Bob Harrison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Herve,
>I didn't mean to offend you

Not a problem. It's just that I am not selling anything. I am retired from
the bee industry, so I don't stand to benefit from any of this. Consider it
to be the thoughts of an impartial observer.

I met Dave De Jong and I admit that I was surprised by his point of view.
But it certainly jibes with what we have read in the past two months on
BEE-L. I am referring to the fact that the African bee is an unstoppable
force of nature. When it moves into an area, it becomes THE BEE. In many
areas this is a definite benefit, such as coffee plantations. The wild AHB
colonies are greatly improving pollination. When they say that beekeepers
like the bees, what they mean is that the ones that don't have quit, and the
ones that do have adapted. And they get the side benefit of not having to
treat for mites.

> Experience in Brazil has shown that Africanized colonies can be managed
satisfactorily: to an extent they have increased honey yields year by year.
The practice adopted differs drastically from US methods, is labour
intensive ... The economies of scale that enable a small population of
beekeepers to manage a prodigiously large number of colonies, now become a
significant liability. The vigilance and hive by hive attention common in
the rest of the world are not feasible for US operators. < --from Bees for
Development website

I don't necessarily agree with this statement above, but I understand it.
And I think the US approach to african bees has to be tailored to the style
of US beekeepers. I think that it is essential to understand several things.
One, hostile hives have to be culled immediately. Requeening them is
probably not worth the bother. Two, passively assuming that saturation is
going to prevent africanization is a pipedream which has been utterly
discredited. You have to be active, you have to have a plan.  Like, get
serious about northern queens. The whole cycle can be shifted. Whereas now,
most of the queens in US beehives are raised in the south and the bees are
moved northward, what can happen is a large percentage can be raised in the
north in summer. This does not mean that beekeepers won't go south. I know
they will keep going south even if the whole sunbelt gets africanized,
because of the great benefit of the climate and the bee forage. Not to
mention, it gives them something to do in the winter. And I understand that
many will think of themselves as "too busy" to do much queen work in summer. 

However, I can envision a different approach to beekeeping that would
involve making splits in the summer with the intention of taking them south
to build up for the following spring. An old friend of mine showed me how to
make nucs more rapidly than any other method I have ever seen. You load a
yard of bees up and move it to another spot. Immediately you divide the
hives as far as they can possibly go, making as many as 7 or 8 splits per
hive. By this means you could go from 120 to 1000. These would get queens or
queen cells, and basically be left alone. (I should mention that by waiting
3 days, it becomes very obvious which hives ended up with the original
queens; they're the ones with eggs. At this point, they can more easily be
found). So, along with shipping your colonies that have spent the summer
pollinating or making honey, you have all your increase in the form of a lot
of weak singles. These will still have to be attended to during the winter,
but instead of making them up in the south during winter, you already have
them. And the queens are northern summer queens, which means they are mated
with non-african drones. 

Herve

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---