Keith Jarrett writes:
As far as the bee industry goes here, this year has been
like taking a train ride on a dirt road. Hope this fall we
can all get back on track. When you go though a year like
this one , it sure makes you appreciate the good ones that
much more.

Reply:
Understand. First half here, just as there, no ground
cover, with no cactus (prickly pear) and
acacia(mesquite/catsclaw, white & yellow thorn), palo
verde, ironwood bloom etc here which are normally
continuous main flow from April - 1stJul. All honey was
left with bees, to keep them strong for hopefully fall flow
reverse, like has happened, only every so many decades or
so.

With first monsoon rains Jul came bad flooding here our
area, but surviving that, bloom now coming on.  With the
bloom, believe it or not, it's like April starting again
with out of timing bloom on stuff above that didn't bloom
in spring with exception of prickly pear cactus. So we have
fingers crossed fall will make up short fall from first
half. But broodnests have long way to fill first, and then
comes our take, to keep our bees strong. But see extracting
seriously starting Sep.

continuing:
P.S it time for mite treatments again, good luck.

Reply:
Thankfully don't have to worry about that, as we are SC
without the usage of all treatments, and managed to keep
our hives okay by not taking any honey first half, feeding
back to bees all we could while balancing yards. Thankfully
we practice unlimited broodnests with accompanying
honey/pollen storage. We took it to the quik with our bees.
But managed to keep them fed and insulated best we could
until weather broke first part Jul.

 Many locally lost bees I heard when I talked to local bee
supply house due to swarming out on splits where trying to
make up numbers/or just hold bees. And don't hear much of
any crop around at all having been made. But have heard
many forced into feeding to try to keep bees alive until
they can get forage on own. Max Hambry by the way,did visit
us from Calif this spring, and he went to bees with us and
got to see just how bad the bloom was with no prickly pear
nor mesquite etc blooming much if at all.

So with rain here now finally, then hopefully you should be
getting it shortly too, and hopefully bloom. Don't know
what to say about treatments to you. For treating means
many times not taking honey when so desperately needed.
Just something our industry has to get out of doing
IMPOV.But I sure hope you get back on track with bees in
your area.


Respectfully submitted,

Dee A. Lusby
Small Cell Commercial Beekeeper
Moyza, Arizona
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organicbeekeepers/


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

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