On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:01:46 -0600, deborah byron wrote in <[email protected]_not_set.invalid>:
>However there seem to be so many variables--climate, weather >patterns, proximity of other hives etc.--that the only reasonable thing is >to find someone using holistic hive management in your area and see what >works there. > >It is so heartbreaking to lose a hive. The decision we've made is to >abandon selling honey and relying on bees as a money-maker until the bee >population can rebuild and recoup. Oddly enough we want to see healthy >bees swarm back into the wild. But we're in a minority and it'll be a long >road. I have started a project that unfortunately got interrupted as we had to move house. But I believe the logic of it is worth testing. The key must be to emulate the bee's natural behaviour. In nature, they will not live in the save hive for more than very few years. As they always have to build new honeycomb when they have swarmed, they are obviously equipped for it and will not get exhausted by being moved into fresh ( = cleaned) hives in short intervals, with empty frames (fresh center sheets or only stripes of them if money is a problem). The answer must lie in moving them frequently and not using any old honeycomb but let them build new. Also, as long as any varroa is present on the site, a beekeeper should think twice about moving frames between hives. As I said, my project is too incomplete to cite any results, but as a matter of principle, I only used freshly built frames with fresh brood where I had to add brood to a hive, and broodless honey frames that could not possibly contain mites. Heidrun Beer Workgroup for Fundamental Spiritual Research and Mental Training http://www.sgmt.at -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Address Off-Topic messages to: [email protected] The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
