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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Sat, 5 Sep 2009 08:43:12 -0400
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> Allen can you further explain this statement? what are you thinking on? 
> .. then large populations at this date could actually indicate undesirable 
> properties by many standards

I don't know where to start.  It seems fairly obvious to me, and we have 
discussed the various aspects of this question here fairly recenty, and also 
going back into BEE-L antiquity.

You may recall that Bob is an advocate of prolific bees and does not mind 
the feed and drug costs, while others prefer stock that is more conservative 
and generally more hardy.  I have also written that hive strength is one of 
my (several) spring selection criteria and why.

Without knowing more about your genetics, average yearly losses, and goals, 
as well as flow dates, and pollination dates, etc., anything I write would 
be very general, and very time-consuming.

All I can say is that you have a problem many would love to have and I think 
your problem is that you are feeding too much pollen substitute.  I have 
some friends who had the same problem after feeding supplement for several 
springs -- too many bees.  It was a huge problem since they had to split, 
and they had a lot of extracting to do every summer.

So they quit feeding patties and the problem went away the next year.  The 
year after, they were buying a lot of package bees, and fighting mysterious 
bee diseases again.

My advice: Stop feeding artificial feeds.  Your bees are doing far too well. 

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