Getting Started While there are libraries of information on beekeeping for the more experienced, there appears to be little

information on getting started. So this page will give some broad outlines on do's and donts of setting out to become a bee keeper, rather than a box keeper. After 50+ years of beekeeping I find I still learn something new about bees almost every day. This is not something that can be mastered overnight; there will always be a challenge as hives change season by season. First let me make a major point! Beekeeping by its very nature leads to the use and sale of used equipment, people going out of bees for a range of reasons, and lots of spare equipment around. For newbie bee keepers this can be very tempting, but should be avoided at all costs A short story might be helpful. Bill decided he wanted to be a bee keeper and heard of the widow lady down the road with hives of her late husband to dispose of. Lots of boxes and frames with drawn comb, extractors and smokers and stuff. The lady didn't know how much, and Bill almost drooling, couldn't believe his 'good luck', duly paid and set up the hives etc. to receive the nine expensive nucs he had ordered. Those nucs were doomed, Bill lost his money, and finally to add insult to injury his hives were burnt by the bee inspectors.

So what went wrong? Bill took his time, read lots of books, thought he knew what he was doing, but he didn't get the equipment examined by a knowledgeable person, the hives were infested by 'Foul Brood' spores and were deadly to the incoming bees. Only afterwards did he contact the bee inspectors who found out the problem and took what was considered the correct remedial action. This is a true story, be warned! Hives As a dealer in equipment it is difficult to give advice. There are pro's and con's with any of the hives available. Honest advice. Talk to local bee keepers in your area, ask what works locally, check with your State or Province Apiculture agent, and shop around, if you find some equipment at a price too good to be true, it generally is. Bees Charging a bee hive, does not mean putting it on your plastic credit card! Its a term regarding adding bees to your hive. There are at least 3 ways, each one with its own problem. Nucs. Nucleus, normally bought as a 3 or 5 frame, (Frame is the term for the item which hangs in the hive) needs to have, frames of stores (sealed honey) open brood and a laying queen, plus a reasonable amount of bees of all ages. Nucs need feeding after installation. See Feeding FAQ. Packages.

More prevalent in the US than in Canada. Bees are sold by the pound, usually with a mated laying queen, caged inside the main bee cage complete with sugar feeder can to prevent starvation during transport. The ways and timing of package installation depends on your area and you should seek local advice. Swarms. I know of bee keepers who run their outfits dependant on catching swarms to supplement their hives. With the advent of Tracheal Mites and Varroa and the overall decline of feral bees in North America this method is very hit or miss. I do agree though, the sight of running your first swarm into your new hive takes some beating. Watching them marching in by the thousands and immediately getting to work is a delight to watch. Equipment. Catalogues and catalogs from every point in the Hemisphere, again the best advice. Shop around! In your first year it is unlikely you'll need an extractor (an oversized centrifuge) to deal with your first harvest, as that is likely to be very small. Perhaps you might think of cut comb honey rather than extracting honey. Smokers are very necessary to help calm the bees and allow you to handle them during inspections. The ideal unit, copper, will last for ever and won't burnout. We use corrugated cardboard (new, not recycled) rolled into a tight roll, lit from the bottom, easy, and stays lit for a long time. Suits Don't buy cheap! A scrappy piece of netting just tucked into a collar won't do. You can guarantee it will come loose at the worst moment, and a bee inside it can be most off putting. Finally, be cautious, don't go overboard with the buying, find an honest dealer interested in helping, and then stick with them.

Feeding. The means of supplementing or stimulating a hive at various times of the year, to improve its viability. After the honey crop has been removed it is vital that the bees have sufficient stores to carry them through winter into early spring, otherwise they will starve, one of the biggest failures of a wintered hive. In our area we find the hives need approximately 100 lbs of stores. Translated into easy maths, each frame (standard deep) will hold approximately 7 lbs, so a hive examined in late fall should have at least 14 plus frames of sealed stores. If not then they should be fed, quickly. For winter feed A 2-1 sugar syrup in a hive top feeder should be fed early enough for the bees to convert and seal off ready for winter. It should be remembered that bees need warmth to work and a reasonable daytime temperature is essential to allow them time to convert. With fall feeding it should be a lot in a short time If it should be dragged out by only supplying small amounts the danger of stimulating new brood is very possible, quite the reverse of what is needed. By feeding large amounts quickly any cells becoming empty in the upper super from late emerging brood will be filled, forcing the queen into the bottom box. The perfect position to start the winter. An interesting question? Is sugar better than honey for feed? The simple answer, yes, sugar is better. It seems there are fewer solids in sugar; therefore the bees have less faces to vent during cleansing flights. It is possible to feed honey drippings etc. from the fall extracting, but it should be stressed not to use heated honey in any form, otherwise dysentery is almost guaranteed. The alternative thinking to using sugar, it has little nutritional value, so honey is really the better winter feed. Spring Feeding. A misnomer in fact. If fall feeding was carried out correctly then spring feeding should not be necessary. The term should really be 'spring stimulation' because that is what is being attempted. Incoming nectar is the trigger to most hive functions, without it the queen will stop laying, brood production goes into a decline, and hive activity slows down. Now add a slow drip of nectar, (sugar syrup), and suddenly activity increases. We add on top of the inner cover a jar, about a quart size, approximately 6 holes, 1/16th in diameter drilled through the lid. Fill with 1-1 sugar syrup and invert over the inner cover hole. The vacuum created holds the liquid in place and allowing the bees access to take it down will stimulate the hive into believing a flow has started. Working backwards from when the real first flow starts, we stimulate to produce bees for this flow by adding syrup 6 weeks ahead. Remember:Do not overfeed in the spring. The danger being a honey bound brood area, nowhere for the queen to lay, leading to early swarming. Nucs and Splits. We make a good number of splits or nucs (nucleus hives) every year, and the one thing that gets them off to a good start is feeding. On making up a split there are a few points worth repeating. First,

A split, after a couple of days will have lost most if not all of its foraging bees, so therefore there is no nectar coming in. In these circumstances the queen will lay, only if there are open stores. On making up the split, crack open sealed stores with a hive tool, and then feed using the spring stimulation method. Finally, remember! Bees will only draw foundation during a flow, so feed heavily if adding foundation even more so if you intend to use plastic foundation

Re-Queening Re-Queening, the ART of manipulating the resident queen to change over to a younger or different strain of bees. I stress ART because that is what re-queening is, an art form. As with all beekeeping there are rules which have to be followed, once learnt then re-queening should be a relatively straight forward procedure. Let us deal with the various reasons for changing queens one at a time to try to clarify what can be a complex subject.

Old Queens. A queen over two years old begins to run out of sperm from her mating flight, left longer there is a danger she will only lay unfertilised eggs i.e. drones. The hive will then go into decline and fail. So it is generally agreed to change queens in their second season. There are various methods, but our favourite is as follows:Make up a 3 frame nuc consisting of 1 frame of honey, 2 frames of sealed brood preferably without eggs, and with brood emerging from the centre of one frame. Then shake in one or two frames of young bees, youngsters are always found on open brood as they're nurse bees. The older flight bees will return to the old hive leaving younger bees that are more receptive to a new queen. About 24 hours later add the queen cage, screen down, after removing the cork from the candy end run a thin nail through the candy to make a small hole. Trap the cage between the two centre frames and press the frames together to hold it. Feed 1-1 syrup. The bees, now queen less, will eat out the candy and release the queen, two to three days later she will begin to lay. We usually wait till the new queen has emerging brood before uniting to the main hive with the newspaper method after culling the old queen 24 hours before the unite. What to do with the old Queen? We always pinch her and drop her back in the box; some even rub her remains onto the new queens cage presumably to add the old queens smell to the new queen. Questionable I think! Some take the old queen and keep her for a few days, just in case! Another way to re-queen is a great deal simpler, just a little more risky. Remove the old queen by whatever means suits you, and 24 hours later install the cage as previously discussed. Simple, easy. Forced Superscedure. A new way of re-queening for the busy keeper with lots of hives, dependent on a supply of ripe queen cells, more successful when a flow is on. A ripe queen cell is placed in the centre of the brood nest, held in place and protected by a cell protector. The cell is kept warm by the natural order of things and in due course the virgin emerges, mates and takes over the old queens position.

A number of points, first it works on an older queen who is about to be replaced. Secondly the cell protector is vital, if the bees didn't put the cell there, then its in the way and going to be removed by the house bees.

Thirdly, to really prove that this system works it is imperative that the old queen was marked; otherwise it takes a much practiced eye to note a young queen from an old one. Finally, the virgin is quite safe; once she has emerged it is very rare that the bees will remove her, provided she's healthy, of course.

Angry Hives. In spite of what some say, angry hives should be eliminated one way or another, even if just to improve the general level of stock. There are some who say angry hives out produce calmer bees. My answer is, only because they're robbers! It is my experience that angry bees will be robbers and cause absolute havoc in the bee yard, robbing out smaller hives, which is where their extra honey comes from. The easiest way to get rid of an angry queen's off spring is to change the queen, but the problem is how? The major problem of course is handling an angry hive. There are a couple of products available to help. Tobacco smoke as smoker fuel has been used for many years. A new product to North America, "Fabi Spray" in an aerosol can, sprayed over the top bars, does a real number on angry bees, calms them right down. Ed. With 911 problems the transport of aerosol canisters is now banned, removing "Fabi Spray" from the North American market. A new product under trial is Bienen-Jet, stay tuned. Another alternative is to remove the flight bees; these usually constitute the older and more aggressive field bees. Remove the hive from its current stand , as little as 30/40 feet will be enough. The older flight bees will go to the old stand leaving behind younger bees, queen, brood etc., and a greatly reduced hive size, it should be a simple matter to locate the queen and deal with her in the above fashion, add the new queen and unite with the old hive bees. It will take approximately 6 weeks to change over to the new queens offspring before you can determine if the stock is calmer or if the problem was a poorly produced queen.

For the amateur beekeeper one major problem is making queens of quality without grafting. The following system was taught to me many years ago and used successfully for a long time till I started producing queens commercially. The sequence is relatively straight forward, and consists of a number of manipulations at set intervals, each one timed to help the bees. First let us set the timing. With all queens rearing, there has to be a nectar flow, or the bees have to be fed, and drones should be flying freely. We start by making up a nuc. To control the breeding we try hard to ensure that there are no eggs or young larvae in the 3 or 5 frames, or you can be sure the bees will start a queen up in an obscure corner somewhere and ruin the whole procedure. Once started in one direction it is almost impossible to re-direct them into the direction you want them to go. One way to achieve an egg less nuc, takes longer, but is overall more effective. To a two box hive add a queen excluder pulling up all open brood into the upper box make sure the queen is in the lower box, wait 7 days. The bees will cap over all open brood, then remove the bottom box to another part of the yard. Needless to say, the queen less nuc is strengthened by the flight bees from the removed box. Check for stray queen cells by shaking most of the bees off the brood frame. You'll be amazed how many cells can be hidden by a bunch of nurse bees! Now add a frame of eggs 24 hours after the split! As it is virtually impossible to get a frame of just eggs without special equipment, it stands to reason that larvae of various ages will be transferred. To ensure that the bees will not use larvae too old it is important to remove those true emergency cells from the nuc after they are made. It is important to remember the bees feeding sequence. When the egg first hatches, 3 days after laying, it is fed Royal Jelly, after it is decided that the larvae is to be a worker the food quality is drastically reduced, this prevents the formation of ovaries and queen pheromones. The bees can even after this time change back to Royal Jelly, and will produce a semi-queen or intercaste, quite capable of laying eggs, but they are usually small and weak, and their egg capacity is very poor. Generally hives with emergency queens become difficult to handle due to an increase in aggression, possibly the lack of sufficient queen pheromones. The break in Royal Jelly feeding is the cause of the poor queen quality. Here comes the real crux of the matter. It is called the 4 day rule and must be strictly adhered to if you wish to be successful. We cut out any cells capped over at 4 days, after the egg frame is added It is important to remember that any cell capped over before 9 days from egg laying will rarely produce quality queens, because of the reasons stated, and are often superseded very quickly, causing the hive to go into decline till a good queen is made. We reduce the number of cells, to concentrate the amount of food fed to each cell, as it takes a lot of bees to feed cells successfully. It is possible to remove excess cells and use them in other nucs, just be very gentle, and wait till the 14th day after laying, and protect with a cell protector. Should you be rough handling those delicate cells it is easy to have queens damaged, without wings and other problems.

Winter a most difficult time for bees, even more so if the bee keeper hasn't prepared the hives correctly. This is the time of year when the most losses occur, mainly through ignorance or bad management the hives are left to their own devices. Often the keeper has stolen the bees winter stores, left them unprotected from the elements, then wonders why the hive is dead come spring. Good wintering techniques start months before the first frost. Let us first consider the reasons why a hive fails in winter. Starvation, poor or failing queens, wet hives, disease or dwindling. Starvation. There is a misconception that honey can be taken from a hive without causing problems. False, bees need, subject to the area they're kept in, approx. 100-140 lbs of stores. Simple math, at 7 lbs per frame tells you how much stores your bees will need. Further South obviously will need less as spring comes earlier. The results of keeping your bees short of winter stores will be obvious in a slow spring build up. See feeding Failing Queens. It is obvious when pointed out that a failing or old queen won't make it through a hard winter, but time after time I find failed queens when analysing others failures. A queen in her second full season has a 50-50 chance of failing over the winter. So my advice, fall re-queen. A young, strong queen entering the winter has a far better chance of heading a strong hive in the early spring, leading to bigger crops. An old queen in the winter will certainly not improve before the spring. Wet Hives. I find it remarkable how many fail to ventilate the hive in the wettest time of the year. Warm air condenses on cold surfaces and forms ice, this then melts in the spring and often drips back into the cluster, a simple top entrance would help. That same top entrance will also prevent suffocation in the event of ice build-up on the entrance reducer. For a more definitive discussion on ventilation see Mod Kit details Disease and Dwindling. Without a proper fall examination for disease a hive with any of the hive diseases, Varroa, Tracheal mites, Foul brood, Chalk brood, the list seems endless, is bound to fail. A hive seems to need a 'critical mass' to be successful. So if the hive is small because of queen problems a better solution might be a unite after culling the worst queen. One strong hive is better than two weak ones, and can always are split come the next year, where two weak ones can fail, leading to no bees. Stock Selection For many years I have advocated using stock bred for use in an area climatically similar to where they are to be hived. There is no point in expecting semi-tropical bees to survive in near Arctic conditions, it is unlikely to happen. It was brought home to me recently that my hypothesis is correct with an e-mail from a customer in Alaska, who managed to winter bees for the first time ever using queens provided by us.

Our Methods We take great care to eliminate all of the above problems then we do the following:Wrap the hive, We use black tar paper. This keeps the hive dry, and stops the snow from wetting the hive sides, it also warms the hive interior on bright sunny days allowing the bees to break cluster and move to stores. A few well-placed B=" staples do a good job of holding it in place. Top entrance. Always, dead bees will sometimes clog a lower entrance as house bees don't fly during the winter. Plus of course it does allow dampness to leave the hive from the top. Cold does not kill bees, wetness does. Insulation. Is really not necessary, trying to keep heat in with a top entrance is futile. Where we add insulation is over the inner cover to stop drafts upwards through the centre vent holes. Add 1B= inches of blue styrene (water resistant) to the inner cover on wrapping, this is far superior to moisture absorbing newspapers, straw or wood shavings. Keep the hive dry is a good adage. We hear of keepers who insulate the whole hive with styrene or fibre glass wraps. My view is that when the internal hive temp drops it will be very difficult to warm it up again as its insulated from the outside warmth, whereas black tar paper absorbs the heat from the sun on clear days and transmits it to the hive interior allowing the bees to move to access food. It is now 19 years since we completed our tests on our system and to date we haven't lost a hive to winter loss, yet. I hate to brag, but I have to believe that finally we have a system that works. Update Approximately 4 years ago I was off work sick and failed to completely wrap one yard. It had 16 hives, all of which were readied for winter in the usual fashion, i.e. 3 boxes, lots of stores, young queens etc., the only difference between them was that 8 were left unwrapped. Once I was fit again I walked around the yard, deep in snow, the results were quite remarkable. It was a bright sunny day, warm out of the wind but the air temperature was still well below freezing point. The wrapped hives had bees at the top entrance and house cleaning was taking place around the bottom entrance, whereas the unwrapped looked dead and only the faint hum said they were still alive. The real advantage was seen when we started working the hives. The wrapped hives took down their early feed much faster, and I commented at the time that they appeared to have more brood, as the rate of feed taken is a good indicator of brood feeding. When the weather warmed enough for us to start spring management the differences were really noticeable. The wrapped hives were far in advance of the unwrapped. They had more brood, were more frugal with the winter stores, had more adult bees, bottom boards were much cleaner, and generally the hives were better placed and ready for spring. The cost of wrapping the hive in black tar paper is approximately $1.50 per hive, not much to avoid the death of a hive. Cost of replacing that hive, over $300, by the time you add the loss of that year's honey crop, replacement and the time and effort cleaning and repairing the hive and frames.

A swarm of bees in May Is worth a load of hay, A swarm of bees in June Is worth a silver spoon, A swarm of bees in July Is not worth a fly! Anon circ 1850 I would submit, the above ditty is antiquated and should have absolutely no bearing on modern beekeeping, it should be ignored during yearly manipulations, but too often beekeepers use the timing contained in the ditty without giving it a real thought. The nursery rhyme was written in the times when bees were kept in straw skeps, and at the end of the season, in Sept, the skeps would be hefted and the heaviest ones killed and harvested. Totally the reverse of modern thinking, as we now feed bees in the times of a dearth of nectar, now we "cull the worst and breed the best" the best being in most cases the heaviest, or best producer. With this new thinking in mind let us examine the yearly manipulations! Re-queening. The industry standard is to re-queen as early as possible, to the point of being ridiculous. I once watched a bee keeper adding queens in the snow! He had ordered early queens, and they came earlier than he anticipated, needless to say he had a lot of failures. Let us examine the timing to see the advantages and disadvantages of each. Advantages of early re-queening. Smaller Hives. Easier to find the Queen Disadvantages Dubious Queens. (Poor mating, lack of proper feeding) Weather. Often cold or damp. Lack of honey flow. Poor acceptance. Now consider the differences in re-queening at a later date, i.e. summer or fall. Advantages of later Re-queening. Better quality queens. (More drones, better feeding) Better weather. Better wintering (younger and stronger queens) Lower swarming next year.

Disadvantages Bigger hives, (difficulty finding queens) Score one for later manipulations. Now let us consider the other manipulation governed by antiquated thinking. Splits or Increases. The way of making increase is to split the main hive, adds a queen and allow the hive to increase big enough to winter over. Traditionally it has to be done early, but if we again examine the methods, we will find the timing could be better. Advantages of early splits. Crop in the first year. Disadvantages. Smaller hives (smaller splits, less available bees) Dubious queens (see above) Weather. (See above) Now let us examine the pros and cons of later timing. Advantages. Bigger hives (larger splits) Better queens Warmer Temperatures More Time. Disadvantages. No crop first year. I think you'll agree, later, in this case is considerably better. It now means that imported bees from Southern areas are unnecessary and summer queens from Northern breeders are finally a very viable proposition. One final point. For many years in the horticultural field it has been agreed that sub-tropical species do poorly in our Northern climate. In other words a Palm tree won't grow in the North. But, we import sub-tropical bees from Southern areas, ostensibly to get an early start, then complain bitterly when they fail to winter. It is generally agreed by knowledgeable bee keepers that bees should be bred for the area where they are to live.

Foundation The very basis of the managed bee hive, often neglected and ignored by many bee keepers, or should I say box keepers. Good bee keepers take trouble with building good comb from foundation and changing those old, damaged, and often diseased frames of black wax. Foundation is created from clean bees wax, pressed into flat sheets each one embossed with the imprint of the cell bottom, either worker or drone sized. In the early days of beekeeping the first foundation was just a sheet of wax, then came embossing or pressing the shape of the cells into the warm sheets. It was found that adding wires to the frames added some stability, to help prevent "drop out". This was when the centre literally fell out of the frame usually on a hot day because there was nothing to hold it in. The next logical step was to add wire to the foundation, usually a crimped wire imbedded part way into the sheet. The ultimate result is a belt and braces effect, two wires. Firstly the frame wire is still installed, then the embedded wire, which causes a major problem, holes. When the bees start to "draw out" or form the cells they try to remove the top wire and where the wires cross dig holes in the foundation trying to remove the wires causing holes in the finished and drawn cells. So, with this problem in mind I would like to suggest the following solutions. If you want wire pick one or the other system, not both. If you want to use wired frames, with all the work involved, then pick unwired foundation. This will allow you to sink your wires to a better level without causing the second wire to buckle out. If you prefer a faster method but still a strong system, then wired foundation but with a split bottom bar which allows the wax and wires to pass through but still be supported. When the foundation is drawn there is less possibility of holes (incomplete drawing) being created along the bottom bar. Too often I see frames where the solid bottom bar does not allow the wax to hang straight in the frame, it buckles forming a 'rumpled sock' look at the bottom of the sheet, this in turn forms cells which the bees have difficulty drawing out correctly, wasted space, as it cannot be used for brood. Even honey storage becomes a problem, seems to confuse the bees who like regularity. Another solution, one which I favour, European foundation. This gives the best of both worlds. The wire is one continuous piece and is threaded up and down across the sheet forming a W which helps to support the sheet. The loop formed at the top and bottom has a useful purpose. The top loop is used under the top wedge and nailed through it, then the bottom loop passes through the split bottom bar and is folded over. This in my opinion has a number of advantages, less work, good strong frames, and usually well drawn cells. Drone Foundation. In the last few years a trend has developed which I think makes things difficult for new bee keepers, the lack of drone foundation. When I was a young bee keeper most used drone foundation in the honey supers with some major advantages.

To list a few, bigger cells, less wax needed to draw the cells, more honey per super, and finally, noticeably faster extraction, its all to do with cell size and surface viscosity. It is quite remarkable just how quickly the extraction is out of drone cells. I have never clocked it but its at least half the machine time. Of course if you are a queen breeder then drone foundation is essential to produce the volume of drones needed for good mating. Finally, as a Varroa treatment drone foundation is most useful. The idea is to persuade the queen to lay in the drone frame by use of a drone brood trap, or even just placing it into the brood

centre, when the frame is sealed then the frame is removed and frozen, complete with the Varroa. The one disadvantage, if you have young queens it is sometimes difficult to persuade them to lay drone eggs, they don't need drones around. If you need more information on this method, please e-mail us. We really should not leave this page without discussing some do's and donts on drawing foundation. Good cell formation and drawing to full depth is dependent on a good flow of nectar. There is absolutely no point in adding foundation to a hive in a dearth, all the bees will do is pull holes in it, using some of the foundation wax in other areas of the hive. If needs be, then feed, but only if there are no honey supers on, adulterating honey with sugar syrup is to be frowned on! It is dangerous to good and accurate drawing to place two frames of foundation together, the bees will draw out the first frame too deep, making it difficult to use the adjacent frame. The ideal situation, wherever possible, is to add frames by interleaving the frames of foundation with frames of drawn comb. This will prevent the formation of cross frame burr comb, and also prevent oversized comb, as the frame alongside will limit the distance drawn.

Varroa the modern Black Plague of bee hives, a guaranteed killer if left untreated for any length of time. The devastation wreaked by this mite is now known worldwide and the amount of hives destroyed are incalculable, add the lost crops due to poor pollination and the loss will run into billions. I do not intend, in these pages, to deal with the Varroa life cycle that is well documented in other areas of the web. This page will deal with our findings on alternative treatments against Varroa without our resorting to Apistan or Formic Acid, because of our dislike and distrust of chemicals We discovered Varroa in our yards, mid Oct 98 just before winter wrap up. Desperation. Visions of lost hives and income! We added Apistan knowing full well it would have to remain in the hives till spring, against all the rules, as we cannot open hives in late November. Now it is early spring 99, the Apistan is coming out, and in spite of it we are still losing hives. Our aim, to work up a control method to bypass the use of Apistan, but to control Varroa, especially in our mating yards, using the information from James Amrine http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/ and the oil treatment of Dr. Pedro Rodriguez www.birkey.com Late in the year, maybe August we will do a drop test with Apistan to check our findings. The first treatment was made late March. Using our spring stimulation feeding we fed wintergreen essential oil to every hive in sugar syrup. It seems that feeding close to the entrance, in our case the top of the hive, it persuades the bees that nectar is coming in. The first rule of the hive, incoming nectar is fed to the brood, second, the house bees, then finally the excess is then stored. If the incoming volume is kept low, then little will be stored. It is believed that this treatment interferes with the chemical sensors of the Varroa, in which case they cannot find the brood where they breed and reproduce. Our first job was to adjust the information available to us, and to scale up the measurements to useable amounts, we settled on 1 gallon as a useful figure. James reported that oil is difficult to mix into the sugar syrup, but that honey has a natural emulsifier. We used approximately half lbs of honey, added 100 drops of wintergreen, stirring till mixed thoroughly and fully incorporated. To this we added equal amounts of warm water, then finally added this mixture to our 1-1 sugar syrup. At all points where we were dealing with the essential oil we kept the temperature to a minimum to prevent loss of essence. We found that the oil was totally absorbed and fully integrated with the above method. To date we have had two treatments alternating with regular 1-1 syrup with apple cider vinegar, a normal treatment of ours. We intend to keep this treatment method going until there is a natural nectar flow, at that point we intend to use FGMO ( food grade mineral oil) and tobacco smoke during our normal hive manipulations. It is now early May. Yesterday we started Spring management. In our case it involves a total hive strip, each frame is removed and examined for problems, and an assessment of hive and queen viability. We are pleasantly surprised at the overall quality. Apart from one hive that was very small, mainly because the stores were below the cluster, all hives were in good condition. Good sized clusters and little sign of Varroa. No small and damaged bees. One big plus, it appears that the FGMO we used last fall helps to prevent any burr comb forming on the frame top bars, ours were remarkably clean.

We are still feeding wintergreen as needed, but we have now started with tobacco in the smoker and a thin line of FGMO on the top bars every time we open the hive, or every week at least. Just out of interest, the amount of tobacco in the smoker is quite small, about B= oz. We make a pocket of a facial tissue, sprinkle dry tobacco on it then roll it into our corrugated cardboard, like a giant

cigar. Lit from the bottom it burns a long time. Now I know why the old members of our guild used to smoke a cigar while working bees, the effect on them is quite remarkable. Calm, quiet, no aggression and no threats from the bees. It is now Sept and there is more to report. Mid Aug we performed an Apistan drop test on two hives. A regular 3 box hive, also a drone mother hive, having been told that excess drones tend to breed extra Varroa mites. We recorded a 24 hour drop on hive one of 100 mites and the latter hive in 24 hours of over 200, so breeding extra drones does produce more mites. To be totally frank, at the time I was extremely disappointed with the results, all that work only to find Varroa in what I considered to be high numbers, but then I had no experience in Varroa numbers just before the normal time for Apistan, i.e. Fall. At the same time I enlisted the help of a customer of ours, he was about to add Apistan to his regular hives and agreed to a drop test for us. Using a hive which had no treatment after May 24th, when the Apistan strips were removed, two strips were added and a tray inserted for 24 hours. The results were truly astounding, the tray was black with Varroa, thousands and thousands, just incredible amounts. Over the years we have heard of hives failing to make it through the winter even with Apistan strips in. Having seen the amounts of Varroa on those drop tests I can see why, the damage to the bees must be considerable at a time when new undamaged bees would be hard to come by. Bees emerging in the late summer, early fall, will go through the winter into early spring, it stands to reason that Varroa damaged bees are unlikely to make it, leading to winter hive death. We dispensed with the tobacco fairly early on in the season, even though it appeared to be of benefit during our manipulations. As an ex-smoker we found the smell to be very offensive, it clung to clothes and the vehicles smelled all the time of tobacco. The use of essential oil combined with FGMO has definitely shown promise in our first attempt. The volume of Varroa is low, damage to the bees is visually insignificant, and the overall health of the hives is excellent. On looking back and studying my notes I must confess that I could have been more diligent in the application of the FGMO but pressures and priorities can throw havoc into good intensions. Today I found some Varroa damaged bees, small and wingless. This from a hive that was angry and marked for re-queening, on checking for satisfactory queen acceptance I noticed a number of damaged bees. From last years experience of angry bees robbing out dying hives and returning with massive infestations of Varroa, I can only surmise that this hive is suffering from the same problem. Hopefully we have caught it in time and with a new queen and treatment it can be saved. A word of warning! There is nothing to be achieved in visually looking for Varroa, you cannot see it on the bees, if you can then the volume of Varroa is reaching critical amounts.

We are now wrapping up our queen rearing for the year, and dismantling our baby nucs used for queen rearing. These hives have been used all summer long raising and mating queen cells to laying queens and were treated with FGMO every time a queen was harvested. As the new cell was introduced a quick squirt of FGMO was run across all the frame tops. The interesting point, there is no signs of Varroa whatsoever! These are disposable units with a few hundred bees, at the season end, the brood is allowed to emerge and then all bees are removed to a larger hive. On extensive

examination there are no signs of Varroa. The roofs of the cells have been examined under a large magnifying lens and there is no sign of Varroa faces normally seen after emerging brood. Conclusions. Varroa left untreated will kill hives, eventually. Subject to a variety of circumstances, sometimes quickly, occasionally over a period of years. Essential oil does minimise Varroa in the early spring. FGMO will help in keeping numbers in check, until the hive becomes large, by that I mean 3 deep brood boxes, at which stage the treatment becomes diluted by the sheer volume of bees. My thinking at that point would be to either increase the dosage or the amount of treatments per week. Where to from here? I have already succumbed to Apistan again this year. The loss of hives last year, the amount of time spent this year cleaning up dead outs was devastating and an economic disaster, we cannot afford to go through that again. Finally, I personally believe that is helpful in our control methods, I fully intend to use it next season with wintergreen in the early spring, but this time I shall be more diligent in its application in the hope of eliminating Apistan and Formic Acid. NEW I wrote the above articles some 3 years ago and while my methodology has changed just slightly, the results are still the same. It is now fall 2001, we are putting the bees to bed for the winter and without qualms as to their ability to winter over. On sampling for Varroa we find only small samples, certainly not the massive infestations first found when Varroa came into our area, which devastated our hives. We do not use harsh chemicals nor have we used formic acid, we have managed to avoid that particular pitfall and our bees are healthy. Apistan is still part of our regime, but only because our livelihood depends on bees, if I was a little braver, then I am convinced it would be possible to manage without it. After a great deal of observation and discussion I have come to the conclusion that once the initial infestation has gone, and all feral hives have died, that area of re-infestation is over. Having watched some of the hives we used to have, coming home laden with Varroa caused by their robbing habits, those days are gone. Thank goodness. So, if one treats with a variety of treatments, giving it, its fancy title 'integrated pest management', then coping with Varroa isn't the dangerous problem we were lead to believe. This is not to make light of a serious problem, but only to reassure, we can keep bees with Varroa in the hives.

Swarming, in simple terms Mother Nature's way of making increase, but in reality a difficult occurrence for bees and beekeepers, often both swarmed hive and swarm fail during the first winter, and the keeper's honey crop disappears. In the author's opinion swarming is caused by poor beekeeping and should be discouraged wherever possible. There are three main reasons for a hive to swarm, in the normal course of events a cared for hive will not swarm without strong provocation. Congestion, too many bees for the hive space, leading to no cells for the queen to lay in to. Heat An overheated hive will need to reduce the volume of bees, this can often be signalled by a bee beard hanging over the hive entrance, and these are usually field bees pushed out by the house bees in an attempt to reduce the hive temperature. Lack of ventilation An old queen. It has been noted that an older queen's pheromone production reduces with age, the bees sense a lack of queen pheromone in their food exchange and the swarming impulse is triggered. The sequences of events leading to a swarm are very predictable. First the hive makes what I often think is a momentous decision, to pack up and leave what has possibly been a good home. A number of queen cells are started, these look like a peanut husk, usually at the bottom of the frames between the first and second box, plus one or two in the centre of the frames. Once these are started the bees will begin reducing the egg laying of the queen, by reducing the amount of food fed to her. This has the effect of slimming her down ready for flight, which causes problems for beekeepers when it is necessary to find her, as she will be not much bigger than a regular bee, just a different colour. While this is happening all brood will be sealed off, the cells sealed, and on the first nice day after that the swarm issues. This is quite an incredible sight, thousands upon thousands of bees take to the air, the noise is quite frightening and after some milling around, away they go. Often to a tree quite close to the hive they issued from as the queen has to get used to flying, sometimes they'll return to the hive and wait for another day. If they do land on an accessible branch then that's the perfect time to rehive them in a hive, or even a cardboard box! Taking a swarm can be a disappointment, the main problem is failing to get the queen into the box. Having shaken, scooped up, or even picked up in handfuls, bees dumped into a box will leave again, blink, turn around and they're back in the tree. This can only be because the queen was not taken, the bees know quickly and then go looking for her. As an aside, it is acceptable to handle bees by the handful when trying to box them, their honey sacs are so full it becomes impossible for them to bend their tails to sting. Be cautious with a swarm which has issued days earlier, they can be empty having used up their stores and can be angry. Now you know where the stores went from the hive left behind. I remember the first swarm I took at age 12 on my paper route one spring morning. I dashed home for a cardboard box, without a smoker, veil or any protection, shook them into the box, tucked them under my arm and rode home on my bike. Dangerous to say the least, having grown up I now realise how foolhardy I was!!! The interesting point was to watch them march into the hive I had provided, a fabulous sight which should be experienced by all beekeepers sometime in their beekeeping career. Put down a white sheet in front of the hive and dump the bees onto it, now they get the smell and away they go, if you're observant you can see the queen go in.

We have a standard practice during our swarming season of checking hives every 10 days, a simple check involves a quick inspection for eggs. The hive front is gently smoked, the roof and inner cover removed and more smoke across the top bars and a cover cloth placed over the box top. In the early season the brood will often be in the top box, so a quick inspection starting at the front of the box should reveal an egg pattern. Later in the season it might be necessary to check the lower box. Once eggs are found the inspection can be finished as it will be at least 10 more days before 'sealed' cells will be found. Horror upon horror, no eggs and queen cells are found! Am I going to lose the hive? A great deal depends on what stage the swarm hive has got to. If the cells are not sealed then the urgency is removed. Should the cells be sealed then fairly swift action needs to be taken as they won't be long before they leave. Nothing is achieved by cutting out cells in the hope they'll change their minds! It just doesn't happen. The bees are looking for help, they need either more brood space, less bees or more ventilation. You as the beekeeper have to decide which, and then give it to them. This is the perfect time to make increase, in others words a split. Take away all the cells and the frames they're on, plus a good number of bees, and often the bees will feed the queen to get her into laying condition again, and swarming is forgotten. There is really no need to move the hive a long way away, as a shaken swarm will stay where they are put and not return to the main hive. Assuming that nothing is done and the hive does swarm, the keeper is not around to take the main swarm, so lots of bees are lost. What happens to the hive? Well, the entire honey crop has left with the swarm, the hive is greatly reduced in size, and in fact opening a hive which has swarmed is quite depressing. There will be very few bees, practically no flight bees at the entrance, lots of sealed brood and a number of cells. The first cell to emerge generally kills all other cells. The virgin stings her unborn rivals through the cell side and the bees then remove the dead occupant. A good point to note, all emerged cells are open at the end, destroyed cells are open through the side. Sometimes the bees will keep the virgins in their cells, in which case afterswarms will issue, even days after the main event. The ideal, check the hive after the swarm has gone and reduce the cells to two or three, no more or the hive will continue to swarm weakening it even more. Timing of the hive's return to normal? Assuming that the virgin emerges safely, it will take approximately 3-4 days before she goes out to mate, hopefully she'll return to the hive and set up shop, and roughly 4-5 days later she'll start laying eggs. Then of course it will take a great deal of time to build the hive back to its former glory, and often no honey crop as the hive will be too small in its first year. In the opening statement of this page, I stated that swarming was a difficult occurrence for both bees and keeper, so I hope this has explained why. I would also like to ask the question:- Don't you think that a new queen every two years and more hive inspections would save a great deal of grief and trouble?

Over the last couple of years I have been involved with a number of hives which failed to grow in size, or to produce a crop, almost 'stagnating' as one customer put it. I had been asked to examine the hive which seemed to be queen right, with a young self-made queen, and what appeared to be a full sized brood nest, but it was not putting up honey, nor growing in size.

The first step was an examination of the hive in question. A quick look through the hive didn't show up any problem, lots of brood in the frames, a good number of bees and some honey in the upper frames, but totally empty honey supers. I questioned as to the history of the hive and was told it had swarmed early in the year and that the hive population was growing, but not as fast as was thought necessary. A further examination found an interesting problem. Brood of different ages in the same frame, and further examination showed that most if not all frames had the same problem. At first look, lots of capped brood, but lots of brood of different ages even some eggs in the middle of the capped brood! A good queen, well mated, will lay up a complete frame of eggs which then hatch all at the same time, the bees then cap off the whole frame and rarely is it necessary for the queen to go back infilling. It now becomes obvious, if a queen lays up 100% but only 50% are viable then the hive will not increase in size, nor will the hive be efficient in its use of brood space, leading to the queen constantly going back over the same ground time after time. In this problem hive it was only just self-sufficient, certainly not profitable for the keeper. There are some who keep bees, just for the sake of keeping bees, but in all cases honey, surplus honey, even a small amount, has to be the reason for spending so much time looking after them. Over the last few years Varroa has changed forever our methods of keeping bees and mating queens, and this is what I think is happening to cause 'slow hives'. Some bee keepers have, for many years, relied on ferals (wild hives) to help out with Queen mating, those feral hives in trees, barns and outhouses helped to provide a cross section of drones to add mating diversity. With the advent of Varroa all that has changed, no more feral hives! The only bees around are kept bees, medicated by bee keepers to help maintain healthy hives. Suddenly the mating diversity that we relied on to help mate our 'self-made' queens has gone, and we are left with the drones provided by our own hives, and here is the crux of the matter. Should you try to mate a queen too close to her own family line, even her own brother, as can easily happen, then diploid eggs are produced. The closer to, and lack of other line diversity leads to more and more diploids being produced, the eggs will fail and are removed by the bees, producing holes in the brood pattern. This leads the queen to come back in-filling and this is where the brood of various ages comes from and when the problem becomes apparent. There is a way of determining whether your hive is a slow one or not, try adding an empty brood frame to the middle of the brood nest, then note the brood development over a complete cycle. If you find a pattern as described, then you'll need to take some action in the queen rearing and mating area of your operation. So what can be done? Firstly it is important to acknowledge the problem. They say, "the first step to getting well, is to admit to being sick"! The same applies to keeping bees, the first step is to admit a problem, too many don't even realise or care that they, or rather their bees, have a problem!

Analyse the problem and ask some questions. Where did the bees come from? Did they come from the same dealer, could they be all related? If so then it's important to increase the 'line' diversity. What is meant by 'line'? This is the family line. Bees from the same queen are produced from the same family 'line', and will add nothing to the mating diversity, you need bees from different 'mother' queens, even from a different dealer if necessary. As a queen breeder we discovered this some time ago and developed different lines of bees, just to ensure that our mating diversity was sufficient to give a good egg laying pattern in our queens that we mate. I have written before that 'self-made' queens, or 'walk away splits' rarely produce good quality queens, this is just one area that helps to prove the point. My advice. Doesnt waste time, if you haven't the time or ability to produce quality queens, then buy from a good breeder, and re-queen your hives with a quality product every two seasons, it is false

economy to let nature take its course with such an important item, your hive will thank you with a better crop

We have been breeding bees and Queens for the last 12 years, commercially, and for a long time as amateurs on an 'as needed basis' and during all of that time have had a feeling that the selection process that we all use to determine the best for breeding purposes is badly flawed. The standard method of selection has been to note the best hive around, check out all the features we would like to see in our bees, for example, temper, disease resistance, honey gathering, even hygiene, and finally bee colouration. With these criteria established the hive in question would then be either rejected or used as either a queen or drone mother. Even with all the criteria, plus care in rearing methods occasionally queens would not 'measure up' to the potential that was possible. Why should a queen who came from the best stock hive available, plus mated under controlled conditions turn nasty, or fail to make a good crop, while a sister queen did a magnificent job? Despite a great deal of personal research, nowhere could I find a satisfactory answer to that question, I had a feeling that something was missing, a part of the puzzle wasn't available to complete the full breeding picture, well finally I believe I have found that missing part in Morphometry. I was lead to believe that until quite recently the only true test to establish racial or strain characteristics was by DNA testing, an expensive and time consuming procedure beyond the scope of most bee keepers. Actually, I have been informed that morphometry methods have been with us much longer than the DNA methods. The Germans were using morphometry extensively 50 years ago, and the 'Father' of morphometry, C.Goetze published papers in 1930, 1940 and 1964 on morphometry. Freidrich Ruttner also published work on morphometry from 1975 until his death a few years ago. Now with the publication of the morphometry methods even amateur bee keepers can adopt methods to improve the quality of their stock without expensive tests or equipment. If we use dog breeding as an example of interchanging genes due to cross breeding, then a better understanding of the problems we face will be more apparent. Take a Golden Retriever and a Black Lab, mix the races by mating, and now try to establish which genes will predominate in the offspring. Genetics tell us that we will see, Golden; mixed colour and Black, plus of course facial and coat differences and in some cases changes in behaviour. Now should we select the second generation Golden to mate, then what other genes are already incorporated but not apparent by visual inspection, its possible a percentage of Black. The same applies to bees, while we continue to just examine our bees for colour then we cannot be sure what race they are, or the degree of mixture, hybridisation or mongrelisation that occurs within those same bees. If we should now use a queen who has an off mixture of strains in her genes, then which of those genes will be in her offspring will be impossible to predict. This becomes a problem for the breeder, 'unpredictability' is a dirty word if one is trying to make a living from breeding bees. Should the original queen have for example, Apis mellifera mellifera (A.m.m) plus Apis mellifera ligustica (A.m.l) all mixed together, which of those genes will come to predominance in her offspring. Genetics tell us that there will be mixture of both; some will predominate with A.m.m while others will have A.m.l, and yet others will have a mixture of all genes again like the mother. It doesn't take a genius to realise that under these circumstances that predictable offspring is virtually impossible and can explain our original question of why some queens don't measure up. It can also explain how second generation queens often turn ugly, but can also be as good as the original mother, you will have at best a 50-50 chance of picking the right one, and depending on the original mother's mixture, even less!

About 2 years ago we noticed that bees coming from our baby nucs used for mating queens were showing signs of hybridisation, odd bees that were grey in colour compared to our usual bright Italian (A.m.l) colour. We immediately changed the queen mother and started investigating, why?

The colour changed back, but slightly darker than we were accustomed to, even though the original queen mother was our usual bright colour and the incidence of off colour bees hadn't increased. There really wasn't an apparent answer until this year when it was decided we needed to investigate further, using Morphometry to test our bees for strain variation, the answer was immediately obvious. We have hybridisation of varying degrees in our breeder stock! Having tested two hives, out of curiosity, and found a degree of crossing, it was decided that a full investigation of all breeding stock was necessary to establish the amount of crossing, and further to enable adjustments to be made for the next season. We had always assumed that our bees were relatively clean with regard to crosses, boy, were we in for a surprise. Someone once wrote, To know where you are going, it is also necessary to know where you have been' how true that statement is. One of the first hives to be tested was the original queen that started producing off colours; her numbers showed that she was strongly A.m.m and would never produce Italian offspring, even though her general colour was the same as all the rest. (Her scattergram is reproduced below.) The second hive, a drone mother hive of this year produced good numbers in the Italian range, but also spikes of A.m.m, signifying a cross that would add off genes to the mating area. We have now completed the testing for this year; some queens have been totally rejected and will be moved and at a later date, culled and replaced. Others are noted that can still be used and replaced at a later date, and lucky for us, others proved to be highly successful and will be used to improve the stock even further, all thanks to Morphometry. Before I get lots of mail giving further advice regarding selection, I should point out, morphing is only carried out when all other selection criteria have been established, and is the final act in the selection process.|| There is nothing to gain if swarmy, bad tempered bees are propagated just in an attempt to clean the bees of crossed genes. I stated earlier that Morphometry was a method of measuring bee anatomy to establish race or strain characteristics and an understanding of the necessary measuring points might be useful. First and foremost, wing veins. A right forewing is mounted in the proscribed fashion and measurements are taken of interspatial areas that produce Cubital Index (CI) and Discoidal Shift (DS). These measurements can be achieved in two manners and will be discussed in due course. Tongue length, Tomentum and Hair length are additional measurements, which can be added to confirm the findings of CI and DS and the BIBBA site has these details. Courtesy of the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeding Association. Link to BIBBA http://www.bibba.com for their information Start Quote: The definitions of the terms are as follows:Cubital index is the ratio between two segments in the cubital cell in a bee's wing. Discoidal shift is a measurement, again in the wing, which measures the position of the discoidal joint in relation to the lower joint in the radial cell. Length of over hairs, this is strictly the length of the over-hairs on the fifth tergite, a tergite being one of the segments of the abdomen. Width of tomentum, this is the width of the band of hair on the abdomen segments. Selection based on Morphometry The comparison of the cubital index, and discoidal shift of the wing venation of honeybees together with the body colour, can be used to give an indication of a colony's potential as a breeder

queen. This is to determine if the colony (or rather the queen that is heading the colony) is a pure race one or a hybrid.
Table for the comparison of the main external characters of the four principal races of European Bees A.m.melifera "Dark' bee General Appearance Body Colour Workers Body Colour Drones Index Mean Spread Index Mean Spread Shift Overhairs on 5th tergite Hair Colour Drones Cubital workers 1.7 1.3 - 2.1 Cubital Drones 1.3 1.0 - 1.5 Discoidal Negative Long 0.4 - 0.6mm Brown - Black 1.6 - 2.0 Positive Short 0.2 - 0.3mm Yellowish 1.8 1.8 - 2.3 Positive Short Medium 0.25 - 0.35mm Grey Brown 0.25mm Grey Zero Short 2.0 2.0 - 2.7 2.3 2.4 - 3.0 2.7 1.7 - 2.3 2.0 Dark Yellow rings small Large, broad short limbs A.m.Ligustica Italian Medium slim, long limbs size, A.M.Car A.m.Caucasic nica a Carniolan Caucasian Medium size, slim, long limbs

Workers 1, 2 or 3 Yellow Black, Black with Black,may have small spots rings. may have small perhaps spots or rings on the 2nd tergite. may also Scutellum may be spots or 1 ring be yellow coloured. leather. Dark

Tomentum Narrow, less than Broad, more Broad Broad, plenty width on 4th of width. Hairs may be than of width. Hairs abundant hair. of hair. tergite at widest part Yellowish may be yellowish. Bee looks grey Bee looks grey. Proboscis (tongue) Mean Range Short. 6.0mm 5.8 - 6.2mm Long 6.5mm 6.3 - 6.6mm Long 6.6mm 6.4 - 6.8mm Longest 7.0mm 6.7 - 7.2mm

End Quote There are two different methods of measuring for Morphometry, the older projector method (see below) and the newer computer method, using a scanner and graphic software. A speadsheet which can be used with MS Excel has been supplied by Ruary Rudd from Ireland rrudd@eircom.net and with our assistance, fine-tuned by us. This file can be downloaded from this site and needs a scanner capable of resolving 1200 dpi Optical, in both vertical and horizontal axis, a graphics handling program with X-Y plotting, a printer would be an advantage. To save space I have listed operating procedure in a separate download file called 'Readme' this file while small is VITAL if you wish to be successful. Please ensure that you follow the instructions enclosed. Download Files Computer Method

Morphometry plotting.ftp://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/plotting.zip plotting scan

spread sheet for

Readme.bsp http://www.beeworks.com/morhometry/readme.htm scanner operating method. Sample Grid ftp://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/gridbox.zip useful for assembling samples. Projector Method Measuring Tools ftp://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/tools.zip required for projector method. Morph scattergram Record Card ftp://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/morph30.zip complete with

Projector instructions ftp://www.beeworks.com/morphometry/projector.zip sample set up instructions

T his sam ple resul ts show s a hybri d quee n, stron gly Dark bee (A.m.m) with slight amounts of Italian (A.m.l) and is the queen that caused us to sit up and take notice. Coloured as Italian, but useless to us as an Italian breeder queen. The results of these measurements should be compared to the table of racial characteristics of both the scattergram and frequency chart to understand the numbers involved.

The above sample shows a hybrid queen, strongly Italian (A.m.l) with slight amounts of Carniolan (A.m.carnica) and minute amounts of Dark bee (A.m.m) The queen from this hive produced a hive with all the good qualities we look for in our bees and will go on in its second year to produce a quality product. Examine the above numbers and compare them to the next set shown below.

Incredible as it seems, this queen is a sister to the one shown previously. Very strong, Dark Bee (A.m.m) with very little Italian (A.m.l). This hive, while still acceptable to some keepers, did not grow as fast as the previous example, and will be removed at the first opportunity as being below our normal standards.

Conclusions. The information I have enclosed on this page will create a deal of discussion as it tends to go against the accepted principals, but I would hope that open minded bee keepers will examine this information and come to the same conclusions that we have.

The above information is offered free and clear, with one proviso, credit must be given to the authors if you intend to re-publish. Supplied in the sincere hope that bee keepers will use the information to improve as much as possible the particular strain of bees they maintain. We have over the years, and I am as much to blame as others, indiscriminately added different strains of bees to suit the particular 'fad and fancy' as advertised at the time. In the short term it might improve your stock, but in the long term the gain is minimal, due to mongrelisation of both your stock and your neighbours. We can no longer work and breed bees in isolation, by that I mean ignoring what our neighbours are doing; more can be achieved by consultation rather than confrontation. It is my opinion that a true strain of bee will outperform any second-generation hybrid under the same conditions. We have already noticed a vast improvement when handling our bees since these new ideas has been implemented. This year for the first time we worked the yards in T-shirt and shorts, and often without smoke, a far cry from the angry bees we had a few years ago. I firmly believe we should all stop searching for the Holy Grail of beekeeping, i.e. The Super Bee, there is no such thing! I would like to thank The Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association for being first to publish their information, the information gleaned encouraged me to examine my methods of queen breeding and make what I believe to be major adjustments and improvements to my methods.

Wax moths can be a terrible problem to bee hives if allowed to get out of hand and will destroy brood comb in a very short time if unchecked. There are some simple steps to prevent the damage, but first it might be simpler to discuss the life cycle to understand where the problem comes from. A normal healthy hive will keep wax moth under control by ejecting the larvae, but weakened hives with small populations can be overcome by wax moth infestations destroying the brood comb, ultimately destroying the hive. There are two varieties of moth which take delight in dining on wax the 'Greater' and also the 'Lesser' Wax Moth the greater wax moth is a mottled grey in colour approx. 1 -1B= inches in length while the lesser is smaller and slimmer approx. B= inch in length and white/silver. As all moths, they prefer night time to mate and lay eggs. (Photos are available in our picture gallery.) Most wax moths are seen in early summer in our area, and we see them under the overhang of hive roofs, out of the daylight, when the hive is disturbed they take off quickly and disappear into the trees. Preferring to work in the dark the moths enter the hive through top entrances left unscreened and unguarded by the bees, perhaps a sudden cold snap making the bees cluster, and lay eggs in cracks unavailable to the bees. These hatch in due course and the grey larvae begin feeding on wax and hive debris, tunnelling just under the cell caps and feeding on the discarded cocoons left by the bees, leaving behind an extremely sticky white web, similar to spiders web but almost impossible to pull apart. So perhaps they are misnamed and should be called Cocoon moths? With a little care wax moth can be outwitted and the damage they do can be prevented. First, the practice of top entrances should be examined, provided they have screening then there will be no problem. Leaving a big hole in the inner cover, then a badly fitting roof, is just asking for trouble. Or even worse those holes drilled in the top of boxes allowing the bees a second entrance are a real problem. Apart from pollen in the honey, a cold evening and the bees pull down and form a cluster leaving that entrance unguarded, easy pickings for the wax moth, as they will fly in cooler conditions than bees. They do say that prevention is better than cure. I have already given one way, using screening to prevent wax moth entering the hive top. The second point could be to use a trap to draw the moths away from the hive area. There are, to my knowledge, no commercial wax moth traps, but we use a country cure which works extremely well and I would recommend to all. Take a 2 litre plastic pop bottle and drill a 1 inch hole just below the slope on the neck, then add 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 half cup vinegar and finally 1 banana peel. Wait a few days till it starts to ferment, then tie it into a tree close to the hives. This trap will draw the wax moth, they enter the hole can't get out and drown in the liquid, this will even draw in and kill the bald faced hornet. Assuming you have followed the above instructions, then you should be able to prevent damage, but what to do if you have already a problem of wax moth? Extensive damage, evidenced by the white webs, might be simpler to burn and start again. In cases of minor infestations pull out any larvae you can see and clean out all webs. Freezing is a very good way of killing larvae and eggs, so storage in an outside unheated shed during the winter can be useful. Boxes should have a screen top and bottom to prevent mouse damage and allow light to filter down as wax moth prefer the dark. There are also preventative treatments to treat boxes of drawn brood comb if the above suggestions cannot be incorporated into your management regimes, there is no need to treat honey

supers as they don't normally hold brood cocoons. One is a product called Certan, mixed with water and sprayed on the comb with a garden pressure sprayer. This is the only biological larvaecide available for wax moth control, it has no effect on you, your honey, bees or wax. Used just before storage or before the comb is placed on the hive it is ingested by the larvae and kills from the inside out. The second treatment is placed onto the stacked pile of boxes during storage and consists of ParadiChlorBenzene crystals. These are used over newspaper in the stack, needs airing out before use. Contrary to public opinion wax moth can be controlled, but I stress that prevention is better than cure, and the simplest way is to prevent wax moth getting into the hive through gaps and spaces.

Honey. Nature's Golden Treat. The sight of the golden stream running from the extractor spigot for the very first time, is the most wondrous sight for newbie beekeepers. The culmination of months or maybe years of working bees to produce the first crop of this wonderful product successfully, has to be a sense of pride and wonder. Then to dip a finger and taste the sweetness and flavour truly is a moment to savour, but is just a first step in the processing and care necessary to maintain a quality product. Honey has a property where bacteria will not live in it, which tempts some to forget it is a food product and do not treat it in a proper fashion. The hygiene of honey processing should be of the highest standard throughout the whole process, clean surfaces, stainless steel equipment, and kept as clean as possible. Never pack honey in used containers unless they have been sterilised. There are a number of different ways to produce the results of the bees hard work, liquid, cut comb, granulated, creamed honey and a variety of flavourings, even fruit and nuts. How about Garlic honey? Let us discuss them and some of the points likely to cause problems.

Liquid Honey. Straight from the comb via the extractor, newly run honey will be a light liquid, at room temperature slow to run out and filter. Its running speed can be improved by gentle heat, too much can damage the natural enzymes and also the flavour, some of which are very subtle. A simple way of doing this is to wrap a low voltage heater cable around the extractor, too high a voltage and there is the danger of burning the contents. It is advisable to fine filter when leaving the extractor as granulation starts on any solid particles remaining in the honey, granulation being the crystallisation and hardening to a solid lump. It stands to reason that filtering will delay granulation for some time, but ultimately good honey at the correct water content etc. will granulate. I tell my customers it's a sign of good honey.

Water content is important, to store honey successfully requires carefully monitoring of the state of the honey when taken from the hive. The general guide is that nothing more than 10% uncapped honey should be extracted for storage. Uncapped honey is 'green' and because of the excess water content it will ferment in storage, and fermenting honey has a foul taste. The ideal treatment for uncapped honey at the end of the season, extract it and feed it back to the bees in a hive top feeder. We take off honey approximately 3 times per season, this is to take advantage of the subtle colour shifts and the tremendous flavour variances. Early run honey, in our area, produces a light yellow runny honey with a mild taste. Later in the season it darkens and the flavour is more intense, while late summer early fall, will produce a darker honey which granulates very quickly, but turns a beautiful white on creaming. Cut Comb Honey. There is an art to cut comb honey, but even newbie keepers can, with a slight change in equipment produce it. All it takes is a change of foundation in the honey super frames, these can be interspersed with regular honey frames and withdrawn when fully capped. The ideal time to add the cut comb frames is during or just before the main flows, then frequently check the frames and when capped remove and replace with either more cut comb or regular honey frames. The idea of checking

frequently is to prevent too much 'traffic' over the capping which would darken or make them 'dirty' looking. Capped frames can be stored for processing at a later date. Books will often say to freeze the frames overnight to kill wax moth larvae. My answer is, there shouldn't be wax moth in new frames of cut comb foundation. Your choice, I personally have never had to do it and haven't had a wax moth problem. You can cut the comb with a sharp knife, transferring it to the packing containers, after allowing it to drain on a 'cooling rack' for a short while. One problem with trying to pack by hand is getting the correct size, if you pack different sizes, then your customers might object. A better idea would be to use a cut comb cutter, available from Equipment Sales on this site, you'll also find suitable containers there as well. Cut comb honey cells eaten with a silver spoon from an attractive comb honey container has to be the most impressive taste, absolute heaven. You should try it, just once. Creamed Honey. It might be better to call this 'European Creamed Honey' as I have never seen proper creamed honey here in North America. The creamed honey I was raised on as a child is buttery soft, no gritty feel on your tongue, and it will stay soft indefinitely, unlike the style produced locally which is hard as a rock and gritty to the tongue, it would be possible to break concrete with it. It is a relatively simple procedure to produce good creamed honey, patience is a good asset! You start with a 50-70lbs pail of clear fine filtered honey, a late run in the summer will produce a better quality creaming, and its all to do with the sugar content, Aster honey is ideal. Temperature is not critical, but certainly a cooler temp is necessary. Once the pail has lost its filtering heat, add a small jar of creamed honey as a seed. If you're not fortunate enough to have a good seed, then take a jar of granulated and mash it in a mortar and pestle, or similar, until the contents are smooth and soft and grit free, add this to the pail. This is where the patience is necessary. Twice per day, morning and evening, take a 'creamer', a mixer plate on a long handle, and working to the bottom of the pail gently turn over the honey, trying hard not to incorporate air into the contents. It is important to mix right to the bottom, otherwise pockets will 'granulate' causing areas of hard crystals which do not re-mix easily. Eventually it becomes more difficult to push the mixer to the bottom of the pail, approximately 3 weeks, at which time the pail can be put on one side as 'done'. Creamed honey is the basis for a number of treats. Add fruit of almost any type, apple flavour is a little 'weak', lemon and orange or 'strong' flavours are good choices to overcome the honey flavour, water or excess liquid should be avoided to prevent fermentation. Nuts can make for interesting flavours, the sweet and sharp tastes are delightful. Some food flavourings can be added, even spices like cinnamon, and creamed honey is the start of Cinnamon Honey Butter. Experiment! Honey properties. Honey has a number of useful properties apart from tasting good. It is bacteria resistant, bugs will not live in it, and so it adds a useful treatment for wounds and scalds. Cuts, abrasions and scalds can be covered in honey, it prevents bacteria from entering and healing is encouraged, a further advantage the cut edge does not dry out helping to prevent scarring and easy removal of any dressing. So a good covering of honey before adding the dressing is all that's needed. Pasteurizing is not encouraged. This is a practice, by the packers of super market honey, to help prevent granulation on the market shelf. Basically it is a heating process which damages some of the enzymes, which are good for you, plus it damages the subtle flavours, also the healing properties are not as good. Best to use 'raw' honey from a local source.

If you have a problem with hard granulation then a gentle heat will change creamed and granulated honey back to liquid, just stand the jar in a bowl of hot water and wait a while, it is possible to 'do' the same thing in a Microwave oven, just use a very low temp setting Finally, I did mention 'Garlic honey' earlier in this FAQ! Not as strange as it sounds, makes a delightful baste for meats, either in the oven or BBQ. Take a jar and fill with cleaned garlic cloves, pressing down to prevent voids. Now fill the jar with regular liquid honey, seal and put aside for approx. 1 month. The garlic cloves make for a good high blood pressure treatment and the honey can be used for basting during cooking, if you find it to be too strong then dilute with plain honey.

Nucs or Splits are basically the same thing. Splits you make for yourself, nucs you can purchase from another source or beekeeper. Nucs. To fully understand the term perhaps a description of what constitutes a nuc would be helpful. A nuc or nucleus to give it its full title should consist of 3 or 5 frames of bees, brood, both open and sealed, honey and pollen stores and a laying queen of the current year. Often supplied in a box, sometimes made of cardboard. Splits A split is basically a nuc, but is taken from a full sized hive and can be made for two main reasons. It is often used as a starter for another hive, to make an increase in holdings, or can be used as a means of population control, supposedly to prevent swarming. This rarely works in practice, two small hives are not as efficient as one large one and there are better ways to prevent the hive from going 'walk about'. See Swarming for further details. As nucs and splits are the same thing I will just refer to nucs from here on, to avoid confusion. Nucs can be made at any time of the year, but more often early season to allow time for the nuc to become large enough to manage its first winter. The Book says that nucs should be moved at least 3 miles away from the parent yard to prevent loss of bees after the makeup. This has the effect of preventing the one-yard beekeeper from making up increase in this fashion, as they haven't the means of placing them 3 miles away. During this article ways will be discussed that will make that rule defunct. So I think a general discussion of nuc making and placement would help. The mother hive that is selected for the nuc donation should be strong and in good health, with ample stores and bees, with a strong laying queen. In some cases if the donor hive is large enough, then 2 nucs can be made from the same donor hive. It is quite remarkable how quickly a good hive will replace its donation. As previously stated a nuc needs at least 3 frames, one of brood, sealed, one of open brood and young larvae, and one of stores, a five frame will have two extra frames of brood and stores, one with emerging bees. If a queen is to be introduced then the nuc should be made up no more than 24 hours before introduction. This is to prevent queen cells being started. There is the danger that any cells started will be allowed to proceed to completion, the emerging virgin then kills the queen you have just introduced. There is a misconception that introduced mated queens will kill any cells she finds, this is incorrect as mated queens do not make it their first job to remove rivals. Do not be tempted by older beekeepers that give 'advice' on making up queenless nucs, the advice that states "the bees will make their own queen", we refer to these as poor man's splits. This omits the addition of a queen and forces the bees into making their own emergency queen, not recommended. The end product, because of feeding restrictions, will result in an intercaste queen of little long-term value. Once it is determined which hive should be the donor, making up the nuc is relatively simple. Any box size will suffice, 3 or 5 frames in a 10 or 11 frame boxes will work provided the frames are pushed well together towards the hive entrance. The ideal addition would be a follower board. This is simply a piece of plywood that is sized to fit on the outside of the frames; it reduces the extra space left by the small amount of frames and can be moved backwards as more frames are added at a later date.

Nucs can be made up to free stand, or be mounted on top of a full sized hive, with the entrance facing in a different direction to the main hive. If the latter, then ventilation is vital and screened openings would allow heat from the hive below to permeate upwards keeping the nuc warmer. It should

be noted that the screens should prevent tongue contact between both sets of bees, otherwise they will obtain queen pheromone from the queen below and the nuc bees will then consider they queen right and fail to perform correctly. Incidentally the hive below must be queen right otherwise the bees below will abscond into the nuc above as soon as they are queen right. To overcome the 3-mile rule is relatively simple, a discussion for the reasons will reinforce why it is necessary. Older bees during their first flights will orientate to return to the hive they were born to and flight bees on returning from foraging are keyed to return back where they came from. So making up a nuc with the wrong aged bees will result, just after their first flight, in them returning to the site you took them from, in effect depleting the nuc of older bees. This has two effects. A general decline in population, which can be devastating to brood that without sufficient bees to keep it warm, becomes chilled and dies. Secondly, without flight bees there is no income, the queen's egg laying will be reduced and the nuc will stagnate, waiting until sufficient bees become old enough to forage. This is why feeding a nuc is absolutely vital to its speedy growth. See Feeding. With the above reasons in mind it then becomes obvious that small nucs with a minimum of older bees, made up in their own yard, are almost certainly doomed to failure. The answer is fairly simple; make up larger nucs to prevent small populations. Bearing in mind the return of older bees, make up the nuc with bees from the middle of the brood nest, as that is where younger bees are, these are bees which haven't left the hive yet, and so don't know where they live. Also where the queen is likely to be, beware, shake in one or two frames from open brood, leaving the queen behind. Even with the loss of some flight bees this should maintain the overall population and prevent it declining until the new brood starts to emerge. Screen the entrance for 24 hours to prevent flying which will allow time for the bees to realize that they are queenless and also that they are in a different location. Finally on allowing them to fly, drop brush or grass onto the entrance to confuse the flight bees in to noting they have a different entrance and location. There are a number of reasons to make up nucs, in addition to the ones already stated; the others, which we find most useful, are mating nucs and queen introduction. In both of these cases a young population is ideal as they will accept a different queen more readily than older bees, this can be useful when changing the strain of the hive. In practice we have found a problem when introducing a different strain of bees to a new queen, for example, from Italian to Russian or Buckfast and vice versa, the queens are frequently rejected or superseded by older bees of full sized hives. So to achieve a population of young bees, encourage the flight bees to return home by eliminating the screen, this will allow the flight bees to fly back quickly before you introduce the cell or new queen, which will be accepted quite easily. Any nuc made up for queen introduction should be allowed to mature until the new queens offspring are emerging, this will ensure on re-uniting via the newspaper method, the nucs acceptance by the big hive. It should go without saying to remove the queen from the full hive first! Making nucs and splitting a hive is a fairly simple procedure and I would encourage all to use this method of increase, far easier than waiting for other peoples mistakes and cast offs i.e. Swarms to make an increase. In other areas of our web site I have stated that I only write up one method of control or manipulation. The rule still holds even with this subject, there are many ways of achieving the same result, but to attempt to write them all up would just add to more confusion

Border Closure. I have been sitting at my machine for some time attempting to write this page, but I find my disappointment, frustration, anger to be almost insurmountable and likely to get in the way of my objectivity. I pride myself on being objective in my writings, but recent regulation changes to the importation of bees into the continental USA, has made that very difficult. Approximately 15 years of hard work to achieve a reputation for quality, service and delivery down the drain. I refer to the recent new legislation from the USDA, Federal Registry Volume 69, and Number 203, dated 21st October 2004. While not an outright ban, which would be contrary to the WTO and NAFTA agreements, this legislation is so draconian in conception to make it difficult if not impossible for small/average queen breeders to comply with. If as I suspect, it is more about trade protectionism, then this document has been extremely well crafted. A brief overview might be helpful. Each shipment to the US has to be accompanied by a health certificate, the inspection to produce the certificate to be no more than 10 days before shipment. So a weekly shipment, as in our case, will necessitate weekly inspections of our yards, and each shipment has to be accompanied by invoices and export/health certificates. The package has to be sent through a recognized port of entry to enable each and every shipment to be inspected by an APHIS inspector, recently changed to Home Land Security, if the shipping method does not meet with his approval, then it can be destroyed at the shippers expense! The importer now has to apply, in plenty of time, for an import license, to the appropriate authority. Then the necessary part of the legislation has to be initialed and returned to the authority for onward transmission to the port of entry, in time to meet the shipment. Stating all relevant information regarding who, where and when. I will agree, each point is not insurmountable, but can you imagine the paper trail necessary to send a single queen to a beekeeper in Ohio? At the same time I very much doubt whether that same beekeeper would even make the effort! As I stated earlier, this legislation is extremely well crafted and is just another nail in the coffin of 'free trade'. The legislation comes at a time when the border has been opened to allow US queens into Canada, but these restrictions are considerably tougher than the equivalent legislation out of Canada. It would appear the legislation is crafted on flawed data and needs reconsideration. After a great deal of searching I have been informed the problem has been created by the insistence of the Australians that the border should also be opened to both them and New Zealand, this now allows the USDA to lump Canada in with them in forming the latest regulations. The main area of concern, the Canadians would be buying queens from Aus and NZ and exporting them to the US, from experience this is highly unlikely. I do not want to get involved in rhetoric regarding keeping the border open, just to say, in my opinion, it is a retrograde step by the industry and while I do not agree with 'tit for tat' action regarding trade it is extremely tempting for our bureaucrats to retaliate. If this is the treatment to a 'friendly neighbour' then God help your enemies.

Now comes the uncomfortable area. We have to cancel all queens currently on order and there are a number of you on our files, refund all monies held in trust, and finally apologize for any inconvenience created to us, because of the action of the US government. If you agree with this position I would encourage each and every one of you to get involved, write to your congressman, protest at the injustice being totally un-necessary, it is your livelihood which is at stake.

Caveat Emptor or 'buyer bewares' as true today as it was when first written, especially when dealing with the sellers or dealers of Queen bees. As in all business these days, poor quality, profiteering and downright double dealing seems to be the norm, which will cause the amateur beekeeper untold problems. It would appear, on the surface that a Queen is a Queen, provided she lays eggs is all that matters! Nothing could be further from the truth! The Queen is the ultimate being in the hive and everything the hive does or fails to do can be attributed to the quality of the Queen in residence. Perhaps a description of the dubious methods of raising Queens and the effects it can have on a hive might be useful when analysing any problems that can be caused by poor Queens. Emergency Queens. The usual cause of the hive starting emergency Queens is invariably created by the keeper, either in manipulation or deliberately by creating splits, or even when dealers are creating package bees. The hive suddenly and unexpectedly loses a Queen. Panic ensues and the bees will now take a larva which is too old, reversing the feeding and re-starting Royal Jelly, this will produce a 'sealed' cell at 4 days instead of the normal 10 day sealing. It becomes obvious that the Queen produced will have something missing, a shortened development time will result in an interclass, neither a Queen nor worker. It will lay eggs, but because of the shortened development time the ovary size is diminished with less egg production, and pheromone production is also decreased, leading to angry bees. This will explain how in many respects an emergency Queen is unsatisfactory, leading to early supersedure. Regretfully, emergency Queens are standard practice in many Queen rearing operations, when making packages this is the favourite method. A package is 'shaken' from the donor hive, the Queen is taken and goes with the package, leaving the hive Queenless. Instant emergency, the bees start raising a new Queen and the hive is left to their own devises until it has time to re-build ready for the next 'shakeout'. Another scenario, splits or nucs, the same principal applies. The resident queen goes with the nuc and the hive is left to fend for its self until the time comes again to split it. Worse in this case than before as often an old Queen is sold. The effects on the hive can be devastating if not corrected and quickly. The brood pattern suffers, often with a shortage of brood replacement, the hive will go into swarm mode very quickly with an older queen. Even if the hive manages to replace the poor Queen there is always the danger that the virgin produced fails to mate or come back from a mating flight leading to the colony collapse. The results for newbies and their first hive can be catastrophic, leading to a first year failure. Poor Rearing. Poor rearing can be as devastating to the colony as Emergency Queens. The standard practice is to try rearing Queens too early in the season, mainly because unenlightened bee keeps insist on having Queens far too early. It really makes little difference when a hive is re-Queened, if the Queen is not too old. There is some advantage to late summer re-Queening as it will allow for a young Queen going into winter, far better than an old Queen which is likely to fail. When grafting it is possible to take larvae which is too old, creating the same problems as 'Emergency Queens' but it does shorten the production times, leading to more profit. Alternatively it is necessary to feed early production of Queens as there is little forage available in the early spring. There is of course the distinct possibility that feeding is withheld, even if sugar is fed it cannot be considered ideal food for a Queen. Much better to wait till later in the season when natural food is more readily available.

The reader will now hopefully begin to see there are a number of pitfalls associated with buying Queens, even from supposed reputable sources, but it doesn't stop here as we haven't discussed strain selection, breeding and mating. Breeding or the pedigree of bought Queens can be as suspect as the rearing. There is a tendency to completely forget genes when dealing with pedigrees of bees. It is pointless in trying to mate a Great Dane with a Chihuahua and hoping for a Golden Retriever, it just doesn't happen, but that is what we've done in Queen breeding for many years. Even when there is a reasonable pedigree available greed from the dealer can ruin all your plans. Just recently I heard from a dealer who confessed to shipping different Queens than the ones ordered he said "they won't know the difference". The customer ordered Russians, but the dealer had run out, so shipped Carniolans instead! Mating. Areas of serious concern are mating. It is a known fact that a Queen has to mate with at least 15 drones to be considered well mated, so subject to the weather this is sometimes impossible to achieve. If the mating cycle is tightly timed there is considerable danger that full mating is not achieved, leading to virgins being harvested, ultimately small virgins are sold. If this is the case then those virgins on being introduced to a full hive fail to go out to mate and end up as drone layers. Or just as bad, run out of semen at a very early age, leading to colony collapse. Open mating is also the best method, the colony health is dependent on mating diversity, so why we consider Artificial Insemination with only a few drones semen as the best for the colony is beyond me. Conclusion. Is it any wonder we have so many problems in trying to winter colonies, angry bees are becoming the norm, honey harvests are down and the poor quality of bees is becoming more and more noticeable, supersedure is the norm, and now we have Colony Collapse Disorder. Here at The Bee Works we have been working for some years to 'clean' our bees of stray genes created some years ago by misguided breeding information. Using Morphometry and very careful Queen selection we are getting closer every year, as we get closer to a pure strain so the quality is improving. General habit is better, quieter gentle bees with bigger hives and larger honey harvests. Would you believe last year we averaged 215 lbs per? The best advice I can offer. Make your own Queens. With the above information in hand you really should consider getting off the bandwagon

I should point out from the very beginning of this article, I have absolutely no experience of Small Hive Beetle and am writing this page in an attempt to publish the work of two customers in The Southern United States who have been working on the problem. Small Hive Beetles, SHB, came into North America via Florida and are the latest pest associated with the European Honey bee, devastating hives in their progress North. From the information I have, they are now found in most Southern States and moving North at a frightening pace. The adult beetles lay eggs in vast numbers in the hive, this hatch, turning into larvae which tunnel beneath the honey capping, defecating in the honey leads to the honey fermenting and in bad cases causes the honey to run out the entrance. The larvae pupate outside the hive in the ground, preferring sandy soils. At maturity the larvae turn into beetles which can fly quite well, and can travel quite long distances looking for hives to infest. There are a number of methods which have been designed in an attempt to control the infestation, based on traps into which the beetles blunder, in an attempt to escape the bees, who will try to remove the adult beetles from the entrance. The other side of the coin is to control the emergence of the pupated larvae from the ground around the hive. Some years ago I suggested that the lure used for wax moth control (see our article on wax moth) might 'attract' the flying beetles, and did suggest that the wax moth trap could be adjusted to bait the flying beetles when they emerge from the ground. Unfortunately not having a problem with SHB as they haven't reached our area yet, I could not test my theory, but can now report someone has. Mel and Sonny, the experimenters took small containers, individual sandwich containers, punched 3/16th holes through the side, filled the bottom with Food Grade Mineral Oil, then in the centre placed a half filled bottle cap with wax moth lure, then replaced the sandwich container lid. This after a great deal of experimentation 'baits' the trap into which the SHB are drawn, they fall into the FGMO and are killed. The reports are very encouraging, lots more beetles killed in the baited hives, a relatively easy method of control. For the first time a 'baited' trap to attract the beetles to the trap. Method. Wax moth lure as used by Mel and Sonny. Take 1/2 cup Apple Cider vinegar,1/4 cup sugar, and 1 cup water, 1 ripe banana peel, cut up finely, combined and allowed to ferment before adding small quantities to the trap. Trap Container. Any small flat container, approx. 1/2 to 1 inch deep, complete with press-on lid. About 1/2 way up the side drill a series of holes around the perimeter in through which the beetles will enter. In the centre of the container place a large bottle cap to hold the lure liquid. Contrary to other views SHB will migrate to the top of the hive, and this is where the traps were placed, at the same time placing them on the hive floor will also be effective. An empty super was placed over the top of the hive, above the top bars, the trap was placed on the open top bars allowing free access for beetles.

Click here for photo of petri dish trap

Click here for photo of sandwich container trap

Click here for hive top configuration

Click here for trap drawing

The second area of interest is the use of Nematodes in the ground around the hive. These shows great promise, but at present details are sketchy. There are a number of different nematodes available, some will not survive in cold conditions, so it would be advisable to contact a supplier and discuss your needs. Another area to consider, the use of Neem Oil on the ground around the hives. Neem Oil is supposed to slow the larvae from shedding its shell thereby deforming its wings so that it can't fly, Neem Oil is not harmful to bees.

Nematode Supplier. BIOCONTROL NETWORK NASHVILLE TN USA. (615) 370-4301

These two gentlemen have been working on the problem for some time and have supplied their e-mail addresses if you have questions. Contact Sonny Chidister at (beemaker@hotmail.com) or Mel McConnell at (melemcc@yahoo.com) If you have a SHB I would strongly suggest you try these ideas and participate with the work involved in finding an answer to this new pest and threat to bee hives in North America. UPDATE Finally, at long last someone has tested the theory of attracting SHB to an external trap, which I suggest some years ago, and the answer quite simply is 'It works'. A number of beetles were found in test Wax Moth traps, the manufacture of which is discussed elsewhere on this site. This really is fantastic news when considered carefully and opens up a whole new method of control. It means in effect that a number of traps can be placed around the yard attracting beetles from within the yard, but equally attracting and trapping them from outside as they approach the yard.

Needless to say this will effectively reduce the volume of SHB around the hives and combined with other treatments could reduce the overall impact on honey production from those hives infected with this pest.

There has been a tremendous surge of interest in Queen Rearing and in questions related to mating these queens, both to me privately and on The Bee Works Forum. A great many of the questions deal with mating hives for the virgin queens being produced, creating serious problems for those involved due to the lack of information available. This article will deal with our methods of setting up Mini Mating Hives and an explanation of some of the problems we discovered over the years. Mini Mating hives are ideal for the sole purpose of mating queens. They're small, light, only need a handful of bees, are easily portable and when charged with bees can be self-sufficient for the whole queen mating season. Mini Mating Hives are as the name describes, small mini hives, with small frames in the order of 6 inches square, often just 4 frames and an internal feeder of some sort. We made our own to the D.E. standard, but of late styrene hives have become available. Click here for photographs. These units can be sealed to prevent flight, have an internal feeder and the frames are of the 'top bar' hive design. A simple bar with a slit into which a strip of foundation can be set with hot wax. Adding bees to these units can be a trifle difficult as there is an immediate return of bees to the donor hive, shaking bees from open brood is ideal. These bees having never left the parent hive stay where you put them, unlike field bees that will try to return home back to their parent hive after their first flight. We found, after a great many false starts and a failure, the ideal method is to shake bees into an empty box, spraying them down lightly with a 1-1 sugar syrup, to which we add Vanilla flavouring. This helps to prevent fighting, allows the bees to intermingle easily and produces a cohesive mini hive. Prepare the units, making sure the entrance is screened to prevent flight, ventilation is a must, have the cells to hand. We use a styrene carrying unit with a number of holes into which we place the cells with their respective cell protectors. Our method of adding bees revolves around a flat bottom boat bailer. We first fill the feeder, add a ripe cell complete with cell protector, then using the bailer we scoop a good number of bees and drop them into the mini hive, waiting until the bees move off the top bars to prevent crushing, add the roof. We now set these units aside in a cool dark place, in deep shadow will suffice, a basement is even better. We move our cells on the 14th day from egg laying which then requires another 48 hours to emergence. As a matter of course we add a further 24 hours to make certain the virgin has emerged and at which time she will produce small amounts of pheromones. Now the bees can be allowed to fly freely, in the area where drones can be found. On releasing the screen we always add a handful of grass in front of the entrance to confuse the bees and prevent the loss of any flight bees. From this point the results are a gamble. The virgin should go out on mating flights after the 3rd day, assuming she has a successful flight, and meets approx. 15-17 drones, and escapes any birds, then egg laying should commence in a further 3-4 days. The signal for a successful mating would be eggs, but it's also possible that she does not fly to mate in which case she will invariably turn into a drone laying queen. In my experience when a virgin fails to mate and becomes a drone laying queen, then her body is noticeably smaller, possibly due to the lack of sperm storage. At one stage of our Queen Rearing discovery we used to remove the emerged cell as soon as possible, resulting in a large amount of 'laying workers' if the queen failed to return from her mating flight. Now we leave the open emerged cells in the hive until we are ready to check for eggs. It is my opinion that the release of Royal jelly into the food chain, as the workers will clean up the Royal jelly left by the queen, helps to prevent 'laying worker' formation in hives where the queen is lost to mating flights. We have noted that some hives will die out waiting for a virgin to return, as others, where we removed the open cells quickly will turn 'laying worker' much quicker.

Our general practice is to harvest the new laying queen and immediately replace her with another ripe cell. Using this practice it is possible to raise a constant supply of queens all summer long. Gaps in replacing queens will result in 'emergency' queens being produced, which should be avoided at all costs. An old wives tale states that "incoming queens will destroy any cells being produced", this is incorrect. Only incoming virgins will do that job. Mated queens will get down to the job of egg laying so any cells already in production will be allowed to progress, ultimately the virgin emerges and kills off the queen recently introduced. So in all cases of transferring queens ensure that cells have not been started in the recipient hive. All new queens should be evaluated quickly. Our general practice is to transfer to a full hive and allow a full 14 days to check the pattern of her egg laying which should be a full slab with few if any raised drone cells. Newly mated and transferred queens will not lay drones, so any raised caps show an improperly mated and suspect queen. At the end of the season it is a fairly simple measure to store the units for the next year. We first remove all queens and any subsequent brood is checked for stray cell production which we prevent or remove all started cells. It is imperative that all brood be allowed to emerge, live brood placed into storage will die and create a foul smell. Then the Mini Hives are moved closer to our full sized hives and the bees are shaken out, they will be taken in by the full hives. If the mini hives are stored without removing the honey stores, then open honey will ferment and run out the entrance in storage. The simplest method is to allow the full hives to 'rob out' the mini hives. I have always frowned on starting robbing, as it can get out of hand and destroy small nucs. In this case it does not appear to happen, I believe it is because the mini hives are so much smaller and a different shape. If you are following these instructions there is no reason why you cannot raise good quality queens all summer long. Just watch for a nectar dearth as it will create a problem with the final quality.

Almost every seminar or meeting I attend has in the program "Spring Management" but I have never seen an article or presentation on "Fall Management". While I have to agree that spring management is important, get it wrong and all you will lose is a honey crop, get fall management wrong and there is a good chance the hive will die over the winter. So I think "Fall Management" is a vital phase of beekeeping, late in the year often overlooked in the rush to take in the honey crop, this article will deal with our methods during the late summer and early fall to ensure early successful preparations for wintering. Now is the perfect time to install new queens, this would be the first job in preparing for winter. Late summer might be an awkward time due to the size of the hives and the sheer volume of bees, but it can be done. We always recommend a two year cycle for queen replacement, at which time queens are getting old and worn out. You are putting a young, strong queen into the winter with more chance of success, which will produce a much bigger hive in the early spring, ultimately leading to a bigger honey crop next year. Setting the hive off to one side, place a new floor and empty box on the stand and replace the frames one by one until you find the queen. Nip her hard between thumb and finger, then drop her back into the hive. This will let the bees know they are queenless, then 24 hours later add the new queen. A major problem with winter preparations is the late honey flow, the supers have been removed, and the hive is reduced to the minimum box configuration ready for winter. At the same time the bee keeper will feed vast amounts of sugar syrup without checking if it's needed, filling all available empty cells with stores. A late honey flow is also possible during an Indian Summer or even just a warm fall, left to their own devices the bees will fill the brood area with honey, cutting down on the brood area available. There is always a danger of robbing and bees will not hesitate to rob out weak hives, creating a mess of other problems apart from clogging the brood area with honey. This sounds like a good idea lots of stores for winter, but will lead to a loss of brood area, in practice it will drastically reduce the volume of young bees going into winter, this in effect forces the hive to winter older bees, reducing the population of young bees which will be necessary to feed brood early in the spring. So it is not a good idea to remove supers too early, better to leave one in place till after first frost, the bees will prefer to move stores upwards rather than fill any brood space with permanent honey. This then is the recipe for disaster. An 'old' hive going into winter with bees which will die off in great numbers, very few if any, young bees capable of feeding any replacement bees, finally a declining population, incapable, due to lack of numbers, to keep the cluster warm enough to prevent super chill and the hive death in the depth of winter. What can be done? Our fall management starts late summer and with the above steps is designed to 'keep the centre open'. If on examination there is excess pollen clogging those centre frames, then they should be removed and replaced with empty drawn comb. Some hives will gather excessive amounts of pollen far in excess of their normal requirement stored in the bottom box, this in effect stops the queen from moving down into the bottom box preventing the ideal position for the brood area going into winter. It is worth wasting a few full frames from the centre of the brood area, replacing them with empties, rather than putting a 'clogged' hive into winter and possible a 'dead out'. 'Keep the centre open' is a good mantra, to be adhered to year round. We have used a 3 deep brood box method of beekeeping for approx. 15 years and while it sounds expensive on equipment, it has other savings worth much more than a brood box. We haven't had to feed sugar to our bees since the changeover to 3 boxes, a massive saving on cost and time. It is now 12 years since our last swarm, and our honey crop each year is staggering, average last year of 215 lbs, and apart from putting three old queens into winter last year, which we shouldn't have done but wanted to save their genetics, we haven't lost a hive to winter kill for the last 19 years. I believe our

record speaks for itself, our methods do work and we would recommend 'Fall Management' as a way to go. The best advice we can offer. Move to 3 box brood nests, practice regular queen replacement, use frame manipulation to help the bees, and finally keep an open brood area to maintain big hives.

In the last 50+ years of keeping bees I was always lead to believe that honey bees were the best pollinators around, my experiences this year, 2008, has shown me how wrong that statement is. Now before I get irate e-mails and phone calls defending honey bees I should explain what made me come to this conclusion. I am a keen gardener growing lots of soft fruit and recently I added a small orchard to my holding. Apples, pears, plums, raspberries, gooseberries, blue berries, strawberries and black currants, with melons and pole beans all needing bees. So you can see I have an extensive interest in pollinating all of the above, otherwise my work in the garden would be a big waste of time. Planning ahead I decided to add a hive of honey bees to the garden, in spite of the objections of neighbours. After all, all my crops need bees, don't they? But in spite of that the pollination wasn't successful. So what happened? Where did those superb pollinators go to? They were flying almost every day, it's not as if the weather went too cold or rainy, in fact it was what I like to call 'Good Flying' weather. So I took the time to watch carefully what was happening, bearing in mind the hive was positioned facing the trees, a clear flight path without extra obstructions. The bees would issue from the hive, a quick swipe of their antennas by their front legs and away they went straight over and past my fruit trees into the neighbours garden, into the decorative cherry trees. I had forgotten that bees become fixated, when a nectar source opens the bees concentrate on that source, becoming fixed on that and little else. Here was the problem, the cherry tree blossoms open a few days before my fruit, by the time the cherries had finished the fruit blossoms were half over, and old blossoms do not pollinate well if at all. You can imagine how frustrated I was to see the bees flying over the tops of my fruit trees, heading for a neighbours decorative cherry trees. My fruit was totally ignored, walking the trees day after day to find the blossoms being totally ignored is a most frustrating experience. I did have some pollination, mainly a few small solitary bees, a good number of bumble bees and a few wasps, but the honey bees were notable by their absence. Later in the season it became obvious, very little fruit, some of which was misshapen, a very poor overall set. This then caused me to spend time on the problem on what to do to improve the set of my blossoms. No point in caring for trees that failed to produce fruit, and without cutting down all the cherry trees in the sub division where I live, which I'm sure my neighbours would not be happy about, I couldn't at first see an answer. I needed a bee that flew in dull weather, which honey bees don't, which didn't require a great deal of my time, which could work quickly and not get fixated on one nectar source, preferably work without producing more honey. I talked around the problem, a search on the internet came up with Mason bees, in particular Blue Orchard Bees or BOBs.. Here was what I needed, adding to the points of interest to me, a bee which only flies approximately 300 yards from its nest site. Lots of research later it was decided, Blue Orchard bees for me! I had put out nest sites years ago in the hope of encouraging solitary bees, but I really didn't get any takers, the nest holes remained empty, so I have to start importing and hopefully starting a local population. With the advent of CCD and the overall decline of European Honey bees, reverting back to a native bee, in that it is native and natural to North America, sounds like a good idea. Mason Bees are solitary and there are numerous strains, of which Blue Orchard bees are just one, they do not need a nest site with thousands of worker support. While they do prefer others of the same strain around, mainly for mating purposes, the females do most of the work in provisioning the

nest tube. The males are good pollinators in their own right, but the forage is for their own use, and not for their offspring. BOBs nest in tubes, under natural conditions, mainly those left by burrowing insects. With the removal of mature trees there has been serious habitat loss, so BOBs are in short supply and nest sites should be encouraged. These nest sites can be simple blocks of wood up to 6 inches deep, holes drilled approximately 5/16ths inch in diameter. The females will first close off the back of the nest tube with mud, hence the name Mason bees, on the bottom plug she will use pollen as the feed plus a small amount of nectar, and lay an egg. This section is then sealed with a mud plug, then immediately she will start on a second nursery cell and so on till she gets towards the front of the tube at which time she will lay unfertilized eggs, creating drones. Under good conditions BOB females will lay at least 3 females and 2 males per tube, after which she will seal the end and move to a second nesting tube. Unlike honey bees, BOBs carry the pollen in a scopa beneath the abdomen, when a female lands on a flower she does what can be described as a belly flop, right in the middle of the blossom stamens. Whereas a honey bee lands on the side and walks down looking for the nectar site, possibly brushing past the stamen in passing. with each blossom needing up to eight visits by bees to effectively pollinate them, I would suggest the BOBs will do a better job, purely because of their approach to each blossom. By observation it should be obvious that BOBs main interest is pollen whereas honey bees interest is nectar for honey making. So with honey bees pollen transfer is accidental, but with BOBs transfer is deliberate, as the honey bee carries the pollen in baskets on the back legs, brushed there when the bee cleans itself, so transfer is accidental. The BOB is an incredible worker, visiting hundreds of flowers to charge each egg site and the increase in fruit crops using them is well documented, in some cases up to a 4 fold increase. Unlike honey bees they will start earlier in the morning, finish flying later in the day and dull weather doesn't prevent them working. I find it quite incredible that as far as the BOBs are concerned it's all over in a few short weeks, the nest tubes are sealed and the larvae then eat through their stores, pupate then wait in the tubes till next spring before emerging. Even then it's organized, the outer eggs turn into males which emerge a few days before the females, then hang around waiting to mate with the emerging females. Caring for BOBs cannot in any way be considered labour intensive. They work without supervision, sealing off their young from predation with mud plugs. Some provision should be made to stop wood peckers accessing the nest site and then late in the fall the nest site should be taken in, opened and the cocoons cleaned to prevent infestation by pollen mites. This is a learning experience and ideally a search on the internet for Mason bees or Blue Orchard bees will supply sites where more information is available and where bees can be purchased. I am in the process of purchasing bees for my own use for 2009, I have a nest site set and ready to accommodate them and as the saying goes, 'God willing and the creek doesn't rise' I will be successful with lots of fruit next year. If you have an interest in BOBs, then come back in the spring, I'll update this page as I work setting up my BOB population, hopefully I will encourage others to help another endangered species and improve the overall fruit yield.

In the last couple of years I have read many, many articles on the 'disappearing bees' now called CCD or Colony Collapse disorder and the numerous suggestions as to the cause of so many hives dyeing off. From micro waves and cell phones, to a variety of viruses, Varroa and Trachael mites, to pesticides and insecticides, but nowhere do you see anything about queens, rearing and strain mongrelisation. By that I mean taking two different strains, mixing the two by breeding, then expecting a pure strain in return. The rules of genetics apply to bees the same as anything else on the planet. When trying to discuss this point with other breeders the immediate reaction is for them to try to justify what they're doing, and the common reaction is that one is trying to undermine their efforts, a failure to discuss the overall problem, and the ultimate error in defending their particular bees. A case in particular, one beekeeper I know runs aggressive bees and justifies their actions by trying to explain that his angry mongrel bees are good foragers, from my experience it means they are good robbers. Having kept bees going back to the 50's I can report numerous changes we as bee keepers have made, often to the detriment of the bees, the major one in my estimation the mixing of strains in an attempt to produce the super bee. It can't be done! Years ago there was no importation of bees, we managed with the stock we had and bred our own queens when needed. Looking around there have been numerous attempts over the years to breed a super bee and I would venture they have all failed. Have a look they have all disappeared into oblivion. The 4 major strains of bees, Italians, Carniolans, Caucasians, and the European Dark bees are or were separated by large geographical regions, it's only man's interference which has joined these bees together, I believe to Mother Natures dismay. We now know from DNA testing that queens mate with up to more than 17 drones on a single mating, which could lead in theory to 17 different families within a single hive. We also know from the same source that when a hive swarms it will swarm on family lines. Does it also follow that various 'families' might not be co-operating in a cohesive fashion? Perhaps this might account for the difficulty of re-queening some hives with a different strain of bee? For example the difficulty of re-queening with 'Buckfast' and 'Russian' queens when they were first tried in the Province. I can only describe the results of the last 20 years of my keeping bees, the product of my observations and leave it to the reader to determine if there is value to my theory that the problem of CCD is created in part by mongrel bees. . In the early 80's we intensified our bee keeping, our life had become a little simpler. This involved buying a semi-isolated bee yard complete with 15 hives of an unknown variety, about the time that Dr. Medhat Nasser and the Ontario Beekeeping Association was introducing Trachael mite testing. I was one of the first to help by supplying him with 15 hive samples for testing, of which 10 proved to be resistant and 5, which we removed from the stock yard, were susceptible. No point is starting with a suspect strain of bees. These 10 hives formed the basis of what was to follow. We had relative success breeding our own queens, they started producing bigger hives, more honey and we didn't have too much winter loss, but a problem, aggressive bees. I have nothing against aggressive behaviour, but it makes for better bee keeping when they're easier to handle, and I certainly couldn't sell angry production queens. About this time there was a major push in the Province to 'Buckfast' bees, there were a number of breeders with this strain and I succumbed to the advertising and bought some, as being assured they would add a calming effect to my stock. That was the worst advice and information I could have received. The offspring of that strain mating were the worst bees I had handled in over 50 years. My original breeding was thought of as being aggressive, but nothing like the latest round. Impossible to handle, they had that disgusting habit of following after a manipulation sometimes to a distance of 500 yards or more, adding more smoke in an attempt to suppress them just made them worse. We had to

suit up before entering the yard and any bare skin and ankles was subject to attack, not at all a pleasant experience. In the end I just killed them, washed them out of the hive with a spray of soapy water, first time in all my bee keeping I had to do that. Now I had a major problem. I had added a dark bee, mongrel at that, as that is what Brother Adam had done. He had taken not just one but a variety of different strains, mixed them all together and called them 'Buckfast', still mongrels, regardless of the name they were given. Looking through all our hives we found numerous incidences of the mixing, most had dark and black drones and overall grey bees. Nothing like the bright Golden brown striped Italian I had grown up with and used for many years, Italians are relatively easy to spot due to their colour, even the drones are different, striped with the same colours of the workers. I am not one to wax lyrical, but have found that a clean Italian strain to be delightful to work with. These are normally a quick, non-aggressive, hardworking honey producer with large hives that do well in a warm summer and will winter over well with large hives early in the spring. About this same time I became interested in Morphometry and fell in love with the idea of creating a cleaner strain, trying to eliminate the dark genes being a priority. The more we worked with the bees the more we became convinced that the mongrels were producing the effects we didn't like. Once we really examined the hive numbers we could see quite plainly which had more dark genes that led us to observe the more dark genes the more aberrations. At one point we had a hive which would not produce wax another that was a useless forager others that over produced pollen, excessive proposes, and so on, seemingly infinite problems. But as we found hives with a purer strain, so the results became much better. I am not trying to blame all dark bees, all I'm attempting is to explain our findings, hives with a mixture of strain colours do not do as well as a purer bee. It is highly possible a purer strain of dark bee might have the traits we demand, I don't know, it would require others to experiment. The rationale became that, if I wanted to stay in bee keeping, breeding good production queens, I had to 'clean' my strain of these unwanted genes. So I spent some time learning how to use Morphometry, discovering the necessary methods of wing measurement to determine what bees I had, how many out of a sample were on 'the wrong side of the blanket' and selecting the best queens for use as breeder mothers. This whole business of selection was tricky, not only did we have to select for all the best traits, health, brood viability, wintering capabilities, cleanliness, foraging ability, aggression, we had to add the best Morphometry numbers. Quite often we found too many numbers on the wrong side of the scatter gram, or we would pick the wrong criteria, so it was not an easy task we had set. A look at our web pages on Morphometry would be helpful at this point.

About this time Tracheal mites really moved into our area, but we were unconcerned as we believed we had T mite resistance, never having treated for T mites. As the T Mite infestation moved across the province there was a move to test hives, by the bee inspectors, of all queen and nuc producers in the province for T mites. During one early test it was determined we had T mites in our yard. The inspectors had found one mite in one bee and that meant we were written up as having an infestation of T mites in our bees. Even a protest and appeal to the Provincial Apiarist didn't achieve anything, we had T mites, and end of story, most unfair, but nothing could or would be changed. I believe this was strictly political. We instigated extensive testing and didn't find another mite in any of our hives, nor did we lose any hives to T Mites, so we shrugged our shoulders and carried on. As we were on a path to 'cleaner' bees we kept records of a variety of points we needed so we could check our progress, noting in particular the state of winter ability. During this whole process we didn't lose a hive to winter, not one over the 20 year period. Now we were in our 'happy place', good bees, still not as 'clean' as we would like but very, very close. Our Morphometry numbers were getting better every year, no mite problems of either sort, good wintering, our average honey crop, and I'm stressing 'average' was 215lbs per hive in a good weather

year. Our queens were selling well, with lots of good reports and testimonials from satisfied customers. One point to note, we never had a problem with superscedure complaints. Too good to last? Sure enough, the USA decided to close the border to Canadian bees. To be precise they didn't close the border, but made matters extremely difficult to get queens across the border to individual customers which we were accustomed to servicing. This spelt the death knell to our commercial queen rearing, we had to close it down. During one foray into the hives I suddenly noted a dramatic colour shift. The bees were changing colour, the workers were taking on a grey look and black drones had appeared, I even had winter losses. Panic ensued, we stopped selling the queens we were making for our friends, we pulled all the hives apart, checked each one, most had changed, and they were mongrels again. I went back through the stats from previous years, the numbers for the queens we had last used were good, there should not have been any change, but there it was, a major shift. Our mating pattern had been compromised and changed, drastically. It was only after talking to a friend about the changes we had seen that he called one day and said Did you know there are hives close to the mating yard? I have just noticed them. He explained where they were and rang off. I immediately drove down to have a look, sure enough hives placed so they could hardly be seen from the road, about 1/2 mile from my mating yard. I walked down the field and watched the entrances for a few minutes, sure enough, mongrels, and what a mixture. After questioning the locals I determined who owned them, my nemesis, so I then called the bee inspector for my area and the answer I got was a total waste of time. Nothing could be done, the damage was done. That winter the hammer fell, total failure, 9 out of 10 dead. The remaining hive was so weak as to be a waste of time and we had to nurse it back to health. The remaining hive was tested, it had a case of T mites and suffered badly from Nosema, both of which had killed the other 9. We were devasted and demoralized, 20 years of work down the drain, much gnashing of teeth and shaking of fists at the beekeeper Gods, we wanted revenge, but it was all a waste of effort, revenge was not forthcoming. Now we had to make a decision. Either to stop keeping bees completely as we had nothing left or to make a fresh start and just keep a number of hives, for our own enjoyment. Starting again was the answer, just for our own interest and pleasure. For the next two years we drove around the Province looking at hives, with the owners permission, looking for the very illusive 'Italians'. They don't exist. I was promised 'Italians', they said they bred 'Italians', but nowhere could I find pure 'Italians', all I found was mongrels. Even advertised bee breeders couldn't produce anything like a clean Italian, most were just buying in queens from Australia and other places in spite of advertising themselves as breeders. I have now arrived at a starting point. We have 5 hives, 4 quite strongly Italian and one black mongrel. These will all be tested in the spring, if they survive, and from those we are hopeful we can breed some purer strain of Italians. At least we have a starting point again. So what can the average bee keeper do to improve their stock? The first thing to do is to establish what strain of bee they really want to keep. Examine their bees carefully and note any variation in overall colour, ignore young bees as they will change colour slightly as the bees age. Best to look at mature bees, noting the abdomen carefully for banding colours. Then examine the list of characteristics listed on our Morphometry pages which should give you a good start point in establishing which bees you have. Then select those bees which have the traits you want, plus the colour you need, and use them as queen mothers. Selecting drones is just as vital. Beware; black drones fly faster than the larger Italians, just a point to bear in mind. In other areas of our web site you'll find information on restraining unsuitable drones to prevent them flying and mating with those virgin queens you've raised. Then when you start seeing better results you publish the results, get others involved in re-starting a cleaner healthier strain of bees.