Hello

[Jim]

Hello, my name is Jim Anderson, I live in Vernon BC. I'm 32 and have been keeping bees now for about 7 years. I started beekeeping for Ernie Fuhr (North peace Apiaries) after graduating from University and took to it right away. Since then I have worked for whomever needed help in my area, guys like Ed Nowek, Bill Ruzicka, and John Stan. Last March, my wife and I bought out Stawns Honey from John Stan and have been running about 475 hives since, and this year we took over the local medication and supplies business from Doug McCutcheon and have been busy this spring sorting that all out. I have been following your website, Allen, for a while now and am very impressed. As a fairly new beekeeper, I have found much of your information invaluable in times when we faced a situation we weren't 100% sure about. Anyways, I just caught on to this forum and figured I'd sign up and add my 2 cents worth when I had something to contribute, and other times just listen and learn. We are all pretty worried about the apistan resistant varroa here in the Okanagan. It hasn't affected us much here in the North, but in the South OK, it is my understanding that it has been a problem, what is the situation in AB? Honey prices are high (good for selling, bad for buying), and I was reading on your diary that Argentina had a small crop this year. If so, do you see prices rising again? Anywhooo, temps are quite warm these days, so I am off to do some early bee work. Take care.

[Guest]

Hi Jim

Glad you took time to post.

There is a lot of Apistan resistance in Northern Alberta. Probably came up with wintered bees. They are using coumaphos, and that is a temporay solution, I guess. After that, lets hope we have resistant bees, because formic and other alternate miticides are not all that reliable.

As for prices, they look firm. I still have a load and a half, but hope to sell soon.

It's cold here.

allen