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Author Topic: AHB Concern  (Read 15476 times)

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #40 on: March 14, 2008, 01:39:39 am »
3. On a nice sunny day. A sudden cold front or sun shower will make bees very unhappy.

I'm not sure I know what a sun shower is. Raining down happiness maybe?

A sun shower is when the sky is sunny and small rain cloud comes over your area. It doesn't block out the sun so it's sunny and rainy at the same time. Similar to having that small gray cloud that follows you around sometimes.

Sincerely,
Brendhan



Well Say Howdy, I think I'll recommend we change the nickname for the State of Washington from the Evergreen State to the Sun Shower State.
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Offline Devbee

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #41 on: March 14, 2008, 02:32:35 pm »
This my second year beekeeping:

I bought my first package last year from B. Weaver:  They were the nicest, gentlest bees imaginable.  My wife and I quit using the smoker with them because they didn't need it.

We just did our first bee-hive cutout a few weeks ago and put the new hive next to our B. Weaver one--those new bees are mean.  We have now bought 2 queens from B. Weaver to requeen the new mean hive and the old hive, whose queen is over a year old now.

Friends I know have ordered from R. Weaver (packages and queens) and had good success and "cool" hives.

As others have said and Michael Bush experienced, I don't doubt you could get a mean queen from one of them, but that could happen with any breeder I think.

Good luck and trust in Providence!
Devin

Offline Joseph Clemens

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #42 on: March 19, 2008, 03:56:22 am »
One of my dozen full-size colonies has developed a very unpleasant disposition. Their queen is a nice golden, Cordovan Italian, from very gentle stock, but she was open mated here in Tucson, Arizona. This makes all of her drones desirable for mating since they are not affected by her mating since they have no father, but perhaps she open mated with drones from a highly defensive line, hence the excessively defensive nature of her workers.

So, tomorrow morning, I will be disassembling this hive into hopefully, several successful queen mating nucs to receive, in about ten days, my newest batch of queen cells.

Maybe this "Hot-hive" problem is derived from AHB genetic contamination of some feral hives in my vicinity, or not. But I think hot hives can be useful for something after all (divided up into mating nucs). I once considered sending samples from some of my hotter hives for AHB screening, but I don't let hot hives stay hot - I requeen promptly. This is the feistiest colony I can remember having in my apiary, and I've had some feisty colonies. This morning I thought I'd check them out, so knowing they were more defensive than my other hives, I smoked them in the entrance, cracked the lid and gave them a few puffs -- I then gave them a few minutes to digest the smoking, then I was ready to tackle them, I repeated the smoking, this time opening the cover and setting it aside. I gave them a few more puffs, enough to drive the bees down into the frames. I set the smoker down, there were no bees visible now on top of or between the tops of the frames, I loosened the outside frame with the hive tool, I reached down to grasp the frame to lift it from the hive --- bees came pouring out from between the frames, they latched onto my T-shirt and proceeded to show me how they could put their stings into my skin, through my T-shirt. I quickly closed them and started to devise my plan to divide them into nucs, once I am more fully armored, tomorrow morning.

I like Michael Bush's strategy, "divide and conquer" --Michael Bush on requeening hot hives

So, Mike (mgates61), what I'm trying to say is that even hot hives can be managed, they will teach us something, and don't let their possibility keep you from enjoying the wonders of keeping bees.

<img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/miniWeather06_both/language/www/US/AZ/Marana.gif" border=0
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Joseph Clemens
Beekeeping since 1964
10+ years in Tucson, Arizona
12+ hives and 15+ nucs
No chemicals -- no treatments of any kind, EVER.

Offline JP

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #43 on: March 19, 2008, 07:24:48 am »
A thing to consider about hot hives. They make honey! I'm not talking of some wimpy little hive that's starving half to death and wants to slap you around cause you didn't take care of them properly. No. I'm talking about a hive that's got it going on, numbers galore, put another super on and bingo, the dern things filled in no time, gotta slap another super on. You want your bees strong and healthy and making honey for ya. Sometimes your best hives, your honeymakers might be a little arnery, but think of the dividends.

Be prepared to get stung, have your smoker at your side and if you don't like them boiling out at you on a consistent basis, then requeen, but hey mang, them bees ain't always gonna be in a good mood, at least not in my dealings.

Divide and conquer is good but too much dividing and that big honeymaker of a hive might not be such the honeymaker any more. Keep 'em big, keep 'em strong, give 'em room, tis the season to make that honey! Unless you're into pollenating, and that's cool.

Brian made a statement that I happen to agree with, something along the lines of, keep 'em as close to feral as possible, these are the types of hives that get the job done. just my .02.

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Offline BMAC

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #44 on: March 19, 2008, 09:17:09 am »
It was great.  This past weekend was Missouri State Beeks meeting.  Well the state entomologist was there and let us know he basically knows nothing about honey bees as his thesis was based on some insect that thrives on corn.  Anyway he wants to conduct a AHB in Missouri research this year.  He asked us to collect abuot 50-100 bees from any swarms and send them to him so he can analyze them.

I am going to send him some of the bees from my hot hive/s and see if they are AHB related. 

Of course he said he is going to do the measurements of their wings and bodies instead of actual DNA sampling.
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Offline JP

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #45 on: March 19, 2008, 10:26:56 am »
It was great.  This past weekend was Missouri State Beeks meeting.  Well the state entomologist was there and let us know he basically knows nothing about honey bees as his thesis was based on some insect that thrives on corn.  Anyway he wants to conduct a AHB in Missouri research this year.  He asked us to collect abuot 50-100 bees from any swarms and send them to him so he can analyze them.

I am going to send him some of the bees from my hot hive/s and see if they are AHB related. 

Of course he said he is going to do the measurements of their wings and bodies instead of actual DNA sampling.

That is great, you can train your entomologist. Teach him about natural cell, small cell, that not all ahb hives need killing but requeening, etc...

...JP
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My website JPthebeeman.com http://jpthebeeman.com

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #46 on: March 19, 2008, 10:13:52 pm »
It was great.  This past weekend was Missouri State Beeks meeting.  Well the state entomologist was there and let us know he basically knows nothing about honey bees as his thesis was based on some insect that thrives on corn.  Anyway he wants to conduct a AHB in Missouri research this year.  He asked us to collect abuot 50-100 bees from any swarms and send them to him so he can analyze them.

I am going to send him some of the bees from my hot hive/s and see if they are AHB related. 

Of course he said he is going to do the measurements of their wings and bodies instead of actual DNA sampling.

That is great, you can train your entomologist. Teach him about natural cell, small cell, that not all ahb hives need killing but requeening, etc...

...JP

....and that small cell renders FABIS ineffective as a determiner of AHB.  DNA is the only acturate method.
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Offline sarafina

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Re: AHB Concern
« Reply #47 on: March 20, 2008, 01:14:36 am »
Thanks, Michael Bush and Cindi for your words of encouragement.  Yes, it makes sense to buy locally and Navasota is about a 2-hour drive so I can pick them up.  I can't wait!