Yet another puzzle

[Jon]

Hi Gav.
You can move this later.

Re Colony losses and winter preparation:
I definitely wouldn't blame the balsam.
It is a disaster for the environment but a godsend for the bees.
I keep my colonies near the River Lagan and it is lined with balsam for miles.
Mine collect balsam pollen and nectar from late July and continue right through until the first frosts nip the flowers, usually in October.
Last year I didn't lose any colonies although I discovered one colony was queenless in March and I had to combine it with a neighbour.
They all had 2009 queens bar one.
Several were small nucs of just 2-3 frames of bees and surprisingly they came through the winter as well.
I make sure they are well fed with sugar syrup before the ivy starts, the theory being that they will rear a last batch of healthy brood on the Ivy pollen and nectar, after mite removal.
I had colonies with 6 frames of brood including eggs in the last week of October last year.
It is a balancing act as I like to get 30lbs of stores in the box rather than 50lbs as this would leave no more room for brood.
I have already fed more than 150k sugar this year.
I overwinter all colonies in a single brood box and I further reduce this with dummies if the colony is small.
I remove all supers late August or early September.
I reckon extra space and extra stores can do more harm than good in terms of thermoregulation.
My bees are native type and seem to be quite frugal.
I insulate the roof with 50mm thick polystyrene.
I have a mixture of varroa floors and solid floors.
With regard to varroa, I use Apiguard in September and an Oxalic acid dribble in December when there is no brood.
Killing most of the mites is critical as a colony with too many mites in Spring will have a serious problem by early summer rather than Autumn which is the best time to treat.
A colony which starts the year with 100 mites will be at critical point for varroa load 3 months earlier than one which starts with 10 mites based on the assumption that mite load doubles every month without treatment.

At the moment I have 10 colonies, 17 nucs and 3 queens in Apideas.
I may well combine a few of the weaker nucs and keep more queens in Apideas.
Andrew Abrahams has successfully overwintered queens in Apideas on Colonsay.
The key factor is making sure they always have stores/fondant and ensuring that they get pollen early in Spring.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Jon
What percentage of colonies did you lose last winter/spring? Did you experience the long, deep early winter with prolonged ambient as low as -5 C, which most of Scotland suffered? Really pleased that the H.balsam appears to be exonerated. By the way I have had a written reply from Kasper Bienefeld regarding the falling colony number - pasted below. To eliminate any bias perhaps Doris might translate - unless these themes are now dead in the water!

Regards

Eric

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Kaspar Bienefeld

Samstag

25/9/10

Hallo Herr Mc Arthur,

herzlichen Dank für Ihre E-Mail und Ihren interessanten Artikel. Ich
halte den längerfristigen Erhalte einer Bienenpopulation von 10
Völkern für nicht möglich. Ist die komplette Isolation von Imkereien In
Schottland Realität? In der Anlage einige Papers zu dem Inzucht.

Gruß

Kaspar Bienefeld

[Jon]

Hi Eric (Herr Mc Arthur if you prefer!)

I didn't lose any last winter. I went into winter with 12.
One emerged without a queen and I had to combine it with another.
We had several weeks of minus temperatures in January where the snow never cleared.
It was quite a few degrees colder in Scotland though.

[GRIZZLY]

Is Doris going to translate this please ??

[gavin]

I think that it said something like:

'Thank you for sending me your somewhat strange article. My mates have told me that arguing with you is futile, so in the interests of humouring you and avoiding protracted correspondence, I'll agree that if you have fewer than 10 colonies you're heading for trouble if they are fully isolated. I do have trouble, though, accepting that there really is a lot of true isolation in Scotland.'

At least that is what it said when I ran it through the SBAi Bullsh*t Sensor and Automated Translator!

Do you get a chance to meet up with Eric on his travels to the balmy south west?

G.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi All

What a bad debater our Gavin is! Quite sad!

Eric

[gavin]

Och it was meant in jest Eric - I hope that you didn't take offense. I was certainly in jocular mood when I wrote that.

I guess that the point you wanted to make was that Professor Bienefeld thought your article interesting and agreed that 10 was a pretty precarious number of hives to be running in a truly isolated position. What were you expecting him to say?

all the best

Gavin

[GRIZZLY]

Had a very pleasant evening with Eric thank you.Talked a bit about bees-nothing contentious,showed him my hive making workshop etc.etc. I think he's quite taken with my modest set-up.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Eric, Grizzly, Gavin, etc.

Sorry for not having been available to help with the translation: despite the tourist and beekeeping season coming to an end I still seem to be unable to keep on top of all the things that need doing.

Gavin's improvised translation is not far off, except for the extra mention that Kaspar seems surprised that there is a problem with isolated apiaries in Scotland.

To that statement I can add that in Austria bee breeders can only dream of the wonderful opportunities such isolated sites offer for pure matings. There they have to retreat to remote mountain sites, and even those are not secure, as it's very popular amongst beekeepers to migrate to the Alpenrose, a type of rhododendron, which delivers a very aromatic and precious honey - see pink flower half way down the page: http://www.alpenweit.de/oxid.php/sid/x/shp/oxbaseshop/cl/alist/cnid/13e49b79bf0d5ab53.76108223 - How would you feel about using such a place as a mating site?

Doris

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Doris

Grizzly asked you to translate Bienefeld's letter to me. You asked for the full text of the correspondence in a private mail, which I sent. Please put your axe away and satisfy Grizzly. I could have translated the prose word for word without bias, which it seems I might just have to do.
Mrs Sweet, a Welsh lady, the SBA tour speaker was in Glasgow last night. She was asked a question about isolated regions in the Welsh valleys. She quoted work done by a Ph.D student in a particular wide area in Central Wales looking for honeybees. He could find none.
As an aside my original postulation dealt with an hypothetical isolated area. Think deep!
Best Regards

Eric