thought this would be interesting.
I'm not putting myself up as "the" expert. got a question about bees? it might be a wikipedia answer that you should take with a pinch of salt, but... Ask me (us) anything...
Printable View
thought this would be interesting.
I'm not putting myself up as "the" expert. got a question about bees? it might be a wikipedia answer that you should take with a pinch of salt, but... Ask me (us) anything...
Great idea Neils.....
A question was recently asked on another forum regarding where you can purchase the queen number plates/marking tags which come in different shapes rather than just the usual discs which are on sale now. A cursory look at European suppliers seems to suggest that they're no longer available...but don't let that stop you checking....please.
By the way, one thing that I've learnt is that there's a mass of intelligent information out there covering various aspects of insect marking (and associated behaviour) which I was previous unaware of.
Fallen at the first hurdle! Discs are no problem and Thornes even do a magnetic one for catching her Majesty but I've drawn a blank and finding other shapes other than discs and to be honest don't recall ever having seen any other shapes. Maybe I should have put this one in the public area in the hope of getting some easier questions :D
Sorry! Was a bit unfair, that question, having already done quite a good search myself. There are photos in the older literature (Ruttners 'Queen Rearing' might be one source although I don't have mine to hand at present) of the different shaped tags. Perhaps they were specifically in-house items used by the German researchers. Where's Hors gone?
I hope you get some more questions as I reckon that this could be a good long running thread.
Double Post.
Where/who is the cheapest for 20 x 12.5/14kg tubs of ambrosia or Apisuc. Delivered cumbria or collected HA?
As a reference, this is what we pay locally.
£11.85 for 14k invert sugar syrup. 12.5k in five 2.5k bags fondant, £12.70 collect prices.
Must be cheaper still in bulk.
Thanks. I will follow this up when we return home.
Also look at Jon's thread of last year called 'Invert Sugar'
Kitta
Oh, sorry - I just noticed that you've seen it, because you've contributed to that thread.
I am not sure about that one either and I don't habitually replace comb.
I do fumigate boxes of spare comb over winter with 80% acetic acid along with apideas and other equipment but the comb is always going to be the biggest disease risk.
last couple of years I have been removing some comb and letting the bees draw some fresh stuff of their own on frames reinforced by fishing line.
In the US, the commercial beekeepers irradiate old comb to kill pathogens.
Here is a fera document on comb replacement
Fizzing to reply to this, but had a shandy watching question time.
Quote:
2. How often should I change them?
There are many opinions as to this question but no brood comb should be used for
more than three years.
It would also be interesting to know the who/when/where behind this statement from the fera guidlines which Jon referenced. How was the three year (rather than the 'four year') rule reached? I'm not even convinced about the Bailey comb change idea although I suppose that it must be better than this notion of replacing three or four combs annually.
OK here is my question!
Is there any scientific research papers that shows a good correlation between wing morphometry and DNA analysis in particular Amm
Can I ask about the solitary bees?
Do both castes of the bees survive through the winter or is it just the female that hibernates? (Am I right to jump to the conclusion that there is no Queen caste for the solitary bee)
Is the caste in solitary bees determined by an egg being fertilised or not as it is for the honey bee?
For the Red Mason bees - and probably most of the others - not even the female survives the winter, just her offspring in the form of a pupa or larva tucked up in its burrow.
And the gender gets determined by fertilisation or not. Just males and females, no workers of course.
All sorts of imponderables there. Academics can and probably do spend careers on such things. I'll bet there are some good papers out there that give some insight.
For one thing, you get social and parasitic bumble bees. Once you've gone social, is that the only way out, to become parasitic?
And why do hymenopterans seem to be able to pull off the being social trick? Ants, bees, wasps, termites ..
Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk
The type of imponderables that come along with a glass of wine ;)
According to one of the speakers at the centenary who was very good (I'm no good with names- sorry) a theory is that humanity could be edging ever more towards the social set up albeit we have several centuries of evolution to go. Personally I don't think we will ever make a good a job of it as our bees have if that is the way we're evolving.
If honey bees did evolve from from being solitary, I wonder which of their behavioural traits / instincts / body parts could be a throw back to that time and not really relevant for their current needs.
Could the parasitic bee be a lazy way of becoming being social as well as a way of moving away from it?
Given that evolution can only proceed in small steps it may be a step too far to go solitary after you've done the social thing, whereas bumble queens are probably already pinching each others nests' at an early stage in the season.
As for the evolution of sociality in Apis, well, maybe its worth a read through the literature ......
I thought bees evolved from social wasps not solitary bees...
Recently purchased a pallet of Ambrsoia syrup ( 60 x 12.5kg) jerry cans for association and members for £850 delivered, worked out £14.17 per can.
Hi Neils
On the original premise of "ask me anything"
Have you heard much about allergy to oil seed rape?
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/c...d-rape-allergy
this is from 1990 and makes reference to a study done on my own doorstep I clipped a couple of bits
"During the 1989 flowering season, an epidemiological study was carried out in the village of Bowriefauld near Letham, in Angus. Angus district council, to its great credit, funded that study in response to allegations of public health nuisance. Eighty-five adults and 40 children were studied, and medical information obtained before, during and after the flowering season—using questionnaires, diary cards and standard skin and blood tests, along with the monitoring of pollen counts, wind-speed direction, temperatures and pollen collected by the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Invergowrie."....
46 per cent. of the study population reported symptoms at the time when oil seed rape pollen counts were high and when no other pollens were present. The culprit is clear. Half of those individuals confirmed positive allergy tests. Allergy skin testing revealed that reactivity increased from 5 per cent. before the flowering season to 38 per cent. after the season. That is a massive rise compared to the 20 per cent. sensitivity normally shown for most allergic substances."
Goodness, this was 24 years ago. Almost all of the staff involved have retired or moved on. I wasn't involved at the time but do have experience of pollen movement in oilseed rape and it is very sensitive to environmental conditions. A dry soil when the rape is in full flower and the pollen gets airborne. Damp weather, as we seem to have had in recent years, and little of it does so.
Perhaps this may be an issue that has gone away but could recur?
You're making me nervous, though, with all that talk in Hansard of collaboration with what was the SCRI and the Medical School at Ninewells :(
Hi gavin
It's something that seems to have been a worry at the time.
But it also shows two things
1) the public health issue would seem to be less important then than the crop value
2) rape was not popular except with farmers
I expect the varieties grown now have addressed some of the early issues
I was surprised to read of fields being treated with metaldehyde to keep slugs off rape surely that can't be allowed
Apparently it is allowed http://www.agrii.co.uk/blog/2012/09/...rol-challenge/
A good question, a myth that needs to be busted IMHO
Possibly in an area with endemic efb its a good idea to rotate out old comb, but surely a complete comb change would be more effective in this case.
As for nosema, chalk brood and other minor ailments these are endemic anyway and whether a colony suffers from them has much to do with the bees and little to do with their comb. AFB is a binary situation, they either have it or don't, it won't magically appear on old comb.
There was also some concern that OSR pollen was causing problems for horses and was a possible cause of head-shaking. The stuff certainly makes me sneeze so very glad there's none here!
I thought head shaking was perfectly normal.
I have a mental picture of DR shaking his head like a horse at any opportunity.
At one time there was a minimum distance from homes that could be planted
I don't know if that still applies because I see it planted right up to garden fences
and does it have to all be yellow can't we inject some other colours like with runner beans
mbc
there was some debate about whether old comb was best replaced with new and somehow it got tangled up with Apistan and similar residues
I wonder if you might be right and renewing comb should be all or nothing
The forum is very quiet where is everyone?are they preparing for the state funeral ? ( I didn't get an invite)
Playing catch up:) my bees are bucketing pollen in before 9am this morning and in huge numbers!
Typical I have other things to do(pre booked) when I should be inspecting the bees and piling on the supers!:D
WW
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
My Beecraft subscription has run out at a time when the magazine has just hit a new low
Can you suggest an alternative ?
Scottish Beekeeper.
Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk
What - you mean you've been missing out on the joys of the letters page in the SBA mag DR?!!
Ah !, yes, well, apparently when you leave SBA you stop getting the magazine (my knowledge of GM crops has suffered badly as a result)
I was thinking of doing a U turn and re-joining but ,and I happy to be corrected here, I would have to cough up a full subscription then again in January only 6 months later-- so might as well leave it till then
How about Bee Culture or Beekeepers Quarterly -- anybody get them
I get the American Bee Journal and it's a great read if you're not so bothered about getting UK-specific information. Highly recommend it. I ordered direct from Dadants and saved a bit of dosh rather than getting it via Thornes