Ludger Merkens

Michael Cox wrote:
On that basis I find the idea of individuals planting "a lavender bush for the bees" rather laughable.

That probably would be laughable. I'm thinking of rebuilding hedges with a variety of flowering perennial shrubs and bushes. Integrating late flowering Trees into a food forest and doing some consulting with the local forester, as well as keeping this aspect in mind in any action in the garden. It is by no means limited to a zone 1 garden, or a small urban lot, but needs to be kept in mind when structuring zone 4 any beyond.

---Ludger

Well definitely a commercial beekeeper,

but his conclusion is something, which points into a good direction:

It may be time for the beekeeping industry to shift its paradigm from managing boxes to really thinking about good husbandry of the critters inside. Think of each box as having a living animal inside. Don’t be afraid to invest in their nutrition, either by moving them to better pasture, or by feeding them in place.

My approach to investing in their nutrition would be: plant a good mix of bee forage plants - pollen matters!
But I see the dilemma of a conventional pro beekeeper - my approach is probably difficult to scale to several 1000 hives.

interesting read - thank you.
---Ludger

Hi Jeremy,

if you get a split from an existing hive, make sure the split receives one comb full of honey from the parent hive. This should be enough to get them going.

--- Ludger

Hi Jeremy,

I usually would suggest you start reading. But unless you speak german, my suggestions are very limited, since I don't know the english book market.
But perhaps there are knowledgeble pleople here in the forum and have some good suggestions? Even older books often hold a lot of knowledge to get you started plus have the benefit, they don't focus on the different medical treatments availiable.

One good book, that will you get started in telling what is going on in the hive is the english translation of an older german book I know. (Am Flugloch - Heinrich Storch) You can find the english version - At The Hive Entrance - online at biobees.

have fun reading
Ludger

Hi Jeremy,

this depends. If you have package bees, they need to build their first comb fast. Otherways the queen can't start laying eggs. This means they need a lot of food (sugar/nectar). If and only If you are on a strong honey-flow (something you probably can't tell with your limited experience) it is not necessary to feed the bees at all. In May, you usually need to feed twice, each 2-4 kg of sugar diluted 1:1 with water, (in march up to 4 times, every 5 days) Afterwards the bees should have drawn enough comb to keep them going on the natural honeyflow. Contrary to common beleive, the bees don't need more food to draw natural comb than to draw comb from wachs foundation. (don't use plastic foundation- if any) You can stop feeding, if they build 5 to 6 frames of comb.

In later years, if you want to expand your apiary with a new package, you can use diluted honey to do the start.

Ludger

Secondly - DONT PANIC

* A Shady Spot sounds indeed like a good idea. It is here (climate 6-7).
* Feeding - Learn to monitor your landscape. Is there a honey flow? Is there enough pollen? As a beekeeper, you will soon learn to watch your surroundings with very different eyes than before.
+ If you have a langstroth hive, it is easy to lift the hive with one hand to check, if there is enough storage left. You will soon get a feel for this. In an emergency it is always better to feed the bees, than let them starve. If you have some honey harvest left, feed them their own honey back, if not - feed them a sugarsolution. Never buy honey in the supermarket to feed the bees. This honey might be contaminated with paenibacillus larvae (american foulbrood), there is no cure against this. If a hive is too light, before you blame the bees, check if it is your fault - was your harvest a little more, than they could spare? Selecting and breeding for a local bee is a good idea, but you need more than one hive to have something to select from.
* Langstroth hive and frames - Of course you can run a langstroth hive foundationless, you can even run it as a top bar hive. But there is one big difference to a horizontal TBH. In a langstroth hive, the bees need to move vertically through the hive. This means, you need to reduce the width of your top bars to 28mm and make sure there is an open gap of 7mm (beespace) betweeen the bars. (two small nails at one side of the top bar will do the trick) It is important to get those measurements very precisely, otherwise you are better of to work your langstroth similar to a perone hive mk1. (Checking with the way perone keeps bees, is probably not a bad idea at all)
* buckwheat - if you like buckwheat honey - ok. (I do, but I know a lot of people who don't) But remember, that buckwheat is in flower for two to three months only. What about the rest of the season? Diversification is the key.
* protective gear - a good investment - especially if you are new to beekeeping. Did I say - don't panic? Bees know if you are scared, your movements are not slow and steady, you smell differently. Some protection especially for your face, might give you that additional feeling of safety, that allows you to handle the bees in a beefriendly manner. Try to work without gloves if you can, gloves hinder your sense of touch, but don't be ashamed to wear a light veil to protect your face.

happy beekeeping - and continue asking!
Ludger

One good point to start, when thinking about the maximum numbers of hives your land can support, is to remeber, that naturally bees would live in solitude.

This means you would at least have a distance of 150m between any two bee hives. For practical purposes, you still will want to cluster them. Two or three hives will probably be fine.
But of course, those hives will already be in competition with each other and with your native bees. (Remember honey bees are not native to north america)

Dr. Ritter (a german bee scientist specialising in 'naturnahe Bienenhaltung') gives a numer of 10-20 hives in the flight radius of your hives as optimal bee densitiy. Up to 40 hives in this area will be ok. Everything above this ... well you get the picture.

--- Ludger

Hi David,

I'm with you regarding the clothing of the beekeeper. In a way it is a tradeoff. If you want to go easy with the smoke and stop selecting for calm bees, you will need protective gear. Gentle handling of the bees alone will go a long way, but there are limits. So a clear No to 'no gloves' and 'no other protective gear'. (Even though I avoid gloves, because I feel clumsy with them)

No queen manipulation on the other hand, is probably a dead end. No marking, ok. No wing clipping, very ok. No controled propagation on the other hand, is definitely not the way to go.
If you want to run an apiary and don't want to be dependent on buying queens, you need to raise your own. To depend on buying packages/nucs, or on catching chance swarms, or beeing presented with a hive from a neighbour, even bartering for one is not sustainable.

To have healthy bee hives, which can provide a surplus (of honey, pollination, propolis - you name it) you need the best nurture for the queen bees you can get. Queens from swarm cells are fine, queens from supersedure are fine, queens from splits - not so much - unless they had a swarm cell to start with. But the second I transplant such a (swarm) queen cell, I do manipulate a queen. (literally)

I would like something like - 'no introduction of foreign stock' (to keep or increase stock numbers) in the brown belt and above (yes - no catching of swarms, except your own). And make experience with different queen rearing techniques a part of green belt.

--- Ludger

Biobees has a free copy of At the hive entrance by H. Storch as download.

that pork might be safer than, say, chicken?

At least as safe as - yes. (salmonella is still a common problem, trichinella no longer (but could be again - see above))

--- Ludger