Hello Peter & All,
But
> then, they turn out to be their own worst enemies, propping the bees
> up with chemicals, trucking them thousands of miles.
Bees have a very short life span for the most part. If the bees carry a high
load of mites we knock the mites back. If the bees have got high amounts of
nosema ceranae we knock the load back. Now this may seem unreasonable to
some but makes perfect sense to me. I have been in the bee yards this week
and have the best bees in years. of course did not happen by accident or
"leave alone beekeeping" , small cell or using honey B healthy.
trucking pays the bills. When the flow or pollination is over you move the
bees. Moving bees onto better locations helps the bees and the bottom line.
Fuel costs are still cheaper than feed bills.
. My proposal, again, is to set up bee yards for the
> express purpose of raising healthy bees.
Last fall I headed north into the Dakotas and looked at three commercial
operations. All had hives boiling with bees. Pictures & story in December
ABJ (2007) article. I do not understand why you need to keep bees on a
permanent location to raise healthy bees. Please explain.
Somebody needs to figure out
> what is an ideal environment, nutritional requirements, colony size,
> strain of bee, etc.
Many of us have figured out the above. The *ideal* environment changes with
location. With the season. A few of the areas I have kept bees in. Florida,
Missouri, Kansas, Texas & California. The strain of bee has been the same
for me. Italian! nutritional requirements & colony size vary with location
and time of year. Missouri & Kansas are similar but Florida, Texas &
California are as different as day & night.
Dropping bees into California around Halloween and coming back in February
will not work. Same with some locations in Texas & Florida. Many beeks have
learned the hard way about such things. You can search the internet and
still come up on the short end unless you talk to a beek which has been
doing what you plan to do.
>
> Bees have traditionally been raised in the south and forced to build
> up early to meet commitments for shipping orders or pollinating.
Agreed.
However beeks go south for many reasons which are different for Texas than
for Florida. Bees in the right area of California, Texas & Florida need
little help to build up in spring. Hives are ready to split in these areas a
full two months ahead of the upper Midwest.
Big brood builders.
Florida : Brazilian pepper & orange
Texas: Tallow
California: Almonds.
The above rarely fail to produce strong colonies needing split.
The
> opposite approach would be to raise good strong colonies during the
> summer in order to have them ready the following spring.
Like in your article?
I doubt you will get many large beeks to buy into the above. Nice idea for a
small beek but in the south you have problems in spring finding equipment
to put bees in. We have had to make splits and use tar paper for tops and
bottoms to keep the bees out of the trees. The reason why I have said at
times up to 50% winter losses can be a good thing if you do not want to get
bigger. You keep the best and put the hive tool to the rest.
But few large
> scale beekeepers even consider keeping bees over winter in the north.
Moving south is a sound business practice. Keeping thousands of hives in the
north over winter is risky.
If keeping bees in the north was a sound business method then commercial
beeks would be staying north.
Open the Canada border and watch the many Canadian beeks winter south!
If you have access to the May 1993 issue of National Geographic on page 77
is a map of migration routes of commercial beeks ( or the beeks the USDA
knows about, file out surveys and get permits to move bees) and the hive
numbers.
300,000 migrate between the Dakotas and Texas
70,000 between Minnesota & Florida
60,000 between the northeast & Florida
300,000 between California & the Dakotas
180,000 between the northwest and southern California
Of course things have changed due to the hike in Almond pollination fees.
>
Most of us choose locations wisely. I know of not many locations from the
Canada line to Texas tallow which are not around nutritious pollen sources.
Beeks have been using those locations for longer than I have been keeping
bees.
However its true that many pollination contracts are not good for bees. In
fact in some you rotate the bees every so often to keep from killing the
hive but a very different situation with honey production. When honey prices
climb growers worry. Many times only the friendship between the beekeeper &
the grower keep the grower in bees.
Peter said:
> To summarize:
To summarize there is the world of internet beekeeping which really knows
very little about the world of commercial beekeeping and then there is the
real world of commercial beekeeping which is very secret and the secrets are
told from beekeeper to beekeeper in restaurants in California, Texas and
Florida areas beeks winter. In the halls of beekeeper meetings.
I have shared quite a bit of information on BEE-L for future beeks to read
about after i am pushing up daisies.( however not planning on cashing in my
chips soon)
Allen Dick left his commercial information in his beekeepers diary.
Instead of a book I left mine on BEE-L. The information is free!
I have been fortunate to be one of the few beeks which has worked bees in
California, Texas and Florida.
has another member of BEE-L experience keeping bees in those areas? Would
be interesting to see.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
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