from your stronger hive. If
both are strong, you can make your
nuc super strong by giving them two
frames of brood from each. Take the
two frames of capped brood from
the stronger hive. They can afford to
869

These are double nuc boxes that can be supered, so that the resource hive can grow.
Photo credit: Jim Marquis
lose the bees that they put the time
and resources into raising. Take
a frame with mostly open brood
from the weaker hive. It has not cost
them much in the way of resources.
Capped brood boosts the population
very quickly, while a frame of open
brood and eggs allows them to raise a
Standard hive bodies are the easiest home for your resource hive, it is equipment you
already own. Place the initial five frames in the center, with both food frames to one
side, and room to grow to the other side. Photo credit: Tina Sebestyen
870
queen if they need to. Take one sheet
of mixed honey and bee bread from
each parent colony to give to the nuc.
It is all right to just put the bees
from the different colonies in the new
box together. They might fight a little.
They’ll get right over it. One easy way
to keep fighting to a minimum and to
help with queen acceptance is to spray
all the bees as they are going into the
new box with sugar water that has
either Honey-B-Healthy or even just
good old vanilla added. (One tea-
spoon in the spray bottle works fine.)
It masks their scents just enough, and
by the time they get done licking each
other off, they’ve become friends.
I hope you have been practicing
finding the queen, it is going to come
in handy right now. I encourage you
to move one of your queens into the
nuc; not both queens, though! The
reason is that the queen will keep lay-
ing eggs, and will help the nuc build
up faster than they could if they had
to wait for a queen to develop, hard-
en, mate, and figure out how to get
one egg in each cell. You can buy a
mated queen for the nuc, but it isn’t
necessary, though you’ll want to be
sure your virgin returns from her
mating flight in the parent colony.
There are several reasons that having
a young queen in your big colony is
a good idea, and we’ll go into them
more fully in another article. Briefly,
young queens raise a higher propor-
tion of winter bees, and raise more of
them, so that your colony has fewer
old mouths to feed, and more heat-
ers who can feed larvae very well in
spring. In the meantime, you have
your old queen “in the bank,” so to
speak, in case of late winter queen
loss, though the colony is less likely
to lose the queen if she is a young one.
While the big colony raises a new
queen, they will have a nice brood
break, which will help with mite
loads, but isn’t an excuse not to moni-
tor for them. Don’t take for granted
that the brood break will be enough.
Also, while they are raising a new
queen, their colony numbers will fall
slightly. This is actually a good thing,
it means fewer old bees who won’t
live through the winter anyway, and
less of a strain on the colony’s honey
stores. And, what are the bees going
to be doing while they aren’t feed-
ing larvae during this brood break?
They are going to be producing extra
honey.
You can fill out the hive body with
either drawn comb, if you have it, or
frames with foundation. Drawn comb
is obviously faster for the bees, but if
you don’t have any, the bees can draw
comb. Logic and bee biology tell us
that the big colony with its many
young bees can draw comb very eas-
ily, though the nuc can do it, as well.
It is a good idea to feed sugar water
to your bees while they are getting
American Bee Journal
back on their feet, especially if you
are asking them to draw comb. Fall
isn’t a time that bees normally draw
huge amounts of new comb, though
all that emerging brood will be just
the right age to do so. How big is big
enough for your new colony to make
it through the winter? Beekeeping is
very local, so it may be slightly differ-
ent where you live. I live at 7,440 feet
of elevation in the forest of Colorado.
I have successfully over-wintered
five frames of bees several times, and
failed to over-winter nucs with fewer
frames of bees.
A word on placement of your new
colony … anything you can do to re-
duce drifting from one colony to the
next helps them survive better. If the
bees can easily find only their own
colony, they spread fewer diseases,
and fewer mites. Here in Colorado
we must keep our bees inside electric
fences to keep the bears out of them.
That means we can’t spread them
apart. What we can do is face them in
different directions. I love both south
and west for winter. Bees in these
colonies get to fly on more winter
days than colonies facing east, and
definitely more than colonies facing
north. If I had three in a row, I’d face
one east, one south, and one west.
August 2019
Moving the new nuc away from
your bee yard for the first two weeks
after you create it makes the bees you
moved stay with the queen. If you
choose to place the nuc right in your
apiary right from its creation, you
should shake at least three frames of
bees from over open brood into the
nuc. These will be nurse bees who
won’t abandon the queen, while the
foragers who may be walking around
on capped brood will just go home.
I tried this for the first time last
fall. I created three nucs with three
frames of brood each, and two frames
of food. My nucs had to raise their
own queens, because I hadn’t learned
the benefits of giving the old queen
to the nuc, and they did very well. I
was completely amazed at how much
comb they drew, how much honey
they stored, and how little honey
they used over the winter. Two of the
nucs came out of winter stronger and
faster than any of my full-sized colo-
nies. The third one died of PMS, Para-
sitic Mite Syndrome, because I took
for granted that the brood break was
enough and didn’t monitor for mites.
We gain experience from failures as
well as successes, and wise people
learn from the mistakes of others
rather than insisting on making all of
the mistakes themselves. Learn from
my mistakes, and gain experience
while ensuring survival rather than
doom for your bees.
Mattila, H., Harris, J. & Otis, G. Timing of
production of winter bees in honey bee
(Apis mellifera) colonies. Insectes soc. (2001).
48: 88. https://doi.org/10.1007/ PL00001764
Harris, Lloyd. (2010). The effect of requeen-
ing in late July on honey bee colony
development on the Northern Great
Plains of North America. Journal of Api-
cultural Research. 49. 159-169. 10.3896/
IBRA.1.49.2.04.
Tina Sebestyen
has been keeping
bees since 2007
in top bar, Lang-
stroth, and more
recently the long
Langstroth hive.
She is founder of the Four Corners Beekeep-
ers Assoc, and is Vice President of the Col-
orado State Beekeepers Association. She
is currently working to produce the Master
Beekeeper Program for the state of Colo-
rado. She helps with large scale queen pro-
duction for commercial operations, raises
locally adapted queens for NW New Mexico
and SW Colorado, helps produce 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
871
872 American Bee Journal
874 American Bee Journal
 PESTICIDES
IN
THE NEWS
by RANDY OLIVER
ScientificBeekeeping.com

Our beleaguered Environmental Protection Agency, tasked with protecting man and
the environment, is caught between politics and a public that is becoming more and
more concerned about the effects of pesticides and climate change.

I
plan to return to my series on pes- Environmental Health, Pesticide Ac- sides of pesticide issues. I’m more
ticides, but our extreme weather tion Network, and four commercial interested in rational discussion as to
this spring was disastrous for beekeepers, Steve Ellis, Jim Doan, how farmers can best control pests via
our bee operation, since we were un- Tom Theobald, and Bill Rhodes. The sustainable and eco-friendly meth-
able to rear queens for splitting our settlement brought headlines such as ods. For the foreseeable future, pes-
hives after almonds. As a result, we below. ticides will remain part of that equa-
were also unable to control swarm- Note how the neonics are invariably tion. The neonics live up to many of
ing. We’ve since been working over- labeled as “bee-killing pesticides” — it their promises, but as one would
time to try to recover our numbers in just sorta rolls off the tongue, doesn’t expect from any neurotoxin, must be
time to build our colonies up for next it? This “victory” actually meant that applied with caution, and the EPA
year’s almond contracts. I recently EPA would accept the voluntary re- must follow research findings that
congratulated my son Eric for now quests from Bayer, Syngenta, and Va- indicate that there may be unforseen
being able to claim the title for having lent to withdraw their registrations of adverse effects.
the honor of running the operation 12 products containing one or more Such unforeseen effects are noticed
during the worst season in memory. neonics: 5 containing thiamethoxam, only after a pesticide has been in use
That said, in recent months, a few 6 containing clothianadin, and 1 con- for some time, and there are plenty of
scientific papers and news items of taining imidacloprid. All were turf or folk out there looking for any prob-
interest have caught my attention. seed treatments, other than Bayer’s lems due to the neonics. One recent
We may look back on some of them “Flower, Rose & Shrub Care” and one paper suggests that we need to call
as watershed events that changed the foliar product. for more research on the affects of ne-
courses of our future. None of the neonicotinoid insecti- onics upon mammalian reproductive
cides were banned from use — only hormones.
Revocation of Some neonic LabeLS a few formulated products, repre-
OK, there was a lot of hoopla about senting a drop in the bucket of neo- Practical application: I’m glad to
the recent final settlement of a law- nicotinoid applications, were being see neonics removed from the home-
suit by Center for Food Safety (CFS) allowed to have their registrations owner arsenal, due to their potential
that has been ongoing for six years, expire (and stock on the shelf could for problems to pollinators visiting
representing plaintiffs CFS, Sierra continue to be sold for another year). excessively-treated plants. The law-
Club, Beyond Pesticides, Center for There are extreme views on both suit didn’t change much for agricul-
tural uses, but the public attention
helps to keep the pressure on the
Center for Food Safety wins in case to force EPA.
EPA to ban 12 neonicotinoids.
*** neonicS and mammaLian
Center for Food Safety secures legal victory for bees! RepRoduction
CFS scored another huge legal victory! As a result of our In a recent study run in South
lawsuit against EPA, 12 toxic, bee-killing “neonic” pesti- Dakota,1 the researchers divided 20
cides will soon be withdrawn from the market! captive pregnant female deer into
four groups, and fed them a range of

August 2019 875

 mones involved in sexual develop-
ment, cancerous tumors, birth defects,
and other developmental disorders.

Practical application: The prob-

doses of imidacloprid in their drink-
ing water, up to 15 ppb, covering a
realistic range for field exposure for
the lower doses. I’ll quote their dis-
cussion directly:
Our study provides the first over-
view of effects of imidacloprid on
white-tailed deer. We documented
that deer in our experiment avoided
imidacloprid-contaminated water.
Moreover, we discovered that fawns
that died during our experiment had
greater concentrations of imidaclo-
prid in spleens compared to those
that survived. Fawns with relatively
high concentrations of imidacloprid
in spleen and genital organs also
tended to be smaller and less healthy
than those with relatively low con-
The question is
whether some of
our pesticides are
causing long-term
reproductive harm
to wildlife, and
perhaps us humans
as well.2
centrations of imidacloprid in these
organs. Finally, our study provides
support for reduced activity of adult
and fawn white-tailed deer with rela-
tively high concentrations of imida-
cloprid in spleens.
I reviewed the study carefully, in-
cluding reading their supportive cita-
tions and beyond. I have a number of
questions about the study and their
analyses; the author to whom I sub-
mitted them declined to answer. So
although I can’t yet accept their con-
clusions wholeheartedly, this study
calls for follow-up research.
The reason is that some of the pesti-
cides used nowadays are neurotoxins
or may inadvertently act as endocrine
disruptors — interfering with hor-
lem is that we may not notice subtle
adverse effects until we’ve caused
harm to generations of wildlife or
humans. Hence, although I feel no
need for alarmism, we do need to
keep a close eye on studies such as
the one above.
the phaSe out of chLoRpyRifoS
One class of chemicals that envi-
ronmental protection agencies are
united in trying to phase out are the
acetylcholinesterase inhibitors — the
organophosphates and carbamates.
These have been clearly linked to
causing problems in childhood brain
development (yes, my generation
grew up with a lot of it). Oddly, EPA
made a special case for the registra-
tion of coumaphos for beekeepers to
use in their hives against varroa and
Small Hive Beetle.
Chlorpyrifos (an organophosphate,
commonly sold as Lorsban® and
Dursban®) used to be widely used
for home insect control and outdoor
residential pest management, and
remains one of the most widely used
insecticides in the world. It is often
the most common insecticide found
in bee hives (after beekeeper-applied
miticides).3
EPA has been trying to eliminate its
use, but the Trump Administration
has appealed. California is neverthe-
less charging ahead with a ban. The
ag community is alarmed, since there
are a number of pests for which chlor-
pyrifos is the only effective control
product. We’ll see how this plays out.

Practical application: Once a pes-

ticide has been used for a while, it’s
not uncommon that there were un-
foreseen adverse effects to man or
the environment. Chlorpyrifos start-
ed to be used in 1965 — five years be-
fore the creation of the EPA — so it’s
not surprising that it’s got some is-
sues. Beekeepers have long dreaded
bee kills due to Lorsban, so we can
hope that growers replace it with
something less harmful to bees.
When a regulatory agency declares
that it is going to restrict any product
or practice, you can count on there
being a loud protest that says that
When I walked in to shoot this photo of hives being used to pollinate sunflowers, the change is impossible. We taxpayers
smell of pesticide on the tomatoes in the foreground was intense. Sunflower pests pay the EPA to weigh the evidence
unfortunately often get a foothold when the flowers open, thus calling for insecticide for us, although unfortunately of
applications at exactly the worst time for pollinators. late, politics has trumped science.

876 American Bee Journal

fipRoniL cumuLative effectS
Beekeepers got it wrong and right
Back in the late 1990s beekeep-
ers in France claimed that Gaucho,
a seed treatment containing the sys-
temic neonicotinoid insecticide imi-
dacloprid, which was being applied
to sunflowers, was causing massive
colony mortality. But the case against
imidacloprid was weak, since the low
levels of the pesticide in nectar or pol-
len would be rapidly metabolized in
a bee’s body (~92% is gone within 48
hours), and thus it appeared unlikely
that it could kill an entire colony from
foraging on the treated crop. Never-
theless, public protests against Gau-
cho occurred, and the registration of
its use was revoked.
But there was another seed treat-
ment also being applied to sunflowers
at the time (Regent) which contained
a different systemic insecticide (fipro-
nil). The beginning of colony deaths
actually better coincided with the use
of Regent on sunflowers.4 The colony
deaths continued. Despite the claims
by the manufacturers that the treat-
ments were safe for bees, Regent was
also banned.5 I searched the Web and
found that Regent insecticide appears
to still be sold in the U.S., but only for
use as a furrow treatment on pota-
toes, and a treatment for corn seed to
be exported outside of the U.S. or its
territories.
A recent study by Holder6 found
that the beekeepers were likely wrong
about imidacloprid, but were right
about a pesticide causing the deaths
of their hives. Of interest is that fipro-
nil takes a while to kill an insect that
has consumed it, thus allowing ants,
yellowjackets, and honey bees to take
it back to the nest, where it eventually
kills the entire colony — it’s actually
a preferred bait treatment for those
three insects.
Holder found that unlike imidaclo-
prid, fipronil exhibits “time-reinforced
toxicity,” meaning that its metabolites
bioaccumulate in an insect’s body tis-
sue, resulting in a lethal cumulative
dose after a few days’ feeding.
Practical application: we beekeep-
ers must demand that EPA require
long-term feeding trials as a requi-
site for pesticide registrations.
GLyphoSate in youR GRoceRieS?
I’m not about to take an opinion
on the recent concerns about glypho-
sate/Roundup® — I’ll let our regula-
tory agencies review the evidence. To
date, none have been able to make a
August 2019
compelling case against the herbi-
cide, which has transformed farm-
ing in the U.S., allowing growers
to reduce erosion and improve soil
structure by practicing “no till.” And
when I review the prevalence of Non-
Hodgkin’s Lymphoma since glypho-
sate came on the market, I don’t see
a huge spike. Those applicators that
claim that Roundup caused their dis-
ease, generally also admit to not fol-
lowing label instructions to wear pro-
tective clothing. It’s unfortunate that
the debate, instead of being conduct-
ed scientifically, is taking place in the
courtroom, with attorneys and plain-
tiffs hoping for huge judgements in
their favor. That said, a recent study
may explode both the science and the
number of lawsuits:
tRanSGeneRationaL effectS
of GLyphoSate?
A new paper in the journal Na-
ture may, if it gets traction, shift the
entire way that the chemical com-
panies and EPA would need to as-
sess any chemicals for allowed use.
Currently, registrants must submit
data for short-term toxicity, and if
indicated, for longer-term trials over
perhaps an entire generation of test
animals. But these methods were ar-
rived at before we understood trans-
generational epigenetic inheritance,
by which environmental exposure to
temperature, diet, calamity, or any
other stress or strong benefit can af-
fect how the genes of the exposed in-
The use of glyphosate and Roundup Ready® crops has revolutionized agriculture.
Glyphosate has been touted as one of the safest chemicals used in agriculture; but
could it have insidious effects?9
dividual’s children, grandchildren, or
great-grandchildren may be expressed.
And that is exactly what Deepika
Kubsad, of Washington State Univer-
sity’s Michael Skinner lab, did with
glyphosate.7 Their results were stun-
ning. Smithsonian Magazine head-
lined its coverage with:
Biologist Michael Skinner has en-
raged the chemical community and
shocked his peers with his break-
through research.
The rest of the Smithsonian article
is well worth reading.8 What Skin-
ner has shown is that a number of
common chemicals can not only act
as “endocrine disruptors,” but that
exposed individuals can pass those
effects on to their offspring without
any change to their DNA, but rather
by epigenetic (meaning “on the out-
side of genes”) changes that may be
passed on for generations. This is
called “transgenerational epigenetic
inheritance.” Skinner’s team found
that the great-grandchildren of the
rats exposed to glyphosate exhib-
ited disease and pathologies associ-
ated with the exposure of their great-
grandparents.
Before you jump to conclusions,
be aware that the researchers had
“exposed” pregnant female rats to
extreme doses of glyphosate, which
was injected under their skin, rather
than consumed. By my quick calcula-
tions, each pregnant female rat was
877
injected with the amount of glypho-
sate equivalent to what a 140-lb preg-
nant human being would receive if
injected with a full cup of the recom-
mended dilution of Roundup to be
sprayed upon weeds — and injected
for six days in a row (to be clear, this
is far more glyphosate than any hu-
man being, pregnant or otherwise,
would ever be exposed to).
Despite the high dose of glyphosate
(which did not appear to adversely
affect the pregnant females): “There
was no effect on litter size or sex ratio ob-
served for any generation...”
But in subsequent generations there
were some differences in weights and
other abnormalities.
Thus, my worry level about
glyphosate has not appreciably in-
creased until we see this experiment
replicated with more field realistic
doses. But that doesn’t mean that the
study hasn’t gotten a lot of attention
in principle.
Practical application: There’s a pos-
sibility that these findings may di-
rectly apply to honey bees, but more
importantly, the chemical industry,
chemical users in manufacturing, the
ag industry, and the world’s regu-
latory agencies are in shock. This
study could disrupt the status quo,
and signal a new beginning for how
modern human societies — which
have embraced the thousands of
chemicals that we all use in everyday
I shot this photo of a field in Kansas this spring. Note the center pivot irrigation system
at the upper left. Many acres of farmland will not be planted this season, due to exces-
sive moisture.
878
life — would need to test every new,
and previously-registered, chemical
for “safety.” We can expect serious
pushback and delaying tactics, but
we may be entering a new age of
chemical regulation.
cLimate chanGe and the
“new noRmaL”
Speaking of new ages, we are now
in the Anthropocene — the geological
age in which Homo sapiens is the ma-
jor cause of environmental and bio-
logical change on our planet.
One of those changes is in weather
patterns (a.k.a. “climate”). The Earth
has been coming out of its current
ice age for some tens of thousands of
years (during which time human civi-
lization developed). But that change
has accelerated in recent years, and
many species on this planet are likely
going to be unable to adjust. Depend-
ing upon one’s politics, humans ap-
pear to be responsible for this rapid
change, due to our unquenchable de-
mand for the burning of fossil fuels.
One effect of the resulting higher
CO2 content of the atmosphere is
warming, resulting in both droughts
(as we suffered through for sev-
eral years in California), or massive
rainfall (due to greater evaporation
of water into the atmosphere) — as
many areas of the Midwest and East
are enjoying this season. Farming in
the U.S. and much of the world may
never again be the same.
A recent paper in Scientific Ameri-
can10 helps to explain why we are
seeing such extreme weather. It ap-
pears that the warming of the poles
affects how the jet stream moves
the highs and lows that cause what
we call “weather” from west to east
across the continents. The North Pole
is warming more quickly than the
lower latitudes, resulting in abnor-
mally wide oscillations in the high-
and low-pressure zones that used to
progress across our continent. These
zones now often stall in place, lead-
ing to prolonged periods of drought
or heavy rain.
Practical application: These ex-
treme weather events are likely to be
the “New Normal”.11 They’ve made
beekeeping far more difficult for us
in California — our plant phenology
is all screwed up, and in recent years
we’ve either been parched or drown-
ing in rain. And this year, heavy
rainfall is affecting agricultural ar-
eas across the country. Independent
of one’s political persuasion, there is
a strong case to be made for invok-
ing the Precautionary Principle — in
this case, since we know that CO2
traps heat in the atmosphere, per-
haps it would be wise for us to stop
throwing gasoline on the fire.
wRap up
The demands of the human popu-
lation of our planet, coupled with our
current chemical-heavy methods of
agricultural production and urban
life in general, along with our daily
burning of incredible quantities of
fossil fuels, are finally getting to the
point that we will no longer be able
to ignore the consequences. Luck-
ily, consumer and voter activism are
starting to ignite in response, with the
honey bee being a poster child for all
pollinators and wildlife. We beekeep-
ers can perhaps help to shift the way
we do things to a more sustainable
manner, with less harm to man and
the environment.
endnoteS
1. Berheim, EH, et al (2019) Effects of neo-
nicotinoid insecticides on physiology
and reproductive characteristics of cap-
tive female and fawn white-tailed deer.
Scientific Reports 9: 4534. Open access.
2. Mullin CA, et al (2010) High levels of
miticides and agrochemicals in North
American apiaries: Implications for
honey bee health. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9754.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009754
3. See Figure 16.3 in EEA (2013) Late Les-
sons from Early Warnings: Chapter 16 -
Seed-dressing systemic insecticides and
American Bee Journal
 honeybees. https://www.eea.europa.
eu/publications/late-lessons-2/late-
lessons-chapters/late-lessons-ii-chap-
ter-16/at_download/file
4. http://www.ipsnews.net/2004/03/envi-
ronment-europe-alarm-sounds-on-bee-
killing-pesticides/
5. Holder, P, et al (2018) Fipronil pesticide as
a suspect in historical mass mortalities of
honey bees. https://www.pnas.org/con-
tent/pnas/early/2018/11/26/1804934115.
full.pdf
6. Kubsad, D, et al (2019) Assessment of
glyphosate induced epigenetic transgen-
erational inheritance of pathologies and
sperm epimutations: Generational toxi-
cology. Scientific Reports 9: 6372. https://
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-
42860-0
7. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/in-
novation/the-toxins-that-affected-your-
great-grandparents-could-be-in-your-
August 2019
genes-180947644/ Just Google “skinner
epigenetics.”
8. Mann, M (2019) The Weather Amplifier.
Scientific American, March. http://www.
meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/
Mann/articles/articles/MannSciAm-
Feb19.pdf
9. Francis, J (2019) Rough Weather Ahead.
Scientific American 320(6): 46-53.
10. Photo credit: By USFWS Mountain-Prai-
rie. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?curid=47582798
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.
879
 Notes
The Latest Bee Science Distilled
What will growers use if neonicotinoid insecticides are banned?
L
ast year, the European Union
(EU) banned outdoor use of
several neonicotinoid insecti-
cides due to the risk posed to wild
and managed bees. Several Cana-
dian provinces have also recently
placed partial restrictions on neonic-
otinoids, and some U.S. states have
partially restricted the use of neonic-
otinoids as part of their Pollinator
Protection Plans.
Because neonicotinoids are the
most-used insecticides in the world,
there has been pushback from grow-
ers based largely on the belief that
neonicotinoids are an indispensable
tool. But is that the case? This is the
topic for our twenty-first “Notes from
the Lab,” where we highlight “Alter-
natives to neonicotinoids,” written
by Hervé Jactel and colleagues and
published in the journal Environment
International [129:423-429 (2019)].
August 2019
from the Lab:
Two years before the EU ban on
neonicotinoids occurred, the French
Agency for Food, Environmental
and Occupational Health and Safety
(ANSES) was commissioned by the
French Ministry of Agriculture to as-
sess the risks and benefits of alterna-
tives (chemical and non-chemical)
to neonicotinoids. This resulted in a
group of independent scientific ex-
perts comprehensively assessing all
available alternatives to neonicoti-
noids for pest management. For each
neonicotinoid use, target pest and
crop plant, all alternatives were iden-
tified and ranked in terms of their ef-
ficacy for controlling the target pest,
applicability (i.e., the alternative was
directly usable or requiring further
research and development), durabil-
ity (i.e., risk of resistance to target
pests) and practicability (i.e., ease of
implementation by farmers).
Hoverfly larvae
can be used as
non-chemical
neonicotinoid
alternatives (i.e.,
biological control
with predators).
Hoverfly larvae
are voracious
natural enemies
of aphids and
the adults are
also excellent
pollinators.
by Scott McArt
The panel considered eight cat-
egories of potential alternatives to
neonicotinoids: 1) other chemical
insecticides, 2) biological control
with predators or parasitoids, 3) bio-
logical control with fungi, viruses or
bacteria, 4) biological control via al-
ternative farming practices, such as
intercropping or crop rotation, 5) use
of semiochemicals for activities such
as mating disruption or mass trap-
ping, 6) physical control, such as oils,
nets or trenching, 7) genetically im-
proved plants, and 8) plant defense
elicitors. Each potential alternative
was then independently given a
semi-quantitative score (1-3) for ef-
ficacy, applicability, durability, and
practicability by multiple experts
following a systematic literature re-
view of the topic. If major discrepan-
cies occurred between the experts, a
discussion took place and consensus
values were determined.
The panel considered an alterna-
tive pest control method to be di-
rectly useable as a replacement (sub-
stitutable) for a neonicotinoid use
if its overall score for efficacy and
applicability was ≥ 2. Similarly, the
substitutability of a category of po-
tential alternatives was defined as
the number of methods or products
with efficacy and applicability scores
≥ 2 divided by the number of meth-
ods or products from that category.
Overall, the panel considered 152
authorized uses of neonicotinoids
concerning 120 target crops and 279
insect pests. They evaluated 2,968
883

Neonicotinoids are effective insecticides
against most aphid pests.
case studies using the four criteria
(efficacy, applicability, durability,
and practicability).
So, what did they find? Can usage
of neonicotinoids be replaced or not?
The short answer is yes. Only 6 of the
152 authorized uses of neonicotinoids
(4%) were considered non-substitut-
able. In 18% of cases, other chemical
controls were the only substitutable
alternative to neonicotinoids. How-
ever, for most neonicotinoid uses
(78%), the authors identified viable
non-chemical alternatives. In other
words, a chemical insecticide could
be an effective substitute, or a non-
chemical control measure could be
used as an effective substitute. This
is an important finding since replace-
ment chemical insecticides oftentimes
come with their own risks to bees,
which may be greater or less than the
risk from neonicotinoids.
Wireworms are secondary plant pests
that are often targeted by neonicotinoids.
884
What are the potential alterna-
tives to neonicotinoids? Seven of the
eight categories of potential alterna-
tives to neonicotinoids contained vi-
able substitutes. Nearly all alterna-
tive chemical insecticides (98%) were
considered substitutable. The most
substitutable non-chemical methods
were physical control (65%), such as
oils, nets or trenching, followed by bi-
ological control with fungi, viruses or
bacteria (54%), biological control via
alternative farming practices, such as
intercropping or crop rotation (27%),
and biological control with predators
or parasitoids (26%). Highlighting
the need for more research on mating
disruption and mass trapping, semio-
chemicals were a substitutable alter-
native only 18% of the time. Similarly,
genetically improved plants were a
substitutable alternative only 4% of
the time, highlighting the need for
more plant breeding research and,
dare I say it, GMOs (yes, more insec-
ticides are oftentimes used when an-
ti-GMO sentiment causes growers to
shy away from highly effective tools
such as Bt, which is a gene insertion
from a naturally occurring soil bacte-
rium, Bacillus thuringiensis).
OK, I use neonicotinoids and
you’ve piqued my interest. If I’m
thinking about replacing them, what
should I consider? The most com-
mon alternative to neonicotinoids,
with high efficacy and immediate ap-
plicability and practicality, is the use
of other chemical insecticides (89%
of cases). Particularly substitutable
are those insecticides belonging to
previous generations of substances,
such as pyrethroids and organophos-
phates. However, these insecticides
come with their own risks to bees. For
example, even though pyrethroids
are non-systemic insecticides (i.e.,
they can’t be incorporated into plant
tissues, including pollen and nectar,
while neonicotinoids can), and are
rapidly broken down in the environ-
ment compared to comparatively
persistent neonicotinoids, many py-
rethroids are still highly toxic to bees.
They’re also well-known to synergize
with several fungicides and become
even more toxic to bees (see Van Dyke
et al. 2018 for a systematic review of
this topic, including recommenda-
tions for growers).
Reducing chemical insecticide us-
age is the safest bet for bees. And
importantly, in 78% of cases, at least
one substitutable non-chemical alter-
native was identified for a particu-
lar target pest on a particular crop.
However, the truth is that chemical
pesticides are effective and easy to
use (compare spraying an orchard
vs. covering it with a net or adding
trenches!). Furthermore, incorpora-
tion of non-chemical controls into
IPM programs is chronically under-
researched, underfunded and there-
fore underdeveloped. But Jactel and
colleagues have documented a large
number of substitutable bee-friendly
non-chemical replacements for neo-
nicotinoids. Furthermore, most of the
non-chemical methods can be used
simultaneously, which generally in-
creases their overall efficacy.
If we truly care about minimizing
pesticide risk to bees, it must be ac-
knowledged that neonicotinoids are
not the only problem. That said, they
are part of the problem, and the study
by Jactel and colleagues is an impor-
tant contribution that outlines viable
and effective substitutes.
Until next time, bee well and do
good work,
Scott McArt
RefeRence:
Jactel, H., F. Verheggen, D. Thiéry, A. J. Es-
cobar-Gutiérrez, E. Gachet, N. Desneux
and the Noenicotinoids Working Group.
2019. Alternatives to neonicotinoids. Envi-
ronment International 129:423-429. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.04.045
Van Dyke, M., E. Mullen, D. Wixted and
S. H. McArt. 2018. A Pesticide Decision-
Making Guide to Protect Pollinators in
Tree Fruit Orchards. Available for free down-
load at: https://pollinator.cals.cornell.edu/
resources/grower-resources/
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 management 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
American Bee Journal

British Oilseed Rape following
Photo by Richard Rickitt
I
f you are a rural beekeeper, the
work of your local agronomist
could influence the health and
productivity of your bees almost as
much as your own management ef-
forts. Bee Craft spent a day with an
agronomist, discovering what his
work involves and discussing the
impact it can have on bees and the
environment, particularly in the
light of the ban on neonicotinoid
pesticides.
The role of the modern agronomist
became established in the 1980s when
advances in agrochemicals, seed va-
rieties and planting techniques had
become so sophisticated that most
farmers didn’t have the time or skills
to keep up with the demands of mod-
ern crop management. In 1985, the
Food and Environment Protection
Act introduced stringent rules about
the sale and use of agrochemicals.
The new rules created the need for
agronomists — qualified and licensed
professionals who are expert and up-
to-date in the safe and appropriate
use of agrochemicals.
Today, most farmers employ agron-
omists to assess the quality of their
land and design planting regimes that
rotate different crops and varieties on
a three- or four-year cycle to minimise
disease, pests and weeds, and maxi-
mise productivity. These agronomists,
working as individuals, independent
companies or in agrochemical-linked
companies, ‘walk’ crops regularly,
checking growth, looking for prob-
lems and making recommendations if
August 2019
The Agronomist
the EU Neonic Ban
by Richard Rickitt,
Deputy Editor, BeeCraft
they feel any fertilizers or treatments crop was pitiful. Only about one-third
are necessary. of the field was covered with plants,
For rural beekeepers, the work of many of them struggling to produce
agronomists is particularly relevant flowers. Tim told me that the plants
because it determines the planting here had been hit hard by cabbage
of some significant bee forage plants, stem flea beetle. Pulling several plants
as well as the use of any potentially from the ground, he cut open their
harmful insecticides. Perhaps the stems to reveal brown hollows where
crop of greatest interest to beekeepers flea beetle larvae had eaten away the
is oilseed rape, a boon for many and flesh. The larvae themselves wriggled
commercially essential for most bee from the wounds, two or three in each
farmers, but considered a nuisance by plant we looked at.
others.
botheRSome beetLeS
cRop waLkinG Cabbage stem flea beetle is the most
Tim Bullock is a professionally serious pest of oilseed rape. Attracted
qualified and licensed agronomist by the smell, the tiny beetles migrate
working in my beekeeping area of into fields of emerging seedlings.
Wiltshire in rural southwest Eng- The beetles feed on the shoots and
land. He currently oversees the plan- the first leaves, sometimes destroy-
ning, planting and growing of ap-
proximately 15,000 acres of crops on
about 100 farms in north Wiltshire
and south Gloucestershire. Perhaps
unusual among agronomists, Tim is
also a keen hobby beekeeper — and
chairman of Swindon Beekeepers’ As-
sociation. He is therefore well placed
to appreciate many of the issues sur-
rounding farming, agrochemicals and
the environment from both sides of
the argument.
I joined Tim as he walked the fields
on several farms within a few miles of
my home. The first fields we visited
were planted with oilseed rape and
were easily within foraging range for
my own bees. Even to my untrained
eye it was immediately obvious that Flea beetles: tiny but troublesome
although the rape was flowering, the Photo: S Rae, CC Attribution 2.0
885
ing the young plants altogether. In
autumn, the beetles lay their eggs at
the base of the surviving plants and
the emerging larvae burrow into the
stem where they eat the flesh and se-
verely affect growth. Towards the end
of spring, the larvae leave the plants
and pupate in the soil. Adults emerge
in mid-summer and feed on foliage
before seeking places to lay their own
eggs in the autumn.
The 2013 EU ban on using neonic-
otinoid pesticides (neonics) on flow-
ering crops has removed one of the
weapons to control flea beetles. Ap-
plied as a seed dressing, neonics are
absorbed by emerging seedlings so
that the toxin is contained systemical-
ly in their sap. Flea beetles attacking
the young plants consume the poison
and die. Without neonics, many farm-
ers now try to control flea beetles with
conventional pyrethroid insecticides.
This involves spraying the young
plants with chemicals about once a
week at the time the flea beetles are
thought to be attacking the young
plants — usually in early autumn.
The spray only works if it touches the
beetles, so more beetles can move into
the field immediately after spraying
and continue to cause damage. This
treatment is likely to enable a crop
of rape to get off to a reasonable start
but, because many flea beetles are
now resistant to conventional sprays,
some crop damage is inevitable.
The field we visited had been
sprayed twice the previous autumn,
but flea beetles had nonetheless man-
aged to attack much of the crop. Tim
explained that nothing can be done
This field should have been dense with flowering oilseed rape. Instead, the failing crop
is due to be ploughed in.
886
about larvae once they are inside the
plant since no conventional sprays are
capable of penetrating the stem and
killing the pest.
GRowinG painS
As a result of our visit, Tim decided
to recommend that the ailing oilseed
rape should be destroyed and the
fields sown with maize. If the farmer
gets a good crop of maize, he might
just about break even on that field this
year — but any profit is unlikely. Tim
doubted whether this farmer would
grow oilseed rape again. Indeed, re-
sults from a recent survey undertaken
by the Association of Independent
Crop Consultants in conjunction with
Farming Online show that 61% of
growers in England are seriously con-
sidering removing oilseed rape from
their rotations this autumn. Most of
the reductions will be in south-east
and south-west England.*
It was clear that the ban on neonics
had contributed to the failure of the
crop we were looking at, so I asked
Tim what he thinks about the neon-
ics ban as an agronomist and as a bee-
keeper. ‘I admit there are definitely
problems with neonicotinoids,’ he
said, ‘but having objectively looked
very hard at the data, I am not con-
vinced that they were quite as bad
as many people think. Science does
come into it, but a lot of it comes
down to politics. My main concern is
that I don’t think the alternatives to
neonics are any better [for bees]. The
ban has already led to the increased
use of non-selective broad-spectrum
insecticides. As a beekeeper, I find this
much more worrying. When a crop is
sprayed with insecticide, it can kill ev-
erything in the field — that includes
beneficial insects like ladybirds, spi-
ders, hoverflies, some of the life in
the soil — and, of course, bees.’ Tim
says that the use of other potentially
damaging alternatives is also likely
to increase — slug pellets to prevent
seed-hollowing, for example.
veSted inteReStS
I asked Tim if it was fair to think
that his opinions were influenced by
the way that he earned his living. “It’s
true that most farmers don’t pay me
directly for looking after their crops,“
he said. “They buy the fertilisers and
treatments that I recommend and my
payment comes from those sales. I
can see why some people will think
agronomists might try to sell uneces-
sary products to farmers, but the mar-
gins on growing crops are so tight that
farmers will never pay a penny more
than they need to. My job is to find
a way to get the maximum harvest
for the minimum input of expensive
fertilisers and treatments. The result
is shown on the bottom line, and if
farmers think I am costing them too
much, they will simply go elsewhere.“
Tim was also keen to point out that
he does not have ties with specific
agrochemical companies and is free
to recommend the products that he
considers to be the safest and most
cost-effective, from whatever source.
aLteRnativeS
I asked Tim what farmers are likely
to grow as an alternative to oilseed
rape. “Rape is important as a break
crop,“ he explained. “That means it
is used in a field every three to four
years as an alternative to cereals in
order to prevent the build-up of pests
and diseases. If farmers decide not to
use oilseed rape, they might use peas
or beans, which will certainly be of
some benefit to bees and beekeepers.
They might also use maize, linseed,
sugar beet or grass — none of which
is particularly beneficial to bees. It
would be nice if they could all grow
borage, but there isn’t much of a mar-
ket for it.“
Whatever alternatives farmers
grow, most will still require various
insecticide sprays. Flowering field
beans, for example, may need to be
sprayed for bruchid beetle, which lays
its eggs in the developing pod, the lar-
vae then feeding on the young beans.
Using conventional insecticide
sprays increases risk of the large-
American Bee Journal

An oilseed rape stem sliced in half reveals the damage done by flea beetle larvae.
scale poisoning of bees and other non-
target insects. Part of Tim’s job is to
ensure this is avoided. “Insecticides
should be applied in the early morn-
ing or evening when bees are not fly-
ing,“ he said. “It’s my job to make all
farmers that I work with very aware
of the importance of spraying at the
right time and in the right conditions.
To be fair, these days the vast major-
ity of farmers fully understand the
importance of pollinators and what
they need to do to protect them. After
all, it’s in their own interests because
properly pollinated crops are worth
more money. Fortunately, the instanc-
es of honey bee pesticide poisoning
are vanishingly rare.“
Tim explained that, despite the dif-
ficulties, many farmers are reluctant
to give up growing oilseed rape be-
cause it is one of the few crops that
is potentially very profitable. Good
crops of oilseed rape are still possible
and, to prove the point, we visited an-
other field only about a mile from the
first. Here the rape was clearly in good
health and the fluorescent-yellow
flowers were being keenly worked by
bees of various sorts. This crop had re-
ceived the same insecticide treatments
as the first — the only difference being
that the field had been spread with pig
manure shortly before planting. “Pig
manure is particularly smelly, and I
suspect that it was strong enough to
disguise the smell of the young seed-
lings and reduce the attraction to flea
beetles,“ said Tim. “It might be that in
the future some sort of smell deterrent
can be developed to protect young
crops.“ Another idea is to sow oilseed
rape mixed with mustard — another
August 2019
we still be selling much of our malt-
ing barley to Germany, or our field
beans to North Africa? Then there
will be whatever changes are made
to the way farmers receive payments
from the government. At the moment,
it looks likely that they will be paid
money for participation in steward-
ship schemes which reward envi-
ronmental benefits rather than food
production — so the future, for bees
at least, might be an improved one.”
aGRonomy aunt
Tim made a final request of bee-
keepers in rural areas. ‘“Talk to your
local farmers and find out who their
agronomist is. They will be happy to
talk to you and discuss their plans
and procedures. They will be glad to
find out where local bees are kept and
it should be the start of a positive, mu-
tually beneficial relationship.”
brassica attractive to flea beetles. Both
the mustard and the rape would be at- RefeRence
tacked by flea beetles, but by applying *Clarke, P (April 2019). Oilseed rape area to
a selective herbicide that kills only the shrink as growers weigh up alternatives.
Farmers Weekly online. https://tinyurl.
mustard, the remaining rape, by the com/yy3kecvx
law of averages, might not be so heav-
ily infested with flea beetle larvae. ABJ thanks Bee Craft, The Informed
Voice of British Beekeeping (www.
hiGh StakeS GambLeRS bee-craft.com) for permission to re-
Until effective solutions are found, print this article from its June 2019
growing oilseed rape will remain a issue.
risky proposition — but perhaps one
that some farmers are prepared to
risk. “Farmers are the biggest gam-
blers you will ever meet,” said Tim.
“Every time they plant a crop, they
are taking a massive gamble, and the
gains or losses can be financially sig-
nificant. My job is to minimise risks
and try to remove some of the uncer-
tainty. For me, neonics were the best
way to remove uncertainty — they
made flea beetle damage almost in-
significant. Without neonics we can
find new ways to grow crops, but
none of them are without a higher el-
ement of risk.”
unceRtain futuReS
Talking of the future, I asked Tim
what he thought Brexit might mean
for farmers. “At the moment we really
don’t know what the future holds —
even in the next year or so,” he said.
“Agriculture is all about planning —
sometimes three or four years ahead.
Many farmers pre-sell their crops a
year or two before they have even
been planted – it gives them the capi-
tal with which they are going to gam-
ble. But at the moment we don’t know
how Brexit might affect our relation-
ship with international markets. Will
887
SCIENCE INSIDER

Leveraging Hormones
to Fight the Mite
By Alison McAfee

A pupa is more than just a food source for varroa — it supplies the mite
with vital hormones. And when the supply is cut off, the mite can no longer
reproduce.

H
ormones control everything honey bee brood can suppress mite mated her with a single drone from
from our mood to our sex reproduction, and this helps keep the a varroa-susceptible colony. Half the
drive, sleep patterns, and hun- mite population from growing out of genes of her progeny would therefore
ger. Without these chemical messen- control. Last spring, the authors pub- come from the varroa-resistant colo-
gers, our day-to-day lives would be lished a new study in Molecular Ecol- ny, and the other half from a varroa-
fundamentally altered: Think, for ex- ogy describing mutations in a third susceptible colony. Conlon and his
ample, of life after menopause, when ecdysone-linked honey bee gene colleagues then used her to re-queen
the female sex hormones (estrogen (mblk-1) that is also linked to innate a varroa-riddled hive, and waited for
and progesterone) plummet. This resistance to varroa.2 “We identified her to lay drones.
drop in just two of the approximately a different genetic basis for the same Drones are especially useful in hon-
fifty different hormones that dictate trait in two independently evolved ey bee genetics studies because they
our lives comes with weight gain, populations of varroa-resistant hon- have only one set of chromosomes
hot flashes, changes in mood, and in- ey bees,” says Conlon. And it looks and no fathers. Their genotype is
creased risk of diseases like osteopo- like these traits could share the same therefore entirely dictated by which
rosis and breast cancer. Like most ani- physiological pathway. “This shows set of chromosomes they get from the
mals, we regulate our own hormones; the power of natural selection to de- queen. So in this case, approximately
that is, our cells produce and degrade velop different solutions to the same half the drones should exhibit the
our own hormones as needed. But not problem.” resistance gene(s). In the first study,
every animal is so lucky. The researchers began their study Conlon and his colleagues painstak-
Varroa is one of the unlucky ones. by investigating the genetics of a ingly uncapped hundreds of drone
The mites need hormones too, but single colony with a specific pedi- cells, looking for those that contained
they can’t synthesize everything they gree. Starting with a queen who was a foundress mite but no offspring, de-
need. Instead, varroa is entirely de- the daughter of a naturally selected, spite having had ample time to start
pendent on honey bee pupae to sup- varroa-resistant queen from Gotland laying eggs (the ‘resistant’ drones).
ply it with one hormone, ecdysone, Island, Sweden, they instrumentally They sequenced the genomes of 40
which it needs to initiate oviposition.
Eons ago, varroa lost the ability to
make its own ecdysone — the mite’s
genome is missing some of the key
genes it would need for ecdysone
biosynthesis — despite it being essen-
tial for the mite’s own reproduction.
Without it, a foundress can still in-
vade a honey bee brood cell, but can’t
lay eggs and start a family.
Last year, Dr. Benjamin Conlon and
his colleagues at the Martin-Luther-
University, Germany, discovered that
mutations in some honey bee genes
are tightly linked to innate resistance
to varroa.1 The genes (phantom and cy-
p18a1) are involved in regulating ec-
dysone production and degradation.
The idea is that by cutting off or dis- John Kefuss, one of the study’s coauthors, working in his apiary to remove drone
rupting the supply of ecdysone, the brood frames and cage bees for the study. Photo by Benjamin Conlon.

August 2019 891


Benjamin Conlon and his colleagues uncapped hundreds of drone cells to find mite-
resistant and mite-susceptible drones. Photo by John Kefuss.
such drones and 40 that had bus-
tling mite families (the ‘susceptible’
drones) to look for the genetic basis
of suppressing mite reproduction. In
their second study, they used a simi-
lar approach but using an unrelated
varroa resistant colony (from Tou-
louse, France) and more advanced
genome sequencing technology.
Both of these studies showed that
ecdysone-linked genes underlie
varroa resistance. Normally, after
a would-be mother mite invades a
brood cell, she begins to feed on the
brood, ingesting ecdysone along with
other nutrients and proteins from the
bee. The brood is her sole source of
ecdysone, and soon after feeding she
starts synthesizing yolk proteins (vi-
tellogenin), her ovaries activate, and
she begins laying eggs. But in these
two colonies from genetically dis-
tinct populations, Conlon et al. found
mutations in ecdysone-linked en-
zymes. The exact mechanism hasn’t
been confirmed, but the researchers
suspect that the mutations disrupt
normal ecdysone signalling by either
reducing the amount, changing the
timing of production, or changing the
abundance or function of other ec-
dysone-linked proteins that the mite
needs to acquire.
But this innate resistance likely
comes with a cost. In honey bees,
ecdysone does not initiate oviposi-
tion; rather, it is a molting hormone
that is necessary for metamorphosis
from larva to pupa. Clearly, honey
892
bees still need to be able to pupate to
survive, and if they shut down ecdy-
sone production entirely, the colony
would quickly perish. There is a fine
balance between disrupting ecdy-
sone pathways enough to inhibit var-
roa reproduction, but not enough to
compromise brood development or
adult fitness, and we don’t yet know
exactly where that balance lies. But
the fact that mutations in ecdysone-
linked genes have arisen in multiple
naturally-selected varroa-resistant
populations strongly suggests that at
least in some cases, the benefit out-
weighs the consequences. According
to Conlon, honey bees with disrupt-
ed ecdysone pathways might have
reduced body size, adult weight, or
flying ability. “However, I would ex-
pect the fitness costs to be lower than
the cost of varroa parasitism,” Con-
lon says.
It is too early to tell, but it is pos-
sible that the discoveries made by
Conlon and his colleagues could
eventually lead to improved methods
of varroa management. For example,
once we know more about the mecha-
nism behind how hormone synthesis
and signalling is disrupted in the re-
sistant bees, we might be able to de-
vise hormone-based varroa control
to disrupt that signalling ourselves.
It is not clear yet how such a prod-
uct would work, as it would have to
somehow leave the brood unscathed,
but it is fun to ponder (think: varroa
birth control for bees).
In the past decade, a lot of research
has focused on the genetic basis of
varroa-resistance behaviours, like
varroa-sensitive hygiene, hygienic
behaviour, and grooming. Compara-
tively little attention has been given
to innate, or brood-based resistance
to the mite. Perhaps this is because
it is difficult to distinguish between
a mite failing to reproduce because
of innate resistance of the brood, like
the disruption in ecdysone signal-
ling found by Conlon, and because
the workers have uncapped and re-
capped the cell (which can achieve
the same outcome). Perhaps it is be-
cause we don’t have an elite name for
it, like we do for VSH. Whatever the
reason, it means that so far we have
been looking at an incomplete picture
of mite-resistance mechanisms, and
only at the most complex ones, at that.
Unlike the innate resistance mech-
anisms identified by Conlon et al.,
varroa-resistance behaviours are
governed by complicated genetics
involving many different genes. And
typically, there is little consensus on
what genes, or what combinations of
genes, are the ultimate dictators. The
more tests we do, the more it looks
like different genetic variations could
be giving rise to the same resistance
behaviour in different populations.
In concept, this is similar to how
the varroa-resistant bees from Tou-
louse had mutations in a different
ecdysone-linked gene compared to
the bees from Gotland (yet achieved
similar innate resistance) but with
many more genes involved. The com-
plexity makes most behavioral re-
sistance traits difficult to selectively
breed for based on genetic markers.
And the complexity of the behavioral
mechanism(s) also makes it virtually
impossible to ever genetically engi-
neer a VSH or hygienic queen. But,
for better or worse, the simplicity of
the newly-discovered mutations in
ecdysone-linked genes, and the in-
nate resistance they apparently con-
fer, makes them prime targets for ge-
netic engineering.
Modern genetic engineering tech-
nology, like CRISPR — the same tech-
nique researchers previously used to
change the sex of honey bees in the
lab3 — could be used to give suscep-
tible colonies the exact same muta-
tions that Conlon and his colleagues
discovered in the naturally-selected
varroa-resistant colonies. Conlon has
since moved to a different lab and
says that’s not something that he’s
working on, but someone else could.
American Bee Journal
Genetic engineering technology is not
ready for commercial honey bee ap-
plications, but some researchers think
it will be in the coming decades. If it
is, it might be possible to produce the
same mutations that took decades to
achieve naturally. For now, it is far
more difficult to introduce genetic
changes into the honey bee germ cells
(eggs or sperm) than it is to selective-
ly breed resistance, which is already
an extremely laborious task. But it
may not always be, and at that time,
we could be given a choice between
buying queens with lab-based, innate
resistance and dosing our colonies
with miticides.
Ethics aside, I am skeptical that we
will ever need to make that choice. I
think it’s likely that we could have
colonies with engineered disease-re-
sistance in the future, but will it ever
be economical? Probably not. I doubt
that the cost of an engineered queen
will ever reach the point where it’s
financially feasible for beekeepers.
And like other genetically engineered
stock, it would take control away
from traditional queen producers and
would probably be incompatible with
maintaining locally-adapted stock.
But it is something to chew on, and
give some serious consideration be-
fore the time comes.
“Selection is a process of elimina-
tion,” John Kefuss, one of the study’s
coauthors, reminds us. “Beekeepers
should re-queen mite infested colo-
nies with virgin queens from their
own colonies that have high honey
production and low mite levels. Let
them naturally mate.”

RefeRenceS:
1. Conlon B, et al. (2018). The role of epistat-
ic interactions underpinning resistance to
parasitic Varroa mites in haploid honey
bee (Apis mellifera) drones. Journal of Evo-
lutionary Biology. 31:801-9.
2. Conlon B, et al. (2019). A gene for resis-
tance to the Varroa mite (Acari) in honey
bee (Apis mellifera) pupae. Molecular Ecol-
ogy. DOI: 10.1111/mec.15080
3. McAfee A. (2019). Sex-switching honey
bees. American Bee Journal. 159(5).

Alison McAfee has a

PhD in genome science
and technology from
the University of Brit-
ish Columbia, where
she studied mecha-
nisms of hygienic be-
haviour in honey bees.
She is now a post-doc
at North Carolina State University in David
Tarpy’s lab, and studies what keeps honey
bee sperm alive.
Email her at alison.n.mcafee@gmail.com.

August 2019 893

W
e see very little of what oc-
curs in our apiaries. Dur-
ing hive inspections, we
glimpse some of the inner workings
of the colonies. Around our hives, we
do not see much either. At night, we
witness even less.
All of my apiaries are at rural loca-
tions. Two apiaries are even by wild-
life trails, upping the critter traffic, in
addition to the variety of them. Night
brings numerous small animals to my
apiaries, scavenging for dead bees.
Or maybe they just pass through as
chance encounters. How do I know?
Game cameras.
Fig. 1 The hawk and the hives. These game-camera photographs serve as important
Although game cameras do not
examples that our managed honey bee colonies are part of a larger ecosystem of
record everything, they can photo- animals and plants, as are we.
graph wildlife coming around hives.
These motion-activated cameras take
pictures day and night, which could
be just heavy rain or the wind mov-
ing vegetation to a sprinting coyote
running through the apiary. While
game cameras are typically used to
photograph large animals like deer
and bears out in a field, I use them for
smaller critters in the apiary like pos-
sums, even mice.
With game cameras in all of my api-
aries, I had accumulated over 60,000
photographs by the time I published
my book Top-Bar Hive Beekeeping: Wis-
dom and Pleasure Combined (in 2012).
From all those thousands of photo-
graphs, hundreds were good. From
them, several were exceptional. I put
about a dozen game camera pictures Fig. 2 The fawn and the bees. Not having all of a rare subject in the scene is generally
in the book. Of course that left a slew an acceptable composition, according to my game-camera philosophy. Recently, lo-
of others, just as compelling, stored cal deer hunters have been complaining about fewer deer. While I could not offer any
away where hardly anyone could see first-hand experience, I told them something they never considered. It came from a
them. So let’s enjoy another selec- scientific research paper I ran across several years ago, describing the problems with
tion of pictures, each coming with its deer population growth. One factor reducing deer populations concerned the mother
own story. There is no telling what deer having difficulty hiding their fawns from predators because of more intensive land
we will learn along the way. I also use. So with deer or bees or numerous other animals experiencing alarming declines,
include some technical comments for what is occurring is a general wildlife problem partly due to habitat destruction.

August 2019 895

 beekeepers wanting to explore game
camera use in their apiaries.
Beginning in the daytime, one of
my favorite photographs is a stern-
looking hawk before a row of top-bar
hives (see Figure 1). From the series
of photographs shot moments before
this one, apparently the hawk had just
flown down and pounced on some-
thing in the grass. While the camera
reset itself, the hawk flew off. So far
the hawk has appeared only once on
camera, although I see them patrol-
ling around my apiaries.
Another chance encounter had a
fawn appearing startled by buzzing
from my hives. Anticipating smaller
animals, low on the ground, I had
Fig. 3 A wild turkey on the move right through my apiary. This bird is extremely per- the camera aiming downward, using
ceptive and moves silently in the woods. the entrances of Hive 44 in the top of
the picture. The fawn is a little taller.
While the photograph did not include
the top of the little deer’s head, you
can tell the bees have captured the
creature’s attention (see Figure 2). I
have other deer pictures, which are
like the common pictures seen with
these cameras, but not one with a little
fawn, or rather most of one.
For the next picture, a wildlife trail
ran though this apiary and led to a
break in the wood line by the hives.
Except for the break, a thick border
of brush overgrew an old wire fence
separating an old-growth forest from
the adjacent farm field. The trail tend-
ed to funnel wildlife through the api-
ary. Occasionally wild turkeys passed
by, typically hens with their young.
Their rapid twitchy movements usu-
Fig. 4 A back-glancing beaver near my beehives. Note its broad flat tail. The beaver
was not making repeated runs dragging branches. Rather it just wandered through ally came out as blurs in the pictures,
this apiary only once. Beavers dam creeks to build their lodges, which flood the low except for this one (see Figure 3).
lands, forming ponds. Changing creek segments into ponds has a dramatic effect on At night, game cameras photograph
the local ecology. with infrared light, a light invisible
to us and to various animals (an as-
sumption). The camera converts the
infrared light into the shades of gray
seen in the pictures. Infrared light is
a better illumination compared to
a burst of white (visible) light from
a typical camera with a flash. That
would startle a nocturnal animal.
However, the camera can set off a
big burst of infrared light to illumi-
nate deer out in a field, a typical use.
With the camera in a more confined
apiary, that could be too much light,
causing overexposed photographs.
Like its visible light counterpart,
over exposure with infrared light is
a washed-out place on the picture;
too much can ruin the entire image.
Fig. 5 Rambunctious raccoons frolic under the hives. These little fur balls scamper I set back the camera from vegeta-
about, chasing each other in a confusing game of raccoon tag, pounce, and wrestle- tion, tree trunks, hives, etc. Also re-
roll all around. Like masked squirrels, they climb my hive stands with unending frenetic flective glare comes from the animals
energy. Bewildered, I wonder — are my apiaries only to provide them — playgrounds? too. For example, generally, foxes are

896 American Bee Journal

more reflective than skunks. So near
the camera, a fox (red or gray in my
area) might give too much glare, but
a black skunk would not.
(When using game cameras for
apiary surveillance concerning hive
theft, I set back the cameras farther
to see more hives, including my bee
truck to make sure a vehicle fits in the
pictures. So far as I have seen, license
plates are extremely reflective in in-
frared light. The plates reproduce as
white blanks, providing no informa-
tion. I wonder though, if the flash
were weak (from low batteries or by
covering some of the flash unit on the
Fig. 6 Possum makes a selfie. I set my cameras low to the ground to see small animals
camera), the license plate information
on their level. Although the camera is in a shelter (a one-foot long top-bar nuc box),
might show through the remaining
windy rain still manages to spatter dirt on the lens. That requires checking all the
glare off the plate.) cameras in the apiaries and carefully cleaning contaminated lenses (without scratch-
Once I saw drag marks through one ing them), more travel and tedious work. The extra special payoffs come when by
of my apiaries way out in the woods. chance two companion cameras fire simultaneously. From overlapping the aims of
The marks were multiple little paral- two or more cameras (the aims checked with lasers), light flashes from different loca-
lel grooves in the dirt, going toward tions create more depth, texture, and shadows. (With a typical single flash of a regular
the creek line in one direction. I infrared image, the lighting remains rather flat.)
tracked the marks in the other direc-
tion. They led to a mid-size tree, fall- in water kept on the bee truck. I try sum apparently attracted to a camera
en to the ground, gnawed off at the to reduce the scent from my hands, as it fired off a burst of infrared light.
stump. Nearby other tree trunks were which could attract curious animals Remarkably, the camera that took the
partly chewed. I knew the loggers at to the cameras. Since the camera po- picture (Figure 6) fired at the same
this job site –– beavers. They were sitions are low to record smaller ani- time. The other picture (like Figure
cutting off the smaller limbs from the mals, I need to be especially careful 7) comes out better when the batter-
downed trees and dragging them to about inadvertently scent marking ies are weak, limiting the flash, so the
their beaver pond up the creek. The the cameras. Figure 6 shows a pos- image is not overexposed.
beavers were using my apiary as part
of their path to the water. Getting to
know my beaver neighbors had hap-
pened before I delved into game cam-
eras. My main concern with beavers
is that they do not fell a tree on my
hives. I never realized the cameras
would record a beaver near my hives
until one wandered through another
apiary one night (see Figure 4).
On several occasions a family of rac-
coons, mother and siblings, has visited
my apiaries. Mother raccoons are seri-
ous, watchful, and cautious. The kids
are curious, carefree, and playful. With
stealth, the camera records snippets of
their family life, normally never seen
out in the dark woods late at night
(see Figure 5). Under Hive 134 and
another, its front plastered thick with
bees, three young raccoons play with-
out any concern of danger. As a blur
of fur, one young raccoon bolts off to
the left. Over to the right, a little hunt-
er has plopped down on the ground,
momentarily content with its elusive
prey. It looks like an old acorn. The Fig. 7 Possum’s first infrared selfie. The occasion was so memorable. I remember it like
middle raccoon might have chased it was yesterday. It was summer, out in the woods, and it was dark. I can tell individual
after its sibling, but it seems charmed possums by the (light/dark) pigmentation patterns near the edges of their ears. Some-
by the acorn. Mother raccoon forages times the edges of their ears have identifying notches (damage). Even though this
diligently behind her family. possum is slightly out of focus (too close to the camera’s fixed focus lens), notice the
Right before I set out the cameras, I white along the upper edge of the ear. From these identifications, I found some pos-
wash my hands, or at least rinse them sums were fairly regular apiary visitors while others were drifters, just passing though.

August 2019 897

 Figure 8 shows a raccoon up close.
Fig. 8 Close enough
for a sniff. A raccoon Before my hand-washing rule I would
comes after my cam- see a picture like this one, followed by
era. It was not what a picture full of tree leaves. The cam-
I had in mind when era pointed straight up. Next came
imagining game- a uniform grainy blur, reminiscent
camera surveillance of dirt. The camera pointed straight
of my apiaries. But down. Then more tree leaves. Fol-
if you ever got one lowed by dirt! Leaves! Dirt! Leaves!
of these pictures, it The crazy raccoon had been batting
would make a surpris- my $150 camera around in the apiary.
ing addition to a bee That explained why I found the cam-
club newsletter. On era off its stand, and half way across
the other hand, having the apiary. Another time I found a
critters “handling” camera on its side, knocked off its
expensive cameras stand in a shelter (originally as in Fig-
is unnerving. ure 6). The camera lens aimed across
the apiary. The last photograph was a
big black snake crawling away.
Now let’s delve into a couple of
special effects created by nature, not
me. We know foraging is a danger-
ous occupation for bees. Game cam-
eras reveal that danger in a more in-
timate way. I had a camera aimed at
the end of a row of hives because test
shots showed vegetation movement,
suggesting animal traffic to a swamp
near the hives. That night a possum
scampered by, just within sensor
depth, triggering the camera to fire
with strange results. Blurry strands
hung down over the camera lens. A
spider had tried to begin building a
web over the camera. Apparently her
web construction did not work this
Fig. 9 Strange effects, spider web strands draping down over a game camera lens. time (see Figure 9). I have seen these
These strands appeared and then disappeared all in one night. They may have been
initial webs disappear or become
the beginnings of a new web, and the spider moved to another location. Sometimes
the spider finished her web, which remained over the lens. I have seen other lens
well-constructed trapping structures
obstructions. Once a bug stood right in front of the lens exactly when its companion over the cameras. The diffuse bright
camera took pictures of some rare animal in a bee yard. And related to that, I had one spots on the blurry strands are tiny
camera photograph some occurrence while its companion camera did not trigger at drops of dew.
all. One camera cannot reveal what was missed. For that analysis, you need more When I collect photographs for a
than one camera. Therefore be careful about stating what did not happen from game particular session, I either gather up
camera omissions. all of the cameras, or swap out about
half of the cameras, taking in the ones
needing service, and replacing them
with the other half ready for surveil-
lance work. After downloading the
photographs from numerous cameras
to the computer, another long tiring
job begins.
I sort through thousands and thou-
sands of photographs deleting scads
of the duds, which resulted from the
automated triggering. Before discard-
ing a photograph, I inspect each one
to make sure it does not contain any
subtle content that might be impor-
tant. Hours and hours of photo de-
leting drag by. When my head starts
hurting, I just need to stop for a while,
instead of trying to finish. The sur-
Fig. 10 An infrared morning in a top-bar hive apiary. This scene is how the camera took prising photographs, shared above,
the picture — no post processing to change the grey levels. I just cropped off the data definitely break up the monotonous
strip. I have similar photographs, all lit up, taken near sunset too. tedium. The last photograph, which

898 American Bee Journal

I did not anticipate at all, was a big
surprise!
In dim visible light (probably at
some particular intensity), along
with a critter to trigger the camera,
magically all of the picture –– lights
up! All by itself. No far away dark-
ness. No murky dark corners. Look at
Figure 10.
Incredibly, it seems like all the light
came from the infrared flash on the
camera. But no! That could not hap-
pen. Some parts of the scene are too
far away. The distant trees across the
field are a quarter mile away. The sky
is lit by the dawn –– not the camera.
In the eerie infrared stillness, what
August 2019
triggered the camera? Look at the
lower right corner. A little chipmunk
happened to hop by at the right time.
I know chipmunks eat dead bees be-
cause I have game-camera test shots of
them stuffing dead drones into their
mouth pouches. So I doubt the little
critter was out only collecting seeds.
Maybe the chipmunk was making its
morning rounds foraging on freshly
removed dead bees under the hives.
Besides surveillance to record in-
criminating evidence leading to
convictions for hive theft or vandal-
ism, game cameras have given me a
greater appreciation of the wildlife
activity around my hives (and the hu-
man activity too). By day or by night,
you really do not know what is going
on around your hives until you look.
Sometimes the results are surprising,
and not necessarily bad.
acknowLedGmentS
The author thanks Suzanne Sumner
for her comments on the manuscript.
Visit TBHSbyWAM.com and Bee-
ChildtheBook.com
Dr. Wyatt Mangum,
author of Top-Bar Hive
Beekeeping: Wisdom
and Pleasure Com-
bined, is an internation-
ally known top-bar hive
beekeeper, who started
keeping bees at age 10.
He switched all his colonies to top-bar hives
back in 1986, long before it became popular.
He is also an apicultural historian, who blends
his knowledge of beekeeping history with his
study of honey bee behavior. email: wmangum
@umw.edu. www.TBHSbyWAM.com
899
900 American Bee Journal
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902 American Bee Journal

 Beekeeping with
a Disability
by WILLIAM BLOMSTEDT
B
eekeeping can cut through
boundaries. Usually I write
about this in the international
sense — from country to country and
culture to culture, how honey bees
interest and inspire people across the
world. Recently I have been exposed
to a different set of boundaries that
beekeeping can cross — social and
physical ones. Someone with a dis-
ability — physical, mental or both
— can still be a beekeeper. Indeed,
one of the most important figures in
apicultural history, François Huber,
was completely blind. With the right
kind of support, all it takes is a keen
interest and openness to develop a re-
lationship with honey bees.
This article looks at two different
scenarios I visited earlier this year:
Homemade goods for sale in the lobby of the VDC
August 2019
Jadranka Luketa-MarkoviČ and Krešomir Caba evaluating a hive
a Slovene project which brings bee-
keeping to a group of people with
physical and mental disabilities, and
a Croatian beekeeper in a wheelchair
who advocates for beekeeping with
the elderly, physically disabled, and
just about everyone else.
One morning in late March, on one
of the first days the cherry blossoms
opened to the sun, I met Mark Simo-
nitsch in Črnomelj, Slovenia. Mark is
a retired fisherman-turned-beekeeper
from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I met
Mark here a few years ago: He trav-
els to Slovenia frequently to visit his
great-grandfather’s homeland and
spend time with his cousins. An in-
quisitive fellow, full of plans and pas-
sionate about honey bees, he has easi-
ly slipped into the Slovene beekeeping
orbit. On this trip he asked me to join
him on a few meetings he had ar-
ranged around the general theme of
“Beekeeping with a Disability.”
We convened in the parking lot of
the town’s “Custodial Working Cen-
ter” (VDC) — a publicly funded orga-
nization where people with certified
“invalid” status spend their days in
employment. In Slovenia, if you are
born with Down syndrome, autism,
Asperger’s, or another severe disor-
der, you are granted a small stipend
and given access to facilities like this:
Members arrive every working day
to partake in activities like paint-
ing pictures, sewing stuffed animals,
sculpting clay, and screen-printing
T-shirts which are either sold in their
small shop, or ordered (in the case of
T-shirts) by local businesses. The cen-
ter has around 50 members from ages
18-70. Most live at home and bus in
every day, while around a dozen live
full-time in a nearby residency.
We were joined by Dušan
MilinkoviČ, the president of
Črnomelj’s beekeeper association,
and Matjaz Kolbezen, a local beekeep-
er and our energetic translator. Head-
ing inside the center, we met Zdenka
Vrlinič, the director, who ushered us
into a small conference room and pre-
sented us with a “pogača” — a bread
traditional to the area, the size of a
pizza, checkered like a chess board
with each square decorated with ei-
ther a piece of salty cheese or bacon.
Director Zdenka held the pogača as
we each grabbed a handful: the act of
breaking bread as a greeting.
Why were we here? Mark had once
visited the center on an apicultural
tour of Slovenia: Črnomelj’s VDC was
903
 derstanding due to exposure: Driv-
ing around Slovenia, one can see a
bee-house in a field or back yard ev-
ery few minutes. Dušan’s suggestion
also struck a chord with one of VDC’s
goals, which they emphasized to me
multiple times: “How do we make
our members feel like they are part of
the community?” VDC searches for
activities which are connected to peo-
ple in the region. Beekeeping seemed
like a good fit.
My new favorite bee pillow During the first meeting, Zdenka
agreed with Dušan “in a very posi-
the first in the country to introduce tive way.” This was in February 2012.
a beekeeping club to its members. The following month, Dušan gave a
The endeavor started with a simple presentation on honey bees to VDC’s
thought from Dušan: “What else can members. At the end, Dušan made an
I do for my community?” An engi- offer — if any of them were interest-
neer by trade, a beekeeper by heart, ed, he would start a beekeeping club.
he wanted to use his skills and experi- This was an important step: He did
ence to give back to his home. At first, not line up all 50 people, veil them,
he thought about starting a honey bee and march out to look in some hives.
education program at a drug rehab All the center’s members are adults
center in an adjoining country, but and able to make their own decisions.
then decided to look for something Dušan merely asked: Who wants to
closer. Dušan approached the VDC learn more? Seven of the members
and proposed the idea to Zdenka: stepped up: five men and two wom-
What if we teach the members of the en, only one of which had previous
center about bees? What if we teach experience with bees. By mid-April,
them about beekeeping? they got their first two hives, donated
That Zdenka didn’t immediately by the Črnomelj beekeeper’s asso-
show him out of the office is a testa- ciation, which they put in a field be-
ment to the respect Slovenes have tween the center and the residency.
for the honey bee: The country has a Even for bee-friendly Slovenia, this
strong apicultural history and prob- was a very new idea — they had no
ably the highest beekeeper-per-capita guidelines or previous experience.
ratio in the world. Zdenka was not a Dušan started slowly and with pa-
beekeeper herself, but like most Slo- tience. He taught the club about the
venes she had a decent level of un- possibility of stinging, and a doc-
The center’s small čebelnjak (bee house) with two Langstroth hives
904
tor checked everyone for allergies.
Dušan began coming once a week for
an hour or so, and a normal bee year
unfolded: In the summer they suited
up and opened the hives to learn
practical beekeeping skills, while in
the winter they had lectures or did
the typical indoor chores.
The results have been uniformly
positive. Over the seven seasons, the
members have shown great interest
and seem very satisfied with their
new hobby. One member convinced
a friend to join, expanding the group
to eight, which Dušan told us was a
good number: With more, it might
be too crowded. The families of these
members also are pleased that their
loved ones have found interest in
something. By now most members
of the bee club can take a frame out
of a hive by themselves, and during
extraction the previous year they
were experienced enough that Dušan
didn’t have to help — he merely su-
pervised. Also, Zdenka told us it
was not uncommon for a few of the
people who lived at the center to sit
by the hives in their spare time and
watch the bees.
Of course, it is impossible to be
a beekeeper without the occasional
sting. At the start, Dušan brought the
gentlest stock he could find and has
kept a critical eye on it. Despite the
members often not wearing gloves,
only three stings have occurred in
the seven years. During one of the
stinging incidents, the victim began
wailing in surprise and pain. Dušan,
worried at her distress and how it
might affect others, tried to move her
away from the hive. This turned into
an accidental hug, which caused the
woman to stop crying and calm down
— the shock alleviated by simple hu-
man touch.
Though it’s a positive story, it cer-
tainly hasn’t been easy. Working
on such a project requires “a spe-
cial energy,” and all activities move
very slowly: “There are no results at
night,” Matjaz, the translator, told
me. (“Overnight?” I asked.) The
members under thirty have a much
better learning ability and can retain
information, while those older ask
the same questions over and again,
week after week. A heroic amount of
patience is required.
After we talked ourselves dry, di-
rector Zdenka took us on a tour of the
center. We went from room to room,
meeting the members and seeing the
different activities in action: painting
landscapes, painting bee front boards
American Bee Journal
(another special Slovene tradition, see
Blomstedt 20111), sewing stuffed ani-
mals, making prints, shaping clay. It
was the end of the workday, so they
were wrapping up their work and
moving toward the entryway to wait
for the bus. In the center’s foyer stood
a display with their crafts for sale,
many of which were bee-related. I
purchased an adorable bee-pillow,
which I treasure greatly and has found
a permanent home on my couch.
Though I only spent a few hours
there, I could see what Dušan meant
when he said the cooperation was
hard work, and took much more ef-
fort than he expected, but that he is
very satisfied. For the members of
the VDC, who have been dealt such
a poor hand in life, it was inspiring to
see that they had such fair and kind
treatment, and that bees have spurred
an interest and enjoyment in them. If
one of the main goals of the center is
to let these people know they are a
part of the society, Dušan and Zdenka
have taken an important risk, and
succeeded. There is a saying here: “To
be Slovenian is to be a beekeeper.” I
don’t think they could have found a
better activity.
For our next outing, I met Mark in
the parking lot of a pizzeria on the
Sava river in eastern Slovenia. It was
a cool April morning, one that threat-
ened showers later in the day, but un-
der speckled sunshine we drove the
25 miles across the Croatian border, to
Zagreb where we would meet Jadran-
ka Luketa-Marković.
We found Jadranka at “Bar Hedge-
hog,” near the Agronomy Faculty at
the edge of Zagreb’s large city park.
Jadranka is reaching the elderly stage
of life, yet still has a sly smile, vivid
blue eye-shadow and is buzzing with
energy. She is also in a wheelchair.
“This is the first thing everyone sees,”
she told us through her friend and
translator, Hrvoje Pavlić. “Everyone
looks at you like you have a prob-
lem.” Jadranka has partial paralysis
of both legs, a disability both she and
her brother inherited from her father.
It is a progressive disease, mean-
ing that she could walk and run as a
child, but over time her capability has
diminished and now she is mainly
confined to her electric chair.
Jadranka has one of the strongest
cases of “bee fever” I have ever seen.
She “lives with honeybees 24-hours a
day,” Pavlić told us. Her life as a bee-
keeper began as a love story. During
a hospital stay from a fall in 1999, she
August 2019
A row of AŽ hives, the hive type popular to this region
met and fell in love with the late Dr. “Bio-ecological inclusive first-hand
Zvonimir Šver — a renowned Croa- urban beekeeping training,” is a col-
tian professor, veterinarian and bee- lective — hive — of around 50 vol-
keeper. He introduced Jadranka, an unteers — workers — with Jadranka
avid animal lover, to honey bees and as the heart and soul — queen. That
this changed her life. She left her job morning at “Bar Hedgehog” we were
as an editor in the publishing indus- joined by six other members of Bingo:
try and instead dedicated herself to Ms. Ružica Pisk, who when she was
bees, beekeeping, disability, elderli- young had honey bees, but now lived
ness and therapy: “(topics that) are in the elderly home with Jadranka;
quite strange and unpopular among Ms. Martina and Mr. Krešimir Caba, a
the wider population,” as she writes married couple who run 150 colonies
in her biography/manual: Beekeeping and make comb honey profession-
as Inclusive Therapy. ally; Mr. Mladen, who sells packages
The therapy she refers to includes
various physical apitherapies when
using propolis and venom, but also
extends into the psychological realm:
“I myself experienced this ‘utopia’
of the beneficial effect of lingering in
the apiary, spending time with bees,
beekeeping as a physical activity and
socializing with people who share
similar interests. … Thanks to bee-
keeping, my wealth, health and quali-
ty of life have immeasurably changed
for the better. I have also noticed the
same positive therapeutic effects in
other people. …” I think anyone who
cares about bees will agree with this
statement.
Today, this collection of passions
manifests itself in the form of Bingo.
Earlier in the week, when Jadranka
wrote us an invitation to meet her
“Bingo group,” I at first thought we
would break out score cards, a ball
cage and someone would start call-
ing out numbers. Alas, I was wrong. Jadranka showing us a home for solitary
Bingo, which in Croatian stands for bees
905

of bees; Mr. Damir Mudifaj, a profes-
sor at the nearby Agronomy Faculty,
and Mr. Hrvoje Pavlić, a vintner and
small-scale beekeeper, as well as the
only one among us who could speak
both English and Croatian, and thus
suffered through a heroic amount of
translation during the day. Finally,
there was Bingo, a small off-white
mutt whom Jadranka rescued from
the streets; the group’s mascot, rep-
resenting the connection between hu-
mans and animals.
Cooperation and communication
are the main themes of Bingo: be-
What looks like flat ground can be a trial
for Jadranka in her electric chair.
906
A group search for
the queen
tween humans and animals (bees,
dog, etc), and between different sec-
tors — business, university, beekeep-
ers, and elderly people. The group
currently has no outside source of
funding and all participants are vol-
unteers. There are perhaps a couple
of full-group meetings a year, other-
wise Jadranka calls and organizes the
appropriate members depending on
the project: leading children’s groups
into the apiary, a school for paraple-
gic beekeepers, breeding queen bees,
giving beekeeping presentations
around the city, apitherapy sessions,
fighting for disabled rights, produc-
ing bee products. Group members
chip in their time, effort, and money
when they are able.
After finishing our coffees, we
agreed it was time to see the apiary.
Flowers were in bloom, the sun had
gained strength, and it was the per-
fect time to open a hive. Stepping off
the terrace and I turned around to see
Jadranka driving her electric wheel-
chair into the restaurant. What for me
was a single step down, something
I take mindlessly hundreds of times
during the day, turned into an im-
passable obstacle for Jadranka. There
was no ramp when she first arrived to
“Bar Hedgehog” a decade earlier, but
with a bit of education the owners in-
stalled one in the back of the building.
This was one episode in a long line of
successes. Not too long ago, handicap
access in public buildings was a big
problem in Zagreb. In a Kafka-esque
example, the official office to register
a disability was in a building which
had no wheelchair access. But thanks
to many years of effort, Jadranka and
her disability education/pressure
group helped draft an act which reg-
ulated dimensions for parking spac-
es, accessibility in public buildings,
oblique edges, ramp specifications,
and so forth.
Jadranka’s apiary was only 100
meters away from the bar, uphill on
a gravel road. The Faculty of Agron-
omy, which is celebrating its 100th an-
niversary this year, had given them
this space 10 years earlier, and the
equipment was mostly from Bingo’s
pockets, other than two hives do-
nated by the Mayor of Zagreb. As we
walked toward the apiary, Jadranka
weaved in between potholes and had
to gun the electric chair to push over
the lip onto the concrete platform.
Here, surrounded by a small fence,
her apiary consisted of about a dozen
hives, storage area, picnic table and
sun umbrella.
As you may imagine, Jadranka’s
apiary is set up to fit her needs. Laid
out in an open space, it is straightfor-
ward for her to move around. She can
reach everything from a seated posi-
tion and has designed a few extra
tools, like a comb stand, which allow
her to work with ease. Also, she uses
the AŽ hive, which is common to this
region. Unlike a Langstroth which
opens from the top, AŽ opens from
the back like a cabinet, and there is
no need to lift honey-stuffed boxes to
get to the brood nest or bottom board
— the heaviest thing a beekeeper will
have to hold is a single comb. For a
longer treatment on the AŽ hive, see
Blomstedt 2012.2
There are hundreds of other details
which one must consider when creat-
ing an apiary for the disabled. I won’t
go deeper into them here, other than
to say that it requires recognizing
and working with your own limita-
tions. Jadranka told me of how she
met a French beekeeper in a wheel-
chair, who insisted on working with
Langstroth hives, but essentially had
to become a body-builder to take off
a super. Jadranka realized that this
was not possible for her. Though
she can work with Langstroth hives
thanks to a nifty contraption that lifts
a super with a pully and a crank, she
prefers the natural ease of an AŽ. If
you are further interested in learning
about Jadranka’s beekeeping experi-
ences in designing an apiary for the
American Bee Journal

A stand to hold comb while going
through the hive
wheelchair, I invite you to find one of
her publications in English: her own
book, Beekeeping As Inclusive Therapy,3
or the large section she has written of
Beekeeping Manual for Disabled People,4
published by the Slovene Beekeeper’s
Association.
The rain decided not to come that
morning, and the bees flew into the
strong rays of the sun. Jadranka and
Mr. Mladen opened a hive together
and began the process of splitting
it. Though Jadranka could work the
hives by herself, I could tell that the
cooperation aspect of the group was
important to her. She was the queen
of the yard: directing people around,
asking questions, discussing what
was going on in the hives.
As the morning wore on and every-
one’s story made it through our trans-
lator, I began to realize the underlying
theme of Bingo: Everyone had come
to it for a reason. As Jadranka told us
earlier, she does not choose the people
— the people choose her. Mr. Mladen
had previously been in the ground-
shipping industry but had to resign
due to health-related stress issues
and took up beekeeping and pack-
age production instead (which was
less stressful than running trucks, he
assured me). After seeing Jadranka
speak, he appreciated how she wasn’t
a “chemical thrower,” and asked to be
her apprentice. Mr. Krešimir is from a
beekeeping family but was born with
almost no hearing: Every time some-
one spoke to him that morning, they
looked at him and spoke slowly so he
could read their lips. As a student in
the Agronomy University, Ms. Mar-
tina volunteered with Bingo where
she met Mr. Krešimir, and they fell in
August 2019
love and got married. This was only a
selection of the group: add to this the
other members who had PTSD, mul-
tiple sclerosis, Down syndrome — a
society for those who have suffered
some abnormality, pain, or stigma in
their life, as well as those sympathetic
and wishing to help.
In the center of this is Jadranka. She
is the magnetic force bringing these
people together, and then bringing
the best out of them. Though she dis-
plays great strength, she told us it has
not been an easy road. She spoke of
the process one must go through to
understand their handicap, to live
with it, and to thrive. It has taken 40+
years for her to get to this point, and
the fight still goes on every day. How-
ever, she is living proof of her own Bingo catching a ride under Jadranka‘s
phrase: “With good will and attitude feet
the sky is the limit!” I might also add
that her keen charisma (I quickly saw The last sentiment has really struck
myself getting roped into a few future me. From a soul well-watered with
collaborations with her) and hard empathy, this question grows like a
work (her normal day is around 21 weed. Each of us finds ourselves con-
hours long, mostly dedicated to bees) fronted by hundreds of choices a day,
also greatly help. Yet as I watched most of them taken automatically in
her handle the bees in her apiary that order to feed and shelter ourselves.
morning, I believed her simple decla- But with those needs taken care of,
ration of faith: the question takes a more interesting
“If I can do this, anyone can.” edge. Those that use the opportu-
nity to help their fellow humans are
I found the two days I spent with changing the world for the better.
these groups very inspirational, and Most people, if you asked them
I only hope I have conveyed the ex- plainly, would like to help or give
periences to you. In my notebook I back. From there it is a spectrum: On
found myself scribbling such things one side there are the saints who dedi-
as CARE, LOVE, DETERMINATION, cate their lives to this cause, while on
PASSION, HUMANITY, COMMU- the other we have the new term “slack-
NITY and “WHAT ELSE COULD WE tivism,” which involves people virtue
DO?” signaling on Facebook through their
Jadranka explaining her project in the apiary
907
mouse button, but not accomplishing
much. Many people, myself included,
are somewhere in the middle: either
lazy or don’t have a good idea on how
our efforts can truly be helpful. How-
ever, when someone like Jadranka, or
Dušan, or Mark push forward with
ideas and passion on a subject, show-
ing the possibility of tangible good
that can be done with simple actions,
it is much easier for us without that
idea to grab on and follow.
Could either of these scenarios be
recreated in the USA? There are differ-
ent societal norms to deal with, as well
as a different level of understanding of
honey bees. I think, in some shape or
form, they could. It will take the right
set of circumstances, but the potential
benefits are worth the effort in trying.
Mark Simonitsch has expressed in-
terest in collaborating on such efforts
in the USA. He can be contacted at
fishweirs@capecod.net.

Thank you to Mark Simonitsch,

Jadranka Luketa-Marković and So-
ciety Bingo, Dušan Milinkovič, Stan-
islav Plut, Zdenka Vrlinič and Varst-
veno delovni center Črnomelj. For
amazing translation, thank you to
Matjaž Kolbezen, Hrvoje Pavlić and
Ljubica Brušić.

endnoteS
1 Blomstedt, William. “Outdoor Art Galler-
ies: Painted Beehive Front-boards of Slo-
venia. The American Bee Journal Vol 151 No.
12, December 2011
2 Blomstedt, William. “The AŽ Hive: A
Look at a Lost Cousin” The American Bee
Journal Vol 152 No. 1, January 2012
3 If interested in her book or further
information on building an apiary for
the disable, Jadranka can be contacted
through Facebook: https://www.facebook.
com/jadranka.luketa
4 For a copy of Beekeeping Manual for Disabled
People, contact the Slovene Beekeeping As-
sociation: http://www.czs.si/index.php

William Blomstedt is
a geographer and bee-
keeper. Raised in Massa-
chusetts, he is now married
and lives in Slovenia. He
recently published a book
which details his beekeep-
ing 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.

908 American Bee Journal

W
hat should you do when
something comes between
you and your honey bees?
Perhaps something like a walker or
wheelchair? Well, if you are creative
and innovative, you might discover
the perfect solution — one that works
for you and pleases your bees.
Master beekeeper Naomi Price of
Prineville, Oregon did exactly that.
Living with paraplegia, Naomi knew
she wanted a hive that would meet
the needs of her bees as well as a few
of her own. Simply put, she wanted
the freedom to tend her bees without
assistance from others. “Accessibility
is all about attitude,” she said.
tion, ventilation, winter clustering,
pests, and even her local weather
patterns. After that, she looked at the
history of hive design, taking careful
note of what worked and what didn’t.
Finally, she factored in her own bee-
keeping experience, including the
special features she needed for suc-
cessful and enjoyable beekeeping.
findinG a buiLdeR
Richard Nichols, a Prineville resi-
dent, built the prototype long hives.
A skilled woodworker with a passion
for beekeeping, Richard was able to
incorporate Naomi’s vision within
the practical limitations of building
with wood. The finished product ex-
ceeded all expectations and many of
the original hives are still in use.
vaLhaLLa featuReS
The first rendition of her hive de-
sign — christened the Valhalla — was
a variation on the Langstroth long
hive made popular by Georges de
Layens in his book, Keeping Bees in
Horizontal Hives. Basically, a long hive

StaRtinG with a viSion

Armed with spunky determina-
tion, Naomi set out to make her
beekeeping dream a reality. Having
spent years performing accessibility
site surveys for various entities under
the Americans with Disabilities Act
and the Oregon Structural Specialty
Code, she was the perfect person for
the job. She understood that small
things make a big difference. “Just as
a 3/8-inch space can be empowering
to a honey bee, a 1/4-inch space can
be equally empowering to me,” she
explained.
To start, Naomi put aside the codes
and regulations and began to investi-
gate the honey bees’ housing require-
ments. She studied foraging, brood A canvas cover placed directly over the top bars keeps the bees calm during inspec-
rearing, food storage, communica- tions. In addition, the propolis layer promotes colony health.

August 2019 909


is a horizontal hive that uses standard
Langstroth frames. Instead of using
supers that stack on top of the brood
box, the bee colony expands horizon-
tally, much like the bees in a top-bar
hive.
But the similarity stopped there be-
cause Naomi needed to incorporate
special features which would allow
for the ease of access she needed. She
wanted a system that didn’t require
extra tools and equipment, and one
that would be winter-ready without
lifting, carting, and storing hive com-
ponents.
Many design considerations were
incorporated into the prototype hives,
including the following:
Frames. The Valhalla hive uses 24
deep Langstroth frames. Naomi se-
lected the number of frames based
on the nectar flow near her central
Oregon home and the colony’s winter
clustering needs. Some of the frames
provide space for honey storage that
would normally go in a super.
By using Langstroth frames, Naomi
could easily exchange equipment be-
tween her long hives and Langstroth
hives. In addition, four-sided frames
can be rested on the ground or oth-
er hard surface without damaging
combs, a feature missing in top-bar
910
The entrance has
a shed-style roof
and an adjustable
sliding door.
hives. But most importantly, a stan-
dard nucleus colony can be inserted
directly into a Valhalla hive — anoth-
er feature that was impossible with
most top-bar systems.
Canvas Frame Cover. A heavy can-
vas cloth placed directly on the top
bars keeps the bees from building
burr comb above the frames. When
Naomi is working the bees, the can-
vas can be gently folded back from
one side or the other, keeping the rest
of the bees calm and in the dark. The
workers propolize the cloth, thereby
adding an antibacterial barrier just
above the brood nest.
Hive Box. Having a low profile, the
long hive is stable in the face of wind
and predators such as raccoons, so it
doesn’t require the inconvenience of
a tie-down. And since there are no
supers to lift, hive inspections are a
snap.
Hinged Roof. The roof is hinged
on the front side so the beekeeper can
easily work the bees from the back. A
side latch holds the roof open, even in
moderate wind. In the open position,
the lid protects the brood nest from
both sun and wind.
Slatted Rack. A built-in slatted rack
extends the entire length of the hive,
offering foragers a place to cluster
The built-in slatted
rack helps regulate
temperature by
giving the workers a
place to congregate
in hot weather.
when summer temperatures rise. Be-
low the slatted rack are two side-by-
side pull-out inspection drawers that
can be used for varroa counts and de-
bris collection.
Entrance. A single bee entrance is
in the lower right corner of the hive. It
measure 3/8-inches high by 3 inches
long and has a sliding door to adjust
the size of the opening or close it com-
pletely. The small size and adjustable
nature mean it can double as a mouse
guard during those times when ro-
dents are likely to enter.
The entrance has no landing board.
Naomi notes that, without a landing
area, honey bees experience fewer
run-ins with nest mates and fewer
intruders. In addition, the entrance is
easier to defend since there is no con-
venient staging area for evil-doers. “I
have observed the returning foragers
fly into their hive with amazing accu-
racy,” she says.
Viewing Window. The hive is
equipped with a Plexiglas viewing
window with a hinged shutter that
allows a quick peek into the brood
chamber without opening the lid.
inSpectionS aRe eaSy
Inspections are far more efficient
when you don’t have to remove su-
pers before getting to the brood box.
In addition, inspections in the Valhal-
la are far less upsetting to the colony.
Naomi says, “With no boxes to move,
fewer bees are injured, which means
the bees are less defensive.”
By folding back only part of the
canvas cloth at a time, the bees are
disturbed even less. Naomi notes that
by leaving the canvas in contact with
the frames most of the time, you can
eliminate the need for a smoker — an
important consideration when your
movements and ability to handle
multiple pieces of equipment are al-
ready constrained.
In cooler temperatures, the cloth
also keeps the colony warmer during
inspections by preventing rapid heat
loss. And in the fall, the cover keeps
robbers at bay while the lid is open.
The side-by-side pull-out boards
make it easy to check for mites and
other debris, and since one board is
beneath the brood and one beneath
the honey, you can get a clear picture
of what is going on in different parts
of the hive.
the vaLhaLLa evoLveS
As word of the Valhalla spread, in-
terest soared. Many beekeepers want-
ed a Valhalla hive — not just those
American Bee Journal
with a disability, but folks who didn’t
want to lift heavy boxes or reach high
overhead, as well as those who envi-
sioned a better life for their bees. Be-
fore long, Richard Nichols had over
30 hives throughout central Oregon
with more orders on the way.
But life happens and Richard didn’t
want to go into production, so Naomi
and her husband, Larry, decided they
needed to find an alternative builder.
Plus, after a few years working with
the Valhalla, Naomi was ready to
tweak the design.
Ultimately they turned to Vivien
and Bruce Hight of The Right Hand
LLP in Redmond, Oregon to incor-
porate the changes and ramp up
production. Bruce, known as “The
Beekeeper’s Carpenter,” is a wood-
working craftsman and Vivien is re-
sponsible for the business end of their The varroa drawers and screens are interchangeable and easy to clean.
enterprise. When I toured their work-
shop, Bruce was experimenting with choose who would be taken aloft.” nience, beekeepers can use dry-erase
alternative roof designs and Vivien In other words, “The Valkyrie long markers to write inspection notes di-
was learning about shipping prac- hive sprung from a faithful constant rectly on the lid, which can be easily
tices, packaging, bookkeeping, web (the Valhalla) to embrace the evolving wiped clean.
management, and beekeeping. Truly, knowledge of bee biology.” So, now
they were as busy as the bees them- you know. impRoved hinGeS
selves. The current Valkyrie incorporates a The standard hinges are durable
long list of improvements and several and long-lasting steel, strong enough
next, the vaLkyRie options. to withstand wind gusts while the
Vivien named the new hive hive is open. Opening the lid on a
“Valkyrie” after figures in Norse leg- a Roof of many coLoRS Valkyrie with the current hinges
end. She explained, “In the glorious The roof was changed to a gabled requires a force of approximately
halls of Valhalla, slain Norse warriors design, providing space for insulat- twelve pounds.
were transported by the Valkyries ing materials to be placed above the
to enjoy the thrill of never-ending colony. The roof is covered in a light- inteRioR fRame ReSt
battle. While Odin ever-awaited new weight, powder-coated aluminum The inside of the gabled lid contains
arrivals, it was the Valkyries who re- sheet that is available in six standard a frame rest. For easy inspection, you
mained vigilant and watchful, pre- colors or can be special-ordered in a can pull out the first frame and place
siding over Earth’s battlefields to rainbow of other shades. For conve- it in the frame rest, then continue

First-year beekeeper Carol Reinhard pre- The heavy duty hinges make the hive easy to open. Inside the lid is a frame support
pares to install a package of bees into a that can also be used for tools. On the lower left of the hive is a covered inspection
Valkyrie long hive. window.

August 2019 911


your inspection by sliding each frame
into the empty space. The frame rest
area can also be used to hold hive
tools and the canvas inspection cloth
that comes with each hive.
Shed Roof
A shed roof was added over the
bee entrance to keep rain from sheet-
ing down on the bees and to provide
them with a small amount of shade.
hive capacity
Like the Valhalla, the Valkyrie
holds 24 standard Langstroth deep
frames, and a built-in slatted rack
with improved spacing on the ends.
The varroa drawers and the two
screens above them are now revers-
ible, so you don’t have to remember
which one goes where. The screens
are kept in place with an automatic
locking mechanism, and the drawers
are made of white PVC.
A feeder can be placed inside the
hive by removing a few of the frames,
so Boardman-style and hive-top feed-
ers are not necessary. Because internal
feeders are less likely to draw robbing
bees and marauding wasps, fall in-
spections are easier for both bees and
humans.
912
Larry and Naomi
inspect a frame.
Note that the
canvas cover
shields most of
the colony from
disruption.
optionaL extRaS
Second Window. Although one
window is included as standard
equipment, a second window — also
with a closable shutter — can be in-
stalled to reveal the honey-storage
area.
Triple-Layer Blankets. A triple-lay-
ered pad made from alpaca wool can
be placed above the canvas cloth for
year-round insulation and humidity
regulation.
Insulated Hive Stand: The custom-
made hive stand is designed to keep
the top of the hive body (not includ-
ing the gabled roof) 30 inches from
ground level. This works well for
most wheelchairs and most adults.
However, the stand can be custom-
ordered four inches higher, if needed.
The stand includes a sheet of rigid in-
sulation that protects the colony from
icy-cold or super-hot ground temper-
atures year round.
Blocker Board: A blocker board
(or follower board) is a management
tool that allows you to limit the size
of the brood nest until each succes-
sive frame is full. Once the frames are
full, you can move the board over and
add another frame, keeping the brood
nest compact.
Naomi recom-
mends a wool
blanket for year-
round use. Top
insulation pro-
tects the colony
from temperature
extremes in both
summer and
winter.
the vaLkyRie in pRactice
Many standard beekeeping prac-
tices can be tweaked to suit the
Valkyrie hive. Naomi studied ideas
used in Langstroths, top-bar hives,
standard long hives, and even Warré
hives to see what would work with
her own vision of beekeeping. She
has a few favorites that are worth
considering.
inStaLLation of beeS
As I mentioned earlier, a standard
nucleus hive can be installed directly
into the Valkyrie. However, when
installing a package, Naomi recom-
mends the “walk in” installation.
For a walk-in, place a ramp from
the ground up to the hive entrance.
Over the ramp, drape a large sheet,
such that it extends to the ground
on both sides of the ramp. Attach
the queen cage inside the hive, then
dump the bees on the sheet. The bees
will walk up the sheet into the hive.
The advantage of this method is
that ill or diseased bees often walk off
to die rather than joining the march,
an “altruistic” separation that helps
keep the colony healthy. In addition,
any free-roaming parasites such as
hive beetles are left on the sheet. A
quick dusting of powdered sugar
may leave behind a few varroa mites
as well.
a convenient SuGaR feedeR
Many types of internal feeder can
be used in the Valkyrie, but when
winter feeding is necessary, Naomi’s
favorite is the SockerMat. Swedish
for “sugar food,” the SockerMat is
simply a mixture of sugar and water
kneaded into a dough and pressed
into a deep Langstroth frame.
The frame can be constructed with
1/8-inch hardware cloth (Naomi’s
favorite) or with plastic foundation.
For the wire version, cut the wire so
it extends to the outside perimeter of
a standard deep frame. Next, lay the
wire on a flat surface and cut two pas-
sageways, one in the upper left and
one in the upper right corners. These
openings or “hiking trails” should be
cut so that once the wire is attached
to the frame, the open space is about
3/4-inch on each side. Once cut, at-
tach the wire to the frame with staples
or thumb tacks.
If you are using plastic foundation,
do the same thing. Some plastic foun-
dation comes with removable tabs
that can simply be punched out. Be
sure to reinsert the plastic so the pas-
sageways are in the upper corners.
American Bee Journal

For the sugar mixture, you can use
regular granulated sugar, superfine
sugar (baker’s sugar), or a combina-
tion of the two. Place the sugar in a
bowl and add a small amount of wa-
ter, just enough to dampen the sugar
and make it stick together — not too
wet! A handful pressed into a snow-
ball should hold its shape.
In order to fill a frame, cut a thin
piece of wood to fit inside the frame.
Place this under the wire or plastic as
a support while you press the sugar
into the frame, using your hands or a
rolling pin. Once full, allow the sugar
to harden. The wire frame can hold
about six pounds of sugar, while the
plastic foundation will hold about
half that amount. Alternatively, you
can purchase a SockerMat frame fully
assembled.
August 2019
Honey bees have
started building
a new comb on
this foundation-
less frame.
Naomi likes to place a frame of sug-
ar outside the bee’s honey supply, so
they eat the honey first and have sug-
ar as a backup. But as most beekeep-
ers know, the bees often disregard
this advice and eat the sugar first. In
any case, it’s reassuring to know they
have a backup supply.
a dReam come tRue
The Valkyrie long hive is currently
being used across the country from
Washington east to Montana, Minne-
sota, Maine, and New York. They’ve
also been shipped south to Colorado,
Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, and
Georgia. A private school in San Fran-
cisco chose the Valkyrie for its rooftop
apiary, and another was shipped to
Michigan for handicapped veterans.
And at Oregon State University, Dr.
Ramesh Sagili purchased a Valkyrie
for the campus apiary.
One woman’s vision of what bee-
keeping could be is enriching the lives
of bees and beekeepers in every cor-
ner of the continent. Congratulations
to Naomi and all those who helped
her think outside the Langstroth box.
note
Ordering information can be found
at www.therighthandllp.com.
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.
South Florida
Bees-N-Honey
18299 Clearbrook Circle
Boca Raton, FL 33498
Queens and Nucs
available for sale
For information and pricing please
call, text or fax.
Credit cards accepted.
Phone: (561) 715-5715
Fax: (561) 423-0304
913
914 American Bee Journal

B
eth Fox was born with a birth
defect that made her eyes larger
than normal and egg shaped,
causing severe nearsightedness. In
1996 when driving home from her
brother’s home she thought a gnat
flew in her left eye as she saw a black
shape. She rubbed her eye and cleaned
her contact lens and her vision was
still blurred. The next day she went
to the hospital and learned she had a
spontaneous detached retina and got
it repaired. Her left eye had addition-
al spontaneous detachments of her
retina four more times about a month
apart and then she lost her vision in
that eye. She can only see shadows in
black and white now in that eye.
Two years later the same thing hap-
pened in her right eye. After the de-
tachment in her left eye she was told
that there was a ten percent chance of
this happening in her right eye. Since
her surgeries on her eyes, her eyes are
now about half the size they were, so
now they are about normal sized. The
operations removed her lenses and
vitreous humor. Two days after her
surgery on her right eye the stitches
popped and all the saline solution
that replaced the vitreous humor
drained out and her eye collapsed
like a deflated balloon. Her doctor
super-glued her eye and patched it
with a piece of donated cornea from a
cadaver and lasered the detachment.
Her eyeball filled up naturally with
saline which replaced the vitreous hu-
mor and lens. Now she has no lenses
in either eye.
A few months later she got a macu-
lar hole and bled inside her eye which
August 2019
Beth’s Journey
into Blindness
While tending
honey Bees
by Christopher J. Stalder
chris.stalder3@gmail.com
she says looks like black ribbons. Her ing classes, and even chaired the Flor-
doctor lasered that hole and every- ida Honey Queen Program for many
thing has been stable with her eyes years. It is possible to do anything you
ever since. As she ages her eyes are set your mind to as long as you are de-
getting worse, and after so much sur- termined. She hopes to inspire people
gery and damage her eyes won’t get with disabilities, not necessarily visu-
any better. Although Beth is totally al, but anyone who thinks they cannot
blind in her left eye, she does have be a beekeeper because of a physical
about 50% vision in her right eye. She limitation. She wants to inspire people
was very fortunate that the surgeon to find a good beekeeping club, and
at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute find a good and patient mentor to in-
in Miami was able to preserve the spire them to pursue beekeeping.
amount of vision she has in her right Both of her eye doctors warned her
eye. Seeing inside a beehive is a chal- about getting stem cell treatments, as
lenge for her, but not impossible. they have worked well on corneas,
Beth is an experienced beekeeper but not for retinas. One eye doctor
and knows what she is looking for, told her a patient received stem cells
and utilizes her senses of smell, touch for detached retinas in China and she
and hearing to assist her. She can re-
move a frame from a hive and tell
by the weight if it is full of honey or
not. She recognizes the color of brood
comb versus honey, but this would
not be possible for a person that is to-
tally blind. She can’t see the eggs the
queen lays, and has difficulty finding
the queen in each hive, but she can
see the brood and determine if the
pattern is from a healthy queen or if
she is not well or fertile and needs to
be replaced.
Beth says beekeeping will be a chal-
lenge for the visually disabled who
may be new to this wonderful hobby,
but if you are experienced with bee-
keeping while going blind, as she has
experienced, you can continue bee-
keeping with minor modifications.
She believes someone with a visual
impairment can still be an effective Here Beth transfers standard Langstroth
beekeeper as long as they have a good deep frames into her new Horizontal
mentor, and help from someone on Hive. She later transferred these bees to
occasions as needed. Even with her the foundationless frames that came with
declining vision, Beth has mentored the Horizontal Hive.
numerous people and given beekeep- Photo by Sesheta Benu Mwanza
915
went completely blind as a result of
the procedure.
As Beth’s blindness has been gradu-
al, she has been able to compensate for
the visual cues that she has lost. Few
other beekeepers stop and observe the
way the honey bee hive smells and
listen to the bees the way Beth does.
Through quiet observation she lets
the bees tell her what she should do
next to help manage the hive. If Beth
smells the alarm pheromone of her
honey bees it smells like bananas and
she knows to leave the hive alone for
a couple of days. The plants that are
the bees’ forage aren’t visible to Beth,
but in February and March she smells
the Citrus blooming in neighbors’
backyards from a distance and knows
that her bees are making honey.
When Beth lived in Sweetwater
Oaks in Longwood, Florida, she had
great sources of nutrition for her bees
including Carolina Willow, Red Ma-
ple, Sabal Palmetto, Saw Palmetto and
Golden Rain Trees that were up and
down the banks of the Wekiva River.
In the river wetlands was a variety of
flowering plants including Water Lil-
ies & the beautiful purple blossoms of
Pickerelweed which her bees loved.
Now Beth lives in Winter Park
and her bees are enjoying dooryard
fruit trees including Citrus, Avocado,
Mango, Banana, wildflowers and lots
of other flowering plants and trees
grown for their natural beauty. Her
home is close to Winter Park’s Cen-
tral Park which hosts lots of beauti-
ful flowering annuals and trees and a
Rose garden.
Beth Fox lifts a foundationless frame out
of the single-level horizontal hive spe-
cially built for her.
Photo by Sesheta Benu Mwanza
916
Beth is eliminating her Langstoth
hive boxes which stack one upon an-
other, in favor of Horizontal Hives.
The Horizontal Hives contain one lay-
er of frames in a large box that is more
manageable as she won’t need to lift
boxes and can check all the frames
from under the cover.
Becoming visually impaired after
enjoying the sense of sight is the thing
people are most afraid of, because be-
ing visually impaired keeps you from
enjoying so many things that you
have taken for granted. Current tech-
nology is so advanced that being visu-
ally impaired need not be as frighten-
ing as it was just a couple of decades
ago. Beth can’t drive, but can request
an Uber or Lyft driver on her smart
phone. She can’t go grocery shopping
but can order groceries on another
computer/smart phone application
called Shipt. She has a Google Home
Assistant that turns her lights and cof-
fee pot off and on and reads her the
news every morning. She can’t read
books anymore, but gets free books
on tape. She hired a company that
cleans her home twice a month. And
she relies on family and friends for
many things.
When Beth became visually im-
paired it was hard to ask for help,
but now she has adjusted and finds
that she can still be independent and
self-sufficient with help from others.
When she received mobility training
on how to use her white cane she no-
ticed that it was a magical tool! She
refers to it as her magic wand because
when she walks downtown on Park
Avenue in Winter Park people move
out of her way long before she ap-
proaches. On a couple of occasions
strangers have approached her and
offered their assistance. She wouldn’t
get such good treatment without her
white cane.
Mobility training from the Light-
house for the Blind in Orlando has
taught her not to be embarrassed by
her disability. For many years she
would hide how badly impaired she
was. She would pretend her impair-
ment wasn’t as bad as it was. The staff
and volunteers at the Lighthouse told
her to own her disability and not be
ashamed or embarrassed. Impair-
ments do not define who we are. This
is what happened to you but this is
not who you are! Don’t let people in-
fluence how you feel about yourself.
No one can tell you what’s inside you
and no one can predict your future
except You! A good lesson for us all
to learn.
Beth has learned that you don’t
have to see to be a beekeeper. For
those who are totally blind they will
need assistance to learn beekeeping.
By listening to her bees and smell-
ing them she has learned that she can
help manage her bees and harvest
their delicious honey! Beth is hop-
ing to find a handicapped accessible
location to set up Horizontal Hives
and give handicapped individuals
the opportunity to learn about bee-
keeping. Beekeeping is like garden-
ing on steroids, as tending to honey
bees helps tend to so many flowering
trees, annual plants, perennial plants
and vegetables! And the beekeeper
gets the satisfaction of helping nur-
ture not only their honey bees, but the
surrounding environment!
In spite of Beth’s visual disability
she runs a small business called bee
sting Properties, LLC. She owns rental
properties in Winter Park and man-
ages them by herself. She has a great
network of people, including plumb-
ers, electricians, roofers, etc., that help
her repair any damage and maintain
the properties. She also has an Airbnb
apartment in her house that she lists
and rents out through the Airbnb
platform. Most of the time she does
the cleaning herself as well including
changing the linens and all the prepa-
rations for her future tenants.
Beth is not only looking for a suit-
able site to offer her Beekeeping for
the Visually Impaired, but also for
sponsors to help fund the programs.
She may be contacted for speaking en-
gagements as well. Her email address:
bfox4560@gmail.com
Chris is an Environmen-
tal Scientist who works
as a consultant for a civil
engineering firm where
he surveys Florida lands
for federally and state
listed species, and helps
delineate and monitor
wetlands. He holds a degree in Agriculture
(Agronomy major), and is a certified Mas-
ter Level Beekeeper from the University of
Florida. He has been helping the Florida
State Beekeepers Association as the Execu-
tive Secretary and Newsletter Editor since
2015 (floridabeekeepers.com), and teaches
classes on Gardening for Honey Bee Nutri-
tion, Backyard Beekeeping for Beginners,
Treatment Free Beekeeping, Honey Tasting,
among other subjects at beautiful Leu Gar-
dens in Orlando, FL (leugardens.org). In his
free time he enjoys gardening, tending his
backyard honey bees, swimming, playing
classic and popular piano solos, and playing
contract and duplicate bridge card games
with family and friends.
American Bee Journal
August 2019 917
918 American Bee Journal
 The Seasonality
and Effects
of Nosema
Part 3 of a series
by RANDY OLIVER
ScientificBeekeeping.com

Nosema apis had long been considered to be of concern only in the spring and fall;
but once N. ceranae showed up, there are reports of it appearing even in summer. An
understanding of the reasons for the seasonality of nosema may help us to better un-
derstand the parasite as a whole.

N
osema apis was not named un-
til 1909, and was not on U.S.
beekeepers’ radar until it was
well described by G.F. White in his
seminal publication in 1919.1 Ingemar
Fries reviewed what we knew about
N. apis in 1993,2 and described the
typical seasonality of nosemosis (dis-
ease that may be the result of serious
infection by nosema):
N. ceranae lacked the seasonality of N.
apis. This was actually not the case at
all, as shown by the same researchers
in a subsequent paper.6
Since then, other researchers (in-
cluding myself7) have documented
that the epidemiology of N. ceranae
rather closely follows that of N. apis,
but since ceranae’s original host was
the tropical Apis cerana, it’s not sur-
prising that ceranae is somewhat bet-
ter adapted to warmer temperatures,
and may occasionally flare up during
summer.8
Practical application: During the
invasive wave of N. ceranae, it was
easy for me to find infected colonies

The level of infection found in a

colony is highly variable. The sea-
sonal trend of typical infections
exhibits low levels during the sum-
mer, a small peak in the autumn and
a slow rise of infection during the
winter. In the spring, the level of
infection increases rapidly as brood
rearing starts and while flight pos-
sibilities are limited still. The pattern
is similar in both the northern and
the southern hemisphere.

But in the early 2000s, in both North

America and Europe, bee disease labs
recorded a new trend — nosema preva-
lence in samples sent to diagnostic labs
suddenly started to climb, and might
be found at any time of the year.3,4
By 2005, nosema was being detected
even in summer — retrospectively in-
dicating that there had been an inva-
sion by N. ceranae. Unfortunately, the
graph of prevalence in samples from Fig. 1 One way in which beekeepers can contribute to nosema spore transmission
Spain was widely misinterpreted as within the hive is by the inadvertent crushing of bees. The workers in the photo above
indicating intensity,5 suggesting that are lapping up the body fluids of a bee crushed moments ago.

August 2019 919

at any time of the year in my apiar-
ies. But by 2012 it was difficult for
me to find an infected hive in sum-
mer. I suspect that a new host-para-
site relationship had developed over
that period of time.
RequiSiteS foR noSema to Gain
a foothoLd
The question of interest is why
nosema has a seasonal pattern. As
elaborated by White, nosema trans-
mits from one bee to another by the
transfer of infective spores via the
fecal-oral route. Some observations of
interest by White relate to the fact that
simply exposing a colony to spores
does not necessarily result in an epi-
zootic of nosema within the hive:
Although wintering bees on soiled
comb greatly increases the risk of detect-
able nosema disease the following spring,
a detectable disease level does not always
result. Thus, spore availability is not
sufficient to create an epizootic dis-
ease in the honey bee colony.
He also noted that other beekeeper
practices may contribute to the trans-
mission of spores:
Other factors that contribute to the
spread of N. apis spores within the honey
bee colony include all management where
bees are crushed. The liquid remains of
crushed bees are readily ingested by other
bees. [Australian beekeepers have
long been cautioned to avoid the
Fig. 2 This freshly-returned forager may be bringing back a load of nutritious pollen,
but that pollen could possibly be contaminated with nosema spores from its own gut,
or picked up from a flower.
920
crushing bees in hives during winter
manipulations.9] (Fig. 1)
Practical application: Don’t con-
tribute to nosema spore transmis-
sion. Avoid crushing bees within the
hive, especially during winter.10 The
stress and confinement involved in
the trucking of colonies — again, es-
pecially during winter — may also
contribute to defecation within the
hive.11
But the observations by White that
most caught my eye were:
The fact that a colony may contain
a small percentage of Nosema-in-
fected bees throughout the year and
not become heavily infected at any
time furnishes further evidence that
Nosema infection does not always
spread with rapidity within the hive.
[As does his finding that a colony
experimentally infected during
summer will typically clear itself
of infection within six weeks.]
Since merely exposing a colony to
nosema spores does not necessarily
result in the parasite going epizootic
in the hive, to explain the seasonality
of nosemosis, we need to look a little
deeper. At this writing, it appears to
me that the seasonal pattern of nose-
mosis is largely about two things: (1)
the parasite’s success at reproduction
in individual bees, and then (2) achiev-
ing adequate bee-to-bee transmission
of spores within the hive. And then the
overall effect of nosema upon colony
performance is largely about the per-
centage of the colony’s bees that are
infected (“prevalence”), the impact
of that upon both broodrearing, and
the shift in the survivorship of those
infected workers. To summarize in
advance, we need to look at:
Pollen
1. The involvement of pollen with
nosema reproduction in the bee
midgut, and
2. The seasonal availability of pollen.
Transmission in the Hive
1. The transmission of nosema spores
via consumption of pollen,
2. The causes of dysentery, and
3. The hours per day suitable for def-
ecation flights.
Effect upon Colony Performance
1. The percentage of bees infected,
2. The effects of infection upon the
nurse bees, and
3. The effect of nosema-induced ac-
celeration of worker transition to
foraging.
I will be covering some of the above
in subsequent articles, but first let’s
focus upon pollen.
the impoRtance of poLLen to noSema
tRanSmiSSion and RepRoduction
The seasonal peaks of nosema in
spring and fall certainly suggest an
association with what are commonly
heavy pollen flows at those times of
the season. It appears that there are at
least three reasons for this:
1. Within-colony transfer of no-
sema spores via the pollen loads
brought back by the foragers.
2. Between-colony transfer of spores
at the flowers.
3. The greater amount of nosema in-
fectivity and reproduction in the
gut when pollen is present.
So let’s take a look at the above
one at a time. When a bee defecates
in flight, any post-defecation hygiene
consists of it grooming itself with its
hind legs — the same legs used to
pack pollen into its corbicula. Higes12
found infective nosema spores in the
pollen loads brought back to the hive
— the very pollen that the nurse bees
would soon consume. Such transmis-
sion of spores could allow a single in-
fected forager to spread the infection
American Bee Journal
to the next generation of young bees
in the same hive.
Graystock13 showed that nosema
could be surprisingly effectively trans-
ferred via the spores left on flowers
by visiting foragers, and that bumble-
bees could vector honey bee parasites
without getting infected themselves.
The implication is that parasite spores
can be readily transmitted from colony
to colony via flower visitation (Fig. 2).
Practical application: Nosema
transmission appears to easily take
place via floral visits, and the transfer
of spores via incoming pollen loads.
The importance of pollen doesn’t
end there. Reproduction of both no-
sema species appears to be largely
dependent upon pollen being pres-
ent in the bee midgut14,15,16,17,18 — the
more pollen in the diet, the greater
the number of spores produced.
In northerly climes, strong pollen
flows typically occur in spring and
fall, with perhaps some midsummer
spikes. In Mediterranean climes, no-
sema tends to disappear during the
late-summer pollen dearth. In tropi-
cal Mexico, N. ceranae levels corre-
late with the rainy season from April
through December.19
A couple of very nice studies20,21
have shown a strong correlation be-
tween pollen or pollen sub in the diet,
and the number of nosema spores
produced. Of interest is that at least
in cage trials, it appears that although
the consumption of pollen increases
nosema reproduction in a bee, that
pollen in the diet largely offsets the
reduction in bee longevity (provided
that those bees don’t engage in preco-
cious foraging) due to being parasit-
ized by nosema.
Practical application: The repro-
duction and transmission of nosema
in a colony appears to be largely
dependent upon the bees foraging
upon, and consuming, pollen. Ex-
pect nosema spore counts to go up if
there’s a pollen flow on, or if you’re
feeding pollen sub.
the connection between noSema and
dySenteRy
It would make complete sense to
expect that nosema would cause diar-
rhea (dysentery) in infected bees; but
I’ve yet to see any evidence in sup-
port of that premise. But that doesn’t
mean that dysentery is not a critical
component for understanding the
seasonality of nosema.
August 2019
Fig. 3 The occasional defecation “accident” in the hive may be enough to ensure low-
level transmission from the older workers to younger ones. The droplets on the top
bars above have obviously not yet been ingested by the janitors, but it’s safe to assume
that any accidents on the faces of the combs would have been “cleaned up” immedi-
ately by ingestion.
Workers typically become infected
as nurse bees, likely due to their rav-
enous consumption of pollen. The
parasite then rapidly reproduces
within their midgut epithelial cells
during times of heavy pollen con-
sumption (via “vegetative spores”),
and then later produces the “environ-
mental spores” found in the hindgut
and feces. It is thus the mid-age bees,
and especially the foragers, that ex-
hibit the highest spore counts.22
Practical application: Although
I’ve found no supportive evidence
that nosema causes dysentery in
bees, that discharged fecal matter
can clearly act as a transmitting vehi-
cle (fomite) of nosema spores within
the hive. And that doesn’t mean that
you need to see signs of dysentery
all over the face of your hive. We
like to think that bees never poop in
the hive, but if you’ve spent much
time watching an observation hive,
you’ve likely noticed that occasion-
ally a bee does (Fig. 3) — and that
other workers then immediately
“clean it up” with their tongues.
Practical application: The occa-
sional “accident” within the hive
may be enough to ensure the con-
tinued transmission of nosema from
one generation of bees to the next.
This could explain how a low-level
prevalence could continue even dur-
ing summer — especially during
confinement due to rain, or if hives
get trucked.
puttinG it aLL toGetheR
As best that I can tell, the reason
that nosema peaks in fall, may slowly
climb during winter, and then spike
again in spring, is that reproduc-
tion and transmission of the parasite
strongly correlate with two factors:
flight hours and pollen availability.
And this then brings us back to dys-
entery and in-hive defecation.
The fewer warm days in which
nosema-infected bees can freely fly
for cleansing flights, the greater the
chance that some of them are going to
slip up and defecate within the hive.
Such in-hive defecation is a highly ef-
fective basis for the fecal-oral route
of transmission, and may largely ex-
plain why nosemosis is more likely
to occur when cool weather prevents
bees from freely flying outside the
hive to defecate, and why infection
tends to disappear during the sum-
mer months.
During winter, nosema can persist
in the long-lived winter bees, but
doesn’t appear to correlate with win-
ter colony mortality.23 It is only when
the colony begins to rear brood again
(often in mid-winter) that nosema
again begins to increase — likely due
to the combination of the consump-
tion of nosema-contaminated stored
921
beebread, or of honey or honeydew
stores that cause dysentery, or in-
creased in-hive defecation due to wa-
ter balance issues coupled with lack
of opportunity for defecation flights
(I’ll cover the causes of dysentery in a
following article).
Once springtime comes, then no-
sema is most effectively transmitted
and infective due to the colony active-
ly gathering pollen and rearing brood.24
All colonies likely get exposed to
nosema spores via colony-to-colony
transmission of spores when the for-
agers of different hives visit the same
flowers. And then the nurse bees
would tend to get infected from the
consumption of nosema spores inad-
vertently added to pollen loads by in-
fected foragers. The nurses’ hindguts,
which are often packed full of the
remains of digested pollen, may con-
tain very large numbers of infective
spores — young workers defecate
during their first orientation flights,
before they begin foraging, and they
then “wipe themselves” with their
hind legs before they come back to
the hive. And when the weather does
not allow those bees to take cleans-
ing flights, there is even more chance
for in-hive transmission of spores via
accidental defecation. I’ve seen little
research on whether highly-infected
forager bees defecate within the hive,
but even if they defecate on the wing,
they would still be expected to inad-
vertently transfer at least some spores
to their pollen loads.
Once the weather warms, in-hive
defecation rarely occurs, and the
colony can then again break the infec-
tion cycle and largely purge itself of
the parasite — which in the case of N.
apis, largely disappears other than for
dormant spores hidden in the combs,
and in the case of the more heat-toler-
ant N. ceranae, smolders along in only
a few bees in the hive.
cominG
The effects of nosema infection upon
the colony, the causes of dysentery,
sampling for nosema, how concerned
you should actually be about this par-
asite, and what you can do about it.
endnoteS
1. White, GF (1919) Nosema disease. U.S.
Dept Agric Bulletin 780, 59 pp. Available
in Google Books.
2. Fries, I (1993) Nosema apis—A parasite
in the honey bee colony. Bee World, 74(1):
5-19.
3. Martín-Hernández, R, et al (2007) The
outcome of the colonization of Apis mel-
lifera by Nosema ceranae. Applied and
922
Environmental Microbiology http://
aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/
AEM.00270-07v1
4. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-
bees-17a-nosema-the-smoldering-
epizootic/
5. The study documented only whether nosema
was present in a sample, not the intensity of
the infection. N. apis tends to completely
disappear during the summer, whereas N.
ceranae may often be found at a very low
level during the warm months.
9. Hornitzky, M (2005) Nosema disease:
Literature review and survey of bee-
keepers. RIRDC Publication No 05/055
Hornitzky, M (2008) Nosema Disease:
Literature review and three year survey
of beekeepers, Part 2. RIRDC Publication
No 08/006.
The two above reviews are worth reading;
both are free downloads.
10. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/does-
the-crushing-of-bees-affect-colony-
health/
11. Bailey, L (1955) The epidemiology and
control of nosema disease of the honey-
bee. Annals of Applied Biology 43(3): 379-
389.
12 Higes, M, et al (2008) Detection of in-
fective Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia)
spores in corbicular pollen of forager
honeybees. Journal of Invertebrate Pathol-
ogy 97: 76–78.
13. Graystock, P, et al (2015) Parasites in
bloom: flowers aid dispersal and trans-
mission of pollinator parasites within
and between bee species. Proc. R. Soc. B
282: 20151371.
14. Rinderer TE, Dell Elliott K (1977) Work-
er honey bee response to infection with
Nosema apis: influence of diet. J Econ En-
tomol 70: 431–433.
15. Porrini, MP, et al. (2011) Nosema ceranae
development in Apis mellifera: influence
of diet and infective inoculum. J Apicult
Res 50: 35–41.
16. Stevanovic J, et al (2013): Characteristics
of Nosema ceranae infection in Serbian
honey bee colonies. Apidologie 44: 522-536.
17. Mendoza, Y, et al (2012) Incidence of No-
sema ceranae during winter in honey bees
colonies removed from Eucaliptus gran-
dis plantations. Veterinaria (Montevideo)
48(188): 13-19. In Spanish.
18. Fleming JC, et al (2015) Characterizing
the impact of commercial pollen substi-
tute diets on the level of Nosema spp. in
honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). PLoS ONE
10(7):e0132014.
19. Guerrero-Molina (2016) op. cit.
20. Porrini, MP, et al (2011) Nosema ceranae
development in Apis mellifera: influence
of diet and infective inoculum. Journal of
Apicultural Research 50(1): 35-41.
21. Jack C, et al (2016) Effects of pollen di-
lution on infection of Nosema ceranae in
honey bees. J Ins Physiol. 87:12–19.
22. Jack, C, ibid.
23. Even in Manitoba, Canada; Les Eccles,
pers comm.
24. Dr. Shimanuki, in his coverage of nose-
ma in the 1992 edition of The Hive and the
Honey Bee, notes that European research-
ers had pointed out the connection be-
tween active broodrearing and nosema.
Randy sees beekeeping
through the eyes of a biol-
ogist. 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.
American Bee Journal
A CLOSE LOOK @ THE HIVE
A Bit About Honey
The Major Honey Plants
by PETER L BORST
M
ost beekeepers know a bit
about honey, but their knowl-
edge is often restricted to the
nectar plants of their own locale. Hav-
ing lived in many places, I enjoyed
a variety of honeys and learned the
names of many bee plants. Just what
are the major nectar producing plants
of the U.S. and Canada, and also ma-
jor bee plants of other continents?
Thomas Miner was one of Amer-
ica’s first honey bee experts. He is
a lesser known contemporary of
Langstroth, and his book came out
at the same time as the latter’s. He
lived in Long Island City, New York
but moved upstate when he became
aware of the great bee pastures to be
found along the Mohawk River, up-
stream from Albany. He wrote:
Of all the resources of bees,
nothing can equal the white, or
Dutch clover, that abounds to a
greater or less extent, throughout
the whole country; I may almost
say, that without the existence of
this flower, it would be useless
to attempt to establish an api-
ary; yet there is no section of the
country where it does not exist;
consequently, there is nothing to
fear on that point (Miner 1850).
The country to which he refers is
mostly New England, west to Ohio
and south to Virginia. Outside of this
region, these statements might not
hold true. He continues:
Among the forest resources of
the bee in this country, the most
conspicuous are the basswood
and maple. From the basswood
in particular, a great supply of
August 2019
honey is obtained; and where this
tree abounds, in connection with
a profusion of white clover, there
is the apiarian’s true El Dorado.
As a fall source of honey, nothing
can equal buckwheat.
This picture was accurate for about
one hundred years. In the beginning
of the 20th century, farming began
to wane in the region. Less and less
buckwheat was planted and the acres
of clover were replaced by corn or al-
lowed to go back to woods. This is
a key point to be made: Landscapes
change over time. Some regions are
no longer productive and others
have different honey sources than
they once had. In the area around
Ithaca, where huge crops of clover
and buckwheat were harvested,
these honeys are seldom obtained.
Instead we get a mix of wild flow-
ers, and some years the legendary
basswood produces a bumper crop,
as these trees abound in areas where
the forests returned.
In the United States and else-
where, the best honey regions are
areas where major honey plants ex-
ist, either as natural resources or
as agricultural crops. A quick look
at the National Honey Report for
April, 2019, gives us a picture of the
primary U.S. honey sources. Clover
still seems to be the principal source,
although this can include a variety
of plant species, including Trifolium
(white clover), Melilotus (sweet clo-
ver) and even Medicago sativa (alfal-
fa) — and a whole lot of other closely
related plants. Canada and the Dako-
tas produce huge quantities of honey
from Canola (Brassica napus) which
is cultivated for the oil. A few other
MAJOR U.S. HONEYS, 1962
Aster (Aster spp)
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)
Basswood (Tilia americana)
Blackberry (Rubus spp)
Buckwheat, cultivated
(Fagopyrum esculentum)
Buckwheat, wild (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
Clover (Trifolium spp)
Clover, sweet (Melilotus spp)
Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum)
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
Gallberry (Ilex glabra)
Goldenrod (Solidago spp)
Grapefruit (Citrus paradisi)
Heartsease (Polygonum spp)
Honeydew (unspecified)
Locust, black (Robinia pseudoacacia)
Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa)
Orange (Citrus sinensis)
Privet (Ligustrum spp)
Raspberry {Rubus occidentalis)
Sage (Salvia spp)
Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum)
Spanish needle (Bidens spp)
Sumac (Rhus spp)
Thistle, blue (Echium vulgare)
Thistle, star (Centaurea solstitialis)
Trefoil, birdsfoot (Lotus corniculatus)
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Tupelo (Nyssa ogeche)
Vetch (Vicia spp)
types listed are basswood from Wis-
consin, soybean from Arkansas, and
Brazilian pepper from Florida. What
we don’t see are orange blossom,
sage, or mesquite — which used to
be produced in large quantity. Of
course, these may still be harvested
but blended with other sources and
sold as “mixed flowers.”
923
 Going back to 1991, Cornell’s Prof. recognize many honeys by the flavor from looking at pollen grains under a
Roger Morse outlined the major and color; (2) we can be certain of microscope, to using DNA “barcod-
sources of honey in the United States. some sources when they are the only ing” for identifying species in honey.
He placed white clover at the top, fol- plants in bloom that bees are on, often As he says, this is not an exact science,
lowed by sweet clover and alsike. He for many weeks; (3) by knowing the since often many kinds of pollen are
then listed the oil seed plants: canola, potential sources, we can rule out the found in a given honey sample. But
safflower, soybean, sunflower, etc. many things it can’t be. This, because authentic varietal honey is usually
His miscellaneous category, like most those plants are not present in the lo- characterized by the dominance of
lists of nectar plants, runs on and on. cale, or are not currently in bloom, or one type of pollen. As Dr. Vaughan
It includes aster, basswood, golden- there aren’t enough of them to attract Bryant succinctly put it:
rod, mesquite, orange, sage, sour- honey bees.
wood, tupelo, and yellow star thistle, But under many circumstances, Unifloral honeys in Europe, 2004
just to name a few. Most such lists in- these methods are not much help. For Brassica napus L .
clude 3 or 4 hundred species. example, if a buyer is presented with a CH, NL, East, Eu, D, B, DK, Fenno-Scand,
lot of honey that is being represented L, BI, F
how can you teLL? as “acacia” (Robinia pseudoacia), how Calluna vulgaris (L.)
A lot of people ask, how do you can they be sure that’s what it is? This E, NL, D, DK, Fenno-Scand, BI, PL
know what kind of honey it is? The honey in particular does not have a Castanea sativa
obvious answers would be: (1) we can distinctive flavor, like orange blossom AL, I, E, CH, F, East Eu
or other citrus honeys, and it’s nearly Citrus spp.
U.S. Nectar Plants, 1991 – I, E
Dr. Roger Morse colorless. To deal with this question,
the field of melissopalynology arose. Erica spp
Clovers and alfalfa E, F
Enoch Zander broke ground in this
White clover field in the 1930s. Most of his work Eucalyptus spp.
White sweet clover I, E, P
was published in German, but he did
Alsike clover contribute occasionally to the maga- Fagopyrum esculentum
Yellow sweet clover Eu, PL
zine Bee World, such as this entry:
Alfalfa Helianthus annuus
I, E, F, East and South-East Eu
The oil seed plants The pollen which bees, in col-
Lavandula spp
Rape and Canola lecting the nectar, unavoidably E
Safflower put into honey is of inestimable Phacelia tanacetifolia
Soybean value as a means of determining East Eu
Sunflower indisputably the origin of honeys Robinia pseudacacia L.
from plants and countries, for the East, South-East Eu, I, D, A
Other seed oil plants
supervision of the honey market. Rosmarinus officinalis
Miscellaneous
In all these investigations one E
Asters only uses the very varied exter- Rubus spp.
Basswood nal structure of the pollen grains Fenno-Scand
Brazilian pepper (Zander 1938). Thymus capitatus (L.)
Buckwheat, wild western GR
Catclaw acacia This topic was recently covered by Thymus vulgaris
Cotton Scott McArt (ABJ, September 2018). E
Fireweed He tells how palynology has moved Tilia spp.
Gallberry D, NL, PL, East, South-East
Goldenrod Principal Honey Flows in England, 1993 Honeydew from Abies
Oilseed rape (Brassica) CH, D, A, DK
Black locust
Lime (Tilia) Honeydew from Abies cephalonica
Mangrove GR
Mesquite Tree fruit (apple, pear, plum, cherry)
Honeydew from Picea abies
Milkweed Blackberry (Rubus) A, D
Orange blossom Heather (Calluna) Honeydew from Pinus spp
Palmetto Clover (Triflolium) GR
Purple loosestrife Field bean (Vicia) Honeydew from Quercus spp
Sycamore (Platanus) B, D, E, NL
Raspberry and blackberry
Chestnut (Castanea) Honeydew from Metcalfa pruinosa
Sages I
Salt cedar Hawthorn (Crataegus)
Rose bay (Rhododendron) Legend: A = Austria; AL = Albania; B = Bel-
Sourwood gium; BG = Bulgaria; BI = British Islands;
Spanish needle Willowherb (Lythrum) CH = Switzerland; D = Germany; DK = Den-
Sumac Ivy (Hedera) mark; E = Spain; East-Eu = Includes: Czech
Balsam (Impatiens) Rep, Slovak Rep, Hungary, part of Ro-
Tallow tree mania, part of ex Yugoslavia; F = France;
Titi Dandelion (Taraxacum) GR = Greece; HR = Croatia; I = Italy; L =
Tupelo Williams, I. H., Carreck, N., & Little, D. J. Luxembourg; NL = Netherlands; P = Portu-
Tulip tree (1993). Nectar sources for honey bees and gal; PL = Poland; Fenno-Scand = Includes:
the movement of honey bee colonies for Finland, Norway and Sweden; SLO = Slo-
Vetch crop pollination and honey production in venia; South-East Eu = Includes: Bulgaria,
Yellow star thistle England. Bee World, 74(4), 160-175. Romania, etc.

924 American Bee Journal

 When using pollen counts to
determine the nectar sources of a
honey sample, we recognize that
the types and percentages of re-
covered pollen do not provide a
one-to-one correlation with the
true nectar sources in the honey.
Nevertheless, it is still the fastest,
least expensive and most com-
mon method of determining the
origin of nectar contents in honey
(Jones 2014).
The question of honey identity has
been given a great deal more atten-
tion in Europe than elsewhere. The
European Union has enacted legisla-
tion regarding honey. Andreas Thra-
syvoulou (Lab. of Apiculture, Thessa-
loniki, Greece) writes:
Monofloral honeys. Article 2,
point 2b: The floral or plant ori-
gin is designated to the honey,
if the product comes wholly or
mainly from the indicated source
and possesses the organoleptic,
physicochemical and microscop-
ic characteristics of the source.
This very important article re-
garding the trade of monofloral
honeys can not be applied since the
mentioned characteristics are not
defined and are not given. Codex
Alimentarius (2001) also does
not contain provisions regarding
the characteristics of monofloral
honeys (Thrasyvoulou).
Many countries have instituted
provisions of their own, such as the
“guidelines” promoted in Germany.
According to Thrasyvoulou, the fol-
lowing honey sources have been iden-
California Wild Buckwheat
August 2019
Black Button Sage
tified and defined: Robinia pseudoaca-
cia; Calluna; Erica; Trifolium, Melilotus;
Citrus sinensis; Brassica napus; Helian-
thus annuus; Eucalyptus spp; Castanea
sativa; Tilia spp.; Picea spp.; Pinus spp.;
Abies alba. The last three are not blos-
som honeys but are so-called “forest
honey” — which I plan to cover in a
subsequent article.
nothinG iS conStant but chanGe
As I mentioned, sources of honey
in a given locale change over time.
I grew up in San Diego County and
kept bees there during the 1970s and
1980s. Over the decades I became fa-
miliar with the native and cultivated
plants, as well as the characteristics
of many types of honey. John Harbi-
son was one of the first beekeepers
to practice large scale beekeeping in
California; he lent his name to Harbi-
son Canyon, which lies east of the city
of El Cajon. During the years he kept
bees, the county was blanketed by
legendary honey plants, and honey
was produced in recording breaking
amounts.
Chief among these were black but-
ton sage (Salvia mellifera) and white
sage (Salvia apiana). These are true
sages, closely related to the Euro-
pean species, but for hundreds of
thousands of years they had never
been visited by honey bees. (There is
fossil evidence for a honey bee, Apis
nearctica, in North America but its
range is unknown, and they became
extinct eons ago.) Black button sage
is incredibly clear, some would say
colorless, when pure. There is no dis-
tinctive taste, even though the leaves
of the sage plants are extremely pun-
gent. There are many varieties of sage
growing throughout California and
they undoubtedly contribute to the
total crop. Another legendary honey
plant is the wild buckwheat. For years
I thought it was simply called that by
the settlers for lack of a better name,
because to me it looks nothing like
the cultivated buckwheat, nor is the
honey similar. Cultivated buckwheat
honey is very dark and pungent. In
fact, many people can’t stand it, but
the wild buckwheat honey from the
west is mild and enjoyable.
It turns out that that western peren-
nial shrub (Erigonum spp, especially
E. fasciculatum) is a member in good
standing of the Buckwheat family
(Polygonaceae) and if you look closely
at the flowers, you can see the simi-
larity. The buckwheat family is huge
and contains many nectar producing
plants, including heartsease (Polygo-
925

num persicara) and Japanese knot-
weed (Reynoutria japonica). Many of
these are annuals, like the cultivated
buckwheat, but many are persistent
perennials like California wild buck-
wheat and knotweed.
I moved to San Diego in 1960 and
the interstate highways had not yet
been built. When I-5 went in, it was
two lanes going north and two going
south. Now, there are five lanes go-
ing each way and it’s usually bumper
to bumper. This explosion of growth
changed California forever. Most
of the best natural bee pasturage in
southern California is gone. Howev-
er, it has been largely replaced by ex-
tremely productive bee plants. Doz-
ens of varieties of eucalyptus have
been planted throughout the state.
During the 1980s, I produced tons of
honey from eucalyptus. Sadly, the rich
flavor and aroma was not universally
appreciated. One time I took a truck
load to a honey packer in Colton. The
buyer said he was doing me a huge
favor by buying the honey, at 35 cents
a pound. He said they already had as
much eucalyptus as they wanted.
Beekeeping in southern Califor-
nia, of course, has changed, too. The
massive population boom made it
increasingly difficult to find and keep
good apiary sites. When I had bees
there, every time the phone rang I
was expecting that I would have to
926
move another yard of bees because of
some problem “with the neighbors.”
But after I left there in 1990, it just got
worse. The African bee became estab-
lished throughout southern Califor-
nia and then years of severe drought
forced beekeepers to move to irrigat-
ed desert crop land, or ship their bees
to the upper Midwest in summer to
make a honey crop. Pollination be-
came a much more important source
of income to commercial beekeepers
as honey production failed.
My tale of change is but one of
many. Beekeepers are often at the
forefront of environmental and agri-
cultural change. Here is another story,
from England:
When we started beekeeping
38 years ago, rape [Brassica na-
pus] was a major crop. It started
to flower in the first week of May
and gave huge crops with the
main flow at the end of May or
even early June. Now it flowers
much earlier — often at the end of
March, although this year it has
been held back by the weather
and has only come into full flow-
er in the last few days. This year
we have rape growing on a grand
scale — every apiary surrounded
by it — but at the moment we
have a serious drought and ev-
erything is as dry as dust and the
bees are frantically gathering wa-
ter from any available source.
So, while rape often flowers
now before the bees have built up,
it also seems to produce far less
nectar. Nobody seems to know
whether it is new varieties that
produce less nectar, or whether
it is just the fact that it flowers
so much earlier that the crop has
been reduced so much. But all
this may not be relevant for the
future. I was discussing rape with
a farmer yesterday and he told me
that there is now such a problem
with flea beetle that it is likely that
this will be the last year that it is
grown on any scale now that neo-
nicotinoids have been banned [in
the EU]. From our point of view
that may not be a bad thing as
farmers will probably grow more
field beans [Vicia faba] – excellent
honey! (Stratford 2019)
the beSt of the beSt
My favorite honey is yellow box
eucalyptus. I first tasted it in a small
batch of honey extracted in San Di-
ego, where there are many varieties
of eucalyptus. I never had it again un-
til recently, when someone gave me
a little jar from Australia. To me, it is
buttery, rich and mysterious.
My friend Alan Mikolich told me
of an agave that grows out in the des-
ert east of San Diego. When it came
into bloom, the beekeepers emptied
their tanks to get ready for it. All of
the honey was packed and sold as
a lot, bakery grade they called it. He
said when it was being extracted the
whole place smelled like rotten fish.
More recently Alan told me the hon-
or of the worst honey he got is now a
crop of honey from fields of onions.
OK, I don’t really have one favor-
ite. At home, I have a wooden wine
crate filled with honeys from all over
the world. Many are associated with
particular experiences. I remember
the first time I had basswood honey;
I was 24 and a greenhorn. I never for-
got the tingly minty flavor.
I had buckwheat when I was a kid
and we would visit Wixson’s honey
stand on Seneca Lake. For me it has
a good taste. Others think it’s rank. I
guess it’s like Marmite, if you didn’t
learn to like it early on, you probably
won’t. They had a glass hive, too.
Kids love that stuff.
Orange blossom honey fires up
memories of growing up in San Di-
ego, surrounded by the groves. Eu-
American Bee Journal
calyptus honey doesn’t really link up but some prefer very mild honeys for
with the trees in my mind, perhaps sweetening their beverages.
because the honey doesn’t have the I remember going down to the
characteristic pungency of the leaves. desert in Eastern San Diego with a
The foliage of the legendary black beekeeper to check some hives by a
button sage fairly reeks; yet the hon- grapefruit grove. His bees had those
ey is the mildest I have ever had. I like plastic feeder frames in every hive.
honeys that have a distinctive taste, The bees ran out of room and built
comb down into the feeders. I will
Definitions of Honey Classes for never forget tasting grapefruit hon-
U.S. Price Support Purposes eycomb, right in the grove.
Table honey Later, when my own kids were
young, we would have waffles on
Alfalfa
Sunday mornings. I would warm up
Bird's-foot trefoil
some eucalyptus honey in a pan, and
Blackberry we sloshed it on the waffles like syr-
Brazil brush up. Here in New York state, a lot of
Catsclaw folks seem to prefer maple syrup over
Clover honey. No accounting for taste!
Cotton Here are some notes from the field:
Fireweed
It has been said that it is impos-
Gallberry
sible to overstock a good gallber-
Huajillo
Lima bean ry location (Ilex glabra). We do not
know that this statement is true,
Mesquite
but we have never heard of one
Orange
being overstocked. We have had
Raspberry bees in a location where there
Sage were 362 colonies, with the same
Saw palmetto result as with 100 colonies. Good
Sourwood
gallberry locations are nearly
Star thistle numberless and large quanti-
Sweet clover ties of this fine honey are wasted
Tupelo every year in localities where
Vetch there is not a bee to gather it. The
gallberry should be included in
Western wild buckwheat
Wild alfalfa
the list of the best honey plants
(Wilder 1907).
Similar mild flavored honeys
I asked around to get some more
Non-table honey stories about honey experiences.
Aster Mike from Lower Alabama wrote:
Avocado
Buckwheat (except “wild buckwheat”) The major honey plant I pursue
in my area is the black gum, other-
Cabbage palmetto
Dandelion wise known as tupelo. However,
Eucalyptus my location is along the Alabama
Goldenrod River in Alabama just below
where US-84 crosses the river.
Heartsease (smartweed)
I’ve finally gotten the bloom co-
Horsemint
ordinated with that of the privet
Mangrove
hedge in the area. When the priv-
Manzanita et is about to bloom is the time I
Mint need to move my hives in to the
Partridge pea river bottom land area.
Rattan vine
Another correspondent, Chris,
Safflower
Salt cedar (Tamarix gallica) wrote from Virginia:
Spanish needle
Spikeweed Most unusual honey I ever
tasted was just 10 days ago. I was
Titi
helping a trainee with a prolific
Toyon (christmas berry)
hive. The first frame we grabbed
Tulip poplar
was packed with uncapped hon-
Wild cherry ey, so we had ourselves a sample.
Similarly flavored honeys The honey was spicy and sweet
August 2019
with a hint of cinnamon. It tasted
like a fireball hard candy. I recall
reading somewhere that holly
trees can produce honey like this.
The trainee said there are a lot of
holly trees in the area (Ilex spp).
Next to tulip poplar, this fireball
honey is the best I ever tasted.
Any discussion of honey is liable to
either be brief and cursory, or an ex-
tensive and exhausting book length
treatise. If you are interested in the
latter, I highly recommend any of the
works on the subject by Dr. Eva Crane,
who dedicated her life to documenting
the activities and honey production of
beekeepers throughout the world.
RefeRenceS
Crane, E. (1980). A book of honey. Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Crane, E. (1983). Surveying the world’s honey
plants. Central Association of Bee-Keepers.
Crane, E., Walker, P., & Day, R. (1984). Direc-
tory of important world honey sources. Inter-
national Bee Research Association.
Jones, G. D., & Bryant, V. M. (2014). Pollen
studies of East Texas honey. Palynology,
38(2).
McArt, S. (2018). Notes from the Lab. Ameri-
can Bee Journal. 158(9).
Miner, T. B. (1850). The American Bee Keeper’s
Manual. New York: C. M. Saxton.
Morse, R. A. (1991). Major U.S. Honey
Plants. Bee Culture. (Jun 1991).
Stratford-upon-Avon Bees and Honey.
(2019). Personal communication.
Thrasyvoulou, Andreas. “Suggestion for
Improvements of European Legislation
Governing Bee Products.”
Wilder, J. J. (1907). Writing in: Gleanings in
Bee Culture. (Sep 1907).
Zander, E. (1938). Pollen Form and Chromo-
some Number. Bee World. (Nov 1938).
Peter L Borst has
worked in the bee-
keeping industry since
his first job working as
beekeeper’s helper in
Wolcott NY, in 1974.
In the late 1970s he
helped run a beekeep-
ing supply store in the
San Diego area, where he served beekeepers
of all levels of expertise.
Peter managed 500 colonies of his own in
the 1980s. From 1999 to 2006, he was Senior
Apiarist at Cornell's Dyce Lab for Honey Bee
Studies. and worked as an apiary inspector
for New York State from 2006 to 2008. He is
retired from Cornell University, and is a past
President of the Finger Lakes Bee Club.
Peter has published over 40 articles on top-
ics as diverse as beekeeping technique, the
composition and value of pollen for bees, and
the history of bee breeding. He has done pre-
sentations on these topics for venues rang-
ing from local elementary schools to bee-
keeping organizations in many states.
927
 SAVE EXPENSE HARDEMAN APIARIES 2019
PICK-UP WITH 906 South Railroad Ext.
A FRIEND!!!! P.O. Box 214
Mt. Vernon, GA 30445
SPRING
Phone (912) 583-2710
Fax (912) 583-4920
PRICES

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QUEENS QUEENS
1-9 $20.50 1-9 $23.00
10-24 $19.00 10-24 $21.25 Marking
25-UP $18.75 25-UP $21.00 $2.50
Clipping
WE WILL START TAKING ORDERS IN DECEMBER
$2.50
PICK-UPS ARE WELCOME. YEARLY INSPECTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.
PACKAGE AND QUEEN PRICES DO NOT INCLUDE POSTAGE. ALL SHIPMENTS MUST BE PAID IN
FULL BEFORE WE SHIP. NO PAYMENT MAY CAUSE DELAYS IN YOUR SHIPPING.
ALL POSTAL CLAIMS ARE TO BE MADE BY CUSTOMER. HARDEMAN APIARIES
ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE. WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS.
WE WILL NOT SHIP PACKAGES TO ZONE 5 AND UP, NO EXCEPTIONS. POSTAL SERVICE WILL NOT
INSURE PACKAGES PAST ZONE 4. ZONE 5 AND UP PACKAGE CUSTOMERS SHOULD TRY YOUR
LOCAL BEE CLUBS TO SEE IF THEY MAY BE PICKING UP PACKAGES. QUEENS CAN BE SHIPPED
TO MOST UNITED STATES CUSTOMERS. THESE CAN’T BE INSURED BY THE POST OFFICE OR UPS.

928 American Bee Journal

August 2019 929
930 American Bee Journal
 Measuring Propolis Deposition:
A Novel Approach
T
he idiom, “There’s more than
one way to skin a cat,” came
to mind while discussing my
North Carolina State Beekeepers As-
sociation (NCSBA), Master Beekeeper
Program (MBP) Master Craftsman
Research project with friends and ac-
quaintances one evening. The origin
of the phrase apparently comes from
the many ways to skin a catfish. Most
will agree that as an idiom, it refers
to the concept that there is more than
one way to accomplish even the most
challenging task. It is also accurate to
say that “there is more than one way
to hive a swarm of bees,” but that isn’t
as familiar to most.
At the Eastern Apicultural Society
(EAS) 2017 meeting in Delaware, Dr.
Tom Seeley presented his “Darwin-
ian Beekeeping” program. His pre-
sentation identified the difference
between managed colonies living in
our man-made habitat vs feral colo-
nies living in natural environments
such as the hollows of a tree. At one
point in his presentation, Dr. Seeley
expressed concern that he was not
able find a manufacturer who could
provide him a Langstroth brood box
with a rough interior surface. After
returning to North Carolina, a discus-
sion with a wood worker/beekeeper
provided some optimism that a rough
interior surface box could be built. A
week later, H.S. Greene, owner and
operator of Hidden Happiness Bee
Farm, called and said he had his first
prototype rough interior surface box
ready for inspection. The materials
used were resawn/band-sawn east-
ern white pine.
At H.S. Greene’s shop, some pic-
tures were taken and sent off to Dr.
Seeley to see what he thought. His
reply was, “Make me five.” H.S.
August 2019
by Doug galloway anD Dennis Clay
manufactured the components, an
assembly jig and instructions, and
shipped them to Dr. Seeley. After
that things moved quickly. Dr. See-
ley was emailed to see if he intended
to use the boxes for a research proj-
ect involving propolis deposition in
rough surfaced vs smooth surfaced
boxes. He replied that he had many
obligations and would not have the
time, but would be happy to review a
research proposal if the idea became
my choice for a Master Craftsman
project.
One of the many things learned
from this experience, and the list is
rather long, is that our beekeeping
community has so many dedicated
professionals willing to share their
thoughts, knowledge and experience
with those of us having no formal cre-
dentials, just a passion for the honey
bee and beekeeping. In North Caro-
lina, Dr. David Tarpy at NCSU serves
as an advisor to the NCSBA and the
MBP. He agreed to be my advisor for
this Master Craftsman research proj-
Research Apiary
ect, accepted my proposal and took
the time to provide counsel through-
out the 18-month duration of the proj-
ect. Dr. Tarpy gave additional form to
the original proposal and during the
project he contributed record keep-
ing formats, process ideas and per-
spective as it evolved, and at the end
contributed statistical analysis of data
recorded.
Thanks to Freddy Proni, EAS Mas-
ter beekeeper and second vice presi-
dent of the NCSBA, I was invited to
join an evening’s gathering of bee-
keepers and speakers at the March
2018, NCSBA Spring Conference in
New Bern. Along with Freddy Proni
were Dr. Tarpy, a couple of his post-
doctoral students, Dr. Marla Spivak,
the Chairman of the NCSBA MBP
Paul Newbold and his wife Cheryl,
amongst others. During the evening’s
discussion, Dr. Tarpy brought up my
research project. Though the conver-
sation was encouraging, the prospect
of finding a way to quantitatively de-
termine propolis deposition on wood
seemed bleak. The project may have
been abandoned were it not for that
nagging phrase, “There’s (got to be)
more than one way to skin a cat.” As it
turned out, another idiom presented
itself: “Necessity is the mother of in-
vention.” Research follows the same
track that every hard-earned solution
to life’s challenges takes. First is the
problem. Next is contemplation, ex-
ploration, review, discussion, persis-
tence, review, discussion, tenacity, re-
view, discussion, stubborn fortitude,
and then some small breakthrough
occurs. This process may need to be
repeated multiple times to get to your
goal. Along the way, small revelations
are the rewards that keep the search
and the research going forward.
931

Hive stands for research apiary
Listening to the dialogue that eve-
ning, an acquaintance and former
neighbor who had worked for years
in the furniture business came to
mind. Part of his responsibility was
managing moisture in wood being
used in the industry. As the furniture
business moved overseas, he began
consulting to different companies ad-
vising how to deal with the challenges
of building wood furniture overseas,
loading it in containers for shipping
to the states and then preparing it for
delivery to U.S. customers. That was
an “aha” moment for me, and without
knowing if he held the solution to my
problem, it seemed Dennis was the
perfect person to provide the answer,
if there was one, and there was.
Dennis Clay, NCSU graduate with
a degree in Mechanical/Aerospace
Engineering, living in Lenoir, NC,
was my best bet to work out a solu-
tion to the problem of measuring
propolis deposition on wood. Dennis
has no experience in beekeeping, but
has a keen understanding of wood.
During our conversation, Dennis
asked insightful questions, and as
our dialogue continued over the next
couple of months, we arrived at the
process that allowed this research to
proceed. The method provides sus-
tainable and credible values for the
measurement of propolis deposition
on a wood surface.
the pRoceSS:
When first discussing the idea of
this research, Dr. Seeley said he had
Research hives with bear fence in back-
ground
932
considered attempting to remove
the propolis and then measuring or
weighing it, but he discarded that
idea as wood is porous and it would
be impossible to effectively collect all
the propolis deposited. During that
March 2018 evening’s open discussion
with Dr. Tarpy, Dr. Spivak and others,
the consensus was that the mechani-
cal removal of deposited propolis to
weigh it or determine its volume, was
not realistic. Research has been done
to explore the benefits of propolis de-
position and increased propolis depo-
sition by attaching of propolis traps to
the interior of brood boxes. Another
research project examined three ways
to increase propolis deposition in the
brood box. None could be found that
had offered a process to quantify the
amount of propolis deposited. The
concept that we arrived at was rather
simple, like most things, but it took
Dennis’ background to visualize it.
Wood, being porous, absorbs mois-
ture in the air which is reflected by the
relative humidity. As the humidity
fluctuates, the moisture in the wood
changes in response. This variable wa-
ter content in the wood eliminates any
chance of taking a wooden brood box,
weighing it before installing a colony
of bees, allowing the bees to do their
job, removing the bees and reweigh-
ing to see what the propolis deposi-
tion is. There is no way to control the
humidity and thus the percent water
carried in the porous wood. Further,
the amount of propolis applied to the
interior surface of the wooden ware
as a protective coating is relatively
small so the measurement technique
requires some precision.
That is when Dennis asked, “Could
we use veneers?” Dennis explained
that we could cut thin veneers of
the same wood that the boxes were
built from and attach the veneers to
the interior of the rough and smooth
boxes prior to installing the nucleus
colonies. Veneer dimensions were
2 inches by 2.5 inches by 1/8 inch
and were prepared by Hidden Hap-
piness Bee Farm. Before the veneers
were installed, each was numbered
and processed. The process included
weighing the veneers after they had
achieved an Equilibrium Moisture
Content (EMC), then baking them
in a convection oven at a relatively
low temperature for a couple hours
to remove any capillary moisture.
After two hours, the veneers were re-
moved, weighed and placed back into
the convection oven for an additional
30 minutes, then weighed again to
Rough veneer installed in rough box
Comparison of rough vs smooth veneer
be certain all the moisture had been
removed. The Oven Dried Weight
(ODW) was then recorded for use in
the final calculations to determine
propolis deposition.
the pRoject:
An apiary was established includ-
ing bear fencing, as we have plenty
of healthy, hungry black bears in the
mountains of NC. Ten hive stands
were constructed that would each
hold two hives, one each of the smooth
interior brood body and rough interi-
or brood body. All new wooden ware
was constructed and the hives were
placed at the ends of each 8-foot hive
stand, with the stands placed approxi-
mately 15 feet apart. Twenty nucleus
colonies of Italian mutt bees were
purchased from a NC vendor and in-
stalled on April 21, 2018. During in-
stallation, it was observed that most
of the colonies had no open brood,
indicating the lack of laying queens.
The vendor acknowledged that many
of the queens installed were virgins.
Over the next couple of weeks, 10
queens were replaced by the vendor,
again with virgin queens. During the
rest of the project, 10 mated queens
were purchased from a reliable queen
breeder and installed as needed.
During much of the project, due to
the nucleus populations and health,
colonies were fed 1:1 sugar syrup and
essential oils. Varroa counts and no-
sema levels were evaluated regularly.
Varroa counts remained low during
most of the season with a moderate
increase toward season end, when
colonies were treated when lev-
els exceeded 1 varroa per 100 bees.
Samples of honey bee foragers were
removed for the determination of no-
American Bee Journal
sema levels and delivered to the NC
State Department of Agriculture and
Consumer Services Beneficial Bee Lab
where they were evaluated by Glenn
Hackney. The June samples reflected
a moderate level of nosema while the
October samples showed a high level.
By the end of the season, all colo-
nies had survived and preparations
were made to evaluate propolis de-
position. Four sacrificial veneers were
prepared in the same manner as the
colony veneers and installed in four
random colonies. Two veneers had
smooth surfaces while two had rough
surfaces. The veneers were placed
into cages made of #8 hardware cloth
to prevent the bees from depositing
any propolis on them. They were then
placed inside the colonies between
the brood box and medium super for
two days so they could reach an equi-
librium moisture content equivalent
to the wooden ware in the colony.
On October 31, 2018, all veneers,
both sacrificial and those the bees
propolized, were removed from the
colonies, promptly taken to the honey
house and weighed. The impact of at-
mospheric humidity on the veneer’s
moisture content was minimized
by this strategy. The colony veneers
which were installed in the brood
boxes prior to nucleus colony instal-
lation, had been exposed to propolis
deposition for 193 days, a little over 6
months. There was no source analysis
of the resins used in the propolis de-
posited. The project apiary is located
in the NC mountains, adjoining the
Pisgah National Forest, with no sig-
nificant tillable agriculture for a radius
of at least five miles. It is reasonable to
conclude that the resin sources were
mostly evergreen and deciduous trees.
Graph 1. Bar graph is colony strength measured by frames of bees. Line graph is
colony veneer propolis deposition.
August 2019
finaL caLcuLationS:
A jeweler’s scale was used for all
weight measurements, and the scale
was re-calibrated prior to each use.
The sacrificial veneers’ weights were
compared to their Oven Dried Weights
(ODW). The difference was the Equi-
librium Moisture Content (EMC) that
the sacrificial veneers acquired while
in the hives. This EMC was compared
to the ODW of the sacrificial veneers
to arrive at a Percentage Equilibrium
Moisture Content (PEMC) relative to
oven dried veneer weight. The aver-
age PEMC was applied to the ODW of
the propolized colony veneers to de-
termine the moisture weight in those
veneers. The ODW and EMC were
then subtracted from the total weight
of the propolized veneers, leaving the
weight of propolis.
the ReSuLtS:
Though the rough veneers visu-
ally appeared to have more propo-
lis deposited on them, the weight of
propolis indicated that the amount
of propolis was effectively equal on
both rough and smooth veneers, with
a slightly higher amount of deposi-
tion on the smooth veneers. Colony
strength was monitored through-
out this project and was compared
to propolis deposition (graph 1). It
seems reasonable that propolis de-
position and colony strength should
correlate, and this graph favors that
conclusion and further supports the
effectiveness of this measurement
method.
Although some ancillary observa-
tions were made regarding colony
health, varroa and nosema levels,
population growth and queen perfor-
mance, none of these proved statisti-
Smooth, rough, sacrificial veneers and
veneer cage. The amount of propolis was
effectively equal on rough and smooth
veneers.
cally significant relative to the rough
or smooth boxes, per Dr. Tarpy’s Sta-
tistical Analysis System (SAS) evalu-
ation of the data recorded during the
project.
concLuSionS:
This is an effective process for mea-
suring the quantity of propolis depos-
ited by a colony of honey bees. This
technique can be applied to explore
propolis deposition in different loca-
tions within the brood box, propolis
deposited or removed over a variety
of time frames, and propolis deposi-
tion on a variety of wood surface tex-
tures. Variations in length of time for
deposition, honey bee sub-species,
resin source and wood texture each
might have an effect on the results in
future research.
acknowLedGementS:
Thank you to the NCSBA MBP for
providing the incentive to explore
apiculture research, and to Cynthia
Speed and Freddy Proni for their con-
tent edit and review of this article.
Doug Galloway is an NCSBA MBP Master
Craftsman Beekeeper, an EAS Master Bee-
keeper, President of the Caldwell County
North Carolina Beekeepers Association and
now serves as Chairman of the NCSBA Mas-
ter Beekeeper Program. Currently the North-
ern Mountain Region Director for the NCSBA,
Doug keeps 25 colonies, enjoys spending
time with beekeepers and looking after his
farm in Caldwell County NC. Doug can be
contacted at dmg623@hotmail.com.
Dennis Clay is a 1969 graduate of N.C. State
University with a B.S. in Mechanical/Aero-
space Engineering, and successfully com-
pleted his Engineers in Training and Profes-
sional Engineering License. During his 28
years with Broyhill Furniture Industries, Den-
nis spent 20 years as Manager of the Lumber
Operations. He continues to consult to the
Woodworking Industry and can be contacted
at dennisclay98@gmail.com.
933
934 American Bee Journal
 Bodacious Blackberries
By Charlotte Ekker Wiggins

I
f you are new to beekeeping you Missouri’s 1839 honey wars? (See “A there is a simple way to distinguish
may be surprised at how much Honey of a War,” June 2018 ABJ.) We blackberries from other berries.
some beekeepers are obsessed have a long tradition of taking a stand When you pull on blackberries, they
with blackberries. The onset of black- over what is important, such as bee hold on to their stems while berries
berries means two things: trees. And blackberries. such as black raspberries pull cleanly
First, it can mean the last of the Although I prefer them fresh and off the plant stem leaving a hollow
spring cold spells, or “blackberry warm right off the brambles, there center.
winter,” when temperatures dip be- are a number of other ways to enjoy This cobbler recipe is relatively easy
low freezing for one last time before blackberries, starting with my second to make. It’s my family’s favorite and
warmer weather sets in. summer favorite way, in a cobbler. is excellent if you want to freeze some
To beekeepers, blooming black- By the way, if you run into bram- for later enjoyment such as a cold,
berries means the beginning of “the bles and you want to identify them, snowy mid-winter day.
flow,” when temperatures between
75-85F trigger plants to produce nec-
tar. Nectar production entices pollina-
tors to indulge their sweet mandibles
while leaving flowers with a precious
pollen cargo, ensuring that plants re-
produce.
Blackberries have a long history of
being hybridized, enough that today
we don’t have the original blackberries
first found in North America in the late
1700s. And although we may be plant-
ing the same varieties in different loca-
tions, climate and soil may impact how
well the plants produce. Local univer-
sity extension offices and fruit experi-
ment stations will have lists of the best
varieties to grow in your area.
Where I live in mid-Missouri, the lo-
cals have favorite blackberry patches,
exact locations passed down through
generations to favored, and select,
family members. Don’t ask where
the locations are, that may have been
the trigger to a number of still ongo-
ing and seemingly unexplainable in- This tiny green berry is between getting beekeepers on the run and turning black to
terfamily skirmishes. Ever heard of become a treat on your dinner table. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

August 2019 935

 BETTY CROCKER COOKBOOK BLACKBERRY COBBLER Charlotte Ekker Wig-
gins is an advanced
master gardener and
¾ cup sugar 1 cup flour Missouri beekeeper.
1 TBSP cornstarch 1 TBSP sugar She shares her gar-
dening adventures at
3 cups blackberries with any juice 1 ½ tsp baking powder gardeningcharlotte.
½ tsp butter ½ tsp salt com and beekeeping
½ tsp cinnamon 3 TBSP shortening stories at homesweetbees.com. Contact
1 cup boiling water ½ cup milk Charlotte at chargardens@gmail.com.

Mix together in saucepan sugar and cornstarch. Stir in gradually boiling

water. Bring to boil. Boil one minute, stirring constantly. Add fruit. Pour into
10x6x2” baking dish. Dot with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Cut in the shortening. Stir in
milk to make soft dough. Drop dough spoonfuls onto fruit mixture. Don’t worry
if they don’t touch; the dough expands during baking.
Bake 400F for 30 minutes. Makes 6 servings. Serve warm with whipped
cream or better yet, homemade ice cream with a drizzle of honey.

No time to bake? Then it’s time for Finally, here is a perfect recipe for that quick blackberry dessert that tastes
this recipe from Christopher Lloyd’s like you spent hours making it:
“Gardener Cook” book to preserve the
taste of summer blackberries for fall:

NO SUGAR APPLE
BLACKBERRY JAM

From “The Healthy Cook”

3 McIntosh or Golden Delicious

apples (1¼ pounds) peeled,
cored and chopped
1 can (12 ounces) unsweetened
apple juice concentrate
1 pound fresh blackberries

Combine apples and apple

juice concentrate in stainless steel
saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer,
cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Add blackberries. Return the
mixture to a gentle simmer; cover
and cook 5 minutes.
Uncover the pan and increase
the heat to medium high. Cook, I save Blackberry Fool syrup to dribble over the desert before serving.
(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)
stirring frequently, for 15 minutes
or until all liquid has almost all
evaporated . BLACKBERRY FOOL
Pour the jam into hot, scalded
preserving jars, leaving 18” 2 ½ cups fresh (or frozen) blackberries
headspace. Wipe rims clean, attach ½ cup sugar
lids and tightly screw on caps. Juice from half a lemon
Invert jars for 10 seconds. Cool on 1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
wire rack. Store in refrigerator.
Put the blackberries in a saucepan with sugar and lemon juice, then
Makes 3 cups; 23 calories per tsp. heat slowly on low. After simmering for 10 minutes, push the pan contents
through a large mesh strainer. Leave to cool. Whip up heavy whipping cream
until fairly thick, then gently fold in the pulp; add fruit juice to your consis-
tency preference.
Pour into bowl and chill.
I have been known to save leftover blackberry syrup to pour over ice cream

936 American Bee Journal

Why We Squeeze
Out Every Drop
W
e beekeepers are strange
dudes. It seems we are ob-
sessed with honey. Witness
me during the last honey extraction.
I pour all the honey out of the extrac-
tor through the port. Then I tip up the
machine, rest it on a sawhorse, and
let more flow out overnight. Then I
stand it upright, and with a long-han-
dle rubber scraper, try to pry out any
remaining residue. Finally, I reach
in through the port with a spoon to
gather any sticking bits around the
opening.
At that point, and only at that point,
am I ready to place the extractor near
my beehives and let them suck out
the remainder. In fact, with any bee
activity — leaving the supers atop the
hive until the last possible minute,
pouring bottles at exactly the right
height, feeding honey that fell to the
ground to the bees — I am similarly
driven to obtain every drop.
The question is, what is the big
deal if I obtain 206 or 204 pounds at
harvest time? Why not make it easy
on myself and just take what pours
through the spigot? Why do I need to
get every drop that’s humanly pos-
sible?
I know I am not alone. Fellow bee-
keepers have spoken about attempts
to get 100% of available honey. One
practitioner told me: “I don’t know
about you, but I treat my honey like
gold. I want to get every morsel I’m
entitled to.” So why are we so com-
pulsive, or as some might say, un-
healthily, absurdly fixated? This ar-
ticle will present some arguments
to soothe some questioning natures
August 2019
by Howard Scott
(I for instance, sometimes wonder
about my obsessiveness), and pro-
vide a rationale for our own egos.
On the surface, we’re beekeepers
and honey is our game. Sure we're
in it for curiosity and understand-
ing of insect societies, but unless we
leave everything to the bees, honey
is the product of our efforts. Some
of us make sideline incomes out of
honey sales. Some of us try to break
even with our hobby. Some of us like
to give as much honey away as gifts.
So it’s what we do. Getting as much
honey as we can provides pleasure as
well as affirmation of our efforts.
To put it another way, the abso-
lutely worst possible situation is the
following:
“I would like to purchase some of
your honey.”
“I’m afraid I’m out of stock.”
As you say this, your face turns
red, and your fingers start to tingle
and your heart palpitates, as you
failed a customer who depended on
you to keep a supply on hand. For
you committed the one cardinal rule
of beekeeping: Always have a supply
on hand.
Then, it seems to me that beekeep-
ers have a particularly keen aver-
sion to wasting. Others have said it
less gently, “Beekeepers are a cheap
lot.” Being a tightwad makes sense.
The activity is something that can be
done for a small amount of money. It
doesn’t take a lot of training to learn.
It’s not particularly glamorous. In
fact, it is downright grungy at times,
like when we have to melt down old
comb in a solar melter. To make a
gross generalization, beekeepers are
not frivolous. They see the world in
black and white. Their motto might
be: If you spend a dollar, you want
to get your money’s worth, and that
means harvesting all the honey you
can.
Furthermore, beekeepers realize
the effort and cooperation that went
into creating every teaspoon of honey.
The beekeeper pictures all that goes
into creating this special substance.
He sees the foragers flying three
miles away, immersing themselves
in every flower they find, sucking
the nectar from pistils, and return-
ing to the hive entrance. He catches
transporters meeting gatherers at the
entrance and transferring nectar. He
envisions the transporters disgorg-
ing the liquid into vats. He pictures
processors fanning the honey until
the liquid content is 17%. Finally, he
imagines builders capping the honey
for future use. It is said that, to cre-
ate a one-pound jar, bees make 40,000
trips, fly 50,000 miles, and visit 2 mil-
lion flowers.
Your average individual just sees a
jar of honey as a product not unlike
a jar of peanut butter. And so he is
amazed when he sees the beekeep-
er bending over into the extractor
wrenching his arm back and forth,
grunting with every stroke, trying
to reclaim every bit of honey. But
the beekeeper just takes the required
effort in stride. He knows that such
insect involvement merits care. Get
every drop you can, the practitioner
says, they put out amazing effort for
you.
937
 There is another reason for us apia-
rists to be rapacious and that is the
current state of affairs. Beekeepers
know that honey production is less
plentiful now than it was 25 years
ago. Today’s practitioner faces many
new obstacles. Between varroa mites,
CCD, hive beetles, pesticides contain-
ing neonicotinoids, our bee popula-
tion is suffering. Illness and disease
is endemic in colonies. Hives are not
overwintering. Honey production is
down. So we are most appreciative
of whatever bounty there is, and we
make extra effort to get every drop
we can.
In the good old days, I harvested
500 to 600 pounds of honey from my
three or four hives, and it seemed like
bountiful harvests would go on for-
ever. I suppose I took it for granted.
Since honey just poured forth every
July and September, I didn’t have to
be miserly. I was more generous with
gifts. I sold my honey for a lot less
than I do now — I believe my price
was $5 a one pound jar a decade ago.
I gave a lot back to the bees. After all,
we had a sharing partnership. They
could go to the bottoms of the extrac-
tor and tubs a lot easier than I could.
I did this because they would return
E. Suhre Bees
Package Bees available April and May
Queens available April through October
For information, pricing or ordering
call Eric (530) 228-3197
938
the favor next year with more abun- Unlike other forms of agriculture, like
dance. apple trees, where 20% of the produce
But that abundance has slimmed. I falls to the ground and quickly rots,
am more careful. I take extra steps not beekeeping is a no-waste system. By
to spill my liquid gold. I take more being eager beavers, we are part of
efforts to clean out the extractor. Af- that perfect circle.
ter I empty a tub, I let it sit overnight, So beekeepers, don’t feel guilty
and reclaim the pooled remainder the next time you go to absurd measures
next day. I need it all, because I don’t to retrieve every drop of honey you
know what next year will bring. can. It’s simply part of the culture.
Then there’s the exercise factor.
Most of us are desk people or button Scott, a 35-year-beekeeper from Pembroke,
pushers on a machine. We don’t move MA, has published 190 articles in ABJ. He is
the author of the best-selling Bee Lessons.
around that much. Beekeeping pro- See www.beelessons.com.
vides opportunity to stretch our bod-
ies, flex unused muscles, punch up
our strength, squeeze in tight places,
and strain under pressure. Heck, per-
haps we’ll return to the slim bodies of
our youth.
Finally, the beekeeping cycle is a
no-waste circle. Bees create honey. We
extract excess honey, leaving them
just enough to survive the winter.
But even after extracting, we return
the remaining honey to the bees. Did
you ever leave a strainer with nylon
sheath gunked with honey outside
overnight on a plate? The next day,
the nylon feels downy dry. Not even
the smell of honey remains. It’s so dry
you could wipe it across your skin.
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
American Bee Journal
March 2018 939
940 American Bee Journal

PULLMAN, Wash.—Though career
coaches encourage job applicants to
say “yes” with a can-do attitude, an-
swering “no” to a Peace Corps ques-
tion 22 years ago set Washington State
University student Melanie Margarita
Kirby on a career and academic path
like no other. It’s one that will take
her to Spain this fall for a nine-month
Fulbright-National Geographic Story-
telling Fellowship — WSU’s first.
“In 1997, the Peace Corps question-
naire asked if I would mind working
with stinging insects,” the 45-year-
old mother of two recalled, “and by
saying ‘no, I wouldn’t mind,’ my life
changed forever. I was introduced to
beekeeping as a volunteer in Para-
guay, and that led to my own small
farm back in New Mexico, raising
honey bees and breeding queens.
“That was right around the time of
the ‘colony collapse disorder’ media
Melanie Kirby
August 2019
Fulbright-Nat Geo
Storyteller Award
Takes WSU Bee
Researcher to Spain
blow-up and I knew I needed to be up
to date on scientific research and envi-
ronmental practices.” She knew about
progressive research in a WSU honey
bee lab, and in 2017, she was accepted
to the land-grant research university
to pursue a master’s degree in ento-
mology. She wanted to be more of an
authority on queen breeding and bee
germplasm conservation, and to help
other beekeepers and agriculture, in
general.
“Now, having received the Ful-
bright-Nat Geo, I feel that all my
blood, sweat, and tears have been val-
idated.” How she got to where she’s
going is a story worth telling.
matinG, cLimate, and pictoGRaphS
“Receiving the award is both ex-
citing and surreal,” she said. “It’s
amazing to think I’ll be able to take
technology from WSU to Spain to use
to compare the mating habits of our
non-native, hybridized honey bees in
the U.S. to endemic ones that live on
the Iberian Peninsula.”
Kirby conducts research in the WSU
Apis Molecular Systematics Labo-
ratory, directed by Steve Sheppard.
With diagnostic and research labs
plus a 21-year-old queen breeding
program, the lab team works to cre-
ate sustainable solutions to problems
facing honey bees. Kirby’s Fulbright
project name is not surprising: “Bees
as Seeds: How Endemic Strains of
Honey Bees Can Support Sustainable
Apiculture.” It aligns with her mas-
ter’s thesis research.
She’s worked with two teams of en-
gineering undergraduates to develop
Radio-Frequency Identification De-
vices (RFIDs). The teensy chips are af-
fixed to bees’ hairy backs to measure
mating flights of queens and drones.
Kirby will take hundreds of RFID
readers to Spain, which will allow her
to gather information for numerous
comparisons.
Additional related activities are
planned for her Fulbright-Nat Geo.
“I speak fluent Spanish thanks to my
heritage, so I’ll interview regional
beekeepers about traditions and folk-
lore associated with honey and bee
products, and about challenges they
face, like global climate change. I will
give queen breeding presentations
and workshops with my Coordina-
dores Organisados de Agricultura y
Ganaderia program hosts.”
She will also research historical
archives and cultural expositions re-
vealing the relationship between ce-
ramic and clay arts and apiculture.
Clay has been used to house hives,
preserve seeds, store food, and build
homes, and “the intersection of this
medium with practical and artistic
manifestations is fascinating to me.”
She explained that beekeeping,
from honey hunting to agroecol-
ogy and industrial agriculture, has
manifested in almost every culture
and country. She will visit the oldest
known cave painting of a honey gath-
erer on the wall of Cuevas de la Araña
(Cave of the Spider) near Valencia.
“To think of what inspired that art-
ist eight thousand years ago to share
this practice and capture history dem-
onstrates how revered honey was,
and continues to be. It’s incredible.”
one of five diGitaL StoRyteLLeRS
Also amazing is the fact that Kirby
is one of just five scholars nationwide
941
to receive the 2019-20 Fulbright-Nat
Geo Storytelling fellowship out of
more than 200 semi-finalist appli-
cants. Since the prestigious, nation-
ally competitive fellowship was first
awarded in 2014-15, there have been
only about 30 recipients out of near-
ly 2,000 applicants. Awardees have
special opportunities to share stories
on National Geographic world-wide
platforms using a variety of digital
storytelling tools, including blogs,
text, photography, video, audio/pod-
casts, and public speaking.
While Kirby is having adventures,
April Seehafer, director of the WSU
Distinguished Scholarships Program,
said she is most looking forward to
continuing to read about and listen to
what the Fulbrighter is up to in Spain.
Having helped prepare for the appli-
cation and interview, Seehafer knows
that Kirby is already an experienced
storyteller, something that impressed
Nat Geo interviewers in March in
Washington, D.C.
Kirby writes for and edits an online
newsletter for Kelley Beekeeping, a
95-year-old Kentucky supply compa-
ny, and writes blog posts for Mother
Earth News and her own business, Zia
Queenbees. It specializes in pollina-
tion and breeding products, and “ex-
quisite hive products.”
In person, Kirby mesmerizes listen-
ers with tales of how queens vibrate
a mating call in “bee Morse Code,”
how honey bees evolved about 100
million years ago, and how endemic
honey bees are found today in Africa,
Europe, and Asia but are slowly dis-
appearing.
Her eyes sparkle as she recounts
her adventures as a “nectar nomad
and dedicated promoter of consil-
ience, or the unification of knowledge
942
and multidisciplinary approaches.”
She details the time she placed mating
nucleus hives with her select queens,
encouraging them to mate with hardy
drones from canyon wall pockets at
the Benedictine Monastery of Christ
in the Desert, some 13 wilderness
miles by dirt road after 50 miles of
highway north of Santa Fe.
“Storytelling is natural for me. I de-
scend from many cultures that share
oral storytelling traditions,” said
Kirby. Her maternal grandfather was
of Tiwa Pueblo Native American/
Mexican Indigenous heritage and her
grandmother was a member of Mes-
calaro Apache Native American tribe.
Her father was from St. Vincent Island
in the Caribbean. Kirby was raised in
Las Cruces, New Mexico, not far from
the Texas border.
She and her sister, Kelly, were
raised by their mother, Rosemary Gar-
cia Estrada Kirby. They take part each
year in tribal festivities as members of
the Tortugas Pueblo. Kirby includes
her daughter, Isis Spitzig, 10, and son,
Esai-Mateo Spitzig, 7, who are both
students at Franklin Elementary in
Pullman. They will join her for her
time in Spain.
One of Kirby’s most interesting sto-
ries details how she was first stung by
the beekeeping bug.
paRaGuayan poLLinatoR paRadiSe
“I’d just graduated with an ad-
vanced liberal arts bachelor’s degree
from St. John’s College in Santa Fe
and volunteered for the Peace Corps,
like my mother before me. My affin-
ity for Rocky Mountain landscapes
made me hope I’d be assigned to live
in mountains. So anything beyond
that, such as working with stinging
insects, was fine with me.” Her wish
came true.
She moved to a remote Guarani
village in the Cerros de Ybytyruzu
(Wind from the Hills), Paraguay, in
mid-South America. In tiny Calle Mil
(population 400, “and 350 of them
were children”), Kirby inherited pet
dog Joi Joi and a wood-slat shack
from previous corps-persons. She
slept under mosquito netting, dug her
own latrine, and kept two wary eyes
out for coral snakes, spiders, geckos,
long-haired caterpillars, alligators, ar-
madillos, and howler monkeys.
Kirby cultivated the villagers’ trust
by drinking yerba mate tea with them,
day in and day out. They were eager,
they said, to create income streams to
pay for elementary school, shoes, and
supplies for their children. Her Peace
Corps crash training in tropical api-
culture sparked an idea. She visited
regional beekeepers to learn about
their businesses, and rode five hours
by bus to capital city Asuncion to use
cyber-café computers to do research.
At last, and as forewarned, “sting-
ing insects” became part of her world.
By day, Kirby and village “campe-
sina” women used machetes to hack
their way into dense forests, and ham-
mers and saws to build simple hives.
By night, wearing nets over their hats
and dishwashing gloves as protec-
tion, they filled the air with smoke
from smoldering bits in tin cans to
calm the bees so they could gingerly
capture wild swarms from coco trees.
Shortly, the villagers had new sources
of income: honey made by the bees,
plus other products from the insects
and their hives.
Two years passed quickly. She had
planned to DJ in San Francisco elec-
tronica clubs when her Peace Corps
service ended. Instead, she worked
at a friend’s gardenia farm in Hawaii
and then commercial beekeeping com-
panies in Hawaii, Michigan, and Flor-
ida to learn more about the biological
processes of the insects. Soon enough,
she raised her own in New Mexico.
“It’s really evolved into more than a
business or even a scholarly vocation
to me,” she said.
an enduRinG act of SeRvice
“Bees are considered a keystone spe-
cies of livestock, being keys to the food
chain. By working with bees, I sort of
see myself as doing service to human-
kind. Becoming a caretaker of the fu-
ture, of place and purpose,” said Kirby.
“Thanks to WSU, and the Fulbright-
Nat Geo fellowship, I believe I can
make a difference.”
For more information, contact
April Seehafer, Director, WSU Dis-
tinguished Scholarships Program, at
seehafer@wsu.edu.
American Bee Journal
 From the
Archives
Preparation for Comb Honey Production
American Bee Journal, February 1955
In the News & Events section of this issue, we tell the story of the Carl and Gene Killion
Trophy, created in honor of a father-and-son duo famous for comb honey production in
Illinois. In that spirit, we share here a 64-year-old article by Carl Killion detailing some
of the secrets of their success.
T
o produce a crop of any agricul-
tural product requires planning
and preparation far in advance
of the harvest, and the production
of a crop of section comb honey is
no exception to this rule. We some-
times wonder just when the prepara-
tion for the 1955 crop began. It could
have been in mid-June, 1954, when
we carefully selected breeding stock
and began rearing queens to head our
honey-producing colonies for 1955.
All our comb honey is produced on
single hive bodies. Soon after the last
comb honey supers are removed from
the colonies, we are eager to give the
colonies their second brood chamber
Carl E. Killion
August 2019
by Carl E. Killion
to ensure more brood rearing space
and food for winter, also food for
spring brood rearing. Several of our
colonies are used each year just for
storing honey and pollen in full depth
hive bodies which may be used in the
fall on hives which were selected for
comb honey production.
Colonies that appear too light are
given sugar sirup to bring them up
to the necessary amount of food. For
winter protection during the last six
years we have been merely wrapping
our hives, using the Bemis Bag Wrap-
per. This is easy to put on in the fall
and take off in the spring and we have
been well pleased with the results.
We have considerable table and
bench work to do each winter. We
enjoy this work as we are indoors
and feel sorry for those who must
work outdoors, especially in one of
our “old-fashioned” Illinois winters.
Part of our winter work is scraping
propolis from all separators and su-
pers. If new sections come in contact
with ridges and bumps of propolis
on the separators, the wood stains,
and, of course, the parts of the su-
pers will not handle quite so easily.
Each winter we try to have all sec-
tions folded, the foundation fastened
in them and then painted with paraf-
fin so as to be ready before the sea-
son starts. The past season we did
not get all the supers ready in time
for the flow and many times we were
obliged to work until near midnight
in order that the supers could be
made ready to be placed on the hives
the following day.
We are using more package bees in
the production of comb honey and
each year like the idea a little bet-
ter. The packages are not supposed
to swarm the first year of installa-
tion, but sometimes they do. Years
ago, when we produced a little liq-
uid honey, we could turn our backs
upon packages as far as swarming
was concerned. We find that our
overwintered colonies swarm at the
start of the flow, while the packages
start later on, toward the middle of
the flow. The same swarm control
methods are used with the packages
as with the overwintered colonies. In
the book, “Honey in the Comb,” are
several pages devoted to swarm con-
trol and requeening.
I would like to mention the method
we use in getting both our package
bees and our overwintered colonies
ready for the expected honeyflow.
We will start with our overwintered
colonies. The earliest that we remove
the winter wrapping is about the first
week in April, but sometimes not un-
til the middle of April. The first in-
spection is naturally for any dead col-
onies, amount of food, disease, and
queenlessness. All dead colonies and
the very weak ones are immediately
loaded on the truck and brought to
the shop, the weak ones being gassed
before loading. These bodies of combs
are used later for package bees.
The colonies which need feed are
943

marked and given sugar sirup and a
pollen cake if necessary. We do not
feed pollen supplement as early as
recommended by some, preferring
to feed it about the second and third
week in April. We try to keep all colo-
nies in the best condition for brood
rearing by feeding and reversing the
two brood chambers, as queens like
to work in the upper hive body. This
reversing puts more empty cells in
the upper body and keeps the queen
occupied with egg laying. A third
hive body is sometimes necessary for
the expansion of the colony. The bees
are kept in the two or three hive bod-
ies until the honeyflow actually starts,
when the colony is reduced (cutting
down, we call it) to a single hive body
with the queen and most of the bees.
The extra bodies of brood are used
for increase, making a stack of about
four or five bodies and two days later
giving them a young queen or a ripe
queen cell.
It is well to mention here that all
our requeening is done during the
honeyflow or about two weeks after
(L) Here a comb honey super is converted into a shallow frame super for producing chunk honey. (R) The super may be used for
a shallow-frame honey. A closed-end frame is ideal for shipping.
944
The result of
good breeding
stock.
this cutting down procedure. The
queens or cells given to the stacks of
increase were grafted before our hon-
eyflow to colonies being fed, so as to
encourage as good cell building as
possible.
Six years ago, at my son Gene’s sug-
gestion, we collected several ounces
of royal jelly and placed it in a locker
along with our frozen berries and
food. The following year the royal
jelly was brought out and used in the
grafting of our early queens. The re-
sults were so good that Gene bas fol-
lowed this practice ever since. He has
kept a record of acceptance of cells in
cell-building colonies. We find that
we could store approximately two
pounds of royal jelly each season if
there were an increase in the demand
for it. Each year we have saved from
6 to 10 ounces of this (new wonder
drug) jelly and stored it in our food
locker. It keeps perfectly.
Our bees are wintered in sheltered
areas near here and after the cutting
down to the single hive body they are
hauled to the summer locations the
next morning. The hives are screened
on top and entrances left open. The
trucks are carefully checked so that
no stops are necessary while the bees
are enroute to their destination.
In most cases we have some foun-
dation and the rest drawn combs in
the hive bodies to receive the pack-
age bees. During the past few years
we have been increasing the num-
ber of colonies each year and are al-
ways short when it comes to drawn
brood comb. Some of the combs we
use contain honey. A division board
feeder holding about 5 pounds of
sugar sirup is placed in each body
to receive a package. We also give
our packages a pollen cake immedi-
ately. Here in east central Illinois for
several years we have received our
packages on May 1st, this last season
on April 21st. We now like the lat-
ter date as the bees can store some
pollen from dandelion. Gene and I
both feel that the pollen cakes given
the packages at the time they are
placed in the hives may reduce the
supersedure of queens. We have had
a very small amount of supersedure
in all our package bees and this pol-
len cake feeding may account for the
small percentage. In using package
bees for comb honey, one must know
what kind of bees he is getting as
some bees do not do the job of comb
building and finishing properly.
Our overwintered colonies have
given us more sections per colony
than our package bees have, but the
packages give us less work. We ex-
pect to continue having our own
colonies produce the bulk of our crop
and buy only enough package bees to
make up any winter loss and to pro-
vide for any possible increase that we
may want.
American Bee Journal
August 2019 945
 South Georgia Apiaries Sanders Honey GOT WAX? GET PAID!
It’s that simple!
Quality Italian Queens Queens Light and dark.
Queen cells For Sale Rendering services available.
for pick-up only at: BEE EXCELLENT
300 Wisteria Ln. Josh Sanders Phone (218) 776-3593
Baxley, GA 31513 7288 Perdie Lee Rd Fax (218) 776-3502
Tel (912) 366-9022 Nicholls GA 31554 E-mail bexcel@gvtel.com
Fax (912) 367-0012
912-399-8480 Global inquiries welcome.

946 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.
Singles and Doubles in 8 frame equip. 50 hive
minimum purchase. Call for quantity and pric-
ing Jon (208)412-1092 or Sheila (208)863-0855
www.tvbees.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.
August 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
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(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
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).
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
New 700 --6 5/8 supers w/foundation, painted,
ready for bees. $30 each. (360) 263-2425.
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
almond contracts. Complete turn key opera-
tion 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
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: $19,500. Photos available.
Downsizing. Call Ed 231-408-7485 or email:
edeisele@gmail.com
Commercial winter beehive storage $6/hive.
Located in central Utah. Close to interstate
freeways. 10 hours from Southern California.
Taking reservations 435-469-1673.
For Sale: Cook & Beals spin-float and heat ex-
changer. 2 – 80-frame extractors, 1- uncapper
– extended tank. 1 Myno pump. 2 – stainless
steel tanks and stands – 12 drums each. Call:
(308) 470-0177.
Turnkey Small Farm, profitable Gift Shop
and home on Approximately 6 acres on State
highway in Southern Oregon. Great visibility.
Wonderful opportunity for Beekeeper, busi-
ness is well established, selling honey, beeswax
candles, beekeeping supplies, produce and
gifts. 30’ x 34’ Farm Stand/Gift Shop, Lami-
nate floors and drywall finish, 10′ x 8′ walk-in
cooler. Furniture and fixtures included. Beau-
tiful Pollinator Garden. 3 greenhouses. Or-
chards. Primary crop is strawberries, U-Pick
operation. Organic methods employed since
1998. Barn, small shop, older house for storage.
Residence: newer 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, in-floor
heating. excellent view of private pond and Mt
McLoughlin. 16′ x 32 above ground pool with
small deck. Asking $929,000. Mike, (541) 840-
5955.
Partial ND honey company for sale. Contact:
BumblebeePalace76@outlook.com
For Sale: 165 5/8 supers with drawn comb, in
good condition. Also a Mann Lake steam genera-
tor, like new! (701) 391-4703. Elgin, ND.
Cowen uncapper with custom tank, new knives,
hot water tank, and deboxer. $4500 OBO. Also
Cowen 4” honey auger with hopper. $1000 OBO.
Missouri. Rick. 816-651-1057.
2000 medium depth supers, 1000 feeders with
wooden tops, 1000 cedar lids. 909-286-8288.
Bees wax for sale in bulk. Please email us for
price at cmwaibel@gmail.com
50 STRONG HIVES FOR SALE! AVAILABLE
NOW, GOOD PRICE, located in south Califor-
nia. Call or text Tony (760)703-0527 or E-mail:
Esco_queen20@yahoo.com
300 Winter cartons. Corrugated black plastic,
oversized for insulation. Will fit over 2 standard
hives sitting side by side. Will last for many years.
Located in Huron SD. 605-354-1664.
FOR SALE: 200 bee covers, 250 queen exclud-
ers, 400 C.C. Pollen traps, 300 honey room swivel
carts, Cook and Beal automatic uncapper, 300
feeders, 200- 9 5/8 box’s with comb. (605) 695-
8251.
900 – 2 LB. package bee cages – 135 – 5 5/8”
supers. (218) 242-2747.
947
VARROA MITE THERMAL TREATMENT
kills phoretic mites AND those capped with the
brood, with 106F air and NO chemicals. The
Victor is a telescoping top with heater, thermo-
stat and fans to circulate the warm air through out
the brood super. The bees can tolerate the heat,
but the mites die in a three hour treatment. The
Victor is powered by your deep cycle 12v bat-
tery so it can go anywhere, and be moved from
hive to hive. The Victor is $195 plus shipping,
and uses just $.08 of electricity per treatment.
WWW.GREENBEEHIVES.COM
The IPK SMALL HIVE BEETLE TRAP is a
bottom board with a special #6 screen that lets the
beetles fall through into a built-in tray of cooking
oil under the hive, but not the bees. Regular #8
screen bottoms do not have large enough openings
for SHB. Works in just a few days, not weeks.
WWW.GREENBEEHIVES.COM.
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 Baldwin
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.
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.
Premium Oregon meadowfoam, blackberry,
clover, alfalfa honey in drums. Prescott Honey
Farms. 541-977-8848.
Pure Hawaiian Wild Flower Honey from Ha-
makua Apiaries on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Minimum order is twelve 60# buckets. Addi-
tional Information at Hamakuabees.com or
808-982-7649.
17 Drums of 2019 Premium Orange Honey. F.O.B
Felda, FL 33930. Sold on first come basis, sam-
ples mailed at your request. Call or text 231-408-
7485 or email: edeisele@gmail.com.
55 Gallon Drums & Bulk Honey For Sale - NY/
PA Light Summer Honey & Fall Honey - FL
Orange Blossom & Saw Palmetto. Call The Bee-
keeper’s Daughter Plains, PA 386-383-4051 or
email bkdhoney@gmail.com
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.
HONEY PRICE UPDATES. Call Honey
Hot Line. (763) 658-4193.
948
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 $5.90/lb. Min. 10 lbs. + shipping. LOW-
EST PRICES guaranteed for large orders.
Stakich, Inc. Phone 248-642-7023 X 301
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
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.
PROBIOTICS
ApiBiotics - Probiotics for Bees with Prebiot-
ics -Promotes healthy immune system -Increase
beneficial bacteria in bees -Strengthens intestinal
microflora Aztalia Apiary, W5884 Church Road,
Johnson Creek, WI. 53038-9736 (920) 204-3102
info@aztalia.com
POLLINATION
Bees wanted for the Almonds. Art Harris, 6301
Victor St. #63, Bakersfield, CA 93308 (661) 444-
1470.
Almond Pollination 2020. Wintering yards with
full service maintenance, feeding and medication.
Self-service bee yards available. We have trucks,
forklifts 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 Pollina-
tion Service, Inc. (209) 202-8915 E Mail:
steve@almondbee.buzz
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 only. Availability May through July.
Call for pricing Jon (208)412-1092 or Sheila
(208)863-0855 www.tvbees.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.
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.
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.
WILD SURVIVOR BREEDER QUEENS
NW Feral Stock - Hardy - Hygienic
Mite Tolerant - Disease Resistant.
– OLYMPIC WILDERNESS APIARY
Isolated Yards – (360) 928-3125. www.
wildernessbees.com
NUCS & QUEENS – shipping available.
NorthFloridaBees@mail.com (850) 661-
8077
A & W Enterprises, Northern California Queen’s.
Now taking orders for Queens, competitive pric-
ing, Mated Italians and Carniolan Queens. Order
100 Queens or more and get special pricing. All
orders shipped next day UPS, pick-ups are wel-
come. Call for pricing - Dave @208-861-8303 All
orders email to BeesAWenterprise@gmail.com
for confirmation.
Northern California Queens – Good Quality
Bred Italians. Call Jake: (530) 517-0359.
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
Dakota Honey Season. Serious inquiries only.
Contact: BumblebeePalace76@outlook.com
(701) 928-1420
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.
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
Full time and seasonal positions available in Or-
egon. Beekeeping experience preferred. Contact:
prescotthoneyfarms@live.com (541)977-8848.
EXPERT QUEEN RAISER/BREEDER
NEEDED! SHORT TERM/LONG TERM
OPTIONS. Flowing Gold Apiaries -
Jeff: 916-586-0880.
BOOKS
Anthony Udchitz. A Synopsis of the
Pathology of the European Honey Bee (Apis
mellifera L.) in Canada and the United States of
America ISBN: 9780463757185. Available from
www.Smashwords.com U.S.D.$34.99.
MISCELLANEOUS
The AMERICAN BEEKEEPING FEDERA-
TION has many benefits to offer its mem-
bers. Send for a membership packet of
information today! We also offer a free Beginning
Beekeeping Packet. Contact the AMERICAN
BEEKEEPING FEDERATION, 3525 Piedmont
Rd. NE, Bld. 5. Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30305-
1509, Phone (404) 760-2875, Fax 404-240-0998, or
email info@abfnet.org.
PERIODICALS
L’ABEILLE DE FRANCE—The most impor-
tant of the monthly publications in France - for all
beekeepers, from the amateurs to the professional.
Each month: an article for beginners, reports from
specialists, a review of the latest information all
American Bee Journal
over the world. Ask for a sample Annual subscrip- SOUTH AFRICAN BEE JOURNAL – The
tion: 40$ US. ABEILLE DE FRANCE- 5, rue du official magazine of the South African Bee
Copenhague-F 75008 PARIS. Industry Organization (SABIO). Published
THE AUSTRALASIAN BEEKEEPER— quarterly in English, with Afrikaans articles, on
Senior Beekeeping Journal of the South- the South African Honeybee sub-species of Cape
ern Hemisphere. Complete coverage of all Bees and African bees. For enquiries send to
beekeeping topics in one of the world’s largest info@sabio.org.za or refer www.sabio.org.za
beekeeping countries. Published by Pender ULADAG BEE JOURNAL - Publication of
Beekeeping Supplies Pty. Ltd., “Bilga” 79 Uludag Beekeeping Association, published
Naylor Road, Urila, N.S.W. 2620, Australia. quarterly in Turkish (with English titles
Annual subscription paid in advance $160 AUD. and summaries of all articles) and Eng-
THE AUSTRALIAN BEE JOURNAL— lish in all aspects of beekeeping; beekeep-
Caters to both amateur and commercial ing news, practical beekeeping, and research
apiarists. Subscription $120.00 Australian articles, and considered a link between Turkish
currently for all overseas subscribers per annum. beekeeping and the world. Gazcilar Cad. No. 9/2
Published monthly. Victorian Apiarists’ 16220 Bursa-TURKEY Fax:+90 224 224 3964
Association, Inc., P.O. Box 40, California Gully,Vic. http://www.uludagaricilik.org.tr
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
IMKERZEITUNG (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 Canadian 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
Association) is a unique organization established
in 1949 for the advancement of bee science and
beekeeping. 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

August 2019 949


A.N. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
A & G Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887
A & O Forklift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840
Acorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880
American Bee Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . 902, 950
American Honey Producers . . . . . . . . . . . . 940
Andy Miksa Honey Farm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938
Ashbots.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934
Balbach - Bees for Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949
Bastin Honey Bee Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913
BeeCulture.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874
Bee Excellent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
BeeInformed.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Beekeepingins.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951
Beeline Apiaries & Woodenware . . . . . . . 868
Beelite Wax Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Bee Smart Designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934
Beetlejail.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934
Betterbee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 881
BL Plastic Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Blue Ridge Honey Company . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Blue Sky Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 856
Bordelon Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
Brand New Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Brown Honey Co. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Browning Cut Stock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Brumley Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871
Buzz’s Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917
CC Pollen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 940
California State Beekeepers Assoc. . . . . . . 908
Carbolineum Wood Preserving Co. . . . . . . 945
Complete Bee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857
Contract Pros Mfg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
Cook & Beals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913
Cowen Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
Dadant & Sons, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841, 902,
& Back Cover
Dakota Gunness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Ernst Seeds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Gardner’s Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
Georgia Beekeeper’s Association . . . . . . . 847
950
Advertising Index
Globalpatties.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 864
Glorybee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 899
Groteguth Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
Hardeman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928
Hawaiian Queen Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938
Heilyser Technology Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
Heine, Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Heitkams Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934
Hilbert’s Honey Bees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Hogg Halfcomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887
Honey B Healthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871
Horace Bell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 863, 940
JJ’s Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Kelley Beekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873
Koehnen, C.F. & Sons, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . 900
Kona Queen Hawaii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888
Lamb’s Honey Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Lassen Queen Bee Company, The . . . . . . . 871
Lohman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938
LorAnn Oils & Flavors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
M & N Apiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884
Mann Lake Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842, 894
Maxant Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
Meyers, A.H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 918
Miller Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 868
Misco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857
Mother Lode Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914
Nod Apiary Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858
Nolt’s Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 908
Old Sol Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938
Olivarez Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 899
OxaVap.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 940
Park-Burris Queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867
Pendell’s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
Pierce Beekeeping Equipment . . . . . . . . . . 857
Pierco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844
Plastic Packaging Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Powell Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867
Queen Right Colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
QSI Honey and Food Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
R.M. Farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Resilience Apiary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Roberts Bee Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882
Rockbridgetrees.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949
Ross Rounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900
Rossman Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 918
Sanders Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Selby Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 867
Shastina Millwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889
Sherriff, B.J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Simpson’s Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Smith Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922
Southeast Bee Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 939
South Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913
South Georgia Apiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Spell Bee Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
Stan’s Pure Honey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857
Strachan Apiaries Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
Stong Microbials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Suhre, Adam Enterprises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
Suhre, E. Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938
Sunshine Honey Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901
Superior Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Swienty Beekeeping Equipment . . . . . . . . 863
Taber’s Honey Bee Genetics . . . . . . . . . . . 867
Tauzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946
Texas Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871
TheBApp.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872
T.R.S. Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 908
UMT.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950
Veto Pharma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848, 890
Vidalia Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930
VP Queen Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942
Weaver, R. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847
Western Bee Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838
Wicwas Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917
Wilbanks Apiaries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914
Wintersun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
Wooten’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928
Z’s Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949
American Bee Journal
March 2018 951
952 American Bee Journal