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Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:28:11 EDT |
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There may be as many as 50,000 bees in a hive at the height of the season,
we are told. They are all mortal, but generally we don't see many of the
bodies. Many will have been snapped up by predators, many will have succumbed to
old age and infirmity in the field and not make it back; others will feel
death approaching and take themselves as far away from the hive as they can to
die, taking any infection with them. Those that do die in the hive are removed
by their sisters acting as undertakers, sometimes acting by teamwork to
remove bodies.
The Devon Apicultural Research Group, (DARG) is planning this coming winter
to arrange for its members to treat pairs of hives matching as well as
possible, one with an oxalic acid solution and the other with a placebo, in a blind
test. We shall have for the previous month monitored for a 'normal' body
count to obtain a weekly average. From the date of application for 10 days we
shall do a daily count and then for the next month revert to weekly
monitoring. The objective is to discover the extent to which bee mortality is
accelerated by the application of oxalic acid solution.
What we need before the start of the experiment is a good design for a dead
bee trap that will prevent bees that die in the hive from being removed by
their sisters. Does anybody have such a design that we could use? It would be
helpful also to have an idea of its efficiency.
Chris
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