We've successfully wintered singles indoors for 5 years,(800 in the building now) and are trying some outdoors this winter (80 colonies). Bill has had some success with this up in Sexsmith.

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Lewis Thomas

 Voltaire

> Managed a yard in singles this past year. Produced more than
> doubles, mostly because of the extra box of honey extracted rather
> than left for winter.

That is our experience, too. As long as sugar is far cheaper than honey, this practice makes sense.

> ...the brood present was the SAME between the doubles and the
> singles. The difference was that the doubles had its brood between
> both chambers with lots of pollen and honey available. The singles
> used most of the chamber for brood rearing, and the rest for pollen
> stores.

We found the brood area to be comparable, too. As you note, timing for singles is much more critical than when running doubles, and the sugar must be fed early enough to allow the bees to process and store it properly.

Single brood chambers have good points and bad points. For one thing, disease control is much easier, since 1.) there is only one box to inspect, 2.) the bees clean problem cells promptly and don't just move over a few frames, ignoring diseased cells as they often do in doubles, 3.) under many situations, you get more honey, and 4.) That honey is much easier to remove.

If you have good brood comb, properly spaced, most queens will have more than enough room in a single, but if you use very large cell foundation (5.7mm), have poor combs, and/or space wider than 1-3/8" and/or also have some bowed combs, singles may not work well. Moreover, using single brood chambers, supering techniques may be a bit more subtle than where double broods are used, or where unrestricted brood is permitted.

Bees store best within hive regions where the colony naturally maintains continuous warmth, and where individuals can thus comfortably maintain continuous presence during the flow. Continuous warmth is always maintained near where brood is being raised, and, in climactic regions where weather gets cool periodically during the flow season, the bees often retreat from at least some of the supers to the brood area, particularly if 1.) the weather cools 2.) the hive is too well ventilated, 3.) there is no flow activity to stimulate the bees to generate heat, and 4.) the hive is not at full strength. They can be slow to return to their former outposts in distant supers, and may stay closer to the brood area after a cold snap, unless stimulated by hot weather and a strong flow. People often comment that bees do not cap well early in the season. A few such retreats, or a hint from the weather that they may have to do so, and they are stimulated to cap.

Since, in singles, the brood is concentrated in the very bottom box, the bees may abandon the supers more often and for longer than in the case where double brood chambers are used, or where the queen is allowed the run of the whole hive. This may affect their storing in a season or region with intermittent flows, but will have little effect in a heavy flow condition. Adjusting ventilation and number of supers may also compensate for this factor. In comb honey production in the North, heat conservation is a key management trick, and we always ran single broods with as few supers as we could, and still contain all the bees.

(The above paragraphs explain about half the debate over whether queen excluders are honey excluders, and why it is never resolved. There are too many interacting factors, and people like to oversimplify.)

> I was very aware of colony food stores in my singles when I
> pulled off my last supers, made sure to have the feed there right away.

Very wise; that is where many of us fall down. When we remove the supers, we will also be removing most of the feed on the hive, and a full box of brood uses lots of feed. A day or two of poor flying weather and/or a dearth, arriving right after pulling the seconds, can kill or severely damage single hives unless a second with feed is placed on at the time of pulling, or unless a feeder is placed on the hive at that time -- or both.

> Besides the fact that I winter my doubles outside, I feel that managing
> my hives in doubles was easier and more forgiving that managing in
> singles.

That's what we concluded, but singles can return up to $50 more per hive, net profit, at current prices. That's worth a little extra work IMO. In cases where brood boxes are in short supply, this can mean being able to run more hives, too. With package bees the management is dead simple, too. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

We wintered our singles outside, and found the same success rate as doubles, but maybe that was because we converted the singles to doubles and fed in early September, as soon as the flows finished. Some in our Northern climate winter singles outside with good success, but we never had success
with them on the ground. When we raised the cluster up, by making the hives into doubles, we had no more problems. That also reduced our spring work and fears of spring starvation.

allen

Hi Allen

The Byrd Amendment money is total for all beekeepers about $40,000.  I received $21.23.  Cost me $22 to mail the paperwork to them, not including the time for filing out their paperwork.

Seems that the Commerce Department took bonds for payment, and now the bonding companies won't pay and will declare bankruptcy.

Sounds like hanky panky to me.

Sounds a little 'off' to me too.

Maybe it is time to sue the Commerce Department?  Seems to me the Commerce Department was responsible for taking the bonds instead of cash, and making sure they were good.  This clearly should be their loss, I should think, and they have deep pockets.

Here's another comment...

Hi allan,

I laughed when I read your take on the Byrd Amendment's spent hours filling out forms, spent 15 bucks or so on postage.  They sent me 5 bucks as my share.  Hardly covers the hundreds I gave to the anti-dumping!

I donated for one reason only:  The Chinese were killing us economically.  I was on the edge of bankruptcy, and decided if I was going out I would go out fighting.

Yeah, I can sure appreciate that.  The US beekeeper was really on the ropes, due to the strong US dollar, and even the current devaluation of the US dollar, which is salvation to many other US industries won't help.

Unlike other world currencies, such as the euro, the pound, the yen and the Canadian dollar,  both the remnimbi (Chinese yuan) and the Argentine peso are pegged tightly to the US currency.  Thus even a drastic devaluation of the US dollar like the one presently underway won't shake those guys off.  Their currency maintains the same value in respect to the US dollar, no matter how low it goes!

In Western Canada, we may have been badly hurt by the ban on imports of US bees, but somehow, miraculously, our dollar swooned during the worst of it, and got us decent returns compared to what our US friends had to put up with.  Our dollar is back up now, but it saved our bacon.  The US beekeepers' anti-dumping worked for us too, until the Argentines flooded our home market, so we lucked out for a while.

I started a study which I showed here earlier, and in it, we can see that both US and Canadian beekeepers have been suffering declining returns until anti-dumping -- AND catching the Chinese, then the Argentines with drugs in their honey -- saved the day.

My guess is that in the future, the only way that North American beekeeping can continue to get good returns is to set up high standards for honey production and close the markets to honey that cannot prove superior production practices.  That means we will have to pull up our socks and improve facilities, and methods, and do a lot more record-keeping, but it will be worth it.

The Sawgrass Marriott oceanside convention hotel

It isn't apparent to me that people know that the Bee Research meetings for 2004 will be held Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in conjunction with the American Honey Producers meeting in San Antonio, TX.   Last I heard, 20+ papers were scheduled to be presented.  See you in TX.

Best wishes for the holidays.

Jerry

• Canadian Honey Council
• The Onion America's Finest News Source™
• The Globe and Mail

This talk of three sucrose octanoate treatments with comb removal and such, made me think of oxalic drizzling and how much simpler and easier on all treatment can be if the frames need not be removed. Oxalic trickling has that advantage, since frames need not be removed. The syrup is merely trickled down between the frames without any other disturbance.

While oxalic trickling is easy on single brood chamber hives, a major obstacle to using oxalic drizzle on double brood chamber hives in fall after the season is over, is that each half must be treated.

That normally means separating (hopefully) heavy boxes, and if they are glued together, breaking the seal late in the season when it is not a good idea -- not to mention a lot of work and hassle for both bees and beekeeper. It's enough to discourage people from using this effective and inexpensive method.

On reflection, I realized that there is a simple solution:

It should be an easy matter to simply roll each hive forward until it is upside down, then drizzle the lower box from the bottom, wait a few moments, then roll the hive back onto its floor, then drizzle the top box from the top.

That way, the hive is only minimally disturbed, and the job involves very little lifting.

allen

> I must say that is a very creative solution. I hope you didn't make a
> joke and i make a complete fool of myself now.

Nope, that's how we check populations: tip the hive forward and look under, and how we separate glued-up boxes: lay the hive on its front and then pry -- less lifting.

When we used to scrape top bars, we used to roll the hives onto their fronts, since the bees don't boil up unto the top bars when in that position. From there it is just another quick roll to invert the hive, especially if you have a pallet or some such platform to match the floor height.

> But wouldn't the bees go berserk (just like they do when I break the
> boxes apart)? I suspect my bees would anyway. Berserk bees in the
> late fall are no fun, because they rather walk than fly and they tend
> to walk as far inside your overall as possible and then get stuck and
> sting.

Not really, assuming you choose your time and conditions well. I would expect that, with a little smoke, used wisely, and preemptively, that very little activity would result.

> How would you ensure the boxes don't come apart when you turn the
> hive over? Do you think the propolis would be enough?

On my hives it almost always was, but lots of people scrape everything so that it looks new. I always figured the bees like it a bit gummed up and left it pretty much that way. If the equipment comes apart easily, why invert it? Just lift the second aside and treat from the top. I was assuming the case where separating the boxes could be difficult and disruptive.

> I have tried oxalic dripping two years in a row and apart from having
> to disturb the bees in the late fall, it's really simple. However,
> it's common knowledge that it's not enough to keep the mite levels
> down. It has to be combined with other methods (sorry if I'm stating
> a well known fact to you experts here). I have also been removing
> drone brood in the spring.

I think that this varies with a lot of factors and perhaps region. Some strains, like impure Russian or SMR crosses might be fine with one annual treatment, if indicated by monitoring. Each beekeeper needs to monitor mite levels. The problem with drizzling oxalic, is that I understand that it cannot be repeated several times in the fall without compromising wintering success.

For that reason, many are looking at oxalic evaporation, which has a lingering effect, and also can be repeated without apparent damage to the bees.

allen

> I will also say from experience that a properly prepared single hive
> (8 frames brood & bees) will never produce the honey of a properly
> prepared double (16 frames of brood & bees).

I can't say that I have been able to prove that, and I've tried, so maybe it all depends on where you are, and other factors.

It also occurs to me that, perhaps, we are talking about different things: I'm assuming that using either 1.) a single or 2.) a double brood chamber, with an excluder on top, and that we are not pulling honey out of the brood chambers.

Moreover, beekeepers often talk about 'frames of brood', and then switch and immediately talk about 'frames with brood' interchangeably, and it gets very confusing. Sometimes, I wonder if it is done on purpose, but hopefully we can agree on terms here.

When measuring brood, I assume a frame of brood is about 90% brood, and contains (very roughly) 6,000 cells of brood. I also reckon an average frame with brood, often called ' a nice frame of brood', actually has about half that, if you actually measure and calculate the area. The problem is that a 1/2" strip with no brood around the edge doesn't look like much, but it reduces the amount of brood by 20%, and an inch of feed or empty cells around the perimeter reduces the actual brood by 35% -- from that 90%, and the brood is usually in an oval shape not square, further reducing our estimate. So, I'm wondering...

16 frames of brood, if that is what you really mean, and not 16 frames with some brood or 16 frames with bees and some brood, would be something like 96,000 cells of brood, and would seem to imply a queen laying 4,500 eggs a day non-stop, or two queens at 2,250 each. 16 average frames with brood would be the product of a pretty good queen, laying 2,250 eggs a day continuously over three weeks, and, according to a number of authors, that is a pretty good queen..

In my experience, about 9 to 12 frames fairly full of brood -- ranging from pretty full in the centre, to a decent patch on the outside frames, is normal at the peak of the season where I live. I seldom see 16, although I may see 16 with some brood on them.

In my experience, also, singles are able to get much bigger than 8 frames, if properly managed, so, again, maybe we don't mean the same thing. I'm talking about a single brood, but with an excluder and a second box or more added as needed, and 10 good frames in the bottom box. In a setup like that, the brood can easily be wall to wall, and the extra bees can fill the second, plus many supers. Some beekeepers do a little spreading of brood in singles, if required, but in my experience, if the queen needs the space, and there is adequate room for bees and feed in the seconds, the bees make room for her in the brood box. Sometimes there is not much except brood in the single bottom brood box. In my experience the frames of brood in a single also tend to be noticeably more completely covered with brood than those in doubles.

> And a properly prepared two queen ( 32 frames of brood & bees) will
> out produce the best double.

As for two queen hives, I just figure that they are really just two hives, stacked up, so of course they often make more honey than one hive, and they look impressive, to boot. However, in my experience, they seldom made twice what one did, and they sure could eat. Others report different results, but I calls 'em the way I sees 'em.

Keeping two hives, one on top of the other, was a lot of work, so I made some more floors, and went back to keeping each hive on one stand.

allen

I use the AVG free version listed on my security page http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/security.htm  and like it very much.  AVG never interferes and seems to catch all the bad stuff.  I use ZoneAlarm firewall free version, too, and have PestPatrol (evaluation) running in the background.  I also sweep regularly with Ad-aware (also free).

I don't care for Norton or McAfee and take them off any machine I find them on.

allen

> Allen posted in his Diary yesterday, December 24, 2003: I heard today,
> from Heather, that CHC has decided to push for oxalic approval,
> covering both evaporation and drizzling treatments."

Apparently, these treatments are approved in Europe and, so, much, if not all, of the work required to get them approved in North America has already been done. My understanding is that the Canadian Honey Council (CHC) figures they need about $30,000 CAD ($22,500 US) to get the approval done in Canada. The money is needed to get access to the European papers, consulting, translations, etc.

CHC is approaching beekeepers to raise the money, and although each beekeeper stands to save a minimum of $3 per hive per year -- oxalic costs 2c per hive per treatment compared to strips at anywhere from $3 to 5 per hive per year -- nobody seems to be rushing in to contribute, yet, anyhow.

There is one pharmaceutical company that is currently prepared to invest its own funds, but CHC feels the industry needs to take charge of the approvals. The reasons for this position are obvious: When corporate sponsors obtain approvals, the approval is specifically for their proprietary method of application or formulation, rather than for generic formulations or application methods. Although people have been getting away with using using generic versions of formic treatment, for example, with the new procedure accounting procedures that are coming in, using such cost saving tricks will require committing actual fraud in record keeping, and no longer be simply something that is not mentioned, ignored or overlooked.

Proprietary formulations or applicators are usually marked up very considerably over the cost of the active ingredient. Consider Apistan and Checkmite+: Each of these products contains only pennies worth of the active ingredient, but sell for dollars. We'd hate to see that happen with oxalic, especially since the work has been done and there is no need for proprietary formulations or applicators.

Although CHC is approaching beekeepers, it will be interesting to see what happens. Canadian beekeepers amaze me; even if they themselves will each save $5,000 every year -- starting as soon a s approval is arranged -- some I've talked to (many) won't kick in $1,000 (tax deductible) or two to make it happen, UNLESS the all the other beekeepers agree to pay first, and they are sure that everyone pays, since others stand to benefit from the results. Everyone waits to see if someone else will step forward first. Duh!.

The example of the US beekeepers in contributing faithfully to the anti-dumping on the hope of a future result, and other similar projects, should serve as an inspiration, I hope. Progress in the world has always depended on a few with vision making an investment to benefit the many. Nothing is ever accomplished by waiting for the other guy to do it.

Anyhow, I am sure the money will be raised -- somehow. Maybe US and Canadian beekeepers and organizations can work together to develop a case to present to all the various governments, and share the cost. The project is now underway and just needs a little money. I'm sure Heather would be happy to share and/or coordinate things.

Oxalic is a cheap and safe treatment, with little risk of product contamination or harm to the operator. It is about as effective as any of the non-Apistan and non-Checkmite+ methods have been found to be. Used with the new strains of mite-tolerant bees, oxalic may be all that is required for most of the time in the near future. Moreover, we can be fairly certain that the mites won't become resistant to oxalic soon.

We need some forward-looking beekeepers to step up and pledge money (how about $2.50 a hive?) to get the thing rolling. My $2.50 for my 50 hives isn't going to be enough. If you are a mover and shaker, and not one of those who waits for someone else to do the job for you, visit http://www.honeycouncil.ca  and drop Heather a line, or phone 403-208-7141.

Let's get the show on the road!

allen

PS Be sure to add http://www.honeycouncil.ca  to your bookmarks. It is a good source of news and other information regarding beekeeping topics. The site is on a new format, and you have to hunt a bit, but there is a lot there, including information of the new HACCP-based procedures for honey house operation in Canada.

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.
Jon Lithgow

>>> The whole point is that oxalic treatment is not very effective until there is little or no brood and, by delaying treatment until then, the young bees that we need to overwinter will have been infested with varroa. <<<

> I agree,. I 'm told that it is most effective with little or no
> brood present, meaning late fall treatments. In my mind late fall
> treatment of severe infected colonies are a complete waste of time,
> money and effort.

While these opinions may accurately reflect some situations, is it possible that everyone is missing the point?  Even after sitting through so many 'IPM' talks that I could spit, we are still thinking and talking in absolutes and speculating and acting on theory or speculation, not observation.

There are some key assumptions in the above dialogue that may or may not apply in all cases. Apparently these assumptions do not apply in large parts of Europe from what I hear. In my case, I never had enough varroa in the fall to do serious damage.

Others may be overrun. I don't know. I've practised IPM since before there was IPM, and have never seen high varroa levels, no matter how carefully I looked, even with minimal treatment. Why, I don't know, but I know.

The 'M' in 'IPM' stands for 'Management'.

Each time is the first time. Every case is, to some varying degree, different. We can hardly decide that something will not work, and discard it summarily on the basis of speculation, when we know that others are using it with success.

We need a full toolbox of methods and treatments, and we have to use them in response to what we observe at a particular moment of time in some particular circumstance, not what we think we will observe, what others have observed, what we saw last year...

We cannot just adopt some formula and blindly follow it. That has not worked and never will. Somehow, though people keep trying to reduce things to a ritual.

From the time we get up in the morning to when we go to bed, we react to what we observe, even when walking familiar paths, like from the bedroom to the kitchen. Maybe a door is closed. Maybe a toy is in the way. Maybe the furniture has been moved. Maybe we have to walk around someone. The path is safe and familiar, yet we cannot just walk blindly with assurance of arriving unscathed. We have to observe and respond appropriately.

Why, then, do we try to substitute rules for observation and reason when we work with our bees? Observing and responding appropriately, drawing on a fully equipped toolbox of ideas, methods, and products is necessarily behind all successful beekeeping.

Someone asked about my use of a single Apistan strip in spring, suggesting that I might be ignoring the label, and also fostering fluvalinate resistance. Well, this made me chuckle, since it seems that many do not know that the labels on Apistan vary considerably from country to country, or even exactly what their own label currently stipulates.

People also don't know what to do if the label says a strip for every five frames, and there are six frames of bees. Cut a piece off a strip and stick it in?  I know some people who would do that. Or maybe there are seven?  What then?

Imaginary voice speaks: "Wait, perhaps that is 6-1/2? It looked like 10 yesterday afternoon when it was warm and I was feeding, and it was 15 when I was telling my friends about my hive at the meeting last week"  (But the bee inspector called it four, with terminal AFB, and said to burn it)...

Of course we are guessing, since 'a frame of bees' is an inexact measure and varies with the observer, the flow and the weather conditions. Should we then use two strips, and risk an overdose? Of course this is silly; the recommendations are necessarily an approximation and require some judgement on the part of users.

The safest and most logical assumption would be to round off the required number of strips to the nearest integer. If the label calls for a strip for five frames of bees, then 3 frames get a strip, as do 7, but if there are 8, then time for a second strip? What about two frames of bees? Zero strips? The label does not say, and that is where that rare commodity, common sense, could come in very handy.

Furthermore, anyone with much insight will realize that the numbers behind assessing the potential for the development of resistance are somewhat imprecise and speculative, seeing as many factors are not known and that the product will be used a wide range of conditions. The best that can be accomplished is an educated guess at the probabilities, and that is what makes up the label recommendations.

The window between overdose and under-dose may be wide or it may be narrow. The method and timing of application and the environmental conditions during the period of treatment are immensely important factors in determining this, but there is no way they can all be known or stipulated on the label. A recommendation that should be safe under all conditions is used, but odds are that is suboptimal in most situations.

As it happens, the single strip has proven pretty much exactly correct -- according to the label -- for the median cluster size in my spring colonies. Not only that, but my method ensures that the falling mites, many of which are merely stunned, fall far below the cluster into a cold and unoccupied portion of the hive, so that even the partially resistant ones should (hopefully) have no second chance, as they do in the fall when the cluster reaches to, and covers, the hive floor.

The early spring method I have used for the past few years has been developed for our conditions through careful observation by expert beekeepers and also meets the label specs. It also results in levels of mites far below those experienced by those beekeepers who slavishly follow the rules what they have heard recommended by people who have never had to buy a strip with their own money. ---

Each, any and all of the many approved and soon-to-be-approved control methods have their place, and can result in a cost-effective and sufficient control of varroa when used by beekeepers who know their enemy, and who take the time and effort to observe before selecting a weapon.

allen

• Research by the Danish Federal Beekeeper association & beekeepers all over Denmark.
• Varroa Treatment with Thymol and Oxalic Acid
• Influence of Organic Acids and Components of Essential Oils on Honey Taste
• U.S. set to extend beef ban  Read the last paragraph!