BeekeeperEducation

Bees should be considered by every gardener

You have a wonderful vegetable garden and have done everything by the book, but for some reason many of your vegetables have not produced to the level you expected. Every gardener needs to consider if they have adequate visits from beneficial insects to pollinate the crop. All that work could be for nothing if the vegetables are not properly pollinated. Commercial growers spend large amounts of money to make sure their crops are properly pollinated and you should be no different except on a smaller scale. Commercial growers would not spend the money to bring in honeybees if they were not worth the money spent. At least one third of our diet owes a debt to the honeybee for the pollination she does. If you have few honeybees in your garden, the production yield will undoubtedly be smaller than it would otherwise.

If you have a small garden, it probably is not worth the expense of you getting a pollinator to bring in a hive of bees. If you do not have a friend or neighbor nearby who keeps bees, you may want to consider taking up this ancient art. Not only will it assist your garden, you will absolutely be fascinated by observing this very interesting insect. You also can reap the side benefits of having bees, most notably fresh pure honey.

If you are considering becoming a hobbyist beekeeper to assist your garden, you probably have a lot of questions about this hobby. It is not a hobby most people just take up without some consideration beforehand. One reason for this is that some people are allergic to bee stings and you will get stung if you keep honeybees. However, if handled properly, stings should be kept to a minimum. Many of you probably have close neighbors or live inside city limits. Local ordinances must be researched prior to plopping down a hive of bees in a city neighborhood. If you have the room where you are located to have a garden, there is a good chance you can also keep bees.

If you have close neighbors with bird baths, swimming pools, or hot tubs, you will absolutely need to provide a fresh and adequate supply of water near the hive to keep your bees from interrupting the neighbor's enjoyment of their property. You probably would want to erect a barrier or privacy fence to cause your bees to have to fly up before they fly off of your property and across your neighbor's property.
You may want to get certified with an epi-pen if you think there is the possibility you or someone close to your bee hives may be allergic to bee stings. In fact, if you know there is someone who is allergic to bee stings, you may want to opt out of getting a hive at all.

How do I get started with honeybees? I suggest you start reading books and Internet articles on beekeeping. I suggest you contact your local agricultural extension agent and locate the nearest beekeepers club. You need to join that club and ask for a mentor. Take the first beekeeping course you find offered in your area and you should get enough basic information to get started on this wonderful hobby. Some bee supply companies even offer video topics related to beginner beekeeper questions. An easy to locate and useful book for beginners might be "Beekeeping for Dummies". Various other good books are available on the Internet or at your local bookstore or library.

I suggest getting two hives to start with. This will assist you in learning more about beekeeping as no two hives are the same. If you only get one hive you run a good risk of getting a poor hive and it may die out. If you have two hives, you may be able to use the stronger hive to salvage the weaker one and you can measure one against the other. At least with two hives, if you loose one for some reason, you are not as likely to go out of the beekeeping business early.

Locate your hive facing East or Southeast. Make sure it has a windbreak behind it and leave room behind it to work. You must work your bees from behind the hive to stay out of the way of the foragers that are constantly going back and forth in front of the hive. Locate the bees so that the most minimal traffic possible is going in front of them. If you can not keep the front clear of traffic, you will not be happy with your bees at that location. Keep your bees out of sight from the road or street. There is always someone who thinks it funny to overturn a beehive. If you have skunks, raccoons, or bears in your area you will need to take precautions against them. Putting your hives eighteen to twenty four inches off the ground will keep skunks from bothering your hives. Raccoons can be discouraged usually with a heavy weight on top of the hive cover. Bears can be turned away by use of an electric fence built to certain specifications.

If you decide to get a hive or two of honeybees, you should never again get one of those little curled up cucumbers what is fat on one end and curls up to nothing on the other. You will also get a side benefit of honey, beeswax, pollen and propolis. These items are each as beneficial to some people as the pollination of their gardens. Your friends and neighbors will learn to love that gift of honey as much as those vegetables the bees pollinated. I promise you if you will take the leap of faith and get bees, you will most likely be hooked for life on this wonderful and very beneficial hobby

Bees Wax Candles Are Better For Your Health

Pure bees wax candles are better for your health. The problem arises in being sure you have pure bees wax to make your candles or other bees wax products. Many people are aware that honeybees are under tremendous pressure from several exotic pests. There are some very toxic chemicals being used to control pests such as Varroa mites in honeybee hives. This is where the biggest problem in finding pure bees wax begins.

One of the more popular chemicals being used to control Varroa mites is Coumaphos. Coumaphos primarily affects the nervous system through cholinesterase inhibition. This chemical is in a strip that is strictly regulated and with strict labels for use because it is a dangerous neurotoxin. This Chemical is known to build up in bees wax. As a result, experts suggest anyone using this chemical in their hives should replace all the wax in the hive every two years. Why is that recommended? Because Coumaphos has been linked to low sperm count in Drone bees and increased mortality in Queen bees. This problem only gets worse as the chemical builds up in the wax, which sort of acts like a liver to the hive as it filters out toxins.

Bees wax is very valuable to beekeepers and beekeepers are increasingly under stress financially due to all the pests and diseases of the honeybee. Honeybees have to eat a pound of honey to produce an ounce of wax. Honeybees making new wax costs profits the beekeeper could make selling honey. Beekeepers have no trouble selling their wax and at the present time there are no measures in place to detect someone selling wax that has been treated with Coumaphos. Most beekeepers are honest and would never do that, but the temptation is there for some to do so.

Most people who love bees wax candles or use wax to make soap or cosmetics do not think about the possibility their wax could be less than pure. Most people who use the wax would also not want the dangerous chemical Coumaphos released into the air they breath by a burning candle. Likewise, they would not want this neurotoxin in wax used in lip balms or soaps. To be sure you are getting pure chemical free wax, you need to be buying your wax from beekeepers who manage their hives organically. Buy your bees wax from a local beekeeper that you have formed a relationship with. There is comfort in knowing you have looked the beekeeper in the eye and he has verified his wax is chemical free. There is no other way to get this assurance at the present time.

Thoughts on Africanized Honeybees

American honeybees are disappearing at an alarming rate. Some estimates show that we have lost at least half of the honeybees in the United States in the last 10 years. We have lost nearly 100 percent of the feral bees if you don't count the recent swarms that have taken up residence in trees or other non-managed locations. The reasons they are dying off are complex and not completely understood. One thing that is understood is that without some change, we may no longer have honeybees in the United States by the year 2035. At least we will not have the European Honeybee. We need detailed and extensive research to understand what honeybees are up against so we may be able to help them.

Believe it or not the Africanized honeybee, improperly called the "killer bee" by ignorant or misinformed individuals, may be the salvation of the beekeeping industry in the United States. These bees do not usually attack the European honeybees physically, but they do out compete and replace them due to their mating habits. The African bee has been made out to be a monster and that sells papers, as well as movie tickets. In fact, they have the aggressive nature that is turned on in the same gene that also controls the gentle nature of the European bees. In fact, the most common European bee in the United States, the Italian honeybee, descended from Africa.

Not all bees in Africa are aggressive. The ones that were brought to South America for experimentation were aggressive and they escaped. The rest of the Africanized bee in America is history so to speak. All honeybees can be selected for aggressiveness or gentleness. Even the African bee has become more gentle as it has crossed with European bees during the slow migration northward. Very few people have died from bee stings in the United States since the arrival of the Africanized bee and even fewer have died from the African bees stings. They are no more potent in their stings than any other bee, they just attack in greater numbers when the alarm goes out to defend the hive.

The Africanized bee, for several reasons, has shown great resistance to the problems European bees have faced from Varroa Mites. In fact, in many areas of the Southwestern United States, beekeepers keep Africanized bees with great results. The truth is, the aggressiveness of the Africanized bee is more of an annoyance to beekeepers than a threat to the public. If we were to lose the rest of our European honeybees, it appears we would still have the Africanized bee to depend on for honey and pollination of crops. Should the Africanized bee remain as the only honeybee left in the United States, the negative view of that particular insect would change really quickly as we began to realize how fortunate we are to have such an important pollinator. We would adapt to the aggressiveness while we selected them for gentleness. I predict that with concentrated breeding efforts, should they become the only honeybee we have left, we could select for gentle bees across the board in less than a generation.

To insure our honeybee crisis is solved, we do need great research minds to tackle this problem. Before we can solve this problem, we must understand it better. Every citizen needs to be educated about honeybees as well as the need for honeybee research. Then, we all need to educate our political leaders to fund the research to protect and promote this valuable insect that causes at least one third of what we eat to be available. The one thing that no honeybee has shown resistance to is pesticides. The same political leaders that need to educated about funding research for honeybees, also need to hold pesticide manufacturers to a higher level in protecting the complex relationships between plants and animals.

The Health Benefits of Pure Raw Honey

When looking for real natural health products and remedies, honey and honeybee products must not be overlooked. For centuries the healing properties of honey and honeybee products have been known, but recently they have been rediscovered by a whole new generation.

Honey is simply a good part of a healthy diet for people over two years of age. It has a tremendous array of compounds, enzymes, and vitamins that your body needs and uses. Children under two should not eat honey, because honey kills bacteria and can kill the good bacteria that is in the digestive tract of a small child. This is the reason children under two should avoid honey. It is not toxic to the child, just to the bacteria the child needs.

Having said this, honey naturally is antibacterial. Honey with moisture content below 18.6 percent does not spoil or ferment. When honey is kept in that state, bacteria will not grow in it. Naturally it follows that honey can be a wound dressing to prevent infection. The great armies of the past used honey in this regard and stores of honey followed the armies everywhere until the modern era of medicine. In fact, honey has seen a resurgence of use for antibacterial topical use because certain varieties have been proved effective against anti-biotic resistant bacteria or "flesh eating" bacteria.

Honey sooths wounds and burns. It actually promotes healing without scarring. The next time you get a small burn, cut or abrasion, try spreading some honey on it. Be sure to bandage over it, especially if going outside, because it will invite bees. Before you try this use of honey, be sure to buy some pure raw honey. Local apiarists are the best way to be sure what you are getting is pure raw honey. Much of what is labeled that in grocery stores is anything but that. Raw honey is honey that has not been heated. Honey that is heated above 110 degrees does not turn to sugar as quickly and thus has a longer shelf life. Grocery merchants like this as sometimes honey is on the shelf awhile. The heating kills the enzymes that makeup the unique properties of honey. Raw honey also is not filtered. It is strained but still has small particles of pollen and propolis in it. The benefits of pollen and propolis will be explained in a moment. If your pure raw honey does turn to sugar, as it will, just put a mild heat source to it and it will turn back to honey. Do not microwave your honey as the uneven heating causes some parts to get too hot. A warm water bath will do fine, just make sure the lid is tight and do not get it over 110 degrees. Honey will absorb moisture so always make sure it is in an air tight and water tight container or the moisture it absorbs will cause it to spoil.

Raw honey has pollen in it. Pollen from your local area is good for allergies. If you have taken allergy shots, you know a small dose of the allergen is given to you until you build up a resistance to it. Eating honey with pollen in it can do the same thing. Remember, the honey must be from your local area and it needs to be produced during the time your allergies are worse. If you have allergies to plants blooming in May, you need to eat honey produced in May. Honey produced in June will have different pollen in it and, though still healthy for you, will not provide you to the exposure to the allergen you need. If you are allergic to molds and mildews, the honey still may help with those allergies, but for reasons other than the ones listed above. There are so many vitamins, minerals and enzymes in honey that we do not fully understand all the health benefits it may have.

Propolis, or bee glue, is a sticky substance bees collect off of plants. Propolis has several purposes in the bee hive. It is used to seal up cracks to prevent the wind from coming in. It is used to cover over infectious items too bulky for the bees to remove from the hive. It is used to secure parts of the hive to keep them secure. Propolis has anti-viral and antibacterial properties and hives with large amounts of it have shown some health advantages over hives that don't. Raw honey has small particles of propolis in it and when you eat the honey you receive the benefits. Propolis is also removed from hives and used to make natural medicines and products. Propolis is good for use in toothpastes to prevent gingivitis. It is used to make sprays and gargles to help with sore throat. Various other medicinal uses are available at your health food store, but you can get that just by buying raw honey.

Get to know a local natural honey producing beekeeper. That way, you can be assured of purchasing a tasty and valuable food and health product. The antioxidants and vitamins alone are reason to buy and use the honey, but when you taste that sweet nectar from God, you will want more just to enjoy.

Looking for a great hobby?

If you have looked for a hobby that suits you, but have just not found what you are looking for, consider this one. I suggest you may want to look into the possibility of becoming a beekeeper. There are three categories of beekeepers, hobbyist, sideliner, and commercial. Most people start out as a hobbyist beekeeper with one or two hives of bees, I suggest two because then you can compare the two and have a better understanding of how you are doing.

Bees can be kept anywhere flowers bloom, even in Alaska. Local ordinances may limit your ability to keep them at your home if you are in the city, but people close by you with acreage will be most willing for you to keep your bees on their property due to the benefits of pollination. If not, you usually only have to mention a jar or two of honey to change their minds.

Bee schools are offered often by county bee clubs, agricultural extension offices and community colleges at low cost or for free. Contact your agricultural extension agent to get information on how to start. It is really not very hard, costs are very reasonable and the rewards are too numerous to mention them all here.
Honeybees are not very apt to sting and with proper gear and care, you will not get stung very often. Give it a try, the bees need your help now more than ever.

The Sourwood Mystique

I grew up eating Sourwood Honey on biscuits for breakfast every
morning. You might say, I was a bit spoiled in that regard, or at
least I was fortunate to be able to take this blessing for granted.
I was in College before it really dawned on me that not everyone has
Sourwood honey every morning for breakfast. Once you taste Sourwood,
there is really no substitute, unless you are extremely fortunate and
have access to an even less common delicacy called Locust Honey. I
will save Locust honey for another day. In fact, not being able to
get Sourwood honey, after the death of my beekeeping uncle, greatly
contributed to my becoming a beekeeper.

I am amazed every time someone asks me, "What is Sourwood?" to the
point I can barely answer their question. It is more than a tree, or
a flavor of honey, it is almost a state of being for us here in the
mountains. I remember the horror I felt when my dad told me that
Sourwood trees were once used to make sleds, basically wagons without
wheels, to haul things behind their teams of horses or mules. The
natural crooks in the trees make great sled runners without having to
bend the wood. I just wondered how anyone could bring themselves to
cut a Sourwood. Of course, I did have to ask dad if the sleds were
used because he came along before the wheel was invented. I recall
being more amused by that question than he was. I remember in about
1970, I was with my dad in Sugar Hollow deep into Fairview where they
had just finished grading out for a house he was building. The
loader had knocked down a large Sourwood tree that was in full
bloom. I was standing over the tree sort of morning the loss of this
producer of such sweet nectar, when I decided to taste the blooms. I
figured maybe it would be tasty and hated to let it go to complete
waste. In fact, some of the blossoms did have a faint taste of
Sourwood nectar. This is where I pieced together the connection
between nectar and honey. I recall wondering why not all the
blossoms had the Sourwood taste. In fact, I now realize that bees
have to visit a lot of Sourwood blossoms to get much nectar, as not
all of the blossoms have an appreciable amount of nectar in them.
Studying the blooms I also saw how the bloom spreads down the stem of
the flower from the base to the end. When the blooms get near the
end, you know the window for gathering Sourwood nectar is about to
close until at least next year, if the weather cooperates.

Not long after that experience in Fairview, I saw my uncle driving up
the road one evening and I knew what this meant. He had a couple
hundred hives of bees and it was time for fresh Sourwood. I recall
that look in my uncle's eyes as he showed an extracted jar of honey
and exclaimed, "Look how clear this is!" Since that time, I have seen
that look in a beekeeper's eye many times when showing off their
Sourwood, or even talking about it. Even with all the experience Edd
Buchanan or Greg Rogers has making Sourwood honey, that look they get
when they talk about their recent Sourwood harvest never changes. It
is exactly like the one I get and the one I saw last night at the
meeting when Tamra Dawsey excitedly told me about harvesting her
first batch of Sourwood. That sweet nectar is a great equalizer for
sure and everyone should be excited to get to harvest the best honey
in the world. It took top honors at Apimondia in Ireland to prove
it, if you were not already a believer. I even saw that look in the
eyes of people that did not verbalize to me about their recent
harvest. I noticed Lyne was very interested in ordering jars and
knew she had her own blonde treasure of nectar with which to fill
those jars. She did not have to say it, I could read her eyes.

I feel sort of sad for those poor souls that don't understand how to
tell Sourwood from other honey. As a result, many a person wonders
what the big deal is concerning Sourwood after purchasing some so
called Sourwood from some fly by night scam artist trying to make a
quick buck. I recall last year at the tailgate market, I had a
customer from Paris, France who explained that her boyfriend is a
honey conoisseur and she wanted to take home something special for
him. I offered up a jar of my best Sourwood and told her he would
appreciate this honey for sure. She took my advice and recently
contacted me to tell me he has tasted honey from all over the world
and Sourwood is the best honey he has ever tasted. He has placed an
order for reinforcements to fill his pantry as I write. I know it is
anecdotal, but this has to be proof it is the best honey in the world
and we are blessed to live right in the middle of Sourwood country.

I find it ironic that Mountain Laurel is in the same family, Heath,
as Sourwood. I guess Sourwood got all the good and Mountain Laurel
got all the yuck in that family. Never take for granted the blessing
of harvesting the best honey in the world. As a side note, you
should be charging premium prices for this premium honey. Never look
at the world honey market prices and apply that to your Sourwood.
World honey market prices are for the honey that we have to try to
sell somehow. Maybe I have become a bit of a Sourwood snob, but
Sourwood sells itself and we never have any left over. If someone
complains about your price, just tell them that is their choice, They
can buy cheap honey or good honey. If they don't buy it, someone
else will. You never have to cut your price on Sourwood. Sourwood
honey is something you just cannot get at your chain store and as a
result the laws of supply and demand cause it to depart from the pack
of other honey types in the world honey market. When you want good
Sourwood, find a beekeeper in the Southern Appalachians that has that
look in his eye and you will know you are getting the real deal, but
be prepared to fork over a little cash. What? Do you think it just
grows on trees or something?

Calvin

Let's Make This Our Finest Hour

I love beekeeping! In fact, I felt a little strange when I first got the urge to keep bees because not many people besides me seemed interested in beekeeping. I guess you could say it reminded me a little of a county song I had heard before and I will just say I was a beekeeper when beekeeping wasn't cool. Beekeeping is suddenly in the news and very cool. I am singing a new song these days. I just heard a recent popular song with the lyrics, "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" Of course being the obsessed beekeeper that I am, I changed the words to "Don't you wish your hobby was hot like mine?"

It is true, beekeeping is hot at the moment. It seems everything with a bee theme is instantly hot. Don't believe me? Just ask anyone if they have heard or read anything about bees in the last week and I bet you almost all of them have. There is currently a keen awareness and interest in our beloved ladies. This really dawned on me in a big way tonight when I saw a movie advertised from Jerry Seinfeld, one of my favorites, called "Bee Movie". Of course there is nothing funny or light about the plight of our bees, but all the attention and interest is great. We can benefit from a bit of fad, if we will help direct the interested people to the real bees when the fad grabs their interest.

I guess you could say beekeeping is riding a wave at the moment. It is an exciting time to be in beekeeping, partially because the stakes are so high. As Winston Churchill said during the darkest days of World War II, "This will be our finest hour". I believe how we react to the honeybee crisis can become our finest hour. When the stakes are high, the risks we take to experiment, and innovate are magnified in our successes. I am happy so many people are interested in becoming hobbiest beekeepers because the more minds that are studying and experimenting, the more great discoveries we will benefit from.

I recall this past summer, which went way too fast, that one central theme surfaced in every event I worked for the Buncombe County Beekeepers Chapter, from Nectar Collector Day at the Western North Carolina Nature Center, to The recent Heritage Garden Craft Weekend at the North Carolina Arboretum. People were excited about BEES and they were very interested in helping them. I found the superficial conversations were out the door and most people engaged me in interesting intellectual conversations that were both stimulating and thought provoking. I had several very intense conversations that pushed an hour in length with interested individuals. Many of those signed up for the annual free bee school.

The surf is up, and I challenge each of you to wax up your bottom boards and hang ten with me! Let's ride this wave of interest to get funding and inspire great minds to study our bees. Even minds like mine can add to beekeeping, so you have no excuse not to contribute your part also. Don't be afraid of wiping out, because every great discovery has been in the shadow of a certain risk. One thing is sure if you take no risks the great successes will elude you. Take the occasional failure as part of the road to success and keep on keeping on. It has been said that "to whom much is given, much is required" This being true, North Carolina beekeepers need to be playing a lead role in our nation and the in world of beekeeping.

Buncombe County Beekeeper President, Janet Shisler, recently visited England and being the beekeeper she is sought out British beekeepers by attending a London beekeepers meeting. She told me they are a bit dismayed at the loss of bees and feel their government is doing little to help. They are sort of looking to the U.S. for answers. I say lets help find those answers. One of my favorite lines from a movie is from, "The Right Stuff". When the astronauts walked out in front of the crowd, one of them said something close to, "They are looking for Buck Rogers and that's us". I find that inspiring. If others are looking to us for answers we need to be about finding them. When someone needs a hero, why not try the cape on for size. L.L. Langstroth, who invented modern beekeeping, just took an observation and studied it. His discovery has had a profound impact on our beekeeping even today. We all have that potential too. Only if we rise up to meet the challenge can we meet our potential.

Join us and invite a friend to the free Western North Carolina bee school this February at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville North Carolina. Join, or renew your membership in your local bee club. Participate in club meetings fund raisers, schools and field days. Give back some of what you were given so that others may enjoy what you have. Help us to pull off another wonderful FREE bee school to further promote our beloved art, craft, occupation and passion.

Calvin

Are Cell Phones Causing our Bees to Disappear?

First off, let me be very clear, cellphone radiation is not what is killing our honeybees. Our honeybees in the United States, as well as most of the world, are facing ever increasing mortality from a mostly unknown source. I say mostly unknown, because we do know some factors that point towards culprits, but this is a very complex issue. Cell phones being the primary suspect in the cause of honeybee demise just simply is not true.

A couple of lunatic fringe "scientists" from Germany appear to be the founders of this insane notion that cell phones are causing the demise of honeybees. They were greatly aided when ABC's "Good Morning America" show gave them a platform to spout their "snake oilish" propaganda as well as provide apparent credibility. It is unfortunate that putting this false information back into it's waste basket has not been easy and it seems to keep popping up as fact in all the wrong places.

One of my personal contacts in the beekeeping community is a scientist at NC State University and he is one of the 15 Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) task force team members in the United States. Dr Tarpy explained the reasoning behind the false claim and the rational used to debunk it. It was one of the first and easiest theories to debunk in the slow process to determine what is the real cause of CCD. It is called a disorder on purpose because as of yet we do not know the exact cause even if we do know what does not cause it. We do have some interesting leads in what may cause CCD.

Dr. Tarpy recently sent out an e-mail showing progress and a potential lead in what may be causing CCD. Each colony that is known to have shown the trade mark signs of what has come to be known as CCD in the United States has one thing in common. Every one of them has tested positive for a virus previously unidentified in the United States. Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV)is the subject of much interest in getting to the bottom of what is really causing CCD.

This much is known about IAPV. It was first described in Israel, hence the name. It has previously not been seen in the United States. We know the virus has been found in Australia, but has not caused CCD there. The California almond groves needed honeybees for pollination and getting enough viable hives appeared to be impossible. Special permission was given to import Australian honeybee colonies to make up the shortfall. The theory being that Australian bees do not have Varroa Mites, so bringing them here would not be a concern.

What the powers that be did not consider is that we do have Varroa Mites here in the United States and we have already had problems enough with the mites vectoring other viruses that our bees have. It appears that the Virus may have come to the United States with the Australian bees and when the virus met our Varroa infested bees, CCD became a problem. It is noted, that most beekeepers that have had CCD were commercial beekeepers and had either direct or indirect contact with bees that were used to pollinate the almond crop in California.

This is a very simplified version of what is known, and a lot is still not known, including how IAPV may fit into the CCD equation. One thing that is for certain is that cell phones did not have a roll in that, unless they were used to call Australia and order the packages of bees that were shipped to California to use in pollination.

Importance of Genetic Diversity for Beekeeping

It is very important to preserve all honeybee genetic material that is currently alive. Commercial beekeepers have lost up to 90% of their colonies to mysterious conditions. They can not afford to do the things that may end up saving their profession, due to not having the time and feeling dependent on the queen producers that are now producing inferior queens. The honeybee gene pool needs to be addressed, and that may be up to hobbiest beekeepers to work on because they do not need to spend so much time just making a living with their bees.

Given the catastrophic losses of honeybee colonies in recent years, our honeybee gene pool has decreased dramatically. It is possible there is in existence feral honeybee colonies which show resistance to the viruses that are being vectored by the Varroa Mite infestation of honeybees in the United States. Feral honeybees make nests in various locations which they have sought out after swarming from a parent colony. They commonly build in hollow trees, or in cavities that are not properly sealed to the outside in barns or houses. If a colony has continuously existed in one of these locations for more than three continuous years, it is very possible that colony has some genetic advantage over most bees which require close human management to survive for long. As a result of these facts, I have actively sought out these feral colonies to build my own apiary. I also have selected from the best of these colonies to raise my own queens. I have found my apiary is showing resistance to the common problems most colonies are experiencing with the mites and with viruses.

It is believed that most Feral bees in the United States have died out. However, I have found some bees that are still in the unmanaged wild. The question is are these managed colony swarms that have escaped and found these feral colony comb remains to make their home there? I feel this is true in part, but I also know that vast numbers of feral colonies were out there. There is a strong possibility some did survive and their swarms are also repopulating the feral population. Their drones are also out there mating and I want to capture that aspect by open mating in areas near the large national forests where so many feral colonies existed before the mites came to the United States.

There are various ways to obtain feral honeybee colonies, but one thing is very important. Capture of the feral queen is very important to insure you are getting her genetics as well as any advantages her genetics may carry. Without her, you may be able to raise a queen with some of her genetic traits from her eggs, but getting her is the most desirable way to capture the colony. Remember, if you raise a queen from her eggs and the colony is moved to another area prior to the virgin queen from her eggs being mated, you will potentially miss out on the drone genetic material the original queen was mated from. This could vastly alter the genetic outcome of your new queen and negate the desired effects you are seeking from her. Without the queen, you also only get one shot at raising a queen from her eggs. If you save the queen, this gives you an opportunity to experiment with her eggs and gives you more than one shot at developing a desirable effect from her progeny.

Honeybee colonies in houses tend to be the ones you hear about most often, because the owners want your help in removal. They are also more aware of how long the colony has been in that location without management. Obtaining colonies from structures is easier if you have some knowledge and experience in construction, as well as some basic construction tools. Removal of siding is almost always necessary and before getting in over your head, you need to have a detailed agreement with the homeowner over what is expected and what will be accomplished. Working with a contractor may also be necessary. The price for your work as well as the contractor's will also need to be agreed upon. Sometimes you get lucky and a feral colony is found in an abandoned house or one slated for demolition. Barns are often easier to obtain a colony from in that the detail of the finish is often easier to fix after the work is done. Make sure you know what you are getting into or talk with the contractor to make sure what to expect. Sometimes removal of the colony is easier from the inside, especially when brick veneer or stucco is involved.

If you are a hiker or are friends with hikers, you may come into contact with feral colonies in hollow trees. These can vary greatly in difficulty to remove the colony. Make sure you have permission to remove the tree before cutting into a bee tree. Typically, the colony is at least eight to ten feet off of the ground. This can pose a bit of a problem in getting the tree down without damaging the colony too much. If you want to remove the colony still in the tree section, make sure to seal up all the holes with screen wire while the bees are inside. Once the tree is down, the section with the bees in them can be cut out and screen wire quickly placed over the holes. The tree section can then be removed to your property by hauling it on a trailer or in a pickup. However you decide to handle your bee tree, you must get the bees out of the tree and into a hive. If your section of bee tree has a hole in the top, you can place a Langstroth hive on top of it and allow the bees to naturally move up into the hive. This could take some time, but does work due to bees natural tendency to move up. I usually suggest cutting open the tree and removing the bees, comb and all and putting them into a hive. The tree can be cut open with a chain saw or even a wedge. I have done both, and believe it or not, I liked the way the wedge worked the best. Some people smoke the bees up into a hive also.

Whether you are removing the bees from a tree or from a structure, the actual cutting out of the comb is much the same. I make sure I have lots of things available for either job. I like to have the following:
1 Buckets
2 Boxes
3 Screen Wire
4 Staples or Tacks
5 Duct Tape
6 Knives (including at least one long flexible preferably serrated one)
7 Gloves (dishwashing gloves work fine)
8 Camera
9 Rags
10 Several buckets of water
11 Queen Cage (at least one)
12 Queen Marker
13 Smoker
14 Hive Tool
15 Complete Hive Body (with empty frames)
16 A second hive body or a super (with empty frames
17 Plenty of rubber bands
18 Protective Gear
19 Queen Excluder
20 Hive top cover
21 Bottom board
You may add to this list after removing your first colony, but even if you do not use all of these items, having them available could save the day.

Whether you are removing the bees from a structure or from a hollow tree you must first expose the colony. I suggest smoking them prior to exposing them. After exposing the colony, you need to assess where the brood nest is and try to protect the brood and probable location of the queen. I cut out sections of comb that are approximately the size of the frames I am going to place the section in. I attach the comb into the frames with rubber bands. The bees will attach it then cut and remove the bands. Make sure to put the honey comb in the supers as much as possible and the brood nest in the brood body. I try to put the brood towards the center of the box and put honey on the outside of the brood box. Make sure the orientation of the cells in the brood box is the same as it was in the colony. (the cells should angle upwards) If you place the cells in wrong, the wax may not be useful, especially for honey storage. I try to collect all the brood and as much of the honey comb as possible. I take out all the excess honey comb and let the bees rob it back to the new hive. Don't forget to put a queen excluder (queen includer) below the brood box so the queen will not try to leave and take the colony with her.

After getting the colony cut out, make sure all remains of the colony in the prior location is removed. If you have the queen, I suggest taking them home as soon as possible. If you do not get the queen, you can come back later and there will be a cluster where you removed the comb. If you find a cluster there that you can spray with sugar water and scrape into a container to add to the colony you have made. If you have removed bees from a structure, I suggest sealing up the structure as soon as you have all the bees removed so that they can not return. If you have removed the bees from a tree, I suggest cutting the remains of the tree up and removing to keep the bees from trying to go back. The parent hive can be left in the area for a few days so the stragglers can make their way into the new colony home. Remove the excluder from below the brood box when you are sure the queen is laying eggs and plans on staying.

You may want to quarantine the hive from your apiary to make sure there are no undesirably diseases being introduced. Foul Brood is one disease that comes to mind which you want to guard against. The risks are really minimal, but the benefits to our industrial beekeeping will be immeasurable.

What Can I Do to Help The Bees

The big question lately, for scientists and beekeepers, seems to be where have all the honeybees gone? It seems we do not know that answer completely, but there are indicators of what could be causing their sudden demise. As I ponder the possible causes of honeybee demise, the picture I see does not look particularly pretty. Even so, you could call me an optimist, after all I am fairly confident that I will win the power ball lottery jackpot someday, but I personally do not see only a negative future for honeybees. I am so confident I will someday win the lottery, that I am heading out in a moment to purchase a $1 ticket for the $300 million jackpot. After all, that jackpot would buy a lot of bees and equipment to build my apiary. Even if I am basically optimistic, don't discount my belief that even with all the bad news facing Honeybees, they are not going to disappear totally. Not if beekeepers do their part to keep bees that is. I am so confident in honeybees sticking around that I am planning a major part of my retirement around honeybees and beekeeping.

I know that not all, or even any, of the news about honeybees we have been hearing lately has been positive. I have,however, noticed some trends in the news about beekeeping. It is obvious that most if not all the chemical treatments to help bees survive the mites has been a failure in preventing mite problems and has caused the bees to become week and stressed to boot. I have also noticed that many of the more serious beekeeping problems have manifested themselves in the commercial pollination realm, where bees are highly stressed and put into situations where they come into contact with pesticides used on crops more often than the usual. Even with all the trouble our commercial pollinators are having, I have seen some equally dramatic positive, but less reported, news involving small beekeepers that are staying away from chemical treatments, stressing their bees and purchasing from large commercial breeders who use chemicals in their hives for mite control.

I believe beekeeping chapters and clubs need to be educating the public about the need for new beekeepers, and recruiting young beekeepers. We also need to be encouraging these new recruits with challenging and innovative schools and follow up field days. Mentoring programs are a must and each of us needs to do our part. It seems lots of long time beekeepers are beginning to give up and stop the craft they love because of all the difficulties. It is hard to replace a beekeeper with 200 hives when he goes out of business, as that takes a little capital and most beginners are not adequate for that challenge. We can encourage 100 people to get 2 hives a lot easier. The Buncombe County Beekeeper's Chapter had 250 participants in the last free bee school we hosted. We also gave away 12 hives of bees to encourage people to participate. It is easy to see that a person with 2 hives can pay more attention to and provide better individual care for those hives than a person with 200 or 2000 hives possibly can. 200 hives spread out with 100 beekeepers instead of one beekeeper means there is a greater possibility for survival due to shear attention paid to the hives. A person with two hives will fret over the loss of one hive more than a person with 200 or more. The money and effort it may take to keep hives alive are much more likely to be available when one person is caring for 2 hives than when on person has 200. Observation, innovation, and experimentation are much more likely with a hobbyist than with someone who is having to meet a bottom line. Commercial beekeepers tend to clump large numbers of hives together, but small beekeepers have them spread out. This means the small beekeeper is covering the area better for incidental pollination not to mention putting distance between hives for prevention of spread of disease and mites. A person with two hives is much more likely to risk losing half or all of his hives on an important experiment than a commercial person who has to keep bees to pay his bills. Potentially we can learn a lot about how to save our bees with lots of small beekeepers out there who are willing to talk to each other, share experiences and offer lessons learned. The whole world of beekeeping, including the commercial guys, is going to benefit in the long run from the interest in beekeeping as a hobby by large numbers of people.

In this light, I am sharing my personal observations from my own apiary over the past four years. I admit, I was a bit discouraged when I first took the beekeeping course put on by the Buncombe and Henderson County clubs at the crop experiment station. I was discouraged because people were telling me, with body language and facial expressions as well as with words, that beekeeping was almost a futile effort. If I had not had so much fun learning about bees over the course, I would have quit when I heard the session on disease and pests. However, I did hear a few voices of encouragement and perseverance in the instruction and I decided to give it a try. One positive thing I had going for me, is I never knew what it was like to keep bees without all these problems so my beekeeping expectations were calibrated at a different level than those that were teaching the course. This fact should not be discounted in seeking new beekeepers and looking for them to be successful in today's world of beekeeping. I have noticed that the status quo for beekeeping practices over the past 10 years is questionable at best, with a few significant changes such as screened bottom boards. When professional beekeepers are loosing 50 to 80% of there hives over winter, we have nothing to loose in experimenting and trying new things. I see our current beekeeping problems as a mandate to do just that. If we stay with the status quo as it has been over the last 10 years, we will loose the European Honeybee. It is time to step out of the box so to speak and pull out all stops in research and study so that we will be able to save the bees. In fact, before the CCD disaster came along, we were doing poorly in winter survival as a whole. Many beekeepers did not experience CCD, but still had devastating losses. In fact CCD or not, the picture for beekeeping was looking pretty grim from the view of the average beekeeper for some time. I believe that CCD was actually a blessing in disguise. In fact, the average beekeeper had about the same percent of losses prior to CCD as since. Only a few beekeepers were devastated by CCD. What CCD has brought us is media attention for an ongoing problem of honeybee demise. We need to ride this wave of concern and education for the public to the bank to fund research and education programs. The money that a concerned public can unleash is unimaginable if they really are aware of the seriousness. Just ask any average person and chances are, they have knowledge and concern about the honeybee crisis. It is time the big companies that benefit from the pollination of fruits and vegetables step up and do their part to organize and fund projects to benefit the honeybee. Politicians need to be educated and convinced to support programs to benefit the honeybee. Beekeepers need to organize and work hard to find new means to assist honeybees in the uphill battle they are facing. Beekeeping organizations need to be funding, seeking sponsors and organizing field trials and research on promising practices.

Some personal beekeeping success I wish to share has to do with going against the status quo and using no chemicals to treat my bees. I do not do nothing to assist my bees however. I sometimes think people listen to me say that I do not treat my bees for chemically for mites and think, A. I am crazy, B. I am a liar, C. Doing nothing can work. Actually the answer is E. None of the above. Not treating with chemicals does not equate to doing nothing in any way shape or form. One of the first things I noticed during the first bee school I went to is that a pesticide license was needed to handle some of the preferred treatments and much caution was expressed about how to use these chemicals. This was just not an option for me when I learned that the mites were being selected for a super mite while the pesticides were getting stronger and scarier to keep up. I wondered how long it would be before a noticeable chemical impact started showing on the bees themselves. I now believe we were already seeing adverse chemical impacts then and they have only gotten worse. I listened as I heard that the Russian bee was promising. After study, I became convinced a big part of the Russian success was the brood-less periods they tend to have. Mites have to have brood to reproduce. I also noticed the African bees seemed to be very mite resistant and they tended to swarm frequently, which in itself tended to cause a break in brood production. I put these two observations together and decided to do a lot of splits which would simulate a swarm. I figured it would cost me some honey production, but if I split at the right times, it would be minimal. In fact, I really have noticed no adverse impact from most of my splits. If I split early, it is a strong hive and I build back with feed. If the early hive is weak, I may only take one frame and combine it with frames from other weak hives to make one split from 3 hives. This seems to knock down the mites proportionally as a weak hive has less mites anyway. I decided, in part because I was on a shoe string, and in part because my first queen purchased from a breeder failed in only 2 weeks, to raise my own queens. Raising a queen from an egg in a split will extend the brood-less period and cause both the split and the parent hive to benefit from the split by hurting mite reproduction. All of this fit right into my situation well, as I wanted more hives anyway. I have had some people say, splitting is fine if you want more hives, but I don't want more. I can not manage that way. My answer is yes you can, because we always have people looking for bees. You can provide that and help your mite loads by splitting. Even if you do not want the splits and can not sell the splits, you can take the capped brood from the hives and just freeze them. This will kill the mites in them and the bees can quickly start raising new bees. This should not adversely impact a strong hive at all. My must split time is just after the end of the Sourwood flow. At this time, you will not hurt honey production and you still have time to raise your own queen from an egg and get the split built up for winter. Doing these things has allowed me to go 4 years without chemical treatments. I had one winter with no losses and last year I had my worst year of 10 % losses. Tell me why this not the way to go if people using chemicals loose 50 to 80 %?

I have noticed that raising my own queens has been so pleasant that I purchased queen rearing equipment. I have better results raising my own than I did purchasing queens from other states. My queens are lasting more than a year as opposed to a couple of weeks or months. I am convinced one reason for my queen success is not using chemicals and not using foundation. I figured if the wax builds up chemical residue, and we are supposed to remove the wax in our hive every two years if we are using chemicals, then at least some people are probably selling the wax for use in making foundation. I know at least a few people have done this and as a result I want nothing to do with commercial wax or wax products. I found there are several ways to get the bees to build their own comb in the frames. You can put a small bead of wax on the top bar, use a top bar with a 45% angle pointed straight down, or cut a thin strip of cut comb foundation and place it in the top of the frames. Carl Chesick, a progressive beekeeper in Asheville NC, goes one step farther and puts wire in his frames and gets the bees to build comb around the wire. I have extracted wireless comb, but I have to be very careful. It seems my bees have done well without the stress of chemicals and the mites have been kept at a level that the bees can tolerate. Carl Chesick and I have had really good success doing this and now we are selecting queens from our best stock to try and find the more mite resistant stock. Having our own breeding programs will round out our efforts to help the bees with hive manipulation. I invite any who have questions to ask Carl and I or just jump in and do what we are doing. This is the kind of thing that will make a difference in our bee survival.

Everyone needs to be using their own mind to think of ways they too can help the bees with non chemical methods. Try those methods and share the results good or bad. It could be bad results are not due to a bad idea, but a flawed plan. Sharing ideas may alter a plan to make good results that all will benefit from. This requires communication and sharing from people committed to researching every way to help save our bees. With everyone pitching in to get answers, not only will we answer the questions about where the honeybees have gone, we will be instrumental in their survival.

Piczo