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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Bob Nelson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 6 Feb 2005 01:13:32 -0500
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Allen and Dee caught me not doing my home work.  I failed to get a map out
and take a look before making a presumptive statement.  I-90 does go
nowhere near where I assumed-northern California.  Perhaps he (or she,
don't want to get caught assuming again) was lost or back tracking.
Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself anyway.

Point is that the bee business never fails to amaze me.  The latest
phenomenon in California is just another chapter of the saga.  The mobility
of the industry as evidenced by putting bees on rail cars in early years to
what we see today of thousands of semi loads moving each year (many of hte
same ones multiple times) has always intrigued me.  Beekeepers are a very
responsive lot and move on opportunity and change, something most other
factions of society have a great deal of difficulty doing.  Examples are
starting to see loads of supers going south in May, far too late to make up
hives.  They were going to the tallow in Texas, a somewhat new thing of
making 150-200 pounds of bakery grade honey in a little over a month in May
and June.  And then turning around to go north to North Dakota for the late
alfalfa and sunflower flows for the same crop potential.  And recently,
honey prices reaching record highs and beekeepers striping honey out of the
bottom brood nest.  Something we saw 20 years ago when Uncle Sam was giving
us $.70.  Just talk to some who have been around longer than I and you will
hear more of the like.

I know what Dee is thinking and probably will say about now.  And it is
appropriate that Allen was the other respondent as this gets into the
honey production rather than beekeeping per se.  Fact is you still have to
take into account a little beekeeping to produce honey.  Good example is
the package bee and queen producer setting the stage for the Canadian honey
producer to stock their hives.  It is a matter of either doing something
for yourself or paying some one else to do it for you so you can focus on
your task at hand.  Couple the complexity of bee biology and uncertainty of
weather with trying to do too much one is walking a fine line.  Beekeepers
tend to do this with finesse or are such a resilient bunch you never would
know different.  I think it ends up the honeybee is the creature to awe.  I
wish I was the one smart enough to have said that they survive and do what
they do in spite of what we do to them.

I have already heard talk of scrapping part or all of the summer honey crop
for bee production.  I will be interesting to see what happens.

Bob Nelson

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