Summer 2011

[Trog]

This may be a silly question: given that drones do not survive from year to year, so cannot possibly be passing any knowledge to the next generation, why is it that there is such a thing as a 'drone congregation area'? Surely a mating area would vary almost from day to day, taking into account wind direction, time of day, hive densities in a given area, etc?

[GRIZZLY]

My Sarpo Mira were badly attacked by blight last year and didn't store at all well-unlike the Pentlands that I also grew which were blight free and didn't waste a tatty in store.I'm growig Sarpo Axona this year and so far they are clean.I thought last years tubers were poor from T&M so that might have been the problem.Never had problems with S.Mira before.The Roosters were also excellant Jon.

[Neonach]

Surely it must be a combination of environmental factors (which will generally persist from year to year) and bee-specfic factors. The latter might - I suggest - include the perceived (by pheremone detection?) number and vigour of the mating partners present. If a long-established and successful apiarist maintains a particularly good stock at a particular site, and it is judged (by the bees) environmentally favourable, it is likely that a mating may occur at that apiary (or part of it) year after year, giving rise to the simplified notion of a 'drone congregation area'. More likely it would in many cases be more temporary. Here in these islands, it is difficult to imagine that these two factors - persistent environmental and bee-related - could arise without man working to establish them. Environment - a sheltered garden; Bee - a number of strong hived colonies. Mating will tend to occur in that part of the apiary in which the bees judge both these factors to be optimal (and that will probably vary from time to time). Here, honey bee swarms going AWOL would not find these conditions anywhere in the landscape outside such an apiary, and so could not survive longer than the life of the generation that swarmed.

[Trog]

Interesting point, Neonach. However, your feral swarm would be just as likely to survive as it would at least have its own drones and could quite likely be within flying distance of the parent apiary. Here on Mull we had an isolated feral colony (very isolated) where the last beekeeper had kept bees 8 years ago. Even allowing for a queen with Methuselah tendencies, there must have been a generation or two created. We eventually picked up a swarm from them but found them very un-swarmy indeed when it came to managing them, so it was clearly not something they did regularly. Unfortunately they eventually died one winter but not before they'd donated considerable genes to our colonies over a few years, I'm sure!

[The Drone Ranger]

I suspect that chalkbrood rises when it is cold and wet rather than warm and wet.
]

Les Bailey believed that was the case

This article seems to cast some doubt on that

http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...son-wisconsin/

Benomyl was withdrawn after rats in tests with it were born without eyes

[The Drone Ranger]

Re Drone congregation
Some interesting stats here

http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/i...y&recordID=603

Drone congregation areas are commonly visited by drones from almost every apiary in the neighborhood, although ground elevation changes between the DCA’s and the apiary may reduce or prevent approach flights. In mountain districts at least, there appears to be no correlation between the number of drones in the congregation area and the distance from the apiary. Areas as far as five km from an apiary may be visited regularly by numerous drones; some drones were found coming from more than six km away. It is suggested that drones my orient themselves by means of near and distant physical features of the landscape (Ruttner and Ruttner 1966). Apparently a mountainous terrain negatively impacts the formation of flyways and congregation areas.

In flat country, it was impossible to get pure matings if there were other colonies in the neighborhood; at least 6 km must be free of bees or inhabited by the same strain in order to prevent crossing. A physical barrier of over 500 m seemed to be necessary to prevent colonies as close as three km away from intermingling. Drones, and apparently also queens, will not willingly fly over water (Ruttner and Ruttner 1965b).

Just clipped this small excerpt

[Trog]

Interesting post re chalkbrood. I was down at the assoc apiary (where bees have been purchased from a neighbouring island) and they've still got a great deal of chalkbrood. I'd put this down (partly) to the stress of their journey but should have thought they'd have cleared it all out by now. Maybe there was so much it's just taking a while. There are young bees present and numbers are increasing, so I guess it's not impacting on numbers too much. Worrying though.

[Jon]

I see more chalkbrood in Spring when colonies are building up and a cold snap can lead to some chilling of the brood.
I also see it after splits or nuc making if a colony ends up with an inadequate number of bees to cover the brood.
Any type of stress such as lack of nectar coming in will increase the prevalence of chalkbrood. I think the same applies to nosema re. stress.
if chalkbrood is really bad, replacing the queen should help as it is supposed to be in part a genetic trait although I have never come across a reference for that.

In flat country, it was impossible to get pure matings if there were other colonies in the neighborhood; at least 6 km must be free of bees or inhabited by the same strain in order to prevent crossing.

Sad but true. I have a couple of colonies I requeened early July producing about 50% of offspring with yellow bands. I have a few producing all dark bees so the proof will be in the morphometry pudding when I do the testing in October .

[Adam]

Trog
Do you use open mesh floors in your hives or solid ones? I have heard that there is less prevalence of chalkbrood with OMF's. I think this is anecdotal only.

With replacing the queen, there will be a period of no brood - even a few days - which might allow the bees to sort out the chalkbrood themselves, so maybe it was not the new queen but just a broodless period. This would particularly be the case in Spring or when the bees are trying to build-up the colony as fast as they could and there may be insufficient bees. The proof would be to cage the queen for a few days.

[Trog]

Solid floors, Adam, as we don't have varroa here. I have an OMF in my own apiary and the bees which wintered on it did much worse than all the others, everything else being equal, so I'm only using it as part monitoring for the arrival of varroa (may it never do so!) during the season. It's good for keeping the braula numbers down, though!

The chalkbrood bees were in two late-arrived nucs (only a month ago) which were building up fairly rapidly so perhaps the trauma of the move and lack of time for housework was a factor. They've been clearing the stuff out faster of late. Requeening not an option, as the whole point was to bring in some fresh genes, but I don't think it'll be necessary. We'll see how they are in spring.