This does not look like a good day to work outside.
We did anyhow. Paulo got a truck ready for wrapping and then pulled
some thirds off the home yard until it got too cold again.
Dennis and Dave moved boxes around and got the feeding trucks ready to go
out again.
I went to Calgary in the afternoon to pick up the wax press and to get some
engines for blowers.
Several messages today:
Q: I really appreciate your web site. I have
to ask, do you feed a whole yard of bees with a barrel full of sugar syrup?
A: 20 hives per drum of 67% syrup is our rule.
Call the Honey Line. The recording has
changed. 763-658-4193
You have mentioned the moisture content of your honey
a couple of times recently. I was wondering if there was a link to any
standards you have to conform to for the various types of honey you
produce?
No. All our honey is mixed together. Weather is the
major factor in moisture for us.
Also, having finished feeding my bees at the end of September (and
having been plagued by more wasps than usual), I was wondering if there was
any pests that you have to cope with over there that are unique to your
area.
Not really. We don't worry about wasps. About two or
three hives per yard die out about for various reasons and we are now
picking them up. We figure the good ones will live and we are best
rid of the losers. I might feel differently, though, if I only had
one or two hives.
Quite a lot of my hives suffered from green woodpecker damage last
winter (and field mice getting in through the hole made by the
woodpeckers). Do you have that problem too?
We have had woodpeckers -- once in thirty years. They pecked
out a lot of handholds. Mice are always a nuisance. We put on
reducers to discourage them and mouse poison under the pallets.
Varroa doesn't seem to have been a big problem for my colonies this year
(although I understand that Apistan resistant varroa has been found in
Devon).
I don't know what to think about varroa. We treat with one
strip in spring and monitor. It has not been the problem we
expected, but I know some who have very big trouble with it.
BTW, thanks for the set of pictures you published on Tuesday. I can see
how your pallet construction holds the hive in place now. I have not seen a
design quite like that before.
Swan Brothers of Clyde, Alberta developed our pallets. They
have a sloping floor, so if they are off-level, water does not accumulate
on the floor.
Today..A few flurries changing to showers this morning. Wind
northwest 30 gusting 50 km/h diminishing to 20 this afternoon. High 4.
Tonight..Cloudy. 60 percent chance of flurries overnight. Wind light. Low minus
5.
Normals for the period..Low zero. High 14.
Dennis helped me set up the Fager and then went feeding. He was out
until 8PM. We have fed almost all we can until we get the last thirds
off. That part is going slowly because Klarence was away, and because the
weather has been variable. Moreover, the thirds are so full that the
frames are fat and and blowing them is a chore. We also can't carry as
many on a truck as we do when they are lighter. Last year we were
finished just about now, but we have at least 5 days left this year.
We set up the Fager in a temporary fashion to begin, since I had never seen
one working. I bought it sight unseen after talking to a number of
people, all with varying opinions. The Fager press consists of
trapezoidal trough with an auger feeding part way up the centre from a hopper.
Tracks like the treads on a caterpillar tractor form two sides. The trough is
wider (about 10 inches) at the hopper (filling ) end and tapers toward the exit
end which is only 2 inches wide. The auger carries wax up the trough and
then the treads compress it. The honey oozes out along the treads and a
solid block of wax is extruded from the small end. There is still some
honey in the wax, but a lot of the honey comes out. The amount that comes
out depends on how dry the material is when it goes in. If it is
too squishy, some wax squeezes out the sides a bit too.
We were quite delighted with the Fager, but also have some reservations.
We are feeding it the skimmings off our settling tank, and it seems to me that
a bit more compression would give better results -- not that the results are
bad. The wax is at least as dry as we got from the whirl-dry and there is
much less work, waiting and fuss. I can see that we can also run our burr comb
and the comb from broken frames through it, and should get lots of honey out.
We got a half drum or so of of honey out of the fairly dry-looking skimmings
we put through and the wax output amounted to less than a half drum, so it is
making money. We ran some of the wax through again a second time
and got more honey the second trip, so I can see we need to learn more.
One thing I noticed is that the track runs about twice as fast as I intuitively
think it should, since honey needs time to escape from the pressed wax and the
whole thing seems to run a bit fast; honey is still squeezing out right at the
exit end. I wonder if the drive has been changed. Anyhow, I haven't
had time to study it yet. Maybe there are some enhancements possible.
Paulo and Klarence went wrapping and did four yards. It was windy and
cold, but they returned in a great mood. They moved a few hives around,
put on entrance reducers, put on blue shop towels for menthol, refilled some
feed drums and wrapped hives.
Dave
and I mounted a new
Honda GC 135 engine on one of the Dadant blowers and repaired the Stihl,
which had broken two bolts holding the rotor. The Honda GC 135 mounts
right up in place of the Briggs and Stratton, but is much quieter and rated a
bit higher too. The GC 135 is a home duty engine, though and has about
1/10th the rated life of the
GX 120, which costs only
$120 more. (Added later) The guys also report much reduced fuel consumption
compared to the Briggs engine.
Today..Cloudy. A few flurries developing this morning.
Becoming sunny this afternoon. Wind north 20 km/h. High minus 1.
Tonight..Clear. Wind north 20. Low minus 8.
Normals for the period..Low minus 1. High 13.
Dennis went out to feed. He checked yards that had already been fed
and topped them up. The hives are coming up to weight nicely, but there
are still some light ones. We're just a week later this year and the
weather is marginal for feeding, but just the same, the bees are emptying the
drums.
I took the day off and -- between FRS radio conversations and phone calls
with Dennis -- did some playing around at the computer. I got a CDRW the
other day and now I did some backups that were long overdue and worked a bit on
this site, changing some absolute references to relative ones so that I can put
the site on CDROM (or move it to a new server). It runs much more quickly
from a local copy, for those of us who are on a slow phone connection.
I'm going to be speaking at the BC meeting in a little over a week and thought
that this might be useful. Although I do always have a local copy with me
on my notebook, any absolute references could embarrass me if I am running
without internet hook-up.
Today..Sunny. Wind west 20 km/h. High 9.
Tonight..Clear. Wind west 20. Low zero.
Normals for the period..Low minus 1. High 13.
Some time back, I mentioned that Joe and Oene had tried using
4.9 foundation by shaking some bees off normal foundation onto both Dadant 4.9
and some prototype plastic 4.9 that Dee Lusby sent us. The bees drew both
types, but made uneven work of it. Here
are some pictures of the wax foundation drawn as well as some plastic 4.9
foundation supplied by Dee Lusby.
Jean and Chris came for Thanksgiving supper and arrived for lunch.
Chris and I went out and fed a few yards in the afternoon. We took the
4X4 with a 5-drum tank We also took along a pump, since draining by
gravity is very slow, and I realize now that Dennis may have been using gravity
alone. We did a loop east and down to Entice and found that the most
yards had used their syrup and also that several yards are still quite light.
Metzger's had not even touched its drum, so we poured a little syrup into each
hive to -- hopefully -- get them started.
We used an entire 20 litre pail of 67% syrup on the 27 hives, and yet
we did not see any appreciable amount run out to the doorstep. I can
see now how drenching with a cup of fumigillan syrup -- as recommended by
some of my friends -- is indeed practical.
Frankly, I had always thought that a cup of syrup poured on a cluster
would make a mess and run all over. We have forward-sloping floors, and
yet nothing came out the doors, so I assume that the syrup stayed on the bees
and combs when we poured it in above them, and that the bees licked it all up
in cleaning one another off. I'll have to verify that there is no harm
some time.
Nonetheless, the weights at Metzger's were quite okay and that's what we've
found in the past; well-fed hives show much less interest in open drums of feed
than the lighter ones. We also know that if one hive in the yard finds a drum
of syrup, soon all the hives in the area know about it. They aren't much
different from people that way.
The four of us -- Jean, Chris, Ellen and -- had a turkey supper and a
quiet evening.
I've been working on this website and found that it has at least 50 broken
internal links and who knows how many external ones. That is to be
expected with a site like this with almost 2,900 files in it, but it is a lot
of work to repair.
Today..A mix of sun and cloud. Wind increasing to northwest
30 km/h. High 10.
Tonight..Clear. Wind northwest 30. Low minus 1.
Normals for the period..Low minus 1. High 13.
Dave flew to Regina with his brother and Paulo went to Foremost for
(Canadian) Thanksgiving. The weather looks good and hopefully we'll get
some more supers off. I'd have like to take the day off, but
Klarence is only available on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we are now
behind where we were last year and the year before.
Klarence and Dennis came in today. They did The Carraganas and Gordons
and got about 100 supers. Dennis reports that the syrup drizzling that
Chris and I did at Metzgers on Sunday did the trick. The yard was very
active in the feed drum when he checked on the way by.
I went to the Mill for supper.
Today..Sunny. Wind northwest 20 km/h. High 9.
Tonight..Partly cloudy overnight. Wind light. Low minus 1.
Normals for the period..Low minus 1. High 13.
Weather looks promising for the next few days, and, if the forecast can be
trusted, to the end of the week. I met the guys at the door this
morning and said that we have to get the lead out. We'll be working
non-stop until the last super is off and all the hives are fed. If that
means working Saturday and Sunday, so be it. We've run past the deadline
and there are still 932 boxes still to come in.
I've been nice and very patient, but the time for that is over. No
more Mr. Nice Guy. We've missed some really nice days on weekends and good
evenings because I'm too easygoing and I let the guys off easy. As a
result, they have worked in less than ideal weather, then gone home just when
the weather got nice. Beekeeping is simply not an 8 to 5, 5 day a
week job.
We have only a few good feeding days left, and then it will be too late.
The bees don't forage much when the days get short and the nights cold.
Although bees will forage in drums that they already know about in temperatures
down to 10 degrees C, and lower, a drum of syrup can sit undiscovered in a yard
for weeks once the bees settle in for winter. We can drizzle some syrup
into entrances to alert them, but that is a hassle and, for that matter we
could get a surprise two-week cold snap that would really cook our goose.
It's not that we don't usually get some very nice, warm weather this late -- we
almost always do -- it's just that we cannot count on it.
Everyone took it well and got going with great enthusiasm. They know their
bonuses -- and time off --are riding on getting the bees to bed in time.
Dave, Paulo and Dennis headed out together to get as much done as possible. I
told them that I expect a hundred boxes a person a day as a goal. Maybe
we won't get that every day -- blowing bees out of heavy thirds can be slow --
but that we should aim for that number.
I got another article off to Bee Culture,
ordered another load of syrup for tomorrow, set up another Honda powered blower
for the guys and did some banking. That was my day.
The guys brought in 232 boxes, including only 11 that
were completely empty. They visited 8 yards to get them. That's 8
more yards we can feed. Four had feed sitting waiting in closed drums, so
I assume Paulo opened them for the bees.
We now have 701 supers left to bring
in. At this rate, we have three more days' work and will have Saturday
off. We'll see. The rest of the boxes are in 10 yards, so they are
concentrated an less time will be lost moving from yard to yard.
> ...However... since then, the stings I've gotten have had a much
greater effect on me.
> I was stung on my thumb (just below the nail) and the next day, I was
swollen all
> the way up to my elbow. While the swelling is always local, it seems to
be covering
> a very large area. My most recent sting (on my ankle) took almost a
week to go
> down. Even now, two weeks later, the area is still quite tender.
>
> Is this something I should be concerned about? Are my reactions
likely to diminish
> or might they continue the current trend of increasing in
swelling and duration?
In my experience, the swelling gets worse before it gets better.
Many get a false sense of impunity when they react very little at
first, then panic when
the body starts to respond to the venom. Most of us who can take 100
stings over a
day without any adverse effect went through something much like what you
describe.
Assuming it gets no worse, I predict that with continued regular stings,
it will get to the
point where you will sometimes not be able to see where you were stung.
Maybe others will recall their experience along the road to developing
sting immunity,
but I have noticed this the following pattern in many employees,
particularly those in
extracting:
1. initial stings - little if any reaction -- bravado and false
confidence
2. later occasional stings - itching, stiffness, swelling - increasing
concern
3. multiple further stings - considerable swelling - anxiety and
fear of allergy
4. quit the job
5. ..if talked into staying - lessening further reactions and
nonchalance.
allen
Today..A mix of sun and cloud. Wind
increasing to northwest 20 km/h. High 11.
Tonight..Mainly clear. Wind northwest 20. Low minus 1.
Normals for the period..Low minus 1. High 12.
While Dennis stayed here to handle jobs around the place, Paulo, Klarence,
and Dave went north. They were eager to get away, but I held them up a
bit making sure that the blowers were both OK.
I had just changed second Dadant over to a Honda engine, and wanted to be
sure that both newly modified blowers were AOK before letting them drive the
sixty miles. With three guys, two good blowers are essential. We
have had one thing after another go wrong with the blowers under heavy usage --
the Stihl broke a throttle cable yesterday and is out of commission temporarily
-- so I wanted to be certain. I had Dave torque the bolts and he found
one of the handle bolts that turned too easily. It turned out to be
stripped in the aluminum head and we lost a few minutes while we re-tapped the
hole for a larger bolt. Fortunately the hole went through a cooling fin,
not into the combustion chamber or some such sensitive spot.
At any rate, they Dave and Paulo were gone by ten-thirty and Klarence
followed shortly after. Around noon, I went feeding and did the remaining
yards in the Linden area. I did follow-up visits to some locations that
Dennis fed earlier and was pleased to see that the drums are empty and weights
are now mostly good. As it happened, I forgot my veil and had to work
without one. Just the same, I could not resist peeking into hives and
removing drop boards, so I got stung at least twenty times about the head and
took at least ten on the face. Fortunately, I don't swell much.
When
I returned around four-thirty, Frank and Mike were waiting. We had an
appointment at four, but I had to finish the feeding run and they understood.
Ellen kept them entertained until I got back. They are planning to set up
a production line to make pollen patties this year and are hoping to get the business
of many of the large commercial beekeepers in Alberta. I got them started
in the activity last year and they did patties for at least seven
operators and turned out tens of thousands of patties. They make very
nice, consistent patties for an affordable price. The picture from
last March, at right, shows patties stacked on pallets, but they also sell
patties in boxes.
Klarence got back around five-thirty and announced that they were having a
big day. The other guys got back around six-thirty and had a total of 307
boxes. They had been working some yards that were still four high.
I had discovered on my tour today that Taylors is already down to two boxes,
not three high as I had written in the notes, so that leaves only about 385
boxes to go in the next two days.
We got another truckload of syrup today and I'll be out feeding again
tomorrow to ensure that the yards all get fed before the weekend. The
forecast ahs improved and we can expect some relatively hot weather locally
over the next few days.
I spent the evening removing all direct links to my email address on this
site in hopes of reducing the amount of SPAM I'm getting daily. I
replaced all the 'mailtos' with scripts that should still let people
write me, but which should
thwart address-harvesting robots.
...I have also started a correspondence course
from the University of Guelph, "The Complete Beekeeper". One of my first
assignments is to ask both a hobby and a commercial beekeeper a few
questions about the state of Canada's beekeeping industry...
How long have you been a beekeeper?
30 years
What do you consider the most rewarding aspect of beekeeping?
The lifestyle and the beekeeping community.
... and the most frustrating?
My wife/partner
What do you consider is the biggest challenge facing the Canadian
beekeeping industry today?
Urbanization and regulation.
Do you think that the Canadian beekeeping industry is healthy?
I don't think there is a simple answer to the question, since Canada
is not a logical geographic beekeeping entity, but probably, "No".
Please explain.
In this region (Calgary area), we are closer to San Diego, Fargo,
ND, and to Phoenix -- even Tijuana -- than to southern Ontario, let
alone New Brunswick, yet the commercial producers in the West we are
dominated by policies engineered by beekeepers and regulators managing
relatively small numbers of hives in those distant regions of Canada.
Today looks great for feeding.
I hope to get out of here early and do as many yards in the north as I can.
I did get away - about noon. The day turned out
to be cooler than predicted, but the bees were still active in the drums and
many were empty. I fed 17 drums, all told, and visited 10 yards or so.
I was hot on the heels of the crew, but never saw them. I could tell they
had just been there though, since the bees were just finished cleaning up the
drops of honey around the yards. It was a perfect time to put out feed,
while the bees were still active and robbing a bit.
Some yards were quite heavy, and others were light. On the whole, it
was mostly the former singles that were underweight. We added a second
brood chamber recently and they had not filled it. I 'baptized' some
yards with a bit of syrup splashed into the top entrance to get the yard aware
of the new supply. In cool weather the bees may not be foraging and might
not notice the feed. Around home I had seen bees carrying yellow pollen
at most yards yesterday, but in the northern region, I didn't see any such
signs.
I drained the tank at Osguthorpes' and returned home, arriving after dark --
at seven-thirty.
One more day should get all the boxes in and then we will concentrate on
wrapping. Half or more of the hives are already wrapped, since we did not
unwrap hives this year unless we were were taking off the top brood box.
It is a bit strange to go out and find the hives already wrapped, but the hives
look good. The wraps don't seem to have had much effect one way or the
other during summer. We still have entrance reducers to go on and some
floors to change. We'll have to make up more blue shop towels too. We're
putting one towel on when we wrap.
We're not seeing many mites from the natural drop counts we're doing.
We leave the boards under the hives for several days and never find more than
three or four mites. Most often, we count zero. Multiply that by
what? 20, 30, 50? 100? I don't know, but counts this low
should not be a threat.
Today..A mix of sun and cloud. Wind west 30 km/h diminishing
to northwest 20 this afternoon. High 17.
Tonight..Mainly cloudy. Wind north 20. Low 4.
Normals for the period..Low minus 2. High 12.
TGIF, and Thank Goodness we're done! -- Almost, anyhow. With any luck,
we'll get the last supers off today and the last yards fed. According to
the notes, we have 234 boxes to go. The guys got only 160 yesterday, but
there were only two men and all the boxes were thirds. Thirds are harder
to take off. We have four yards to go and one of them is off at an angle
and in a different district from the others, so I doubt we'll get them all
done.
Temperatures
are running around the minimum for bee flight. I'm assuming we'll get a
few more warm days here and there, or a warm spell, but as November approaches,
the odds diminish -- and there is always the chance of a cold snap instead.
The weather near Red Deer is cooler by several degrees these days On the
right is a link to a map from a
presentation made several years ago showing our area, stretching from the
Red Deer region on the north down to east of Calgary. To illustrate the
difference in weather between the northern end and the southern end, two
forecasts are shown below:
We are now running 2,500 hives and we no longer do pollination. Also,
we have abandoned the southernmost part, due to pressure from beekeepers who,
for a while, somehow managed to obtain all the most novel diseases and pests,
but we still maintain hives in much of the rest of the territory. There
are only patches here and there in our area where anything is grown besides
grain, so we tend to operate locations in clusters in districts throughout the
region where the flora has proven to be suitable.
Calgary Forecast
Today..Cloudy becoming sunny this afternoon. Wind light.
High 12.
Tonight..Clear. Wind light. Low zero.
Saturday..Mainly sunny. Wind light. High 11.
Sunday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low plus 1. High 10.
Monday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 2. High 7.
Tuesday..Sunny. Low minus 3. High 10.
Normals for the period..Low minus 2. High 12.
Red Deer Forecast
Today..30 percent chance of showers early this morning.
Becoming sunny late this afternoon. Wind light. High 10.
Tonight..Clear. Wind light. Low minus 2.
Saturday..Morning fog patches otherwise mainly sunny. Wind light. High 9.
Sunday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 1. High 9.
Monday..A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 4. High 8.
Tuesday..Sunny. Low minus 5. High 10.
Normals for the period..Low minus 4. High 11.
I spent the morning getting the guys ready and gone -- we're sending the
feed with them to save an extra trip -- and trying to start the yellow diesel
forklift that was run out of fuel.
... From your vast experience with so many
colonies, what do you think as the maximum number of colonies 2 people (my
wife and I) could handle?
Not knowing you, or your wife -- or your region -- I'll have to
generalize.
There are many ways to run a bee operation. Some just set
the hives in one place, buy an old truck and used machinery and visit
the hives a few times a year, others do everything up big and fancy
and traipse all over the country pollinating and working the hives
intensively.
In a non-migratory honey-only operation, I think about 600 - 800
is the magic number if a little additional help is hired seasonally,
and if a reasonably relaxed lifestyle is the object. If
full-time help is hired and a corporate type business formed, the sky
is the limit.
I would like to think we could grow our little yard into a
supplemental income business.
The best incremental returns per hive are achieved early in the
expansion process, since serious problems of scale are not
encountered. As an outfit grows, there are quantum leaps in
effort, risk and expense every time a certain percentage of increase
is contemplated.
Also, how many hives in a yard is too many?
That all depends on the region and the year and what your goals
are. All of us sacrifice some production to have yards that are
a manageable size. One hive alone on a location will always
out-produce larger numbers, but travel gets ridiculous if the numbers
are too small in the yards..
Although 24 is likely better than the 32 we average (our range is
from 20 to 100), some routinely run 100 per yard. 40 is not
uncommon, and 32 is also a popular number.
Maximum production is not a wise goal. Many young
'smart' beekeepers go broke while making big crops due to putting too
much expense into getting them. Maximum profit
is our goal. We also minimize expense, because no matter how
profitable things look on paper, if no crop materializes, the guy
with big expenses and loans goes down hard while the guys he used to
brag to are there to try again next year.
Some additional advice: The easiest way to become the owner of a
good profitable bee operation of the size you want is to buy one.
Look around your area and see if you can find a retiring beekeeper who
has an operation you like and which makes money. If you can, try
to negotiate a deal you both like, preferably with him/her running it
for a year or so while you follow along and get up to speed. If
you have a good reputation and a good manner, you should be able to
make a deal with very little money down. Make sure that
everything is in writing.
Once you make an acquisition, if you are serious about making a
living, and if the business is already profitable, don't change
anything at all -- at first. After a few seasons, you can start
to get creative.
El and I went to Three Hills for our annual flu shot in mid-afternoon and
also picked up some sample jars, drums, filters for the Swinger and groceries.
When we got back, I started right in on the Swinger.
Ivan writes:
"I was surprised by number of mites (in a previous diary entry): During
summer I counted weekly about 0 to 2 mites natural drop. A week ago we did
cure which is directive of veterinary authorities and six hours after I
counted from 100 to 300 mites on board.
"Overwintering of such number would certainly cause catastrophe next
season. However, conditions at Alberta are very different from
Central Europe so maybe comparing is only of little use.
My reasoning: At this
time of year, most brood has hatched out here in Alberta, so almost all
mites are phoretic. We did some Apistan drops earlier and saw
very few mites.
Using the natural drop, most hives are dropping zero mites
over three or four days, but a few are dropping up to four. We figure
that is tolerable since we will treat in the early spring with a single
strip of Apistan®.
Depending on what we think the lifespan of an average phoretic
varroa to be, we can guess that four mites means anywhere from 80 for a
figure of 80 day lifespan to 200 for a 200 day varroa lifespan -- as I
recall anyhow. Ivan's figures, above, are not much at odds with our
estimates, if his mite load increased a little since summer, which is
to be expected.
My calculations: 4 mites over four
days, divided by four days = one mite per day.
ARS.says: "The average life expectancy for Varroa mites
is about 50 days".
MAAREC says: "Female mites produced in the summer live 2
to 3 months, and those produced in the fall live 5 to 8 months.
Without bees and brood, the mites can survive no more than 5
days. They can, however, live in a comb with sealed brood at 68
° F for up to 30 days."
If phoretic varroa in October in Alberta have an
80 day average life expectancy, then we deduce that the actual
mite load is around 80 mites. If varroa life expectancy is
200 days, then we have about 200 mites.
Ivan had 0.28 mites per day from natural drop in summer and
dropped up to 300 mites in October with a chemical that should
have yielded close to 100%. The 0.28 figure would have
suggested 22.4 and 56 mites total load, respectively, but
since months have passed and the populations increase by a factor
of 1.5 or so each brood cycle (three weeks), then our estimates
are in the range from:
22.4 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 75.6
to 56 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 189
Since I don't know exactly when the summer drops were done,
the rate of mite increase exactly, or the exact average lifespan
of a typical varroa mite, that doesn't seem too bad for a
very rough estimate -- IMO, anyhow. All these
estimates are very rough, since there are so many
factors and a few wildcards -- like amount of brood -- that are
unstated and must be assumed. We have a threshold of worry
in mind and if we are well below it in our estimates, for most of
our hives, we can let the matter rest until our normal treatment
time.
Any high levels or obvious unevenness seen in the tests would
signal a need to look closer, and perhaps move up treatment day.
If we treat, we treat whole yards, and prefer to do the whole
outfit, since if we treat here and there, we can lose track of
individual hives that are moved around, and also the record
keeping gets pretty daunting. The next time we treat, we
have to remember where we did and where we did not and load the
truck accordingly. When we create exceptions like that,
there gets to be too much room for error and oversights; we just
try to keep everything more or less the same throughout entire
districts.
Am I missing something important here?
Meijers showed up while I was still working on the forklift, and when I
finished, we looked at the Fager and then had supper. The $27 worth of
new filters did the trick, or maybe it was the fact that I carefully bled the
entire fuel system, but the Swinger started up again and runs very nicely.
Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems smoother than before.
The field crew returned around nine, after a twelve hour day. I had
told them that I did not want them working too many hours and getting
tired and dangerous, but they insisted that they were fresh and they wanted to
get the last boxes in by tonight. They did, and we are now -- finally --
done pulling honey off and finished the feeding. Setting a deadline seems
to have picked up the pace. I'm glad we got it done, since Monday's
forecast has now changed to possible snow.
The latest update:
Monday..Periods of
rain or snow. Low zero. High 2.
Tuesday..Sunny. Low minus 8. High zero
Lately, the forecasts seem to change from day to day; the weather guessers
never seem to be able to get it right, even a few days ahead. Some years
they have been dead on for months. Not this year.
Do you leave the upper entrances open on your
hives all winter or do you cork them?
Open.
Do you provide other upper ventilation other than the holes drilled
in the boxes for upper entrances?
No, not intentionally.
BTW, call the Honey Line. The recording has changed: 763-658-4193
Finally. a day with no worries. We're caught up and just the
wrapping remains.
No, wait, that's not quite true. I have to get supplies, assemble two
loads of honey, come up with a plan for handling the granulation, deal with the
staff and winter plans, arrange insurance, do a payroll, meet with crop
insurance reps, get the books up to date, and probably a few more things I'm
forgetting -- all before I drive 600 miles to the BCHPA meeting in Quesnel in
the middle of next week. Oh, and I have a magazine deadline coming
up soon too, and a visit from my mother in November and a trip to see the
granddaughter (and her parents) on US Thanksgiving.
I think I'll go to Red Deer for the day.
We're at drum number 311 today and that means we have extracted 87 pounds
per hive on the basis of the 2,250 hives we considered 'producing hives' for
crop insurance (or 81 lbs basis 2,400 hives we actually supered). We'll
have a bit more and will likely wind up around 90 pounds for crop insurance
purposes.
"I am a member of an Instrumental Insemination
group over here in England. We had a presentation from Abert Knight of
BIBBA earlier this year. He was telling us that the latest thinking wrt
Varroa is that Colonies which are permanently exposed to varroa seem to
"learn" how to dispose of varroa (i.e. they bite the feet off them). This
only happened on colonies that were not treated with Apistan/etc. The young
bees "learned" the behaviour from the older bees and, because they were
never varroa-free, each generation learned it from the generation before.
Conversely, the colonies that were treated, had to acquire the behaviour
from scratch each year. Some did. Some didn't!
"This sounds rational but I am skeptical whenever I hear things like
this. I know you have reported a low incidence of varroa this year but I
was wondering if you had observed anything like this in the past (i.e.
managing a large number of colonies I would have thought you would observe
this sort of thing if it really happened).
Hmmm. What a fascinating idea. Frankly, it sounds
reasonable to me. I've always suspected that bees have 'culture'.
Other animals have obvious culture, although not sophisticated and
technical as human culture seems to us. I know that young animals
learn even basic behaviours from their peers and adults nearby and from
members of other species with which they associate. I know that
bees learn and remember food sources even after they have forgotten their
exact home hive location. I also have heard from several sources
that varroa resistant bees seem to ignore the varroa until they get to a
level around five percent phoretic, at which point they begin to control
them (somehow). Seems to me that the US Russians stabilize around
five or six percent. (Someone tell me if I don't remember this
quite correctly).
As for observing this learning phenomenon wrt varroa, I can't say I
have. Frankly, I see lots of things and wonder a lot, but often
don't really have a clue what I am seeing. I know how to manage and
make a living off bees and to keep colonies alive most of the time, but I
really know very little about them.
Varroa seems to be causing lots of problems some places and not
others. Whether it is the breed of bee, learning by the bees, the
local flora, the weather, some aspect of management by the beekeeper, or
some pathogen in the mites themselves that controls them in some cases, I
really don't know. What I do know is that any pest has its high
seasons and its low seasons, and that humans can only observe the levels
of incidence, and try to mitigate things to save their livestock and
crops when a high season rolls around.
What I do know about bees is that they are marvelous and adaptive, and
thrive in spite of my bungling.
Winnie the Pooh was right: You never can tell when it comes to
bees.
Actually, I went to Calgary. I had buying a new computer in mind and came
very close to picking one up. I'm using a P2 266 with 256 megs and of RAM
and 26 megs of HD and have noticed lately that I'm processor-bound a lot of the
time when I run the system montor to take a look at what's happening. I
typically am running around 42 processes when
ZoneAlarm,
virus checker,
anti-caps lock, popup
killer, graphics card manager,
OpenOffice.org and all the other misc background processes I use plusOpera, MSIE, FrontPage,
MailWasher (leaky), Metapad, Outlook
Express are all active. Once in a while, if I am not careful, I run out
of resources, so it would be nice to have a faster machine and be able to put
to use the copy of XP I bought a year or so ago. I've been afraid to use
it on this machine for fear of screwing it up.
I looked, but did not buy. I decided a 2.4 machine would be nice, but know I
won't get around to installing and setting everything up for about a month now,
since I'm pretty well booked up.
Today..Mainly sunny. Wind light. High 14.
Tonight..Partly cloudy. Wind light. Low minus 1.
Normals for the period..Low minus 2. High 11.
"If I make a
living off it, that's great -- but I come from a culture where you're valued
not
so much by what you acquire but by what you give away," -- Larry Wall (the inventor of Perl)
Allen's 
